PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[OzHawkeye]

The right way: What the game used to be before A17, with major bugs (e.g. dup) fixed and decent optimisations. If players no longer fall into void, lose minibikes, get wrecked by dupers, and lose everything mysteriously on their belts, and if the game can consistently get 60 FPS with middle graphics on a 1050 Ti, it can be announce as a complete product, and the team can move on to the next game. Of course if there can be more later game content, such as bosses, legendary loot, it can make the game a great one, and even compete for the best survival game.
The wrong way: A17. It is now not a survival sandbox. It is a hybrid of FPS and MMORPG. But if it is a FPS, please give us free ammo, no FPS made us make ammo for hours and shoot out in minutes. If is a MMORPG, where are the boss and legendary loot that are challenging and attractive for repetitive play?

Why is that you assume your issues with A17 exactly match everyone else's issues (if any) with A17, and that just fixing your issues is going to magically return Steam reviews to a more positive state?

Optimisations for example, aren't a top priority in Alpha. Lost minibikes aren't happening to everyone, so where they do happen it'd be handy to get a bug report on them. Perhaps there's other issues other people are unhappy with that don't match yours, or even are diametrically opposed to yours?

I guess what I'm saying, is point out what you think are flaws (for you!) by all means, but to assume that you've got the answer to make A17 better, is assuming quite a bit.

 

[lunan]

The right way: What the game used to be before A17, with major bugs (e.g. dup) fixed and decent optimisations. If players no longer fall into void, lose minibikes, get wrecked by dupers, and lose everything mysteriously on their belts, and if the game can consistently get 60 FPS with middle graphics on a 1050 Ti, it can be announce as a complete product, and the team can move on to the next game. Of course if there can be more later game content, such as bosses, legendary loot, it can make the game a great one, and even compete for the best survival game.
The wrong way: A17. It is now not a survival sandbox. It is a hybrid of FPS and MMORPG. But if it is a FPS, please give us free ammo, no FPS made us make ammo for hours and shoot out in minutes. If is a MMORPG, where are the boss and legendary loot that are challenging and attractive for repetitive play?

I agree.

The game is lost in your way. Is no more a survival, many changes, many bugs, less opitmization...

Back on the start, bring back the survival, don't enter in battle royale world. We don't want it.

Focus on optimizing the game, if you do this, more players will play. Nobody wants to buy another PC every time when release a new eternal alpha.

 

[lunan]

I believe that it is not a question of pointing the way forward, who decides in the end is the company, but we as players must show the various points of view, discuss what worked out at the point of each and all, discuss which did not please, and from this point forward. And I rather advocate an optimization improvement because the more MID computers can run the game decently, the more people will play, and the more it will benefit everyone, players and company. ( My point of view)

 

[DaVegaNL]

Even though I'm having a blast with A17, and I think it's the best iteration of the game up to today, there's no denying it's not massively well received. If reviews are any way of measuring that, that is.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

THIS DAMN SHIFT BUTTON

 


My left little finger hurts like hell.

 


PLEASE make left alt a alternative input for shift !!!!!!!!

In the meantime i spend the next hour to restore my system keyboard layout that i screwed up trying to fix this

And yes i said alternative not replacement "Alt+Space to jump dont work really" but all the other 5 trillion Combinations you need that button

 

[regnyu]

Why is that you assume your issues with A17 exactly match everyone else's issues (if any) with A17, and that just fixing your issues is going to magically return Steam reviews to a more positive state?
Optimisations for example, aren't a top priority in Alpha. Lost minibikes aren't happening to everyone, so where they do happen it'd be handy to get a bug report on them. Perhaps there's other issues other people are unhappy with that don't match yours, or even are diametrically opposed to yours?

I guess what I'm saying, is point out what you think are flaws (for you!) by all means, but to assume that you've got the answer to make A17 better, is assuming quite a bit.

I can only speak for myself, so you (I suppose you are speaking on behalf of TFP since your are "community moderate") can of course ignore my personal opinion, as you have ignored the 52% people on steam who only represented their own opinions.

