PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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madmole said:
That would encourage a min maxing type of stupid strategy guide game play... "Oh don't open that loot container yet wait until you are a higher level" kind of crap. 
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Honestly thought that's where we were at. Would leave the loot in the working stiffs crates below my base, protect them, and open them before the first horde night. Thought process was its useless to me if I get a stone axe I can make that myself. Another of your staff said an Iron pick axe should be in a museum, so should an authentic stone age tool, make a museum poi and we can loot them from there.

 
Damocles said:
Would be interesting to know what the actual timeline should be.

Canned food can survive 5 years. But a lot of buildings have damages that look way older, and some are very pristine.

Is there some time-since-the-apocalypse that you aim for in the design?
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Modern canned food can last over 100 years!

The problem is it no longer looks or tastes very good after 10 years, but the nutritional elements are still there.

 
Well, another option for the question of steel vs stone/iron tools is this:

Change all Working Stiffs loot tables to only have steel tools, but at a very rare chance and only when loot quality level passes a certain point. Then allow the crafting of stone and iron tools but make the quality on them to be very dependent on the skill of the crafter. That way people will make stone and iron tools while looking for that special steel one that you can be very excited about when you find it.

Also, I would like to see the return of items breaking and being destroyed. In A18, if you found a level 5 steel pickaxe early on, you could use it for anything and everything for the rest of the game. But if items had a chance to break when low on durability people would have to pay more attention to maintaining their tools and would have to be more selective in when and where they use it.

 
STyK_ said:
Honestly thought that's where we were at. Would leave the loot in the working stiffs crates below my base, protect them, and open them before the first horde night. Thought process was its useless to me if I get a stone axe I can make that myself. Another of your staff said an Iron pick axe should be in a museum, so should an authentic stone age tool, make a museum poi and we can loot them from there.
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Just an example here... if you and I don't spend points where we can craft higher quality tools. We spend point else where. You don't wanna open that box because you not high enough level to get iron tools yet. So you are stuck with quality 1 tools for at least 7 days as you put it waiting until horde day. I on other hand open them up and found quality 3 tools by the end of day one or say day 2. I'm out gathering more material now because I get the job done faster all because you wanna wait. So go ahead wait it out if that is what you want to do. But i personally don't mind this slower progression change. When I finally get that iron tool I'm goin to feel I accomplished more vs I spawn in game and 10 min find a crate and have med game item right off hand. 

 
There is an old saying "save the best for last." The stream tonight, I think any veteran of this game should watch. Reguardless, if your pve or PVP im really looking forward to see what they have to say.

 
Aldranon said:
Why just two junk sledges?  Yes, you can only have two active at a time, (and I haven't thought out all the details) but think 20+ junk sledges, in a long corridor with a series of doors/hatches!

Each set of two turrets are separate enough from other turrets to ensure their activation.

The two turrets are on each side of the door, one hitting low and the other on a block hitting the head. (could they both hit the head if they were on blocks?) 

As I am a fan of saving my ammo for POI's this could be a thing for me!
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I've been trying to think of a killbox like this, but it just doesn't work that well because only the closest two junk sledges are active at a time. You'd have to have some way to make it activate the sledges down the tunnel as zombies were near them.

Putting two facing the door was basically the main use I could think of for them, and assuming they scale off int and the tech junkie perk, they might be able to put the hurt on a horde.

I'm kind of nervous by how no one confirms if they actually scale damage from Int and tech junkie though lol

madmole said:
We're not putting all the work in and then not have it balanced to where it feels useful. Worst case scenario you scrap it for robotic parts which are needed to make drones and junk turrets.
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Good to hear! I've got high hopes for it and (obviously) really interested in it, I just don't want it to be delegated to stun baton status. I feel like Junk Sledge has the right potential, just needs number tweaks and some kind of AoE or a larger cone of fire.

madmole said:
Bow does 3.5x sneak damage with no perks. You just have to know how to use it.
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May be a difficulty thing, but on the second hardest difficulty, a sneak attack headshot  with the Primitive and Wooden bow doesn't do a one hit kill, even a sneak attack headshot with the compound crossbow wasn't securing consistent one hit kills for me. Compared to an unperked nearly unmodded hunting rifle always being a sneak headshot one shot on all basic zombies and doing pretty solid chunk on the bigger ones

Perlin_Worm said:
Considering the current stone age in A18 doesnt even last a day, I dont mind this change.
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This. Yeah finding cobbled together stone tools in sealed boxes is a bit dumb lore wise, but it's probably one of those "This is more work than it's worth to fix" things. It's like finding guns in toilets and non rotten meat in cardboard boxes in a 100 degree warehouse years after it was last used by a human. Dumb, but it's a game so silly things happen for gameplay reasons

Not having like ~60% of the items in the game be near useless is a solid change. All of the primitive stuff is a lot better, and even iron was basically a day 1-3 thing in A18, I would usually have mostly steel by the end of the first week

