For me its the head tracking that is off. i like the idea, but it needs work. i smacked a zed and spinned it's body around without its head moving. taking with trader jen you can see it as well. the body and the head moves independant of each other it looks like. stamina useage is way up and food consumption is way up as well. you really have to put food down very very earily.
PC Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?
- Thread starter Kanaan Brood
- Start date
dan
New member
Graphics are much better. Even at night with the brightness up, it still feels like night. The textures are sharper, trees look better, new HD zombies look great. Overall a wonderful overhaul to the graphics.
The game is more difficult so far. Using a blunderbuss, primitive tools, etc. Makes it more difficult.
However this is also a negative. You have no chance of finding something good at early levels. in A18 it was way too easy to get quality 5 and 6 ak's in the first couple days. But now there is 0 chance of finding something nice because everything is locked behind gamestage. Not sure the point of the lucky looter perk now.
It's feeling a little less sandbox and a little more linear with the fact that you only gain specific items as you level and increase your gamestage.
The new tools are nice, a ratchet to take apart cars instead of a wrench? It's great, so much faster.
I also noticed they changed mining iron, now you get scrap iron instead of iron chunks. Not a big deal, but a noticeable change.
The crit's are a nice addition. Sprained arm, etc. But I don't think I've ever seen my hunger icon gone for more than a minute or so. The game is a non stop battle for food now. I thought there was going to be a hunger and thirst meter on your ui, I only get the icon that tells me when I'm hunger and thirsty, which is pretty much all the time.
Overall it seems pretty good so far, but I'm only a few days into the game.
The game is more difficult so far. Using a blunderbuss, primitive tools, etc. Makes it more difficult.
However this is also a negative. You have no chance of finding something good at early levels. in A18 it was way too easy to get quality 5 and 6 ak's in the first couple days. But now there is 0 chance of finding something nice because everything is locked behind gamestage. Not sure the point of the lucky looter perk now.
It's feeling a little less sandbox and a little more linear with the fact that you only gain specific items as you level and increase your gamestage.
The new tools are nice, a ratchet to take apart cars instead of a wrench? It's great, so much faster.
I also noticed they changed mining iron, now you get scrap iron instead of iron chunks. Not a big deal, but a noticeable change.
The crit's are a nice addition. Sprained arm, etc. But I don't think I've ever seen my hunger icon gone for more than a minute or so. The game is a non stop battle for food now. I thought there was going to be a hunger and thirst meter on your ui, I only get the icon that tells me when I'm hunger and thirsty, which is pretty much all the time.
Overall it seems pretty good so far, but I'm only a few days into the game.
Really?
I am finding the melee hit detection MASSIVELY worse. Head on works fine but the instant I am at an angle I end up hitting walls, floors and virtually anything but what my aim is actually on. It is not a problem with where I am aiming either - as I said head on works every single time like it should.
New graphics and equipment is awesome. I actually like the new food system particularly with the new recipes, candy and effects. New loot system is a good step forward as well as it really does make anything not a top tier item useful again. Never before used the blunderbuss - not once. Now it had a use and I have a ton of them. Don't really like finding stone tools in containers as it is rather jarring - they do not belong - but from a game play stance this is a very good thing IMHO. New Junk turret needs a bit of work, it really is not very useful as it does not seem to acquire a target and fire before it goes out of range. Vultures actually attacking tiles is a huge plus - cant just ignore their existence anymore. I like the new starting spawn and trader locations, takes a little of the random aspect away from getting a decent start. New assets in poi's are also very nice. Normalizing progression across all weapons and tools is also a really good idea IMHO.
Very disappointed in the perk changes - I was hoping TFP would see the light and abandon the current attribute categorization for something that actually allows me to customize my character and playstyle rather than boxing me into a class system that is neither original, freeing or fun. Not happy with reducing wooden storage box space. Storage space needs to be normalized across all containers to allow us to actually use them rather than making one storage the only thing worth having. At least the replacement is not difficult to produce. Starting stamina usage is really bad as well. I spent far to much time bored and standing around waiting for my stamina to replenish in the early game. Mid game and a few perks in sex rex and this peters out but leaves a really bad impression at the outset like playing a mobile game with timers. The worst time to have that kind of impression.
