6+ months of agonizing "realism" nerfs have ruined this game

[Zilenan91]

Yeah… he’s right. You can kill all of the zombies if you use static spawns.

[Random_dragon]

Okay, I wondered why there was a sudden fuss about metric volume when volume units have always been a quarter or a liter.

I did not know that some chucklefuck actually changed the volume unit to be individual milliliters.

[Voqar]

I agree with a lot of what the OP is saying and I’ve written about it around here plenty.

Even simple things like the change to the book reading UI sometimes leave me thinking “WTF?” I have a fertile imagination and I can’t remotely imagine why there needed to be a popup when reading so somebody could elect to read one chunk of a book (vs just reading and hitting numpad). I can’t imagine a whole lot of people wanted this and the number of people adversely affected by this has to be much larger. Not to mention, if reading must have a popup and two step process, at least make the hotkey for reading the whole book be “R” so we can spam “R+R” and not hit the almost never used number keys.

There’s a good thread here about the multitudes of things about this game that are unrealistic - and that’s fine it’s a GAME and IMO, gameplay and fun should always come first. Hints and suggestions of realism are great and the way this game usually abstracts realism tends to work amazingly well. I’d agree that some recent changes - what I call selective realism - have hurt more than helped the game’s gameplay and fun factor. Making one of many game systems hyper-realistic vs the normal abstraction level just adds tedium for no good reason. Time sink != challenge. Ever.

A lot of great things have been added to the game over the same time span too.

I think my number one problem in all of this is that it’s supposed to be an “experimental” thing and experiments CAN fail. The things that get jammed in that many reply negatively to never get removed. At worst things that end up being disliked by 50% or more of players could/should be made into mods or optional (if possible, which isn’t always feasible).

I’m a developer too and even when I have a good idea what my people want, they sometimes don’t like what ends up after coding, and I have to fine tune it, change it, figure out what they really thought they wanted, deactivate it til they pull their heads out, or remove it. Life isn’t perfect and as highly as I think of my own coding, I’m not perfect. As a dev you need to have thick enough skin to be able to handle criticism of your work and be ready to change or scrap it sometimes. When someone doesn’t like my code I can’t just grab my toys and go home, I have to deal.

In a situation like this game where there are seemingly a lot of dev hands in the pie and a lot of things getting thrown in, there’s a good chance some things won’t fit - and it should be ok to remove those things rather than just say, oh well, so and so put a lot of effort into this and we’re keeping it even if it sucks. Experimental/alpha/dev whatever you want to call it should be about iterating and figuring out what works.

[Coolthulhu]

Even simple things like the change to the book reading UI sometimes leave me thinking “WTF?”

Book reading UI changes were necessary for some extra features, such as reading to NPCs. No one suggested on how to improve them, so the binds and structure were not changed since that time.

I think my number one problem in all of this is that it's supposed to be an "experimental" thing and experiments CAN fail.

DDA has a problem with this. This has been joked about, for example, by saying that DDA development process is the opposite of Dungeon Crawl’s.
It is getting better (slowly) as we have managed to remove some of the outdated features and “features”, but it’s still not quite where it should be.
Moving filthy morale to a mod was a precedent that may lead to some much needed cutting down on things most people don’t like.

[Sheb]

I’d be careful about “stuff people don’t like”. It seems for a lot of things there is very vocal minority hating the more “toenail trimming” approach, but being very vocal and assuming it has the majority behind it. Of all the issues raised with the OP, the only one that didn’t end up having broad support was filthy clothing.

[Coolthulhu]

Of all the issues raised with the OP, the only one that didn’t end up having broad support was filthy clothing.

Boom cranes got shat on pretty hard.
Book recipe learning change opinions varied from “It sucks. Why is it a thing?” through “I don’t mind, it changes nothing” to rare “Makes sense and changes nothing notable gameplay wise”.

[Random_dragon]

Book recipe learning change opinions varied from “It sucks. Why is it a thing?” through “I don’t mind, it changes nothing” to rare “Makes sense and changes nothing notable gameplay wise”.

