PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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Roland said:
Exactly the kind of tough decisions that make a game good. Scarcity of resources means making a choice to make a Q1 or wait for Q2 or Q3 before doing it. Regardless, you'll have an auger of some kind until you can somehow acquire or craft that Q5. As I said, some people will hate that they are using a Q2 auger for longer than 5 minutes. But it is still an important distinction that you will have an auger of some quality whereas before when there was just one rare schematic drop to find you went completely without.
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That is true when the game's loot system actually provides more parts than fully functional tools. I guess the new system will make it less obvious as to "when" you'll be able to craft a higher level item since it's RNG based and not based on experience/point attribution. That being said if you find steel tools in the loot before you find any significant amount of parts, then we'll be back at square one where i'll have to find 3-4 low quality augers before I can finally craft a good one, and by the time that happens i'll probably have found a good quality one before I'm able to craft it myself.

Any changes regarding the balance of finding parts/functional tools ? 

Other than that I mostly agree that the feature list is lackluster given the timeframe; I guess most developers are currently working on long term A22+ features, while another part of the team works on balancing & assets that make it to A21. Still excited to see how the new LBL system will shake up the predictable progression we have now.

 
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Doomofman said:
What's with posts on this clue getting hidden?
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We have been under attack by a very aggressive spammer and so we changed the post approval process so that we have to approve any posts with links. I’m not sure why your post stayed hidden. I couldn’t unhide it and it wasn’t in the approval queue. I retyped it into your follow up post which was the only way to make it appear. Very strange. 

 
Roland said:
We have been under attack by a very aggressive spammer and so we changed the post approval process so that we have to approve any posts with links. I’m not sure why your post stayed hidden. I couldn’t unhide it and it wasn’t in the approval queue. I retyped it into your follow up post which was the only way to make it appear. Very strange. 
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I put a Youtube video of the Barbie in it initially, guess that's what caused it, but even after removing the video it was still hidden.

 
Secret stash going is fine by me. What is secret about a stash that gets offered to everyone? And yes, skipping the loot progression with the better secret stashes should not happen.

Another interpretation that also would make game play sense would be that better secret stashes now increase aka stack on the lower stashes. I.e. someone seeing a higher secret stash will see the same stuff as someone seeing a lower stash, plus a few additional items. 

 
Matt115 said:
I think it will be... Say good to secret stash - starway to heaven .... well this is bad change....
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Or it could mean the barbie, aka "skeletons" need to wear deodorant before going up stairs and mingling with a group of people.....I just solved it!!!

Skeletons are finally coming!!!!

But I wonder if they'll be wearing both shoes.....🤔

Roland, we need more hints 🕺

meganoth said:
Secret stash going is fine by me. What is secret about a stash that gets offered to everyone? And yes, skipping the loot progression with the better secret stashes should not happen.

Another interpretation that also would make game play sense would be that better secret stashes now increase aka stack on the lower stashes. I.e. someone seeing a higher secret stash will see the same stuff as someone seeing a lower stash, plus a few additional items. 
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I agree, I wouldn't miss the secret stash being done away with either. 

I never really got the point of it. It was just another column to click on to see if they had that beaker, crucible, or whatever other item was desperately being hunted for. 

 
meganoth said:
Secret stash going is fine by me. What is secret about a stash that gets offered to everyone? And yes, skipping the loot progression with the better secret stashes should not happen.

Another interpretation that also would make game play sense would be that better secret stashes now increase aka stack on the lower stashes. I.e. someone seeing a higher secret stash will see the same stuff as someone seeing a lower stash, plus a few additional items. 
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Em.. better loot? purple quality items, often good stuff like beaker or .. 4x4 truck.  Skipping loot proggression is good because... in my opinion there shoudn't be loot progression - you are luck you have m60 if you don't junk rifle

 
Doomofman said:
I put a Youtube video of the Barbie in it initially, guess that's what caused it, but even after removing the video it was still hidden.
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haha...that also explains why I couldn't approve the post. By trying to fix it you removed the part that had to be approved and so it was impossible to be approved. Once a post is marked for approval only a moderator can approve it. Users can't fix it by editing. :)

Matt115 said:
 in my opinion there shoudn't be loot progression - you are luck you have m60 if you don't junk rifle
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I would agree IF we had permanent item degradation but since we don't and TFP is not interested in putting it in, we cannot have best stuff showing up early game that lasts forever and makes looting irrelevant for the rest of the game. Someone just was talking about how underwhelming a T5 quest can be when the loot rewards are items of lower quality than you already have. 

No, loot progression is a must in a game design that eschews entropy. Think of it like this: what if you found a lucky cargo drop that had 20 stacks of 64 meat stews in the very first drop? Great right? Not if you like farming because now farming is irrelevant. See a deer? So what? When you get something that will last the whole playthrough and invalidates part of the game so early, it isn't good.

