PC How do you like A17 experimental?

[Tin]

Got to say, as a dev (and a one time game dev at that!), I know you shouldn't read overly negative opinions of your work. It's so tempting though to see if there is genuine feedback or just ill advised shade being given. After going through this thread a little, there are a lot of people losing their sh*t over what are minor things that are fairly easily fixed and/or balanced. Many provide explicit claims that are questionable at best or simply subjective dislikes and throw them up as examples of the game going to hell in a handcart. You'd think TFP had taken your grandmother out to dinner and not only refused to call her back the next night but pissed in her drink when she wasn't looking.
Ultimately I hope TFP enjoy this thread, not for the negatives (or even the positives) but for the sheer lunacy some of the fan base can adopt.

This^^

 

[meganoth]

TFP need to set the difficulty default lower before A17 drops IMO. I tested difficulty two and I think its about perfect for a first try at the game for most people.

Isn't difficulty two the default anyway? And difficulty starts at zero, so the second-lowest difficulty is difficulty one and that may be what you are refering to.

 

[Aldranon]

Isn't difficulty two the default anyway? And difficulty starts at zero, so the second-lowest difficulty is difficulty one and that may be what you are refering to.

Oops! My bad. Yes, what you said.

I'm still playing difficultly one. It relaxing compared to the higher levels and as I haven't died yet, I will continue until I die or the whole map becomes a series of super fortresses.

 

[ricp]

Out of interest, am I the only one who finds the game almost too easy? Don't get me wrong I'm no elite gamer (was a bit when younger but certainly not now) and if it wasn't for the frame rate issue (partly my PC, partly optimisation) I'd be playing it at the hardest difficulty possible as opposed to the current Nomad settings I have.

I do think that TFP nerfed the difficulty in some way between b197 and b199. I could be wrong but it feels like that.

 

[Thorne]

Got to say, as a dev (and a one time game dev at that!), I know you shouldn't read overly negative opinions of your work. It's so tempting though to see if there is genuine feedback or just ill advised shade being given. After going through this thread a little, there are a lot of people losing their sh*t over what are minor things that are fairly easily fixed and/or balanced. Many provide explicit claims that are questionable at best or simply subjective dislikes and throw them up as examples of the game going to hell in a handcart. You'd think TFP had taken your grandmother out to dinner and not only refused to call her back the next night but pissed in her drink when she wasn't looking.
Ultimately I hope TFP enjoy this thread, not for the negatives (or even the positives) but for the sheer lunacy some of the fan base can adopt.

As a dev you should be on the lookout for common positives and negatives in feedback. People make all sorts of assumptions, and reach all kinds of conclusions based on unique perspectives and various levels of the experience necessary to intelligently weigh in. What you're looking for is broader reality--how the gaming community is responding to the work you've done, and what that can tell you about your good intentions VS the real results. Whether TFP enjoy this thread or not is irrelevant to the goal of the thread. Negative reviews are not bad for TFP. Everything going on in this and every other thread just comes with the territory. Anything that goes too far is the responsibility of the moderators.

Anyone who has spent a lot of time in 7D2D is going to take any changes that they feel affect them negatively very personally, it's human nature. I'll give you one of mine: "How could TFP only give me *1* LCB in A17? Don't they know my last build REQUIRED several dozen?!!" I come off feeling like TFP just spit in my face. Still do, as a matter of fact. My resulting outcry, and doomsday predictions can be moderated, but should not be dismissed entirely by TFP or anyone else, because it represents a reality that somehow has not been properly addressed (or maybe it has been, and I need to be made aware of it). In my case I would say that either TFP was out of touch with their more hardcore base, and didn't realize LCB's got so much use, or there was some really important, under-communicated reason of gameplay that warranted the elimination of elaborate construction (even in experimental).

Once you've released a product, you don't have an option but to contend with both the reaction it elicits, and the expectations it sets. Communication is key at every turn.

 

[Ghostlight]

No problem, this is the "BIG POLL", not the 400-500 forum people that voted here, but the million people who will vote with their time, playing A17. I regret that most people will probably have no idea A17 hit the street, but I'm hoping for well over 40k active players with a slow drop to, hopefuly, over 20k.
TFP need to set the difficulty default lower before A17 drops IMO. I tested difficulty two and I think its about perfect for a first try at the game for most people.

There is no doubt in my mind that new players to the game who start at A17 will come away with a much more negative view than if the same new players had started with A16.4. No doubt AT ALL. Yes difficulty is a thing, because they implemented difficulty via the age-old fail way....bullet sponges. Not good. No one likes that. But as you say difficulty can be tweaked. The real problem here is the absolute tediousness of the first week of play. OUT OF STAMINA every 10 seconds, for example. No new player is going to come way with a positive impression of the game if that is his first experience of it.

