Thoughts for next update beyond 1.0

[Hammer68]

I have played about 150 hours into 1.0 release at this point.  I have enjoyed this game since first purchasing way back in alpha 15 and have over 1300 hours playtime total.  A couple of suggestions to the developers for the next update (I understand from WaywardEko that this is to be roughly around December 2024):

1. Traders are unnecessarily coarse .  The non-stop abusive language is very tiresome.  It seems to have become even more prominent with the new voice-lines for 1.0.  Yes, it is supposed to be a zombie apocalypse but this is also just a game.  An option to turn this off or mute trader voices would be appreciated.  I can probably locate the variables in the XMLs but this should not be something that a player needs to do.  Another idea, requiring more difficult changes and additional voice-lines, would be to have the dialog become more positive after completing a number of missions for a particular trader.

2. Not enjoying the change to traders being locked to a specific biome.  It would be nice to start a game and not be stuck dealing with Rekt straight out the gate every time.  I think the idea is to force players move into the other biomes in search of the next trader but this seems unnecessary.  A player will still need to travel to find the other traders and with only five biomes, it is unlikely that they will be missed.

3. Please add crafting from nearby containers.  Mods already exist for this and the extremely high download count on Nexus indicates a real need for this in the base game.  Instead of proximity to the storage containers, perhaps the container just needs to be directly next to the workstation in question for this to operate.

4. Again, mods exist for this but having both hunger, thirst and temperature on the HUD would be nice.

5. Big one here: broken quests with clearing areas.  Particularly on the larger tier 4 and 5 quests.  It appears that a player MUST travel a very specific path through the POI to activate the not-yet-spawned zombies to appear.  This is very counter-intuitive as players have been provided tools with which to break down boarded-up doors, windows and walls.  Players are pulled out of the immersion of a sandbox game to be forced into a tight, linear path.  The forums are filled with players complaining about being unable to complete a quest due to non-spawned zombies.  You can raze the POI to the ground and still be unable to complete the quest because the required zeds did not spawn. 

Performance issues with having ALL zeds pre-spawned and in place could be an issue as well as these zeds possibly being prematurely aggroed due to player proximity.  This cannot be resolved even in developer/god mode or via console commands.  However, barring a complete redesign, an option for the player to force-spawn the remaining zombies in the quest POI would be a fantastic temporary solution.  Perhaps after reaching the end-quest loot room or a special activation item or switch found in the end-quest loot to spawn the remainder.  Fighting my way through a very tough tier 5 quest and then being unable to complete it due to pathing/spawn activation point not being hit in the correct order is extremely irritating.

Thank you for the game and the continued support!

[Roland]

On point one, there is already a profanity filter in the audio options in the top menu. Enabling it will prevent traders from using any lines that contain profanity. Rekt should be pretty quiet...

[YourMirror]

You must be the greatest fan of duping. Well, to each his/her/them own.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

On point one, there is already a profanity filter in the audio options in the top menu. Enabling it will prevent traders from using any lines that contain profanity. Rekt should be pretty quiet...

That's actually good to know.  I didn't realize there was such an option.  I'm tired of it myself, so that is good news for me.

 

For number 2, I agree that this isn't a good option.  At least for random maps.  I'm fine with it for Navesgane or even pregen maps, but random maps should be random.  Or at least have the option to disable this lock (and in the future, to disable the story as well).

 

Crafting from containers is brought up a lot.  I don't really mind it myself as I keep everything organized in a way that I can easily grab whatever I need and don't really need it to be automatic.  But I do understand that many people would like that and it wouldn't matter to me, so I support it.  Unfortunately, when it's been brought up on the dev streams, the response from TFP has been pretty indifferent to it.  Hopefully it's something they'll consider, but it seems that it isn't near the top of their list.

 

Hunger and thirst are on the HUD, but are thin bars that most people don't even notice until they are pointed out to them.  They could be improved.  However, if they add them as big displays like many UI mods do, I would hate that.  I would hope that would be optional.  I prefer a pretty minimal UI over having a bunch of big stuff all over the place.  And water/food isn't something I really need to have in my face constantly.  I'd be happy just having 1-2 pixels wider for the current bars so they are somewhat more visible.

 

Most quests that are tied to triggers are tied to buttons, switches, or key racks.  These are usually in the area where they are needed, so you could trigger them no matter how you go through the POI.  There were bugs before with them that are now fixed, so that's no longer an issue.  There is also now a bug with the new Min Script feature and if you let any zombies despawn by letting them get out of range for too long, they will fail to respawn and will prevent completing the quest.  That bug will end up getting fixed, so will eventually not be a problem.  There may be a very few POI that use a trigger related to going past a specific location in the POI and that would be a problem if you choose not to follow the path, but those are few and if you run through the POI once using the intended path, you should know where to trigger them in the future even if you break through other paths.  Maybe not ideal, but I don't really see them changing how that works.  They like the dungeon paths and almost every POI is set up with one.  The best thing I think you can do is to give specific details about any POI that you're having this problem with so they can look into maybe making adjustments to those POI.

[Suxar]

2 hours ago, Hammer68 said:

Traders are unnecessarily coarse .

Only for those who speak English. I understand emotions, but what they say is just background noise to me.

2 hours ago, Hammer68 said:

Again, mods exist for this but having both hunger, thirst and temperature on the HUD would be nice.

There is no temperature, but everything else has been there for a long time.

[Krougal]

3 hours ago, Suxar said:

Only for those who speak English. I understand emotions, but what they say is just background noise to me.

There is no temperature, but everything else has been there for a long time.

Hell, I never noticed those bars, but then they are too small. I still like like Jakmeister999's Enhanced HUD (V1.0) which is not a huge change from vanilla and wish they would incorporate those changes.

 

I'm a big fan of the craft from container too. We had a discussion thread recently about what mods we would like to see as vanilla features so I am not going to go into any more.

 

Now Rekt (since Hugh seems nowhere as surly now but then I haven't spent as much time with him) I think I am a pretty good litmus test. After a lifetime of supporting USN and USMC I can make entire sentences out of just the words @%$#, @%$# and @%$# and I think this guy is too obnoxious.

 

I can't really comment on the broken quests since I haven't run into it. I usually follow the path because I don't want them to break. Personally, I'd rather it be like the old days, when POIs were just POIs, but they've made the questing so central to the game that I've just given in and embraced them, and besides they have overall done a stellar job with the POIs. 

[Suxar]

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

Hunger and thirst are on the HUD, but are thin bars that most people don't even notice until they are pointed out to them. 

 

46 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Hell, I never noticed those bars, but then they are too small.

))))
Yes, of course, it would be possible to increase them by 1 pixel or 2. But in fact, this is enough for me.