Update change list & Removal

[Kyoji]

After reading of so much nostalgia I wanted to verify something. People are saying this alpha is the best or this one or that one. So I thought to myself, what has been added and what have we lost. I couldn't find specific removal dates for some things, but I could for many.

So to start here are some of the things added (by going over initial patch notes) for each release after A14. If I miss something important please feel free to comment. I tried to find the important things, but there are a lot of notes

Things Added:

2.0 = Storms, Biome Progression, Loot Stage Caps, Navezgane Update, Charged and Infernal Zombies, Perk Updates, Sledgehammer Books, New Hand-Use Animations, Questing Rally Markers, Crossplay

1.0 = Player Armor & Clothing, New Animal & Vehicle Models, Challenges, RWG Performance & Tweaks, Better World Lighting, Zombie Spawning System for Performance, Q6 Crafting & Legendary Parts, Trader Nerf, Twitch Integration, New Environmental Art

A21 = New Environmental Art, Double Doors & Door Break Mechanics, Small Loot Containers Destroyed on Use, Hazards (flames in POIs), New Gore System, Biome Difficulty, POI Localization (names), Infestation Quests, Chunk Reset System, Jar/Can Removal & Dew Collector, Crafting Skill System (magazines), Perk Overhaul, Recipe Tracker, Crafting Quality Selector, Starter Quest, Wandering Hordes, Twitch Extension

A20 = Tiles System, Districts & Cities, Navezgane Updates, HD Characters, Shapes Overhaul, Robotic Drone, Rendering Improvements, Restore Power Quests, Loot Stage System & Biome and POI Tier Bonuses, Improved Weather Systems, Dismemberment, Better RWL and Server XML Settings for Modding, Pipe Weapons, Biome & Building Spawning (specific zombies spawn in relevant POIs), Vehicle Mods

A19 = Better Lighting, Critical Injuries, Food & Water UI Bars, HD Character Models, Dynamic Music, Loot Rebalance (T0-3), Nazezgane Updates, Converted POIs to Quest-able, New Art Assets, New Weapons & Tools (Desert Vulture, Auto Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Impact Driver, Ratchet, Tactical Assault Rifle, Blunderbuss, Robotic Sledge), Candy Vending Machines, New Book Sets (Brawler, Spear, Tech), Random Biome Placement, Traders Spawning Changes, Player Spawning Changes

A18 = XP Balance (now earned from many sources other than zombies), Larger Backpack & Less Stamina Cost for Early Game, Increased Performance, Lowered Zombie Spawns, Crafting Governed by Perk Tree, Schematics Re-Added, Death Debuff Removed (changed to XP loss), Melee Hit Detection Optimization, Infection & Dysentery Included, HD Icons, More Books (Art of Mining, Batter Up, etc), 20 New Weapons (Spears, Junk Turret, Stun Baton, Baseball Bat, Sledge, M60, Wraps, etc), Better Terrain Blending, Surface Boulders for Mining, Coyote & Mountain Lion Added, Demo Zombie Added

A17 = Lighting & Rendering Improvements, Party System (team up), Quest System, Navezgane Improvements, Redone Vehicle System (New Motorbike & 4x4 & Bicycle), Zombie Speed Options, Added Stag & Doe, Weapon & Armor Modding, Re-Done Skill System (Perk System), Wellness Removed, Reworked Weather Survival (less clothes swaps), Store Crates & Gun Bags Added, Plains Biome Removed, Compare Item Quality, 700 New Block Shapes, New Stealth System (revamp), Level & POI Editor

A16 = Skyscrapers Added, Sleeper Spawn Mechanic (instead of static spawn), Electricity, Hub Generation (city, town and rural), New Zombies (Business Man, Hawaiian, Feral Zombies, Radiated), Remodeled Zombies & Animals, Painting, Skill & Progression Changes, Block Rotations, New Stealth System

