What can be done for game balance?

[Solomon]

56 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

As you said "to get the gameplay YOU want". There is the answer to why they haven't done X if you accept that they want different things than you. That is obviously true with the decor items and your idea of drastically increasing the sandbox capabilities. TFP themselves seem to think they are about right where they are and all the factions (pvp-players, shooter-players, builders, sandbox-players, survivalists) here in the forum try to tug them in their direction. Maybe you should be glad they don't listen to such requests because maybe the shooter fraction is bigger than the sandbox fraction, who knows?

 

Don't get me wrong, it is definitely possible that some modder finds a better solution for a particular problem or bug than TFP. This is nothing earth-shattering, developers and modders come from the same pool of people that are interested and sometimes competent in games development. Some of them were even hired by TFP. Gazz for example was initially a 7D2D modder I think, also madmole himself started as modder for bethesda games. But so what, TFP can't go around and sift the mods for solutions to their problems, because they have different problems and ideas and different constraints.

Honestly i want more weapons not just shooters, weapon grade axes, swords, more variants of knifes, maces, hell i would accept an exo-suit too seeing how we can just fabricate these auto-turrets soo easily.

 

I generally want a lot of things improved what are all key parts of this game:

1. Basebuilding what needs much more blocks and trap mechanisms
2. Weapons because one of the main focus is fighting the dead
3. Fixing stealth because its stupid that we have perks what are utterly useless on the horde nights
4. Adding more zombie variants
5. Ai variation (i believe the mix of the old AI and new AI would be perfect)

These i all believe are core parts of the game, basebuilding feels great when you have the sandbox expanded for it. Weapons are best when they come in variations (i love the stun baton but why its alone). Perks are best when they all have clear functions what work every time.

 

I also would love them to listen more because i still remember how many games like Firefall (RIP) died because the devs thought better than their players. Surely not everything needs to be listened to but their possiblities can be expanded like for example remember how i said i would love to have all these decorative blocks to be craftable/takeable? Why not make it a server option like tick this in and your game now gets a lot of stuff you can craft and another can set in who gets to decide if you can craft these or not.

 

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

It is the exception that a mod provides a solution, mods are usually changing a thing TFP wants to a thing TFP does not want. Bigger backpack mods anyone? 😉

Im using a stackmod. It makes this last stage of the game much better.

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, Solomon said:

Honestly i want more weapons not just shooters, weapon grade axes, swords, more variants of knifes, maces, hell i would accept an exo-suit too seeing how we can just fabricate these auto-turrets soo easily.

 

I generally want a lot of things improved what are all key parts of this game:

1. Basebuilding what needs much more blocks and trap mechanisms
2. Weapons because one of the main focus is fighting the dead
3. Fixing stealth because its stupid that we have perks what are utterly useless on the horde nights
4. Adding more zombie variants
5. Ai variation (i believe the mix of the old AI and new AI would be perfect)

These i all believe are core parts of the game, basebuilding feels great when you have the sandbox expanded for it. Weapons are best when they come in variations (i love the stun baton but why its alone). Perks are best when they all have clear functions what work every time.

 

I also would love them to listen more because i still remember how many games like Firefall (RIP) died because the devs thought better than their players. Surely not everything needs to be listened to but their possiblities can be expanded like for example remember how i said i would love to have all these decorative blocks to be craftable/takeable? Why not make it a server option like tick this in and your game now gets a lot of stuff you can craft and another can set in who gets to decide if you can craft these or not.

 

 

Im using a stackmod. It makes this last stage of the game much better.

The games development cycle is on its last leg. Sure, that last leg will take another 1-2 years but some of the things you listed will probably be delegated to the next version or an expansion because there is only time for bandits, the story and a handful of other stuff that can be done in the sidelines.

 

So basebuilding and weapons are nearly finished, there will be pipe weapons and maybe another melee weapon for INT. Fixing stealth for hordenight might be possible, a few boss zombies seem to be in the pipeline and I don't think the AI will change much.

 

You want them to listen more. Sure, how about they listen to me 😉.  I want (in that order) legendary weapons, the AI largely unchanged and the event system that was talked about. The community is not speaking with a single voice and there are often opposite voices coming from there. And it doesn't mean you have some majority behind you if a few people in a thread have the same opinion as you, threads tend to collect like-minded people.

 

A thing about options. Developers don't like to add options and definitely not early in development. Because they have to support all possible combination of options which can get complicated sometimes. They want to add them as late as possible if at all. Sure it is somewhat late now in alpha but there still are features in development. I'm talking about beta late. So you can wait until the real beta polishing starts and a few options are added or you can play immediately with all deco blocks by using a mod. Just saying, you are fighting an uphill battle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vedui]

On 8/8/2020 at 4:13 PM, Gazz said:

A lot of things sound simple if you're not the one doing them. =P

 

Difficulty modifiers for biomes and POI are on the list but not done, yet. /shrug

 

We do have "simple" and "harder" POI's but I agree biome addition to challenge ratings would make sense. We sort of have a harder time in wasteland already, but further ways to make it harder would be good, higher level zombies in dangerous areas and better loot. Still just the added wasteland stuff of always respawning zombies at night etc goes some distance to achieve this for now, so thanks for that!

