A Nice Cup of Tea Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (Sorry for the somewhat click-baity title, but all the obvious permutations of "here's what I think of A17" had been used.) My preferred playstyle is a little bit of a minority one, in that I prefer to hide from zombies than to kill them. That doesn't mean that I would prefer to play without zombies, just that I see fighting zombies as something you do out of necessity when you can't avoid them; not something you go out and seek to do. I normally like to go with the natural rhythm of the game, out and about during the day looting, scavenging, and building; and spending nights safely indoors - with the exception of blood moon nights, during which I'll defend myself from a second "horde-night" structure rather than my main base. I don't mind building a basic base, but I'm not one for big extensive fortresses, and I really don't like having to keep doing repairs because that gets boring (as does gathering the resources for repair work) so I normally make a base that the zombies don't break - a stilt base or an underground base. I find mining tedious and don't do it, and I dislike the traders and (after fulfilling the starter quest) completely ignore their existence. I also rarely bother with guns or electricity - I'll play until about day 40 or so and then I tend to consider the game "done" and will re-start with a new map and a new character. So - given my playstyle, what do I think of Alpha 17? Leveling and Perks I'm loving the new level-gated perk system. The fact that it stretches out the early game is ideal for me, since that's my favourite part of the game anyway. The way the perk tree works forces a nice decision point between spending points immediately on generally useful things or saving them till you get higher level and can spend them or more specialised things. That's the sort of decision forcing that makes the game more interesting, and lets you experiment with different styles of character. It's much better than the "learn by doing" mechanics the game used to have which either encouraged spam-crafting or meant every character was the same as they generically levelled up in the same things that everyone does. My Rating: 9/10 - Excellent, needs only minor tweaks for balance Zombie AI and Block Damage This was one of the things that I was worried about in the run-up to A17 coming out. The hype about it was that no base would be safe and so - as someone who likes there to be danger but also likes to have a safe base to retreat to - this was rather concerning to say the least. As it happens, I'm mostly happy with it. When it comes to horde night, it has meant I have had to learn new ways to do an effective horde-night structure that I can defend - but that's been a fun learning curve. In some ways, it's actually been an improvement because the more direct AI means that if I make the zombies run a gauntlet to get to me rather than just swarming in from all directions I actually need less in the way of repair work afterwards. However, when it's not a horde night I'm less keen. Some of the AI changes (digging and raging against supports) have specifically been put in to prevent my normal styles of non-horde base from working, and I'm not terribly happy about this. I can no longer make a base that the zombies will ignore on non-horde nights. Instead, the wandering groups and individuals will make a bee-line for it and me. Since these are much less fierce than horde night attacks, I could use passive defences such as spike fields, but then that means repairing and replacing each morning which is really boring. So currently, I find that the only way to prevent this is to make no heat/noise at all at night. This means that instead of being able to cook and sort loot and craft at night I have to spend the nights with my character crouched in the dark doing nothing for six in-game hours while I go AFK and read a book or something. Obviously this is hardly ideal, but perhaps I'll be able to find a repair-free strategy for non-horde nights that lets me do a bit more when I'm more familiar with things. But currently it definitely feels that the zombies senses could do with toning down. They see and hear you from much too far away, even when you're indoors and they have no direct line of sight and your sound should be muffled by walls! My Rating: 5/10 - Better in general, but "having" to go AFK each night to not be found sucks. This score will increase if I can find a solution to that problem. Loot Changes I'm fine with the zombies dropping far fewer things but those things being generally better, and I'm fine with weapon damage not getting any better with increased quality but depending on your perks instead (yes, I know that increased quality weapons have more mod slots - but I've not yet found a weapon mod so that's a moot point). Loot bags (and dropped backpacks) despawn a bit too quickly, though. My Rating: 7/10 - less trash is good Dungeon POIs and Quests The whole idea of Dungeon POIs with "boss" zombies leaves me cold, but luckily it's a part of the game that I can completely ignore. I can simply not take that kind of quest from the traders and I'm fine. When it comes to day-to-day scavenging, I can