 
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Roland said:
I would agree IF we had permanent item degradation but since we don't and TFP is not interested in putting it in, we cannot have best stuff showing up early game that lasts forever and makes looting irrelevant for the rest of the game. Someone just was talking about how underwhelming a T5 quest can be when the loot rewards are items of lower quality than you already have. 
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I feel like at this point adding item degradation would've been easier for them than the numerous loot/perk rebalances they've had to do to try and get it where they want it. And it's just better. ;)

 
bdubyah said:
I feel like at this point adding item degradation would've been easier for them than the numerous loot/perk rebalances they've had to do to try and get it where they want it. And it's just better. ;)
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The problem with item degradation and food spoilage type mechanics is that they are very polarizing. Some people love them and some people hate them. And it seems to be pretty evenly split in the player base and just as importantly on the dev team. 

I think entropic designs will be able to be modded into the game and when that happens that mod will also probably include early game lucky finds. 

 
Roland said:
The problem with item degradation and food spoilage type mechanics is that they are very polarizing. Some people love them and some people hate them. And it seems to be pretty evenly split in the player base and just as importantly on the dev team. 
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The same could be said about several features and changes they've made over the years. With them pushing towards making looting even more important, item degradation just seems like such an obvious thing. Their main argument on the forums I saw from MM and maybe faatal was always what to do with the mods if the item drops a tier and loses a mod slot, and that is easily fixed by not allowing the repair until the mods are removed. Which to me is yet another good change as being able to carry repair kits and repair items in one second while in the middle of a fight is dumb.

 
bdubyah said:
The same could be said about several features and changes they've made over the years. With them pushing towards making looting even more important, item degradation just seems like such an obvious thing. Their main argument on the forums I saw from MM and maybe faatal was always what to do with the mods if the item drops a tier and loses a mod slot, and that is easily fixed by not allowing the repair until the mods are removed. Which to me is yet another good change as being able to carry repair kits and repair items in one second while in the middle of a fight is dumb.
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I think the model they're reaching for (IMO) is more like the one that is used by games like Diablo, Torchlight and Grim Dawn.

They have no gear degradation, but the variety of modifiers you can have on armor and weapons is astounding, so looting never gets old.

I hope they can achieve something similar, to a degree, when (if) they introduce legendary items.

 
bdubyah said:
The same could be said about several features and changes they've made over the years.
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On the community side, I agree. But not on the development team side. All of those changes that were controversial among the community were unanimously supported by the team. There is no consensus on these issues (or zip lines) among the team. It will have to be a mod. 

 
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Jost Amman said:
I think the model they're reaching for (IMO) is more like the one that is used by games like Diablo, Torchlight and Grim Dawn.

They have no gear degradation, but the variety of modifiers you can have on armor and weapons is astounding, so looting never gets old.

I hope they can achieve something similar, to a degree, when (if) they introduce legendary items.
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Possible, but the rng on item stats is usually so small it doesn't matter unless you are min/maxing. Weapons have a bit more variance due to higher values used, but armor is only gonna vary by a point, maybe two at the most. Now if legendary items come with unique stats/boosts already then that would help. But as it stands now looting dies way too easily in a game they are pushing players to loot in. If they hadn't nixed things like weapon parts, which really helped the life of looting for many, or item degradation was a thing it wouldn't be so bad.

Hopefully there are more changes to come in these areas.

Roland said:
On the community side, I agree. But not on the development team side. All of those changes that were controversial among the community were unanimously supported by the team. There is no consensus on these issues (or zip lines) among the team. It will have to be a mod.
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So what is their process on these types of things? Do they vote? Majority wins, or do things have to be unanimous? Just curious. :)

 
Jost Amman said:
I think the model they're reaching for (IMO) is more like the one that is used by games like Diablo, Torchlight and Grim Dawn.

They have no gear degradation, but the variety of modifiers you can have on armor and weapons is astounding, so looting never gets old.

I hope they can achieve something similar, to a degree, when (if) they introduce legendary items.
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In this case, I would like to see legendary modifications as well.At some point I realized that I didn't want to use the auger because of the noise and the screamer, I prefer to use a steel pickaxe.If I could find/buy/create a mod that would allow me to collect 1 block for 1 hit, I would be a little happy.It's still not as efficient as an auger, but for SP it's enough for me.It would be interesting with melee weapons as well.If I don't like the look of a steel bat, I could use a baseball bat and a legendary mod to get a slightly worse efficiency than a steel bat.The more variety the better.And I'm willing to spend a lot of dukes/resources/time for this mod.

 
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bdubyah said:
The same could be said about several features and changes they've made over the years. With them pushing towards making looting even more important, item degradation just seems like such an obvious thing. Their main argument on the forums I saw from MM and maybe faatal was always what to do with the mods if the item drops a tier and loses a mod slot, and that is easily fixed by not allowing the repair until the mods are removed. Which to me is yet another good change as being able to carry repair kits and repair items in one second while in the middle of a fight is dumb.
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There is already too much mod swapping necessary. Before any of that the UI would have to be improved so you don't need so many clicks for swapping mods in and out.

 
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