My current feedback FTO TFP

[Dark Viper]

Hi, I thought I'd take the time to list my feedback and suggestions. No idea if I'll be heard in any way or so on but I believe the game is worth it 100% as I've put in thousands of hours. Just going to do my good deed for the day I guess
I'm passionate about this game and love how it's turning out so far. I don't say this lightly. I'd say in my older age I'm extremely hard to please but I just love the depth, immersion and most of all the sheer mountain of things you're trying to accomplish all in one game! If anything I say comes across as negative or dis-pleasing I do apologise. I've been told the language I use sometimes may appear so. This is simply feedback because I love the game so much and want to take my own time to pass that on to allow you to possibly make the playing experience even better than it already is. I'm going to list my points as clearly and concisely as I can below to get straight to the point and with possible solutions/ideas where possible.
Most of what I'm going to write is about the changing or fixing of existing features rather than adding new things. While we all like new shiney things I'm a firm believer fixing what you have first before moving on. So you'll notice the top of the list stuff is more urgent fixing over the bottom of the list is more additional balance or ideas to add more detail/depth.
The only other disclaimer I'll add is I know some of these things like spears for example maybe addressed in the upcoming alpha but as nothing is iron clad I've listed it here anyway as it is on my list

-Bows/Crossbows-
This HAS to be top of my list. All I can do is please BEG you to focus attention on this and fix it. The arrow/bolt through zombie experince isn't fun at all lol. An extremely build breaking bug that makes me toss away a bow as soon as I can. I expect you're probably aware of the no hit registered bug that probably seems to happen at least 50% of the time? Probably the most frustrating bug I've ever encountered in your game from my first day to current A20. With that all said I actually love how the bow feels to shoot. Especially the Wooden/Compound bow. Everything from the handling, the speed the arrow flies and the satisfaction when it hits . All I can do is just re-literate and say once again, I beg you, please fix this lol. Very frustrating early game and later on not wanting to do a bow build as I can't be affording to miss shots due to the bug on higher difficulties. I also put Crossbow down as it does sometimes happen with this as well, just far less, which is odd. I do find if zombies are "sleeping" it happens far less but does still happen. Not an uncommon occurrence either unfortunately :(

-Farming-
Again, I know for a fact I'm not alone here. Also one I find extreemly irritating. Please just put it back to how it was in A19. I know it's a survival game and so forth but pulling up a plant by the roots to harvest say a potato and 1 seed isn't... my idea of fun nor realistic lol. In reality I'd pick the fruits/seeds and leave the plant to regrow. You had it nailed in A19. I know on in an industrial level they might do crop rotation and so on but we're small time farmers. If you'd like to make the survival aspect slightly tougher you could maybe add watering the plants as a thing? So you have to water them at least once a harvest or something. That way it's something I have to pay attention to or they die and THEN I have to replant them. Later game a sprinkler system that has to be powered? Just don't take Rust as an example. One has to flood the @%$#ing things with an ocean on there to keep them living xD

-Player Models/Animations/Weapon Models/Animations-
Player models, both from a first and third person perspective. For example if I'm looking at another player the way one turns, looks and moves is very.. goldeneye 1998 haha. The quality also of player models, character creation really, all needs work just to bring it back up to an acceptable level. More customization, more clothing options would be a great addition after the fact.
Weapon models/animations. Similar to above. Certain weapons, say the MP5, which appears to originally been modelled of an MP5SD looking at the grip/barrel. Could do with a nice new lick of paint. Make it say a standard MP5 A5. Then if I put a barrel/suppressor mod on it then it changes to and SD. If you want to add depth and detail anyway. If this got the attention of say what your pipe weapons did. I'd be foaming at the mouth trying that bad boy out 😛 Pipe weapon animations and sounds for the most part are a real good example of what you should try to achieve
That pipe shotgun reload and sound still make me not to want to swap over to a next tier of weapon haha.

