PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[madmole]

IMO they should make a 'trailer' mod for the 4x4 and slightly increase it's speed. The trailer mod would greatly increase the space, maybe 50-75% more than what it holds right now, but it would also reduce speed to what the 4x4 currently is when you have the mod installed. This would add a additional end-game goal without really effecting the balance of the game at all. This way the 4x4 is a real upgrade because it offers much more functionality than the motorcycle and it also offers another eng-game goal which are severely lacking in quantity right now. Eventually this alpha stage will be done and there will be less of a reason to start new worlds and at that point we're really going to need more stuff to go as time progresses in-game.
More mods I'd like to see for the vehicles would be gas tank mods and turbo mods. It'd also be fun to add some mods that put armor/weapons on vehicles, how fun would it be to use vehicles on horde night to just mow through groups of zombies? That sounds like a blast to me.

End game content is not severely lacking. We have loads of content.

 

[madmole]

With that small a chance, i do not even know why it is in the game, the chance of food poisoning that is. More of a slight annoyance, like a dripping faucet then a useful and meaningful mechanic. Also, so low a chance it makes no sense spending points in iron gut. I would either like to see food poisoning completly gone, or at least increased to 20-30%.

edit: Or tied in with the difficulty level. Higher difficulty, higher chance.

Go ahead bro.... mod the xml and tell me how cool that works out for you. It is significant enough to cause problems whenever it happens, making it too high would make cooking obsolete.

 

[madmole]

Crafting has been changed from being necessary for survival to being the back up plan for survival. You only need to craft what you can’t find looting or trading. The problem is that people are still finding everything they need before there is a chance to craft it.
Whether crafting is in a grid or in a list or whether it involves several complex steps or just a couple of simple ones is just player preference Issues and you’ll never please everyone. However, the balance problem with crafting involves its role in the game.

Right now someone cannot choose to ignore looting and trading because there are parts need for crafting that can only be found by looting and trading. But, then not only do we find the parts we need, we find the very item we were planning to craft.

I think you’ve got to continue to nerf the probabilities of finding any whole pieces of gear of quality yellow or higher. Let yellow green and blue be the crafting domain except for the rare lucky find. You mentioned once about including broken gear that couldn’t be repaired but could be scrapped for parts. That’s a great idea.

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

 

[madmole]

I'm good as long as you make more than 200 distinct effects in order to beat FO4's ass to the ground.

55 good ones beats 20 good ones and 180 crappy ones. "Mutants" (does extra damage to mutants) or "Exterminator" (does extra damage to bugs) is a pretty lame weapon. That would be like us putting in "Kill Da Rabbit" Legendary rifle that does extra damage to rabbits or something lame. They don't have random stats either, nor mods with random stats so I think we're crushing them in some ways. I'll add more though, 55 is just a good start.

 

[Locusta]

55 good ones beats 20 good ones and 180 crappy ones. "Mutants" (does extra damage to mutants) or "Exterminator" (does extra damage to bugs) is a pretty lame weapon. That would be like us putting in "Kill Da Rabbit" Legendary rifle that does extra damage to rabbits or something lame. They don't have random stats either, nor mods with random stats so I think we're crushing them in some ways. I'll add more though, 55 is just a good start.

Are you planning to include new abilities that would require new animations such as a whirlwind attack with the sledge? This could be done by altering the power attack abilities.

I could easily see an ability option that gives the player a version of the zombie rage mode for 10 seconds or something after a power attack. These kinds of things would absolutely be insane and make finding legendary items ♥♥♥♥-your-pants worthy.

Loc

 

[Thecolours]

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

I would remove blue level items from the loot table and trader. Blue items can only be crafted. That would make crafting feel powerful without being overpowered. You craft blue items and continue to loot on small chance you get a purple.

 

[Cernwn]

@Madmole, et al:

Thank you for making this game and continuing to interact with the "community", despite all the hazards to blood pressure. Any plans to add more special or combo attacks to zombies? Don't mean screaming, acid spitting or kamikaze exploding necessarily, but more like attacks that apply sequenced de-buffs to targets.

i.e. first tackle/grab(snares movement), then takedown/hold(pinned prone - spam E to escape), then bite/tear(INFECTION+exponentially increasing Damage over Time). Think wrestling sequence but with no-holds barred biting, scratching and evisceration thrown into the mix.