 
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crazywildfire said:
Just an example here... if you and I don't spend points where we can craft higher quality tools. We spend point else where. You don't wanna open that box because you not high enough level to get iron tools yet. So you are stuck with quality 1 tools for at least 7 days as you put it waiting until horde day. I on other hand open them up and found quality 3 tools by the end of day one or say day 2. I'm out gathering more material now because I get the job done faster all because you wanna wait. So go ahead wait it out if that is what you want to do. But i personally don't mind this slower progression change. When I finally get that iron tool I'm goin to feel I accomplished more vs I spawn in game and 10 min find a crate and have med game item right off hand. 
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well I was going to save the finer details but nothing is stopping me from looting the rest of Diresville and finding a pick in there before day 7 while increasing my chances of getting something better in the crate back at base by the day. You could loot that crate right off that bat and like you said get higher teir low quality tool or get a lvl one stone axe like you already have.

 
Jarod_Silverstar said:
Also, I would like to see the return of items breaking and being destroyed. In A18, if you found a level 5 steel pickaxe early on, you could use it for anything and everything for the rest of the game. But if items had a chance to break when low on durability people would have to pay more attention to maintaining their tools and would have to be more selective in when and where they use it.
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Mod it in yourself, with the random stats, it makes finding a "perfect" weapon even harder.  If you want to gimp yourself fine, don't gimp me.

Also, I'll support the removal of the "E" button to be removed from the game after I see Mad Mole beating on a boulder with only his fists to get some rock.

 
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"Crafting is usless everythings in loot!"

Now that we get progression loot...

"Looting is dead rabble rabble rabble!"

This makes crafting a bit more useful when specialized, you get improved stoneaged tools as you progress, and collect parts for later. Loot doesn't stay in the stoneage...

It's a fun change and I dig the idea. I'm sure most of you will too

 
Khalagar said:
This. Yeah finding cobbled together stone tools in sealed boxes is a bit dumb lore wise, but it's probably one of those "This is more work than it's worth to fix" things. It's like finding guns in toilets and non rotten meat in cardboard boxes in a 100 degree warehouse years after it was last used by a human. Dumb, but it's a game so silly things happen for gameplay reasons

Not having like ~60% of the items in the game be near useless is a solid change. All of the primitive stuff is a lot better, and even iron was basically a day 1-3 thing in A18, I would usually have mostly steel by the end of the first week
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Pretty much this. We are doing broad strokes to see if we can get a working prototype of an actual primitive stage. If it works out, we can always address any immersion issues that come up, but changing every loot box right now when doing broad strokes is over thinking it. After a week or so when the primitive stuff falls off the loot table it will soon be forgotten IMO, and its a game, so logic doesn't matter when important game play is really much more important.

Hopefully there won't be a ton of steel tools in peoples hands by only 7 hours, but until we get to A20 there could be a few things that break the intended progression. We are making some adjustments today to help.

 
madmole said:
We are making some adjustments today to help.
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So would you say the overall focus is still on tweaking items or are you guys moved on to mostly bugfixes in preparation for the experimental build release?

In the past couple of Alphas you had been willing to give us an estimated count of bugs that needed fixing before the build was released, so hoping you will be able to do that again for us. 😁

 
madmole said:
Hopefully there won't be a ton of steel tools in peoples hands by only 7 hours, but until we get to A20 there could be a few things that break the intended progression. We are making some adjustments today to help.
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Are the loot tables blocking steel tools to appear in the first week, or is the chance just really low?

 
madmole said:
Pretty much this. We are doing broad strokes to see if we can get a working prototype of an actual primitive stage. If it works out, we can always address any immersion issues that come up, but changing every loot box right now when doing broad strokes is over thinking it. After a week or so when the primitive stuff falls off the loot table it will soon be forgotten IMO, and its a game, so logic doesn't matter when important game play is really much more important.

Hopefully there won't be a ton of steel tools in peoples hands by only 7 hours, but until we get to A20 there could be a few things that break the intended progression. We are making some adjustments today to help.
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Yup, it's definitely getting there. No more stone tools being replaced every playthrough on the 1st or 2nd day :)  Actual progression... feels good. Lovely idea, something I always wanted in the game. Makes crafting that iron fireaxe much more tantalizing ;)

 
madmole said:
That would encourage a min maxing type of stupid strategy guide game play... "Oh don't open that loot container yet wait until you are a higher level" kind of crap. Honestly stone tools of high quality are kind of nice to find.

If the entire world knee jerks over stone tools, we can do something about it. This is a first pass at getting an actual primitive stage in the game.
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My thoughts exactly. All we'd be doing is just making a time loop back to A16, where if you found a safe of any kind you would never dare open it until you were a very high Scavenging level and at least 2/3 Quality Joe, so you'd just mark it on the map and move on. I'm glad we've moved on from the dark ages.

 
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