My view on A18 vol3

[Mc Draken]

- Arrows/Feathers: i mentioned that bows are not on par with firearms. And that should be true. But they have other advantages. The game currently handles everything under one category. Booth bows and guns require the same amount of perks, repaired by the same kits, neither can be crafted from scratch(parts) and use ammunition that are actually LESS available and renewable. What the hell?

Bows should be crafted from scratch and repaired by basic materials, except their highest tier, the compound.

So iron bows would be the first proper bow, that requires some infrastructure but can be made from raw materials and perks.

Feathers should be renewable and easily available as this makes using these otherwise underperforming (compared to firearms) weapons appealing. I have two solutions, use one or booth.

Respawning nests: the obvious one. Regardless of server settings, nests are producing feathers. Makes sense, there are bird sounds in game, so they are not remnant but populated nests.

Birdhouses: can be crafted from wood, nails, eggs, plant fibres or whatever else and they would produce some feathers each day.

Actually i would implement booth. Nests refresh with half of their loot weekly, and birdhouses would be the ultimate tool to make archery upkeepable and renewable. Also it would be one additional equipment the player can upgrade their base/infrastructure with.

And would be quite balanced. The highest tier of arrows are made from plastic, so this would only affect mostly iron arrows. The player could not farm the best performing arrows, while still have proper but renewable ammonution for their bows. This would really give archery its edge while making them different in gameplay in most ways to firearms.

I suggest to change stone arrows to require scrap iron, and rename them to scrap or primitive arrows. Using stone shards is really not realiatic when there are many materials that are easier to shape and are actually harder or can be sharper.

Also i suggest to make lower and mid tier arrows/bolts faster. They are abismally bad to shoot with. Pls, make archery a lil better on this regard, hitboxes and projectile speed need some polishing.

I think crossbows should get some dmg buff and a bit of a reload nerf to make them differ more from bows. Also i think bolts should be a bit more pricey than arrows.

- Ammunition crafting:

I advise to rework ammo crafting to make it easier to balance, handle in inventory and to sound a bit more professional.

Raw materials: i advise to make raw materials like gunpowder, casings, bullet tips, arrow heads and feather into a plural, bundled unit.

So one unit of them instead of being one singular piece, they would refer to some amount of them. "Feathers", "arrow heads" "casings", etc.

So the smallest amount would be a bottle of gunpowder, thats made out of lets say 30 coal and 30 nitrate, and one unit lets you craft 30 pieces of 9mm ammo costing one unit of "casings" and "bullet tips".

You can make quite accurate crafting costs that way. Lets say, .44 ammo requires a bit more lead and brass and even more gunpowder. So 1 unit of tips, casing and 2unit of gunpowder would produce 25 pieces of .44 ammo.

The same amount of raw materials would only craft 20 pieces of 7.62 ammo, balancing out the price. That way, even the larger case would be justified by the larger ammo, not only the gunpowder.

The player dont have to annoy himself by finding singular pieces of feathers and gunpowder, but each found unit would have a higher value, deserving that inventory slot.

Arrows would be crafted in bundles of ten, for the price of 5 wood, 1 feathers and 1 arrowheads. But the same materials would only produce 8 bolts. That way, bolts would be balanced without doubling its price.

Cartridges would be produced in bundles of about 20 to 30 requiring different amount of mats.

I strongly advise to rename"bullet tips" to "bullet lead", so sounds more sane when a bullet requires more units of this, also there is no such thing as bullet tip. It IS the bullet. That way you dont need separate buckshot neither. Shotgun ammo would be made from the same "bullet lead", just probably some more.

Shotgun ammo should be crafted from plastic not paper. Paper is for arquebuses and blunderbosses.

Bullet lead should be crafted from a minor amount of iron(tin irl) to make it different from the raw lead, also bit more realistic. (It would be a normal, soft point ammo)

Armor piercing ammo instead of requring more bullet lead(bullet tips), it should be made out of a different, harder bullet lead. Jacketed or Hard Bullet Lead. Requiring more iron(and crucible?) to craft. That would mimic a proper jacketed but lead core ammo. (Since tungsten is not in the game for proper hardcore armor piercing ammo.)

