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RELEASED: Build 35.26


RobertJohnson

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53 minutes ago, nasKo said:

doesn't give me hope for your stay.

Definitely a "nip it in the bud" kind of thing.

 

My addition to the on-topic, are the floral print walls unpaintable for a gameplay reason or is it just not paintable (probably because of the pattern)? Not sure if bug or just something that hasn't happened yet, but it's not like I'm missing out on anything I had beforehand so I'm not going to complain.

 

Okay, I'll be honest. That cheesy antique wallpaper drives me nuts and I want to replace it with paint colors so badly. :-P I can tear down and rebuild the wall but I tend to permanently remove the wall trim and light switches in the process...

 

Great work with the updates RJ! You guys have added a lot of good features this build!

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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4 hours ago, nasKo said:

Yeah uh, you're going to get a little time off there, buddy.

Actually, nah. You're gone. Getting worked up about such a trivial little thing and the way you provide "feedback" (not constructively, I tell ya) doesn't give me hope for your stay.

Sort of on topic: before they erupted, they mentioned this happening on Easy. In the release notes it says that this feature isn't on during easy mode.

They may have been right about it being a bug (Assuming they were on easy)

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12 hours ago, Rathlord said:

It's actually not "beyond ridiculous," it's intentional design.


I personally understand this but I also personally think it's bad design. Like mentioned above, it would make sense if it was a bad trait you took (something like "injured" or even being more specific and saying things like "scratched" and/or "broken limb" for extra points), if was only on hard/late-game mode or even if it just became default for all characters to start with a scratch or burn of some kind, but as a default setting as is, it's a punishment to a player that didn't ask for it (and they had nothing they could do to stop it other than rolling the digital dice right by chance). This to me is bad game design. If there's nothing a player can do (or they can't at least do something to reduce their chance) and they still have a chance of being punished, things aren't right.

Not to mention that since this random chance happens at the start of the game it just makes sense as an average player to just restart and get a clean/fresh character rather than having a beaten and bruised one.

Just my opinion (as someone that went to college for game design [not trying to brag but figured it was relevant to mention I'm not just some "Joe Schmoe" putting in an uneducated opinion]) of course, but I think it should be revised for default settings personally.
 

12 hours ago, HomeSlice said:

Considering I started on EASY in the early game it makes ZERO sense for me to start injured.


Also, like mentioned above, this shouldn't happen on easy mode according to the patch notes so it's most likely a bug.

P.S. And on a side note I feel like this "feature" needs a sandbox/server setting if it is going to stay.
 

Edited by Kuren
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50 minutes ago, RobertJohnson said:

If you give me logs, tell me why, is it while loading a game, was it from a build 34, is it a new game directly in 35.17c, is it in MP/SP, any mods, how it's happening... I can't do nothing with this alone :)

 

Ladders: no animations for them yet, so it'll wait, not high prio

thanks for anwsering :)

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RJ, just now I continued to play with my friend in COOP - but we unable to kill zeds, they are don't knocking down, and sometimes ignoring our kicks and pushes (don't move back). It's not connection - we clearly saw each other, no freezes or jumps for us and zeds. :-(

Edited by Unghin
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34 minutes ago, Insidiousness said:

Can confirm what Unghin just described. Was logging into the server I played with my friend from yesterday and then we had no problems killing Zeds, but today we couldn't kill a single Zed and one ultra strong Zed killed both of us. (They didn't stagger, fall over or care about our hits)

The same happens to me

Version 35.17c

Edited by SylverElfo
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8 hours ago, Kuren said:


I personally understand this but I also personally think it's bad design. Like mentioned above, it would make sense if it was a bad trait you took (something like "injured" or even being more specific and saying things like "scratched" and/or "broken limb" for extra points), if was only on hard/late-game mode or even if it just became default for all characters to start with a scratch or burn of some kind, but as a default setting as is, it's a punishment to a player that didn't ask for it (and they had nothing they could do to stop it other than rolling the digital dice right by chance). This to me is bad game design. If there's nothing a player can do (or they can't at least do something to reduce their chance) and they still have a chance of being punished, things aren't right.

Not to mention that since this random chance happens at the start of the game it just makes sense as an average player to just restart and get a clean/fresh character rather than having a beaten and bruised one.

