Another "direction of the game thread" and iam concerned...

[beHypE]

Yeah, you should definitely speak up and voice your opinion. But this doesn't mean you should keep on doing it. It's called self-control for own's own good. Just because spam-crafting was an issue didn't mean you had to spend your nights doing it to the point of it taking the fun away from the game. Just because there's an available debugmenu for me to spawn anything I want doesn't mean I should just use it and wonder why the game is getting stale fast. See my point ?

 

I don't do much questing to be honest, because I feel the exact same way you do (it's OP), except I flip the thought process around and end up with the opposite conclusion : why on earth should there be a guy in the middle of nowhere giving me EXTRA stuff on top of all the stuff I'll already loot in the POI ?

 

I really urge you to start a new game and not visit a trader ever (or at least don't do questing, just selling and buying), and refrain from power-looting by rushing to the final room. You'll actually feel happy about what the RNG gods throw at you and it will fill less like "let's just do quests for 4 hours and spend those 10K dukes on something I need at the trader". Good old organic, randomized progression, like in A16.

[Doctor3D]

I really urge you to start a new game and not visit a trader ever (or at least don't do questing, just selling and buying), and refrain from power-looting by rushing to the final room. You'll actually feel happy about what the RNG gods throw at you and it will fill less like "let's just do quests for 4 hours and spend those 10K dukes on something I need at the trader". Good old organic, randomized progression, like in A16.

 

I'll give it a try sometime. I'll just try to role-play and pretend that my character is in a different faction than the trader and I would be shot on site if I went in. That's not going to fix a majority of the problems I currently have with the gameplay, but yeah it'll definitely slow down my progression some and might make it more fun.

 

I thank you for the suggestion.

[ThanVanMon]

Yeah, you should definitely speak up and voice your opinion. But this doesn't mean you should keep on doing it. It's called self-control for own's own good. Just because spam-crafting was an issue didn't mean you had to spend your nights doing it to the point of it taking the fun away from the game. Just because there's an available debugmenu for me to spawn anything I want doesn't mean I should just use it and wonder why the game is getting stale fast. See my point ?

 

I don't do much questing to be honest, because I feel the exact same way you do (it's OP), except I flip the thought process around and end up with the opposite conclusion : why on earth should there be a guy in the middle of nowhere giving me EXTRA stuff on top of all the stuff I'll already loot in the POI ?

 

I really urge you to start a new game and not visit a trader ever (or at least don't do questing, just selling and buying), and refrain from power-looting by rushing to the final room. You'll actually feel happy about what the RNG gods throw at you and it will fill less like "let's just do quests for 4 hours and spend those 10K dukes on something I need at the trader". Good old organic, randomized progression, like in A16.

 

Personally me and my friend never done quests or used the trader actually as it makes it even easier. Thats in nothing exclusive or issue in just this game though. Many games with traders etc gets ruined like that. These games are meant to keep ppls moving around with the purpose to survive. Not questing or get steoriod rewards from traders lol. But anyways, thats up for every1 to decide and have an impact on. This is a discussion for the basedesign of the game that we can not impact.

[Nyecto]

I think some of you are going through the "and there I went stealth-dagger-archer again" on Skyrim.

 

Starting a new game with a new build in mind but going back to your old habits which are more much efficient regarding yyour playstyle because you already played the game more than 200hours and not getting that car day8 is somehow difficult to live without it for you know. (random example).

[Technech]

I think A18 is the best version technicaly. (not much to argue there?). But in terms of gameplay its the worst i have played. In my oppinion A15 was the best if my memory serves me right. I realy realy enjoyed the learn my doing skill system, it made everything you did have meaning.

Had to hold up for the night? you craft tools to lvl. or punch a wall to lvl or built some woodblocks to lvl. now, you just sit.

 

Basebuilding seem pointless now, and I think one of the reasons is there is nothing to do in your base. Before you could stay and farm and craft for days, and then you wanted a nice safe base. Now there is no need for crafting, and farming is a total joke, so no need for a base. The first tries I had on A18 I just sat around all night doing nothing, until I figured out it was actualy perfectly safe to go on looting as usual.

 

The last game I have started in A18 I did not take lucky looter, I wanted to go strnght and miner69 to make my own tools. apart from the slight advantage a blue stone axe is over a grey, I did not get annything from it. I had blue and purple steel tools long before I could think about craftin a sigle steel too myself. I curently have 2 purple chainsaws and 2 purple augers, and Im on day 8!