mostly stick to the non-Dungeon ones. Having said that, I think there are too many sleepers - but apparently that's already being addressed. Speaking of the quest system, that's another thing that I wasn't looking forward to because I don't really feel that traders giving out quests fits the zombie genre. Having said that, I suppose I might do one or two treasure-finding quests (I've only accepted one so far, but the game bugged out before I got to the treasure location and I had to start a new game!) They destroy my feeling of immersion in the game, but I can deal with that and just treat them as disassociated game mechanics. My Rating: 4/10 - I don't like it, but it's relatively easy to ignore for the most part RWG I always play random worlds rather than Navezgane. The pre-generation of worlds is good for performance. I'd rather have a big wait for it to be generated all at once than slower perfomance while it keeps making bits as it goes along. The new RWG algorithm needs work, though. I'm fine with the fewer biomes, but at the moment the worlds are a bit flat and samey. They need more varied terrain. The snow-in-the-north-and-desert-in-the-south thing is overdone too. They should tend that way but it would be nice to get the occasional patch of one or the other rather than such regular stripes. My Rating: 7/10 - It's okay, but nothing to write home about Overall Feel Combat feels a lot better, and arrows sticking in zombies is particularly nice for someone like me who prefers bows to guns. In general, the game seems to feel a lot better than the sum of its parts. My Rating: 8/10 - Overall it's definitely a step forward rather than a step back, and while there are things I don't like I'm not likely to go back to A16 or flounce off in a huff any time soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxceb0t Posted November 27, 2018 Share Posted November 27, 2018 At night just change the day length to ten minutes and then change back in the morning. Much faster that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tin Posted November 27, 2018 Share Posted November 27, 2018 Nice review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giltirn Posted November 27, 2018 Share Posted November 27, 2018 At night just change the day length to ten minutes and then change back in the morning. Much faster that way. Yeah that's what I used to do. However in A17 due to the rampaging hordes of destruction I just don't spend any time in my base - I never have running zombies so I am quite happy to go out at night, and with the gamma turned up its not that hard to get around. As long as you keep moving you won't have much trouble with wandering hordes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 (Sorry for the somewhat click-baity title, but all the obvious permutations of "here's what I think of A17" had been used.) It drew me in because frankly I was worried about you too based on several conversations we both were part of pre A17e release. Leveling and Perks I'm loving the new level-gated perk system. Stop being so alternative you big weirdo! Zombie AI and Block Damage So currently, I find that the only way to prevent this is to make no heat/noise at all at night. This means that instead of being able to cook and sort loot and craft at night I have to spend the nights with my character crouched in the dark doing nothing for six in-game hours while I go AFK and read a book or something. Obviously this is hardly ideal, but perhaps I'll be able to find a repair-free strategy for non-horde nights that lets me do a bit more when I'm more familiar with things. But currently it definitely feels that the zombies senses could do with toning down. They see and hear you from much too far away, even when you're indoors and they have no direct line of sight and your sound should be muffled by walls! My Rating: 5/10 - Better in general, but "having" to go AFK each night to not be found sucks. This score will increase if I can find a solution to that problem. Best solution I have found is to not stay inside all night. Zombies do have their senses back in A17 so it is much bigger risk than the A16 nights but you can still do well outside. The rock throwing distraction system is awesome now. They love thrown rocks better than they used to love doors. You can actually travel places and move zombies away from where you want to go using thrown rocks. You can run faster than they do so if you get noticed run away and then crouch and they won't find you. In fact when you hear a wandering horde coming and you are in the base don't stay. Make a run for it and get them to follow and then crouch and hide until they go. 30 seconds is how long they remember they are chasing you and then they are super blind at night. It's scary but definitely doable to lead them away from your base and lose them in the dark. My suggestion is try it on a throwaway game you don't care about. Loot Changes I'm fine with the zombies dropping far fewer things but those things being generally better, and I'm fine with weapon damage not getting any better with increased quality but depending on your perks instead (yes, I know that increased quality weapons have more mod slots - but I've not yet found a weapon mod so