is A17 removing the much beloved run and gun aspect?

[Kubikus]

^^ I said GOOD DAY, SIR....

how adorable

[Jedo]

how adorable

 

Not a fan of Willy Wonka?

[Kubikus]

Not a fan of Willy Wonka?

No. But I like this guy:

 

[Jedo]

I can't argue with that. Still, Wonka...

 

[Roland]

I just tested some running and gunning with some ferals and something that is different in A17 is that sprinting forward makes you quite a bit faster than the running speed of the zombies. It will not be run forward get a couple shots off and then run again because they are still right behind you. It is run forward and turn around and they are 10-20 meters behind you giving you plenty of time to fire several shots before they reach you. You can easily stay ahead of them with plenty of time to pick them off as they close the distance.

 

People will have to try it out to see whether it is fun for them or not. You can easily outpace them though by turning around and running forward and create a nice comfortable distance before turning and shooting.

[themirror]

The problem is that the Devs know only one solution. Their solution ... And everybody needs to swallow that as a solution for a problem.

 

SpamCrafting was considered a issue. Yet, by simply increasing the crafting times, it solves the issue ( partially ) with a 60 second timer. Now, people are limited in their spamcrafting. But what if people still spamcraft and pollute servers. Why not add the ability for items to decay faster depending on the type. People drop things, after X time they are gone. You know, like a tracing garbage collector. Problem solved. Now we need to use perks to magically improve the tools. What can only be considered dumbing down the game because people simply save up perks for level 5/10/...

 

Spamcrafting is a boring way to spend your time in the game, spamcrafting increase the RAM usage when the itens are dropped.

Magically put a timer to prevent the player to craft the same item does not make any sense (also is boring²) and every item with a custom decay timer can drastically increase the RAM usage (even more) and the cpu usage (timers work as threads... 1 timer for each item = tons of ram + tons of cpu, 1 timer controlling all items on ground require list controlers [probably LINQ] that drastically increases cpu usage and also has a high processing time because the same block of code need to be executed over and over again each second).

 

Removing the spamcrafting has more pros than cons on player experience and in dev aspects.

 

 

As for the "this is not the 7dtd that i ordered", you can always play some old alpha, have fun

[Kubikus]

Yes, I don't loot every trashbag because I (the survivor in the game) make a decision that the loot is not worth it at this time and place. But if I have time, I'll still loot a trashbag. That is a decision I can make any time in the game. If I wanted to have no zombie loot I would have to prevent myself from looting any zombie corpse. Do zombie corpses get removed eventually from the game? Not sure, but I think not. Around my base that would be a lot of stuff to ignore, especially since it slows movement.

 

I did say that all those disadvantages are not big. In sum they still are not big, but it still means I like the game better with less zombie loot.

 

I could once more ask "why", but I guess if I have not understood it by now, you won't be able to provide a better explanation.

 

The balance argument is important to how the game feels. For example my friends and I played the "War of the Walkers" once. At the time (I heard recently, it may have changed) you got a lot more loot than in vanilla and it also had some extreme POIs with too many and too good loot containers. Finding lets say a complete high quality gun on day 4 was surely nice at that moment. But the game itself lost its appeal and we restarted with a different mod after maybe 2 in-game weeks. That is "balance". Naturally somewhat subjective.

 

If we really had wanted to play WotW, we could have modded the mod, or tried with 25% loot and hope it balances out. Or only loot every second container. We didn't.

 

And I also don't know if less loot on zombies will really be better for us. That we will have to see and experience.

 

I understand what "balance" means in a game. I don't see how you think the game is not balanced right in regard to zombie loot. You said this before:

 

No. It has nothing to do with other people. It has to do with a balanced game. Just like I prefer in an RPG that I reach the same level and get the equivalent loot irrespective of my choices (i.e. it should not matter if I kill everyone or use the diplomatic route) I want to look at a zombie without making the meta calculation that stealthing around will disadvantage me. I probably will resist that thought most of the time, but I can't avoid making this comparison in my mind all the time and be influenced by it. And it will diminish my immersion and pleasure playing the game.

 

So if someone asks me, again, for that reason I would say yes. It is also my opinion that it makes a better game out of it, because just on a theoretical level all players are given a choice which is balanced. And yes, it is balanced, you might save ammunition if you stealth but are disadvantaged if you are discovered and stealthing around can take more time than blazing through with your guns.

 

Zombie loot means you get a little something extra for doing an extra activity. Just like you get something extra if you loot every trashbag or pick up every tire you see or if you go mining, hunting, gardening, disassembling cars, and then some. Additional activities = additional resources. Why the hell not?

 

"playstyle" as a word is used much too often in this forum. Every single action anyone does can be styled a "playstyle" and then protection of that demanded.

