PC is A17 removing the much beloved run and gun aspect?

[SxR]

Probably in reference to your last line in the OP where you said you've never heard of a game style that nerfs your ability to run backwards. Saying something like that invites people to start listing games that have that gamestyle.
Not being able to run backwards is the least of your worries for the old running and gunning. Ranged combat has been changed so that you are rewarded for standing and aiming and penalized for....er....running and gunning. Very few of your shots will land if you are running around shooting from the hip. You'll notice right away that when you are running the crosshairs are huge. Goodbye accuracy.

It's not all bad news. You can buy perks that give you the ability to run and maintain a small tight crosshairs for running and gunning. Who knows? Maybe they'll add a perk that allows you run backwards so that if people want to specialize in that type of mayhem they can do so.

For now and during the early game until you can get your skills up and purchase some perks you really will want to stop, aim, and fire whenever using a firearm of you'll use up a ton of rounds and still have a zombie problem.

But why do this..? You're promoting camping even more now.. :c

 

[SxR]

This is exactly right. You can W+D and W+A sprint as well so sprinting at angles still works. Just no strafe or backward only sprinting anymore, you have to have forward motion.
You don't NEED backward sprint or strafe only sprint. I've tested this myself. Also I'm an avid FPS player and run n gun is not at all going to suffer in a17. There is this thing for non CQB weapons called a tactical retreat. It's a valid strategy.

Lastly, the "walk" speed was sped up for a17, it's faster than before (not a whole lot, like 1/3 between a16 walk and run speeds). You likely won't NEED to sprint through a POI anyway as your "walk" speed is faster than the zombie's walk speed, again, not by much, but enough to make a difference in close quarters.

Can we please retain strafe sprint at least? And only limit backwards movement? It's apart of many players play style to already be pointing in the direction of the corner they're about to come around.

 

[Kubikus]

Watching that clip, I don't see how things will be much different. The zombies never really got close to catching that person, and on the rare occasion that they did, the person juked sideways or forwards (not more backwards) until they had made enough distance to turn around and do some more backwards movement. That's what Roland said you could do.

That's what I said you could do before Roland did. Of course you can do it.
But if you can do it, if you don't need to sprint backwards, why do people do it? Cuz it's fun. And since you don't see a difference, I assume you don't play that way, so.... Maybe try it out?

 

[Jedo]

That's what I said you could do before Roland did. Of course you can do it.
But if you can do it, if you don't need to sprint backwards, why do people do it? Cuz it's fun. And since you don't see a difference, I assume you don't play that way, so.... Maybe try it out?

My point is that the person wasn't really sprinting backwards, at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies. In that case, how can you claim that that is an entire style which has been removed?

On a different track, motion is relative. The zombies' clearly moved faster than the player could move backwards (didn't usually catch them because they died quickly), then the player had to adjust course. If the rate of change between the players and the zombies remains the same with the removal of backward sprinting, then I fail to see how there is a perceivable change on the player's part.

Personally, I don't care about this playstyle or that playstyle, so I don't feel a need to try them. I'm sure things that I used to do have been affected. *shrug* I'm not really against this playstyle, and I'm fairly indifferent to the change itself. What I am is skeptical of the arguments used in opposition to TFP's changes.

 

[moses221]

@Kubikus you keep mentioning that those who agree with the changes or a new option or agree with TFPs direction should have their opinions discounted. So only your opinion should matter? Only those with a critique should have their opinions matter? You make the claim (repeatedly) that "nobody" likes the changes to zombie loot (or another function) so TFP shouldn't make the change. Where is the truth? Is it that people who want to critique or complain about a change are more likely to voice their opinion than those who say "I like the change" and, therefore, it appears more people don't like that change than like it? I don't have the stats on that, do you? Do you know the minds of other players?

