Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
Sweet melee fighting. Looked like a lot of fun. Especially when that soldier and darlene came barreling at ya...
Last edited by a moderator:
PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary
- Thread starter madmole
- Start date
- Status
MechanicalLens
New member
I'm glad to know it's not just me who is having problems. I was about to return my new second monitor.
Khalagar
Active member
Yeaaaaaahhhh you should just go test this. I've been testing this every possible way I can, and it's just not happening.
Test Results below to save some space for the poor other people in this thread who don't want to read about how melee is not viable at high game stage on higher difficulties
Test criteria - new character used console commands to give exp to raise level to 40 and max out strength, pummel pete, skull crusher, miner 69, heavy armor, and sex rex. Was level 40 for all tests besides the final for fun one
Spawned in a full set of steel armor + steel club, steel axe, steel sledge + mods for all + Batter Up Magazine Line.
Mods were stuff like this as well as stamina and armor mods for the armor
Test zombie = Irradiated Wights. I tested each run 3-9+ times for consistency
Results
1 vs 1 = All easily beat an irradiated feral 1 vs 1 with minimal danger. Sledge actually got me hit sometimes, and sometimes Axe would get me hit once. Relies purely on RNG to stagger for both, none consistently stagger, but Club had the best results if it got an RNG knock down
1 vs 2 = All 3 barely passed. None were remotely reliable or anything I would ever say you should do, but they all 3 did it consistently every time. I was hit multiple times on every single test and limped away half dead covered in lacerations and broken bones
1 vs 3 = lolno, I was only able to clear this ONE TIME on club, and not once on anything else. Died horribly each time, best I could do was *sometimes* get a kill on one before dying. The one time I won, I had 20 health left and was covered in multiple wounds with so much blood on the screen I couldn't even see, and I only won because the club got multiple super lucky knock downs while I piled on stuns on each downed enemy while trying to tank the other two
I tested 1 vs 4+ but it was pointless, just not happening. A single group of 2 Irradiated Wights was a very dangerous fight that had me limping away with injuries every single time, 3 irradiated was flat out "Not Happening" territory.
Sledge performed quite badly, even with sex rex and the stamina grip, it obliterates your stamina almost instantly and your ONLY chance is if it lands an AoE knock down, which is not consistent, and in the 3+ group there just wasn't enough stamina to capitalize on it. 1 vs 1 it was mixed results, if I got the knock down I would easily win, but if it only staggered I'd take 1-3 hits because the stagger wears off before you can even attack again. 1 vs 2 was the same, but worse, and in 1 vs 3 it was pure rip
Club is very good in 1 vs 1, but there is absolutely no "Being able to chest hit a zed and knock him down guaranteed no matter what the zed is" like you mentioned. Club's stagger a bit, but their knock down is absolutely not 100% on a standing enemy, it took 1-4+ hits to trigger even 1 vs 1
Axe did as well / better than the Sledge in 1 vs 1, and was very similar in 1 vs 2. Relied on rng knockdowns like everything else, if it got them it would do fine, if it didn't, I would get the crap beat out of me
Over all, results were Club > Axe >> Sledge in consistency and how much health I walked away with
Fun fact, after I was done with the above I ran the test again with max perk and magazine Junk Sledges, 2 placed + 1 handheld and it's the only one that cleared the 3 feral test easily lol. Junk Sledge objectively is the safest melee weapon, if you have time to set it up apparently! I just set two in front of me on an open road and stood behind them holding down M1. It killed all 3, it just took freaking forever. Took like 35 minutes in game to kill the 3, but I only took a couple of hits!
Spawned in a full set of steel armor + steel club, steel axe, steel sledge + mods for all + Batter Up Magazine Line.
Mods were stuff like this as well as stamina and armor mods for the armor
Test zombie = Irradiated Wights. I tested each run 3-9+ times for consistency
Results
1 vs 1 = All easily beat an irradiated feral 1 vs 1 with minimal danger. Sledge actually got me hit sometimes, and sometimes Axe would get me hit once. Relies purely on RNG to stagger for both, none consistently stagger, but Club had the best results if it got an RNG knock down
1 vs 2 = All 3 barely passed. None were remotely reliable or anything I would ever say you should do, but they all 3 did it consistently every time. I was hit multiple times on every single test and limped away half dead covered in lacerations and broken bones
1 vs 3 = lolno, I was only able to clear this ONE TIME on club, and not once on anything else. Died horribly each time, best I could do was *sometimes* get a kill on one before dying. The one time I won, I had 20 health left and was covered in multiple wounds with so much blood on the screen I couldn't even see, and I only won because the club got multiple super lucky knock downs while I piled on stuns on each downed enemy while trying to tank the other two
I tested 1 vs 4+ but it was pointless, just not happening. A single group of 2 Irradiated Wights was a very dangerous fight that had me limping away with injuries every single time, 3 irradiated was flat out "Not Happening" territory.
