PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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Just be nice to be thrown a bit of a bone for early game transportation. Nerf the storage if you have to.
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Don't forget the Jacket & Running shoes. They make do for early game transportation. Practically as good as a bicycle.

 
Don't forget the Jacket & Running shoes. They make do for early game transportation. Practically as good as a bicycle.
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I'm aware of the benefits of those...but they (especially the shoes) are fairly rare. They should be rare given their buffs. The bicycles by comparison (at least in my experiences so far) are even harder to come by. You need the perk or find/buy two schematics. Then find or craft two wheels, the frame and the handlebars. That's a lot of bother for something just a tick better than buffed shoes and jacket.

Think of it this way...if I was to go into 10 garages on my street, I'd very likely find at least 5 bicycles...but zero magic shoes :)

 
Think of it this way...if I was to go into 10 garages on my street, I'd very likely find at least 5 bicycles...but zero magic shoes :)
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If I were to go into 10 garages on my street, I'd best be already wearing some magic shoes.

 
People were suicide farming 100s of blood bags, so there was a buff that was added on death, that TFP didn't approve of, death should clear all buffs for consistency. Without that inconsistency they could farm all the blood bags they want for a one time maximum loss of 50% xp.
Furthermore, the large first aid kit violated one of 18's key principal designs which is all good crafts require a loot only trinket. As it was they were 100% farmable which also goes against everything we've done making odd loot only trinkets to craft anything decent.

More blood kits are in loot now, so it should be fine, just no endless best medical item in the game.
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I see, that makes sense.

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We're set up now internally to deliver some small updates, so I'd like to try it at least. If it turns out to be a hassle we can always go back to yearly updates but its too much stress. It feels good to complete some stuff a-z and get it out there. THen we can get focus testing too instead of "here what do you think of our whole new game". If we do a small book update the entire conversation will be about the new books and not about 4 million possible changes, giving proper attention to each new thing we do.
Updates are good for business too, and for sustaining the community, so I feel like some small updates will be good. We can test and fix those things up fast too instead of getting a lot of bugs all over the place from larger builds.
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Sounds similar to the agile scrum process? E.g. implement small enhancements in between the bigger ones, etc.

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Wife and I are about to log in at 21:40 for day 70 horde. We haven’t seen a demolisher yet. I feel we may very soon!
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Vid....eo!!!!! Vid....eo!!!

 
It really depends how you play. The sledge is great if you can manage your stamina properly and learn the timing of it. For those who are a bad aim or don't get any sex rex one miss could be life or death because of the stamina drain and the huge amount of missed dps, where the knuckles and knives are more forgiving, and generally don't tap into your stamina nearly as much, so you need less food.
Generally speaking I kind of agree with you, but at the same time I feel like knuckles and knives are such higher volume strikes that the chance for a dismemberment is through the roof late game and its just more fun exploding heads rapidly than using the sledgehammer to me. So if you stick with them they prove to be pretty good later game, where the sledge is probably better early game.
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It almost feels like weapon choice will definitely impact starter difficulty. If that is intended, that might be good explanation somewhere....maybe one of those loading splash screens? Or maybe depending on the difficulty you select will give a different starter tutorial...just spitballing.

Beginners: clubs, bows

Intermediate: sledges, spears

Advanced: knives, hand to hand

Could be a nice usability improvement down the line for newbies.

 
Beyond level 20 loss of xp is a fairly significant hit to progression. I doubt you suicide at level 60. I mean infection doesn't even cause sides until it turns orange. It happens frequently early game as well if you play nightmare you get hit a lot.
I'm all for a slider for death penalty or something, When we first put it in it was like 50% or something brutal.
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The problem is that by level 20 you dont need to off yourself as its much easier to go off and get something to cure it rather than spend time doing other early game things.

Not sure where the right balance is to make it feel impactful though. We're running a server with 10-15 people and growing, and its got people who know what they are doing, and people who are just grabbing it off the Halloween sale to play for the first time. Some people just eat glass to cure their broken legs and infections, some people go about fixing them the intended way, some people die 10 times because they dont know what they're doing yet, so how do you punish the ones who do know what they are doing and just taking advantage of it, while giving the newer guys a non ♥♥♥♥ty experience?

