PC Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[OzHawkeye]

I feel the dev team underestimated how important RWG is to this game at this point of development. They had a year plus to get this right for version 17 and failed to deliver. I feel a lot of the complaints about other parts of the game would be much smaller if we had a working RWG. What do you all think?

Personally, I think they tried to put too much into a single Alpha release. There may well be reasons for it, and good ones at that, that we're not aware of (I certainly don't have any inside information on that score), but with the delay between A16 and A17 being what it is, I think it would have been better if A17 had hit the ground running on multiple fronts.

As someone who only plays RWG, it's current state has certainly impacted me more than any other feature, but in hindsight, I suspect it might have been better to change less of the games other systems in one go, and so (potentially, possibly) reduce the gap between 16 and 17, and give the player base more time to mull over what was changed.

The longer cycle and consequently greater change, may have itself, put people off side, where the changes, in smaller, more frequent increments, might not otherwise have done so.

 

[SnakeWildlife]

95% of my gameplay, is mining and being in my base. I only need to go out looting PoI's for ONE thing...for modifications, EVERYTHING ELSE, to sustain yourself, is done at base.

 

[meganoth]

Yes, this is why this is not my preferred approach, and prefer dropping all attributes to one "big" attribute instead. I still don't wish to be limited on an attribute-by-attribute basis as it is now, so I would still probably be salty, lol.


Why would there be 23 new perk trees? You could have one attribute and only 5 tiers easily using a DRG like approach.

At the moment you have to spend 23 points per attribute, i.e. 5 times 23 = 115. Together with perks you are fully perked up somewhere around 300. In a perk system without attribute points you would be fully perked at about (300-115 = level 185). You need a new sink for those 115 points if you still want the progression last until 300.

But I see you talk about making perks cost more than one point. Yes, that would work. Since there are 9x5= 45 perk trees and you need to put about 115 points into it on average 2 levels per perk would have to cost 2 points.

Each tier would contain ALL of the level 1 skills, tier 2 would have ALL of the level 2 skills and so on and so forth, in the simplest implementation. I suspect, I haven't done a good job describing the DRG system. So with this, because there is now only one attribute, you may have to spend significantly more points (Let's say 10, instead of the 3 as before) before you progress to tier 2, and then maybe 15 to get to 3, and so on and so forth. I STILL would dislike this over the ability to "Simply buy any skill when I want it on demand regardless of level, or attribute", or learning by doing, but I would like this more than what we have now.

EDIT I see the confusion now. Yes to rebalance the game, some skills may need to need more than 1 point per level. This would require maybe some slight thought. Or decrease the max level. Either way.

You say spend 10 to tier 2 and 15 to tier 3 as an example. Lets say I have spent 10 points and could buy tier 2 perks. Would I now need 5 or 15 more points to reach tier 3? In other words are the 10 already included in the 15?

One problem I see is that as soon as you have reached the number for tier 5 you can have anything from each tree. I know, this is exactly what you want, but it also means you are getting much more powerful in mid-game because you can pick all the perks with synergies out of all trees. Just as an example:

There is boom headshot and hidden strike, a very powerful combination. Getting one of them maxed needs 28 points, getting both maxed needs 56. This might be exactly the intention, as their synergies are just too good.

Attribute separation has another advantage: Perks don't need to balanced perfectly. Lets assume that heavy armor isn't quite as wonderful as light armor, but IF you already have put a lot of points in fortitude you really start to reconsider if heavy armor instead of light might not be the better because cheaper solution for you. This is actually something I like about the A17 system as my choices depend on the attributes I previously had skilled.

In effect the perks in your system AND the synergies they provide would have to be balanced much finer than now.

I am not necessarily advocating for new perks. In fact, this system could be implemented with ZERO change to the current perks or attributes, or very minimal, that's the beauty of it. Very little to no re-work. See my previous paragraph for demonstration why it is MORE freedom. You are right, keeping the 5 attributes prolly won't change things too much. Again why I much prefer scrapping them.

