One step forward two steps back

[Ttocs]

One step forward and two steps back, nobody gets too far like that

[alanea]

7 hours ago, Balthazod said:

I am talking 1st 7 days so steel armour not viable and have you played Alpha 19.2 as seem you don't really understand the changes.  Its not boring untill I get to q6 the early part of the game was the fun part random chance of loot that could change the game now that it not there Now its wow a lvl 6 stone axe thats way its boring I am now lvl 22 and still looting stone shovels. 

 

lvl  6 stone axe is stilll significant upgrade over any other stone axe  only because you cant get iron  under certain  GS  .. tier 2-3 steel tool makes every non steel drop  trash ... worsening situation

 

first horde is ridiculously easy and short you can even defend it by few wood spikes  in corridor

 

7 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

How are you standing on a trader zoned wall and not getting booted? Sounds buggy to me.

just developer oversight ... small ruins can spawn inside protected zone

6 hours ago, Balthazod said:

Blunderbuss is all you get in Alpha19.2 and its not weak 10 pellets 14dmg per pellet its the same as a sawn of shot gun it just not versatile and axe is a weapon it does the same damage as a baseball bat mine a little more as was moded with serrated edge. 

you can get pistol from day  1  blunderbuss is effective for slow zombies but still bad and primitive weapon when it comes to fighting runers bears or dogs (reload)

 

axe is often used as weapon by people who dont want waste slot on melee weapon ... but its  nowhere close to them ... since theres no perk /combat books for axe missing alot damage/bleed/knockdown/whateverand being significantly behind even with  1 point...  definitely not viable for melee builds

6 hours ago, Balthazod said:

If you have time to sit an wait 1hour while doing a mission that you can not leave site or the mission fails you can not go forward because your health is low well I wish I had that much time and patience and carried enough food but I like to be entertained by my survival games If I want real life I will go walk across the kalahari again.  As for base breach's well build better bases.  Why would I wish for bland and boring that is the opposite of what I am saying the severity of the penalty makes the game boring I am suggesting a better balance.  I appreciate a challenge and the injury's would make more sense if the 1hour30mins penalty/recovery was game time.

as i mentioned you can perk  to cut healing times significantly  ..fatigue isnt nice .. but definitely least serious injury ....for broken arms ....  splint require just ductape+wood+cloth .. all three very common loot

6 hours ago, Balthazod said:

So far I have only reached lvl 22 in Alpha 19.2 but I can imagine doing lvl 5 missions will be very hard when I 10 radioactive zombies charging you but I will see what happens when I get there. 

I don't shake hands with Zombies and I normally play 7D2D on Ravenhurst mod which if you think you like a challenge should try it out but it will be too much for you. 

A19  day  150+  on warrior  0 deaths  .. while you meet some greenies  its never 10 usually  3-5 at "boss encounters" and they arent really all that threatening at gamestage they appear they hit  5-10 even in light armor also   most green zombies isnt significantly worse than  other runners its all about fat mom/soldier/biker since they are tanky  ... andc green version feels like bullet sponge so they in theoy have chance to swarm you ... on other side  backing off from those bossrooms luring them into doorway with  100%   stun chance on club / sledge make them look pathetic

 

especially considering they appear at gamestahe  69+ ... so time when you can have easily  Q3-5   steel/military armor  making them effectively less dangerous than runers/dogs in first weeks when you walk around in bad padded ... and maybe even lacking firearm

[Maharin]

3 hours ago, Ttocs said:

One step forward and two steps back, nobody gets too far like that

That might depend on the dance and the size of the dance floor.

[jeromeN7]

This game used to be fun, now it tends to get more annoying every new alpha. I gave up on alpha 19, it's trash.

Edit: I was angry when I siad trash, that's a little too harsh.

[JCrook1028]

22 hours ago, Balthazod said:

I appreciate a challenge and the injury's would make more sense if the 1hour30mins penalty/recovery was game time.

SO in other words make it instant.... 1.5 hours in game is nothing.

22 hours ago, Kandrathe said:

The traders block protection extends across the street and covered one block onto the poi's wall.  You get booted if you are next to the traders wall, not in their block protection zone.  I occupied the house adjacent to the initial trader for convenience, but discovered additional benefits.

yea, my bad, brain fart.

