i think this thread evolved into some eldritch entity, summoning trolls from darkest dimensions of the internet after the original question(“why did whales give up on cataclysm in the first place?”) was answered so… could we just lock it, perhaps?
[quote=“conductorbosh, post:100, topic:6219”][quote=“Datanazush, post:99, topic:6219”]I think bone’s words got misconstrued a little there, he seemed to have been going for the “If you’re going to give criticism, do it right” path with that quote.
Also yeah, criticize away peeps, just remember that your criticism should be constructive and/or polite.[/quote]
I couldn’t tell if the “model poster” bit was 100% straight-faced or if he meant it was a model post for would-be trolls. Regardless, I’m gonna go back to staring at my computer, unable to decide whether to play Cata, Infra Arcana, or Dorf Fort until it becomes too late to play any of them.[/quote]
You’re just missing the context, don’t worry about it.
Lol the thread is out of control no one can stop its ravages. 
@kevin: most of us appreciate the work that you guys do for FREE and in your spare time. Don’t humor the trolls. I know I annoy some of you guys with my questions and comments too… and you tolerate me.
This thread really put me off. It is true: there is a reluctance to admit there is anything wrong with the way DDA has been designed.
There is a lot of imba crap in DDA. Proof: First day, first house, I go down into a basement, and pull out a rapier. Pair that with a pistol for the shockers and boom. I win.
The game by and large plays out in a tedious fashion. The mechanics are set up in such a way to encourage the player to avoid conflict, train up skills, craft the best armour, etc. There is nothing to discourage the player from creating a safe space and camping. It is a problem that difficulty does not ramp up over time. The game rewards conservative gameplay, discouraging risk. Melee is op. Best tactic is almost invariably buffering enemies with a single-tile window. If you have a fire extinguisher, light a fire in it. Fire, too is op. I can instantly light a fire big enough to kill things despite their continual trampling.
Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t saying the game is crap, but it has got some serious design flaws which should be addressed.
Please cite some examples, we are working on many issues, but have limited time. You’ may be confusing rejection of specific solutions or differences in opinion regarding priorities for “sweeping problems under the rug”. I go really far out of my way to comment something along the lines of, “yea that’s a problem, here’s something we could do to address it” when I see a legitimate complaint, but acknowledging the problem, and even having a potential solution doesn’t just mean I can whip up that solution in a few minutes.
Have an idea for a solution? We’ve acknowledged in many places that the item spawning system needs a heavy-duty overhaul, it’s a matter of time.
I’ve commented extensively on means to address every issue you bring up, and have work in progress to try and mitigate several of them, but between job and life, I have something like 3 hrs a day to work on this, so this stuff takes TIME.
Yeah, I do some coding myself and appreciate the work that goes into it. Glad to know you’re aware of these issues.
Two things I can suggest to improve gameplay are
[ul][li]Timing drops - preventing certain items from spawning until X time has passed, or requiring the player to accomplish some task (beyond crafting) before certain items appear[/li]
[li]scaling difficulty. As mentioned, not just by me, the game really does plateau after a point… which undermines the nature of it being, in fact, a game.[/li][/ul]
another solution - make certain items require certain skill/stat levels before they can be used effectively/at all. Right now skills and stats just increase your accuracy/damage/etc. but i don’t see any difference between a character with 10 dexterity and 1 in handguns using a small calibre handgun and the same character using a powerful revolver. Thus, adding some kind of “skill+stat” requirement for weapons might help in balancing the game.
Fixed requirements irritate me. Perhaps skill-intensive items could have penalties that would be disproportionately negated by skills and physiology up to a certain threshold? Say perhaps that someone with 6 strength would suffer an effective 30 recoil from a 20 recoil pistol, but if their strength or handguns reached ten, then it would be back down to 20. Rifles might have a minimum dispersion based upon skill, Bows might have range limits, light melee weapons could have severe penalties to blocking while heavy weapons might be very slow…
[quote=“TacticalPteridactyl, post:108, topic:6219”]Yeah, I do some coding myself and appreciate the work that goes into it. Glad to know you’re aware of these issues.