A15 = Navezgane Updates, RWG Road System, RWG Terrain Modification, Journal Tip System (tips on gameplay), Traders, Vending Machines, Blood Moon Dynamic Difficulty, Added Fertilizer & New Crops (Yucca, Mushrooms), Growing Trees (less efficient in desert/snow), Chemistry Station, Zombie Specific Loot & Spawning, Exp & Skill Changes, Sign Creation, Steam Achievements, Underground Mineral Veins, Combine Items at Workbench, Backpack Sorting, New Items (Nailgun schematic, Clothing, Electrical Parts, etc), New Block Shapes

 

[Kyoji]

Notable things changed or removed (taken from sources on reddit, steam and my own memory - couldn't find alphas they were removed for some):

- Smell (A21)
Was removed for feral sense which does similar things, but with less interaction with food

- Functional Hot/Cold (1.0)
Changed initially to allow for ease of biome transition back when biomes were random to allow for more diverse clothing in biomes and was then removed with the new armor update

- Corpse Loot (1.0 - I think)
Changed to loot bags which is less immersive

- Gore Blocks (A13)
When zombies died they created "gore blocks" which is just piles of blood and gore that could grow when more zombies died allowing for zombies to reach higher places or path over things with nor resistance like spikes unless the gore blocks were removed with a tool

- Leg Armor (1.0)
Made to streamline the clothing and armor sets they used to be a 5th armor slot

- Clothing (1.0)
Everyone can now rejoice in looking the same in magical armor that negates fall damage or other unnatural benefits to further RPG the game. Changed at one point to be easier as a Duster could solve most issues rather than needing to swap armor. Not as aesthetically pleasing and it had issues with clipping

- Jars (A21)
Removed and water sources became irrelevant. Dew Collectors added. Another attempt at a solution gone wrong. Water is still very easy to come by so they added HEAT generation to Dew Collectors to try and lower glue crafting

- Reinforced Wood, Concrete, Flagstone, Stainless Steel & Iron Blocks (A20)
Went from several tiers of blocks down to a few. Also no longer need rebar for concrete which allowed players to plan out the base with rebar before filling with concrete and needing curing time to harden. Streamlined the game for easier introduction and some redundancy

- Weapon Parts (1-600 down to 1-6) (A17)
Back when guns had trigger assembly, barrels and frames you had to find each part to make the weapon you wanted. Each part had it's own quality which effected various things like durability, damage, price, etc. You also needed a schematic to create a weapon making firearms desirable and far less common early on while giving players reasons to continue looting once they have the initial weapons as you could always increase the quality (up to 600) by combining parts

- Schematics (A21)
I want to give this it's own shout-out category as you needed the knowledge to craft certain weapons and this would be a skill book that would allow you to craft them which would then require the parts needed to do so

- Behemoth (n/a)
While never added officially it was teased and promised years ago from A16 but it never came to fruition. The concept was a much larger miniboss zombie that would spawn and be difficult to kill

- Log Spikes (A17)
Similar to wooden spikes, but could be upgraded to steel to increase damage and durability

- XP Gain/Crafting/Learn by Doing (Changed a lot throughout many alphas)
Changed to magazine and books as you could spam craft to fast level, but instead of implement diminishing returns it was removed. They also got rid of the ability to gain experience by doing the activity such as using a bat to kill a zombie

- Siren (Not sure)
Could wake and draw zombies. Had some issues with the sound implementation and didn't work well so it was removed

- Less zombies, replaced with sleepers (A16)
Happened in A16 and they replaced roaming zombies and overworld zombies with sleeper zombies for performance gains while also drastically lowering the threat level felt throughout the world

- Plains, Pine Forest, etc Biomes (A17)
Plains a combination of the forest and desert with grass and only a few trees and no large hills and scarce water, while the Pine Forest was filled with dense pine trees and a misty fog-like atmosphere

- Radiation Biome (Not sure)
Now the wasteland, it was irradiated needing biohazard gear to enter and explore the small and dangerous biome. Now it's one of the major biomes in the game and no longer penalizes the player for entering

- Vehicle Parts (A17)
Similar to weapon parts you could increase speed and handling of your vehicle by finding better quality parts (1-600). Scaling has been replaced with mods which do similar things to adjust fuel consumption, etc. A Minibike with 600 engine and a 1 handlebars would go fast but handle poorly