This would definitely increase danger and excitement when fighting more than one zed, and would give the game more of a Romero-esque feel. AFAIK the tricky things would be syncing animations, and adding an escape mechanism to allow for player agency...

A18 areas of concern: Experimental build could use the latest Unity engine - it IS experimental. Flora, terrain and light sources could use a couple more optimization passes. Verify all graphics options are actually hooked in, as several currently seem to have little to no effect. Focus on ambient background audio, not music. Get an extra set of eyes on RWG - roads still a mess.

A18 feedback: Coming along nicely. Get er done.

 

[bobross]

It should be absurd if you aren't using much in the way of traps.

Depends how you define traps. We had two rows of barbed fence to one row of spikes, and we were out about 12-15 meters from the walls. And then a row of sandbags outside that last spike row. Total ammo usage between four of us was well over 2500 9mm and about the same for 7.62. (I'm possibly off on the 7.62, but I was the only one using 9mm extensively. It was 1800ish AP 9mm and just over 600 standard.) And they STILL made it to the walls and we STILL had to make extensive repairs to our entry bridge. We only had that because we smelted Dukes to make casings. Gods only know how much junk turret ammo we went through. Less than we would've because the perimeter was just out of range.

The only thing that actually saved us in my opinion is that the different waves come from different spawn directions now. If all three waves had come in from the same side, we'd have been completely boned. As it was our perimeter was far enough out that the AI decided running all the way around was pointless.

Understand, I'm not saying it's not fun, but it was starting to wear us down a bit. We didn't have time to do POIs because we had to mine and rebuild, and then we'd get maybe the 6th day of the week to go hit a POI or explore or whatever. 40 demolishers is a touch rough. AP ammo helped though.

 

[bobross]

55 good ones beats 20 good ones and 180 crappy ones. "Mutants" (does extra damage to mutants) or "Exterminator" (does extra damage to bugs) is a pretty lame weapon. That would be like us putting in "Kill Da Rabbit" Legendary rifle that does extra damage to rabbits or something lame. They don't have random stats either, nor mods with random stats so I think we're crushing them in some ways. I'll add more though, 55 is just a good start.

I'd be okay with a Legendary Kill Da Rabbit actually, as long as it's two things: One, it's a shotgun, and it gets a boost to damage from a hunter's cap (which of course would have to be added in, but I digress.) Two, it works on The Black Beast of Arrrgh, better known as the Vorpal Bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Because a cute white fluffy bunny that can kick your ass would be AWESOME. The only other thing that would work on it would be, of course, grenades, which instantly kill it.

 

[HungryZombie]

Crafting has been changed from being necessary for survival to being the back up plan for survival. You only need to craft what you can’t find looting or trading. The problem is that people are still finding everything they need before there is a chance to craft it.
Whether crafting is in a grid or in a list or whether it involves several complex steps or just a couple of simple ones is just player preference Issues and you’ll never please everyone. However, the balance problem with crafting involves its role in the game.

Right now someone cannot choose to ignore looting and trading because there are parts need for crafting that can only be found by looting and trading. But, then not only do we find the parts we need, we find the very item we were planning to craft.

I think you’ve got to continue to nerf the probabilities of finding any whole pieces of gear of quality yellow or higher. Let yellow green and blue be the crafting domain except for the rare lucky find. You mentioned once about including broken gear that couldn’t be repaired but could be scrapped for parts. That’s a great idea.

I'm not opposed to having to find parts (which are basically rare mats similar to those used in many other games) but what feels unsatisfying to me is the items in the game don't really warrant that level of commitment. Steel Knuckles are nice but I'm not motivated at all to seek out enough other steel knuckles in the game to scrap for parts to then craft another set of Steel Knuckles.

I can't articulate it any better than that. The crafting is something I largely just ignore I have to loot anyway no matter if I want to find the item or find the parts to craft it so I might as well just loot and hope for the best instead of focusing on crafting that one really nice item I want like I would in other games.

It's not the mechanics so much that I have issue with, but the reward 7dtd gives for the effort is just not worth it for me.

I would much rather the game adjust towards more interesting things to craft, rather than nerfing looting. Looting and exploring in the game is a huge draw.

