PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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How are you acquiring the canned food? Just looting or doing quests or what?
How much food is enough for you? Are you using 5 cans a day, 15 cans?
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I’ll pay more attention to the exact numbers from now on, but I’ll say what I know.

I play longer days, so 5 cans is normally not enough. I generally do a quest per day plus an additional POI looting. Sometimes I will do 2 quests in a day if there is a digging quest, and I always do the treasure maps. Other days, like on a horde day, I won’t do any quests at all.

A few things to note though are that the vending machines restock often and are usually dirt cheap for canned goods, and also I do find plenty of “fresh” but tainted foods while looting like stews, chowders, charred meat etc. I will make use of vitamins and consume these after a long night of mining. Later on, yucca smoothies are amazing as they hydrate and provide a nice amount of nutrition... but in order to produce enough, it helps to be near the snow biome and have a decently sized farm.

 
I’ll pay more attention to the exact numbers from now on, but I’ll say what I know.I play longer days, so 5 cans is normally not enough. I generally do a quest per day plus an additional POI looting. Sometimes I will do 2 quests in a day if there is a digging quest, and I always do the treasure maps. Other days, like on a horde day, I won’t do any quests at all.

A few things to note though are that the vending machines restock often and are usually dirt cheap for canned goods, and also I do find plenty of “fresh” but tainted foods while looting like stews, chowders, charred meat etc. I will make use of vitamins and consume these after a long night of mining. Later on, yucca smoothies are amazing as they hydrate and provide a nice amount of nutrition... but in order to produce enough, it helps to be near the snow biome and have a decently sized farm.
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What you say is true but when I run a buried treasure quest during the first week for example, I barely get enough canned food to replace the calories I lost running there, digging and back to the trader. If I fight zombies then it takes more calories. This also means I have less time to make a base for horde night. Your are playing on long days but the default is 60 minutes days and I think this is what they balance to.

Also vending machines sometimes only have 1 can of the +15 max stamina food. I just don't find enough canned food unless I devote all my time to it. This is fine imo. You can spend your time hunting, or farming or looting/questing to get food. Not sure if one way is more OP than another.

Later on when you have a mini bike or something you can ride around it gets easier, but then at that point everything is easier as well. Food only an obstacle to overcome in the early game and I think it is meant to be that way.

 
How the hell are you playing the game..? I mainly do quests while my co-op partner farm and fix the house, we are relatively around the same level. I got steel pickaxe, shovel and fireaxe, she got the pickaxe and shovel at steel level 5, day 15 atm. All default settings except max horde night zombies set to 32, while the parts for the steel tools aren't abundant, the tools themselves are, and scrapping these gives you 3 parts. You need like what, 15 parts for a level 5 tool? That's finding 5 tools and scrapping them, excluding the parts you find on their own, I've found too many steel tool schematics to even keep track of, I have NO IDEA how you have failed to craft a single steel tool in a 77 days, THATS 77 HOURS ON DEFAULT SETTINGS. What are you doing with your time? Sitting in a hole and digging straight? Hell, Ive even found enough steel tools to scrap from horde nights to have enough parts.
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I'm not the poster but I have the same problem and I agree with what they are saying, and you are missing one key element. I'm on day 21 with 120 minutes days and I STILL lack a steel pickaxe (so similar to 40 days normally). I'm not doing anything wrong: I'm looting as much as I can, but sometimes you cannot beat the RNG. Funnily enough, I just started a test game and looted a steel pickaxe in the third POI I entered on day 1. So, RNG.

That's not the issue. Indeed, the opposite is: in my experience EVERY SINGLE steel tool and weapon is something I have LOOTED (and I have the others). I'm not even near to being able to CRAFT them, and if I were, I would not be able to craft them on the level I can loot them, and even if I could, I would not be able to craft more than one or maximum two of them. Let me explain.

To make a 2nd level steel pickaxe, which I could make, you need 7 steel tool parts AND 15 forged steel. This latter part is important. Now I DO have 7 steel tool parts, although just barely (I've scrapped all three extra steel tools I've found.... RNG...), but I do NOT have 15 forged steel lying around. In fact, forged steel is ridiculously difficult to come by. Only once the trader had five of them for sale and I've scavenged maybe 15-20 more. Those I've used for other things. To CRAFT steel again I would either need to get super lucky and find a crucible (no such luck yet) OR I'd need to put a whopping 10 points to Intellect + 5 points to Advanced Engineering (that's 27 levels worth of points). So it really is highly unlikely that you get to forge a steel pickaxe before you loot one. There are other things too that required forged steel, so although I could have used all of it to get a steel pickaxe, I couldn't have gotten the other things then, such as important mods or a vault door to my base.

