PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[ArakATK]

I do remember seeing some of this, thanks for reminding me.  @meganothand @Roland also brought up some good points, including the "jump" in crafting level.

But, I never thought "they don't need to have a specific perk" was a flaw, I thought it was a feature, because that's the entire point of skill trees. You have to put points into a "branch" skill in order to gain abilities in the "leaves." Otherwise 7D2D wouldn't have attributes at all, and all the perks would be on one screen. It was a form of artificial scarcity that forced the player into making choices.

And, in the end, that's what really upsets me about this change. It takes the choice out of players' hands. Their crafting skills are going to be dependent upon RWG instead. Having anything depend solely upon RWG is never as much fun as being able to make a choice - even if it's a bad choice.

EDIT: As an example - there are mods out there which separate crafting into a different skill tree. You have to spend more skill points to craft items, but they balance that by making skill points a bit easier to come by. I would prefer something like this rather than being forced to rely on looting.

Plus, it actually exacerbates what I think is the real reason players didn't craft very much: by the time they could craft a high (or even medium) tier item, they were already finding higher quality items in loot. For instance, I don't know if I ever put a point into armor, because I was finding Tier 6 cloth armor in loot before I even had a skill point to spare. This, to me, is a much larger issue than any of the others that have been raised.

For this reason, the crafting skills usually became a kind of "backup" in case RWG failed you. Put a point into (say) pistols so you craft a Tier 2 pipe pistol to hold you over until you inevitably found a Tier 6 pipe pistol in loot.

Now, by making crafting depend upon looting, it seems like you're making this situation worse. Will you find enough magazines to craft a Tier 5 pipe pistol before you start finding Tier 5 pipe pistols in loot (including quest loot)? Or will you have even more of a chance to find a Tier 5 pipe pistol, because the game is forcing you to do more looting?

...But I probably won't change anyone's mind now, and I've made my point, so after this post I'll drop it.

Reading this I'm struck by the realization that when trying to explain why the devs shouldn't be doing what they're doing, the community here is very quick to recognize how interconnected all the systems are, and how nuanced the art of balancing is.. But when it comes time for TFP to make several major changes at once, suddenly it's all very simple, and learn by reading is entirely based on RNG. It's not, you know. It's been stated from the beginning that the magazines you're looting are 1) more plentiful than the books of A20 etc, and 2) drops are weighted based on perk investment into related trees and skills. Books and schematics were completely RNG. They're dialing back some of that RNG, and you're mad because it's ... RNG? I mean yes, there's some RNG in it... obviously.. but as far as the magazines go from my understanding, however many "types" of magazine there are, that's all you can drop, it's not like there's 500 new items to drop, there's just one for each magazine type, and it's weighted by your skill investment, so with a small pool of possibilities, even a paltry weighting of the drops would probably yield a very pronounced effect on the drops. As opposed to just looting as many book stores as you can PRAYING that this time you'll get that auto shotgun schematic you've been hunting for.

From my understanding at the high end, where it really matters, this is WAY less RNG than schematics. At the low end it's way more RNG, but at the low end it doesn't really matter, if you're specced for shotguns it doesn't matter as much if you use your rifle parts to make a sniper rifle, or a hunting rifle, because either of them is going to be unweildy for you, but still valuable to have. But as you progress you'll get those shotgun magazines faster and faster as your skill investment improves, you'll see that payoff faster, and if you pass those magazines to your team's person perked into crafting speed, then they'll be getting those books from multiple shotgun wielders, meaning you'll get to auto shotties way faster than just hoping and praying for RNG. 

Partner that with skill changes, loot table balancing, reworks to traders and loot staging, and we can't predict what will come out with A21. But they and their testers have it in hand. I do hope you'll all be just as active here talking about these changes after we've got them in hand, because right now our opinions mean nothing because they aren't informed. You don't know anything to base your opinion of it being a bad idea on. You're guessing, but they've played it, and first hand information trumps armchair quarterbacks any day of the week.

 

[Mister Forgash]

I think it's also worth mentioning again that the magazines you loot is also affected by the PoI you're in, giving you an additional means of influencing what you'll be finding while making your run.

I understand concerns that crafting might not keep pace with looting, but we've also heard with loot and trader rebalancing to coincide with this change, and finally, the play testers are claiming they're doing way more crafting.. I mean, I guess they could be lying.. but they seem like trustworthy enough folks.

I'm just very eager to see when a date gets pinned down that 21 can be released to the public and we can feel for ourselves the impact of the changes.

Too much doom and gloom, not enough wait and see.

 

[Roland]

But, I never thought "they don't need to have a specific perk" was a flaw, I thought it was a feature, because that's the entire point of skill trees. You have to put points into a "branch" skill in order to gain abilities in the "leaves." Otherwise 7D2D wouldn't have attributes at all, and all the perks would be on one screen. It was a form of artificial scarcity that forced the player into making choices.

