rykon1459918
New member
First up I have got to say after playing for a long time with alpha 16, alpha 17 feels almost like a brand new game and it feels amazing.
I really enjoy 99.9% of this update, the zombie AI is great, I like the new survival focused gameplay, it really feels like a more survival game and less of a clothing removal, concrete base building game.
My only issue with it is the "Near death Trauma" debuff.
I think the debuff as a whole either needs a rework or change it to run off the in game timer as right now it is a huge lockout.
Right now if one of my friends (or myself) die within the first 7 days we end up restarting the whole game as it easier then limping around with a weakened player, if its after the 7th day we end up just console commanding it away as honestly its way too punishing for the average player (might be ok for the higher skilled players).
When things like wolves, crumbling floors or even how quickly log spikes kill the player the de-buff needs a change for the more casual players.
So rather then just complain I have four ideas I'd like to put forward.
1. Make the de-buff timer a game option when generating a new game:
Basically make it so at the start of the game players without having to do any soft modding can set how long the de-buff lasts (or even if it exists) this way hardcore players can leave it as is and death is rightfully punishing for those players, but groups like myself and my mates who get together once a week to play for 3 hours don't sometimes lose a player for 1/3 of the total play time because they stepped on a spike trap guarding the base (happens way more often then we would like to admit 4 times total last night).
2. Have the de-buff time lowered by gathering and / or fighting:
A near death experience is not to be taken lightly, but focusing on other tasks can help a person get their mind off it, so why not translate to the game, if a player wants to they can lower the remaining timer by XX per task, EG: collect 100 wood or upgrade a certain number of blocks or kill a number of zombies, anything to get the players mind off the fact they nearly died, this way the player is encouraged to push themselves back out after dying and is not just relegated to afk watching YouTube in base while waiting for the de-buff to wear off (this is what two players ended up doing last night until we agreed to console command the de-buff away).
3. Have the de-buff target something that isn't related to the core skills of the game:
Being no longer able to craft a decent tool or weapon because I died is really a strange way to punish death, yes death needs some draw back but I would instead purpose a de-buff to entity damage instead, this way you are still able to do everything you could before but instead you're slower at gathering resources, you're going to do less damage when fighting but your still able to make a forge and learn to cook food.
To put point three into to context our base builder and tool creator died twice while constructing the base yesterday, he was the guy that created our bows, clubs and tools as he had 5 points in Int compared to the next highest person at 2, him dying twice meant we all lost the benefits of him leveling in this manner and again we resulted to console commanding the de-buff away as we all didn't want to wait an hour for the de-buff to fall off.
4. Have the timer run off world time rather then Real time:
We play with a speed up game (30 mins = 1 day) its more punishing the faster you have game speed turned up as you're losing more days then if the game was slower, so have the de-buff always last for 1 in game day that way faster games don't lose a player for 2+ days.
To sum up: We never once used console commands in a16 but we had to a total of 5 times last night for alpha 17 and it was all due to this de-buff, it needs some kind of change for a more causal player base and hopefully we can find a balance between hard-core and casual players.
I really enjoy 99.9% of this update, the zombie AI is great, I like the new survival focused gameplay, it really feels like a more survival game and less of a clothing removal, concrete base building game.
My only issue with it is the "Near death Trauma" debuff.
I think the debuff as a whole either needs a rework or change it to run off the in game timer as right now it is a huge lockout.
Right now if one of my friends (or myself) die within the first 7 days we end up restarting the whole game as it easier then limping around with a weakened player, if its after the 7th day we end up just console commanding it away as honestly its way too punishing for the average player (might be ok for the higher skilled players).
When things like wolves, crumbling floors or even how quickly log spikes kill the player the de-buff needs a change for the more casual players.
So rather then just complain I have four ideas I'd like to put forward.
1. Make the de-buff timer a game option when generating a new game:
Basically make it so at the start of the game players without having to do any soft modding can set how long the de-buff lasts (or even if it exists) this way hardcore players can leave it as is and death is rightfully punishing for those players, but groups like myself and my mates who get together once a week to play for 3 hours don't sometimes lose a player for 1/3 of the total play time because they stepped on a spike trap guarding the base (happens way more often then we would like to admit 4 times total last night).
2. Have the de-buff time lowered by gathering and / or fighting:
A near death experience is not to be taken lightly, but focusing on other tasks can help a person get their mind off it, so why not translate to the game, if a player wants to they can lower the remaining timer by XX per task, EG: collect 100 wood or upgrade a certain number of blocks or kill a number of zombies, anything to get the players mind off the fact they nearly died, this way the player is encouraged to push themselves back out after dying and is not just relegated to afk watching YouTube in base while waiting for the de-buff to wear off (this is what two players ended up doing last night until we agreed to console command the de-buff away).
3. Have the de-buff target something that isn't related to the core skills of the game:
Being no longer able to craft a decent tool or weapon because I died is really a strange way to punish death, yes death needs some draw back but I would instead purpose a de-buff to entity damage instead, this way you are still able to do everything you could before but instead you're slower at gathering resources, you're going to do less damage when fighting but your still able to make a forge and learn to cook food.
To put point three into to context our base builder and tool creator died twice while constructing the base yesterday, he was the guy that created our bows, clubs and tools as he had 5 points in Int compared to the next highest person at 2, him dying twice meant we all lost the benefits of him leveling in this manner and again we resulted to console commanding the de-buff away as we all didn't want to wait an hour for the de-buff to fall off.
4. Have the timer run off world time rather then Real time:
We play with a speed up game (30 mins = 1 day) its more punishing the faster you have game speed turned up as you're losing more days then if the game was slower, so have the de-buff always last for 1 in game day that way faster games don't lose a player for 2+ days.
To sum up: We never once used console commands in a16 but we had to a total of 5 times last night for alpha 17 and it was all due to this de-buff, it needs some kind of change for a more causal player base and hopefully we can find a balance between hard-core and casual players.
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