Sledge performed quite badly, even with sex rex and the stamina grip, it obliterates your stamina almost instantly and your ONLY chance is if it lands an AoE knock down, which is not consistent, and in the 3+ group there just wasn't enough stamina to capitalize on it. 1 vs 1 it was mixed results, if I got the knock down I would easily win, but if it only staggered I'd take 1-3 hits because the stagger wears off before you can even attack again. 1 vs 2 was the same, but worse, and in 1 vs 3 it was pure rip
Club is very good in 1 vs 1, but there is absolutely no "Being able to chest hit a zed and knock him down guaranteed no matter what the zed is" like you mentioned. Club's stagger a bit, but their knock down is absolutely not 100% on a standing enemy, it took 1-4+ hits to trigger even 1 vs 1
Axe did as well / better than the Sledge in 1 vs 1, and was very similar in 1 vs 2. Relied on rng knockdowns like everything else, if it got them it would do fine, if it didn't, I would get the crap beat out of me
Over all, results were Club > Axe >> Sledge in consistency and how much health I walked away with
Fun fact, after I was done with the above I ran the test again with max perk and magazine Junk Sledges, 2 placed + 1 handheld and it's the only one that cleared the 3 feral test easily lol. Junk Sledge objectively is the safest melee weapon, if you have time to set it up apparently! I just set two in front of me on an open road and stood behind them holding down M1. It killed all 3, it just took freaking forever. Took like 35 minutes in game to kill the 3, but I only took a couple of hits!
TLDR; Results = Against irradiated Wights, All 3 are good in 1 vs 1, None are "good" in 1 vs 2 but all passed with fairly similar results (me half dead and covered in injuries), none are remotely viable in 1 vs 3 and are almost certain death if you just rounded a corner into them, but Junk Sledge can actually clear a small army of Irradiated Wights lol. Hurray for stun locking!
Yeah, I agree. But that's why I say Axe does the job "well enough" for your normal every day situations to not spend points on other melee weapons since Miner 69 is a solid perk many builds appreciate. When clearing a PoI, just rolling in with your normal guns as a back up and using your axe for anything smaller than a horde of ferals and irradiated saves points.
I need to test spear and machete more, I just usually only use the spear early game since it sucks to lose all your mods when it flies off into the void and falls through the map, and machete is just "why would I use this?" territory where it takes more time to stack bleed than to just bonk them over the head a couple of times with a strength weapon
Obvsly though, it's fun to use other builds, I just want my boy the trust Fire Axe to get it's deserved love! More people should try my above test, only takes a couple of minutes to set up and run through each weapon and build.
Sweet melee fighting. Looked like a lot of fun. Especially when that soldier and darlene came barreling at ya...
I won't lie, they jump scared me when I rounded the corner and checked the wardrobe and almost got taken out by the fat momma haha
Last edited by a moderator:
Ranzera
New member
You're underrating Sledge DPS a lot here. It regularly instant kills multiple targets per swing later on by procing dismemberment on the head on multiple targets at once. It's actually the highest DPS melee weapon in the game (at least SS tier) by a landslide. I'll give you the swing speed and stamina though. One thing to consider though, is the higher tiers of Sexy Trex combined with the extreme deadliness of the sledge erase your stamina issues.
I regularly chug a coffee and nearly exclusively power attack hordes with a sledge with almost no stamina issues.
Last edited by a moderator:
Khalagar
Active member
Huh, didn't know it could do that! Just tested it since I still had my test arena open and it can definitely flatten a group of Darlene, but I actually had a way easier time with the Axe and Club vs 10 Darlene. The Sledge can hit multiple and knock them down, but even with sex rex I would run out of stamina mid fight, where as the Axe and Club can just one shot them while back peddling and get stamina back.
Definitely a point in the sledges favor though, if it's stamina drain was so ridiculous would help it a LOT in these tests. I guess if you went in after a hearty meal and black strap coffee you could probably do some serious work with it, but if you have that much prep time . . .just use a shotgun or junk sledges lol
Ranzera
New member
My edit addresses that.
The high tiers of Sexy Trex refund 30 stamina per kill. I regularly endlessly power attack hordes with only coffee.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
I don't know what that would be. Loading happens in the background and should be a few seconds of reduced FPS.
The next version has some changes to loading/unloading and texture streaming, so it may be better.
