PC Anyone else think this version is a big pile of stinking Krap?

Gyrocopter has always been trash. Hard to steer, hard to lift off, hit the wrong button and fall to your death. It's just dumb. Maybe, if you could take off vertical, hover, and land vertical it would be worth the effort.
It just takes practise. I used it constantly late game in A17 and really enjoyed doing so, though we modded its speed to 20, otherwise it's slower than all other vehicles, which is dumb.

I'm SOOOOO glad snowberries have been basically removed. Gawd they were dumb
Er....they are still in the game, just rarer.

 
A18 is amazing, I wasn't into a17 nearly as much as I am into a18. I wasn't a fan of the small book buffs, I much prefer this re-invented old system.

It just feels like everything is really on point this time, especially spawn entry and rwg (for me at least)

Praise be to the Fun Pimps

 
Woah there. A18 is better than A17, but then anything would be. Still think - apart from graphics - A16 was better. LBD FTW!
For me, A16's mechanics (all of them) but with the new content things added in A17 (prefabs, vehicles etc) and the return of surface boulder mining would result in the perfect version.

 
I really like the skill versus book separation of getting the ability to make items.

Either get a bit lucky to get the book or jsut buy it. It is a nice trade-off and again the bookstores are well worth raiding ASAP. I missed that in A17.

 
Why? Mining is TONS easier now when you know where the resources are. I collected 10 stacks of iron + 6 stacks of nitrate just in 10 hours mining using an auger. At that site there is still tons of iron/nitrate laying around. At another site I collected 4 stacks of coal in a few hours. You said mining was boring before and that you preferred going around mining the surface boulder. I think traveling around just to find surface boulders is WAY more boring (takes longer) then staying in one spot and mining. You get way more resources through mining.
With surface boulder mining you are always moving around and opening the map, encountering things, discovering POIs and popping in to loot them and so on. It's a mini-adventure. In A18 I spend an entire day down a hole staring at a rockface and encountering nothing more interesting than the odd cave-in. No comparison.

True you gain more ore in A18 ( guesstimate about 50% more than a day's boulder mining used to give) but with the unbalanced MP gamestage you burn a ton more of those resource so it works out about the same. I still spend 2.5 to 3 days in every 7 on average mining to get enough gunpowder and lead for the group, except now I have 3 days spent in a goddam hole of boredom instead of 3 days driving across unknown areas of the map for boulders and having adventures.

If you can't see the difference in fun factor between 3 days boulder mining while having random adventures and 3 days down a hole then I don't know what to tell you.

Are you complaining because now MP isn't as easy anymore? Now you have to use more bullets? How about using traps, turrets, grenades, explosives, etc. Or how about using tactics/strategies? I found the molotov, pipe bombs and grenades are very useful. Learn how to group them up and aoe them.
Doing all that. 24 blade traps in 2 separate linked kill boxes. Still using double the ammo we used to. [Edit: only in MP co-op, SP is fine. This is an important point, see below]

If your base is being destroyed easily it means you're relying on your previous A17 knowledge.
Only our stop-gap living base that we always erect while we build the main kill base was destroyed.

A18 is a whole another ballgame and you should adjust/adapt accordingly.
Have you not listened? I have 2 games on the go right now, one single player, one multiplayer. Both are roughly on the same day (33). Settings were identical. My build plan is identical in both....live in a concrete box with simple defences while the proper kill base is built. Obviously we get the main base finished quicker in MP as we have more hands to build it, but typically the temp base handles 3 to 4 horde nights and always has.

There is no comparison now in A18. My SP game is a walk in the park. I need to stress that. I didn't need to adjust or adapt from A17 tactics at all; everything going as planned and expected in single player; no complaints (except the mining). MP game....totally different story. Unbalanced combined gamestage is resulting in massively more ammo needed and destruction of temp base.

Sorry your argument of A18 sucks because they removed surface boulders as a source of resources and made MP harder isn't convincing.
Hopefully I've clarified things for you.

 
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I mean you still have plenty of surface boulder ore. You could still mine the same way. Just drive around kill all the surface ore, just leave a couple wood frames in place of the boulder if you want to keep the marker of the vein there.

 
With surface boulder mining you are always moving around and opening the map, encountering things, discovering POIs and popping in to loot them and so on. It's a mini-adventure. In A18 I spend an entire day down a hole staring at a rockface and encountering nothing more interesting than the odd cave-in. No comparison.
True you gain more ore in A18 ( guesstimate about 50% more than a day's boulder mining used to give) but with the unbalanced MP gamestage you burn a ton more of those resource so it works out about the same. I still spend 2.5 to 3 days in every 7 on average mining to get enough gunpowder and lead for the group, except now I have 3 days spent in a goddam hole of boredom instead of 3 days driving across unknown areas of the map for boulders and having adventures.

