PC Alpha 17 - Cut Content Discussion

[meganoth]

Before replying to your points I'd like to say that yes, magazines are somewhat underwhelming, especially compared to the stuff previously found in bookcases. But really, "in A16 this was different" is a non-argument, only "in A16 it was better" would be an argument. But books in A16 were not that good either, too easy to find and useless after you find the first one. A17 magazines work sufficiently for the time being (except for stackable issue), other parts are not finished as well at the moment.

But:

You have enough points to max everything. In fact you end up with more points than you can spend in the end.

Factually wrong all the way up to ~level 270. Until level 19 you have just 24 perk points available and exactly 99 perk levels you could put points into. Until level 29 you have 34 perk points available and about 125 perk levels you could put points into And this continues ALL the way up to somewhere around level 270.

Will more than 1% of players ever play to level 300 and beyond? And what does it matter if by then magazines are useless? There are lots more stuff that is useless by then. Some people already protest about having nothing more to do at level 100 :fat:

Sounds decent in theory – Too bad you can only raise a perk by 1 with a magazine buff, which in a lot of cases does not make much of a difference. (Most perks seem to have noticable impact after 2 or 3 levels put in rather) And nope, you can't read more than one mag of the same type to stack the effect. In fact if you try you'll just lose the magazine, as it poofs into the ether.

Now if they would raise the perk to whatever maximum possible to unlock, corresponding to the gating attribute this concept would actually be worthwhile bothering with.

(Example: You got to a point where you have 10 INT, you spec'd into hammer 'n'forge and grease monkey. You wanna do some trading now though and have the better barter magazine lying around. Read it and better barter would jump straight to 5.)

If we compare to potions or scrolls, those have a lot more variety in power, sure. But in AD&D you could have a scroll of bless. Even for a lvl 1 character a rather marginal effect. And they didn't stack either.

Magazines are probably supposed to be found easy and often and they have quite a long duration. Apart from that being a backpack problem (yes, the biggest problem of magazines) they then shouldn't give big boni. What you propose (raising to maximum) is too powerful in higher levels, even if recipe perks were excluded.

Sure, the effect is small. It isn't small though when you know how to use them. For example if ...

1) you need 2 hits to get blocks down to 1 hp and another hit for JUST this one HP (happened to me with wood blocks in a recent game). For half a day this enervating condition is no more.

2) you need to put in a half day of wood chopping or mining and a magazine of mother lode would give 1 strength+ 1 mother lode.

3) Horde night arrives and you as a miner suddenly have 1 more point perception and one point in your weapon perk, ** for the whole horde night! **

You're right. They're like potions. Or magical scrolls, if we're looking for fitting fantasy RPG idioms maybe..

1. why do they have to be the replacement for learning material. And 2. aren't there enough "potions" in form of new and old drugs and food already? Does it really need to be extra complicated?

Point 1 is a non-issue, what do magazines have to do with A16 books? Nothing.

Point 2. Ok, granted. But not something that would give me sleepless nights.

Do we need a magazine for the "pack rat" perk, while we can just inject steroids that work like 5 "pack rat" perks and boost strength at the same time? And those can be stacked too, so you can carry more than 1 in a slot and re-inject yourself on the go if the buff runs out. Easier to use, more useful. That's how all drugs could work. Sure, give them some drawbacks if it's too OP; but both from an immersion as well as practical pov, drugs are way better than some magical scroll.

And again, it's very much possible to max everything. The mags would only fill the missing perks, until you're level 300 and then be almost completely useless, with just the exception you posted yourself:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but steroids already have drawbacks, addiction issues, right? That's ok, more powerful but with a drawback. Magazines weak but useable carefree.

And why don't you object that steroids are useless at level 300?

 

[Kam R.]

Before answering your points I'd like to say that yes, magazines are somewhat underwhelming, especially compared to the stuff previously found in bookcases. But really, "in A16 this was different" is a non-argument, only "in A16 it was better" would be an argument. But books in A16 were not that good either, too easy to find and useless after you find the first one. A17 magazines work sufficiently for the time being (except for stackable issue), other parts are not finished as well at the moment.