that's a moot point). Loot bags (and dropped backpacks) despawn a bit too quickly, though. My Rating: 7/10 - less trash is good Mods are in their infancy so just like we had Dukes for a two Alphas before we had traders we have a pitiful number of mods and all sorts of mod slots. That will change with time. Devs want hundreds of mods eventually which will make this whole feature much more exciting. For now it is a bit meh but I also learned to appreciate the zombie loot change. Dungeon POIs and Quests My Rating: 4/10 - I don't like it, but it's relatively easy to ignore for the most part You probably say Bah Humbug at Christmas time as well!!! RWG I always play random worlds rather than Navezgane. The pre-generation of worlds is good for performance. I'd rather have a big wait for it to be generated all at once than slower perfomance while it keeps making bits as it goes along. The new RWG algorithm needs work, though. I'm fine with the fewer biomes, but at the moment the worlds are a bit flat and samey. They need more varied terrain. The snow-in-the-north-and-desert-in-the-south thing is overdone too. They should tend that way but it would be nice to get the occasional patch of one or the other rather than such regular stripes. My Rating: 7/10 - It's okay, but nothing to write home about Will there ever be an update without radical changes to RWG? I doubt it... I liked it best when it was altitude based and all the mountains had snow at the top and all the lowest points were desert. Guess it caused more problems than it was worth though. Hopefully they'll get RWG sorted out someday. flounce That's how you spill your tea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grieferbastard Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 The POIs have become my favorite part of the game. Now my base is largely just where I store stuff and craft, I spend the majority of my time searching for POIs. Most the rest I agree with. I will say build your base at the top of a tall structure. Tallest you can find. Fill the bottom with the strongest blocks you can, stack spikes around the outside edge. About as safe as you can get and minimal maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nice Cup of Tea Posted November 28, 2018 Author Share Posted November 28, 2018 At night just change the day length to ten minutes and then change back in the morning. Much faster that way. That always seems a bit cheaty to me. If I were going to do that I'd just change the settings to have shorter nights. Stop being so alternative you big weirdo! What can I say? Some people just want to watch the world burn... Best solution I have found is to not stay inside all night. Zombies do have their senses back in A17 so it is much bigger risk than the A16 nights but you can still do well outside. The rock throwing distraction system is awesome now. They love thrown rocks better than they used to love doors. You can actually travel places and move zombies away from where you want to go using thrown rocks. That might be a bit more interesting than just sitting in the dark - but creeping around outside still doesn't let you do anything that makes noise (which is pretty much everything) without being attacked. I'm not sure what we'd actually be doing outside. You can run faster than they do so if you get noticed run away and then crouch and they won't find you. In fact when you hear a wandering horde coming and you are in the base don't stay. Make a run for it and get them to follow and then crouch and hide until they go. 30 seconds is how long they remember they are chasing you and then they are super blind at night. It's scary but definitely doable to lead them away from your base and lose them in the dark. My suggestion is try it on a throwaway game you don't care about. Yesterday I was playing with my wife and a friend and we did just that. It was 21.45 and we were just settling down in our base (the upper floor of a "damaged house" POI that we'd fixed up) when a wandering horde approached. Had it been earlier in the day we might have fought them, but given that it was so close to nightfall and them going feral we came out of the base and led them away quickly before running off and circling back round to our base again. Unfortunately we ran off too soon and they lost us too quickly, meaning they were milling around in the street mere yards from the house for the rest of the night. That was a very tense night as we could hear them all night (well, until about 3.00am when they despawned) and were carefully listening for them showing any sign of having spotted us and got angry. You know the tension in the game is working when the players are only whispering to each other over their headsets for fear of disturbing the zombies! As part of the fix-up of the house, we've got a front door at floor level and put in a back door on the upper floor (but not high enough that you sprain an ankle if you fall from it). The idea is that if any zombies hear us they'll start breaking in through the front door - thanks to the new AI they won't just try to come through the nearest wall - and when we hear that we can all run out of the back door (which they'll not be targeting because they can't reach it). Then if it's