Since you've looted yours (I gather from your text), you might think it is not that big of a hassle to craft one, until you try. It really is a looter game now.

 
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I enjoy the food balance as it is, it provides some challenge in the early game. But I too think the farming plot recipe needs to be updated. Seeds and recipes are all over the place but farming is such a chore because of the rotting flesh. I'm lucky to come back to base at night with even ten pieces. There should just be some compost workbench you can put a variety of things into. I'm fine with time investment but finding zombie animals is just too RNG based and going out of your way to go to POIs with body bags just for rotting flesh seems a bit silly and even then there's not enough of those in the world to do that reliably. I think raw meat should be able to be turned into rotting flesh, it makes 100% sense from a realism standpoint. Kind of silly that I can sit there with a hundred raw meat in a wooden chest for weeks while I'm struggling to find rotten meat. It's also still a very significant investment and still provides that early food struggle.

 
I really enjoy the changes made in Alpha 18. However I think the farming system is too harsh.
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I finally have a reasonable farm at day 63, and the only good meal I can cook it steak and potatoes. I guess farming is supposed to be late gameplay now.

 
I've found too many steel tool schematics to even keep track of, I have NO IDEA how you have failed to craft a single steel tool in a 77 days, THATS 77 HOURS ON DEFAULT SETTINGS.
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Simple. In a total now of over a18 160 game hours, I've not ONCE found the steel tool schematic. In a sp 77 day, a sp 63 day, and a 12 day mp game. No schematic, no steel tools. (But I have several augers chainsaws, and every vehicle.)

That can happen pretty easily to any item with random drops. It could be bad luck, or it could be steel tool crafting or the schematic drop needs adjusting, and thats what this thread is for.

 
What you say is true but when I run a buried treasure quest during the first week for example, I barely get enough canned food to replace the calories I lost running there, digging and back to the trader. If I fight zombies then it takes more calories. This also means I have less time to make a base for horde night. Your are playing on long days but the default is 60 minutes days and I think this is what they balance to.
Also vending machines sometimes only have 1 can of the +15 max stamina food. I just don't find enough canned food unless I devote all my time to it. This is fine imo. You can spend your time hunting, or farming or looting/questing to get food. Not sure if one way is more OP than another.

Later on when you have a mini bike or something you can ride around it gets easier, but then at that point everything is easier as well. Food only an obstacle to overcome in the early game and I think it is meant to be that way.
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If I went with shorter days then I wouldn’t need as much food for the day and the vending machine would restock faster.

Edit: Now that I think about it more I realize that I don’t even really pay attention. It just happens to be that I’ve never really worried about it. The stuff just comes. I couldn’t tell you why this is. This isn’t just my current game but every game I started for each build in A18 so far. My very first A18 game, I hunted like a mad man on day one... out of habit because the first days always have the best animal spawns. I made like a dozen bacon and eggs and at some point threw up. Again, wasn’t a dire situation, but from that point on I decided to no longer hunt.

Edit again: after playing a little today I think I see what gives me a sustainable supply of canned goods. When I loot POIs during the first days, I almost always hit houses. If I ever go into anything else, it would be a diner, fast food place, store, etc. From time to time I might feel like I'm getting low and I don't have any vitamins, so I will just hit kitchens of POIs and get out without completing a full loot. One exception might be if I have a ton of fresh foods, I might hit the small Pop 'n' Pills and walk out with like 5 or 6 vitaimns. The trader quests tend to give a lot of vitamins too.

 
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Since you've looted yours (I gather from your text), you might think it is not that big of a hassle to craft one, until you try. It really is a looter game now.
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I agree yes, this is how the game is and it's by design I think. See the below quote from earlier today.

Originally Posted by madmole

I like the balance just fine. I see zero fun in crafting everything, we had it for 17 alphas. Crafting lets you build a nice weapon early game, but shouldn't replace looting. Finding gun parts is immersion breaking, finding a rusted out brown shotgun isn't.