The A16 schematics concept was maybe not the best, the A15 (or A14?) version was better where already learned schematics would increase related skills and therefore be of additional use for building your character. And that's what this thread is about - cut content. For the sake of the new one-sided leveling system, call it "streamlined", call it "lazy", call it whatever, a perfectly fine concept that made sense and was immersive was cut. I posted that in the other thread already. Old bookstores were fine as they were. A place of learning and getting something you would keep for the rest of your playthrough and not yet another part of the usual loot-to-replenish resource X cycle. It made the bookstores and -cases a special type of loot. Sure when you had all you needed from there that part of the game was done, but like I said, more than enough other loot sources for the regular game loop were available. And those usually make sense.

Now (provided magazines become more useful) a bookstore is just like any other loot source. And my opinion is that's a bad thing, even though you could of course argue that it's good they may be useful all time now. I prefer to have something to find and keep and that's just not a thing in the game anymore, because all is perks and points, no matter how you play, no matter where you go, no matter what you do.

Factually wrong all the way up to ~level 270. Until level 19 you have just 24 perk points available and exactly 99 perk levels you could put points into. Until level 29 you have 34 perk points available and about 125 perk levels you could put points into And this continues ALL the way up to somewhere around level 270 or so.

I understand that point and I understand well enough that the magazines are supposed to fill the gaps for those phases of the game. As you say, they perform underwhelming at that task so far. Doesn't make the statement that you can max everything factually wrong. You can max everything and will have points left at the end.

Will more than 1% of players ever play to level 300 and beyond? And what does it matter if by then magazines are useless? There are lots more stuff that is useless by then. Some people already protest about having nothing more to do at level 100

And perhaps the climb to level 300 is so boring BECAUSE there is not enough content to fill that journey. And magazines, even in a more impactful form just unlock the last bit of content (perks and their beneficial effects) prematurely then. Instead of making the way to a master-of-all-status interesting, you get a cheap shortcut, because it's not. Seems somewhat counter-productive to having a long game. But I guess a long game just not part of TFP's master plan. Play til day 28 and done. And Eff all the people who created their own long game with building big, forming player settlements and other things, by making it slow and joyless til the end.

And yeah that argument would apply to the drugs too and I have no good answer to that problem and still will say drugs or food-drugs are a more immersive way to apply buffs than fantasy rpg scrolls.

Won't go into the more specific examples you put, I can tell you researched more into how much the magazines can do than me and have some compelling counter arguments. So, fine, sure, there may be some useful ones amongst them already, they may even become more useful. I will still hate the concept, because I know why it's in place to begin with. And that's a much bigger issue with this game and why a thread like this one exists...

But hey. It's just experimental can't and won't make any absolute judgement. Let's see how much some numbers-shuffling can pretty up some of these unappealing systems. Magazines will become useful after 3-500 balancing attempts , I'm sure. ;]

 

[HungryZombie]

Calling it an exploit is my personal opinion.As to why: because the flat side was being used to make it easy to damage the zeds while also retain an easy line of sight and firing line (instead of the bobbing that would & should occur placing them correctly with the pointy part that should have been the only side to cause damage). So folks would place them point down to have nice lazy, easy lines of sight for automated weapons, traps, and their own attacking, while also still being able to inflict spike damage. Spike damage should have only come from the tip/spike part, and any build that used spikes otherwise was indeed exploiting a flat surface causing damage.

People would also flip them over to lower the damage the spikes took. I did it for sure so I could repair less. I can see how it might be considered exploity though and not really mad they removed them.

 

[Jugginator]

My theory on this one is that the rotation exploit (and anyone who used upside down, flat side damaging spikes was indeed using an exploit no different than a floating base or bedrock bunker) could not be easily changed due to other priorities. -- Note: just me guessing.

Yeah, and log spikes just didn't make sense. To me, anyway. I mean sure it would hurt to run into the singular point, but all in all it's just a block of wood or iron lol. I used to think it was silly a zombie would have its leg explode just by standing on one, I mean, your foot would have a little poke on it, but aside from the one point, the rest wouldn't hurt. Iron and wood spikes have a ton of pointy, sharp ends; the iron spikes have blades all over em. Those make more sense.

Tbh, I thought log spikes were decorative forever ago until I learned they magically kill everything and had the durability of concrete lol.

 

[R0bb0b]

- The old night music that I heard in A8 or 9 with the voices in the background.

- Meat smell mechanic

- Hub City

- Simple POIs

- Book stores

- Funny zombie death positions

- Log wood spikes

- Running up ladders

- Learning by doing

- Cliff diving with the mini bike

- Cliffs in general

- Searching for that one book that you need

- The old camp fire UI (Yeah, I'm one of those guys bitchin about the old camp fire UI)