PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

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Ok, I'll retract what I said about it being a 18.1 to 18.2 issue. I just crafted an iron stack in a game that started on 18.2 b5, and gained almost 20k XP.

 
So if it is practically never in SP, rarely on a strongly connected dedicated, and then more often as a client in P2P, then why can't you accept that the culprit actually is latency?
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I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.

 
But network lag sounds exactly like the culprit from your own description.
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Not at that low of numbers.

If it were latency, you'd see more complaints from people who play on dedicated servers where latency is much higher.

But it's clear you guys aren't going to listen, and consider it working as intended.

-A

 
Not at that low of numbers.
If it were latency, you'd see more complaints from people who play on dedicated servers where latency is much higher.

But it's clear you guys aren't going to listen, and consider it working as intended.

-A
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If the problem doesnt exist in SP, what are the devs to do? Is there code out there that can compensate for latency? Seems like a moving target to me.

Does this problem happen with other unity fps games in MP? If not, what's different?

 
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I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.
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Sounds like rubber banding or lag. The zombie was close, but to you its not it hits you because your not even trying to get away because its 20' away etc.

 
Dont want to burst your bubble but range is definitely off. I never mess with FOV so that wouldnt apply in my case. Its even worse on servers but thats expected due to desync of course.
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Hit ranges are a bit generous, but it goes both ways, so at least it is probably fair. I'd like to see them get tighter in the future.

 
I don't remember the exact command, but it's in the list you get by entering help in the console.
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I looked through it and couldn't find it. I learned about "showhits", which is interesting, but it's not that, and, of course, there's my old friend "showswings" which is nice to know how your weapon works, but also doesn't tell you if a zombie is within range or not.

 
I accept latency is part of it. I have no proof but only a feeling because hearing my friends complain while playing 7 days but none of the other games we play which I host. I can’t count the number of times my friend scream How the $&)$& did it hit me it’s 20 feet away!!! Yet on my screen the zombie was on top of him.
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How do you explain this description Aurelius? Please. If Im biased against seeing the REAL reason then give me the straight answer for how the host sees the zombie on top of the client but the client sees the zombie 6 meters away and complains about getting hit.

 
There's no way to make this not sound condescending so apologies in advance:
I have had to teach family members the outer range of being able to hit zombies and it is always further away than they thought it was. They were getting hit mainly because they would wait to swing until they were what they felt was close enough to hit but it was way closer than it needed to be and so they were often getting tagged by the zombie and feeling like combat was trading hits.

Maybe people (even experienced veterans) should do a double check and make sure they've found the actual max range they can stand and still hit a zombie with their weapon. It is definitely outside the range that they can hit back. Once learned you will almost never get hit when striking and this also applies to MP.

I know the inclination is to look at my post as trying to deflect blame from the coding and tell people to git gud but I seriously do believe that people are typically standing closer than they need to in order to strike their target. This was also the case back when falling trees could kill. I watched "proof videos" of the "problem" and in every case the player was practically humping the tree as they chopped instead of standing back from it.

Too bad it all resulted in falling trees no longer doing lethal damage. Would love to get that back so we could make them fall on approaching zombies again.
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Hit ranges are a bit generous, but it goes both ways, so at least it is probably fair. I'd like to see them get tighter in the future.
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It shouldn't be like that. The hit range of the Zds should be 1 block less than the player period.

Why? because they have glitchy punches, glitchy behaviour, glitchy and sudden movement and glitchy animations.

All of those are unavoidable on MP to some degree. But going for same distance will result in frustation for the player, even for veterans from time to time. AND by reducing Zd hit range you will fix the phantom punch of the crawlers to a slim chance. Win win.

 
Trying to compensate for network lag is one of the hardest things to do in my opinion. Some things like projectiles can be handled relatively easy because all clients only need to know the trajectory and when it was launched in order to speed it up so it lands within milliseconds on all clients. Now try to do some kind of prediction code for zombies with such erratic movements and elements of randomness. When you have shooter arena games, prediction code is a little easier because every player is sending their movements to the server. Treating every zombie like a player and broadcasting their movements to every real player is not going to work. Too much information. I'm sure a lot of things have to be figured out on the clients from minimal information coming from the server. A little bit of information that comes in too slowly is going to cause some real "wonky" stuff as people are saying.

Developers spend a long, long time trying to get this to be good in their games.

 
I think guns are currently too easy to find and not enough time is spent at lower tiers.

As for lower tiers, could we get some t1 representation for some other weapon perks? like a musket to represent rifles and a flintlock pistol for pistols?

its fun having to make do with what you have available, especially when its substandard, and id love to spend a week with a belt of single shot flintlocks to pelt down a horde of zombies

 
It shouldn't be like that. The hit range of the Zds should be 1 block less than the player period.
Why? because they have glitchy punches, glitchy behaviour, glitchy and sudden movement and glitchy animations.

All of those are unavoidable on MP to some degree. But going for same distance will result in frustation for the player, even for veterans from time to time. AND by reducing Zd hit range you will fix the phantom punch of the crawlers to a slim chance. Win win.
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It should be the range that a player's weapon reaches to. The contact point of the punch, should be the range. If a sledgehammer, then where the head of the hammer reaches to. A zombie should hit where their hand reaches to. Short arms shorter range. Long arms longer.

In SP it is pretty basic, since there is no latency other than the time to animate. In MP you have that plus latency, so it is not going to be perfect and yes the enemies could use a bit shorter distance than their visible attack length.