Mostly all the same trees and leaves from A20 are still there but instead of unlocking recipes they add greater ability when taking action as a player. Wherever a perk was mostly just a recipe unlock it is now a skill increase for that action and in many cases an increased chance to find magazines and parts needed for crafting.

And, in the end, that's what really upsets me about this change. It takes the choice out of players' hands. Their crafting skills are going to be dependent upon RWG instead. Having anything depend solely upon RWG is never as much fun as being able to make a choice - even if it's a bad choice.

EDIT: As an example - there are mods out there which separate crafting into a different skill tree. You have to spend more skill points to craft items, but they balance that by making skill points a bit easier to come by. I would prefer something like this rather than being forced to rely on looting.

It does do this to some extent. I am absolutely certain that people who are used to rushing all the recipes to T3 are going to feel frustration at not having the control to optimize their gear progression as quickly as they are used to being able to do it. It won't matter that they are finding magazines regularly and incrementally working their way up the tiers. I think that most people who don't care about rushing will find the pace enjoyable-- but I could be wrong, of course. 

In this case I'm going to say the R word and say that it is actually more realistic that the players are learning to craft from reading about it rather than by spending points or even by the A16 LBD. Repetitive practice gets you really good at doing things you already know how to do but they do not reveal new knowledge you don't already have. Skillpoints earned from doing a variety of survival actions can be thought of has general knowledge that can increase your survival skills but they wouldn't reveal the secret of how to make or craft something you've never made before. But finding old world knowledge by piecing together parts of articles from magazines absolutely could be a way to learn new knowledge. 

I know that people are judging the new magazine feature by what they've experienced in the past with books and schematics in this game. The magazines are nothing like those. I played Darkness Falls since I was curious about how similar the magazine feature is to that mod. It is nothing like it.

Plus, it actually exacerbates what I think is the real reason players didn't craft very much: by the time they could craft a high (or even medium) tier item, they were already finding higher quality items in loot. For instance, I don't know if I ever put a point into armor, because I was finding Tier 6 cloth armor in loot before I even had a skill point to spare. This, to me, is a much larger issue than any of the others that have been raised.

It is completely counter-intuitive because it does seem as though this change would mean less crafting and more getting gear in loot but it is just not the case. I craft all the time now. I very rarely find something better than I can craft and those moments are cool because they are so rare. There are more parts and knowledge being found than actual full working weapons. When you do find a weapon it is usually something you already have so you scrap it for parts so you can craft the next higher tier. It completely returns crafting as a pillar to the game and at the same time it makes looting a lot more rewarding and fun. I think many people who don't like looting in A20 and below will suddenly find it more appealing in A21 and beyond.

Now, by making crafting depend upon looting, it seems like you're making this situation worse. Will you find enough magazines to craft a Tier 5 pipe pistol before you start finding Tier 5 pipe pistols in loot (including quest loot)? Or will you have even more of a chance to find a Tier 5 pipe pistol, because the game is forcing you to do more looting?

You might find a tier 5 pistol rarely before you can craft one if pistols aren't something you perked into. But most of the time you absolutely will be crafting stuff before you find it. Of course, that will also be affected by where you scavenge. If you head into the wasteland early on then you will have a much better chance at finding better loot than you can craft but that will be a choice you will be making. But even then the ratio of working guns to parts to magazines in loot is more towards parts and magazines.

 

[khzmusik]

It is completely counter-intuitive because it does seem as though this change would mean less crafting and more getting gear in loot but it is just not the case. I craft all the time now. I very rarely find something better than I can craft and those moments are cool because they are so rare. There are more parts and knowledge being found than actual full working weapons. When you do find a weapon it is usually something you already have so you scrap it for parts so you can craft the next higher tier. It completely returns crafting as a pillar to the game and at the same time it makes looting a lot more rewarding and fun. I think many people who don't like looting in A20 and below will suddenly find it more appealing in A21 and beyond.

I'm glad to hear that my main issue with crafting vs. looting seems to be rebalanced now.

In any case - it just occurred to me that if I really don't like the RNG aspect of it, it should be pretty easy to make the magazines craftable. You know, magazines and schematics could scrap to "skill pages" which could be used in recipes for the crafting magazines. So if you want to craft a shotgun, you wouldn't have to wait for RNG to give you a shotgun magazine, you could scrap other magazines (pistols, spears, whatever) and craft a shotgun magazine from the skill pages. Several mods already do something similar.

There would still be a little bit of RWG (since you'd need to find some magazines/schematics in the first place), but it would allow players to choose which crafting magazines they'd prefer to read (or "spec into").

So either way I'm probably good. I'll wait until I play A21 to see if such a mod would be an improvement.