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Out of interest, am I the only one who finds the game almost too easy? Don't get me wrong I'm no elite gamer (was a bit when younger but certainly not now) and if it wasn't for the frame rate issue (partly my PC, partly optimisation) I'd be playing it at the hardest difficulty possible as opposed to the current Nomad settings I have.
I do think that TFP nerfed the difficulty in some way between b197 and b199. I could be wrong but it feels like that.

Absolutely agree that A17 is the easiest alpha for some time. However it goes a bit like this....

Week 1: Hard, tedious, boring, frustrating, die a lot

Week 2: About right! Fun!

Week 3: Zombies no longer a threat except in extreme cases, such as horde night

Week 4: piss poor easy. Player is super-OP. Horde night laughable

So it is easy to see why peeps think it is a new era of hard and challenging.

 

[ricp]

Absolutely agree that A17 is the easiest alpha for some time. However it goes a bit like this....

Week 1: Hard, tedious, boring, frustrating, die a lot

Week 2: About right! Fun!

Week 3: Zombies no longer a threat except in extreme cases, such as horde night

Week 4: piss poor easy. Player is super-OP. Horde night laughable

So it is easy to see why peeps think it is a new era of hard and challenging.

I think a lot expect it to play like A16, as you swagger into PoI's and dispatch zombies with aplomb and any that escape your first volley will (thanks to A16 AI) run around in circles.

I don't really agree with your "week analysis" as to be honest the horde night in A16 was pretty easy once you are crafting iron and concrete (say week 2 in your list?). I'd also say the new AI pathing and the amount of damage (which again needs balancing) makes it more challenging. I create a new world with each build release so very late game will probably only come once it's on stable.

Overall though, I'd say it needs balancing. The core, for me anyway, is there. I am no fan of the skill gates, and I'm on record saying that, but in the same way mods brought specialisation classes to A16 I feel those things will happen again.

 

[Aldranon]

There is no doubt in my mind that new players to the game who start at A17 will come away with a much more negative view than if the same new players had started with A16.4. No doubt AT ALL. Yes difficulty is a thing, because they implemented difficulty via the age-old fail way....bullet sponges. Not good. No one likes that. But as you say difficulty can be tweaked. The real problem here is the absolute tediousness of the first week of play. OUT OF STAMINA every 10 seconds, for example. No new player is going to come way with a positive impression of the game if that is his first experience of it.

Fortunately, TFP haven't released A17 yet. They probably have one shot to make a good impression to... I have no idea how many people, before they uninstall and forget they own the game.

I think its best to error on the side of too easy than too hard for many people who press play... die then never play again. An expansive and inclusive difficulty menu (maybe somewhat like Factorio) would solve many problems, IMO.

It's in everyone's best interest to help A17 be a great success. With more active players bring more sales, which allows for a greater game and one day (hopefully) a New York sized city with plots, sub-plots, factions and of course AL's Marina!

 

[Juliet_Capulet]

It's hard for me to vote on one of those choices. On one side, I love the new features and the gameplay. But the FPS loss is a gamebreaker. I play co-op with my husband, but his pc can barely take the frames hit. We've tried everything from lowering the resolution to turning all the visual settings down. A16 ran fine for us, and yes, I know the experimental version is not stable. When A17 goes live, I hope we'll be able to play it.

 

[ricp]

I think its best to error on the side of too easy than too hard for many people who press play... die then never play again.

I'm not sure if you remember the early access release of DayZ, but it was accompanied by a large display on the website showing the number of people dying within the first 20 minutes. It was hitting the 100's of thousands within the month and was part of the charm of the game, the sheer difficulty. This wasn't a cutesy platformer this was an axe to the face brutal blood fest.

You could be completely right that a lower difficulty may preserve the title's fanbase from the initial uptake, and it's fair to say that DayZ never lasted at that pace (for all the obvious reasons) but I'm not sure if an overly difficult game is automatically a bad decision - Dark Souls being a good example of a AAA title that was.

- - - Updated - - -

But the FPS loss is a gamebreaker.

Absolutely!

I am currently running it on 1360 res with almost everything turned down and a few other settings done via the nVidia control panel. FPS is now at a point where even the busiest PoI's are manageable, but it really needs a bit of optimisation. That's unlikely to happen while it's still experimental though.

 

[Stranded_Napkin]

I'm liking some of it and not liking other things. I like the A.I. fixes, but really don't like the progression system. You farm zombies and put points into perks that don't make sense still. I know other people didn't like leaving steel and concrete to rng but it's far more realistic to learn that stuff from a book than a perk. Also, I get why they went away from the improve as you craft model, see A15 and before, due to spam crafting but again it's far more realistic. The current model feels too far removed. It's again based on points gained from farming XP. Seriously unrealistic. The better way to do it would be like A16 but instead of perks it's books that improve your players knowledge about said item so he improves. It gives the player a reason to go into more and more buildings to loot.