I sometimes read the forums and, as you can see by my history, don't post much. The overwhelming majority of players are like me, yet you would tell me if "I don't care about a change" and answer a poll, my opinion shouldn't matter. Sounds like you think the only people who should be allowed to voice an opinion are those who agree with you.

 

[meganoth]

Zombie loot means you get a little something extra for doing an extra activity. Just like you get something extra if you loot every trashbag or pick up every tire you see or if you go mining, hunting, gardening, disassembling cars, and then some. Additional activities = additional resources. Why the hell not?

Stealthing around is also an extra activity that costs time IF zombies sense you if you come near them (which I assume will be working again in A17). Stealthing is slower movement and you have to go around instead of straight. This is extra activity which gets you nothing from the zombies. And as long as zombies get you kill xp you have your additional resources.

I would only speak of a "playstyle" if there is a clear focus on certain actions. Some people clearly have a focus on building, others clearly on killing zombies. And so on. In any case, yes, I believe that if possible, all kinds of playstyles should be protected. It's how people enjoy playing the game, why take that away if it's not absolutely necessary?

I can accept building as a playstyle, I can accept killing zombies as a playstyle, but running a certain way or doing combat a specific way is definitely strechting it.

In EA a developer experiments with features, puts them in and if he doesn't like them removes them again. That is the central point of experimentation. If you demand protection of features just because they were in the game once you are practically restricting the developer to freely experiment with the game. I'm not surprised they don't want to give the players this power.

At the moment they experiment with combat. And probably they don't see running around zombie hordes as a playstyle in itself (as do I). My point on backrunning has always been: First play it in A17, then give your feedback. Then your impressions have a lot more weight because they want feedback at that time and they want real play impressions. I don't believe they want feedback at the moment of people that have not experienced the new game. If you don't believe me, fine, go ahead, it is you wasting time talking to a wall (IMHO)

I think that stealth is not "recognized" by the game properly so far. There is no stealth related skill and I don't think you get any xp for stealth. One advantage of stealth is that you don't need to use weapons, which saves resources, and you take less risk, so you don't need to use meds and (obviously) you die less and don't receive the death-penalties. To balance stealth with blazing guns, it could give more xp, but again, I disagree that the gunner's loot-reward should be reduced for balance, because if you take loot away and you get xp for stealth, there is no logical reason to kill zombies anymore. Stealth would clearly be the more logical playstyle.

You are right about stealth not being fully developed in A16, but there are signs (like a stealth indicator in the GUI) that that is going to change. Giving xp for stealth is practically impossible without lots of possibilities to exploit that, so I don't think they will ever go that way.

Only if those people have very diverse playstyles and are not a bunch of yes-persons, naturally selected by a climate that does not welcome critics.

Sure. But since we disagree on what a playstyle is and I don't see an obligation for the developer to keep every feature in the game just because it was in some alpha once, that doesn't invalidate my point. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

You can't even think of every possible playstyle, let alone play the necessary lengthy games to try them all out.

Playstyles (especially as you define them) are not protected in an alpha. That is a fact. TFP has changed features that some players hung too hundreds of times in the past. I don't think they loose sleep over every wooden stick they eliminated because some player somewhere was just so happy about wooden sticks (ok,ok replace wooden stick with spam crafting if you need a proper example :smile-new: ). If they had evaluated every change with the goal to keep everything the same for the players and no player harmed in any way, obviously development would already have ended a long time ago because they couldn't change anything anymore.

EA games are not suitable for people who can't handle the game changing in ways they might not like. Steam says "If you are not excited to play this game in its current state..." for a reason.

It needs to be a proper discussion with proper arguments. The best arguments will crystallize. Dev would need a few minutes scrolling through to find out what people think. It's not at all an unbearable workload. You just make that up, for reasons that I don't understand. Here comes a big word I just learned: Maybe it is cantankerousness. Now that's a tongue twister right there.

Unbearable no. But the bigger the forum the more time it takes. A few minutes, please, we are miles apart in our opinions here. Just that I don't accuse you of making that up. So "thank you" for all your insinuations here and elsewhere that I must be lying.

