PC How do you like A17 experimental?

[Ghostlight]

However, like many people have already complained about, the death penalty is VERY heavy handed. Either tone down the severity, or lessen the time line you are affected by it. Once you die during horde night you are effectively done for the rest of the night

While I agree this is bad design, it gets worse later on because you hit a point where the death penalty doesn't matter one bit. Bad design either way.

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The more I play the more I enjoy that cupboards and searchable items show as open if empty. I remember having to go through each and every f*cking cupboard.

Nitpick: You improved your character (through Scavenging skill) when searching empty cupboards.

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Not needing to search each and every corpse (especially after horde night) then having to wait for them to break down to gore so you can remove them is also a really helpful thing.

Nitpick 2: You got Bones worst case scenario. Bones are good.

 

[ricp]

Nitpick 2: You got Bones worst case scenario. Bones are good.

Two things to that.

Yes, currently bones are a bit scarce - purely for the glue, which in itself is a little scarce - but in my later stage A17 playthroughs it's not been a big problem. There are gore block littered about the place for bones, you still get bones from the animals and in turn I find the garbage loots and other "low level" loot spawns to yield a lot more duct tape and glue than before.

So while I've not had any struggles to find bones/glue/duct tape, I accept maybe others play the game differently and all it takes for those to get a little help is to tweak the loot. Something that will probably happen all through the A17 builds.

Secondly, I'd take that trade off. Not having to axe through 40 bodies - which in turn have two issues; the delay of a dead zombie to go to a gore block, and the level of slowdown they were providing (and 7DtD has never been the fastest/smoothest of games) - only to find very little of value and a ton of bones. In fact so many bones they became an annoyance.

A bit of a long reply to very short comment, so apologies for that, but for me you are just nerfing an OP resource. Now granted there is a subtle shift of the gameplay - zombies have become more a menace than a (harvesting) benefit.

 

[ricp]

Nitpick: You improved your character (through Scavenging skill) when searching empty cupboards.

Now, you see, I have to agree a little here. If, like me, you've seen the evolution of 7DtD over the alphas you'd see a fairly decent set of incremental improvements. It all followed a certain predictability, and it was no worse off for that. Things that you expected to get better, did so. From weapons, AI, crafting, etc.

Character progression, through repetition, certainly seemed to be the way it was going to go. It's intuitive and I think it builds a good development curve for playthroughs. We did see some nerfing of that with the move from A15 > A16 which stops people from 'spam crafting'. For what it's worth I thought A16 got it pretty spot on in terms of it's mix between character progression, perks and schematics. It could have been tweaked, and to be fair a lot of mods did exactly that, but overall I didn't feel like it really needed much change going into A17.

A17 is a left turn, there's no arguing that. I have issues about the level gates, and would love to see at least a little movement back to the character progression model. I also have issues regarding weapons and their levels, I get the logic but a level 1 should be a weaker gun in everything not just durability than a level 6. I quite like the mods, could be tweaked but overall I think it offers up a lot of expansion there.

That said, the world itself (even with the caveat that it's still experimental), is pretty bloody nice. It's a laggy b*stard, but a lot prettier than A16. Both in visuals and in design, and especially the new PoIs. The world is probably the reason I play the game (and I play it in SP), if you go back to A16 it feels lacking, almost empty with little subtlety. It's just less of an enjoyable environment to play in. It's not bad - in relation - but in the A16 playthroughs I've started since A17's exp release I've just been left with the feeling "I'd rather be doing this in A17".

 

[Jan2607]

I chose "In General I love it". Before B208 I would've choosen "In General I Like it", but this build made some important improvements and I'm sure that the devs will work on the other issues as well.

Sure, I had to getting used of a lot of the changes first and in the first days I died a lot, but A17E changed a lot of things I didn't like in previous versions. It is a good framework for future updates I think.

 

[Z-Pooh-Bear]

I love almost everything. Skills, new textures, zombie combat, MODS for equipment especially.

What exactly is good about the zombie combat? The invincibility frames the zombies get? The always getting up twice? The many head-shots per zed until the skill tree magically makes them count? Maybe it's the horrible default melee animation?

 

[hristian991]

i do not find joy playing this game anymore

 

[OzHawkeye]

i do not find joy playing this game anymore

If you have any hope of having your feedback informing the Developers for future directions, you need to be specific about what you're not enjoying.

