I'm playing since years back in a group of about 6-8 regular players and we pretty much agree on quite a few points regarding a17x.
- Performance: has not become better but has become worse. Graphics settings have to be put way down or you'll have input lag of up to half a second. Can't have that with zeds spawning around you in POIs, the mouse at least needs to always have a snap to it. This isn't an improvement sins a16.
- Graphics: The looks of the game are much more wishy-washy water coloury with too much water added, unless you get really close. Grass looks like just a sea of mush and is hard on the old eyes. Even maxed out settings don't improve this. The colour palette is horrible! Everything is grey like in a haze and it's hard on the eyes and unpleasant to look at for long. I actually realized that the world looks better at night than during the day with this crazy haze over everything. It's really bad! It's worse than it has been in a16. Much worse!
- World size: I am pretty sure that the pimps got rid of the borderless world, and then kept making it smaller because of engine problems. The farther you travelled from the centre of the map the more models would start vibrating and graphically falling apart, shaders would glitch out and all sorts of shadow flickers would start. Once while the world was still continuously generated I travelled 100km on the map in a straight line and when I reached my target distance the graphics were pretty much vibrating apart and totally glitching out. In a16 that would still happen to some degree, especially shadows, if close to the edge of the map. I assume that's why the map has now become pretty small, to avoid that problem all together. The cost of this trade off is very high though. World size was one of the interesting factors of this game and now everybody stews in the same cooking pot. In my opinion the glitches from a16 were a price worth paying, the world size acceptable. But this a17x world size is ridiculously small.
- World terrain: What happened? What was the problem with varying terrain? Why even have random world generation if every map now looks the same and plays the same - who cares about RNG worlds if there is no difference? What is going on?!
- Spawn: Everybody seems to spawn in the same general area - is this for PvP? Why change something that has worked for years?
- Skill gating and item quality: The game has become totally cookie cutter - every player is now the same, every item the same, there is no luck any more, there is no hard working any more - except grind to get those skill points. You wanna make the game more realistic so it takes much longer to climb up a frigging ladder? That's just annoying and to no use for the player! You're overthinking everything! Just relax and make it more fun and give freedom rather than thinking that a lot of rules and regulations will add fun because it's an added challenge. No! You don't understand! That's not how fun works! Minecraft is fun. It's a total crap game from a logical standpoint and it looks like sh* - but freedom is fun! If you want to build your forge the first thing you wanna do out of the gate - let the player have it! What's the problem? Why control everything everybody is doing? It's paranoid!
- Dungeons: Several waves of Zds spawning? It's annoying. I, and I bet most other players will completely negate all dungeons after the first or second run and chop straight through to the goodies. With inventory restrictions, input lag, the toughness of the zds and them constantly respawning - why would I risk running a 1,5 to 2h gauntlet for 3-4 loot boxes in a constantly dangerous environment if I can just wood frame my way to the roof, break 2 roof tiles, snipe 3 zds, jump in, grab the loot and get out? I'm not doing the long way more than once! And ironically - I actually love the dungeon style playing - it's just not practical from a survival standpoint. I can do dungeons once I'm high level and want something to do while I already have everything that I need. But while low level? Why would I? Too dangerous with too little reward!
- Z spawn & abilities & horde night: I assume that Z's don't contain loot any more because there was no convenient way of turning off the duplication exploit. So I'm only killing them for the XP now? WHY, oh WHY do I now care to do a horde night at all?! OH I forgot, it's because they get me now, no matter what I do and I have to defend myself! No, not gonna happen! If I want XP I get them much safer and under much more controlled circumstances during the day, away from the base. Very very easy pickings!
You think they will get me in horde night, because now they supposedly get you anywhere? No they don't!
I can log off the server until morning. There! Fooled them already! Just as safe as being underground in a16.
Is that part of the new way of playing the game? There have to be ways for an early player to defend themself - sadly all you've done is remove choices and rewards. Let me tell you what I mean by that: An early player, especially if he comes on late on a server (let's say day 100+) - won't have any other choice than to log off on horde night if he wants to remain safe. Zombies not being able to dig was maybe never the plan - but it worked! People who were chickens could hide, dwarfs could hide (no, dwarfs are not chicken - they are bad ass, they just like to dig!) and new players could hide. Not any more. I've already seen more than enough horde nights where nobody was online but me and some crazy friends. Everybody else ran away because they had no defence. And I understand them - with how crap the skill gating is now, how can you defend yourself in a reasonable way before you are really high level? Only high level players can do horde nights effectively unless you put a hell of a lot of work in, to convert existing buildings into horde night death traps! However: I don't wanna work my butt off to convert a building I can't LCB because of server rules - I wanna build my own kick-ass fortress and keep it! But I can't because I am too low level and I suck. I can't build crap that holds up when it counts? How many millions of spike traps am I supposed to put up around me because that's the only thing I can do? All this did again is remove choice. No choice - no fun! Game breaking. That's all it is. Game breaking. Why do i care now?
- Vehicles: Never thought I needed them - didn't think it then, not thinking it now. Of course it's cool to be zipping around with a mini bike being able to do bank runs, but what with making travel so convenient - where is the challenge of the trip? That's what I thought then. And now with a plethora of vehicles the uselessness has just been multiplied. Yes cool that we get new toys to play with! Thanks! For five minutes until we realize we just wasted valuable skill points. The map is tiny!!! Where are you gonna drive to? That's not working out for the greater good of things.
- Re-playability: From being a game of infinitive re-playability this has become a tedium that I'm already quite tired off. The max level I reached was 20 and then level 10 a couple of times and I'm tired of it. Having to do the exact same skill raises over and over again and gate through the same skill set? Yes the skills are cool, but extremely restricting in the way they are set up. It's not working for ya, because it's not working for the player!
I don't give a flying duck what anybody else thinks, this is my opinion and that of a group of friends of mine and if the devs want to make a game for the players, they have to make it FOR THE PLAYERS. Think player first! You are here for us players, we are not here for you. Sorry but that's the reality of it! I love you guys for all you've done, but we're not married with children. You are devs, we are players. When do I and my friends play your game? ONLY WHEN IT'S FUN! If not, then we're all the f* out of here playing something else. If you didn't know that yet and this is a surprise to you, you picked the wrong job! In that case sorry.
I love what you're doing, you and I have dedicated a chunk of our lives to this game, as a lot of people have, but you're going in the wrong direction here and if you are interested in what people think about this then you have a lot to reconsider. Put the fun back in and don't get too invested in fancy shenanigans that'll keep us busy for five minutes until we get tired of them. I've played 4000 hours WITHOUT all that fancy crap, does that look like I need all of the above to have more fun? You're misunderstanding something if you believe so. Grow with the times, evaluate where you're coming from and where you're trying to go with this, and if you want this product to continue growing you got some changes to make.
Put the fun back in and don't make things too complicated, don't overthink this! Look at what games have stood the test of time - most of them are actually pretty simple in concept. Going too complex and with too high goals is often just going to be a bullet through your own foot and its going to waste you a lot of time and a lot of your hard earned money!
Choice is fun, options is fun, size is fun, re-playability and variety is fun - a16 was way more in that regard than where this is headed. Maybe you should play it some time and get some inspiration from it. You've overshot your goal this time.
I wish you guys all the best and thanks for everything you've done so far. Let's hope this isn't how it ends for me because I've had a blast so far.
