PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
We've been playing since A15 and are loving A18 so far.

Playing insane, permadeath, using no trader (not forges, vending machines, workbenches etc at trader either), 25% loot and 64 zombie bm, we are definitely feeling the increase in difficulty (and it's awesome). In A17 we would mostly never die.

The only comment so far is that we basically can't progress weaponwise through crafting. In A17 the crafting progression for tools and weapons felt right, though leveling was too easy. Using perks to specialize into a certain area is now based on what you find, not how you want to play. Previously you would progress from bows/crossbows to guns, but now you just go from primitive bow to any gun you find. Atleast on insane+permadeath you don't want to risk too much melee.

I suggest removing schematics for tools/weapons from being lootable, only available through perks, and removing the need for loot only parts to make most of them. And then limiting the quality/mod slots even more for craftable items if the devs want to incentivize looting over crafting.

Then you would have a crafting progression where you would have to pick your perks carefully, yet still be incentivized to loot for better gear.

I'd also like a permadeath/ironman option in the server settings :)

 
A18 rocks! Amazing version, I have a dedi server (small one, 8~10 people playing) and everyone seem to love it far more than a17.

THE GOOD

- weapon parts back is something people love

- more weapons to choose, this was high on people's priority list

- graphics seem far better, textures and stuff

- perk system make you think more about where are u going first. I think there's still some discrepancy but its MUCH better than before and definitely a job well done. Balancing for a first public version is a nightmare.

- everyone says Joel nailed it when doing the books. Those with bonuses for combat, night time, sneaky movement, etc.. creative and 99% useful, was a pleasant surprise!

- having schematics as well <3

- map look much better, love these mountains and stuff!

------------------------------

Now the most complained things:

- too many weapons. Level 1, goes into a house, 6 weapons. I had to reduce and I mean HEAVILY reduce weapon loot in my server. I added weapon parts to more containers tho, so u can find them in safes and stuff like old a16. So less weapons, more parts, overall loot decrease.

- still on the loot aspect, I made many other containers have a chance for zero loot, we stack too much stuff too fast.

- on the other side glue costs too much bone, I reduced it and gave a chance to zombie loot to give a pack of bones and fat, to make up for the lack of harvesting corpses. I did this in a17 and people praised it, leaving the idea here.

- zombies sprinting too fast, making early levels harder than the higher ones. Reduced max speed across my server, so far players voiced a like for it.

- learning to craft auger before steel pickaxe. Why?

- LBD. This is a topic we can't discuss on the daily diary but I think it's worth mentioning here, because EVERY SINGLE PLAYER I talk to miss it. Of course not gonna bring this back every time, just once I feel its fair. Why? The feeling of always progressing, the small rewards that keep a player interested.

- raw meat gives 1 health while cooked meat gives 10. I mean, raw meat should offer the higher chance of disease but not so much less food fill right? (I made 3 on my server, but feel like 4 would be fine as well).

- traders still key to fast progression. My take: reduces selling price for tools and stuff you can more easily craft; never have working stations there, people abuse them and jump an important part of progression. I would remove them if I knew how to, for now I just made all the stations broken

- 25% schematic drop from broken stations? that's ridiculously high

- still on the lazy side when it comes to weapon and tool damage. Make a damn separate multiplier for the quality and perk bonuses, so a perk that gives 20%+ damage works as 20% and not half it because its based on the level 1 without mods tool stat. I again had to set ALL the ♥♥♥♥ing values for weapons and tools manually through base set for their quality scaling, so other bonuses calculate from the right number.

- about damage, there was one real change on balance (the rest was just fixing the base numbers) and that was to arrows and bolts. The difference between stone->iron->steel arrows is negligible, and they are just added (not multiplied) by the bow used. I made 25-30-35 for the arrows, fixing flaming arrow as 30 contact damage as well as it uses iron.*

- there are too many minerals on the surface, lead more than anything. Coal less than anything else.

*Not saying my numbers are right, just giving an idea on how I see it. I'm also subject to balance these further.

--------------------

Anyway, A18 is a HUGE step forward from A17 and a trade with A16. Better in most aspects but missing a few important features.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
The invisible animals are just dummy spawns to thin the horde, not some magical entity. They die on spawn and thus count as being killed (so wait for the respawn timer).
Click to expand...
The thing is, older versions had a config in spawning.xml called respawndelay (which was seven days if I remember correctly), but this got removed. So seems you can no longer set the respawn timer to anything but seven days. You can still make the chance for the spawn to be invisible lower though.

 
The thing is, older versions had a config in spawning.xml called respawndelay (which was seven days if I remember correctly), but this got removed. So seems you can no longer set the respawn timer to anything but seven days. You can still make the chance for the spawn to be invisible lower though.
Click to expand...
The respawndelay never left, its still in the xmls and the dlls. They seem to have upped it to 21 days for friendly animals and 14 days for hostile ones. Kind of explains the empty worlds, since they die out the first hours they can spawns (since they are respawned when they go out range and die when they spawn as dummy).

 
The respawndelay never left, its still in the xmls and the dlls. They seem to have upped it to 21 days for friendly animals and 14 days for hostile ones. Kind of explains the empty worlds, since they die out the first hours they can spawns (since they are respawned when they go out range and die when they spawn as dummy).
Click to expand...
Oddly enough I see animals all the time though. Spawning in the snow can become deadly fast with the mountain lions. Day 1 of last experimental 5 animals got stuck in the Trader fence while I was there.

If you stick to one area though, and dont kill all that you see, you probably wont see much for awhile after that. But then there are wandering wolf hordes too. I know that not once in experimental did I have any shortage of meat at least.