 

I would only speak of a "playstyle" if there is a clear focus on certain actions. Some people clearly have a focus on building, others clearly on killing zombies. And so on. In any case, yes, I believe that if possible, all kinds of playstyles should be protected. It's how people enjoy playing the game, why take that away if it's not absolutely necessary?

 

Then I again, I understand the game is not my property, and if the owners want it to be played a certain way, it's their right to enforce that playstyle. I don't consider that healthy for the game, though, and certainly not healthy for sales.

 

If I want to also play stealthy it doesn't mean I will not kill zombies, it just does mean that I will decide in any moment in the game how a specific problem (for example a poi with zombies) is dealt with. I don't playstyle stealth, I don't playstyle combat, those are just different methods in the arsenal I will employ at different times or even at the same time (stealth to a good position and kill the zombie). I play the whole game and so for me MY stealth has to be in some balance with MY combat or I probably won't use it much. Also interesting will be if my perception of zombies as loot bringers will change and I view them as dangers now.

 

If you think stealth visa combat is already well balanced and balance will be lost now, that is a valid opinion. Actually playing the game will show if it is. I'm pretty sure people (including myself) will still kill lots and lots of zombies.

 

I think that stealth is not "recognized" by the game properly so far. There is no stealth related skill and I don't think you get any xp for stealth. One advantage of stealth is that you don't need to use weapons, which saves resources, and you take less risk, so you don't need to use meds and (obviously) you die less and don't receive the death-penalties. To balance stealth with blazing guns, it could give more xp, but again, I disagree that the gunner's loot-reward should be reduced for balance, because if you take loot away and you get xp for stealth, there is no logical reason to kill zombies anymore. Stealth would clearly be the more logical playstyle.

 

If stealth properly works so that you can, at some skill level, sneak up to zombies, you might be able to do sneak attacks that take them down silently and with one hit or pickpocket them. There is a property called "LootListAlive" that already allows you to loot living zombies, and give them different loot than dead zombies would have. Combined, you could make it so that "stealing" from living zombies gives you better loot than corpses do, and then you stealth kill them and then you loot the corpse. That would be pretty sweet.

 

It is totally fine to say someone brought up a false argument and his reason is invalid. But claim that therefore he and his opinion does not exist is, lets say not good for communication, we should use words that mostly mean the same to everyone.

 

Always eager to better myself, I reviewed what I said, here it goes:

 

The way he [Joel] talked about the changes of zombie loot, he seemed to be convinced that he was doing us a service, by saving us time and getting rid of useless clutter.

 

My first mention of "doing us a service" might've been a bit unclear or too broad, but I clearified it in the next responses. Does a guy who only owns a counterfeit bill own any money? No. He has no money. At all. False opinions are like false money.

 

Yes plausible. But I think the less people on the forum the better it can work.

 

Only if those people have very diverse playstyles and are not a bunch of yes-persons, naturally selected by a climate that does not welcome critics.

 

In a company meetings only work well up to a specific size, above that everyone is wasting time. If they directly involve the forum in the process of discussing potential features, it looks for me very much like a big meeting, made more difficult by having too many interests at work here. It may yield some gems, no question, but I think practical testing is just so much more valuable because in a way it tests the honest reaction to changes, not assumptions of players.

 

You can't even think of every possible playstyle, let alone play the necessary lengthy games to try them all out.

 

Nah, I just know how much time I spend reading the Developer Diary thread and wow, better not think about it. Maybe try it yourself. Keep up a few days with that thread and look how much time you spent. Sure, at the moment 80% is off-topic, but I don't think it will be less if feature details were discussed and everyone would post opinions about them.

 

The 80% chit-chat explain why I don't follow that thread, and that thread is in no way an example of what I am talking about. It's more like Roland's poll posts, though polls are a bad idea, because people who don't care will vote and their vote is of no relevance. Not to mention the fanboys who will just praise everything the devs do. It needs to be a proper discussion with proper arguments. The best arguments will crystallize. Dev would need a few minutes scrolling through to find out what people think. It's not at all an unbearable workload. You just make that up, for reasons that I don't understand. Here comes a big word I just learned: Maybe it is cantankerousness. Now that's a tongue twister right there.

 

Ok, but with these we are really outside of what you seem to have proposed, right? You originally wanted to give input to the developers to prevent oversights, right?

 

Kinda, my mind was drifting a bit, since we're going in circles so much. I was thinking about allowing modding in and out whatever unwanted changes the devs made. They announce a change, see that there is a bunch of people who don't like it, make plausible arguments, so they provide the option to mod it.

