PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

MechanicalLens said:
If you are really that concerned, then lay out that entire build out with particle board and then replace each block one by one with a full version of a higher upgrade type once you're finished, or just upgrade the particle board to match, or build with solid blocks from the start. Yeah, rebar, one of our favorite toys to work with, is gone, but I'm sure the new system will curb stomp the old one. At the very least, it'll make it far less confusing for new players, which I assume is the primary goal here.

Think of it this way: new player builds with wood and dies on the horde night, rage quits, leaves a bad review on Steam. Hence, wood has been buffed. Another player builds with cobble but is unsure how to work with rebar, wet concrete, and is confused about regular and reinforced concrete. Hence, simplification is absolutely needed there. The less head scratching there is for newer players, the less frustrating moments that occur, the better business does overall. :)  Now I obviously don't speak for TFP here and I'm not a marketing expert, but given what they've said so far, and they know what they are doing far more so than any of us, this is the "strategy" that is at play, and will continue to be at play with further improvements like the streamlined armor system in A21.
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I think of it another way: what does reinforced wood, metal reinforced wood, flagstone, wet concrete and concrete add to the game? Nothing. People don't use them except inasmuch as they have to go through that stage to get to the next.

 
Yeah the exp side has me a bit worried, as building exp was the only way a stay at home base builder that did all the building and crafting etc got exp to compete with friends who were doing nonstop questing and scavenging. Building gave good exp, but would directly be competing with spending a day clearing a T6 Hospital or Shotgun Messiah etc which gave EXP and loot and dukes

I'm sure the devs will take it all into account hopefully, as Madmole was always pretty up and up on efficiency and min max strategies etc

 
MechanicalLens said:
If you are really that concerned, then lay out that entire build out with particle board and then replace each block one by one with a full version of a higher upgrade type once you're finished, or just upgrade the particle board to match, or build with solid blocks from the start. Yeah, rebar, one of our favorite toys to work with, is gone, but I'm sure the new system will curb stomp the old one. At the very least, it'll make it far less confusing for new players, which I assume is the primary goal here.

Think of it this way: new player builds with wood and dies on the horde night, rage quits, leaves a bad review on Steam. Hence, wood has been buffed. Another player builds with cobble but is unsure how to work with rebar, wet concrete, and is confused about regular and reinforced concrete. Hence, simplification is absolutely needed there. The less head scratching there is for newer players, the less frustrating moments that occur, the better business does overall. :)  Now I obviously don't speak for TFP here and I'm not a marketing expert, but given what they've said so far, and they know what they are doing far more so than any of us, this is the "strategy" that is at play, and will continue to be at play with further improvements like the streamlined armor system in A21.
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I'm not saying there aren't ways to work around it. but I give you other cases. well... depending on how particle board structural integrity works

A new player tries to build with particle boards and gets frustrated as it has the horizontal support of wood and then everything have to be smaller.
A new player builds everything in particle boards and procceds to upgrade everything all the way to concrete, then realizes everything could be spacious as concrete and wood don't have the same structural support
a new player builds everything on particle board, then continues to remove 1 block at the time to replace for concrete or steal but... you should have not removed that particular block timmy... now your whole base has collapsed.

that is the safe space rebar provided for me :p

Edit: I don't want rebar to be included.. I just want a way to skip upgrade steps if we already have the final raw resource.

dcsobral said:
Lots of XP. And no waiting for wet concrete to dry if I want to go to steel. I've done some pretty big buildings and I've only ever used rebar for two reasons:

  1. No waiting to upgrade to reinforced concrete, which is no longer an issue.
  2. Better structural integrity than wood.
I love the rebars for their unique structural integrity. I will miss them and making a mod to re-introduce rebars is something I might well do, but I like all sort of things that no one else does.

So I still think this is a non-issue.  Whatever time is lost by upgrading from wood is gained from no wet concrete.
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well, there's a point when you build for fun and not xp.
also, and well, not sure if many people always upgrade a whole building to steel.  so I think most just upgrade once and leave the concrete to dry while they do something else. 
still happy that wet concrete is not a thing anymore tho.

