PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[HungryZombie]

I've said it before, but I find that planning for what I should do after my own character dies, at least in a first person survival game, creates a disconnect. It takes me out of the game.
This game is... weird about what happens after the player character dies on horde night. You don't see other games where, under default rules, you respawn empty handed while a long battle continues. Other games handle death in the usual ways, which for illustration I categorize as Half-Life style (rewind time to when the PC was still alive), Team Fortress style (respawn immediately with stuff), or Counter-Strike style (spectate until the 'round' has finished).

You can't have it both ways. You can't have the immersion of dying without planning ahead and still complain about when you die and respawn you wake up in the middle of the zombie horde.

That was what the conversation you replied to was discussing and responding to.

 

[Cernwn]

Joel, how can we lose our weapons?

There's plenty of opportunities.

There is also an excellent modlet for this - JaxTeller718's Tools and Weapons Now Break on Degradation

 

[AtomicUs5000]

It was kind of silly, though the game was less "realistic" at that point in its development anyway so it didn't seem so strange then.
However, it was an effective mechanic gameplay-wise. It forced players to invest time and effort into protecting their farm, whether by walls and defenses or just raising it off the ground. Big farms required big investments in the defensive infrastructure.

Given that the plants died when they were harvested and you had to sacrifice some of the crop to re-plant, it was pretty decently balanced.

Well, I can handle silly, as long as silly is the goal, embraced, and present in several game mechanics.

It would put an end to arguments of realism once and for all.

 

[Cernwn]

You can't have it both ways. You can't have the immersion of dying without planning ahead and still complain about when you die and respawn you wake up in the middle of the zombie horde.

Personally I would rather have a "Dead is Dead" mode where dying means my character's saves are deleted and a unique boss zombie (difficulty = game stage) is spawned where I died, carrying a percentage of my gear inversely equal to game stage. It would randomly drop one or two pieces of gear per day until all of it was gone, but wander near the closest POI until it was killed, or be added to every wandering horde that spawned for X days.

I don't mind restarting a new character or game, as many of us have hundreds of times already. Bet a ton of customers would luv this as a toggle-able server option. Fun Pimps could even link this game mode to infection debuff somehow when they decide to bring infection back. It would DEFINITELY add the dread back to infection and death.

Another idea inspired by HungryZombie above, for MP servers: if you die on horde night, you have to continue to play as an undead version of yourself until the sun rises or another player shoots you in the head. Maybe add a grab attack that snares other players and a bite power attack that infects them+heals you...

 

[madmole]

Dead is dead is not hardcore in my eyes. These players avoid the higher gamestages and start over with the easy zombies.
When I met my first radioactive zombie in A17 he immediately killed me. When I wanted to get my backpack he killed me again. A dead is dead player would have started over and for the next 2-3 weeks no more radioactive zombies seen. I adjusted my tactics, set up rules for looting POIs and improved my equipment. I have learned.

A limited number of lives would only benefit those who start all over again after 3 weeks of play anyway.

Death in the game should be something that gives you the opportunity to learn and develop.

Ever played one of the Dark Souls games or one of the other games from FromSoftware ? You die extremely often in these games. But you learn more with every death. You learn to recognize the attacks of your opponents and how to counter them best. Which attacks are successful with which opponents and which ones the opponent can simply block. This is how you develop as a player. And if you have finally defeated a boss after 50 attempts, that is a sense of achievement.

Dead is dead would not be for noobs.

 

[Trankitas]

Twitter post/Youtube video any time soon? Literally starving for teasers

 

[The Gaffer]

Dead is dead would not be for noobs.

Any closer to the alpha 18 video?

 

[beerfly]

Dead is dead would not be for noobs.

Ah, you haven`t seen me first days of this game. I was brave and dead soon after.

That wasn`t what death is dead is now, but back then I used to start a new game when I die (A9-A10).

I wasn`t aware of the bedroll. (no wiki, no how to play videos, bought and played).

Honestly I had the best time in a game ever.

If this becomes a real game mode, this game will go into Space. You are on the right way guys.