Doing all that. 24 blade traps in 2 separate linked kill boxes. Still using double the ammo we used to.

Only our stop-gap living base that we always erect while we build the main kill base was destroyed.

Have you not listened? I have 2 games on the go right now, one single player, one multiplayer. Both are roughly on the same day (33). Settings are identical. My build plan is identical in both....live in a concrete box with simple defences while the proper kill base is built. Obviously we get the main base finished quicker in MP as we have more hands to build it, but typically the temp base does 3 to 4 horde nights and always has.

There is no comparison. SP game is a walk in the park. I didn't need to adjust or adapt from A17 tactics at all; everything going as planned and expected. MP game....totally different story. Unbalanced combined gamestage is resulting in massively more ammo needed and destruction of temp base.

Hopefully I've clarified things for you.
Why does your group not help with mining? Why work so hard on a base early on when there are so many throwaway POIs? I recommend getting out and trying to get some books and gear that make mining go much more quickly than whacking away with an iron pickaxe. If everyone pitches in and sells to the trader, you can buy much of your ammo for the first few weeks. I didn't focus into mining until much later and still had enough resources to equip a group of 4-5 who had less time to play than I did leading up to hoards. And if it's real bad, just separate until you can handle the resources required for that gamestage. It's easy to fortify a few different sturdy POI's to use separately until you are all equipped. While I may agree that the gamestage may compound a bit too much when grouped, there is nothing forcing you to stick to tactics that just aren't working to deal with it.

 
Why does your group not help with mining?
Because I have specialised into Strength and have Miner69er and Mother Lode at 5. No one else has as they do different jobs. Also everyone else hates mining.

Why work so hard on a base early on when there are so many throwaway POIs?
Because we are min-maxers and have our construction order perfected from temp base right up to kill base. 2000+ hours with the same group perfecting everything. We get our perfect kill fortess in Steel just after day 30 (a little later in SP). We are really good at it.

I recommend getting out and trying to get some books and gear that make mining go much more quickly than whacking away with an iron pickaxe.
We have looter specialists. I have all but 1 Mining book and a tier 5 Steel Pick.

If everyone pitches in and sells to the trader, you can buy much of your ammo for the first few weeks.
Don't you think we are doing that? We have a barter specialist too.

While I may agree that the gamestage may compound a bit too much when grouped, there is nothing forcing you to stick to tactics that just aren't working to deal with it.
Working fine in SP, as they always have. It's the balance I'm complaining about. MP is over-tuned for horde night. Both MP and SP are under-tuned (no threat whatsoever) outside of horde night.

 
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Working fine in SP, as they always have. It's the balance I'm complaining about.
And simply editing the XML's to enable the surface boulders to drop coal, nitrate, lead and iron isn't an option?

 
There are considerably less boulders too. And not clumped in big boulder fields like they used to be.
Well, on your next map, you could not only mod them to drop all the ores (and anything else you'd like to), but amend the biomes.xml file to make 'em spawn every second block if you want....

 
Because I have specialised into Strength and have Miner69er and Mother Lode at 5. No one else has as they do different jobs.


Because we are min-maxers and have our construction order perfected from temp base right up to kill base. 2000+ hours with the same group perfecting everything. We get our perfect kill fortess in Steel just after day 30 (a little later in SP). We are really good at it.

We have looter specialists. I have all but 1 Mining book and a tier 5 Steel Pick.

Don't you think we are doing that? We have a barter specialist too.

Working fine in SP, as they always have. It's the balance I'm complaining about.
My first question was rhetorical and I knew the answer would be perks, but I just don't get it in a game like this. I fully understand optimal play and min-maxing. I used to play a game that allowed you a limited number of turns per day and playing that optimally was challenging and a blast(had an Excel workbook with a dozen different pages of spaded data and projections/odds/calculations), but EVERYTHING in this game is infinite. You won't deplete the world of anything just by not perking into looting or mining and you can still gather plenty of resources to supplement your specialized member without the perks. Fine that you all have your roles, but if it's not working, you have so many options from editing XMLs to just maybe not being so stubborn and min-maxy. If you aren't enjoying being the miner, then tell your friends to get off their asses and give you a hand? Or literally change the game by editing the files to make it work for the strategy you're committed to.

As far as something being perfected, fine. You may have perfected something for the last alpha, but this is a work in progress you're playing. Half the fun for me each version is adjusting and it makes it like a new game each time they update. Is it really fun to make the same base by the same day with every member doing the same thing every single playthrough?

 
As far as something being perfected, fine. You may have perfected something for the last alpha, but this is a work in progress you're playing.
The proven strat is working as always in SP, no adjustment needed. In MP the balance is off. Why should they be so different?

