PC Please GET RID of Alpha 17

Again, doing it right, is key. Half ass like tfp had it, overboard like some mods have it, no...
...it has to be done right.

Speaking of, it can't currently be modded, hopefully that gets fixed.
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Agreed on both points.

A Hybrid with the right balance could utilize the A17 system and bring back the best part of the A16 system.

I think it would be wonderful!

Also, it should be Moddable.

Why isn't "moddable" a word yet?

We have turnt and that word makes me wince.

I DEMAND all modding related words be made formal.

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Can... you ... fix that also, TFP?

That would be really nice, thanks.

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I had stopped playing alpha 16 but alpha 17 has sparked my interest again because it actually makes the game difficult. 16 on the hardest settings was still baby mode, now I am actually worried about going into buildings and taking my time. I hated that I could basically have all I needed to survive after about 3 days, now it actually takes some work and that is brilliant!
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Heh. I assume you have not gotten that far in A17 then since after the first week or so (which is harder, I grant you) becomes by far the easiest the game has ever been. Not only does the player become maxed out and OP by day 30 (earlier than this ever happened in previous alphas by about 70 days), but the shambolic perk system means you can craft every single item in the game guaranteed (never been in previous alphas). LOL. You don't even need to explore any more, how kind of the devs. Basically they dumbed it all down for a casual audience.

OP's thread title may be clickbait but I can't help think just how much of a superior game A17 would have been if they had just kept to A16 and added the AI, graphics, vehicles, some of the POIs and NOTHING ELSE.

That would have been a far superior, deeper, less casual and more fun game.

 
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Again, doing it right, is key. Half ass like tfp had it, overboard like some mods have it, no...
...it has to be done right.

Speaking of, it can't currently be modded, hopefully that gets fixed.
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"Right" meaning to your personal preference? :)

 
"Right" meaning to your personal preference? :)
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Pick your battles.

What I got from his message is more of a focus on balancing and making the game enjoyable to the target audience and maintaining what the developer intended.

See this is why context is important.

I feel like you've ignored that and are just looking to pick a fight.

Naturally.
But, 10 out of 10 guppys agree that my way is the best.
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Guppy you aren't helping.

I am trying to say what you meant and you're undermining me by speaking.

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Naturally.
But, 10 out of 10 guppys agree that my way is the best.
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Lol nice

- - - Updated - - -

Pick your battles.
What I got from his message is more of a focus on balancing and making the game enjoyable to the target audience and maintaining what the developer intended.

See this is why context is important.

I feel like you've ignored that and are just looking to pick a fight.
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Im a lover, not a fighter.

Guppy can take it, he knows me by now :)

 
No, you're not. You choose to do the exact same thing every time.
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I guess you could spend your points differently in a specific run, but why would you? It would just make the early game more inefficient and tedious than it already is. And by God is it tedious, even if you spend your points in the obvious order.

 
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Saw a post on the encumbrance -- going the "weight" route would definitely not be in our interest.. Mining, building, and other things would kill the player in the weight dept. I feel backpacks should be an item. You start with the starter backpack, you either find a new one (or with the mod item theme, find mods to add space). This new way that's introduced is annoying, but managable.. I mean I CAN choose not to fill those spot(s) that will begin the annoyance or i can deal with it.

I agree with, I believe it was Guppy's post, that if i sit there and craft a million stone axes I should be a pro at just stone axes, not marksman rifles / bows, etc.. XP for doing.. but that could be argued as another grind avenue. I don't like having the majority of xp (to get perks) gained by killing (and selling to trader) and the rest of my day count for pretty much nothin (but I'm aware that a balance is in the works). I do miss (though at the time i know I found it to be a RNG pain) finding schematics and recipes for alot of the items. It gave that ooh-ahh tingly I found IT feeling. And with the many key items that there are, it happened alot. It could be worse, we could have a Path of Exile skill tree LOL..

