Howdy,
I now consider my playthrough of A20 to be "complete", in the sense that I have done everything I wanted. I enjoyed the game a lot (I like survival, I like building, I like changing pants). I played alone for the entire time.
All in all, I had a blast with the early game survival and the mid game expansion. The first few blood moons were riveting and terrifying experiences; finding the cool PoI quests (like the secret lab up in the snowy hills) was amazing, and finally getting a crucible for my steel tech was deeply satisfying. I got seriously molested by the first two ferals that lunged at me during my second T1 quest, and I couldn't handle the bigger animals that kept charging me until well into the iron age. I got swarmed by an angry horde in exactly that one spot in lg_factory_02 where you have to walk out on a busted dead end catwalk to get to a duffel bag.
I stopped playing after doing most of the T5 quests and realizing that the beautiful and immersive helipad I had built for my gyrocopter was useless since I needed a tarmac strip instead, and that I wouldn't be able to use it for quickly pillaging rooftops in the wasteland areas. At this point I had already survived a week of BM (I set the timer to BM every night) and filled half a solar bank with T5+ cells for my automated defenses.
My wooden shack had grown rather organically into a classic fortress with ensconcing towers and imposing buttressed walls, just tall enough that I could gently spear anyone at the gates if I crouched. I had a net of electric fencing going this way and that, and blade turrets along all the walls. The towers were capped by turrets, first SMG turrets and shotguns, then pistol turrets and rifle turrets (I also tried my hand at modding towards the end) as I wanted a use for the boxes upon boxes of extra ammo I had gathered. I wet myself again, this time laughing, when I first modded a spear that could be combined with a stun baton and repulsor to absurdly yeet a poor zombie off into the sunset. I would like to think I created balanced items, but you never know. Either way, I had become the Grand Bowler, yeeting zombies into other zombies in gooey 7-10 splits.
Some things stood out to me in this playthrough.
The skill system feels poorly structured. Some skills are very weak and fill only a temporary niche in early game (like tracking and lockpicking). I don't see a need to track large creatures as by the time I can kill them my boxes are overflowing with food already. These skills came across as traps more than anything else. I feel like a tree structure for each skill category would make far more sense, such as getting access to robotics only after unlocking advanced engineering T3 for instance, and having a bit more sync between the skills. I also found it odd that every governing attribute (str, int, agi etc) had the same function but for different weapons. It would seem more reasonable to bake those effects into the weapon skills, and have the attribute points instead increase what you would expect them to increase, id est STR increases carry capacity, fortitude reduces stamina drain from running/actions, AGI increases jump height, and so on. In my game, I considered intelligence and strength to be critical skill categories, while perception, agility, and fortitude were completely optional with no critical skills. Unlocking schematics through skills also seems strange, as it kinda reduces the need for scavenging, and some of the schematics they unlock really are critical for progress (crucible for instance). I'm happy that's going away in A21, and I'm hoping it is replaced with something that better aligns with an organic development of the gameplay experience instead of taking away from it.
Crafting. In many areas it makes a lot of sense, but in some places it feels downright wonky. The tiered system is terrible. Always being able to build everything in T5 feels wrong (I can build a T5 wooden club and then jump directly to build T5 steel?), and not being able to build T6 is even worse. What is the point of mastering a particular crafting skill if you can just find a better tier anyway? And having an extra mod slot on T6 just adds insult to injury. Either drop the crafting part entirely and just have us scavenge for new items, or make it so that investing in crafting this way actually leads to the best gear. I feel like I've wasted half of my invested points when I craft a T5 anything only to find a T6 version.
Building. Building a base is so much fun; the planning, the plotting, the ideas that may or may not work out. However, the current build system is too convoluted. It took me quite a while to figure out how to put things together in a nice way, and even now I keep running into obstacles. In particular, having to plan ahead if I want to give up the ceiling space or the floor space is annoying. There really needs to be decorative and functional items that can be placed inside the 1x1 cube grid. I want to hang a light from the ceiling without having to give up all the space on the floor above. Right now I can't do that unless I skip 99% of the build options available, add an extra unit of height to each level, and build everything using the basic cube. Also, I had to enable cheat mode and use the hammer of God just to get rid of a steel cube that I misplaced. That is not good at all. There has to be an option to undo/recover building blocks, otherwise building becomes such a hassle that it loses part of its appeal. I like to build large and over-designed structures - I'm afraid to use steel because a mistake will take a long time to undo without cheat mode.
