#General Feedback for the game.

55 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

muted pewter
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I'm just gonna post my review here. I hope the devs polish and improve this game, but as of right now this needs a few more years in the oven.

Needs more polish. A LOT more polish.
I know it's in early access but it's been 4 years in development.

I guess I'll start with the good.
It's got a great concept. A large open map with various objectives and survival items.
Which is better than the Left 4 Dead linear path. It's like DayZ in a way only with a LOT more zombies.
If you find the right squad and If you manage to group up, you will have fun.

But... it has plenty of negatives which need to be addressed.

Here's some feedback for the devs:
- Lobbies/Networking: give players an option for private lobbies. As of right now it's total chaos, there are a lot of players who rush the main objective and Extract before you've even made it half way though the map.
Also there's a LOT of latency. I'm getting an average of 120 ping. Which is annoying when you have to headshot Red zombies.

- Buff Melee: As of right now Melee is pretty much useless. Going in with a melee you will likely get swarmed and 1 lag spike will kill you.
Two Handed heavy melee should ALWAYS 1 shot zombies if you aim for the head. If I hit them with a sledgehammer, literally blow half their head off, they should not be running towards me.
OR Nerf Red-eyes zombies.

- Keep Squads together: What's the point of me teaming up with friends if we're gonna be thrown around the map like every other player?

- Character Perma-death: I'm really not a fan of this one, but as long as you Balance the Profile leveling so it's not this grindy, then I can accept it. As of right now leveling my Profile is way too tedious for the Character reset to make sense.

- Pipebombs: more like firecrackers.
In theory: It's supposed to draw the zombies attention and then explode once they all group up around it.
In practice: it just makes a lot of noise, zombies stare at it but don't bother walking to it, then it explodes in a very small radius.
the cons outweigh the pros. Fix it by making the zombies run towards it at the same pace as when they try to grab the player.

- Zombie Spawns: THIS is my biggest issue so far. You HAVE to fix this, it's completely unacceptable.
I can literally see zombies spawning in mid-air on top of my friends in T-pose and dropping down behind them.
It's quite literally Bullshit. There should be at minimum a 10 meter safe-zone around players where zombies can't spawn. Why would you want to have zombies spawn ON TOP of or BEHIND players?

It not only ruins the immersion but makes it impossible to do objectives in smaller squads or solo.
I tried to do CQC clearing, completely pointless. You check a corner, it's clear, you turn around, zombie grabs you from that same corner.

- There's a lot of desync issues. Players getting stuck in healing animation, melee or shots missing zombies, zombies T-Posing when they're supposed to be laying on the floor... etc.
Beef up your servers or make it peer 2 peer with smaller squads. That should fix the issue.

- Performance issues: I know a lot of people are having performance issues. The MAIN culprits are Shadows and Shaders. Put all settings on High, but keep Shadows and Shaders on Low. That should fix your FPS.
Devs need to optimize their shadows a bit, currently it's very GPU heavy.

As a former QA tester, i would've advised you not to release the game in this state, even in Early Access. 
Titles like Alpha, Beta, EarlyA, do not matter for the majority of consumers if they're Paying for a product.
First impressions do matter, it's what dictates the success and marketing of your game.
Based on steam reviews, right now your first impression is not... good.

hopefully after a few major patches some of these will be addressed. I wish you luck.
deep thicket
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  • Buff Melee: As of right now Melee is pretty much useless.
    I agree

For some reason they didn't add the Dodge mechanic from NMRH1
If NMRiH1 had a dodge mechanic, it's news to me.

Two Handed heavy melee should ALWAYS 1 shot zombies if you aim for the head. If I hit them with a sledgehammer, literally blow half their head off, they should not be running towards me.
Yes and no. I liked how NMRiH1 required you to charge your charged attacks long enough to one-shot, so there was an element of timing involved - and its effect on stamina management. Alternatively, if you had a high-damage melee weapon, you could quite easily set targets up for other players to knock down, with your minimum-charged heavy attack.
Relevant: https://discord.com/channels/211900829307895819/1298376274086989874

muted pewter
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normal zombies require 3 head swings, red-eyes up to 6

deep thicket
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As such it does a set amount of damage, instead of being variable like in the first game - where you could go in with a minimum-charge to try and stagger a target, if not finish them off - or wait a second or two longer to have a better chance of one-shotting, depending on weapon

muted pewter
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ah yup

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They really need to buff melee attacks or add a way to Disable zombies. Like hitting them in the feet or head knocks them down for 10s or something

azure crater
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There's the shove/parry button to interupt zombies.

muted pewter
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yes but often it wastes a lot of stamina and you get swarmed quickly.
sometimes if there's a lag spike they can grab you through a shove

deep thicket
azure crater
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I find it quite fairable unless server doesn't register the shove or I am fighting those red eye zombies that seemingly take 10 swings to take down.

muted pewter
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if it were an actual parry that does damage then the stamina consumption would be acceptable, but pushing them away while more spawn behind you, you're just a sitting duck at that point

azure crater
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It does some damage I guess since it enables gore occassionally?

muted pewter
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i haven't noticed it. After shoving a normal zombie it still took 4 head swings to kill

azure crater
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Fair enough, might have been server issues then, maybe my teammate landed a disntant swing at the zombie or smth.

muted pewter
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I suppose... they can make it more skill based.
Like if you Time it right, it knocks the zombie on the floor and does 1 swing worth of damage.
Like a parry in Dark Souls essentially.

