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Combat sucks now — my complaints and some suggestions


Neonwarrior

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First off, the update is good, in totality. I enjoy the new puddle effects, content, and 3D animation. This is a step in the right direction despite issues.

 

Some of those glaring issues I've noticed is that turning is too slow and not responsive enough, and movement is entirely dependent on where your character is looking. Looking around while moving is impossible without your character suddenly changing momentum, as if they were on tank treads. Sneaking around and looking is impossible, since holding CTRL causes your character to exit sneak mode and stand up. You can see the problem by looking at this video, credit to Gerashttps://streamable.com/uuzog. Notice how their character starts moving forward as soon as they depress the CTRL key, moving them closer to danger.  This is not okay, and this has already gotten me injured and killed during combat.

 

Speaking of combat.

 

The difficulty has raised by several times (which is mostly a good thing). Developers have nerfed just about every combat action you can perform. Not being capable of pushing more than one zombie at a time makes fighting groups tediously difficult; you used to be able to push up to three of them at once, and bats and axes could strike two zombies at once.  But the devs have had quite enough of that, and apparently the days of being a 'a demigod-like zombie killing badass' are over (I can already hear lemmy shouting "take that nerds!" as this update released). Now my character with 9/10 strength stat (the stat you get when picking the 'strong' character trait for 10 points in char creator) struggles to deal with even two or three zombies, who walk right through my guard and bite me all over without me being able to fight them off. 

 

Needless to say, I disagree vehemently with the philosophy that zombies should be as dangerous as they are represented in the game right now, with very few options to deal with them effectively on your own outside of heavy weaponry. Even with your bare hands, zombies should only truly be a threat in certain situations, like being outnumbered at least 4:1, or if your character is in any way tired, winded, injured, sick, underweight, or really weak. But for stronger character, I believe there is a mechanical failure of the player character to believably fight back against zombies.

 

Now, I was under the impression that zombies were supposed to be dangerous in massive numbers, or when one manages to grab you unexpectedly and force you to the ground. Yet despite my hours in this new update, I have not ever actually experienced being taken down by a group of zombies and dying due to my lack of judgement, ability, and being caught at the wrong place at the wrong time; I am not stupid enough to attempt to fight a horde of 20 or more zombies. Instead, I always die unexpectedly and unfairly due to believing I can fight two or three zombies at the same time, which ends up with me getting locked in place while swinging or shoving, then bit by one of the other zombies who walk right through the first zombie I was shoving, phasing through them and ignoring their backwards momentum, biting me during my recovery animation and ending my run. Again, the mechanics of fighting the zombie is so rigid and unforgiving that it breaks my suspension of disbelief. I still am not sure why I cannot swing and move at the same time, and this movement system makes evading zombies harder than it should be even if I DON'T attempt to fight.

 

Adding onto that, zombies are now even faster at dealing damage and can damage me seemingly when they shouldn't be able to; how exactly did that one zombie I was confident I could kill bite me in the neck in half a second just because I swung too early? That was way too fast, are zombies ninjas now? What was this invisible bite-o jutsu anime technique that hit me? For example, my last run ended when I got bit by a zombie on the neck without even realizing it; the animation made it look like I had just been scratched, and I wasn't grabbed at any point, but in punishment for DARING to fight, I was now bleeding from my jugular and died within 30 seconds. So I feel like what I am seeing on the screen is absolutely not indicative of what's going on. It's like as soon as a zombie enters my personal space, they have the chance to injure me literally anywhere on my body, despite my best efforts to fight them and keep my distance. Shouldn't they have to grab me before they can bite me in the neck, or the arm, or the torso? I know this is the part where you go 'well duh, they're zombies, they're supposed to be dangerous, you must suck or you don't understand the controls.'  Not like this. Zombies need to be constrained by rules just like the player is when it comes to attacking. A single bite can end your entire run; I feel like zombies shouldn't be able to do this without first at least grabbing you and overpowering you, or catching you from behind. As it is now, they only have to get close, and then awkwardly lean forward in order to "bite" you, all without giving you any option to resist if you are already locked in an animation.

 

As an aside, I really do like the animation of shoving away a zombie that has gotten too close; not your regular shove, but the one that depicts the zombie leaning onto you and being shoved off. It really does exemplify what I am trying to say I want to see more of.

