PC 2 Criticisms

I was a bit too busy to play and monitor the changes during experimental this time around, but my group and I just got back into playing. Overall, we really love A18, especially the skills rebalance and new R mechanic, but we've got 2 criticisms we've all agreed on:

  1. Zombie reach: it's really wonky. We can see their hands land in front of us, but still take damage. It feels like many have the same range as a spear, unless there's an actual block as a barrier in between. It's a little frustrating to be consistently hit when leaving a spear's distance in between, especially when it doesn't visually line up with their actual arm reach. Crawlers seem to be the worst culprits.
     
  2. Farm plots: I noticed the feedback on the forum has been mostly positive, but my (very small, for what it's worth) group absolutely hates these. The concept is just silly: being unable to use the ground is just arbitrary. Why would any farmer make pots when there's ground available? It's very immersion-breaking because it doesn't make any logical sense. It would be more reasonable to limit food growth with a fertile ground mechanic, or creating soil required some kind of effort beyond tilling. Even requiring watering and adding irrigation blocks/tools would help to suspend disbelief. I really hope these plots go away, the concept is just absurd.
     
    Has anyone used mods to revert this functionality yet? I usually like to play vanilla, but I really want to erase only this one thing from my play.
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I agree about the reach. JaxTeller has a mod that reduces it just a pinch.

 
Which is weirder? Carrying a truck and a forest, or specialized farm soils? The argument from immersion is absurd on its face. The fact is some people just don't like the game mechanic, and they're using "suspension of disbelief" and "immersion" as excuses, as if somehow those things trump the gameplay reasons so thoroughly as to require no more discussion on the subject.
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I'm not sure you understand how suspension of disbelief works, so I'll take a moment to get you up to speed first. Suspension of disbelief is the concept that permits someone to become immersed in a piece of media. It requires a consistency and logic to hold it together; without it, the person is skeptical, and less invested in the media. They're aware of their consumption, rather than just enjoying it. It doesn't have to be logical in real world terms (Zombies? Herbal medicine actually working?), but immersion does require that it be internally consistent in a way that makes sense. I haven't taught this concept in a while, so I hope you were able to follow adequately.

As it applies here, the soil in the pot isn't different from the soil in the ground; you've done nothing to craft this "special soil." Nor is it, as you suggest, different from crop to crop, either. It's just dirt in a box with some fertilizer. It's not internally consistent that the same dirt is useless on the ground, but useful when stuffed in a box. It's not internally consistent with garden POIs. Suggesting that they're just hanging on by a thread in a POI doesn't work as a rationalization, either: those crops aren't being tended, so of course they're hanging on by a thread. And the trader wouldn't maintain his own garden, in dirt, if it wasn't providing him food.

Because there's an internal inconsistency, it breaks immersion. That inconsistency needs to be addressed in some way. I'm not particularly invested in whether the solution is reverting to the previous format with tweaks, or making changes elsewhere in the world to hold it together better--you'll find some decent suggestions on changes that would have accomplished their gameplay objective without breaking immersion, within this thread. The mechanic as it is just isn't good.

 
I'm not sure you understand how suspension of disbelief works, so I'll take a moment to get you up to speed first. Suspension of disbelief is the concept that permits someone to become immersed in a piece of media. It requires a consistency and logic to hold it together; without it, the person is skeptical, and less invested in the media. They're aware of their consumption, rather than just enjoying it. It doesn't have to be logical in real world terms (Zombies? Herbal medicine actually working?), but immersion does require that it be internally consistent in a way that makes sense. I haven't taught this concept in a while, so I hope you were able to follow adequately.
As it applies here, the soil in the pot isn't different from the soil in the ground; you've done nothing to craft this "special soil." Nor is it, as you suggest, different from crop to crop, either. It's just dirt in a box with some fertilizer. It's not internally consistent that the same dirt is useless on the ground, but useful when stuffed in a box. It's not internally consistent with garden POIs. Suggesting that they're just hanging on by a thread in a POI doesn't work as a rationalization, either: those crops aren't being tended, so of course they're hanging on by a thread. And the trader wouldn't maintain his own garden, in dirt, if it wasn't providing him food.

