PC Tried A19, A16 is still best Alpha

[Roland]

a18 loot where getting a quality 4-6 item was rare as hell even at high gamestage, and the loot was random, you could get lucky and find a pump shotgun on day 1, or a steel tool,

Uh...I think you might be remembering further back because in A18 there was nothing rare about finding shotguns on day 1 and quality 4-6 of tier 2 and 3 tools were everywhere even at low gamestage. Hence the phrase “looter-shooter” that came into being during A18.  I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be a rare chance to get something really good on Day 1 in a safe to make it thrilling but I am saying that A18 was definitely not that. 

 

[SnowDog1942]

A16 did one thing the best,  RWG.

The towns and landscapes and size of the map were all amazing.

A17 destroyed it completely (the irony is that it was because of performance and A17 sucked for that to)

A18 got better RWG but still sucks

A19 got even better but is still not close to A16.

 

[meganoth]

What is everyone doing that they are still in the stone age by day 7? I play on default settings with difficulty on Nomad and have no problem getting out of the stone age within a few days, and that is with essentially only entering a PoI when I have a quest for it. If I just went house to house clearing houses I imagine my game stage would climb much faster, questing gives some bonus exp but you lose a lot of time running back and forth.

You probably got the better item through trader and quest rewards. This will not be staying that way, trader is still not correctly balanced.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

A16 was over at day 35 if you didn´t rush it, earlier if you min maxed. Now that´s the first horde night where they come all night. And i am far away from having everything. Also LBD sucked. And having to clean up corpses was annoying af.

RWG was great. But there is nitrogen for that now.

 

[Kattla]

If i don't remember wrong, even in A16 and possibly earlier it was a good strategy to leave valuable loot containers unopened until we were skilled enough to get decent loot from them.

 

[Psychodabble]

You probably got the better item through trader and quest rewards. This will not be staying that way, trader is still not correctly balanced.

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

 

[katarynna]

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

if you look at it in a vacuum, i could see why you feel that way.

However, madmole has already stated that harder biomes will have a bonus to both loot stage and enemy difficulty and that harder poi's will have the same.

Better loot will be obtainable, but will come with higher risks, as it should imo.

For those who don't try to rush through the primitive age, since enemies and hordes scale based on gamestage, they will be able to handle the first horde only with primitive gear. Before day 14, even if you are taking it slow, you should have some t1 weapons and tools.

All that, plus the new primitive rifles, pistols, and shotguns should make everything feel better about the early days.

A19 is phase one of the loot stage design. Phase two will improve it a lot.

 

[Psychodabble]

if you look at it in a vacuum, i could see why you feel that way.

However, madmole has already stated that harder biomes will have a bonus to both loot stage and enemy difficulty and that harder poi's will have the same.

Better loot will be obtainable, but will come with higher risks, as it should imo.

For those who don't try to rush through the primitive age, since enemies and hordes scale based on gamestage, they will be able to handle the first horde only with primitive gear. Before day 14, even if you are taking it slow, you should have some t1 weapons and tools.

All that, plus the new primitive rifles, pistols, and shotguns should make everything feel better about the early days.

A19 is phase one of the loot stage design. Phase two will improve it a lot.

Yeah, I've heard that too, but I don't see it as a solution. 

Look, I'm fine with slow playing. I don't need to grind or rush to enjoy the game. However, knowing that the game is designed to effectively hold you back in this way - that there is no chance, through either random luck or deterministic purchasing, to move ahead of the curve decided for you is bound to make the game feel flat and samey on multiple plays.

Harder biomes and POIs are a must and will be a partial remedy, but they don't hold the solution for players who want to go slow and steady, but still have some chance of finding/crafting/buying anything beyond what their gamestage dumps buckets of at their feet.

Finally, AFAIK, the enhancements to localized gamestage will not be part of A19, but it sounds like the trader nerf will be. That structuring sounds like a really bad idea to me.

 

[katarynna]

Harder biomes and POIs are a must and will be a partial remedy, but they don't hold the solution for players who want to go slow and steady, but still have some chance of finding/crafting/buying anything beyond what their gamestage dumps buckets of at their feet.

You can already craft tools a tier beyond your gamestage if you place points in miner69er and/or salvage ops. I do think the primitive loot stage would benefit a lot by having weapon parts be as common (or more common) loot as stone axes, shovels, and blunderbusses even if you only looted them in stacks of 1-2 during the primitive age. That would make crafting t1 weapons early a realistic possibility, while at the same time not making them common.