[myrkana]

On 8/7/2020 at 4:02 PM, Slingblade2040 said:

It's obvious slot of stuff in this game isn't balanced. TFP recently tried and let's be honest sorta failed with this whole stone age nonsense. also don't come into this with self imposing rules and other nonsense like that. if you set up your own rules to play this game that's on you and with those rules the game is borderline no longer vanilla. 

 

The trader and quests are one of the issues that kills off the balance since they have become very easy to find, getting about 10k dukes by the end of day 3 isn't an issue and usual they have some really decent guns as high as tier 3. not to mention how much experience you gain by selling all those items.

 

loot rooms..those things are just dumb and after running a few PoIs you know how to get to them and in the easiest way possible. they should just be removed or saved for the tower style PoIs. personally I'd prefer for them to be removed from the game.

 

the perk system. it's fairly easy to max out a attribute and a damage perk by level 19. you can get very OP by day 7.  especially if you find the item that gives you an extra attribute point for the tree you are going into it makes getting OP that much faster. 

 

obviously a lot can be done to better balance this game. certain things can be added back in and changed a bit to work better with the current perk and book system. obviously no one is talking about bringing back spam crafting so don't even bring up that nonsense.

 

loot can go back to being a bit more random or having higher tier's show up according to gamestage.

 

also I really wouldn't mind the return of feral or radiated zombies showing up at certain PoIs no matter what gamestage you are at or even during horde nights. a bit of randomness to horde night would be great to add some kind of element of danger. 

 

those are just my thoughts. feel free to add in your issues and what you think could balance this game for the better. even though it will probably be ignored.

 

I dont think they're going for super balance right now seeing as not all the systems are in place yet. Why balance just to rebalance 5 more times as they add in the final systems? 

 

Traders are going to be redone/balanced whatever. It's all ready on the list.

 

Some non dungeon pois would be nice but also not every dungeon poi's room is in the top or bottom of the house. I've found a few where it's in an odd spot, they're constantly adding more pois so you cant remember every single one. Also once they add the biome modifiers it might be better to just go thorugh the maze depending on what exactly replaces the irradiated zombies.

 

So by level 19 you can do damage with 1 weapon really well? Cool... what else can you do?

 

Higher stuff per gamestage will be brought in with the biome modifiers they plan to add later. This will also apply to certain pois I hope, I believe I read this is true but dont quote me on it. 

[Solomon]

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

The games development cycle is on its last leg. Sure, that last leg will take another 1-2 years but some of the things you listed will probably be delegated to the next version or an expansion because there is only time for bandits, the story and a handful of other stuff that can be done in the sidelines.

 

So basebuilding and weapons are nearly finished, there will be pipe weapons and maybe another melee weapon for INT. Fixing stealth for hordenight might be possible, a few boss zombies seem to be in the pipeline and I don't think the AI will change much.

 

You want them to listen more. Sure, how about they listen to me 😉.  I want (in that order) legendary weapons, the AI largely unchanged and the event system that was talked about. The community is not speaking with a single voice and there are often opposite voices coming from there. And it doesn't mean you have some majority behind you if a few people in a thread have the same opinion as you, threads tend to collect like-minded people.

Last development cycle as in leaving EA? If thats the case im seriously disappointed in this game and its developers, this game is still soo empty at best i would put it from Alpha to Beta considering just how much more it needs to be done.

 

Basebuilding literally degraded into AI pathing abuse VS "look how wide i can make this wall", there are not real weapon variety ingame because it just boils down into 1 melee you because you specced into that perk tree and whatever gun you can take because you need all that ranged options on the horde nights.

 

Theres just soo much in this game what would need polish, more content and balancing it feels like as if this was the literal first version released.

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, Solomon said:

Last development cycle as in leaving EA? If thats the case im seriously disappointed in this game and its developers, this game is still soo empty at best i would put it from Alpha to Beta considering just how much more it needs to be done.

 

Basebuilding literally degraded into AI pathing abuse VS "look how wide i can make this wall", there are not real weapon variety ingame because it just boils down into 1 melee you because you specced into that perk tree and whatever gun you can take because you need all that ranged options on the horde nights.

 

Theres just soo much in this game what would need polish, more content and balancing it feels like as if this was the literal first version released.

Are you sure you understand what Beta is? Beta means only bug and balancing fixes, the last step before releasing. There should be nearly no new content in the beta phase, no filling up. You probably don't want beta any earlier.

 

The other misconception you may have is about the size of the company doing the game. Are you aware that TFP is a small indie-developer with just ~20-30 employees, only a handful of them programmers, far below what AAA-developers have in manpower? And they have made a game with a fully destructible voxel world down to bedrock, that feature alone probably cost them 20-30% of their development resources.

 

I'm pretty sure now you will be disappointed by the next alpha, and the next, and the release version as well.