Fren
Member
I only experience this when entering the game. My character spawns and within 2 seconds the game freezes for about 3 seconds and then I can play endless without any issues at all.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ralathar44
New member
Your tests are actually perfectly in line with what I said. Club is one of the best melee weapons in the game and your limit for comfortably taking on enemies ended at the 2 feral/rad cap like I mentioned
. You CAN take on more with melee after that, but you need to start using spikes and block chokepoints like a doorway where you fill the bottom block with cobblestone and etc to control the battlefield. All of this was mentioned at the bottom of my last reply 
.Specific weapon commentary:
Club: Performed as expected. Club is a GD beast. The chest hit knockdown comment was in relation to the sledge power attack, not the club. Either you misinterpreted or I was not clear, one of the two. The sledge power attack has a 100% knockdown on primary target and 60% in AOE. Club's knockdown power is different, if you power attack a zed you've knocked down that is in the getting up animation it'll slam it back down to the ground. So once you've grounded something with the club you can keep it grounded.
Sledge: The AOE knockdown is primarily useful vs non-feral/non-rad trash that spawns with the ferals/rad. You use the guaranteed knockdowns I mentioned earlier to help keep 2 feral/rad on their butts when not staggered and the AOE knockdown keeps the trash from swarming you. You'll want sexy rexy + ergo grip + drink for heavy sledgehammer combat. Eat food for the stamina buff now too.
Ideally you'll want to practice on different zombies so you know their stagger thresholds with normal attacks. Your goal isn't to kill when in challenging situations, it's to CC them until they are dead. (which is still headshot focused!) The kills will just happen naturally during that process. So you can stagger what you need with a normal attack don't waste the stamina for a power attack if you don't need atm. As long as you're alive, they will all die, it's not a DPS battle it's a CC battle. Power attacking when you don't specifically need to is a good way to die as a sledge user. Every swing counts and it's a much more advanced weapon to use in challenging situations than all other melee even though it's faceroll against easy stuff it can 1 shot. And as the other poster mentioned the instant headsplosion is a big deal. One that does not apply to Axe.
Junk Sledges: You used 3 weapons
. OFC it did better haha. Stun Baton backed by 2 Junk turrets could prolly take on everything the sledges took on too. Int, with the combined power of all it's arsenal, deals significant stagger damage and keeps things on their butts more often than not. I've yet to test out the new AP junk turret ammo and shotgun junk turret ammo . That being said it is indeed amusing . This kind of stuff is why Int is hands down the best POI clearing skillset in the game. The damage is middling compared to proper firearms but the CC is fantastic and you can minimize your risk. Axe: I agree with you that it can be used to save what you need to carry and work against trash enemies pretty well with a reliance on ranged if things get challenging. But that's only an option for strength and miner69er and motherload are not actually needed anymore. POIs now provide a solid source of wood, stone, cobblestones, cement, all metals, and treasure hunts provide a solid source of clay. The only thing you might ever need to mine is oil shale and you'll only need to do that one overnight mining session for a ridiculous amount of gas produced. In update A16 and before being able to focus miner69er and motherload would be ace, but in the current state of the game it's a fairly weak advantage that comes with the tradeoff of being weaker in melee.
I don't believe normal damage knockdowns are RNG. IIRC, and in my experience, zeds have some sort of stagger hp bar you deplete that recovers when you're not hitting it or after being knocked down. The damage you do to that bar is determined by weapon and another reliable factor like damage. If you hit the same zombie with the same attack in the same place the same number of times you will get incredibly reliable staggers and knockdowns. Axe is a heavy 2h weapon and so it does a good amount of what I'll just call "stagger damage", especially on power attacks. Unless I miss my guess I'd wager that the "pain resistance" that they modified for dogs/dire wolves/mountain lions in the patch notes is referring to this system and that would represent how resistant the entities are to being staggered or knocked down.
I'm pretty sure zombies will still stagger and get knocked down with AI turned off so since you like testing just turn their AI off and counter your hits with normal attacks and power attacks. Variance should be from using a different type of attack, the part of body you hit with your attacks (head vs torso vs limbs), and your aim (direct hit vs glancing blow). When I did dedicated weapon testing before I don't remember it varying any. If I didn't miss they staggered and got knocked down as expected.
Club, axe, knuckles play pretty standard with their own minor twists. Sledge, Machete/Knife, and Spear all play quite differently from everything else. Int is Cthulhu
. It does NOT take time to stack bleed. A single power attack with blades applies 5 stacks of bleed (when skilled with deep cuts), super fast power attacks with knives and still pretty fast with machete. Minimal stamina use. It takes time for the bleed to do it's full damage though. Great for hit and run tactics, clears non feral/rad groups faster than anything else for sure since it ends up one shotting most zeds if you let them bleed out and it swings faster than other weapons with no stamina issues so you can clear trash zeds fast too.