- Hoe, Tiling, and Fertilizer (A18)
You could use rotten flesh to fertilize or feces (used to be found in toilets). Replaced with farm plots. Also changed seed harvesting

- Non-Dungeon POIs (A16)
POIs now are being treated as dungeons and anything but the linear progression path is met with locked doors and dead ends. Combined with ambush zombies, fake walls, etc all meant to surprise you rather than allow you to stealth through

- Wellness (A17)
Encouraged players to make better food sources with poor wellness lowering max health and stamina. Things like raw eggs, moldy bread and raw meat could satiate but would lower wellness

- Zombie AI (Continual progress)
Zombies now dig, path to you with the least resistance, take longer to get up after being knocked down, can crouch under blocks, enter rage mode, not knowing your exact position during horde night, etc. For better or for worse the AI became more challenging for the player to thwart

- Hornets (A16)
If you thought vultures were annoying...Prevalent in the wasteland they were replaced with vultures

- Sexual Tyrannosaurus (A21)
Needs to come back if for nothing else than the meme value. Seriously. Bring it back and tweak it. It used to govern your stamina

- Meat Types (A13)
No more rabbit, bear and venison. It's been streamlined into meat with no unique recipes

- Simplified Crafting (A13)
No more logs, planks, sticks and table saws needed

- Longer Crafting Times (n/a)
Things are generally faster now and take less time

- Environmental Gear (A17)
No more gas masks and rad suits needed to explore anymore for better or worse

- Snow accumulation (A16?)
Snow used to gather on the ground and on cars when in the snow biome or when it snowed in the forest...speaking of which

- Snow in the Forest (Not sure)
Snow used to fall in the forest bringing with it temperature drops and a more challenging experience.

- Weather Transitions & Biome Blending (Not sure)
You previously could see bad weather coming before it happened. Furthermore, biomes are more grid-like and less freeform with less natural blending between the two

- Cracked Roads, Puddles & Biomes (Not sure)
Previously you could have puddles of water on the roads or cracks. Also, flora would overgrow on buildings in older designs while everything now is much cleaner looking

- Darker Nights (A18)
Nights used to be very dark, sometimes prohibitively so whereas now every night is a full moon


Anyway this is what I could find browsing the net and through my own memories of my playtime. If you see anything wrong or forgotten feel free to add to the list.

 

[tman1up]

I believe smell was removed in A16, as I've recently watched a couple of streams of Spartan-85 and Rattdogg playing A16, and they were talking about how smell was removed and was no longer a thing in A16.4. I'm not sure exactly when feral sense was added, but I feel like there was a few alpha's between when smelled was removed and feral sense was added, I'm thinking maybe A20 was around the time that was added. I've never actually played with feral sense on, but I have watched some of the content creators that had it on during their play throughs, so my recollection of when that was added might not be correct.

 

[Lax]

Cans! Also barbed wire. Grrrr...really urked me that one.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Plains and maple forest, smell, jars, lbd and lbl

Ugh

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Gore blocks can stay away. They could cause bad lag and removing them was sometimes a pain because unlike now, there were way more zombies in cities.

Speaking of cities, i want dangerous cities back. There was no way you could just go into a city eearly game. There were dogs and cops everywhere. Won´t happen though, effin crossplay.

 

[Kyoji]

- Smell (A21)
Was removed for feral sense which does similar things, but with less interaction with food

Priority: Low
I enjoyed this myself. I think feral sense is generally less enjoyable and interactive with the world. I don't really care about it enough to bring it back but if they didn't add cans back in and just made meat give feral sense within a range I don't think it would be hard to put back in.

- Functional Hot/Cold (1.0)
Changed initially to allow for ease of biome transition back when biomes were random to allow for more diverse clothing in biomes and was then removed with the new armor update

Priority: High
Presumably coming back as the developers gave stated so hopefully it is punishing enough to be a threat but not prohibitive from general play.

