Shado47
Refugee
Howdy folks,
been playing the game since the first Alpha and have over 1.2k hours on steam. I thought I might as well throw my two cents in here on this Alpha 17 Experimental build we've been playing the heck out of since it came out.
I'll be categorically giving feedback on various systems in the game / A17 changes.
Lets get right into it.
1.) The Skill System.
I like the new skill system in terms of how the categories are split up and how many skills and how creative the skills are. What is a big disappointment for me and many others from what I have seen tho is that there are no longer any "practice" skills in terms of, you level them up by using them. Instead of perk attributes requiring player level to unlock, why not have a general mining skill, a general athletics skill, etc like we used to? That leveled up as you used them. And then mining related perk attributes require a mining level instead of a player level.
Also I agree with Vechs' feedback that the skill requirements are too harsh. The game forces you from the beginning to basically level everything equally instead of being able to specialize. If you try to specialize early on, you'll hit a player level wall in the perk system within literally just minutes.
Apart from those two, I really do like and enjoy the skill system. I hope it gets improved and that the devs will listen to the community a bit in this. But overall I love the perk attribute names and what the perks do etc.
This right now is quite slick, tho A16's skill tree was (ingame!) more practical. I understand completely however why it was changed since the framework got completely switched out.
2.) The Sleeper System.
When I was the first to request Sleepers in the old days of 7dtd in the Pimp Dreams section, and when shortly afterwards you guys added it to your todo list, this wasn't what I had in mind. Sleepers wake up now from pretty much any tiny noise and seemingly at completely random parameters. Sometimes a sleeper thats right in front of me doesn't notice me despite literally looking at me, but a sleeper 1 level above goes nuts and completely destroys the place because apparently he heard me?
I know you guys said Stealth is broken but the whole point of why Skyscrapers worked so nicely in A16 was that stealth worked mostly horizontally; sleepers in the floor above didnt care about your presence.
Another way in which the Sleeper system is badly broken right now is that you enter a place, you wake up all sleepers, you leave that place baiting them outside, you go back in, and all sleepers inside have instantly respawned.
Due to this I was able to literally put together a giant horde out of 2 ruined buildings that I went back and forth between, since everytime I left one and entered back into the other, the sleepers there instantly respawned. Which makes it almost completely impossible to loot buildings like stores right now.
3.) Weapons and Aiming.
Aiming down a bow right now only has the crosshair get smaller on the first draw if you keep holding down right click. After firing that first arrow, the aim doesn't get small again. Also why do we have crosshairs now on all guns? A few versions ago you were happy to announce that you had gotten rid of crosshairs on guns and that aiming them now felt alot better. Now you're bringing back the crosshairs? Why? Can we at least get an option to turn them off again for ranged weapons or even generally?
4.) Crouching.
The player when crouched used to be just a bit taller than 1 block. Now when crouched, the player is basically not changing how tall he is at all or just slightly. Also while the yellow bar on the left for stealth does pop up, the "Eye" that was the crosshair when crouched was a much better system to imply whether the player was crouched or not. Since my eye position as player basically doesn't change notably at all when crouching, I on numerous occasions playing A17 didnt realize I was still crouched while trying to escape from zombies. Eye level and that "Eye" as the crosshairs were a much better system to imply that you're crouched than a little yellow bar on the left that you don't really have an eye on all the time.
5.)Sickness and infection.
Are you trying to make the sickness system about as confusing and useless as that in DayZ? To elaborate. In DayZ you spawn into the world, you walk a few meters, a zombie might hit you, and suddenly your character symbols that you're "sick" but not what it is. And before you have any chance of figuring it out or finding a cure, you have died from it in DayZ. Literally.
Same thing is apparently the case in Alpha 17E. Infection progresses through the stages in a matter of minutes. And sometimes when taking damage or eating something the game just tells me that I'm sick but that I don't know what it is.
6.)Graphics, World Generation, POIs
Absolutely amazing all those things. I like the new cities with the roads that don't just go straight for the entire length of that city road. I love the new dungeon crawler POIs (would love them more if the sleeper system wasnt absolutely broken), and the graphics in A17 look gorgeous. Performance is the same as in A16 for me. Stable 60 fps with a GTX 970 and 16 GB of RAM on mostly max settings. Terrain looks better now as well.
7.)Settings.
Nothing changed here much except that the FOV slider is gone. Are you kidding me? I usually play any game on 91 FOV and now I can't even chanve FOV anymore whatsoever in the game?
8.)Vehicles.