[Kubikus]

But there is no oversight with 1 block ingress for example. Some want it but the developers think it not important enough compared to the effort to put it into A17 (presumably, or there are other reasons). So in this case you want to have influence about which features are given priority. Understandable, I would want that too. But I also understand that the developers do not want to give us that power. It is their game.

 

Yes, there is no oversight with 1 block ingress (except that now the argument "it shan't be too easy to break into houses" is overridden by sleepers kindly opening the door for you, so we might as well have the much beloved feature back). But possibly with the other examples I mentioned. And yes, I want to have influence insofar that I want the option to mod features, that I have in the game for years, and that possibly are a lot of fun for me, back in if they take them out. And I do not understand why the devs would not want to give us that power. Maybe except if they do not have the time, but I kinda doubt they do not have the time, because they obviously take whatever time they need.

 

Yes, it is their game, but their game is not a hobby, it is not even a piece of art like an "actual artist's". It is a product. That is created to be sold to make money. I am quite certain that a lot of changes were made to sell the game better, for example graphical changes, that decrease the performance drastically. But a good looking game sells better. Dumbing down is another such area, making crafting more simple, gathering material more simple, making the upgrade path more simple, making sure that people don't get frustrated when they don't unlock every recipes within a few ingame days. From the business perspective, it would be a smart move to give the player every power possible. because it increase the probability that players stay long term and therefor recommend the game to more people. And outside time, there is no reason not to make every change a modding option, particularly when it's a "much beloved" feature. Like 1 block ingress was. Why not have a simple property in the player entity class "1 block ingress yes/no"? For people who don't want to spend 50 hours learning how to use a third party software that might (or might not) allow them to bring that back.

 

If you brought these examples only to illustrate features that are hard to mod, sure, they never have been implemented. But there is nothing worthwile for TFP to discuss about them with the community, except if they want the community to really decide something.

 

After all this time, you still don't get it. I don't need the devs to discuss anything. They can, of course, and it would be helpful, and seeing that they often do discuss things after they already have them in the game, that should not be a problem on their end, but them discussing is neither the center piece, nor a corner stone of my proposal.

 

I want them to announce changes, so people can provide feedback, such as "I like that thing a whole lot, because of this and that". So they can make an informed decision how to handle a change.

 

It's absurd to insist that customer feedback would be a burden for a company, so like... stop doing that already.

 

It is easier to ignore vehicles or gardening than hundreds of zombie corpses. Ignoring the corpses is just a crutch. And I probably wouldn't do it in A17, I didn't in A16 either, as the balance isn't completely off (not like in the old WotW). But knowing it could have been I would miss it.

 

It is possible that I lack the empathic skills necessary to understand how big of a problem it is for you not to loot zombie corpses in 7 Days to Die. Myself, I can just walk away if I don't feel like looting.

 

I just tested some running and gunning with some ferals and something that is different in A17 is that sprinting forward makes you quite a bit faster than the running speed of the zombies. It will not be run forward get a couple shots off and then run again because they are still right behind you. It is run forward and turn around and they are 10-20 meters behind you giving you plenty of time to fire several shots before they reach you. You can easily stay ahead of them with plenty of time to pick them off as they close the distance.

 

People will have to try it out to see whether it is fun for them or not. You can easily outpace them though by turning around and running forward and create a nice comfortable distance before turning and shooting.

You could always do that, as I already told you. You can already run away from ferals, turn around, shoot some, turn around, run away some more. And if the forward speed advantage in A17 has been increased, so you're faster relative to the zombies, that would be a zombie-nerf. It is much more dangerous, thus fun, if zombies can actually catch you and you have to zig-zag and use terrain to stay ahead. So on top of a fun-reducing player nerf, you'd have a fun-reducing zombie nerf.

 

Noice.

 

Roland, on top of the methods I already layed out, I have not one, not two, but three more ways to make zombies more dangerous without crippling the player:

 

#1: Sight range. Vanilla is currently 30 (blocks, I assume). Increasing that to 100 for example is one of those "game changers". A lot more zombies are coming to get you. 10/10, wouldn't go back to 30 ever.

 

#2: Sight scale. Haven't played much with that, but if the description is accurate, it controls "how well lit you have to be for the zombie to see you at min,max range". Particularly in buildings, zombies often seem to have problems to see the player.

 

#3: Smell. It's been out of the game for how many alphas now..? At least since A16. Dev diary's feature list makes no mention of it being fixed, so I kinda assume it's just gone. I remember a bunch of situations where smell caused zombies to attack me. Instead of dropping the feature, it should be expanded. Make the player smell permanently or build up smell by activities, have ways to get rid of smell. You know, interesting stuff. Have a way to make the player smell like the dead, have a key that gives the player a zombie walktype. Make it a stealth mechanic.

