PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary
- Thread starter madmole
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Crater Creator
Community Moderator
Variety is fun. For some of us, playing around with sliders isn't just something to get out of the way before you get to the game. It is itself fun, intrinsically: a place to experiment, be artistic and creative, role play, and take satisfaction in the fact that no one has ever played the game with this particular character before, in the same way we find it satisfying to play on a random world no one else has seen before. My first hour (literally, I clocked it) of playing Fallout 4 was spent in the character creator, despite the rest of the game not holding my interest for long.
Swapping between heads that have gotten an artist's stamp of approval guts most of that fun. Don't forget, people make bases that aren't professional looking or performant, and share images and videos of them, all the time. And you let players do this, because it's fun and this is a sandbox. You do your best to make the pieces look good and perform well, but with few exceptions (like a minimum distance between trees) you don't limit what players can make.
...With that said, the greatest need for variety is not with the player characters, but with the zombies, and eventually bandits. If a new player starts a game and plays just through the first Blood Moon, they'll still typically see hundreds, possibly thousands of zombies. And they're only getting a subset of the zombie types at any given gamestage. So if you do any further work on character variation, I hope you do it on zombies. Tinted clothing and skin, subtle scaling, body part swaps... I get that UMA didn't pan out, but anything would be better than clones - even new, high quality HD clones.
Noctoras
New member
Personally, I think you could even go some further with the bonus, but make it extremely rare ... like, it's not for granted to find a legendary even in 100 in game hours, but if you find it, it has a bonus of maybe 50% oder 75% over a regular weapon.
I don't see it as overpowered, after all the legendary weapon alone doesn't give you a legendary armor, so you are still easily vulnerable.
That said, you've gone to some extreme with the demolisher (a bit too far in my opinion, if having no base and fight on the street is much more resource efficient than having a base) - with a legendary, 11-20% seems too cautious in my eyes. It would probably just feel like a tear 7 weapon instead of something really special. In addition to the stats, a specific paint or minor design modification might make it stand out from an optical POV as well.
Just my two cents.
BobbyLee298
New member
could we see, See through scopes for A20, meaning no more black screen with crosshairs, also those crosshairs could use some 2k textures IMO
Also do you plane on making the new Holo sight, and Desert vulture red dot its own mod, so people can use a holo sight or that low profile red dot on other guns
Also do you plane on making the new Holo sight, and Desert vulture red dot its own mod, so people can use a holo sight or that low profile red dot on other guns
madmole
Fun Pimps Staff
I looked into that a while back and there isn't an easy way to speed it up, other than to change the weights and rebalance everything.
MechanicalLens
New member
I would have thought it would have been a much simpler process, but I don't claim to be a techie. No worries, as long as you keep the ability in the game to scrap items at workbenches.
madmole
Fun Pimps Staff
I'd love a full character customization setup like Bethesda has but we're a small team and have to pick our battles or never ship. The head system is expandable and we might get a little face customization in, we'll see yet. After a few hours though everyone has a full helmet on and you never see your face anyway so I don't see the argument.
Cool, maybe I missed it, but a smiley face to indicate humor with text is a must have usually
I agree, and I myself have spent hours making new characters for certain role plays in other games, but 7 Days was never that game for me. The customization wasn't good enough and the game is too light on the RPG side for it to matter. Console outsold PC with zero customization, all it had was presets you could pick from, I just don't think our audience cares that much about it. I'd LOVE it, but we need to get bandit AI in and get something that looks decent for player characters, and not spend 2 years R&D making a Bethesda like character system. I heard they had at least 2 years in Fallout 4's setup with several programmers and a dozen artists just on that one feature.
It's a fixed time to scrap an ounce I believe, so we'd need to reduce the time, or make everything insta scrap, which probably would make for a better game honestly. Waiting for a timer isn't that great of game play.I would have thought it would have been a much simpler process, but I don't claim to be a techie. No worries, as long as you keep the ability in the game to scrap items at workbenches.
MechanicalLens
New member
I'm sorry, but I could never support insta scrap. It hasn't happened to me in a while, but instantly scrapping a precious item like a gun, a stack of old cash, a stack of bottled water, etc. sucks, and having those few seconds to react can save them from being turned into a less than preferred form. Just my take though.
madmole
Fun Pimps Staff
Could just find/harvest scrap brass and ditch the trophies, knobs, etc.I'm sorry, but I could never support insta scrap. It hasn't happened to me in a while, but instantly scrapping a precious item like a gun, a stack of old cash, a stack of bottled water, etc. sucks, and having those few seconds to react can save them from being turned into a less than preferred form. Just my take though.
MechanicalLens
New member
If you're talking about removing them from the game period, I wouldn't be opposed to this. Now that they are less common than they used to be and scrap brass can be found in loot in reasonable quantities (*cough* unlike lead *cough*), the trophies, candlesticks, and knobs could almost be described like sharp sticks. Whatever you decide, In Pimps We Trust.
The Gronk
Colon Pounder
I've got to agree with Captain Obvious on this one. You're going to be making a buttload of heads to get any sense of variation.
You could add the code for simple bone/vertex manipulation but then aren't you reinventing the wheel? Would it not be better to modify UMA to your own needs instead of trying replicate large parts of the functionality from scratch?
No worries! Although I do enjoy my lobster red white mustached partially balding avatar, I understand that you guys are a small team and that you are pushing for gold. If it isn't feasible, then its ok! Good work as always
petruherro
New member
When will we get more info about the water overhaul?
Blake_
Captain Obvious
Alright I'm good with the promise of a few jiggling face features. My point is that the player will encounter 50 npc guys/girls a day with Jarl Balgruuf's face when fighting and doing quests.
Players are just 8, maybe 16 with options and will be eventually "helmeted" . Yet npcs will be plenty , and I would prefer them not to be as photocopied as Zds are, specifically for random quests (main campaign is obvious you guys will model each important npc separately ; a little too much work if you ask me, as opposed to making the lips swell and the cheeks bloat an call it Bob's daddy).
Jugginator
Moderator
Honestly I cant think of any balance issues in removing the scrap timer. I'm pretty sure the only reason some people would miss it is the whole gain extra inventory slots by queuing up something that takes 9 weeks to scrap followed by things to keep.
Gotta wait for it to smelt in the forge either way.
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Crater Creator
Community Moderator
Huh. I am genuinely surprised that console outsold PC. That changes my perspective - thanks for sharing that.
If you take away just one thing from my post though, it's that zombies are the best things you could customize. You're right that we don't see player character faces much, for various reasons. I for one would give up face customization if it freed up the time to make this happen:
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
Arma Rex
Active member
GoldsharkROU
New member
I hope you don't hate me, but the amount of what you carry could be solved with larger manufacturable or affordable backpacks, I would like the weight to be influential, having work tables, cars, motorcycles, and 10k of mineral in my backpack is not immersive. .
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