 

I realy try to stay away from mods for anny game I play, especialy alphas, as I want to experience the devs vision, and most mods seem to unbalance the games. (And somehow I feel its cheating). But for me to continue enjoying this game I need a mod to bring back the old style of play, or Pimps must change. (but they already got my monney long time ago, so no need on their part.)

[Guest]

Having one of the main features of the game be a fully destructible voxel world and then implementing "dungeons" that expect you to take a certain path to a "loot room" is such a weird design choice. I tend to follow the whole dungeon anyways, since I don't consider a combination of nerd poling and hacking away at safes to be very exciting. At least I get to fight actual zombies and collect some more XP this way. But it always feels artificial and rigid, like you're getting taken for a ride instead of using your wits and reflexes to deal with unexpected situations.

 

But I doubt it'll significantly change in the future. TFP bit off more than the unity engine can chew, and now we're stuck with zombies getting fed to us in neat small groups that wait for you to get up all in their face before they even start moving.

[Kalen]

I love A18, very polished. However, I do agree with the OP.... it's just not the same game any more. I do miss the danger of cities. I miss hunkering down in the attic of a house listening to roaming zombies outside, hoping they don't hear me and wander into my house.

 

The game isn't finished, so I'm holding out hope that some of that tension can be recaptured. But right now, I really wish I could play A11 with A18's features.

[Technech]

I love A18, very polished. However, I do agree with the OP.... it's just not the same game any more. I do miss the danger of cities. I miss hunkering down in the attic of a house listening to roaming zombies outside, hoping they don't hear me and wander into my house.

 

The game isn't finished, so I'm holding out hope that some of that tension can be recaptured. But right now, I really wish I could play A11 with A18's features.

 

Amen!

[beHypE]

Having one of the main features of the game be a fully destructible voxel world and then implementing "dungeons" that expect you to take a certain path to a "loot room" is such a weird design choice. I tend to follow the whole dungeon anyways, since I don't consider a combination of nerd poling and hacking away at safes to be very exciting. At least I get to fight actual zombies and collect some more XP this way. But it always feels artificial and rigid, like you're getting taken for a ride instead of using your wits and reflexes to deal with unexpected situations.

 

But I doubt it'll significantly change in the future. TFP bit off more than the unity engine can chew, and now we're stuck with zombies getting fed to us in neat small groups that wait for you to get up all in their face before they even start moving.

 

Agreed. The worst part is that the game seems to run fine during bloodmoon hordes even with 20+ zombies on the screen, yet somehow the game can't handle a handful of dangerous zeds per block in the cities' streets. The other reason I read is that's it's because MP games would reach the maxAlive entities or whatnot. Like the game is properly balanced around MP in the first place, or it couldn't be made an option... It baffles me but it is what it is.

[ThanVanMon]

I love A18, very polished. However, I do agree with the OP.... it's just not the same game any more. I do miss the danger of cities. I miss hunkering down in the attic of a house listening to roaming zombies outside, hoping they don't hear me and wander into my house.

 

The game isn't finished, so I'm holding out hope that some of that tension can be recaptured. But right now, I really wish I could play A11 with A18's features.

 

Agree, and thats why i made this post. Like when you argue with you loved ones, its out of love and not hatred lol.

[Doctor3D]

it's just not the same game any more. I do miss the danger of cities. I miss hunkering down in the attic of a house listening to roaming zombies outside, hoping they don't hear me and wander into my house.

 

....holding out hope that some of that tension can be recaptured. But right now, I really wish I could play A11 with A18's features.

 

Yep, you just said it right there. 100% agree. I've even thought the same thing before "A11 with A18 features" - i've thought that same thing in A17 as well. Would be damn near perfect, wouldn't it?

[Doctor3D]

Agreed. The worst part is that the game seems to run fine during bloodmoon hordes even with 20+ zombies on the screen, yet somehow the game can't handle a handful of dangerous zeds per block in the cities' streets. The other reason I read is that's it's because MP games would reach the maxAlive entities or whatnot. Like the game is properly balanced around MP in the first place, or it couldn't be made an option... It baffles me but it is what it is.

 

Yeah that doesn't make any sense to me either..We can adjust the blood moon quantity per player - which in theory would cause the same problem on an MP server if they set it too high.