 

-Gyrocopter-

Fairly straight forward one. Add mouse steer in effect for the Gyrocopter. Would make handling it a lot smoother and viable. GTA Online control mapping in a nutshell. Not used it in a while but I remember also having issues mistakenly exiting it lol causing me to plummet to my death. Might want to make the key to exit a hold "x" key for so many seconds

As I do hardcore style no deaths allowed playthroughs it's somewhat scares me to enter that vehicle since last leaping out like that xD

 

-Weapon Builds-
This one, I'd probably argue is the most important for the future. At least for me. Gameplay. What it all boils down to over everything for me in a game I stick around in for the long haul.
Add a level of detail to weapons. Make them all viable. While I love maces/clubs to bits, especially a medieval morning star lol. I'd love to do a knife or spear build. At the moment though especially on higher difficulties I'm always going to choose club then maybe brawler later on. Not that I'm saying nerf them, they're viable. However spears.. pipe batons (again amazing animations) really suck lol. Never going to use them. Just a no brainer.
The idea I had here was make each weapon more separate and special. So lets say the spear. I have heard your looking into it but of course nothing is final yet so I have to go off what I see in A20.
Add a knockback to the base attack on enmies hit. Add Penetration and a knockback to power attacks. So it can hit 1-3 enemies in a straight line and keep z's at bay That's could be it's speciality so to speak. Maybe the penetrator perk can tie to that as well as rifles?
Side note on an animation for the spears power attack, thrust. Check out a game called Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord for that beaut. Over shoulder style power thrust animation looks and feels sheer class in that game 😛
Knives do bleed right? Make bleed snare enemies. That way if I slash a few zeds with light attack I can slow down the runners and then use my power attack to start putting out some good damage while they bleed as well
Fists, maybe add a front kick to do a single target push back more than damage (this is sparta lol, can't help but think of that haha) Maybe curb stomp style finisher to grounded zombies that are knocked down by knuckle wielders only?

-Other brief ideas-
QOL - Cable trunking. Adds an invisible block that can't be hit or destroyed, has no effect on integrity/z destruction of buildings in anyway but purely exists as a cosmetic look to bases and to hide wires! Paintable of course
QOL - Land claim block access that you can put mats in to slowly repair blocks in it's radius. Similar to rusts Tool cabinet design I suppose.
QOL - Server listings showing modded servers when you only have the vanilla game. Maybe make a separate menu for modded servers only? That way people with say Undead Legacy can search Undead Legacy servers. Can be annoying if I'm trying to find a populated server and only running vanila and I'd imagine the other way around for people playing UL.

Anyway I hope my feedback does make it your way despite its length and detail but I like to be precise as I friggin love this game and was happy to take my own time to at least try and aid in some areas the best I could. Just to clarify none of this was intended in a negative light but purely for a feedback perspective. If there is anything you need or have questions/answers on for further clarity or what ever. Let me know. I'll happily use any spare time I have to help!
Thankyou Fun Pimps for all the current fun so far! You're so far an example to other game companies on how to build on a game far after its launch/early access and not whore monger down with fluff DLC and the alike! I respect your design ethics and what you've created so far and I can safely say I love your ideology on 7 days to die!
Viper

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, Dark Viper said:

Knives do bleed right? Make bleed snare enemies. That way if I slash a few zeds with light attack I can slow down the runners and then use my power attack to start putting out some good damage while they bleed as well

 

Knives already slow down zombies when you stack bleed affects on them.  At the highest perk for blades, you get a 20% reduction in speed for knives.

[Dark Viper]

Well @%$#.. you learn something knew every day. Will have to do further testing with that then. Probably needs a buff either way to compete though I'd guess?

[meganoth]

Two of your issues are already confirmed features in A21. Read the first post in the dev diary thread, it is always updated with everything that is sure to be in A21.

 

Bow misses: If you are refering to bows not hitting when you are using them point blank then that is a bug (and it isn't on the official bug list, I just checked). If you want that fixed you should make a bug report, see the link in the red banner above.

If your shots miss long range then that is no bug but the miss chance of your bow shown as the circle around your aim pointer. If that circle isn't completely filled with your enemies shillouette you have a chance to miss as the actual hit is somewhere random in this circle. And that is the case with all guns in the game (as well as many other games).

