PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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No, it was about hordes being infinite. Hordes are not infinite, as can be seen on Kage's video. The length of his day does not change the fact that there were a finite number of zombies in the horde.
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Nope, I commmented on his day length to point out that his horde nights end up earlier because he has more time to kill zombies than default settings. So if his horde night ended at 2 am, it would've ended by 4 am were him running default settings. And he amped up the number of zombies to 12, I believe, because he had previously lowered them to 6 or 8 and got disappointed (duh!) it was too easy. Kage is a drama queen, regardless. If you wanna give a proper example of youtuber playing 7DtD, go for Glock9

 
Nope, I commmented on his day length to point out that his horde nights end up earlier because he has more time to kill zombies than default settings. So if his horde night ended at 2 am, it would've ended by 4 am were him running default settings. And he amped up the number of zombies to 12, I believe, because he had previously lowered them to 6 or 8 and got disappointed (duh!) it was too easy. Kage is a drama queen, regardless. If you wanna give a proper example of youtuber playing 7DtD, go for Glock9
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If you mean that horde night actually ended at 2 am, no, that doesn't happen. The amount of time a horde night lasts is given in in-game time, and 6 hours is the minimum. 90 or 120 real time minutes has no influence on that.

Regardless of that, you were replying to a comment of mine on someone else's post. That person stated zombie hordes were infinite, and I was giving a counter example, so if you were talking about something else... that wasn't the point.

 
I think you two are trying to convince each other that hordes are in fact finite. LOL

(spoiler alert: they are)

 
For me balance means letting the player's progress match the amount of effort put into the game.

This of course is subjective ... and I do find that currently there is a nice grind required for most things. But even so I find that I can progress a little too quickly to higher level stuff ("stuff" is the correct technical term)

So with that in mind my only real criticism is around "repairs".

Finding a gun early on opens a lot of doors. Too many perhaps. So my suggestion is that a player should only be able to repair that which they are able to craft, and the repair should require something more specific. Guns should require gun parts to repair, military armor should require military fibre, and so on.

The challenge for TFP is of course finding the point where the grind becomes boring... Nobody wants to play a game where weeks and weeks of grinding becomes too repetitive. I personally think it is not bad as it stands. People stay engrossed with the game and become long term players. New players progress fast enough to not give up right away.

So how much imbalance is there? Not too much, but as I said on default difficulty the progress is perhaps slightly too fast.

FWIW - I don't play PVP and would never play a game where new players with no skill and low level are directly pitted against advanced high level players. So I firstly don't think 7dtd is PvP friendly and secondly my above post relates specificly to survival / solo / co-operative play, not PvP.

 
If you mean that horde night actually ended at 2 am, no, that doesn't happen. The amount of time a horde night lasts is given in in-game time, and 6 hours is the minimum. 90 or 120 real time minutes has no influence on that.
Regardless of that, you were replying to a comment of mine on someone else's post. That person stated zombie hordes were infinite, and I was giving a counter example, so if you were talking about something else... that wasn't the point.
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Not true on (headless) servers, AFAIK

 
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Not true on (headless) servers, AFAIK
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If you mean the minimum, yeah, servers can set a lot of things not possible on single player. If you mean the duration of the night is not set in in-game time, then report it as a bug:

Code: 
<property name="DayLightLength" value="18" />  <!-- in game hours the sun shines per day: 18 hours day light per in game day -->
 
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For me balance means letting the player's progress match the amount of effort put into the game.
This of course is subjective ... and I do find that currently there is a nice grind required for most things. But even so I find that I can progress a little too quickly to higher level stuff ("stuff" is the correct technical term)

So with that in mind my only real criticism is around "repairs".

Finding a gun early on opens a lot of doors. Too many perhaps. So my suggestion is that a player should only be able to repair that which they are able to craft, and the repair should require something more specific. Guns should require gun parts to repair, military armor should require military fibre, and so on.

The challenge for TFP is of course finding the point where the grind becomes boring... Nobody wants to play a game where weeks and weeks of grinding becomes too repetitive. I personally think it is not bad as it stands. People stay engrossed with the game and become long term players. New players progress fast enough to not give up right away.

So how much imbalance is there? Not too much, but as I said on default difficulty the progress is perhaps slightly too fast.

FWIW - I don't play PVP and would never play a game where new players with no skill and low level are directly pitted against advanced high level players. So I firstly don't think 7dtd is PvP friendly and secondly my above post relates specificly to survival / solo / co-operative play, not PvP.
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Something like a progression slider would be good.

One that determines how fast the quality of items links to the gamestage.

(Finding guns early on, or blocking guns and other late game items from the loot table in the early game)

So the players can set how fast they want to progress in the game related to the types of items in the loot.

 
There is an issue with posting privileges in the News and Announcements forum that we are working on getting resolved.

 
I've seen at least one person remark that the Wasteland Treasures completion reward is underwhelming. Well, it is. First, you probably have found the schematic for military fiber by the time you complete the book set, and it's really cheap to make. Second, traders have it often and it's cheap enough. Third, by the time you complete a book set, you have a vehicle, so heavy armor isn't that much of a deal, and you may well have looted all the armor you are going to need.

Here are two alternative completion rewards that make sense in the context of what this book set gives:

* Scraping gives you 100% instead of 75% of the material.

* Scrap things faster.

