5 things in Alpha 17 that give me some concern (based on Madmole's day 1 vid)

[Vedui]

With in reality just one proper Alpha 17 video from Madmole, we're left with ... an information gap. Still, a week ago I was thinking about some of the good things I saw in Joel's play. But I also noted some things I had concerns with. Not necessarily something which sucks and makes me rage, but things that I'd hope gets another pass through and either with more information released, or tweaked after discussions with the community.

 

Again I want to re-iterate, I know very well tonnes of new things have been mentioned as being included, just that not seeing that (yet?) in a Madmole playthrough video, I hesitate to comment on things that might or might not be in, and might work one way or another but being unknown until it's shown in a recent build.

 

Lengthier video talk-through -->

 

1) No Corpse Loot?

 

I heard a lot of pros, and cons on that one. My main one is that killing gets less satisfying if there is no loot, and reduces resource gathering to looting containers. The problem is that having zombies with loot is not less, but more realistic than magically respawning containers. And the world, especially playing with some friends, can get quickly pretty empty of loot if you set respawns to "never".

 

In A16 vs A15, I also found myself enjoying killing and looting zombies more in A15, as the loot was better. It was rebalanced, but I think reduced way too much.

 

2) Stunned vs DEAD

 

With no looting, it seemed very hard at many times to see if a zombie was truly dead, or just stunned. That was always a bit of a problem previously, one would hover over and see if the "loot corpse" would show, and if not, whack again. Now, with no looting, you won't know.

 

Solution seems straight forward though, give the zombie a slight movement or twitching. It's stunned after all, not destroyed.

 

3) Clumsy Melee

 

This I have to say really concerned me in earlier A17 showcases, the melee seemed way clumsy, not fluid, the hitboxes and animations seemed off. In the D1 video, it seemed as bad. It just doesn't look or feel right. I'm not sure how it could be fixed though, but relooking hitboxes, maybe even the animation (it feels like you hit 50 cm in front, when the zombie is 1 meter away and gets damaged). Am I the only one who felt it didn't quite look like a satisfying melee the way it currently worked?

 

4) Too few Zombies!

 

This was a problem in A16, and seems to be equally bad in A17. Watch Joel's video as he wanders around and he seems maybe a couple or three roaming zombies, the rest all seem POI spawns. We really need a way to increase this, even at expense of performance. Joel walks through the town, and there's no zombies. It's a ghost town, not a zombie town. Maybe that's TPF vision, but I loved in A15 and earlier being able to boost the spawns to see a lot of roamers I had to destroy in towns before I looted.

 

5) Overfocus on Graphics

 

I love new graphics stuff, blocks, hd textures, lighting, objects and what have you. But it seems as if 50 % of the effort was spent on graphical improvements, with 25 % on POI work, 15 % on tweaking existing systems (health/stamina, loot, etc), and 10 % new gameplay content like the jeep/mc. Appearances, which doesn't necessarily mean that's how they spent the time btw. Nothing wrong with looking prettier, but if it plays effectively the same as A16, it's nice for new players picking the game up, but why would A16 players go back to a prettier A16 which doesn't have gameplay extending content like bandits, npc communities, new electricity items, new zombies and so on. Probably not, is what I keep hearing from people.

 

So yeah, if A16 looked like A17, I think it'd been great. But I have a big concern that people "barely" waited 12 months for A17, and with insufficient new content extending gameplay, even fewer will consider waiting another 12 months just to see something interesting enough.

 

Loving the game, but Single Player has it's limitations, and I want to have people playing with in multiplayer too, and everyone seems to be running away

 

/Vedui

[Gazz]

With no looting, it seemed very hard at many times to see if a zombie was truly dead, or just stunned. That was always a bit of a problem previously, one would hover over and see if the "loot corpse" would show, and if not, whack again. Now, with no looting, you won't know.

That is not a problem but the solution to you always knowing whether a zombie is truly dead or not. =)

[OneArmedBandit]

That is not a problem but the solution to you always knowing whether a zombie is truly dead or not. =)

 

+1

I guess I'm going to like that uncertainty!

[Gazz]

It's like in an alien movie where there's a facehugger jumping from every single duct cover.

Not really scary.