 

The problem is that they only have a biome spawner now - they don't have a city, town, or outdoor POI spawner like the used to. When they made the changes to put in sleepers and changed how the random gen works - they axed all the spawners except for the one biome spawner. So any zeds you see in a town are just the result of the biome the town is in. Before, they were able to adjust the zombie spawns independently so that the wilderness had a few strays here and there, a small town would have a few more, a large town even more, and a massive wasteland city would have tons that you would have to clear.

 

Not having hardly any zombies in a city is a huge part of the problem in this game - you can go all around the city dismantling cars, looting all the stuff outside and it's basically all there for free.

 

Back in A10 - good luck going into a city on Day 1..I couldn't even make it across the wasteland to get into the city on Day 1..I'd get chased out by all the dogs and cops..

 

Ideally, the game should have the loot spread out based on danger - where there is a greater chance to find loot in more dangerous areas - to create a progression. A wasteland city should be the end-game where it's really hard to even get in there - and then even when you do get inside a building - the pois should be extremely dangerous full of the dead - but in there is the chance for the best most legendary loot. It gives you something to work towards and puts a barrier and gives you a goal.

[beHypE]

Yeah that doesn't make any sense to me either..We can adjust the blood moon quantity per player - which in theory would cause the same problem on an MP server if they set it too high.

 

The problem is that they only have a biome spawner now - they don't have a city, town, or outdoor POI spawner like the used to. When they made the changes to put in sleepers and changed how the random gen works - they axed all the spawners except for the one biome spawner. So any zeds you see in a town are just the result of the biome the town is in. Before, they were able to adjust the zombie spawns independently so that the wilderness had a few strays here and there, a small town would have a few more, a large town even more, and a massive wasteland city would have tons that you would have to clear.

 

Not having hardly any zombies in a city is a huge part of the problem in this game - you can go all around the city dismantling cars, looting all the stuff outside and it's basically all there for free.

 

Back in A10 - good luck going into a city on Day 1..I couldn't even make it across the wasteland to get into the city on Day 1..I'd get chased out by all the dogs and cops..

 

Ideally, the game should have the loot spread out based on danger - where there is a greater chance to find loot in more dangerous areas - to create a progression. A wasteland city should be the end-game where it's really hard to even get in there - and then even when you do get inside a building - the pois should be extremely dangerous full of the dead - but in there is the chance for the best most legendary loot. It gives you something to work towards and puts a barrier and gives you a goal.

 

Yeah I've voiced those concerns several times in the A17 and now A18 diary and will keep on bringing up the problem in the upcoming A19 dev diary. I started playing in A11 and I the one thing I remember was going to 0,0 and being greeted by cops, dogs and bees among other random zeds. And it wouldn't stop respawning, it was hell on earth and felt amazing.

 

Right now cities are a hub of isolated POIs and are completely OP compared to anything else in the world. What's the point of having amazing landscapes if all you ever need to see is city blocks ? I wish there was a 3-tiered progression system just like for the rest of the game. Tier 1, loot abandoned houses / isolated POIs in the wild. Tier 2, loot towns that are guarded by decent opposition both outside and inside of the houses. Tier 3, loot the big cities where the streets are hell. Each could raise your loot gamestage a bit to make up for the increase in difficulty, and the feel of progression would be awesome. I can only imagine how amazing it would feel at those specific times where you are thinking "ok, I think i'm ready for a city now", then go there and realise you aren't ready and get demolished haha.

[Onarr]

I think A18 is the best version technicaly. (not much to argue there?). But in terms of gameplay its the worst i have played. In my oppinion A15 was the best if my memory serves me right. I realy realy enjoyed the learn my doing skill system, it made everything you did have meaning.

Had to hold up for the night? you craft tools to lvl. or punch a wall to lvl or built some woodblocks to lvl. now, you just sit.

 

Basebuilding seem pointless now, and I think one of the reasons is there is nothing to do in your base. Before you could stay and farm and craft for days, and then you wanted a nice safe base. Now there is no need for crafting, and farming is a total joke, so no need for a base. The first tries I had on A18 I just sat around all night doing nothing, until I figured out it was actualy perfectly safe to go on looting as usual.

 

The last game I have started in A18 I did not take lucky looter, I wanted to go strnght and miner69 to make my own tools. apart from the slight advantage a blue stone axe is over a grey, I did not get annything from it. I had blue and purple steel tools long before I could think about craftin a sigle steel too myself. I curently have 2 purple chainsaws and 2 purple augers, and Im on day 8!

