Ramethzer0
Well-known member
later impressions, now that I've had more than a couple of days of time in:
i really enjoyed the pacing of stone age. arguably, the early parts of the game I find the most enjoyable. One major thing I had to change about my play style during the stone age was to be wary of and not to loot places I knew I could get guns from. Saving those loot hot spots for later was worthwhile as well. What I learned from this change was that I didn't need to rush so hard. Base building I was able to get by with cobble, without it falling over. So, the stone age weapons actually felt balanced versus the sort of zeds I was facing. I wasn't fond of mass battles because blunders don't exactly reload with god-tier efficiency, but I feel the space meant for the heavy challenge made sense. I don't exactly need a bullet hose to face down 4-8 zeds either. Also, in early stage - a massive horde base is not really needed. Fighting on open ground proved to be pretty useful.
I didn't get a real tech level 2 weapon until I looted my first toilet pistol in the Fire Hall in Navezgane. I already had developed such a comfort with the blunderbuss that the pistol seemed to be sorta meh by comparison. Interesting turn of events for that. Stone sledgie is still king of early melee. I, on a whim, unlocked knife crafting pretty early and was lucky enough to loot enough materials and find a proper workbench. Knife combat is in a good place now. I was able to develop a way to one-to-three hit early stage zeds. But the bane of my existence (First night ferals) always seems to put melee back in its place. I learned that it's just not smart to melee ferals. It busted me up pretty badly and I experienced my first major critical wounds.
And here is what I learned about melee combat since. Critical wounds are the game's way of telling you to slow TF down. Don't go out with at LEAST cloth armour (because its actually worthwhile now) and don't go out thinking you're gunna power attack every hit and not suffer for it. Take your time. Kite the zeds if you have room. Healing supplies tend to drop quite rarely if you're out in the countryside. You have to go looting in the cities for that, and its still mostly just RNG. If you get lucky and find a Pop'n'pills then there's still a chance you're not gunna walk away with the meds you may need. Death by suicide still seems more effective when dealing with serious wounds in the early stages, and if you're just plain unlucky. Still haven't been able to confirm using medical supplies on other people. It's been tested with a few items. I'm hoping to see this changed so we can heal other people.
Mid game starts to feel more familiar to me, but the next challenge is the decision to drop t6 primitive weapons and tools for tier 1-2 iron age ones. I learned from testing that the transition means I needed to start spreading my points around. I had to invest in stamina reductions in order to continue the new play style I'd been practicing since fresh spawning. Next tier weapons couldn't hold as many mods, and thus seemed not as worthwhile. My other AGI built team mate was using the t4 primitive bow for a while until I was able to procure a t4 wooden bow. The challenge here was about efficiency. My group quests a lot at night, so runners were problematic. Often we needed to circle beat them just so none of us would take on wounds that would slow us down. Group combat starts to really invade the scene. This is where we learn to play with the zeds because early on we realize that whichever had control of the zed, it would be looking right at them. When the head turns, you know you've stolen the agg. After the first few fights, we finally agreed that travelling with one other person was kinda necessary until we get better weapons.
For tools the transition was a little stranger. All of us had to some degree a little bit of mining skill. By the time we could craft t4/5 primitive weapons, we could craft the same as iron. The jump between the two was quite noticeable. It reinforced that stamina reduction made a huge difference in performance over time. Food buffs helps out a lot in this fashion, and coffee is the new silver standard for drinks, as well as Mega Crushes going gold. I used to not drink them so much but I find myself guzzling them every chance I get. Steroids are now a very serious consideration as well, even post-nerf. Drugs and food buffs become even more and more important as you go on. What we learned is that we can neglect nothing that adds something to our effectiveness.
My group has looted a couple of low tier machine weapons, but the widening of our horizons has proven to be effective in terms of evolving how we work together. I've never been a fan of the M-60, because i think it wastes at least 25% of your bullets as they tear up zeds that are in the process of falling over. Those bullets add up stupid fast. To balance this, I'm happy to say we learned early that bullets can be stored in bigger stacks again. We finally got to pull out all these stacks of ammo we picked up from the traders. Were in the late 20 to early 30 levels now.
