PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

WarMongerian said:
My friend and I are sitting out the 2.0 experimental build, but I am hearing many good things about it, but some things concern me, as well.

My friend generated a RWG world, and we have been playing all our games using that world since he made it. Will that world still work in 2.0, given that we make a new game, but using that world as the 'map'?

I'm a handicapped player, and my eyesight and fingers don't work as well as they used to. On horde nights, I am getting incoming fire from multiple cop zombies, all of whom are able to fire upon me from beyond my eye's limited sight range, meaning that I can only usually see them/find them, after they fire and I have a chance to maneuver around and locate them, I can then work the horde, draw them away from the slower cop zombies, and then circle around and begin searching for them.

Because of the stiffness of my fingers, due to arthritis and nerve damage from multiple strokes, I cannot really manage to use a bow unless the enemy is motionless, and this means mostly I can only hit a target at the bottom of a ladder, which is to high for them to climb, so they stand around and hit the base.

I fight the good fight on the ground, against the two legged undead, using gathering tools, blade, and spear, but the 4 legged ones just eat me, and so I have to climb up a ladder, and use a bow to kill them. If I can get a series of short, quality alone times, one-on-one with my little self delivering farm plot friends, all is good, otherwise, up the ladder I must go.

Given my physical limitations, I am concerned about all these new, ranged attackers being added to the game. Will vanilla come with a way to opt out of ranged/AoE attacks, or will all future play need to be modded play, where all such attacks can be turned off?

Also, I recently started trying out the spear over the shovel, but I miss much more often with the smaller spear tip as opposed to the broad head on the shovel, and since my friend and I have also, this latest game, decided to turn down the extra XP settings (150% rather than 300% like we have always been playing before), we are staying low level longer, and thus are weaker than we are used to being by day 35.

My friend is a few months younger than I am, but both of us re looking back at 60.
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You can use the same world, though you may have to copy the main.ttw file from a 2.0 world (one of the pregen worlds is fine) and place it into your map's folder. That may not end up being necessary, but you'll know what to do if the map doesn't work.

Also remember that you will not have any new POI in your old map, so you may just want to start a new map anyhow. There are some nice new POI in 2.0.

So there is no confusion, we are talking about using an old map. You cannot use an old save. Also, maps older than 1.0 will not work because of POI changes.

There isn't likely going to be a way to opt out of range attacks, and they will get even worse with bandits in 3.0. So you may need to consider mods for that.

The spear isn't hard to use I've you get used to it. Give it a chance and you will probably enjoy it.
 
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Am I missing something really obvious, or is it a bug that loot stage isn't changing due to biome?

At first I thought maybe you didn't get the biome multiplier until you have the biome badge, which would discourage day one wasteland car looting etc. but even with the badges my gamestage shows as increased but my lootstage is staying pinned at my level.

I was thinking loot had been rather poor, having never looted any weapon that wasn't a pipe weapon, ever, but I thought that was loot caps at work or something.
 
Riamus said:
The spear isn't hard to use I've you get used to it. Give it a chance and you will probably enjoy it.
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Oh, I did. Last game, after reaching 300th level, I had started playing around with the spear as an experimental improvement over using my shovel, and lo and behold! :)

Once you have invested into the spear, getting the stamina back lets me stop quaffing mass quantities of blackstrap coffee during Horde nights. This game, for the first time, we lowered the XP to (just) 150%, as opposed to the 300% we had always been playing with before. It is definitely harder when you cannot reach level 100 well before 2nd horde night, and we just did our 5th one since starting the current game on June 1st.

I still miss alot (heck, I still miss a bit even with the shovel, even on a good night), but the spear is much more rewarding as a zombie killing weapon of mass destruction.
 
Only Complaint for this update would be the rarity of gun parts. It took 11 hours playing before I found my first handgun part. At this point, I could have made a Q5 Pistol, but lacked the parts.

Looking through the looting.xml file, it appears you've mostly put those in cop cars, army trucks, and Shotgun Messiah crates. Unfortunately I haven't even seen a Shotgun Messiah, army trucks are usually in higher tier POIs, and I looted every cop car I found.

In 1.x, there was an army checkpoint everywhere. This doesn't seem to be the case in 2.0, as I haven't seen a single one.