From <https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?111778-Alpha-18-Dev-Diary!!/page2541>

 
What do you think should be done about it? I agree it gets slow. Do you think we should just be expected to turn up the XP gain at some point or should the game do it automatically as we level?
Or maybe should the game just automatically make more and more zombies appear so you are able to kill the 100s of zombies easily? Curious as to a fix for this.
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I'd sure like to see more zombies out in the world, right now it's barely any outside dungeons/very rare horde. Better zombies too. So far radiated ones i've seen were pretty much only at the end of T4/T5 dungeons and they still only take ~3 marksman rifle HS to pop (I think I have the rifle skill 4/5). Just cranking up chance of feral/radiated ones would greatly boost XP gains.

But most importantly I'd like to see some more types. Like a gym brodudebro that never did a leg day in his life but has arms like Conan, so you have to try and trip it up or get smashed. Or something like that, that spawns from time to time, where you have some mechanics different than chop and kite, is hard to kill and dangerous (and not just dumb bulletsponge that really hurts) but gives nice fat XP

And make the leveling more linear, instead of dropping off severely

 
I'd sure like to see more zombies out in the world, right now it's barely any outside dungeons/very rare horde. Better zombies too. So far radiated ones i've seen were pretty much only at the end of T4/T5 dungeons and they still only take ~3 marksman rifle HS to pop (I think I have the rifle skill 4/5). Just cranking up chance of feral/radiated ones would greatly boost XP gains.
But most importantly I'd like to see some more types. Like a gym brodudebro that never did a leg day in his life but has arms like Conan, so you have to try and trip it up or get smashed. Or something like that, that spawns from time to time, where you have some mechanics different than chop and kite, is hard to kill and dangerous (and not just dumb bulletsponge that really hurts) but gives nice fat XP

And make the leveling more linear, instead of dropping off severely
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So far I've read the game devs post they are working on more varied zombie types and more random encounters in the wild with zombies. So maybe in A19 we'll see this happen.

 
Set your loot setting to 50. Even the default 100 is way too much - no wonder crafting or perks feel useless if you get showered with the items they unlock.

 
Hey there! I have noticed that the hatch elevator is no longer working :( I dont know if this is intentional or not but I am sure some would agree that it would be awesome if you could make it work again as we've been using it for years and I love it so much <3

 
Hey there! I have noticed that the hatch elevator is no longer working :( I dont know if this is intentional or not but I am sure some would agree that it would be awesome if you could make it work again as we've been using it for years and I love it so much <3
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From what I heard the hatch elevator thing was a side effect (not intended) from block conditions and TFP redid them producing the inevitable cease of the hatch syndrome. No fault just the way it is.

 
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.
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I have noticed that with one other player the horde size seems to dramatically increase. I did not test it and perhaps it is because the other guy's level shoots up. He mines all of the time, and I usually raid...so he is the only one getting shared XP. So I am not really against it going away, just prefer to have the option, especially if I am playing with the family as they aren't very good at the game. Anywho, I think it shoudl remain an option.

 
Just touching back... I've since learned that there is, in fact, a "cold" Lantern. And it's definitely expensive enough. But! It's locked behind a book. Well, not just A book, but a series of them - it's in the "The Art of Mining" series. I've no idea which volume it is but that still means you have RNG on top of RNG locking it out with no real means to bypass it.

This really isn't what I would call a suitable solution. The expense is enough to prevent massive use early on - it doesn't need to be so deeply hidden as well.

 
That means that people just need a real elevator added.

Played for a few hours a18

Dont like:

1) "We'll make alternative leveling ways besides killing" - nope. 100-200xp for cutted tree or block upgrading takes much more time than killing one Z for 400+ xp. That's on low level, don't know what's there on high ones.

2) Knife is a joke now. Got myself killed several times because spamming just make zeds rushing endlessly.

3) The whole rushing idea. Okay, it adds some pepper, but works crappy. You have the knife only? You're dead. You were lucky set zed on fire with torch? You're dead. You got several zed into wire wall? You're dead as soon as they break it, as the all will be rushed (and as they rushed, they break it fast). Looks like only ranged weapons and clubs work now.

4) Lost sense of reach for weapons. Spear looks short, reaches far. Axe looks long, reaches short.

5) Farming is an engame feature now. Useless before you get at leas 3rd level, because there's nothing to plant before. Then it requires some special pots , that needs much rotten meat, which absurdely you can't get from zeds - only animals and rotten corpses from the streets. The whole idea of pots is supid. Okay, A17 system was too simple, but this one - it's just crap. Add meat farming from zeds at least!

6) Any healing items craft is an engame feature. Look at 5), then add level 3 perk for creating first aid bandages...

