PC One step forward two steps back

[Roland]

If you have time to sit an wait 1hour while doing a mission that you can not leave site or the mission fails you can not go forward because your health is low well I wish I had that much time and patience and carried enough food but I like to be entertained by my survival games If I want real life I will go walk across the kalahari again.

Cool. You have real life adventure cred. Got it. Sitting and waiting is one option. Developing some video game adventure cred by taking on the challenge of finishing the quest even with your diminished capacity is another. You might fail, but if you succeed— what a story! Or, 3rd option: you abandon the quest. You failed it. Go get healed and get a new one. A survival game in which you are guaranteed to succeed at every quest is pretty meh. 

As for base breach's well build better bases.

As for injuries, well, fight better and defend better. 

Why would I wish for bland and boring that is the opposite of what I am saying the severity of the penalty makes the game boring I am suggesting a better balance.  I appreciate a challenge and the injury's would make more sense if the 1hour30mins penalty/recovery was game time.

A bland and meaningless penalty for failure makes the game less exciting because ultimately you don’t really care if it hits you. An hour and thirty minutes of game time is like 1-2 minutes real-time. Really?  Why would we even need remedies? Why even have critical injuries?
 

What’s the phrase? “Not bad at all, barely an inconvenience.”

don't shake hands with Zombies and I normally play 7D2D on Ravenhurst mod which if you think you like a challenge should try it out but it will be too much for you. 

Yes, yes...you’re better than me at the game AND hiking. Congratulations. My point, which you missed in your scramble to assert your dominance, is that horde night is thrilling BECAUSE of the potential consequences. Take away the chance for a rekt base that will take days to repair and suddenly who cares if the zombies get through. It is the same with fighting toe to toe against zombies and clearing POIs. If you know that the worst that will happen is that you’ll have a broken arm for a minute real-time then that puts a whole bunch of nonchalance into what is supposed to be a survival horror game. 
 

wait a minute....did you just walk on a treadmill with a kalahari trail app?

 

[Balthazod]

Cool. You have real life adventure cred. Got it. Sitting and waiting is one option. Developing some video game adventure cred by taking on the challenge of finishing the quest even with your diminished capacity is another. You might fail, but if you succeed— what a story!

As for injuries, well, fight better and defend better. 

A bland and meaningless penalty for failure makes the game less exciting because ultimately you don’t really care if it hits you. An hour and thirty minutes of game time is like 1-2 minutes real-time. Really?  Why would we even need remedies? Why even have critical injuries?
 

What’s the phrase? “Not bad at all, barely an inconvenience.”

Yes, yes...you’re better than me at the game AND hiking. Congratulations. My point, which you missed in your scramble to assert your dominance, is that horde night is thrilling BECAUSE of the potential consequences. Take away the chance for a rekt base that will take days to repair and suddenly who cares if the zombies get through. It is the same with fighting tie to tie against zombies and clearing POIs. If you know that the worst that will happen is that you’ll have a broken arm for a minute real-time then that puts a whole bunch of nonchalance into what is supposed to be a survival horror game. 
 

wait a minute....did you just walk on a treadmill with a kalahari trail app?

There,s no story to succeed what does that mean? there is a mission to complete success or fail if you fail you have a long walk back to get your stuff.  

Fight better defend better so you never get damaged never get ambushed.  Its true there will be a need to restratergise some missions but things don't always go as planed

An hour thirty minutes is like 1-2 minute game time have you ever played this game and played alpha19.2 clearly not.

Well as you waffle about base being rekt (sic) the post was about the first 7 days and the loot reward and the reduced stamina making the game very slow and getting stone axes as loot unrewarding nothing to do with base's.

And yes I walked from Namibia to Botswana in the summer it wasn't nice.

 

[Roland]

There,s no story to succeed what does that mean?

It means that if you break your arm mid-quest and are down to 25% health but decide to continue on and try to finish the quest and then succeed— that makes for a great survival story. At least to me. 

An hour thirty minutes is like 1-2 minute game time have you ever played this game and played alpha19.2 clearly not.

Well, it depends what you have your days set to. Default is 60 minute days so an in-game hour is 2.5 minutes. Sorry, I should have said 3 minutes...

