PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[Aldranon]

Yeah, I'm glad TFP aren't out to destroy believability completely.  Anyone can squeeze a trigger so anyone with a finger can use a M60, maybe not shoot well of course.

Things get "odd" when anyone can repair anything no matter their stats.  But its not a game breaker for me.

 

[Khalagar]

PS: Did you know that the INT player can use the M60? When the M60 is supposed to be the T3 weapon of the Fortitude player.

Yes you can, and you are also not nearly as effective with it, which was my point. Having some build diversity is nice when playing in a group of friends so you can actually cover different niches. Every single player will carry a drone for the storage, so it would be nice if the player who actually spec'd into the tree had a drone that's actually better than the unspec'd ones

You say you don't care what other trees do, but you probably would if you were playing coop and your friend was completely spec'd into strength while you were focused completely on the m60, and then you realized that because of a bug they could use the M60 and do the exact same damage you could. It would just make you want to respec and get your points back

 

[Jost Amman]

then we might just need a CPU with two cores per faatal to handle the situation.

That depends on how many faatals you have in your CPU...

 

[Blake_]

That depends on how many faatals you have in your CPU...

Indeed. Leyend has it that Ryzen ShawnRipper 5950X might handle everything below the sky. It might not have enough IPS to do everything without thermal throttling though.

 

[Crater Creator]

I wish they'd elaborate more on this, as they haven't really explained how they are going to make the drone appeal to Int builds and not just be a staple in every build. If you can just throw the drone down like a junk turret, there's zero chance that every single build isn't going to carry one just for the storage capacity alone.

Clear PoI --> Throw down drone and load it with your crap --> Carry 2x more stuff than usual and head back to the base

The original plan mentioned was that junk drone would take a turret spot . . . which would be awful for int builds, so I'm hoping they have been theory crafting some kind of way for the drone to be improved by your intellect perks so at the very least it's better than someone with 0 int using one. If it competes for a turret spot it's going to be . . . ouch

It seems to me that the drone can already fall neatly into the established system.  If you perk into Robotics Inventor, your drone(s) would gain the advantages of:

• being able to be crafted in the first place
  
  
• better craft quality
  
  
• better damage
  
  
• better fire rate
  
  
• better clip size
  
  
• better active range
  
  
• better active robots at once

And as you level up Intellect itself, your headshot damage and dismember chance with drones increases.  This is all stuff that would happen just from extending the existing design.  If you have all that, while someone not perked into Intellect doesn't, is that not appealing to Intellect builds?  Is that somehow putting Intellect builds at a disadvantage, when it's all the same kinds of stats that other attributes/perks affect?

On the carrying capacity... well it may offer something cool to everyone on that front.  But on the other hand I'll happily use, say, explosives without perking into Perception, because explosives do some uniquely cool things that no other weapon class does.

 

[BobbyLee298]

Seems like a lot of programming/UI/AI/animation work.  Plus, non-intellect builds want to repair their bases, too.  They’ve already said they don’t want the drone to be so handy that everyone uses one.

If a less tedious way to repair is desired, my solution would be to port the paintbrush’s ability to touch multiple blocks per click to the repair tools.

I wasnt talking about the drone, im talking about eather repurpose the Land claim block to do this or make a station, you can still use a nail gun obviously because this feature is for later game. 

Ya i probably is alot of programming but thats what happens when you make a game, heck if were waiting 2 years anyway i can wait another 2 months for a feature that would improve the building part of gameplay, and its a optional feature that im sure every person who says they wont use it, would at some point.