 

I can already hear the wails of protest from people saying that the previous Build 40 was too easy, especially with knives and one-hit-kills. But my complaints are not about the inability to fight large hordes of zombies on my own. This is not a game I play to live out a power fantasy. My complaint is not feeling like I am in control of my own body, and feeling like my character is not capable of the same things I know in reality I would be. The game's biggest problem is the character's inability to prevent them-self from being harmed; the game does not allow you to use an arm to hold the zombie back, no moving backwards and swinging at the same time, no sidestep dodging, no looking around with my head without having to turn my whole body, or otherwise feeling like I am in full control of my movement. The way it has always been is that if you decide to take a swing, then you are committed to it to the point of immobility, so you'd damn well be sure that you didn't just doom yourself—but at least back then you were SURE of what you were capable of, and could accurately determine the threat level of a small group of zombies. 

 

Another suggestion: if I push one zombie back, why don't they bump into other zombies behind them? Why do zombies not trip over themselves? Who is tying their shoelaces!?

 

I hear from EnigmaGrey and Lemmy that combat is not the focus, and is meant to be extremely dangerous. And for eight years, combat has been exactly that: dangerous—if you were unprepared, unhealthy, and weak, it certainly was. It has never been perfect, and perhaps needed some tweaks to increase zombie threat levels (roaming horde AI when?), but this recent update goes even further than that just "tweaking" player combat effectiveness, and makes it a bad idea to even consider fighting even two or three zombies. I hear that this is intended, and will probably never change—so If I cannot kill zombies, why then, am I unable to keep myself alive by using my physical strength to overcome the relatively weaker zombies? If zombies are more difficult to kill, then I should be compensated with more movement options and more defensive abilities.

 

I should absolutely be able to do something like this at the very least:

Spoiler

giphy.gif

 

Just a simple "put my arm out in front of me to halt the zombie advance" trick. There are multiple reasons why the zombie would not just bite your arm, but grabbing the zombie's neck also works and is probably safer. Obviously you risk being scratched in the arm by their nails, so wear long sleeved shirts to prevent that, and you're golden.

 

Here's another thing I should be able to do: 

Spoiler

giphy.gif

 

Here we see my good friend Leon, who has figured out what PZ characters have not: how to shove a zombie off them when coming from a lateral direction while staying mobile.  As it turns out, as long as you stay moving, roll to the left a bit and push with your shoulder, the zombie does not have enough time or leverage to bite you, and they fall to the ground.

 

This is what I'm talking about. If killing zombies is meant to be an impossible task if they're in a group, then give me more options to counter and evade. I feel as if this should already be a focus, considering the rework to how zombies grab you in this update. Maybe lock this behind the Guard skill, or a technique book—I don't care, just give me more movement options!

 

Without more ways to prevent damage, there is no getting around it; combat sucks now. It is not an issue of philosophy, that one should avoid combat rather than seek it, but instead one of controls and lack of animation. It's such a huge issue that I believe if it is not changed and expanded upon from the way it is now, the game will forever be unfun in the combat department.  All future content is, to me, pointless now that combat sucks this badly. It was never meant to be easy, but it was also not meant to be quite literally impossible and frustrating.

 

I feel more vulnerable than ever and not in a good way.

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2 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

"And for eight years, combat has been exactly that: dangerous."

 

Ha ha ha.

 

No.

Perhaps from build 30+ it wasn't dangerous enough, but it was functional, and felt good. If they had just made it so you couldn't hit more than one zombie with an axe or baseball bat, it would have absolutely been fine.  And perhaps a knife nerf.

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Just now, Neonwarrior said:

Perhaps from build 30+ it wasn't dangerous enough, but it was functional, and felt good. If they had just made it so you couldn't hit more than one zombie with an axe or baseball bat, it would have absolutely been fine. 

 

Fully disagree on that.

 

It was boring to watch and way too easy, even if you did make that change.

 

"Functional." Quite a compliment.

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Just now, EnigmaGrey said:

 

Fully disagree on that.

 

It was boring to watch and way too easy, even if you did make that change.

 

"Functional." Quite a compliment.

 

What are you even trying to state? That it was too easy, or that it was not functional? Can't be both. It was functional enough to reliably keep yourself out of danger for years at a time. It was only too easy because zombies did not behave as they should've, and did not grab onto you or move around the map as a horde. I think the current update is a step in the right direction by adding new zombie capabilities, but the player character needs to also be capable of more to compensate.

