PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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Review of sledge hammers , axes and pickaxes and why they need to be buffed.

Currently both the damage ,the swing speed and the stamina cost make the iron hammer and the steel hammer weaker than their stone sledge hammer counterpart.

Stone sledge hammer has twice the speed of either with very low stamina cost. It swings so fast, it constantly activates the knock back perk on zombies. When combined with the tyranosaurus it wrecks irradiated zombies for fun.

Iron sledge hammer has high stamina cost, slow swing and average damage. It "feels" weaker than A17 where I could just dive in a building and start smashing irradiated zombies until I run out of stamina .

Steel sledge hammer doesn't fair better either. Either its damage is too low or the swing animation is too long . It also drains a lot of stamina on both normal and power attacks . It sucks .

Steel pickaxes are not amazing when compared to iron pickaxes. When mining with steel pickaxes their regular attacks destroy blocks almost as fast as power attacks of iron pickaxes . And ironically when mining with steel axes the power attack mines slower than the regular attack .

I think the pickaxes need some love too. Make the swing animations faster and keep the stamina drain same. This way the steel pickaxe will always be better than a regular pickaxe making it worth its value.

Similar results with the iron axe vs steel axe. There is no need to upgrade to a steel axe since you can farm perfectly fine with an iron axe. There are no melee benefits when using the axes either so why bother with the steel pickaxe ? It's not like you gain more wood from using the steel counterpart.

Axes could definitely get some love in both mining and melee damage as they no longer deal bleeding damage to zombies. They were also proven (by mythbusters) one of the best melee weapons in a zombie apocalypse. And I honestly prefer playing with axes than sledge hammers so I'd really appreciate it if you'd buff them for glorious melee combat.

Edit: Actually I'd like to make a correction. The stone hammer isn't the best because its damage is low. However the iron counterpart seems to fair far better than either stone or steel sledge hammer. It holds somewhere in the middle , enough damage to kill zombies, enough stamina to keep up pummeling zombies.

 
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Currently, two levels in Sexual Tyrannosorus is enough to completely negate the stamina-drain of mining with a pickaxe, thus rendering stuff like coffee or the other three levels in that perk, kind of unnecessary.

Sucks to say, but iron/steel tools should probably cost more stamina to swing.

As for power attacks, I assumed those were intended for combat. Not for mining. The slower animation and irritating battle-yell make that obvious to me.

Though if the DPS of a power-attack is lower than normal attacks for the same duration, then that's probably a mistake.

 
Review of sledge hammers , axes and pickaxes and why they need to be buffed.
Currently both the damage ,the swing speed and the stamina cost make the iron hammer and the steel hammer weaker than their stone sledge hammer counterpart.

Stone sledge hammer has twice the speed of either with very low stamina cost. It swings so fast, it constantly activates the knock back perk on zombies. When combined with the tyranosaurus it wrecks irradiated zombies for fun.

Iron sledge hammer has high stamina cost, slow swing and average damage. It "feels" weaker than A17 where I could just dive in a building and start smashing irradiated zombies until I run out of stamina .

Steel sledge hammer doesn't fair better either. Either its damage is too low or the swing animation is too long . It also drains a lot of stamina on both normal and power attacks . It sucks .

Steel pickaxes are not amazing when compared to iron pickaxes. When mining with steel pickaxes their regular attacks destroy blocks almost as fast as power attacks of iron pickaxes . And ironically when mining with steel axes the power attack mines slower than the regular attack .

I think the pickaxes need some love too. Make the swing animations faster and keep the stamina drain same. This way the steel pickaxe will always be better than a regular pickaxe making it worth its value.

Similar results with the iron axe vs steel axe. There is no need to upgrade to a steel axe since you can farm perfectly fine with an iron axe. There are no melee benefits when using the axes either so why bother with the steel pickaxe ? It's not like you gain more wood from using the steel counterpart.

Axes could definitely get some love in both mining and melee damage as they no longer deal bleeding damage to zombies. They were also proven (by mythbusters) one of the best melee weapons in a zombie apocalypse. And I honestly prefer playing with axes than sledge hammers so I'd really appreciate it if you'd buff them for glorious melee combat.