[Vedui]

That is not a problem but the solution to you always knowing whether a zombie is truly dead or not. =)

 

That surely is one way to look at it

 

I would rather see some movement when stunned... AND having zombies having a chance to "re-animate" after being killed after some time

 

I mean the zombie is not knocked out, so it would make sense to it not lay perfectly still and then suddenly get up again. Well, sense in the sense it's a zombie game and who knows how zombies act when stunned

[Gazz]

Rule #2: Double Tap.

[meganoth]

5) Overfocus on Graphics

 

Not sure TFP can or wants to change that. They have graphics artists in the team, they can either use them or fire them. What they can't do is tell one of the artists to learn C++ now and fix AI issues.

[Darthjake]

Rule #2: Double Tap.

 

Now I'm going to have to dig that movie out and watch it again.

 

Thanks Gazz!

[open6l]

 

3) Clumsy Melee

 

This I have to say really concerned me in earlier A17 showcases, the melee seemed way clumsy, not fluid, the hitboxes and animations seemed off. In the D1 video, it seemed as bad. It just doesn't look or feel right. I'm not sure how it could be fixed though, but relooking hitboxes, maybe even the animation (it feels like you hit 50 cm in front, when the zombie is 1 meter away and gets damaged). Am I the only one who felt it didn't quite look like a satisfying melee the way it currently worked?

 

/Vedui

 

I have to agree (judging by what I saw in the video as well). The first thing that came to mind when watching Joel stream that video was that the animations were completely off. It looked very odd. I chalked it up to bad framerate over streaming. One can hope that's all it is. Will wait and see when Experimental drops or more videos are released.

[Roland]

1) I know you based this only on the one video but if you based it on that video plus the follow up statements by developers you would know that there will be zombie loot and they are currently working on the balance. What there won’t be is zombies morphing into corpse block loot containers.

 

2) This seems to be a preference thing and unfortunately for me but lucky for you Madmole shares your preference of being able to tell the difference between stunned and dead. From the video it does seem hard to tell but the truth is after playing for a bit the sound cues are different enough that you quickly learn. I suggested mixing up the sound cues so it wouldn’t be possible to tell and Madmole said that he preferred having clues that zombies were dead vs knocked out.

 

TLDR: You will quickly learn to notice the difference. No twitch animation required.

 

3) The solution to this will be revealed in Madmole’s next video after he’s practiced up a bit...

 

4) Could have been bad luck. My experience is that there are more wanderers in the world than in A16.

 

5) Graphics are important to a lot of people and they are Joel’s realm of expertise on the team. Your percentages are skewed by Joel’s emphasis on sharing what he does. But even if you were right about the ratio of graphics work to other work it would please many people who are concerned about how the game looks.

[zootal]

...

1) No Corpse Loot?

...

 

Am I missing something? You kill a zombie but you can no longer loot it? Some of the best stuff comes from dead zombies! How can they do away with corpse loot?????

[OzHawkeye]

Am I missing something? You kill a zombie but you can no longer loot it? Some of the best stuff comes from dead zombies! How can they do away with corpse loot?????

 

They're not.

[SylenThunder]

They're not.

But everyone assumes they are because they stop paying attention to all the information provided.

[Megadeth]

But everyone assumes they are because they stop paying attention to all the information provided.

 

We have reading and writing classes in school but after lurking on these forums for so long and attending many business conference calls, I'm really starting to believe that we need to have "listening" as a class.

[Vedui]

1) I know you based this only on the one video but if you based it on that video plus the follow up statements by developers you would know that there will be zombie loot and they are currently working on the balance. What there won’t be is zombies morphing into corpse block loot containers.

>The crux of that is in the balance. In the kills Madmole did, there wasn't a single one. So one could assume it's bugged. Or one could assume what looks to be no loot. In either case, that's really what the concern is about. If it's intended, it means loot has dropped considerably from A16, which was worse than A15. I'd consider that going the wrong way. If it's simply a bug, that's cool, in which case having the actual mechanic shown next time Madmole makes a video would be awesome. I browse the forums every couple of days normally, but there's just so much discussion, and either way, until it's shown in the game, even confirmations are subject to change as we've seen before. Which is fine, but still worth raising.

