PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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Not really a fan of how Alpha 18.1 is shaping up. Specifically:

* Mechanical parts and springs are not craftable

These could/should be locked behind a perk or schematic, but not removed altogether (along with many other items). It's already annoying enough to have to hunt down steel tool parts and the like. I personally *want* a crafting system. I don't want to have to loot everything. I don't mind having to spend skill points to do it. IMO EVERYTHING should be craftable with the right perk, and everything should be unlockable with SPs. Yes some of the stuff should be gated off to end game (maybe you have to pump 10 points into a rifle skill to craft rifle parts + 5 points into a steel skill to craft Mechanical parts).

That's why I miss the mold concept of older alphas. Maybe molds can be reinvented for alpha 19? Making your own guns IS a thing IRL. Hell, someone even figured out how to do it with a 3D printer (though it's been done using older tech for a long time).

Maybe in addition to the workbench, have a "press" that takes molds. Install a mold and make parts of that type with the appropriate metals.

Another issue is playing with enemy spawning off is starting to become REALLY unbalanced. The loot changes have helped, but many of the animals that have been added in recent alphas are considered enemies and don't spawn. Boars, wolves and other animals IMO should spawn. Only zombies and vultures should be turned off. Maybe add a toggle for each? Sometimes I'm not in the mood to deal with a zombie threat, and would rather just explore the world and survive.

Alpha 18 was a step in the right direction, but please don't reverse course.

 
Wonder if it could be possible to use weapon/armor/tool parts to reforge matching T6 items, rerolling the stats on them. Since you can't craft T6 it could make them arguably even more valuable once you do have a T6 of that item if the required amount was high enough. Would also be nice if there was an in game way to reference the base stats of an item to better tell what stats are higher or lower and by how much.

 
Casual player here, I have a level 4 green Sledge hammer with mods. I have perked into stamina/hammer related tree's and can smash most zombies with one primary hit. I can annihilate anything in front of me (up to now) with secondary hit.

Why would I need anything higher and what would the benefits be exactly to pursue/craft better ?

 
Casual player here, I have a level 4 green Sledge hammer with mods. I have perked into stamina/hammer related tree's and can smash most zombies with one primary hit. I can annihilate anything in front of me (up to now) with secondary hit.
Why would I need anything higher and what would the benefits be exactly to pursue/craft better ?
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If you are playing on the default difficulty(2/6) and im not mistaken. Zombies do less damage to you, and they take extra damage from you.

You can boost up the difficulty to normad or warrior, and see how the game goes. (Also depends on your game stage and character level)

Feral radiated zombies will be very hard to kill without some sorts of firearm

 
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Wonder if it could be possible to use weapon/armor/tool parts to reforge matching T6 items, rerolling the stats on them. Since you can't craft T6 it could make them arguably even more valuable once you do have a T6 of that item if the required amount was high enough. Would also be nice if there was an in game way to reference the base stats of an item to better tell what stats are higher or lower and by how much.
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Honestly, the best thing they could possibly do is get rid of the tier system. Look at Diablo, I LOVE that game. What if most normal items were gray with normal stats, blues were somewhat rarer and had better stats, and purples had the best stats. Gray items always have the same stats. (The stats could still be random, but blues and purples would always be better than grays, and purples would usually be better than blues).

Now imagine if you could level up a perk that increases your chance to craft a blue or purple item. Maybe at level 10 you have a 5-10% chance of crafting a purple.

Regarding the press idea I mentioned earlier, it'd be REALLY interesting if they added that mechanic in. Now you have different types of molds to find (or craft with the right perk/schematic or whatever). The press itself would need wood and metals similar to the forge...or maybe the forge could be reworked a bit (though I do think the forge should be a separate item that processes unprocessed ore, maybe the press takes processed ore -- forged iron and steel -- and further processes that into gun parts or whatever).

Now suddenly there is a ton more stuff to loot, and a ton more stuff to craft. It also discourages item hording, since if you have the spare materials, you want to try to roll for a purple steel pickaxe with amazing specs. The way the game is right now it's practically impossible to get a purple steel pickaxe unless it's from the trader; at least I've never seen one.

