PC My feedback on A17 (active player since A9) - Pros and Cons!

[Voicer]

Hello survivors!

I rarely commented anything here (if at all ) but let me share my current experience about A17E build so far.

I've played it since it was released to the public in randomgen map, 2 hours day, nomad difficulty, 200% loot were my settings of choice.

Pros:

1. The game changed A LOT. In previous Alpha versions, I was dissapointed by zed AI and their inability to dig down. This is a real game changer and kudos to Fun Pimps for making it real!

2. The game feels more about surviving the zombies, not just building and walking within roaming hordes like superhero. I feel almost like first hours during A9 when I was surprised that Zombies attack walls and can get to me (fear is only worse now!)

3. Zombies jumping on each other to reach you is a great mechanic that should be further extended (think World War Z zeds piling up the wall)

4. New POI's are great and overall feeling of the map is positive for me. There are bugs, maps is smaller, but when playing Solo (like I do now), it does not matter that much.

5. Backpack limitation mechanism (where you can carry more, but at cost) is awesome! Never change it back again, please!

Cons:

1. Zombies destroy blocks too easy. It was already reported by many, and I only agree. There is a realism conflict in game design, where in one place you are over realistic with some settings that limits you, while on the other hand zeds are OP on unrealistic side of things. There should be a balance. Digging down (lets say to your underground base) should be much slower, especially while digging stone.

2. New skills and exp system is very limited and is all about killing Zed's. This is a total decrease of my freedom what I am supposed to do in the game.

3. I did a lot of Trader quests of Fetch/Hidden cache kind. Currently it is easy to exploit it and skip entire POI (too dangerous). Instead I take lots of wood frames, pile up (or dig down) and smash the building straight to the cache. I never did such kind of cheating before (I like to roleplay a bit) but that changed in A17 due to extreme difficulty and feral zeds in early days.

4. Zeds should have some kind of realism when it comes to tracking you - while you are in a building or underground, they should anchor to the last voice/heat they hear/feel and try to reach that point, instead of following the player dynamically. It is ok for blood moon horde, but normal roaming hordes and especially normal zeds should be simply MORE STUPID.

Suggestions that would improve the game (for me):

1. It would be best if iron and concrete structures were invincible for normal Zeds, so special zombies are needed. Lets make those policeman pukes stick to the walls and destroy them like fire burns wood + improve zombie jumping over each other abilities, so they can get to you other ways. Zombies destroying reinforced steel simply makes no sense and does not make me feel scared - it makes me feel irritated and confused, you can do better than that Fun Pimps!

2. While I love the way FP designed stats and perks, I should still get more exp from constantly repeating skill like mining. It was working great in A16!

3. I see no difference after giving some points in Miner69'r at how fast I am able to mine. There are also much less resources, which means I have to GRIND for hours in order to get resources to build an awesome base.

4. Speaking about building bases - with current zed settings and ability to destroy structures so easily, you are taking away from me the fun I had with building in this game. Before I never looked at other survival games of this kind, because 7DTD was the best at building. With A17 it's a BIG step back - too much grind to get resources and only few minutes during blood moon to destroy it. It's like my effort and time spent to build stuff in 7DTD is not count as valuable to game designers.

To sum up my post - I love this game more with A17 update, but unfortunately it is no longer a building+survival game for me, now it's more action survival game good to play in coop with friends. If that's the Fun Pimps way they see the game going, I am fine with that, but I would never understand why letting go one of your most advantages (compared to other games) which is base building (and defending)!

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

I share most of your concerns. I'm not bothered that I can't build a base on day 7 (I play 60 min days) but I am worried about mid-game base building and mining. Right now with max perks a steel pickaxe only does 130ish damage with a power attack. As to Con #4, that is how the system works the zombies just have a large detection area. If you would like to test this, create a new game turn on debug mode (hit F1 and type dm) and then hit numpad 0. This will show you the zombies AI instructions.

 

[Voicer]

you are right with that detection area and I have nothing against it, but when not in open space, this listening size of zombies should be reduced (lets say 1 stone/concrete counts as 4 blocks of air etc)

 

[Xyle]

Your post is a great source of information, I specifically looked for just a straight up pros and cons post. I put most of the following in another post but wanted to put it here to lend to your topic...


PROS

1 - The quest system is awesome!!

2 - The Vehicles are awesome!!!

3 - The Dungeons are cool!!

4 - Sticking arrows that are retrievable is very cool!!!

5 - The Modify item system looks very awesome so far

6 - Zombies will dig underground. I love the building/ crafting of the game more than zombie killing. Most of my type of player are complaining about this but I like it, it adds a whole new level of excitement. You better make some good plans for your base with escape routes!