[Raveman1000]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:42 AM, Balthazod said:

The loot changes WTF: I am now on day 7, I was really lucky the trader is in a town and the missions all pretty close but the loot and rewards are useless. I am at level 15 and the final loot reward box's which would normally be weapons and ammo and tools or food are: Ammo lots of ammo but no weapons,  All I have found are stone tools and blunderbuss, The rewards of traders are ammo and meds. I have even lock picked a few gun safes and found to my delite a fine selection of stone axes and shovels.  The slowness of the avatar and poor rewards makes doing mission boring, a big part of the enjoyment was getting to the end of a tough POI and getting juicy random reward Its simple 101 psychology.

 I have 20k dukes but the traders have no range weapons  so I face a blood moon with Blunderbuss and a bone knife.

Here's a few suggestion:

 

A- Invest in lucky looter, get loot goggle and eye candy, you'll get better loot faster.

B- Invest in better barter and/or daring adventurer, you'll get guns for sure at the traders. 

C- Turn up xp gain to 300%, the stone age will go much faster.

D- Focus on looting toilet for a pistol. 

E- Wait for A20 for its biome game stage increase (confirmed) and poi tier game stage increase (unconfirmed). 

[Mastermind]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:42 AM, Balthazod said:

I don't have vitamins the trader does not have vitamins I have 1.5 hours where I can do very little.

What???  Some people think the current injury system is "Crippling"? O.o

 

I played yesterday for the first time in a while... I was slightly rusty and messed up a bit, ended with Weak, Infected, Deep Laceration(or w/e the name) and Leg Sprained. I shrugged and told myself : "Oh well, that T5 POI is gonna take 5 minutes longer..."

[meganoth]

11 hours ago, Mastermind said:

What???  Some people think the current injury system is "Crippling"? O.o

 

I played yesterday for the first time in a while... I was slightly rusty and messed up a bit, ended with Weak, Infected, Deep Laceration(or w/e the name) and Leg Sprained. I shrugged and told myself : "Oh well, that T5 POI is gonna take 5 minutes longer..."

I agree, but maybe new players don't have good ideas how to proceed in such a situation. So here are a few hints:

 

Obviously you need to be more careful. In essence lose some time and efficiency to play it safer.

1) Always have a path in view to exit the POI at signs of danger. Even slowed you are faster than basic zombies and can run away from them around the house without failing the quest. Shooting them with a bow outside the POI is always easier than inside the POI

2) Block doors. You can put a wood frame into a door (and upgrade it) before shooting at anything inside. Makes it possible to use the bow even on approaching zombies.

3) Block doors with spike traps. Even better, you might also damage them. 

4) Add ladders to high walls, with the lowest two rungs missing. This gives you a defensible position. Lure zombies to this room, kill them from above.

5) Do you already have a turret but only use it on special occasions or never. Well, this is such a special occasion

 

[Daemonjax]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:42 AM, Balthazod said:

The Injury system is a good idea but its not good game play in its current form "you have fatigue" 1.30 hours real time "ONE AND HALF HOURS" curable by vitamins I don't have vitamins the trader does not have vitamins I have 1.5 hours where I can do very little.  And now we need to carry loads med a with us or suffer huge penalty times and massive impairments, but you dropped the stamina so we are playing with with a geriatric asthmatic who can not even cycle 50m with out being exhausted and being overloaded brings you to a crawl.

 

I'm a new player (so some might think my opinion on this isn't worth anything, but I think the opposite is true in this case), but I thought this system works well, and this is how I learned to deal with it:

 

a) Lacking vitamins, antibiotics, splints, or whatever:  Before level 6 you can just kill yourself and you're healed of everything (and given full food and water meters to boot) with no penalty.  After level 6, you should have those items in surplus.  If you don't, you can make them.  If you can't, then you play around it at increased risk of risk death -- the death penalty isn't too severe imo.

 

b) Exhaustion:  I found that just chugging boiled water before strenuous activity is very helpful stamina-wise.  After a couple ingame days, I have more water than I know what to do with.

 

I think the current injury system is pretty awesome -- I'm impressed!  It really forced me to "git gud" real quick, without being overly punishing -- the 6 level grace period on death penalty is extremely noob friendly (my favorite weapon is knives).