 
Not really a fan of how Alpha 18.1 is shaping up. Specifically:
* Mechanical parts and springs are not craftable
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Honestly, I have more than I could ever use in the game from looting. Crafting them is a non issue.

And playing a "survival" game without anything to kill you isn't a survival game.

You are completely entitled to your opinions, but I'm SO Glad Madmole is doing the game and not you.

 
The zombies hiding in the wardrobes seem scripted to leap out when you go past, regardless of how much/little noise you make.
I've fired a shotgun a foot away from them in full heavy armour while not crouched, and they haven't woken up until i've taken that couple of extra steps to put me in range if their attack.

Other times I've snuck past on a full stealth build with zombies not waking up even as I mechete their heads off with sneak attacks, but zeds consistently leap out of cupboards to jump-scare me.

As for melee weapons, I like the spear. It's damage is... kinda crap, tbh, but the thrown attack seems to be a near guarrenteed knockdown, which is nice.

Slam a zombie in the chest with it, knock them to the ground then pull the spear back out and stab them on the floor.

Spears can be tossed through bars too, so I want to do a day-7 defence where the team has nothing to defend with but a wall to stand on and a bunch of chests of spears to throw over/through it.

Show em how we do it Zulu-warrior style.
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Zulu warrior challenge. I love it!!!!!!

 
I really do think its random and how soon you get a gas powered vehicle and how much you mine.
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It feels good right now. I've had to grind through the vehicle tree to motorcycle on day 30 or so, managed to find one part and craft the rest by day 20, and worked my @$$ off doing quests to buy one by day 16 now.

My only concerns about vehicles now are:

Gas for the 4x4 prohibitive to use it unless you have an oil shale mine. Maybe gas was nerfed a little too much?

I've never seen any parts at all for the minibike. It might not be bad to see if they are working in the loot list.

I'v only gotten the gyro once, and only used it for a day before restart. Since its main use is reconnaissance, I'd kind of like to see its storage and speed nerfed to bicycle levels, make it more accessible early on, and then have a vehicle mods to add significant storage and speed to it.

I see it more a fit between minibike and motorcycle than something you don't really get to later game.

 
Some general feedback on a18.

First game, myself and wife at default settings on a18 stable on one of the Pregen maps -

We holed up in one of the churches without a basement area. Sunk a lot of points into crafting skills so we could get up to Electrician. Set up electric fences around the perimeter of the church, discovered the joy of junk turrets. Built bunkers in the churchyard's corners to shoot out of and place turrets.

The hordes never gave us any trouble really, had a couple breakins, but more of it was zombies stacking on top of each other to get over the walls (until I put a catwalk of iron bars over the edges).

Got bored and moved on to another game.

Second game, default settings a18 stable -

Food was a constant problem. We found almost nothing for some reason. We made it to day 45 or so before I got bored and wanted to try some new mods and settings.

Our skills were all over the place, I realized too late that taking point in weapons for crafting was almost completely pointless. Still, was doing some good damage with Hunting Knives/ Machetes and Compound Crossbows.

Before the first Blood Moon we had take up residence in a the small prison POI, because of the concrete walls. By day 40 we had moved our defensive line from OUTSIDE the prison walls, to right up against the main buildng to better concentrate our traps etc. Built some bunkers in the back with concrete and iron bars. Had a few break ins, but nothing that we couldn't handle. Wife made ammo with double Workbench/ Chemstations.

By Day 45 I had a pair of minibikes, the 4x4 truck, and finally the gyrocopter (my endgame goal). I was surprised how much fun the truck and gyro were, especially because I have a real hard on for helicopter sims (or half-sims like Arma 3). The gyro handled surprisingly realistically, at least to me.

Once I was able to float over to the traders, I got sick of getting Tier V quests from 3 traders all at the same couple of POIs. Also I got bored of the map because I was able to scout out the majority of it with the gyrocopter.

(note from wife: we leveled up too fast, not enough zombies)

Third game, a18 EXPERIMENTAL 50% loot, 10 + 1d4 BM night, double wandering zombies (with mod), some QoL mods, Better Biomes mod

For this game I decided to not take ANY weapon skills until I found good gear. I took zero crafting skills, and also decided I wasn't going to build a base (so there was no need for Intellect). I took 1 point of every useful general skill, the less stamina loss from weapons ones, Iron Gut, less hunger or whatever it is, Lucky Looter, and Living Off the Land and Master Chef so I would have a reliable source of food.