CONS

1 - The Max Stamina requiring to constantly eat foods to keep the max stamina up

2 - The Max Health requiring to constantly first aid bandage or kit to keep it up. Heat will bring it down, cold will bring it down, sickness etc

3 - The only real source of xp is killing zombies. This gets boring real quick. Need to mix it up a bit. If your a crafter like my wife, you will need to kill a ton of zombies in order to craft anything good.

4 - Skill and perk system. Major skill gating. To do anything worth while you need to be lvl 20 to build a forge and iron tools, then level 30 to build more goodies. Lvl 20 took me 249 zombies to kill and about 15-20 hours of game play. This got pretty boring for me. Lvl 30 took me 3 RL days, about 30 hours and 389 dead z's. Replay value of the game is very diminished because of this.

5 - The water is still gimpy, destroying blocks still leads to empty water pockets in lakes

6 - The LCB's are broken

I have over 3000 hours of playing and have been playing since A7(?). This is by far one of my all time favorite games. Hopefully things will get tweaked in a good direction before stable comes out.

 

[Vomkat]

In previous Alpha versions, I was dissapointed by zed AI and their inability to dig down.

I'd like to know more about this. I was told zombies would 'never' dig, and I am interested to hear that there is now a threat to underground bases. Are they digging tunnels? How does it work? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

1. Zombies destroy blocks too easy.

I agree, but this is definitely something you can mod in the .xml files. I'll be happy to send you copies if you want. The player should, of course, also have difficulty with blocks like stone, concrete, iron, steel, stuff that you wouldn't be able to dig through in real life. All of those block types can be modded to have more hitpoints.

4. normal zeds should be simply MORE STUPID.

Agree, the developers need to get away from 'super' irradiated glowing green spitter zombies. This isn't DOOM 3. I want lots of dumb slow easy to kill zombies, and the challenge is is... there are a lot of them. That's fine if they want to have an option for fantasy zombies, but they should also have an option to disable them.

It's like my effort and time spent to build stuff in 7DTD is not count as valuable to game designers.

You have creative mode, you have a new feature making it easier to install and share your creations. However, in the survival game, you should expect it to be difficult. Would you create an architectural masterpiece during an actual zombie apocalypse? No.

 

[icehot]

I agree, but this is definitely something you can mod in the .xml files. I'll be happy to send you copies if you want. The player should, of course, also have difficulty with blocks like stone, concrete, iron, steel, stuff that you wouldn't be able to dig through in real life. All of those block types can be modded to have more hitpoints.

I'm not sure I agree that increasing the hit points of the blocks is the answer - the Zeds can destroy the blocks like it's made of paper, but it'd take me quite a while with a pick axe to get through steel. Imo they shouldn't be as buffed as they are against the blocks, maybe a bit more buffed than me as they don't have stamina or pain to worry about etc, but their buff against blocks comes from that they attack the weakest point as a horde and all focus on it. If there's a mod to decrease the damage the zombies do against blocks I'd be happy to play with that.

 

[giKoN]

So here are my few thoughts in terms of pros and cons:

Pros:

• I do like the graphical update to 7 days (with some fixes to come)
  
• I do enjoy new POIs
  
• I do like the general concept of encumbrance with a big but: I consider the current form of encumbrance as a quick win to a greater system. Rather than limiting the amount of slots that define if a player is experiencing encumbrance it should be defined by the sum of the item's weights the player is carrying and the ability to carry more. Thus, filling my backpack with 1 feather in each slot can't possible have an equal effect as putting 40 4x4 vehicles in it. But as a quickwin - i take it.
  
• I do in general like the improvements to zombie AI and the fact that they are really a threat now - again with some fixes to come as I consider zombies to be irrationally smart right now.
  
• I do like the ability to modify guns
  
• I do like the movement of the player with slower strafing, and in general as a nude player carrying nothing - i do think the penalty for encumbrance impacts it a bit too harshly. I think shift should apply to going backwards (still at a reduced speed compared to running forward)
  
• As admin of a server I can live with the reduced map size with some improvements to RWG which supposedly are to come.
  
• I do like the stealth system with some improvements to the general stealth sensitivity of zombies.
  
• I do like some schematics to be required in the crafting process - however, some basic ones should be a one-time learning effect.
  

Cons:

• I do not like the current level gating. Learning by donig should be the main principle for many of the skills. Running around makes you become a better athlete, mining makes you better at mining. Shooting makes you pull the gun faster or have a more steady scoping experience or better at controlling recoil. In general I do think that A16 was pretty close to what I consider best practice for a game like this.
  
