PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Socrastein]

As usual you make great points Gazz. The compound bow shouldn’t seem broken at first and then better in every way if you perk into it.

Way I was thinking, if archery improves accuracy enough to take compound bow from unwieldy to deadly accurate then it also turns the crossbow into a wooden sniper rifle for that same character. Especially considering crossbow can have a scope but compound cannot and you don’t need to factor arrow fall as much so crossbow is more point and shoot unless you’re really far away.

And let’s not forget that so long as crossbow is the only one with explosive rounds it will always have a distinct advantage and it’s own flavor of pwnage. Those things rock.

But the point about the bow needing to be useful from the get go and not just raw potential is critical. Perhaps the poor initial accuracy could be bad enough that long distance shots are all but out of the question until you perk perception/archery a good deal but still very useful up close. Right now I think it’s a bit too easy to stick an arrow into a zombie’s head from 50+ meters without any perks. As much as I love feeling like Robin Hood so early, I would be cool with needing to be relatively close to land a head shot at first, shotgun range or so, then with specialization be able to hit an apple from 50 meters.

I also think the spear would work well that way. No perks means you can throw it into their face if you’re really close, full perks means you can launch it into their head from across a small field like an Olympic javelin thrower.

It would also make early game hunting more difficult without having to mess with animal ai or hit points. You’d simply be more likely to *whiff* your shots from any appreciable distance until you perk up.

 

[meganoth]

To me perking into strength seems the most obvious choice. You can mine better than the other classes, you get bigger inventory and you can kill zeds just as quickly. No brainier for me. I don't trust the narrative that you can be a builder by getting resources from the trader.
Once I get strength full, I'll probably start intellect.

My prediction would be wherever the "Lucky Looter" perk is. Because unless they seriously nerfed it already that will be THE perk that matters to get good weapons, armor, everything (books, mods).

 

[Damocles]

There could be a “tripple shot” option for the bow, shooting 3 arrows at the same time, low accuracy, with a similar effect as the shotgun.

Make the bow more useful when shooting into a crowd.

 

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

You'll have to work far harder than that to offend me.

This is all dependent on which style of bow and crossbow you include, neither is a specific design but rather a family of weapons. As Gazz and I have often pointed out medieval weapons were actually developed over a long period of time.

An early crossbow will be far less effective than one developed later. The same goes with long/short-bows although the rate of technological change was far slower and the long/short-bow was already a thoroughly researched weapon by the time the crossbow was invented.

- - - Updated - - -

Sure, but longbowmen needed (as someone already said) much more training to be good at bows. If you make a cost analysis, a medieval ruler could probably buy more crossbow men than longbow men for the same money. Longbowmen seem ideal for a standing (professional) army, crossbow men for a reserve army.

That was pretty much my point with my first post this morning

 

[Socrastein]

There could be a “tripple shot” option for the bow, shooting 3 arrows at the same time, low accuracy, with a similar effect as the shotgun.
Make the bow more useful when shooting into a crowd.

SICK! That's a great idea. I loved that skill in Horizon and this would actually be a good balance for having the bow do less damage per arrow than the crossbow.

Crossbow would have superior accuracy and damage at range, and while bow could have good ranged accuracy with perks it would also have an advantage up close and with crowds. Especially if you could fire 3 flaming arrows into a group every couple seconds!

 

[meganoth]

To be honest, madmole if a real zombie apocalypse happened here, I'd be more envious of you guys on the mainland. At least you'd be able to drive/fly/ take the railroad to other states with better defense. Oh, I mean sure we do have hunters here, but in terms of a gunshops we don't have much. Hospitals? Ha! Grocery stores? Starving to death within a few weeks.

Mmh, that driving/flying away can only happen if the outbreak can be contained. Otherwise you don't win anything by going to other states and some of those people driving away are actually brining the desease into other states. If you are really lucky the outbreak can be contained AND they have time to put you in isolation inside the quarantine zone when their top priority will be to seal of the area by any means possible.

On an island you have a strictly limited population. If the zombies "win", you at least have not much competition for the food, if the humans win they actually have a chance to erradicate the threat, and even create natural safe zones on smaller islands in the area or retreat to boats (if the zombies can't swim).

 

[Weazelsun]

Mmh, that driving/flying away can only happen if the outbreak can be contained. Otherwise you don't win anything by going to other states and some of those people driving away are actually brining the desease into other states. If you are really lucky the outbreak can be contained AND they have time to put you in isolation inside the quarantine zone when their top priority will be to seal of the area by any means possible.
On an island you have a strictly limited population. If the zombies "win", you at least have not much competition for the food, if the humans win they actually have a chance to erradicate the threat, and even create natural safe zones on smaller islands in the area or retreat to boats (if the zombies can't swim).

