The Town Hall Was A Good Start But Needs To Go Further

[Stranded_Napkin]

We need water to make sense again. Jars need to come back. I get that water was insanely easy to get but there's a better way to balance it.

Alongside the other workstations that are being added, there needs to be a Water Filtration System. This can be a craftable workstation that either inputs natural water sources or that you put buckets of water into. The filtration process can be made to be as slow as The Fun Pimps deem to be appropriate for proper difficulty.

Jars get re-added. They get the same functions as they used to have. The difference is in the water itself. Instead of boiled water being drinkable, you make purified water being the only 100% healthy option. As we know, in real life, boiling water kills bacteria and viruses but doesn't remove toxins and contaminants. This works in that boiled water would be great for in-game items such as glue and paint. Boiled water can be made to have a chance of a debuff based on said toxins and/or contaminants. Its affect on player hydration could be reduced as well.

The recipe for jars can be modified to make them far more costly to make. Also, since there's a metal lid, iron is a requirement.
Example
Ingredients:
Iron - 25
Clay - 10
Sand/Glass - 100

It can even be made to be far more costly than that. Either way, early game it's still a challenge. Late game, literally nothing is a challenge now or after this is implemented. That's the point of a sandbox experience. You have the freedom to craft and utilize as many stations as you wish. I literally had over a hundred dew collectors just to use the polymers. I believe this concept works for what The Fun Pimps want in regards to difficulty and for keeping the game mostly grounded.

 

[Riamus]

What we need is for them to finish the game. Let's get bandits and story done and stop putting them off. Afterwards, they can look at other things.

 

[Stranded_Napkin]

Yeah, naw. I want the game to be "done" but I ain't going to stop. The Fun Pimps act like they want nothing more for us to shut up and accept the game as is. This isn't even that big an ask. This is simple enough for them to implement. Most of it is xml changes.

The only things that would take more work would be the workstation and any additional interactive aspects such as glass jars breaking when the player is hit by zombies (forgot to put that into the post).

In the end though, a finished game that sucks is not preferable to me. I want a finished game that is good. The best thing about this game was always the survival aspects of it. That's nearly gone now. Bandits won't save it. In its current iteration, it is a Zombie Combat RPG and not a Zombie Survival game. To me at least, that's a negative. I fell in love with the survival. I loathe RPGs. Simple as that.

 

[Kyoji]

What we need is for them to finish the game. Let's get bandits and story done and stop putting them off. Afterwards, they can look at other things.

The game would be harder to develop if they have more systems to change. Better to make the changes they want now than to take longer making changes.

Plus that's how we ended up here in the first place. Things like temperature took a backseat and they kept releasing unpolished ideas.

Now jars to me is silly in that it's a largely a non-factor for gameplay, but they should make the relevant changes they wish to do before moving on if they chose to do so.

 

[Riamus]

The game would be harder to develop if they have more systems to change. Better to make the changes they want now than to take longer making changes.

That's not really true. Take something like adding temperature back. If they add bandits and story and then add temperature, the effort to add temperature would not change. There are certain times when it matters - optimization and related changes. Optimization before adding new features can often require redoing the optimization depending on the feature. And changes that are related - if you add bandits and they do something related to temperature and then you add temperature, that can require extra work. However, that effect works in both directions. If they are related, doing bandits first could make temperature take longer and adding temperature first could make bandits take longer. But in this case, the suggested things aren't related to bandits or story and so will not take any longer.

To be clear, I'm talking about the time to do it, not when it will be completed. Obviously spending time on one thing will mean another thing is delayed. That's why I'd like to have them just finish bandits and story before trying to please all these people who want things to be their way or no way. Games become a serious mess when devs start doing that and I'd prefer to have a version of the game that is finished and in a good place before they make a mess of it.