 
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dcsobral said:
I think of it another way: what does reinforced wood, metal reinforced wood, flagstone, wet concrete and concrete add to the game? Nothing. People don't use them except inasmuch as they have to go through that stage to get to the next.
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My thoughts exactly on top of what I had said before.

 
Khalagar said:
Yeah the exp side has me a bit worried, as building exp was the only way a stay at home base builder that did all the building and crafting etc got exp to compete with friends who were doing nonstop questing and scavenging. Building gave good exp, but would directly be competing with spending a day clearing a T6 Hospital or Shotgun Messiah etc which gave EXP and loot and dukes

I'm sure the devs will take it all into account hopefully, as Madmole was always pretty up and up on efficiency and min max strategies etc
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unfortunatly not - adding steel parts for tools was a step into forcing players to focus on scavenging. before that you could get steel items rly fast

 
Jugom said:
a new player builds everything on particle board, then continues to remove 1 block at the time to replace for concrete or steal but... you should have not removed that particular block timmy... now your whole base has collapsed.

that is the safe space rebar provided for me :p
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Never fear. faatal has you covered in feeling safe with regards to SI as you build.

Jugom said:
I just want a way to skip upgrade steps if we already have the final raw resource.
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You can. Craft the block and place it directly.

 
Roland said:
There used to be once upon a time wood frames, cobblestone frames, scrap iron frames, and rebar frames.
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I (think) there also used to be a ropey frame for building with stone (flagstone, cobblestone, other??) in like alpha 5-ish?. You'd lay out the frames, and when you "built" them they'd visibly fill with stone...in layers. Like 4-6 layers to complete the block if I remember right. So...if you were building a wall, and put 10 of these in a row, you'd slowly raise the height of the wall as you clicked each frame. Kinda' immersive.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

 
Roland said:
The "full" upgrade path is four clicks of the mouse if you have a nail gun and stacks of wood, cobblestone, concrete mix, and steel in your inventory. You keep talking like it is this big long upgrade path like it's still A19 or something. That's gone. Use a nail gun and have your mats on hand and it is click, click, click, click done. And that is only for the blocks that you are worried you might place wrong so you want to use the frame block that can be picked up. For most of the base you can just craft the block directly and place. Nobody is being forced to use the upgrade path if they don't want to have to go through it.
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What I'm worried about is that currently, with the new A20 block placement system, we don't have really a choice for higher tier materials.

If you want to build an all-concrete base quickly, you can't use iron frames anymore, right?

So in A20, if I understand it correctly, you have these two options.

Option 1: place all the particle wood blocks and do the full upgrade path to concrete, wasting materials and time. Yes, TIME! Not everyone has a nail gun handy in the first few weeks, Roland. That's actually the best case scenario.

Option 2: is to directly craft the concrete blocks in the mixer (if you have one) and place them to build your base. But as I said, you completely lose the opportunity to quickly handle misplacement errors, and you'd be forced to destroy each "wrong" block with (again) a huge loss of time.

So, in the end, if this is how it works, I'll try to live with that, but IMO you (TFP) lost an opportunity to make the building system even more sleek.

 
Matt115 said:
i know about that but by upgrading stuff you get exp + a defence - tons of walls spikes etc
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If you upgrade that slider to 300% you will still get a defence and tons of walls and spikes by building and more xp for doing so than if you kept it at 100%. 

I don't know the exact gain in xp for doing a full upgrade path to steel but Im thinking it will probably be less than it was in A19 since there are fewer steps. But it isn't like builders have been barely keeping up with friends who go out and quest and kill. Its more like the other way around. Perhaps it is a bit more even now and in my opinion it would  be better to be a bit less. You know? Risk vs reward and all that?

 
Jost Amman said:
What I'm worried about is that currently, with the new A20 block placement system, we don't have really a choice for higher tier materials.

If you want to build an all-concrete base quickly, you can't use iron frames anymore, right?

So in A20, if I understand it correctly, you have these two options.

Option 1: place all the particle wood blocks and do the full upgrade path to concrete, wasting materials and time. Yes, TIME! Not everyone has a nail gun handy in the first few weeks, Roland. That's actually the best case scenario.