EDIT: Reading this reply to another persons post leads me to think they will sort this out eventually.

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

 

[beHypE]

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

Have you thought about making weapon and gun loot 'smart'? I'm thinking something along the lines of :

- 65% of the loot chance is a static table like now

- 35% of the loot chance is determined by the number of points you have in the tree that governs the weapon

A simplified example : loot has Shotguns, AK47, Pistols and Hunting Rifles, equally distributed. Right now when you loot a gun, you have 25% of getting either one.

With the above idea, say you invested 10 points in Fortitude and 5 in Strength.

You'd have the following distribution :

- 65/4 + 35/15*10 = 39.6% for AK47

- 65/4 + 35/15*5 = 27.9% for Shotguns

- 65/4 = 16.25% for both Pistols and Hunting Rifle

You can obviously play with the numbers, 75% static distribution seems actually better but i' m on the phone and I'm not calculating all that stuff again

Coupled with less complete guns and more broken guns / parts, it would ensure we get more parts quicker for the stuff we want to craft.

 

[agrastiOs]

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

That idea with having broken items that couldn't be repaired but be scrapped for parts would be really great. More immersive than just parts but better than just receiving the weapon in loot.

- - - Updated - - -

No there is actual game play decision to not scrap brass trophies and stuff.

Will you bring back the mention of scrapping at loss to the descriptions?

 

[hotpoon]

I finally finished the PoE league I was busy with so have been able to play A18 all week and feel I can now offer some balance input.

Firstly some sincere thank yous...

• A18 runs pretty great on my PC. Mainly getting 60 FPS and no more microstutter.
  
• Game looks beautiful and the new icons are sexy A.F.
  
• I LOVE the new lockpicking and animal tracking functions that have been added.
  
• I think it is a stroke of brilliance that one can find recipes OR buy a perk. Choices like this open up the game for people to play how they want to play.
  
• The new mod system is truly awesome.
  
• As a looter, I really appreciate the new books and schematics.
  
• Spears are useful and stun batons are fun.
  
• The number of zombies indoors is more realistic than A17 and the fact that not all of them are shoved in crawlspaces is a relief.
  
• Love the variable stats on items and also the new little perks they have, for example loot find on goggles.
  

Some balancing critiques

• I notice that the books and schematics have a mini icon in the corner that indicates if it has been read or not, but the recipes don't seem to. Could we have the same icon system for recipes?
  
• There are things in the perk tree that don't make sense to me, like:
  - having masterchef under the strength tree
  - being able to unlock the bicycle with grease monkey 1, but then needing more points in intellect to unlock the workbench. It's a tease. "O yay, I can make the bicycle. Oh wait, no I can't because I don't know how to make a workbench."
  - Level 10 of Agility is called 'parkour master' which is the same name as level 5 parkour perk. Why not call level 10 Agility something like 'Extreme Sports Athlete' instead?
  
• There have been a couple of threads about the diminished number of zombies, particularly roamers. Any chance of a slider so we can up the number if our PCs can handle it?
  
• It wouldn't be a post by me if I didn't cry about the missing FOV slider, so that too.
  

 

[Locusta]

I finally finished the PoE league I was busy with so have been able to play A18 all week and feel I can now offer some balance input.

A fellow exile! Nice!

Loc

 

[falloutcloud]

Some balancing critiques

• I notice that the books and schematics have a mini icon in the corner that indicates if it has been read or not, but the recipes don't seem to. Could we have the same icon system for recipes?
  
• There are things in the perk tree that don't make sense to me, like:
  - having masterchef under the strength tree
  - being able to unlock the bicycle with grease monkey 1, but then needing more points in intellect to unlock the workbench. It's a tease. "O yay, I can make the bicycle. Oh wait, no I can't because I don't know how to make a workbench."
  - Level 10 of Agility is called 'parkour master' which is the same name as level 5 parkour perk. Why not call level 10 Agility something like 'Extreme Sports Athlete' instead?
  
• There have been a couple of threads about the diminished number of zombies, particularly roamers. Any chance of a slider so we can up the number if our PCs can handle it?
  
• It wouldn't be a post by me if I didn't cry about the missing FOV slider, so that too.
  