YOU said to change it to 1.5 hours of game time instead of 1.5 hours of real-time. I was simply pointing out what a lame-ass penalty that change would be. 
 

nothing to do with base's.

I know. I wasn’t changing the subject. I was drawing an analogy to emphasize the point that in ANY aspect of the game when you remove or make so insubstantial the penalties for failure, it makes a survival game blah and survival itself meaningless. 
 

If you break your leg you will be diminished for 1.5 hours real-time:

”OMG I better really be careful and prepared and going into that poi is scary because there’s a good chance I might break my leg while fighting zombies!!!!”

If you break your leg you will be diminished for 3 minutes real-time:

”Meh...no big deal. If my leg gets broken I’ll perch up high and go AFK for chips and salsa and when I get back all will be as though it never happened. Meds? Remedies? Tough choices about how to deal with it? Nah...it’s just 3 minutes for cryin out loud....”

 

[Kandrathe]

I would add two points... 

• Not everyone likes every game, so at some point it's that adage from  Lucretius  "Ut quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum."  What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.
  
• There's always changing buff.xml to set the debuffs the way you think they should be, or enable the cheats and gift yourself the cure.  If you find trivializing the challenges boring, as  I would, then the game world is filled with other adrenaline pumping thrills.
  

 

[Roland]

the game world is filled with other adrenaline pumping thrills.

I would submit that EVERY adrenaline pumping thrill that the game offers is fueled by what you have to lose. The more you have to lose, the higher the thrills and the greater the horror as you walk the edge of failure to achieve success.  It's like the difference between free climbing solo and climbing on belay.

 

[Ttocs]

One step forward and two steps back, nobody gets too far like that

 

[alanea]

I am talking 1st 7 days so steel armour not viable and have you played Alpha 19.2 as seem you don't really understand the changes.  Its not boring untill I get to q6 the early part of the game was the fun part random chance of loot that could change the game now that it not there Now its wow a lvl 6 stone axe thats way its boring I am now lvl 22 and still looting stone shovels. 

lvl  6 stone axe is stilll significant upgrade over any other stone axe  only because you cant get iron  under certain  GS  .. tier 2-3 steel tool makes every non steel drop  trash ... worsening situation

first horde is ridiculously easy and short you can even defend it by few wood spikes  in corridor

How are you standing on a trader zoned wall and not getting booted? Sounds buggy to me.

just developer oversight ... small ruins can spawn inside protected zone

Blunderbuss is all you get in Alpha19.2 and its not weak 10 pellets 14dmg per pellet its the same as a sawn of shot gun it just not versatile and axe is a weapon it does the same damage as a baseball bat mine a little more as was moded with serrated edge. 

you can get pistol from day  1  blunderbuss is effective for slow zombies but still bad and primitive weapon when it comes to fighting runers bears or dogs (reload)

axe is often used as weapon by people who dont want waste slot on melee weapon ... but its  nowhere close to them ... since theres no perk /combat books for axe missing alot damage/bleed/knockdown/whateverand being significantly behind even with  1 point...  definitely not viable for melee builds

If you have time to sit an wait 1hour while doing a mission that you can not leave site or the mission fails you can not go forward because your health is low well I wish I had that much time and patience and carried enough food but I like to be entertained by my survival games If I want real life I will go walk across the kalahari again.  As for base breach's well build better bases.  Why would I wish for bland and boring that is the opposite of what I am saying the severity of the penalty makes the game boring I am suggesting a better balance.  I appreciate a challenge and the injury's would make more sense if the 1hour30mins penalty/recovery was game time.

as i mentioned you can perk  to cut healing times significantly  ..fatigue isnt nice .. but definitely least serious injury ....for broken arms ....  splint require just ductape+wood+cloth .. all three very common loot

So far I have only reached lvl 22 in Alpha 19.2 but I can imagine doing lvl 5 missions will be very hard when I 10 radioactive zombies charging you but I will see what happens when I get there. 

I don't shake hands with Zombies and I normally play 7D2D on Ravenhurst mod which if you think you like a challenge should try it out but it will be too much for you. 

