PC Do you guys like this new leveling system ?

No it didn't. Everyone spam crafted stone axes to get to pink and had steel armor by day 3 and skipped the most enjoyable process of the game which is slowly improving and overcoming all the hardships of the early game. Now you actually stop and smell the roses of the full progresssion from stone to iron to steel tools, and cloth to leather to military armor or the heavy armor.
The problem with skill based advancement is you stop progressing when one skill reaches the maximum. So now what? Do some artificial play style I don't like to gain more levels? If all I do is craft, and my INT skill is maxed, your saying I have to go kill stuff and raise my strength to level up some more?

The goal was to have a simple to understand system that offers a lot of different character classes you can build and I think we nailed it. In the old version everyone wore steel armor and used the best DPS gun. Now there are meaningful perk choices and you can play how you want. There is less random gods dictating your success. Play how you want, not be forced into grindy activities to level up or gain skill.

We could take 100 people and let them play a16 and give it a review and then another 100 to review a17 once its balanced and done. I'd bet a17 would get higher review scores. People just don't like change, even if its better. Theres still guys griping about sharp sticks being gone and cube terrain.
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Spam crafting wasn't really possible as a viable strategy in A16. It was in A15…. Did you play A16 much? It was setup to stop progressing at 100 of the particular skill so you couldn't spam craft a skill forever to unlock everything else. Your ability to unlock unrelated strengths was capped at the skill points you received at each level, which didn’t get you very far usually in terms of unlocking a great new ability/item.

I’m confused by your point on this. A17’s system is exactly what you don’t want….? People will just do whatever is the best XP generating activity to unlock everything else in the game now (killing zombies currently). I could do nothing else in this game except kill zombies outside of one POI with a wooden club and unlock every skill in the game. How is that a good system?

After I spent my 60 game days whacking zombies and leveling, then I would start building a base with the best materials and try to waste the least amount of time farming/mining/scavenging at low levels where your stamina, block damage, and odds of finding higher level gear are junk. If I have a gripe, it’s that the focus is now on forcing people to experience the “full progression”, and it’s now the same formula every single playthrough. Just because I can pick a different perk, and my character is now faster/shoots different stuff better/whacks zombies on heads harder/carries more stuff - doesn’t mean it’s not the same every playthrough. You aren’t hearing what people are saying in this regards. The new design and changes to the looting/skill gain/stamina/mining speed have tossed the incentive structure for interacting with your environment out the window and locked away all the interesting things behind XP.

Everyone agrees. It is now a simpler system. Most everyone in this thread (and countless others) agree they like it less.

I think there are a lot of people that would enjoy playing A17 RPG. Fallout, Diablo, and Skyrim are testaments to that system. There are a lot of people that have played your game for years that don’t too though. It’s just that I’m in the latter category, and I don’t want to experience the “full progression” of gimp to grunt. I would much rather TFP concentrate less on skill progression/playthrough duration and figure out new and different ways to take advantage of your best asset – which is a fully customizable, voxel-based, multiplayer world. If you did it well; you could delete XP and level gates altogether, make it such that you got better at about half dozen activities that influenced your character’s abilities/strengths by doing, employed systems within the environment to reward and achieve the difficulty needed to gain the skills you want to include, and then focus on reasons for people to build/explore/interact with each other. This game has endless potential as a multiplayer game. You can build a generic action RPG/zombie shooter without the voxels. With this engine, those are always going to be the least impressive assets.

 
I've seen another dev make this argument. HOW were people getting to level 40 in 3 days? Like if people can spam craft axes to get to 40 in three days, it seems like the problem is with stone axe crafting XP gain rates, not the entire system.
I mean you guys are gonna do what you're gonna do. I just don't understand why you're proposing that you can't fix the power leveling exploits while retaining a mix of perks and action skills. Those options are not mutually exclusive.
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A friend would give them the books on augers and gas, a stack of repair kits, and then they would auger sand to get levels the quickest. It won't be any different in A17, once it's balanced a bit better. You will still be able to do that. Currently it's just that killing zombies is far superior to mining/scavenging/harvesting in order to advance your player level, because I suspect Gazz forgot to account for the burst XP you would get when you would level from 1-100 in each skill.

Most people are arguing that they would rather keep the skills associated with doing the actual activity instead of being awarded via perk from generic XP. It provided an incentive to play the game in their preferred playstyle, was somewhat logical, and it seemed more natural. It gave weight to your decisions on what you would do during the day.

The new system also greatly reduces your agility so that you experience more worthlessness for longer.

