A20 First blush.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

Spoiler, we like it. Also, long post. Big thanks, Fun Pimps

 

Over all, it's excellent. The reworks are being noticed and it's awesome. Boiled meat is the new early food meta, pipe weapons give you a chance to have a gun in your tree and raiding places in downtown early game is risky. We ran into a wight on day one. The type of playstyle we were used to is outdated, and I don't mind at all. We were getting too comfy. The pipe pistol pales even with skill points in that tree, so that may warrant some addressing. I don't mind it being an anemic variant, but not being able to down a zombie in six shots with three points in the pistol tree makes it feel pretty busted and off my list of things to ever bother with. (non feral, all well placed shots). The pipe SMG is also meta as hell, as it just puts in work as long as you have the ammo to get it done.

 

So, with some hours in, what's good:

the loot table changes. Very much appreciated, and they don't feel out of balance. I've noted a "slump" recently in our files where we've been hitting just a single bone in loot, which is literally "throwing me a bone" but ain't loot. It isn't prominent but notable enough we went "hey, what?" so I played with the loot abundance for a day in game. Didn't cure that, but what I noted was something odd, but for a different post. 

 

The sense of fear is there, and I've had several real jumps for myself now which never happened since I first booted this game up. The rework on the in POI zombies is awesome. They've been very well placed and even if I try a stealthy method I can usually get a leg up on some so it never feels unfair. I don't mind the scripted events

 

I love the loot rework. That's really all I can say so far. It's been keen. Love it.

 

The fair:

The lighting. The lighting feels "glossy" to me, and needs to be diffused. I thought it was just me, but I have watched others on YouTube and it's consistent, it needs some work. It reminds me a lot of how my old file was poorly interacting with an update once. I don't know what they're shooting for, but it isn't hitting the mark for me there. If I knew a thing about lighting in programming I feel like I could be more help, but as an observer it's just my opinion.

 

The music is better. I don't mind it but I feel like it's lacking something. I do like how much better the cues are now. Well done. Farming is rough, and if you counted on it before, prepare yourself. Benefit is, I've been finding more seeds and plants in RNG. We found a whole district that was essentially a farm district and that was awesome. It isn't sustainable long game, but knowing towns have a farming side is rewarding (in RNG)

 

The bad:

In my multiplayer experience the game chugs like a college frat boy. I've played with settings and nothing seems to touch it. It's clearly related to how the game is addressing chunks with the new system and I'm fine with it in experimental, but it's worth noting. When I play solo, the game is essentially flawless and I can even boost my settings. It runs clean if you're alone. Even on my smart toaster of a PC, it runs excellent. Solo. But if my wife wants in, the game starts dragging ass. 

 

I've encountered multiple clipping issues, exclusive to ground clipping. Both me and zombies like to sometimes find a line below the "world" and bounce. Happens occasionally. I had a weird bug where I couldn't click anything in my inventory, but hotkeys worked. So if I was to scrap an item, I could using "S" but clicking it was not working. Again, it's still experimental.

 

Going into a downtown section CHUGS our game like no other. My frames drop through the floor. If I'm solo, it's fine, but if it's my wife and I, it's slideshow. I host, she joins. I don't know what makes this so harsh on my PC or the game, but it makes it nearly unplayable. It certainly makes the few encounters we have untenable as we can't even begin to clear a location without significant frame drop to make it too dangerous to try and engage with such large crowds. I don't know if it's how the new models are, or the "meshing". I turned that down and it seemed to help some, but wasn't a solution to the real problem. It's hard to suss out for me, as when I run solo on my rig I can run the settings basically on max but if I host it chugs. 

 

Overall: Love it, love the effort and love the new changes. It's harder now and I don't mind it. We got to a "professional" level of this game early on, and now I don't think we're there anymore. The fun is back and exploration is back. I feel like the best way to get A20 is RWG, and try it. We run with 150% XP, but everything else bone stock, and it's awesome. 

 

Thamks for coming to my TED talk