A19  day  150+  on warrior  0 deaths  .. while you meet some greenies  its never 10 usually  3-5 at "boss encounters" and they arent really all that threatening at gamestage they appear they hit  5-10 even in light armor also   most green zombies isnt significantly worse than  other runners its all about fat mom/soldier/biker since they are tanky  ... andc green version feels like bullet sponge so they in theoy have chance to swarm you ... on other side  backing off from those bossrooms luring them into doorway with  100%   stun chance on club / sledge make them look pathetic

especially considering they appear at gamestahe  69+ ... so time when you can have easily  Q3-5   steel/military armor  making them effectively less dangerous than runers/dogs in first weeks when you walk around in bad padded ... and maybe even lacking firearm

 

[Maharin]

One step forward and two steps back, nobody gets too far like that

That might depend on the dance and the size of the dance floor.

 

[jeromeN7]

This game used to be fun, now it tends to get more annoying every new alpha. I gave up on alpha 19, it's trash.

Edit: I was angry when I siad trash, that's a little too harsh.

 

[JCrook1028]

I appreciate a challenge and the injury's would make more sense if the 1hour30mins penalty/recovery was game time.

SO in other words make it instant.... 1.5 hours in game is nothing.

The traders block protection extends across the street and covered one block onto the poi's wall.  You get booted if you are next to the traders wall, not in their block protection zone.  I occupied the house adjacent to the initial trader for convenience, but discovered additional benefits.

yea, my bad, brain fart.

 

[Raveman1000]

The loot changes WTF: I am now on day 7, I was really lucky the trader is in a town and the missions all pretty close but the loot and rewards are useless. I am at level 15 and the final loot reward box's which would normally be weapons and ammo and tools or food are: Ammo lots of ammo but no weapons,  All I have found are stone tools and blunderbuss, The rewards of traders are ammo and meds. I have even lock picked a few gun safes and found to my delite a fine selection of stone axes and shovels.  The slowness of the avatar and poor rewards makes doing mission boring, a big part of the enjoyment was getting to the end of a tough POI and getting juicy random reward Its simple 101 psychology.

 I have 20k dukes but the traders have no range weapons  so I face a blood moon with Blunderbuss and a bone knife.

Here's a few suggestion:

A- Invest in lucky looter, get loot goggle and eye candy, you'll get better loot faster.

B- Invest in better barter and/or daring adventurer, you'll get guns for sure at the traders. 

C- Turn up xp gain to 300%, the stone age will go much faster.

D- Focus on looting toilet for a pistol. 

E- Wait for A20 for its biome game stage increase (confirmed) and poi tier game stage increase (unconfirmed). 

 

[Mastermind]

I don't have vitamins the trader does not have vitamins I have 1.5 hours where I can do very little.

What???  Some people think the current injury system is "Crippling"?

I played yesterday for the first time in a while... I was slightly rusty and messed up a bit, ended with Weak, Infected, Deep Laceration(or w/e the name) and Leg Sprained. I shrugged and told myself : "Oh well, that T5 POI is gonna take 5 minutes longer..."

 

[meganoth]

What???  Some people think the current injury system is "Crippling"?

I played yesterday for the first time in a while... I was slightly rusty and messed up a bit, ended with Weak, Infected, Deep Laceration(or w/e the name) and Leg Sprained. I shrugged and told myself : "Oh well, that T5 POI is gonna take 5 minutes longer..."

I agree, but maybe new players don't have good ideas how to proceed in such a situation. So here are a few hints:

Obviously you need to be more careful. In essence lose some time and efficiency to play it safer.

1) Always have a path in view to exit the POI at signs of danger. Even slowed you are faster than basic zombies and can run away from them around the house without failing the quest. Shooting them with a bow outside the POI is always easier than inside the POI

2) Block doors. You can put a wood frame into a door (and upgrade it) before shooting at anything inside. Makes it possible to use the bow even on approaching zombies.

3) Block doors with spike traps. Even better, you might also damage them. 

4) Add ladders to high walls, with the lowest two rungs missing. This gives you a defensible position. Lure zombies to this room, kill them from above.

5) Do you already have a turret but only use it on special occasions or never. Well, this is such a special occasion

 

[Daemonjax]

The Injury system is a good idea but its not good game play in its current form "you have fatigue" 1.30 hours real time "ONE AND HALF HOURS" curable by vitamins I don't have vitamins the trader does not have vitamins I have 1.5 hours where I can do very little.  And now we need to carry loads med a with us or suffer huge penalty times and massive impairments, but you dropped the stamina so we are playing with with a geriatric asthmatic who can not even cycle 50m with out being exhausted and being overloaded brings you to a crawl.

