Thoughts on Alpha 21

[Adam the Waster]

I wanted to not only share my thoughts on alpha 21. But I also want to here other people's thoughts. Both good and bad. 

 

But my overall Is I think this is one of the best alphas so far. 

 

 

[YourMirror]

Agreed.

[Adam the Waster]

The good (I'm on moble so I can't space it out as well) 

 

The new decorative parts of the map are great and really add life into the world. 

 

New pois are! just awesome.  I love the military check point and the crush tower. 

 

The addition of getting Harder drinks like moonshine and megacrush from machines is great (more on this later) 

 

Updates on the baton and intellect is very nice.  (More on this later) 

 

Bonus headshot damage on rifles is GREAT! Cuz I always just used a scope on My AR and just shot them from range. 

 

City's in random gen are wonderful and it makes navezgane look kinda strange in comparison.  But the extra additions too navezgane are great! Like the tunnel or the wedding venue. 

 

The change to spears Is what I have been asking for! And spears are great. 

 

The new models are great as well.  Like the campfires and forge. 

 

I thought I would hate the POI titles popping up. But it's not too noticeable and I love many of the names of houses and POIs

 

The burnt forest being gone was a good change. Imo 

So many more 

 

Bad

 

While I like the water change.  There should be a way to get much more foe ether you're or for crafting.  Like a water pump and the water purifier mod makes water laughably easy. 

 

Drinks in some vending machines like awesome sauce stacked with sugar butts are kinda wacked I miss crafting it cuz there is no purpose to make it. My suggestion is to make it more pricey like 3500 dukes 

 

I love all the new decorative blocks but so many we can't craft. Why?  I like the "appliances" building block but some more should be added. Like paper posters, plastic decorations, store decorations, Scrap/junk decorations/defense, flags, flag polls, special gates ext. And don't say mods you shouldn't have to do that.

 

The new barbed wire is so sexy. Why can't we make it and uses it

 

Intelligent is still lacking a tier 3 melee weapon.  I know we are suppose to be getting a "plasma baton" but it still so lacking in game 

 

Breaching shells have been nerftes badly.  They uses to breach through a gun vault in 1 to 2 shots. Now it's only useful for doors. Ether change them or turn them into something new like incendiary shells

 

Vehicle hp nerft is a bit much. I don't mind taking better of my 4x4 but dear God I can't hit 7 zombies without it breaking.  

 

Hostile wildlife in the forest biome is really lacking. It's way to easy. I get its the easy zone but damn add some challenge.  

Like only have coyotes, wolfs, and bears

And add more boar and make them hostile if you get too close. 

 

Aiming on some guns feel. Off we all know how strange the AK aiming is. But weapons like the hunting rifle are really strange to aim with iron sights. I would raise it a bit so you can match with the sights better to match with the sniper and pipe rifle. 

 

Mutated zombies still in a strange place. The radiation damage is nice but they don't spawn on blood moons. Why! 

Mutated, burnt/burning and zombie bears should spawn during blood moons

 

They should be able to heal near by zombies and melee damage deals rad damage. 

 

 

Aside from that and other small stuff I love alpha 21! And I look forward to alpha 22 and stop using my makeshift pc and uses my console to play! Much love TFP

[Ripflex]

Not my favourite update with the Magazines, it has the same issue where you get the gear before you get the knowledge to craft it IMO.

 

The other additions like new textures and POIs are cool.

 

And stealth is still pointless on quested POIs.

[RipClaw]

The magazine system is okayish if you know which perks to choose to advance quickly and which to avoid. I have never had the problem of falling behind the trader or loot stage with the perks I had invested points in. I am currently on day 77 and have maxed out almost all the magazines. However, I also had a good starting point and generally many sources for magazines. It isn't my favorite progress system but I can make it work.

 

What I don't like about the A21 is that you get tons of screamers. I have 12 dew collectors, 6 work benches, 5 chemistry stations, 3 cement mixers, 6 forges, and 3 campfires.
That's a lot of heat, but I need the workstations if I don't want to wait forever for everything. I hope this will be rebalanced for A22. And I hope the cooking times are reduced. Without at least one point in Master Chef, everything takes forever.