Agility benefits greatly from investing in it's stealth perks though. With full cloth armor, full sneak skill, and a few mufflers I'm power attack stabbing zombies in the head for 5.5x normal damage
. Just remember to keep your helmet light off and once your stealth gets high enough you can start stealth killing entire POIs with bow and then with better stealth even knife/machete. If you notice zombies alerting when you crouch into a room with full cloth, full sneak, and a few mufflers then turn off your head light .Spear and Sledge both take alot of practice to do well since both accuracy and approach are critical. Knife/Machete is easy enough once you change how you think about combat since it's pretty "safe" either by virtue of stealth or by virtue of kiting. It should be mentioned bleed applies a 10% slow to zombies, which helps with said kiting
.Always friend, always
. I can't wait to test out the new turret ammos in my next run!
Last edited by a moderator:
MechanicalLens
New member
Question: what does more damage from the get-go? A stealth shot with a stone spear to the head, or the x3.5 multiplier with a headshot with a primitive bow and stone arrows? Asking for science.
Last edited by a moderator:
beHypE
New member
Can confirm, my friends would love that feature. Right now their meme is picking up every single potted plant, there's like dozens in our base on every little flat surface, in every playthrough. I can't take it anymore lol
Jost Amman
Well-known member
Last edited by a moderator:
MechanicalLens
New member
You better not tell them that you can craft potted plants.
Edit: Meanwhile, my meme has always been chairs. I began collecting them, painting them. Heck, I even made a religion out of them. The Chair Religion, which rose to become the Chair Empire.
Last edited by a moderator:
MechanicalLens
New member
Better not, or they might chairish it! Ohhhh!Haha that's amazing. I won't show them that picture tho, sorry.
*Badum tss*
Gazz
Fun Pimps Staff
That's essentially what the design is. =P
As far as I can tell, all attributes are viable in melee and ranged. Even Intellect can work with either melee or ranged but it's a good bit more involved than club-go-thunk.
day 1, alpha 19 b163 - 1920 x 1080 resolution with everything on ultra setting, motion blur and depth of field both disabled, in town with lots of forest around me and averaging 60+ fps to slightly over 100fps. I have an nvidia RTX 2060 and an AMD 3700X CPU. I looked at resource monitor and all cores are in use - I'm surprised! I didn't think 7D2D was multi threaded so well.
Hey devs, a little feedback for the most recent alpha. Food seems to be too abundant now with so many animals everywhere, making the survival aspect too easy (also breaking immersion how in a zombie apocalypse there are so many animals running around freely)... I don't think it should be too difficult to sustain yourself, but at least make it a little challenging. If animals would be toned down just a little then it would be great, but my suggestion is to also remove food and drinks from the vending machine completely, leaving only the candy. The problem is it's very easy to do a quest in the beginning, then you have money for plenty of water/food if you need it and it's also too cheap in the vending machine and the vending machine restocks too often... just remove it and let traders have occasional food which would at least be more expensive (because not buying food from traders so that you get it from vending machines cheaper should not be the way things work, it just doesn't make sense... And now with many chickens/deer running around it's even easier to sustain yourself. There is no point to farming, and I am sad about that. I like the idea of farming being an important aspect of survival and it's really not required now. You should be able to go along just fine with hunting and collecting water from lakes, but you shouldn't have an overabundance of food from the very beginning. Farming should be another element that gives you the 'edge' in your quest for survival, meaning that the possibility of having an abundance of food should be conditioned by farming, and without it food should be just a little more scarce. There is no food spoiling mechanic which I believe is the reason that getting an overabundance of food is actually possible. If food didn't last permanently, you would at least be worse off in the beginning when let's say you didn't have electricity and a freezer, and it would also make farming actually necessary since crops tend to last longer than animal foods and they would also give you a consistent overtime harvest. But with no spoiling mechanic it would just be better to remove food and water from the vending machine, because overabundance is just inevitable at this point, and giving us another option to get water and food when in a pinch just makes it worse... at least make it an option to disable food/water from vending machine, like a hardcore option. The more options the better, and this way you are sure to not ruin anybody's idea of fun. I play with 50% damage and block damage, 50% loot, 50% exp... because that feels balanced to me. All I need is a balanced approach to water and food now, to feel I am actually surviving and doing well on my own... no airdrops, no vending machine, just hunting, farming, foraging, and fishing if you ever add it.
MechanicalLens
New member
Animal spawns should be touched upon in the next patch; ie a massive nerf is coming.
Then don't use vending machines. You might argue that it's too easy in SP, and maybe it is, but in MP it might become vital for regular canned food to still be sold in vending machines. Again, if you don't like it and you can avoid it, then do so. (I've seen a couple subreddit posts fairly recently of a couple players complaining that firearms make combat in 7D2D too easy, and even though they admit they refuse to use them, they still advocated for their removal. My response? See my point above.
)
Last edited by a moderator:
Probably no dev will read this wall of text. Please use paragraphs to order your thoughts.
Before I stopped reading I saw you were commenting on the animals. Madmole already said they will be toned down on the next patch.
- Status