 

About weapon variety. Guns shoot, in the game you have guns that do damage to single enemies and guns with area damage. What additional guns do you want and how would they really make a difference to gameplay?

 

 

[Boidster]

7 hours ago, Solomon said:

Last development cycle as in leaving EA? If thats the case im seriously disappointed in this game and its developers, this game is still soo empty at best i would put it from Alpha to Beta considering just how much more it needs to be done.

 

Basebuilding literally degraded into AI pathing abuse VS "look how wide i can make this wall", there are not real weapon variety ingame because it just boils down into 1 melee you because you specced into that perk tree and whatever gun you can take because you need all that ranged options on the horde nights.

 

Theres just soo much in this game what would need polish, more content and balancing it feels like as if this was the literal first version released.

Sounds like you really just don't like the game very much and probably won't like it very much going forward as a) the AI will always be abusable if people choose to play that way and b) you aren't going to get a bunch more guns. Not in vanilla anyway. If you don't like using mods then you're stuck with a game you don't like very much. Maybe it's time to move on to something you do enjoy?

[Solomon]

18 hours ago, meganoth said:

Are you sure you understand what Beta is? Beta means only bug and balancing fixes, the last step before releasing. There should be nearly no new content in the beta phase, no filling up. You probably don't want beta any earlier.

 

The other misconception you may have is about the size of the company doing the game. Are you aware that TFP is a small indie-developer with just ~20-30 employees, only a handful of them programmers, far below what AAA-developers have in manpower? And they have made a game with a fully destructible voxel world down to bedrock, that feature alone probably cost them 20-30% of their development resources.

 

I'm pretty sure now you will be disappointed by the next alpha, and the next, and the release version as well.

Thats why i asked what you exactly mean with last development cycle, normally each development cycle goes like apha->beta->first finished release.

 

If its the next alpha then im gonna wait for it but you made it sound like the devs are pleased with everything as is now and ready themselves to leave ea.

 

18 hours ago, meganoth said:

About weapon variety. Guns shoot, in the game you have guns that do damage to single enemies and guns with area damage.

Im thinking im giving off the wrong impression or you guys project something on me but i dont just need more guns, i think the game needs more weapons in general melee involved.

 

Lets see from the top of my head some melee weapons i would like to see ingame:

1. Swords, the age old classics (brass, iron and steel)
2. War axes because axes being just tools dont make sense (brass, iron and steel)
3. Various Pikes and their kind (this here is atleast 4 weapons each with 3 types brass, iron and steel)
4. Maces and hatchets aka the smaller version of clubs, sledgehammers and axes ( 2 weapons again with the 3 material type variants each)
5. Shields because it makes sense to try to cover yourself from getting bitten ( 5 weapons with 5 material types)
6. Tazer and other intellect weapons (atleast 4 weapons)

After this we can go onto ranged weapons with the classics still not ingame:

1. Flamethrower, pretty old choice of killing against the undead
2. Grenade launcher, the small brother of the rocket launcher
3. Heavy crossbow for when you need your dead as ornament on the wall
4. Repeater crossbow when you need those shots fast
5. Longbow when you cant be bothered with getting a crossbow

 

Now that i recount it i would like to see more melee weapons than guns in general. 

 

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

What additional guns do you want and how would they really make a difference to gameplay?

Okay just explain to me what you actually mean here because if we go with this logic we wouldnt need neither the auto shotgun nor the m60 because they dont actually make any big difference in gameplay.

 

You shoot faster and like thats it, in fact if we follow this logic we dont even need this many melee weapons because all of them is just a variant of the club except the spear what is an actual hybrid.

16 hours ago, Boidster said:

Sounds like you really just don't like the game very much and probably won't like it very much going forward as a) the AI will always be abusable if people choose to play that way and b) you aren't going to get a bunch more guns. Not in vanilla anyway. If you don't like using mods then you're stuck with a game you don't like very much. Maybe it's time to move on to something you do enjoy?

Ohh i do enjoy my time in A18, A19? Well that not soo much.

 

Like many have said before me, it feels like the original premise of the game is getting lost.

[BLUFF_CATCHER]

Hello community! It is possible to make the player get experience for the zombies killed by our land mines? Killing without experience points is not profitable! 

[FileMachete]

1 hour ago, BLUFF_CATCHER said:

Hello community! It is possible to make the player get experience for the zombies killed by our land mines? Killing without experience points is not profitable! 

Sorry, but no.

There are technical reasons.

The game would have to keep track of who placed every landmine.

Which might work for single player games.

But it could be used with bad intent on multiplayer servers.

[uselessjunkaccount]

6 minutes ago, FileMachete said:

Sorry, but no.

There are technical reasons.

The game would have to keep track of who placed every landmine.

Which might work for single player games.

But it could be used with bad intent on multiplayer servers.

 

Isn't a landmine already at maximum 'bad intent'?

[FileMachete]

3 minutes ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

 

Isn't a landmine already at maximum 'bad intent'?