I have tested the vehicles in creative and I gotta say the new handling is interesting but I'm getting really mixed signals here from the game itself. 4 vehicles are controlled by the mouse and the one vehicle that would actually handle great when controlled by a mouse - the gyrocopter - isn't? Why camera/mouse control in the first place for the car and bikes? Can we get an option to choose between keyboard and mouse control for the vehicles please? I was a big fan of being able to look around while I was on my minibike in A16 without turning the whole vehicle around.
9.)Vultures.
During development of A17 you said in a video that vultures are much more likely to attack a player when he is on low health and mostly ignore him on full health? Yeah, none of that so far.
10.)Attachments.
I like the attachment system but there are 3 things that really put me off.
a) The hammer attachments seem to be for the Sledgehammer only. Don't call them hammer attachments then or at least put it in their description that they're only for the Sledgehammer.
b) Barbed wire and Spikes are attachments now for the club? For which club? Neither iron reinforced club nor wooden club offer me a modify button when I click them. And why are the barbed wire and spikes attachments in the first place? Attachment system fine alright, but you're overdoing it.
c) Magazine extension attachments. I'm sorry but no, just no. Let me suggest an alternate approach to that.
> find a gun
> gun has a mag slot thats seperate from the attachment slots
> there may or may not be already a mag in there when finding a gun
> mags can also be found without guns
> if you have a gun but not a magazine for it but you do have the ammo, you can chamber the gun with a single bullets until you find a mag
> each gun has different magazine sizes available. 9mm would have an 8 round mag, a 15 round mag, a 20 round mag and a 30 round mag for example. Rifles would have a 5 round mag, a 10 round mag, a 20 round mag and a 30 round mag for example, maybe also a drum mag that doesn't fit on the sniper rifle
> the mag would simply be switched out like gun parts were in A16.
> whether you have the mag simply determine how many bullets the gun can store OR if you want the bullets to actually be stored in the mag item is obviously your choice.
> ???
> profit!
A final word:
Overall I think Alpha 17 is great. The changes to the world generator are great, the new POIs, the dungeon crawling, the graphics, etc. but right now there are some game breaking bugs still present like the sleeper respawn bug and some other features that really are a downgrade from A16 (parts of the skill system, crosshairs, "crouching" (if it even can be called that)).
Hope this stuff gets dealt with soon and I'm really looking forward to my next 1000 hours in the game!
Cheers from a big and true fan who has played every version throughout the years and recommended the game to countless others!
Have a good one!
been playing the game since the first Alpha and have over 1.2k hours on steam. I thought I might as well throw my two cents in here on this Alpha 17 Experimental build we've been playing the heck out of since it came out.
I'll be categorically giving feedback on various systems in the game / A17 changes.
Lets get right into it.
1.) The Skill System.
I like the new skill system in terms of how the categories are split up and how many skills and how creative the skills are. What is a big disappointment for me and many others from what I have seen tho is that there are no longer any "practice" skills in terms of, you level them up by using them. Instead of perk attributes requiring player level to unlock, why not have a general mining skill, a general athletics skill, etc like we used to? That leveled up as you used them. And then mining related perk attributes require a mining level instead of a player level.
Also I agree with Vechs' feedback that the skill requirements are too harsh. The game forces you from the beginning to basically level everything equally instead of being able to specialize. If you try to specialize early on, you'll hit a player level wall in the perk system within literally just minutes.
Apart from those two, I really do like and enjoy the skill system. I hope it gets improved and that the devs will listen to the community a bit in this. But overall I love the perk attribute names and what the perks do etc.
This right now is quite slick, tho A16's skill tree was (ingame!) more practical. I understand completely however why it was changed since the framework got completely switched out.
2.) The Sleeper System.
When I was the first to request Sleepers in the old days of 7dtd in the Pimp Dreams section, and when shortly afterwards you guys added it to your todo list, this wasn't what I had in mind. Sleepers wake up now from pretty much any tiny noise and seemingly at completely random parameters. Sometimes a sleeper thats right in front of me doesn't notice me despite literally looking at me, but a sleeper 1 level above goes nuts and completely destroys the place because apparently he heard me?
I know you guys said Stealth is broken but the whole point of why Skyscrapers worked so nicely in A16 was that stealth worked mostly horizontally; sleepers in the floor above didnt care about your presence.
Another way in which the Sleeper system is badly broken right now is that you enter a place, you wake up all sleepers, you leave that place baiting them outside, you go back in, and all sleepers inside have instantly respawned.
Due to this I was able to literally put together a giant horde out of 2 ruined buildings that I went back and forth between, since everytime I left one and entered back into the other, the sleepers there instantly respawned. Which makes it almost completely impossible to loot buildings like stores right now.
3.) Weapons and Aiming.
