Quoting: foobrewWith the latest update to A21, the game is pretty much unplayable for me now. I have a GeForce RTX 2070 Super running on Xubuntu 22.04 with most game settings at medium or low and I'm lucky to get 40FPS standing still. Average is probably around 20FPS. -force-vulcan doesn't seem to make a difference either.

It's a bummer since I have about 800 hrs accumulated over the last 4-5 major updates. This is the first one that's been a show stopper for me.

Strange that you're getting those results. Your PC isn't too different to mine, and I'm getting over 100 fps. (I just ran the game, checked that the resolution was set to 2560x1440, checked that most of the graphics options were set to "High", pressed the F8 key to enable the game's FPS counter and inspected the results. My average was 140 fps.)

Mine is this: Ryzen 5-5500 with 32GB RAM, Nvidia GTX1080ti graphics.

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Hardcore 7 Days To Die player here. I have been playing since Alpha 14, and even though the game is "Early Access" each version has played fine. In fact the Early Access side has been a big bonus for me - Every version has played differently, has had different mechanics, there have been incremental increases in many things. Basically, I bought it "once" and every year or so I get a "new" game to play (and learn).

The fact that it is a sandbox game with random world generation (if you want to use it) means that you can keep on playing indefinitely, whereas most other games have a static game world where you'd grow bored eventually.

For me, the biggest 'improvements' in the new Alpha 21 (compared to Alpha 20 and earlier) are these:

- Lots of new and updated Buildings and POIs. Numerous old, familiar ones have been modified. Massive change for all the trader compounds.

- Numerous graphical improvements and animation improvements. Even though Liam's SteamDeck video looks very low detail, the game looks fantastic at high detail and high screen resolution. (I used to play at 4K, High Settings, but I tend to use 2560x1440 nowadays to keep up the framerate.)

Now for the mixed feelings and disadvantages of Alpha 21:

- The new crafting and learning mechanic is interesting. Conceptually I like the intention, but the implementation has a few issues. Certainly, you need to change how you played compared to Alpha 20. In Alpha 20, you would focus on specific skills to increase your ability to craft specific items (e.g. You'd put points into Miner 69'er to enable you to get higher tier tools immediately). In Alpha 21, it is more nuanced - You put a point into Machine Guns and you still can only make a Tier 1 pipe machine gun, however you gain increased chance of finding "learn how to craft machine guns" books in loot. The system slows down progression, meaning you are stuck with worse equipment (early game) but then later game you've got the ability to craft nearly everything (even things you never cared about). I am mixed about it - It's nice to have first aid bandages without putting any points into Physician skill, but then I can no longer focus to train up crafting specific better items at an accelerated rate.

- The new water system is also 'interesting'. It makes sense to change the core mechanics to increase the survival difficulty of the game, but it just seems the wrong way to do it. The new system relies on 3 methods: Finding water in loot, Getting the Helmet Mod for drinking murky water, or Crafting Dew Collectors. The new system makes it (ridiculously) hard to get enough water (for drinking and making glue) early game. You start off with very poor harvesting ability, so you build up currency slowly. Food and water are more expensive (than Alpha 20) so you end up putting money into vending machines, rather than saving it up for the Water Filter (2250 dukes each). Mid-game onwards, getting water is trivial as you'll probably have a farm of 10+ Dew Collectors set up whirring away. Currently the game is unbalanced if you play on "proper hard settings" like I do.

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I'd like to see some Fun Pimps Developers try to play the game on Insane Zombie Toughness and Nightmare Zombie Speed (always on). They will perhaps realise that High Zombie Difficulty + New Water Crafting is a stretch too far. The game is easy on low Zombie Difficulty, because you can wander from POI to POI raiding kitchen cupboards for lootable water. On Insane, Nightmare settings fighting the zombies early game is much slower and you'll end up going through fewer POIs and finding much less water.

So far, I've played the game in two modes:

First play (56 game-days so far): Survivalist toughness, Running speed. Really painful to progress.

Second play (8 days so far): Insane toughness, Nightmare speed. Ridiculously hard, but I have developed new strategies to cope. The game is not fun playing in this mode. (The grind for water is very irritating combined with the slow equipment progression.)