Ha! Very true 😀 .. I was trying to use words that might translate clearer for Bluff as english isn't their primary language (see the edit history).

 

Edit: seeing as I had 'good intentions' that likely means that I only managed to come up with word strings that will be translated into some horrific insult or deviant sex act... (sigh) mama did tell me the road to hell was paved with good intentions...

[BLUFF_CATCHER]

22 minutes ago, FileMachete said:

Sorry, but no.

There are technical reasons.

The game would have to keep track of who placed every landmine.

Which might work for single player games.

But it could be used with bad intent on multiplayer servers.

Track limit on time?

9 minutes ago, FileMachete said:

Ha! Very true 😀 .. I was trying to use words that might translate clearer for Bluff as english isn't their primary language (see the edit history).

 

Edit: seeing as I had 'good intentions' that likely means that I only managed to come up with word strings that will be translated into some horrific insult or deviant sex act... (sigh) mama did tell me the road to hell was paved with good intentions...

Youre right! Thanks! 

[FileMachete]

1 minute ago, BLUFF_CATCHER said:

Track limit on time?

There is no tracking of who placed a landmine currently.

Without knowing who placed a landmine they can not award experiance when a landmine kills a zombie.

 

While they might be able to temporarily track ownership of a landmine, I would not expect the developers to implement this. They have a large number of things they need to do in order to meet their objectives and delivery dates.

 

Sorry again, but I would not expect them to ever award experiance for landmine zombie kills.

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, Solomon said:

Im thinking im giving off the wrong impression or you guys project something on me but i dont just need more guns, i think the game needs more weapons in general melee involved.

You list a lot of weapons, most of them don't provide any noticable difference to current weapons. In Detail:

 

Quote

 

Lets see from the top of my head some melee weapons i would like to see ingame:

1. Swords, the age old classics (brass, iron and steel)

No difference in gameplay to the machete

Quote

1. War axes because axes being just tools dont make sense (brass, iron and steel)

In the game. You can use axes as weapons, they are just not as effective as the other pure weapons for balance reasons. Lots of people use axes as weapons because they save a slot and are good enough if you specced in miner69er

 

Quote

1. Various Pikes and their kind (this here is atleast 4 weapons each with 3 types brass, iron and steel)

No difference in gameplay to the spear. Long range prodding weapon

Quote

1. Maces and hatchets aka the smaller version of clubs, sledgehammers and axes ( 2 weapons again with the 3 material type variants each)

No practical difference in gameplay to the club.

Quote

1. Shields because it makes sense to try to cover yourself from getting bitten ( 5 weapons with 5 material types)

This marks the first really new weapon type you list. Yes, shields were suggested a few times and TFP were thinking about it but seem to have decided that adding that would involve more effort than it would bring and there were more important features needed.

 

Quote

1. Tazer and other intellect weapons (atleast 4 weapons)

 

INT stun baton generally does that. As I already told you in the list of likely A20 features there likely will be further melee weapons in the INT line because there is still a gap there.

Quote

After this we can go onto ranged weapons with the classics still not ingame:

1. Flamethrower, pretty old choice of killing against the undead

 

Agreed. Not in the game. Has been asked for, might possibly get into the game, or not. There are lots of AOE damage weapons in the game, from molotovs to the rocket launcher.

 

Quote

1. Grenade launcher, the small brother of the rocket launcher

 

Its called an arm, it launches grenades. No practical difference to the stuff in the game

 

Quote

1. Heavy crossbow for when you need your dead as ornament on the wall
2. Repeater crossbow when you need those shots fast
3. Longbow when you cant be bothered with getting a crossbow

 

All of these sound like you want a tier4 of bows/crossbows. If they do this they probably need to expand all other weapon lines with a tier4 as well. Which won't happen till gold, I expect this to happen in an expansion or 7D2D 2.

 

There is a chance that one or more of this list might get included as a legendary weapon though. Wait and see.
 

Quote

 

Now that i recount it i would like to see more melee weapons than guns in general. 

 

Okay just explain to me what you actually mean here because if we go with this logic we wouldnt need neither the auto shotgun nor the m60 because they dont actually make any big difference in gameplay.

 

Sorry, but auto shotgun has a lot more damage for less ammo than the m60, but have you noticed that the range is just ~5 or so blocks? I don't have the exact numbers, but range of shotgun is very low, at 6 blocks the damage is either 0 or only half damage, not sure? So stand on a high tower, say 6-12 blocks above ground and try to kill zombies on the ground with your shotgun and then the m60. Then build a very low horde base with a door to group the zombies, shoot into them with a shotgun for half a night, then with an m60 half a night, notice how much ammo it cost you and how much time you have to toil in a mine to replace that ammo. I promise you it will be much less with a shotgun.

 

Quote

 

You shoot faster and like thats it, in fact if we follow this logic we dont even need this many melee weapons because all of them is just a variant of the club except the spear what is an actual hybrid.

Ohh i do enjoy my time in A18, A19? Well that not soo much.