Finally, AFAIK, the enhancements to localized gamestage will not be part of A19, but it sounds like the trader nerf will be. That structuring sounds like a really bad idea to me.

I agree that it is not an ideal way of doing things. Two points though.

1. I feel that pushing forward with development is more important than making every stage of every alpha feel great to play. I can put up with something until the next alpha comes out if i know it is being improved.

2. Primitive stage lasts at most 1-3 weeks depending on day length and playstyle. The "feel" of the primitive loot stage is magnified by all the restarts necessary for experimental. Once the final version of a19 stable is out and the devs have moved on to a20, it will be a very short time in most people's games. For people who love early game and restart often, it would seem to me that a more drawn-out primitive stage would not be a bad thing.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

And btw @~Kevin~ you do want to level advanced engineering anyways. Not only to unlock the forge and other things, but also to get XP from your electrical traps and to reduce the cost of things you craft in the forge. It´s one of the most importnant skills. Even if you wouldn´t need it to unlock the forge i would still put points in that skill.

 

[beHypE]

What I see as problematic is how long the "stone age" effectively lasts, and how hardcapped it is. And it's not a tool thing only, the entire loot table is shallow as hell and I'm gamestage 50 at Day 13 of 90 min/day with 125% experience, so effectively day 20 or so Vanilla.

I've found iron tools (level 2 or less, besides wrenches), but it's not really even about tools. I don't use the iron ones I found, my Q6 stone axe does the job almost as well, all-in-one, with no side issues (stamina usages, for example).

That being said, after 20 hours of gameplay there's still not a glimmer of hope that I unlock a minibike or better anytime soon, since it somehow feels like we can't find anything else than dozens of bicycle schematics. Same goes for armors, it's just soooo linear. Scrap/Padded level 4+ everywhere I look. My toolbet is almost all purple, because that's how it is now, you gear up in full purple and then you actually wait until Q4+ of the next tier starts showing up and... you swap it out. There's such a huge gap even after you start transitionning out of the stone age where... nothing is interesting. Q1-Q2 and even most of Q3 is scrap material when you're decked out in Q6 from the previous tier, for the most part. 

The only cool part is how lucky you need to be to get a gun. 2 pistols, 1 hunting rifle, 1 ak-47 and one shotgun in 20 hours, that feels nice to be fair; I like having to play around something else than just shooting low level zombies in the head as soon as I start. 

If i'd summarize, I think one playthrough is a fun and refreshing experience. The big issue is that I don't look forward to playing another one at all, because I know exactly what to expect; and 7 days' strength for me has always been its replayability because of its unpredictability.

EDIT : as a side note, I have a feeling this will be dialed back quite a bit once they start adding end game content. It feels like a way to make games of 50-60 hours a thing, but since there's no other solution than stretching everything out for now...

 

[Roland]

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin.

I think this belief of yours and others who also have it are going to stand in the way of your enjoyment. The developers and at least some of the player base believe the game begins from the moment you wipe your brow and the world comes into focus for the first time.

I’m sorry you feel that the first few days are just a necessary evil before the actual game starts but that is not the view of everyone. I know I’ll be disappointed if things go back to guns and steel tools on Day 1 like it was back in A18. There are people like me who do feel that it is rewarding getting higher quality primitive weapons for the first week and who find the Day 7 horde interesting again using those weapons rather than breezing through with Ak47s, pistols, and shotguns. 
 

I can only hope that the Pimps get enough positive feedback to stick to their plan and complete all the changes they have in store.

I do think that the attitude you expressed is probably the dividing line for whether you like A19 or not. If you feel like the game doesn’t really begin until you start finding iron tools and higher tier weapons then there is no way you will enjoy playing unless you mod the loot tables if TFP continues in this path. 

 

[uselessjunkaccount]

I enjoy the gated progression, I really do, but I hope things are added to give us more to do in the early stage. Maybe some early work stations to get that don't require skill points or schematics or a workbench to craft? A stove to cook steaks on that don't require finding an RNG recipe. Or maybe some sort of water purifier to make decent drinks at. That way there could be something more organic to work towards early game beyond just getting xp to up your gamestage to get to the next tier. Or some sort of quest system that has at least a tiny story around it.

