PC LBD talk is RIGHT HERE

[Grue]

The survey suggests that a Hybrid system is what the majority of active players in this forum wants. The same active players that feel strongly enough about this game to discuss it with others.I am not a fan of LBD-only. Like I mentioned before in this pseudo-thread, I believe a Hybrid system is what we should be looking at and not going back and forth with weak arguments for LBD-only or Perks-only.

Also, like I said before, the way this thread is titled, and also the premise post that goes along with it, will only result in more people trying to either defend LBD or be against it... when neither of these should even be the focus here.

I would be careful with dismissing poll results, especially when they are started by moderators. Otherwise, you are saying the moment you post them, "Vote here for absolutely no reason whatsoever because it won't mean jack"

Alright, lets hash out a hybrid system we could all be happy with.

At the very least we can hope one of the talented modders here can bolt something on to whatever they serve up with A18.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Alright, lets hash out a hybrid system we could all be happy with.
At the very least we can hope one of the talented modders here can bolt something on to whatever they serve up with A18.

I am going to assume that the possibility will exist some day via modding in the least. Though, I am skeptical of this since you can't even request it in the only thread the devs are even looking at.

Maybe we can still sneak in one here and there if we can keep the moderators busy in here talking about their useless polls.

 

[Grue]

I am going to assume that the possibility will exist some day via modding in the least. Though, I am skeptical of this since you can't even request it in the only thread the devs are even looking at.
Maybe we can still sneak in one here and there if we can keep the moderators busy in here talking about their useless polls.

Ok, I will pull aggro here.

You go ask for mod support for the progression system.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

lol, sure give me the dangerous role.

 

[FA_Q2]

I am going to assume that the possibility will exist some day via modding in the least. Though, I am skeptical of this since you can't even request it in the only thread the devs are even looking at.
Maybe we can still sneak in one here and there if we can keep the moderators busy in here talking about their useless polls.

You cant request it because they have specifically stated they are not doing mod support until after gold. At that point, I am sure they will be open to requests about expanding mod support as that will be one of their main interests at that point.

 

[Grue]

You cant request it because they have specifically stated they are not doing mod support until after gold. At that point, I am sure they will be open to requests about expanding mod support as that will be one of their main interests at that point.

I appreciate the enthusiasm to try to wrap things up, but if they end up wrapping a turd and calling it a Christmas present.... no, thank you.

 

[FA_Q2]

Well if the one who wrote this doesn't like it to be taken literally, then perhaps they could try being literal.

How? List the 500 ways that you can take damage from a safe source every time this point is made or just use a simple example that everyone should understand?

You are being disingenuous here.

Seriously though, the hugging cacti example is an example of using a static controllable damage source which doesn't provide any risk to level up a skill. If it's in some way metaphorical, what are you trying to compare it with? Being hit by a zombie which can infect you, make you bleed and stun you, especially with the current system of lowered max health?

I can easily set up a situation where I get beat on relentlessly by a zed without real risk. Just use some basic heavy armor and get a crawler alone. Done.

That really does not matter though as the core problem is the game motivating a player to perform tasks that do not make any sense and do not provide a positive experience.

And how is the example of raising your skill by shooting rocks with a shotgun metaphorical or refers to something broader? If raising your skill was possible only by shooting zombies, how would that be different from what we have now? On the contrary, players would rarely waste bullets on a default setting to just raise a weapon skill, but you can see how lucrative that is with the common pool XP being as valuable as it is.

No I cant. You had better bet they are going to waste bullets leveling the skill in a LBD system - THEY HAVE TO. That is the core problem with LBD, you stink at first with your skills so if you ever want to get good enough to take on the big guys with that weapon you have to level it first. It does not make any real sense to go around shooting crawlers in a survival sense but in a LBD system it certainly does make sense from a progression standpoint. It is almost necessary.

This is actually one of the largest reasons that I really did not use guns in 16 - I did not want to wast the mats and therefore my weapon skills were never high enough to bother using them. If I wanted to use them wasting those mats would have been a requirement.

My point is that if some stupid LBD oversights didn't exist, those repeating, dull, grindy activities would not be possible or beneficial to the player. So the player would just play the game instead of trying to raise some skill in a boring annoying way. And there were still some points you could invest yourself wherever you wanted.

