PC Do you guys like this new leveling system ?

[Poojam]

I just don't see how its fun to "get hit" to improve at endurance. How is it fun bunny hopping jumping and falling to improve agility? (Oblivion) What if you love melee combat, and you maxed out your strength? You could no longer progress at strength activities and you would be forced to do things you don't want to do to advance your character which is lame (Skyrim one handed/two handed was this way). How is spam crafting stuff you don't need engaging to advance intellect?
The current system allows you to play how you want, not spam craft, and not partake in activities that you aren't interested in to progress. Just play the game and advance and have nice perks to specialize in. I think its 1000x better than anything we've ever had if you just relax and focus on survival instead of staring at the XP bar.

As far as leveling speed, its a double edged sword. It takes time to build a fort and scavenge enough decent weapons and gear and if you level too fast you are NOT ready for the game staged nasties that come your way.

Those are very good examples of bad design, but I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on those items. That doesn’t mean everything else was bad about learning-by-doing. Based on what I’ve read over the last few weeks, there is far more discontent surrounding how it is attributed to scavenging, mining, crafting and shooting. If you wanted to get better at mining, then it made sense that your character would get stronger and do more damage to blocks as you mined. If you wanted to become a better marksman, then it made sense that your skill improved after you shot a gun a bunch and did damage. If you wanted to be a better scavenger then you had to go out and do it. Running, stamina et etc.

These activities, progression, and game’s incentive structure were natural and inherently understood by people that picked it up. It also provided an alternative for those who despised certain activities, by allowing you to just purchase the points in that particular skill. It was a very good hybrid system with a lot of inherent flexibility that could have been improved. The game passively encouraged people to play the game in the most enjoyable/rewarding way. As a lead developer, you should understand that this is THE goal in terms of good game design when it comes to XP-based leveling progression system.

The new system tosses all that encouragement out the window and feels like an artificial penalization system where you have to “play” for X hours to unlock Y perk. It’s disconnected from the player’s actions, overly simplistic in lieu of the A16 system – yet more difficult to understand (need a better UI), offers little replay value, and is quite dull. It is easier for someone to pick up and “understand” and probably easier to balance, but those come at a great cost to the game’s enjoyment imo.

edit - This was posted in another thread by another user, but I think it would serve your team well to watch.

 

[meganoth]

Your whole post can be boiled down to the last sentence in the part you quoted me on:
One can only assume what we should do later in reference to balancing.

Its also the sentence I didn't understand, sorry. "We" as in we players? Balancing as in mods because you don't like the vanilla system?

If that was your message, I don't see any boiling of my message could arrive there.

 

[Frekton]

Those are very good examples of bad design, but I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on those items. That doesn’t mean everything else was bad about learning-by-doing. Based on what I’ve read over the last few weeks, there is far more discontent surrounding how it is attributed to scavenging, mining, crafting and shooting. If you wanted to get better at mining, then it made sense that your character would get stronger and do more damage to blocks as you mined. If you wanted to become a better marksman, then it made sense that your skill improved after you shot a gun a bunch and did damage. If you wanted to be a better scavenger then you had to go out and do it. Running, stamina et etc.
These activities, progression, and game’s incentive structure were natural and inherently understood by people that picked it up. It also provided an alternative for those who despised certain activities, by allowing you to just purchase the points in that particular skill. It was a very good hybrid system with a lot of inherent flexibility that could have been improved. The game passively encouraged people to play the game in the most enjoyable/rewarding way. As a lead developer, you should understand that this is THE goal in terms of good game design when it comes to XP-based leveling progression system.

The new system tosses all that encouragement out the window and feels like an artificial penalization system where you have to “play” for X hours to unlock Y perk. It’s disconnected from the player’s actions, overly simplistic in lieu of the A16 system – yet more difficult to understand (need a better UI), offers little replay value, and is quite dull. It is easier for someone to pick up and “understand” and probably easier to balance, but those come at a great cost to the game’s enjoyment imo.

I've yet to read any better description of the current problem. We said !

 

[PoppaTot]

Its also the sentence I didn't understand, sorry. "We" as in we players? Balancing as in mods because you don't like the vanilla system?