 

 

 

 

[Adam the Waster]

5 hours ago, Ripflex said:

Not my favourite update with the Magazines, it has the same issue where you get the gear before you get the knowledge to craft it IMO.

 

The other additions like new textures and POIs are cool.

 

And stealth is still pointless on quested POIs.

Idk how i forgot magazines but it's not the worst or the best. It's OK 

 

And yes stealth is basically worthless.  Unless you got a compound bow or crossbow.  Blades are laughably useless 

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

 

What I don't like about the A21 is that you get tons of screamers. I have 12 dew collectors, 6 work benches, 5 chemistry stations, 3 cement mixers, 6 forges, and 3 campfires.
That's a lot of heat, but I need the workstations if I don't want to wait forever for everything. I hope this will be rebalanced for A22. And I hope the cooking times are reduced. Without at least one point in Master Chef, everything takes forever.

 

 

 

 

I got 2 dew collectors 2 forges a campfire and a Chem bench and a mine under my house so I feel you.

 

And cooking does @%$# me off. I don't make special stews anymore or alcohols 

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, RipClaw said:

The magazine system is okayish if you know which perks to choose to advance quickly and which to avoid. I have never had the problem of falling behind the trader or loot stage with the perks I had invested points in. I am currently on day 77 and have maxed out almost all the magazines. However, I also had a good starting point and generally many sources for magazines. It isn't my favorite progress system but I can make it work.

 

What I don't like about the A21 is that you get tons of screamers. I have 12 dew collectors, 6 work benches, 5 chemistry stations, 3 cement mixers, 6 forges, and 3 campfires.
That's a lot of heat, but I need the workstations if I don't want to wait forever for everything. I hope this will be rebalanced for A22. And I hope the cooking times are reduced. Without at least one point in Master Chef, everything takes forever.

 

 

 

 

 

We had this discussion before, but I have new data as well:

 

Right now my group has about 16 dew collectors, 2 camp fires, 2 chem stations, 5 work benches, 1 cement mixer and 6 forges, and at least the 6 forges were in constant use when I stayed home for a whole day recently. Our base is surrounded by a ring of spikes two deep.

 

I think I did hear a screamer twice that day. I didn't even go out to look for them because they died before I would have had a chance to see them. They didn't even cost me a seconds time. Naturally keeping the spikes in repair does cost one of our group some time, not sure how much.

 

My group was actually a bit disappointed how non-existent the screamer threat was. It seems most other people have a similar experience (judging by the almost zero complaints), so your only hope is a mod.

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

57 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Right now my group has about 16 dew collectors, 2 camp fires, 2 chem stations, 5 work benches, 1 cement mixer and 6 forges, and at least the 6 forges were in constant use when I stayed home for a whole day recently. Our base is surrounded by a ring of spikes two deep.

With my current base this is not feasible as I use it as a horde base at the same time and therefore all spikes would be destroyed during horde night.

 

It's not that I can't fight off the screamers or the screamer hordes. My horde base works just as well for screamer hordes as it does for bloodmoon hordes. It's more that the screamers annoy me. I want to do something like work on a part of my base and I hear a screamer whining and I have to stop what I was doing.

 

57 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I think I did hear a screamer twice that day. I didn't even go out to look for them because they died before I would have had a chance to see them. They didn't even cost me a seconds time. Naturally keeping the spikes in repair does cost one of our group some time, not sure how much.

Well my group consists of me, myself and I.

 

57 minutes ago, meganoth said:

My group was actually a bit disappointed how non-existent the screamer threat was. It seems most other people have a similar experience (judging by the almost zero complaints), so your only hope is a mod.

I would be happy to pass along some screamers to your group.

 

The reason so few people complain is probably because most people see the screamers as XP and not a real threat.

 

I wouldn't be so sure that the heat from the workstations won't change in A22, though. I was wondering the other day why I hardly got any screamers with the pickaxe when I was mining iron or lead. So I had the heat displayed and it looks like if you need two hits to destroy an iron block, you just stay under the 100% heat. And the heat also seems to dissipate faster. The heat meter has also changed from A20. It seems they are working on balancing the heat in the game.