The amount of brass we find makes it worth noting that bullets are no longer a problem once you get to the weapons where you're using lots of them. I got lucky with RNG and looted the Desert Vulture schematic and I use WAY less ammo than I ever did. I went from pistol strait to the vulture, so I haven't been able to test out the revolver at all. It was a huge bump in my combat ability and I only ever need to keep one stack of 44 ammo on me instead of 2 or more. Maybe I'll keep an extra stack in my vehicle for the time being.
Traders! In navezgane, two of the traders have changed positions. Joel is a stone's throw away from his original location, Jen is about 400m away from hers. I got the trader quests and am up to Hugh now, and he and the others are in the same position as they were before. On a hunch, I went to Rekt. The Wastland biome is officially ten times more scary than I remember it to be. Traveling was made easy once we got minibikes. Minibikes make me feel like they are useful again, thought I still prefer the motorbike. Last session I got really cozy with the gyrocopter as well in alpha 18. I'm told from a friend that the new vehicles are a bit easier to control, and can be dyed again (but it only shows in inventory) so its just a little bit easier to identify yours when you travel in a pack. Simply pick it up and see what colour it is in inventory, and you'll know who's vehicle belongs to whom. In alpha 17 and 18, I mostly just glossed over minibikes. I haven't driven the 4x4 yet, but im told by a reliable source that its changes are quite noticeable. So, I'm looking forward to that. I noticed one small issue with the trader quests, is that once you reach the next tier of quests you are often required to go locate the other traders. When I got the one for Hugh, I went back to Jen.. and she was still offering tier 2 quests. I was hoping for the next level. I hope that means we are not biome locked for quests. Progression is starting to feel a bit more linear now, and the pushing us into different biomes seems forced. Although I like the desert biome, I equally dislike the snow biome. It's jam packed with too much treacherous terrain that I'll never explore, and the toughness of lumberjack zeds basically has me running past them. I don't have time for damage sponges unless I'm forced to.
Sleep volumes seem less dense, even with my group of 4. I've gone into tier 2 quests designed for one person and then did them again as a group, and the amount of zeds seems about the same. I think this should be bumped up a little bit.
Wandering zeds however, are in a sad state. I built a base out of the ranger station/information center near Trader Jen, and kept the fences as they were. I never once felt unsafe. My tradeskill stations are also in the open air. It's been a LONG time since I felt safe enough to do that. I've also noted that with a campfire, workbench, three forges, and a chemi station that there is a surprising lack of screamers in response. Random hordes that were once part and parcel of the daily life seem to have fallen off.
But my biggest gripe about zed density is when we started to raid Diersville. It was a bloody ghost town. There were a few running around here and there, but not nearly as many as I was hoping for. A big rumble in a populated area seems like it should be proper. It just wasn't. The houses were larger and more densely packed, but in terms of overall difficulty I just wasn't seeing it.
New POI's. Can I just give a big shout out to the reworked POI's? The Fun Pimps did a brilliant job of creating a large amount of new content, that feel cluttered like a post apocalyptic world should feel like. Mo' Power is now added to the list of 'must loot' sites not unlike Shamway and Shotgun Messiah. But, it's not just about effectiveness, but sometimes I have to stop and look around and see what else they created. The night time sky is unbelievable. I could stare at it from the roof of my home base and just watch it all night. It's peaceful and calm. I dig it. I also went into the desert city to check up out how it's being built. A LOT of changes happened there, and while the town seems unfinished in some respects (a lot of still open area as a result) the central park area between Higashi and Dashong was a pleasant find. Indeed, the world of Navezgane seemed more beautiful, but also far more lonely. One would have expected to see this place full of people during the day. But, it deepened my sense of sadness for the loss. Still, big props to TFP for that.
So, after that I decided I wasn't exploring the world enough. So background here: I used to be a big fan of Perishton back when it was in the plains Biome in earlier alphas.
