PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[RipClaw]

Well, if you haven't already played multiple games which successfully implement spoilage, you can only rely on your imagination, which in this particular case, tells you that such a thing would enrage you - typical reaction of a lot of people to the lack of any resource or a balance attempt. God forbid. The flow of time in the game or however you imagine it, is irrelevant.

It would be very helpful if you would mention the names of these games.

 

[madmole]

Those game you mean lock it because they are developed for consoles primarily, wich has a different requirement for the FOV as of a different player/(TV)screen position compared to a typical PC setup.
You lock it, because you want the game to run faster.

Looks better, runs better and plays better. Wider FOV has more stretching on the edges of the screen. Lower FOV gets much better performance. Lower FOV makes it creepier in a POI because you can't see as much and the zombies are much bigger in your face and everything is more immersive because it is drawn larger and closer to the camera.

 

[madmole]

Do weapon modifications ever change what perks boost the weapon? For example, adding extra weight to your greaves(normally a fortitude weapon) gives you a bonus if you've have invested in the heavy weapons perk, but adding blades gives you a bonus if you have the bladed weapon perk. Another one is adding a scope and a single-shot trigger group to an Ak reduces the automatic weapon bonuses but increases the marksman's rifle bonuses.

There was some strange crossover in A17, but in A18 there isn't, and we're also adding a tab to each weapon that tells you what perks can influence the use of this item.

 

[maleitch]

I really don't think it's fair of you guys to punish people like me because of multiplayer, and again it doesn't run any worse with wider FOV. .

Trust me, us in multiplayer are punished in every aspect of gameplay by the focus on single player experience, but I know that is the focus of TFP initially and have no reason to complain. Some of you guys are just looking for things to complain about at this point.

 

[madmole]

I hope they rebalance then as even the iron reinforced club is bettter than a lv 70+ steel tier machete damage wise. You could argue the bleed but it takes to many skill points to make it viable since it really has to be stacked 3 times to do much of anything.

The agility player has instant access to massive stealth bonuses so to me your argument is like saying a wrench isn't as good as a hammer for hammering nails in. It shouldn't be, it has a better chance to knock down zombies, the machete should be better at dismembering and bleeding, and that player can access sneak bonus damage much easier than the club player can. Its not to say the club guy will be more dangerous when he gets sneak damage, but it costs more for him.

 

[madmole]

I never said that at all.
My point was that given the degradation of the vehicles and buildings in the game world it seems that enough time has passed to render any gasoline unusable.

Gasoline takes six months to two years to degrade, depending on conditions. Even with the sped up game time it would take so long to degrade as to render the mechanic pointless.

Your argument fails because A, its a game and good gameplay trumps realism. B, how do you know a bandit or survivor wasn't driving that car a few days ago and it broke down?

 

[meganoth]

Also, TIL, I didn't know that about gas tanks. This sedan is what I'm talking about, in reference to not being able to harvest gas from it. https://7daystodie.gamepedia.com/FileestroyedSedan.png

If you need another reason why your idea isn't ideal, there are already people who don't wrench off the fully wrecked part of sedans because they can't get any goodies like batteries or engines from this step. If you want to devalue something it should be the unwrecked parts of sedans

Adding on, I don't know whether or not this a bug or simply a feature. But, essentially zombie killing xp does not level up with the player. So, if you killed a regular zombie it would still give 500 xp, whether your a level 1 or level 200 zombie masher. While looting xp, does level with the player to the point that simply searching a bird nest could net 600 xp or so.

TFP is fully aware of this bug/feature. AFAIK their opinion is that this works well (or good enough).

I do not agree but since I play only SP and co-op I don't really care :cocksure:

 

[madmole]

Trust me, us in multiplayer are punished in every aspect of gameplay by the focus on single player experience, but I know that is the focus of TFP initially and have no reason to complain. Some of you guys are just looking for things to complain about at this point.

I'm a big fan of pvp and do play some coop, so we'll get to you guys when all the base content is there and we're in pure balance mode.

 

[beHypE]

The agility player has instant access to massive stealth bonuses so to me your argument is like saying a wrench isn't as good as a hammer for hammering nails in. It shouldn't be, it has a better chance to knock down zombies, the machete should be better at dismembering and bleeding, and that player can access sneak bonus damage much easier than the club player can. Its not to say the club guy will be more dangerous when he gets sneak damage, but it costs more for him.

I don't think you guys can really have that discussion yet because you obviously talk about the way it works in A18 whereas the other guy talks about A17. And in A17 he's absolutely right, the Iron Reinforced Club is better than a machete even though those aren't the same tier of weapons.

 

[maleitch]

I'm a big fan of pvp and do play some coop, so we'll get to you guys when all the base content is there and we're in pure balance mode.

I know mm, you gave me the heads up a while back and I am more than satisfied that it is at least on the TFP radar for the future. It was not a dig at the state of mulitplayer, just a dig at those single player only players who literally get their version of the game improved with every update yet still complain. Was just griping about the guy complaining when I feel he has a pretty skewed perspective. I know mine is skewed, but at least I recognize it and adjust expectations accordingly.