I'm a new player (so some might think my opinion on this isn't worth anything, but I think the opposite is true in this case), but I thought this system works well, and this is how I learned to deal with it:

a) Lacking vitamins, antibiotics, splints, or whatever:  Before level 6 you can just kill yourself and you're healed of everything (and given full food and water meters to boot) with no penalty.  After level 6, you should have those items in surplus.  If you don't, you can make them.  If you can't, then you play around it at increased risk of risk death -- the death penalty isn't too severe imo.

b) Exhaustion:  I found that just chugging boiled water before strenuous activity is very helpful stamina-wise.  After a couple ingame days, I have more water than I know what to do with.

I think the current injury system is pretty awesome -- I'm impressed!  It really forced me to "git gud" real quick, without being overly punishing -- the 6 level grace period on death penalty is extremely noob friendly (my favorite weapon is knives).

 

[meganoth]

I'm a new player (so some might think my opinion on this isn't worth anything, but I think the opposite is true in this case), but I thought this system works well, and this is how I learned to deal with it:

a) Lacking vitamins, antibiotics, splints, or whatever:  Before level 6 you can just kill yourself and you're healed of everything (and given full food and water meters to boot) with no penalty.  After level 6, you should have those items in surplus.  If you don't, you can make them.  If you can't, then you play around it at increased risk of risk death -- the death penalty isn't too severe imo.

b) Exhaustion:  I found that just chugging boiled water before strenuous activity is very helpful stamina-wise.  After a couple ingame days, I have more water than I know what to do with.

I think the current injury system is pretty awesome -- I'm impressed!  It really forced me to "git gud" real quick, without being overly punishing -- the 6 level grace period on death penalty is extremely noob friendly (my favorite weapon is knives).

There is a grace period on death penalties now? I'm shocked.

IMHO you are making a mistake if you consider killing yourself as a viable option. It makes you accept death like it is swallowing some pill and ultimately makes any challenges of the game trivial.

There is a difficult POI in the wasteland? Not anymore, why be careful when you can just repeat until no enemy is left? Only if you fear dying you can also feel elated at having survived a difficult part of the game.

 

[Roland]

People have been using death as a convenient solution to setbacks for years. When the wellness system was in place it was basically just a new currency for how much it would cost to fast travel or to instantly recover from a broken leg (as that was the only injury at that time). Whenever the devs push a death penalty that is in any way inconvenient, the howling begins.

For me, it is not a problem with temptation. It is a problem with unintentionally dying and having the problems I am trying to legitimately solve getting solved for me. I was at a high percentage of infection and by finding honey I was able to get it down to within 10% of being fully healed. I did a quest hoping to be offered herbal antibiotics as a reward but died during the quest due to poor judgement. Healed. Instantly.

Sucks.  But it does push me to play voluntary dead is dead and just start over. What is interesting is that they have created all of these new injuries and setbacks and yet the death penalty is still so carebear that all they have done is create more reasons for a player who hates the inconvenience of injuries to just suicide. Perhaps when they come out with the vehicle critical malfunctions those can be completely cleared when you die as well...

 

[Kyonshi]

People have been using death as a convenient solution to setbacks for years. When the wellness system was in place it was basically just a new currency for how much it would cost to fast travel or to instantly recover from a broken leg (as that was the only injury at that time). Whenever the devs push a death penalty that is in any way inconvenient, the howling begins.

For me, it is not a problem with temptation. It is a problem with unintentionally dying and having the problems I am trying to legitimately solve getting solved for me. I was at a high percentage of infection and by finding honey I was able to get it down to within 10% of being fully healed. I did a quest hoping to be offered herbal antibiotics as a reward but died during the quest due to poor judgement. Healed. Instantly.

Sucks.  But it does push me to play voluntary dead is dead and just start over. What is interesting is that they have created all of these new injuries and setbacks and yet the death penalty is still so carebear that all they have done is create more reasons for a player who hates the inconvenience of injuries to just suicide. Perhaps when they come out with the vehicle critical malfunctions those can be completely cleared when you die as well...

Agree with that.

