PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[archergod]

Not everyone plays experimental, and why subject people to bugs that are fixed? Some sound particularly nasty like some of the networking bugs. Furthermore, why make testing of 18 bigger than it needs to be? Lets get these fixes out and tested so 18 isn't as hard to go stable with.

does RWG fix make to 17.3 or will come with A18, of all the things I will play version that has RWG fix... rest of bugs don't worry me.

 

[beerfly]

Are there any balance changes against too many radiated zeds spawns at houses ?

 

[Crater Creator]

Those are filled but if an opportunity hire came along we'd hire them, so the jobs are still listed. You either need to have shipped a game or be a guild hall graduate to get a job as a world builder. Its so much more involved than people think it is. Study real world architecture, construction, and look at a lot of games.
I think we've brought on like 3 new level designers this last year and have a total of seven now. My advice is to fake it until you make it. In other words do what your dream job is at night and on weekends in your spare time. Pretty soon you will become just that, and be able to make a living at it. You have to have a portfolio full of amazing work, that is what gets you noticed. Work with modders on projects or just make your own. Two years from now you should have a portfolio full of amazing work to show off.

I haven't played guitar in 25 years and wasn't ever that great at it back in the day. I started playing 45 minutes a day 5-7 days a week and I think its my one year anniversary now, and I'm way better than I was when I quit. If you just commit to some reasonable amount of time nearly every day to practice a new craft you can get pretty good.

Judge your work and release your work as mods for others to download and listen to their crits with an open mind. That is the fastest way to improve. Start with small projects and advance to bigger ones. Make sure you finish everything, so once you finish a shed that is amazing, advance to a 1br house, then do a 2, then a mansion, etc. Lighting, detail that matters, interesting architecture, mood, theme and performance are all very important things to consider in design. Game flow as well, how does it play?

Good advice, and I appreciate the extensive response. In my case, I’ve been fortunate enough to have 'made' it. I’ve worked professionally as a game designer for over five years, and I’ve contributed to over a dozen shipped games. I recently re-released my first major 7DtD mod, having rewritten it for Alpha 17, which should free me up to focus more on prefabbing now. If any of that sounds interesting (and I hope it does), please refer to my application for more.

To everyone else, thanks for bearing with me - I know you’re not here for my life story.

 

[beerfly]

<snp>.

Good luck, you can do it.

 

[The Gronk]

Perception needs a melee weapon so maybe that will fit in there. Now that we have arrow retrieval it shouldn't be a big problem to left click jab, right click throw.

How about bringing back the idea of shields for the fortitude weapon? The defensive nature of the weapon and boost to armour compliments the fortitude stat quite well.

That, and I really want shields.. mmmmm... shields.

 

[Kage848]

I'm sure it won't be, but the goal is to have melee and ranged weapons governed by every attribute so players can finally specialize. Not every melee under STR and every ranged under Per.

I dont know what you have planned so take my comment with a grain of salt.

For me I'd like to see all the non combat perks taken out of the per and str trees. You say you want specialization but theres some must have perks in those trees. In sorry but pack mule is a must have. So is sexrex and I'd argure all of them.

If you made the a perk trees specificly for melee or ranged that would allow us to specialize in one or the other.

The real issue with specialization is the attribute cost, not the perks. So if we are going to specialize, talking sp here, we need to be able to skip attribute trees.

 

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

I'm sure it won't be, but the goal is to have melee and ranged weapons governed by every attribute so players can finally specialize. Not every melee under STR and every ranged under Per.

Its the INT guys weapon. It takes little strength or agility to be effective. I'm sure he'll have a perk that increases stun time/damage etc.

Perception needs a melee weapon so maybe that will fit in there. Now that we have arrow retrieval it shouldn't be a big problem to left click jab, right click throw.

I definitely like the idea of characters being able to specialise more.

One thing that might help people specialize - from a psychological aspect rather than a mechanical aspect - is renaming the attributes so they are things you do rather than measures that you possess.