- Corpse Loot (1.0 - I think)
Changed to loot bags which is less immersive

Priority: Very Low
I would like to see this change so long as it's not terribly hard to program. I don't like the less immersive feel of bright colored loot bags dropping when you can just have zombie corpses do the same thing. With a few tweaks to how one collects loot it wouldn't be bad to see return.

- Gore Blocks (A13)
When zombies died they created "gore blocks" which is just piles of blood and gore that could grow when more zombies died allowing for zombies to reach higher places or path over things with nor resistance like spikes unless the gore blocks were removed with a tool

Priority: Never
Never was a fan of this. It made bases infuriating to build as gore blocks would just overtake it and was annoying to clean up afterwards and during battle. I am happy this is gone.

- Leg Armor (1.0)
Made to streamline the clothing and armor sets they used to be a 5th armor slot

Priority: Never
Don't care. We have similar effects with the gear setup now.

- Clothing (1.0)

Everyone can now rejoice in looking the same in magical armor that negates fall damage or other unnatural benefits to further RPG the game. Changed at one point to be easier as a Duster could solve most issues rather than needing to swap armor. Not as aesthetically pleasing and it had issues with clipping

Priority: High
I very much dislike the new armor system. The models look cool and all but I dislike the RPG-esque stats and abilities attached. I much prefer a system where armor just gives defense and movement speed modifiers. No 0 fall damage nonsense. I don't expect a whole rework but can we at least get rid of the magical effects from the current armor and add things that make a bit more sense. With temperature returning we will get clothes back albeit likely invisible which is fine enough for me. I can always wait and hope they rebalanced the magical armor at a later date.

- Jars (A21)
Removed and water sources became irrelevant. Dew Collectors added. Another attempt at a solution gone wrong. Water is still very easy to come by so they added HEAT generation to Dew Collectors to try and lower glue crafting

Priority: Low
While I don't think it requires attention enough to warrant slowing down production on other things like bandits I will say that, unless fishing is added, I would out this on my list of things to bring back. Make water scarce and find ways to remove jars from the game at a rate enough to slow your glue mania end game such as making jars consume on use and making them more rare in loot.

- Reinforced Wood, Concrete, Flagstone, Stainless Steel & Iron Blocks (A20)
Went from several tiers of blocks down to a few. Also no longer need rebar for concrete which allowed players to plan out the base with rebar before filling with concrete and needing curing time to harden. Streamlined the game for easier introduction and some redundancy

Priority: Very Low
I don't want to necessarily see all of the tiers come back but I wouldn't mind seeing a category between concrete and steel at 7500 HP, Reinforced Concrete. I also would like to see concrete start off wet and need to be cured for a few hours before it fully hardens. Uncured concrete has less HP than regular concrete. Not a big deal and I'm perfectly happy with what we have but if some of it returned I wouldn't be mad.

- Weapon Parts (1-600 down to 1-6) (A17)
Back when guns had trigger assembly, barrels and frames you had to find each part to make the weapon you wanted. Each part had it's own quality which effected various things like durability, damage, price, etc. You also needed a schematic to create a weapon making firearms desirable and far less common early on while giving players reasons to continue looting once they have the initial weapons as you could always increase the quality (up to 600) by combining parts

- Schematics (A21)
I want to give this it's own shout-out category as you needed the knowledge to craft certain weapons and this would be a skill book that would allow you to craft them which would then require the parts needed to do so

Priority: High
Want to know what could possibly save the sandbox endgame? Parts quality. The developers solution is legendary weapons but I think parts quality is better at the same task. Going out and looking for better quality parts to make a 600 weapon provides a lot more end game entertainment and the randomness of the quality leads to moments of high emotion on looting. The only reason this isn't very high on my list is because it would take a lot of development time to rework crafting back to schematics and adjust things for balance. We had a great solution for a time sink and it was thrown away sadly. A rebalanced of combining weapon parts would need to happen but still a great design.

 

[Treb]

Lootable corpse were changed to loot bags way before 1.0.

Was it A17?

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Lootable corpse were changed to loot bags way before 1.0.

