Tried A19, A16 is still best Alpha

[Psychodabble]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

You probably got the better item through trader and quest rewards. This will not be staying that way, trader is still not correctly balanced.

 

 

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

 

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

[katarynna]

5 minutes ago, Psychodabble said:

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

 

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

if you look at it in a vacuum, i could see why you feel that way.

 

However, madmole has already stated that harder biomes will have a bonus to both loot stage and enemy difficulty and that harder poi's will have the same.

 

Better loot will be obtainable, but will come with higher risks, as it should imo.

 

For those who don't try to rush through the primitive age, since enemies and hordes scale based on gamestage, they will be able to handle the first horde only with primitive gear. Before day 14, even if you are taking it slow, you should have some t1 weapons and tools.

 

All that, plus the new primitive rifles, pistols, and shotguns should make everything feel better about the early days.

 

A19 is phase one of the loot stage design. Phase two will improve it a lot.

[Psychodabble]

2 minutes ago, katarynna said:

if you look at it in a vacuum, i could see why you feel that way.

 

However, madmole has already stated that harder biomes will have a bonus to both loot stage and enemy difficulty and that harder poi's will have the same.

 

Better loot will be obtainable, but will come with higher risks, as it should imo.

 

For those who don't try to rush through the primitive age, since enemies and hordes scale based on gamestage, they will be able to handle the first horde only with primitive gear. Before day 14, even if you are taking it slow, you should have some t1 weapons and tools.

 

All that, plus the new primitive rifles, pistols, and shotguns should make everything feel better about the early days.

 

A19 is phase one of the loot stage design. Phase two will improve it a lot.

Yeah, I've heard that too, but I don't see it as a solution. 

 

Look, I'm fine with slow playing. I don't need to grind or rush to enjoy the game. However, knowing that the game is designed to effectively hold you back in this way - that there is no chance, through either random luck or deterministic purchasing, to move ahead of the curve decided for you is bound to make the game feel flat and samey on multiple plays.

 

Harder biomes and POIs are a must and will be a partial remedy, but they don't hold the solution for players who want to go slow and steady, but still have some chance of finding/crafting/buying anything beyond what their gamestage dumps buckets of at their feet.

 

Finally, AFAIK, the enhancements to localized gamestage will not be part of A19, but it sounds like the trader nerf will be. That structuring sounds like a really bad idea to me.

[katarynna]

2 minutes ago, Psychodabble said:

Harder biomes and POIs are a must and will be a partial remedy, but they don't hold the solution for players who want to go slow and steady, but still have some chance of finding/crafting/buying anything beyond what their gamestage dumps buckets of at their feet.

You can already craft tools a tier beyond your gamestage if you place points in miner69er and/or salvage ops. I do think the primitive loot stage would benefit a lot by having weapon parts be as common (or more common) loot as stone axes, shovels, and blunderbusses even if you only looted them in stacks of 1-2 during the primitive age. That would make crafting t1 weapons early a realistic possibility, while at the same time not making them common.

 

5 minutes ago, Psychodabble said:

Finally, AFAIK, the enhancements to localized gamestage will not be part of A19, but it sounds like the trader nerf will be. That structuring sounds like a really bad idea to me.

I agree that it is not an ideal way of doing things. Two points though.

 

1. I feel that pushing forward with development is more important than making every stage of every alpha feel great to play. I can put up with something until the next alpha comes out if i know it is being improved.

 

2. Primitive stage lasts at most 1-3 weeks depending on day length and playstyle. The "feel" of the primitive loot stage is magnified by all the restarts necessary for experimental. Once the final version of a19 stable is out and the devs have moved on to a20, it will be a very short time in most people's games. For people who love early game and restart often, it would seem to me that a more drawn-out primitive stage would not be a bad thing.

[pApA^LeGBa]

And btw @~Kevin~ you do want to level advanced engineering anyways. Not only to unlock the forge and other things, but also to get XP from your electrical traps and to reduce the cost of things you craft in the forge. It´s one of the most importnant skills. Even if you wouldn´t need it to unlock the forge i would still put points in that skill.

[beHypE]

What I see as problematic is how long the "stone age" effectively lasts, and how hardcapped it is. And it's not a tool thing only, the entire loot table is shallow as hell and I'm gamestage 50 at Day 13 of 90 min/day with 125% experience, so effectively day 20 or so Vanilla.

 

I've found iron tools (level 2 or less, besides wrenches), but it's not really even about tools. I don't use the iron ones I found, my Q6 stone axe does the job almost as well, all-in-one, with no side issues (stamina usages, for example).