When in alpha 17 they buried it under snow and ditched the plains altogether, I was a little annoyed. Perishton became my sort of go-to when i played solo on public servers, because it was one of the cities that people never stuck around in. If I had invaders in my city, they'd loot (often finding nothing) and then leave quickly. Not many folks would actually stick around to see if anyone lived here, and I usually did. In a bawn area just south of town where no one would ever find me. It was actually because of this place that I picked up on the stealth game. Nowadays, Perishton completely unidentifiable compared to its earlier iterations. So I went there and learned there were more improvements to it as well, which included a park of its own as well. I went back once or twice and the town is growing on me again, but its sadly tainted by the fact I dislike the snow biome.
Gravestowne is even worse than it was before. I hate this place. I rarely ever go there, except if I'm on my way to other places. But If you want to get to trader Rekt, you kinda have to go through it. The holes in the street are ridiculous and its every bit of hellscape you expect such a place to be.
I was unable to, however, find the second wasteland city that used to be there in alpha 18. It was a pretty barren place, and all it had was basically cross streets and nothing else. The city lay unfinished. I couldn't find it this time around, and I kinda wanna load it up in a solo game and fly there to see if I could find it via the air. I suppose I'll wait till I get my gyro built and try again.
Dynamic music: It has its problems, for sure. But, there have been a few times where the music creeps me TF out. lol I give it a solid 100% better-than-before rating, though. I can't wait to hear it when it's finished. Music makes the game feel grittier and more lonely in some parts.
Dynamic lighting: Clearly a good benefit, but the colour palette seems a bit cartoonier than before. Not that this is a bad thing, but the moon should not light up the countryside as much as it does. I feel the world would benefit more shadows if that was the case. Make them seem inkier and slow to move at night. I'm hoping that the night phase is going to be more immersive as much as they say it will be. I like the Doom-style danger of playing at night. So far, the day time cycle seems already pretty well done, and its gorgeous for sure. Again, kudos for that.
Swimming zombies: No sir, dun like it. Next.
Increased animal spawns on servers: Great! Running out of meat resources on our shared server was a pretty harsh thing. I was hoping that hunting was an actual thing this time around because of the streamlined perk sets, but it wasn't long when i realized that with the lack of food available I would be mostly picking cans out of house POI's and eating pretty meager.
Which brings me to my final and best compliment to the game.. and it is so because I am a professional chef in real life. The cooking and nourishment system is so much more important now. I love how it really brings everything together. I would play more survival games if they had better thought out cooking systems (I'm looking at you Green Hell and Mist Survival) but honestly most of them feel like starvation sims, and knowing what I know about foodborne illness really takes me out of my immersion. However, my biases aside there is something to take note. You could in theory just eat tin peas and go on about your dailies, but the points in cooking feel worthwhile. What camp cooking lacks in this game, is improved by its relevance. Maybe for now it's my lack of familiarity with the normal of the game that keeps me from swimming in rations that will never spoil, but at 60 to 90 minute day settings I do eat at regular intervals for once, and that bit IS familiar to me.
I'm only just now getting the new weapons sorted out. I plan on reviewing them at a later date. I'm in an AGI build right now, because it was my go-to all through A17 and A18. I've not playtested much since downloading A19 because i wanted to get an organic feel for things in terms of natural progression. So, that's gunna wait for a bit. However, I did get my hands on the Vulture and I can summarize it with the famous saying from Zombieland, and it's the 'Double Tap'. The Vulture takes out most the weaker zeds with two body shots. Head shots are just murder.
When this game goes gold, I kinda wonder if there will be expansions or DLC's for it.