 

Like many have said before me, it feels like the original premise of the game is getting lost.

It has to be said: If your reason to play a game is access to lots and lots of weapons, play a shooter, not this hybrid of many genres including shooter.

I can promise you if TFP added a mace for example, you would play that mace for 2 hours, notice there is not much difference to a club (except maybe a small range difference) and ask for the next weapon to be included. TFP, a small indie developer can't win a race for contents with its user base, you will always tire of new content with not much difference to existing content faster than they can generate it. Big companies like Bethesda and Blizzard learned this fact years ago the hard way.

 

 

PS: By the way, madmole just said this in the dev diary:

 

[Solomon]

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

You list a lot of weapons, most of them don't provide any noticable difference to current weapons. In Detail:

Like i said if we go with that logic we could have cut out lots of the weapons from the game already.

 

Like what difference does the revolver offer compared to the pistol, the sledgehammer compared to the club, gameplaywise they are essentially the same the only differences boil down to damage numbers. Ak to m60 literally is just a "shoot faster" mode.

 

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

No difference in gameplay to the machete

Longer range, capatable of blocking damage.

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

In the game. You can use axes as weapons, they are just not as effective as the other pure weapons for balance reasons. Lots of people use axes as weapons because they save a slot and are good enough if you specced in miner69er

Functional change, large entitiy damage and minimal block damage.

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

No difference in gameplay to the spear. Long range prodding weapon

Pikes and their kind are not throwable and mostly used with wide hacking movements apart from poking.

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

No practical difference in gameplay to the club.

Maces are designed agains armor and hatchets are usually treated as throwable weapons and because they are bladed weapons they can be used the same way as we use the stone axe.

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

Its called an arm, it launches grenades. No practical difference to the stuff in the game

And yet we still got the rocket launcher.

 

Grenade launchers are middle range explosive weapons, the idea is that you aim and shoot. Theres no aim->arm->throw to get the results just aim->shoot.

 

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

All of these sound like you want a tier4 of bows/crossbows. If they do this they probably need to expand all other weapon lines with a tier4 as well. Which won't happen till gold, I expect this to happen in an expansion or 7D2D 2.

 

There is a chance that one or more of this list might get included as a legendary weapon though. Wait and see.

These are all early medieval weapons so they should all be obtainable before the compound ones. Neither of them is modern in fact the repeater crossbow was created before the famous english longbow.

 

19 hours ago, meganoth said:

Sorry, but auto shotgun has a lot more damage for less ammo than the m60, but have you noticed that the range is just ~5 or so blocks? I don't have the exact numbers, but range of shotgun is very low, at 6 blocks the damage is either 0 or only half damage, not sure? So stand on a high tower, say 6-12 blocks above ground and try to kill zombies on the ground with your shotgun and then the m60. Then build a very low horde base with a door to group the zombies, shoot into them with a shotgun for half a night, then with an m60 half a night, notice how much ammo it cost you and how much time you have to toil in a mine to replace that ammo. I promise you it will be much less with a shotgun.

And yet again you dismissed most of my weapon suggestions here because they only offer damage and range differences. Also you seem to be analyzing this from the wrong angle i said the m60 according to your logic has no place ingame because its just the ak47 with more ammo and slightly higher firerate.

Same deal with the auto shotgun what is essentially the same as the pump shotgun with the numbers changed around, its still the same gameplay nothing changed, hunting rifle vs marksman rifle stayed essentially the same you dont change any strategy when using the marksman version.

 

 

I get it that you dont want to see more weapons ingame but atleast use a logic what cant be countered by whats already ingame. 

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Solomon said:

Like i said if we go with that logic we could have cut out lots of the weapons from the game already.

We used to have fewer weapons in the game. I was happy with that but some players wanted more weapons. Especially more guns.

 

As far as I know the plan is that each skill tree has at least 3 tiers of one melee weapon and one ranged weapon each. That's not quite uniform. For example, Strength has two melee weapons with 3 tiers each and Intelligence has only one melee weapon with only one tier. Agility has the SMG and the Desert Vulture each as tier 3 ranged weapons.  Additionally, two tiers of the crossbow and 3 tiers of the bow as second ranged weapon.

1 hour ago, Solomon said:

Like what difference does the revolver offer compared to the pistol, the sledgehammer compared to the club, gameplaywise they are essentially the same the only differences boil down to damage numbers. Ak to m60 literally is just a "shoot faster" mode.

The revolver has a higher firepower and shoots slower than the pistol. But the pistol has a bigger magazine than the revolver and you can expand the magazine size with a mod. And the reload animation of the revolver is much longer.

The difference between the club and the sledgehammer is, besides the damage, the timing and the stamina consumption.

 But the hammer has the bonus that it can stun a whole group of zombies at once. The hammer is good for crowd control but not so good when you want to fight against fast single enemies.

 

The difference between the AK and the M60, apart from the damage and the rate of fire, is the size of the magazine and how long it takes to reload. That you have to take into account when planning your defense. That's why some people use the Tactical Assault Rifle instead of the M60 because they find it takes too long to reload on the M60. They prefer to reload quickly rather than having a bigger magazine.

1 hour ago, Solomon said:

Longer range, capatable of blocking damage.

Blocking is not a part of the fighting system.

 

What you seem to neglect is that someone has to create the models for the weapons and also for the mods. Furthermore the stats of the weapons have to be balanced and also the costs for crafting them.

 

You also need to add new animations for the weapons. If a sword is wielded like a club, it looks ridiculous.

 

This all takes time and development resources.

 

[FileMachete]

@RipClaw I get what you're saying about devs having to create or buy the models, make the animations, create new xml entries etc. All of which I'd guess take significantly longer than most of us would think. And this isn't really directed at you, it's more for general consumption, so please don't take this as a personal thing. I just happened to read your post and it brought to mind something I keep forgetting to bring up. :)

 

But one thing that I think gets ignored is these back & forths about more items, weapons in particular, is that for "balance" there really only needs to be one item that compares to another classes similar Tier/Quality, if that's needed.

Other items can & should be different enough in stats that they're, well, different.

Put another way, have the 'main' items comparable across classes, so the other things don't have to be.

 

Take a bit of an extreme example. Say they added a .50 Cal Sniper rifle. Tons of damage, maybe able to one-shot a Demolisher. Sounds OPd.

But there are a lot of ways to limit it.

Bolt action instead of a semi-auto, or even a semi, but takes a long time to reload. Slow rate of fire. Expensive ammo.

Really low 'mobility', no way would you try to use it as a main weapon clearing pois.

It's main purpose is to take out the really tough enemys during horde night.

Which is nothing we can't already do with an AK, M60, Marksman, Sniper, Explosive Arrows/Bolts, etc.

Which I get is @meganoths & MMs counter.

 

Or as I mentioned in another thread, add in a Dirtbike (off road motorccyle). Make it the fastest off road vehicle, perfect for scouting for new towns or if there isn't a decent road between two. Tweak it a bit so it can get some air. New Fun factor, might even see some racing in MP.

A Deuce and a half. No idea if the model they have in the army camp could be mobile, I'd guess not. But can you imagine being able to get one, and it could haul say 4 chest worth of your junk? Would sure make moving day a lot easier. Factor in the upcoming higher difficulty biomes. Would sure be nice to be able to make only one or two long trips to relocate instead of say four.

 

I'm, and I think @Solomon , are just trying to shine some light on the general idea that item variety isn't just 'vanity' stuff, it can encourage more player investment, more archetypes like a ninja assasin. More things to find or collect, new things to try out.

Consider it from this angle; how long, or how much $$ does it cost TFPs for each new House POI? How much would adding a Sword cost? I have no idea myself, plus different skill sets etc. Yet very similar logic as to why there are so many house POIs could be fairly applied to more items.

"if you're always seeing the same dozen houses each game that gets boring" very true, and we definately want more than a dozen houses right?

 

And yes, I've seen MMs recent posts, I know this isn't going to happen. And I actually agree that Bandits are far more important. Just wish they'd planned/budgetted to add in some iconic things.

[meganoth]

6 hours ago, Solomon said:

Like i said if we go with that logic we could have cut out lots of the weapons from the game already.

Cutting would need (implementation and balance) effort as well, so even if it did make sense they might not do it for the same reason they don't add every idea they like.

 

Generally the devs have limited developer resources and (in their own words) thousands of ideas they would like to add to the game. So they have to pick their fights.

 

If you only have 4 weapons in a game, a fifth weapon is a major improvement for the game (25% more weapons so to speak). If you already have 25 weapons in a game, adding the 26th costs as much implementation effort as adding the 6th, but its impact for the game is much less.

The number 25 was just an example by the way, it is hard to count distinct weapons in 7D2D. Most weapon families in this game have to be counted as just one weapon with different damage tiers (spears for example are just one weapon, but not handguns)

 

That is by the way the answer to the question you thought you asked but didn't: The M60 is the upgrade to the tactical assault rifle which is the upgrade to the AK. While still somewhat different so people actually use tactical assault instead of M60, it is basically just one weapon. Because of the M60 maybe 2. You generally replace the less powerful version with the better when it gets available.

 

 

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Like what difference does the revolver offer compared to the pistol, the sledgehammer compared to the club, gameplaywise they are essentially the same the only differences boil down to damage numbers. Ak to m60 literally is just a "shoot faster" mode.

 

[about sword] Longer range, capatable of blocking damage.

Ok, if they added blocking, that would make the sword somewhat new. In the game it would be very similar in function to the stun of the club, but the stun also stops them while a blocking would only prevent an attack. 

 

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[axe as melee weapon] Functional change, large entitiy damage and minimal block damage.

Again, make the axe too good and everyone will use it because of its double function. We already had that once in 7D2D and everyone used the axe. Because you would save a toolbelt slot AND perk points (you need only miner69 to be good at mining and axe combat) this would make STR even stronger and anyone an idiot when not using the axe. If they decided to do that they would have to redesign STR a bit, for example making a separate axe fighting perk. But then STR would have 3 melee weapon families. Overkill?