And if ya really hate it, you can always use a nailgun to fix the 200 blocks even the ones out of sight

 

[meganoth]

Yes you can, and you are also not nearly as effective with it, which was my point. Having some build diversity is nice when playing in a group of friends so you can actually cover different niches. Every single player will carry a drone for the storage, so it would be nice if the player who actually spec'd into the tree had a drone that's actually better than the unspec'd ones

You say you don't care what other trees do, but you probably would if you were playing coop and your friend was completely spec'd into strength while you were focused completely on the m60, and then you realized that because of a bug they could use the M60 and do the exact same damage you could. It would just make you want to respec and get your points back

You are nearly the only one who thinks INT is worse than FOR in this regard. When I play INT with two turrets and an unspecced M60 in hand I feel generally as powerful as a FOR player with one unspecced turret. If you actually calculate raw DPS maybe the M60 player is still slightly ahead, but that is balanced by the INT player having advantages on horde night and the M60 player having to resupply his turret more often to the point he might not even think it worth it. (IF the INT player still needs a little push, increasing the ammo capacity per perk point would be the thing in my opinion, by the way)

I play coop by the way and I am the INT player. And I actually don't care that the strength player can use a turret and actually does. THAT is what coop means, working together and knowing that the other guy covers your back, you want him to be as good as possible.

I'm not a saint, I certainly would get envy if the other player were totally OP and I always on the brink of death but I don't have that feeling with INT, far from it.

It seems to me that the drone can already fall neatly into the established system.  If you perk into Robotics Inventor, your drone(s) would gain the advantages of:

• being able to be crafted in the first place
  
• better craft quality
  
• better damage
  
• better fire rate
  
• better clip size
  
• better active range
  
• better active robots at once
  

And as you level up Intellect itself, your headshot damage and dismember chance with drones increases.  This is all stuff that would happen just from extending the existing design.  If you have all that, while someone not perked into Intellect doesn't, is that not appealing to Intellect builds?  Is that somehow putting Intellect builds at a disadvantage, when it's all the same kinds of stats that other attributes/perks affect?

On the carrying capacity... well it may offer something cool to everyone on that front.  But on the other hand I'll happily use, say, explosives without perking into Perception, because explosives do some uniquely cool things that no other weapon class does.

You obviously missed Madmoles information that drones will not have offensive capabilities. And newest info is that even the shock weapon, which I thought would mainly be crowd control, will not be included in the drone, The drone actually needs a totally new perk advantage to fit.

Love your new avatar icon by the way.

 

[meganoth]

I wasnt talking about the drone, im talking about eather repurpose the Land claim block to do this or make a station, you can still use a nail gun obviously because this feature is for later game. 

Ya i probably is alot of programming but thats what happens when you make a game, heck if were waiting 2 years anyway i can wait another 2 months for a feature that would improve the building part of gameplay, and its a optional feature that im sure every person who says they wont use it, would at some point.

And if ya really hate it, you can always use a nailgun to fix the 200 blocks even the ones out of sight

The problem of your idea is not whether any plyer hates it. The main problem is that the devs probably don't want to completely automate this part of the base maintenance. I'm no dev but I'm fairly sure they won't do this even if no programming were necessary for it. Because for example you could just build a crafting base on a big block of concrete and without any defense just ignore any wandering hordes coming by. Not going to happen.

There are lots of things players want but will never get in vanilla.

 

[Urban Blackbear]

Random late night thought: Would is be possible to add a feature to the paintbrush that allows us to paint all six sides of a cube at once, sort of like the splash feature but for a single block?

 

[meganoth]

That depends. What is more costly, 1 entity with pathing and AI  or incremental hp calculations/ full heal for many blocks at once (workbench task) ? My experience tells me the drone is more costly than many blocks, but if the base is huge then we might just need a CPU with two cores per faatal to handle the situation.

You misunderstand the idea. Think of a drone as it is planned now, just with a mod that repairs blocks in a small radius around it. No further AI programming, no additional behaviour.

The drone would not fly around independently of the player, that would be OP in my book. No, you yourself have to walk around your base and the drone will follow you, i.e. what it does anyway. In a small vicinity around you it would repair, in fact it would preferably be the same range in which you can repair blocks. The drone would be just a second nailgun operating beside you.