The thing is that going to one attribute would probably not affect your playstyle of "spreading points around" all that much for the most part, while it would dramatically improve my enjoyment. That's a win, right? The goal is to make everyone happy. I was advocating LBD for a while but now it's clear many people don't want it, so now I'm just trying to see how I and maybe others can get behind the new system lol

Weeell, I don't think the freedom we talk about is just one dimension. While this system allows some things that the A17 system doesn't it also prevents some things the A17 system allows. I.e. early specialization, which might be done especially in co-op games. Now that might even be something you can sell to TFP as a big advantage because they can gate forges and iron tools better without it getting so much attention.

Yes, I think I could live with this system as well as with the A17 system. I have my doubts about mid- and end-game though as it might lead even more to people always picking the same perks.

 

[Maynard69]

Certain aspects of RWG so far in a17 are so bad. My biggest complaint with it POI distribution (cell tower, water works ect), elevated POI terrain (causing collapses), and Ore distribution. Oh and size, so much size... I hate small maps.

I could live just fine with bad roads, biome placement problems ect. But the other stuff, coupled with the new dull perk system, loss of RNG chase loot, level gates, ect is enough to make me lose interest prematurely in every playthrough I have done in a17.

Feels too incomplete, not thought out, and tiresome compared to the winning formula they were working on before a17. But ya the RWG is pretty bad too.I hope a lot of the game changes in the future, I am leaking hope like a siv lately though.

The straw that will break the camels back will be if they release a new pretty RWG with fancy rivers and bridges and then I come to a city with 30 cell towers in it still. If that happens and I'm out for real. (probably) (well, at least until it goes gold)

 

[Maynard69]

In Payday 2 you still had a prerequisite number of points you had to spend to move up a level in each tree. So there was times you had to spend on stuff you didnt want too. I honestly hated that system, I would either spend hours setting and resetting my points as I progressed, or copy a meta build because I would get fed up with dealing with the perks. (hated doing that though)

 

[meganoth]

I didn't perk up in guns until around day 60-70+ in A16. I used a standard wooden bow or a crossbow and for the most part was fine. Brass was a semi rare commodity and shotgun rounds went to my turrets. By the time zombies hit Rad levels on horde night, I had my base so heavily built that even with just a bow I'd be fine. It took some research, youtube watching, and base planning to get to that point. But by the end of A15 I had my method down pat.
A17 made things just more annoying to do.

Mining without stealth skills and stealthing underground draws zombies (which honestly I've not heard anyone test the stealth mining, so don't know if that even is working).

I looked up "From the shadows" in-game and the text differs from the wiki. Now level 5 gives 60% reduction. Which may or may not be sufficient. It is one thing we might test soon in our co-op game as we want to do a top-down mine with a hanging platform in the center.

Skills to just get to iron tools requires a week+ (in game time) on all default settings. Unless you go hog wild on POI's pulling XP. But then you don't get much time to setup your week one base without claiming a POI.

I don't think XP grinding is the optimal way, especially in SP. You need resources more than xp+gamestage. Do a quest each day and you either get iron tools from that or get the money to buy one or two iron tools. Loot building sites and you get lots of materials even without much of a fight. My base in 17.0 was just one of the really big stones i cut to a rectangular shape and a 2 wide spike garden with a cobblestone wall around. It worked very well for day 7.

I suppose if some of the bugs on POI usage were ironed out once and for all, it wouldn't be so bad. But a release was put out where TFP announces...

"Hey! POI's are safe to take over again survivors! We've fixed zombie spawns, POI's resetting, etc!"...

Then maybe the rest of us who don't want to deal with our starter base getting squashed or surprised spawns would go back to that. In fairness, taking over a POI was fun when I first started playing. Just... was buggy.

We always use a POI as main base and it happened only once that a poi reset on us, in A16 + Darkness Falls. We took over a trader as main- and horde base (trader POIs are vulnerable in that mod). After the reset I just reloaded a backup.