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You're judging the new combat too harshly in my opinion.

 

It's not worse, it's different. With different movement and patterns to get used to. Your regular tactics no longer work, and you can no longer steamroll through hordes. You can still keep yourself out of danger by reacting and adapting to the fact that you can no longer stand still and continuously annihilate waves of zed 3 at a time with an axe, or sprint in circles inside of a clustered horde. 

 

"It was only easy because zombies did not behave as they should have." No, and I believe you are objectively wrong here. Even when zombies did get the jump on me, my own defense never once interrupted by the ones I missed even during their grapple. 3 zombies pushing up on you was never hard to get out of, whether it was simply sprinting through them or killing them in a single axe swing. You talk as if combat has been ruined by making these no longer viable; if anything, it is far less of a power fantasy and more of something you have to pick your battles with.

 

Where I do agree with you -

Shoving one zed at a time. Strong survivors should be able to hold off more than one fresh or decaying corpse, so tying it to strength would be an alright compromise. Additionally, having other zed stumble should have stayed - also tied to the strength of the person pushing.

 

The majority of the community also wants to see guns become viable, and perhaps that is also part of the answer since melee combat isn't a safe go-to. 

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1 hour ago, Kim Jong Un said:

You're judging the new combat too harshly in my opinion.

 

It's not worse, it's different. With different movement and patterns to get used to. Your regular tactics no longer work, and you can no longer steamroll through hordes. You can still keep yourself out of danger by reacting and adapting to the fact that you can no longer stand still and continuously annihilate waves of zed 3 at a time with an axe, or sprint in circles inside of a clustered horde. 

I know it's different, and I accept that it is different. I'm saying that I wanted to see capabilities of survivors to also increase, to compensate, Not combat wise, but rather mobility-wise and defensively, like in the two gifs I posted. Pushing and shoving should definitely be expanded upon, and movement should be fluid and determined. I want to be able to get grabbed by zombies and push them off while also being pushed around, almost like in a Madden NFL video game where you hold a button to stiff-arm a tackling defender. It would be harder to do this if you have no momentum however.

 

I agree, being able to take out hordes of zombies with an axe was too easy the way it was before. I still think it should be possible for a veteran survivor, though, but it should take too long and cause too much exhaustion to actually be able to pull off for a newer survivor. A group of 30 zombies and an entire day spent kiting them around and whacking the guys at the edge? Why shouldn't I be able to do that, if I have the right weapon that lasts long enough and enough fitness not to become exhausted? I still haven't made a dent in the overall population, and I still risk death of I mess up even once. 

 

These zombies shamble, remember, not run, so I can use my superior mobility to remain out of their reach, even if I come within arm's length. Zombies are slow, predictable, and manageable, but the resources you want to spend—time energy and weapons—is your limiting factor. That's my philosophy. Not some stupid power fantasy to whack a whole horde without a sweat. Yet as it is now, I feel helpless to fight even a few. I could line up a thousand zombies and kill them one by one, but the moment there are 3 or more together, killing them all becomes a nearly impossible task due to no other reason than artificial movement restriction during swinging. It should not be impossible, it should just be something that only becomes possible through the acquisition of new skills and resources. 

 

It's not that I dislike the new capabilities of zombies and want them to be killed more easily, but I'm more upset at the mechanics and animations involved with swinging your weapon, being unable to move, unable to guard, for almost a full second during that swing. That ruins the mechanical effectiveness and feel of combat, and prevents you from killing zombies if there happen to be an arbitrary amount of them (about 4). While locking you in place while swinging has always been the case, I also argue it wasn't ideal back then either. Just letting me move and swing would fix so much, and it wouldn't be unbalanced at all (yes, really, since you are still slowed down massively while aiming). One misstep and you still fall into the jaws of the horde, as it should be.

 

1 hour ago, Kim Jong Un said:

"It was only easy because zombies did not behave as they should have." No, and I believe you are objectively wrong here. Even when zombies did get the jump on me, I was never once interrupted by the ones I missed. 3 zombies pushing up on you was never easy to get out of, whether it was simply sprinting through them or killing them in a single axe swing. You talk as if combat has been ruined, if anything it is far less of a power fantasy and more of something you have to pick your battles with.