Also there is more than 1 POI that has Boars now.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I cant just click a button on controller for map especially on bike etc. I can look at score board but no one ever looks at that near as much as map.

 
Bows early game are not appealing due to so much guns and ammo found in loot. Consider adding flaming/exploding/AP arrows in loot
Potato's and Potato seeds are a very difficult find. The best recipe's require potato's. Consider more potato's in loot or additional recipies that do not require potato's.

Fortitude builds are a bit OP compared to other builds atm.. Strongest offense and best defense in the game.
Click to expand...
Heavy armor on my Strength character is just as good as on a fortitude guy. I just can't move as fast and have to repair it more often.

Potatoes drop the same rate as everything else, random is random.

 
I don't know if this counts as balancing. I posted this in bugs, but not even sure if it is a bug.I'll just post the problem, you guys can decide.

Recently, madmole discovered that the heatmap settings for a few things were messed up. He made changes and it was announced that we could use 4 times the amount of candles and torches than before.

This is true, but the torches cannot be balanced properly.

A single torch is adding 1% heat to a chunk and all neighboring chunks once per real time minute.

A single torch will call in a screamer every 1 hour and 40 minutes of real time.

For comparison, a candle will add 0.5% of heat every hour I think, and forges 3%. Most of the stations range from 1% to 3%. These seem ok. Balanced? who knows. But torches are definitely not.
Click to expand...
Ten torches should never summon a screamer, it would only reach 40%. They should dissipate. Can you turn on DM and verify that the heat just keeps rising? It should fall off after 10 minutes.

 
i kinda miss the level in fortitude and agility to get more stamina or Health :(
Click to expand...
Then those would be must haves. We're trying to make each build unique and not really need heavy investments into every attribute just to progress in the game.

 
I feel that exp should be shared for all actions. Like when I play with a friend, the person who goes Strength (harvesting / mining) always has a lot more exp than the rest of the group. I don't see why this shouldn't be shared if others are around.
Click to expand...
I don't think any xp should be shared period, except for quests. Its already 10x easier having a buddy.

 
Ten torches should never summon a screamer, it would only reach 40%. They should dissipate. Can you turn on DM and verify that the heat just keeps rising? It should fall off after 10 minutes.
Click to expand...
Sure.

Note the time. This is set on 2 hour days.

50%:

gsWopwR.jpg


70%

EuCyTjC.jpg


90%

DooT5Nn.jpg


Screamer:

S3SuLhp.jpg


Edit: Sorry for the brightness... I just started up the game after update and my video settings were probably reset.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't think any xp should be shared period, except for quests. Its already 10x easier having a buddy.
Click to expand...
I agree.

What if you passed on your knowledge? Write a book and give it to your buddy, sacrificing xp available in your level.

Edit: After thinking about it for a moment.

This could be a decent idea, but it suffers a major flaw, similar to the current death penalty.

You could just put your xp in books and never level up... allowing yourself to remain at the same level and loot until you feel you are equipped enough to play the rest of the game without a worry.

So, there should be some kind of cap... such as you can only do a set amount once per day.

As for the death penalty, I think it's probably the best we've ever had in terms of consequences for typical gameplay... but for the same reasons as above, very easily manipulated to cheat yourself to the end game (albeit slowly, but can be done). Perhaps less weight on days alive in the gamestage calc, but some weight on days passed would deter people from doing this more.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't think any xp should be shared period, except for quests. Its already 10x easier having a buddy.
Click to expand...
10x? Not on insane with a 64 zombie horde. Sure you level up a bit faster, though you need that to survive that first horde without exploiting the AI.

 
10x? Not on insane with a 64 zombie horde. Sure you level up a bit faster, though you need that to survive that first horde without exploiting the AI.
Click to expand...
That's actually the challenge I have for myself. Currently trying to get through nomad with 64, no exploits, solo though. No shared xp for me.

 
That's actually the challenge I have for myself. Currently trying to get through nomad with 64, no exploits, solo though. No shared xp for me.
Click to expand...
Same goal for me as well. Gonna dive right into it soon > :)

 
Same goal for me as well. Gonna dive right into it soon > :)
Click to expand...
Awesome, PM me your results if you want. I have come to the conclusion that I need to focus heavily on INT, mainly electricity if I'm going to succeed. We'll see. There may be other ways, but this is all that comes to mind.

 
I like the perk system but there are same changes I would like to see. I don't like how putting points into Agility or Intelligence only affects certain weapons. A suggestion I would make would be some broad but important character improvements.
Examples:

Perception: Increased speed with aiming/range

Strength: Improved mobility in armor/encumbered

Fortitude: Improved stamina regen

Agility: Improved speed on foot

Intelligence: Improved crafting speeds

Every attribute should feel like you're getting stronger, faster, more capable of taking on the apocalypse
Click to expand...
I agree entirely! And this is one of my issues outside of crafting being broken(imo).

But also another situation I would kinda like to see if we could lower the attribute lock or remove it entirely for some of the more broad use skills that don't really tie into a specific attribute? Like... perception being the only person to max looting(although I can see perception by definition could help find things), or the fact perception also has the wrench perk. Seems you would be more likely to get more parts with a wrench if you were stronger, or had higher fortitude and survived smashing your knuckles on everything. Also some of the perks just seem to not be worth points when compared to others. Parkour is a cool ass perk, but is hardly justified until super late game unless you have a team splitting up most of the basic crafting, and your survival skills are up to par. I don't have any suggestions for some like that.. but just a thought.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top