Feedback from player since Alpha 6
If it would be helpful, I would like to provide some feedback for the new Alpha 17 version of the game. I do apologise if this is quite long but hopefully there is some valuable feedback in here somewhere:
My Experience & Preface
To keep it short and sweet I have been playing this game since Alpha 6 in a range of forms: singleplayer, 2-player co-op & multiplayer. I generally play on the default settings (but will only drop toolbar on death in 2 player co-op games with my roommate).
Obviously all of these observations are from one customer and should be treated as such a sample. At the end of the day the developers are in charge of their product and can do what they like with it but ideally of course we all want to end up with something which is both enjoyable and meets TFP's vision.
It's also a good idea to keep in mind, as you read (and I write) this critique, that this game is still in Alpha and is therefore not a "finished" product.
Good Things
There are a LOT of positive changes I have seen in A17, I have a suspicion TFP and I may disagree on why some of these changes are positive (based on Gazz's replies) but regardless here they are:
- New graphics / lighting / models / animations are excellent. Cannot state this enough, it's at the top for a reason.
- PoI's feel really fun, have lots of "secret" loot and bosses are a huge welcome (HI GRACIE)
- Zombie AI doesn't do stupid things like spin around on a bush whacking thin air
- Dogs have been "fixed" (they used to spin around in circles when attacking in one Alpha and it was infuriating)
- Weather system being toned down but still an important factory
- Inventory system & encumbrance is a much welcome change
- Party system and sharing XP is a godsend
- Quests - while limited right now, they will be a fantastic feature in the future
- New Vehicles - I've only gotten to mess around with the bicycle so far and I'm loving the new system
- Zombies jumping deserves it's own bullet point
- Item mods are fun and while the quality 1,2,3,4,5,6 isn't exactly to my taste (reminds me of WoW days) I can see why it was done
- New stamina / health / max systems are great and a big improvement on wellness
- and many, many more improvements for which they should be commended on for their hard work.
Issues with the game
Singleplayer
The one major, glaringly obvious issue I'm seeing with single player is that you cannot experience the game fully until much higher levels. E.g. in multiplayer you can have dedicated crafters, melee, stealth, hunters, farmers, etc. but in singleplayer this is pretty much impossible.
Singleplayer does create some very interesting new challenges but it also does severely limit that player's experience of the game to the very narrow specialsations (at least until higher levels).
Daytime
Until higher levels the daytime is basically a zombie grind. I don't know if that's because I'm only on normal difficulty or because of my playstyle but, barring the odd occassion of being caught unawares in a closed space and/or by dogs, zombies generally are not a threat in daytime until you get to much higher levels (and even then..). Note: this isn't necessarily something that needs "fixing" but it does result in the daytime boiling down to "grind zombies, get loot" which can get a bit repetitive, despite the good job TFP have done with POIs. Unsure on a solution (if one is even needed).
Blood Moon & Base Building
By far and large this seems to be where most of the other forum user's complaints (and mine) are centred right now, so bare with me as I try to unpack it.
Firstly let's look at the currently accepted ways (as far as I know) to tackle the Blood Moon:
- Take them head on with guns & lots of ammo, netting yourself a lot of XP in exchange for ammo expenditure
- Devise some sort of strange-looking ramp-infested base that forces jumping zombies to do some weird AI shennaningans in order for you to, essentially, shoot/melee fish in a barrel. This seems to be the current "meta" build and feels exploity as hell.
- Possibly melee them? I've seen reports of people preparing lots of coffee and meleeing throughout the night, I don't know how they don't get swamped but it's apparently a thing.
- Set a lot of traps to thin down the horde BUT lose out on a LOT of XP because trap kills = no XP
Secondly, let's look at a few things which USED to be possible but are not now:
1. Digging down to bedrock, building a concrete bunker and crying like a baby until morning comes. I admit I have done this a handful of times when things got really hairy.