I truly do not like the map setup, I liked the diversity of biomes even if it was a run up the road to the next biome type thing, ok maybe a little bigger biomes haha. And yes, the RWG could definitely use some love (but Mr. K is on it I hear (or will be))

Too sum up, I went more than i intended (and believe it or not I could keep going), I like the potential that a17 has (at least in my eyes). I wouldn't wanna start over again anytime soon (that initial startup dragggggs, dang stamina), but I cant wait to see the finished product that i suspect isn't happening anytime soon (unless TFP sidelines certain things for later visitation).

 
I respectfully disagree with some of this. OK, there are choices to not farm zombies for XP, not sustainable choices though. Alternative path to iron tools... trader? quest? or, farm zombies for a few days and get a forge and make them at will with most likely what would be a better level. Food? your edit makes sense since I've also found animal to be abundant, literally find multiple almost daily while farming zombies, then perk into metabolism and food is now an afterthought. I am aware they working on "balance" for the XP, but we won't know anything until that finalized. I do think TFP should bring back gun parts and books because, to me, RNG made this game great!
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Traders carry iron tools constantly, as well as forged iron and steel to repair them. My friends and I have iron tools by day 2-3 at the latest because when we hit our "find the trader" stage, we grab quests and go do them. If we don't loot enough tools/weapons, then we buy them with quest Dukes. We've also gotten levels from the quests and the zombies we've killed on the way/during.

If your trader has a working forge, even better. You can have iron tools pretty much immediately.

And I very much prefer being able to build guns whole and not have an entire storage box dedicated to gun parts and juggling upgrades. Screw that. I can make a green gun whole. Then I can make a blue one and sell the green one to the trader for Dukes and buy ammo, gunpowder, plastics, whatever I need.

I used to have Dukes just stacking up. There are so many things in A16 that I used to have scads of just taking up space. So many bones, flesh, fat. So much useless dirt. So many gun parts. Stacks of duct tape.

Now I actually NEED my dukes. I buy resources that I used to ignore, like tape and gunpowder. I actually ran out of plastics and we had to go on a wrenching run while we quested!

It's harder, but much more interesting.

 
Traders carry iron tools constantly, as well as forged iron and steel to repair them. My friends and I have iron tools by day 2-3 at the latest because when we hit our "find the trader" stage, we grab quests and go do them. If we don't loot enough tools/weapons, then we buy them with quest Dukes. We've also gotten levels from the quests and the zombies we've killed on the way/during.
If your trader has a working forge, even better. You can have iron tools pretty much immediately.

And I very much prefer being able to build guns whole and not have an entire storage box dedicated to gun parts and juggling upgrades. Screw that. I can make a green gun whole. Then I can make a blue one and sell the green one to the trader for Dukes and buy ammo, gunpowder, plastics, whatever I need.

I used to have Dukes just stacking up. There are so many things in A16 that I used to have scads of just taking up space. So many bones, flesh, fat. So much useless dirt. So many gun parts. Stacks of duct tape.

Now I actually NEED my dukes. I buy resources that I used to ignore, like tape and gunpowder. I actually ran out of plastics and we had to go on a wrenching run while we quested!

It's harder, but much more interesting.
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But if you were to just grind XP you'd have your forge day 3 or 4 still have all those Dukes to spend on the resources you needed.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get what you're saying. However; you won't get me to agree that hoping my trader has iron tools day 1 or 2 and forged iron to buy (or a forge) is a better option than just power leveling to the forge.

I did enjoy the gun part system, but not relevant to our discord now. The problem with selling the guns is that I almost always have a box full of useless guns now that I have to wait for the traders to actually buy. And after level 30ish, I just scrap them if I find them and they are worse than what I have. If I want dukes, I'll just use that forge I got on day 3-4 and cook up some iron or steel... Dukes for days lol.

 
Things personally noticed about A17.

1 Shaders 100% better, depth of field, the inclusion

of more billboard distant assets increased my performance.

Legacy devices reused +1 Separation of the pine vs oak

process.+1

2 Dungeon crawler Pois, lot of work added, enhanced by the

shader detail.+1 Overemphasis on quantity of breaking boards.-1

But overall a posittive start. Random location rotation of

containers and modular furniture for more variation.