Finally, when it comes to painting, is it possible to limit the available paints to only those that fit the material? It seems strange that I can paint my steel blocks into wood, and it takes away a little of the immersion.
Quests. T1-T3 were great. I liked those. T4 started to feel stressed, partially because of travel, as they were taking so long to finish. For early T5 I had to increase day length to maximum just to have a chance of finishing before night set in. I've gotten used to clearing all zombies and not leaving any stragglers, but I do feel it would be better if only the final room needed to be cleared, or perhaps a cap of 85% of all zombies in the building. I also believe there should be more quest variety than clear/fetch for T5. Killing a travelling horde would be fun, as would a crafting quest (hand in 5x turrets and 10x tuna sandwiches) or effect quest (turn on the local power plant - the street lights will function for a week). Either way, after doing the T5 quests a few times (and gearing up to max) they are no longer difficult to clear at speed, though I do miss a few zombies when I rush.
I would like a little more melee weapon variety. Sledgehammer is great, it does what you expect it to do and offers a tactical approach. It also feels good to go bonk and watch zombies take a quick time out. Machetes/clubs/batons all seem to do the same thing with club being wildly superior and also acting like a mini-sledgehammer on top of it. The default spear is not so useful. The availability of ranged weapons seem to make melee weapons redundant in mid to late game, which is a shame.
That is all. I think I put in some 80 - 100 hours or so into the game, and I'm looking forward to doing it again when A21 comes out. I'm gonna buy an extra copy for my friend so he can play it with me; he gets stressed easily so I'm going to enjoy listening to his screams when the horde starts to swarm.
I now consider my playthrough of A20 to be "complete", in the sense that I have done everything I wanted. I enjoyed the game a lot (I like survival, I like building, I like changing pants). I played alone for the entire time.
All in all, I had a blast with the early game survival and the mid game expansion. The first few blood moons were riveting and terrifying experiences; finding the cool PoI quests (like the secret lab up in the snowy hills) was amazing, and finally getting a crucible for my steel tech was deeply satisfying. I got seriously molested by the first two ferals that lunged at me during my second T1 quest, and I couldn't handle the bigger animals that kept charging me until well into the iron age. I got swarmed by an angry horde in exactly that one spot in lg_factory_02 where you have to walk out on a busted dead end catwalk to get to a duffel bag.
I stopped playing after doing most of the T5 quests and realizing that the beautiful and immersive helipad I had built for my gyrocopter was useless since I needed a tarmac strip instead, and that I wouldn't be able to use it for quickly pillaging rooftops in the wasteland areas. At this point I had already survived a week of BM (I set the timer to BM every night) and filled half a solar bank with T5+ cells for my automated defenses.
My wooden shack had grown rather organically into a classic fortress with ensconcing towers and imposing buttressed walls, just tall enough that I could gently spear anyone at the gates if I crouched. I had a net of electric fencing going this way and that, and blade turrets along all the walls. The towers were capped by turrets, first SMG turrets and shotguns, then pistol turrets and rifle turrets (I also tried my hand at modding towards the end) as I wanted a use for the boxes upon boxes of extra ammo I had gathered. I wet myself again, this time laughing, when I first modded a spear that could be combined with a stun baton and repulsor to absurdly yeet a poor zombie off into the sunset. I would like to think I created balanced items, but you never know. Either way, I had become the Grand Bowler, yeeting zombies into other zombies in gooey 7-10 splits.
Some things stood out to me in this playthrough.