Very disappointed in the perk changes - I was hoping TFP would see the light and abandon the current attribute categorization for something that actually allows me to customize my character and playstyle rather than boxing me into a class system that is neither original, freeing or fun. Not happy with reducing wooden storage box space. Storage space needs to be normalized across all containers to allow us to actually use them rather than making one storage the only thing worth having. At least the replacement is not difficult to produce. Starting stamina usage is really bad as well. I spent far to much time bored and standing around waiting for my stamina to replenish in the early game. Mid game and a few perks in sex rex and this peters out but leaves a really bad impression at the outset like playing a mobile game with timers. The worst time to have that kind of impression.
Not really.
Now your equipment is only going to get incrementally better but it is STILL incrementally better and that improves your ability to fight, kill and build.
Saving that box for later just gimps you now in favor of getting better stuff later - when you are getting that better stuff everywhere anyway. It may be true that saving those crates for later would be a good idea if the total number of good crates was quite limited but really they are not. Loot is everywhere.
stupid
New member
I really love the new music. The night time music is pretty awesome.
Is there a way to turn off the combat music? Sometimes it alerts me that something is after me before I even realize. The directional audio is really useful in combat, but sometimes the combat music prevents me from hearing my surroundings.
Great job with this game and the dedication from the developers. I bought this game in Alpha 8, and right now I can say I'm proud that this game has more hours than anything else in my library.
Is there a way to turn off the combat music? Sometimes it alerts me that something is after me before I even realize. The directional audio is really useful in combat, but sometimes the combat music prevents me from hearing my surroundings.
Great job with this game and the dedication from the developers. I bought this game in Alpha 8, and right now I can say I'm proud that this game has more hours than anything else in my library.
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G
Guest
Guest
Nice: new lighting, ragdoll animations, more tools/weapons to play around with, blunderbuss useful.
Not nice: flattening the loot progression (I guess to make the blunderbuss useful) completed the game's transformation from fun and surprising, if janky sandbox to grindy, janky, unimaginative zombie shooter. Instead of locking character progression behind actual challenge (the early hub cities were a decent early example of this), it's locked behind grind. Finding a gun store doesn't matter because it'll have the same blunderbusses and stone spears as literally every attic in the town. Smash more zombies to make the blunderbusses & spears turn purple, smash even more zombies to magically turn them into modern weapons. It doesn't matter what quests you take, which POIs you raid, you're getting the same stuff over and over again anyways, all dictated by your gamestage number.
The weird thing is that early alphas strongly hinted at progression being challenge-based. If you wanted guns, you'd look for police stations or Shotgun Messiah stores, which had a better chance of spawning in city hubs, which were significantly more dangerous than the wilds or suburbia. You needed to prepare for that trip. Now you just run to the nearest town, and start clearing out random POIs because they all hold the same zombies and loot anyways. If TFP would have followed through on the ideas in those early alphas, they could've made tiered biomes and POIs , with resources and loot appropriate to the challenge. Players could then choose to take on extra challenge and risk if they felt like upgrading their stuff earlier than "normal". Now the only difference between biomes is how often you have to chug drinks or food, with barely a reason to ever leave the pleasant greens of the forest biome.
I hate to say it, but between the removal of several biomes, transforming most POIs into linear dungeon crawls with guaranteed loot rooms and having GS dictate what loot you can get, this game really lost a lot of its early charm.