3 Vulture animation, over exxagerated, The looming shadow and

attack sequence priceless. +1 But the actual animated flight

directional change is too mechanical and abrupt. It's mainly in

the soaring sequence. -1

4 AI pathfinding perfect to the point of night sweats. +5 The

Bionic jump acceptable as part of the pathing ai but strange

visual. Height fall damage, compromise maybe. Sleeper

leaps from sleeper location. damage. intentional exploited 100

meter drop not so much. +/-

5 Lighting, too constricted now, value gamma, and white fixed too

high as default. -1 The relocation of FalloffRange in dll, Blocks

the addative to xml to fine tune light emmission. Offset partially

by the inclusion of the light editor, in world editor, nice but.

Does not override even when applied to a master light.

6 Entity color refers back to light, too bright if gamma lowered to 7

then begins to look like subtle shades. -1

7 vehicles +1

8 mods, no real opinion I only ever used 2 scope and sound suppressor.

9 Progression, in prior, Id invest in two, and let the points accrue til

later. "scavenging quality, and quality joe" In a17 i just invest in

anything that deals with headshot. The encumbrance reduction is not an

investment its a forced amount nec for qol. I have to invest to be able

to cook even if i have the parts, In beginning the first quest has you

to build a campfire as the last item. Says you now have basic skills for

survival. But you can't cook an egg, finding recipes, for the new inclusions

would suit me better than, forced point investment to cook.

I have yet to figure how many points are arbitrarily needed to make a

first aid bandage. There is a loss of symbiotic flow, between game play and

skill progression and or levels. Its a different manner of micromanaging.

Example some things are common knowledge, advanced creation can be associated

directly with your level, at 10 cook tier 1 etc. natural progression.

as a ref Jax, did Ravenhurst, it felt smooth as far as what you learned. -3

10 Rwg: This is from personal opinion so disregard if you like.

It is not random, The cities are dependant upon the splat3.png to generate.

The pois are manually placed in the prefabs.xml for placement.

Always following the same pattern an X nw to se ne to sw.

The Radiation border, encroaches upon the normal map. -1

The offset to above i the ability to Really customize the terrain after

initial creation. +5 Creative landscape potential unbound.

Random comes from manual placement in the biomes file, not random. -1

The biomes can be rearranged. +1

The ability to paint roads variable width. +1

Once you have done a good template you can use it as a basis for the next seed

if worldmap is the same size. +5 Potential

a16 is now legacy, Combining the Dtm.tga layout with Rwg2 Hub placement, may

work better.

11 Graphics Moddability: The terrain and block textures are locked in the

array for now, the lighting is locked in the single instance of light editor.

-5

Overall opinion: I will balance a few of the negatives above for myself.

Shaders, and use of the Unity resources beyond just default settings, better,

Gameplay, once balanced, Never really faced leveling or gating till now, will

be ok.

C#blocked textures lighting terrain and random placement new learning

curve introduced.

Unlocking the ability for me to make my own apocalyptic terrain now Priceless to me.

Poi conversion import export. +5 Wish we could xfer no matter the version. TO inc

THe BOTB for the past versions.

Key phrase more subtlty, less in your face, bull in china shop.

 
Traders carry iron tools constantly, as well as forged iron and steel to repair them. My friends and I have iron tools by day 2-3 at the latest because when we hit our "find the trader" stage, we grab quests and go do them. If we don't loot enough tools/weapons, then we buy them with quest Dukes. We've also gotten levels from the quests and the zombies we've killed on the way/during.
If your trader has a working forge, even better. You can have iron tools pretty much immediately.

And I very much prefer being able to build guns whole and not have an entire storage box dedicated to gun parts and juggling upgrades. Screw that. I can make a green gun whole. Then I can make a blue one and sell the green one to the trader for Dukes and buy ammo, gunpowder, plastics, whatever I need.

I used to have Dukes just stacking up. There are so many things in A16 that I used to have scads of just taking up space. So many bones, flesh, fat. So much useless dirt. So many gun parts. Stacks of duct tape.

Now I actually NEED my dukes. I buy resources that I used to ignore, like tape and gunpowder. I actually ran out of plastics and we had to go on a wrenching run while we quested!