The fact is apparent: before A17, most people are positive to the game, and after A17, most people are negative. This has not happened with A16, or A15. What does the statistical data tell? I think we both know.

I am a software/game developer with about 20 years experience. What I can see from the A17 prototype is that the team is short of both expertise and professionalism to actually finish a product at the moment. (For example, the Mac 18 minutes crash bug which should be the highest priority bug on Mac team's bug list, still remains in B9, which is unbelievable with a professional team.) I am sorry for saying this, if it hurts someone.

The team needs "learning by doing" in game development to eventually become a great team, so instead of leap up to A17, incrementally improving A16 is a practical approach for production.

Everyone can make mistakes, but how to deal with own mistakes distinguish people.

 

[The Gronk]

Even though I'm having a blast with A17, and I think it's the best iteration of the game up to today, there's no denying it's not massively well received. If reviews are any way of measuring that, that is.

Disregarding the borked RWG and the imbalances the only change I really disagree with is the removal of learning by doing. Not a huge issue as I have the self control to play that way using the current system.

Other than that it's a step in the right direction... mostly.

 

[wildaxeman1]

Well if they increase your Food / Water pools by 10,20,30,40,50 (from memory) but your penalties start at 50%, then that means that it's only half as effective. :c (5,10,15,20,25)

penalty starts from 75% if my math is correct. you still have more stamina to spend before you get penalties. from original 100 to current 120 i have now 15 stamina more to use before penalty. 75 to 90 = 15. it may be confusing, but i understand, how it works now.

i think overeat is fixed 50, not percent.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Disregarding the borked RWG and the imbalances the only change I really disagree with is the removal of learning by doing. Not a huge issue as I have the self control to play that way using the current system.
Other than that it's a step in the right direction... mostly.

Yeah I agree.. RWG needs some more geological lovin'..

 

[meganoth]

I can only speak for myself, so you (I suppose you are speaking on behalf of TFP since your are "community moderate") can of course ignore my personal opinion, as you have ignored the 52% people on steam who only represented their own opinions.

Well, my opinion is that the performance hit of A17 hurt a lot of players who could play earlier alphas quite well. I assume this is at least one big cause of steam reviews staying low (reviews tanking around experimental seems to have happened previously so that alone is not surprising). We are now at a point similar to A16.1 where still a lot of bugs are in the game. Did you really compare steam satisfaction with that of A16.1?

A17 had a lot of big changes and each change has the potential to displease a part of the players, and especially the steam crowd who has a history of review-bombing games for single issues or changes. It may be apparent to you what singular cause is responsible for the mixed reviews, I don't see that they will suddenly make all people happy by going back with any single feature to A16s version. And going back to A16 completely and starting over would NOT make a happy steam crowd, that is one sure thing.

Can't comment on the crash bug as I don't know any details, but generally I'm with you there, crashes (on any platform) should have a high priority

 

[meganoth]

Well if they increase your Food / Water pools by 10,20,30,40,50 (from memory) but your penalties start at 50%, then that means that it's only half as effective. :c (5,10,15,20,25)

The range of well-being (110%-55%=55%) goes from 50% to 55% with one perk point, which is still an improvement of 10%.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Well, my opinion is that the performance hit of A17 hurt a lot of players who could play earlier alphas quite well. I assume this is at least one big cause of steam reviews staying low (reviews tanking around experimental seems to have happened previously so that alone is not surprising). We are now at a point similar to A16.1 where still a lot of bugs are in the game. Did you really compare steam satisfaction with that of A16.1?
A17 had a lot of big changes and each change has the potential to displease a part of the players, and especially the steam crowd who has a history of review-bombing games for single issues or changes. It may be apparent to you what singular cause is responsible for the mixed reviews, I don't see that they will suddenly make all people happy by going back with any single feature to A16s version. And going back to A16 completely and starting over would NOT make a happy steam crowd, that is one sure thing.

