PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Roland]

I have to disagree.  What someone does in single player isn’t really of much concern.

The current meta in MP is for a crew to visit a trader, all grab a quest, all quests are shared and all quests are completed ASAP while double looting each POI.  In this way, it is easy for group to reach end game gear by the end of the first week.  I know quests and traders won’t be fixed this alpha but anything that can be done to curb the double loot is welcome.  Your scenario of the quest taker hanging back on the first loot cycle is correct which is why it has to be all players / allies.

Well technically what a collective team of players choose to do together in their own game is just the same as if it was one player. They are all choosing to play it a particular way that they all agree upon and it really has no bearing on what anyone else does or how you or I play the game. 

I just was going for simple. I guess if you really wanted to stop it in all cases just start the timer as soon as anyone in the party got close enough and the party would have to coordinate well to make sure everyone gets there together. 
 

I think starting and stopping and resetting the timer any time some player walks near and then leaves is more complicated—but maybe not. 

 

[rubens9311]

Blake? Any plans for you to gain some self control? Does the min maxer in you compel you to go in and clear it/loot it before hitting the exclamation? I stopped doing it, so can you!

I keep telling them all you need to do is reset it when you are close to the chunk. Then they give me these edge cases about what if they don't go there? I say "mission fail" if somehow a voxel gets changed or another player not in the party dirties the chunk before you hit the exclamation mark. So we go round and round about this. At the end of the day it is only the 5000 hour SP guys with no self control that it affects so it is low priority. Because in MP there is possibility it was already looted.

This is true. I play all my hours in sv MP and the POIs are always empty.
So doing missions is the only option to find virgin loot


5 whole pages fighting for nonsense. Anyway, I liked more the discussion about the damage of the stone shovel JA

 

[isarnan]

Turns on god mode and fly, which would simulate what building with a bot could be like.

Maybe make a special storage box you can place in your base.  Then you can send it your base with a few items?  Perks/books to increase capacity and round trip time.

 

[rubens9311]

or give us a way to construct a Can of Peas.

Just save them and don't consume them when you find them. 
At 3 POIs I found a lot of pea cans

 

[MechanicalLens]

Might want to check the loot tables of hidden stashes. I got a level 1 baseball bat on day 1 at gamestage 7. I mean, I'll take it, but I have a feeling I'm not supposed to have this.



Edit: Day 3, not day 1

 

[Tmodloader]

Here’s all you need to do. When the quest marker is within 30 meters start a timer countdown of 30 seconds. If the quest marker isn’t activated in that time the quest fails. No time to loot the house before the quest needs to start and no need to activate the quest from the edge of the chunk. Just put a time restraint when the player is near enough to easily make it but not pre-loot the house. 

I don't like this idea because I play MP and generally like to make sure we're all prepared right at the marker, it'd need to be at least a few minutes long if there was a timer, or an adjustable setting
On second thought I suppose I could start the quest once at the marker but I guess I just feel like once I start it I'm in for a ride. Not entirely sure how it all works but I think if there was a timer, making it 1-2minutes wouldn't hurt

Either way this can also be handled pretty simply with player self discipline

 

[Jost Amman]

Might want to check the loot tables of hidden stashes. I got a level 1 baseball bat on day 1 at gamestage 7. I mean, I'll take it, but I have a feeling I'm not supposed to have this.

Spoiler

View attachment 12902

Edit: Day 3, not day 1

I've been reading for days (after the A19 release) people complaining about the stone age being boring and too long.

Now when someone gets something a bit better than stone age in the early GS/days sounds like the game is broken...

So, which is it? Do we want the boring stone age lasting the entire first week or do we want some variation here and there?

 

[MechanicalLens]

I've been reading for days (after the A19 release) people complaining about the stone age being boring and too long.

Now when someone gets something a bit better than stone age in the early GS/days sounds like the game is broken...

So, which is it? Do we want the boring stone age lasting the entire first week or do we want some variation here and there?

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

If I'm not supposed to have this, I'll scrap it, but if so, then I'll replace my wooden club with it.

 

[Tmodloader]

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

If I'm not supposed to have this, I'll scrap it, but if so, then I'll replace my wooden club with it.

I'm fairly certain they dont make it impossible to get higher tier stuff, just more rare than it used to be with the GS scales tipping you further towards certain loot, probably impossible to jump to the highest tier stuff from lowest though

 

[Jost Amman]

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

Yeah, but my question is also in general... which one do we really want?

Personally I'd vote for a bit of variation here and there, especially inside the final loot chests, so that we have a very low chance to find something "not of this age" even when we're still in the stone phase.

 

[Blake_]

I think starting and stopping and resetting the timer any time some player walks near and then leaves is more complicated—but maybe not. 

Not complicated. It could perform better than music transitions at the moment : a bit slow and hitting fps on lower end systems. Best case scenario will just be like if every player on the server opens a working forge at the same time.

I like the idea though. I really do. Sounds good for an a20 fast tweak.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah, but my question is also in general... which one do we really want?

Personally I'd vote for a bit of variation here and there, especially inside the final loot chests, so that we have a very low chance to find something "not of this age" even when we're still in the stone phase.

I vote for some small variation all the way. A toilet pistol here, a baseball bat there. It helps break up the monetary. But again, if it was an oversight in the loot table, then I'll scrap it. I'm keeping it away in storage for now.

 

[Numberz]

Yeah you don't see them often so it is a holy crap moment when you do. I think you can plan on much more of that in the future, we have some truly scary stuff in the works.

Are you talking about Alpha 19? End game gear by day 7? I find that highly doubtful, or we need to nerf XP in parties to be negative.