Option 2: is to directly craft the concrete blocks in the mixer (if you have one) and place them to build your base. But as I said, you completely lose the opportunity to quickly handle misplacement errors, and you'd be forced to destroy each "wrong" block with (again) a huge loss of time.

So, in the end, if this is how it works, I'll try to live with that, but IMO you (TFP) lost an opportunity to make the building system even more sleek.
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Why do you want an all concrete base before you even have a nailgun? Presumably you have the concrete which is not that easy to acquire in large quantities early game, but why concrete? Early game zombies can be handled by cobblestone, and cobblestone has the same SI as concrete. I don't buy this argument at all.

Matt115 said:
i know about that but by upgrading stuff you get exp + a defence - tons of walls spikes etc
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Sure, and you can still do that. And, on top of it, if you think you are not getting enough XP out of it, increase the multiplier.

 
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Jost Amman said:
What I'm worried about is that currently, with the new A20 block placement system, we don't have really a choice for higher tier materials.

If you want to build an all-concrete base quickly, you can't use iron frames anymore, right?

So in A20, if I understand it correctly, you have these two options.

Option 1: place all the particle wood blocks and do the full upgrade path to concrete, wasting materials and time. Yes, TIME! Not everyone has a nail gun handy in the first few weeks, Roland. That's actually the best case scenario.

Option 2: is to directly craft the concrete blocks in the mixer (if you have one) and place them to build your base. But as I said, you completely lose the opportunity to quickly handle misplacement errors, and you'd be forced to destroy each "wrong" block with (again) a huge loss of time.

So, in the end, if this is how it works, I'll try to live with that, but IMO you (TFP) lost an opportunity to make the building system even more sleek.
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OPTION 3: You do a hybrid of options 1 and 2. Your first layer you place as frames and upgrade but then as you build upward switch to placing blocks. There is no rule that you must build your base using either all upgrades or all placed blocks. And once again, I just don't think you realize how fast it is now to get to concrete by upgrading from the new wood frames. I think emotionally you are still rooted in what you know from experience.

I totally agree that rebar -> Concrete would be sleek. In fact, I think it would be too sleek. Nobody would ever do anything else and it would be the no brainer single way to ever build. Might as well get rid of concrete block crafting and the cement mixer because who would do that? That simple upgrade step would be so much better than any other option that there would be no other option. The way it is in A20 there are times when you will choose to upgrade and times you will choose to craft. There are benefits peculiar to each choice.

 
dcsobral said:
Why do you want an all concrete base before you even have a nailgun? Presumably you have the concrete which is not that easy to acquire in large quantities early game, but why concrete? Early game zombies can be handled by cobblestone, and cobblestone has the same SI as concrete. I don't buy this argument at all.
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1) I play 120 mins/day

2) I can buy cement mix from the traders

 
Roland said:
OPTION 3: You do a hybrid of options 1 and 2. Your first layer you place as frames and upgrade but then as you build upward switch to placing blocks. There is no rule that you must build your base using either all upgrades or all placed blocks. And once again, I just don't think you realize how fast it is now to get to concrete by upgrading from the new wood frames. I think emotionally you are still rooted in what you know from experience.

I totally agree that rebar -> Concrete would be sleek. In fact, I think it would be too sleek. Nobody would ever do anything else and it would be the no brainer single way to ever build. Might as well get rid of concrete block crafting and the cement mixer because who would do that? That simple upgrade step would be so much better than any other option that there would be no other option. The way it is in A20 there are times when you will choose to upgrade and times you will choose to craft. There are benefits peculiar to each choice.
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I mean... I'll have to see it for myself.

If you say it's good enough it probably is... we'll see.

 
Jost Amman said:
1) I play 120 mins/day

2) I can buy cement mix from the traders
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Length of day changes nothing. Your chance of getting a nailgun depends on your gamestage, and the gamestage also controls what sort of zombies you get. Cement mix is the easiest part. You then have to turn it into concrete mix which requires stone and sand in large quantities, and mining stone early game is very time consuming.

 
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