 

[Kyoji]

That's not really true. Take something like adding temperature back. If they add bandits and story and then add temperature, the effort to add temperature would not change. There are certain times when it matters - optimization and related changes. Optimization before adding new features can often require redoing the optimization depending on the feature. And changes that are related - if you add bandits and they do something related to temperature and then you add temperature, that can require extra work. However, that effect works in both directions. If they are related, doing bandits first could make temperature take longer and adding temperature first could make bandits take longer. But in this case, the suggested things aren't related to bandits or story and so will not take any longer.

To be clear, I'm talking about the time to do it, not when it will be completed. Obviously spending time on one thing will mean another thing is delayed. That's why I'd like to have them just finish bandits and story before trying to please all these people who want things to be their way or no way. Games become a serious mess when devs start doing that and I'd prefer to have a version of the game that is finished and in a good place before they make a mess of it.

And it's fine to have your opinion, but the issue again is that there has been a lot of backlash by not focusing on aspects of the game a lot of people want and instead focusing on story and linear RPG elements.

So while you may want the story finished I most certainly do not. I think the story is the least interesting thing about a game in an open world sandbox survival game. I think there are core elements of the game that should be adjusted first such as how it feels to play the game.

You say make a mess of it but the town hall for many was a massive win and while people didn't think it went far enough I don't think many disliked the changes, with the exception being maybe a post on Native American culture.

So we may have opposing view points, just as I have them from others, as I think bandits should come before talk of jars, at the end of the day it's whatever the developers think is best with respect to the feedback and sentiment of the players.

 

[Riamus]

What I want is for the game to be finally completed. I don't care about the story and will play it once to see the story and then never again. I also don't care about bandits. I think they will not be a good addition to the game. But I want the game to be finished.

I don't care if they want to fix problems with 2.0. That's normal. But I don't want to see them start to go back through old versions and try to "fix" things that people didn't like from older versions of the game. At least, not until after gold. If they start doing that, they'll never finish the game. That includes jars, LBD, etc. People have been complaining about jars and LBD and other changes like those for years. That is hardly new. To suddenly put things on hold to possibly start working on bringing those back is a bad idea, imo.

 

[HammerDano]

What I want is for the game to be finally completed. I don't care about the story and will play it once to see the story and then never again. I also don't care about bandits. I think they will not be a good addition to the game. But I want the game to be finished.

I don't care if they want to fix problems with 2.0. That's normal. But I don't want to see them start to go back through old versions and try to "fix" things that people didn't like from older versions of the game. At least, not until after gold. If they start doing that, they'll never finish the game. That includes jars, LBD, etc. People have been complaining about jars and LBD and other changes like those for years. That is hardly new. To suddenly put things on hold to possibly start working on bringing those back is a bad idea, imo.

we agree...I want them to finish the game. I think NOW is a great time for them to start collating data, putting up polls, hire a PR company to manage it, whatever they are going to do to tweek the game. (hopefully AFTER they finish the game)
Because I think that stuff will take a few weeks to months to sort thru...if TFP intend to do more than pay lip service to the idea that "they are listening".

The longer it is taking for them to come out with some direction...the more I fear this is just lip service. nothing is going to change...they are still going to take "as long as it takes".

 

[Stranded_Napkin]

What I want is for the game to be finally completed. I don't care about the story and will play it once to see the story and then never again. I also don't care about bandits. I think they will not be a good addition to the game. But I want the game to be finished.

I don't care if they want to fix problems with 2.0. That's normal. But I don't want to see them start to go back through old versions and try to "fix" things that people didn't like from older versions of the game. At least, not until after gold. If they start doing that, they'll never finish the game. That includes jars, LBD, etc. People have been complaining about jars and LBD and other changes like those for years. That is hardly new. To suddenly put things on hold to possibly start working on bringing those back is a bad idea, imo.

You just want the game to be finished regardless of the state it's in? I think what we disagree on is the state in which it's currently in. To me, the game is an absolute mess that is a joke compared to what it once was. Adding bandits and a story would just be like gems placed into rotting driftwood and called jewelry. I'd much rather they fix the problems with the game before they call it "finished". Fixes made after it's so-called completion only mean that it WASN'T complete.