Just my opinion (as someone that went to college for game design [not trying to brag but figured it was relevant to mention I'm not just some "Joe Schmoe" putting in an uneducated opinion]) of course, but I think it should be revised for default settings personally.
 


Also, like mentioned above, this shouldn't happen on easy mode according to the patch notes so it's most likely a bug.

P.S. And on a side note I feel like this "feature" needs a sandbox/server setting if it is going to stay.
 

 

It should only be on Survival imo, but the game is meant to be challenging and it's meant to thrust you into the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Starting injured does not end your game, all it does is give you a new short term goal to deal with. It's not "being punished," it's just having a harder start. It's not like it changes your long-term run in any way whatsoever. Personally, I think there should be many more of these starting handicaps. You should start hungry, or thirsty, or in a house with zombies in the other room, and many more.

 

And yes, if this were some competitive game or even a mainstream triple A title this might be "bad design," but that's not what we're dealing with here. PZ is meant to be difficult. It's meant to be challenging. It's even meant to be a little unfair. That's the whole point of the thing. It's cool that you went to college for game design, but here's something I learned at college: Context is king. What works for some games doesn't for others, and vice versa. "Taking control away from the player" is probably a phrase you heard a lot, in a negative light. And in most cases, sure that's true, but you needn't take that quite so much to heart. Game design, especially given the massive variations in genre and style, can't just be put into a box with good things in and bad things out. Sorry for the rant, but I feel in a lot of cases what's taught leads to closed minded interpretations, much like teaching writing (which is more my field).

 

Put it into context a little, rather than the knee-jerk reaction that seems prevalent amongst others (not necessarily you). How does this impact your game?

 

1) You are slightly injured. Your character might not perform as well to begin with

2) You have different early game goals, specifically bandaging and treating your wound

3) Once you've dealt with the wound, it has no impact beyond that

 

Digging down further, what do these three things mean to the player? #1 means maybe being a bit more careful to begin with. You might be less inclined to take a fight if you're already injured. However, #2 means you have a specific goal when you start off, meaning you might have to take some risks you might not. What this all translates to is, the beginning of the game takes a different path than it might normally. Given that the game currently has a fairly standard, well-trodden beginning (find weapon, grab some loot, find somewhere to hole up), this is a much needed change to the early game. And as for point 3- it means this has literally no impact on the mid to late game.

 

Now I'm curious, which of these impacts do people feel effects the player negatively? Which of those things is a bad thing? Sure, it's a "negative" moodle theoretically, but the impact on the player is purely positive. As I said- it should definitely not be in the easy modes, that could certainly be frustrating. But in Survival? I see exactly zero evidence that this is a bad thing in any way. If you disagree, I'd love to see how you feel it impacts the player rather than just "this is bad game design because it's unfair and punishes the player," which is inaccurate and imo untrue for the second part.

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3 hours ago, Unghin said:

RJ, just now I continued to play with my friend in COOP - but we unable to kill zeds, they are don't knocking down, and sometimes ignoring our kicks and pushes (don't move back). It's not connection - we clearly saw each other, no freezes or jumps for us and zeds. :-(



Same with me

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3 hours ago, Unghin said:

RJ, just now I continued to play with my friend in COOP - but we unable to kill zeds, they are don't knocking down, and sometimes ignoring our kicks and pushes (don't move back). It's not connection - we clearly saw each other, no freezes or jumps for us and zeds. :-(

 

I'm experiencing the same issue when hosting.

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3 hours ago, Rathlord said:

snip


This is why I think (and even suggested in my earlier post with a few other ways to make it less of a "good vs bad" RNG coin flip) in the spirit of PZ it would be best if everyone started with a injury or disadvantage on harder difficulties like survival, as opposed to you having a chance to be perfectly fine as well. That's what makes it bad design (in my personal opinion, like I stated many times in my first post, of course), if one player rolls a healthy character and another rolls a busted and bruised one, the one getting a busted and bruised one is being punished in comparison to the player that rolled a healthy one. They didn't choose to be punished and there wasn't something they could do to improve their chances but this wouldn't be a punishment if both players were forced to start with a disadvantage (leaving the dice roll and RNG to determine what kind of injury or temporary disadvantage each one gets instead). Now lucky for them it's at the start of the game and they can re-roll until they don't start off injured, but again, that doesn't sound like good design to have players re-rolling and re-creating characters to feel that they're on an even playing field.

