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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Have you ever left a basic garden unattended? My eggplant harvest last year had really pathetic produce because of less than ideal weather. I left them to drop and become compost. This year... so many new plants! Humans were devastated by the infection, the plants were not. The over-abundance of crops and large gardens makes sense, not like 'smart' zombies...
So, you want over-abundance of crops ?? Whatever the reason (illness, shortage, radiation ...) we need a world where resources are scarce. And for those who want an adventure in a world of opulence, the creative menu is wide open.

 
So, you want over-abundance of crops ?? Whatever the reason (illness, shortage, radiation ...) we need a world where resources are scarce. And for those who want an adventure in a world of opulence, the creative menu is wide open.
By that same token argument, if you really want a world devoid of abundant resources the XMLs are wide open. How's about we stop blasting the other side and just agree to request these things as options instead of core game mechanics?

 
They are already options. It takes a single line to quadruple your harvest yield if that's what you want.

 
By that same token argument, if you really want a world devoid of abundant resources the XMLs are wide open. How's about we stop blasting the other side and just agree to request these things as options instead of core game mechanics?
It's a survival game. My request was for the developers, not for the players who don't care about survival. But thank you for your advice: if the devs leave these fields as they are, I will remove the buildings concerned.

 
They are already options. It takes a single line to quadruple your harvest yield if that's what you want.
I'm well aware. It just feels to me like all the arguments for and against spoilage and food balance is, "The game needs to be this way by default because I want survival to be more hardcore!" or, "The game needs to be this way by default because I hate micro-managing resources!" Options to tweak things are already available via XMLs, which are dirt easy to modify, and I feel like both sides could win easily if we argued for things like spoilage as options, rather than long-winded arguments about how we think others should play "our" game.

It brings to mind the arguments I see when long-running games introduce faster or easier methods of catching up to current content, either by nerfing previous content difficulty or making rewards easier to get. There's a pervasive idea I've witnessed that someone even having an option somehow diminishes your own achievements and efforts, so there's always tooth and nail fighting against such changes, or demands to make things harder. Which introduces people from the other side into the fray, since now they feel attacked. Neither is actually making the game or community better.

 
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People used to go into the hub city on day one naked and with only a stone axe and a wooden club and then complain that the hub cities were unfair when they died and then five more times trying to retrieve their backpack. Just die die die booooooooooriiiiiing!!!!!
It’s a game full of freedom but just because you could doesn’t mean you should. Learn from Jurassic Park people!
What if you rooted for the dinosaurs?

- - - Updated - - -

In one sentence, the bible references time as irrelevant to God as a shepherd might understand it. Oddly, Christian's have only partially embraced that one sentence.
More oddly, only now does quantum mechanics support that sometimes, time is irrelevant.
Time is irrelevant.. Pretty much sums up the punctuality of my in-laws..

 
Have you ever left a basic garden unattended? My eggplant harvest last year had really pathetic produce because of less than ideal weather. I left them to drop and become compost. This year... so many new plants! Humans were devastated by the infection, the plants were not. The over-abundance of crops and large gardens makes sense, not like 'smart' zombies...
Plants vs Zombies is a different game.

 
@Madmole, some questions,

* In A18 we will have more new Pois?

*New recipes?

* Will we have zombie bosses? -

* Will we have more air enemies? (bees and vultures)

* Deterioration of crops?

* More defense traps? (will return the peak)

* Crossbow trap?

* Throw flames?

* Can we use the cameras and connect them to the TVs and watch them from our bunker? (that would be great)

* More animals? (cows, tigers, and turkeys)

* Scorpions in desert terrain?

* Piranhas and sharks in the water?

* Missions that take you to meet another merchant?

* More skins for zombies?

Keep up the good work

 
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How are you intending to balance this without SBD?
Once you have a farm that produces one more of an item than you need it's only a matter of time before the stockpile becomes huge. You can delay this by fine-tuning but that's not really a balance.
This is no different with spoilage other than not having a lot in storage. You would just build a slightly larger farm that would yield what you need with some extra just in case.

Again, as long as farming exists you will always be able to 'solve' hunger.

 
I thought about attribute boosting foods, and special dishes that are good for ailments, more heat and cold insulation, etc.
I would like to see most foods come with a very slight buff that would apply until you ate again or became hungry/thirsty. It would allow you to prepare when you travel rather than just going out with standard gear and a different jacket. Food for fighting (maybe health), heat, cold etc.

Connecting this with skyrim as that seems the theme of the day :D it would be like the stews in requiem (if you ever played that mod).

 
Thanks for proving our point. It is easy to gain a surplus, no argument. Preserving that surplus to use months later for yummy home made soup during the winter is what food spoilage is all about. It is the quest for preservation and not that we want to see disappearing stacks of food.
I get it. We all get food preservation for free right now. It's tough for some to give up what they already get for free and have to earn it. It's like the difference in building a base with the creative menu enabled vs disabled. With the creative menu on you can have all the blocks you need for free. With it off you have to gather resources and craft the blocks. Right now food preservation is "creative menu enabled."

In some parallel universe the game has no other option for building except having the creative menu enabled and players just get whatever they need. Other players suggest turning that off and adding things like trees and rocks and ore that would have to be harvested to gather the mats and then players would have to craft the blocks. Those players are then told,

"Adding that stuff would add very little value to the game" or

"Who wants to micromanage the blocks we use to build with?" or

"Stop trying to add artificial difficulty. If we will get the blocks eventually through gathering and harvesting we might as well get them like we do now" and the favorite...

"If TFP adds the need to harvest and gather materials and then forces us to craft our own blocks that will be the first thing I mod out the moment that patch releases!" ;)
The question is no if the system is more complex or adds something to do but what behaviors would it change and, tbh, if food spoiled I would do almost nothing different. I already have a farm that is capable of producing enough veg stews to last until the next harvest cycle. The only real difference is I would harvest more often rather than cooking my food in larger batches.

I guess it would solve one thing - I would not need to organize my food box anymore....

 
When bandits will be on the map, I hope they will have the ability to raid our bases. Food spoilage will not be a request anymore :)

 
Ultimately the food issue will need some extra work. .... Thoughts?
Nice summary of ideas. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that we have **exponentially** growing seed crafting in the game. Remove that and a lot of the overabundance of food is gone. Just make it so you can't craft seeds from your own plants.

So, you want over-abundance of crops ?? Whatever the reason (illness, shortage, radiation ...) we need a world where resources are scarce. And for those who want an adventure in a world of opulence, the creative menu is wide open.
I think Acquisitor was only challenging the last sentence of your post where you said "that makes no sense in a devastated world", i.e. you were not talking about game balance but compared it to your expectation of what is realistic.

 
The question is no if the system is more complex or adds something to do but what behaviors would it change and, tbh, if food spoiled I would do almost nothing different. I already have a farm that is capable of producing enough veg stews to last until the next harvest cycle. The only real difference is I would harvest more often rather than cooking my food in larger batches.
I guess it would solve one thing - I would not need to organize my food box anymore....
Food spoilage would of course require crop spoilage as well. Just wrap the stages so that the final stage returns to seedling stage if you don’t harvest the plants. So if you harvest you need to store, and if you miss the harvest window you have to wait until it comes back around again.

Add to that the return of zombies and animals trampling crops and even possibly targeting food and crops as a priorities and the problem of using unpicked mature crops as a spoilage workaround is mostly solved.

 
zombies are smarter then we give them credit for.... they are tired of us building these anti-zombie fortresses so now they will get rid of all our food sources... zombies win if we starve to death. :) &lt;good thing joel doesnt come to forum and read these ideas&gt;

 
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