PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Erik Louden]

This forum is full of chicken littles.

Wasn't there the same hysteria o and doom talk over the reduced amount of wood you got per tree for A16?

I doubt that they are going go back and rip the feature out for A17 so this is the way its going to be.

Do you hate it enough to delay the release of A17 another month or so?

 

[Blake_]

@faatal
I don't disagree. The idea of random rpg drops always struck me as a bit unrealistic.

But, don't forget the law of gaming "game play Trumps realism" and games are meant to be fun. Going around and killing zombies for loot is fun. It is currently the best part of the mid to late game. With no reason to seek out zombies I'm afraid that will become much less fun.

Right now, building a nice base with no exploits and defending it takes lots of work. I find it fun, but with no reward for defense the fun decreases very quickly.

Same thing with finding and making great new weapons. If there really is no reason to use them other than emergencies they really do not serve much of a purpose.

I hope we can find some middle ground, I understand you guys are doing it for technical reasons. But don't technical reasons decrease enjoyment.

We can only wait and see. Those 5 random types of tiered quests might help with that, but just as you said, not for long. I hope for dozens of different quests with something close to TES:Oblivion- Dark brotherhood's level of quest complexity but procedural and random (which is hell and back to make and I very much hope that is what TFP want). Also, bandits and npc survivors might help with those concerns when we get there. Faatal or Kinyajuu can do that part like it was nothing in just a few months.

 

[akram22]

This forum is full of chicken littles.
Wasn't there the same hysteria o and doom talk over the reduced amount of wood you got per tree for A16?

I doubt that they are going go back and rip the feature out for A17 so this is the way its going to be.

Do you hate it enough to delay the release of A17 another month or so?

yeah every alpha there is some guys who randomly complain about the most obvious nerfs they see

 

[Blake_]

I get it; zombies can still have loot it's just more rare. I just see a potentially major design problem and I want to talk about it earlier than later. I don't care if it's more difficult or whatever, just as long as the zombies recoup some of my losses on horde night. I don't care about drops outside of horde night because I'll be looting PoIs not zombies. I get it. The only case I'm talking about is horde nights, in which the zombies come to you and as such are the only potential sources of loot. In fact, what if the zombies just had a chance to drop treasure maps instead of loot, I'd be okay with that. As long as I have some degree of compensation (delayed or otherwise) for base damages. Otherwise I'm just... not going to build bases or fight blood moon hordes. And those are my favorite parts about the game.

Well I hope so. And they are my favourite parts too for the moment, Quests and all might become the new trend.

 

[Prisma501]

Ahh Guppy, my friend, the argument against leveled loot was made and won a very long time ago and you and I both know the real reason for its introduction. For our newer friends however I will remind them.
TFP has introduced hardly any new actual content in actual years, it being much more important to them to remodel the bear 18 times or perhaps redo the trees 15 times. No, the reason they removed level loot is all to do with time.

You see before leveled loot, just like it would be in an actual apocalypse situation, you could get lucky when scavenging and find some really good stuff, not all the time of course but it was pretty random as to what quality you could find and therefore, if you looked long enough and hard enough you could find good tools and weapons in the first few days.

Of course finding good tools and weapons early significantly shortened the amount of time it would take you to get up and running and building your base and therefore it sped up the early and mid game. TFP did not like this because they don't have any content and they knew that if you got to the end game quickly (ish) then you might just get bored and go play something else so they introduced leveled loot to make an artificial grind to stretch out the game stages and make you play longer.

Now of course the entire rational they used is utter horsecrap because if they understood just maybe 20% of what the average gamer does then they would know that the single most important element in keeping people playing your games is not in fact grind, but fun!

Now its at this point where some xml smartass will point out that there is still a chance to loot something decent early game and yes, that's true, its also astonishingly ridiculously tiny to the point where I would say in the last 20 server restarts I have played it has happened maybe twice in a couple of thousand hours of play so no, it doesn't really frikkin count.

