Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Ouch Quit It]

Ok I still stand by my claim that the game is whacked. I just did some base testing and I would say you need to be about level 100 before you can even attempt to build this with any chance of survival in game. With the handcuffs the game places on a player the only chance of survival is to team up with other players just to gather and maintain the resources for the build. I tried to build the base as small as possible in order to make it as realistic as a build that could handle horde night at upper levels....20 or 30 radiated coming out you..WITHOUT a single regular zombie.

It has 3 levels of defense...metal spikes, electric and 4 blade traps..BTW electric is screwed up as you can only attach 3 poles in succession..a 4 breaks the previous wire. So now you cannot enclose the perimeter in electric fencing..only 3 sides, without having a second set of poles.

 

 

As far as single players..The game forces you to team up just to harvest and maintain your base.....

 

This base has no living quarters above yet...but this is the only thing that could withstand a higher level horde...i am level 87 and my friend is level 151 and he was down ready to repair the blade traps through arrow slits if necessary..i spawned 25 radiated big mommas and let them go at it with us in the base.

 

Regular nights ...i dont even see zombies at all..it used to be challenging to go out at night...now..only on the 7th day Hordes give zombies.

 

Ouch

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

 

Most of the complaints from players around here have had little to do with difficulty.

 

Many have complained about balancing and skill progression being abstracted from your characters actions but I can't remember many people saying "It's too hard to survive!".

[meganoth]

Most of the complaints from players around here have had little to do with difficulty.

 

Many have complained about balancing and skill progression being abstracted from your characters actions but I can't remember many people saying "It's too hard to survive!".

 

... he said, directly under a post saying "it's too hard to survive!"

[Jedo]

Ok I still stand by my claim that the game is whacked. I just did some base testing and I would say you need to be about level 100 before you can even attempt to build this with any chance of survival in game. With the handcuffs the game places on a player the only chance of survival is to team up with other players just to gather and maintain the resources for the build.

 

As far as single players..The game forces you to team up just to harvest and maintain your base.....

 

And yet, somehow, contrary to your perspective, people do it. What a marvel.

[The Gronk]

... he said, directly under a post saying "it's too hard to survive!"

 

Which is why I started my reply with the caveat "most" :-)

 

The zombie damage vs blocks could be toned down a bit but that would be balancing instead of a completely borked system.

[crossed]

Ok I still stand by my claim that the game is whacked. [...] 20 or 30 radiated coming out you.. [...]

I just beat day 91 horde (level 120 something) in a 5x5 concrete bunker with some barbed wire and metal spikes around it and one ground level window so I could blast them with my shotgun as they come for the entrance.

Normal difficulty, zombie count 12, mind you... and that's above the default settings

[Daerwain]

I just found out that drinking murky water might work... normal bottled water have "water 0" murky hast "10"

[stasis78]

I just beat day 91 horde (level 120 something) in a 5x5 concrete bunker with some barbed wire and metal spikes around it and one ground level window so I could blast them with my shotgun as they come for the entrance.

Normal difficulty, zombie count 12, mind you... and that's above the default settings

 

Yeah it’s actually fine as is. I don’t know why people complain about their bases being destroyed.

 

Make better defenses. Spikes are easy to make.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

When you have options and choose not to use them that’s definitely on YOU.

[crossed]

I mean I understand why people want to be able to defend their base against huge hordes, it's much cooler, I'd like that too.

 

But I guess for performance reasons the devs balanced the game for lower zombie numbers and if you play with 4-8 times the default numbers than understandably it gets pretty difficult.

 

At least I assume that is what's happening when people say it's impossible to defend a base anymore.

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

 

Part of the problem may be people harvesting zombies for xp without taking time to fortify their base. By the time horde night comes around the zombies are a far higher level than your little fort can handle.

 

I tend to whack the number of zombies spawned to max but spend more time building a base than looting.

[Hek Harris]

Most of the complaints from players around here have had little to do with difficulty.

 

Many have complained about balancing and skill progression being abstracted from your characters actions but I can't remember many people saying "It's too hard to survive!".

You know... it's a ordinary cognitive bias. People confronted to something difficult rarely say : I screw up or it's too hard for me. They'd rather say that it's unbalanced or boring, whatever. It's hard to accept you need to progress, it's obviously a difficult decision to lower the difficulty because, well, nobody wants to be that guy. But however it's the better way to progress. I've played with many players (I used to own 2 servers for 3 years). Most of them made so many mistakes, didn't know how to deal with so many issues, that I finally choosed to play against them rather than with ^^.

[Jugginator]

Ok I still stand by my claim that the game is whacked. I just did some base testing and I would say you need to be about level 100 before you can even attempt to build this with any chance of survival in game.

 

I mean, plenty of other solo players build and defend bases just fine, even on harder difficulties. You only have one effective row of spikes... that's not going to do it. Just because you think a cpl spikes and a single blade trap on the side should work and it doesn't it doesn't mean the game is whack, you just need to play a little bit smarter heh. But no, you're right, that particular setup wont work at all. I didn't know that exact setup was the only base/trap design one could build in the game.