For example if the "Strength" attribute was called "Brawler", and the "Intelligence" attribute was called "Crafter", it would fit with people's perception of their role in a group or of what their character does.

When talking about their role in a group or their play style, people use terms like "I'm the Builder of the group" or "I'm a Crafter" or "I'm a Scavenger". They don't say things like "I'm the Strong one" or "I'm the Perceptive one".

So by giving the attributes similar names to roles people take on and identify with rather than measures that everyone has (there may only be one Crafter in the group, but everyone has an Intelligence) it would make people identify more with a single attribute and subtly - or maybe not so subtly - encourage specialization.

This would need no mechanical change over and above the slight perk re-organisation that you're already doing, but - at least in my opinion - it would change the feel of the perk system for the better and encourage specialization as people identify more with roles than with generic measures. Everyone has Strength, but not everyone is a Brawler.

 

[Hek Harris]

I hope you guys will have a look at electricity in A18 : solar systems are unusuable because of lag. I launched a PVP game 2 weeks ago on a server with ten friends (all enemies) : we had a blast, everything was enjoyable and challenging but when I decided to upgrade my electric network to solar, it became impossible to play. Not a big deal, but solar is a good way to protect your base in PVP without logging every day so it would be cool that it works...

Finaly I removed the connections with the panels and went back to generators but my castle needs more autonomy !

(

)

 

[Trankitas]

It can has durability like other melee weapon, if durability is out it is battery out and then to repair it use repair kit that charge its battery.

Good idea! Flashlights too

 

[Trankitas]

How about bringing back the idea of shields for the fortitude weapon? The defensive nature of the weapon and boost to armour compliments the fortitude stat quite well.
That, and I really want shields.. mmmmm... shields.

Something like this but handmade?

 

[Gareee]

How about bringing back the idea of shields for the fortitude weapon? The defensive nature of the weapon and boost to armour compliments the fortitude stat quite well.
That, and I really want shields.. mmmmm... shields.

Jayick/matick's Melee mod I mention has riot shields that have an area effect knocking down all the close zeds.

Both his farming and melee mods are must try things.. he has a firearms mod, but IMHO that just adds way too many guns that we don;t want to manage. I wouldn't mind his farming and melee mods being rolled into vanilla, but the only thing I'd want to see in vanilla from his firearms mod would be his minigun.... its pretty amazing!

They are all great examples of things that can be added right now, but some items maybe shouldn't be in vanilla for various intended play mechanic reasons.

 

[Gareee]

Good idea! Flashlights too

Who even uses a flashlight after day 2 or three finding a mining helmet? Micro managing things like batteries in flashlights or torches that burn out just are more tedious than fun. Flashlights are useful on day one, but after that they pretty much are just junk that piles up.

Maybe they could be added to turrets so they would have working spotlights, but for now flashlights are just scrapable junk to me.

 

[Aldranon]

Perception needs a melee weapon so maybe that will fit in there. Now that we have arrow retrieval it shouldn't be a big problem to left click jab, right click throw.

I don't understand why every stat needs a ranged and a melee weapon. It feels knee-jerk and not so well thought out.

**Now a set of minimum stats for each weapon, to operate without penalty makes some sense. Hip fire a M-60 and you will agree

 

[madmole]

I definitely like the idea of characters being able to specialise more.
One thing that might help people specialize - from a psychological aspect rather than a mechanical aspect - is renaming the attributes so they are things you do rather than measures that you possess.

For example if the "Strength" attribute was called "Brawler", and the "Intelligence" attribute was called "Crafter", it would fit with people's perception of their role in a group or of what their character does.

When talking about their role in a group or their play style, people use terms like "I'm the Builder of the group" or "I'm a Crafter" or "I'm a Scavenger". They don't say things like "I'm the Strong one" or "I'm the Perceptive one".

So by giving the attributes similar names to roles people take on and identify with rather than measures that everyone has (there may only be one Crafter in the group, but everyone has an Intelligence) it would make people identify more with a single attribute and subtly - or maybe not so subtly - encourage specialization.