The XP debt after dying should be an entire red XP bar, not just few points like it currently is. And then once you pay it all back, you start a new bar at zero, not where you were at before getting killed. But that's my take and point of view.

Its true that the injuries can get so pilled up quickly that one can be tempted to commit suicide since the drawback of death penalty is quite insignificant. And i know some people will tell me that you just have to wear heavy armor, at best, because they provide better critical injury prevention. True, but wearing heavy gear shouldnt be an obligation. People should be free to build their character and invest points as they like. This doesnt mean Light Armor should match the critical prevention of Heavy Armor either.

What i mean is reevaluation of injuries occurence and locations of them. In the sense that they wont overwhelm the player and push them to suicide to resolve the issue. A Vulture should only cause Infection, Bruises and Bleeding wounds. Repeated attacks should also just cause more HP loss. But it shouldnt break any bones. In fact, no Zombie should cause fractures. Human bones are freaking hard to break and no zombie, with decayed and weaken muscle strength would hit so hard that your leg will break apart. Bruises, Bleeding wounds, concussions, that i can agree. But sprained ankles and fractures should be caused by falling down rooftops, cliffs and steep slopes, period.

This way, injuries would make better sense and wouldnt swarm the player in 3 hits, resulting with almost all injury status, like we can observe often, and push people to just heal themselves by dying. This is a preliminary idea, im aware i can be wrong and inaccurate about certain points but i believe the root of the problem comes from there.

 

[Roland]

And i know some people will tell me that you just have to wear heavy armor, at best, because they provide better critical injury prevention. True, but wearing heavy gear shouldnt be an obligation. People should be free to build their character and invest points as they like. This doesnt mean Light Armor should match the critical prevention of Heavy Armor either.

TFP is really excited about their new outfit system that will create tough choices between protection and bonuses depending on what you put on. But with the death penalty being the way it is, it really undercuts any toughness to the choice. Just wear outfits for bonuses and die rather than forego bonuses to get armor protection. Why do we really need armor protection from dying if dying solves the worst setbacks in the game anyway?

It will be interesting to see how the meta of outfit wearing develops in the community given that death not only doesn't really matter but is actually the remedy for unwanted status effects.

One thing that occurs to me is that instead of making status effects persistent as a top menu option, make it one of the respawn options in game. A little checkbox that can be toggled on the respawn screen where you choose to respawn in your bed or near your bed. If checked then you respawn with all your status effects in place. This way, players could, on the fly, get themselves out a death loop the easy way if they cannot get themselves out of it through gameplay.

Some of my fondest playthroughs were of when my wellness fell to 50 and I nursed it back up by, you know, actually playing the game. 

 

[Maharin]

Yeah, I think more work needs to be done on the "after near death experience".  Persistent maladies will help, but maybe they should also do some sizeable percentage of damage to your gear so you will likely need to do many repairs.  Or maybe the death experience penalty has debuffs that go with it, such as moving slower or doing less damage, or maybe skill penalties.  All of these should likely go away with the exp penalty, in this scenario.

Near death needs to make you feel like you don't want to go through it again if you can avoid it.  It needs to be worse than what happens to you while you're alive so you have a reason to want to stay alive.  It's a balancing act for sure.

 

[Roland]

Yeah, I think more work needs to be done on the "after near death experience".  Persistent maladies will help, but maybe they should also do some sizeable percentage of damage to your gear so you will likely need to do many repairs.  Or maybe the death experience penalty has debuffs that go with it, such as moving slower or doing less damage, or maybe skill penalties.  All of these should likely go away with the exp penalty, in this scenario.

Near death needs to make you feel like you don't want to go through it again if you can avoid it.  It needs to be worse than what happens to you while you're alive so you have a reason to want to stay alive.  It's a balancing act for sure.

They tried this in A17 and it was quite unpopular. No need for gamesparks to see that many people just sat around or went AFK until the skill penalty timed out because they refused to play at diminished capacity. The original timer was an hour and then it was reduced to 30 minutes and then it was scrapped for the xp deficit instead.

Perhaps the problem was simply that it was time based. Perhaps if such things were tied to the xp-deficit and went away when that was earned back it would push people to play to remove the curse rather than refuse to play until the curse was gone. I still think quite a few would rage about it though...