Edit - I agree that for the reasons stated, they could have kept everything the same as A16.4 and tweaked it. The losses outweigh the gains imo.

 
The problem with skill based advancement is you stop progressing when one skill reaches the maximum. So now what? Do some artificial play style I don't like to gain more levels? If all I do is craft, and my INT skill is maxed, your saying I have to go kill stuff and raise my strength to level up some more?
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You could just have activities give skill exp and character exp separately to fix that. In fact, didn't it work like that in A16?

Alternatively, why not just include skills as a passive bonus you earn over time?

To be clear, I don't mean gimping your character and making the player grind to return to their original strength, but an actual reward. And I also don't mean reintroducing spamcrafting. It could be limited to learn-by-doing skills present in A16.

 
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Spam crafting wasn't really possible as a viable strategy in A16. It was in A15…. Did you play A16 much? It was setup to stop progressing at 100 of the particular skill so you couldn't spam craft a skill forever to unlock everything else. Your ability to unlock unrelated strengths was capped at the skill points you received at each level, which didn’t get you very far usually in terms of unlocking a great new ability/item.
I’m confused by your point on this. A17’s system is exactly what you don’t want….? People will just do whatever is the best XP generating activity to unlock everything else in the game now (killing zombies currently). I could do nothing else in this game except kill zombies outside of one POI with a wooden club and unlock every skill in the game. How is that a good system?

After I spent my 60 game days whacking zombies and leveling, then I would start building a base with the best materials and try to waste the least amount of time farming/mining/scavenging at low levels where your stamina, block damage, and odds of finding higher level gear are junk. If I have a gripe, it’s that the focus is now on forcing people to experience the “full progression”, and it’s now the same formula every single playthrough. Just because I can pick a different perk, and my character is now faster/shoots different stuff better/whacks zombies on heads harder/carries more stuff - doesn’t mean it’s not the same every playthrough. You aren’t hearing what people are saying in this regards. The new design and changes to the looting/skill gain/stamina/mining speed have tossed the incentive structure for interacting with your environment out the window and locked away all the interesting things behind XP.

Everyone agrees. It is now a simpler system. Most everyone in this thread (and countless others) agree they like it less.

I think there are a lot of people that would enjoy playing A17 RPG. Fallout, Diablo, and Skyrim are testaments to that system. There are a lot of people that have played your game for years that don’t too though. It’s just that I’m in the latter category, and I don’t want to experience the “full progression” of gimp to grunt. I would much rather TFP concentrate less on skill progression/playthrough duration and figure out new and different ways to take advantage of your best asset – which is a fully customizable, voxel-based, multiplayer world. If you did it well; you could delete XP and level gates altogether, make it such that you got better at about half dozen activities that influenced your character’s abilities/strengths by doing, employed systems within the environment to reward and achieve the difficulty needed to gain the skills you want to include, and then focus on reasons for people to build/explore/interact with each other. This game has endless potential as a multiplayer game. You can build a generic action RPG/zombie shooter without the voxels. With this engine, those are always going to be the least impressive assets.
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Bravo.

The vocal minority are those that come to the forum and vote on this stuff.
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Then again the non-vocal majority may just be people not playing A17 because the new skill system didn't stick with them. See where i'm getting at ? Extrapolating based on one's own beliefs is never going to add much to a debate nor incentivize one.

 
So upon what are you basing the belief that the people not voicing their opinions have the opinion it is better, or how many of them there are, if they aren't voicing their opinions anywhere?

 
A friend would give them the books on augers and gas, a stack of repair kits, and then they would auger sand to get levels the quickest. .
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That sounds far-fetched and not something that is going to happen a lot (auger schematic is rare for one thing). This "Steel by day 3 in A16" crap that gets trotted out regular as clockwork by defenders of A17 is just that. Crap. Pure hyperbole.

 
Then again the non-vocal majority may just be people not playing A17 because the new skill system didn't stick with them. See where i'm getting at ? Extrapolating based on one's own beliefs is never going to add much to a debate nor incentivize one.
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There's only a very few people whose minds you must change. Community polls that support or destroy your position don't matter at all if this small team of people don't end up agreeing with you. It looks like you've got the attention of one of them in this thread so now it just comes down to being compelling and making your case in a convincing manner.

Everyone else can just pound sand.

 
Bravo.


Then again the non-vocal majority may just be people not playing A17 because the new skill system didn't stick with them. See where i'm getting at ? Extrapolating based on one's own beliefs is never going to add much to a debate nor incentivize one.
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I guess the player count will answer this question after stable comes along, and im pretty confident it will be just fine.

