Is A17 harder or is the programming cheap?

[Scyris]

Oh dear, guess you'll have to learn xml-fu like everyone else?

 

Well the game does have some glaring balance and diffculty issues, I mean why does a AK47 using 7.62mm ammo (2nd most expensive in game to craft) do the same damage as a damn compound bow with stone arrows? this is just stupid.

[Khulkhuum]

I would love the guns to do quite a lot more damage (without modding). It's fairly stupid to not kill or seriously decapitate Zs with such powerful things like a shotgun, assault rifles (the bullets are quite bigger than regular pistol) or the sniper. On the other hand they should be quite more rare. Maybe make the ammunition also harder to make/buy so that people can't just easily get it?

 

I see these weapons as mostly mid-end game, where the bows, crossbows, melee weapons don't really matter when you get the big guns (at least in A16). Still, i will always love running around with a machete and taking heads off...

 

Welp, time to hit on the hord, i got a few more minutes before they come... Wish me luck, as i'll need it to not die here...

 

[NalaAddict]

The difference between bow and guns is the fire rate. The bullets may do the same damage, but when you are getting off anywhere from 3 to 5 to the 1 arrow, it is no longer the same damage. Kinda simple math there. That is also not taking in to account the many skills that appear to be gun-centric which only enhance it even more.

[Khulkhuum]

The difference between bow and guns is the fire rate. The bullets may do the same damage, but when you are getting off anywhere from 3 to 5 to the 1 arrow, it is no longer the same damage. Kinda simple math there. That is also not taking in to account the many skills that appear to be gun-centric which only enhance it even more.

 

Not every gun works as fast as the AK. Comparing to A16:

- Sniper Rifle had 5 bullets shooting mediocre and long reload

- AK shoots very fast a lot of ammo and had a big recoil, which was hard for aiming in the heads, also long reload

- Shotgun had similar speed as Sniper Rifle, but nowhere close with fire power, also long reload

- Rocket Launcher had a very long reload, but at the same time could hit many enemies (and destroy blocks)

- Crossbow shoots a bit slower than a shotgun or sniper, but every shot is linked with the reload

- Hunting Rifle has one bullet in the chamber, which means acts like a crossbow with longer reload

- Bows act similarly like crossbows, but their shots need pulling the string, so they shoot longer

 

In summary, would have to make some calculations, but you have to decide for yourself whether to shoot a few rounds faster (shotgun/sniper) and have a long reload or constantly shoot with each bolt reloading a bit slower than shooting with guns.

 

On a side note: I put up a fight against the Zs, but got mauled... It turned out though the spikes worked well and the same came to the ones surrounding the house i have my base in. What remained of the horde was destroyed on them (heard the spikes get "used" as i respawned). So everyone saying that the wooden spikes are for nothing never used enough to stop their enemies. No xp from kills, but at least you're semi safe.

[sadpickle]

I died three times so far - I start new games when I die. The first time I died to dogs, the second times I died to dogs and the third time I died to dogs. When you have a club, a bow, low health, maybe half your stamina gone, and, of course, when you can't sprint backwards, and a bunch of dogs attacks you inside a building (which happened to me all three times): You die.

 

If the game is supposed to feel unfair, all is well. Otherwise, tone the dogs down. Myself, I'll reduce their damage values for now. To 5. They deal 18 damage, btw, the usual zombies deal 10.

 

The dogs have always been ridiculous so it's too bad to hear they are showing up more often. I can't see how a noob is supposed to deal with a dog now with no stamina and horrible damage output.

[Jamey]

The dogs have always been ridiculous so it's too bad to hear they are showing up more often. I can't see how a noob is supposed to deal with a dog now with no stamina and horrible damage output.

 

I've basically played Day 1 twice to get an idea of what A17 is like and have yet to see a single dog.

 

My biggest complaints:

1. Zombies spawn inside traders (yes, I closed the door when I came in). I was talking to Trader Bob and almost got killed by a zombie who spawned next to me in his trailer.
   
2. Zombies are silent as they approach you. Some day I would like zombies in 7DTD to groan in excitement when they get close to eating my delicious brains, rather than being super silent zombie ninjas.
   
3. The bleed chance if you get hit seems exceedingly high. I died three times to lumberjacks because I couldn't find any cloth to make bandages.
   
4. Vultures remain lame. Just after dawn of day 2 of my first game I gave up on that game when a couple of vultures came out of nowhere and tagged me with a bleed (see above lack of bandages).
   
5. Bows seem close to useless without perks or mods. Maybe they get better, but right now I wonder why the tutorial even suggests that I craft one. As far as I can tell, the best use of the one I crafted is fuel my campfire to cook food.
   