Because there's an internal inconsistency, it breaks immersion. That inconsistency needs to be addressed in some way. I'm not particularly invested in whether the solution is reverting to the previous format with tweaks, or making changes elsewhere in the world to hold it together better--you'll find some decent suggestions on changes that would have accomplished their gameplay objective without breaking immersion, within this thread. The mechanic as it is just isn't good.
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Wait. You were crafting the plots, so the soil could have been filtered, washed, processed in any way imaginable while crafting them. Crafting an electrical drawbridge, an antibiotics pill and crafting a plot from simple ingredients are all done with a simple mouse click in the game, but are only explainable if crafting can be an arbitrarily complex process.

I have no good explanation why that processed dirt can't be just dumped on a flat clean roof. On a forest ground I would assume the contamination would spread back in from the surrounding dirt though.

And I have no good explanation for food grown in the wild not having adverse effects (at least if you eat them regularily). It would be nice if all you could do with them is create seeds or if they had a much higher food poisoning chance. But the seeds might have not enough of the contamination in them to contaminate the filtered soil or might have been filtered while making the seed

PS: The trader is one big heap of internal inconsistency: Everything in the trader compound can't be used or destroyed like it can everywhere else.

 
Maybe we can have both the old and the new?

If you want to have a large farm, maybe you can plant seeds on dirt(only), but for a cost of slower growth due to rads and god knows what in that dirt and somtimes you wont get anything for harvesting it.

if you uses a Crop plot, you get none of those effects but for the cost of space and price.

and maybe some other stuff to help out. like Sprinklers to help growth and you need water for them.

also maybe some new plants like poppies to make painkillers and other drugs, wheat for you to make bread, fresh sham sandwich and fresh beer, carrots for good meals. and more crops.

and for hunting animals for food. maybe some wild cows and turkeys to hunt for food.

 
What to say?

Madmole has declared the gardening off topic.

And since the soil blocks have changed programming wise it is even hard to impossible to get tilling the soil back as a mod :(

 
Maybe we can have both the old and the new?

If you want to have a large farm, maybe you can plant seeds on dirt(only), but for a cost of slower growth due to rads and god knows what in that dirt and somtimes you wont get anything for harvesting it.

if you uses a Crop plot, you get none of those effects but for the cost of space and price.

and maybe some other stuff to help out. like Sprinklers to help growth and you need water for them.

also maybe some new plants like poppies to make painkillers and other drugs, wheat for you to make bread, fresh sham sandwich and fresh beer, carrots for good meals. and more crops.

and for hunting animals for food. maybe some wild cows and turkeys to hunt for food.
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One of the reasons farm plots seem to have been implemented was because of some limitation in number of ground textures they can use (I didn't understand the explanation fully, "textures" may or may not be the wrong word here). So farm plots got one ground texture back for other uses. Which probably already happened and the texture is used by something else.

Maybe they can somehow remove that limitation (maybe a new version of unity, a flash of inspiration to solve the problem some other way, a complete rewrite of the relevant code...). Or they can get another ground texture back and then find no better use for it. But all these possibilites seem very farfetched.

 
One of the reasons farm plots seem to have been implemented was because of some limitation in number of ground textures they can use (I didn't understand the explanation fully, "textures" may or may not be the wrong word here). So farm plots got one ground texture back for other uses. Which probably already happened and the texture is used by something else.
Maybe they can somehow remove that limitation (maybe a new version of unity, a flash of inspiration to solve the problem some other way, a complete rewrite of the relevant code...). Or they can get another ground texture back and then find no better use for it. But all these possibilites seem very farfetched.
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I'm sure its not as simple as this.... but it sure feels like as the years go on, the unity engine keep getting more and more limited.