daytime we can nip round to the front and choose to fight them or lead them away from the base and if it's nighttime we can flee. Hopefully either way the worst we'll have to do is make a new door, rather than a full scale repair of the base. Having said that, we're probably being a bit too paranoid just sitting in the dark doing nothing. We could probably have a few candles around and maybe do a bit of cooking at night in relative safety (providing we still have the escape route). You probably say Bah Humbug at Christmas time as well!!! Hey! I'm prepared to give it a go! Will there ever be an update without radical changes to RWG? I doubt it... I liked it best when it was altitude based and all the mountains had snow at the top and all the lowest points were desert. Guess it caused more problems than it was worth though. Hopefully they'll get RWG sorted out someday. Random terrain can be a tricky beast. I know from some of my own projects. One of the best ways is to build a pair of two-dimensional grids of Perlin noise. The first one is for altitude, and can use multiple octaves and be adjusted to make things as mountainous or flat and as smooth or jagged as you desire. The second is for temperature, and is biased to make it hot in the south and cold in the north. You then have a function that sets the biomes based on a simple look-up table of height/temperature. Cold areas get snow (with height reducing the threshold needed, so particularly high areas might be snowy even if they're not that cold) and hotter areas get desert (with height increasing the threshold needed so particularly high areas will not get desert even if they're hot). That gives you both heat banding and altitude banding, and the interaction between the two makes it look more organic and less artificial. If you want to really get fancy, you can use three grids instead of two, separating out temperature and "wetness" - wetness means that dips and hollows will be made into lakes and also suppresses desert like height does, but without more different biome types that's probably overkill. If you're going to use three factors like that then you probably need extra biomes like plains and rocky wasteland. That's how you spill your tea. And we wouldn't want that to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalarro Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 When you hear a wandering horde coming and you are in the base don't stay. Make a run for it and get them to follow Except for some players, the best thing this game had was building bases as a defense. Recommending leaving our bases as a better way of survival in a game that was so cool exactly because of that.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmic Kerman Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Except for some players, the best thing this game had was building bases as a defense. Recommending leaving our bases as a better way of survival in a game that was so cool exactly because of that.... I read Roland to be talking about early game bases that aren’t really horde ready. If you have a horde ready base why not draw the attention of the wandering horde and take them on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 Except for some players, the best thing this game had was building bases as a defense. Recommending leaving our bases as a better way of survival in a game that was so cool exactly because of that.... I was talking to Cup specifically regarding his own preference which is to NOT confront every wandering horde and have to do repairs daily. For someone with that specified preference my suggestion makes some sense. I was not suggesting that as the default strategy for everyone forevermore. If defending your base is your favorite cool part of the game then my recommendation for you is to not run away until/unless you are about to be overrun and killed. Stay and fight the good fight. Should I stay or should I go is simply a question of your own playstyle. And some people say A17 locks you into one single playstyle. Peh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nice Cup of Tea Posted November 29, 2018 Author Share Posted November 29, 2018 Stay and fight the good fight. Should I stay or should I go is simply a question of your own playstyle. If you stay there will be trouble, but if you go there will be double... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 Please, God, don’t let my base be rubble.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordoftheMoo Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 Please, God, don’t let my base be rubble.. I really hate to burst your bubble... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nice Cup of Tea Posted November 29, 2018 Author Share Posted November 29, 2018 I built it in the snow! So, should I stay or should I go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Data Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 Build it on concrete so the foundation will be sweet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sykstring Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 This indecision's bugging me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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