Not nice: flattening the loot progression (I guess to make the blunderbuss useful) completed the game's transformation from fun and surprising, if janky sandbox to grindy, janky, unimaginative zombie shooter. Instead of locking character progression behind actual challenge (the early hub cities were a decent early example of this), it's locked behind grind. Finding a gun store doesn't matter because it'll have the same blunderbusses and stone spears as literally every attic in the town. Smash more zombies to make the blunderbusses & spears turn purple, smash even more zombies to magically turn them into modern weapons. It doesn't matter what quests you take, which POIs you raid, you're getting the same stuff over and over again anyways, all dictated by your gamestage number.
The weird thing is that early alphas strongly hinted at progression being challenge-based. If you wanted guns, you'd look for police stations or Shotgun Messiah stores, which had a better chance of spawning in city hubs, which were significantly more dangerous than the wilds or suburbia. You needed to prepare for that trip. Now you just run to the nearest town, and start clearing out random POIs because they all hold the same zombies and loot anyways. If TFP would have followed through on the ideas in those early alphas, they could've made tiered biomes and POIs , with resources and loot appropriate to the challenge. Players could then choose to take on extra challenge and risk if they felt like upgrading their stuff earlier than "normal". Now the only difference between biomes is how often you have to chug drinks or food, with barely a reason to ever leave the pleasant greens of the forest biome.
I hate to say it, but between the removal of several biomes, transforming most POIs into linear dungeon crawls with guaranteed loot rooms and having GS dictate what loot you can get, this game really lost a lot of its early charm.
dowz0r
New member
I agree with the combat music being over the top, especially during horde night. I feel strongly that ambience and good sound design does much better than just music. I think the sound track should just be ambience, nothing that alerts you that you're being swarmed or things of that nature.
The trader music is also a bit annoying. Might be better if it were more faded in the background or had like a radio filter effect on it or even if it was more of a stinger - played for a brief moment and then faded out. Otherwise is just feels obnoxious when it starts playing and stays.
Agree with this regarding the loot - it's what I was trying to explain earlier. The looting experience is dulled down to knowing what you're going to get for the most part. Finding a unique POI such as a military base or a specific factory isn't exciting, unless you decide to just save it for later because the game stage system forces you to, not because you know it might be dangerous to go in. Fun Pimps needs to work on a Risk vs. Reward system for loot. I realize that it may be difficult to create a challenging POI when we can just cheese through it potentially by towering our way to the main loot and just busting through some blocks, but that's the hard part of being a developer I think. Maybe add a stability system that prevents you from just stacking unupgraded blocks too high (I actually think this would be a good idea), surround important loot with high HP level blocks, etc. I still prefer the previous loot system to this current one.
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beHypE
New member
Haven't played A19 yet but I can echo some of the "grindy progression" complaints, it indeed seems each alpha becomes more of an XP grind than a true risk/reward assesment. Still hoping in my wildest dreams subbiomes for towns/cities make it in the game, even if vanillla does absolutely nothing with it. People like me looking for an appropriate risk/reward challenge will be able to Make Or Do city spawns to be more like the A11/A12 days.
I don't know if they ever get more difficult POIs in the game that can't be just exploited but at least more difficult biomes are in the works AFAIK. It might even happen in A20 where RWG will be one of the development hot spots.
Food and water meters are the thin blue and red lines directly above or below your toolbelt. Easy to overlook
So a sandbox is a game where you can get the best stuff at the start of the game? Surely not. At the moment there is still a small chance to get tier1 weapons like pistol or double barrel shotgun in the first few days. And that is fine, otherwise the game enters easy-mode just because you had an unlucky "lucky draw"
Food and water meters are the thin blue and red lines directly above or below your toolbelt. Easy to overlook
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beHypE
New member
Not trying to nitpick but hasn't RWG been a hotspot both for A18 and for A19 ?
I mean... I don't even think the POIs need that much work on the inside. Maybe a mask to raise the gamestage for the best POIs is all that is needed.
