Alpha 16 is the best. All downhill from there.
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SylenThunder
Community Moderator / IT Guru
Alpha 16 was one of the absolute easiest most basic versions.
There was zero survival to it. Practically zero progression. You got bored by the third week because you were maxed out and there was zero challenge.
There was zero survival to it. Practically zero progression. You got bored by the third week because you were maxed out and there was zero challenge.
theFlu
Hunter
Unlike now..?
Practically zero vs crafting infinite wooden clubs for progress... not _great_ but not in any way "zero". Focus was on exploring a map, now it's "check out this exclamation point!"; so "progress" was more measured in uncovering the map and conquering the central city, versus Follow the Yellow Bar Road.
Now I'm bored by the 3rd fetch-clear quest, so I can look for variance from a .. clear? Yay.
Yeah, I'm just adding bad takes on top of bad takes, but hey, the more the merrier
MaxTunnerX
Refugee
I dont know about alpha 16, might give it a shot, but youre defintiely right that every new version gets worse and worse. More grindy, more difficult, I cant even play this game without turning off the enemies or using the indestructible mods or using the admin menu anymore. Every little house has a million zombies in it (not even random, they are always there, literally no empty houses in the game), and the better you are the higher level they are as well, so progression is basically zero or less than zero as youre effectively worse off than when you started. I have to become a rocket engineer (spending countless hours getting magazines and perks) just to boil water or craft a forge. Not to mention every version makes you create an an entirely new save (world) so there is no continuity. And for fck sake, I dont want to start with the stupid quest every time I spawn in a new world and I definitely dont want to be forced to interact with "trader Rekt" as the first trader in that stupid quest. And Im not done yet! No ■■■■ vulturues, no ■■■■ dogs, and all of those things have been in the game for while too, its almost impossible to avoid them and the devs never made them follow the zombie rules settings that you use when creating the world (they can still outrun you even on walk-only worlds).
Ive had enough of this and thats why Im just sticking to the version(s) I like and screw the rest. Currently Im very happy with 14.7 and sometimes gow even lower for proper crafting, but maybe Ill go with A16 if its just as user friendly and has electricity or something. All I want is a normal safe/kinda safe base that I can build for a long time and interact with enemies when I want to and how I want to. I want to boil water on a campfire in a tin or a bottle and get the tins or bottles back and small stuff like that that really made my experience good.
PS Every alpha I played the game less and less and it certainly wasnt due to lack of progression or whatnot, but due to constant bombardment of things I hated. The longest run I have ever had in newer releases, I think it was 1.0, was with admin menu on and thats not how I want to play my games on main saves.
Ive had enough of this and thats why Im just sticking to the version(s) I like and screw the rest. Currently Im very happy with 14.7 and sometimes gow even lower for proper crafting, but maybe Ill go with A16 if its just as user friendly and has electricity or something. All I want is a normal safe/kinda safe base that I can build for a long time and interact with enemies when I want to and how I want to. I want to boil water on a campfire in a tin or a bottle and get the tins or bottles back and small stuff like that that really made my experience good.
PS Every alpha I played the game less and less and it certainly wasnt due to lack of progression or whatnot, but due to constant bombardment of things I hated. The longest run I have ever had in newer releases, I think it was 1.0, was with admin menu on and thats not how I want to play my games on main saves.
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zztong
Hunter
There's no way I'd go back to A16. It wasn't until A19 that I thought the game was good enough to play regularly. With one or two exceptions (that I can mod back in), the only thing I've been nostalgic about was some POIs, though sometimes I miss the Football Player and Cheerleader zombies. I could see adding some challenges to create some "learn by doing" milestones related to crafting.
Slingblade2040
Scavenger
What the hell are you talking about? You must have never played it to say such nonsense.
First aid bandages offered almost no healing only item for good healing was the first aid kit, leveling up didnt increase max health or stamina you actually had to cook meals to improve those stats.
It has a proper weather system unlike the mess the team release this update. Water was wet, snow made us cold and over heating in the desert could be counted by the rain or jumping into a body of water.
Progression? What exactly do you mean by that because it had progression you build up the character, travel to other places to find schematics to build better weapons, to build better armor and to build a form of transportation.
Its funny you say get maxed out and bored by the third week becuase in the current version folks can max out and get bored by day 10 or basically 10 hours into it vs 21 hours of alpha 16.
How was it basic when most of its features were better than the crap thats been released in this update? We dont get wet in the rain, if we get cold in the snow biome because the game tells us we are cold we cant use a campfire to warm up, we have magic items that prevent those very weather effects now.
