PC Is alpha 17 hardcore, unbalanced or boring ?

I think we are past the point in development of too much this or that. The devs have to concentrate on the framework and resources, which it looks like is already in place the way they want it. This kind of discussion should really push the devs (hopefully) into deciding what the option buttons / sliders should be, or at the least (and tackier) a consolidated configuration XML. Most of this stuff should be and probably is modular with variable based coding. Put all the relevant variables in one place and we can make huge changes without having to Mod, which many people dont want to do or cant.

eg - Wandering zombies option - 0/med/lots/armageddon (0 /Base #/ multiplier1/ multiplyer 2)

XP Focus - Combat / Crafting / Mixed ( adjust xp base # accordingly)

Zombies Run option - we already have

Zombies Dig option - Yes / No / Specific type

Base block strength Normal / Reinforced / Strong (Block strength modifier of player placed blocks)

Level Gate On / Off

Multiple Land Claim - On / Off

And so on.

These are the things slowing down production I think, and the aspects annoying some of the players. We could craft solo games and servers to playstyles.

 
So I got to level 118, day 41, have moved to an awesome base on top of a skyscraper and a horde-fighting location at a construction site across the street. Haven't had issues with food or water since day 2. Haven't had issues with resource collection other than it's slow and painful early on but that's part of the challenge. Early on you want to focus on scavenging and easy sources and moving quickly to find good locations.

I quickly searched small houses until I found one with a forge in it. A bit away is another POI with a chemistry bench. I had no workbench until I could make my own.

I have 0 points in stealth and almost no perception. My focus had been strength for melee and heavy weapon, some stamina/cardio and mostly intelligence to unlock crafting stuff. I have had 0 issues leveling and found the fire axe to be my absolute best weapon, ♥♥♥♥ stealth. Killing zombies is how I level and by level 40 I can one-shot head hit kill almost anything and knock down with 1 hit everything I don't kill.

I made a long, dangerous trip to the desert to get aloe to make seeds to farm my own.

I'm loving A17. It's challenging and fun and engaging. I get very little sense of grind save when I tried to switch to guns - gunpowder is too hard to get when I can butcher hordes with a fire axe at the top of a ladder all night.

I have a truck now. A mother ♥♥♥♥ing 4x4 truck. It's loud and it's got a zombie killing grill. The motorcycle is also just amazing. I've found a T5 compound bow which has been useful and I'm starting to level up perception and archery. The crossbow is ♥♥♥♥, regular bow only good for hunting.

I'm not some leet player or FPS fanatic but killing zombies and not getting killed is a big part of the game, I don't consider that a negative. Working out how to do so and still succeed is the challenge. Crafting and survival are all around doing so while dealing with the zombie attacks.

I do think that resource collection could be a little faster. Some of it is about doing it in the right place. You can get metal and stone super fast in the ruins area. Wood/water in Forest. Farming is key - start early, get all the farming perks. Now I have 120 corn, 120 aloe, 120 mixed herbs for drinks every 3 days days. I get 4 units per plant I harvest.

I wonder how much of peoples troubles are tied to poor build/skill/weapon/location choices.

 
Where???? I have not seen one at all. I thought they were not included yet? Are you on RWG?
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I usually play RWG buy played Nav so I got a good feel for the intent. It's in the big desert city in the SE. Like 13 stories I think.

 
I usually play RWG buy played Nav so I got a good feel for the intent. It's in the big desert city in the SE. Like 13 stories I think.
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OK, haven't played Nav yet in A17. So the skyscrapers stayed in Nav then, huh. I know where you're talking about from A16.

 
OK, haven't played Nav yet in A17. So the skyscrapers stayed in Nav then, huh. I know where you're talking about from A16.
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A17 map is huge. Big expansion and full of awesome POIs. I always played RWG before but the map of Nav for A17 is more than big enough IMO and feels a bit better than the mix of RWG.

 
I realized before launch the new AI would not make it hardcore. IMO, it is not.

Based on experience, i thought it would be unbalanced, and it was. But playable.

I thought the slow levelling and easy AI would make it boring.... And it seemed right too.

Then i tried to actually play it. Many words can be used to describe A17, but boring is

not among those. Unbalanced, yes, but far better then i expected it. Not a great fan

of the level gating, but it's not too bad once i start to play.

 
Exactly

The base problem IMO is that before a17, players reached a point where they got estabilished and bored. So, we asked for things to do after that. And instead of that, they focused on it just taking longer to reach that point.
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Great answer. This sums it up for me 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻.

But everyone’s different, I guess.

 
I think if they want people to stop using the stone axe in late game they need to enable upgrading via the other axe variants. The only time I carry a hammer is when i loot one and take it back to my base to live in a box until I need to do a bunch of upgrading. If they want the player to stop using 1 tool that does 3 jobs(Harvesting wood, destroying wood, upgrading) then they need to give us a better 3 job tool. The hammer is a joke, and the nailgun is just a waste of an inventory slot.
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Why? We get the crappy jack of all trades stone axe as a starter. Later on we get better but specialized tools. Hammer and wrench get swapped out for home/away. Unless the nailguns been nerfed I don't understand you at all about it.

The stupid Indian...sorry...savage...errr...I mean native American...voodoo magic axe is a thing still btw, I found 1 the other day. Was not impressed, gave it to buddy.