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Adam the Waster]

41 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

 

I wouldn't be so sure that the heat from the workstations won't change in A22, though. I was wondering the other day why I hardly got any screamers with the pickaxe when I was mining iron or lead. So I had the heat displayed and it looks like if you need two hits to destroy an iron block, you just stay under the 100% heat. And the heat also seems to dissipate faster. The heat meter has also changed from A20. It seems they are working on balancing the heat

 

 

They are mostly for xp unless you get the tougher zombies then it's more worrying 

 

You shouldn't have to have 16 dew collectors to get water. Like I said! Water pump! Or something 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Adam the Waster (see edit history)

[doughphunghus]

I like most of A21. In terms of water (i play sibgle player): ive never had an issue that was major, but i do loot a lot and dont build "a single permanent mega fortress" filled with dew collectors and workstations, i just run around and make sure i have a POI nearby reinforced enough to live through the horde and for crafting "enough". I do play a slow game though, not min/maxing so "the struggle" for something is always there. I personally think the magazine stuff is "not as fun as gun parts were" but i do like how it has "fixed" tool and weapon progression so it feels better and also better than just dumping perk points into things to advance tools/weapons.

 

i also dont really "play a specific type" of game like "stealth" or "fists only" or "intelligence build this time!". I just put points into whatever i want. Some games i just want to build and farm for awhile, then i go "hih, probably should spend a week looting as im short of supplies. Mmmmm looks like im going to he using my knife, club , and shovel this time". 

 

Ive heard a lot of complaints about "debuff stacking too much" and "vehicle damage too much" but (as a long time player) i like that those  things were made kore difficult. I dont mind dying IF i know i decided to take on a POI or a horde (and debuffing fast when multi hit) and i wasn't really "ready" for it, but the "stealth is broken" complaints  seem to have more weight as ive been trying to he quiet (because low health, early game and all i have is a wet napkin wrapped around a stick and aome grass pants) and boom every zed wakes up and charges me. BUT "running away" almost always keeps me alive, so maybe thats the purpose: spice things up and get you killed if you're too cocky and never run away/prep? Like "you cannot always rely on stealth so, be prepared!"

 

 

[Adam the Waster]

29 minutes ago, doughphunghus said:

I like most of A21. In terms of water (i play sibgle player): ive never had an issue that was major, but i do loot a lot and dont build "a single permanent mega fortress" filled with dew collectors and workstations, i just run around and make sure i have a POI nearby reinforced enough to live through the horde and for crafting "enough". I do play a slow game though, not min/maxing so "the struggle" for something is always there. I personally think the magazine stuff is "not as fun as gun parts were" but i do like how it has "fixed" tool and weapon progression so it feels better and also better than just dumping perk points into things to advance tools/weapons.

 

i also dont really "play a specific type" of game like "stealth" or "fists only" or "intelligence build this time!". I just put points into whatever i want. Some games i just want to build and farm for awhile, then i go "hih, probably should spend a week looting as im short of supplies. Mmmmm looks like im going to he using my knife, club , and shovel this time". 

 

Ive heard a lot of complaints about "debuff stacking too much" and "vehicle damage too much" but (as a long time player) i like that those  things were made kore difficult. I dont mind dying IF i know i decided to take on a POI or a horde (and debuffing fast when multi hit) and i wasn't really "ready" for it, but the "stealth is broken" complaints  seem to have more weight as ive been trying to he quiet (because low health, early game and all i have is a wet napkin wrapped around a stick and aome grass pants) and boom every zed wakes up and charges me. BUT "running away" almost always keeps me alive, so maybe thats the purpose: spice things up and get you killed if you're too cocky and never run away/prep? Like "you cannot always rely on stealth so, be prepared!"

 

 

I agree with the tools and guns, I've been replaying console sense it runs better then my pc. And I though I missed LBD but after playing its kinda a pain in the ass and there's bearly any perks. 

 

Vehicles aren't that bad but it kinda sucks to off road. It's a bit much 

[-Holo-]

I'd say it's the best update since A16 in my eyes. A17 was a disaster with A18,19 and 20 slowly slowly improving.

It seems a bit of thought has gone into balancing loot in A21 which is appreciated, and the magazine system is better then the old
superdumb skillpoints system. Even though we'd prefer a LBD at core.