 

You've pinned me wrong here. I love that zombies now cannot simply be sprinting through, and can get in the way of your swing. What I'm talking about is how in the past zombies would not grab you, would not pull you to the ground, and mostly how they would not move around the map in a horde-like fashion.  Of course they weren't much of a threat when all they did was stand in one place all day, only moving around due to meta-events! Staying in one safehouse on the edge of town and occasionally taking out a zombie who respawned outside and keeping this up for an entire year was far too simple. Hordes, like from the 1.5d beta from 2011, which would move around the whole map on their own, need to return to keep you on your toes and alert. One of the things I miss the most from the old days was barricading the upper room of a house while a horde passed below and praying they didn't decide to come knocking. 

 

No it hasn't been ruined, it just sucks—mechanically, the way it feels sucks. You're still able to survive, but I dislike the quirks of the system that consistently cause me to get killed because the turn speed is slow and causes me to move backwards when I change direction, and also how zombies seem to deal damage in half the time it used to take them while not representing it visually on the screen. As I said in my OP, I believe groups of zombies should be dangerous as hell, but not so dangerous as to be completely untouchable. Now even three zombies are basically untouchable if they're close enough, due to your lack of ability to fend off the other two once you whack one. Do you see what I'm saying? Defence. Guard. Movement. Staying alive. Not body counts.

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I, too, think that OP is judging the new combat system a bit too harshly, HOWEVER, I also agree that there are certain WTF moments. The player gets bitten very fast at time, and two zombies being able to over-topple you seemingly at random IS annoying as hell. Same with the "open door, get bitten"-thing that apparently is also an issue now.

 

At the end of the day I thought that this makes guns more useful, because you can effectively / more safely clear out larger groups, but... honestly, I still don't think guns are useful. You're just causing more zombies to appear, which with the combat system, is something you really don't want (again).

 

PS: I also didn't liked the old combat system, because it was boring as hell (easy to keep a full group in check with just walking backwards and swinging the axe) and always the same. So going by that, the new system is a big improvement... just needs some more improvements.

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Quote

Just letting me move and swing would fix so much, and it wouldn't be unbalanced at all (yes, really, since you are still slowed down massively while aiming). One misstep and you still fall into the jaws of the horde, as it should be.

This would make the combat way too easy again. Being able to handle large amounts of zombies while one misstep can cost you the game was essentially pre-41 knives, and as we all know, pre-41 knives were broken as hell.

Quote

the moment there are 3 or more together, killing them all becomes a nearly impossible task due to no other reason than artificial movement restriction during swinging. It should not be impossible, it should just be something that only becomes possible through the acquisition of new skills and resources. 

It's not impossible, and it in fact is just a question of skills and resources. Get a gun.

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6 minutes ago, Rass said:

This would make the combat way too easy again. Being able to handle large amount of zombies while one misstep can cost you the game was essentially pre-41 knives, and as we all know, pre-41 knives were broken as hell.

It's not impossible, and it in fact is just a question of skills and resources. Get a gun.

 

Except for the fact that you would be too exhausted to swing a weapon so many times. It's not like knives due to the fact that you have to whack a zombie many times to kill it, and you cannot finish a zombie off if there's a horde that overtakes the downed body immediately.  It balances itself out because of how long it would actually take.  If there are 30 zombies, with the old knife trick, it would just take 30 'swings' with a bit of movement in between. With what I am suggesting, you would instead need to swing perhaps 10 times per zombie, assuming you have a baseball bat (less if you have blunt skill), to kill them. So that's 300 swings to deal with them all. Can your character swing 300 times in a row without tiring out? If they can, they're hella ripped. Not to mention if the baseball bat could possibly hold up for 300 swings, which I doubt.

 

Obviously the gun is the better solution, no doubt.

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Just now, Neonwarrior said:

 

Except for the fact that you would be too exhausted to swing a weapon so many times. It's not like knives due to the fact that you have to whack a zombie many times to kill it, and you cannot finish a zombie off if there's a horde that overtakes the downed body immediately.  It balances itself out because of how long it would actually take.  If there are 30 zombies, with the old knife trick, it would just take 30 'swings' with a bit of movement in between. With what I am suggesting, you would instead need to swing perhaps 10 times per zombie, assuming you have a baseball bat (less if you have blunt skill), to kill them. So that's 300 swings to deal with them all. Can your character swing 300 times in a row without tiring out? If they can, they're hella ripped.