As you stated it's all about context and I've been looking at this through the context of what PZ is and how it plays. College taught me to do this as well (just like you said it did for you), so I'm not just applying random bits I learned about game design and hoping for a fit. I'm analyzing the situation, how it relates to the player and assessing what would stop people from getting frustrated at the game.

This is technically more of a "taking control away from the player" situation than some things that it seems we aren't getting for that reason, like passing out from lack of sleep. I see it as you have tons of time to do this before it happens, you're warned by moodles and it's basically just another bar you need to watch and not let run out (just like eating or drinking but with more leeway) so I actually hope it makes it in. So trust me, I'm not taking that to heart in the way it's taken here.

Most of your argument was based on the fact that PZ isn't your average game and is meant to be challenging. I agree with this but the mechanic as is just seems too random and unfocused to me. I think it would be great if dealing with an injury was part of starting up a new game but having the chance to be healthy too is what bothers me, as I feel like it should be one way or the other for each difficultly, not both.

I wasn't saying that starting out injured in general is "bad design" but that it's bad design to have the healthy/injured RNG start. If the idea is to spice up the start of the game then take out the chance to start healthy and you fix the disparity.

Once again, this is just my opinion. Sorry if you don't agree and sorry if I wasn't clear in my first post but I wanted to share my point of view on it.

P.S. I'm sorry I even mentioned what I have my degree in. Thought it was relevant and would help add some real context to where I'm coming from but apparently it seems to have triggered some people and I ended up being patronized and lectured as if I had never been or as if the experience closed my mind too much to see the big picture here.

 

Edited by Kuren
Changed a "their" to a "they're" and a "you're" to a "your"
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i think i found a bug and i'm not sure how it happend. my composter seems to have disappeared. it was still there but invisible, so i destroyed it and tried to craft a new one. i can't really give solid information as to what could have caused this. but i guess i'll try?
the game wouldn't open after browsing over the internet so i closed the game, then when i restarted my game i noticed my composter was gone. (the tiles it occupied were still solid so i destroyed it using my maul)  now i can't craft a new one. the picture itself seems to be gone from the crafting option too.

BTW i'm not using any mods, i'm just playing the vanilla game. (35.17b)
EDIT: i remember going from the new double sized textures to the old ones, but i didn't feel like restarting my game. i was having fps issues for a short while (because my pc started running a scan)
EDIT2: 35.17c launch seems to have fixed my problem. (although it might still be possible to occur?)

pzglitchcompost.png

Edited by Patrick H
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Regarding the injured spawn: I´m in the same boat as Kuren here. Starting injured isn´t per se a bad mechanic, but why should you play with this char if you can simply scrap the save and restart. All what this feature currently adds to the game is more char creation. Just to get things straight: it´s damn necessary to spice the start up with such random shenanigans, but if you have the ability to start with a perfectly fine char than it´s just rinse and repeat char creation.

 

Implement more tradeoffs and alter the randomization so that you can´t get all the negatives, instead give each negative some kind of score to rule extreme startingconditions out. (e.g. no 10 deep injuries and a starving char oppose to one with only slight thirst).

 

I don´t have any real clue about gamedesign, but as it is right now all this feature does for me is more time in char creation.  I´m not powergaming the game but if I have the chance to get a perfectly fine char I will try to get one.

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I like the spawning with injurys. It's only on hardcore mode isn't it? If you want fair don't chose hardcore mode?

 

I like the chalenge and feel like a zombie apocalypse wouldn't be fair. Shit happens. I want to spawn in a house that's on fire and surrounded by zombies, but some people don't so I guess this is another problem that can be solved by sandbox mode?

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if someone is going to try and min-max their start, there's not much we can do about, regardless. There's no doubt that people will restart their game  if they don't start in a desirable location or if they don't have a weapon in their starting house, as well.

 

Personally though, I find always  being one thing or the other to be quite a boring proposition. I'd rather players had the ability to have their characters defined for them, to some degree, rather than be a cypher. What happened to the character for the first two weeks before you came in and took away its drive? Maybe you got through unscathed, maybe you got injured, maybe you just stumbled into this place to rest.

 

I'd hope that we see more variation in starts in the future, from player condition to the condition of safehouses or whether they're even in a safe house. Maybe that should be represented through scenarios or via the traits system, but personally I'd prefer it if it were outside of the player's control.

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