I agree that Master Chef shouldn't be under strength. It would fit in better with Fortitude since it also has the Iron Gut perk which balances out eating cooked food.

I'd also like to point out that the fortitude build allows for heavy armor and healing/buffs through iron gut and regeneration. Heavy Armor would be better served under strength where you have to be up close and personal for both the club and shotgun. Split up the defensive/support perks between the two builds.

 

[Laz Man]

Crafting has been changed from being necessary for survival to being the back up plan for survival. You only need to craft what you can’t find looting or trading. The problem is that people are still finding everything they need before there is a chance to craft it.
Whether crafting is in a grid or in a list or whether it involves several complex steps or just a couple of simple ones is just player preference Issues and you’ll never please everyone. However, the balance problem with crafting involves its role in the game.

Right now someone cannot choose to ignore looting and trading because there are parts need for crafting that can only be found by looting and trading. But, then not only do we find the parts we need, we find the very item we were planning to craft.

I think you’ve got to continue to nerf the probabilities of finding any whole pieces of gear of quality yellow or higher. Let yellow green and blue be the crafting domain except for the rare lucky find. You mentioned once about including broken gear that couldn’t be repaired but could be scrapped for parts. That’s a great idea.

I think your spot on. I have had the same experience with crafting. I have tons of crafting parts for weapons but since I'm not perked into most of them, crafting them at a low quality has stopped me everytime from trying a craft.

@MM or @Gazz, what if crafting weapons/tools had a random chance of making a better quality tier as well?

For example, lvl 1 shotgun perk (forget its name) has a chance of yielding a shotgun of quality q2 to q3, lvl 2 : q3 to q4, etc. So that way, people will still be encouraged to use their crafting parts even if their applicable perk lvls are not that high. Otherwise, its sell all weapons/parts we plan on never perking up.

 

[Laz Man]

...regarding MMs 55 legendary effects...

If you end up with too many you could allow 80% of the normal ones on all weapons and save the 20% uber ones for the legendary items because.....there legendary of course.

 

[Laz Man]

Diablo let players craft the best gear momentarily and ruined the game. In Skyrim when I craft that best gear its over. Players shouldn't ever craft the best gear. The problem is still the loot distribution table. Its too easy to get high quality things which spoil your plans for crafting, and too hard to get what you need to craft stuff.

Glad you agree with this. I'm sure with a few tweaks balance wise and you guys will find that sugary sweet spot.

 

[madmole]

Are you planning to include new abilities that would require new animations such as a whirlwind attack with the sledge? This could be done by altering the power attack abilities.
I could easily see an ability option that gives the player a version of the zombie rage mode for 10 seconds or something after a power attack. These kinds of things would absolutely be insane and make finding legendary items ♥♥♥♥-your-pants worthy.

Loc

So far no, but we could do something like that.

 

[madmole]

Depends how you define traps. We had two rows of barbed fence to one row of spikes, and we were out about 12-15 meters from the walls. And then a row of sandbags outside that last spike row. Total ammo usage between four of us was well over 2500 9mm and about the same for 7.62. (I'm possibly off on the 7.62, but I was the only one using 9mm extensively. It was 1800ish AP 9mm and just over 600 standard.) And they STILL made it to the walls and we STILL had to make extensive repairs to our entry bridge. We only had that because we smelted Dukes to make casings. Gods only know how much junk turret ammo we went through. Less than we would've because the perimeter was just out of range.
The only thing that actually saved us in my opinion is that the different waves come from different spawn directions now. If all three waves had come in from the same side, we'd have been completely boned. As it was our perimeter was far enough out that the AI decided running all the way around was pointless.

Understand, I'm not saying it's not fun, but it was starting to wear us down a bit. We didn't have time to do POIs because we had to mine and rebuild, and then we'd get maybe the 6th day of the week to go hit a POI or explore or whatever. 40 demolishers is a touch rough. AP ammo helped though.

Player fatigue late game is real. I would suggest later game setting hordes to every 10-14 days so you can enjoy the game more, or focus on blade traps that can kill quite a few zeds for you. Sometimes I let them chew on my walls because beating my walls doesn't mean they can even reach me, its just a hole below me to patch. I'll do that before using up the last of my ammo and leaving myself at a high risk should they reach me because I wasted it all shooting them.