PC Alpha 17 - Constructive Concept Suggestion

So, I've been reading this forum for the past few days, and saw a lot of people who really love a17 and some who really don't like it that much. Within them all, I seem to notice a trend, and a concept that existed in a16 but, at least in early game, is kinda lost in a17. And because the early game is about 20 hours long, it's important.

When my friends and I played a16, we kind of split each other up into different roles. Some people would build/defend the base, some would mine and gather materials, and others would go out and scavenge. It was really something for everyone.

That concept seems to be gone in a17. At least at first.

In the beginning, as expressed by many forum posters, a lot of improvements are gated behind levels, including the infamous level 20 iron tools. In order to unlock those, you have to gain levels.

This means, that for a significant portion of the game, everyone needs to get quests and kill zombies until they hit at least level 20.

Want to be the builder/resource gatherer for your group? Tough. You have to go out and do quests and kill zombies before you can be effective in that venue. If you say behind and build/improve your base, you'll miss out on tons of experience.

It used to be a game that had a lot to offer to many styles of game play, but now (again, at least at first), everyone needs to play an FPS for many hours before they enjoy the type of game they want to play.

This also contradicts the tutorial, which teaches you how to create stuff. Know how to create stuff? Great! Now ignore all that for 20 hours of gameplay and play this FPS MMO instead. :)

Here's a few approaches for fixing it:

Approach 1. Separate combat and building XP, and make it so the forge is unlocked through building XP/levels. That way you can have gathering/building give a LOT more experience and not have to worry about people augering their way into being a combat god.

Approach 2. Make it so that there is no distance limit for XP gains when you are in a party. That way, while some can go out and do quests, other people can stay behind and improve/build the base, which is really important.

Approach 3. Make there building quests as well as combat quests. Think Dragon Quest Builders. Maybe there is a survivor who wants you to build a defense tower; here's a blueprint.

 
Approach 2. Make it so that there is no distance limit for XP gains when you are in a party. That way, while some can go out and do quests, other people can stay behind and improve/build the base, which is really important.
You do know that you can set this in the "new game" or "continue game" menu, don't you?

It won't quite go to unlimited distance, but you can set it to 10,000m which should cover most of the map.

Other than switching visible airdrop markers on, that's the only option we change from the default.

 
20 hours is a bit of an overestimate, though i can see some folks would like to take their time to get to level 20. G4K was at lvl 20 on day 6 default settings. twitcher i watched last night ( great goatee, vaped like a smoke stack, super nice and articulate, his followers were called nut something) he said he made lvl 20 day 4, also default. so leveling is a players choice, seemingly not too hard.

 
I'm the builder and resource gatherer for my group of 3. We have the party wide exp range set to 10k km so we always share no matter where we are. Even with me doing a lot of crafting at the base we reached 20 by day 4. We each did 1 quest(shared them, did the killing quests) which took 1 day total to do all 3 plus some looting and running over 2k from our base, and hitting 3 different traders on the way.

I'm currently ahead of the other two because I've been mass crafting things, crafting gives a lot of exp when you do 100 spikes, 300 frames, 3000 cobblestone :p

 
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