 

[Laz Man]

But, I never thought "they don't need to have a specific perk" was a flaw, I thought it was a feature, because that's the entire point of skill trees. You have to put points into a "branch" skill in order to gain abilities in the "leaves." Otherwise 7D2D wouldn't have attributes at all, and all the perks would be on one screen. It was a form of artificial scarcity that forced the player into making choices.

I agree, I don't consider the previous design of unlocking recipes via perks a flaw.  They basically were an alternative method for acquiring specific recipes apart from looting.  I can empathize with the worry of those who enjoyed using that alternative method as it certainly was one way to progress crafting.  Although players will no longer be able to XP grind / Perk unlock their favorite crafting recipes anymore, I personally hope the new crafting progression system along with many other related changes will be a net positive experience.  (e.g. extra skill points to allocate elsewhere since no longer needed for unlocking recipes,  experience a wider range of crafts per playthrough, etc.)

As far as the entire point of the skill trees, I don't believe it's main point was to segment crafting.  Crafting unlocks was just a secondary benefit to it IMO.

Plus, it actually exacerbates what I think is the real reason players didn't craft very much: by the time they could craft a high (or even medium) tier item, they were already finding higher quality items in loot. For instance, I don't know if I ever put a point into armor, because I was finding Tier 6 cloth armor in loot before I even had a skill point to spare. This, to me, is a much larger issue than any of the others that have been raised.

Agreed, loot and trader stock is still being balanced accordingly as well.

 

[RipClaw]

I think it's also worth mentioning again that the magazines you loot is also affected by the PoI you're in, giving you an additional means of influencing what you'll be finding while making your run.

Actually, it's more the kind of crate that determines what kind of magazines you find. If you find a working stiff crate in an apartment building, it has the same loot table as the working stiff crate in a working stiff or on a construction site.

I understand concerns that crafting might not keep pace with looting, but we've also heard with loot and trader rebalancing to coincide with this change, and finally, the play testers are claiming they're doing way more crafting.. I mean, I guess they could be lying.. but they seem like trustworthy enough folks.

It's more the concern that you can't keep up with the gamestage if you don't loot enough.

Nobody is implying that the test players are lying, but there are things we don't know.

For example, we don't know the playstyle of the test players. We don't know how much time they spend looting and how much time they spend doing other activities. We don't know how often they do quests or if they do quests at all. All this has an impact on progress, which in turn affects balancing based on feedback from the test players.

Let's say the test players loot a lot on average and spend little time on other activities. Then the balancing will take this into account so that the developers get the desired progress. Players who loot significantly less and spend more time on other activities will therefore have a slower progress.

 

[Laz Man]

In any case - it just occurred to me that if I really don't like the RNG aspect of it, it should be pretty easy to make the magazines craftable. You know, magazines and schematics could scrap to "skill pages" which could be used in recipes for the crafting magazines. So if you want to craft a shotgun, you wouldn't have to wait for RNG to give you a shotgun magazine, you could scrap other magazines (pistols, spears, whatever) and craft a shotgun magazine from the skill pages. Several mods already do something similar.

That idea once crossed my mind.  I certainly can understand the appeal and convenience but its too early to see if something like that is even needed.  Keep in mind magazines can also be purchased from the trader and received as quest rewards.  Additionally, it is just a method that encourages mindless grinding (e.g. just loot 1000 skill pages from mailboxes and learn how to craft an M60).

If more methods to acquire magazines were needed, I would prefer something more immersive like a limited late game quests that players can engage in versus some magical magazine recycler.  Any idea of the sort is cart before the horse talk until A21 is experienced by the public.

 

[DuHast_Play]

Good day to all!
Please clarify if there is any news regarding alpha 21? and there is a question. Will past worlds still be active? Or the saves will fly off after the update? I've been playing for a little over a month just ... thanks in advance

 

[RipClaw]

Good day to all!
Please clarify if there is any news regarding alpha 21? and there is a question.
Will past worlds still be active? Or the saves will fly off after the update? I've been playing for a little over a month just ... thanks in advance

No no news regarding A21. You will not be able to keep the worlds, you will have to start over. That has been the case with every new alpha so far.
 

 

[DuHast_Play]

Нет никаких новостей относительно A21. Вы не сможете удержать миры, вам придется начинать заново. Так было с каждой новой альфой до сих пор.
 

Thank you for your reply! It's sad that the saves will fly off .. my friend and I rebuilt so cool on the common world and I separately rebuilt on another world .. with an underground garage and a separate room for resources)) well, nothing ... we'll catch up, I think) the main thing is to find a bridge ...

 

[RipClaw]

Thank you for your reply! It's sad that the saves will fly off .. my friend and I rebuilt so cool on the common world and I separately rebuilt on another world .. with an underground garage and a separate room for resources)) well, nothing ... we'll catch up, I think) the main thing is to find a bridge ...