Edit: Actually I'd like to make a correction. The stone hammer isn't the best because its damage is low. However the iron counterpart seems to fair far better than either stone or steel sledge hammer. It holds somewhere in the middle , enough damage to kill zombies, enough stamina to keep up pummeling zombies.
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Sledgehammers are arguably the best weapon in the game, you are absolutely beastly with them from the get go if you spend 3-4 points on a combination of strength, sex-rex & the sledgehammer perk. Have you tried using anything else ? I mean, just play knives or stun baton or early game knuckles and tell me how you feel about it...

 
Review of sledge hammers , axes and pickaxes and why they need to be buffed.
Currently both the damage ,the swing speed and the stamina cost make the iron hammer and the steel hammer weaker than their stone sledge hammer counterpart.

Stone sledge hammer has twice the speed of either with very low stamina cost. It swings so fast, it constantly activates the knock back perk on zombies. When combined with the tyranosaurus it wrecks irradiated zombies for fun.

Iron sledge hammer has high stamina cost, slow swing and average damage. It "feels" weaker than A17 where I could just dive in a building and start smashing irradiated zombies until I run out of stamina .

Steel sledge hammer doesn't fair better either. Either its damage is too low or the swing animation is too long . It also drains a lot of stamina on both normal and power attacks . It sucks .

Steel pickaxes are not amazing when compared to iron pickaxes. When mining with steel pickaxes their regular attacks destroy blocks almost as fast as power attacks of iron pickaxes . And ironically when mining with steel axes the power attack mines slower than the regular attack .

I think the pickaxes need some love too. Make the swing animations faster and keep the stamina drain same. This way the steel pickaxe will always be better than a regular pickaxe making it worth its value.

Similar results with the iron axe vs steel axe. There is no need to upgrade to a steel axe since you can farm perfectly fine with an iron axe. There are no melee benefits when using the axes either so why bother with the steel pickaxe ? It's not like you gain more wood from using the steel counterpart.

Axes could definitely get some love in both mining and melee damage as they no longer deal bleeding damage to zombies. They were also proven (by mythbusters) one of the best melee weapons in a zombie apocalypse. And I honestly prefer playing with axes than sledge hammers so I'd really appreciate it if you'd buff them for glorious melee combat.

Edit: Actually I'd like to make a correction. The stone hammer isn't the best because its damage is low. However the iron counterpart seems to fair far better than either stone or steel sledge hammer. It holds somewhere in the middle , enough damage to kill zombies, enough stamina to keep up pummeling zombies.
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Agreed. I took my iron and steel pickaxe, both level 2, and made some calculations and a test. Although the damage output of the steel pickaxe is higher than the iron pickaxe (in my case, 3477 vs. 2838 per minute), due to the higher stamina drain of the former, they are equally effective (without sexual t-rex). In fact, in a test I made, I hacked through a concrete block in 63 seconds with the steel pickaxe, and it took pretty much the same, 66 seconds, with the iron counterpart! Indeed, even that was with luck: the steel pickaxe just barely destroyed the block with the last swing whereas the iron pickaxe left it 6 hp. If the steel pickaxe would have had to hit one more time, it would have been the same result. This is due to the character losing stamina really quickly with the steel pickaxe and hence slowing the process.

I think it makes little sense to force people to take perks in sexual t-rex just to make the steel tools and weapons more effective. A steel pickaxe is not more effective than an iron one just because it is heavier and therefore needs more stamina to use but because of the material.

 
The game is too empty and boring. Up the spawn rates.
I get you want "performance", but it's boring to get zombies only in horde nights, you focus too much on horde nights, no one asked for this "We also lowered biome spawning some so players could have a little more breathing room when just exploring the world.".

With all of this new "performance" improvements, why don't you try focusing on allowing a bigger number of zombies instead of making combat more difficult? What's the point of performance if you can't even get more zombies on screen? And what's the point of lowering zombie spawn even MORE if you made the game run smoother?