Was it A17?

99% yes.

And i am unsure about that one. It is kinda nice, but also kinda annoying. More immersive but also a bit tedious. Especially if you play with higher spawn rates.

@Kyoji The option to adjust to the spawn rate was also removed. I think with A17. That would also be nice to have back. But again, crossplay....

 

[Kyoji]

- Behemoth (n/a)

While never added officially it was teased and promised years ago from A16 but it never came to fruition. The concept was a much larger miniboss zombie that would spawn and be difficult to kill

Priority: Low

I think having a roaming world boss style zombie would be neat personally. Have it restricted to the Wasteland and have it drop some good stuff. Would add some tension to your wasteland looting for sure.

- Log Spikes (A17)

Similar to wooden spikes, but could be upgraded to steel to increase damage and durability

Priority: Never

We already have systems that do the same thing and while you could add these back in I think it would be easier to touch up spikes in general.

- XP Gain/Crafting/Learn by Doing (Changed a lot throughout many alphas)

Priority: Low

While there is a lot of merit behind the concept of learn by doing I think it would be easier at this point to touch up and refine what we have now. I won't say I like magazines better but I don't think it's worth spending lots of time going backwards for most things. I ranked this low instead of never because I think there is an ideal world where perks and LBD join to make the ultimate system. If development time wasn't a concern or if this meant more to me I would rank it a bit higher but I don't think it changes the core fun value of the game over some of the other things discussed.

- Siren (Not sure)

Could wake and draw zombies. Had some issues with the sound implementation and didn't work well so it was removed

Priority: Very Low

While interesting it has very limited use cases. If it were added I wouldn't care much but I wouldn't care much if it wasn't.

- Less zombies, replaced with sleepers (A16)

Happened in A16 and they replaced roaming zombies and overworld zombies with sleeper zombies for performance gains while also drastically lowering the threat level felt throughout the world

Priority: Very High

Should be a toggle option at the least for more zombies but beyond that I think they need to expand on the roaming zombies in POIs concept more and have less sleeper zombies and even less of the stupid impossible to see and hit zombies that trigger when you go through a door. It makes stealth far less valuable. They tweak zombie AI to mess up your base they can tweak it to be more fun when in POIs and in the world.

- Plains, Pine Forest, etc Biomes (A17)

Plains a combination of the forest and desert with grass and only a few trees and no large hills and scarce water, while the Pine Forest was filled with dense pine trees and a misty fog-like atmosphere

Priority: Very High

Now I get what your thinking. Why would these sub biomes be very high? The answer for me is that I think biome diversity is something that will make the exploration very fun. I won't ask for anything fantasy like an oasis in the desert but variations to the biomes WITHIN the biomes would be amazing (sub biomes).

- Radiation Biome (Not sure)

Now the wasteland, it was irradiated needing biohazard gear to enter and explore the small and dangerous biome. Now it's one of the major biomes in the game and no longer penalizes the player for entering

Priority: Very High

Now my suggestion isn't to make the Wasteland go back to the radiation biome we had, but I think it would be nice to have sub-biomes within the Wasteland that had radiation and we needed protection to enter.

- Hoe, Tiling, and Fertilizer (A18)

You could use rotten flesh to fertilize or feces (used to be found in toilets). Replaced with farm plots. Also changed seed harvesting

Priority: Very Low

I understand and appreciate the appeal but I think the coding needed to make it work would be troublesome and it complicates things a bit too much. That being said and the reason I have it at very low instead of never is because I like the idea of fertilizer and more customization to farming in general even if free farming never returns.

- Non-Dungeon POIs (A16)

POIs now are being treated as dungeons and anything but the linear progression path is met with locked doors and dead ends. Combined with ambush zombies, fake walls, etc all meant to surprise you rather than allow you to stealth through

Priority: Very High

I think the largest reason for the discomfort from sandbox to linear RPG is this. The transition from running in the open world to a POI of interest was very fun. That isn't to say quests aren't interesting and for sure we should have them. POI design needs some tweaks to make them less like a linear dungeon. There also needs to be development into things to make remnant POIs more useful to break up the quest grind. Again this isn't to get rid of quests but to make the POIs less linear and offer things to do outside of going from one area to another turning in quests.