2. Digging pits to cause fall damage. Never my thing, I preferred log spike fortifications personally.
3. Mazes. Not my thing either but I've seen people have luck with it. Felt a bit exploity.
Why is this? A cocktail of the new changes:
- Zombie fall damage was nerfed majorly
- Zombie AI was improved significantly (they now path BETTER than any human could - they are working with perfect information)
- Zombies now get huge increases to block damage when in greater numbers & can dig down
Now Roland has said above:
"I have never ever heard once during developer discussions a single developer say, “We gotta oust people from playing underground”. Again the OP makes the faulty assumption that the devs are out to stop the players from playing a certain way which is not true."
While it may be true that the intention wasn't to eliminate certain methods of play (Gazz admits they do this, contradicting Roland: see Gazz quote below), the effect is still the same: some methods have been eliminated (or, if not eliminated, made much harder). So let's work through that list above, shall we?
I think we can all agree that many exploits have been fixed and that zombies not being able to dig in general was a bit of an oversight that needed to be corrected.
Zombie AI working on perfect information has been an improvement in many ways but does also make it very difficult when they decide to avoid traps or take a path to you that they couldn't possibly have seen or known about rather than just mindlessly shamble/run towards you ala Day of the Dead.
Fall damage is an interesting one. Gazz (a developer) had this to say:
"If a pit kills every zombie with zero maintenance then it should be pretty easy to see why that needs to be fixed.
Every other means of zombie killing requires some degree of constant effort, supplies or maintenance. See the problem now?"
And my answer is: no, Gazz, I do not see the problem. Roland (a mod) often cites in this thread that people should be experimenting and meeting the challenge of designing new bases... yet when people find an easy solution, you take it away. This is a first strike for me. A developer cannot "meet the challenge" of players creating a clever solution so they just alter physics.
So, please, let me offer you several possibly solutions:
- More flying enemies that obviously can't struggle with falls
- Zombies which can stretch and behave as bridges
- Zombies that can jump further (see: what you guys did with Spider zombies)
- A mechanic to "catch" yourself when falling
- Some sort of larger monstrous zombies who are too big to fall down a pit
- Zombie skydivers who have paraachutes that deploy when falling large distances & stop other zombies taking fall damage. Meaning they're now at the bottom of your pit and will tear down your foundations
- Bodies at the bottom of a pit reducing the fall damage drastically (meaning one or two will die but then they will pile up)
- Accepting a clever solution and accepting that digging a massive moat requires a lot of effort. To reiterate: It isn't my playstyle but if other people want to do it, why stop them?
The final point, and by far the most contentious, is the block damage. Thankfully, as Roland helpfully points out, TFP are adding an option to adjust block damage.
I will say that in my experience in its current state zombie block damage is obscene. I have had concrete structures torn down very quickly on day 14 & 21 by 100+ zombies because they all pile in together and get the "group" bonus. Personally, I think they should deal the same damage (or slightly more) as my fists do to concrete. Doors etc on the other hand are fair game, but that's just my opinion.
1/2 posts - sorry it's ended up being quite long!!
- - - Updated - - -
Developer Comments & Game Vision
Gazz & Roland's replies in general do give me a cause for worry as it seems the games vision has deviated from where I previously though it was: a sandbox zombie survival game. It appears to be morphing into some try-hard "git gud" base design meta game where only the most ridiculously quirky (read: AI shennanigans) bases are worth building in the long term.
Sometimes, guys, the onus isn't on the players to adapt and come up with solutions. A lot of the time that's the developers job. See: the fall damage paragraph above.
An interesting note I would like to make here, that many other people have made, is that the game offers a huge number of options but unfortunately a number of them aren't really very viable. A stealth specialist will excel in days 1-6 but is effectively useless in a Blood Moon because zombies are automatically aware of you. Gazz also explicitly states that melee-exclusive builds are crippled:
"If you insist that melee will be your only means of dealing damage in base defense then you are voluntarily putting yourself at a major disadvantage."
So I do have to question why these options are even in the game at all if using them as you primary specilisation puts you a "major disadvantage"? My own opinion is that, without realising it, TFP have managed to create a situation where only a handful of playstyles are viable for dealing with Blood Moon hordes (providing you don't cheese the AI).
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