[DaVegaNL]

Turns out that I agree with serious SnowDog as well. Who knew?

 

Yeah you're not the only one. I just cleared a massive poi on day 1 using only melee and power attacks. Killed 40 zombies. There's a miniscule part of my stamina bar turned black.

 

Looks like the casuals won this fight. Alas.

[unholyjoe]

I just found out that drinking murky water might work... normal bottled water have "water 0" murky hast "10"

 

not sure where you get that from but mine definitely show different. you may want to check again.

 

https://imgur.com/a/bDnaSkc

[JaxTeller718]

Yeah you're not the only one. I just cleared a massive poi on day 1 using only melee and power attacks. Killed 40 zombies. There's a miniscule part of my stamina bar turned black.

 

Looks like the casuals won this fight. Alas.

 

They always do. And do you know what happens next? Not just in this game but multiple games I have been a part of in EA. The games slowly hemorrhage their hardcore audience. The ones that people say will always be around. It doesn't happen right away but its gradual. With each passing patch I can guarantee you a few more hardcore players leave.

 

Then what tends to happen in EVERY game is the casuals find a new shiny toy to play with. And all those voices, all those criticisms and storming the castle over "it's so hard to do anything" they all start to get quieter. They were only here to see the new shiny stuff anyway.

 

What you are left with is the hardcore fan base AGAIN, only this time it's a bit smaller, its slightly more agitated and its harder to please.

 

Trying to please a casual gamer with 8 hours a week to play is a death sentence. Post that on your wall pimps, and remember it a year from now. It will be around the same time that your community is adding BACK in the difficulty you removed so that your hardcore fans can keep enjoying this game.

[faatal]

okay, so if the end can be reached without jumping, it is reachable. But if it can only be reached by jumping a gap at some point, it is considered unreachable. Works for me. So far I can only think of jumping gaps being able to cause these issues. Is there any other kind that would fall into this category?

 

Basically. Paths do not span gaps. Paths are a connection of nodes. Air does not have path nodes, so you can't path air.

[faatal]

So I will give it a try. Thanks for that update.

A17Exp was unplayable if you want some details in your environment. I don't expect 4k resolution with Ultra settings to run smooth with 60 fps without drops. But I should be able to run the game with a GTX 1080 and Full HD resolution and High (not Ultra) settings with at least 50-60 constant FPS (not around 30, dropping to 15 in POIs).

If this works I will jump back in again. If not i will wait.

 

You should not be running that poorly with that GPU. My GTX 1060 at 1920x1080 with medium settings was getting around 60 FPS.

[AtomicUs5000]

Basically. Paths do not span gaps. Paths are a connection of nodes. Air does not have path nodes, so you can't path air.

I wish someone would tell that to the vultures.

[crossed]

Part of the problem may be people harvesting zombies for xp without taking time to fortify their base. By the time horde night comes around the zombies are a far higher level than your little fort can handle.

Yeah, that would be my other guess, everyone wants their forge and iron tools and whatnot asap, and then the irradiated ones come before time and ruin the fun.

 

I remember around two weeks in I encountered a wandering horde of four zombies and I was like "Really game? Am I doing so poorly?" xD

[khzmusik]

So the amount of things to have loot in them is 35% and even at 100% loot they do not all have loot in them some are still empty.

 

My impression is that the loot percentage affects the amount of loot found in closed containers - not the ratio of closed containers to open containers. So you'd still have, say, 50% of the containers being empty, but the 50% that are closed would contain 100% more loot.

 

I could easily be wrong though.

[Jackelmyer]

Thats not true, I've been optimizing the collision on shapes.

 

For 17.1 some of that is included? Would be awesome if so!

[AtomicUs5000]

Granted though, how much resources would be taken by having this counter for each zombie and to keep track of it? I wouldn't think much, but even if it was, what if there was just a collective number based on number of zombies alive.

Approximately 2 bytes per zombie

[Ayrton]

A future RWG *SHOULD* support sliders to say what percentage of what biomes you want. I'm looking forward to an all snow map.

 

The wasteland will be improved though. It was never removed though as far as I know.

 

Thank you very much, now I can sleep calmly, it comforts me to be able to read that, until I almost stop playing this game that I love so much, because I did not generate a good map, it is the game that I play the most on Steam, thanks for the information.

[wildaxeman1]

Part of the problem may be people harvesting zombies for xp without taking time to fortify their base. By the time horde night comes around the zombies are a far higher level than your little fort can handle.

 

I tend to whack the number of zombies spawned to max but spend more time building a base than looting.

 

i always start to reinforce my home first. not doing z hunting. if they come, i kill. at least for 2 first hordes my GS is low enough to defend easily.

[faatal]

Letting us have all the fun? Most kind of you. Thanks.

Question: Do "destroy area" also consider blocks below zombie feets?

 

Yes, destroy area looks 2 blocks down. In b9 I added an alternative mode for when an unreachable block was picked, that it then start 3 blocks down and works from far distance to close.