That being said, after 20 hours of gameplay there's still not a glimmer of hope that I unlock a minibike or better anytime soon, since it somehow feels like we can't find anything else than dozens of bicycle schematics. Same goes for armors, it's just soooo linear. Scrap/Padded level 4+ everywhere I look. My toolbet is almost all purple, because that's how it is now, you gear up in full purple and then you actually wait until Q4+ of the next tier starts showing up and... you swap it out. There's such a huge gap even after you start transitionning out of the stone age where... nothing is interesting. Q1-Q2 and even most of Q3 is scrap material when you're decked out in Q6 from the previous tier, for the most part. 

 

The only cool part is how lucky you need to be to get a gun. 2 pistols, 1 hunting rifle, 1 ak-47 and one shotgun in 20 hours, that feels nice to be fair; I like having to play around something else than just shooting low level zombies in the head as soon as I start. 

 

If i'd summarize, I think one playthrough is a fun and refreshing experience. The big issue is that I don't look forward to playing another one at all, because I know exactly what to expect; and 7 days' strength for me has always been its replayability because of its unpredictability.

 

EDIT : as a side note, I have a feeling this will be dialed back quite a bit once they start adding end game content. It feels like a way to make games of 50-60 hours a thing, but since there's no other solution than stretching everything out for now...

[Roland]

6 hours ago, Psychodabble said:

 

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin.

I think this belief of yours and others who also have it are going to stand in the way of your enjoyment. The developers and at least some of the player base believe the game begins from the moment you wipe your brow and the world comes into focus for the first time.

 

I’m sorry you feel that the first few days are just a necessary evil before the actual game starts but that is not the view of everyone. I know I’ll be disappointed if things go back to guns and steel tools on Day 1 like it was back in A18. There are people like me who do feel that it is rewarding getting higher quality primitive weapons for the first week and who find the Day 7 horde interesting again using those weapons rather than breezing through with Ak47s, pistols, and shotguns. 
 

I can only hope that the Pimps get enough positive feedback to stick to their plan and complete all the changes they have in store.

 

I do think that the attitude you expressed is probably the dividing line for whether you like A19 or not. If you feel like the game doesn’t really begin until you start finding iron tools and higher tier weapons then there is no way you will enjoy playing unless you mod the loot tables if TFP continues in this path. 

[uselessjunkaccount]

I enjoy the gated progression, I really do, but I hope things are added to give us more to do in the early stage. Maybe some early work stations to get that don't require skill points or schematics or a workbench to craft? A stove to cook steaks on that don't require finding an RNG recipe. Or maybe some sort of water purifier to make decent drinks at. That way there could be something more organic to work towards early game beyond just getting xp to up your gamestage to get to the next tier. Or some sort of quest system that has at least a tiny story around it.

 

Or perhaps put things in POIs that don't necessarily speed up progression but would be good quality of life upgrades. For instance, I think it would be good if they added bicycle parts to a number of loot containers. I know you can find them in Pass n Gas and garage storage boxes but those seem to have been really nerfed in this alpha. But them in boxes around the house so there's inventive to go in and loot everything.

 

It could also make it more fun if more zombies dropped loot early on. It doesn't have to have epic stuff inside of it every time but maybe give a greater chance for guns in those.

[Laz Man]

9 hours ago, Psychodabble said:

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

 

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

I like how some weapons/items are there at an expensive price as an alternative option to work towards.

 

For example, finding a bicycle for sale at the trader for lets say 6k dukes on day 1 or 2 is a pretty darn good carrot on a stick while a motorcycle at 20k on the same day (just an example) is just broken imo...

 

I do hope once the systems are unified it has enough variation to have the bicycle example exist since that's enough to make the player make tough decisions/tradeoffs if they want to grind dukes for it.

 

 

[Maharin]

23 hours ago, KeiraR said:

Yeah, it's amazing.
If I only had a floppy drive I could install Links 386 and Tie fighter again...

On a side note, you can get virtual versions of a floppy drive that you can insert floppy images into.  Or, even easier, just use DosBox. 

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

I hope things are added to give us more to do in the early stage. Maybe some early work stations to get that don't require skill points or schematics or a workbench to craft? A stove to cook steaks on that don't require finding an RNG recipe. Or maybe some sort of water purifier to make decent drinks at. That way there could be something more organic to work towards early game beyond just getting xp to up your gamestage to get to the next tier. Or some sort of quest system that has at least a tiny story around it.

 

Or perhaps put things in POIs that don't necessarily speed up progression but would be good quality of life upgrades. For instance, I think it would be good if they added bicycle parts to a number of loot containers. I know you can find them in Pass n Gas and garage storage boxes but those seem to have been really nerfed in this alpha. But them in boxes around the house so there's inventive to go in and loot everything.