 

[Cirion]

In Payday 2 you still had a prerequisite number of points you had to spend to move up a level in each tree. So there was times you had to spend on stuff you didnt want too. I honestly hated that system, I would either spend hours setting and resetting my points as I progressed, or copy a meta build because I would get fed up with dealing with the perks. (hated doing that though)

this can certainly happen if the perks aren't well thought out. They spent so much time thinking about the perks in DRG that virtually all of them are enticing. you have to think about it because many paths are tempting.

I also hate it when games with perk systems have "Filler" perks that virtually no one will ever pick. No argument there

 

[Cirion]

One problem I see is that as soon as you have reached the number for tier 5 you can have anything from each tree. I know, this is exactly what you want, but it also means you are getting much more powerful in mid-game because you can pick all the perks with synergies out of all trees.

I see nothing wrong with this. After all you are already at near end-game by the time this happens. And remember, if done right, you'll still need up to 10-15 points to bring up a skill from 1-5, so you'd still want to think about it before blindly putting points in something.

It should be worth noting that I believe it was Roland that mentioned to me that he considers level 100 "End-Game" and that the last 200 level ups are there just so you can max everything. With that in mind, I absolutely think you should be able to start getting anything you want by 80-100.

Attribute separation has another advantage: Perks don't need to balanced perfectly. Lets assume that heavy armor isn't quite as wonderful as light armor, but IF you already have put a lot of points in fortitude you really start to reconsider if heavy armor instead of light might not be the better because cheaper solution for you. This is actually something I like about the A17 system as my choices depend on the attributes I previously had skilled.

I get you are trying hard to explain how A17 can be good and I have to hand it to you. But I simply don't agree. Again, I hate the fact that sometimes, I have to spend the 28 points to get something I want. Nothing will change my mind here. You're not wrong, it's just that this is the lazy approach. Take the work, and balance everything so this doesn't happen. Or at least make it so the skills that are "Better" cost more points, that is the simplest approach.

In effect the perks in your system AND the synergies they provide would have to be balanced much finer than now.

This, I probably agree with if you think it would really be an issue.

Weeell, I don't think the freedom we talk about is just one dimension. While this system allows some things that the A17 system doesn't it also prevents some things the A17 system allows. I.e. early specialization, which might be done especially in co-op games. Now that might even be something you can sell to TFP as a big advantage because they can gate forges and iron tools better without it getting so much attention.

Yes, TFP level gated crafting after all but didn't level gate anything else. I personally think it makes no sense to level gate one thing and not the other. Either gate everything, or gate nothing. Don't be on the fence about it.

Yes, I think I could live with this system as well as with the A17 system. I have my doubts about mid- and end-game though as it might lead even more to people always picking the same perks.

Solvable if virtually every perk is tempting. Even so, most people now in A17 pick the same path anyway, so it is hardly different. Most people tend to gravitate towards primarily combat specializations. Not all, but a large majority. It's pretty much the meta for early game grinding. Literally no matter how the perk system is set up, there will ALWAYS be a meta. There is no way around this, but you can at least make people consider choosing paths that are only marginally worse than meta.

The thing is though it is PRECISELY because of the mid-late game benefits that I want such a system. You've earned it - you reached end-game, now you can get what you want.

 

[Wigbert]

My internet really sucks and I can not really play multiplayer.

RWG is my everything.

 

[Alphado-Jaki]

For those who are tired with bad poi distribution and too small cities, I made the mods for that.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?110773-Alphado-s-modlet

But, road and biome..., we need to wait till they fix.

 

[Gas]

I feel the dev team underestimated how important RWG is to this game at this point of development. They had a year plus to get this right for version 17 and failed to deliver. I feel a lot of the complaints about other parts of the game would be much smaller if we had a working RWG. What do you all think?

While I don't think RWG is particularly good, I believe the thinking around that is "Let's get everything close to how we want it in a controlled environment, and then work on an uncontrolled environment."

I'm not a programmer by any means, but just the way I would organize things is dealing with manageable pieces and building from that.

Personally, I think the leveling system is more of an issue than RWG. It doesn't matter how good or bad the RWG is if the basic progression of the character doesn't work well.