 

[Gnomaana]

No because everyone will turn it up to get an advantage in MP, and then complain it runs bad. Once performance is out of the red zone we can talk about it.

Then that is their problem. You are prioritizing people choosing to turn it up over people who have no choice but to turn it up. They turn it up or they don't get to play. Weird choice there.

 

[Gareee]

The balance I'm looking for is you can harvest enough to use a vehicle a few days a week or on short runs near your base every day. But if you want to go exploring or drive everywhere, all the time (like now) you should have to mine shale and get a chem station going.

Maybe a simple fix to vehicle balancing would be to just ad several htf vehicle fuel efficiency mods and nerf fuel efficiency in the vehicles by 20% or so? That would encourage scavenging for the mods, and you wouldn't have to muck around with everything else.

It would make sense that over time you discovered or read books that taught you how to improve fuel efficiency by crafting, so maybe book learned perks might be better than mods, but as far as I know there aren't a lot of vehicle mods [yet].

 

[Zaroff]

MM I Know A18 is too close to implement but I was wondering if there are any plans to add more minerals or ore types? i.e. tin and copper. or are the raw materials done and no were not adding more?

Also are there plans to open up the ability to craft some of the deco blocks? i.e. wooden doors from the houses, sinks, facets, house window blocks, etc. currently there are so many deco blocks that you can only get by using the CM. I'd personally like to see more deco block options available for crafting if possible.

 

[Zaroff]

Is it still possible to convert gas cans into barrels ? I always used this to save inventory space when I was hunting for engines.

select gas can in your inventory, then select recipes, then select gas barrel, and then click on craft

its already in the game.

 

[Trekkan]

Looks better, runs better and plays better. Wider FOV has more stretching on the edges of the screen. Lower FOV gets much better performance. Lower FOV makes it creepier in a POI because you can't see as much and the zombies are much bigger in your face and everything is more immersive because it is drawn larger and closer to the camera.

It also has the potential to make it unplayable for those with Vertigo and other such issues (like myself). Even though we're a minority, please consider us when making changes that we can't modify as we need. This can literally be a show stopper for us.

 

[Odetta]

Looks better, runs better and plays better. Wider FOV has more stretching on the edges of the screen. Lower FOV gets much better performance. Lower FOV makes it creepier in a POI because you can't see as much and the zombies are much bigger in your face and everything is more immersive because it is drawn larger and closer to the camera.

I think it's subjective player to player. One thing for sure is that I don't experience 1 drop of a frame when going to higher FOV nor do I gain 1 frame from going down. Maybe for some people I guess. Some people do get sick at lower FOVs, like one of my uncles, so I had to change the FOV in Battlefield V for him.

Console I can understand locking it because the hardware is the same across the boat, but PC rigs are not. I say let people decide what they want to set it to. Like Trees, Depth of Field, Texture quality, etc.

Here is an interesting article on it: https://www.howtogeek.com/241285/why-video-games-make-you-feel-sick-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Basically saying that low FOV is unnatural for the human eye, which has roughly 180 Degree Vision. Your vision while playing an FPS game is mostly focused on the exact center of your screen. Higher FOV mimics the peripheral vision that you get in real life but Low FOV causes a tunneling effect. It's something akin to sea sickness in the way it makes people feel.

A higher FOV looks more realistic to the human eye.

 

[unlike them]

What is this talk about removing console FOV command? I literaly cannot play with less than 90 FOV more than 20 minutes (and suffer half a day after that), not only this game. I'm having dizziness/sea sickness, idk. When you took the option out, it was OK as long as we could use the console command.

Why do I care of better performance if I cannot play my favourite game? Multiplayer advantage? It is not a competitive FPS game. You want pretty screenshots and that's why you forbid me playing without suffering headache? I'm speechless.

 

[Lemmers]

Looks better, runs better and plays better. Wider FOV has more stretching on the edges of the screen. Lower FOV gets much better performance. Lower FOV makes it creepier in a POI because you can't see as much and the zombies are much bigger in your face and everything is more immersive because it is drawn larger and closer to the camera.

Looks better in screenshots, yes. And certainly has better performance. But playing with a low FOV when your setup requires a higher one is a terrible experience. It gives me eye strain and a headache, and feels like walking around while wearing 2x magnifying glasses. But when it's right it feels like looking through a window into the game world and everything is exactly where I would expect it. The warped edges match your field of view and everything appears flat from your perspective. That's what makes immersion IMO.

That said, with my setup the default FOV was fine for me, it's a PC game and not a bad console port after all.

 

[RipClaw]

select gas can in your inventory, then select recipes, then select gas barrel, and then click on craft
its already in the game.

Thanks for the answer but I meant that for A18. madmole has announced that the barrels will be loot containers in the future. That's why I wasn't sure if the gas cans can be converted in the future like it is possible now.

 

[Gareee]

One concern I'm having with the rpg like character perk enhancement talk, is that while it sounds great for a multiplayer game, how badly is that going to nerf single player games?

I can't imagine not being able to use bows (stealth), make electricity, medicines, concrete or steel because I just don't have enough perk points for them because of the new specialization.

I'm wondering if a18 will really need a sp a19 balance for sp games?