Basic is what we have now vs more advanced gameplay and survival mechanics from almost 9 years ago. Maybe thats why the most popular mods use those systems instead of the modern nonsesne that got added.
zztong
Hunter
This comment inspired me to go back and play it today so I could remember. I played for about six hours. I had forgotten what it was like. Yeeesh, A16.4 (b8) is bad by comparison to the current game, but I do miss the old temperature. In the desert it can go so hot that you have to basically seek cover or go stand in a lake, kind of like... storms... but more frequent.
I had forgotten how easy it was to find food in the desert and that corn grew there. I had forgotten about death to bloody diarrhea -- that claimed my first life.
I did remember it was "7 Days to Find/Make a Cooking Pot" (blech) and that it made sense to base near a water source (yay). This extended the survival period, which I kind of miss, but not because of the silly cooking pot limits. The struggle was not for food or water, but to cross terrain and find a place that could sustain you. That's what I miss from that era. To do that in 2.0 you would have to make a really big map and really spread out the Wilderness POIs.
Zombies are easy to defeat but take lots of hits. They're slow, stupid, and not very perceptive. Vultures were so slow I could hit them with an arrow as they approached. Wolves were the challenge. If I ambushed the wolf I was good. If it ambushed me I was toast -- that claimed my second life.
Stealth isn't very developed, and made killing zombies pretty easy as they had a hard time perceiving me. I fought three in a small cave POI and they couldn't find me.
I didn't see a "Run and Gun" option, which I really missed. I also missed not having power attack on my club.
It took a few minutes to remember the skill system. I wouldn't say it is better than the current system. It's different. I understand the appeal to those Learn by Doing skills, but they don't make A16 better or worse than the magazines.
Visually, A16 is completely unappealing and the POIs aren't very involved. I did find the old ranger station, which is a POI I've always liked and long ago brought forward to more current versions. RWG just decimates the terrain around it to place a POI.
Overall, A16 is pretty crude compared to today. I can see why from A14 through A18 I would put the game aside pretty quickly. I may not have played A18, but I know A19 hooked me.
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
I'd say your personal impressions got lost in the "anonymity of the global economic system," to be frank.
zztong
Hunter
LOL, I don't know if there's a deeper hidden meaning in that statement, but if you say so.
Those days were a blur. I had to go lookup when I bought the game to even recall if I had owned it when A16 was a thing.
While overall I disagree with @zztong (I still say A16 was better, and I was not a big fan of it then, but I have been playing since...I dunno...maybe A9 or earlier) all the points he makes about the bad are valid.
Although compared to A20 through now, I'd say A19 was a lot better.
If not for the technical & graphics improvements, QOL features and bug-fixes I'd probably go back to A16 too. Even A19, which I have played quite a bit recently has a lot of annoying bugs.
Although compared to A20 through now, I'd say A19 was a lot better.
If not for the technical & graphics improvements, QOL features and bug-fixes I'd probably go back to A16 too. Even A19, which I have played quite a bit recently has a lot of annoying bugs.
Well said!Unlike now..?
Practically zero vs crafting infinite wooden clubs for progress... not _great_ but not in any way "zero". Focus was on exploring a map, now it's "check out this exclamation point!"; so "progress" was more measured in uncovering the map and conquering the central city, versus Follow the Yellow Bar Road.
Now I'm bored by the 3rd fetch-clear quest, so I can look for variance from a .. clear? Yay.
Yeah, I'm just adding bad takes on top of bad takes, but hey, the more the merrier
Probably something the professor read in some philosophy or economics book. He likes to spout off a lot of it to make himself look sophisticated. He doesn't seem to realize this is a game forum and nobody here is impressed.LOL, I don't know if there's a deeper hidden meaning in that statement, but if you say so.
Those days were a blur. I had to go lookup when I bought the game to even recall if I had owned it when A16 was a thing.
zztong
Hunter
Yeh, I become more ambivalent in comparing A19 through 2.0. I definitely take farming and some parts of water from that era over 2.0, enough so that I prefer to play 2.0 modded now, where as A19 and A20 I would have played Vanilla. I can (and sometimes do) still play Vanilla for 2.0.
A21 becomes important to me with POIs and RWG. I think the game takes some big steps forward then.
I can see @theFlu 's point about not doing quests. I tend to mix trader quest with doing my own things. A16 of course didn't have any of that, so you were entirely on your own. For A21+ I have some alternative traders I can sub in if I want to play traderless, and sometimes do that.
