PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Laz Man]

It will get even more polished.  Been on team chats throughout the day discussing lots of feedback from the stream event so far.  There has already been some updates already...

It amazes me how fast some people work...

 

[khzmusik]

My few hours of viewing some streamers have highlighted how fun the cities now are!

In the city, the first 24 hours you can find dogs and police.  Its deadly and you cant just run anywhere without some risk.

Outside the city is safer but its all risk/reward so cities are the thing IMO.  Will max out cities on my second play though.

Perfect game IMO.

I agree, the RWG changes regarding cities (and tiles) are without a doubt the best thing that will come out of this alpha.

I cannot wait to see all the crazy crap that modders and POI designers will do with custom tiles. Elevated railways, subway systems, tagged POIs, etc.

 

[POCKET951]

Testers have tried the change and it is still possible to be sustainable when perked up.  Of course balancing is ongoing.  We will see where things land.

sorry if I seem skeptical of 50% RNG, I have played alot  path of exile and there is just so much RNG in that game that it can be frustrating sometimes when your luck is awful

I am glad TFP made the change and are aware of it, and that it is something that can be balanced and adjusted as needed. Farming was def too OP in alpha 19

I imagine if the RNG feels to crappy a  slight buff to LoTL would be to make it so seeds cost 1 less plant to craft..(4). If it was a 40% reduction to cost(3 blueberries to make a blueberry seed  it would make seeds only cost 3 and that would seem too good

 

[khzmusik]

a  slight buff to LoTL would be to make it so seeds cost 1 less plant to craft.

That's a pretty good idea, and even if TFP don't implement it, that should be easy to mod in. Probably better than my idea of increasing the chance of getting a seed (which I don't know if that is open to modding).

 

[Jost Amman]

I'm saying they should make it that way so you at least have to get to the trader and hope, or stumble across a working bench somewhere else. They keep making the beginning of the game easier when there's not much of a mid or late game yet.

Also seems to help this along there is also all the ingredients to make a pipe weapon in every container you loot. Really hope there's more balancing coming, but I doubt it. Ammo was already too abundant, but you usually didn't find a gun right off the bat so it kind of worked. But now you can just craft one within about 5 minutes of starting a game. Just feels like it's going the wrong way to me, is all.

I don't see any difference with how crafting a BB worked.

Why should pipe weapons be different?  :confused2:

 

[Khalagar]

Another thing I'm confused on as far as the "You already did tons of work so . . . why not make it usable??" line of thought, is why are there no new T5's? 200+ new POI but none are t5's even though some seem as big or hard etc. Seems really weird to me to not just flag a couple as T5 for now to expand the end game more and then work on the "story t5s" later

 

[CoolJ]

 There was a lot of discussion about this in the dev chat. Same concerns you are voicing were raised and assessed and after testing it they felt it was viable. You'll have to try playing it to see how it feels for you. The farming change is one we knew would be one of those controversial polarizing A20 features...

This was a mistake. Not having to replant the entire garden every time was a feature. If you want to slow down crops, make them take longer to grow. The whole RNG and replant thing is bad design. There was a reason farming was changed so we didn't have to replant each time. Because it isn't fun and it isn't necessary. They already grow at a pace that is comically fast anyway. At least they did in A19. There is no reason to force us to replant and then give some trash RNG. The other system was better, even if it was too fast.

 

[Jost Amman]

So your @%$#ing telling me that the Fun Pimps have had a year or more to up date this game.

But the only weapons they added were some FALLOUT rip off pipe weapons.

Everyone who has played Fall Out knows that pipe weapons are convenient when starting out

but immediately are discarded once something better comes along.

When I heard about this Update I was excited.

But the moment I read the details about the poor excuse of update.

Any excitement I had vanished instantly.

I wanted to apply for the weekend steamer event until I discovered the update details.   