It's harder, but much more interesting.
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This is pretty much what I do as well. Do a few buried supplies quests or clear zombies quests, get weapons from quest rewards, take the perk to get more quest rewards, sell what I don't need and just buy tools.

I pretty much only loot on the way to the POI, the POI itself and then just go back to the trader.

 
OP's thread title may be clickbait but I can't help think just how much of a superior game A17 would have been if they had just kept to A16 and added the AI, graphics, vehicles, some of the POIs and NOTHING ELSE.

That would have been a far superior, deeper, less casual and more fun game.
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I'm in this camp at the moment. A17 vacillates between super easy and ludicrously hard with a constant background of stamina/resource gathering tediousness. Within 4 days I had forges, every weapon and hundreds of rounds of found ammunition. Zombies die super easy even to stone arrows from plain bows. At the same time I walked into a POI today that spawned 6 ferals the combination of which ate 60 rounds of 9mm, a bunch of shotgun shells and arrows and 5 rockets and didn't die. I can't see long term games being much of a thing anymore. Everything tied to character levels is boring once you get a minimum set of perks bought. At least the old way you had to explore for recipes and whatnot. They should have taken what you wrote above and removed more default recipes and put them into books/magazines/whatever that you had to find to unlock them. I'd also have kept weapon parts/combining and just added mods vs the new system.

edit: 850 hours in game from about A13 on. Not that it matters, but I've got significant time in the game.

 
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IMO (and I am entitled to my opinion) the game has gone downhill every patch since after A9. Sure some neat, new little things get added, but the performance, bugs, and exploits just get worse with every patch. A9 was the pinnacle of decent gameplay, fun pvp/raiding and good FPS without major bug/dupe issues and that's why I enjoyed my time in this game the most at that patch level.

Most people I know who play have already given up on A17 too. The next patch should be entirely focused on making A17 not bad, rather than adding new broken things to the game that also don't get fixed til the next patch after that, if ever.

This is not a flame 'gloom and doom' post so don't freak out, Roland. I'm just not happy with how the last 4 (!) years have gone for this game. It's clearly become too ambitious of a project for a very small team without tons of money. I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of this game, but what I really want is to refund the time I've spent having hope for this game post-A9.

 
I'm in this camp at the moment. A17 vacillates between super easy and ludicrously hard with a constant background of stamina/resource gathering tediousness. Within 4 days I had forges, every weapon and hundreds of rounds of found ammunition. Zombies die super easy even to stone arrows from plain bows. At the same time I walked into a POI today that spawned 6 ferals the combination of which ate 60 rounds of 9mm, a bunch of shotgun shells and arrows and 5 rockets and didn't die. I can't see long term games being much of a thing anymore. Everything tied to character levels is boring once you get a minimum set of perks bought. At least the old way you had to explore for recipes and whatnot. They should have taken what you wrote above and removed more default recipes and put them into books/magazines/whatever that you had to find to unlock them. I'd also have kept weapon parts/combining and just added mods vs the new system.
edit: 850 hours in game from about A13 on. Not that it matters, but I've got significant time in the game.
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Agree with you, we just had to wipe/restart my dedicated server because we all got bored around day 50 or 60 when we were maxed out. The new POIs are far too many and the jump scares are good... once, then you know they are there.

Side note.... auto turrets should be able to use steel casing ammo. Haven't seen anyone comment on that yet.

 
IMO (and I am entitled to my opinion) the game has gone downhill every patch since after A9. Sure some neat, new little things get added, but the performance, bugs, and exploits just get worse with every patch. A9 was the pinnacle of decent gameplay, fun pvp/raiding and good FPS without major bug/dupe issues and that's why I enjoyed my time in this game the most at that patch level.
Most people I know who play have already given up on A17 too. The next patch should be entirely focused on making A17 not bad, rather than adding new broken things to the game that also don't get fixed til the next patch after that, if ever.

This is not a flame 'gloom and doom' post so don't freak out, Roland. I'm just not happy with how the last 4 (!) years have gone for this game. It's clearly become too ambitious of a project for a very small team without tons of money. I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of this game, but what I really want is to refund the time I've spent having hope for this game post-A9.
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And your dissatisfaction is understandable as the developers are not making the game you want (PVP crafting/survival). As a SP player, every Alpha has been an improvement for me.