- Wellness (A17)

Encouraged players to make better food sources with poor wellness lowering max health and stamina. Things like raw eggs, moldy bread and raw meat could satiate but would lower wellness

Priority: Never

Was never fond of it myself and it caused death spirals. I like some aspects like the raw products causing harm but we have similar things as it is.

- Zombie AI (Continual progress)

Zombies now dig, path to you with the least resistance, take longer to get up after being knocked down, can crouch under blocks, enter rage mode, not knowing your exact position during horde night, etc. For better or for worse the AI became more challenging for the player to thwart

Priority: High

I don't want to prevent zombies from digging or be unable to crouch, etc. I like changes to make the game more challenging in general but I also understand the limitations of making every zombie act the same way. I think adding multiple AI for the zombies with each zombie randomly prescribed that AI. One may be more direct, some may wander more, etc. The idea is that diversity in AI would make the game less predictable and potentially more difficult by comparison.

- Hornets (A16)

If you thought vultures were annoying...Prevalent in the wasteland they were replaced with vultures

Priority: Never

We have vultures and they make more sense than giant hornets.

- Sexual Tyrannosaurus (A21)

Needs to come back if for nothing else than the meme value. Seriously. Bring it back and tweak it. It used to govern your stamina

Priority: Low

While I love the meme I understand how broken the skill was. It would be nice to see it's return in some form or another as I love the quote and it was a 7D2D staple meme for a good amount of time.

- Meat Types (A13)

No more rabbit, bear and venison. It's been streamlined into meat with no unique recipes

Priority: Very Low

I never understood the idea of making everything in the game go from complex to simple. For some things simple can be better and more intuitive but here I think it was nice to have the specific recipes. Not a big deal though.

- Simplified Crafting (A13)

No more logs, planks, sticks and table saws needed

Priority: Never

Here is a good example of simplicity that works. Having too many tedious steps in a crafting process, whole realistic, is boring and doesn't offer anything outside of tedious activities.

- Longer Crafting Times (n/a)

Things are generally faster now and take less time

Priority: Very Low

Some things could and probably shoukd take longer to craft while I do appreciate the speed to which things are now for others. Things like forge smelting is currently good while crafting vehicles and weapons should probably take longer.

- Snow accumulation (A16?)

Snow used to gather on the ground and on cars when in the snow biome or when it snowed in the forest...speaking of which

Priority: Medium

This was always nice. To see dust in the desert and snow in the snow biome of cars, etc. This is a very nice aesthetic design that would be a nice thing to add. Since it doesn't add a lot I keep this to medium, but it would be nice enough to warrant development time towards later.

- Cracked Roads, Puddles & Biomes (Not sure)

Previously you could have puddles of water on the roads or cracks. Also, flora would overgrow on buildings in older designs while everything now is much cleaner looking

Priority: High

I think adding more weather in the forest would be very nice and offer more diverse gameplay. We went from having a zone with fog, snow, rain to each biome having a single storm.

Weather transitions are also nice and should be added. One of the most amazing things in ARK was watching a sandstorm roll in and we had similar things before.

The cracked roads, puddles and flora on buildings is less important. Puddles would be nice to see dynamically but I can understand why we don't have it if it's resource intensive on the system. The flora part would be hard to do with so many POIs at this point.

- Darker Nights (A18)

Nights used to be very dark, sometimes prohibitively so whereas now every night is a full moon

Priority: Very High

At least as a toggle option in the settings I don't think this would take a lot of work to make happen. I don't want it to go back to complete dark like it was previously, but something in between would be nice. Maybe partial moon and full moons dynamic to the game that changes like rain and fog.

 

[BFT2020]

Gore blocks can stay away. They could cause bad lag and removing them was sometimes a pain because unlike now, there were way more zombies in cities.

The lag wasn't an issue for me, but removing them was. And this is from a player who has no issues with grinding materials for large bases.