Please reconsider the rarity of these parts. It got a bit frustrating.
 
meganoth said:
As I said previously, single players get the short straw from this setup, but it makes the best sense for co-op, starting with 2 players already. Secondly, you can easily get 2 or 3 levels of any of those resource perks with minimal investment and that usually gives around half the bonus the full skill would get. Which is what I always do in single player.

Remember, in the "general" category perks have increasing costs. If all resource perks wandered into general as well it might even cost you MORE as single player to get them all to that same (sufficient) level. (I'll have to do the exact math when I have time to play the game, had no chance yet).

Int and Agi have resource perks as well. Int has two, Better Barter and Daring Adventurer. Instead of scrounging you are simply buying the materials and ammo or get them as additional rewards. Agi is a bit special, the "resource" perks are the stealth perks. Because they allow you to kill zombies with less ammo waste (at least while shooting and not on horde night) you can mostly skip any mining for ammo as you should have a bigger surplus on ammo, which can be enough to cover horde night.
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So that’s something I don’t like about this system and I wish they did like pre-alpha 17 alphas did. The increasing costs kind of partially defeat the purpose of moving them into a general tab because you’re spending the same amount of points to get them before. I wish they were locked behind player levels or just leave them at one skill point per level.

I can kind of understand what you’re saying about the trader perks being the resource gathering equivalent… but the stealth perks are a stretch. You’re still expending some kind of ammo in order to get kills… they’re combat perks. Period. I can’t even argue it’s semantics because, respectfully, this is more like gymnastics you need to perform to argue this.
 
Jost Amman said:
I'm sorry (because I can't stand him ;)) but I have to agree with @meganoth's approach this time around.

I only play single player so I always have to consider carefully what to invest in after each level-up.
Because of that, with all my experience playing 7D2D I can say with some confidence that you're "playing it wrong".

Have you ever heard of the term ASYMMETRIC GAMEPLAY?

7D2D is one of those games. Few people, however, know or want to learn how to play that type of RPG game, so they often fall back to the same-old same-old min-maxer routine. In that regard, you're not alone.

Please, forgive me if I sound like I'm judging you, I mean no offence, I just don't like to play around with words and saying it straight for me it's a form of respect actually. Learn to play in an asymmetrical way and just put a point here and there in the "secondary" skills. You'll enjoy a completely different way to play the game. Different each time.

On a practical level this is how you can do it:
  • Pick a "main class" (attribute)
  • Pick a "secondary class"
  • Also pick a few other "extra" skills you think are always needed
  • Early game invest points in the (mainly) support skills from the main/secondary/extra you picked (e.g. motherlode)
  • The more you progress the more points you'll put in your main class to support your combat
  • Middle game you can start raising your secondary class up to attribute Level 3 (not more)
  • Late game you'll be specialized in your main class almost fully and will have developed all skill you need from secondary up to Level 3
The result, depending on the "classes" you pick, won't always the most optimal way.
That's the point. More struggle with some classes, more fun and challenges to overcome.

It's good, I promise! (y)
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Nothing about what you are saying is screaming respectfully… It’s patronizing. “You’re playing it wrong” and “have you heard of asymmetrical gameplay?” in particular. You drown this in good intention but I think you know exactly how this is coming across. And I’ve been playing this way for years because this is the way the game has been since alpha 17.
 
Uncle Al said:
Am I missing something really obvious, or is it a bug that loot stage isn't changing due to biome?
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They removed that system entirely didn't they? Before, Going to a harder biome would give a flat loot bonus modifier like +50

My understanding is that system is now gone and rather than a positive incentive to go to the harder biomes, there's a negative incentive to leave the forest. You don't get a better modifier if you drive to the wasteland biome day 1, all it does is raise your loot stage cap which is only relevant if you are already capped out
 
This update is about some brewing storms, so I have a suggestion. Consider making storms global - each biome has its own effects but storm is happening in all at the same time.

It feels weird to have the storm suddenly start when stepping into the adjacent biome and also stepping out to hide from the storm. Global storms would make the weather feel more consistent.
 
