PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Get yourself some good leather wraps. They are great for clearing houses.  

Remember left is faster but right hits harder. 

 
@madmole Topic aside. Are the level designers considering making gigantic "1 time spawn" structures (ex: airports, mall + cinema rooms, military airfield, hypermarkets, big warehouses)? I truly believe the game would take an insane leap with it's immersion with these "common" places, that make the player feel like a tiny ant in a ravaged world. 

Seeing a real scale mall, overgrown, looted, stores shut down with metal grates, decrypt, missing/flickering lights, filled to the brim with zombies that can come from anywhere would make up for such an interesting expedition, especially with the new lighting system. Just imagine the main area of the mall, multiple floors, with the giant skylight window letting the moonlight in, zombies wandering, some hiding behind closed stores, and being able to search through the very guts of the mall (that we aren't allowed access in real-life) is just great to think about.

Though i'm not sure how that would be possible to add without mauling everyone's FPS.
We'll see.

5 hours ago, Syrex said:
The ugly terrain blobs (dirt blocks) are merely cheap placeholders for upcoming structures, plus the zeds dont really prioritize them so its limiting a side that they attack - at least thats how it appears.. The auto turrets are held up with "plates", one facing the ground and the plate above that is facing the opposite direction (creates a field that you can walk within - zeds still target the plates, just not as much). My team punished me for going to sleep on them early yesterday, when i woke they left me with D84 horde nite. The demolishers definitely punished some of my decisions lol. 908 total credited kills -horde nite alone - though! (HD is still processing).



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Probably, but we made our choice over 7 years ago. Maybe next game. Sounds like a good mod.

 
This is it. The thing is, it's kind of frustrating to know that you're only gonna get stone crap in every loot box. Why even loot it during the first days then? It would be so easy to add a chance to get something else. Even if it's a small chance, it's still a chance, so it's not so predictible and downer to loot POIs early on.

Heck, I'd rather get some iron ingots instead of two useless stone shovels in every Working Stiff's box.
That is because you've been playing the game forever, and are spoiled from getting access to good gear too soon for years. A new person coming in sees something better than he has and is grateful.

I think we want to put some crafting supplies in it, it just takes time to get it feeling good, we added this late in the alpha and it needs more polish. I could do without ever finding any brown or orange primitive loot either so it is better than what you can craft right away unless you spend all your points on miner up front.

 
This is it. The thing is, it's kind of frustrating to know that you're only gonna get stone crap in every loot box. Why even loot it during the first days then? It would be so easy to add a chance to get something else. Even if it's a small chance, it's still a chance, so it's not so predictible and downer to loot POIs early on.

Heck, I'd rather get some iron ingots instead of two useless stone shovels in every Working Stiff's box.
Because I didn't spec into tool crafting and so getting t6 quality stone tools is actually super valuable to me.  Same to people who didn't spec into weapon skills.  Not everyone plays the same way, sometimes there will be loot that is super useful to other folks that may not be very useful to you and stone tools/weapons definitely fall into that category.

On my current agility run I went pure agility to test the new hunger levels and loot and etc.  Finding high quality stone tool was a big deal and my T6 stone axe only got replaced on day 30ish.  You know why I still went out and looted?  Recipes, materials, dukes, books, etc.  I was still making significant progression in every other area of the game and the moment I found a forge recipe I was able to make my hunting knife.  Blunderbuss and melee choke points for knifing got me through early horde nights without issue.

I honestly don't see a problem with the current design. And in fact as someone who didn't spec into miner69er and motherload scavenging constantly was an important source of resources that didn't rely on my mining skills that I don't have.  Chairs are a steady source of wood, pallets are a steady source of cobblestones/cement/stone, and the things I scrap or smelt are a steady supply of metals I'd otherwise need to mine alot of.  I've gotten a ton of nitrate from rotting bodies in houses and carcasses on the road.  I made it to day 34 so far without ever needing to do dedicated mining for metals.  I carved a path through the mountain to make my trips to the trader much faster, but even then I got almost all of my stone/cobblestone/cement from POIs and the trader.  Clay is the only thing I've had to mine myself so far.

 
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Because I didn't spec into tool crafting and so getting t6 quality stone tools is actually super valuable to me.  Same to people who didn't spec into weapon skills.  Not everyone plays the same way, sometimes there will be loot that is super useful to other folks that may not be very useful to you and stone tools/weapons definitely fall into that category.

On my current agility run I went pure agility to test the new hunger levels and loot and etc.  Finding high quality stone tool was a big deal and my T6 stone axe only got replaced on day 30ish.  You know why I still went out and looted?  Recipes, materials, dukes, books, etc.  I was still making significant progression in every other area of the game and the moment I found a forge recipe I was able to make my hunting knife.  Blunderbuss and melee choke points for knifing got me through early horde nights without issue.

I honestly don't see a problem with the current design. And in fact as someone who didn't spec into miner69er and motherload scavenging constantly was an important source of resources that didn't rely on my mining skills that I don't have.  chairs are a steady source of wood and the things I scrap or smelt are a steady supply of metlas I'd otherwise need to mine alot of.  I made it to day 34 so far without ever needing to do dedicated mining for metals.  I carved a path through the mountain to make my trips to the trader much faster, but even then I got almost all of my stone/cobblestone/cement from POIs and the trader.  Clay is the only thing I've had to mine myself so far.
Confirmed, clay soil is the only resource that you cannot buy from the trader, find in loot, or harvest from pallets. Instead of clay pallets though, I suggest a different kind of container that you'll be able to find this valuable resource in. Your thoughts, Fun Pimps? ;)  

nuy35cqamt011.png

 
does anyone get a Error when trying to mod out you're junk hammer?