Alright then, it's more like the old weapon swing without the group knockback. That's still a mechanic which allows you to take out hordes 1v200 or whatever. Trust me, I used to roleplay a character who would fight using only hammers.

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11 minutes ago, Rass said:

Alright then, it's more like the old weapon swing without the group knockback. That's still a mechanic which allows you to take out hordes 1v200 or whatever. Trust me, I used to roleplay a character who would fight using only hammers.

Yeah, in my mind, there would be no hitting more than one zombie per swing, though I wouldn't mind zombies bumping into other zombies if they stumble from the force of your blows, or if you shove them. I think an axe should retain the possibility of one-hit kills on a perfect swing, but again, no swiping and killing 2 or 3 zombies and fighting back an entire horde while standing still. 

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9 minutes ago, Neonwarrior said:

Yeah, in my mind, there would be no hitting more than one zombie per swing, though I wouldn't mind zombies bumping into other zombies if they stumble from the force of your blows, or if you shove them. I think an axe should retain the possibility of one-hit kills on a perfect swing, but again, no swiping and killing 2 or 3 zombies and fighting back an entire horde while standing still. 

You would still be able to wipe out hordes using melee weapons. That's something that just should not be possible.

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Have to say I disgree strongly with the statement, new combat is a huuuuge improvement on the pre-animation one. Surviving a loot run in a city feels like an adventure again, and is actually a scary experience.

Did you maybe try the builder game mode ? It might be more adapted to your playstyle.

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33 minutes ago, Rass said:

You would still be able to wipe out hordes using melee weapons. That's something that just should not be possible.

I think you're totally overestimating the changes I want to happen. First off, what I truly want is more mobility and defense animations to keep yourself alive, like I suggested in the OP. But I am not advocating for killing an entire horde in 5 minutes like the old days. I just want more movement. Movement while swinging simply gives you more options while not destroying game balance. I disagree to anyone who says that swinging my weapon should be a death sentence, even if it is a futile effort to deal any lasting damage to a zombie horde. Swinging my weapon WOULD be a death sentence if I tired myself out by doing so to the point I could no longer run away. And besides, like I said, stamina is your biggest limiting factor for why you would never be able to kill an entire horde with melee weapons. Also, being able to hold back zombies with your hands (stiff-arming them, as in American football or rugby) while also moving in another direction, or at least keeping your momentum, so you aren't constantly stuck in place. Defence. Movement. Guard. Staying alive. Not horde killing power fantasies.

 

The real reason I want the changes I suggested is to deal with smaller groups. 3, 4, 6, zombies maybe. Taking out this many zombies shouldn't be prohibited by artificial movement restrictions as it is now. It used to be that whacking 2 zombies at a time and walking backwards was the way you did this (and it wasn't the greatest system), but now we need a new system that leaves in the possibility of killing these zombies without relying solely on kiting. I suggest movement while swinging because it is the simplest change that could bring back this bit of power to the player, WITHOUT giving you the ability to destroy hordes. That is what I am trying to avoid, but everyone keeps strawmanning me into saying something I'm trying to explain over and over again.

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12 minutes ago, Neonwarrior said:

That is what I am trying to avoid, but everyone keeps strawmanning me into saying something I'm trying to explain over and over again.

Nobody is strawmanning you. I get that you don't want to be able to kill entire hordes in melee, but the system you're suggesting would allow the player to do that. As I already said, I'm talking from personal experience - pre-41 hammers (which had more mobility and no group knockback, just like you're suggesting) were a viable way of dispatching hordes.

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We'll take all concerns and criticism on the new combat seriously, but there are a few key points to bear in mind:

 

1) Survivor mode is specifically balanced around 'combat is generally something to avoid' - Brawler is specifically built around 'I enjoy lots of combat'. We won't change balance of Survivor to make 3 zombies easy to dispatch with a fresh character, because this 100% goes against the ethos of that. Brawler will be balanced closer around build 40 combat, so our general advice is to play that mode instead.

2) Some issues with combat still revolve around issues (some of which are already fixed our end but we're not releasing on a weekend, its too risky with lower devs around to fix any issues that crop up with changes) so we'll not be making any sweeping changes to balance until all the bugs and glitches and movement tweaks needed may give an inaccurate view of current balance.