And my general point is that those sad situations are NOT oversights - they are intrinsic with any LBD system in a game like this. I have yet to see a single LBD system that does not include endless grinding of activities players would not otherwise do. That is a necessary evil with LBD progression systems. You can accept that as a reasonable price to pay for the other immersion aspects but you are not going to eliminate that problem.

That is not to say that common pool xp does not have its downsides as well. Aside from losing the immersive aspects it also takes some of the control the devs have in guiding the players activities leading to what many are complaining about with zed farming. There will always be that one activity that is most effective in farming and therefore some players will migrate there. I think that this is far easier to combat though with proper xp balancing and has a lot less overall impact on the players play style.

Common XP pool combined with gated perk recipes was the main reason a lot of people viewed A17 as a grind. I am not saying that it can't be salvaged - it can, like the LBD could. But they have to, imo, balance activity XP gain strictly by time spent. For example - zombies are always, infinitely, everywhere, readily available - they cost minimum time. Mining XP also shouldn't scale with block damage. And so on.

Nothing stops you from trying out different weapons. You are only screwed if you want to be a master of the other weapon right away. You are free to use the other weapon as you see fit and master it in the process.

Game progression does. You cant utilize a level one weapon in a game stage 600 world and have fun. So, no, you cant try out different weapon or play styles. Not effectively. In a LBD system, you need to restart if you really want to try out some new play styles. In a common pool xp world you can gain enough points in that alternative to make it effective in a more dangerous world or you can restart. I really like rounding out my character after I have mastered my main combat style. If I am lv 5 in heavy metal I do not want to be forced to start with level 1 in stay down just to mix it up with my character. I should be able to invest some points there when I am ready to.

In some sense, your character not being able to shoot lazers out of their eyes is limiting too, but in a good way. What I am trying to say is that this kind of limitation, like the example of not being able to master a weapon without using it, is actually enjoyable to some people.

No doubt it is enjoyable to some. I think that a common pool is far superior though for the above reasons. Some will always prefer an LBD system,

Of course, I never said "this system is doomed beyond redemption, it sucks, bring LBD back". Was always discussing even before A17 was released, about having to balance xp sources, making rpg elements complimentary instead of "a goal" with actions having to depend on survival needs and said the exact thing you say about zombies and mining over 100 times. So I am looking forward to this too. Would be great if MM expressed the same sentiment, but from his recent posts I haven't seen any intention of him doing that. Edit: To clarify he did say that they will balance XP sources more in A18 but he also said this about the zombies, so I am not really sure what they are going to do.

PS: I like tRolands concept too.

His statements there about zeds does not alarm me to much. He is correct that removing the gates will alleviate a LOT of the problem. I think the main issue is that most of us have some specific set of perks or abilities that they find intrinsic to their play. For instance, I like to build but abhor doing so before I have some iron tools. Stone tools are just so slow and boring. Inevitably, I find myself avoiding building and killing zeds instead before access to iron because of this. Without gating, we should be able to at least get the basic perks in what we want to do without farming xp. That will alleviate most of the problem out the gate when combined with breaking up intellect ans strength being so damn intrinsic to most play styles.

Unfortunately, I do not hold out hope that it really will ever be balanced to the point that players are not actively seeking out zeds. I just do not think that the dev team has that in their vision anymore. Zeds are not an obstacle but a resource and I think that we all have to get used to that idea no matter how much we may hate it.

But hey, Roland has fixed that for us and he just managed to fix the game stage issue with it as well. I will be using that mod from here on out more than likely.

 

[HungryZombie]

It is a subset yes. It is the acively involved subset of the game and their players.By your standarts I could dismiss any statistic brought up. "not enough" "not the right demographic" "just a subset and not representative".

I think you're really off the mark on this. There are entire fields and millions of dollars devoted to surveys and polls. There are legit methods of getting accurate results from a survey. While nothing is 100% accurate they are pretty well accepted in buisiness, academia and government.

A forum poll is not one of them.

 

[FA_Q2]

I appreciate the enthusiasm to try to wrap things up, but if they end up wrapping a turd and calling it a Christmas present.... no, thank you.

That is a silly response to what I stated.