Where are the 20+ zombie hordes? Where are the streets filled with zombies? Where is the danger of going into a hub city and shooting your weapon like crazy in the hopes that there will come some zombies to attack you? What's the point of sneaking when you got so few zombies in the world?
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I agree with you it's to boring and empty weres the challenge :(

 
Agreed. I took my iron and steel pickaxe, both level 2, and made some calculations and a test. Although the damage output of the steel pickaxe is higher than the iron pickaxe (in my case, 3477 vs. 2838 per minute), due to the higher stamina drain of the former, they are equally effective (without sexual t-rex). In fact, in a test I made, I hacked through a concrete block in 63 seconds with the steel pickaxe, and it took pretty much the same, 66 seconds, with the iron counterpart! Indeed, even that was with luck: the steel pickaxe just barely destroyed the block with the last swing whereas the iron pickaxe left it 6 hp. If the steel pickaxe would have had to hit one more time, it would have been the same result. This is due to the character losing stamina really quickly with the steel pickaxe and hence slowing the process.
I think it makes little sense to force people to take perks in sexual t-rex just to make the steel tools and weapons more effective. A steel pickaxe is not more effective than an iron one just because it is heavier and therefore needs more stamina to use but because of the material.
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I agree with this as well.

I think either the stamina cost for iron and steel tools should be the same, but it should be higher than iron is now.

T-rex completely negating all stamina-drain at 2/5 makes all stamina restoritives and the other three points in T-rex useless.

On the other hand, the damage should be upped too. Steel tools should be breaking through reinforced concrete at minimum two swings faster than an iron pick, otherwise what's the point?

Decent quality steel tools are gate-kept behind Steel Tool Skillbook, tool parts AND the crucible. And if you want to make one that isn't quality 1, you need points in the relevant perk too.

That's four limitations. They need to be a BIG step up from iron.

 
what in the F is up with Iron Knuckles requiring mechanical parts? like, at all, let alone needing a dozen of them.

and making steel knuckles requires steel knuckle parts. if i had a bunch of steel knuckles to get the parts from, i wouldn't need to make the steel knuckles in the first place, would i?

 
what in the F is up with Iron Knuckles requiring mechanical parts? like, at all, let alone needing a dozen of them.
and making steel knuckles requires steel knuckle parts. if i had a bunch of steel knuckles to get the parts from, i wouldn't need to make the steel knuckles in the first place, would i?
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Yeah, I feel like some of the required parts are a little wonky... and with at least bows and crossbows, the required bow parts goes up as you up the skill, making it harder and harder to even get a decent weapon if you invest in the skill. T1 is like 5 bow parts and T5 crafting requires 12-15...

A bow build would not be so bad if the required bow parts were not so high, and rare.

 
I would LOVE to see an indicator for my junk turrets on the minimap. I'm stupid and I forget to grab them sometimes, later I have no idea in which of the POIs I left it.

 
I think the blunderbuss could be ok as a backup weapon. It´s ammo is realy cheap and craftable without workbench. I think it´s ok early game.

Daring Adventurer 1 is OP. the Extra Reward for a quest is allways a LOT ammo. 150 burning Arrows, 300 9mm AP, 150 Shells, 150 7,62, 75 Exploding arrows, 25 contact Grenades. Half the amount is still enough, perhaps move the ammo higher than Level 1.

 
Hello...In the beggining i really want to thanks for Alpha 18...This build is amazing...

But...I really don't understand one thing...

I'm talking about perks/schematics...If somebody wanted to go Inteligence tree...

Why in First level of (ex.Advanced Ingenering). You are able to craft forge?

I mean what's the diffrence if you find schematic...Of course you can read "Forge Schematic"

But you still waste 1 point to craft the forge via perk...Because you want craft some item faster so you are forced to spend 1 point to level 1 Advanced Engenering even you read "Forge Schematic"...

For me this kind of way is little bit weird...I hope somebody understand what i'am trying to say...But for me is just the waste of point...That's all

 
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Machine Tools (Chainsaw, Auger) are unlocked Via the intelligence/advanced engineering tree, but the qualty of the crafted item isn't calculated based on that.

