New Stacking Changes

[SideOfaBarn]

Doesn't look to me like any of the players who have expressed displeasure at the new stacking changes has posted here yet. Many said they were but may have changed their minds. I don't blame them for not wanting to be first and I doubt if the one or two that reportedly rage quit will bother either. Honestly from my point of view it has seemed that one or two of the Admins in game may be feeling a bit defensive about the whole thing as well. Not to name any names but one of the admins gave everyone on US Scourge  a lecture about complaining Wednesday night that I thought was a bit over the top and too defensive sounding under the circumstances. I only mention it because I also feel a few players that were going to say something decided not to then and there as they felt they might get some blowback from it.  Personally I believe if you are going to complain you should do it openly and officially as well so....

 

All I have heard is most of these changes were made to make the game more challenging than it had been. I fail to see how that is the outcome. Adding more tedium and meaningless sorting or legwork doesn't really increase the challenge it just means many players will burn out quicker. Reducing stack sizes on items such as food, seeds and other consumables means less starting players will get helpful handouts when they mention in chat they are starving and less help when a "geared" player{s} comes across them struggling.  I used to carry around a stack of 1000+ cooked fish and anytime a player asked for food in chat I would trade em 100 or so because I had the extra to do so. Now not so much I might need those 50 I have now or sacrifice another inventory slot. So yes maybe it will make playing on the server more challenging for new players but not the target players it was reportedly aimed at.

 

As for Heli the smaller stacks of ammo and medical items means little. I don't know about others but I rarely take on Heli with anywhere near a full inventory as I empty it before hand. It means an extra second or two to move a stack to the hotbar. Not really a challenge. Perhaps it will make Cargo or Bradley a bit more challenging I can't speak to that this wipe yet.

 

Part of the servers appeal even on it's l;ogin info screen is extra stacking. I take that as slightly more than simply double (more or less depending on item) Vanilla stack limits.

 

Individual items that used to stack but now don't that were fixed due to exploits I understand but items such as fishing poles that break after about 3 and a half game hours of use (night time hours I might add so like 10 minutes real time maybe) either need to stack or have their durability increased by a large amount. Better yet with fishing poles get rid of durability altogether and let them take up one slot to be used when wanted. Minnows I used to put out in a shared box for whomever wanted them but at 50 per stack they just become bags on the ground now. Same with many other items. So again the changes seem to effect those players who were already being challenged in my opinion.

 

If there are other reasons these changes were made then perhaps we need to live with them but as I said all I have heard is they were to make gameplay more challenging. Something I think they fail at. I don't plan on rage quitting over the whole thing, I enjoy playing with many on the server but I imagine I will burn out on a wipe much sooner with all the excess tedious work the changes now require.

 

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

Also don't think for a second I do not appreciate all the work the admins put into the server. It was recommended we give feedback so that is what I am doing

 

 

[Death]

The changes were to balance gameplay in general. We're not targeting anyone. If you want to carry 1,000 food, ammo or meds you still can. You'll just need to sacrifice additional inventory slots or utilize your backpack (which was another focus of the changes, to add more value to backpacks.)

The admins were not tired of hearing about the changes, they were tired of feeling harassed and berated by the approach some players took to express their concerns. Complaining in chat doesn't do much. You did the right thing by providing valid feedback.

Tools no longer stack for a few of reasons 1) Exploiting durability 2) Exploiting repair durability 3) Players losing multiple items by using/throwing stacked tools/weapons not knowing. Fishing poles will not stack anymore, instead, with the new fishing update, fishing poles will have half the durability loss on each cast.

It may not seem like a lot of effort into making it "harder" because it's intended to limit the number of items they can carry at any given time. As said before, if you want to carry 1,000 ammo you still can. There's nothing stopping you. In addition to stack size changes the default backpacks are being increased by 6 slots or 1 row.

Every single change to stacks is to reduce entity overhead (less client lag), add more value to backpacks and limit the player's ability to mass loot monuments and roads. I'll include all the changes below.

Stack Sizes

• Food - 100 (Restrict storage efficiency of food and add more value to the fridges. Limits the player's ability to haul around thousands of pumpkins to cause client lag, among other reasons.)
• Construction Items - 100 (Changed to reduce entity overhead later into wipes. It's rare any player would ever gear near the cap for this.)
• Attire - 100 (Same as Construction items)
• Medical - 100 (Running around with 1,000 syringes takes the challenge out of most things. You can still do this, but you'll sacrifice more inventory/backpack slots.)
• Explosives - 50 (Rockets were the main focus for this change but it also affects C4, bean can and f1 grenades. Purely to restrict player's inventory capacity. I don't see any value to holding any more than 50 anyways as it'll just add more risk if anything were to happen to your corpse after death.)
• Deployable tools - 50 (Items such as flares, smoke grenades, and charges reduced to help against players using these tools to troll or harass others. Stack size inline with explosives to try and keep a pattern so stack sizes are not random and unpredictable.)
• Components - 100 (Changed to limit the max capacity of players inventory so a single player can't suck every road dry in one run)
• Resources - 10,000 (Did not change)
• Ammunition - 500 (Reduce inventory capacity and make events more challenging (Bradley, heli and cargo ship. Again, you still can carry 1,000 ammo as before, but you'll need to use 2 slots instead of 1.)

The changes to stacks are not final. It will take a few tweaks to get it optimal for most players. I will be tweaking it as the feedback comes in.

[SideOfaBarn]

Death

I think the new stack sizes are much better and more in line with, at least for me, what was a major drawing point of the server... Increased stacking over vanilla by an amount that matters.

 

As far as feeling tired of being harassed, pretty much everyone was getting a little heated. I am just pointing out it wasn't entirely a one sided affair from the get go. I will say it seemed some participants realized it and deflated things nicely before it got out of hand so Kudos to them but I know it did leave a few players concerned about voicing their feedback after the fact.

Did Ammo go up again today? It was 300 last night/this morning when we took Heli out. I think 500 is an excellent number so thank you!!!

As far as the repair exploit goes I had to hear about that from players but perhaps I missed some announcement on it. Either way I don't have a problem with tools not stacking. I did have an issue with items not stacking that have such low durability and take up multiple inventory slots just to use them for more than 10 or 20 minutes. Makes them a very high cost item. Too high. It is the same with your claim that we can still carry 1000 food or whatever at 50 items per stack. Sure we can if we want to sacrifice all that space and then throw a rock at the zombies and ask em to hold on while we make another rock. Again makes those items way too space and resource expensive and drains some serious fun from the game. Doesn't really matter now as I can live with the new changes very nicely and happily although I know some are still unhappy. I have done my bit it is their turn to post feedback if they are still unhappy.

I am eagerly awaiting the fishing changes you mentioned however. I have a good amount of experience fishing on many servers and would be happy to tell you the many different ways I have seen the mod set up if you would like some player feedback before jumping into the water. Pun intended. I think this server is an excellent choice for some nice fishing since it won't effect some kind of overall PVP balance and really increases the fun of the more social and less adventurous type players without forcing competition over a few rare kills or special areas.

Finally as I mentioned my feedback came solely from a "Make the game more challenging" perspective as that was the only explanation I saw or was given. Exploits and lag/server issues are another matter altogether that if given as a reason I would generally accept from those who are more knowledgeable on such matters than I. I enjoyed things as they were, if they were too good to be true and causing lag then it is time to adjust even if I am not happy about it.

 

I appreciate your time and effort through all this and with the server in general and thank you for replying to my feedback as well.