 

2) This seems to be a preference thing and unfortunately for me but lucky for you Madmole shares your preference of being able to tell the difference between stunned and dead. From the video it does seem hard to tell but the truth is after playing for a bit the sound cues are different enough that you quickly learn. I suggested mixing up the sound cues so it wouldn’t be possible to tell and Madmole said that he preferred having clues that zombies were dead vs knocked out.

 

TLDR: You will quickly learn to notice the difference. No twitch animation required.

>In a daylight fight, with 1-2 zombies, one might catch a sound cue. At night, with multiple zombies where it really counts, there's likely to be a lot of sounds, overlapping, and since positional audio is rarely as accurate as it needs to be compared to "real life" that adds to the trouble with just having audio cues.

 

3) The solution to this will be revealed in Madmole’s next video after he’s practiced up a bit...

> That'd be nice I don't think it's just practice though. Hitboxes/animation doesn't look quite right. Probably with it being a static animation, but the hitbox/hitrange is further, causing a mismatch between where it seems a club hits in the air, and where the zombie actually is visually.

4) Could have been bad luck. My experience is that there are more wanderers in the world than in A16.

> Possibly. But it was very quiet as far as random spawns. This was a big issue in A16 too, so it's not unreasonable to assume it's still a major concern.

5) Graphics are important to a lot of people and they are Joel’s realm of expertise on the team. Your percentages are skewed by Joel’s emphasis on sharing what he does. But even if you were right about the ratio of graphics work to other work it would please many people who are concerned about how the game looks.

 

> Yes absolutely possible. Which then is good feedback for making a point to balancing out the sharing information in videos with all these other things. A tonne of work has gone into the version. But if much of what is shown is just the graphical bit, people will wonder if that's coz that really is what big thing in the version, as less of the other stuff was shown.

 

Thanks for the feedback Roland!

 

As an amusing aside of how the internet works, when I (Reddit) posted 5 things I liked about A17, 1.5k viewed it after a week. Posting 5 concerns has drawn 6k views in less than a day. While not evidence of anything, it does to me suggest there is a lot of concern, and that usually comes from a lack of information of what's going on.

[meganoth]

As an amusing aside of how the internet works, when I (Reddit) posted 5 things I liked about A17, 1.5k viewed it after a week. Posting 5 concerns has drawn 6k views in less than a day. While not evidence of anything, it does to me suggest there is a lot of concern, and that usually comes from a lack of information of what's going on.

 

Human nature. A "rant" is more entertaining than a "glorification".

 

I am guilty as charged, I did not read the other thread

[Roland]

As an amusing aside of how the internet works, when I (Reddit) posted 5 things I liked about A17, 1.5k viewed it after a week. Posting 5 concerns has drawn 6k views in less than a day. While not evidence of anything, it does to me suggest there is a lot of concern, and that usually comes from a lack of information of what's going on.

 

Maybe...or maybe it is simply a function of White Knights Assemble!

[AiRJacobs]

I agree with you 100%

[Janna3921]

I agree with you in a lot of areas. There is a huge lack of communication, that doesn't seem to be recognized. Yes, we have videos, but Joel, because his area is graphics, focuses on that, not in areas others find of interest. My son things that graphics are second on the list of requirements for a good game. It has to look realistic or he may not play it, depending on the game. 2 dimensional, what we have right now, is to crude, lousy and horrible in this game, it puts it into the A category, not even a AA. Me, that is the least of my concerns, as long as it looks like a tree, isn't fuzzy, blurry, the water looks like water, and such I don't care if they have only four different types of trees and repeat them over and over, who is bothering with the trees, you want 20 different trees, find, pay the $60, $75 $100 for that game, I don't want realistic looking I want fun.

 

Questions, questions and more questions. I posted why not have Joel do an Q & A and Roland said he prefers to play, okay, I can understand that. But, many do have questions, concerns. Prime answered one today about how the POIs that are to be used in quests it has been believed that the house would reset when a player got the quest. Prime said that if you are using it as a base it won't be reset.

 

Let Prime do Q & A. We can list questions, concerns, and he can read then and post answers. He can ignore the repeats, the ones that are silly or belligerent and just give the facts, Joel seems to ramble on, stating things that are a possible that many want to take as will be not maybe.