 
Wake up. You already accepted the occult blood moon, occult zombies with glowing skin, exploding zombies and zombies spitting acid.
And we have been in this occult territory for many years now. If you want a "realistic" zombie game, despair, if you want a somewhat Romero-type-realistic zombie game, look elsewhere.
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Damn. I was making a joke, but you got your panties twisted about it.

But since you're going all that way about it, NO. I don't "accept" the demo zombies, or the hordes that magically know where you are no matter what because their Timex tells them it's the right date. I play the game, but the fact that I am here bitching about it proves I don't "accept" it.

 
Damn. I was making a joke, but you got your panties twisted about it.
But since you're going all that way about it, NO. I don't "accept" the demo zombies, or the hordes that magically know where you are no matter what because their Timex tells them it's the right date. I play the game, but the fact that I am here bitching about it proves I don't "accept" it.
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Was "Wake up" too strong? I thought it apt after you showered some glowing sarcasm on me. Ridicule on both sides, so I believe we're even now :cocksure:

If the other occult stuff is still getting under your skin, I agree there is no need to wake up. Seriously my point was that the internal consistency is kept intact since occult stuff in this game is already occuring and therefore occult stuff is NOT absurd in this game.

 
If the other occult stuff is still getting under your skin, I agree there is no need to wake up. Seriously my point was that the internal consistency is kept intact since occult stuff in this game is already occuring and therefore occult stuff is NOT absurd in this game.
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That's kind of the same sort of weasel-wording that we had in the other thread about the roadmap.

"Because there's THIS thing that can fit in an overly-broad application of a word, we can use ANY thing that also fits there and it's just fine."

I don't accept that. Continuity, IMLTHO, is very important. For instance, it's not out of place if there are radioactive zombies. Why? Because the lore sets it up that there were nuclear elements to this holocaust and they even use radiation to set the borders of the map. Meanwhile, super-zombies that are tanks and also somehow came to be wearing suicide vests don't have that benefit. They're being RETCONNED, and the only explanation is "well, we have this one occult thing, so adding magic-wielding liches are fine too!"

PS - yeah, I think we're even now. :)

 
That's kind of the same sort of weasel-wording that we had in the other thread about the roadmap.
"Because there's THIS thing that can fit in an overly-broad application of a word, we can use ANY thing that also fits there and it's just fine."

I don't accept that. Continuity, IMLTHO, is very important. For instance, it's not out of place if there are radioactive zombies. Why? Because the lore sets it up that there were nuclear elements to this holocaust and they even use radiation to set the borders of the map. Meanwhile, super-zombies that are tanks and also somehow came to be wearing suicide vests don't have that benefit. They're being RETCONNED, and the only explanation is "well, we have this one occult thing, so adding magic-wielding liches are fine too!"

PS - yeah, I think we're even now. :)
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Not sure what other thread you mean. But generally, magic/occult stuff is the epitome of weaseling out of any real-word limitations. :distrust:

Meanwhile we have a blood moon that really can't be explained by radioactivity, the radioactive border isn't anymore, and to speak of continuity when looking at past alphas (I may have misunderstood your point here(?)) is giving those previous versions too much importance. This is a game in EA and the story of version 1.0 will fit (somewhat nebulously I'm sure) the contents of 1.0 and care not one yota about the image we alpha-players may have formed about the lore of this world.

I would be surprised if 1.0 even tries to explain much about the zombies, blood moon or other stuff except by hand-waiving. I don't have a problem with that, star-trekky technobabble about occult stuff is okay by me if the gameplay is better for it. Any game with zombies in it already is supernatural/occult/magic, explaining in detail just makes matters worse.