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Suggestions:

If they had wanted to impact food production and equipment crafting, in a more realistic way, they could have done this:

- Change the way glue is crafted, maybe it has a different component (e.g. cornstarch) to prevent easy accumulation.
- Water should be collectable, in jars, like before and boiled to make it safe, like before (but maybe make it that jars are not craftable, you only find them in loot e.g. trash)
- Equipment crafting (higher tier) could be slowed down by having fewer parts appearing in loot (e.g. rifle parts). Of course, the typical player doesn't keep the default settings and ramps up Loot Appearance settings if the game is holding them back. Maybe the higher tier items could have a single unique difficult-to-find component, (e.g. Crater Bear Tooth in Wild West Mod).
- Less edible animals (chickens, etc) in the world would hold back food production. For some reason now there are many more animals wandering around than earlier Alphas. (Early game I have more meat and no way to use it, due to lacking recipes.)
- Suggest the Developers try out the Alpha 20 "Wild West Mod" for 7 Days To Die. It comes up with some great ideas for the game and implements them nicely. Wild West Mod was a very entertaining and different play style to the regular game. (Building the top tier "Gatling Gun" for example.) The Wild West Mod tended to increase the Zombie Difficulty and slow down High Tier Progession while still being balanced.

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The latest Steam Client (not the beta) has doubled the font size on my Linux system. I've been running Steam Client fine for years, and not had a problem like that before. I have a large 4K display and Nvidia graphics, so maybe those things are influencing the problem.

My solution has been this: Create a new script "run_steam" with the following in it:

 
#!/bin/bash
sh -c 'env STEAM_FORCE_DESKTOPUI_SCALING=1.1 steam %U'

And I also created a new "steam2.desktop" shortcut inside /usr/share/applications which points to the new script.

Clicking on the "Steam2" desktop icon will now run my script, which launches a reasonably-sized Steam Client. Clicking on the original "steam.desktop" launches Steam Client with ridiculously large fonts.

I hope Valve gets around to fixing this!

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I had a look at the bundle, knowing that I owned one title out of the 7 games. Hilariously, I didn't realise until I checked each game in sequence - I already owned 4 of the 7. (Probably won't bother with this one, heh!)

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Seems very similar in design to Prodeus and I almost expected the same Devs to be involved. Adding to wishlist, heh.

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Great movie, heh. I wouldn't mind seeing this realised as a 3D Shooter game (like here) but where the alien bugs are as *lethal* as they were in the film. One hit kills. Games tend to be so unrealistic on this front, compared to films.

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Have to say, as a Steam Deck owner, these would be a very appealing addition. I especially like the fact that you don't need to lean over the Steam Deck in order to view the screen, getting a bad back in the process. I also like the Big Screen aspect of the headset - i.e. Like you're playing on a massive TV (instead of a 7 inch screen which you're squinting to see properly.)

There are some things about the device which I do find disappointing though. I don't like the HDMI to USB-C adapter (which they bulked out in order to incorporate the lightning adapter). I don't like that their Android support is limited to a fairly small list of phone models.

If I was going to build a version 2 of these glasses, I'd have a USB-C port on one Temple-Tip and a Micro-HDMI on the other Temple-Tip. A much more convenient way to deal with different devices.

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I've had a few different titles give me DirectX 11 error boxes with Proton 8, for instance Desktop Dungeons: Rewind and Ring Of Pain. Switching over to Proton 7 sorted it out.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: g000hMy preferred title other than Slay The Spire is Ring of Pain - I highly recommend it.

Good shout - Ring of Pain is absolutely amazing ... it's not really a deck builder.

Although it doesn't play exactly like a more regular "deck builder" I still find it does have those attributes:

The equipment "cards" are what you're building through the course of the game. As you're disposing of one equipment "card" and replacing it with another one - That's the building aspect. It is the synergy of the equipment cards which makes a major contribution to your progression. Also, the fact that you are unlocking new (equipment) cards with each playthrough is another feature which aligns it closer to more regular deck builders.

I do view it as a Deck Builder, but a more nuanced one which doesn't follow the typical paradigm.

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I picked up Slay The Spire during Early Access and fell in love with that game, and it definitely ranks among my favourites. It is a game that you can play casually (or more intensely) based on your preferences (e.g. ramping up the difficulty with Ascension levels). When I started with it, I often played it at lunchtime at work: Munching a sandwich with one hand and controlling the game completely with mouse. I was very happy that the game did so well, and the developers kept on improving it and adding more (cards, characters, encounters). It gave me more reasons to keep on playing and enjoying it.

My enthusiasm for Slay The Spire lead me into trying to find other games of similar design. I've tried quite a number of other titles (including some you've mentioned above). Dicey Dungeons, Fate Hunters, Monster Train, Frost, Die in the Dungeon (Prologue), One Deck Dungeon, Deep Sky Derelicts, Monster Slayers, Nowhere Prophet, Card Quest, Destiny or Fate, and....

.... My preferred title other than Slay The Spire is Ring of Pain - I highly recommend it. It plays differently to StS, and you might not "get" it for a while. But, give it a chance and you'll be chasing those Achievements and unlocking all the cards across multiple play-throughs. (I've got 350 hours in it.)

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