Can't comment on the crash bug as I don't know any details, but generally I'm with you there, crashes (on any platform) should have a high priority

Yeah the performance hit has probably caused a lot of dissatisfaction with the game. I solved it by buying a brand-new high-end gaming laptop. Probably not an achievable solution for everyone. And it's something to keep in mind that reviews were pretty low before A17e. They jumped up to very high values (~90%) after the release of A17e. Then they crashed after the release of A17-stable. So it has to do with a specific group of people who follow the game closely (forum-goers etc.). They rated the game positively. Then stable was released to the masses, who perhaps don't follow development closely (or at all), who rated the game quite negatively.

 

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

I was incredibly surprised that stable hit when it did. It seemed far too early to declare the systems stable in any appreciable sense. To rip out a reasonable RWG and replace it with a HAARP array just before release was just simply bizarre.

 

[meganoth]

Yeah the performance hit has probably caused a lot of dissatisfaction with the game. I solved it by buying a brand-new high-end gaming laptop. Probably not an achievable solution for everyone. And it's something to keep in mind that reviews were pretty low before A17e. They jumped up to very high values (~90%) after the release of A17e. Then they crashed after the release of A17-stable. So it has to do with a specific group of people who follow the game closely (forum-goers etc.). They rated the game positively. Then stable was released to the masses, who perhaps don't follow development closely (or at all), who rated the game quite negatively.

Exactly. And I think the steam crowd is on average much less "hard-core" and has less knowledge about the game than the "inner" group of forum users. Consequently a rise of the difficulty together with MANY fundamental changes will hit them much more. No, not everyone, I'm talking about the average!

 

[DaVegaNL]

I was incredibly surprised that stable hit when it did. It seemed far too early to declare the systems stable in any appreciable sense. To rip out a reasonable RWG and replace it with a HAARP array just before release was just simply bizarre.

Yeah you're right. But now they can claim that they released stable before Xmas....

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. And I think the steam crowd is on average much less "hard-core" and has less knowledge about the game than the "inner" group of forum users. Consequently a rise of the difficulty together with MANY fundamental changes will hit them much more. No, not everyone, I'm talking about the average!

Fully agree!

 

[Kamikaze]

Biggest problem of reviews is people rate game as finished product. Hopefully they will reset reviews when game goes gold.

 

[Roland]

I am a software/game developer with about 20 years experience.

Oh, then you know that change always leads to an upswing of negative reviews and you also understand that 52% negative reviews is only 52% of those who write reviews and not 52% of the playerbase. The fact is that the majority of the playerbase is generally happy with A17 and is adjusting to the changes.

TFP has taken the negative reviews seriously and are in the middle of making adjustments and providing options to make A17 more pleasing to many people on a number of stated issues in those reviews.

Oz is correct that the stat 52% negative does not represent solidarity on any one issue. Many of those negative reviews don’t care about learn by doing. If TFP improves performance they’ll be perfectly happy. If TFP improves the AI others will become happy.

Yes, there will be some who will never be happy without LBD no matter what other issues TFP compromises on but they are not 52% of the playerbase.

 

[Roland]

Hopefully they will reset reviews when game goes gold.

They will not and don’t need to. Overall the game is still positive. As TFP makes adjustments the reviews will hopefully return to positive and if so these past two months will be an unnoticed blip.

If not....we’ll see how they respond next.

 

[CypherTodd]

I am part of the player base, 3000+ hours in this game (OMG that's like a full time job for year and a half) now go do the math Troland LOL.

It was an adjustment no doubt, but LOVE it. have growled at every new alpha since 9, but after playing, have always loved it. Now doubt stranded on a desert island (that happens to have WiFi) this is the one game I would pick to have.

 

[Kamikaze]

They will not and don’t need to. Overall the game is still positive. As TFP makes adjustments the reviews will hopefully return to positive and if so these past two months will be an unnoticed blip.
If not....we’ll see how they respond next.

But you know... Even if game won "game of the year" there would be a lot of forgoten reviews. I mean people who stopped playing at all, who don't give 7dtd second chance, dead people, etc...