I just finished my first alpha 18 game. There's nothing wrong with it, I just want to try something different, and doing it from my current stage would feel like creative mode. So, instead, here are my thoughts.
First off, I started the game on the first experimental build, and played through to the current latest experimental build, with very few issues. I'm amazed by that. Congratulations.
Graphic settings maxed out, and aside from the inventory lag issues early on, the game never missed a beat. I'll grant that I have a very powerful computer, but this is the first time it felt[i/] very powerful when playing 7 Days to Die.
I played to day 140, 90 minutes days. Mostly standard settings otherwise. I did change some settings as the game went on, which I'll go over next.
I played with 8 max zombies for a while, then switched to 24 max zombies, and I also started at the default difficulty (Adventurer), then switched to Warrior because the game just felt absurdly easy.
At first I was a bit wary of the night, because of the comments about tougher zombies at night, but I had to spend a few nights ferrying loot between places in the first week, and decided there was absolutely nothing to fear about it. With the early roaming hordes being composed of animals, one couldn't even tell I was playing a zombie game as long as I didn't go inside a prefab. The game didn't offer any threat until much later, and, at that, only inside prefabs and at horde nights. I've died a total of three times in those 140 days: the first two throwing contact grenades that hit my own base, and the last one by falling and breaking my leg, while all sort of irradiated zombies were coming after me, on the Shamway Factory. I broke my leg because of a inventory management mistake, and even then I almost survived.
Next game I'm playing at Survivalist difficulty, and possibly always run zombies. I just won't go Insane because I find it tedious instead of dangerous.
Another setting I changed midway was XP, I think after day 84 horde, from default to 200%, because I was simply not gaining levels anymore. Once the XP ceiling was added, I reverted to default XP, and it felt just fine.
Finally, I changed from 7 days to 14 days between blood moons after day 84, because I wanted to spend time more leisurely, exploring prefabs, hunting chicken, doing cosmetic work on the base.
The lack of zombies in the world was seriously disappointing. It's a beautiful world, but not a dangerous one. It felt more like one of these stories where everyone in the world disappeared.
Speaking of beautiful, that does not apply to the burnt biome. I haven't spent much time there after the changes made to improve it's looks, but it was dreary. Not scary dreary, just boring dreary. By contrast -- and I took some screenshots from a gyrocopter showing the contrast -- the desert is magnificent.
Horde nights were fine. I hit Demolishers before they were moved later in the game every time, and I think they are taking too long now to show up on horde night. Now, I know MP players think blood moon hordes are too overpowered for their level, but I think it's the party gamestage that's too skewed against them. It was very disappointing that my horde nights were over once I died, even though I was still on the second wave in both cases. I like getting a short break after dying, I dislike that the horde was over. Instead of having an exciting challenge recovering my bag and resuming the fight, I just moved on to repair right away. But, again, other than that the blood moons were really nice. I like this AI better, too.
Sleepers were ok. A bit too empty for my tastes, but, in some cases, thankfully emptier than they used to be. The difficulty, once I went to warrior, seemed ok enough. I welcome the sleeper activation change. It feels like you finally got the right balance there. In some cases, however, it was easy to shoot at sleepers outside their activation range, unpunished. Prefab design issue, though.
Infection was a joke. I didn't put a single point in the fortitude tree, and I don't think I got infected more than three times in the whole game, and it was easily dealt with. I was honestly inviting infections, just so I could have a challenge on that front, to no avail.
I intended to do an Agility playthrough, but ended up splitting points between Perception and Intellect, for Lucky Looter, Daring Adventurer and Better Barter. Also put some points on spears, baton, turrets, animal tracker, and advanced engineering -- the latter for the crafting bonuses, and trap XP. Then, when I was about to go Agility, I got a mining crunch, and got Strength up to get Miner and Mother up to 4, and, because why not, Sex T as well. I finally got to increase Agility up to 5, then went Intellect 10 because I wanted solar power, and, finally, got Perception up to 7. I did respec twice. The first time, I discarded perks I didn't need anymore, like cardio and master chef. The second time I moved some perks back so I could get Intellect 10 faster, but I also discarded the baton skill. More on that later.
All in all, this is much better than alpha 17. I did a no-Intellect playthrough on alpha 17, and it was very disappointing. But Lucky Looter became much more relevant early game in alpha 18 than it was in alpha 17, and Better Barter/Daring Adventurer still keep me from skipping Intellect. Being forced to go Intellect 10 to get solar is particularly disappointing, though it's nothing new. I really wish some perks were no-attribute.
I love the spear. It disappeared twice, and I was recording one of the times, so I know for sure that it was not a matter of not finding it -- it fell through the world or something. After that, I got really wary of throwing the spear long distances, which took away some of the joy I had in it. But I still used it to the end.
I dislike the stun baton. I just couldn't fight half as effectively with it as with the spear, ever when I stopped power attacking with the spear.
The machete felt weak too. It felt a little bit off, like attacks that ought to hit the zombie were only doing grazing hits. I didn't put points in its perk, so I can't say much to it's effectiveness beyond that. I was also disappointed the machete was not included in the night stalker completion bonus.
The shotgun, particularly after the last changes, is absurdly op. And I don't have a single point in it, but it still outperforms the guns I have points on. And I hate the shotgun, and it's just not my style at all, and it still beat everything else. On a related note, the blunderbuss has the most satisfying sound effect, whereas the shotgun is just meh. I'd have their sound effects switched.
Pistol and magnum are ok. It irks me that the M60, the Sniper Rifle, the Shotgun, the Double Barrel Shotgun can all use a silencer, but the magnum cannot.
The compound bow was a big disappointment, particularly since I found it so much later than the compound crossbow. Then again, I'm biased against the crossbow. Don't get me wrong, I use it, but I just think it's too fast for a crossbow, and that the compound bow is too weak compared to it.
Once I started putting points in Agility and equipping the armor, stealth was very effective. Nice being able to do effective stealth runs again.
The vehicles were all nice, and I think the gas rebalance is on point. The motorcycle feels slightly slower than I'd like, but it's ok.
One quests got to tier 5, they got very boring. I took every quest below tier 5 I could, but there were not enough of those.
The sparse world is ok and the road grid feels better to me than any time before. Roads levels are still weird here and there -- I played PREGEN01, btw. Prefab distribution is far better than it used to be, and I enjoyed the revised prefabs I visited.
I used powered blocks in my base, and for the most part they were fine. I do wish I could select whether the door/drawbridge is supposed to open or close when powered. I love the garage door. It irked me a bit that the military base, which I took over, had a garage with 3x3 fake sliding garage doors, instead of 5x3 actual sliding garage doors. At least it was the right count to replace with 2 sliding garage doors.
Food was abundant, but I did put points in Animal Tracker, and I did try to hunt animals for the challenge quests, so I think it's fair that I had plenty food.
I'll talk a little bit about mods and issues below, but let me finish the overall evaluation with this. I stopped on day 141 not because there was nothing more to do, but because I wanted to experiment with a different concept. I had a LOT more to do, if I chose to continue. Since I started playing 7 Days to Die in alpha 15, I never got anywhere near that, unmodded. Alpha 18 is not perfect, but it's a superb game.