This would need no mechanical change over and above the slight perk re-organisation that you're already doing, but - at least in my opinion - it would change the feel of the perk system for the better and encourage specialization as people identify more with roles than with generic measures. Everyone has Strength, but not everyone is a Brawler.

That is a cool idea, but there are perks like locksmithing under perception that might not fit well under "sniper". Its not like we're taking away people's ability to be a jack of all trades, and IMO a person will want TWO attributes maxed out to be really good maybe more, but at least the current plan doesn't have you spread out as thin as A17 did.

 

[madmole]

I dont know what you have planned so take my comment with a grain of salt.
For me I'd like to see all the non combat perks taken out of the per and str trees. You say you want specialization but theres some must have perks in those trees. In sorry but pack mule is a must have. So is sexrex and I'd argure all of them.

If you made the a perk trees specificly for melee or ranged that would allow us to specialize in one or the other.

The real issue with specialization is the attribute cost, not the perks. So if we are going to specialize, talking sp here, we need to be able to skip attribute trees.

Its reasonable to need two attributes to fit your play style. BUT, we are talking about a misc perks section for some cool ideas that don't really need 5 tiers, and maybe that would be a fitting place for sex rex and pack mule.

I believe there are craftable pockets coming for clothing, so the guy who finds all the needle & thread books can lighten his load. I finished my part of books so I'm just getting back to the perk reorganization task.

 

[madmole]

I don't understand why every stat needs a ranged and a melee weapon. It feels knee-jerk and not so well thought out.
**Now a set of minimum stats for each weapon, to operate without penalty makes some sense. Hip fire a M-60 and you will agree

It doesn't need one, but it would be nice. Penalties is more balance work and might give people the impression that some weapons flat out suck when they don't. We got a lot of backlash starting players way too nerfed in A17 I don't want to revisit that.

 

[Aldranon]

It doesn't need one, but it would be nice. Penalties is more balance work and might give people the impression that some weapons flat out suck when they don't. We got a lot of backlash starting players way too nerfed in A17 I don't want to revisit that.

I can understand that. But go with the game YOU will love and it will be well remembered. We all remember games where the dev's lost that focus.

To heck with others, to heck with me, go with what you love and most people will at least respect that.

 

[Xartan]

I hope you guys will have a look at electricity in A18 : solar systems are unusuable because of lag. I launched a PVP game 2 weeks ago on a server with ten friends (all enemies) : we had a blast, everything was enjoyable and challenging but when I decided to upgrade my electric network to solar, it became impossible to play. Not a big deal, but solar is a good way to protect your base in PVP without logging every day so it would be cool that it works...
Finaly I removed the connections with the panels and went back to generators but my castle needs more autonomy !

(

The only times I've had lag problems with solar power is when it doesn't create enough wattage to power everything it's connected to. Increase the output or decrease the power required and you should be good.

 

[Cazmyr]

In regards to to Attribute/ Perk re-balance:

Is the cost for increasing an Attribute changing?

It is currently: 1,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5

There are 4 Perks, in particular, that don't follow the normal Attribute requirements for their advancement.

Normal Requirements are an Attribute of: 1,3,5,7,10

Pack Mule, Miner 69er, Mother Lode, Sexy T-Rex have an attribute requirement of: 1,2,3,5,7

Perhaps they could be separated as they seem to follow their own rules. Or just placed in that Misc. category you were talking about.

 

[Guppycur]

How about bringing back the idea of shields for the fortitude weapon? The defensive nature of the weapon and boost to armour compliments the fortitude stat quite well.
That, and I really want shields.. mmmmm... shields.

Shields, particularly with the new buff system (stun, knockdown, ragdoll) events, would be a super easy implementation; I'd be surprised if we DON'T get a pimp one; heck, some of the buffs look like they're designed for shields... but I sure as heck will be adding a modded one to Medieval Book II.