 

It could also make it more fun if more zombies dropped loot early on. It doesn't have to have epic stuff inside of it every time but maybe give a greater chance for guns in those.

They do plan to add more primitive weapons for each gun type so there is more variety for players to use aside from the blunderuss.  They also will be creating these weapons to use the same ammo as their upper tier variants which I feel will lessen the urge to quickly move onto the next tier of guns because of the stockpile of bullets/shells that are building up from looting.

 

[Feycat]

9 hours ago, Psychodabble said:

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin.

traders already hardly carry stuff that is an upgrade. We mostly use traders to buy junk for parts, materials and book/schematics

[Laz Man]

49 minutes ago, Feycat said:

traders already hardly carry stuff that is an upgrade. We mostly use traders to buy junk for parts, materials and book/schematics

That is a good sign that the bandaid fix they put in is working for the most part.  The unification of loot/trader will allow them hopefully to have better/finer balance control on the entire eco system whenever they need to rebalance it.

[kamer1337]

A16 + A19(rwg, pois, fixed bugs, upgraded graphics, hd zombies, new weapons) = best alpha

[Kalen]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

I’m sorry you feel that the first few days are just a necessary evil before the actual game starts but that is not the view of everyone. I know I’ll be disappointed if things go back to guns and steel tools on Day 1 like it was back in A18.

I agree, finding too many high level items early isn't good for the state of the game.... but there is a middle ground.   It doesn't even have to be middle.... just a little tilted away from where it is.   There was great game play in early alphas where you lucked out with an item early and tailored your game play around that lucky find.   I'd like to see a little of that come back (but only with item degradation)

 

But, as others have said, the biggest gripe I have is the overlap of performance in the different tiers.  It's incredibly frustrating to finally find an iron tool, only to realize the stone axe you've been using is actually superior to it.   Just my opinion, obviously, but I feel that a higher tier item should always be superior to a lower tier no matter what their quality

[Solomon]

11 hours ago, katarynna said:

You can already craft tools a tier beyond your gamestage if you place points in miner69er and/or salvage ops. I do think the primitive loot stage would benefit a lot by having weapon parts be as common (or more common) loot as stone axes, shovels, and blunderbusses even if you only looted them in stacks of 1-2 during the primitive age. That would make crafting t1 weapons early a realistic possibility, while at the same time not making them common.

I would prefer them to be craftable with the introduction of some craftable only weaponary.

 

Make the weapons as in guns rare but encourage the player to invest into crafting them by making the parts craftable.

[Bashtiks]

Still think that a16 loot system was better, quality from 1-600 felt nice and rewarding, u where able to find guns and high grade armor at beginning, but usually they was very low on quality making them less effective then crafted leather armor or other stuff. Or you could scrap that military armor for fiber and use it for repairing or crafting better quality if u had a perks 

Many dint like the gun parts, I loved it, yes they took alot of inventory space but other than that it was rly satisfying to assemble my gun, swap parts, combine them to get better ones, repairing lowered durability and u had to combine parts again, or craft new ones and then combine to get 600q, was rly fun and made a lot of sense to me ^^ oh good old times when u wrenced down cars in hope that u will get purple engine for your minibike 🙂

Yes looting and skill training still was kind of gated behind your levels, but even in low lvls if u took lucky looter perk it kind of felt bit more rewardind then now ..

[beHypE]

2 hours ago, Kalen said:

I agree, finding too many high level items early isn't good for the state of the game.... but there is a middle ground.   It doesn't even have to be middle.... just a little tilted away from where it is.   There was great game play in early alphas where you lucked out with an item early and tailored your game play around that lucky find.   I'd like to see a little of that come back (but only with item degradation)

 

But, as others have said, the biggest gripe I have is the overlap of performance in the different tiers.  It's incredibly frustrating to finally find an iron tool, only to realize the stone axe you've been using is actually superior to it.   Just my opinion, obviously, but I feel that a higher tier item should always be superior to a lower tier no matter what their quality

100%. A18 let you find too much loot way too early, but now there's just virtually no surprise. No lucky find that lets you take a shortcut in one area of the game, like a proper vehicle, a proper tool, a proper firearm, etc. Everything follows a linear curve and if I start over there's going to be absolutely no element of surprise from what I'll get in loot.

 

Regarding the "overlap in efficiency", madmole stated it's a wanted design, so that you have to make choices (use that Q1 iron pick with coffee, -10% stamina drain mod, maxxed out sex rex and be 20% more efficient or... use that Q6 stone axe). I find it terrible, because the stone age is already so stretched out that the ONE thing that would bring back that "woohoo, finally!" moment would be the moment you finally find an iron tool. But it's not, you left stone age and entered the no man's land until you start dropping Q3+.