That way the ammo would require additional tech lvl(crucible) not just a separate blueprint. Also could be balanced more accurately. (Not just having twice the amount) AP bullet lead would lets say require 30% more lead and half of that in extra iron.

I advise that you should not put base progression tiers behind books or foundable blueprints. Steel arrows should be available right after steel forging. Also it looks weird that i can craft explosive arrows, requiring steel arrowheads, but i cant craft steel arrows. But its stupid enough that i cant craft arrows that i can craft arrowheads for. I mean, what the hell?

I dont think explosive arrows should require steel heads on the first place. Brass(tin can?) and gunpowder is enough as a resource cost.

- Table saw: i dont really see its purpose now, that we have the quickbuilding system. But instead of scrapping the concept, lets repurpose it.

Wood logs. I advise, similarly to iron ore, lets implement a reaource chain here too.

The player wood get WOOD(or wood logs) from trees as raw material, and would be able to craft(scrap it into) wood planks.

And here comes the saw into place. The table saw would work a lot faster and with higher efficiency than scrapping wood. It would be a early-mid game tool for boosting wood production of the player. Even if wood is an early game reaource its still valid trough the game, as a cheap furniture material.

Additionaly i would put all but only decor items for the saw to craft. Only sofas, chairs, and other items without a function.

Also wood logs would have a higher burning time making crafting with fuels a lot less annoying, i dont have click like 30times with wood. One wood log would consist 10-15 planks value of fuel.

- Cement mixer/Table saw: they work for free. They should run on electricity i guess. I hope that is on your to do list.

The only problem with this, is that they would be tied to the electric infrastructure. So the player have to have a generator to sustain a saw/mixer. Thats not reaaally good. They should be able run on the base's electricity but not solely require it.

I have a solution. They should have a fuel slot that can accept a car battery and drain energy from it. The battery could be "recharged"(repaired) by acid. Thats pretty realistic, also its quite balanced. Acid is kinda rare at the tech level where the player doesent have a running generator.

That way mixers and saws would have a cost to run, also they would be powered by generators, and till then, they could run on batteries. Marvelous.

For a LOT cheaper solution, just give an additional car battery to their recipes. Better than nothing.

- Land claim block: the problem with it, that you cant have more than one. And thats understandable on a big server. But on a smaller server- or solo- its really annoying that you cant have two proper Main base of operations simultaneosly.

I suggest to have a server setting, on how many active claim blocks a player can have.

That way everyone will have their candy.

- Land claim upgrade: Also i think its a missed oppurtinity that the player cant upgrade their claim block. Wood, stone, iron, etc. Stronger block means larger area and maybe a stronger buff. One additional stuff to progress with.

Also i can see additional functions, like being in your claimed territory regenerates 1 max hp per minute or something. You know, resting at home. Home sweet home.

- Land claim options: another missed opportunity, that you cant set stuff trough the block. Holding "e" on the block brings up stuff like setting your waypoint.

Ah Yes, Pls replace that waypoint with something more visually appealing stuff. Its white, its a wall... pls. A big orange bastion or something more visible.

But as i said, the best would be if we could costumize it trough the claim block.

- Perk books: i like the idea of shaking up the loot tables by these, but not all of them is really fitting for a randomly found book.

I think you guys should slowly notice, that putting basic stuff's recipes or high power perks behind rng is a bad idea, but well, its playable.

These perk books should contain kinda weak but still useful additions. So the player will look forward into searching for them, but not finding them wont halt them meaningfully.

Stuff like mod recipes, ammo recipes, penetration, bulk crafting ammo, these are too powerful.

Those gimmicky stuff like barter when holding a .44 or most of the firemans almanac is great on the other hand.

Oookay. These are my suggestions on A18.

I think there are huge problems with the skill tree and you guys are still struggling with the techmological progression of the player creating a bigger and bigger mess. I will post my wall of text of suggestions on this topic separately.

Ty for reading.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

So iron bows would be the first proper bow

Iron bow? Want to see that.

Respawning nests: the obvious one. Regardless of server settings, nests are producing feathers. Makes sense, there are bird sounds in game, so they are not remnant but populated nests.

Nests don't produce feathers but new nests themselfs will spawn. Problem fixed.

Alternative solution go into burnt forest or desert and kill some vultures -> feathers in masses.

Wood logs. I advise, similarly to iron ore, lets implement a reaource chain here too.