 

[Krizzen]

Or make seed crafting schematic find only. Its the ability to craft seeds that makes it OP too fast. If you only had corn but not potatoes your stew making ability would be limited and you'd need to find that potato schematic before you had mega farming potential.
Or just make seeds never craftable, and rare loot and high priced at traders. Each one you find is a big deal because you can feed a bit better.

I really like this idea. My fondest memories of previous versions were always of searching for the ever elusive Mini Bikes for Dumb♥♥♥♥s, Chainsaw stuff, and Auger stuff. That was the primary motivating factor to go out and explore. I really wish there were more things like that. In the current version, there's still not a strong push to the player to explore once you've seen most of the content. Having rare blueprints/items helps with that tremendously.

So yeah, more rare blueprints would be great.

Also, a potential cure to the farming/food problem would be to introduce a mechanic where crafting the next seed costs progressively more. This works great in the game Forager (really kick ass game, worth checking out). So perhaps the first seed costs 10 plants, the next 12, the next 16, the next 24 etc. I know this has it's problems, like a new player could hop in and craft a lot of seeds, but I feel it's a good concept that could be shaped to work with the game rules.

Oh, and if those rare blueprints/items were perhaps biome specific, that would be amazing. Lots of times, I find no reason to explore biomes since they're mostly the same apart from some of the obvious things like aloe and snowberries. Biome specific blueprints would really drive players to explore every corner of the map.

 

[madmole]

A lot of farming games simply have it where each plant matures at a different rate and also goes to waste at different rates after reaching maturity. The difficulty comes from trying to grow multiple crops and timing things out appropriately for an efficient harvest.
Other farming games will have it so that fertilizer is a requirement, not an enhancement. The fertilizer has different levels of nutrients such as nitrate, phosphorous, potassium, etc. You formulate your fertilizer based on the needs of the plant.

Choosing one, or both, and also including the need for hydration could make farming a real experience... though it wouldn't bother me either way if farming was made more engaging or if it were completely removed for this game. Some people like it and want more... so I suppose I am more for enhancing it. It can't hurt and c'mon... it's not that complex of a thing to provide. It's not a huge feature that's going to delay gold.

Regarding farming, we're doing this for A18. Baby steps and balance.

Living off the land

T1: Harvest 2

T2: Can craft flowers - Aloe, goldenrod chrysanthemum, yucca

T3: Can craft berry and veggie seeds

T4: Harvest 3 crops

T5: Can craft mutant seeds

Add 50 nitrate to seed recipe. Change to 5 crops.

add wild crops to biome spawning

Add seed schematics to allow non farmers to craft seeds.

Add zombie and stag trampling but not players trampling.

Trampling might not make it in, need programmers for that.

 

[madmole]

The thing I fear about the zombie crop trampling is that it would be just like it was before it was removed. I never played the game during that, but from what I've seen in videos, the zombies seem to actively seek crops out. I find that a little ridiculous and against their nature. A trampling mechanic if something like a zombie, horde, animals, or a vehicle goes over them, fine... but to make the crops targets for zombies is silly.
Now, bandits... that’s another story. I would expect such nefarious actions. The bandits destroying crops and/or stealing them is not only reasonable, but would be expected in a real life survival situation.

No I assure you they didn't seek and destroy crops. They chased rabbits and stuff, so thats probably what it was.

 

[madmole]

If they dont stand out, how do you make the player understand their difference in strenght (without resorting to fantasy solutions).
Currently a little girl is clearly weaker than a biker. A cheerleader weaker than a lumberjack. A big mama has more resistance than a thin business-man.

If they all blend in, it would feel random them having different stenghts and behaviors.

For a horde night this doesn't matter IMO, but there could still be frail medium and heavy builds. The main goal is aesthetics and performance. RIght now or especially in A16 it was a clown festival of colorful special zombies. They should all be drab, bloody and generally only bosses stand out of the crowd.

 

[Rassilon]

Regarding Farming.

What i expierienced, in almost every playthrough:

You plant your first Seed, that you really really had to find.

you yield from the harvest and turn them into Seeds.

Plant 2 Seeds

Plant 4/8/16/32... Rich as Hell.