Oh man! ... of all the people with no clue, you win the cup for the most clueless player in the entire world lol  :laugh:

I feel like that probably isn't intentional, assuming you can scrap it and get robotic parts, since the devs are / were super against robotic parts week one for what ever reason. I don't know if it gives parts though, as it seems just unrelated to intellect now tbh

Honestly the drone just being unrelated to the robotic line and the robotic line getting a real t3 item of it's own would alleviate a lot of the issues with it, although I do still find it really weird for it to not be marketed and more impactful for the amount of time and hype (from fans, the devs have hated talking about it since day 1) surrounding it lol

If it is a t0 item it would make it a bit less sad since it wouldn't be competing with head lamp mods and pocket jeeps for utility

From what I understood, the drone is a very important step towards the addition of Bandits in A21.

After all, if an "NPC" is already able to navigate the world, follow you and execute simple commands, then you have 20/30% of the Bandits/NPC AI already done IMO.

 

[CoolJ]

Oh man! ... of all the people with no clue, you win the cup for the most clueless player in the entire world lol  :laugh:

Indeed. Those pipe weapons look awesome. I can already see my self doing runs where I am only allowed to use pipe weapons. Or a theme run like a cowboy run. Look, at that, there is already a revolver available from the start of the game now. I just wish it was single action. Seems to me like it should be. A single action revolver is a lot easier to improvise than a dual action one. I get the magnum should be dual action because that style of revolver is dual action. The pipe version should be single action. Maybe later they could add a fan fire ability in gunslinger.

 

[POCKET951]

lets just make an example with how it currently works

say we plant 10 Blue berry seeds and we have living off the land 3

we will get back 60 fruit and 50% chance to get seeds

say were unlucky and we only get 4/10 back

we plant the 4, and then craft 6 x 5 (30) so were left with 30 blueberries.

Seems reasonable. you could get super lucky and get 7 out of 10 though and only spend 15 blueberries replanting and net 45

suppose you get really unlucky..you get only 2 seeds back... you used 40 blueberries to replant and you still net 20 ..you can still make stuff and sustain

honestly these changes seem reasonable

however, it makes farming much more laborious and tedious

I know it isn't in A20, but if farming is going to be this  micro intensive than I think having a farming tool for A21 to speed up the process would be really nice

 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

I remember reading a post on here recently that went along the lines of 'even if The Fun Pimps used child labour' the die hard apologists would defend them for it.

Seems true to be honest. There are so many zealot-minded individuals on here who are quick to celebrate the introduction of a feature, and quick to turn on it when The Fun Pimps decide to remove, nerf, or change it beyond all recognition.

I wanted to weigh in on one of these changes, farming in particular since it's a hot topic for A20 and something I actually care about a lot.

First, we had nomadic farming back in the day which was amazing, immersive, took some effort and had the introduction of fertiliser in order to yield more crops. We had the ability to till land anywhere and set up small plots - an absolutely amazing game feature that let us feel part of the world in a way I thoroughly enjoyed.

Then we had the black and white fallacy step in. We couldn't have both wild planting and crop plots, but only the latter, which; whilst great for integration in building, demolished the charm and immersion of wild planting.

What this did come with however was the harvesting of crops and auto-replant if you like (degradation to a young plant). This was a slight offset of what we lost, and in and of itself, a nice feature. Now we get crop harvest with only the chance of a seed. Wtf?

I think those zealots who can't see any fault in anything The Fun Pimps release need to keep one thing clear in their minds, especially regarding the 'overpowered' farming claim, which is utter garbage.

Farming is necessarily static. You can't make a farm and abuse it whilst moving from place to place, not without giving up time and resources to go back to it. If people spec into Living off the Land, and put work and time into making a small farm then they have earned the sustainability which comes with it, at the cost of being fixed at their base location.

Even if they took the plots with them, it still requires setting up a new farm and replanting, waiting for the crops to grow before they can do anything with them. I imagine many people; especially given the new variety in POI's are going to be spending way more time looting and scavenging food along the way than dedicating time to farming anyway, so those who do dedicate time to creating a sustainable food source should be free to do so, and the mechanic should be left unmolested.