The performance issues may be due to the update of Unity. If it isn't fixed by stable then it's an issue to note. Right now I just don't get this game's performance. I'm sitting at 60 fps most of the time but still drop into the 40s sometimes. The odd thing is that neither my GPU or CPU ever show more than 50% usage. I'm playing this at 1080p for christ sake. A 1080 TI and a Ryzen 5 1600x OC'ed to 4.0 should be plenty to run this game at 60 fps consistently. The thing that gets me is that it never seems to leverage the entire cpu or gpu.

 

[Boa_2K7]

What is a reasonable night? There is nothing limiting as far as I can see, with X and Y you can set arbitrary day and night durations

Well that's exactly my point. What qualifies as a reasonable night for me may be totally off for another. Currently, the only way to get a shorter night is to also get a shorter day. Yes, you can change number of hours of daylight, but that will still have a minimal effect and also change the standard 10PM-4AM running period, which I think most players are very accustomed to. Why not just separate the two and allow total flexibility between length of day and length of night? All I'm saying is more flexibility on the day/night cycle couldn't hurt; in most cases choice is better. The regulars on my server seem to agree.

Overall, excellent game and update. Some issues that need to be ironed out, like RWG and balance/performance but that is to be expected.

 

[meganoth]

Well that's exactly my point. What qualifies as a reasonable night for me may be totally off for another. Currently, the only way to get a shorter night is to also get a shorter day. Yes, you can change number of hours of daylight, but that will still have a minimal effect and also change the standard 10PM-4AM running period, which I think most players are very accustomed to. Why not just separate the two and allow total flexibility between length of day and length of night? All I'm saying is more flexibility on the day/night cycle couldn't hurt; in most cases choice is better. The regulars on my server seem to agree.
Overall, excellent game and update. Some issues that need to be ironed out, like RWG and balance/performance but that is to be expected.

"Currently, the only way to get a shorter night is to also get a shorter day" is wrong! Maybe you misunderstand the power of those two numbers. Give me an example you would want, with numbers (preferably real-time instead of in-game), just one, that can't be done now.

Or maybe I give you an example: Lets say you want 90 minutes of daylight and 10 minutes of night. So:

90+10 is 100, so set daynightlength to 100 minutes.

90 minutes is 90% of a full day. 90% of 24 hours is 21.6. Round it up or down and set DayLightLength to either 21 or 22.

 

[Krougal]

"Currently, the only way to get a shorter night is to also get a shorter day" is wrong! Maybe you misunderstand the power of those two numbers. Give me an example you would want, with numbers (preferably real-time instead of in-game), just one, that can't be done now.
Or maybe I give you an example: Lets say you want 90 minutes of daylight and 10 minutes of night. So:

90+10 is 100, so set daynightlength to 100 minutes.

90 minutes is 90% of a full day. 90% of 24 hours is 21.6. Round it up or down and set DayLightLength to either 21 or 22.

Because of the way the settings work. The shortest you can set nighttime to is 6 hours, which no matter how long you set the day length to, the night is 25% of that. So a standard 60 minute day, an hour is 2.5 minutes. 15 of those will be night. On a 120 minute day 30 minutes of night.

What he is saying he wants is to be able to have an hour during the daytime be say 3 minutes, but an hour at night time only be 1 minute (pulling numbers out of my ass, but that should illustrate the intent). So in essence you get more total time to play during the day regardless of the day length.

Why not just set zombies never run though and be done with it?

 

[Boa_2K7]

What he is saying he wants is to be able to have an hour during the daytime be say 3 minutes, but an hour at night time only be 1 minute (pulling numbers out of my ass, but that should illustrate the intent). So in essence you get more total time to play during the day regardless of the day length.

Yes, this!

Why not just set zombies never run though and be done with it?

Because zombies not running is not the aim, just having day length and night length unlinked entirely.

Either way, I'm sure modders will eventually address this too. Thanks for the input!

 

[LuckyStar]

Because of the way the settings work. The shortest you can set nighttime to is 6 hours, which no matter how long you set the day length to, the night is 25% of that. So a standard 60 minute day, an hour is 2.5 minutes. 15 of those will be night. On a 120 minute day 30 minutes of night.
What he is saying he wants is to be able to have an hour during the daytime be say 3 minutes, but an hour at night time only be 1 minute (pulling numbers out of my ass, but that should illustrate the intent). So in essence you get more total time to play during the day regardless of the day length.

Why not just set zombies never run though and be done with it?

Hahahaha yup.

Man I was thinking the exact same thing.

Because zombies not running is not the aim, just having day length and night length unlinked entirely.