• I do not like the imbalance in the gamestyle active hunter for zombies vs. passive survivalist. In my opinion only the active hunt for zombies gets rewarded - I don't think this behavior would be very rational in a survival scenario. Most likely, you would first try to acommodate, find a safe place, learn to defend, go loot for something to eat. Thus, by current balance, action-seeking players get rewarded more than those who focus on the surviving part.
  
• I do not like to eat for stamina. I think that is somewhat irrational.
  
• I absolutely hate the jumping perk. Especially since it has no relation to encumbrance. I feel like a rubber ball.
  
• I do not like the missing XP gain from other playstyles like mining. And that being said, in A16 on my server we drastically improved the XP gain from zombies to somewhat make an equal balance between the two styles.
  
• I do not like the double punishment of death trauma. My solution here would be to have a hit on the health -10, stacking and a timer of 10 minutes where you can't regain that health after latest death. Max health however remains untouched
  
• I would change the zombie block damage
  
• I don't like the amount of ressources being gathered for a relatively high effort.
  
• I do not like the limited variety in items. How many times have I experienced players looting several towns because they wanted to have the sweatshirt in a specific color? I hope that after the engine update and the impatient crowd maybe you ran out of time to care about that but will add again.
  
• I do not like to have 4x4, bikes etc in my pocket and sell them like that. I would rather have a big working station (like a garage). Like melting things in the forge, crafting e.g. the frame for a bike would go into the counter on the right. If the counter suffices, you can craft a car. That car spawns on top of the working station, you drive it around but can never put it in your pocket. Your player has vehicles bound to him such that selling at a trader requires you to park the cars in proximity of the trader, go inside, (without it in your pockets) and sell it off the parking lot.
  
• I do not like that I can still not mod a block (e.g. a working station) that actually needs to be plugged into a generator and consumes electricity.
  
• I do not like to find the same duping exploits and clipping possibilities every alpha.
  
• Edit: I absolutely don't like to be limited to one claim block. It should be up to the server settings to define an amount.
  

I have probably not gotten everything that I felt during playing but it surely sums up many of my points.

 

[Bubbahotetp]

I'm not sure I agree that increasing the hit points of the blocks is the answer - the Zeds can destroy the blocks like it's made of paper, but it'd take me quite a while with a pick axe to get through steel. Imo they shouldn't be as buffed as they are against the blocks, maybe a bit more buffed than me as they don't have stamina or pain to worry about etc, but their buff against blocks comes from that they attack the weakest point as a horde and all focus on it. If there's a mod to decrease the damage the zombies do against blocks I'd be happy to play with that.

All those crying for realism should consider how zombies destroy walls of stone and steel at all without completely destroying their limbs in the attempt. Actually, there are not even any zombies in the real world. So maybe we should just be fighting deer and pigs with rabies.

 

[giKoN]

All those crying for realism should consider how zombies destroy walls of stone and steel at all without completely destroying their limbs in the attempt. Actually, there are not even any zombies in the real world. So maybe we should just be fighting deer and pigs with rabies.

In terms of realism I raise you this new feature:

 

[icehot]

All those crying for realism should consider how zombies destroy walls of stone and steel at all without completely destroying their limbs in the attempt. Actually, there are not even any zombies in the real world. So maybe we should just be fighting deer and pigs with rabies.

I'm not crying for realism I'm simply suggesting that with the new AI, the block damage the zombies deal is OP.

 

[Vomkat]

I'm not crying for realism I'm simply suggesting that with the new AI, the block damage the zombies deal is OP.

Well, we are crying for realism, and that's what we want. Of course, zombies aren't realistic, but this a 'genre' of fiction. We want zombies, and everything else should be realistic. Zombies should not be glowing in the dark and flying while spitting acid and cutting through steel skyscrapers like godzilla. That's not what zombies do. Zombies don't punch their way through steel walls, because that's not realistic, even for a zombie. The key to fiction is you allow yourself one unrealistic thing, but everything else should stay realistic. So, zombies is one thing, but super zombies is too much.

 

[IgnyteZero]

Couldn't agree more with OP. Much of the same concern I had posting yesterday on similar opinions.

 

[giKoN]

I do more and more think that the current weapon system is also something I dislike. Maybe 1-3 quality guns should be carrying one mod, 4-6 quality guns should be carrying 2-3. But I miss the parts and the more defined variety in quality to some extent. I can adapt to that change however. Surely gonna make it a lot harder to detect duping with Quality 1-6 and no parts.