 

[Aldranon]

95% of my gameplay, is mining and being in my base. I only need to go out looting PoI's for ONE thing...for modifications, EVERYTHING ELSE, to sustain yourself, is done at base.

Well, brass and bones too. Paper is always a nice find.

 

[Asbualal]

Thanks for your feedback. I think as time goes on the easy exploits that have been found regarding the new AI will be closed and a new variety of building options will be discovered by the players. Already we are seeing builds being reported by players that other players initially stated were impossible. Some players are leaders and love to experiment and discover the secrets and other players need those players to post their findings so they can have fun too.
Adaptation will result in many varieties of ways to defend against the enemies that want to kill you. What the developers don't want are methods that are too easy or don't require effort. It's not that they took your list of building strategies and threw darts at them. It is that they looked at general behaviors of zombies and decided what they wanted and what they didn't want.

They don't want zombies running in a loop so they will seek to fix situations that result in a loop.

They don't want zombies standing around or spinning in circles if they can't reach you. So they talked about it and felt that zombie going berserk and laying waste to nearby blocks was something that seemed fitting and would avoid the situation they didn't want.

They don't want zombies partitioned away from the underworld so they gave them the ability to dig.

They don't want zombies to be stopped by simple gaps so they gave them the ability to jump.

See? It's all about the zombie behavior they do and don't want. They are not directly trying to kill player options. What they hope is that players will rise to the challenge that the new behaviors create and come up with creative ways to defend. They don't want players to say, "I guess TFP doesn't want me to play underground." They do want players to say, "Wow, I wonder how I can be successful underground given the new abilities."

Now, as far as avoiding traps, I'm pretty sure TFP doesn't want them doing that and so I'm sure they will look at it. I can promise you that once they have the zombies behaving the way they want the zombies to behave they will call it quits and move on. They won't be continually trying to wreck every good player idea that comes along (unless it is a blatant exploit like the storage chest walls you mentioned)

I know that everyone likes to think of themselves as the center of someone’s world but I’m sorry to say that the developers are not out to get you, act vindictively against you, or to punish you.
I remember when spider zombies and hornets were added to the game. For a time there were similar posts from people complaining that base building was impossible until some figured out how to do it and then more figured out other ways to do it. We are already at the beginning of that transition with more and more people posting base designs that work.

Some exploit behaviors of the zombies that the devs don’t want the zombies to do so those strategies eventually won’t work but others will as players discover them.

As for vultures, you can ignore them. Until your health drops below 90% they just circle passively. I had four of them circling above me last night. I just ignored them and was extra careful to not get hurt.

Hello.

I have a problem generating an actually RANDOM world instead of a certain county. I am seeking on generating a world that is made by scratch and no others will get the same world to really test my survival abilities rather than memorizing where everything is in a certain county. If I were to ask my colleagues if their map is a random map or did they choose the county because they know where everything is, they could say either one and I would never know. I would like to be placed in a world that tests my survival abilities in an unknown environment to really prove my skill in the game. If you do not have this as an option my colleagues, friends, and I would really enjoy this in an update and spread the news of the game to our friends of friends and so-on. Thanks for your time.

Best,

Bradley Jarema – long time fan, streamer, and enthusiast

 

[Roland]

It should be worth noting that I believe it was Roland that mentioned to me that he considers level 100 "End-Game" and that the last 200 level ups are there just so you can max everything. With that in mind, I absolutely think you should be able to start getting anything you want by 80-100.

.

I don’t believe so. I believe that what I said to someone who wondered why there were 300 levels if TFP didn’t intend for us to get everything, is that the game used to be maxxed at 206 points which was intentionally not enough to get everything but after some of their typical listening to the community they added enough levels for those who wanted to be completionists. TFP’s attitude is that everything shouldn’t be able to be gotten during a single playthrough in order to keep choices meaningful. The last 100 levels take a loooooooooong time to do so that was the trade off for TFP—that 99% of players will never actually do it.

I typically play dead is dead. Endgame for me is restarting....