Two things I can suggest to improve gameplay are
[ul][li]Timing drops - preventing certain items from spawning until X time has passed, or requiring the player to accomplish some task (beyond crafting) before certain items appear[/li]
[li]scaling difficulty. As mentioned, not just by me, the game really does plateau after a point… which undermines the nature of it being, in fact, a game.[/li][/ul][/quote]
The big problem I have with these is that you can’t really come up with a valid reason for them other than “because game”. Cataclysm is a highly reality based game, and in reality there is no specific reason why zombies should start dropping handguns more after the first week than after the first month. If an item is going to be there, it’s going to be there just as much early game as it would late game. Similarly there isn’t much of a reason why you would suddenly have stronger monsters later on (though you might be able to justify a small increase in the number of special zombies). Of course scaling does also run into the problem of if a player dies and then starts a new game suddenly you have a brand new player facing all these horribly scaled monsters (due to the horrible way that the time scale currently works). Personally my opinion on how to resolve the problem involves this:
[ol][li]Make items overall slightly more rare, and make items that are supposed to be rare actually be rare. (Personally I don’t know of too many people with combat quality medieval weaponry lying about).[/li]
[li]Focus on adding some more “late-game” content with stronger monsters. These areas would be relatively self contained and non-spreading, so the player could seek them out for a challenge to help keep the game interesting in the late game.[/li]
[li]Work on making the world more dynamic. This can be done through the fixing and addition of NPC stuff (thus allowing you to later do things like establish and defend a colony, for example), and also through the addition of spreading enemies, such as the fungaloids or the triffids. Fungaloids starting to show up near your base? You can either just withstand them (in which case the problem will slowly grow worse), flee from them, or take the fight to them and fight your way through to destroy the spire (which could be quite a fight depending how far they’ve spread). We can also expand upon the wandering horde mechanic to actually bring in more zombies from off the map to provide large fights.[/li][/ol]
This is a ok idea, but once again I seem some problems with the reality of the situation. After all if I can shoot a handgun I’m going to be able to shoot most other handguns without much problem, it’s just a matter of slight differences between them. Maybe we could introduce a “familiarity” stat for player/weapon interactions, where the player suffers from fairly hefty combat modifiers to a weapon until they have used it enough to be used to how it fights (and on higher levels it allows them to use the weapon to it’s full potential). Higher stats+skills would allow the player to overcome bad familiarity with a weapon, representing the idea that a skilled gunman is going to be able to pick up most guns and use them fairly effectively, while an unskilled one will take longer to adjust to each individual gun’s idiosyncrasies.
You could try scaling difficulty and rarity a bit by location. Good gear would tend to be very rare in houses which would be common on the outskirts of settlements and in smaller settlements. commercial venues, particularly the ones with armaments, would tend to spawn guard zombies that would be likely to wear armour and be physically imposing. Or just add armour to whatever was spawning anyway and add “guard” to its name… Commercial districts would tend to be near city-centres which could do with increased zombie density. Mansions would probably have automated defences… Remote fuel stations could be surrounded by vehicles and have a mess of zeds all over because everyone was getting in each other’s way trying to grab all the fuel that they could. Somebody hears a rumour that there is no fuel left and blocks the exit to make sure they get some. Somebody grabs an armful of groceries and runs and the staff stop serving to deal with the theft. Trapped vehicles, a mob forming around the counter, there are low moans in the distance…
But basically, make good items spawn in dangerous places…
If I had to pick something for overpoweredness it would have to be caltrops. Scattered all over the wilderness at random, easy to recover, easier than most traps to carry, pretty easy to make if you find the tool, super-fast to place, and are perfectly capable of killing stuff if you have a line of them. With a little bit of luck I can kill zombears in the very early game just by running back and forth along a diagonal line of the things. There should probably be a chance for caltrops to be damaged, moved into the victim’s inventory, fail to have an effect, or only cause slowing without injury, when they are stepped upon. It would make the less reliable and add an upper-limit to how many thousands of zeds can be killed by a smallish field of them…
People tend to forget that the admins can see things about accounts that normal users can’t. Don’t forget that just because it seems like a person was banned “because they disagreed” there could have very well been several other unseen factors (such as fake email, proxy use, etc.) that send up big “SOCKPUPPET HERE” warning signs. As for the sockpuppet fiasco, that was the whole LazyCat thing, which involved mass sockpuppet account use, spamming, and other trollish acts over the course of both several months and at least two different forums (since he took to constantly attacking the Bay12Games cataclysm thread as well). It was a very trying time, and has left admins a little quicker to locking down on things that exhibit signs of it (such as the warning signs I mentioned above).
So keep in mind that just because it seemed like someone is a person who is just annoyed, it’s very possible that there are plenty of screaming warning signs that you can’t see.
[quote=“Bonevomit, post:113, topic:6219”]And why did I quote this guy earlier?
Shorter answer: he'd rather focus entirely on things like Z-levels and NPC implementation than on vibrators and goofy weapon duplicates.Don’t yell at me, devs; just poking fun.
Because he felt as though he had to ask the devs not to yell at him because he made a joke about their vibrators.[/quote]
To be fair I think you need to consider two things:
[ol][li]conductorbosh has a fairly small number of posts (no offense intended :P).[/li]
[li]It’s a fairly sensible precaution to be careful when starting at a new forum.[/li][/ol]
I’ve seen countless “please don’t kill me I’m new” additions to posts on forums that are extremely welcoming to newcomers, just by virtue of there being forums out there that are not. Tacking a “please don’t yell at me devs” onto the end of a post that goes against one of the more generally established dev viewpoints is a fairly good idea for a newer poster unsure of how the devs will react to such a post. I’ve seen forums where expressing an opinion like that could get you perma-banned, after all. As such I’d be highly cautious about taking the (precautionary) actions of a fairly limited poster as representative of the community as a whole.
From my point of view though, it doesn’t really seem like your posts are accomplishing much other then reiterating problems that have already been agreed to exist. (I can think of at least 2-3 other times offhand where people have said that the fact that the community can sometimes be oversensitive is a problem, but nobody has yet to offer up a solution.) This is part of what makes your posts so confusing. Forums are intended to be conversational places, and statements that simply reiterate what is already known are not ones that allow for a conversation to exist. It would be like somebody walking up to me and saying “the sky is blue”. Since I (most likely) already know that, the statement means absolutely nothing, and therefore the only real response I can say is “So?”. Unless you make some sort of point or highlight something in your posts other than those things already established, it’s impossible for anyone to really respond to you with anything meaningful and just serves to waste space on the forum pages.
Ok, I simply am unable to understand the flow of your previous post, so I was guessing.
[quote=“Bonevomit, post:113, topic:6219”]I guess creative use of language isn’t my strong suit, I’ll have to remember that in the future. So here’s just a list:
Examples of our userbase taking criticism poorly:
Feel free to leave and badmouth us elsewhere; but saying "fuck this place" when you have 217 posts and continue to stay is offensive.
I can't speak for others, but I used to be 100% behind him, looking forward to C2. But then I started reading his blog and I noticed that about every third post was an insult directed our way, so I gave that up.
I will end this by saying: If you have that much of an issue with this, go away. Don't go to another community, not even 4chan needs your toxic attitudes hanging around. Isolate yourself in your small-minded world.
For those of you who are butthurt trolls looking to start trouble, we'll happily provide simple truths to disprove your statements and defuse your tantrums for however long you stick around prior to getting yourselves banned.
Let me end by saying, I dont partiularly like Whales. From what ive seen of this community they have been nothing but supportive of his efforts despite his bashing of DDA.
criticism's all well and good, but he was being wanker about it.[/quote] The misunderstanding might be in the very first statement, I'm not seeing a "national emergency" here. One person makes inflamatory statements, other people are peeved about it, so what? Is anyone calling for a boycott of C2? Gathering together a mob to go after whales? Posting nasty comments on his tumblr or whatever he uses? Where's the fire? what exactly is it about people stating their opinions like this that's a problem? [quote="Bonevomit, post:113, topic:6219"]brown-nosing:
@kevin: most of us appreciate the work that you guys do for FREE and in your spare time. Don't humor the trolls. I know I annoy some of you guys with my questions and comments too... and you tolerate me.
First let me say the fact that an admin is taking time to address the lamentations of a peon such as myself is one of the reasons DDA will endure forever.[/quote] What the hell does that have to do with anything? You are aware that the norm with games is that fans can talk to the PR department of the company making the game, if that, and that readier contact and more responsive reaction to fanbase issues is appreciated, in what way is showing appreciation for that "brown-nosing"? [quote="Bonevomit, post:113, topic:6219"]And why did I quote this guy earlier?
Shorter answer: he'd rather focus entirely on things like Z-levels and NPC implementation than on vibrators and goofy weapon duplicates.Don’t yell at me, devs; just poking fun.
Because he felt as though he had to ask the devs not to yell at him because he made a joke about their vibrators.[/quote]
Making an apparently trolling post in a thread with a lot of arguments happening, it’s only prudent to clearly state that you’re joking if that’s what you’re doing.
“I don’t known what the situation is, so I’m going to blame the victim” Classy. Super short version, there was this guy that goes by “lazycat” sometimes who has a history of harassing online gaming communities, being banned from many, and having restraining orders filed against him from at least one. Early last year, he decided to make a fork of DDA, then he started being a jerk, which escalated to the point of him being banned. Then he started harassing the project by making sockpuppets and copypasting incoherent screeds against the project multiple times a day for months on end. All kinds of drama happened, but eventually he seems to have lost interest and moved on.
More victim blaming, great. The statement is that anonymous trolling will not be tolerated, as in if you do it, I’ll just ban you immediately and delete your posts. It’s not escalation, it’s removing air from a fire. If trolls don’t get the reactions they want, it robs them of their reward for trolling.
I thought the community was overreacting to nothing, if so, there aren’t any trolls to worry about, right? If there are trolls, then it’s not an overreaction because we’re being harassed, which is it?
By the way, if nothing we’re doing is a solution, what is a solution? Because if you don’t have one everything you’re saying is pointless.
As for the sockpuppet fiasco, that was the whole LazyCat thingOh, it was lazycat? I know about that, but I didn't know it was the same guy as here. Anyway, I don't really have a problem with the banning of a sockpuppet account. As far as I know, if Kevin said it was a sockpuppet I believe him. I don't have a bone to pick with the administration.
To be fair I think you need to consider two things:[ol][li]conductorbosh has a fairly small number of posts (no offense intended :P).[/li]
[li]It’s a fairly sensible precaution to be careful when starting at a new forum.[/li][/ol]
You’re probably right.
(I can think of at least 2-3 other times offhand where people have said that the fact that the community can sometimes be oversensitive is a problem, but nobody has yet to offer up a solution.)I've made the argument myself a few times before. The only solution I know is to lead by example. When I say "I think the forum is too sensitive" I hope to see people agree with me, or to convince them that it is the case. Maybe they will spread the word or keep it in mind. Maybe it will help give them the courage to speak if they agree. Hopefully, by making people aware of this, it will make them less prone to compromising themselves by getting too personally involved in controversial debates. And you also said the admins know things we don't, well the new guys like conductorbosh know even less than the rest of us. They come in and see people explode and I don't want that to be the face of the community. You agree it's a problem, I'm just trying to help.
You could say that it’s the administrations job to take care of the forum. But it is our community and it’s my view that everyone should do their part in keeping it looking good to the outside world.
Like I said, ban away amigo, the registration rules say no double accounts. So be it. My complaints are targeted toward the community as a whole and no single part of it. Also I’ll talk to you tomorrow Kevin, I’m not brushing you off, but I’m sleepy. Last time I posted in the middle of the night I made a mess, I’ll be back later.
Another suggestion regarding mid- late- game difficulty stuff.
I believe I saw evolution suggestion for monsters somewhere in suggestions thread (just to remind: to increase monsters stats, quantity of specific monsters, etc) over time. Yeah, it would drasticaly increase difficulty for new chars in the same world but… you may choose to create new world with basic difficulty or try to play in that, more tough world (representing ‘hard’ mode in metageme terms, or, hipotetical start after X days after outbreak in the in-game terms (so char just sitted in shelter for some time before going out). Backstory of monsters getting tougher might be a evolution of goo or something (and, to be honest - I think that it is always possible to brainstorm some story-driven explanation to almost any feature. Hardest point is to made a good decision about that feature and to code it). I think that growing monster strenght/variety would keep player cautious…
Another thing to add might be some timeline/activity events. For example - after 20 days some brand new types of monsters start to build their colonies/spawn points somewhere. Or, as for activity event, if player kills 100-200-XXX zombies, then goo starts some kind of ‘immune feedback’ representing of sending hordes of Z’s to the place where most of killed zombies were present (it is another suggestion that, as I remember, were suggested by someone before, so it just a reminder ). List of possible events might be quite big, especialy with enough collaboration betweens community suggesting them and devs that incorporating them into code.
[quote=“TacticalPteridactyl, post:106, topic:6219”]This thread really put me off. It is true: there is a reluctance to admit there is anything wrong with the way DDA has been designed…
Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t saying the game is crap, but it has got some serious design flaws which should be addressed.[/quote]
So, this is the kind of derp I started addressing up thread, but never got around to. Posters like this point out random issues with the game (and somethings that aren’t even issues), and act like it’s a fundamental problem with DDA, which is retarded.
From his post:
In the dozens of games I’ve started up, I’ve never gotten this once. It’s an extremely rare, lucky event, and it’s supposed to be possible to have dumb luck like this. Was your character lucky enough to spawn next to a mansion? Congrats! You’ll get better early game loot than usual. And if rapiers shouldn’t ever spawn in shelters, that’s a quick code change. It doesn’t make any sense to cite this as an overall flaw of DDA’s gameplay.
And then there’s just straight up ignorance:
If you’ve spent any time in these forums, you will have seen the contributors frequently acknowledging the lack of end-game content, and a host of on-going balance issues. Just check out the Garage sub-forum. Somehow, openly acknowledging issues and prioritizing the ones they’re going to work on amounts to “a reluctance to admit there is anything wrong with the way DDA has been designed”. Absolutely overwhelming derp.
Keep in mind that now that you guys have implemented “worlds”, it’s easy for a player to start a new world if they don’t want to deal with how the previous world has scaled.
In the dozens of games I’ve started up, I’ve never gotten this once. It’s an extremely rare, lucky event, and it’s supposed to be possible to have dumb luck like this. Was your character lucky enough to spawn next to a mansion? Congrats! You’ll get better early game loot than usual. And if rapiers shouldn’t ever spawn in shelters, that’s a quick code change. It doesn’t make any sense to cite this as an overall flaw of DDA’s gameplay.[/quote]
It’s not as rare as you think, and when it happens, it TOTALLY kills things. Sure, the first time it’s pretty exciting, but it quickly gets old. I run into basements all the time that are unreasonably packed. Just yesterday I ran into one right on the outskirts of a town with 2 rifles, TONS of ammo, 2 katanas, a variety of tools, and a variety of skill/recipe books. The only things missing were storage clothing and food. I only had to kill 4 zombies to get to them, none of them specials. If the basement just had one item out of those sets, or a more reasonable set of items, it would be way less OP. That basement eliminated or severely reduced A) the need to take risks, and B) riskiness in general. First, houses are usually found on the outskirts of town, with fewer specials around, so the risks to explore them are generally minimal. Then, With all those items found in one place, there is much less need to visit gun stores, hardware stores, libraries, and mansion/museum/antique stores (wherever you get katanas or other OP melee weaponry). Next, now that you have all those items, if you want to go exploring to find all the things you might have missed, you’re set for danger. All these combine to reduce tension, which should be one of the key features of a zombie game.