You might sample a few arguments in a few minutes. But to find out "what people think" is quite something different. You seem to think if someone makes more posts about a topic than others or arguments more fervently than others, his voice is more important. That is wrong in my book, that would give more weight to a fanatic compared to someone with a balanced opinion.

Finding out what people think is difficult, companies pay lots of money for good market research, they don't listen just to the man with the huge sign in front of their office building.

Kinda, my mind was drifting a bit, since we're going in circles so much. I was thinking about allowing modding in and out whatever unwanted changes the devs made. They announce a change, see that there is a bunch of people who don't like it, make plausible arguments, so they provide the option to mod it.

Yeah, we openend so many sub-topics and found so many differences of opinion here and there. And sadly we only resolved a few. We have to agree to disagree on a lot of this.

Yes, it is their game, but their game is not a hobby, it is not even a piece of art like an "actual artist's". It is a product. That is created to be sold to make money. I am quite certain that a lot of changes were made to sell the game better

They don't think they are artists like a movie director is? I'm pretty sure some of them think of themselves as artists. I obviously can't say anything about what TFP developers think. But even courts of law have accepted some games as works of art.

Success and money is surely one of their motivations, making the game they envisioned and want to play themselves is another big motivation. But whatever motivation you look at, they probably won't listen to your opinion BEFORE you haven't even played the (new) game. Because even if we just look at the money, one or a few grumpy voices in a forum do not make a game fail.

Nearly every change has a few people lamenting in the forum that the game is worse for it, or that they will surely stop playing, or that it will make the game fail. You actually might be right, but they won't believe you because too many forum posters have cried wolf over the years. Only the hard facts, people protesting and abandoning the game in masses after playing the new version (or the absence of that) will show them if they were right or wrong.

I want them to announce changes, so people can provide feedback, such as "I like that thing a whole lot, because of this and that". So they can make an informed decision how to handle a change.

And I think the "informed" decision isn't that informed, because people who haven't played with the changes and don't know about everything else that changed don't really know what they are talking about. And even if we suppose that one of them does exactly know how he will be reacting to the change (talking about you here) and TFP believes him they still might not believe all the rest of the detractors.

If TFP decides to make a poll (with discussion, people will post their opinion and discuss it in the forum anyway) whenever they change something and

a) the change would normally not be moddable back because of taking the shortest route to implement it

b) and they think it unimportant

c) but with a reasonable/acceptable effort it could be made moddable back

d) and making it moddable afterwards is a lot more work than making it moddable before the change

I would be ok with that. But for it to give a benefit to TFP the following must also be true for a sizable portion of all changes they put up for polling:

e) the poll or discussion shows the players think it is important

f) and it really turns out to be important after people have played it

And I don't think there is a sizable portion there. I would be ok with it, I'm not against getting asked and I want modding to be as powerful as possible. And a,b,c and d would already eliminate a lot of changes from getting polled. And there is also the psychologicla thing that it is harder to convince TFP to make something moddable afterwards when they already have thrown out relevant code or didn't do the effort before.

But do I think it would be worth it for TFP? Or do I think it would change development or the end product in a big way? No and no.

 

[Kubikus]

My point is that the person wasn't really sprinting backwards, at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies. In that case, how can you claim that that is an entire style which has been removed?

Let's analyze:

Sequence 1 with the decayed mother: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 2 with the.. infected survivor?: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 3 with the nurse: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 4 with the shotgun: Person does not sprint backwards

Sequence 5 with the many zombies: Person sprints forward to "collect" the zombies so they follow (1:04 until 1:28), then sprints backwards with the pistol and shoots them. Sprints foward and circlestrafes inbetween. This might be to keep the bunch together and to stay in the area, to not attract more zombies. In this sequence, you can see exactly what I've been talking about: The zombies run towards the person and the person is keeping them at distance by sprinting backwards. The zombies are, though relatively steady, because they run towards the person, and both (person and zombie) run in the same direction. That's why the person can shoot them with the pistol. There are a few bits (before 1:45) where the person runs towards the zombies, strafes next to them, but shooting is difficult, because (as I also already mentioned) zombies are moving horizontally from the person's perspective.