Don’t forget the probably one-in-a-million “no more players using Arcana mod forgetting to hoard the books” opinion. XP

[Coolthulhu]

one-in-a-million

That rounds to 0

[Random_dragon]

That rounds to 0

;w;

To quote What if?

Wow it honestly looks awful when not on the proper background the articles use.

[Garfink]

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:102, topic:12504”]Okay, I wondered why there was a sudden fuss about metric volume when volume units have always been a quarter or a liter.

I did not know that some chucklefuck actually changed the volume unit to be individual milliliters.[/quote]

Yeah, the same chucklefuck still haven’t fixed the fact that the now huge numbers don’t fit on the interface any more. Damn man, do these guys do even the most basic testing before the changes? Why don’t they go add features that are actually new rather then messing around with stuff that wasn’t broken in the first place!

Having said all that, thanks to the same chucklefuck for putting in the effort though. So thanks.

[Sheb]

[quote=“Sheb, post:105, topic:12504”]Of all the issues raised with the OP, the only one that didn’t end up having broad support was filthy clothing.

Boom cranes got shat on pretty hard.
Book recipe learning change opinions varied from “It sucks. Why is it a thing?” through “I don’t mind, it changes nothing” to rare “Makes sense and changes nothing notable gameplay wise”.[/quote]

Right, I forgot boomcranes, probably because I never used them so far IG. Well, for the record, I like the book change.

[Snaaty]

Regarding the filthy clothing: I believe it is a good mechanic. It creates an incentive to not wear that stuff (e.g. in one of m recent games after running around in the cold and wet in filthy clothing was so demoralized I couldn’t even craft stuff). So I don’t really get all the hate the addition has been getting. The soap spawn is up already and whats next is that you don’t actually need clean water to clean the clothes but a regular toilet or pond or pool will do.

Lategame survivors aren’t going to bother with zombie-dropped clothing anyway and for earlygame survivors it simply makes the game a little bit harder. I don’t get why it would bother anyone that much to actually loot houses for clothing. Maybe instead increasing the regular clothes spawn in buildings should be increased too.

The other “issues” that OP has mentioned are all features that I appreciate.

An aggressive rant-thread like this one is also bound to attract those people that either strongly agree or disagree with the issue in the original post, a large part of the playerbase that doesn’t have apronounced opinion on it (and therefore is indifferent or in favor of the features) won’t post here.

[Malaxxor]

[quote=“Snaaty, post:112, topic:12504”]Regarding the filthy clothing: I believe it is a good mechanic. It creates an incentive to not wear that stuff (e.g. in one of m recent games after running around in the cold and wet in filthy clothing was so demoralized I couldn’t even craft stuff). So I don’t really get all the hate the addition has been getting. The soap spawn is up already and whats next is that you don’t actually need clean water to clean the clothes but a regular toilet or pond or pool will do.

Lategame survivors aren’t going to bother with zombie-dropped clothing anyway and for earlygame survivors it simply makes the game a little bit harder. I don’t get why it would bother anyone that much to actually loot houses for clothing. Maybe instead increasing the regular clothes spawn in buildings should be increased too.

The other “issues” that OP has mentioned are all features that I appreciate.

An aggressive rant-thread like this one is also bound to attract those people that either strongly agree or disagree with the issue in the original post, a large part of the playerbase that doesn’t have apronounced opinion on it (and therefore is indifferent or in favor of the features) won’t post here.[/quote]

The simple question you have to ask yourself is that: what does it add to the gameplay?

And the answer is: nothing.

Clothing dropped by zombies is already balanced through the condition you find it in. Not that it would even NEED balancing, in my opinion, as you can find perfectly clean and usable clothing in pretty much every house as you already noticed.

It’s not that the idea of having filthy clothing in game is bad. Quite the contrary, I think that it would actually add another, interesting layer to the game. But the way it was implemented was simply bad.

[BeerBeer]

It shouldn’t even be soap but laundry detergent. And any washboard is pointless, especially with modern detergents, although I might understand that its activation is needed to start the process. Ideally the laundry formula should be like:

1. Dirty clothing items (note their total volume)
2. Nearby water source. OR. Laundry volume + 5L of water.
3. 5ml of laundry detergent per 1L of water used, rounded up to nearest liter.
4. Laundry volume x2 more water for rinsing. (at minimum)
5. 30 minutes of time.