 

[Roland]

Hello.
I have a problem generating an actually RANDOM world instead of a certain county. I am seeking on generating a world that is made by scratch and no others will get the same world to really test my survival abilities rather than memorizing where everything is in a certain county. If I were to ask my colleagues if their map is a random map or did they choose the county because they know where everything is, they could say either one and I would never know. I would like to be placed in a world that tests my survival abilities in an unknown environment to really prove my skill in the game. If you do not have this as an option my colleagues, friends, and I would really enjoy this in an update and spread the news of the game to our friends of friends and so-on. Thanks for your time.

Best,

Bradley Jarema – long time fan, streamer, and enthusiast

The county name is simply a mask to keep the actual seed hidden. Two maps with different seeds but the same county name can be very different. As a streamer this is nice because viewers can’t search for the same county name to get your map. They have to know your seed which doesn’t appear after initially using it to generate the map.

 

[Weazelsun]

My feedback is this.

I like the game and started playing in A15. But, now in A17, I don't find it fun anymore and for me, it's primarily because of not having to go out looting anymore and not being able to have multiple land claim blocks. Back in A16, I loved going out and looting and being ecstatic at finding an auger schematic or even one of the new paint books. I also feel as if there is less loot now, not simply because some items were taken out but more so, the dungeon aspect of the POI and helper blocks make it seem like that. There have been times where I have gone into a POI and it would have lots of fluff in it like barricaded hallways and jump scares, but there were more times I would encounter helper blocks (the blocks showing an empty cabinet), more than actual lootable containers. I also remember a perk in A16 that actually affected the amount of loot one could find in a container that was independent of the loot % setting the server was on.

Speaking of being on a multiplayer server. I remember back in A15 when I started playing I had actually built near a player that built larger, creative structures. This was due to the fact that one could have multiple land claim blocks. I would go out exploring and be awed at these creations that players would make. I remember one creation of being a Roman temple, and one other player also made a castle. An honest to god castle. The other thing of having multiple land claim blocks is that it could allow a player to go to a new unexplored region of the block and start "anew" so to speak.

Now with only one land claim block, it feels like we're not allowed to explore the map. To me, it feels like if we want to be creative or we want to build other bases to experience it in different ways, it feels like the developers don't want us to do that. I know we can still, but it gimped in a way. I hope that this change as well to where could have multiple land claim blocks again without it being a server XML change but to the default of just being to make land claim blocks. Obviously, the crafting recipe itself would have to change again but in my opinion, it would revitalize the player base.

Traders are a nice fresh of air now. I like that the traders somewhat have more of a use now, in the fact of them offering quests. But they do still have to be improved. I have done some questing and am currently up to tier 3 quests now, but the actual item rewards feel lacking. Like for example, I did a tier 3 quest recently and some of the item rewards were a blue-quality iron pickaxe, 10 x pipebombs, 1 x frag rocket, and a herbal antibiotic book. It felt lackluster, and it didn't really feel rewarding as I already had the antibiotic book. I've already got a steel pickaxe. 1 x frag rocket isn't going to be much of a use, and although the pipe bombs are handy it still felt like the trader didn't want to reward me anything better.

It's not that the rewards themselves are bad, unfortunately, there aren't many unique things to reward the player with yet. This is the crux of the problem for certain people when I do a quest I want to be properly rewarded with unique items and lots of dukes, not just 1000 dukes. This could be remedied by artificially having unique items having effects from other items in the game on them, such as imagine having a lucky-steel armor that highlights containers with lots of loot in them or a nerdy-crossbow that gives more kill XP when using it.

So the main feedback:

• Have more lootable containers in a POI or bring back A16 perk that affected the amount of loot in a container
  
• Have the land claim block be at the default setting much like A16, rather than it being a server XML to change it
  
• Introduce more unique loot for the trader to reward a player with and more things to loot in general
  

 

[Ornias]

For me, the joy of exploration is gone. All research now walks up to my front door. No more exploring for the minibike book, no more hoping for the xbow book early. Removing much of the need to explore just removes much of the joy of finding anything. Now I know how many Z's I need to get "X". Building used to be fun and I do appreciate that we have more choices now about Z block damage but solo, why bother? Great game, thousands of hours, but this iteration's skill system is just to bland for my tastes.