Sequence 6 with the crossbow: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 7 with the infected survivor: Person sprints backwards.

Sequence 8 with the infected survivor: Person sprints backwards.

Strange, that you say the "person wasn't really sprinting backwards". Yes, the person was.

On a different track, motion is relative. The zombies' clearly moved faster than the player could move backwards (didn't usually catch them because they died quickly), then the player had to adjust course. If the rate of change between the players and the zombies remains the same with the removal of backward sprinting, then I fail to see how there is a perceivable change on the player's part.

Yes, true, but I highly doubt zombies will be slowed down that much.

@Kubikus you keep mentioning that those who agree with the changes or a new option or agree with TFPs direction should have their opinions discounted.

No I don't. What I keep mentioning is that there are false opinions and people who vote for or against something without having an opinion about it to begin with. If you don't understand, just lemme know and I'll be happy to explain it (again) in depth.

 

[Jedo]

[Analysis]
Strange, that you say the "person wasn't really sprinting backwards". Yes, the person was.

Strange that I said, "at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies." Feel free to go second-by-second to break it down so that you can rebut the whole of what I said.

Yes, true, but I highly doubt zombies will be slowed down that much.

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

 

[Kubikus]

Strange that I said, "at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies." Feel free to go second-by-second to break it down so that you can rebut the whole of what I said.

I already rebutted the whole of what you said.

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

Yes, certainly. Me, going figuring that one:

 

[Gazz]

Changes are quite often announced in the dev diary and people can provide feedback.

That doesn't mean it will affect the design but there B]are [/b] cases where an outside-the-box idea was used... or sparked an idea that was used to expand on an existing concept.

A case of "I hate this" and a feature being canceled has about a 0.00000001% chance of occurring.

 

[Jedo]

I already rebutted the whole of what you said.

You rebutted an imagined argument that sprinting backwards didn't happen. If that's what you think I said, then I see where our communication problems lie.

I know. You "highly doubt" most of the assumptions that are not your own. Go figure that one.

Yes, certainly. Me, going figuring that one:

Strange that you would invoke Simon Cowell. Tell me how [uh...that one venture of his that didn't work out] worked out? (Hint: about as well as your assumptions.)

 

[nitnoid]

Just a friendly little whisper to watch where you take this discussion...

 

[Roland]

Just a friendly little whisper to watch where you take this discussion...

I'll see your friendly whisper and raise you a friendly edit.

 

[Roland]

A case of "I hate this" and a feature being canceled has about a 0.00000001% chance of occurring.

But only in the case of causality. In the case of independent parallel coincidence there is a much higher probability of occurrence.

 

[Kubikus]

Stealthing around is also an extra activity that costs time IF zombies sense you if you come near them (which I assume will be working again in A17). Stealthing is slower movement and you have to go around instead of straight. This is extra activity which gets you nothing from the zombies. And as long as zombies get you kill xp you have your additional resources.

If stealth should get recognized as a playstyle, you should get XP. Like so: If you crouch, there is a chance that a zombie, that would see you if you would not stealth, won't. Maybe, at some some skill level, even without you having to crouch. And whenever that happens, the zombie does not see you, you should get XP. With the stealth skill leveling up, the chance increases. Something like that. Maybe unlock recipes for a disguise, made of rotten flesh. Maybe the ability to mimic zombie walktypes. To increase the chance.

And if that should be in the game, you get an XP reward for stealthing, and you get an XP reward for killing zombies. But killing zombie is still riskier and still costs (more) resources, so it would make perfect sense to give a zombie killing player loot on top of the XP. Balance wise, there would be nothing wrong with it.