Aiming down a bow right now only has the crosshair get smaller on the first draw if you keep holding down right click. After firing that first arrow, the aim doesn't get small again. Also why do we have crosshairs now on all guns? A few versions ago you were happy to announce that you had gotten rid of crosshairs on guns and that aiming them now felt alot better. Now you're bringing back the crosshairs? Why? Can we at least get an option to turn them off again for ranged weapons or even generally?
4.) Crouching.
The player when crouched used to be just a bit taller than 1 block. Now when crouched, the player is basically not changing how tall he is at all or just slightly. Also while the yellow bar on the left for stealth does pop up, the "Eye" that was the crosshair when crouched was a much better system to imply whether the player was crouched or not. Since my eye position as player basically doesn't change notably at all when crouching, I on numerous occasions playing A17 didnt realize I was still crouched while trying to escape from zombies. Eye level and that "Eye" as the crosshairs were a much better system to imply that you're crouched than a little yellow bar on the left that you don't really have an eye on all the time.
5.)Sickness and infection.
Are you trying to make the sickness system about as confusing and useless as that in DayZ? To elaborate. In DayZ you spawn into the world, you walk a few meters, a zombie might hit you, and suddenly your character symbols that you're "sick" but not what it is. And before you have any chance of figuring it out or finding a cure, you have died from it in DayZ. Literally.
Same thing is apparently the case in Alpha 17E. Infection progresses through the stages in a matter of minutes. And sometimes when taking damage or eating something the game just tells me that I'm sick but that I don't know what it is.
6.)Graphics, World Generation, POIs
Absolutely amazing all those things. I like the new cities with the roads that don't just go straight for the entire length of that city road. I love the new dungeon crawler POIs (would love them more if the sleeper system wasnt absolutely broken), and the graphics in A17 look gorgeous. Performance is the same as in A16 for me. Stable 60 fps with a GTX 970 and 16 GB of RAM on mostly max settings. Terrain looks better now as well.
7.)Settings.
Nothing changed here much except that the FOV slider is gone. Are you kidding me? I usually play any game on 91 FOV and now I can't even chanve FOV anymore whatsoever in the game?
8.)Vehicles.
I have tested the vehicles in creative and I gotta say the new handling is interesting but I'm getting really mixed signals here from the game itself. 4 vehicles are controlled by the mouse and the one vehicle that would actually handle great when controlled by a mouse - the gyrocopter - isn't? Why camera/mouse control in the first place for the car and bikes? Can we get an option to choose between keyboard and mouse control for the vehicles please? I was a big fan of being able to look around while I was on my minibike in A16 without turning the whole vehicle around.
9.)Vultures.
During development of A17 you said in a video that vultures are much more likely to attack a player when he is on low health and mostly ignore him on full health? Yeah, none of that so far.
10.)Attachments.
I like the attachment system but there are 3 things that really put me off.
a) The hammer attachments seem to be for the Sledgehammer only. Don't call them hammer attachments then or at least put it in their description that they're only for the Sledgehammer.
b) Barbed wire and Spikes are attachments now for the club? For which club? Neither iron reinforced club nor wooden club offer me a modify button when I click them. And why are the barbed wire and spikes attachments in the first place? Attachment system fine alright, but you're overdoing it.
c) Magazine extension attachments. I'm sorry but no, just no. Let me suggest an alternate approach to that.
> find a gun
> gun has a mag slot thats seperate from the attachment slots
> there may or may not be already a mag in there when finding a gun
> mags can also be found without guns
> if you have a gun but not a magazine for it but you do have the ammo, you can chamber the gun with a single bullets until you find a mag
> each gun has different magazine sizes available. 9mm would have an 8 round mag, a 15 round mag, a 20 round mag and a 30 round mag for example. Rifles would have a 5 round mag, a 10 round mag, a 20 round mag and a 30 round mag for example, maybe also a drum mag that doesn't fit on the sniper rifle
> the mag would simply be switched out like gun parts were in A16.
> whether you have the mag simply determine how many bullets the gun can store OR if you want the bullets to actually be stored in the mag item is obviously your choice.
> ???
> profit!
A final word:
Overall I think Alpha 17 is great. The changes to the world generator are great, the new POIs, the dungeon crawling, the graphics, etc. but right now there are some game breaking bugs still present like the sleeper respawn bug and some other features that really are a downgrade from A16 (parts of the skill system, crosshairs, "crouching" (if it even can be called that)).
Hope this stuff gets dealt with soon and I'm really looking forward to my next 1000 hours in the game!
Cheers from a big and true fan who has played every version throughout the years and recommended the game to countless others!
Have a good one!