 

I realy try to stay away from mods for anny game I play, especialy alphas, as I want to experience the devs vision, and most mods seem to unbalance the games. (And somehow I feel its cheating). But for me to continue enjoying this game I need a mod to bring back the old style of play, or Pimps must change. (but they already got my monney long time ago, so no need on their part.)

 

steel tools, purple chainsaws and augers on day 8? You sir, are a liar

[Doctor3D]

Yeah I've voiced those concerns several times in the A17 and now A18 diary and will keep on bringing up the problem in the upcoming A19 dev diary. I started playing in A11 and I the one thing I remember was going to 0,0 and being greeted by cops, dogs and bees among other random zeds. And it wouldn't stop respawning, it was hell on earth and felt amazing.

 

Right now cities are a hub of isolated POIs and are completely OP compared to anything else in the world. What's the point of having amazing landscapes if all you ever need to see is city blocks ? I wish there was a 3-tiered progression system just like for the rest of the game. Tier 1, loot abandoned houses / isolated POIs in the wild. Tier 2, loot towns that are guarded by decent opposition both outside and inside of the houses. Tier 3, loot the big cities where the streets are hell. Each could raise your loot gamestage a bit to make up for the increase in difficulty, and the feel of progression would be awesome. I can only imagine how amazing it would feel at those specific times where you are thinking "ok, I think i'm ready for a city now", then go there and realise you aren't ready and get demolished haha.

 

I'm right with you. I used to build up gear and building material and then go and try to build bases in the wasteland and see how long I could hold out, because like you said - they just kept spawning no matter what you did. It was extremely tense and fun to play like that sometimes. You couldn't even open a drawer without hearing a horde of zombies start hissing and sensing you. Running across the wasteland with any meat on you was like taping a piece of raw steak on your ass and going through a lion den..

 

And as much as I like A10\A11 - when I do go back to play them - I definitely miss a LOT of the things they've added since then. So that's testament to the fact that there have been many improvements..so many..but it's missing that tension..and the best way I can personally describe it is the game feels more 'gamey' than it used to. It's less open-ended, more confined, more cookie-cutter and there's lots of redundancies and unnecessary streamlining that as Kalen said - makes you want to combine the best of the eras of development. That alpha-era with some of these modern features and toys would be my dream game. It's a pipe-dream though - because some of the things I liked about A10 - someone else wouldn't and was glad it was changed..and something I hated about A18 - someone loved - there'd be no conceivable way that even that would make every person content. Hell, some think A18 is the best thing ever...some even liked A17. But, I would think at the very least - the way the outdoor zombie spawns were set up in A10 is at least something that the majority could agree on - and that should be a goal for TFP - to get that tension back. To make some areas very dangerous and put incentives to work your way towards there.

[Onarr]

Agreed. The worst part is that the game seems to run fine during bloodmoon hordes even with 20+ zombies on the screen, yet somehow the game can't handle a handful of dangerous zeds per block in the cities' streets. The other reason I read is that's it's because MP games would reach the maxAlive entities or whatnot. Like the game is properly balanced around MP in the first place, or it couldn't be made an option... It baffles me but it is what it is.

 

I think this could be easily resolved with placing sleepers outside of PoI with large wake up radius. Spice it up with few wandering zombies and you have streets full again. Performance is however a question.

[Guest]

To make some areas very dangerous and put incentives to work your way towards there.

 

Yep, I've always hoped they would keep/go for progression by area on top of other things. Would give a purpose to the different biomes as well, now you can just waltz into any area because the zombies scale with you anyways. Only the wasteland is a little more dangerous in the beginning days, but strangely enough it's the least interesting biome for resources/loot. No ores, no wildlife for meat (although rotten flesh can be useful), no special POIs. I just go there whenever I feel like sniping some zeds, or something.

 

The factory buildings and other tier IV/V quest locations come close to feeling like "high risk/high reward" areas, but they feel like a waste of time and resources since you can clear multiple smaller POI's in the same time span and walk away with the same kind of loot, but probably more of it (aside from quest rewards).

[Kalen]

Yep, I've always hoped they would keep/go for progression by area on top of other things. Would give a purpose to the different biomes as well, now you can just waltz into any area because the zombies scale with you anyways. Only the wasteland is a little more dangerous in the beginning days, but strangely enough it's the least interesting biome for resources/loot. No ores, no wildlife for meat (although rotten flesh can be useful), no special POIs. I just go there whenever I feel like sniping some zeds, or something.