People like @[email protected] may be seen as a gadfly, but it's people who object to developments where some serious attention should be allocated, because echo chamber mentalities may bring comfort, but opposition gives opportunity, through feedback. These opinions are valuable.

 

[POCKET951]

4 minutes ago, CoolJ said:

Indeed. Those pipe weapons look awesome. I can already see my self doing runs where I am only allowed to use pipe weapons. Or a theme run like a cowboy run. Look, at that, there is already a revolver available from the start of the game now. I just wish it was single action. Seems to me like it should be. A single action revolver is a lot easier to improvise than a dual action one. I get the magnum should be dual action because that style of revolver is dual action. The pipe version should be single action. Maybe later they could add a fan fire ability in gunslinger.

 

[Aldranon]

There are several ways TFP could do bandits in my thinking and each one would require a smarter AI.

1) Bandits are just zombies with guns, very little changes needed.

2) Bandits have a "Shoot, Scoot, or Hide" algorithm based on damage done and received.

3) Bandits have the above 2 plus an "Elite squad" AI that tries to pin the player down with suppressing fire and flank the player for some kill shots.

 

[CoolJ]

lets just make an example with how it currently works

say we plant 10 Blue berry seeds and we have living off the land 3

we will get back 60 fruit and 50% chance to get seeds

say were unlucky and we only get 4/10 back

we plant the 4, and then craft 6 x 5 (30) so were left with 30 blueberries.

Seems reasonable. you could get super lucky and get 7 out of 10 though and only spend 15 blueberries replanting and net 45

suppose you get really unlucky..you get only 2 seeds back... you used 40 blueberries to replant and you still net 20 ..you can still make stuff and sustain

honestly these changes seem reasonable

however, it makes farming much more laborious and tedious

I know it isn't in A20, but if farming is going to be this  micro intensive than I think having a farming tool for A21 to speed up the process would be really nice

What if you only have one seed? What if you don't get one back? Too bad? Some crops are not easy to come by. Like I have had several random gen worlds where there was no Carl's Corn POI on the entire map. I looked in the XML and it just wasn't there. The only choice is to get a seed from loot in that case. Finding new ways to make your perk points worthless is not my idea of a well designed mechanic.

 

[POCKET951]

What if you only have one seed? What if you don't get one back? Too bad? Some crops are not easy to come by. Like I have had several random gen worlds where there was no Carl's Corn POI on the entire map. I looked in the XML and it just wasn't there. The only choice is to get a seed from loot in that case. Finding new ways to make your perk points worthless is not my idea of a well designed mechanic.

That is  a problem, if you only have one seed and don't have living off the land 3 and you don't get it back you are boned

as I said in a post above, maybe the most obvious solution  is to make seeds cost 4 of X plant so when you get double harvest you break even with minimal investment

but I can see where you are goin with this. imagine you are trying to start a supercorn farm.. you get 5 and turn it into a seed. you harvest it and you get 4 back and no need. GG you are boned and can't do it anymore unless you can find another seed/carls corn

that could lead to a @%$#ty game play loop.

They did how ever add super corn to grandpas recipes. We will find out how to make it soon. but then again that is also a problem solved by skill points. which isn't always fun

 

[Jost Amman]

Another thing I'm confused on as far as the "You already did tons of work so . . . why not make it usable??" line of thought, is why are there no new T5's? 200+ new POI but none are t5's even though some seem as big or hard etc. Seems really weird to me to not just flag a couple as T5 for now to expand the end game more and then work on the "story t5s" later

There's ONE new, as far as I can tell (they were 6 in A19, now they're 7).

 

[Jost Amman]

People like @[email protected] may be seen as a gadfly, but it's people who object to developments where some serious attention should be allocated, because echo chamber mentalities may bring comfort, but opposition gives opportunity, through feedback. These opinions are valuable.

I agree on the general idea that new features should be challenged by players depending on how fun or useful they seem to be.