That's why I don't see your balance complaint making sense. You're currently playing outside the box, that's why you get no reward. But that's not a good reason to take a reward away from people who play inside the box.

I can accept building as a playstyle, I can accept killing zombies as a playstyle, but running a certain way or doing combat a specific way is definitely strechting it.

Yeah sure. If building is a playstyle, the ability to carry stacks of blocks is the equivalent of running a certain way. If you remove the ability to carry stacks of blocks, and change that to 1 block per slot, because that would be realistic, it would heavily negatively influence the playstyle "building".

And that's what removing backward sprinting does to the playstyle I am talking, which fighting running zombies nose to toe. Yes, it is still possible, just like building would still be possible. Ironically, however, it would be more realistic to reduce the stack size of blocks to 1 than to reduce the backward speed to less than what forward walking is. Because you can at least jog backwards. Jump backwards.

In EA a developer experiments with features, puts them in and if he doesn't like them removes them again. That is the central point of experimentation. If you demand protection of features just because they were in the game once you are practically restricting the developer to freely experiment with the game. I'm not surprised they don't want to give the players this power.

Dude: I demand nothing. Stop the narratives. I am for protection of beloved features. Because why the hell not. And I also already said quite clearly: Features should be preserved if it is not absolutely necessary to remove them. Here's the quote:

In any case, yes, I believe that if possible, all kinds of playstyles should be protected. It's how people enjoy playing the game, why take that away if it's not absolutely necessary?

It is, for example, not absolutely necessary to remove backward sprinting. Devs could have an advanced settings menu with a slider that regulates backward sprinting speed or at least have it moddable via the XML files.

At the moment they experiment with combat. And probably they don't see running around zombie hordes as a playstyle in itself (as do I).

Yes, I too suspect a disconnect between them and the players. They don't see those who "run around zombie hordes", it's outside their vision of building fortresses with blade traps and auto turrets. Therefor it would be great if they'd given the players a chance to let em know that "running around zombie hordes" really is a playstyle.

My point on backrunning has always been: First play it in A17, then give your feedback. Then your impressions have a lot more weight because they want feedback at that time and they want real play impressions. I don't believe they want feedback at the moment of people that have not experienced the new game. If you don't believe me, fine, go ahead, it is you wasting time talking to a wall (IMHO)

You're twisting stuff around. I am not providing feedback to the devs. I'm not talking to devs. I talk to you. We're just chatting to pass the time. I don't expect anything to change because I write a post.

And please not again the "you have to try it first" angle. No I don't. I have visions too, Joel is not the only one.

You are right about stealth not being fully developed in A16, but there are signs (like a stealth indicator in the GUI) that that is going to change. Giving xp for stealth is practically impossible without lots of possibilities to exploit that, so I don't think they will ever go that way.

I hope it will come, but you see, if something is not yet developed, you can't expect it to be balanced with already developed aspects.

Sure. But since we disagree on what a playstyle is and I don't see an obligation for the developer to keep every feature in the game just because it was in some alpha once, that doesn't invalidate my point. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Of course there is no obligation. Just like I demand nothing. Devs could stop developing right now. They have no obligation to do anything. Your hyperboles are fairly uncreative. If you believe they should not keep features in the game, that are beloved by a substantial number of players, just explain why.

Playstyles (especially as you define them) are not protected in an alpha. That is a fact.

Oh really. And here I thought that when something I like changes, I can sue the company for twenty bazillion casino coins.

TFP has changed features that some players hung too hundreds of times in the past.

They also changed features that many players hung to in the past. Not hundreds (of features), though. It's really just a relatively few feature-changes that were met with resistance from the players.

I don't think they loose sleep over every wooden stick they eliminated because some player somewhere was just so happy about wooden sticks (ok,ok replace wooden stick with spam crafting if you need a proper example ). If they had evaluated every change with the goal to keep everything the same for the players and no player harmed in any way, obviously development would already have ended a long time ago because they couldn't change anything anymore.