Mod support is not coming until after gold. It has nothing to do with wrapping up a turd. It has to do with not trying to add mod support to systems that are not final. Without knowing what is actually going to make it to the final cut it would be an awfully poor decision to devote dev time to mod support for those same systems.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

That is a silly response to what I stated.
Mod support is not coming until after gold. It has nothing to do with wrapping up a turd. It has to do with not trying to add mod support to systems that are not final. Without knowing what is actually going to make it to the final cut it would be an awfully poor decision to devote dev time to mod support for those same systems.

This can go around in circles. You need a system in place first in order to provide mod support for it. They won't provide mod support until the systems are done. The problem is they removed the possibility to mod it in. Waiting until they are done with the systems only results in not having the system in place for them to provide the mod support.

 

[FA_Q2]

This can go around in circles. You need a system in place first in order to provide mod support for it. They won't provide mod support until the systems are done. The problem is they removed the possibility to mod it in. Waiting until they are done with the systems only results in not having the system in place for them to provide the mod support.

Not at all. They need to solidify the progression system. After that I hope, and think they will, add support to change how it works to include LBD.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Not at all. They need to solidify the progression system. After that I hope, and think they will, add support to change how it works to include LBD.

I hope, but I don't think they will. Nothing they have said thus far has indicated that. Many of us just wanted that for now.

 

[OzHawkeye]

I hope, but I don't think they will. Nothing they have said thus far has indicated that. Many of us just wanted that for now.

While still in development, I think it's very unlikely TFP will (or perhaps even should) do that, but, like you, I hope, post-Gold it'll be something that can be modded back in with some work (it's never going to be an in-game option menu, that's for sure).

 

[Grue]

That is a silly response to what I stated.
Mod support is not coming until after gold. It has nothing to do with wrapping up a turd. It has to do with not trying to add mod support to systems that are not final. Without knowing what is actually going to make it to the final cut it would be an awfully poor decision to devote dev time to mod support for those same systems.

They are obviously in a rush to reach Gold and willing to cut major corners and skimp (technical debt) so they can say, "Hey look guys, it took a while, but we finally made it!" so they can cash in on the Summer/Winter steam sales to draw in a new batch of suckers with the shiny "Gold Edition".

What happened is they wasted a bunch of dev time on A17's giant steaming turd of a perk system, now they feel the need to stick with it, even though it clearly sucks (sunk cost fallacy).

Of course all the fanboys and fluffers here will be happy with literally anything TFP puts out regardless of the quality, so they can get away with polishing up that turd for A18.

This can go around in circles. You need a system in place first in order to provide mod support for it. They won't provide mod support until the systems are done. The problem is they removed the possibility to mod it in. Waiting until they are done with the systems only results in not having the system in place for them to provide the mod support.

The better approach would be to build in the mod support as you go so that it is intrinsic instead of trying to bolt it on after the fact.

That way the modders can at least try to clean up their mess as they go along, thus giving players a functional game to work with instead having to wait for this semi-mystical "Gold" release. They need to leverage the mod community.

 

[Roland]

They are obviously in a rush to reach Gold and willing to cut major corners and skimp (technical debt) so they can say, "Hey look guys, it took a while, but we finally made it!" so they can cash in on the Summer/Winter steam sales to draw in a new batch of suckers with the shiny "Gold Edition".

Madmole just said this week that Gold release is still a year out. That has got to be the slowest "rush" I've ever heard of.

What happened is they wasted a bunch of dev time on A17's giant steaming turd of a perk system, now they feel the need to stick with it, even though it clearly sucks (sunk cost fallacy).

They wasted little time on the perk system. It was one of the final things to go in and represented a very small part of A17 development time. The only reason they feel the need to stick with it is because they prefer the current design to the old design. I don't think it is so clear. I think we would have angry posts if they reversed themselves. Happy posts from you, yes. But angry posts from others that aren't you.

Of course all the fanboys and fluffers here will be happy with literally anything TFP puts out regardless of the quality, so they can get away with polishing up that turd for A18.

You are so good at naming fallacies. I bet you can name the one you committed here. It helps you to feel strong in your position to view every single person who doesn't hold with your own preferences as "fanboys" and "fluffers" with no critical thinking skills. But what it really does is reveal your own faulty thought processes. You should keep such sentiments to yourself for the sake of credibility.