 

Spamcrafting is a boring way to spend your time in the game, spamcrafting increase the RAM usage when the itens are dropped.

Magically put a timer to prevent the player to craft the same item does not make any sense (also is boring²) and every item with a custom decay timer can drastically increase the RAM usage (even more) and the cpu usage (timers work as threads... 1 timer for each item = tons of ram + tons of cpu, 1 timer controlling all items on ground require list controlers [probably LINQ] that drastically increases cpu usage and also has a high processing time because the same block of code need to be executed over and over again each second).

 

Removing the spamcrafting has more pros than cons on player experience and in dev aspects.

 

 

As for the "this is not the 7dtd that i ordered", you can always play some old alpha, have fun

 

The "not the 7dtd I ordered" argument is absurd, EA is EA (curious, though, that it sounds a bit like EA, innit), and spamcrafting is boring, but there is nothing wrong with a timer. That 1 crafting queue timer melts the CPU is improbable, there is also nothing "magical" about it. Crafting a stone axe, for example, takes 3 seconds in vanilla. If anything is magical, it's that. A minute is much more reasonable, metal tools take even longer.

[Kubikus]

Here is, btw, a short clip fit to illustrate the much beloved aspect in question:

 

[Jedo]

Watching that clip, I don't see how things will be much different. The zombies never really got close to catching that person, and on the rare occasion that they did, the person juked sideways or forwards (not more backwards) until they had made enough distance to turn around and do some more backwards movement. That's what Roland said you could do.

[SxR]

Probably in reference to your last line in the OP where you said you've never heard of a game style that nerfs your ability to run backwards. Saying something like that invites people to start listing games that have that gamestyle.

 

Not being able to run backwards is the least of your worries for the old running and gunning. Ranged combat has been changed so that you are rewarded for standing and aiming and penalized for....er....running and gunning. Very few of your shots will land if you are running around shooting from the hip. You'll notice right away that when you are running the crosshairs are huge. Goodbye accuracy.

 

It's not all bad news. You can buy perks that give you the ability to run and maintain a small tight crosshairs for running and gunning. Who knows? Maybe they'll add a perk that allows you run backwards so that if people want to specialize in that type of mayhem they can do so.

 

For now and during the early game until you can get your skills up and purchase some perks you really will want to stop, aim, and fire whenever using a firearm of you'll use up a ton of rounds and still have a zombie problem.

 

But why do this..? You're promoting camping even more now.. :c

[SxR]

This is exactly right. You can W+D and W+A sprint as well so sprinting at angles still works. Just no strafe or backward only sprinting anymore, you have to have forward motion.

 

You don't NEED backward sprint or strafe only sprint. I've tested this myself. Also I'm an avid FPS player and run n gun is not at all going to suffer in a17. There is this thing for non CQB weapons called a tactical retreat. It's a valid strategy.

 

Lastly, the "walk" speed was sped up for a17, it's faster than before (not a whole lot, like 1/3 between a16 walk and run speeds). You likely won't NEED to sprint through a POI anyway as your "walk" speed is faster than the zombie's walk speed, again, not by much, but enough to make a difference in close quarters.

 

Can we please retain strafe sprint at least? And only limit backwards movement? It's apart of many players play style to already be pointing in the direction of the corner they're about to come around.

[Kubikus]

Watching that clip, I don't see how things will be much different. The zombies never really got close to catching that person, and on the rare occasion that they did, the person juked sideways or forwards (not more backwards) until they had made enough distance to turn around and do some more backwards movement. That's what Roland said you could do.

That's what I said you could do before Roland did. Of course you can do it.

 

But if you can do it, if you don't need to sprint backwards, why do people do it? Cuz it's fun. And since you don't see a difference, I assume you don't play that way, so.... Maybe try it out?

[Jedo]

That's what I said you could do before Roland did. Of course you can do it.

 

But if you can do it, if you don't need to sprint backwards, why do people do it? Cuz it's fun. And since you don't see a difference, I assume you don't play that way, so.... Maybe try it out?

 

My point is that the person wasn't really sprinting backwards, at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies. In that case, how can you claim that that is an entire style which has been removed?

 

On a different track, motion is relative. The zombies' clearly moved faster than the player could move backwards (didn't usually catch them because they died quickly), then the player had to adjust course. If the rate of change between the players and the zombies remains the same with the removal of backward sprinting, then I fail to see how there is a perceivable change on the player's part.

 

Personally, I don't care about this playstyle or that playstyle, so I don't feel a need to try them. I'm sure things that I used to do have been affected. *shrug* I'm not really against this playstyle, and I'm fairly indifferent to the change itself. What I am is skeptical of the arguments used in opposition to TFP's changes.