 
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There's only a very few people whose minds you must change. Community polls that support or destroy your position don't matter at all if this small team of people don't end up agreeing with you. It looks like you've got the attention of one of them in this thread so now it just comes down to being compelling and making your case in a convincing manner.
Everyone else can just pound sand.
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We already know MM's position. It's our fault that we aren't having fun because we haven't adjusted our play styles. He's been saying it since day 1 of A17 release. If he is the only one calling the shots, we are screwed.

I've already looked at the config files, I'll have to mod way too many things to make it enjoyable again. Chances are, I won't bother.

 
We already know MM's position. It's our fault that we aren't having fun because we haven't adjusted our play styles. He's been saying it since day 1 of A17 release. If he is the only one calling the shots, we are screwed.
I've already looked at the config files, I'll have to mod way too many things to make it enjoyable again. Chances are, I won't bother.
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Use modlets to get what you want out of the game no need to edit anything and there super easy to install. If you get to the point where your not having fun anymore maybe it's time to move on and find a new game.

 
I'm sorry madmole but I just can't agree with that. I agree spamcrafting was a problem but personally I've just never done it and I'm sure a lot of others haven't either. Just because some people ruin their experience (or not actually, it's pretty subjective) shouldn't lead to a solution that ruins it for others. And as a side note, there would have been other ways to prevent spam-crafting, pretty easily may I add.
You're right, no more RNG gods. But also no more thrill and diversity. The game feels like a movie where I've been told the full script and the end : no more frustrating loss of time watching a ♥♥♥♥ movie, but also no more suspense not knowing where the whole thing is going.

Like I said, I agree that the perception/agility/fortitude/strenght trees are pretty nice. But the concerns I've seen A LOT on the forums are all about the intelligence tree. By all means consider that having no RNG at all and "nothing special to accomplish" to unlock basically every recipe in the game is NOT a leap forward. It scripts the whole process of character progression and it does have ramifications on scopes way past character improvement (importance / necessity of looting, thrill of finding Crack a Book, diversity in each playthrough...)

I'll just put it out simply : locking every recipe behind "simply-spend-points-to-unlock" perks kills any emotions regarding the unlocking of those said recipes. Sure, no more "RNG frustration". But 0 thrill and 0 feel of reward/accomplishment either. And a game that doesn't provoke emotions is a game that gets dusty pretty quick.

Regardless of convincing you or not, thank you for taking the time to share some input, it's really much appreciated.
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What did you have to find before ? Gun parts? Now you have to find mods as guns by themselves are ok, but not stellar until you mod them out. Why do you have to buy int and craft everything for yourself? Role play as a dummy or bruiser and not spend anything on INT. Find what you need in the world or from traders, or have friends make what you need. I don't see much difference between 17 and 16 in terms of what you have to find, can you elaborate?

 
Please play till at least level 100 (where you become OP and can craft everything at top tier with no effort), and not just the first game week.
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Trust me I've tried. Save games broke my progress more times than I'd like. I did hit level 65 once when the game was a lot harder than it is now lol. That guy never got his revenge.

 
Steel was gated behind level 40 in A16, so how did they manage that exactly?


For many the whole point of a survival game is making the best out of what you find, then going out to find what you don't have to further improve your quality of life. If instead you just unconditionally give the player everything in the game* the moment he hits a certain level and spends appropriate points, where is that "survival game" joy? Where is the replayability? Every single play-through now I will have a Mini-bike at the stroke of level 40. :(

* except beakers
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This is reasonable feedback. The idea was that who wants to play as that rocket scientist character whos smart enough to craft everything? I suppose everyone if you can level endlessly and buy perks endlessly. IMO by level 100 or so most people would want to start a new game, I play to about level 50 in fallout skyrim then start over and pick all new perks and play completely differently, and role play with traits and stuff. I guess we're not quite there yet, but I certainly don't play INT 10 in Fallout, you can find gun mods and stuff so there is no reason to if your willing to scavenge or find what you want as a trader.

Maybe we need to only have 1 or two attributes you can go to 10 on, so that people actually have to decide if they want to suck at guns in order to craft the best stuff.

The other option is to move some crafting around. Like to craft handguns you need the gunslinger perks and at least INT5. Multi requirements are tricky though so probably not a good idea.

Probably a limited economy of attribute points or make them cost more and more to reach 10. Then we could remove the level gates.

 
Probably a limited economy of attribute points or make them cost more and more to reach 10. Then we could remove the level gates.
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This has been a popular suggestion in the forums.

 
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