 

[HungryZombie]

When all of the important skills and character development are locked up behind xp, it turns out players are inclined to spend their time getting xp to improve their ability to survive...
shocking i say...

shocking.

I have to say I prefer what they have now to A16. The most boring grind for me was getting your construction tools up to unlock concrete in A16. Running around beating and fixing very POI in sight was mind numbing for me.

 

[PoppaTot]

I have to say I prefer what they have now to A16. The most boring grind for me was getting your construction tools up to unlock concrete in A16. Running around beating and fixing very POI in sight was mind numbing for me.

Why did you choose to run around and beat/fix POIs instead of just play? Honest question. Seems like now one would just have run around mind numbingly killing zombies to achieve the same goal, no? It really is all in how we perceive it honestly. So I'm not faulting you for how you play, just saying you didn't have to do it that way. Same thing everyone says about both alphas applies. No reason to speed towards unlocks. I'm guilty of it too. I just never once felt I had to beat/repair random POIs to achieve lvl 40. It usually happened without me realizing it to be honest.

 

[Cirion]

I don’t believe so. I believe that what I said to someone who wondered why there were 300 levels if TFP didn’t intend for us to get everything, is that the game used to be maxxed at 206 points which was intentionally not enough to get everything but after some of their typical listening to the community they added enough levels for those who wanted to be completionists. TFP’s attitude is that everything shouldn’t be able to be gotten during a single playthrough in order to keep choices meaningful. The last 100 levels take a loooooooooong time to do so that was the trade off for TFP—that 99% of players will never actually do it.
I typically play dead is dead. Endgame for me is restarting....

Sorry for misinterpreting your quote, but thanks for the correction.

I think if I have to sum up my points, just as a TL;DR it's simply this

TFP should decide on one of two ways to do perk system (IMO), because this is the most logical sense to me

EITHER:




Give us complete, or almost complete freedom (Allow us to buy ALL perks at ANY time, with ZERO gating) or at least a "less restrictful" gating like the long posts I mention before entail. If TFP is a fan of freedom, this should be their choice. IMO.

OR




Gazz has hinted that they want to force people down the road of "specialization". I am not saying this is the wrong way to do it (it's not what I prefer) but I understand this method, I guess. Anyway, if specialization is the road they want people going down, then make specialization more logical and meaningful. Right now the 5 attributes are not quite organized in a logical fashion. Mining is mixed in with melee combat, bartering and scavenging is mixed in with crafting. Just to name a couple. If specialization is what TFP wants, then at least it should make sense and actually be a truly "Class" system with "attributes" that reflect this (Gun guy, Miner, Medic, Farmer... ETC). I am not saying whether or not I prefer this or not to the current system - I may or may not - , I am just saying this is more logical.

There is one benefit that I do see to making more than 5 "attributes". Let's say they make now 10 classes. This means by definition it costs 50% less to master a class, which actually increases your freedom and lets you dabble in more pools. So with that, I actually think I would prefer EITHER approach that I suggest to what we have now.

I sense a discrepancy because in one post Gazz said he wants specialization but in the other he said he wants freedom. Which is it? I really don't know? Based upon what I can see that they HAVE done, it appears to me they have tried to come up with some convuluted system that "mixes" freedom and specialization. Which is a commendable idea, but almost impossible to do quite right imo (then you have to balance multiple "classes" within one attribute, which is potentially doable, but not at all easy.). It's easier to balance something that swings more towards one side or the other.

Another game I really liked, FFXII, is an example of a game that starts you off with a specific "class" but over time and with enough patience you can start to learn other "classes" and even eventually master them. It was very organic, even more than DRG. There weren't even any gates in FFXII, that I can recall, truly a unique game. You were limited only by the rate at which you could earn EXP (or was it skill points? Can not remember completely). I played the game so much I even had my White mage learn to be a master Warrior and Black mage. It was fun. Lol.