A17 Feedback. Hopefully Useful

[NoHitCharlie]

All feedback is opinionated, but I'll do my best to provide examples/reason to my items. Our opinions of what the game should be may not be the same. Of course, your opinion or experience may differ, and that's good. We can disagree amicably. I also understand that this is an experimental version of an Alpha and changes will be made and some bugs that may be mentioned will be fixed in short order. This is just my personal feedback towards that process.

 

1. Melee

 

Melee feels good. There is still the action queuing with left click/right click and punching when placing the last item in a stack. I don't feel like melee is any more dangerous than it was in A16 once you have the ranges figured out. The ranges feel awkward though. In the attached picture, I am just within range to hit, but it looks like I would need to take a step closer as I am a full body length away. The club isn't even 3 feet long, nevertheless 5 or 6. As a HEMA or kendo practitioner can tell you, even with a 3 foot long weapon, you have to be closer than 3 feet to hit. (screenshot taken with AI turned off so I could dial in the exact distance. Default FOV)

 

 

2. POIs

 

Interesting, varied, and dangerous if you aren't careful. I was surprised by the sheer numbers of zombies, and (I don't know if this was meant to be humorous) the frequency of literal "monster closets." I can see how it is viewed as excessive numbers for any house, but I'm ok with it. By going carefully and making noise to draw zombies to me, they haven't posed too much added difficulty, just take longer and provide more entertainment (the good kind).

 

3. Spawning

 

In general, I haven't noticed zombies spawning out of thin air next to or behind me. Sometimes one will walk in behind me when looting a POI, but by placing wooden frames you can have a warning system. There is one place I have noticed them pop in/ load: when walking upstairs in a house (specifically one of the Diersville, sorry I can't remember which one right now), the upper floor cell pops in when you walk up the stairs, so you see them load.

 

4. Experience

 

Zombies provide too much experience relative to anything else. I feel as though if I'm not out hunting and killing zombies, I'm wasting time. I find myself wishing for wandering hordes and screamers. I've given some serious thought to kiting screamers around to get more experience. To me, zombies have changed from loot bags to experience bags.

 

5. Level Gating

 

This is a topic that particularly comes down to a matter of preference. I, personally, hate level gating. I hated it in A16 with the science requirement for workbenches and chemistry stations, for example, and I hate it now. I prefer the new leveling system over the old one, but I feel like I need to rush levels to get what I want: iron. There has to be some gating system in place, otherwise there is no progression. I think the game should play up its strengths here: resource gating. Make the player search for and gather resources from POIs to unlock things. Want a chemistry station? Go loot a hospital to find required components. Want a workbench? Go loot garages (maybe too easy a POI example but the idea is what I'm trying to illustrate). Want a crucible for steel? Loot a large industrial complex. I see the stone age as the introduction. It serves the purpose of introducing players to the mechanics of the game. Experienced players are able to get through faster. It's like unskippable tutorials in games for people who have already been through them.

 

6. AI

 

Heat-seeking zombies. They are very predictable in behavior. I like that they don't run in circles anymore, but they are perhaps too intelligent in some regards. When they know where you are, they know exactly how to get to you (if there is a way). This makes them exploitable. https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/9zh45i/base_defense_in_a17_using_path_finding_to_your/

There is no siege of your base anymore. Now, I'll have to go about constructing the most efficient death-maze. To me, this is unfortunate. I, personally, would prefer the siege-style attack, pressing in and attacking from all sides. As it is, zombies are going to all be attacking one point of your defenses, rather than spreading out, pressing at the walls from all sides, and creating openings from unexpected avenues.

 

7. Block Durability

 

I have read the notes regarding "active defense." Maybe the group attack buff is too strong. Against a horde, flagstone upgraded doesn't do anything. Here's my experience of my first (short-lived) playthrough (Dead is dead on that playthrough. I don't always play DiD, but it was a test run). On default settings, I got to level 20 on day 7. I had the materials for a forge ready to go and made a forge. I had an upgraded flagstone base, two tiers. I had learned previously that pillar 50 didn't do anything, so I swapped those out with the iron bars. The first floor was upgraded flagstone block, iron bars, upgraded flagstone block. A row of the wood spikes I dislike (too weak. I knew they would only work on the first wave then disappear. A pain to gather enough wood with stone tools) were outside. I had an iron club with a barbed mod (backup), a compound bow with a stack of iron arrows (barely made the arrows in time), and a shotgun with about 70 shells to fight with. I started the night ready to fight. I didn't even get through a fraction of the ammo before they were in. I did unload the shotgun into a zombie cop before they got through. He never got the vomit off from what I saw and I killed him, he didn't explode. I godmode flew back to the area to observe and I saw several irradiated spider zombies and more cops! My second playthrough saw a feral wight on day 3 or 4 from a screamer. Good old stone keeps with machicolations don't work at all anymore, even against the day 7 horde.

 

8. Death Penalty

 

Again, I do realize this is a particularly opinionated issue. I am against the current version. To me, death and the hike back to your bag is failure and the fear of losing my hard-earned equipment should I die again is worse than any temporary penalty. I also do not believe it is productive in the least to suggest lowering the difficulty or making the penalty tied to difficulty. There is one main reason for this: lower difficulties provide a lower challenge. I do not wish to make zombies easier to kill or myself harder to kill. I am comfortable with the levels of the difficulty I have selected. The current level of challenge in this regard is good. What I dislike is the lengthy debuff. Could I still go out and get my experience killing zombies? Yes. Should I, with the lowered stats, risk looting a POI or running into a pack? Probably not. So, I'm stuck at base doing base things and not getting that required experience from killing zombies I need to level up. But the clock is still ticking. I need to level up. Some may see this as a positive. My opinion differs. I find myself bored rather than "suffering the consequences." I also agree that an hour if real-time is too long.

 

 

 

Thank you for your time.

[lug]

well presented. i look forward to reading more of your posts