 
Again, doing it right, is key. Half ass like tfp had it, overboard like some mods have it, no...
...it has to be done right.

Speaking of, it can't currently be modded, hopefully that gets fixed.
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I think that's the biggest problem with the direction here, and I really hope that TFPs are listening . There is a good percentage of players here who never play vanilla, we play with mods or overhauls and are very happy to. But when things are hard coded so that they can't be modded then you lose us for good. Xp by doing, digging zombies, 1 lcb, if those issues can be addressed by mods or server config i think you would get a huge sigh of relief in those of us who are not happy with things as they look right now.

 
I think that's the biggest problem with the direction here, and I really hope that TFPs are listening . There is a good percentage of players here who never play vanilla, we play with mods or overhauls and are very happy to. But when things are hard coded so that they can't be modded then you lose us for good. Xp by doing, digging zombies, 1 lcb, if those issues can be addressed by mods or server config i think you would get a huge sigh of relief in those of us who are not happy with things as they look right now.
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It would be very valuable info, imo, if they posted how many players play vanilla or play modded.

I would think player and server diagnostics like this bit of info would be extremely valuable to the development team. But I've never seen anyone reference this information. Decisions are always justified by "TFP" or "Madmole" or "the forums" want X, Y, Z. I suppose that's fine for some things, but it's demonstrably bad for other things - like knowing what your playerbase wants.

 
Not Everything in Alpha 17 is bad but

It would be very valuable info, imo, if they posted how many players play vanilla or play modded.
I would think player and server diagnostics like this bit of info would be extremely valuable to the development team. But I've never seen anyone reference this information. Decisions are always justified by "TFP" or "Madmole" or "the forums" want X, Y, Z. I suppose that's fine for some things, but it's demonstrably bad for other things - like knowing what your playerbase wants.
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For me 7days to die without modifications is a no go since they start to change all the resources and stack sizes.

Now they add some sort of Fake Weight system but still i can cary 8 x 6000 wood and more as long as i dont place it in the "bad slots".

Same all this Fake Resources. you get Wood great no need to do anything craft everything from wood , you get Meat great a Rabbit give you same amount of food as a Bear.

Some Stuff can be changed with modding but not everything , many important things are Hardcoded . So put them into configs and let People modify them .

There is no real survival feeling if my only "work" is to keep stuff from few Inventory Slots so i can still run around, carry Weight like a Truck, craft something from some sort of Mainstreamed Resources.

Alpha 17 is not that bad, i like some things but all the things i like are at same time not Enough to say its great.

Things i think that must become better / more logical

- Zombies are nice but Damage to blocks is stupid , why a zombie a dead entity possible with broken arms, legs or whatever do high damage against Concrete or Steel, against wood fine but concrete or steel should not get such high damage.

- Skilltree, no need to add 100 new Skills, but few more would be good.

- Balancing is not really there that was a Issue with previous Versions too. Weapon Damage , Zombie Damage, Wildlife Damage are not really good Balanced.

- Modding No Hardcoded values make it all usable for modders. Currently it is not possible to bring back or modify some stuff cause the game dont offer a modding option for it, as example Skill raise with doing something relatet to this skill. If you Remove Assets from the game, offer them as a Asset File people can add to a mod.

Let Servers share all Mod Files not only Config Files but also Icon Packs (Server could send a Compressed icon Pack to User ).

-Map Size: Really too small for server with some Players. If your Plan was to make this game more like some sort of small Sandbox fast and easy to explore so People can go and do PVP entire day small Maps will work, but then it would be more like a standard FPS Multiplayer game. Patchnotes and a comment in serverconfig tell me max will be 16K not bigger, before maps could be bigger and we had no issues with bigger Maps. Now you find the Radiation Border really fast but at same Time you added new Vehicles, for such small Maps Minibike would be fast enough.

So bring back a Option to generate Maps with User Defined sizes.

Downloading entire Map to client, why its needed? Streaming the map to the client during he play would work too and would not force the entire Download at first connect. Old System as it was also did not force a entire Map Download.

 
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