Anyway, I wanted again to reiterate that I really dig what the Fun Pimps are doing with this game. I can't wait to see it trimmed down and into a stable shape and see how the feel of everything has turned out. Big props as well for the streams that Prime and Rick have been doing to showcase the new changes. I like it when Devs do more community communication stuff so I can catch a glimpse of things between my shifts at work when im too tired to play but too revved up to sleep. As they say in Enter the Dragon and Kentucky Fried Movie: "Gentleman, you have our (my) Gratitude!"
i really enjoyed the pacing of stone age. arguably, the early parts of the game I find the most enjoyable. One major thing I had to change about my play style during the stone age was to be wary of and not to loot places I knew I could get guns from. Saving those loot hot spots for later was worthwhile as well. What I learned from this change was that I didn't need to rush so hard. Base building I was able to get by with cobble, without it falling over. So, the stone age weapons actually felt balanced versus the sort of zeds I was facing. I wasn't fond of mass battles because blunders don't exactly reload with god-tier efficiency, but I feel the space meant for the heavy challenge made sense. I don't exactly need a bullet hose to face down 4-8 zeds either. Also, in early stage - a massive horde base is not really needed. Fighting on open ground proved to be pretty useful.
I didn't get a real tech level 2 weapon until I looted my first toilet pistol in the Fire Hall in Navezgane. I already had developed such a comfort with the blunderbuss that the pistol seemed to be sorta meh by comparison. Interesting turn of events for that. Stone sledgie is still king of early melee. I, on a whim, unlocked knife crafting pretty early and was lucky enough to loot enough materials and find a proper workbench. Knife combat is in a good place now. I was able to develop a way to one-to-three hit early stage zeds. But the bane of my existence (First night ferals) always seems to put melee back in its place. I learned that it's just not smart to melee ferals. It busted me up pretty badly and I experienced my first major critical wounds.
And here is what I learned about melee combat since. Critical wounds are the game's way of telling you to slow TF down. Don't go out with at LEAST cloth armour (because its actually worthwhile now) and don't go out thinking you're gunna power attack every hit and not suffer for it. Take your time. Kite the zeds if you have room. Healing supplies tend to drop quite rarely if you're out in the countryside. You have to go looting in the cities for that, and its still mostly just RNG. If you get lucky and find a Pop'n'pills then there's still a chance you're not gunna walk away with the meds you may need. Death by suicide still seems more effective when dealing with serious wounds in the early stages, and if you're just plain unlucky. Still haven't been able to confirm using medical supplies on other people. It's been tested with a few items. I'm hoping to see this changed so we can heal other people.
Mid game starts to feel more familiar to me, but the next challenge is the decision to drop t6 primitive weapons and tools for tier 1-2 iron age ones. I learned from testing that the transition means I needed to start spreading my points around. I had to invest in stamina reductions in order to continue the new play style I'd been practicing since fresh spawning. Next tier weapons couldn't hold as many mods, and thus seemed not as worthwhile. My other AGI built team mate was using the t4 primitive bow for a while until I was able to procure a t4 wooden bow. The challenge here was about efficiency. My group quests a lot at night, so runners were problematic. Often we needed to circle beat them just so none of us would take on wounds that would slow us down. Group combat starts to really invade the scene. This is where we learn to play with the zeds because early on we realize that whichever had control of the zed, it would be looking right at them. When the head turns, you know you've stolen the agg. After the first few fights, we finally agreed that travelling with one other person was kinda necessary until we get better weapons.
For tools the transition was a little stranger. All of us had to some degree a little bit of mining skill. By the time we could craft t4/5 primitive weapons, we could craft the same as iron. The jump between the two was quite noticeable. It reinforced that stamina reduction made a huge difference in performance over time. Food buffs helps out a lot in this fashion, and coffee is the new silver standard for drinks, as well as Mega Crushes going gold. I used to not drink them so much but I find myself guzzling them every chance I get. Steroids are now a very serious consideration as well, even post-nerf. Drugs and food buffs become even more and more important as you go on. What we learned is that we can neglect nothing that adds something to our effectiveness.
My group has looted a couple of low tier machine weapons, but the widening of our horizons has proven to be effective in terms of evolving how we work together. I've never been a fan of the M-60, because i think it wastes at least 25% of your bullets as they tear up zeds that are in the process of falling over. Those bullets add up stupid fast. To balance this, I'm happy to say we learned early that bullets can be stored in bigger stacks again. We finally got to pull out all these stacks of ammo we picked up from the traders. Were in the late 20 to early 30 levels now.