Is it really fun to make the same base by the same day with every member doing the same thing every single playthrough?
It is now that we perfected it over many hours and many alphas. The kill base is perfected too and handles all AI algorithms they threw at us from the old random dumb zombies to hyper-intelligent demolition expert zombies that avoid traps and home in on weak blocks. The design is awesome (was actually planned on grid paper) And we have never exploited the AI and never will.

I used to play a game that allowed you a limited number of turns per day and playing that optimally was challenging and a blast(had an Excel workbook with a dozen different pages of spaded data and projections/odds/calculations)
You'd fit right in with my group. ;P

 
There wont be a next map I fear. Is there a way to modify the files and affect the map in progress?
No, but you could make all the stone blocks in the world work the way the boulders used to. Or if you're feeling claustrophobic, make the cinder block piles like those boulders and you can explore the wasteland.

It is now that we perfected it over many hours and many alphas. The kill base is perfected too and handles all AI algorithms they threw at us from the old random dumb zombies to hyper-intelligent demolition expert zombies that avoid traps and home in on weak blocks. The design is awesome (was actually planned on grid paper) And we have never exploited the AI and never will.
Fair enough. I am really asking to try to help because I feel for you if you're not having fun playing. Sandbox games can get a little grindy and feel like work sometimes. What do you all plan to do once bandits are implemented?

 
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Well if you take everything into consideration then... Think about it. TFP had to re-write everything in A17 and now with A18 it feels to 'us' at least a much better and well refined game. On another point if you think this is the finished product then you're mistaken. Please note this is in Alpha still and a lot of the things such as vehicles speed can be 'fixed' or adjusted. Albeit I myself do not like the seemingly 'heavy' reliance on mods. For the 9 of us it feels better in that there is a definite struggle! We're not blasting through the levels as we used to before... No level 20 by day 7, no level +40 by day 14, etc.

At the moment I can't explain it better but it feels more 'real.'

 
I still agree A18 is the best alpha, but then I really liked A17 and I don't see a huge difference between them (compared to say A16 -> A17 where the difference was huge). It's simply that an activity I really really enjoyed doing has been removed from the game and replaced by a total bore of a job, and MP is burning too many resources (each problem compounds the other).

Also, I dislike modding myself. Always have. I've done it here, but only for Gyrocopter max speed, nothing else.

And sure I realise this is not the finished product. Why else would so many people put so much effort into giving feedback on what they dislike? Everything I have said is (I hope) constructive feedback.

 
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For the 9 of us it feels better in that there is a definite struggle!
Other than the over-tuned horde night in MP, I am still going to stand up and claim: this is the easiest alpha yet

Might try the next horde night fighting not in an allied group. We'll lose exp, but the base does most of the killing anyway. And hopefully the GS would be less unforgiving.

Also, and I may be wrong about this, but I believe that only the top 5 players' gamestage feeds into the combined MP GS. So with 9 you should not be seeing the issues I am.

 
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Just my opinion so please don't take it personal or anything. But going around hitting rocks on the surface in my book not considered really mining. I get everyone has different ways of fun and respect that. Sure going around destroying surface rocks got you ore along the way and let you explore at the same time and nothing wrong with that. But what I would call mining feels a lot better now.

A17 brought in a new game pretty much if you kinda sum it up a in a quick way. A18 built off of that to balance a bunch of it out. Would I say it is perfect no it still has work to be done. But of course we don't see a huge difference in the two. Idk I'm happy where it is goin and feels like more and more things are coming together. Also I'm very happy that LBD will never come back ;)

I feel SP should be easier then MP. It should balance out to make it more challenging with more people and not a walk in the park. But I do agree that it can use some more love and balance out a little more. Playing with about 6 people and 1st horde only 3 of us was online and it wasn't that bad and felt like SP pretty much. It felt right because first horde and game stage for everyone wasn't that high. 2nd horde I think it was 4 of us on and we pretty much got wrecked. We did ok and they stopped coming after 2am we started cleaning up and the last 30 min of horde we got another wave that we wasn't expecting and this wave came with cops and vultures that we didn't see at all in the first part of horde. 3rd horde night was straight crazy as we had 5 on that time. The very first 4 zombies was radiated zombies and that was just the beginnin. It went down hill fast as we really wasn't prepared and not sure if we would of been but hard to really say for sure. The next 2 well not any better but more so prepared. Idk it is fun and still having a blast and laughing and cutting up but feel mid game stage is popping up way to soon. So agree the MP does still need tweaking and balancing done.

 
Just like people who hid underground needed to be forced to the surface in some peoples opinion, people mining safely and easily on the surface needed to be driven below ground. Fair is fair!

 
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