The player wood get WOOD(or wood logs) from trees as raw material, and would be able to craft(scrap it into) wood planks.

So since iron ore is gone, skip it here too. Problem is already solved the other way round.

And additionally i think we could skip such useless pure timewaisting crafting steps.

I have a solution. They should have a fuel slot that can accept a car battery and drain energy from it. The battery could be "recharged"(repaired) by acid.

Just give them gas. Iirc there is also a motor required to craft them. No need for electricity. Maybe introduce a second tier of these machines then, which run with electricity instead of gas.

I suggest to have a server setting, on how many active claim blocks a player can have.

Have you ever looked into the server settings? Just try it. You will be surprised.

 

[Mc Draken]

This wall of text is aimed at the developers, so im not used to reply, but hey. It consists some minor corrections so why not.

I used to call the wooden bow "iron bow" becouse its consists of a huge chunk of metal flailing in your face. My bad. I think it should require some forged iron actually.

While feathers are available, mining for gunpowder is a lot more available. Thats what a respawning birdnest would solve. But the main idea is the birdhouse. Its better in many ways.

Tell me would you, why takes it more time to put ore into a forge than putting iron into it. Therefore theres no time wasted. In a game like fortnite its obvious, all mechanics should be as simple as it can. Yeah, the player wont take resources and refine it. But in a game like this, it looks a lot more sane and healthy that way.

Gas could work, but electricity would be a lot better for many reasons mentioned above.

I havent seen any server setting mentioning the number of active claim blocks available at once. Maybe i missed it, anyway, be more respectful.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

I just wanted to make a quick correction for the both of you regarding bird nests.

Harvested bird nests will have more feathers in them once loot respawns. It works the same exact way for every lootable container.

I hope that helps.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

This wall of text is aimed at the developers, so im not used to reply, but hey.

This is still a public forum, so for a private letter to the devs it might be the wrong communication channel.

Tell me would you, why takes it more time to put ore into a forge than putting iron into it. Therefore theres no time wasted.

No, other way round. If you need to melt iron ore into scrap metal first, this is an additional step that takes time. And that's an absolute no brainer that just consumes time without any effort. AND iron ORE is not needed for anything besides melting it into scrap metal.

And since other ressource chains doesn't need that step also, like lead, it was also removed for iron. I don't think the devs will rollback that now again.

I don't like long crafting chains that are just clickbloat. Like some mods need to craft wood into a stick, stone into a sharp stone, and then use the stick and the sharp stone to craft an axe... what a bull♥♥♥♥ imho. If you wan't to do this, at least introduce "automatic craft chaining", like e.g. Ark does. It does all crafting steps automatically as long as you have all required base items. Of course it adds up crafting times but you don't need to click for every separate step.

- - - Updated - - -

Harvested bird nests will have more feathers in them once loot respawns. It works the same exact way for every lootable container.

In opposite to lootable containers bird nests themselfs will spawn. Not respawn but there will spawn completely new nests in different locations. And afaik that is independant of the loot respawn value. May be it's an urban myth, that says to always destroy looted nests, because to many nests in an area will prevent spawning new nests. I usually do destroy the nests and i find new nests all the time, of course with loot, because they are new.

We usually play with 30 days loot respawn and it would take much much longer to wait those 30 days to have feathers or eggs respawned in the same nest.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

In opposite to lootable containers bird nests themselfs will spawn. Not respawn but there will spawn completely new nests in different locations. And afaik that is independant of the loot respawn value. May be it's an urban myth, that says to always destroy looted nests, because to many nests in an area will prevent spawning new nests. I usually do destroy the nests and i find new nests all the time, of course with loot, because they are new.

We usually play with 30 days loot respawn and it would take much much longer to wait those 30 days to have feathers or eggs respawned in the same nest.

Can you point to a reference proving this so I may stand corrected? Video, code in the game, XML file...anything

if you like I can record a video backing my claim as to how this works....but if I am wrong I would rather not waste my time you know. Thank you in advance.

