A20, the good, the bad, the ugly.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

Man, it's bad ass. I'm happy. Loving it, truly. Good friggin' job gentleman, because this was over the top. 

 

The good:

Where to even begin, the loot is finally worth looting! It feels better, and I've found some drops I didn't expect. Bike frame? Got one. Steel in garbage? Got it. Broken stations finally dropping appropriate schematics? Got it. Plaster casts? Oh yeah. Casings are back, which was excellent. Never knew why they left.... (Also mod idea, keep casings per shot. Brass catchers are a real thing)

 

Love the revamp of POI materials! Wood feels tougher. Speaking of wood, the frames being a total control of shapes is AWESOME! We usually take a prefab as a base and I renovate it to feel "normal" again as a goal, and now I can do it so much easier. Pro tip, the "copy shape" option is your friend! Don't worry if you can't find it, just copy. Genuinely appreciate this, please don't remove it. I've missed what the old table saw used to offer.

 

Zombies feel better, combat is much harsher and I don't mind. Stock difficulty is back to feeling challenging (at least early on; as I write). They seem to have the "magnetism" they did in earlier versions, and the "feral sense" works well for me, as I got too good at clearing POI's. The new placement for them is also good, they're in sneaky spots and I like it. 

 

Loot! I like getting multiple types even in garbage. Stones, cobble and cloth? Sure. I like that it isn't just "2 cloth" and that's it. Sometimes that happens, but it's uncommon now, and I really appreciate the adjustments. It really shines. I do feel like I'm moving "faster" now with loot, but the difficulty with zombies combats that to even out. For the first time since buying this and playing it totally green, I'm dying on day 1, and I'm not even mad. 

 

We ran into a wight on day 1! I like that it isn't so easy anymore. We were phenomenally good at the game in early stage because the zombies were contingent on our gamestage and we'd game it. Work the hard spots out early to avoid something that could be a mess later. Not anymore. I appreciate that, personally. 

 

The bad: 

I like the adjustment to food, but I feel like stamina might need a rework if food is this insane. Coffee is a major boon and anything that has a lasting stamina buff is not to be overlooked in the early stages. It REALLY pays. I like that coffee feels a bit better now. If farming is being reworked to be a bit more brutal, maybe step off the gas on drain, or at least stamina, until it's complete? I do appreciate food now being a challenge, however. It wasn't remotely before. Now it hurts. Could just be me adjusting. It also made steel tools useless as they took more stamina per strike so I always stuck to stone and iron as a result. This seems to have been adjusted. I don't tire out as fast with my iron shovel versus my stone.

 

Criticals are abundant. In my wife and I's game, I never get into a scrap with two or more zombies without one, if it's melee. The reach feels more appropriate. The criticals and especially infection is intense. Stumps rarely give honey and I can't tell if I like it or not, but given that in our file I've been infected three times, it is raw. It's also day five.

 

The ugly:

Bugs. I've noted some odd bugs, not the least of which being a new clipping issue and I don't know why. Zombies and myself have clipped under the planet and at least when it happened with a zombie on a clear quest, they died? So I didn't lose that quest due to it. I've noted pink arrows whenever someone else shoots a bow, numbers on my inventory seem to "think" (I see a scroll of a numbers then my number on items), zombies will attack floors if they're knocked down then getting up and stay attacking floors and some other mild visual bugs. The lighting is too dramatic. It's like the sun is a flashlight and needs to be a bit more diffused. The reflections are bright and harsh and the "direction" of the light is very, well, direct. It gives it a strange almost oversaturated look, to me. Dark is dang near black, which may be how they've always wanted it and it's just an adjustment for us. I'd request a little more light shedding from things like torches or candles then, as they don't really "illuminate" so much as "light up" the blocks they're near, if that makes sense. I don't expect a candle to light up a room, but only letting me see a block or two away is a massive change to what they were and how they seem in POI's. 

 

Sides:

Love the trader reworks, love the job reworks, by and large I love all of it. I have my nitpicks, but they're just that: nitpicks. It's damn good and I think it's going to bring a lot more people on. Again, good job Pimps. Damn good job. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Lenny Lettuce Lips
Diction, and additions (see edit history)

[Darklegend222]

Here's the things I really love:

1. Airdrops can give ammo material boxes which provide gunpowder, buckshot, paper, bullet casings, and lead bullet tips. Which is perfect so you don't have to hope you get the proper ammo, it's very well done.

 

2. Zombies give me something to fear, I used to main insane difficulty, now I'm struggling on warrior difficulty with zombies set to run.

 

3. Traders have a really nice bonus for doing their "special" job and it makes it infinitely better to quest.

 

4. The random gen (must i say more?)

 

5. Pipe weapons, I no longer rush quests as much as possible to get a proper firearm by day 7 to obliterate a horde.

 

6. The new shapes are perfect to build with and they have so much more health so I actually feel safe in my home when a straggler shows up.

 

and 7. The looting system, having amazing looking containers, finding a nice abundance of resources, and always being forced to scavenge is perfect for this alpha.

 

Now the things I dislike:

 

1. The towns seem to always have so, much, corn. If I had any perks in LotL, I could literally live off corn, FOREVER. It also seems to be only plant people want to farm aside from the odd potato "plantation" that has 8-10.

 

2. The pipe rifle and the pipe machine gun feel unbalanced. The rifle is 1 shot reload (same with the shotgun), but does less damage the shotgun. Meanwhile the pipe machine gun has 20 bullets at lvl 1, about 20dmg, and a much faster reload than the other guns. (Perhaps increase damage of rifle, and heavily increase reload time on pipe machine gun?)

 

Finally 3. Some of the older POIs don't have a proper exit so you either have to frame yourself out the way you came in, or you have to bash through walls that now have double health. Seems clunky and not entirely finished.

 

Other than that, I think it's a phenomenal alpha, and I thought A17-19 were pretty meh and very linear in ways to play, but now it feels like we're way less gated and we have many options to play and explore however we wish!