Yes, obviously. But that is just another uninteresting hyperbole. Many changes can be modded out of or back into the game, wooden sticks and spamcrafting amomg them, and the ones that remain are only a few. Smell comes to mind, chessboard cities, the static spawner, 1 block ingress can be modded with advanced techniques, but I still mention it, because you need to go through a 100 pages tutorial to (maybe) learn how. Custom hubs are missed sadly by a bunch of people I assume. And that's already all that I know of.

Bring these things back I say.

EA games are not suitable for people who can't handle the game changing in ways they might not like. Steam says "If you are not excited to play this game in its current state..." for a reason.

And yet another hyperbole, *yawns*. That doesn't make my reasoning implausible, though, it would still be good to make changes of beloved features revertable. It's another no-brainer really, just like that customer feedback is valuable.

Unbearable no. But the bigger the forum the more time it takes. A few minutes, please, we are miles apart in our opinions here. Just that I don't accuse you of making that up. So "thank you" for all your insinuations here and elsewhere that I must be lying.

You are obviously exaggerating excessively. It's annoying, because it requires no creativity or wits on my end to refute, I just have to describe reality. Which is boring.

What is your estimation, when the community discusses a planned feature, how long would a dev need to get an overview of the different viewpoints? I talk about minutes. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Miles apart would be hours. You think it'd take hours to go through a thread? Really? No. So stop pretending.

You might sample a few arguments in a few minutes. But to find out "what people think" is quite something different. You seem to think if someone makes more posts about a topic than others or arguments more fervently than others, his voice is more important. That is wrong in my book, that would give more weight to a fanatic compared to someone with a balanced opinion.

And now you're just making stuff up. *pfffff*

Finding out what people think is difficult, companies pay lots of money for good market research, they don't listen just to the man with the huge sign in front of their office building.

See, companies pay lots of money for good market research. It's a valuable tool. To speak against my suggestion that the devs should just do that, you have to build strawmen and exaggerate excessively. It takes too long, people are too stupid to make good suggestions, and now there's a man with a huge sign.

Nonsense. All of it.

 

[Kubikus]

Yeah, we openend so many sub-topics and found so many differences of opinion here and there. And sadly we only resolved a few. We have to agree to disagree on a lot of this.

It wouldn't be sad if we just disagreed, what's sad is that you dismiss my positions without proper arguments. That makes it look like you had no actual arguments. If you have no actual arguments, why oppose what I say?

They don't think they are artists like a movie director is? I'm pretty sure some of them think of themselves as artists. I obviously can't say anything about what TFP developers think. But even courts of law have accepted some games as works of art.

I'm not sure what they think, but I think they taylor their art so that it sells well. That is an art that depends on the outside, and not on the inside. Pure art, while of course inspired from outside, is an expression of the within. Pure artists express their impression. Our devs compromise a lot. And when they compromise to please the customer, it'd make sense to try to please as many customers as possible. Logic 101.

Success and money is surely one of their motivations, making the game they envisioned and want to play themselves is another big motivation. But whatever motivation you look at, they probably won't listen to your opinion BEFORE you haven't even played the (new) game. Because even if we just look at the money, one or a few grumpy voices in a forum do not make a game fail.

One or a few grumpy voices in a forum speak for many more who do not take the time to sign up and write a post.

Nearly every change has a few people lamenting in the forum that the game is worse for it, or that they will surely stop playing, or that it will make the game fail. You actually might be right, but they won't believe you because too many forum posters have cried wolf over the years. Only the hard facts, people protesting and abandoning the game in masses after playing the new version (or the absence of that) will show them if they were right or wrong.

It's not that simple. For example will I certainly continue playing if they remove backward sprinting, even though it is a core aspect of my playstyle. My dissatisfaction would not be measurable. My dissatisfaction might not even become measurable, if they messed the game up to a degree that I find it unplayable, because I could still go back to an older alpha and enjoy that. For example, I consider to make a mod for A12, when the game was running really good, and not drop below 30 frames as soon as I have 30+ zombies around.