Yes, it is an idea they could do if they didn't have many many other ideas also worth their time.

 

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Pikes and their kind are not throwable and mostly used with wide hacking movements apart from poking.

Maces are designed agains armor and hatchets are usually treated as throwable weapons and because they are bladed weapons they can be used the same way as we use the stone axe.

 

All well and good, but somewhere the differences start to look minimal. More variations of essentially the same. We have a throwable weapon already, we have guns against armor and I think one melee weapon decreases armor(?). Wide hacking movements, if you mean an AOE attack, we have the sledgehammer for that.

If TFP had the same amount of developers as Bethesda, they could do it and it might be worth it even with minimal differences, but they are a small indie developer.

 

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[About grenade launcher] And yet we still got the rocket launcher.

 

Ah, I was mixing up grenade launcher with mortar (i,e, a ballistic curve launcher). Sorry, language barrier. I should have said rocket launcher as the weapon that is already in the game.

 

And the rocket launcher is simply tier3 of the explosives line. pipe bombs-> frag grenades -> contact grenades -> rocket launcher. I don't see where the grenade launcher would add anything. If TFP ever adds a fourth tier everywhere, then yes, the grenade launcher would be a likely candidate to bolster that line.

 

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Grenade launchers are middle range explosive weapons, the idea is that you aim and shoot. Theres no aim->arm->throw to get the results just aim->shoot.

 

[About bow/crossbow variants] These are all early medieval weapons so they should all be obtainable before the compound ones. Neither of them is modern in fact the repeater crossbow was created before the famous english longbow.

 

I never argued with realism, I talked about differences in gameplay. If 7D2D wanted to depict reality, they would need to add A LOT more than a few weapons.

Bows and crossbow are balanced to provide phenomenal stealth damage and with explosive arrows have their own AOE, but no real sustained firepower. If AGI proved to be too weak generally, they surely could add a repeater crossbow.

 

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And yet again you dismissed most of my weapon suggestions here because they only offer damage and range differences. Also you seem to be analyzing this from the wrong angle i said the m60 according to your logic has no place ingame because its just the ak47 with more ammo and slightly higher firerate.

Same deal with the auto shotgun what is essentially the same as the pump shotgun with the numbers changed around, its still the same gameplay nothing changed, hunting rifle vs marksman rifle stayed essentially the same you dont change any strategy when using the marksman version.

You probably meant it, but you never did mention the AK when you said something about not needing the M60 because of game play differences. It looked to me like you were comparing M60 with shotgun. Just a misunderstanding.

 

I hope I could explain it above, but again: The different tiers of similar weapons in a weapon family provide the same function as your perks, advancing and improving your capabilities, specializing you to take on tougher and tougher enemies. You are supposed to fight basic zombies with a pipe rifle, then advance to AK to feel superior. Then ferals and glowies turn up and you will add perk points and look for a tactical rifle to better deal with them. Then boss zombies try to kill you and you need the firepower of the M60 to deal with them. At least that is probably the sort of balance TFP might think about.

 

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I get it that you dont want to see more weapons ingame but atleast use a logic what cant be countered by whats already ingame. 

 

I would have nothing against more weapons if they were free. But they cost in other features that can't be implemented because a team of programmers, game designers and graphics designers has to implement, balance and draw the new weapons.

 

Small children want a new toy whenever they see one because they don't see their parents have to pay for the toy 😉. Do some modding and you might learn to estimate what time and effort a feature like a new gun might cost in development resources as well as what it brings to the game.

 

 

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, FileMachete said:

@RipClaw I get what you're saying about devs having to create or buy the models, make the animations, create new xml entries etc. All of which I'd guess take significantly longer than most of us would think. And this isn't really directed at you, it's more for general consumption, so please don't take this as a personal thing. I just happened to read your post and it brought to mind something I keep forgetting to bring up.

 

But one thing that I think gets ignored is these back & forths about more items, weapons in particular, is that for "balance" there really only needs to be one item that compares to another classes similar Tier/Quality, if that's needed.

Other items can & should be different enough in stats that they're, well, different.

Put another way, have the 'main' items comparable across classes, so the other things don't have to be.

 

Take a bit of an extreme example. Say they added a .50 Cal Sniper rifle. Tons of damage, maybe able to one-shot a Demolisher. Sounds OPd.

But there are a lot of ways to limit it.

Bolt action instead of a semi-auto, or even a semi, but takes a long time to reload. Slow rate of fire. Expensive ammo.

Really low 'mobility', no way would you try to use it as a main weapon clearing pois.

It's main purpose is to take out the really tough enemys during horde night.

Which is nothing we can't already do with an AK, M60, Marksman, Sniper, Explosive Arrows/Bolts, etc.

Which I get is @meganoths & MMs counter.