But remember that with shared quests all players collect the reward items and dukes from the traders.  Multiply it out for a crew of five doing a few sets of quests each day... you are talking about some serious rewards and big stacks of dukes...

But here is another thought.  Maybe the best way to nerf this is to make it so that only the quest taker can collect the dukes and reward items?

 

[Pegasus]

I wonder if this will include any additional aerial threats?  Out with the vulture, in with the condor.

Any chance of a fire-puking variant?  (Or perhaps bandits could throw molotovs on top of their conventional arsenal, idk.)

Forget vultures and condors ... I'm holding out for dragons.  But only if you have a chance to tame them and ride them too. 

 

[Jost Amman]

The problem with quests is that they need some prerequisites to work, but those premises are different depending on the type.

1. Clear quests need all spawns/sleepers to be reset for them to work
   
2. Fetch quests need to place a satchel in an hidden compartment or block that must be still there
   

So when someone destroys the POI or kills the zombies in there the starting conditions are not valid anymore.

The most logical and realistic solution would be to treat quests like we'd do in a real situation.

If a POI has already been cleared the game must check that and exclude that POI from the list of "Clear" type quests.

At the same time, the Fetch quests, could work anyway, since you'd just have to place the satchel somewhere upon quest activation.

Using this approach you don't need to magically rebuild POIs upon quest activation, they will stay the same for the rest of the game.

Now the problem becomes that in MP games all POIs would at some point become looted and cleared.

We have several possible solutions to this:

1. The normal zombie respawn rate for sleepers will take care of the Clear type quests automatically (placed will be filled again after some time)
   
2. The normal loot respawn rate for containers will take care of the scarcity of loot in MP games (it already works like this)
   
3. We need a new type of quest called (i.e.) "Rebuild/Refurbish" where you are sent to a POI to repair it and will succeed only after you have repaired a number of blocks and furniture to their original status.
   

This way the quest activation marker will become just a normal quest-start point while the POIs will always be in the state the player/s left them (unless you rebuild them with the appropriate new quest type that is).

 

[STyK_]

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

If I'm not supposed to have this, I'll scrap it, but if so, then I'll replace my wooden club with it.

I'd just be happy you found something. Try 25% loot, you'll think every playthough you did before that was a continuous christmas in comparison. Its also a quality 1 so just good RNG.

 

[Pegasus]

But remember that with shared quests all players collect the reward items and dukes from the traders.  Multiply it out for a crew of five doing a few sets of quests each day... you are talking about some serious rewards and big stacks of dukes...

But here is another thought.  Maybe the best way to nerf this is to make it so that only the quest taker can collect the dukes and reward items?

Why nerf it at all?  It works just fine as it is designed. If you don't like double looting POI's then don't double loot them. If it ruins the game for you, exercise some self control and just don't do it.  Walk up to the big glowy exclamation point and select start.

What does it matter if Joe and Bob have the ultimate armor of doom by the end of the first week?  (Good for them, because I'm really surprised they haven't died yet ... and they've obviously been busting their butts.) 

It's not kindergarten.  We don't have to make sure we have enough gum to share with the class.  So unless you're experiencing gun envy, don't worry about what Joe and Bob have.  Or, if it's a PvP server, and you are experiencing gun envy, kill them and take their stuff, then you too can have the uber gun of doom.

And if you start down this road, where does it end?  Since the problem seems to be people sharing quests and experience, why not just say no more quest sharing? Why is that right? Why does your inability to control yourself mean that someone else gets screwed? 

And this isn't all directed at you ... it's at the entire rant on this subject. Seriously, why can't people just let other people play the game the way they want? There's no one right way to play the game. There's no one ring to control them all here. Take your precious and go bury it somewhere and leave the rest alone.

 

[Jost Amman]

What does it matter if Joe and Bob have the ultimate armor of doom by the end of the first week?  (Good for them, because I'm really surprised they haven't died yet ... and they've obviously been busting their butts.) 

It's not kindergarten.  We don't have to make sure we have enough gum to share with the class.  So unless you're experiencing gun envy, don't worry about what Joe and Bob have.  Or, if it's a PvP server, and you are experiencing gun envy, kill them and take their stuff, then you too can have the uber gun of doom.

I'm all for letting Joe having the best loot... but I really don't trust Bob, sorry! 

 

[Tmodloader]

One thing as a new player that made me incredibly frustrated was having a quest at a location that I had a chest set down and filled with items. I had no idea or indication that the quest would delete the chest and the entire inventory. That would be good to say somewhere for new players.

 

[katarynna]

If a POI has already been cleared the game must check that and exclude that POI from the list of "Clear" type quests.

Not everyone does quests as soon as they pick them up. Would you have it so that if someone has accepted a clear quest, no one else can accept a clear quest for that poi? what if the person who accepted a clear quest never logs back on to that server? there are not that many t5 quest poi's, and removing them forever from the quest pool if someone accepts it and never completes it is a bad thing imo.

At the same time, the Fetch quests, could work anyway, since you'd just have to place the satchel somewhere upon quest activation.

If the poi is clear of zombies, the fetch quests would be a snooze fest. just run to the swprite and grab the satchel. no combat, no loot.

The normal loot respawn rate for containers will take care of the scarcity of loot in MP games (it already works like this)

as long as no one gets close enough to the containers to reset the loot respawn timer. 

We need a new type of quest called (i.e.) "Rebuild/Refurbish" where you are sent to a POI to repair it and will succeed only after you have repaired a number of blocks and furniture to their original status.

a lot of the deco items are not craftable or lootable, and are never going to be in vanilla. how would you replace the destroyed items?

And just in general, i am assuming you also expect the game to check the possible quest poi's to see if they are currently populated with zombies and if they are still in a repaired/furnished state. Will this have a performance impact and if so, how much of one?