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, Daemonjax said:

 

I'm a new player (so some might think my opinion on this isn't worth anything, but I think the opposite is true in this case), but I thought this system works well, and this is how I learned to deal with it:

 

a) Lacking vitamins, antibiotics, splints, or whatever:  Before level 6 you can just kill yourself and you're healed of everything (and given full food and water meters to boot) with no penalty.  After level 6, you should have those items in surplus.  If you don't, you can make them.  If you can't, then you play around it at increased risk of risk death -- the death penalty isn't too severe imo.

 

b) Exhaustion:  I found that just chugging boiled water before strenuous activity is very helpful stamina-wise.  After a couple ingame days, I have more water than I know what to do with.

 

I think the current injury system is pretty awesome -- I'm impressed!  It really forced me to "git gud" real quick, without being overly punishing -- the 6 level grace period on death penalty is extremely noob friendly (my favorite weapon is knives).

There is a grace period on death penalties now? I'm shocked.

 

IMHO you are making a mistake if you consider killing yourself as a viable option. It makes you accept death like it is swallowing some pill and ultimately makes any challenges of the game trivial.

There is a difficult POI in the wasteland? Not anymore, why be careful when you can just repeat until no enemy is left? Only if you fear dying you can also feel elated at having survived a difficult part of the game.

 

 

[Roland]

People have been using death as a convenient solution to setbacks for years. When the wellness system was in place it was basically just a new currency for how much it would cost to fast travel or to instantly recover from a broken leg (as that was the only injury at that time). Whenever the devs push a death penalty that is in any way inconvenient, the howling begins.

 

For me, it is not a problem with temptation. It is a problem with unintentionally dying and having the problems I am trying to legitimately solve getting solved for me. I was at a high percentage of infection and by finding honey I was able to get it down to within 10% of being fully healed. I did a quest hoping to be offered herbal antibiotics as a reward but died during the quest due to poor judgement. Healed. Instantly.

 

Sucks.  But it does push me to play voluntary dead is dead and just start over. What is interesting is that they have created all of these new injuries and setbacks and yet the death penalty is still so carebear that all they have done is create more reasons for a player who hates the inconvenience of injuries to just suicide. Perhaps when they come out with the vehicle critical malfunctions those can be completely cleared when you die as well...

[Kyonshi]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

People have been using death as a convenient solution to setbacks for years. When the wellness system was in place it was basically just a new currency for how much it would cost to fast travel or to instantly recover from a broken leg (as that was the only injury at that time). Whenever the devs push a death penalty that is in any way inconvenient, the howling begins.

 

For me, it is not a problem with temptation. It is a problem with unintentionally dying and having the problems I am trying to legitimately solve getting solved for me. I was at a high percentage of infection and by finding honey I was able to get it down to within 10% of being fully healed. I did a quest hoping to be offered herbal antibiotics as a reward but died during the quest due to poor judgement. Healed. Instantly.

 

Sucks.  But it does push me to play voluntary dead is dead and just start over. What is interesting is that they have created all of these new injuries and setbacks and yet the death penalty is still so carebear that all they have done is create more reasons for a player who hates the inconvenience of injuries to just suicide. Perhaps when they come out with the vehicle critical malfunctions those can be completely cleared when you die as well...

Agree with that.

 

The XP debt after dying should be an entire red XP bar, not just few points like it currently is. And then once you pay it all back, you start a new bar at zero, not where you were at before getting killed. But that's my take and point of view.

 

Its true that the injuries can get so pilled up quickly that one can be tempted to commit suicide since the drawback of death penalty is quite insignificant. And i know some people will tell me that you just have to wear heavy armor, at best, because they provide better critical injury prevention. True, but wearing heavy gear shouldnt be an obligation. People should be free to build their character and invest points as they like. This doesnt mean Light Armor should match the critical prevention of Heavy Armor either.