Sorry, we have miscommunication then. What I mean by that is; I fully understand that this is an experimental build and I'm giving my criticisms as to what we (the players) have been directed by game design to do now, which is to kill zombies for XP (regardless if power leveling or not) and what we (the players) have to do in the future can only be speculated because we don't have the balancing that stable will hopefully bring.

This is not a sarcastic reply either, only reason I add this footnote is because I know that typed word can be hard to interpret sarcasm and the such. Hope that better explains what I mean though.

 

[wastelandstoic]

I am curious, do you guys find it fun to play ? For me, leveling is very boring. It reminded me on diablo 2 (one of my favourite games), pure hack'n slash. But i dont find it fun here. Oh look, a zombie. thats 500 experience. 19 more to kill and i am going to levelup.
I loved using pistol to improve pistol skills, using axe to level up block damage and so on... Is it changed because forum complained or devs are just trying out something new?

Got bored after few hours playing solo

Don't care for it at all. Playing A16.4 and having fun playing solo on a multiplayer server. 16.4 will be my goto version going forward.

 

[ktr]

I am curious, do you guys find it fun to play ? For me, leveling is very boring. It reminded me on diablo 2 (one of my favourite games), pure hack'n slash. But i dont find it fun here. Oh look, a zombie. thats 500 experience. 19 more to kill and i am going to levelup.
I loved using pistol to improve pistol skills, using axe to level up block damage and so on... Is it changed because forum complained or devs are just trying out something new?

Got bored after few hours playing solo

Yep! still having a blast. As for leveling system, I never notice nor care much about the xp gains. The way I play the game has changed very little in A17. Secure food>secure a base>prep for horde night. How I go about those things is a little different: I tend to hit up the trader more early game to get better tools/spare resources & I'm much more careful about looting - but aside from that, I couldn't tell you how many zombies it'll take for a level or how much xp a rock gives me.

 

[Kaiote]

Really enjoying the direction it is going. Especially looking forward to balances and additions to the party system. Tried A16.4 with the missus, but we didn't enjoy the RNG and imbalance of xp between our playstyles. I would build/craft, she would kill/loot and on our last playthrough before we uninstalled I was 40 lvls higher than her. The pace feels much better now, and I think the devs are zeroing in on that balance. Day 21 on default b208 we were able to stay on par partyed up, and the perk changes now in b221 seem to be even more refined.

 

[meganoth]

Sorry, we have miscommunication then. What I mean by that is; I fully understand that this is an experimental build and I'm giving my criticisms as to what we (the players) have been directed by game design to do now, which is to kill zombies for XP (regardless if power leveling or not) and what we (the players) have to do in the future can only be speculated because we don't have the balancing that stable will hopefully bring.
This is not a sarcastic reply either, only reason I add this footnote is because I know that typed word can be hard to interpret sarcasm and the such. Hope that better explains what I mean though.

Ok, get it, thanks for the explanation.

 

[madmole]

So the confessions of multiple developers that zombie xp is too much were lies or misdirections? That less zombies are in houses now is no sign of balancing but due to their bad conscience? All the players who called for a lot more zombies in an area instead of bullet sponges were never a reason to put more zombies into the game? All the players who lamented about empty cities were not a reason to put more zombies there? That in A16 digging in sand was by far the fastest xp source doesn't show that balancing is not that easy but that sand-digging was glaringly obvious the development path of A16?
I have perfectly valid reasons and explanations to see the changes in a different light. But obviously, besides pointing at occams razor, I can't prove anything,

Look at the power attack. It was quite clear and obvious that having no use for the normal attack is not intention but a balancing issue (or do you have a conspiracy theory for that as well?). If the developers had time to play the game a few dozen hours they probably would have seen this. Now was this intention or just the result of developers who had not played the game much before releasing the experimental? Either because they were already so far behind their schedule or because their intention was to release at the earliest time and not have any balance pass before the release.

I could give you more examples to show that it is very unlikely that they had time to test A17e before release. The first release had no level gates for example. Obviously nobody had time to test before release if that worked. Or was that intention as well?