I think stone age tools should be capped to Q4, and the whole stone age duration shortened by 25%, and the transition would feel A LOT better.

 

  

8 minutes ago, Bashtiks said:

Many dint like the gun parts, I loved it

So do I, the new steady & slow progression would feel so much better by finding parts everywhere until you finally find the missing piece, and then upgrading it piece by piece. Instead, there's no gun to be found and all of a sudden, out of a toilet, the breakthrough of power is real. 

[Bashtiks]

As addition things felt bit more real and natural.

Assambleing minibike for example: finding/crafting frame, wheels, seat & handlebars, getting good quality engine, battery, finding a shoping basket for storage, and then assamble part by part 🙂 each part even had uniqe propertys as reduced fall dmg, steering angle, battery capacity.

Assembly of auger or chainsaw: getting blade, parts, handlebars, engine, swapping them, it all felt rly good ..

Why remove it all?? To make things simpler?? Is all the population of gamers are so lazy or dumbed down (no offense) or smth .. ?? To much pressure on game engine with all the parts?

 

Dunno but I see it as a nice diversity in the loot table

 

Hech might as well make all tools like sledge, axes, spears consist from 2 parts like handle and tool head to make it more fun.

 

[Solomon]

1 hour ago, Bashtiks said:

Many dint like the gun parts, I loved it, yes they took alot of inventory space but other than that it was rly satisfying to assemble my gun, swap parts, combine them to get better ones, repairing lowered durability and u had to combine parts again, or craft new ones and then combine to get 600q, was rly fun and made a lot of sense to me ^^ oh good old times when u wrenced down cars in hope that u will get purple engine for your minibike 🙂

That sounds great and interesting, why was it ditched?

 

Its sounds soo much natural and would fit this need of slow progression, i scavange the military bases for handgun magazines, my brother loots the big factory for the best barrels and when we are done we go home and argue infront of the workbench in where the hell can we find a cursed trigger. So much better than this "endless stone age everywhere" deal.

1 hour ago, beHypE said:

Regarding the "overlap in efficiency", madmole stated it's a wanted design, so that you have to make choices (use that Q1 iron pick with coffee, -10% stamina drain mod, maxxed out sex rex and be 20% more efficient or... use that Q6 stone axe). I find it terrible, because the stone age is already so stretched out that the ONE thing that would bring back that "woohoo, finally!" moment would be the moment you finally find an iron tool. But it's not, you left stone age and entered the no man's land until you start dropping Q3+.

Just what kind of logic is that?

 

The stone axe takes less stamina to use and the efficency perks affect it, why would you gimp yourself with a Q1/Q2 iron pick when the stone axe does the same for less and it can be repaired everywhere with a piece of stone unlike the iron pick.

[meganoth]

I think a fault of the current loot balance is that in normal gameplay you just find too many weapons in loot boxes.

 

I would estimate that I will loot about 25 weapons in about 2 days on average before I get a better weapon, because there are lots of loot containers with a chance for a weapon and they often have more than one weapon. Naturally that is much more evident in A19's stone age with a smaller selection of weapons AND without randomness in stone age weapons that at least makes duplicates of higher tiers weapons more interesting. 

 

So I'd say that especially in the stone age much less weaponry should drop in loot boxes. That was already proposed before, I'd just like to bring that idea back in memory. it would be much better if you only find 4 weapons in 2 days but one of that is then already better than your current weapon. Same progression, less frustration.

 

 

 

[Roland]

Don’t ruin me getting all those high quality rocks from scrapping duplicate stone tools... 😜

[meganoth]

15 minutes ago, Roland said:

Don’t ruin me getting all those high quality rocks from scrapping duplicate stone tools... 😜

Ruining your fun is my secret agenda. Which I blurt out now to hide my super-secret real agenda.😎

[Roland]

22 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Ruining your fun is my secret agenda. Which I blurt out now to hide my super-secret real agenda.😎

Too late!  I already know it and I can arrange a date with Snowdog for you without all the cloak and dagger. 

[DividingByZero]

On 8/2/2020 at 5:12 AM, watzlp said:

This A19 update actually makes no sense to me either because how slow the "gamestage" is vs leveling, Ive found myself crafting lv5 tools before finding anything in the world. Whats the point in looting again? IF they are worried about me getting bored with the game cause by day 20 I got every skill to 300 and made the game a joke, what the hell do they think is gonna do if by day 7 Im bored of finding stone tools even at game stage 50? WOO a lv6 Stone Axe!

I feel like it makes more sense... I find a lot more than just stone tools, not sure what you are doing different. They do pop up from time to time, and from a realism stand point it is goofy. i.e. - why would the hardware store have a shipping crate with a stone tool in it :D