 
How do you explain this description Aurelius? Please. If Im biased against seeing the REAL reason then give me the straight answer for how the host sees the zombie on top of the client but the client sees the zombie 6 meters away and complains about getting hit.
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Roland, if it is only Normal internet latency causing this, why do other games work fine that I host? Let’s take one example that we tested, The Forest. No noticeable latency for clients then we switch to 7 days and bam, zombies start hitting Clients from wacky distances when we were playing the forest fine 2 minutes earlier. Switch back to the forest and it’s all good again. I’m not making this up, we did this as a test, seriously.

Does my internet connection just happen to have higher latency while I’m playing 7 days? No, It’s not possible, it’s a very consistent pattern with 7 days and with other games.

Modding the reach of zombies helps a lot but it makes it too easy for the client. It’s too bad there can’t be 2 separate zombie reach settings, one for hosts and one for clients.

I know I won’t convince you or TFP there is something weird goin on but It’s nice to see that others have noticed this, like Aurelius.

Oh and , I’m not raging - A18 is freakin awesome! And I love you Roland!

 
Roland, if it is only Normal internet latency causing this, why do other games work fine that I host? Let’s take one example that we tested, The Forest. No noticeable latency for clients then we switch to 7 days and bam, zombies start hitting Clients from wacky distances when we were playing the forest fine 2 minutes earlier. Switch back to the forest and it’s all good again. I’m not making this up, we did this as a test, seriously.
Does my internet connection just happen to have higher latency while I’m playing 7 days? No, It’s not possible, it’s a very consistent pattern with 7 days and with other games.

Modding the reach of zombies helps a lot but it makes it too easy for the client. It’s too bad there can’t be 2 separate zombie reach settings, one for hosts and one for clients.

I know I won’t convince you or TFP there is something weird goin on but It’s nice to see that others have noticed this, like Aurelius.

Oh and , I’m not raging - A18 is freakin awesome! And I love you Roland!
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I'm not raging either. I just think that the problem really is good old fashioned lag and nothing you've said in any of your descriptions has disabused me of my opinion. It just fits in every way. It's like you're telling me that you think you might be dehydrated and you want me to tell you how to fix it but I'm not allowed to use the words "water" or "drink" -- otherwise you'll be convinced I'm not taking the problem seriously and that I just want to put you off and end the conversation.

 
But they don't die when hit and that is very anticlimactic. I'd say even a demolisher should get one hit killed from a felled tree....
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Yeahhh a tree should squish in one hit ! I agree.

Bring back tree humping for zombies ! :)

 
speaking of multiplayer and trees

my wife and I are playing together, and I am hosting on my pc. she is 1 to 2 shotting alot of trees with an orange axe. she isnt getting much wood either. it is only happening in poi's. they are acting fine for me tho

 
I'm not raging either. I just think that the problem really is good old fashioned lag and nothing you've said in any of your descriptions has disabused me of my opinion. It just fits in every way. It's like you're telling me that you think you might be dehydrated and you want me to tell you how to fix it but I'm not allowed to use the words "water" or "drink" -- otherwise you'll be convinced I'm not taking the problem seriously and that I just want to put you off and end the conversation.
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On the server I'm renting, granted its new and has a small steady stream and a hand full of daily players, I've seen no lag issues. 0 reported issues regarding lag by players. I myself having put at least 100 hours in the past 2 weeks and had no lag issue except that which I caused when editing servers spawning.xml.

Having said that, in SP or as client on dedi MP there are times when you go to strike/melee a Z in combat and or shoot an arrow dead center of a Z toso while it just stands there not moving and miss. Arrow goes right through for no apparent reason other than, God performed a miracle allowing said arrow to pass through the zombie. If thats the case nevermind, there are bigger issues lol.

I've tested this with strict perimeters to repro and clearly see the hitbox detection not working when it, without a doubt, should have. I've payed very close attention to this for a long time now. This was so in A17, A18 exp, A18.1 stable. I will give credit that it happens drastically less from a18exp till now. Clearly TFP has been working on the issue so I have no problems.

I know it will get better with every update *knocks on wood* so I have no gripes. I just wanted to say not all the claims can be chalked up to network lag, server sync issues etc. Some sure can be but others are clearly not. I cannot say for sure if it is gone in A18.2 as I have not tested yet. It is rare, extremely rare in this version. So I chalk those few times it seemed like no hit detection to just poor skills on my part.

Ahh... that was a lot to type while being this tired... night

 
I have did some testing on the server my friend and I play on. I can hit zombies with spears like 6 out of 10 times and not get hit. Out of the other 4 times 2 of them are just me not doing it right and the other 2 are from the zombies pushing forwards after getting hit. Like instead of stunned or stumbling backwards they stumbled forwards and get a hit on me. Then if they rage the end up getting at least one more hit. So I feel from my experience they should either get stunned or stumble backwards not forwards. That would solve the issues I have using a spear on them.

As someone else said guns are to easy to find. On day one I had 4 pistols and a lvl 2 AK before the end of the night. Sure not that strong and sure not like I have loads of ammo but I can still take what I have found and go to that bigger house with a nicer loot room and cleat most of the house out. Then by the time I get to loot room more ammo and more loot for other items and or more guns.

 
Hit ranges are a bit generous, but it goes both ways, so at least it is probably fair. I'd like to see them get tighter in the future.
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That's really great to hear. The range got quite large in Alpha 18, which is really my only issue with it so far.

 
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