Valid points, I was thinking of it in more of a sense where what limited resources we have, have been spent in attempting to contain the zombie threat. But, yes I agree with you if the zombies were first detected and we automatically understood what they were, we would have a fighting chance so-to-speak. Now that I can think more clearly the positives of being in Hawaii should a theoretical zombie outbreak happen are:

1) Main ways of getting in/out of here are via ship and plane - So, more of a limited chance of more infected coming in

2) Geographic terrain, we have flat areas and mountainous, to heavily forested areas and sandy beaches. Heck the Big Island even has snow so that helps those on that island with water.

3) Military - Best damn way of surviving especially if the navy is willing to let civilians enter and survive on base. - I mean sure they might not let us due to quarantine but at least they'll be there. Along the fact that the military bases are actually quite far from the major city center. Hell, the nearest military base to me is a car ride away. Now, Pearl Harbor for me might be a long-chance though.

4) Ocean - If the zombies in this case can't swim, folks are able to live on their ships and fish.

5) Weather - Most of the weather here in Hawaii is mostly sunny with wind. The only time we have to worry is during hurricane season and so far, in my short lifetime no hurricane has hit us, yet.

Negatives on the hand though are related to the lack of resources.

1) Small emergency services personnel - And I'm acutally serious about this one. Just a google search of the amount of officers we have. Wikipedia shows that as of 2017 only 2,700 employee and cut that in half since there are civilians, which means we only have possibly 1,000 actual police officers. Now account for the others islands which probably only has even half of that if any. Plus, that in past news reports apparently our EMS has to work with half the shift of workers sometimes.

2) Lack of hospitals - Again from a google search I'd say just for Oahu only have 5 hospitals and even then they'd be swarmed with wounded and infected. Some of the hospitals in the google search, might not even have emergency rooms or are hospitals in the sense that they used to be one.

3) Farmland - This is Oahu specific as the Big Island has all the farms, but again, during a zombie outbreak and after with most of the farms for Oahu on the west side, those live in town (think tourist area), are going to be at a disadvantage.

4) Gas - I hate to say it, but due to our reliance on vehicles, getting anywhere after a zombie outbreak where city services has been decimated and no supply ships or personnel to work them, we're somewhat at a disadvantage. It'd take at least a few days biking and resting just to get to certain areas.

5) Population - Yes, I did say I agree with this as a positive but that assumes that the ratio isn't something like 25% humans vs 75% zombies.

Disclaimer: Above points, are mostly centered for the island of Oahu, since I don't live on the surround islands nor have I visited them. But, we assume the same points for them as well.

 

[madmole]

Go shooting a 60lb draw recurve bow all day and see how your arms and shoulders feel!
I definitely would like it to drain stamina

I row 320x12, so light weight baby!

 

[Gnomaana]

Yes, it's lumpy, but even if you smooth out the lumps 2d6 gives you a triangular distribution, it's not a curve at all.

Neither is 3D6 or 4D6 or 5D6. All of these take a ton of smoothing to approach a curve and the curve isn't correct even when you get high enough number of die that visually it looks curvish. A curve implies something like 3.5 is possible and you can't get that number rolling dice. Here is an image of the different probabilites. Yes 3d6 is slightly more bell shaped. But not really enough to decide one is and one isn't.

 

[madmole]

To be honest, madmole if a real zombie apocalypse happened here, I'd be more envious of you guys on the mainland. At least you'd be able to drive/fly/ take the railroad to other states with better defense. Oh, I mean sure we do have hunters here, but in terms of a gunshops we don't have much. Hospitals? Ha! Grocery stores? Starving to death within a few weeks.

I guess the one major postitive is that we have Pearl Harbor and the other outlying islands to head to. But, the problem is that all comes down to the fact that if there was a zombie apocalypse, we rely on importing so much that regardless of the severity of such a threat. Hawaii is ♥♥♥♥'d either way. Best realistic plan is there was only ONE zombie problem, would be for the navy to cordone Hawaii and blast any ship that comes out of the area.

Ok, but now on-topic. In regards to my last post. Building is an essential part of the game, and I just worry that if a person does decide to specialize, they might be gimped in terms of building a base or gathering resources. Right? For again an example, the junk turret. I've seen some discussions as to what it should fire, and one of the ammo that has been considered is scrap iron. Obviously, yes, there are numerous ways of obtaining it (scrap iron), but the best efficient way to gather it is via investing in mining perks. Which is mining and then scrapping the raw iron.

Though, by reading the other posts. My worry is somewhat relieved. As long as a player can somehow obtain the resources necessary for either crafting bullets as a sniper build or wood to make wood frames/ spikes. Then I'll be happy.