 
When looking at continuity you must start each alpha as a fresh story and new state of the universe. Trying to tie in all past alphas into one uniform universe is going to result in discontinuity because the development process is one of revision and change. If TFP never explains the science behind the blood moon, the zombie plague, wights, demolishers then players will have to do that for themselves using their imaginations. Hopefully, once the game is ready to go gold there will be some sort of backstory that can be discovered.

My guess, though, is that no explanation will ever be enough to convince those who are prejudiced against certain aspects of the game. Those people don't want a compelling backstory or any explanation. They just want those aspects removed.

 
When looking at continuity you must start each alpha as a fresh story and new state of the universe. Trying to tie in all past alphas into one uniform universe is going to result in discontinuity because the development process is one of revision and change. If TFP never explains the science behind the blood moon, the zombie plague, wights, demolishers then players will have to do that for themselves using their imaginations. Hopefully, once the game is ready to go gold there will be some sort of backstory that can be discovered.
My guess, though, is that no explanation will ever be enough to convince those who are prejudiced against certain aspects of the game. Those people don't want a compelling backstory or any explanation. They just want those aspects removed.
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IMLTHO, the problem is that they didn't start with a backstory - that's the real roadmap - and so we have a Star Wars sort of place where originally the Force was nebulous but somehow everyone in the galaxy forgot about the midi-chlorians from less than twenty years ago... or we had Stormtroopers that were all male... except one... and white... except they came from a latin dude who somehow cloned a black one...

Consistency. It's what separates a truly awesome thing from somebody's sandbox.

 
or we had Stormtroopers that were all male... except one... and white... except they came from a latin dude who somehow cloned a black one...
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Not to get off topic.... but they stopped using clones and started recruiting human stormtroopers shortly after the events of Revenge of the Sith.

 
It's not like the game has gotten out of hand in terms of lore or consistency. I mean it's not like they added Santa Claus for the air drops or elf wizards etc. One doesn't need a backstory to understand that things like these would completely mess up consistency. We already know that a nuclear biochemical war has happened in a world that is like ours. Demolishers could be tied to the bandits in the future, the BM could still be interpreted as a weather effect by chemicals or whatever and so on.

But I don't think anyone can disagree on consistency being something positive for the game's universe and that everything TFP do to improve it, is welcome. Theming IS important - e.g. giant bees VS vultures change. For example, it would be nice if the relation between demo's and bandits was shown. It would be nice if the BM event had a build-up in the form of a more plausible weather visual effect (or even just lore) that showed its origin. Even for things as simple and negligible as farming, the recipe/ingredients themselves implying that the soil is being purified for example, is a nice bit of flavor.

 
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Splat maps is the real reason why. It comes with a texture limitation so to get one back they eliminated the soil texture then somebody said, "Wait, what about farming?", and here we are with these weird boxes that people trip over each other to explain the benefits of even though things were fine before.

 
Not to get off topic.... but they stopped using clones and started recruiting human stormtroopers shortly after the events of Revenge of the Sith.
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He doesn’t sound like a fan and probably doesn’t realize the gap of time between Jango Fett and Finn.

But he is a fan of Firefly so it’s forgive-able but only if he keeps plastic dinosaurs on the dashboard of his car And plays with them as he drives around.

 
just dig out the ground for them and put them down and boom, back to immersion. And an added plus if you put them between block the top edge meets up and they look alot neater than before. when you used to put soil down a block isle it looked bad because the edges never met up but now meet thx to plot. I did like the old system a little more but this is ok too. My biggest gripe was the nerf to living off the land and no longer going upto 5? and capping at 3 =/ Although its now nice to get those 3 from "wild crops" which is nice and reduces the need for you own farm to be mahoosive =)

 
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He doesn’t sound like a fan and probably doesn’t realize the gap of time between Jango Fett and Finn.
But he is a fan of Firefly so it’s forgive-able but only if he keeps plastic dinosaurs on the dashboard of his car And plays with them as he drives around.
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Nope, that doesn't score points with me.... since everyone should be a Firefly fan.

 
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