The Problem is the very high steep it takes after the few days, yield increases more and more. if one could interupt/delay that steep curve, that would be great.

Maybe a %chance to get a Seed out of Plants? this % increasing with Perks?

 

[madmole]

I did another test and didn't notice any problems. 3 solar panels, 3 pressure plates, 10 dart traps and a lot of lights.
View attachment 28402

Its either a while whale bug, or potato servers/clients.

 

[madmole]

Animals that destroy your farm just for balance?Hell no man.

We can't have pets because of performance issues, we can't have companions because of performance issues, we can't have more zombies because of performance issue. Sure let's have useless rabbits and stags that ruin your farm, very interesting gameplay.

Stags and zombies ruining your farms is a very interesting mechanic. What sucked is when you yourself accidentally knocked one down. IF we can bring it back it would only be larger animals and zeds. A little random natural disaster like that is good for game play. Forces you to rethink, build a fence or above fort smaller farm.

 

[Crater Creator]

There is probably no way to nerf the output of farming for an experienced player. Any location-based threats can be avoided by smart base design. Forcing a personal time investment (like weeding) would be deemed as no fun by many. Higher stage players will always be able to create more output than can be consumed for that single player.
Hence some other limit, such as a variation bonus (bonus for making and consuming different dishes regularly) or the mentioned spoilage (requiring to cook up dishes on demand).

Or some type of "oft spoilage", such that a food gives more bonuses for 15 minutes after being cooked. (the player can not spam-cook, and live from the stockpile to receive the best bonuses)

I don't think creating more output than can be consumed is a problem. I think the exponential growth is the problem.

You can produce more iron and stone than you use, too. But when you're mining, you improve your yield through perks and mods, and then you top out and are constrained by external factors, like the irregular placement of ore blocks. In contrast, farming you can do where you want, and your farm can grow from 1 to 2, 4, 8, 16,... plants each cycle (faster with more perks, but still expoential). Your yield never tops out, at least until you're hitting how many times you can swing your fist in a day. A 'progressive tax' mechanic, for lack of a better analogy, would be needed to keep the yield in check, where higher yields incur proportionally higher risks. Spoilage, hungry animals, and I'm sure other ideas could accomplish that.

 

[maleitch]

Stags and zombies ruining your farms is a very interesting mechanic. What sucked is when you yourself accidentally knocked one down. IF we can bring it back it would only be larger animals and zeds. A little random natural disaster like that is good for game play. Forces you to rethink, build a fence or above fort smaller farm.

I have an idea, every 7th day a rabbit zombie comes and attacks your garden so you have to build a base for your garden.

Kidding aside, I fully endorse (not that it matters) the random natural disaster from time to time. Imagine what a random earthquake could do to the dynamics of the game.

Also, anyone remember the game M.U.L.E? Getting wampus flashbacks with this farming talk.

 

[madmole]

Do you mean like Ark, where you can quick travel? Personally I think it would be less OP to have it the way Conan Exiles does it with one bed and one bedroll and you can only choose a spawn spot if you die...not quick spawn on a whim.

Ark has no death penalty. So you could have a backup bedroll or two for raids like in RUST. Its probably never going to happen though.

 

[madmole]

finding guns is not that hard at all. You can find 6 guns the same type in one day, no problem. If you want to make crafting guns more of a challenge I would suggest adding another layer of complexity.

Ummm ok. In A17. Lets talk about the future, not the past.

 

[madmole]

Joel, how can we lose our weapons? )
I suggest this:

If a player dies outside the base, he can lose the most expensive weapon what he has in his inventory or on his belt. This weapon along with the all mods must be moved to the nearest traider. In the inventory of the character or in the backpack, which he will deliver after respawning, there will be a note with the text: "We found your weapon and delivered it to this merchant [coordinates]. If you want to pick it up, you need to go to this traider within 3 days and buy it at a price of 30% of its real value. If you do not have time for 3 days, you can also buy your weapon, but for 100% of its cost. Hurry up, surviver, everything is in your hands!"

If I just murdered someone and their bag teleported to the trader I'd be mad. That is MY loot. You have to think of SP, Coop and PVP settings when you design. That only works for SP.