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Pernicious]

On 11/22/2022 at 11:26 PM, meganoth said:

If your shots miss long range then that is no bug but the miss chance of your bow shown as the circle around your aim pointer. If that circle isn't completely filled with your enemies shillouette you have a chance to miss as the actual hit is somewhere random in this circle. And that is the case with all guns in the game (as well as many other games).

I'm playing Darkness Falls at the moment, and hadn't noticed this with Vanilla, but it has been a while since I had a bow build in vanilla. So this could be either a vanilla issue or introduced with DF. 

 

But I'm wondering if the aiming reticule narrows faster than it actually does behind the scenes. That is, if I am aiming and only wait until the reticule seems to be at its smallest, I miss a lot, and some seem to land outside the reticule. If I wait until it it is at its smallest, then wait one or two seconds longer, it almost always hits exactly whete I expect it to.

 

Any chance the zoom in accuracy time changed in the back end (made longer) but the animation wasn't adjusted?

Edited November 26, 2022 by Pernicious (see edit history)

[meganoth]

I would assume that they were intelligent enough to make the animation directly depend on the back end value and not make those independent tasks.

 

But naturally even then there could be all sorts of bugs. Actually that bug about missing with a bow at point blank seems to happen only in some frames of the zombies movement.

The theory now is that the bow is already past the hit box and not registering for such a frame. But maybe we jumped to conclusions and the bug does not depend on point blank and is just much harder to observe in a long range situation(?)

 

Though in that case people would have surely identified the bug much earlier because many many shots are done by stealth players at relatively close range but not point blank!

 

Maybe @theFlu knows more, as he did actual tests.

 

 

[theFlu]

I can't say much with any confidence.

 

Cross hairs vs point of aim, based on my laser observations, it seems to stick to the area of the crosshairs pretty well. Moves more whenever the player moves. If stationary, the aim spends most of it's time at the center even with a wide crosshair, when moving, it "takes off" more often spending less time at the center.

It might go outside a little, but I think my tests (ages ago) didn't manage to capture any. And I'm not even going to claim if the aim area is a circle, a square or a diamond ... I'd say circle, but I could be wrong.

 

The bug I reported being seen at a distance? Quite possible. Two obvious options, either

1) the animation pushes the head hit box too close to the player and the arrow passes through it or

2) for that frame the head hit box is bent out of shape or not there at all

The obvious conclusion is, if 1, not happening at a distance, if 2, happens at distance.

 

I should maybe test it, but with the repro steps a dev will know what to look at already, so not exactly useful. And how much are people shooting at idle animations anyway..?

 

Whether or not that one happens at a distance, I would expect there to be similar issues with other animations; they're not trivial to line up. Also a lot of hard air (door frames, barrels), some possible loading issues causing sleepers to not load properly and thus missing hit boxes; and of course the good old lag issues.

[Pernicious]

Thanks gents.

 

I think I will have to do a bit more testing over the weekend with a stationary box, with the bulls eye painted on it. 

 

It's not a major issue, I just hold for a second or so longer after I think the cross hairs are minimised. 

 

I am getting to the point where with silenced Sniper rifles, I am not using the cross bow so much any more anyway, but thought I'd see if anyone else had similar issues.

 

Thanks.

[Guest]

With regard to bolts/arrows not registering as hit, I have suffered that 'bug' many times that it is beyond frustrating. I have seen it at nearly point blank range

[theFlu]

15 hours ago, Pernicious said:

I think I will have to do a bit more testing over the weekend with a stationary box, with the bulls eye painted on it. 

If you do, slap a laser pointer on a crossbow, that's the perfect tool to see

- how the point of aim travels AND

- that the laser dot is exactly where your shots go (as you can fire a bolt while the dot is traveling and know where you'll hit)

 

From there, you could do most of your testing with the dot (any gun that'll accept one), finding any odd behaviours with it and then taking shots for confirmation. Sadly it won't work with normal bows, I think. Haven't tried if it could be modded in easily.

Edited November 28, 2022 by theFlu (see edit history)