3) The balance error margin between 'being eaten by 3 zombies' and 'being able to slay an entire horde' is TINY and some people don't seem to appreciate that. You say 'just do this' but for example we have the character being able to strafe during a swing now. We had to introduce a tiny pause during the moment of connection. Why? Because without it it was possible to easily dispatch about 60 zombies in a group without any risk. With it? Well you can see. That's how much something so tiny can dramatically affect combat balance, which has undergone so many changes and tweaks over the moments that's bounced it between extremely hard and way too easy. It's not as simple as 'just do X' and you have no idea how these changes wildly affect the balance and would allow for horde killing.

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Just now, Rass said:

Nobody is strawmanning you. I get that you don't want to be able to kill entire hordes in melee, but the system you're suggesting would allow the player to do that. As I already said, I'm talking from personal experience - pre-41 hammers (which had more mobility and no group knockback, just like you're suggesting) were a viable way of dispatching hordes.

Well, that was probably more of an exploit because zombies had to finish their bite animation to deal damage, and couldn't grab you despite how close you were getting. I've never actually done what you're describing, but with the idea I have in my head, this strategy wouldn't work. The hammer doesn't have enough range, relies on you getting so close that even if you could move and swing, and you're putting yourself inside of grab range every single time you swing. And if you used a baseball bat, while I believe you should be able to swing at the horde and get away (with enough nimble skill for speed), you still wouldn't be able to swing for long and not get winded. It's a futile effort unless you're at it for days.

 

Like I said before, 300 swings, 30 zombies killed, a lot of time wasted, baseball bat destroyed, and you could die if you get grabbed. A terrible idea. But still possible to live, still in full control of your legs during a swing.That's the key difference.

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22 minutes ago, lemmy101 said:

We'll take all concerns and criticism on the new combat seriously, but there are a few key points to bear in mind:

 

1) Survivor mode is specifically balanced around 'combat is generally something to avoid' - Brawler is specifically built around 'I enjoy lots of combat'. We won't change balance of Survivor to make 3 zombies easy to dispatch with a fresh character, because this 100% goes against the ethos of that. Brawler will be balanced closer around build 40 combat, so our general advice is to play that mode instead.

2) Some issues with combat still revolve around issues (some of which are already fixed our end but we're not releasing on a weekend, its too risky with lower devs around to fix any issues that crop up with changes) so we'll not be making any sweeping changes to balance until all the bugs and glitches and movement tweaks needed may give an inaccurate view of current balance.

3) The balance error margin between 'being eaten by 3 zombies' and 'being able to slay an entire horde' is TINY and some people don't seem to appreciate that. You say 'just do this' but for example we have the character being able to strafe during a swing now. We had to introduce a tiny pause during the moment of connection. Why? Because without it it was possible to easily dispatch about 60 zombies in a group without any risk. With it? Well you can see. That's how much something so tiny can dramatically affect combat balance, which has undergone so many changes and tweaks over the moments that's bounced it between extremely hard and way too easy. It's not as simple as 'just do X' and you have no idea how these changes wildly affect the balance and would allow for horde killing.

I appreciate this, lemmy, but a brawler mode that changes the numbers in the background and makes the game artificially easier is still not what I'm looking for. Besides, is brawler mode something you plan on keeping until the very final release of the game, or a placeholder to tide off people (not like me) who just want to go around killing every zombie they see?

 

I actually have thought about that 'one variable' that allows a player to kill three zombies, or a whole horde, by just staying out of reach of zombies. You gotta make concessions for gameplay balance and I understand that. Yet I also am irritated by the system of keeping your character rooted in place during a swing and not being able to do anything about zombies that close the distance during that tiny window, and deal damage. This most recent update has made it so difficult to deal with small groups that I am suggesting movement while swinging more to solve that rather than anything related to zombie hordes. Perhaps think about making shoving apply to more than one zombie again?

 

It just seems like damage should be applied to you in a more interesting manner than 'player actor is within x gameunits of zombie, zombie completes attack animation, roll dice for damage applied.' Everything depends on whether or not you can maintain distance to zombies, and swinging is the thing that endangers you the most, rather than how tired you are, having the wrong weapon, etc.

 

I still think movement while swinging is something you could pull off, if you balanced it in another way, like making swings take more stamina, or making it so that standing still while swinging did more damage than moving backwards. In my mind, the thing that would balance this is that a zombie could leap forward and grab you at any moment, pulling you into the horde to certain death, which wasn't part of the game before. They could also grab your weapon. But I get that that's hard to balance and relies a on a lot of small variables, and you're aware of more of them than I am.  