However, there's still the balancing issue that the developer will need to address: we, as players, are of course all about keeping what is fun/convenient for us (e.g.: all cars should be drivable, crops should be a permanent source of food, pipe weapons should do more damage, the drone should be able to shoot zombies), but in the end most players will never make the hard choices which will effectively balance the game to make it more "fun" in the long run.

I'm not saying every choice the devs make is great, mind you, I'm just saying that we should at least give it a shot before taking up the pitchforks.

 

[Khalagar]

From what I understood, the drone is a very important step towards the addition of Bandits in A21.

After all, if an "NPC" is already able to navigate the world, follow you and execute simple commands, then you have 20/30% of the Bandits/NPC AI already done IMO.

The drone seems to teleport to the player / teleports through doors / flies over obstacles etc, so I don't think it would help all that much with bandit AI pathing.  It's mostly weird how much work went into the drone, then how little they seem to care about it. It would be like if one of the devs was like "I spent 4,000 man hours making a new system to spawn caves under the ground for players to explore!" and then it was never talked about on stream and no other parts of the game tied in or interacted with it etc lol

I def think Woodle finding one day 1 was a bug, Misuto has been streaming like 7 hours and hasn't found one even while finding all kinds of other stuff

I agree on the general idea that new features should be challenged by players depending on how fun or useful they seem to be.

Yeah, a lot of suggestions are just things that are a LOT of work for the devs. I feel like mine at least are just number tweaks / minor changes since they already did the ground work. Things like make the drone mod buffs scale with your perk investment to be better for people invested in it, or just change a flag on some of the PoI that are hard to be t5 instead of t4 as a temp fix for the lack of t5 diversity etc.

There's a ton of little minor things that are just quality control stuff, like robot turret shells being bad or the pipe baton being a club but worse since it attacks slower and also can't use as many mods etc.

Not a game breaker or anything, just polish stuff

 

[Kalex]

This was a mistake. Not having to replant the entire garden every time was a feature. If you want to slow down crops, make them take longer to grow. The whole RNG and replant thing is bad design. There was a reason farming was changed so we didn't have to replant each time. Because it isn't fun and it isn't necessary. They already grow at a pace that is comically fast anyway. At least they did in A19. There is no reason to force us to replant and then give some trash RNG. The other system was better, even if it was too fast.

I disagree. The only perennials you farm in real life are fruit and nut trees/bushes. Every other crop you have to replant after every harvest.

 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

I agree on the general idea that new features should be challenged by players depending on how fun or useful they seem to be.

However, there's still the balancing issue that the developer will need to address: we, as players, are of course all about keeping what is fun/convenient for us (e.g.: all cars should be drivable, crops should be a permanent source of food, pipe weapons should do more damage, the drone should be able to shoot zombies), but in the end most players will never make the hard choices which will effectively balance the game to make it more "fun" in the long run.

I'm not saying every choice the devs make is great, mind you, I'm just saying that we should at least give it a shot before taking up the pitchforks.

The problem is; much like zombies digging, many features are opposed vehemently by people who won't even be affected.

It's funny to me, and quite sad, that those who want the above ground challenge (to use a previous example of an implemented change) aren't only opposed to disabling zombies digging, but also even against the idea of a slider to disable it. Same goes for some who are suddenly all 'Farming is OP' and could easily take their own advice and not farm, but won't because they don't want others to have the convenience of sustainability; or perhaps because the nerf is a new and infallible Fun Pimp change.

Trying to avoid false dichotomies, we could have cars as pipe weapons - variation in weapon stats analogous to some cars being able to be fixed.

The other poster actually has a good point  - being able to do up some of the world vehicles will retain their aesthetic properties while giving players an amazing functional opportunity.

Speaking of pipe weapons, why the hell can't we just have a length of iron pipe to batter the zombies with, or a huge rock, or a plank of wood, more post apocalyptic melee weapon variety instead of elaborately designed pipe guns of hand crafted wooden clubs.

A separate point, I know, but it seems the Devs are going for a more complicated eye candy appeal than raw post apocalyptic survival experience in some respects.