I'd been playing and giving feedback for quite some time, but getting to that when your stomping out showstopping bugs can be difficult at times. But when your adding features, and some systems are missing its tough to do balancing. We're on it now, I'm playing half the day and making adjustments.
The power attack was intended to stop stamina regen for several seconds and onItemActionEnd function was broke or something, so its hard to consider balance when its not all working right. Anyhow we're working on it. I'm planning on playing A17 after experimental and continue to do balancing for a while.

 

[beHypE]

Those are very good examples of bad design, but I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on those items. That doesn’t mean everything else was bad about learning-by-doing. Based on what I’ve read over the last few weeks, there is far more discontent surrounding how it is attributed to scavenging, mining, crafting and shooting. If you wanted to get better at mining, then it made sense that your character would get stronger and do more damage to blocks as you mined. If you wanted to become a better marksman, then it made sense that your skill improved after you shot a gun a bunch and did damage. If you wanted to be a better scavenger then you had to go out and do it. Running, stamina et etc.
These activities, progression, and game’s incentive structure were natural and inherently understood by people that picked it up. It also provided an alternative for those who despised certain activities, by allowing you to just purchase the points in that particular skill. It was a very good hybrid system with a lot of inherent flexibility that could have been improved. The game passively encouraged people to play the game in the most enjoyable/rewarding way. As a lead developer, you should understand that this is THE goal in terms of good game design when it comes to XP-based leveling progression system.

The new system tosses all that encouragement out the window and feels like an artificial penalization system where you have to “play” for X hours to unlock Y perk. It’s disconnected from the player’s actions, overly simplistic in lieu of the A16 system – yet more difficult to understand (need a better UI), offers little replay value, and is quite dull. It is easier for someone to pick up and “understand” and probably easier to balance, but those come at a great cost to the game’s enjoyment imo.

edit - This was posted in another thread by another user, but I think it would serve your team well to watch.

Very well put. I agree with everything and I really hope this gets read by the right eyes.

I also wholeheartedly agree with Guppy's suggestions. I understand books may have been frustrating to some, but instead of totally removing them in favor of a static recipe-tree, other options to unlock "unfindable books because of RNG" could have been added. More options, less dumbing down.

 

[madmole]

These activities, progression, and game’s incentive structure were natural and inherently understood by people that picked it up. It also provided an alternative for those who despised certain activities, by allowing you to just purchase the points in that particular skill. It was a very good hybrid system with a lot of inherent flexibility that could have been improved. The game passively encouraged people to play the game in the most enjoyable/rewarding way. As a lead developer, you should understand that this is THE goal in terms of good game design when it comes to XP-based leveling progression 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.

 

[PoppaTot]

your saying I have to go kill stuff and raise my strength to level up some more?

This is what we have to do currently in experimental. I'm genuinely looking forward to the balances you've spoken of. Is there any tidbits you'd being willing to drop on future plans? If not, I get it, wouldn't want people to hold you to it if what you say doesn't happen to a "T".

 

[Ghostlight]

Forge Ahead by returning to the past?...so many folks didn't like that back then

I am sure those people will be delighted that the search for recipes and thus the need to loot has been replaced by the search for.....nothing, and no need to loot.

 

[beHypE]

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.

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.

 

[Ghostlight]

I'm planning on playing A17 after experimental and continue to do balancing for a while.

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.

 

[Ghostlight]

No it didn't. Everyone spam crafted stone axes to get to pink and had steel armor by day 3

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

and skipped the most enjoyable process of the game which is slowly improving and overcoming all the hardships of the early game

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

 

[Corbit]

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.

I am still baffled to this day why stone axes gave xp past a certain point and that steel is still so easy to make.

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?

Remove levels, problem solved.

If all you're interested in is crafting, what happens once you have maxed out the Intellect perks? What do I do if all I enjoy doing is killing zombies and I have every perk there is to help me do that?

 

[Guppycur]

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.

That's because you allowed spamming stone axes to buy steel. You had it half right... Spamming stone axes should have yielded a kick ass stone axe, not open up concrete, steel, or the myriad of other things that would incentivize spamming stone axes.

 

[Ornias]

Right now it just feels like there is little incentive to explore. I can setup atop a store and farm an area for weeks to level up. I do not feel like I have to go hunt better items just hunt zombs.

 

[Deceptive Pastry]

No it didn't. Everyone spam crafted stone axes to get to pink and had steel armor by day 3

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.