Randomgen is absolutely amazing on building towns and cities

Removal of empty bottles created a fun scarcity for making glue needed for everything.

New POI's are amazing looking

That said. there's a -lot- of issues still, Some of it I'm working on modding away, others are not so easy like:

Sleeper Zombie popins again, not as bad as in A16 but still pretty bad,

There's no zombies out in the world in this zombie game. (and the engine can't handle many zombies any longer)

No reason to bother with hordenights

Outside of towns/cities are really dull.

Terribly small maps by default
Radiated zombies are an awful way to increase challenge. Bulletsponge enemies are the worst (and laziest) way to increase difficulty.

Removal of empty bottles is so damn dumb it's hard to express. It's purely a game mechanic, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. We're eating the bottles?

Traders are an omnipotent force in the world.

Almost all POI's are the dumb dungeon mentality with a clear path to go with treasure room at the end.

Musictracks are horribly repetetive, especially the hordenight track

 

The more we play, the more tidbits of missing things come up that we miss, how the biomes have been reduced into just one of each per map, removal of savannah, birch (?) forest, combination of wasteland and the burnt biome, reduction of block upgrades, reduced variety of loot, smell, etc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vaeliorin]

I gotta admit, as weird as it is, I miss concrete drying.  Yeah, it was kind of annoying because it was random, but I miss that thrill of upgrading something and hoping it would dry before horde night.

[Rotor]

On 8/29/2023 at 10:10 AM, RipClaw said:

Well my group consists of me, myself and I.

 

Wow, what a coincidence, I know those three.  Small world isnt it? :).

[Adam the Waster]

1 hour ago, Vaeliorin said:

I gotta admit, as weird as it is, I miss concrete drying.  Yeah, it was kind of annoying because it was random, but I miss that thrill of upgrading something and hoping it would dry before horde night.

God no I don't miss that at all. But I do agree it did add a ton of dread 

[lord_ahriman]

I have to say A21 surprised me.

 

1) As a heavy miner/builder I thought the new magazine system would be atrocious, because I'd have to dedicate more time to quest/exploration than doing my thing. Well they changed block damage a lot and I can one-shot almost everything (iron and lead are exceptions), so a nice trade off.

 

2) New water system. I like it a lot, but we need at the bare minimum some mod that allows us to stack water. This way we don't need to check every single day each dew collector. It does not need to be like 100, but 10 would be a nice addition. For example, exploding bolts are mandatory for me because I don't like to carry thousands of ammo, therefore in my current base (work in progress though) I have 37 dew collectors and 20 x 20 supercorn field so I can spam glue to fullfill my needs.

 

3) Balancing. Yeah, I think some magazines requirements are way too high. Cement mixer and chemistry station, for example, should be a bit lower. Electric fence post is another example. Right now some requirements are so high that is way too difficult to start a playtrough in snow/wasteland as a solo player. A little observation: is coal gone from desert biom? I tried three different maps and not a single coal ore in desert. A21 gamestage is scalling so fast in snow/wasteland so I tried starting in desert and it was a lot better than forest (here you really need to bump difficulty, feral sense on all the time to get it a bit better, but still way too easy imo), but with no coal it's impossible.

 

4) Screamers. I don't mind the heat map attracting tons of screamers, what I don't like is screamers spamming during quests.

 

5) From the Shadows Perk. Absolutely useless. Sneaking is dead and it does nothing to difficulty screamers to spawn zombies while minning at the bedrock.

 

 

Overall I'd say it's a very good alpha, but I still like A20 more.

[Adam the Waster]

12 minutes ago, lord_ahriman said:

 

4) Screamers. I don't mind the heat map attracting tons of screamers, what I don't like is screamers spamming during quests.

 

5) From the Shadows Perk. Absolutely useless. Sneaking is dead and it does nothing to difficulty screamers to spawn zombies while minning at the bedrock.

 

 

Overall I'd say it's a very good alpha, but I still like A20 more.

I don't mind the screamers on quest. It adds more zombies around even tho I modded my XML to be 2x more. I still like having more zombies cuz like what holo said. The world feels empty 

 

And yes stealth is useless. I really hope they fix it especially with the new stealth armor coming 

 

Everything else i agree with. 