 

 

There will be loot dropped, but not as much, so, how will it be replaced? We will be saved from opening cabinets, fridges and such to loot when they are empty. helps with wasting time in looting, but what about scavenging skills? That was one way of increasing that skill. Zombies not dropping as much loot, that needs to be replaced, how is the questions. How long before we see the loot after the zombie dies. No one wants to stand around for one or two seconds to wait and see if a bag will show up so . . .?

I have to admit that I don't remember all five, but I know that I am curious about them also. And wish someone would give more info. That is what is creating the negative feelings, especially from those who don't visit the forums, and the majority of players never come here.

 

 

Hopefully, we will get answers to those and other questions.

[DarlingCows]

Can you guys just wait until the game comes out. Your complaining about something you have actually tried yet. I know the delays are hard but I think it is close.

[skylynx]

1) No Corpse Loot?

 

Torn on this one. On one hand dealing with corpses was the least fun, but on the other it added an activity to do. It's a game about activities in the world. There are mods that add even more steps to existing things. Plus it was kind of fun to loot zombies hoping for loot. Is it fun to loot a lot of trash and then one good item or loot nothing and then loot one good item after same amount of time? I think the former. Filler is important. Plus it's unrealistic that zombies dissapear.

 

2) Stunned vs DEAD

 

This I agree with. I like to be able to distinguish, otherwise it will just force mto stare at dead zombies waiting for them to revive. Sound is nice, but sometimes I play with low sound.

 

3) Clumsy Melee

 

I will shrug that off as MMs rustiness.

 

4) Too few Zombies!

 

Personally, A16 has a lot of zombies. It even made me check settings to see if I set it to max. I think zombies are scarier when you can't see a couple in sight all the time.

 

5) Overfocus on Graphics

 

I actually think that it's nice that they update graphics, and I'm not the type to value graphics over gameplay. Still playing my share of time of Diablo 2. It will only add immersion.

[PiercedFromWithin]

It's like in an alien movie where there's a facehugger jumping from every single duct cover.

Not really scary.

 

You just perfectly described one half of the biggest problem with the heavy focus on sleepers(in A16 at least). The other half is the lack of aliens roaming the hallways to make performance room for all the facehuggers.

 

 

Ignoring bugs of course as those aren't design decisions.

[Janna3921]

Can you guys just wait until the game comes out. Your complaining about something you have actually tried yet. I know the delays are hard but I think it is close.

 

First this thread is to discuss what we think, feel and are concerned about in the game. It is seen as being productive and helpful to the developers as they create the game so they know from a players perspective how it is seen and can either explain the what's and why's or maybe change some aspect of it that they didn't think about.

 

Second, you need to look up the definition of complaining and discussion. And if you don't have anything to add to this conversation, you shouldn't even be posting here.

 

To help you understand, here is what the difference is.

 

It is not complaining, it is discussing, expressing concerns, not going they aren't doing their job, they won't ever get the game finished, that they don't care about us, or they are total idiots and can't do anything right. And on and on with negative remarks that has no basis.

 

 

We are politely voicing a concern, why we are concerned or interested it and how we think it could affect the game which effects how we play.

Have you ever heard of constructive criticism? Where you discuss what is wrong with something and the person who is involved goes, oh, I didn't think of it that way and does some changes, or goes, this is what I was thinking of and you go, oh, I didn't think of it that way and goes great idea?

 

What are we supposed to do? Shut up, not saying anything and just leave the forum and go play other games? I do play other games, I read books, I chat with people about new games, about updates or other games. Talk to others the changes, what do they mean, share the good news that I find here that such and such bug has been found and fixed by one of the devs who pops in from time to time to share the news. That helps players who don't visit the forum know that TFPs are working on the game and fixing bugs.

I also come here to discuss my concerns, because we aren't given in some areas enough information to understand.

[Vedui]

Can you guys just wait until the game comes out. Your complaining about something you have actually tried yet. I know the delays are hard but I think it is close.

 

Raising concerns is not the same as complaining. On the other hand, you calling it complaints is very close to complaining people raise concerns

[Darthjake]

Actually, I have what I think is a valid concern / question. If I kill a zombie using X many arrows, will whatever percentage of arrows that might have been able to be salvaged from the corpse still be there when the Z despawns?

 

Or will they fade away with the corpse?

 

My apologies if this has been answered, and thanks in advance.