 

The factory buildings and other tier IV/V quest locations come close to feeling like "high risk/high reward" areas, but they feel like a waste of time and resources since you can clear multiple smaller POI's in the same time span and walk away with the same kind of loot, but probably more of it (aside from quest rewards).

 

I added a skill point reward to Tier V clear quests. So at least if I take a full day clearing out the POI, it's actually worth it.

[HungryZombie]

I added a skill point reward to Tier V clear quests. So at least if I take a full day clearing out the POI, it's actually worth it.

 

How did you do this? I've been trying but with no luck.

[Kattla]

What difficulty and gamestage are you all on? Tbh, I've seen progressively more and more wandering zombies the higher my gamestage goes - up to the point where I drive around and can't go a couple seconds without running into a few or a wandering pack. I still think it should be a bit more, perhaps earlier than what it has been anyway. Honestly, on the harder difficulties and horde night spawn counts I don't think you'd fare too well without a base, unless you spend a lot of time repairing POIs.

 

I really feel you about sleepers. Tbh I don't like them at all, aside from maybe a few of them here and there for scares - that's always refreshing to have a jump scare time to time. But there really are just too many sleepers, although they reduced them, I think just having a lot inside there along sleepers here and there in surprise parts would make it more fun. All sleepers... meh. I'd prefer a "trigger spawn" of a random horde kinda like the supplies quests do to send some zombies into/around the POI you're in.

 

I mostly play around in creative. But i was a bit tired of my testmap, so i decided to make a new world to play around in, and managed to pick my old "no-poi" world. Made a new world, flew around a bit to find a flat place, levelled up to 95... And then decided to just let's play for a little while, and see how this A18 actually plays. Beeing lvl 95 sure improved my looting experience, but overall, i think i liked it, the 3 hours i played. 1 hour building, 1 hour looting cars in the desert, and the last hour looting cars and corner buildings in the wasteland.

But the world felt almost empty of zombies, not that i minded that when i was travelling in the wasteland though. Could been an issue with me using a world created in A17 too.

Warrior "difficulty", gamestage whatever you get as lvl 95 on day 1 and 2.

[Kalen]

How did you do this? I've been trying but with no luck.

 

When I get home from work tonight I'll post the code, if someone doesn't get to it before me.

[Ghostlight]

I think A18 is the best version technicaly. (not much to argue there?). But in terms of gameplay its the worst i have played.

 

100% agree

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

It's like those A16 haters that got LBD squashed because they kept crying about how broken it was because all they ever did was spamcraft stone axes and it felt ♥♥♥♥. Well... don't do it ?.

 

Nitpick: Spam-crafting was made non-viable in A16.4

[Ghostlight]

YOnly the wasteland is a little more dangerous in the beginning days, but strangely enough it's the least interesting biome for resources/loot. No ores, no wildlife for meat (although rotten flesh can be useful), no special POIs. I just go there whenever I feel like sniping some zeds, or something.

 

Nitpick: Wasteland is THE biome for cars

[Ghostlight]

I really hope the devs read this thread....

 

Also, does anyone know who actually campaigned for less zombies in the world? I really can't remember anyone complaining about that aspect of the game, ever. Anyone remember seeing such as post?

 

The win-win scenario from my point of view seems to be to make gamestage also affect the number of zombies in the world, and also the wandering hordes.

[Shin]

I pretty much agree with everything you typed. Except the base-building bit; I still enjoy that, even though it is essentially pointless.

 

But yeah the game is a mere shadow of its former greatness.

 

Like i have written it myself, agree to 100%. Its so sad cause the "old version" of this game is the most fun i´ve had in a game in more than a decade.

 

I think A18 is the best version technicaly. (not much to argue there?). But in terms of gameplay its the worst i have played.

..........

I realy try to stay away from mods for anny game I play, especialy alphas, as I want to experience the devs vision, and most mods seem to unbalance the games. (And somehow I feel its cheating). But for me to continue enjoying this game I need a mod to bring back the old style of play, or Pimps must change. (but they already got my monney long time ago, so no need on their part.)

 

I totally agree with OP and above (and more in this thread). I'm still playing but not very enthusiastically... Got 2K hours in the game so I got my moneys worth so no complaints there. And I do understand the change of direction due to need of keeping sales up.

 

Bottom line is the game have changed so much that I dont find it very exciting anymore. Just playing out of habit I guess....