With double the wandering zombies, we actually feel threatened. We can't just blindly stumble around (as much) and with loot at 50%, we haven't been showered with ammo, so I've decided to concentrate on melee. Decided to go with Knives and Spears and am really digging both. I don't care what anybody says about Knives sucking, I don't like losing stamina from swing a hammer one time, and with a few points in Agility/ Deep Cuts, I am popping zombie heads fairly often with power attacks from the knife. Headshots with the thrown spear do a damn good job of making heads disappear too. I have the Serrated Blade mod on my spear and I love hucking it into a Zed and then having it bleed out before it can reach me.

With the Better Biomes mod, it feels like a whole different environment. We've had no noticeable performance impact even though there are 3x the trees. It feels like a real forest and reminds me of Southern NJ.

Major takeaways:

- Crafting is useless if you're not building a base

- Taking points in weapon skills is best left to mid-game when you figure out what weapons you'll actually find

- Even with the 50% water mod, we still have never been close to running out of water

- Not nearly enough zombies (will try cranking up the city zombie spawns by 5x for next game)

- almost too much ammo most of the time, no problems walking through a street shooting because you won't get swarmed like you would in a16 (or a17 I forget)

-Overflowing with meat because of many early animal encounters

I am liking the new version, I really didn't like a17 very much compared to a16, but I also really prefer the Level Up the Skills you Use system from whatever version had that.

 
Well, I hope some of my 2 cents was useful.
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@Troxism I just wanted to compliment your write-up of the current version of 7 Days to Die. I was considering if I wanted to download the game again and give it another spin with Alpha 18 and your write-up helped fill in what I was wondering about the combat changes.

 
Vending Machines :

I am sure this topic pops up from time to time, but I havent seen a proper answer for this. Considering that when you play online, you have no control over time passing while you are busy with RL. So why is it that you lose all dukes and all items in vending machine, when server time elapse while you gone ?

The server I play on switched from 120 minute days to 60 minute days. So in the time I was sleeping, 2 days past in game, and my vending machine was filled with schematics. I honestly feel this should not be the case. This is one of these things where RL schedules should not cause you to take severe losses in game.

 
Vending Machines :
I am sure this topic pops up from time to time, but I havent seen a proper answer for this. Considering that when you play online, you have no control over time passing while you are busy with RL. So why is it that you lose all dukes and all items in vending machine, when server time elapse while you gone ?

The server I play on switched from 120 minute days to 60 minute days. So in the time I was sleeping, 2 days past in game, and my vending machine was filled with schematics. I honestly feel this should not be the case. This is one of these things where RL schedules should not cause you to take severe losses in game.
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Yeah I concur. I lost a bunch of stuff in a SP game back in A17 doing that. The time expired was about an hour and a half in game time before a horde night and I really didn't have time to get there. Sucked.

 
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
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+1 This.

It makes sense,

 
Stop playing in the newb zone - forest. Play like a man in the burnt biome and let me know how much meat you got. =) Just busting chops.
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I added some wildlife and um... unlife to the burnt forest. Dogs to be specific.

 
Speaking of meat, given that all meat-recipes seem to use five meat each, why not just make each recipe use one meat, but all meat sources give one fifth of the amount that they do now?
The inflated number makes it feel like we have lots more resource than we really do.

100 meat is 20 meals, not 100 meals.
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That is the way it used to be, but we wanted a harvest bonus for the hunter and 1 plus 20% more harvest = 1. So we went with a more granular meat amount so the perks could scale correctly.

 
If you are playing on the default difficulty(2/6) and im not mistaken. Zombies do less damage to you, and they take extra damage from you. You can boost up the difficulty to normad or warrior, and see how the game goes. (Also depends on your game stage and character level)

Feral radiated zombies will be very hard to kill without some sorts of firearm
Click to expand...

On default difficulty, but fair point. I need it harder I need to go up a notch..

 
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