 

[ZehMatt]

I have very mixed feeling about this game for various reasons. Primarily the game runs pretty bad when it comes to multiplayer and I can't put my self out there playing this game more than once in SP, you get thru the Horde Night, you have a base, you have decent weapons and now what, game pretty much over unless you are actually going to loot every single box every game week.

I fell in love with the game concept the moment I heard about it but the game can't quite deliver it. It has the potential to become a truly stable game and perhaps in a much better quality but until then, here is my list of annoying issues:

1. Network replication is terrible.

2. Chunk loading is terrible.

3. Player animations are terrible.

4. Limited map size in a voxel world, ya I know memory size and all but thats not really an issue if you have level streaming and a better topology to determine what needs to exist and what not.

5. AI planning is terrible.

6. AI path finding is terrible.

7. Limited amount of enemies, yes they can be slightly stronger but they still look all the same.

8. No lag compensation, makes a huge difference if you can actually hit moving objects regardless of ping.

9. The update cycle is too slow, we only ever get new features and more features and barely any fixes, most fixes only make up for the new features but rarely pre-existing issues.

10. Performance issues. I have a powerful rig and I can't reach a constant 144hz at 1080p, even the latest Battlefield V gets more ;(

I could probably go on and on but I think the points are pretty obvious.

 

[Bacchae]

Horrible "update".

You've removed: flexibility and variety for ... grinding.

You kill zombies and improve your mining skill. Why doesn't my mining skill improve by ... mining ... the way it used to? Oh right .. grinding.

Why is the map so small? Oh right ... people travelling aren't grinding.

But textures are better right? Have you ever seen a deer look like that? I play Diablo 2 is it gorgeous? No, but it has awesome gameplay. Take the hint.

I honestly don't know what you did for the past year. The water where it meets land looks worse than Minecraft.

The solo gameplay is gone; you need a team to handle the grind.

Anyone who doesn't want to get whamped isn't going to have a good time. Wasn't that why difficulty sliders exist? So people can play according to their skill? Not any more. Stick it on the lowest level and you'll stick get vultures every few mins and cops on day 7.

You could have improved electricity and lighting. You could have added weapon/tool modifiers. Instead you turn this into some Rust-like grindfest.

>Snip By OzHawkeye - Keep it civil please< Your poll says 30% love it. Well those who dislike something generally aren't going to bother posting here, they'll be playing something else (Two Point Hospital in my case).

>Snip By OzHawkeye - Keep it civil please< Thanks for A16.4 I guess.

 

[stupid]

One thing I noticed about A17, I don't know if anyone else is the same, but I can't play for more than an hour at a time. It's a tedious game. You don't get much time to relax.

 

[pattyboy27]

I love a lot of the new features (that I've seen in videos but yet to experience myself) but it's just a grindfest. I currently like the IDEA of playing 7D2D more than actually playing it, and generally after 20 minutes trying to clear a house I log off. I'm level 4 after almost 2 weeks of 'playing' since the new early release client.

Unsure if it's a bug but playing on a dedicated server and every single building has a feral in it. What happened to individual zombie spawns tailored to player level? If every single building has a feral and I'm level 1 to I dunno, 10? 15? What's the point? We previously wouldn't encounter ferals until about level 70-ish in A16.

Sleeper zombies resetting if you run away is totally stupid. On multiple occasions I have killed all bar the feral and 1 normal and ran when the feral awakened. Come back and there's 12 in the house again (checking via the live map).

The optimisation is horrible. I recently upgraded to a GTX 1060 and can play my other games at 60fps or better. 7D2D chugs along at about 40 max, dropping into the 17-30 range inside poi's. Playing on a server where I've always had around 200 ping and never noticed it - but suddenly in A17 that same 200 ping feels like 2000 ping.

This update might be better for hardcore fans of the game, but as a casual player I'm feeling really marginalised, to the point where I'm pretty close to uninstalling it to give hard drive space to another game.

 

[Colin248]

THere are certently things that can be improved with the game. Vastly improved. the enemy pathing will always take the most direct path, so setting up a kill room of spikes is pointless. i would like them to be semi randomized with there pathing, so they spread out a bit more.