[Vaeliorin]

2 hours ago, lord_ahriman said:

1) As a heavy miner/builder I thought the new magazine system would be atrocious, because I'd have to dedicate more time to quest/exploration than doing my thing. Well they changed block damage a lot and I can one-shot almost everything (iron and lead are exceptions), so a nice trade off.

 

A little observation: is coal gone from desert biom? I tried three different maps and not a single coal ore in desert.

You could 1 shot stone (and 2 shot iron/lead) for a number of alphas now.

 

Also, there's never been coal in the desert (unmodded.)  It has oil shale instead.

[lord_ahriman]

2 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

You could 1 shot stone (and 2 shot iron/lead) for a number of alphas now.

 

Also, there's never been coal in the desert (unmodded.)  It has oil shale instead.

 

Block damage. You couldn't one-shot certain ores or stones since A17 unless you change block damage on settings and I have never changed these parameters because I feel I'm cheating. In A20, for example, the most single-shot damage I saw was 259. (T6 steel pickaxe)

 

Coal. Yes, you could get coal from desert biome. That's via the ingame journal entry for mining (I don't know if they changed it in A21):

 

"All biomes have iron ore and a lower chance for all ores. All biomes have a predominate ore which can be found in the biome near bedrock. Special ores per biome are nitrate in snow and wasteland, lead in the forest, coal in the burnt forest, and oil shale in the desert. Boulders are typically found where ore veins exist close to the surface. Dig up a gravel spot near a boulder and you get 1 piece of the ore found below. Follow the gravel trail to the ore vein. Clay soil can be dug up almost everywhere."

 

 

So, I'm sorry, my friend, but you are wrong both cases.

[BFT2020]

9 minutes ago, lord_ahriman said:

Coal. Yes, you could get coal from desert biome. That's via the ingame journal entry for mining (I don't know if they changed it in A21):

 

That hasn't been true for awhile now.  At least from A19 and on, coal has not been found in the desert to mine.  Not sure if A16-A18 if it was available back then.

[Vaeliorin]

5 minutes ago, lord_ahriman said:

 

Block damage. You couldn't one-shot certain ores or stones since A17 unless you change block damage on settings and I have never changed these parameters because I feel I'm cheating. In A20, for example, the most single-shot damage I saw was 259. (T6 steel pickaxe)

 

Coal. Yes, you could get coal from desert biome. That's via the ingame journal entry for mining (I don't know if they changed it in A21):

 

"All biomes have iron ore and a lower chance for all ores. All biomes have a predominate ore which can be found in the biome near bedrock. Special ores per biome are nitrate in snow and wasteland, lead in the forest, coal in the burnt forest, and oil shale in the desert. Boulders are typically found where ore veins exist close to the surface. Dig up a gravel spot near a boulder and you get 1 piece of the ore found below. Follow the gravel trail to the ore vein. Clay soil can be dug up almost everywhere."

 

 

So, I'm sorry, my friend, but you are wrong both cases.

If that's what the journal says, it's wrong (or you're playing a mod...kinda looks like Darkness Falls, honestly, though that would mention uranium/plutonium and titanium or tungsten or something along those lines.)  Heck, the burnt forest doesn't exist any more, boulders and gravel spots have nothing to do with mining (there isn't even surface gravel outside of roads any longer), there's no "predominate ore" and stuff isn't found only near bedrock. 

 

If I'm remembering correctly there might have been boulders and gravel in A17 or A18 (though I might be remembering a mod) but that certainly hasn't been the case for several alphas.

 

Also, I regularly one-shotted stone and 2-shotted iron/lead in previous alphas.  It required good tools modded properly.

[lord_ahriman]

11 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

That hasn't been true for awhile now.  At least from A19 and on, coal has not been found in the desert to mine.  Not sure if A16-A18 if it was available back then.

 

9 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

If that's what the journal says, it's wrong (or you're playing a mod...kinda looks like Darkness Falls, honestly, though that would mention uranium/plutonium and titanium or tungsten or something along those lines.)  Heck, the burnt forest doesn't exist any more, boulders and gravel spots have nothing to do with mining (there isn't even surface gravel outside of roads any longer), there's no "predominate ore" and stuff isn't found only near bedrock. 