I guarantee you that people did not make 500 stone axes to get better at stone axes. I guarantee you that people used the experience AND the skill progression they earned from making stone axes in order to improve in areas unrelated to crafting stone axes. There's no need to ignore what was blatantly exploited. Pretending that crafting xp in A15 was primarily focused on improving skills in that thing lends you no credence. You find me one person who switched to crafting dozens of fireaxes to start improving their fireaxe crafting skill instead of just sticking to stone axes and then find me one other person who didn't use the points earned from leveling up thanks to crafting stone axes to improve perks in unrelated areas and one other person who didn't do all of that during the first week of playing so they wouldn't have to start playing the game for real before skipping over all the early game content and I'll show you a schizophrenic dude with multiple personalities-- because there ain't three people like that out there that utilized crafting xp as a means to progress in a natural and truly learning by doing manner.
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LIES! I really really really liked combining them into QL600 axes FTW!

Sorry TRolland (and I call you that with affection, people who take you too seriously get offended, I've been around here long enough to see how many really good discussions on this forum started with some tounge-in-cheek (or "light trolling") post you made) in all seriousness you are 100% right, this is why "learning by doing" fails as a game mechanic, because all it ever turns into is "level by exploiting" and I am really glad they ditched it.

 
Boring is when you crank up the zombies to max and then hide from them anyway.

Playing SP-Nomad with only airdrop markers turned on (because screw chasing those things down), it's definitely tuned to multiplayer but survivable solo. Even with as much prep as possible, I've never hit the 'bottom' of a horde night, much less finished a horde night with any remaining ammo or defensive options. It's obvious i'm punching above my weight.

The tuning feels almost perfect for a 2-player co-op other than wild animal spawning, and it may be time for TFP to start making difficulty recommendations for Single Player (Adventurer), Local Co-op (Nomad), and Full Multiplayer (Warrior).

 
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Boring is when you crank up the zombies to max and then hide from them anyway.
Playing SP-Nomad with only airdrop markers turned on (because screw chasing those things down), it's definitely tuned to multiplayer but survivable solo. Even with as much prep as possible, I've never hit the 'bottom' of a horde night, much less finished a horde night with any remaining ammo or defensive options. It's obvious i'm punching above my weight.

The tuning feels almost perfect for a 2-player co-op other than wild animal spawning, and it may be time for TFP to start making difficulty recommendations for Single Player (Adventurer), Local Co-op (Nomad), and Full Multiplayer (Warrior).
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This is good advice. I'm dying most BMs. Just straight up can't hold a base without having some sort of "make them crawl over barbwire for a mile then case me up a ladder that I knock them off" sort of wonkery. I can clear a POI but it's 10x the struggle even at level 118 that A16 ever was. It does feel balanced for coop. My A16 base could functionally shut down a BM horde late game and I just showed up to farm some zed heads. I went anywhere and mowed through whatever.

That's not A17. I like it - the challenge has me invested. I'll see what it's like at day 60 but the first 60 levels are brutal.

 
Why? We get the crappy jack of all trades stone axe as a starter. Later on we get better but specialized tools. Hammer and wrench get swapped out for home/away. Unless the nailguns been nerfed I don't understand you at all about it.The stupid Indian...sorry...savage...errr...I mean native American...voodoo magic axe is a thing still btw, I found 1 the other day. Was not impressed, gave it to buddy.
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You GAVE Away the magical stone axe?! I love that thing!! its got great block damage... not sure how the entity damage is nowadays, but the block damage was amazing the 1 time i got it :p

 
This is good advice. I'm dying most BMs. Just straight up can't hold a base without having some sort of "make them crawl over barbwire for a mile then case me up a ladder that I knock them off" sort of wonkery. I can clear a POI but it's 10x the struggle even at level 118 that A16 ever was. It does feel balanced for coop. My A16 base could functionally shut down a BM horde late game and I just showed up to farm some zed heads. I went anywhere and mowed through whatever.
That's not A17. I like it - the challenge has me invested. I'll see what it's like at day 60 but the first 60 levels are brutal.
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The next time you (or I) start from scratch, knock the difficulty down to Adventurer and give it another go. The only way we can tune the balance of this thing is if we get to see the bottom of the horde before dawn at an appropriately fair difficulty setting. Nomad is punching above your weight for SP, so it makes sense to tweak it back a notch.

Assuming that test is successful, I'd say TFP can actually apply suggestions to the difficulty settings, or even re-label them Easy, Single Player, Coop, Multiplayer, and Suicide.

 
I realized before launch the new AI would not make it hardcore. IMO, it is not.Based on experience, i thought it would be unbalanced, and it was. But playable.

I thought the slow levelling and easy AI would make it boring.... And it seemed right too.

Then i tried to actually play it. Many words can be used to describe A17, but boring is

not among those. Unbalanced, yes, but far better then i expected it. Not a great fan

of the level gating, but it's not too bad once i start to play.
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i agree, the levels mitigating what you can pick is kinda annoying, but i can live with it to be honest... and yeah, its far from boring unless all you wanna do is build & craft, then the zombie killing can be boring, the questing is a nice thing to do

 
Most of the challenge for me seems to come from doing high-level dungeon runs. The blood moon horde is currently easily exploitable, but in the POIs I can't control the zombies as much, so once my gamestage increases a little, I often have to fight or make a run for it. Had some really exciting fights in the bigger POIs such as the Shotgun Messiah factory.

 
The next time you (or I) start from scratch, knock the difficulty down to Adventurer and give it another go. The only way we can tune the balance of this thing is if we get to see the bottom of the horde before dawn at an appropriately fair difficulty setting. Nomad is punching above your weight for SP, so it makes sense to tweak it back a notch.
Assuming that test is successful, I'd say TFP can actually apply suggestions to the difficulty settings, or even re-label them Easy, Single Player, Coop, Multiplayer, and Suicide.
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This is good advice. I want to build a gyrocopter and get to day 60, then I'll start over.

 
To the original question, it's not balanced, but now it's boring. Thanks b108, the beta I love to hate.

 
MFW I built 8 campfires in the courtyard of my castle just to trigger screamers just to grind XP without leaving my base.

:V

 
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