Traps need to be improved, barbed wire doesnt slow as much as it used too, no longer turning them into walkers. and spikes seam to be vastly nerfed. need a bit of a buff to make them more pliable.

the gating and leveling needs a look at, let more stuff give exp, as it stands fighting zeds is the fastest and only way to level up. also trap kills should give experience. (from ones you place.)

who ever came up with the stamina system needs a kick in the teeth. its taken me a while to adapt but its still a asinine system. reduce the amount of stamina it takes away when your hungry. %50 hunger should be %75 stamina, not perfectly reflective of each other.

other then all that, i am quite enjoying this update. altho a bug im encountering is, despite my forges and nothing else working, screamers seam to be crawling out the wood work to my base for some reason... like i got 20 forges constantly working. may wana look into the heat map code, something is ♥♥♥♥ed.

 

[PogotTime]

Well after a long break i came back to 7D2D for Alpha 17 and was kind of surprised - i doesn't changed "that much" but the vehicles got me.

So to be a even better Game here is my Feedback:

Bugs / Crahes

- some mobs can glitch through a space between two 50 Pillars Concrete ?)

- sometimes when i run or drove with by bike, my Character fell through the world - i had to relgo to fix this

- there are some real glitches (mostly fixed in the experimental XML fixes like torches e.g.)

- i had some trouble setting up the server and that friends could connect (not listet, even with ip coulnd connect)

The mixed feelings Points (could be better

- Progression ins somhow hard. On day 14 there where Green guys jumping me with tons of other mobs and i was standing there with a bow

- Some zombies now dig mindlessly down ?? Ok i had begun a underground base...but zombies can "smell through 6-7 Blocks ?"

- To be able to produce Ammunition is really hard.

- i Missed the Wooden Log Spikes for my "fall down Trap"

- Stamina is an issue. Even with level 45 i can improve my stamina that i can mine longer than 5-6 hits

- i understand that there are fewer animals - but you need torches e.g. and i saw like 2-3 Animals between level 0 and 15 so thats doesnt fit.

- Zombies seem to scale faster that you and your inventory can. I was still with low end gear (Club / Bow) while there where those Football guys and on bloodmoons spitters / green jumpers e.g.)

- small engines are kind of super rare - but maybe that was so all the time (had to crack down 15 Cars to find 1)

- the precondition for perks are kind of hidden behind a tooltip - this could be better so see all the dependencies.

thats it for now

 

[toores]

-Random worlds look soo boring. I haven't found a place I want to build in. A16 felt much more like a believable world.

-The color schemes of different sub-biomes are annoying. The map is filled with burning spots that keep changing your colors, visibility and weather. Please get rid of it! It looks more like a bug then a feature. Also what's up with the fog making nights brighter?

-POIs are awesome but the sleeper amount and type ruin the fun. Too many in all, too many ferals, too many radiated, too many cops.

-The "super-precise" aiming is so much better for ranged weapons and SO much worse for melee. Melee (which I prefer) is almost unusable against running zombies.

-Melee has still not got any better. The added weaker attack is useless (let's be honest, the power attack more resembles the A16's only attack). The perks regarding melee are uninspiring. (hit 4 times to triger something on the 5th or incremental damage) Your options to interact in combat are still as limited, just count the hits to know when a zombie falls down and when it's dead.

-Perk system and level gating... Where to start?

Leveling skills by doing would force you to different path based on your gameplay. Perks that are locked to there skills would complement that system. Also having to find items from the world would keep your progression unique every time.

In A17 everything is available the same way and is pretty much a linear grind now. I can't see myself making poor perk choices to vary and mix up the progression. Why would I want a worse experience? Level gating even prevents the specialisation because you can't really advance more in one area the others.

-Blood moon hordes... If I wanted to, I could handle them. I really can't see how new players could handle them though.

I did some tests with high level character and to be honest I don't want to get there. Zombies are so powerfult that it comes down to huge grind of toughest materials and massive repairs. The unenjoyable loop of doing the same thing. Where, mr MM, is the STEALTH perk that was suppose to give me STEALTH even from BM hordes?

I am sure the updated systems are much better and the potential is there but balancing and some design choices make me think A16 was much more fun game.

 

[toores]

- Stamina is an issue. Even with level 45 i can improve my stamina that i can mine longer than 5-6 hits

thats it for now

You have to progress to steel pick and as high as you can in sex rex perk. Steel pick is so much slower that the stamina regen makes the total stamina consumption pretty ok when mining.

