PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Laz Man]

I think we managed to get them to answer most of the questions from the specific forum thread for tonight's stream.    Lots of good Q&A time this stream!   

It was a great stream.  Lots of POI talk and professional advice too for those interested.  Knuckle rubs and all!!! 

Edit: I asked about a POI submission contest and it sounds like all agreed it sounded like a good idea (including rick...) @Roland make it happen in the future please.

 

[Roland]

Edit: I asked about a POI submission contest and it sounds like all agreed it sounded like a good idea (including rick...) @Roland make it happen in the future please.

Wow....that would be a fun event. If Rick was seriously for it and not just being politely positive then we would just need to get Madmole on board. The main problem as I see it is that community POI designs are always an alpha behind the one the devs are currently working on. Who knows though...maybe we are getting to the point where blocks stay mostly consistent from one alpha to another. It would be fun.

 

[faatal]

Hello, I have really enjoyd the streams for a19. Especially how detail in covering everything has been for a19 but It is there any way we could get a stream that would cover all the BUG FIXS for A19 in Detail? Maybe Faatal or another Dev could do it? 

thanks.

Bugs from A18 that we fixed in A19? Those will be in the release notes. Be a boring stream reading through a list of bug fixes.

 

[Laz Man]

Wow....that would be a fun event. If Rick was seriously for it and not just being politely positive then we would just need to get Madmole on board. The main problem as I see it is that community POI designs are always an alpha behind the one the devs are currently working on. Who knows though...maybe we are getting to the point where blocks stay mostly consistent from one alpha to another. It would be fun.

Brad and eric did mention they would love to playtest people's creations when steam workshop is setup I think.  The contest can be around that timeframes which could be a good way to promote the new functionality when it arrives.  Also it wouldnt have to be before a new alpha launch.

 

[faatal]

We haven't decided for sure, we've shared some shop talk. What actually happens could be nothing, or sharks with laser beams attached to their heads

Be funny if every zombie they bypassed all woke up and came to kill them with BM precision and followed them around the map.

 

[Laz Man]

Be funny if every zombie they bypassed all woke up and came to kill them with BM precision and followed them around the map.

Sounds like a great feature! Lol

 

[pregnable]

Oh you can, but have fun smashing a 100k hit point titanium steel block or whatever it is.

More like build a base on top of it, lel.

 

[Roland]

Bugs from A18 that we fixed in A19? Those will be in the release notes. Be a boring stream reading through a list of bug fixes.

@faatal also enjoys questions about whether the wedge tip slippery slope exploit has been fixed and why he doesn't recruit volunteers to help him in his work. Remember, he will be taking questions live on Wednesday evening. Can't wait. 

 

[DaVegaNL]

I have no clue where that came from.

I think he came from across the road.

 

[Roland]

Be funny if every zombie they bypassed all woke up and came to kill them with BM precision and followed them around the map.

There was a bug during A17 experimental that caused the hostile entities to never forget the player or stop following them. If you ran across a biome without stopping back to your base, within about 5-10 minutes every zombie that saw you would show up and start pounding followed by every snake and every crawler another 5 minutes after that. It was interesting while it lasted.

You could call it "Relentless Mode" and make it an optional feature! You could stick a spear into a zombie and then drive 4 km away and with the new nav beacon watch it coming closer and closer and closer....

 

[Annihilatorza]

There was a bug during A17 experimental that caused the hostile entities to never forget the player or stop following them. If you ran across a biome without stopping back to your base, within about 5-10 minutes every zombie that saw you would show up and start pounding followed by every snake and every crawler another 5 minutes after that. It was interesting while it lasted.

You could call it "Relentless Mode" and make it an optional feature!

That is terrifying but would make it interesting.

 

[Gazz]

Be funny if every zombie they bypassed all woke up and came to kill them with BM precision and followed them around the map.

But I bet there could be 2 streams with just someone reading the change log.

 

[Matt 1977]

But I bet there could be 2 streams with just someone reading the change log.

There ya go Gazz , pre record and pass onto Lathan. 

Get amongst it mate lol

 

[DaVegaNL]

That new junk sledge turret (can't remember the name) looks.. underwhelming. Sorry to say.