[moses221]

@Kubikus you keep mentioning that those who agree with the changes or a new option or agree with TFPs direction should have their opinions discounted. So only your opinion should matter? Only those with a critique should have their opinions matter? You make the claim (repeatedly) that "nobody" likes the changes to zombie loot (or another function) so TFP shouldn't make the change. Where is the truth? Is it that people who want to critique or complain about a change are more likely to voice their opinion than those who say "I like the change" and, therefore, it appears more people don't like that change than like it? I don't have the stats on that, do you? Do you know the minds of other players?

 

I sometimes read the forums and, as you can see by my history, don't post much. The overwhelming majority of players are like me, yet you would tell me if "I don't care about a change" and answer a poll, my opinion shouldn't matter. Sounds like you think the only people who should be allowed to voice an opinion are those who agree with you.

[meganoth]

Zombie loot means you get a little something extra for doing an extra activity. Just like you get something extra if you loot every trashbag or pick up every tire you see or if you go mining, hunting, gardening, disassembling cars, and then some. Additional activities = additional resources. Why the hell not?

 

Stealthing around is also an extra activity that costs time IF zombies sense you if you come near them (which I assume will be working again in A17). Stealthing is slower movement and you have to go around instead of straight. This is extra activity which gets you nothing from the zombies. And as long as zombies get you kill xp you have your additional resources.

 

I would only speak of a "playstyle" if there is a clear focus on certain actions. Some people clearly have a focus on building, others clearly on killing zombies. And so on. In any case, yes, I believe that if possible, all kinds of playstyles should be protected. It's how people enjoy playing the game, why take that away if it's not absolutely necessary?

 

I can accept building as a playstyle, I can accept killing zombies as a playstyle, but running a certain way or doing combat a specific way is definitely strechting it.

 

In EA a developer experiments with features, puts them in and if he doesn't like them removes them again. That is the central point of experimentation. If you demand protection of features just because they were in the game once you are practically restricting the developer to freely experiment with the game. I'm not surprised they don't want to give the players this power.

 

At the moment they experiment with combat. And probably they don't see running around zombie hordes as a playstyle in itself (as do I). My point on backrunning has always been: First play it in A17, then give your feedback. Then your impressions have a lot more weight because they want feedback at that time and they want real play impressions. I don't believe they want feedback at the moment of people that have not experienced the new game. If you don't believe me, fine, go ahead, it is you wasting time talking to a wall (IMHO)

 

I think that stealth is not "recognized" by the game properly so far. There is no stealth related skill and I don't think you get any xp for stealth. One advantage of stealth is that you don't need to use weapons, which saves resources, and you take less risk, so you don't need to use meds and (obviously) you die less and don't receive the death-penalties. To balance stealth with blazing guns, it could give more xp, but again, I disagree that the gunner's loot-reward should be reduced for balance, because if you take loot away and you get xp for stealth, there is no logical reason to kill zombies anymore. Stealth would clearly be the more logical playstyle.

 

You are right about stealth not being fully developed in A16, but there are signs (like a stealth indicator in the GUI) that that is going to change. Giving xp for stealth is practically impossible without lots of possibilities to exploit that, so I don't think they will ever go that way.

 

Only if those people have very diverse playstyles and are not a bunch of yes-persons, naturally selected by a climate that does not welcome critics.

 

Sure. But since we disagree on what a playstyle is and I don't see an obligation for the developer to keep every feature in the game just because it was in some alpha once, that doesn't invalidate my point. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

You can't even think of every possible playstyle, let alone play the necessary lengthy games to try them all out.

 

Playstyles (especially as you define them) are not protected in an alpha. That is a fact. TFP has changed features that some players hung too hundreds of times in the past. I don't think they loose sleep over every wooden stick they eliminated because some player somewhere was just so happy about wooden sticks (ok,ok replace wooden stick with spam crafting if you need a proper example ). If they had evaluated every change with the goal to keep everything the same for the players and no player harmed in any way, obviously development would already have ended a long time ago because they couldn't change anything anymore.

 

EA games are not suitable for people who can't handle the game changing in ways they might not like. Steam says "If you are not excited to play this game in its current state..." for a reason.

 

It needs to be a proper discussion with proper arguments. The best arguments will crystallize. Dev would need a few minutes scrolling through to find out what people think. It's not at all an unbearable workload. You just make that up, for reasons that I don't understand. Here comes a big word I just learned: Maybe it is cantankerousness. Now that's a tongue twister right there.

 

Unbearable no. But the bigger the forum the more time it takes. A few minutes, please, we are miles apart in our opinions here. Just that I don't accuse you of making that up. So "thank you" for all your insinuations here and elsewhere that I must be lying.

 

You might sample a few arguments in a few minutes. But to find out "what people think" is quite something different. You seem to think if someone makes more posts about a topic than others or arguments more fervently than others, his voice is more important. That is wrong in my book, that would give more weight to a fanatic compared to someone with a balanced opinion.

Finding out what people think is difficult, companies pay lots of money for good market research, they don't listen just to the man with the huge sign in front of their office building.

 

Kinda, my mind was drifting a bit, since we're going in circles so much. I was thinking about allowing modding in and out whatever unwanted changes the devs made. They announce a change, see that there is a bunch of people who don't like it, make plausible arguments, so they provide the option to mod it.

 

Yeah, we openend so many sub-topics and found so many differences of opinion here and there. And sadly we only resolved a few. We have to agree to disagree on a lot of this.

 

Yes, it is their game, but their game is not a hobby, it is not even a piece of art like an "actual artist's". It is a product. That is created to be sold to make money. I am quite certain that a lot of changes were made to sell the game better

 

They don't think they are artists like a movie director is? I'm pretty sure some of them think of themselves as artists. I obviously can't say anything about what TFP developers think. But even courts of law have accepted some games as works of art.

 

Success and money is surely one of their motivations, making the game they envisioned and want to play themselves is another big motivation. But whatever motivation you look at, they probably won't listen to your opinion BEFORE you haven't even played the (new) game. Because even if we just look at the money, one or a few grumpy voices in a forum do not make a game fail.

 

Nearly every change has a few people lamenting in the forum that the game is worse for it, or that they will surely stop playing, or that it will make the game fail. You actually might be right, but they won't believe you because too many forum posters have cried wolf over the years. Only the hard facts, people protesting and abandoning the game in masses after playing the new version (or the absence of that) will show them if they were right or wrong.

 

I want them to announce changes, so people can provide feedback, such as "I like that thing a whole lot, because of this and that". So they can make an informed decision how to handle a change.

 

And I think the "informed" decision isn't that informed, because people who haven't played with the changes and don't know about everything else that changed don't really know what they are talking about. And even if we suppose that one of them does exactly know how he will be reacting to the change (talking about you here) and TFP believes him they still might not believe all the rest of the detractors.

 

If TFP decides to make a poll (with discussion, people will post their opinion and discuss it in the forum anyway) whenever they change something and

 

a) the change would normally not be moddable back because of taking the shortest route to implement it

b) and they think it unimportant

c) but with a reasonable/acceptable effort it could be made moddable back

d) and making it moddable afterwards is a lot more work than making it moddable before the change

 

I would be ok with that. But for it to give a benefit to TFP the following must also be true for a sizable portion of all changes they put up for polling:

 

e) the poll or discussion shows the players think it is important

f) and it really turns out to be important after people have played it

 

And I don't think there is a sizable portion there. I would be ok with it, I'm not against getting asked and I want modding to be as powerful as possible. And a,b,c and d would already eliminate a lot of changes from getting polled. And there is also the psychologicla thing that it is harder to convince TFP to make something moddable afterwards when they already have thrown out relevant code or didn't do the effort before.

 

But do I think it would be worth it for TFP? Or do I think it would change development or the end product in a big way? No and no.

[Kubikus]

My point is that the person wasn't really sprinting backwards, at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies. In that case, how can you claim that that is an entire style which has been removed?

 

Let's analyze:

 

Sequence 1 with the decayed mother: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 2 with the.. infected survivor?: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 3 with the nurse: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 4 with the shotgun: Person does not sprint backwards

Sequence 5 with the many zombies: Person sprints forward to "collect" the zombies so they follow (1:04 until 1:28), then sprints backwards with the pistol and shoots them. Sprints foward and circlestrafes inbetween. This might be to keep the bunch together and to stay in the area, to not attract more zombies. In this sequence, you can see exactly what I've been talking about: The zombies run towards the person and the person is keeping them at distance by sprinting backwards. The zombies are, though relatively steady, because they run towards the person, and both (person and zombie) run in the same direction. That's why the person can shoot them with the pistol. There are a few bits (before 1:45) where the person runs towards the zombies, strafes next to them, but shooting is difficult, because (as I also already mentioned) zombies are moving horizontally from the person's perspective.

Sequence 6 with the crossbow: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 7 with the infected survivor: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 8 with the infected survivor: Person sprints backwards.

 

Strange, that you say the "person wasn't really sprinting backwards". Yes, the person was.

 

On a different track, motion is relative. The zombies' clearly moved faster than the player could move backwards (didn't usually catch them because they died quickly), then the player had to adjust course. If the rate of change between the players and the zombies remains the same with the removal of backward sprinting, then I fail to see how there is a perceivable change on the player's part.