 

[Menace312]

I played my first A17 game on the Navezgane map, since I heard it got changed.

Mixed feelings about the new game, but like others I will reserve judgement, since I havent played the game enough yet (very busy with work right now).

BUT, during last week and this weekend, we played a fresh RWG map to try that out.

Now, I´m beginning to understand a lot of the issues I am hearing on the forum.

RWG could really use some love... But go play the Navezgane map! It has changed alot! And it plays much better and smoother that RWG.

Hope it helps someone...

 

[toores]

I played my first A17 game on the Navezgane map, since I heard it got changed.Mixed feelings about the new game, but like others I will reserve judgement, since I havent played the game enough yet (very busy with work right now).

BUT, during last week and this weekend, we played a fresh RWG map to try that out.

Now, I´m beginning to understand a lot of the issues I am hearing on the forum.

RWG could really use some love... But go play the Navezgane map! It has changed alot! And it plays much better and smoother that RWG.

Hope it helps someone...

If there's going to be a main story taking place in Navezgane, I don't want to spoil the experience by knowing the map beforehand. I haven't played Navezgane since Random gen was introduced.

 

[jaela]

This is not a comment per say but a question, is there any way you could make it so you can still use E to collect plants etc instead of having to hit them with something to do so. Also I do not care for the way that points and leveling up happens there is not as much clarity to know when you have done so and when points have accumulated (or ive not figured that part out yet) without going and checking to see if you have points etc.

thanks jae

 

[meganoth]

This is not a comment per say but a question, is there any way you could make it so you can still use E to collect plants etc instead of having to hit them with something to do so. Also I do not care for the way that points and leveling up happens there is not as much clarity to know when you have done so and when points have accumulated (or ive not figured that part out yet) without going and checking to see if you have points etc. thanks jae

There is an audio cue and a text message whenever you level up. The sound feels more like you just got an infection or you did something wrong), but if you haven't muted that sound it should be obvious enough.

There is also a blue xp bar just above the toolbelt, if that one is nearly empty you probably have leveled recently.

 

[meganoth]

Unsure if it's a bug but playing on a dedicated server and every single building has a feral in it. What happened to individual zombie spawns tailored to player level? If every single building has a feral and I'm level 1 to I dunno, 10? 15? What's the point? We previously wouldn't encounter ferals until about level 70-ish in A16.

Most of the newer buildings should be considered like a high level area in other games or as a "challenge area", they also provide high level loot. As a low level character I usually go through basic houses (rule of thumb: houses known from A16) or ruins until I have the weapons to confront bigger foes. The newer buildings can be tackled with extreme caution and traps (and an exit strategy :smile-new: ). In A17 you are slightly faster than a feral, if you can keep up running stamina long enough, you should always be able to escape if you start running before the have you surrounded or didn't fall through the floors into a trap.

TFP said they have to rebalance at least the "boss zombies" of many of these new buildings, so this is not final. Also the next experimental version has individual options for run speeds of zombies, you might turn down run speed a notch, also general difficulty can be lowered any time.

Sleeper zombies resetting if you run away is totally stupid. On multiple occasions I have killed all bar the feral and 1 normal and ran when the feral awakened. Come back and there's 12 in the house again (checking via the live map).

If this is true then it is certainly a bug. But does the live map show sleepers? Maybe you didn't wake every sleeper. Not that I don't believe you, just checking all possibilities. If you did start a new game with b208 you could make a bug report.

This update might be better for hardcore fans of the game, but as a casual player I'm feeling really marginalised, to the point where I'm pretty close to uninstalling it to give hard drive space to another game.

Like every experimental balancing is horrible at first. Remember how you were killed by animals at day 1 in A16.0? A17 seems to get a lot more options to control difficulty besides zombie HP and damage.

If you want to play a little more casual, go down one difficulty step, set day length to 90 mins, turn down feral run speed one notch (once the next experimental is live) and you have a much more casual game on your hands.

>Snip By OzHawkeye - Keep it civil please< Your poll says 30% love it. Well those who dislike something generally aren't going to bother posting here, they'll be playing something else (Two Point Hospital in my case).

Bravo for posting a theory and a counter-example at the same time. :fat: