Life & Living TV Nerfed...?

[Cleave]

So it would seem Life & Living TV channel won't give you XP past level 3 Carpentry?

Does this extend to VHS's? Do they not give XP past level 3?

[portable cattleman]

It goes for VHS tapes as well. That's the default in B42 unstable. If you want to still be able to level XP higher via the TV, there's a sandbox setting for that.

[Shurenai]

Yes, There's a new sandbox setting for it. By default all the life and living stuff stops at 3 now. I believe It's to deter players feeling so insanely beholden to the stupid glowing box that they minmax around it. If you catch a show here or there in the early days, you'll hit the max it can grant, Especially if you find the book for the skill in question, you dont need to obsess over it anymore.

Or use the sandbox setting and raise it back to 10. Whatevs. Kinda doesn't make sense that minmaxing watching a guy build...what, a table a chair a door, a wall, and a night stand? can max you to 10 in the first place though.

[Cleave]

Originally posted by portable cattleman:

It goes for VHS tapes as well. That's the default in B42 unstable. If you want to still be able to level XP higher via the TV, there's a sandbox setting for that.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Yes, There's a new sandbox setting for it. By default all the life and living stuff stops at 3 now. I believe It's to deter players feeling so insanely beholden to the stupid glowing box that they minmax around it. If you catch a show here or there in the early days, you'll hit the max it can grant, Especially if you find the book for the skill in question, you dont need to obsess over it anymore.

Or use the sandbox setting and raise it back to 10. Whatevs. Kinda doesn't make sense that minmaxing watching a guy build...what, a table a chair a door, a wall, and a night stand? can max you to 10 in the first place though.

Which setting is it? I didn't see it.

Edit: ofc i find it now somehow i missed it on 2 separate passes through the settings

[Kidney]

Look through the settings man
^^
You may need Sandbox mod

[Kaia]

Much like muscle strain, boy am i glad this is a sandbox setting. I don't really understand why the TV show would be capped, and much less why the VHS would be either.

It really does seem to me thus far with the beta build that there were a fair few measures taken to slow progression way down, without it being necessarily for the good reasons or along with adding any end-game/post end game depth.

- muscle strain slowing your fighting progress down
- no dismantling xp slowing your skill progress down
- recipes requiring more reagents/more convoluted : slow down
- no VHS past lvl 3 : slow down


To me this isn't going in the right direction, although with crafting i am still vastly unfamiliar with the new systems.

[Doko]

Originally posted by Kaia:

Much like muscle strain, boy am i glad this is a sandbox setting. I don't really understand why the TV show would be capped, and much less why the VHS would be either.

It really does seem to me thus far with the beta build that there were a fair few measures taken to slow progression way down, without it being necessarily for the good reasons or along with adding any end-game/post end game depth.

- muscle strain slowing your fighting progress down
- no dismantling xp slowing your skill progress down
- recipes requiring more reagents/more convoluted : slow down
- no VHS past lvl 3 : slow down


To me this isn't going in the right direction, although with crafting i am still vastly unfamiliar with the new systems.

Even though we can change it in sandbox, I cam getting irked that they are trying to pad out progress in multiple areas and making them the default settings.

Really it should be the other way around. Make B42 the same difficulty as B41, which most are comfortable with, and then allow the "I like it balls to the wall" crowd to toggle the sandbox difficulty to their liking.

If there's one thing I dislike about this new build, it's that what I and others were comfortable with before is either nerfed or toggled off, almost as if the devs are now taking more of the reigns and telling their userbase how they should play the game (Big mistake, don't ever do that, that's how you can earn ire from some folks).

Also I find skill/stat artificial padding to being a bad decision, because that tells me the devs currently do not like adding in perks and pros that could add to said existing stats, or dare I say, making life that bit easier. I get that the game's slogan is "this is how you died", but that has already proven to being valid, the devs have no reason to hammer that slogan home 10x harder, when they already proved that point years ago already.

This is also reminding me of the Helldivers 2 situation, where the devs think they know better, with some fans weirdly try sticking up for the bad decisions, and the devs forget how to make their game fun/enticing. Adding artificial stat padding/grinding is not objectively fun.

[Kaia]

well when i wrote my post i figured maybe and it's rather likely, this is an intermediary padding step while future builds may well bring that depth and complexity that give padding meaning, or alternatively render it useless and replace it with engaging gameloops.

But yeah, not so fun thus far on that front personally.

I agree with your comment on default settings, but from their point of view, i am rather sure it is a way for them to make sure that the new systems get tested as much as possible.

Don't think many people would go out of their way to test muscle strain in sandbox if it wasn't currently the default.

[Doko]

Originally posted by Kaia:

well when i wrote my post i figured maybe and it's rather likely, this is an intermediary padding step while future builds may well bring that depth and complexity that give padding meaning, or alternatively render it useless and replace it with engaging gameloops.

But yeah, not so fun thus far on that front personally.

If this is how it's going to be for many months on end, I may as well go back to B41 and modding again, because I'm honestly only excited about the perf gains/resolution/lighting changes and farm animals/basements, but the changes to stats and combat padding like "muscle strain" put me off considerably, and I really don't want them to become the default (make them toggle for those that want artificial padding, but leave it off by default for everyone else).

[Animalman]

many aspects likely overthought a little bit.
I think they wanted to prevent playerbase from influencing it too much on an update as they go.
because lots of this stuff could be caught super early.

I think they are having us on abit ever since those playtesters were mentioned in the Thursdoid it seems devs just totally trolled the release because they were intending to miss the deadline they set for themselves. End of year release. But felt that they couldn't and we would be mad, i wouldnt have been mad. But seeing that the game is totes differnt.
and its not as fun straight up lost its charm and simplicity as went through the troll on trait names aswell.

fingers crossed its a kind of joke guys.
theres a chance it isn't
if its not a joke
we heard early on in the year they employed somebody with an impressive CV they shouted about it a tripple AAA dev worked on other AAA games.
probably come along sabotaged this one since it was
in b41
major competition.

I mean that game where u are a dude runnign around 3rd person and hordes of zombies climb buildings you defeat waves famous game looks graphically hot. the only reason i no buy that game is because of 41 being the funner option.

[Cleave]

Originally posted by Doko:

Originally posted by Kaia:

Much like muscle strain, boy am i glad this is a sandbox setting. I don't really understand why the TV show would be capped, and much less why the VHS would be either.

It really does seem to me thus far with the beta build that there were a fair few measures taken to slow progression way down, without it being necessarily for the good reasons or along with adding any end-game/post end game depth.

- muscle strain slowing your fighting progress down
- no dismantling xp slowing your skill progress down
- recipes requiring more reagents/more convoluted : slow down
- no VHS past lvl 3 : slow down


To me this isn't going in the right direction, although with crafting i am still vastly unfamiliar with the new systems.

Even though we can change it in sandbox, I cam getting irked that they are trying to pad out progress in multiple areas and making them the default settings.

Really it should be the other way around. Make B42 the same difficulty as B41, which most are comfortable with, and then allow the "I like it balls to the wall" crowd to toggle the sandbox difficulty to their liking.

If there's one thing I dislike about this new build, it's that what I and others were comfortable with before is either nerfed or toggled off, almost as if the devs are now taking more of the reigns and telling their userbase how they should play the game (Big mistake, don't ever do that, that's how you can earn ire from some folks).

Also I find skill/stat artificial padding to being a bad decision, because that tells me the devs currently do not like adding in perks and pros that could add to said existing stats, or dare I say, making life that bit easier. I get that the game's slogan is "this is how you died", but that has already proven to being valid, the devs have no reason to hammer that slogan home 10x harder, when they already proved that point years ago already.

This is also reminding me of the Helldivers 2 situation, where the devs think they know better, some fans weirdly try sticking up for the bad decisions, and the devs forget how to make their game fun/enticing. Adding artificial stat padding/grinding is not objectively fun.

For every awesome 42 change there's like 3 mildly infuriating steps backward from what 41 has as a default that often times punishes players that found something clever before rather than improving the alternatives to that clever trick which makes it less strong in a satisfying way.

Death by a thousand cuts while being fed fresh ice cream is the way I'd describe it.

[Doko]

Originally posted by Cleave:

For every awesome 42 change there's like 3 mildly infuriating steps backward from what 41 has as a default that often times punishes players that found something clever before rather than improving the alternatives to that clever trick which makes it less strong in a satisfying way.

Death by a thousand cuts while being fed fresh ice cream is the way I'd describe it. :lunar2019laughingpig:

It feels like some of the new devs they have taken on either have some of their own input put into the mix, or the devs are listening to the minority crowd on how to scale the game's mechanics itself, because B41 for the longest time was more widely accepted than what we are seeing currently with B42.

Again, this just reminds me of the Helldivers 2 situation, where devs are taking minority or their own biased input and ignoring what actually worked before and refining it, as well as making the game fun.

Games at their core are meant to be fun, video games are not just about making your knuckles bleed, anyone who thinks like that needs to rethink their perspective on what video games purpose was designed for.

[Kaia]

no but i 100% understand that if as a developper you implement a new system and gameloop, you must get your players to test it at length before you can be satisfied with leaving it in the game.

Honestly if it wasn't muscle strain on by default or (insert any new system here), none of us would turn in on because we probably just would recognize it as a fun limiting factor on principle.

Whereas in the future, because of this current testing, it may be refined, tweaked and balanced in such a way that, even if it isn't on by default, is something that some players think fondly upon for their challenge runs.

For balancing purposes, it's often easier and more sensible to start stronger than you need to, than the opposite. In my mind it's just a bit of a bad optics because for many things, build 42 works as a platform for content, introducing quite a few new loops and systems, and it naturally feels a bit bare, on top of feeling imbalanced at the moment.

I would think that in the future, the need for such inane padding would be lower, and limiting factors like strain would be tuned appropriately. But we got to test that for it to be a thing i think.

At least that's the way i approach the things i'm not fond of in b42. Meanwhile, i am in love with the map rework/additions, and the lighting system make it feel so good.

Ultimately PZ is much like dwarf fortress. you have to be ready to wait inordinate amounts of time with the promise that while in good hands, the finished vision is a goal they strive towards but may not reach in the coming years.

[katsuragi]

Plenty of zombie games dumb things down (like every other one except CDDA), no need for that here. I sincerely hope the devs don't even bother reading posts like this and press on with their vision.

Be glad they gave you a sandbox to stupify things to your hearts content if you like.

[Kaia]

Originally posted by katsuragi:

Plenty of zombie games dumb things down (like every other one except CDDA), no need for that here. I sincerely hope the devs don't even bother reading posts like this and press on with their vision.

Be glad they gave you a sandbox to stupify things to your hearts content if you like.

I will gloss over the barely veiled mediocre troll here, just to comment on the substance;

Complexity is all good and i do think that ultimately they're looking to get closer to a game that plays like the real time version of CDDA. But complexity without balance or depth is just unfun tedium.

It's all well and good to have systems adding complexity to the combat, but if they're overtuned and imbalanced or do not take into account other systems in place (like exercise, or stats like fitness/str in a proper measure) and only take the weapon weight as a variable, then it's just unfun tedium and not a higher state of game design.

Likewise with crafting and the new limitations to it. without depth or proper balance, it's mostly just tedious busywork and not something complex and exciting like CDDA crafting can absolutely be.

And likewise with capping VHS and shows, it only serves to add padding and delay progression, without adding a counterweight at the end of said progression. When you delay progression for the sake of slowing the pacing down, with no end game to progress towards, you're not solving the late game issue this game has had for the longest time. You're not adding "depth" or "complexity".

As far as your comment on hoping that devs don't bother reading posts commenting on the new systems, boy was that a silly thing to write. You earn no points.

[Lost Latios]

From my perspective it should be at least 4-6. I don't mind a cap as it makes sense. At some point you won't learn anymore from watching other people. However, you can learn a ton from watching other people do something, even when you know how to do it. After that it's repetition and practice, which sounds like level 5 onward. You refine your craft and learn the tricks of the trade that work for you.