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A19 first impressions


Dimpy

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I've been stuck with a low-performance computer for the last few years, so I haven't been able to play 7dtd from when A17 was still the newest update to just recently. Since most people haven't skipped A18, I thought I'd share my slightly unique experience.

 

As of this first post I'm 3-4 in-game days in.

 

- I'm liking the new zombie numbers and placement in the POIs. It's not the clown car death traps of A17. It feels more like I'm exploring and less like I'm slogging through a line of z's. I still find myself poking around every corner, always looking up in the rafters, and poking every closet, but it feels more like healthy paranoia than boring certainty.

- Zombies overall seem less threatening. I'm not exactly sure why, but here are a few reasons that could be the case:

   - I no longer have to deal with the .2 second input delay my older computer had.

   - Default difficulty is lowered.

   - The zombie density in POIs is lower.

   - The chuck-spear-at-sleepers strategy I've been using is particularly potent.

    That was my opinion, at least until I came to the realization that

- Critical injuries are really brutal. I fell for one of the breaking floor traps, got surrounded by a few zombies, and got abrasions, a sprained leg, a broken arm, a concussion, and an infection all in the course of four seconds. Suddenly I lost all my hubris and had to limp out of the POI, building ladders and wedges as I went because jumping would literally kill me.

- Infection so far is about as scary and stressful as I remember it. For the first time, the pressure to find a cure has superseded the pressure to build a survivable fort. Unlike A17, I can't go ham on tree stumps to find honey, and I can't look up the map location of a hospital/trader jen like other previous versions because I am in a pregen world.

- The whole "finding stone tools and blunderbusses everywhere" thing is slightly eye-rolling, but far from and actual frustration.

- I dumped five points (three attribute, two perk) into spears, and I'm regretting it. The increased resource cost of higher-quality iron spears kept me from getting an iron one for a very long time, and the % damage boost doesn't seem that strong yet. I would have much rather have put points into more utility stuff like miner 69er and rule 1 cardio (especially now that I have infection).

- I like the lootable recipes. It felt like my character was learning recipes at a similar rate to me figuring out what things I should craft. I feel a lot less pressure to level up because I can learn things just by looting.

- I like the new ambient/battle/home/trader music

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I think another factor in why POI exploration is easier over A17 is that the AI has gone through a few iterations of dumbing down the zombie knowledge of pathways to you.  In A17 you’d have half a dozen zombies relentlessly on your trail and they all knew exactly how to get to you including busting a wall walking around the roof and then coming back in behind you. Now you have three zombies and one or two of those might start pounding on a wall instead of walking through the open doorway to get you. 

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12 hours ago, Dimpy said:

I've been stuck with a low-performance computer for the last few years, so I haven't been able to play 7dtd from when A17 was still the newest update to just recently. Since most people haven't skipped A18, I thought I'd share my slightly unique experience.

 

As of this first post I'm 3-4 in-game days in.

 

- I'm liking the new zombie numbers and placement in the POIs. It's not the clown car death traps of A17. It feels more like I'm exploring and less like I'm slogging through a line of z's. I still find myself poking around every corner, always looking up in the rafters, and poking every closet, but it feels more like healthy paranoia than boring certainty.

- Zombies overall seem less threatening. I'm not exactly sure why, but here are a few reasons that could be the case:

   - I no longer have to deal with the .2 second input delay my older computer had.

   - Default difficulty is lowered.

   - The zombie density in POIs is lower.

   - The chuck-spear-at-sleepers strategy I've been using is particularly potent.

    That was my opinion, at least until I came to the realization that

- Critical injuries are really brutal. I fell for one of the breaking floor traps, got surrounded by a few zombies, and got abrasions, a sprained leg, a broken arm, a concussion, and an infection all in the course of four seconds. Suddenly I lost all my hubris and had to limp out of the POI, building ladders and wedges as I went because jumping would literally kill me.

- Infection so far is about as scary and stressful as I remember it. For the first time, the pressure to find a cure has superseded the pressure to build a survivable fort. Unlike A17, I can't go ham on tree stumps to find honey, and I can't look up the map location of a hospital/trader jen like other previous versions because I am in a pregen world.

- The whole "finding stone tools and blunderbusses everywhere" thing is slightly eye-rolling, but far from and actual frustration.

- I dumped five points (three attribute, two perk) into spears, and I'm regretting it. The increased resource cost of higher-quality iron spears kept me from getting an iron one for a very long time, and the % damage boost doesn't seem that strong yet. I would have much rather have put points into more utility stuff like miner 69er and rule 1 cardio (especially now that I have infection).

- I like the lootable recipes. It felt like my character was learning recipes at a similar rate to me figuring out what things I should craft. I feel a lot less pressure to level up because I can learn things just by looting.

- I like the new ambient/battle/home/trader music

Tree stumps still give honey. It's a 10% chance to get it after destroying it, so you can still save yourself my dude. But it only brings down infection by 5%, so you need herbal  or normal antibiotics for a more potent cure.

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