As far as I can tell, Miner 69ner, the tool-crafting skill, is what dictates whether you make a quality 1 or a quality 5 chainsaw.

Sure,I can see the logic in that, but that's not how any of the other item/weapon crafting skills work.

Salvage Operations (perception) teaches you to craft wrenches, it lets you make better use of wrenches, and it controls the quality of the wrench you can craft.

Advanced Engineering (intelligence) unlocks the schematic for Chainsaws and Aungers, but Miner 69ner (strength) is what dictates their quality level and how skill you are with them.

Either the schematic should be moved to the mining tree (probably the final tier?) or the quality of the chainsaws you craft should depend on your intelligence and your engineering skill, not how well you can swing a pickaxe with your mighty thews.

 
I have a thought that makes sense to me and am wondering how others (including devs) feel about it:

I think that someone who perks into a item/crafting tree should be able to use raw materials to create the desired item at their quality level. (Example - Hunting rifle would take wood, forged metal, mechanical parts, etc) Someone who has only found a schematic for creating an item should have a different recipe that can only make low quality and requires the "parts" from scrapped items in that category.

 
I have a thought that makes sense to me and am wondering how others (including devs) feel about it:
I think that someone who perks into a item/crafting tree should be able to use raw materials to create the desired item at their quality level. (Example - Hunting rifle would take wood, forged metal, mechanical parts, etc) Someone who has only found a schematic for creating an item should have a different recipe that can only make low quality and requires the "parts" from scrapped items in that category.
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Why?

Having two diffent recipies don't benifit anyone.

Personally, I'm not a fan of 'parts' at all.

If I know how to make steel armour, and I have tons of steel, leather, cloth, glue, ducttape and everything else needed, then what is a 'part', exactly?

It's just an arbitrary limit on how much armour I can craft, even though I already have everything that I actually need.

You already need a crucible to make steel, and the raw metals to melt down into forged steel.

For light armour you need ballistic fiber, which can be a pain to gather or craft.

There's no need to add another gatekeeping attempt.

 
There's no need to add another gatekeeping attempt.
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amen this. there's way too much "gatekeeping" in the new method. mainly (almost entirely) in the new "parts" mechanics. they either need to be eliminated, or made craftable. it seems absurd that it isn't possible to make "itemX" until i've found and destroyed 5 more "itemX".. and if i want to make a 2nd one, i'll need to wreck another 5ish of them.

 
I would LOVE to see an indicator for my junk turrets on the minimap. I'm stupid and I forget to grab them sometimes, later I have no idea in which of the POIs I left it.
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This would be a nice qol improvement....😂

 
I have a thought that makes sense to me and am wondering how others (including devs) feel about it:
I think that someone who perks into a item/crafting tree should be able to use raw materials to create the desired item at their quality level. (Example - Hunting rifle would take wood, forged metal, mechanical parts, etc) Someone who has only found a schematic for creating an item should have a different recipe that can only make low quality and requires the "parts" from scrapped items in that category.
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Think you may be onto something. The difference between finding the schematic and/or perking into a weapon is that the perk allows you to craft a better quality item but the schematic allows you to craft the weapon/tool parts while both allow you to craft the weapon/tool.

 
I have a thought that makes sense to me and am wondering how others (including devs) feel about it:
I think that someone who perks into a item/crafting tree should be able to use raw materials to create the desired item at their quality level. (Example - Hunting rifle would take wood, forged metal, mechanical parts, etc) Someone who has only found a schematic for creating an item should have a different recipe that can only make low quality and requires the "parts" from scrapped items in that category.
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I think you have this idea backwards, but with the direction this game is taking (again) it probably does fit.

Id rather see the lazy people who want to drop a point make lower quality stuff and those who get off their ass and look for things be rewarded, but hey thats me. I like rewarding work.

 
I would LOVE to see an indicator for my junk turrets on the minimap. I'm stupid and I forget to grab them sometimes, later I have no idea in which of the POIs I left it.
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You can't be stupid when you choose the intel branch :)

 
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