The amount of brass we find makes it worth noting that bullets are no longer a problem once you get to the weapons where you're using lots of them. I got lucky with RNG and looted the Desert Vulture schematic and I use WAY less ammo than I ever did. I went from pistol strait to the vulture, so I haven't been able to test out the revolver at all. It was a huge bump in my combat ability and I only ever need to keep one stack of 44 ammo on me instead of 2 or more. Maybe I'll keep an extra stack in my vehicle for the time being.
Traders! In navezgane, two of the traders have changed positions. Joel is a stone's throw away from his original location, Jen is about 400m away from hers. I got the trader quests and am up to Hugh now, and he and the others are in the same position as they were before. On a hunch, I went to Rekt. The Wastland biome is officially ten times more scary than I remember it to be. Traveling was made easy once we got minibikes. Minibikes make me feel like they are useful again, thought I still prefer the motorbike. Last session I got really cozy with the gyrocopter as well in alpha 18. I'm told from a friend that the new vehicles are a bit easier to control, and can be dyed again (but it only shows in inventory) so its just a little bit easier to identify yours when you travel in a pack. Simply pick it up and see what colour it is in inventory, and you'll know who's vehicle belongs to whom. In alpha 17 and 18, I mostly just glossed over minibikes. I haven't driven the 4x4 yet, but im told by a reliable source that its changes are quite noticeable. So, I'm looking forward to that. I noticed one small issue with the trader quests, is that once you reach the next tier of quests you are often required to go locate the other traders. When I got the one for Hugh, I went back to Jen.. and she was still offering tier 2 quests. I was hoping for the next level. I hope that means we are not biome locked for quests. Progression is starting to feel a bit more linear now, and the pushing us into different biomes seems forced. Although I like the desert biome, I equally dislike the snow biome. It's jam packed with too much treacherous terrain that I'll never explore, and the toughness of lumberjack zeds basically has me running past them. I don't have time for damage sponges unless I'm forced to.
Sleep volumes seem less dense, even with my group of 4. I've gone into tier 2 quests designed for one person and then did them again as a group, and the amount of zeds seems about the same. I think this should be bumped up a little bit.
Wandering zeds however, are in a sad state. I built a base out of the ranger station/information center near Trader Jen, and kept the fences as they were. I never once felt unsafe. My tradeskill stations are also in the open air. It's been a LONG time since I felt safe enough to do that. I've also noted that with a campfire, workbench, three forges, and a chemi station that there is a surprising lack of screamers in response. Random hordes that were once part and parcel of the daily life seem to have fallen off.
But my biggest gripe about zed density is when we started to raid Diersville. It was a bloody ghost town. There were a few running around here and there, but not nearly as many as I was hoping for. A big rumble in a populated area seems like it should be proper. It just wasn't. The houses were larger and more densely packed, but in terms of overall difficulty I just wasn't seeing it.
New POI's. Can I just give a big shout out to the reworked POI's? The Fun Pimps did a brilliant job of creating a large amount of new content, that feel cluttered like a post apocalyptic world should feel like. Mo' Power is now added to the list of 'must loot' sites not unlike Shamway and Shotgun Messiah. But, it's not just about effectiveness, but sometimes I have to stop and look around and see what else they created. The night time sky is unbelievable. I could stare at it from the roof of my home base and just watch it all night. It's peaceful and calm. I dig it. I also went into the desert city to check up out how it's being built. A LOT of changes happened there, and while the town seems unfinished in some respects (a lot of still open area as a result) the central park area between Higashi and Dashong was a pleasant find. Indeed, the world of Navezgane seemed more beautiful, but also far more lonely. One would have expected to see this place full of people during the day. But, it deepened my sense of sadness for the loss. Still, big props to TFP for that.
So, after that I decided I wasn't exploring the world enough. So background here: I used to be a big fan of Perishton back when it was in the plains Biome in earlier alphas.