 

My post was a two-parter, and I suggested defensive animations too, like arm-in-front-of-you hold, or maybe the ability to shake off more than one zombie at a time. Perhaps you can tie this to the Guard skill.  If I can't kill zombies like before, at the very least I'd like an increased ability to stay alive now that I cannot simply kill my way out of every situation. It would also look awesome.

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13 minutes ago, Neonwarrior said:

I appreciate this, lemmy, but a brawler mode that changes the numbers in the background and makes the game artificially easier is still not what I'm looking for. Besides, is brawler mode something you plan on keeping until the very final release of the game, or a placeholder to tide off people (not like me) who just want to go around killing every zombie they see?

 

So you are not interested in us making the game easier by changing numbers on a seperate 'equal tier' mode on the main menu specifically for the numbers being changed how you want, you want making the game easier by changing numbers on a specific mode specifically designed a different way, that a lot of people like being super hard?

 

It's a permanent thing, specifically we want a way for people who want stealth and avoiding zombies, AND people who want to focus on combat and fight zombies at every opportunity, to both be happy despite these being mutually exclusive balances. But the ones who want to kill everything seem to insist that the 'stealth / avoid combat' game mode is changed to suit them.

 

Brawler doesn't make things easier, try it - the zombie numbers are dramatically higher than survivor. It just makes combat a bit more powerful for the player to encourage it over running away, and eases the '2 zombies kill you straight away' stuff you take issue with. There are still issues that make brawler too hard, but as I said in point 2) this is due to some issues with the combat system that we're still solving, such as pushes being a bit broken sometimes in target choice etc.

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8 minutes ago, lemmy101 said:

 

So you are not interested in us making the game easier by changing numbers on a seperate 'equal tier' mode on the main menu specifically for the numbers being changed how you want, you want making the game easier by changing numbers on a specific mode specifically designed a different way, that a lot of people like being super hard?

Whoa, lemmy, be careful, you're dangerously close to categorizing me as 'that' kind of person. What I'm saying is that I'm not interested in playing an easy difficulty mode suited for me. I'm interested in the game balance improving, regardless of what mode it is applied on, by changing the fundamental mechanics of the game itself. In other words, 'game development.' I don't consider brawler mode to be any different than sandbox mode with the easiest options picked. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for the game to be made easier point-blank. I'm asking for it to make more sense. More sense in having more control of my character while -not- affecting game balance too much. For every change I suggest, you should definitely consider balancing it with another penalty. Movement, defence, guard, staying alive—that is what I'm advocating for. Not horde killing power fantasies.

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9 minutes ago, Neonwarrior said:

Whoa, lemmy, be careful, you're dangerously close to categorizing me as 'that' kind of person. What I'm saying is that I'm not interested in playing an easy difficulty mode suited for me. I'm interested in the game balance improving, regardless of what mode it is applied on, by changing the fundamental mechanics of the game itself. I don't consider brawler mode to be any different than sandbox mode with the easiest options picked. 

 

As I said, it's NOT easier, the zombie numbers are on Insane instead of High, that's two steps above and makes the game VERY challenging for just different reasons. We coded those features, then added those options to sandbox specifically to balance to Brawler, and now we're being criticized for those only being sandbox options being tweaked? Supposing we added all the stuff you request onto Brawler mode, we'd ALSO put them into the sandbox options, and then because they made the game easier, and they were sandbox options, wouldn't brawler still be 'just sandbox with the easiest options picked'? We gave more combat power, and took away by increasing zombies significantly. And we've only just begun to balance it. It's just that it's balanced more around combat than it is around stealth and scaring people into avoiding combat. The stuff you suggest, despite being 'extra features' and not just 'balancing numbers' which for some reason you find demeaning to play on, would still have the result of making combat easier, regardless of what you say, and we're hesitant to make combat in Survivor easier, outside of fixing the issues that do still exist that contribute to the difficulty, as it says on the main menu description of the mode 'combat is often best avoided'. 