[Kubikus]

If you're getting attacked by dogs inside a building 3x in a row and dying maybe you need to pick your early loot choices better? Were they all the old western stores for eaxample? This is a new game. No longer should you just willy nilly head into any poi you want and expect to live. As Joel has stated many times already since the drop, stick to the smaller poi's at first. Build up strength and perks/skills.

 

I'm on D5 and haven't died yet. Played the first 2.5 days on adventurer then went up to nomad. 110ish zombie kills and lvl 16. Have a few guns to sell cause they're too weak to use early game. Have iron axe and pick both from loot. Got a chainsaw and sold it too from a zombie loot drop. I think I've only looted 5? poi's so far? Much more cars/trash piles outside stuff etc. KIlled 3 wolves and a few vultures, 2 wild and 2 that spawned up out of a new campsite type poi (got a TON of cloth out of the tents there, VERY handy). Shame the chem station there wasn't working but found a good chem station at a trader and a forge house with a working forge nearby. (Funny thing that same trader the forge was working too so decided to move close to it, nearest house the forge was working)

 

Play smart! Just my 2 cents for what it's worth.

 

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/940585896189522092/F3EE4B43C2A7DB3A4F82DE32B486F149A2A1D36F/

Well, maybe.. Looting houses in the early game is the only thing fun about sleepers. Once I have a gun with enough ammo to waste or a good melee weapon, sleepers are no issue anymore, and dogs won't make a difference, particularly with additional stamina and wellness and ammo on top of the gunz. So I "fear" that I will rob me of a substantial fun part if I stay out of the prefabs in early game.

 

And if Joel says so, I accept that it's an intentional design decision, to "gate" looting these buildings. So people have a more meaty mid game. I'm not hating it, I was a bit frustrated when I made my post, you know, the ole storming straight to the forums after I died the third time to let the world know. But... for early game, I think it's hard enough with just the zombies, while with dogs, it's not just "very hard", it is literally impossible. I believe that everybody, or maybe 99.9% would have died in the situations that killed me. No way to escape, no running backwards, no health, no stamina, no weapons. It was three different buildings, btw, (and I saw dogs in at least two more) and the third time the dogs were the scheduled wandering horde. The AI was funny too, I was inside a building, the pack came through the front door and I could only back into a storage room. Closed the only door, jumped up on some block and started going through the ceiling. That fortunately was made of wood. The dogs broke the door quickly, which is nice, good threat, I like, but the fun part was that when I broke through the ceiling and made it up to the upper floor, two dogs were already waiting for me. Ha ha. So the AI send them to that spot above me. Outsmarted by virtual zombie dogs, I had a bit of a chuckle.

 

However, while not hating, I think there are better approaches to provide a meaty mid- and end-game. Have zones. Have biomes with different difficulties - as it already is the case, just that the difficulties are not substantial enough. In "my mod", the wasteland has very fast running zombies, many with ranged attacks, it has tons of dogs and vultures and bears, so you know to stay out of it if you ever come close. At some point, you're strong enough to go in, and then it has "towers of death", that you will avoid. That's skyscrapers filled with crazy op (modded boss-) zombies, that you basically can only survive if you have crazy op (modded) weapons and (literally) tenthousands of rounds for these. And you get to that.. I'd say not earlier than maybe after 50+ days. And before, you have biomes that are mid-game difficult, not as hard as the wasteland, but you mostly don't want to go there in the first one or two weeks. Other biomes are mid-game, also too difficult for the first one or two weeks. Maybe you can sneak in every now and then, to grab the biome-specific loot - stores, for example, only spawn in the more difficult biomes, the crazy op modded weapons only in the wasteland. And such. I haven't looked into modding much, but if it's eventually possible to set the player's spawn point, I'll make a ring world (hoping that's still possible -.-) where you spawn at the outer border and have to make your way to the center, with increasingly difficult biomes. Anyways, I digress. It's what I do. :-D

 

tl;dr: Having to fear dogs in every prefab in every biome, I don't know.. Maybe I'll try that out sometime, but at this point, particularly after waiting for the update for so long, I want to thoroughly enjoy the game.

[Khulkhuum]

For anyone interested, i created a comparison of most ranged weapons in A17 (excluding Rocket Launcher as calculating its damage is too hard). I will do a melee comparison in the future.

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?94876-Ranged-weapon-comparison

 

I have those moments when i think that TFP specifically set up the settings just like that to test a very edge'y conditions for the game on a live audience. Most of the things people have problems with could be corrected with enough tweaks to the XMLs (that's my assumption). Should we expect a different experience in A17 stable aka A17.0?