Roland
Moderator
And I thank you for doing so. Alpha 18 is shaping up very well. I can't play with occlusion enabled for the time being so I have that turned off. Here are my thoughts if the forum doesn't mind eavesdropping...
Spear: The single most amazing and fun early game change. It can be used as a melee weapon with good reach and as a ranged weapon. It is fun to keep three on my belt. I'll throw the first two and then melee with the last one and the changeup between ranged and melee feels fun and even more natural than changing from bow to club. The spear feels like something that should have been in the game since Alpha 1 it feels that natural and fitting for the game. I think there is a bug because when I purchase a rank in spears I craft a brown quality instead of an orange quality and I thought we should be able to craft a brown quality stone spear without spending a point.
DMS: The dynamic music is really cool and it is amazing how it mixes tracks to create mood music that isn't exactly the same each time. I played around with the settings and do prefer about 10%. I think it is effective when it happens rarely. It really adds a lot to the mood. Zack did a fantastic job with it.
Books: Exploring and scavenging feel so much better being able to find books that you can read. Schematics unlock recipes again instead of being part of the recipe and the perk books deliver an incredible feeling of being well rewarded. Bringing readable books to learn recipes and gain advantages really brings back the feel of earlier Alphas that had book learning. This really makes A18 feel like a return to a classic feature that most everyone enjoyed.
World: After the fix you sent me so I could generate an A18 random world I made a few and they were all outstanding. The textures are great and the performance wonderful. The world seems to be back to fantastic again as far as biome size and mixture. I haven't explored everywhere but the world looked good. Some of the ground textures do seem a bit jarring in the forest because they appear to be rock but harvest as soil. Not sure if there is anything to be done with that. Just a nitpick.
Encumbrance: This probably exemplifies what you are trying to do with A18 as far as making perks optional benefits instead of necessary benefits. With the starting status being 3 rows of open slots and only 2 rows of encumbered slots it definitely makes purchasing Pack Mule more of an option. Especially with the new sewing kits and ability to create pocket mods that can alleviate encumbrance without needing to buy the perk it makes it even more of an option. Whether this is good or bad probably depends on the player and how much they like being weak and gimped at the start but then progressing to strength. I prefer starting out extremely disadvantaged making survival a very meaningful accomplishment and then being able to grow to a position of strength that is quite a bit different than where I began. But that is probably an extreme view best left for a mod rather than a vanilla experience. I suspect most will be overjoyed at having encumbrance play a less impactful role in the game. I certainly couldn't complain at having 9 extra slots at the beginning.
Spawns: It seems like there is a bit more outdoor population but I don't know if it was because it was changed or if it is that bug that is causing twins to spawn all the time. If it is the twin bug then I suggest once that is fixed, upping the outdoor spawns to match what it has been with the twins because it feels better having more zombies outside. I did one quest and it was fun. There still seemed to be quite a few indoor sleepers but no complaints on that from me. Not sure if they have thinned them out yet or not. I would need to do a few more quests to see if there is a difference. Being able to find books now increases the value of exploring POI's by tons which in turn makes quests more interesting because you are likely to find books and schematics in addition to the loot and the trader rewards. So I didn't mind fighting through more zombies because my perceived rewards were greater and made it worth it.
Progression: Feels really good since you had the speed of leveling up nerfed a bit.
Feathers: Holy Heck! You destroyed the feather counts...lol I think I noticed you comment that you were going to bring them up again a bit. The spear makes it bearable but I'll be interested in playing again once the feather counts are adjusted upwards a bit. I know that the vulture is a good source of feathers but they aren't on every roof and unless you are injured they stay high up circling and are almost impossible to bring down. So I found myself almost tempted to take a hit or two from a zombie so as to entice the vulture to attack so I could easily kill it to get more feathers. That's kind of a weird motivation to feel... By the way, one vulture that I hit and injured flew away from me. Do vultures now have a panic behavior when they are injured? That will also make it much tougher to kill them and gain feathers unless you manage to one-shot them.
Finally...the new feature I codenamed "Mantis Shrimp". Dude.
Perhaps not that unlikely after all that the vulture will more often switch to attack mode....haha...ouch.
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