Khalagar said:
They removed that system entirely didn't they? Before, Going to a harder biome would give a flat loot bonus modifier like +50

My understanding is that system is now gone and rather than a positive incentive to go to the harder biomes, there's a negative incentive to leave the forest. You don't get a better modifier if you drive to the wasteland biome day 1, all it does is raise your loot stage cap which is only relevant if you are already capped out
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Thanks. Yes, I eventually figured out biome scaling is no longer a thing. I must have missed any discussion on that or was just slow on the uptake.

One reason that wasn't my immediate assumption is that looting is incredibly out of whack with both crafting and trading in my first 2.0 playthrough. In a Tier 3 POI in the snow I'm running a loot stage of 56, which I assume isn't being capped, as I don't think being in the snow in week 3 is by particularly slow for an average game. Moreso with the new biome progression gating in place. I'm still only looting pipe weapons, usually Q4 - Q5 now, while I'm equipped with a Q3 pump action shotgun (bought) and a Q1 sniper rifle (crafted).

That seems...problematic.

I appreciate balancing the three routes to gear acquisition is extremely hard, and I've loved the changes that have made crafting viable, but it does seem looting needs a bit of love these days.

I suppose running at lower than 100% loot should help, as you'll loot the same quality gear, just less often, while crafting quality should be flat reduced by the lowered magazine drop rate.
 
Yeah the looting is still going to need some tweaking. Part of being experimental I guess. I expect they will need to rebalance looting a decent bit. Currently yeah you are able to progress way faster by crafting, which honestly isn't that bad since it was the reverse for ages where there was no point in crafting because you would do a single PoI and find a better gun
 
I finally got to play a little 2.0 earlier today, great job @faatal and everyone involved!
I'm only into day 3 but having a blast.

Only gripe I have so far is that sound when killing a zombie with the sledgehammer (could be clubs too but only witnessed the sledge). It's the sound when a player breaks a leg when falling from too far.
To me, it sounds annoying. Maybe if it was a random sound, give it more "umph".
I don't know, could just be me I guess.

Overall, loving 2.0!!
 
meganoth said:
Stop right there. You invent "awesome perks" that TFP will summon out of their magic hat to make your great new world sooo much better than the current game. If that was so easy, why didn't TFP add those "fun" perks long ago and replaced underachieving perks with them like the one that gives more meat from animals?
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Lol, It's a game, ain't it? Honestly, I find any perk awesome in its own right. I never said that any perk is "underachieving" over the other. It's just that I take the time to voice my opinion about making space for more perks so that madmole gets off his butt and starts churning out more awesome perks and less awesome muscles and stop with the "I'm getting old and the game is taking so long Imma die before it's finished" -nonsense . I do see that creating and testing new perks takes many months, but as long as they make more fun, I'll consume it like a crocodile.

I've never seen a game that can put together the whole family and cross the age, cultural and generational gap between friends and family members so smoothly like this one, and it always deserves "MOAR" perks because of that. I met a 79 yo grandpa the other day while playing online. It was a wholesome experience killing a Dire Wolf pack and several screamer hordes while we talked about our life experiences over a meal next to a cozy campfire.

Now... I am a bit worried that TFP consider perk design as non-DLC material, because that would leave us wanting in that department.
 
ProlificPoultry said:
So that’s something I don’t like about this system and I wish they did like pre-alpha 17 alphas did. The increasing costs kind of partially defeat the purpose of moving them into a general tab because you’re spending the same amount of points to get them before. I wish they were locked behind player levels or just leave them at one skill point per level.

I can kind of understand what you’re saying about the trader perks being the resource gathering equivalent… but the stealth perks are a stretch. You’re still expending some kind of ammo in order to get kills… they’re combat perks. Period. I can’t even argue it’s semantics because, respectfully, this is more like gymnastics you need to perform to argue this.
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I may be misremembering, but I think this is how Madmole was justifying the distribution of perks when he set up the current system.

And in actual play as a AGI player I usually have no problems with ammo at all, though I also need a lot more time going through POIs. Remember that as an AGI player you use the bow for much of the ranged combat and the ammo for that is easy to pick up from the ground. Until glowies show up in POIs I go through many quests without expending a single bullet while finding bullets to save for horde night. I still want some mining skills for picking up resource blocks for creating a horde base, but do not usually need to dig for ammo. In a way as an agi player I trade cheap feathers for bullets.

It is ok if you look at it as "gymnastics", a friend I talked about with it had a similar reaction ;)
 
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