 

[RestInPieces]

How? List the 500 ways that you can take damage from a safe source every time this point is made or just use a simple example that everyone should understand?

No, just have to list one of them that is not a product of a silly oversight like the above.

You are being disingenuous here.
I can easily set up a situation where I get beat on relentlessly by a zed without real risk. Just use some basic heavy armor and get a crawler alone. Done.

Disingenuous? You wouldn't even dream about doing it, if the disease system worked correctly. In A16 you didn't even need medicine to heal. Not even "powerlevelers" would do a completely inefficient action just to raise a single skill.

You had better bet they are going to waste bullets leveling the skill in a LBD system - THEY HAVE TO...It is almost necessary.

Absolutely not, they don't have to. Wasting a ton of bullets to raise a single skill slightly is terribly inefficient. No player will be inclined to do it - and that's the important part: "inclined". Not as they are now, which is obvious from all the "zombie grind" complaints. Having a common XP pool and all the essential skills and recipes as the carrot makes it far more enticing than leveling a single weapon for not even that much of a benefit.

This is actually one of the largest reasons that I really did not use guns in 16 - I did not want to wast the mats and therefore my weapon skills were never high enough to bother using them. If I wanted to use them wasting those mats would have been a requirement.

Didn't you just make my point?

And my general point is that those sad situations are NOT oversights - they are intrinsic with any LBD system in a game like this. I have yet to see a single LBD system that does not include endless grinding of activities players would not otherwise do. That is a necessary evil with LBD progression systems. You can accept that as a reasonable price to pay for the other immersion aspects but you are not going to eliminate that problem.

Well I have. Mod Skyrim properly (Requiem, CCO, etc) and you will too. Nothing is without a solution when you are able to set your own rules about anything. Saying that "it's a necessary evil/price and nothing can be done about it" only means that you are just waiting for someone else to do it first.

That is not to say that common pool xp does not have its downsides as well. Aside from losing the immersive aspects it also takes some of the control the devs have in guiding the players activities leading to what many are complaining about with zed farming. There will always be that one activity that is most effective in farming and therefore some players will migrate there. I think that this is far easier to combat though with proper xp balancing and has a lot less overall impact on the players play style.

Well, if they balance them properly, as much as possible, even if an activity is slightly more efficient it won't actually be a problem. Simply because if the benefit is small enough it will be completely overshadowed by other priorities, in other words become inefficient to repeat. The game is a mouse utopia.

Game progression does. You cant utilize a level one weapon in a game stage 600 world and have fun. So, no, you cant try out different weapon or play styles. Not effectively. In a LBD system, you need to restart if you really want to try out some new play styles. In a common pool xp world you can gain enough points in that alternative to make it effective in a more dangerous world or you can restart. I really like rounding out my character after I have mastered my main combat style. If I am lv 5 in heavy metal I do not want to be forced to start with level 1 in stay down just to mix it up with my character. I should be able to invest some points there when I am ready to.

You don't *need* to restart. You can say "compelled" instead, but not "need". Frankly it's the first time I hear about anyone restarting to try out a different weapon. EVEN if you needed to restart to try out something different - do you really need to try out everything in one playthrough? This mentality is as damaging for the game as saying that RNG is bad because you may not find a particular rare item. Doesn't mastering a couple of weapons in a playthrough suffice? Not to mention that you could also invest some points to help you start out if you really wanted to.

His statements there about zeds does not alarm me to much. He is correct that removing the gates will alleviate a LOT of the problem. I think the main issue is that most of us have some specific set of perks or abilities that they find intrinsic to their play. For instance, I like to build but abhor doing so before I have some iron tools. Stone tools are just so slow and boring. Inevitably, I find myself avoiding building and killing zeds instead before access to iron because of this. Without gating, we should be able to at least get the basic perks in what we want to do without farming xp. That will alleviate most of the problem out the gate when combined with breaking up intellect ans strength being so damn intrinsic to most play styles.

They surely alarm me but I am here for the ride. They wanted to slow down progression, which was a great thing IMO. They did it in a very, very unintuitive way (fixed rigid level requirements). No wonder people hated them. Now they are going to completely take them away, just like that, instead of bothering to try something that achieves both slower progression and more character development freedom. I am not naive, I know they must be discussing these thoroughly and they are very capable people, having achieved what they did. But seriously, won't we go back to the day 1 forge if they just remove gating? Won't that create its own problems? Anyway, as always, I try to reserve judgement for the changes and see them on my own first - we don't even know all the details yet.