 

What i mean is reevaluation of injuries occurence and locations of them. In the sense that they wont overwhelm the player and push them to suicide to resolve the issue. A Vulture should only cause Infection, Bruises and Bleeding wounds. Repeated attacks should also just cause more HP loss. But it shouldnt break any bones. In fact, no Zombie should cause fractures. Human bones are freaking hard to break and no zombie, with decayed and weaken muscle strength would hit so hard that your leg will break apart. Bruises, Bleeding wounds, concussions, that i can agree. But sprained ankles and fractures should be caused by falling down rooftops, cliffs and steep slopes, period.

 

This way, injuries would make better sense and wouldnt swarm the player in 3 hits, resulting with almost all injury status, like we can observe often, and push people to just heal themselves by dying. This is a preliminary idea, im aware i can be wrong and inaccurate about certain points but i believe the root of the problem comes from there.

[Roland]

36 minutes ago, Kyonshi said:

And i know some people will tell me that you just have to wear heavy armor, at best, because they provide better critical injury prevention. True, but wearing heavy gear shouldnt be an obligation. People should be free to build their character and invest points as they like. This doesnt mean Light Armor should match the critical prevention of Heavy Armor either.

TFP is really excited about their new outfit system that will create tough choices between protection and bonuses depending on what you put on. But with the death penalty being the way it is, it really undercuts any toughness to the choice. Just wear outfits for bonuses and die rather than forego bonuses to get armor protection. Why do we really need armor protection from dying if dying solves the worst setbacks in the game anyway?

 

It will be interesting to see how the meta of outfit wearing develops in the community given that death not only doesn't really matter but is actually the remedy for unwanted status effects.

 

One thing that occurs to me is that instead of making status effects persistent as a top menu option, make it one of the respawn options in game. A little checkbox that can be toggled on the respawn screen where you choose to respawn in your bed or near your bed. If checked then you respawn with all your status effects in place. This way, players could, on the fly, get themselves out a death loop the easy way if they cannot get themselves out of it through gameplay.

 

Some of my fondest playthroughs were of when my wellness fell to 50 and I nursed it back up by, you know, actually playing the game. 

[Maharin]

Yeah, I think more work needs to be done on the "after near death experience".  Persistent maladies will help, but maybe they should also do some sizeable percentage of damage to your gear so you will likely need to do many repairs.  Or maybe the death experience penalty has debuffs that go with it, such as moving slower or doing less damage, or maybe skill penalties.  All of these should likely go away with the exp penalty, in this scenario.

 

Near death needs to make you feel like you don't want to go through it again if you can avoid it.  It needs to be worse than what happens to you while you're alive so you have a reason to want to stay alive.  It's a balancing act for sure.

[Roland]

19 minutes ago, Maharin said:

Yeah, I think more work needs to be done on the "after near death experience".  Persistent maladies will help, but maybe they should also do some sizeable percentage of damage to your gear so you will likely need to do many repairs.  Or maybe the death experience penalty has debuffs that go with it, such as moving slower or doing less damage, or maybe skill penalties.  All of these should likely go away with the exp penalty, in this scenario.

 

Near death needs to make you feel like you don't want to go through it again if you can avoid it.  It needs to be worse than what happens to you while you're alive so you have a reason to want to stay alive.  It's a balancing act for sure.

They tried this in A17 and it was quite unpopular. No need for gamesparks to see that many people just sat around or went AFK until the skill penalty timed out because they refused to play at diminished capacity. The original timer was an hour and then it was reduced to 30 minutes and then it was scrapped for the xp deficit instead.

 

Perhaps the problem was simply that it was time based. Perhaps if such things were tied to the xp-deficit and went away when that was earned back it would push people to play to remove the curse rather than refuse to play until the curse was gone. I still think quite a few would rage about it though...

[Maharin]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

I still think quite a few would rage about it though...

Yeah, but people are going to @%$# anyway, no matter what they do. 

[Psychodabble]

Death penalty inherently sucks. Nobody wants to play the game in weakened form. Any serious penalty leads to death spiral and penalties that are too mild make death into a useful way to fast travel/clear debuffs.

 

The only solution is DEAD IS DEAD. It's a survival game...if you die, you lose.

[Liesel Weppen]

1 hour ago, Psychodabble said:

Death penalty inherently sucks.

Death penalty is sepecially in early game irrelevant. The 10% XP loss is compensated by another killed few Zs.

