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My input on Alpha 17 so far.


Hellsmoke

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The good:

Love the new engine, textures and look. Along with all the beautiful houses and cabins you guys made the world feels alot more believable and it looks really good. I could go much further in on the level of detail that really gets me like the new window frames with bars on them and certains on the inside. There's a million more little details I am really loving and soaking up that I could talk about but maybe I should leave it there for now to keep this kinda short. Love the new points of interest and I love how tough they are.

 

Love the gun mods, they keep me looting and interested in my items long after they have reached max quality, very nice addition.

 

Love the new vehicles, not much more to say about them they are awesome!

 

The new ai is a big improvement in general. Running around in circles under or above us was not that great. Now they actually look for a path to the player. It's a great improvement and I am excited to see where you guys take it from here.

 

The bad:

 

Zombies do too much block damage. Not too excited about building like I used to be because now you either just hop on some random poi and let them destroy it or you have to cheese them. Building under the surface used to be really cool, not to avoid the zombies because you don't have to dig to do that but because building underground was just cool and gave you somewhere to keep your stuff and craft. Now there's no point in going underground unless you want your world looking like crap because every zombie that passes will hear you and start digging. Nothing should come close to hearing me 50 blocks under. May as well reduce the blocks you can dig to like 5 and gain performance should that even work because as is we can't do much underground now.

 

Movement. Please let me move normally. There's nothing worse than having to move at a crawling pace and it happens way too often. Sometimes it just makes me stop playing because it just isn't fun how my stamina is constantly empty. I know there has to be progression but where we start at is just way too hard and in the recent update I was starving by noon and had eaten my chilli already. My stamina was at like 50%. The first 3 or 4 days I was looking for food only to not starve and keep up with my stamina bar long enough to hit a rock or two and a couple of little trees.

 

This stamina issue isn't easy but it needs to be done right as it can be a game killer for many. Constantly not being able to move drains massive amounts of time and can be very frustrating to players. More so because we are on the clock. If there was no 7 day horde..sure let's play survival but there is a horde and it can suck bad and not in a fun way. My base was collapsed which is cool because building a good base is the challenge after all but what happened next is absolutely ridiculous. I was "encumbered" and my bed was destroyed in the collapse. I got spawn raped like 8 times before I typed in dm and said **** that. After you lose your life, your base and your bed that should be it don't you think? Didn't feel like continuing much further after that. For those curious..it was a 9 leg platform out of cobblestone with spikes below and bars above to shoot through on day 7. They dropped one leg after another within minutes.

 

Reason I explained this is because I was "encumbered" and so I couldn't even get on something or whatever. I simply couldn't do anything not even move..just had to laugh honestly. I'm nowhere near a new player btw.

 

All that said I don't want to constantly have to eat and drink all day long, every 5 minutes at least. This is just as annoying as having to switch that poncho out every 5 minutes in previous alphas. I had 4 inventory spaces reserved for food and drink when I hardly have room for anything now as it is. Remember that horde? I got places to be people...give us one row more before making us "encumbered". I can't build and eat if I can't carry anything.

 

The new skill system.

I can't specialize because all my points are going into cooking eggs and basic player movement..don't like it at all. I'm always going to go pack mule, sexy t, and rule 1 because I have to be able to move or the game is no fun for me. There is no choice here.

 

RWG

 

How many players enjoy the wasteland? How many of you think "oh joy" when seeing wasteland? I personally avoid it like the pest and haven't set foot on it since the mines were added.

 

It brings nothing to the game for me. It ruins the nice view most of the time and has nothing of value worth stepping on a mine for. When a17 hit I played Astora. That was a perfect map and it looks amazing. Then there was an update which sunk everything or had it floating to where things were collapsing on their own, and now we are back to the patchwork biomes I was so glad to get rid of. I kept Astora and wont be generating a new one because looks are 50% of the game to me and this patchwork doesn't look good. If I'm in the forest I want it to feel like a forest when I look around. Same with snow and desert biomes. I don't want to be sitting in the desert in a tshirt and shorts sipping on a Yucca tea watching it snow accross the street, kinda breaks the immersion.

 

Rwg, stamina and the skill system are the things that get me atm, other than that I'm loving the update.

 

The rwg issue is breaking for me though. Don't mind testing but I can't force myself to play in crazy looking maps where it just doesn't look realistic or believable. Astora kinda spoiled me, nice and flat and every biome felt like you were actually in that kind of area.

 

All in all the game has taken huge steps forward and I'm loving it. Great job TFP and thank you for all the effort and hard work, can't wait to see what it's like when it's done.

 

One last thing..fun must always trump realism. Realism helps immersion, too much realism kills the fun. I'm glad it's not my job to balance that because it's a hell of a job but you guys are getting there.

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I agree with just about everything you said here. Guns- awesome! Mods- Very Cool! Overall visuals -Amazing! Thank you Fun Pimps.

 

Movement/Stamina is a lot better in b233

 

Zombie block damage seems to have been toned back in b231, havent had an issue yet in b233. Jury is out still.

 

Zombie AI - a little too smart sometimes, showing a bit of self-preservation, but lightyears better than the A16 zombies.

 

Wasteland - dear God yes. Should be the least area of the map, isolated to patches here are there, maybe near military POIs and other places that would have received special attention from airstrikes meant to stop the Zombie Apoc. Burnt forests should be the next rarest but larger areas where fires swept over.

 

My only disagreement is on the skills. Since the level gates came off, I've used my initial quest skill points to max out INT so get to bicycles (and forges though those are easy-ish to find) so that my wife can go out exploring more area while I build. It does make it tough to make that initial hike to the trader and limits the area for initial base building but it suits our play style. On the 3+ km hikes to the trader, you just get really selective about what to haul with you. I would of course cheer the addition of a 3rd row of back pack space.

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Honestly the new skill system is crap. You spend HOURS for a incremental upgrade. Crafting is now useless to update because you will always find a better item and all it adds is durability so why waste the points if its little to no increase to the player. Zombies find you regardless and when they do they are in your base in seconds. Screamers are too easy to spawn. Sleepers respawn in minutes now. The carrot and stick approach has lost its carrot. Base building is useless . I liked this game when you earned upgrades by doing activities not push a button and I am 10% better at something.

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The stamina drain has been in flux as they are testing. The most recent version is more draconian than they wanted and will be eased up.

 

Stamina is much more reasonable in this build. However, RWG is wonky as hell; snow biomes adjacent to desert and too much radiated. The biomes in previous builds at least had some logic even though they were predictable. Towns/cities in this build are highly suspect. Understand I can manipulate all of this via xml, but most will play vanilla and shouldn't have too.

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Yeah it's really bad now as is. On day two and can't move, constantly thirsty and can't find a pot. I feel like a cripple who can hardly move. No idea how my character survived what happened not even being able to boil an egg.

 

As is you will need two or three days to secure some food and water before you can get to anything else. Spending points in that area is a must now as well.

 

Eating two or three times a day is more than enough. I hate having to eat and drink every 5 min. It's not realistic nor is it fun. Also the whole 5 meat per one crafted is off as well. If I kill a pig I'm eating for a week at least.

 

The food values are off as well. Steak and potatoes (lvl 2) gove less than bacon and eggs (lvl 1).

 

Food should be much rarer and give you much more when eaten. If I kill any large animal I should at least be good for the day.

 

Looking for a way to change the hunger values myself until they fix it but not sure which xml it is in.

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