 

[Mc Draken]

My whole argument is about birds nest should respawn regardless of server settings. It should be a renewable resource by its nature. So obviously, im talking mostly about occassions where theres a "no respawn" setting. Not where it will respawn anyway.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

My whole argument is about birds nest should respawn regardless of server settings. It should be a renewable resource by its nature. So obviously, im talking mostly about occassions where theres a "no respawn" setting. Not where it will respawn anyway.

ahh roger, thats stated a little more clearly. Yeah I have always seen it as an issue when servers turn off loot respawn or has a lot of days inbetween loot respawn. And what if a server has been running for a long time and the player destroy most bird nests, feathers would be rare..not sure that ever happens considering the huge ammount of nests that spawn in the world but it could happen.

*thumbs up* By the way I loved reading these 3 vol. Good work!

 

[Mc Draken]

Smelting iron ore is only an additional step, where the player needs scrap iron back. But for forged iron or steel production, its regardless you have to smelt ore or else. Its a small sacrefice foe a more sane system. Also the player have mostly enough scrap iron from other sources if needed.

I play usually without loot respawn, and never noticed reappearing nests. But its kinda an easy to miss thing. Altough under 70days, theres not one nest respawned that i destroyed near my territory in my current games.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you ZombieSurvivor!

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

Yeah pay no attention to Liesel Weppen trying to correct you, he does not understand how this works. You would be correct for assuming bird nests do not respawn brand new bird nests in a chunck that has already been uncovered.

 

[SirFfuzzyLogik]

So. First and foremost. You really should have kept this as a single thread, and the additional posts as replies to the main thread. Not a trilogy you have to navigate back to threads to continue reading.

You have a lot of ideas here in this massive wall of text, and I have some feedback for you.

You almost immediately start rattling off ideas and criticisms in your first post. Which really sets a sour tone to your saga of opinion.

Paraphrasing is really key here.

The majority of volume 2 the survivor's boogaloo takes aim at the game's concept. Is it styled as an MMO, or an RPG? Does it lean towards realism, or does it sacrifice for sake of the player? Is it a natural progression down a single linear path, or is it supposed to progress evenly with play style?

Yes, an M60 Light Machine gun is a testament to the destructive will of man, and is many magnitudes more powerful in the real world, than a 15LB dumbbell welded to a lead pipe, and is plenty of fun to use. However, if the game leaned towards realism, this progress would naturally create a single linear pipeline down which one would progress. As it stands right now, all of the different categories of weapons are modeled to the choosing of the player. Arguably, even in it's current state, an M60 will still dominate over a sledgehammer. However, the sledgehammer is in no way useless. Fantastic for breaking and entering, and making zeds do gymnastics. As it stands, I believe the devs have made up their mind on how their progression through levels works, and I personally do not want it to change AGAIN.

Your ideas brought to light in part one and three are also very spot on, from the farming, to repairs, to self sufficiency, and etc. However there is a lot of fluff within each of these sections, and I would recommend you trim down to the concepts you are trying to address, and format your thoughts in a manner that's a bit more organized.

Overall, not the worst wall of text I've read before. Lots of good ideas.

Hopefully they will come to light.

 

[Mc Draken]

Im happy to read comments like this.

I started to write excuses about formatting and tone, but the point is you are right. Altough i had my reasons. As for one...

I already trimmed the original "essay" from 50k to 27k characters, that explains booth the weak readability and low coherenty. Also these cuts were usually the intro lines of "how i like the game, but...", explaining the final, bad tone.

Some correction. Im not suggesting that the game should top out at M60 LMG starting from clubs. I just picked it as an example from many of the top tier firearms. I could have been either picked the Marksman rifle or the Pump Shotgun.

So its not a linear progression from club to M60. It was just an example.

Im suggesting a linear progression from melee(clubs f.e.), trough primitive ranged weapons(bows f.e.), to proper low tier firearms(double barrel f.e.) ending at proper top tier firearms(pump shotgun f.e.) in general. (As it is in performance)

But of course with an individual selection on each of these tiers, going paralell and being equal to eachother. But not equal to ones in different categories. So a steel sledge should not be handled equal to a marksman rifle by any means. But a marksman rifle should be equal to an M60 for example as they booth represent the same tier of progression but as different forms to select from.

You should booth progress within one tier and between different non equal tiers in a good rpg.

As for last lines, im in a similar mood like you are in. The game already danced between different approaches, dismissing entire systems. I would be happy if they would finally settle down. But for the love of god, if we finally settle, dont settle in mud.