I do not, but I am still getting the modify bug on Wrenches,  and Hammers where I can't add mods if it's not on my toolbar, it has to be Workbench related imo, it only happens on those two for me

I have only had one major bug so far, where I was pocket crafting a stack of frames and tried to move the stack in my inventory and place a minibike in the slot the frames were going. It locked up and my friend said I started spewing out hundreds and hundreds of wood frames in dropped loot bags while I couldn't move. I restarted and had like 2K wood frames in my inventory and he picked up a few hundred from my wood frame vomiting. I guess from the crafting running the entire time while I was trying to figure out what was going on

 
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Take some of them out 😎

No really, I still say there shouldn't be Schematics for everything it makes the perks less valuable and it's  what causes these non stop "crafting vs looting" and "here's a list of 19 perks that are objectively not worth picking" debates.  You can see it in the sheer amount of people in this thread and on every forum who think the vehicle perk and master chef or even the inventor perk etc are not worth putting more than 1 or *maybe* 2 points into early game and then respecing out of later when you have all the schematics because all of their "other benefits" are still bad.  Even in this thread, every time food comes up, people say they would never invest in any of the gardening or chef perks, and that's because they would rather just live off what they find until they get a schematic. Perk points are too valuable to waste on something you can just find instead

Not a single crafting perk stands on it's own as being worth a perk point when you have the schematics, not one. I say that as someone who still picks them anyway because I *want* them to be good. Who cares about 20% faster forge speeds when . . .you can just build a second forge and get 100% faster speeds instead. 20% cheaper resources means nothing late game when you have a box with 4,000 bones / super corn and 40,000 iron you can make steel with if you need. By like day 20 max, I had 3 forges, 2 campfires, and 3 cement mixers going. Bonuses to speed mean nothing in a game where you can just build a second workbench and double efficiency

A book to make basic stuff like grilled meat, a forge, a bicycle etc are one thing, but if you can just find a book / the item itself and make crucibles and electricity and high end food etc, the perks are just a "last resort" at best. Like you said about perks being "The easy way out". Instead of being worth picking, they are just "You only pick these if your RNG sucks and then you respec later" which is just bad design

B-b-b-b-but how will Run and Gun Only CoD Boye™ craft end game gear without getting all of the perks for free in the form of a book???????!!!!!!!!

They don't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let them loot the items, get them from a trader, or, y'know, invest in the perks like everyone else. I get it, the run and gun players are what you guys focus completely on, but it's just lame that a guy without a single point in crafting, not one, can build the exact same thing as someone who spent every single point on Crafting stuff.


Not every one plays miner. Not every day is late game. And then 20% cheaper resources still means something.

Speed boosts are useless, sure.

 
Confirmed, clay soil is the only resource that you cannot buy from the trader, find in loot, or harvest from pallets. Instead of clay pallets though, I suggest a different kind of container that you'll be able to find this valuable resource in. Your thoughts, Fun Pimps? ;)  

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I mean technically I got most of my clay via buried treasure quests :).  So that does at least make the clay farming alot more enjoyable since you're chasing treasure.  I'd be down with having clay a little easier to obtain in POIs, the plant pots give so little they are pointless, but I'm not sure if it's completely needed with the new treasure digs being so good even with no treasure hunting skill :).
 

I do not, but I am still getting the modify bug on Wrenches,  and Hammers where I can't add mods if it's not on my toolbar, it has to be Workbench related imo, it only happens on those two for me
I'm definitely getting the wrench bug too.

 
Not every one plays miner.


That's fine, not everyone should have to play miner (and not everyone should have to play looter . . .looking at you uncraftable parts and items).

20% cheaper resources still means something


A bit, but not really that much imo, not for the kind of build that actually invests in crafting perks. 20% resource matters to a run and gun player that doesn't mine, but a crafter will have a box with tens of thousands of coal, clay, nitrate, iron etc in them pretty much 24/7 if they mine very often, and the crafting discounts are super far down all the perk trees for some reason. It takes like 4 in Master Chef to get a food cost discount, and several in the inventor perk before you get any meaningful discount. If each stage of Master Chef gave food cost reductions, and the end game reductions were like 50+ percent yeah it would be pretty sweet, but 20% cheaper food late game when you almost certainly already have a sustainable garden is completely meh. Especially because 20% cheaper resources probably doesn't even hit a break point. If it  takes 1 potato, it takes 1 potato, 20% cost reduction does nothing

Late game when you have 5/5 in the inventor perk . . .20% cheaper steel is like my trader offering me his amazing 3 painkiller reward for a T5 quest. You just roll your eyes and don't even notice the difference.

 
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That's fine, not everyone should have to play miner (and not everyone should have to play looter . . .looking at you uncraftable parts and items).

A bit, but not really that much imo, not for the kind of build that actually invests in crafting perks. 20% resource matters to a run and gun player that doesn't mine, but a crafter will have a box with tens of thousands of coal, clay, nitrate, iron etc in them pretty much 24/7 if they mine very often, and the crafting discounts are super far down all the perk trees for some reason. It takes like 4 in Master Chef to get a food cost discount, and several in the inventor perk before you get any meaningful discount.

Late game when you have 5/5 in the inventor perk . . .20% cheaper steel is like my trader offering me his amazing 3 painkiller reward for a T5 quest. You just roll your eyes and don't even notice the difference.
I'm wondering then why you mine at all if you don't need the resources? OCD? In that case you also don't need a reason to perk into Master Chef. You perk into it because it is there and the checkmark is missing 😉

 
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