 

If I'm remembering correctly there might have been boulders and gravel in A17 or A18 (though I might be remembering a mod) but that certainly hasn't been the case for several alphas.

 

Also, I regularly one-shotted stone and 2-shotted iron/lead in previous alphas.  It required good tools modded properly.

 

You guys are misunderstanding my post: I did a question "is coal gone from desert?" which is totally different from saying "there is coal in desert". Back in the days, as I said, there was coal in desert, it was not common, but you could find it over there. And that was my critique about A21: as a veteran player starting in the desert is a lot better than forest, but without coal it's impossible to go on.

 

Vaeliorin, you could one-shot certain ores before A21 (in A16 it was possible as well), but you need to change block damage on settings, at default you couldn't. They absolutely changed it in A21.

[Vaeliorin]

15 minutes ago, lord_ahriman said:

You guys are misunderstanding my post: I did a question "is coal gone from desert?" which is totally different from saying "there is coal in desert". Back in the days, as I said, there was coal in desert, it was not common, but you could find it over there. And that was my critique about A21: as a veteran player starting in the desert is a lot better than forest, but without coal it's impossible to go on.

 

Vaeliorin, you could one-shot certain ores before A21 (in A16 it was possible as well), but you need to change block damage on settings, at default you couldn't. They absolutely changed it in A21.

Fine, but asking if coal is gone from the desert without specifying since which alpha, the assumption is A20.  Coal has been gone from the desert for a long time (I honestly don't remember it ever being there outside mods, but it might have been in A16, it's been ages and I never mined underground in A16, you could get all the resources you needed from surface boulders) so the common answer would be "no, there wasn't coal there in the first place."

 

As to the mining, I mostly play modded, so it's possible my memory of the brief period every alpha I play unmodded might be fuzzy, but I was fairly certain that a max damage rolled Q6 Steel Pick with Bunker Buster/Iron Breaker/2 other mods could 1 shot stone/2 shot iron and lead.  It's possible I'm misremembering.  But I never mess with block damage, so it certainly wasn't that.

[lord_ahriman]

8 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

Fine, but asking if coal is gone from the desert without specifying since which alpha, the assumption is A20.  Coal has been gone from the desert for a long time (I honestly don't remember it ever being there outside mods, but it might have been in A16, it's been ages and I never mined underground in A16, you could get all the resources you needed from surface boulders) so the common answer would be "no, there wasn't coal there in the first place."

 

As to the mining, I mostly play modded, so it's possible my memory of the brief period every alpha I play unmodded might be fuzzy, but I was fairly certain that a max damage rolled Q6 Steel Pick with Bunker Buster/Iron Breaker/2 other mods could 1 shot stone/2 shot iron and lead.  It's possible I'm misremembering.  But I never mess with block damage, so it certainly wasn't that.

 

Now, that's fine. I should have been more specific about the coal question and about the one-shot ore, by playing it modded you will get the same result (in this regard) as raising block damage. I always play vanilla and sometimes Gna mod Hord Mode that's why I was enphatic about it and because I'm a miner/builder type player.

[Adam the Waster]

After playing a bit more i have a few other things i want to get off my mind.  

 

Cotton still only gives 1 cloth and doesn't match the new cloth cost for many things. The amount Cotton from cloth and the fiber book give 4 Cloth per craft. 

 

I know I made a post about it but iron sights are messed up. For many weapons like Tactical Ars, Magnum, hunting rifle and pipe AR, it's annoying. The hunting rifle could also uses some real ironsights. I don't care if it's a peice of wire wrapped into a Circle. 

 

Stealth is completely worthless. But I still like the trigger points. My suggestion. Have the "triggers" being live. 

 

Like a POI screamers. If she screamers not only she lures/spawns zombies around her, but she spawns the trigger zombies in the POI, or even something like a Alarm you can deactivate it or if you or a zombie set it off it spawns them. 

 

Cop cars are pretty easy to cheese, just break and run. Should be right when you hit then it turns on. So you gotta quickly break it while the alarm is going off. You way say? "I'll just drive off" and you can! Once you break it

Cuz right when you come back they will just respawn.