 
One of the saddest limitations of 7d2d is that crafting is very single-pathed. Recipes can be locked, but you can't have one recipe be locked, and another not. You don't craft "recipes", you craft "items", so it's always one kind of thing, and the game is very uninformative when it comes to quantities. You always craft at the same quality, and there's no chance involved: either you can craft it, or you can't.

I wish crafting went from items/blocks to recipes. You craft a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, not a pumpkin cheesecake. That would make many interesting things possible:

* Unlock better recipes separately; e.g. "campfire glue" is unlocked, but the cheaper "chem station glue" needs schematic.

* Multiple outputs: "Dismantle 9mm recipe" has as ingredient a 9mm bullet, and produces bullet casing, bullet tip and gunpowder.

* Chances: give recipes a chance of succeeding, and make perks increase that chance.

* Failure results: make stuff happen when failing. Poisoned food, very slow motorcycle, explosions...

It pains me so much to see incremental improvements on crafting, when the current way you craft (an item, instead of a recipe) is so limiting. :(

 
One of the saddest limitations of 7d2d is that crafting is very single-pathed. Recipes can be locked, but you can't have one recipe be locked, and another not. You don't craft "recipes", you craft "items", so it's always one kind of thing, and the game is very uninformative when it comes to quantities. You always craft at the same quality, and there's no chance involved: either you can craft it, or you can't.
I wish crafting went from items/blocks to recipes. You craft a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, not a pumpkin cheesecake. That would make many interesting things possible:

* Unlock better recipes separately; e.g. "campfire glue" is unlocked, but the cheaper "chem station glue" needs schematic.

* Multiple outputs: "Dismantle 9mm recipe" has as ingredient a 9mm bullet, and produces bullet casing, bullet tip and gunpowder.

* Chances: give recipes a chance of succeeding, and make perks increase that chance.

* Failure results: make stuff happen when failing. Poisoned food, very slow motorcycle, explosions...

It pains me so much to see incremental improvements on crafting, when the current way you craft (an item, instead of a recipe) is so limiting. :(
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Sounds overcomplicated and like a pain in the ass.

 
Sounds overcomplicated and like a pain in the ass.
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Probably because I'm talking about the implementation. From the player perspective, the change would be imperceptible if none of the extra features are put into use. You go into your menu, search for "wood frame", and craft it. Behind the scene, you are no longer searching for an item or block, but searching for a recipe, which just so happens to have the same name as the block it crafts. But if you search for "9mm", you'll see not only the normal, AP and HP 9mm, but you may also see "Dismantle 9mm", plus the AP and HP versions, and crafting that produces gunpowder, bullet tips and bullet casing, if such a thing is added. Right now, that's impossible.

 
Probably because I'm talking about the implementation. From the player perspective, the change would be imperceptible if none of the extra features are put into use. You go into your menu, search for "wood frame", and craft it. Behind the scene, you are no longer searching for an item or block, but searching for a recipe, which just so happens to have the same name as the block it crafts. But if you search for "9mm", you'll see not only the normal, AP and HP 9mm, but you may also see "Dismantle 9mm", plus the AP and HP versions, and crafting that produces gunpowder, bullet tips and bullet casing, if such a thing is added. Right now, that's impossible.
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In their defense, I had to read your post twice before I realized what you were talking about. :)

Having said that, I would LOVE for crafting to get some love. In my 18.x games, crafting quickly becomes nothing more than making gasoline and gun powder. Why craft armor/weapons when you have ALWAYS found better by the time you can a) unlock the recipe and b) found enough "parts" to craft the item.

 
I've seen at least one person remark that the Wasteland Treasures completion reward is underwhelming. Well, it is. First, you probably have found the schematic for military fiber by the time you complete the book set, and it's really cheap to make. Second, traders have it often and it's cheap enough. Third, by the time you complete a book set, you have a vehicle, so heavy armor isn't that much of a deal, and you may well have looted all the armor you are going to need.
Here are two alternative completion rewards that make sense in the context of what this book set gives:

* Scraping gives you 100% instead of 75% of the material.

* Scrap things faster.
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I would like to see scrapping work the same was as crafting, as in not a total timer for all items being scrapped, but just scrap the stack one item at a time. Yes this may mean fractions are lost because it only gives 75% back, but in my opinion these should be lost anyway as scrapping 1 at a time and all at once should yield the same amount of scrap material.

 
Was the flashlight supposed to lose its capacity as a melee weapon? I can't tell if this was intentional or not. I was looking at items.xml, and it's set up similar to other melee weapons, except it has no DamageType set.

I can't think of a technical or balancing reason the flashlight can't melee attack anymore... the torch still does, for comparison.

 
Was the flashlight supposed to lose its capacity as a melee weapon? I can't tell if this was intentional or not. I was looking at items.xml, and it's set up similar to other melee weapons, except it has no DamageType set.
I can't think of a technical or balancing reason the flashlight can't melee attack anymore... the torch still does, for comparison.
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Besides that it would do less damage than even a claw hammer, and should break after only a few hits...if not the very first hit...the torch at least is a lot like a wood club that's been set on fire.

 
Localization.txt still says to repair the flashlight with a repair kit. But you can't repair something that never takes damage, and the flashlight never takes damage if you can't swing it. So I'm leaning more towards this being an oversight.

 
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