 

[Guppycur]

Random late night thought: Would is be possible to add a feature to the paintbrush that allows us to paint all six sides of a cube at once, sort of like the splash feature but for a single block?

Yeh, choose the paint all sides brush.

 

[Khalagar]

My only qualm with the building block change is the removal of Rebar frames. They were better than wood frames for building out a design because they have a higher structural integrity and can build further. Not having that will make it much harder to layout your buildings before you commit to building it
 

 

[Urban Blackbear]

Yeh, choose the paint all sides brush.

Is that only in creative or something?

 

[MechanicalLens]

Is that only in creative or something?

Correct.

 

[Urban Blackbear]

Let me update my suggestion then. Can we get that added to the regular menu?

 

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

 

[RhinoW]

With the breakdown system being removed and therefore steel (presumably) getting a huge nerf to its overall health, players will be increasingly drawn to using hatch hallways, or steel hatches as walls themselves. Again I bring up the suggestion that zombies should have a 6x damage multiplier to all doors and hatches.

Damage is good as is in my opinion, however , i believe all objects in the game should have keyword labels (if they don't already) to determine % damage reduction with fists (weak), mid and high tier damaging weapon/entity. Concrete should have significant damage reduction against weaker things, currently it is completely overwhelmed by anything more than 5 zombies attacking it. I'm all for strength in numbers, but not when zombies are strong on their own.

Wood/Cloth  0% damage reduction (current)
Iron -25% damage
Cobble -40% damage
Concrete -60% damage
Steel -80% damage

Bonus health is good against a single opponent, but damage reduction would be good for normal zombie hordes and long term stability.
And then you have bruisers and the demolishers that would ignore the damage reduction, making the extra block health do its part.

Currently the only thing (at least from what I could tell) that differentiates a concrete block from a wooden block, is the extra hit points.

 

[meganoth]

With the breakdown system being removed and therefore steel (presumably) getting a huge nerf to its overall health, players will be increasingly drawn to using hatch hallways, or steel hatches as walls themselves. Again I bring up the suggestion that zombies should have a 6x damage multiplier to all doors and hatches.

Madmole himself said that for example concrete will likely be as strong as the old r concrete was. This surely includes all the hitpoints that would be lost because the breakdown system was removed. My goodness, you really must think the devs are idiots who can't even keep the balance in such a trivial case. 

Example:

Previously cobblestone (say 500 HP) downgraded to wood (150 HP) downgraded to nothing

Now cobblestone (650 HP) downgrades to nothing.

Nerf? None.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Madmole himself said that for example concrete will likely be as strong as the old r concrete was. This surely includes all the hitpoints that would be lost because the breakdown system was removed. My goodness, you really must think the devs are idiots who can't even keep the balance in such a trivial case. 

Example:

Previously cobblestone (say 500 HP) downgraded to wood (150 HP) downgraded to nothing

Now cobblestone (650 HP) downgrades to nothing.

Nerf? None.

Nevermind then.

 

[meganoth]

Damage is good as is in my opinion, however , i believe all objects in the game should have keyword labels (if they don't already) to determine % damage reduction with fists (weak), mid and high tier damaging weapon/entity. Concrete should have significant damage reduction against weaker things, currently it is completely overwhelmed by anything more than 5 zombies attacking it. I'm all for strength in numbers, but not when zombies are strong on their own.

Wood/Cloth  0% damage reduction (current)
Iron -25% damage
Cobble -40% damage
Concrete -60% damage
Steel -80% damage

Bonus health is good against a single opponent, but damage reduction would be good for normal zombie hordes and long term stability.
And then you have bruisers and the demolishers that would ignore the damage reduction, making the extra block health do its part.

Currently the only thing (at least from what I could tell) that differentiates a concrete block from a wooden block, is the extra hit points.

Result would be that in later horde nights basic zombies could be practically ignored as they would do almost no damage to your structures. This simple strategy would be very effective then: Kill only higher level zombies and let the basic zombies alive.