When in alpha 17 they buried it under snow and ditched the plains altogether, I was a little annoyed. Perishton became my sort of go-to when i played solo on public servers, because it was one of the cities that people never stuck around in. If I had invaders in my city, they'd loot (often finding nothing) and then leave quickly. Not many folks would actually stick around to see if anyone lived here, and I usually did. In a bawn area just south of town where no one would ever find me. It was actually because of this place that I picked up on the stealth game. Nowadays, Perishton completely unidentifiable compared to its earlier iterations. So I went there and learned there were more improvements to it as well, which included a park of its own as well. I went back once or twice and the town is growing on me again, but its sadly tainted by the fact I dislike the snow biome.
Gravestowne is even worse than it was before. I hate this place. I rarely ever go there, except if I'm on my way to other places. But If you want to get to trader Rekt, you kinda have to go through it. The holes in the street are ridiculous and its every bit of hellscape you expect such a place to be.
I was unable to, however, find the second wasteland city that used to be there in alpha 18. It was a pretty barren place, and all it had was basically cross streets and nothing else. The city lay unfinished. I couldn't find it this time around, and I kinda wanna load it up in a solo game and fly there to see if I could find it via the air. I suppose I'll wait till I get my gyro built and try again.
Dynamic music: It has its problems, for sure. But, there have been a few times where the music creeps me TF out. lol I give it a solid 100% better-than-before rating, though. I can't wait to hear it when it's finished. Music makes the game feel grittier and more lonely in some parts.
Dynamic lighting: Clearly a good benefit, but the colour palette seems a bit cartoonier than before. Not that this is a bad thing, but the moon should not light up the countryside as much as it does. I feel the world would benefit more shadows if that was the case. Make them seem inkier and slow to move at night. I'm hoping that the night phase is going to be more immersive as much as they say it will be. I like the Doom-style danger of playing at night. So far, the day time cycle seems already pretty well done, and its gorgeous for sure. Again, kudos for that.
Swimming zombies: No sir, dun like it. Next.
Increased animal spawns on servers: Great! Running out of meat resources on our shared server was a pretty harsh thing. I was hoping that hunting was an actual thing this time around because of the streamlined perk sets, but it wasn't long when i realized that with the lack of food available I would be mostly picking cans out of house POI's and eating pretty meager.
Which brings me to my final and best compliment to the game.. and it is so because I am a professional chef in real life. The cooking and nourishment system is so much more important now. I love how it really brings everything together. I would play more survival games if they had better thought out cooking systems (I'm looking at you Green Hell and Mist Survival) but honestly most of them feel like starvation sims, and knowing what I know about foodborne illness really takes me out of my immersion. However, my biases aside there is something to take note. You could in theory just eat tin peas and go on about your dailies, but the points in cooking feel worthwhile. What camp cooking lacks in this game, is improved by its relevance. Maybe for now it's my lack of familiarity with the normal of the game that keeps me from swimming in rations that will never spoil, but at 60 to 90 minute day settings I do eat at regular intervals for once, and that bit IS familiar to me.
I'm only just now getting the new weapons sorted out. I plan on reviewing them at a later date. I'm in an AGI build right now, because it was my go-to all through A17 and A18. I've not playtested much since downloading A19 because i wanted to get an organic feel for things in terms of natural progression. So, that's gunna wait for a bit. However, I did get my hands on the Vulture and I can summarize it with the famous saying from Zombieland, and it's the 'Double Tap'. The Vulture takes out most the weaker zeds with two body shots. Head shots are just murder.
When this game goes gold, I kinda wonder if there will be expansions or DLC's for it.
Anyway, I wanted again to reiterate that I really dig what the Fun Pimps are doing with this game. I can't wait to see it trimmed down and into a stable shape and see how the feel of everything has turned out. Big props as well for the streams that Prime and Rick have been doing to showcase the new changes. I like it when Devs do more community communication stuff so I can catch a glimpse of things between my shifts at work when im too tired to play but too revved up to sleep. As they say in Enter the Dragon and Kentucky Fried Movie: "Gentleman, you have our (my) Gratitude!"
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