You can save your buildings and paste them back into A21 if you want. Here is a tutorial by Mr. Reach

 

[DuHast_Play]

9 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Вы можете сохранить свои здания и вставить их обратно в A21, если хотите. Вот учебник мистера Рича

Thank you so much buddy!!!! I hope this works, because I'm not strong in console commands and so on .. we'll try

 

[Uncle Al]

As far as new crafting goes I'm assuming the desired sweet spot for knowledge vs. parts drops is that players don't always craft a new item as soon as the get the required knowledge, but equally avoids the current situation where you hang on to your parts for a very late craft. Thus maximising meaningful player choice.

It occurs to me there are a couple of parameters that heavily influence this behaviour: How many parts higher tier versions require over lower tier versions, and the degree to which higher tier versions of items give back more parts when scrapped.

If a Q4 item was giving back 80% of the parts required to make it, or similar, that would push things strongly towards 'always craft as soon as you can'. If it stays at more like 15%, as it is now, that pushes heavily towards 'craft late'.

A bit of playing around with those ratios should allow for fine tuning to hit the sweet spot for the majority of players. Without telling the devs what's easy and what's not (as an agilist I'm a firm believer that only the people who are going to do the work get to estimate it) it does strike me that you may well be able to vary those two parameters without making significant changes to the rest of the system, giving a lot of flexible control over the incentives to adopt a particular crafting behaviour.

This is a good thing.

 

[RipClaw]

If a Q4 item was giving back 80% of the parts required to make it, or similar, that would push things strongly towards 'always craft as soon as you can'. If it stays at more like 15%, as it is now, that pushes heavily towards 'craft late'.

As far as I know, the number of parts you get when scrapping a weapon or a tool is always the same, no matter what quality level.
For example, an AK47 gives you 3 parts and an M60 gives you 4 parts.

 

[meganoth]

Thank you for your reply! It's sad that the saves will fly off .. my friend and I rebuilt so cool on the common world and I separately rebuilt on another world .. with an underground garage and a separate room for resources)) well, nothing ... we'll catch up, I think) the main thing is to find a bridge ...

If you got the game on steam you can select to stay on A20 as long as you like. OR you can save your current game directory to a different location and as long as steam is running in the background you can start that game by hand and play both A20 and A21. I would use different user accounts on the same PC for each version though as there sometimes are settings that are incompatible between versions.

As far as I know, the number of parts you get when scrapping a weapon or a tool is always the same, no matter what quality level.
For example, an AK47 gives you 3 parts and an M60 gives you 4 parts.

That knowledge may soon be a relict of the past. We know they had to doctor on the parts mechanism. Whether they only increased the drop chances for parts or did more? Who knows?

 

[Quagmire1428]

@faatal So with this extended period of developement, is A21 a larger update than usual, or is it moreover that is has been a trickier one? i'm in no rush for it as i know it will happen when it happens, just wondering.    . . . anyway, hope your sanity is holding up with all this  and things are good for you!

 

[WhiteLion]

When you say "private server" are you talking about a dedicated server that is password protected to keep it private or are you talking about one person hosting the others on their own personal rig while they are playing as well? There is a huge difference in required specs to be able to host others on your own computer. It would be great for them to be able to improve things to the point that person to person multiplayer could work buttery smooth but it may end up being something not recommended for more than two players.

There are four of us who play on a dedicated server and we never suffer those delays. But if even just two of us decide to play directly hosted by the other then the client almost always suffers from those types of delays. Adding more players would make it worse.

thx 4 ur reply. I mean a dedicated server standing next to my PC, connected to my LAN. No other players or action is eating the CPU power. I always got these lags and hosting games since A12 or so. While then I changed four times my complete hardware. Ping is at 1ms when connected, same for my GF. My friend connects from outside LAN and has a bit higher ping. The CPU / RAM / SSD is board while the game is running. Only one CPU core is used most times (servers as clients) so I guess its bad multithreaded.

 

[Terwin]

Too much doom and gloom, not enough wait and see.

Not much point in posting if you are in the 'wait and see' camp, so 'Doom and gloom' is all that is visible.

 

[Fanatical_Meat]

Good day to all!
Please clarify if there is any news regarding alpha 21? and there is a question. Will past worlds still be active? Or the saves will fly off after the update? I've been playing for a little over a month just ... thanks in advance

Saves typically cannot be kept when moving to a new Alpha without breaking something in the game.

 

[Fritzkola87]

Hello, I'm getting really disappointed that there is so little news and information for alpha 21!

and only stream suggestions for the Twich extension

I understand that it is a lot of work and that it also takes a long time, but to state the whole year as the date for the alpha 2023 is intense

and then there are the streams

and then the streamers so I can hope for December 23rd

otherwise you are doing a great job. but give us new information and material for the old friends

LG fan from Germany