But right now, you're better off just grabbing a pump shotgun and sprinting

muted pewter
muted pewter
deep thicket
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You can strafe like in any other FPS, there's no dodge. You might be thinking of Dead Island or Dying Light

muted pewter
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oh... yea probably

jagged dagger
thick fern
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The fact that they could not attack diagonally while moving was a design choice that the original team made for playability reasons, it meant that it was possible to maneuver through an otherwise insurmountable horde and is a large reason why survival maps were playable as kiting was a huge part of succeeding

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Since you cannot kite in NMRIH 2 due to this being "fixed" and the melee is also nerfed, early game or underequipped (i.e no firearm/low ammunition) players have this oppressively unfair gameplay experience

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The "extraction" style spawn system needs to go too imo

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I get what they were trying to do but the NMRIH experience was always fundamentally cooperative

deep thicket
# thick fern The fact that they could not attack diagonally while moving was a design choice ...

Yeah I think you're bang on here. In this, the zombies will lunge at you, firing weapons just draws more in, and in melee you have to deplete your entire stamina bar just to kill the weakest zombies - and wait for a lengthy regen cooldown to finish before you can continue engaging. NMRiH1's stamina system existed to prevent players biting off more they can chew and to encourage a bit of patience and coordination - where in 2, you're being proverbially force-fed whole hams. In the first game, fighting the zombies was a choice and a risk and often not the optimal one - and you were able to do so on your own terms more often than not.

thick fern
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The first game also was specifically balanced around melee
The guns were obviously decisively powerful but not required

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Even your bare hands were viable

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Because bare hands had very high knockback, giving you the ability to at least buy time to find something else

deep thicket
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Yeah absolutely - here the melee is currently far too unreliable - pushing interrupts your stamina regen, and you just can't get enough damage out to create any meaningful breathing room.

thick fern
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Shove did use stamina too in the first game, but it used a tiny amount
Like you said, it was balanced around risk vs reward and intelligent play; if you used a sledge you gave up shoving for an always guaranteed OHK (of potentially more than one zombie)

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And you could still shove before, just not after a successful strike

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In NMRIH 2 all this consideration goes out the window

deep thicket
thick fern
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Idk what TB was thinking with this tbh
It feels almost like they wanted to make a nighttime PVP extract shooter but were told that "yeah it has to have zombies in it"

Because the mechanics line up if you just ignore the zombies, and the zombies/gameplay balancing being this half baked makes sense if you threw "hey this is supposed to have zombies in it or something" on a dev team in the last 6 mo before release

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The EA release this week had me utterly dumbfounded honestly

deep thicket
# thick fern Shove did use stamina too in the first game, but it used a tiny amount Like you ...

This is the biggest thing for me. If you took the time and opportunity (which the game generally gave you plenty of) to charge your swings, most melee weapons could one-shot to the head, making it more efficient and overall less risky - but potentially leaving you open as it used more stamina equally. Here, you HAVE to bash them a specific number of times, you HAVE to deplete your stamina, and the charge attack isn't any more or less efficient.

That and the quick-attack on many weapons was heavily draining on stamina, but could often quickly take out multiple zombies with one swing.

thick fern
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The light tap examplified how carefully lever games balanced melee imo

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Charge attack was guaranteed and safer but slower

deep thicket
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It really is a very simple but well-considered system

thick fern
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Light tap was risky but high reward

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If you messed up light tap by not knowing exactly how to backpedal you got bit

deep thicket
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There's also the fact that melee hits would often stun and push-back zombies even if they didn't outright kill them. In 2, especially with the red-eyes and runners, they just shrug off bashes to the head

thick fern
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This was also why runners were stragglers, or only spawned in groups after the map had gun drops

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Or otherwise they gave you space to kite

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There are so many little nuances that were utterly ignored by the current build

jagged dagger
muted pewter
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i just played the first game again

muted pewter
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while it's a bit harder in terms of combat and some maps severely lack loot, it has a lot of features which are better IMO.

  • The inventory system is a lot better: one inventory for weapons and utility, second inventory for misc like ammo. It also has a Weapon wheel which is a lot easier to use than this Boxed drag-n-drop nonsense in the Sequel.
  • Melee is a lot better: two handed melee feels like it actually has an impact, charge attacks do NOT automatically release, the shove works a lot better, stamina is easier to manage, and Melee weapons do not have AIM, the 3D Model of the weapon detects impact with the models of zombies, meaning instead of aiming you just have to make sure your weapon hits the zombie. Allows you to chop several zombies with an axe at once, allows you to get head hits by just swinging your camera in the direction of their head.
  • zombie spawns even though can be Bull sometime, never happen on top or near players, there are safe spaces and a barrier around players where zombies cannot spawn to ruin the immersion or make it needlessly difficult.
  • Also the infection system. It adds a whole new dynamic difficulty to the game that makes it more tense and fun.

the only improvements i see in the sequel are:

  • graphics: by default because they're using UE5, and looking at the performance I'd say the devs didn't contribute in any way regarding optimization. It's probably all in "Factory settings"
  • movement: can climb stuff and move more freely, which again there are simple add-ons and templates in UE you can install with 1-2 clicks for that.
  • bigger map: one giant map instead of 20 small maps, better in terms of less loading screens and more immersive open world.
  • loot more evenly spread out. Some of the old maps were really unbalanced in terms of finding ammo or any loot.
muted pewter
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This is how you PROPERLY release a game still in development.

Boosts your marketing, Earns you trust points with players, and you don't get bombed with negative reviews for being a 30$ half-baked game

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just an example of what you Should've done

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censored Name so moderators don't claim I'm just spamming ads.

scarlet crow