What I can't really understand though is the current focus on slow and steady progression, yet the best way to play the game is to hit the nearest city as soon as you spawn because it's, simply put, a cluster of POIs with 0 drawbacks. I feel the game would play so much better if the best POIs were in the cities, guarded by tough/numerous zombies in the streets, and that you'd have to actually work to get a chance to loot them. Day 1 would be a "let's loot that isolated POI in the wild, it will be easier", Day 7 would be "Let's set up near that small town", and Day 15 would be "Let's hit that huge city now that we can". Steady progression, sense of accomplishment, reward. And not some weird "set up near loot city but what you find is capped until you killed enough zombies".
G
Guest
Guest
That's a misrepresentation of what is being said by quite a few people. Nobody is arguing that you should get all the best stuff day one. It's about variety, player motivation and risk vs. reward. For many of us, motivation is dulled by the flat progression curve the last few alphas have shifted the game towards. The game has become more predictable, both in terms of loot and challenge, and I find myself making fewer interesting choices. Like beHype said above, you can just set up camp inside any of the towns and from there on the game will play out pretty much the same every time: orange quality blunderbusses and spears everywhere at the start, and military sniper rifles in garden sheds guarded by radiated wights during late game. It doesn't really matter much where you go (aside from bookstores, those remain a must loot).
If RWG is indeed getting looked at (it should, even aside from the risk vs. reward discussion), I hope TFP move (back?) towards loot level being dependent on the quality of the threats defeated, not the quantity. A game like Terraria does it really well, imho. You can go deeper for better loot whenever you want, but you're very likely to get killed in return.
No, up to now only one programmer was working on RWG, besides other jobs. It may have been that an artist or designer helped for a time (not sure, my memory is very flacky) but AFAIK always just one programmer. And if I understand MM correctly, for A20 there will be a real team effort to get remaining kinks out of it.
I agree that dangerous cities would be a good feature, but it also means that good players will just jump ahead of any loot progression and then complain about a missing end-game on day 10. Balancing that is almost impossible. But as I said it would be a good feature. And I also liked that you had to find and hit specific POIs if you needed something specific. Which is still the case but less than in previous alphas.
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So you say it is different to A15 where you got pistols at first, then shotguns and hunting rifles? After a while you found AKs and snipers. Sure the actual moment was quite random, but there was a loot progression that seldomly varied. And everyone did the same things every playthrough. I partly liked how the minibike book and the calipers sometimes could be found immediately and sometimes almost never but those were single points of uncertainty in A15. If you are talking about even earlier alphas, ok, that is unknown territory to me.
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Roland
Moderator
Most of the concerns I’m reading about loot will be cleared up once they are able to add dynamic gamestage boosts to biomes, areas, and POIs and also introduce the encounter system.
TFP isn’t moving away from being able to find better loot in more dangerous places, they are creating the system that will allow that to happen dynamically. We just are in the midst of that change.
In the future they will be able to make a shotgun messiah be gamestage +50 (or whatever) so that both the enemies and the treasure will be higher than the surrounding stores. They’ll also be adding three levels of radiation as an indicator of sorts as you approach a place or area so that you’ll know if it is tough, tougher or toughest before choosing to engage.
TFP isn’t moving away from being able to find better loot in more dangerous places, they are creating the system that will allow that to happen dynamically. We just are in the midst of that change.
In the future they will be able to make a shotgun messiah be gamestage +50 (or whatever) so that both the enemies and the treasure will be higher than the surrounding stores. They’ll also be adding three levels of radiation as an indicator of sorts as you approach a place or area so that you’ll know if it is tough, tougher or toughest before choosing to engage.
G
Guest
Guest
Thanks Roland, that's very encouraging to read. Even if it probably means waiting another year for it to become reality 
FWIW I'm not on some rant about earlier alphas being better, I just thought they hinted at a different approach, one that I prefer to what there is now. But if what Roland wrote is true, that's actually where they're going again. It even looks like the radiation suit might do something!
FWIW I'm not on some rant about earlier alphas being better, I just thought they hinted at a different approach, one that I prefer to what there is now. But if what Roland wrote is true, that's actually where they're going again. It even looks like the radiation suit might do something!