We allow low level entry point for a few ranks of most perks so specialized players (should be everyone if they are smart) can grab a few perks from something else. Specialization is mainly you can go strong in one attribute and it comes with ranged and melee perks, so you don't need perception, don't need strength, etc. But I'm sure most players will have perks from various trees but will always have one tree they prefer for play style and spec heavily into it, grab all the combat perks out of it and whatever other ones they like.

 

[madmole]

OK, but if you do it all day, every day, you get stronger too. But that would be considered LBD because it's in the positive direction, right?

If we add stamina drain to bows we'd reduce that with perks.

 

[Perlin_Worm]

Capabilities of a traditional bow in the right hands..

Lars Anderson

 

[Proof_89]

I row 320x12, so light weight baby!

Video? :02.47-tranquillity: :02.47-tranquillity:

 

[madmole]

There may be alternative pathways, but it's that sense of losing something that will feel regressive - in this case, the ability to craft something from x parts. In fact, one can argue that if anything a master crafter should be able to make a weapon or armor using fewer parts, not more.
Alternatively, all players could craft at all quality levels, but for a player with no skills a high quality item costs so much in materials it's prohibitively expensive. The downside with that approach is you'd either need a zillion duplicate recipes, or a significant interface change to choose a quality before you hit the craft button.

Right the former is not appealing at all, and the latter adds a possibly unneeded complexity. You can go back to stone age if you want something basic.

Well I think its more important a person can craft higher quality weapons and sell them and not have a broken economy. If you choose to make money crafting weapons you can but its not OP like armor crafting used to be. The scaling costs ensure that.

 

[madmole]

Holding a bow drawn does drain stamina in A17. So does looking down the sights of a gun, for some reason. Or, are you referring to the act of drawing the bow, not holding it drawn?

I probably never noticed because I iron site and don't see my stamina bar. I thought we had it in there.

 

[madmole]

In some ways this system sounds a little bit like the one in The Division 2. Eventually, in The Division 2, players get the ability to craft a basic version of most guns. The crafting scales with level and does cost more per weapon/gear at higher levels.
It is a balanced system however because later levels acquire materials easier than lower levels. Personally, I've never wanted to craft the early versions again. It hasn't been an issue and is balanced.

Beyond the crafting, loot at the same level of weapons of the same type are almost always better. The player crafted gear is just to help survive until better equipment is found in the environment. The system works and feels great.

I anticipate the system in 7 Days will similarly feel great.

It does feel great, and I don't see any problem except for a few guys who want their cake and eat it too. The best gear loot is in loot so crafting is just to fill the gaps.

 

[madmole]

in A18 steel pickaxe will be stronger than A17? now we need 3 hits to a stone to break, fully modded and perks, in A16 we could 1 hit stone

Possibly, we have some xp clamping as you get more perks to keep it from going off the charts. Before that I went from level 42 to 43 in under two minutes. It should take hours to raise your level at that level not two minutes. There is a one shot book that gives a 20% chance to one shot ore but I doubt we'll let people one shot every hit with best gear/perks.

 

[madmole]

To me perking into strength seems the most obvious choice. You can mine better than the other classes, you get bigger inventory and you can kill zeds just as quickly. No brainier for me. I don't trust the narrative that you can be a builder by getting resources from the trader.
Once I get strength full, I'll probably start intellect.

Depends, if you like to see how the other side lives you can restart the game and spec into 4 other attributes. We nuked an entire row of encumbrance so one rank of pack mule and a few pockets and i'm fine. Steroids lighten the load too and once you get a vehicle I can live with encumbrance until I get the rest of my pocket mods to be free of all encumbrance.

 

[Trankitas]

Possibly, we have some xp clamping as you get more perks to keep it from going off the charts. Before that I went from level 42 to 43 in under two minutes. It should take hours to raise your level at that level not two minutes. There is a one shot book that gives a 20% chance to one shot ore but I doubt we'll let people one shot every hit with best gear/perks.

I think it's good 2 shot stone with perks and tools at maximum level, and 1 shot stone with the book. Seems reasonable

 

[madmole]

Yeah, they keep telling us that you can work around it with augers, mods, traders.. but this are workarounds that will not yield as good results as perking directly into strength.
I want to see how good the benefits of the other classes are though.

Perception should be done soon I can't wait to try it. Agility is certainly a different guy than strength. Early game is harder but once you get 3 ranks it starts to shine. I can go out at night with no fear and snipe anything that moves. I found the never encumbered at night book so I transport loot at night or just go do whatever I want which is nice. I know I can lose the zombies at night. Its nice to crouch and clear pois saves a ton of ammo and stress.