7) Very expensive glue recepie, as you cant get bones from zeds corpses. Stupid.

upd. Bone knife - 5 bones. Yeah, to break one bone and sharpen it, you need 4 more. Just like IRL. ;)

8) Fixing everything with repair kits. Fixing shovel with tool for fixing gun - heh...

9) Nerfing axes converting it into tools only...

10) Only one spear gets back to belt after retrieving - when you use 2-3, every time have to get them back from inventory.

11) Changing all icons. Old icons were simple, but very clear: blue is lead, red is iron ore, black is iron scrap etc. New are too complex, no contrast, hard for recgonition.

12) assigning weapon speciality to main attributes. Mining is a must, so as you have to invest in Str anyways, it forces to chose between Sigehammers and Spears.

13) electric batons as a whole new perk - it should be a mod for clubs

14) Rocks on a surface. In pre-a18 it was a source of all kind of materials for a novice, at leas much iron. Now i don't get, what are they for.

 
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I like the new Alpha, but what is kinda weird and should be fixed in my opinion is the sleeper zombies in houses, if you activate them and they kill you, they will just go back (teleport?) to same sleeper position which is weird? and waits for activation again. They should keep wandering around the location instead.

 
Greetings! :D

Whilst this is not a 'balance' thing per se I wasn't sure where to post this. It's to do with modding support so please disregard or move elsewhere if there is a better section to put this in.

When creating a modlet that uses a rwgmixer.xml file, there is a problem when creating a new world. In essence, the world generation is done BEFORE the rwgmixer is applied to it from modlets. so any changes made via modlet are null and void and you would have to alter the vanilla rwgmixer instead.

Not sure if this has been fixed for stable build as I tested this a week or so ago.

 
That means that people just need a real elevator added.
Played for a few hours a18


You should play more, because :

Dont like:

1) "We'll make alternative leveling ways besides killing" - nope. 100-200xp for cutted tree or block upgrading takes much more time than killing one Z for 400+ xp. That's on low level, don't know what's there on high ones.


At the beginning, maybe. Not when you've good tools. And upgrading blocks is too well payed, for what it worths.

2) Knives is a joke now. Got myself killed several times because spamming just make zeds rushing endlessly.

Don't know about that. So many guns... I keep the knife to clean my nails.

3) The whole rushing idea. Okay, it adds some pepper, but works crappy. You have the knife only? You're dead. You were lucky set zed on fire with torch? You're dead. You got several zed into wire wall? You're dead as soon as they break it, as the all will be rushed (and as they rushed, they break it fast). Looks like only ranged weapons and clubs work now.

You have to move. Fight will be enjoying if you learn how to deal with rage mechanic.

5) Farming is an engame feature now. Useless before you get at leas 3rd level, because there's nothing to plant before. Then it requires some special pots , that needs much rotten meat, which absurdely you can't get from zeds - only animals and rotten corpses from the streets. The whole idea of pots is supid. Okay, A17 system was too simple, but this one - it's just crap. Add meat farming from zeds at least!

Don't qualify something "stupid" just because you don't know how to use it. Yes, you're right : you can start a farm at day 1, but you can have more and more farm plots and a big farm around day 20. I love the new farming system : it fits perfectly with the gameplay now.

6) Any healing items craft is an engame feature. Look at 5), then add level 3 perk for creating first aid bandages...

Lol no. Healing bandages is also a recipe. You can find it or buy it. Lots of quests rewards are bandages.

7) Very expensive glue recepie, as you cant get bones from zeds corpses. Stupid.

Again, no. Bones are everywhere, it's an invasion.

8) Fixing everything with repair kits. Fixing shovel with tool for fixing gun - heh...

It's a toolbox. You can fix everything with a good toolbox... And I love this new way of managing repairs.




12) assigning weapon speciality to main attributes. Mining is a must, so as you have to invest in Str anyways, it forces to chose between Sigehammers and Spears.

Absolutly not. Mining is perfectly ok with 2 points in force and 2 points in Miner69 and Mother Lore. Find steel tools, find mods. If you want to be the king of mining, yes, choose the strenght branch. It's a choice.

14) Rocks on a surface. In pre-a18 it was a source of all kind of materials for a novice, at leas much iron. Now i don't get, what are they for.

Stones.
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I didn't mention everything because some of the points you mentioned are a matter of taste. But, really, you should try to adapt to all these new features that are anything but stupid.

 
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