Hopefully if we get some "dead is dead" settings we'll have a place for those who feel things are too easy to get around. Eating glass will cure your infection...but you'll also be dead...so chose wisely :D

 
Weapons drop equally but since there are loads of agility weapons they are rarer. There are two automatic weapons, 4 ranged agility weapons, so statistically you will have a harder time getting exactly what you want.
IMO the stealth guy may take longer to clear a POI, but he doesn't take damage, he can do a ton of damage with stealth shots using the cheapest ammo in the game so it balances out fine. My agility character always had loads of ammo for horde nights, where my fortitude builds seem to spend a ton of time mining for ammo. At night I would roam around and head shot everyone for xp with one shot usually from my maxed out pistol. Even if you wake someone up just empty a mag into them and its all good. 9mm ammo grows on trees and is SO cheap to craft. Exploding arrows are nice for hordes.

Some builds just take longer to get off the ground is all, but the payoff is worth it IMO.
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I don't know. When I try and go bow I just never find one, and the primitive bow does pretty low damage, and a lot of shots just pass through the zombies head. Seems like I am wasting lots of ammo and time using the primitive bow. I do always end up with a pistol though and just use that instead lel.

We need a stone throwing crossbow or a slingshot lel.

Also, I was testing to see if throwing stones did damage to zombies... and they do not, but it looked hilarious... is there any way we can get a perk, or multiple perks that make throwing stones a semi viable way to kill zombies cheaply? sticks and stones, glass houses, fast pitcher?

I would totally just run around throwing stones all day. I would probably do it with spears if more than one filled your bar slot when you pick them back up.

 
That bug where it says you can max stack craft something even though you can't? I spoke too soon; I cursed myself earlier. It now applies to every craftable in the game for me. :p Haha

 
People were suicide farming 100s of blood bags, so there was a buff that was added on death, that TFP didn't approve of, death should clear all buffs for consistency. Without that inconsistency they could farm all the blood bags they want for a one time maximum loss of 50% xp.
Furthermore, the large first aid kit violated one of 18's key principal designs which is all good crafts require a loot only trinket. As it was they were 100% farmable which also goes against everything we've done making odd loot only trinkets to craft anything decent.

More blood kits are in loot now, so it should be fine, just no endless best medical item in the game.
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Perhaps in future updates trader Jen could draw your blood or something for some dukes, maybe even heal the critical injuries you've talked about.

 
Isn't the possibility of a death loop one of the reasons for abandoning that system?
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Perhaps but since they added in that you are invisible to the horde on your resurrection, I think whatever penalties you would get would not cause any kind of death loop like they once did.

 
yep, try max crafting arrowheads in the forge doesnt max craft, even tho you have the mats
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Nope, you're probably missing 1-2 mats, but it thinks you can craft them (eg. you can craft 201 wood frames with 401 wood, even though you're missing 1 wood)

 
Nope, you're probably missing 1-2 mats, but it thinks you can craft them (eg. you can craft 201 wood frames with 401 wood, even though you're missing 1 wood)
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Stop trying to get Roland turned on with math.

 
Speaking of drop rates...I would be very, very, happy to trade any of my firearms for a simple bicycle. IMO, fully assembled bicycles should appear in loot with greater frequency. Besides Pass'nGas crates and traders, I never see them. Really, they can be found almost anywhere IRL. So perhaps more chance to spawn in cars or those unmarked wooden crates or maybe best in workbenches since they are common in garages.
Just be nice to be thrown a bit of a bone for early game transportation. Nerf the storage if you have to.

Also, and maybe oddly, I found myself needing a sewing kit and noticed I couldn't craft one. Could that be possible? Maybe 1 scrap iron and 1 cloth fragment?

Game's playing great. I've ran through to level 40-50'ish on 5 different starts and just started my 6th. :) This Alpha really has a 'coming together' vibe to it.
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Even a bicycle is a huge game changer. Pay the price 5K or less, or buy the perk and craft one. We can't drop full vehicles in loot. I mean if we did, we'd have to make it so rare, that why bother?

 
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