 

[Kyoji]

What I want is for the game to be finally completed. I don't care about the story and will play it once to see the story and then never again. I also don't care about bandits. I think they will not be a good addition to the game. But I want the game to be finished.

I don't care if they want to fix problems with 2.0. That's normal. But I don't want to see them start to go back through old versions and try to "fix" things that people didn't like from older versions of the game. At least, not until after gold. If they start doing that, they'll never finish the game. That includes jars, LBD, etc. People have been complaining about jars and LBD and other changes like those for years. That is hardly new. To suddenly put things on hold to possibly start working on bringing those back is a bad idea, imo.

Much more understandable. For the record I don't think the major issues are jars or LBD, but traders and quests. As the issue is randomness and feeling as if the game is on wheels and predictable because of it as you go from one quest to another.

I also don't think they need to remove either. Instead they need to focus on offering alternatives to questing so it's not just rinse/repeating the same quests over and over again.

To do this they should have one or two more quest types which will spice things up there and make it less tedious and boring.

I also think they really need dynamic events that can pull you away as you are running from one quest to another. Once they come out with bandits they should have a percent chance to populate remnant POIs and offer equal or better loot than both the quest and loot stash.

You can balance bandit remnants with either them being more difficult or more rare within the POIs to make them a great alternative to questing but not overshadow it.

 

[Riamus]

You just want the game to be finished regardless of the state it's in? I think what we disagree on is the state in which it's currently in. To me, the game is an absolute mess that is a joke compared to what it once was. Adding bandits and a story would just be like gems placed into rotting driftwood and called jewelry. I'd much rather they fix the problems with the game before they call it "finished". Fixes made after it's so-called completion only mean that it WASN'T complete.

You consider the game to be in a bad state specifically because you preferred the older version. Others, like myself, prefer the newer version (at least 1.x, and after fixes, 2.x).

Much more understandable. For the record I don't think the major issues are jars or LBD, but traders and quests. As the issue is randomness and feeling as if the game is on wheels and predictable because of it as you go from one quest to another.

I also don't think they need to remove either. Instead they need to focus on offering alternatives to questing so it's not just rinse/repeating the same quests over and over again.

To do this they should have one or two more quest types which will spice things up there and make it less tedious and boring.

I also think they really need dynamic events that can pull you away as you are running from one quest to another. Once they come out with bandits they should have a percent chance to populate remnant POIs and offer equal or better loot than both the quest and loot stash.

You can balance bandit remnants with either them being more difficult or more rare within the POIs to make them a great alternative to questing but not overshadow it.

I agree that additional quest types to make it more interested would be a great addition. I like the idea of a demolition quest type that they mentioned. But we could definitely use some more options that are different from what we already have. Adding quest types can be done while completing 3.0 and 4.0 without having to delay those by much, so I don't have any problem with the idea that they'd put in time to add a few more quest types. Besides, some of those can be tied to bandits and so fit in well with 3.0.

They have talked about dynamic events off and on and they've already added some skeleton work to the code/XML to handle it. Hopefully we'll see them start making use of it before too long. There are a lot of possibilities for use of that system, and once it's working, modders can do a lot with it.

 

[Stranded_Napkin]

You consider the game to be in a bad state specifically because you preferred the older version. Others, like myself, prefer the newer version (at least 1.x, and after fixes, 2.x).

You still don't understand. You're closer, but still not there. This game is just as broken as it ever was. It's even more lost as to what genre it's going for on top of everything that was wrong with it before. Their fixes literally fixed nothing. It was better before because it at least made sense. I'm happy that you like the update, at least somebody does. That doesn't make it a good update. The outcry clearly shows that a sizable portion of the player base does not see it as you do. The Fun Pimps have been their own worst enemy. They've overhauled nearly every system only for nothing to be any more difficult than it was before, only more nonsensical. The Fun Pimps didn't optimize anything but rather let AMD and NVidia do all the work with FSR and DLSS. Yay, crappier textures and ghosting for everybody. Why should I be happy with any of this?