It used to be that if you explored enough, traveled enough, killed enough zombies, that you would very likely get good gear early on but no more. Now you are forced to grind because TFP has no other mechanism of getting you to play longer than making the grind harder because they simply refuse to listen to their players who only ever wanted more fun.

So no Guppy, logic wont help you here my friend.

Dont know bout you, but im 12 hours away from 4K hours of FUN and still hyped for the a17 release. So whats your point again?

Cheers

 

[Roland]

Seriously Roland?

Not really. It was a joke based on old conversations about one of the original zombies. He was the naked guy with only underwear and everyone always laughed about where we were finding the loot we could get from him.

People were making up stories about why zombies should have a bunch of loot so I made up a story about why they wouldn't.

But you are too angry to be in the right frame of mind for jokes.

 

[bloom_meister]

edited to remove wrong quote. Was referencing your post on backpacks.




Not angry Roland, just continually disappointed at poor design decisions in a game I love and play a lot. Us old timers have seen this kind of stuff before from TFP, many many times, sometimes it even gets rolled back because the backlash is too great for even TFP to ignore.

You tried to provide a rational for a big nerf to support the devs, I get it, i do, neither of us is unbiased but one of us is open about it.

Just be yourself (as you often are) and be honest about stuff mate.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Patience of a saint, Roland.

 

[eidobunny]

This forum is full of chicken littles.
Wasn't there the same hysteria o and doom talk over the reduced amount of wood you got per tree for A16?

I doubt that they are going go back and rip the feature out for A17 so this is the way its going to be.

Do you hate it enough to delay the release of A17 another month or so?

I'd much rather increase the time required to make a base than eliminate the incentive to build and defend your base altogether.

With the wood change, the ultimate effect is that you spent more time on a base, put more effort into it and likewise grew more attached.

With the zombie loot change, the ultimate effect is an entirely new perception on the way the player interacts with zombies and makes decisions within the world in general. I think on a mass scale you'll see a lot less bases, a lot less advanced technology (less guns, less turrets, less concrete, etc.) because people will realize that preparing for and fighting against 7th night hordes isn't worth their time.

Now, what I'm hoping for is that we do get a reasonable amount of compensation. Like if you have a really good base I'd like to see somewhere between a 75% and a 200% compensation for your losses, on average. If I get a 0-25% compensation I'm just not going to bother building or defended a base.

That would completely change the entire dynamic of the game. I spend 99% of my time collecting resources to build and defend my base from progressively stronger 7th night hordes, but if loot is so bad (hypothetically speaking) then I'm not going to be doing any of the things that make the game enjoyable for me because, as I mentioned in a previous post, "if you allow them to do so, a player will optimize the fun out of the game."

If TFP wants to go in that direction that's fine. I'll give A17 a shot, I'll either like it or I won't. If I don't, I'll uninstall and not play again. I won't come whining to the forums with some entitled point of view or "notice me" goodbye post. I'll just, stop playing. And that would be a sad ending for such a great game. That's why I'm here posting right now. I'm just trying to say, hey, no zombie loot is great for the reasons you've defended it with, but also if it completely ♥♥♥♥s up the base-building and horde night dynamic, a lot of people are going to lose interest in the game. That's all.

 

[unholyjoe]

Experience for killing a zombie canceled?
What about kill zombies bosses? Will they have a good loot?

nope not gone... you still get xp for zombie kills.

 

[Blake_]

Where did you get that from what I said? There's an xp bar on the HUD that you can watch increase as zombies are killed. XP is not cancelled for killing a zombie.
I have nothing to say at this time about zombie bosses.

Can we get some screenshots of mayb whole POI's seen from outside later this week? But with your character in 3rd person as a selfie. something we've yet to see is the new lighting on the characters and all of that xD.