Forced infinite water source requirement would cut down the math, but then you couldn’t use your water tanks even if you wanted to. I’m still debating internally if fire source (hot water) should be necessary. Feels like a PITA. I would also change the washboard activation to laundry detergent activation.

Or, the entire process could be its own mechanic.

Hit key to start doing laundry (don’t laugh just yet)
A window opens. A list of all carried, worn and nearby dirty clothing items is presented.
Select items to clean.
The window displays the required amount of water and laundry detergent.

Now here’s something to ponder: Such laundry framework might have use in other manual tasks. Replace laundry and detergent with _______. I mean we’re talking about treating multiple objects of varying size and shape in one go. It might have future potential.

Bulk sewing operations? Tailoring difficulty might be an issue, unless we only allow operations that have 0% chance to fail.

Bulk vehicle repairs? Select parts to repair. Select all by default but exclude parts that the player cannot repair with available skills or tools. Display duration and needed charges for each part. Max out at 12 hours, or have the ability to interrupt.

Car washing + waxing based on vehicle tile count? A shiny spotless car could be part of the Stylish trait. 8D

[FrankyPlaysGames]

What if we just made a reloadable clothes washing machine/board/bucket? Add a recipe for cleaning water that requires soap or detergent and reload the item that cleans with the soapy water?

Also add a new CBM, washboard abs that gives you +1 strength and a tool to wash your clothes.

[Ly1]

It shouldn't even be soap but laundry detergent. And any washboard is pointless, especially with modern detergents, although I might understand that its activation is needed to start the process. Ideally the laundry formula should be like:

1. Dirty clothing items (note their total volume)
2. Nearby water source. OR. Laundry volume + 5L of water.
3. 5ml of laundry detergent per 1L of water used, rounded up to nearest liter.
4. Laundry volume x2 more water for rinsing. (at minimum)
5. 30 minutes of time.

Forced infinite water source requirement would cut down the math, but then you couldn’t use your water tanks even if you wanted to. I’m still debating internally if fire source (hot water) should be necessary. Feels like a PITA. I would also change the washboard activation to laundry detergent activation.

I think you guys debating the requisite volumes of detergent, etc, seem to be either trolling or missing the point entirely.

What if we just made a reloadable clothes washing machine/board/bucket? Add a recipe for cleaning water that requires soap or detergent and reload the item that cleans with the soapy water?

Or how about we drop the whole idea of virtual laundry altogether? I’d imagine most people do more than enough laundry in their actual lives to want to spend time doing it in their videogames too.

It was an objectively bad idea, and now it’s gone, and it’s not coming back, so just forget about it already.

[Valpo]

I want it back

The added colour made sorting zombie loot much easier.

The removal sucks. It makes my gameplay slower.

[Beanzy]

[quote=“Valpo, post:117, topic:12504”]I want it back

The added colour made sorting zombie loot much easier.

The removal sucks. It makes my gameplay slower.[/quote]

You are using the advanced inventory function, right?

[Valpo]

Not when i loot a single zombie.

edit : actually i do if i am holding a vehicle ment as a container.

But yes i do.

[deoxy]

Also add a new CBM, washboard abs that gives you +1 strength and a tool to wash your clothes.

The whole filthy clothes mechanic MESS was worth it, just for this quote.

Boom cranes got shat on pretty hard.

The concept is good - engines are FAR too heavy and massive (not exactly the same thing) for a person to just pick up and put exactly where they need to go, barring significant levels or super-human strength (like, maybe 50 or something).

The implementation seems poor, but that could be improved.

That you need one to replace a wheel on a very large vehicle, yeah, that’s a problem. Ever see a crane, any kind of large RV, or a backhoe? They all have ways to lift their own wheels off the ground (for stability purposes, but the purpose is irrelevant here). Something like should be easy to implement - in fact, put the same requirements as wheels, and you’ve got a secondary system that makes wheels replaceable. Yay?