PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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ozzysfang said:
In the past I referenced some discussion about quests to reduce your gamestage. I think, or feel, that there is a lack of the feeling like you are winning. Why can't there be HARD things to do to "beat them back" ?or reduce the infection? That if you did the Hard things you could have time to make your base sweet, or in MP offer shelter? The constant it just gets harder and faster is stale, to me. Just a thought.
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I kinda like the idea of gamestage being affected by a per-area factor, where each area has a loot-and-kill-xp inventory and as you loot and kill those points get subtracted from the local area,  multiplied and distributed say proportionately by share of total map inventory.  Run some sort of edge detection on smoothed chunk inventory levels every horde night to find area boundaries, I dunno, just riffing.  The idea being that keeping an area clean reduces gamestage in that area and increases the gamestage contrast on the whole map, never daring to tackle the wasteland or never bothering with the frozen north might be regrettable.

 
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quyxkh said:
I kinda like the idea of gamestage being affected by a per-area factor, where each area has a loot-and-kill-xp inventory and as you loot and kill those points get subtracted from the local area,  multiplied and distributed say proportionately by share of total map inventory.  Run some sort of edge detection on smoothed chunk inventory levels every horde night to find area boundaries, I dunno, just riffing.  The idea being that keeping an area clean reduces gamestage in that area and increases the gamestage contrast on the whole map, never daring to tackle the wasteland or never bothering with the frozen north might be regrettable.
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They could do something like the heat system. A per Chunk value that increase or decreases the game stage of the zombies spawned within it.

The value could increase over time naturally (biome based?), and other human activity could increase it too, kinda like heat now. However the value would not decrease over time on it's own. It would require the player to do so. Killing zombies in the area could reduce it, and there could be missions given by the traders to 'purge the area'.

 
quyxkh said:
I kinda like the idea of gamestage being affected by a per-area factor, where each area has a loot-and-kill-xp inventory and as you loot and kill those points get subtracted from the local area,  multiplied and distributed say proportionately by share of total map inventory.  Run some sort of edge detection on smoothed chunk inventory levels every horde night to find area boundaries, I dunno, just riffing.  The idea being that keeping an area clean reduces gamestage in that area and increases the gamestage contrast on the whole map, never daring to tackle the wasteland or never bothering with the frozen north might be regrettable.
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Nah I think you should have to quest into uncomfortable areas to make your comfy confines secure...or relatively more secure.

 
ozzysfang said:
Nah I think you should have to quest into uncomfortable areas to make your comfy confines secure...or relatively more secure.
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It only makes sense in a game balance perspective.

You know what I expect to find in a burned out forest and a leveled city? Scrap and garbage. You know what I expect to find in intact buildings in barely touched neighborhoods? Great quality stuff.

Only when we need to game-ify things does putting good/great things into destroyed regions make sense. Otherwise, whatever destroyed the region would logically destroy whatever you find in that region.

 
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unlike them said:
I recently decided that traders currently bring more bad than good to the game, so I started playing without them. When we have more fleshed out NPC, White River clan, bandits, better quests, then traders would be justified. Currently they bring weird problems/mechanics:

- the concept of invulnerable blocks/POIs

- the magic POI restoration/loot respawn and gimmicky double looting of a POI, which became a new standard

- the magic teleporting after 22:00

- the 'problem' of too many foods in store, 'solved' by introducing magic 'candies'

- exploits of 'secret stash' (putting on/removing nerdy glasses)

- the current quests we have are beyond primitive, even by sandbox standards

- traders/quests make the game easier, so people often see no point to build a base anywhere but next to a trader

- the opportunity to buy the things you need, instead of looting it, results in a scheduled routine of visiting every trader after the restock cooldown.

We can argue about the last point, as having more than one way to gain things enriches the game. Maybe yes, but I decided that I prefer the old way of looting/crafting. So when I found that Nitrogen has an option to build maps without traders, I did it. But you also need to use a modlet to remove the 'find a trader' quest with this opiton.
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Yeah, agree on a lot of that.

 "- the concept of invulnerable blocks/POIs"
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Would be pretty cool if they did it like quest poi's. *Get done with a quest? it gets rebuilt/restocked.*

In the Trader case: if they get wiped out? 'x' days pass. Trader outpost gets rebuilt and a new trader respawns.

Could even be a T5 quest, on guarding the trader from a zombie hoard.

Win? get quest line to rebuild the outpost. get sweet reward once complete.

Fail? Well. Now you all need to wait for a few days till they restore a new outpost in that location and then a trader respawns.

 "- the magic POI restoration/loot respawn and gimmicky double looting of a POI, which became a new standard" 
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  Yeah, again. Need to put that on a timer. Days pass by, then restore it. So its, not so easily done.

- traders/quests make the game easier, so people often see no point to build a base anywhere but next to a trader
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Night time comes? and a player(s) is near a trader outpost? Trader announces they have left the building and horde is on its way (trader despawn) 

Player(s) get a massive wandering horde event at that location.

You survive? good on the player(s)! they wasted a whole bunch of ammo defending an empty outpost.

Outpost gets smashed? well, got to wait a few days for it to restore.

oh? Player(s) are still near the location the next night? guess they are getting hordes every night till they leave the area..  

- the opportunity to buy the things you need, instead of looting it, results in a scheduled routine of visiting every trader after the restock cooldown.
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Yeah, I would like it, if they all had their own restock timer, and it didn't sync all the others. 

 
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Ranzera said:
It only makes sense in a game balance perspective.

You know what I expect to find in a burned out forest and a leveled city? Scrap and garbage. You know what I expect to find in intact buildings in barely touched neighborhoods? Great quality stuff.

Only when we need to game-ify things does putting good/great things into destroyed regions make sense. Otherwise, whatever destroyed the region would logically destroy whatever you find in that region.
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Movies and books do it all the time.  Probably mostly for entertainment.  Video games are no different in that regard.  Too much realism isnt always fun.

 
EffiJeffy said:
@faatal Hello ,is it possible to fix this bug until a19 exp hits? Basically the bug is that traders get affected by the knockdown effect from sledgehammers/bats.They will fall to the ground after they are hit and they can bug under the ground.Players use this bug to sabotage traders on PVE/PVP servers.
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It seems to be fixed in a19. If you are asking for it before a19, there are no plans to release any other versions of a18.

 
MechanicalLens said:
Then by that logic, from what I understand of you putting forth, the wasteland biome will have garbage loot and everything good would be found in the untouched regions, such as the forest biome. That would be a gameplay/balance dilemma since the biome you're supposed to start out in would then be the end-game, and all other biomes would be wastes of space. Again, gameplay has to trump realism here.

(Maybe roleplay a bit if you find this difficult to believe? Perhaps bandits stashed all their good %$!# in the wasteland biome or whatever.)
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Yeah, the wasteland should realistically have either garbage or no loot. It's not like Forest would be the only one to have loot. I would think the Snow, Forest and Desert (or *coughplainscough*) biomes would have better loot in general and be on an even keel.

Realistically, the bandits would have run you out of the Forest in the start because why would they decide to set up shop in a hostile biome? They'd leave the @%$*#! places for the weaklings not in their order. They'd make you fight your way into their territories.

 
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