And I think the "informed" decision isn't that informed, because people who haven't played with the changes and don't know about everything else that changed don't really know what they are talking about.

Yes, they do. It is the power of the brain. Why do you think zombies crave it so much? They're smarter than you think.

And even if we suppose that one of them does exactly know how he will be reacting to the change (talking about you here) and TFP believes him they still might not believe all the rest of the detractors.

You do not have to "believe" anything I say. I layed out in detail how and why I like backward sprinting. It is logical how and why I like it. It is indeed a matter of taste, other people like to sit in their base at night and feed ammo to their auto turrets. But it is nice and easy to comprehend that and why I like backward sprinting.

If TFP decides to make a poll (with discussion, people will post their opinion and discuss it in the forum anyway) whenever they change something and
a) the change would normally not be moddable back because of taking the shortest route to implement it

b) and they think it unimportant

c) but with a reasonable/acceptable effort it could be made moddable back

d) and making it moddable afterwards is a lot more work than making it moddable before the change

I would be ok with that. But for it to give a benefit to TFP the following must also be true for a sizable portion of all changes they put up for polling:

e) the poll or discussion shows the players think it is important

f) and it really turns out to be important after people have played it

And I don't think there is a sizable portion there.

I would be ok with it, I'm not against getting asked and I want modding to be as powerful as possible.

See. And that's all I'm suggesting.

And a,b,c and d would already eliminate a lot of changes from getting polled. And there is also the psychologicla thing that it is harder to convince TFP to make something moddable afterwards when they already have thrown out relevant code or didn't do the effort before.
But do I think it would be worth it for TFP? Or do I think it would change development or the end product in a big way? No and no.

What does that even mean, "worth it"? Financially? Probably not. And what's a "big way"? Changing the game fundamentaly? Probably not. If that's how you think and argue, I can easily top that with "it's just a game, who gives a damn". It's a first world problem. We don't even have to talk about it. It's so irrelevant, when you think about actual problems. I mean, people are starving, and we debate about some obscure feature of an obscure game. It's pathetic.

*whispers*: But if you do think about it, everything I said is true. And your counterarguments are very weak. It would not be a problem to engage the playerbase before making changes. It would be reasonable. I hear they sometimes do it in the "dev diary", where 20,000 posts are crammed into one thread. And if they have time to follow that mess of a thread, it would be no problem whatsoever to follow a properly organized forum, where, for example, only staff could start threads. Maybe with a function to upvote replies like on reddit, so the most relevant are exposed. There simply is no good reason that speaks against my suggestion.

And that's why this conversation has to end here. Of course you may still respond, but unless you surprise me with some really good arguments, you may not expect another reply from me, cuz I'm bored outta my mind here.

You rebutted an imagined argument that sprinting backwards didn't happen. If that's what you think I said, then I see where our communication problems lie.
Strange that you would invoke Simon Cowell. Tell me how [uh...that one venture of his that didn't work out] worked out? (Hint: about as well as your assumptions.)

Alright, let's take you seriously. You said in response to the clip

My point is that the person wasn't really sprinting backwards, at least not a significant amount in the overall time of the interactions with the zombies. In that case, how can you claim that that is an entire style which has been removed?

like sprinting backwards was not relevant ("significant") in the clip. Then I make my analysis, showing that the person was sprinting backwards in every segment but one, that yes, the person was "collecting" zombies in one sequence, sprinting forward, but still backward sprinting was essential when taking them down. That overall, the clip is indeed a solid example of the playstyle I'm talking about. Which you deny. Which is strange. And obviously false.

So, what that you intended to say, or in your opinion did say, did I not properly consider?