 

[Zadwanaa]

Dont know bout you, but im 12 hours away from 4K hours of FUN and still hyped for the a17 release. So whats your point again?
Cheers

There's just people that wont ever be happy and will find fault over something small then blow it completely out of proportion. Because they havent played it yet, all they can do is cry that the sky is falling.

 

[akram22]

hay i want this type of people in . they give us hope to achieve 2000 , dont leave please

- - - Updated - - -

Roland . the game has to be ready soon we are almost there, not enough batmans we couldnt make it , but 2000 is closer , hehehe

 

[Jimmy_James]

Okay...iam fast-reading through the the last sites and Zombie loot drop is still a thing.

Now I am trying to understand why.

We have all different play styles and it’s not that easy to have a look from their position.

 

[Kalex]

Roland, how are things with the dismemberment of the zombies ??? In Joel's video, there are no cases when zombies lose their hands, legs or head ...
The dismemberment was removed in 17 Alpha ?????

It didn't look like he was aiming at anything other than the head and torso. And honestly, making their heads pop like a pimple, while cool to see, should be rare.

 

[eidobunny]

Okay...iam fast-reading through the the last sites and Zombie loot drop is still a thing.
Now I am trying to understand why.

We have all different play styles and it’s not that easy to have a look from their position.

I think building a base and defending against blood moon hordes is something almost every player has in common tbh

 

[Kalex]

People dont carry supplies on them "right now" because we are not living in a zombie apocolypse. Id bet you a sham sandwich you would be carrying some supplies if zombies were over running the population

I'm betting in an emergency, *most* people would just panic and run. And most of your zeds were probably turned in the first wave.

 

[akram22]

nuh ,building a base is the last thing to think about right now , as i said alot more aspects added to the game we need to look at , not the old stuff

 

[Erik Louden]

I'd much rather increase the time required to make a base than eliminate the incentive to build and defend your base altogether.
With the wood change, the ultimate effect is that you spent more time on a base, put more effort into it and likewise grew more attached.

With the zombie loot change, the ultimate effect is an entirely new perception on the way the player interacts with zombies and makes decisions within the world in general. I think on a mass scale you'll see a lot less bases, a lot less advanced technology (less guns, less turrets, less concrete, etc.) because people will realize that preparing for and fighting against 7th night hordes isn't worth their time.

Now, what I'm hoping for is that we do get a reasonable amount of compensation. Like if you have a really good base I'd like to see somewhere between a 75% and a 200% compensation for your losses, on average. If I get a 0-25% compensation I'm just not going to bother building or defended a base.

That would completely change the entire dynamic of the game. I spend 99% of my time collecting resources to build and defend my base from progressively stronger 7th night hordes, but if loot is so bad (hypothetically speaking) then I'm not going to be doing any of the things that make the game enjoyable for me because, as I mentioned in a previous post, "if you allow them to do so, a player will optimize the fun out of the game."

If TFP wants to go in that direction that's fine. I'll give A17 a shot, I'll either like it or I won't. If I don't, I'll uninstall and not play again. I won't come whining to the forums with some entitled point of view or "notice me" goodbye post. I'll just, stop playing. And that would be a sad ending for such a great game. That's why I'm here posting right now. I'm just trying to say, hey, no zombie loot is great for the reasons you've defended it with, but also if it completely ♥♥♥♥s up the base-building and horde night dynamic, a lot of people are going to lose interest in the game. That's all.

Your last line is what I'm referring to. Basically everyone thinks like you and if you don't like it the game is doomed.

Pinnate zombies are a thing of the past (now if they would do the same for the Pinnate boulders). If you you don't like it mod it/wait for it to be modded or set loot to 200%.

Basically the game is taking a step towards survival and zeds aren't something you seek out bacause they are loots bags, there are now the unwelcome antagonist they were menat to be.

 

[Jimmy_James]

I think building a base and defending against blood moon hordes is something almost every player has in common tbh

And I’m trying to figure out why that will be changing with not so much loot.