That's like saying you want a means to an end but... are ignoring the end.

What would be the point then?

I just want some clarification.

Is this so Modders can make perpetual night or day on their server, kind of thing?

[That actually would be sorta fun.]

 

[Boa_2K7]

Perhaps I've been unclear in some way. All I'm saying is the ability to adjust daytime length without that affecting nighttime length. ARK for example would allow independent settings of daytime period vs nighttime period. For example, I could have a 12 hour real-time day and a 12 minute nighttime period. I could then change to 1 hour real-time day period and that would not affect the nighttime period, and vice-versa. Currently the 24 hour period day and night lengths are linked in 7DtD, so a change in one inextricably affects the other.

How about I ask exactly what settings in the dedicated serverconfig.xml I would use to achieve 2 hour days from 4AM-10PM and a 20 minute night from 10PM-4AM?

  <property name="DayNightLength"			value="60" />				<!-- real time minutes per in game day: 60 minutes -->
 <property name="DayLightLength"			value="18" />				<!-- in game hours the sun shines per day: 18 hours day light per in game day -->

I'll leave this point there as I cannot be any clearer. Again, thanks for the feedback all.

 

[LuckyStar]

Perhaps I've been unclear in some way. All I'm saying is the ability to adjust daytime length without that affecting nighttime length. ARK for example would allow independent settings of daytime period vs nighttime period. For example, I could have a 12 hour real-time day and a 12 minute nighttime period. I could then change to 1 hour real-time day period and that would not affect the nighttime period, and vice-versa. Currently the 24 hour period day and night lengths are linked in 7DtD, so a change in one inextricably affects the other.
How about I ask exactly what settings in the dedicated serverconfig.xml I would use to achieve 2 hour days from 4AM-10PM and a 20 minute night from 10PM-4AM?

  <property name="DayNightLength"			value="60" />				<!-- real time minutes per in game day: 60 minutes -->
 <property name="DayLightLength"			value="18" />				<!-- in game hours the sun shines per day: 18 hours day light per in game day -->

I'll leave this point there as I cannot be any clearer. Again, thanks for the feedback all.

Okay I see what you're getting at.

That's interesting.

I would actually love to have access to something like that.

I can think of some fun ideas for a Modded server.

Also.... some people really just don't like night time.... or day.

Yeah I like your idea.

 

[Boa_2K7]

Okay I see what you're getting at.
That's interesting.

I would actually love to have access to something like that.

I can think of sun fun ideas for a Modded server.

Also.... some people really just don't like night time.... or day.

Yeah I like your idea.

Eureka! I'm not living on Pluto hopelessly attempting to communicate with Earthlings! haha

 

[Feycat]

To directly answer your accusation....I didn't mean to come over big-headed. Of course everyone's opinions matters. But what I was trying to get at was that almost everyone who gave a positive response to this survey has likely not hit the level 100 OP point. Because once there I truly believe that everyone's opinion will become negative (or at least more negative) due to the dreadful problems that become apparent AT THAT POINT. And only at that point. They trump everything else.
My own personal opinion on A17 roller-coastered something like this:

Week 1:

omg this is hard; I have no Stamina; so frustrating; so dull too - I don't like this; POIs are a no-go, far too dangerous; how will I loot anything I need? Bullet sponge enemies? Are you serious??

Week 2:

OK I am getting over these problems; ooh graphics are great; my performance is way better and I can max all settings - fantastic! I like the combat now and the AI - I am fighting multiple Ferals and Cops at the same time. It is actually challenging but I can rise to it. I rock! Such smooth combat; POIs are actually fun now I can handle them; ooh I love this Motorbike; such a smooth drive. A17 is actually great!!!

Week 3:

I have my doubts about this perk system now; exp from zombies is forcing run and gun gameplay; not sure I like this direction. I kill zombies to become better at mining. I kill zombies to improve my weapons; I kill zombies to get more health. Hmmm. There's a bit of immersion-breaking going on here.

Week 4:

Holy ♥♥♥♥ I am maxed out and OP on day 30; seriously wtf; I now realize just how bad this perk system is - they have given me everything! There's no point in exploring any more. This was my favorite game ever. A16 was much more interesting than this and every run was always different, now it'll be the same every single time with everything given to me when I hit a certain level. I am now DEPRESSED. I do not see how they can fix this, with this fundamentally bad design.

So in theory if you gave this survey to a bunch of players who were in week 2, you'd get a glowing result for the game. However if you gave it only to players in week 4 or later, the results would be considerably worse. Who is the more informed of the 2 groups?

This literally always happened. In every alpha. There came a point where there was no point doing anything. Your base was up and running. You don't care about screamers. You don't need loot. Without any end-game goals or a "win" state, eventually the game grinds to a halt because you've got all the things.

This is not new.