Yeah, the POIs are amazing work. Much as I hate the fact that they are lead you by the nose rat maze dungeons, I am continually in awe of the level of detail in them and how they get better every version.
Yeah, if they got rid of the guided tour dungeon part of POIs, but kept the level of detail, I'd be happy. I was so excited for the dungeon-style POIs when A17 was coming out, and then I did three of them and was bored. They're too predictable.
zztong
Hunter
I call that the "suckers path" as it leads to ambushes. I have no qualms about ignoring the path and doing my own things. In my own POIs I don't usually bother to have a path in mind. I think they seem unnatural plus I don't care to use so many lights.
Yeah, I don't follow them into ambushes, generally. Sometimes when you're supposed to jump down I just do it because it's less of a hassle, but never in higher tier POIs.
Kalen
Survivor
I've been replaying A16 for a couple of weeks now, and I think you're thinking of A15.... A16 added crafting skills that required skill point purchases. There was no spam crafting to increase skill in 16. The only LBD skills were active skills like combat.
theFlu
Hunter
Ah. Well, thanks! Been a while .. But I guess that just makes my point stronger; not only was there learn by doing, there was learn by levelling, that's even more progress systems than I thought
Iperitas
Refugee
Zero survival, zero progression? I remember playing A16 where I started in green biome, but I wanted to build in snow biome, like in a14-15 where snow started to cover even player built construction. But I was unable to survive the nights in snow biome, because it was getting colder during night and I had not enough of good quality clothing. Then even when I had better quality of clothing, I had to com there by day and build with campfire nearby to not freeze and use my food faster. And I had to prioritize roof, because I could not get wet from snow. But that was a price I was willing to pay if I wanted to have a beautifull snow covered base in a winter biome. And that was reall challenge to get in to some biome, not like what we have now, that you do few simple tasks and gets a badge.
What we have now is a pretty game that got improoved in some ways, dumbed down in many others, but what I can't forgive you is how you made zombies so supid, that they can't attack me even when I activate 10 of them at once. They will run past me, start attacking random building or even a tree and I can watch them for a while before they notice me. I used to play on insane difficulty since a12, but there was a time when I had hard time even on survival. Now insane is the only dificulty that makes game bit challenging at the begining, but becomes easy. And why? Because you had to reprogram zombies that some fo AFK horde bases would not work. But players will always come up with new designes. In the meantime, you made zombies easier to kill everywhere. This is not survival zombie game, it is a meme of it's previous versions.
And if you will feel like trying to fix something, try to fix hitting a block, because it is bugged since alpha 8. It worked in alpha 7 that when you aimed at block with a tool, then you always did hit that block. Since alpha 8 sometimes you will hit other blocks that you never aimed at and some of them you even don't have in your field of view. Then make zombies scary, faster, harder. Especialy on insane dificulty. I should not be able to beat the radiated version with stone hammer even with my 4k+ hours in game. And remove their stupid "matrix" movements when they dodge bullets, or always fall/teleport towards you. This is worse than when they were spawning on our heads since alpha 9. Jus make them fast, running straight towards you and durable. Also, they should 1-2 hit the player, not concrete block. That was also very stupid decision to let zombies demolish even concrete blocks so easily, that now I prefer to stay outside during BM or I build something that takes me few minutes to finish instead of using traps and builfding more complicated bases, that used to entertain me for hours in previous alpha.
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zztong
Hunter
That matches with what I saw. Attacking, barter and movement got better via usage. You could spend points on them if you wanted. It wasn't clear to me if it was worth spending points on them. I saved my points for the perks that couldn't be learned. Crafting didn't seem to increase any skill. I tried crafting a number of clubs to see if it did.
I do miss temperature, and for a sandbox I would probably prefer badges/acclimation was a 100% solution to it's effects. For a game progressing through a story I would probably be okay with the badges/acclimation. An option to switch between either would be nice, or mods if no switch.
My A16 play had me coping with the desert and drove me to cover or to standing in a lake to cool off. The POI I selected to make a base had a Forge, so I was unlikely to leave it for a while, but to get to a city and the forest it was a decent hike. I probably would have built a refuge halfway there if I would have continued to play it. While I was indoors (or in the lake) waiting to cool off, I was reminded of 2.0 storms driving me to cover.
I wonder if you're playing on a server, as I've seen Z's lag in their decision making when a server was loaded with players.
In either case, A16 doesn't provide any solace. I watched three zombies walk in circles rather than locate me as I shot them with arrows and I didn't have to displace to avoid discovery. I watched a roaming zombie get stuck on a staircase railing. I think later versions of the game have smarter and more alert zombies.