 

It really sounds too powerful if it one-hits Demos, even if the reload takes 5 seconds or more. Lots of people playing the game can make headshots with a high rate of success. If you want such a wet-dream weapon, use a mod. Or simply wait until MM had a chance to play PER, it is quite evident that PER is the worst attribute by far and needs a big push to be somewhat comparable to STR or FOR. I don't have the smallest idea what they will change when they balance PER, but it is perfectly possible that the sniper damage will be increased.

 

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Or as I mentioned in another thread, add in a Dirtbike (off road motorccyle). Make it the fastest off road vehicle, perfect for scouting for new towns or if there isn't a decent road between two. Tweak it a bit so it can get some air. New Fun factor, might even see some racing in MP.

A Deuce and a half. No idea if the model they have in the army camp could be mobile, I'd guess not. But can you imagine being able to get one, and it could haul say 4 chest worth of your junk? Would sure make moving day a lot easier. Factor in the upcoming higher difficulty biomes. Would sure be nice to be able to make only one or two long trips to relocate instead of say four.

 

I played a mod in A18 that had such a dirtbike (maybe you got the idea from there). It was absolutely OP and the only vehicle I used because it was so fast (and I had a PC and server that could handle it, my previous server was too weak and produced heavy tearing). But for technical reasons that speed can only happen in a mod. TFP has to look at what minimal PC speccs they want to support.

 

The 4x4 is in the same niche as your Deuce. And at least our group mostly ignores it and prefers the motorbike or the gyro. If they add a Deuce they could as well remove the 4x4, or simply add more inv slots to the 4x4.

 

But like your sniper idea above, you look at an area that TFP has said is not finished. I thought you were aware of the plan to add vehicle mods and vehicle damage to the game? So you are knocking on already open doors, maybe mods will fullfill your wishes, maybe they'll eventually add another vehicle while working on it (but I doubt it).

 

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I'm, and I think @Solomon , are just trying to shine some light on the general idea that item variety isn't just 'vanity' stuff, it can encourage more player investment, more archetypes like a ninja assasin. More things to find or collect, new things to try out.

Consider it from this angle; how long, or how much $$ does it cost TFPs for each new House POI? How much would adding a Sword cost? I have no idea myself, plus different skill sets etc. Yet very similar logic as to why there are so many house POIs could be fairly applied to more items.

"if you're always seeing the same dozen houses each game that gets boring" very true, and we definately want more than a dozen houses right?

 

Well, but here's the thing: TFP has a few (maybe 2 or 3) designers specializing in world building. They are good at architecture and each one of them designs about one tier4 POI per month. They can't be used for anything else, they can't program, they can't even be used to design or paint a weapon. They are specialists and if they are good TFP might want to keep them, especially because the next game needs those designers as well. At the moment more POIs are only nice as you say, but essentially they are cheap.

 

Making a new weapon costs a whole team of people: It needs item designers to draw the weapon. It needs game designers to put the weapon somewhere and give it appropriate values and maybe balance other stuff to fit together with this weapon. It needs animators to make the attack (and reload?) of the weapon believable.  And it often needs programmers to add new functionality the weapon might have. And especially programmers are a very scarce respource and good programmers are very hard to find and expensive.

 

Now don't get me wrong, even though that sounds like much, if the feature is worth it or if there is something missing in the game it is totally worth it do put all those people to the task. So they will do pipe weapons because tier0 exists in the game (with blunderbuss, spear, club and arrow) but has obvious holes. But try to make a case for a totally new weapon line with 4 tiers to add to the game and it isn't that easy. Since you want a dirtbike and a Deuce, are you okay to not get them because the resources are expended for a sword that Solomon wants?

 

What would you do if you had to decide just now what programmer John Doe and designer James Smith work on for the next 3 months: A) finishing the already started legendary weapons feature, B) adding vehicle mods and damage or C) adding a new sword line of weapons and a grenade launcher.

 

A,B or C? What will it be for you?

 

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And yes, I've seen MMs recent posts, I know this isn't going to happen. And I actually agree that Bandits are far more important. Just wish they'd planned/budgetted to add in some iconic things.

 

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

What would you do if you had to decide just now what programmer John Doe and designer James Smith work on for the next 3 months: A) finishing the already started legendary weapons feature, B) adding vehicle mods and damage or C) adding a new sword line of weapons and a grenade launcher.

D) Plenty of room for a cot in John's and James' offices and they really don't like seeing their families that much anyway, do they? Fifteen minutes in the company atrium is plenty of "recreation time" for anybody. STFU and GBTW John & James! GIMMEH MAH FLAMETHROWER! 😄

[Dracula]

So the Aperture Science work environment model?  I'm OK with that as long as things get fixed.

[Boidster]

There will be cake when the project is done!

[KennyBMallNinja]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but a perk that lets you disarm landmines would be nice as well.

[RipClaw]

16 minutes ago, KennyBMallNinja said:

Not sure if it has been mentioned but a perk that lets you disarm landmines would be nice as well.

Something like this exists. Urban Combat Vol 5 "Landmine won't detonate when stepped on".