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I totally get what you're saying and we do intend to polish and expand combat. But we're not making Survivor easier is my point, and zombies will remain lethal and just as dangerous, because that's the entire point of it. Brawler is not some 'second tier' way of palming off people complaining, we want to provide a fun experience for people who want to have more combat oriented gameplay, and people who want to be so scared of zombies they are constantly on the run and are terrified if a group of three are at their window. We anticipated that some from previous builds enjoyed the combat more and wouldn't like this balance, so we decided to introduce the concept of 'playstyles' so we could balance independently depending on how people like to play, but people all seem to just want their own will imposed on this one specific playstyle.

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10 minutes ago, lemmy101 said:

 

As I said, it's NOT easier, the zombie numbers are on Insane instead of High, that's two steps above and makes the game VERY challenging for just different reasons. We gave more combat power, and took away by increasing zombies significantly. And we've only just begun to balance it. It's just that it's balanced more around combat than it is around stealth and scaring people into avoiding combat. The stuff you suggest, despite being 'extra features' would have the result of making combat easier, regardless of what you say, and we're hesitant to make combat in Survivor easier, outside of fixing the issues that do still exist that contribute to the difficulty.

You might be right, the issues that exist currently could be contributing majorly to the difficulty. The movement issues while strafing are huge problems that get me killed. 

 

So that's it? It's clear moving and swinging is out of the question. But no defensive animations that tie into the Guard skill? No shoves that push zombies back that were themselves behind the zombie you had shoved? No moving grab breaks? Even small things like shove can make a big difference. It's extra animation work but it would also serve a purpose.

 

You're very certain that you've balanced the current modes correctly, but your balancing is going to change over time and I feel as if my suggestions will make more sense in the future than they do now.

 

Let's see what happens.

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25 minutes ago, Neonwarrior said:

You might be right, the issues that exist currently could be contributing majorly to the difficulty. The movement issues while strafing are huge problems that get me killed. 

 

So that's it? No defensive animations that tie into the Guard skill? No shoves that push zombies back that were themselves behind the zombie you had shoved? No moving grab breaks? It's extra animation work but it would also serve a purpose. Your balancing is going to change over time and I feel as if my suggestions will make more sense in the future than they do now. Let's see what happens.

 

There are defensive animations that tie into guard skill :/ (well the weapon skill, guard skill has been combined with that) and yes we plan on more combat stuff in future, but likely not build 41 since there's only so much work we can do and ever get it released, and the tech for complex player vs zombie interactions like long lasting grapples is not there yet. And yes there are issues still present which lead to unfair deaths we are still working on.

 

I'm just frustrated at brawler, something we went way out of our way to avoid being percieved as 'easy mode' and just 'more combat mode' still being seen as some easy mode that people begrudge playing on or even helping us balance and instead totally disregarding the black and white text 'combat often best avoided' as a show of intent for the balance of Survivor and wanting combat to be just as viable on there. It's like 'Alien: Isolation's combat sucks, I can't damage the alien even with a machine gun!' and beyond the text on the main menu its pretty hard to understand how to make it more clear what the intent is.

 

As you said above: "

I still think movement while swinging is something you could pull off, if you balanced it in another way, like making swings take more stamina, or making it so that standing still while swinging did more damage than moving backwards. In my mind, the thing that would balance this is that a zombie could leap forward and grab you at any moment, pulling you into the horde to certain death, which wasn't part of the game before. They could also grab your weapon. But I get that that's hard to balance and relies a on a lot of small variables, and you're aware of more of them than I am.  

 

The problem is you haven't been a part of testing prior to this IWBUMs, months of tweaking and discussing and testing, where we did literally this, and as I said above, just allowing that extra 1/10th of a second of movement during the connection of the swing meant you could kite and kill zombies indefinitely, you could dispatch hordes EVERY time with a starting character and any weapon, we tried about 10 ways of 'balancing it' e.g. stamina etc, and the only one that worked was adding that tiny pause during the swing connection. It's very easy to suggest these things but we've got a good handle now on exactly how narrow the margin is with the balance. You say you don't want it to be possible to dispatch hordes, and that I'm accusing you of wanting that, but you're suggesting balance changes that WOULD allow that and we know that fine well because we've been through this process already. You're suggesting we remove something we specifically added after testing as an improvement when we already know this doesn't work and completely kills the game's difficulty to even easier than b40 levels, and then getting a bit defensive when we defend our decisions.

 

Is it perfect? No. Will it improve? yes. But is it doing the job for the ethos and playstyle of Survivor? Certainly. 5 zombies are terrifying and will have you trying to escape with heart racing, instead of thinking 'I can handle them'

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