Your remark about relative speed is unreasonable:

On a different track, motion is relative. The zombies' clearly moved faster than the player could move backwards (didn't usually catch them because they died quickly), then the player had to adjust course. If the rate of change between the players and the zombies remains the same with the removal of backward sprinting, then I fail to see how there is a perceivable change on the player's part.

You speculate that the speed of running zombies might be adjusted so that a backward walking player would still be faster. I could've argued for why I assume that's not going to happen, but it seemed too obvious. Here I go, eventually: Cuz the running zombies would be really slow then. They would not run anymore. Since running zombies is a core game mechanic, it's not only unlikely that it's going to be change, it is certain.

Do you know reverse psychology..? An advanced technique is the announced reversed psychology, check it out, bro: Am I right to assume that you'll have some kind of obscure reason not to discuss the issue further..?

Changes are quite often announced in the dev diary and people can provide feedback.

Better than nothing. Myself, however, can I not be bothered to follow that thread and I dare to suspect I'm not the only one. It's a mess.

A case of "I hate this" and a feature being canceled has about a 0.00000001% chance of occurring.

And even when those who hate the change argue eloquently for their perspective, the chance is much lower than it would be before a change was actually put in the game. For various reasons, including psychological ones. That's why it would be smart to discuss planned changes upfront.

 

[Katitof]

Beloved?

People complained always that Zs are too easy to deal with, isn't that a perfect solution?

 

[Jedo]

I'll see your friendly whisper and raise you a friendly edit.

Where's the line there? I didn't think that my political reference had crossed over into a "political view." Would I not be allowed to say, "You're as crooked as Nixon"?

Then I make my analysis, showing that the person was sprinting backwards in every segment but one, that yes, the person was "collecting" zombies in one sequence, sprinting forward, but still backward sprinting was essential when taking them down. That overall, the clip is indeed a solid example of the playstyle I'm talking about. Which you deny. Which is strange. And obviously false.
So, what that you intended to say, or in your opinion did say, did I not properly consider?

I said the word "time" in there. The point being that the backward sprinting happened for 2-3 seconds at a time before strafing or forward moving or circling or stopping happened. (In the nurse clip near the beginning was the only time when there was prolonged backward movement of between 6-10 seconds.) You're telling me that you don't think that in A17 you will be able to aggro zombies and move backward for 2-3 second intervals before killing them or needing to move differently? Strange indeed.

You speculate that the speed of running zombies might be adjusted so that a backward walking player would still be faster. I could've argued for why I assume that's not going to happen, but it seemed too obvious. Here I go, eventually: Cuz the running zombies would be really slow then. They would not run anymore. Since running zombies is a core game mechanic, it's not only unlikely that it's going to be change, it is certain.

Well, player movement overall has been sped up, so if base speed has been increased anywhere close to the current backward sprinting speed, zombie running speed wouldn't need to be altered much. Of course, since backward movement only needs to happen for 2-3 seconds at a time for your playstyle, I'm not sure that the argument of relative motion is that important any more.

Do you know reverse psychology..? An advanced technique is the announced reversed psychology, check it out, bro: Am I right to assume that you'll have some kind of obscure reason not to discuss the issue further..?

Now you're moving into uncivil territory. There's no need for that.

 

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

Changes are quite often announced in the dev diary and people can provide feedback.
That doesn't mean it will affect the design but there B]are [/b] cases where an outside-the-box idea was used... or sparked an idea that was used to expand on an existing concept.

Every time I think of something, and by coincidence it happens to be how you were going to do it anyway, I'll now feel smug and assume that I sparked your ideas. Even if I never actually suggested them out loud.

That's just how influential I am.

 

[Gazz]

Confidence is important!

That one time as a student I held a presentation in front of the class but naturally I had been gaming all night. So I had like nothing.

The prof commended me on how calm and confident I could present complete BS. It was an honest and accurate critique.

That's not all I do at TFP but it does help that when you do have a good idea, you're not easily cowed if The Boss is thinking different.