Quote

Nobody wants to play the game in weakened form. Any serious penalty leads to death spiral and penalties that are too mild make death into a useful way to fast travel/clear debuffs.

The XP debuff of death penalty doesn't hinder you on doing anything. You just lost XP. You are not slower, your don't do less damage, your HP is not reduced. It does not cause death loops at all.

 

Quote

The only solution is DEAD IS DEAD. It's a survival game...if you die, you lose.

Yeah of course. Most people want to start from scratch just because they made a little silly mistake. Permadeath ist the EXTREME of that.

You complain about death penalty but vote for death is dead mode? Are you @%$#ed or just stupid?

 

[Psychodabble]

17 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Death penalty is sepecially in early game irrelevant. The 10% XP loss is compensated by another killed few Zs.

The XP debuff of death penalty doesn't hinder you on doing anything. You just lost XP. You are not slower, your don't do less damage, your HP is not reduced. It does not cause death loops at all.

 

Yeah of course. Most people want to start from scratch just because they made a little silly mistake. Permadeath ist the EXTREME of that.

You complain about death penalty but vote for death is dead mode? Are you @%$#ed or just stupid?

 

First of all, totally inappropriate response. The ad hominem was completely uncalled for. Who @%$# in your cheerios?

 

Secondly, I never complained about the death penalty. In fact, it is wholly irrelevant to me because I play DEAD IS DEAD.

 

Finally, I was responding to Roland's post in the academic sense regarding the difficulty in satisfying all the players with any kind of death penalty. If you were paying attention, you'd see that they were discussing the death penalty as a concept, not just as it exists in A19. Roland was talking about combining the A17 debilitation with the A19 XP penalty. I responded regarding that approach's inherent flaw...it's simply impossible to balance.

 

I'm fully aware that most people would not want to play as I do, regardless of how true it is to the survival genre, therefore my assertion that DEAD IS DEAD is the only solution was quite facetious.

 

Responding appropriately is much easier when you understand the context of what you're responding to, see?

[Maharin]

1 hour ago, Psychodabble said:

Death penalty inherently sucks. Nobody wants to play the game in weakened form. Any serious penalty leads to death spiral and penalties that are too mild make death into a useful way to fast travel/clear debuffs.

 

The only solution is DEAD IS DEAD. It's a survival game...if you die, you lose.

That... makes no sense.  Nobody wants to play in a weakened form and the solution is to start all over as a weak newbie?  /boggle

[Psychodabble]

1 minute ago, Maharin said:

That... makes no sense.  Nobody wants to play in a weakened form and the solution is to start all over as a weak newbie?  /boggle

A new character is unskilled, not weakened. The world around them is built to match that level of skill. The reason why people sat out the A17 death timer was because they didn't want to interact with a world that had scaled to match their skill without having their full strength available.

 

Those of us who play DEAD IS DEAD don't have that problem and never will. I know it's not the way most people want to play and is fully unsuited for multiplayer, but it does resolve any trouble the devs have in balancing the perfect death penalty.

[faatal]

9 hours ago, Roland said:

People have been using death as a convenient solution to setbacks for years. When the wellness system was in place it was basically just a new currency for how much it would cost to fast travel or to instantly recover from a broken leg (as that was the only injury at that time). Whenever the devs push a death penalty that is in any way inconvenient, the howling begins.

 

For me, it is not a problem with temptation. It is a problem with unintentionally dying and having the problems I am trying to legitimately solve getting solved for me. I was at a high percentage of infection and by finding honey I was able to get it down to within 10% of being fully healed. I did a quest hoping to be offered herbal antibiotics as a reward but died during the quest due to poor judgement. Healed. Instantly.

 

Sucks.  But it does push me to play voluntary dead is dead and just start over. What is interesting is that they have created all of these new injuries and setbacks and yet the death penalty is still so carebear that all they have done is create more reasons for a player who hates the inconvenience of injuries to just suicide. Perhaps when they come out with the vehicle critical malfunctions those can be completely cleared when you die as well...

Yeah, death penalty is still too low. I've been gimped before and unlucky with finding a fix, so when I died it was "yay", no more gimpiness.

 

It would be interesting to increase the penalty, but have a respawn with no penalty option, but at a distant random location, so you have to run back empty handed through whatever is out there.