Unfortunately, I do not hold out hope that it really will ever be balanced to the point that players are not actively seeking out zeds. I just do not think that the dev team has that in their vision anymore. Zeds are not an obstacle but a resource and I think that we all have to get used to that idea no matter how much we may hate it.

I did ask exactly the same thing in the dev thread and mentioned that the "zombies as obstacles" was MM's own words in the past but didn't get a reply on it (not complaining, already posts a lot). I think the complaints have and will make them see around it, at least in part.

 

[Tete1805]

This discussion feels pointless at this point.

I don't see one side convincing the other.

I see benefits to both systems, I just think they cater to different styles of gamers.

I will see what the future holds but I've had plenty of fun already, so no regrets.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Hybrid, I tell you!

 

[RipClaw]

What I find interesting about the first few points here is that if this is truly the way you were playing then there should be no noticeable difference between 16 and 17 - at least after balance passes. Why stand on the LBD soapbox if your claims that LBD did not motivate you to change your behavior. In the new system, you can do exactly as you did before.

One of the differences between LBD and the current system is that LBD has leveled several things independently at the same time. When I built a base I had to collect resources and partially redesign the landscape. This was how mining was levelled. Building the base levelled construction. And there were also wandering hordes to visit on the construction site where you leveled one or more weapons and sometimes the armor.

With the current system there is only XP left and you have to decide at each skill point in which ability to invest it. I tried to distribute it evenly but it didn't work because the gamestage is rising way too fast. I had massive problems until I started to only put points into the skills you need for the fight. Of course you don't progress with the skills in the intelligence branch anymore if you do this.

You wrote yourself that some things had to be balanced so that players like me, who prefer to build rather than fight, could move forward at all. At the beginning of Alpha 17 only killing zombies brought enough XP to move forward. From this time came the beginning of this discussion and also the rejection of the current system.

 

[Katitof]

One of the differences between LBD and the current system is that LBD has leveled several things independently at the same time. When I built a base I had to collect resources and partially redesign the landscape. This was how mining was levelled. Building the base levelled construction. And there were also wandering hordes to visit on the construction site where you leveled one or more weapons and sometimes the armor.
With the current system there is only XP left and you have to decide at each skill point in which ability to invest it. I tried to distribute it evenly but it didn't work because the gamestage is rising way too fast. I had massive problems until I started to only put points into the skills you need for the fight. Of course you don't progress with the skills in the intelligence branch anymore if you do this.

You wrote yourself that some things had to be balanced so that players like me, who prefer to build rather than fight, could move forward at all. At the beginning of Alpha 17 only killing zombies brought enough XP to move forward. From this time came the beginning of this discussion and also the rejection of the current system.

If you distributed it "evenly" and still couldn't fight off zombies, then you didn't distribute it evenly(too much focus on int) and forgot to cover what you can't do(make heavy armor if no investment in health was made, buy better weapon and mods if no combat was perked up etc).

If gamestage is rising too quickly for you, it means your GRINDING, not playing, if you're grinding, you're going to have a lot of zombie kills and zero materials, zero equipment, no prepared base and no resources to keep yourself alife in or out of combat.

Previously it didn't mattered, you had everything at all times.

Now what you choose actually impacts your gameplay, what you'll have easy time with and what you'll have hard time with.

Also, your last argument is about first A17 iteration, since that time exp values were tweaked and they will keep getting tweaked, so if first A17 iteration spawned the discussion, that means current A17 iteration should put it down. Killing Zs is fastest exp, but doing literally anything else is still fast exp+plenty of resources on top, so as a builder you are STILL leveling up fast, but you now have to invest in defenses to protect yourself, just like combat focused build will struggle in building base and defenses for himself due to inefficiency of resource gathering.

You STILL can level up gathering, building and combat IF YOU CHOSE TO, if you don't go for combat and go pure builder, sorry, that's not progression system fault, that's 100% on you for prioritizing your build that way.

A17 is all about choices and playing how you want.

A16 was all about grinding and spamming menial tasks just to achieve the same A17 does without limiting you to mind numbling grind.