 

Yes, true, but I highly doubt zombies will be slowed down that much.

 

@Kubikus you keep mentioning that those who agree with the changes or a new option or agree with TFPs direction should have their opinions discounted.

No I don't. What I keep mentioning is that there are false opinions and people who vote for or against something without having an opinion about it to begin with. If you don't understand, just lemme know and I'll be happy to explain it (again) in depth.

[Jedo]

[Analysis]

 

Strange, that you say the "person wasn't really sprinting backwards". Yes, the person was.

 

Strange that I said, "at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies." Feel free to go second-by-second to break it down so that you can rebut the whole of what I said.

 

Yes, true, but I highly doubt zombies will be slowed down that much.

 

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

[Kubikus]

Strange that I said, "at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies." Feel free to go second-by-second to break it down so that you can rebut the whole of what I said.

 

I already rebutted the whole of what you said.

 

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

 

Yes, certainly. Me, going figuring that one:

 

[Gazz]

Changes are quite often announced in the dev diary and people can provide feedback.

 

That doesn't mean it will affect the design but there B]are [/b] cases where an outside-the-box idea was used... or sparked an idea that was used to expand on an existing concept.

 

A case of "I hate this" and a feature being canceled has about a 0.00000001% chance of occurring.

[Jedo]

I already rebutted the whole of what you said.

 

You rebutted an imagined argument that sprinting backwards didn't happen. If that's what you think I said, then I see where our communication problems lie.

 

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

 

Yes, certainly. Me, going figuring that one:

 

 

Strange that you would invoke Simon Cowell. Tell me how [uh...that one venture of his that didn't work out] worked out? (Hint: about as well as your assumptions.)

[nitnoid]

Just a friendly little whisper to watch where you take this discussion...

[Roland]

Just a friendly little whisper to watch where you take this discussion...

 

I'll see your friendly whisper and raise you a friendly edit.

[Roland]

A case of "I hate this" and a feature being canceled has about a 0.00000001% chance of occurring.

 

But only in the case of causality. In the case of independent parallel coincidence there is a much higher probability of occurrence.

[Kubikus]

Stealthing around is also an extra activity that costs time IF zombies sense you if you come near them (which I assume will be working again in A17). Stealthing is slower movement and you have to go around instead of straight. This is extra activity which gets you nothing from the zombies. And as long as zombies get you kill xp you have your additional resources.

 

If stealth should get recognized as a playstyle, you should get XP. Like so: If you crouch, there is a chance that a zombie, that would see you if you would not stealth, won't. Maybe, at some some skill level, even without you having to crouch. And whenever that happens, the zombie does not see you, you should get XP. With the stealth skill leveling up, the chance increases. Something like that. Maybe unlock recipes for a disguise, made of rotten flesh. Maybe the ability to mimic zombie walktypes. To increase the chance.

 

And if that should be in the game, you get an XP reward for stealthing, and you get an XP reward for killing zombies. But killing zombie is still riskier and still costs (more) resources, so it would make perfect sense to give a zombie killing player loot on top of the XP. Balance wise, there would be nothing wrong with it.

 

That's why I don't see your balance complaint making sense. You're currently playing outside the box, that's why you get no reward. But that's not a good reason to take a reward away from people who play inside the box.

 

I can accept building as a playstyle, I can accept killing zombies as a playstyle, but running a certain way or doing combat a specific way is definitely strechting it.

 

Yeah sure. If building is a playstyle, the ability to carry stacks of blocks is the equivalent of running a certain way. If you remove the ability to carry stacks of blocks, and change that to 1 block per slot, because that would be realistic, it would heavily negatively influence the playstyle "building".

 

And that's what removing backward sprinting does to the playstyle I am talking, which fighting running zombies nose to toe. Yes, it is still possible, just like building would still be possible. Ironically, however, it would be more realistic to reduce the stack size of blocks to 1 than to reduce the backward speed to less than what forward walking is. Because you can at least jog backwards. Jump backwards.

 

In EA a developer experiments with features, puts them in and if he doesn't like them removes them again. That is the central point of experimentation. If you demand protection of features just because they were in the game once you are practically restricting the developer to freely experiment with the game. I'm not surprised they don't want to give the players this power.

 

Dude: I demand nothing. Stop the narratives. I am for protection of beloved features. Because why the hell not. And I also already said quite clearly: Features should be preserved if it is not absolutely necessary to remove them. Here's the quote:

 

In any case, yes, I believe that if possible, all kinds of playstyles should be protected. It's how people enjoy playing the game, why take that away if it's not absolutely necessary?

 

It is, for example, not absolutely necessary to remove backward sprinting. Devs could have an advanced settings menu with a slider that regulates backward sprinting speed or at least have it moddable via the XML files.

 

At the moment they experiment with combat. And probably they don't see running around zombie hordes as a playstyle in itself (as do I).

 

Yes, I too suspect a disconnect between them and the players. They don't see those who "run around zombie hordes", it's outside their vision of building fortresses with blade traps and auto turrets. Therefor it would be great if they'd given the players a chance to let em know that "running around zombie hordes" really is a playstyle.

 

My point on backrunning has always been: First play it in A17, then give your feedback. Then your impressions have a lot more weight because they want feedback at that time and they want real play impressions. I don't believe they want feedback at the moment of people that have not experienced the new game. If you don't believe me, fine, go ahead, it is you wasting time talking to a wall (IMHO)

 

You're twisting stuff around. I am not providing feedback to the devs. I'm not talking to devs. I talk to you. We're just chatting to pass the time. I don't expect anything to change because I write a post.

 

And please not again the "you have to try it first" angle. No I don't. I have visions too, Joel is not the only one.

 

You are right about stealth not being fully developed in A16, but there are signs (like a stealth indicator in the GUI) that that is going to change. Giving xp for stealth is practically impossible without lots of possibilities to exploit that, so I don't think they will ever go that way.

 

I hope it will come, but you see, if something is not yet developed, you can't expect it to be balanced with already developed aspects.

 

Sure. But since we disagree on what a playstyle is and I don't see an obligation for the developer to keep every feature in the game just because it was in some alpha once, that doesn't invalidate my point. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

Of course there is no obligation. Just like I demand nothing. Devs could stop developing right now. They have no obligation to do anything. Your hyperboles are fairly uncreative. If you believe they should not keep features in the game, that are beloved by a substantial number of players, just explain why.

 

Playstyles (especially as you define them) are not protected in an alpha. That is a fact.

 

Oh really. And here I thought that when something I like changes, I can sue the company for twenty bazillion casino coins.

 

TFP has changed features that some players hung too hundreds of times in the past.

 

They also changed features that many players hung to in the past. Not hundreds (of features), though. It's really just a relatively few feature-changes that were met with resistance from the players.

 

I don't think they loose sleep over every wooden stick they eliminated because some player somewhere was just so happy about wooden sticks (ok,ok replace wooden stick with spam crafting if you need a proper example ). If they had evaluated every change with the goal to keep everything the same for the players and no player harmed in any way, obviously development would already have ended a long time ago because they couldn't change anything anymore.

 

Yes, obviously. But that is just another uninteresting hyperbole. Many changes can be modded out of or back into the game, wooden sticks and spamcrafting amomg them, and the ones that remain are only a few. Smell comes to mind, chessboard cities, the static spawner, 1 block ingress can be modded with advanced techniques, but I still mention it, because you need to go through a 100 pages tutorial to (maybe) learn how. Custom hubs are missed sadly by a bunch of people I assume. And that's already all that I know of.

 

Bring these things back I say.

 

EA games are not suitable for people who can't handle the game changing in ways they might not like. Steam says "If you are not excited to play this game in its current state..." for a reason.

 

And yet another hyperbole, *yawns*. That doesn't make my reasoning implausible, though, it would still be good to make changes of beloved features revertable. It's another no-brainer really, just like that customer feedback is valuable.

 

Unbearable no. But the bigger the forum the more time it takes. A few minutes, please, we are miles apart in our opinions here. Just that I don't accuse you of making that up. So "thank you" for all your insinuations here and elsewhere that I must be lying.

 

You are obviously exaggerating excessively. It's annoying, because it requires no creativity or wits on my end to refute, I just have to describe reality. Which is boring.

 

What is your estimation, when the community discusses a planned feature, how long would a dev need to get an overview of the different viewpoints? I talk about minutes. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Miles apart would be hours. You think it'd take hours to go through a thread? Really? No. So stop pretending.

 

You might sample a few arguments in a few minutes. But to find out "what people think" is quite something different. You seem to think if someone makes more posts about a topic than others or arguments more fervently than others, his voice is more important. That is wrong in my book, that would give more weight to a fanatic compared to someone with a balanced opinion.

 

And now you're just making stuff up. *pfffff*

 

Finding out what people think is difficult, companies pay lots of money for good market research, they don't listen just to the man with the huge sign in front of their office building.

 

See, companies pay lots of money for good market research. It's a valuable tool. To speak against my suggestion that the devs should just do that, you have to build strawmen and exaggerate excessively. It takes too long, people are too stupid to make good suggestions, and now there's a man with a huge sign.

 

Nonsense. All of it.