[FranticDan]

14 minutes ago, faatal said:

Yeah, death penalty is still too low. I've been gimped before and unlucky with finding a fix, so when I died it was "yay", no more gimpiness.

 

It would be interesting to increase the penalty, but have a respawn with no penalty option, but at a distant random location, so you have to run back empty handed through whatever is out there.

I think retaining debuffs on death would help solve the exploit of death being the cure all remedy. I've watched MP lets plays and streams and so many times I hear, "oh I'm starving, I'm just gonna eat glass", "oh crap I have a broken leg, I'll just kill myself".

It makes the entire critical system that you guys have worked on for A19 a complete joke when people can cure themselves through death.

When wellness was a thing, the death penalty was bigger than the current XP debt.

[RestInPieces]

Oh look at this! A discussion about the DP! I am almost tearing up here.

 

7 hours ago, FranticDan said:

I think retaining debuffs on death would help solve the exploit of death being the cure all remedy. I've watched MP lets plays and streams and so many times I hear, "oh I'm starving, I'm just gonna eat glass", "oh crap I have a broken leg, I'll just kill myself".

It makes the entire critical system that you guys have worked on for A19 a complete joke when people can cure themselves through death.

When wellness was a thing, the death penalty was bigger than the current XP debt.

Wellness was a pretty decent concept, but there was no real penalty.

 

The drawback in having less max life is dying more easily. Death was something borderline positive, so who the heck would worry about dying more easily? It was *way* better having 130 (with perks) minimum life, free teleportation and free debuff curing, than ditching all these and making an effort to raise your max life.

 

Wellness could have been salvaged though (like LBD)  - like all interesting concepts, it just needed some ironing out.

 

14 hours ago, Roland said:

They tried this in A17 and it was quite unpopular. No need for gamesparks to see that many people just sat around or went AFK until the skill penalty timed out because they refused to play at diminished capacity. The original timer was an hour and then it was reduced to 30 minutes and then it was scrapped for the xp deficit instead.

 

Perhaps the problem was simply that it was time based. Perhaps if such things were tied to the xp-deficit and went away when that was earned back it would push people to play to remove the curse rather than refuse to play until the curse was gone. I still think quite a few would rage about it though...

14 hours ago, Maharin said:

Yeah, I think more work needs to be done on the "after near death experience".  Persistent maladies will help, but maybe they should also do some sizeable percentage of damage to your gear so you will likely need to do many repairs.  Or maybe the death experience penalty has debuffs that go with it, such as moving slower or doing less damage, or maybe skill penalties.  All of these should likely go away with the exp penalty, in this scenario.

 

Near death needs to make you feel like you don't want to go through it again if you can avoid it.  It needs to be worse than what happens to you while you're alive so you have a reason to want to stay alive.  It's a balancing act for sure.

 

Exactly, death has to *hurt* - that's the whole point and that's how staying alive becomes rewarding. It's human mechanics, no way around them, there is no positive without the negative and all that pizzaz 😛 

 

People were AFKing, not only because the DP made almost every action "slower", but also because there is not a hint of time-sensitivity in the grand scheme of things. Earning back the deficit sounds good but it might lead people to OC behaviors like our beloved LBD that we eventually had to put down.

 

I don't like the following solution much, because it is a little prone to OC behaviors as well, but it kind of pampers and punishes players at the same time so:

 

-Every debuff the player has during the death event, could act as a multiplier (or additions) to the XP penalty's base value. That way players should be very eager to get rid of them, plus not die by/while they are afflicted with them. 

-*But*, and this is an important "but", this is not enough by a longshot, because the XP penalty has a rather low-ish limit - so when that whole bar turns red (which isn't a terrible thing at all, because of the way that disgusting level scaling works), the player could get an actually painful penalty like the death sickness we used to have. The difference with this penalty is that it gives a *lot* of leeway to the player, they can avoid it, work around it and in general, expect it. 

 

 

[Sakurambo]

On 11/18/2020 at 2:03 PM, Daemonjax said:

you can just kill yourself and you're healed of everything (and given full food and water meters to boot) with no penalty

the penalty shows up in the gamestage, every death subtract 2 from yours GS and your loot quality drop