 

[Aldranon]

@faatal also enjoys questions about whether the wedge tip slippery slope exploit has been fixed and why he doesn't recruit volunteers to help him in his work. Remember, he will be taking questions live on Wednesday evening. Can't wait. 

The answer is simple.  Have all zombie be able to walk up any slope, wall or ceiling!

The back story is completely logical: The zombies were all bitten by a radioactive spider!  With radioactive spider blood in you - all things are possible!

Make it so number one!

 

[Khalagar]

That new junk sledge turret (can't remember the name) looks.. underwhelming. Sorry to say.

I really hope it's good, I'm just worried about the "It's only a tier one weapon" stance being taken. It's not "only a tier one" its "the main melee weapon the Int tree has". I'm just confused on why the devs don't want it to be on par with end game weapons. They went through all the work to model it and animate it and get all the targeting stuff figured out, I'd think they would *want* people to use it past super early game.

As it stands, it's in a pretty sketchy spot because unless it's been changed, you can't even invest in the Junk Weapons perk until you have 5 int, which is a pretty rough blocker early game when you are in desperate shortage of perk points and trying to get the "bare essentials" perked first. So junk sledge is basically a week 2 weapon to craft if you don't get lucky and find one, and by the time you find one you are probably going to be finding junk turrets and tier 2 melee weapons instead.

There's only a small window where you'd even be able to use it, as junk turrets will probably just completely replace it if the Junk Sledge handheld mode doesn't have stats on par with the other trees melee weapons. In placement mode it's narrow cone of fire + poor tracking and short range make it not very appealing, but I still want to test it to see if maybe 1 melee + 1 junk turret can work together to kind of stagger lock stuff

The stun baton is in a similar situation, where they went through all the trouble to make it and animate it and program it's unique effect . . .but then allegedly haven't buffed in A19 to actually be usable so it might still be auto vendor trash, except it's not even good for that  because it's really cheap so even a tier 6 one is barely worth the inventory spot to haul back and sell. I don't even pick them up if they aren't like at least tier 5, and even then only if I don't have something better to carry back and sell

I dunno, needs real testing once we get A19. I'm hopeful, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[MechanicalLens]

As it stands, it's in a pretty sketchy spot because unless it's been changed, you can't even invest in the Junk Weapons perk until you have 5 int,...

I predict it's going to be 3/10 Intellect for the Junk Sledge, 6/10 Intellect for the Junk Turret like it currently is (6 int; not 5  ), and 10/10 intellect for the Robotic Drone.

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the Junk Sledge's limited use, but I'm honestly not surprised. It's a primitive weapon just like all the others after all. *Shrugs*

Edit reason: Spelling error

 

[beerfly]

That new junk sledge turret (can't remember the name) looks.. underwhelming. Sorry to say.

Its because we haven't seen it work properly yet. Its a cool concept that we can take advantage of, dunno, if its aimed on the proper height we can call it The Nutcracker

 

[bloodmoth13]

We have. It might be nice having primitive rifles and pistols so people can specialize in those... but the agility guy has bows... maybe we just need rifles.. but then the auto weapons guy is screwed unless we make a pipe machinegun... Honestly it just sounds like cans of worms, the blunderbuss and bow are plenty to get started with.

If its up to vote, i vote for muskets and flintlock pistols!

While we're at it, make a book line that gives primitive antique weapons special bonuses that a player could make a build around. Maybe something like crafting a mod that turns 1 pistol into a set of 3 so that you can hold 3 shots on 1 slot.

 

[VirtualExodus]

Spent a lot of time reading through this forum and what I have noticed is too many players are worrying about what others are doing. I mean worry about how you play and how you want to enjoy the game and stop trying to ruin others way of playing. If its immersion breaking for you then that's on you, if it feels cheesy to you, then that's on you.. not on the individual using it. As for nerd polling take it out fine, but there is many other blocks and items that can be used to the same effect, I don't nerd pole but use one of these other ways to "cheese the game" as you put it. Its a sandbox survival game open world "do what you want" game. Let people have their cake and eat it, MP will never be perfect it isn't in any game and if that bothers you then rethink if online gaming is for you. (Rant over) Anyway super excited for A19 think it looks great, so glad Junkies were fleshed out so I can feel like a proper apocalyptic engineer for real!