The skill system feels poorly structured. Some skills are very weak and fill only a temporary niche in early game (like tracking and lockpicking). I don't see a need to track large creatures as by the time I can kill them my boxes are overflowing with food already. These skills came across as traps more than anything else. I feel like a tree structure for each skill category would make far more sense, such as getting access to robotics only after unlocking advanced engineering T3 for instance, and having a bit more sync between the skills. I also found it odd that every governing attribute (str, int, agi etc) had the same function but for different weapons. It would seem more reasonable to bake those effects into the weapon skills, and have the attribute points instead increase what you would expect them to increase, id est STR increases carry capacity, fortitude reduces stamina drain from running/actions, AGI increases jump height, and so on. In my game, I considered intelligence and strength to be critical skill categories, while perception, agility, and fortitude were completely optional with no critical skills. Unlocking schematics through skills also seems strange, as it kinda reduces the need for scavenging, and some of the schematics they unlock really are critical for progress (crucible for instance). I'm happy that's going away in A21, and I'm hoping it is replaced with something that better aligns with an organic development of the gameplay experience instead of taking away from it.
Crafting. In many areas it makes a lot of sense, but in some places it feels downright wonky. The tiered system is terrible. Always being able to build everything in T5 feels wrong (I can build a T5 wooden club and then jump directly to build T5 steel?), and not being able to build T6 is even worse. What is the point of mastering a particular crafting skill if you can just find a better tier anyway? And having an extra mod slot on T6 just adds insult to injury. Either drop the crafting part entirely and just have us scavenge for new items, or make it so that investing in crafting this way actually leads to the best gear. I feel like I've wasted half of my invested points when I craft a T5 anything only to find a T6 version.
Building. Building a base is so much fun; the planning, the plotting, the ideas that may or may not work out. However, the current build system is too convoluted. It took me quite a while to figure out how to put things together in a nice way, and even now I keep running into obstacles. In particular, having to plan ahead if I want to give up the ceiling space or the floor space is annoying. There really needs to be decorative and functional items that can be placed inside the 1x1 cube grid. I want to hang a light from the ceiling without having to give up all the space on the floor above. Right now I can't do that unless I skip 99% of the build options available, add an extra unit of height to each level, and build everything using the basic cube. Also, I had to enable cheat mode and use the hammer of God just to get rid of a steel cube that I misplaced. That is not good at all. There has to be an option to undo/recover building blocks, otherwise building becomes such a hassle that it loses part of its appeal. I like to build large and over-designed structures - I'm afraid to use steel because a mistake will take a long time to undo without cheat mode.
Finally, when it comes to painting, is it possible to limit the available paints to only those that fit the material? It seems strange that I can paint my steel blocks into wood, and it takes away a little of the immersion.
Quests. T1-T3 were great. I liked those. T4 started to feel stressed, partially because of travel, as they were taking so long to finish. For early T5 I had to increase day length to maximum just to have a chance of finishing before night set in. I've gotten used to clearing all zombies and not leaving any stragglers, but I do feel it would be better if only the final room needed to be cleared, or perhaps a cap of 85% of all zombies in the building. I also believe there should be more quest variety than clear/fetch for T5. Killing a travelling horde would be fun, as would a crafting quest (hand in 5x turrets and 10x tuna sandwiches) or effect quest (turn on the local power plant - the street lights will function for a week). Either way, after doing the T5 quests a few times (and gearing up to max) they are no longer difficult to clear at speed, though I do miss a few zombies when I rush.
I would like a little more melee weapon variety. Sledgehammer is great, it does what you expect it to do and offers a tactical approach. It also feels good to go bonk and watch zombies take a quick time out. Machetes/clubs/batons all seem to do the same thing with club being wildly superior and also acting like a mini-sledgehammer on top of it. The default spear is not so useful. The availability of ranged weapons seem to make melee weapons redundant in mid to late game, which is a shame.
That is all. I think I put in some 80 - 100 hours or so into the game, and I'm looking forward to doing it again when A21 comes out. I'm gonna buy an extra copy for my friend so he can play it with me; he gets stressed easily so I'm going to enjoy listening to his screams when the horde starts to swarm.
or first trying to kill as much as possible in the day and then backtrack in the night for looting and wrenching the valuable stuff.
. Combine it with that pitiful dog sound on hit and you will laugh pretty hard.