Or perhaps put things in POIs that don't necessarily speed up progression but would be good quality of life upgrades. For instance, I think it would be good if they added bicycle parts to a number of loot containers. I know you can find them in Pass n Gas and garage storage boxes but those seem to have been really nerfed in this alpha. But them in boxes around the house so there's inventive to go in and loot everything.

It could also make it more fun if more zombies dropped loot early on. It doesn't have to have epic stuff inside of it every time but maybe give a greater chance for guns in those.

 

[Laz Man]

I keep hearing this and it really scares me. I don't dislike the lengthened stone age (outside of stone junk in sealed crates, that's dumb) but imagining it combined with a trader nerf just doesn't seem like it's going to be any fun. Players like to gear up and feel more powerful and the trader is a good way to provide concrete aspirational stepping stones for players to do that. Earn X number of Dukes in Y amount of time and get your prize.

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin. I hope TFP are really paying attention to the feedback they are getting on this topic, because it has the potential to really ruin the vanilla game. People will still use it as a modding platform, but I have to think they want people to actually enjoy the product as they made it.

I like how some weapons/items are there at an expensive price as an alternative option to work towards.

For example, finding a bicycle for sale at the trader for lets say 6k dukes on day 1 or 2 is a pretty darn good carrot on a stick while a motorcycle at 20k on the same day (just an example) is just broken imo...

I do hope once the systems are unified it has enough variation to have the bicycle example exist since that's enough to make the player make tough decisions/tradeoffs if they want to grind dukes for it.

 

[Maharin]

Yeah, it's amazing.
If I only had a floppy drive I could install Links 386 and Tie fighter again...

On a side note, you can get virtual versions of a floppy drive that you can insert floppy images into.  Or, even easier, just use DosBox. 

 

[Laz Man]

I hope things are added to give us more to do in the early stage. Maybe some early work stations to get that don't require skill points or schematics or a workbench to craft? A stove to cook steaks on that don't require finding an RNG recipe. Or maybe some sort of water purifier to make decent drinks at. That way there could be something more organic to work towards early game beyond just getting xp to up your gamestage to get to the next tier. Or some sort of quest system that has at least a tiny story around it.

Or perhaps put things in POIs that don't necessarily speed up progression but would be good quality of life upgrades. For instance, I think it would be good if they added bicycle parts to a number of loot containers. I know you can find them in Pass n Gas and garage storage boxes but those seem to have been really nerfed in this alpha. But them in boxes around the house so there's inventive to go in and loot everything.

It could also make it more fun if more zombies dropped loot early on. It doesn't have to have epic stuff inside of it every time but maybe give a greater chance for guns in those.

They do plan to add more primitive weapons for each gun type so there is more variety for players to use aside from the blunderuss.  They also will be creating these weapons to use the same ammo as their upper tier variants which I feel will lessen the urge to quickly move onto the next tier of guns because of the stockpile of bullets/shells that are building up from looting.

 

[Feycat]

If the traders don't carry anything better than what we can find, early game progression will really be limited to grinding XP in the most efficient way possible just so the game can begin.

traders already hardly carry stuff that is an upgrade. We mostly use traders to buy junk for parts, materials and book/schematics

 

[Laz Man]

traders already hardly carry stuff that is an upgrade. We mostly use traders to buy junk for parts, materials and book/schematics

That is a good sign that the bandaid fix they put in is working for the most part.  The unification of loot/trader will allow them hopefully to have better/finer balance control on the entire eco system whenever they need to rebalance it.

 

[kamer1337]

A16 + A19(rwg, pois, fixed bugs, upgraded graphics, hd zombies, new weapons) = best alpha

 

[Kalen]

I’m sorry you feel that the first few days are just a necessary evil before the actual game starts but that is not the view of everyone. I know I’ll be disappointed if things go back to guns and steel tools on Day 1 like it was back in A18.

I agree, finding too many high level items early isn't good for the state of the game.... but there is a middle ground.   It doesn't even have to be middle.... just a little tilted away from where it is.   There was great game play in early alphas where you lucked out with an item early and tailored your game play around that lucky find.   I'd like to see a little of that come back (but only with item degradation)

But, as others have said, the biggest gripe I have is the overlap of performance in the different tiers.  It's incredibly frustrating to finally find an iron tool, only to realize the stone axe you've been using is actually superior to it.   Just my opinion, obviously, but I feel that a higher tier item should always be superior to a lower tier no matter what their quality