PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

So if the player has to have skills to line up multiple zeds for a shot, why do you need the perk.
Someone who shoots a .50 cal round without the perk can only hit one target, but someone who shoots a 9mm with the perk can hit multiple targets.

That's just goofy.

-A

Actually no the 9mm can't do it at all, he can ignore armor at point blank range is what his perk does. Another risk reward design I came up with for the 9mm guy to be able to deal with armored enemies.

Right now its only on the sniper (bought with perks)and magnum, sniper buys the perks, magnum guy collects 7 books to unlock it, good luck with that. I'm on day 13 and have 2 magnum books so far, finding the full set to complete the bonuses is not easy, and has never even been done in testing afaik, but we don't play long games usually so many things chance during balancing we restart to get an accurate assessment of the changes.

 

[madmole]

Yay! I've started reusing the shotgun with the sawn-off barrel mod and the other ones that help with handling and accuracy. It's a beast. Then when A18 comes with dragon rounds, my god. What ammo does the M60, I'm assuming 7.62?

Yes.

 

[Gareee]

My problem is that it feel like a bug. Who wants to do a quest that leads to the same trader? And would you get XP for completing it? Kind of silly. We'll just do it right, where the trader will tell you he's out of work right now but heard bob could use some help, I'll mark his location on your map or it starts another quest called find Trader Bob, etc.

That works as well, BUT it eliminates the need to explore and discover without being spoon fed. Maybe the initial trader quest code can be looked at to make sure it IS in fact sending the player to the closest trader? (I would hope that it WOULD be... I recall spending the first 3 days of one playthrough traipsing through wasteland trying to get to my starting quest trader, cursing that distance the entire way.)

That would make the leaflets idea rock solid, and encourage exploration instead of just daily trader visits.

I like that there is a reason to use the traders now, but I don't want to have to go there for every single thing. Share the love!

 

[madmole]

Just because you can do it, doesn't mean your character in game can. Consider it training.
Seriously though, reading some of these replies, it's amazing MM keeps coming back. Don't agree with it? Go play something else. Or make your own game...

Yep, its getting close to hiatus mode.

 

[Gareee]

You don't get xp, you just get the nearest trader.
...if the nearest is the same one, that's on the player for not exploring.

I'd argue that telling him where a DIFFERENT trader is, will further limit exploration because they would always know exactly where to go.

"...if the nearest is the same one, that's on the player for not exploring [far enough away].

Exactly. Red Eagle's mod was one of those great idea game changers for us.

 

[madmole]

You're missing the conversation.
I'm fine with bullets penetrating multiple targets. I'm not fine with perks having to be bought to do so.

Perks are knowledge and with the right technique and knowledge I can comfortably justify how we're doing it. The perception guy is tough to fill out if you have any better ideas on what perception perks should be, I'm all ears. To me, this guy is perceptive and studied anatomy though shooting things 1000's of times and figured out where a bullet can shred through a zombie, or knows how walls studs are and can shoot between them and penetrate. I don't find that abstraction weird at all myself.

I've worked in a lot of skilled trades and its painfully obvious that a good technique is 1000x more powerful than brute force. Like working metal if you put stress in the opposite direction the impact came from you can dolly out the the damage perfectly and not have to heat shrink or anything. So instead of working the dent out you remove the stress and the dent goes away on its own.

Same with hammering. You can swing you shoulder or whole body into it an take 5 hits to put a nail in. Flick your wrist just slightly at the right moment and and nail it in with one shot. The more joints you involve the faster the momentum and force you can generate. Its applied technique learned through practice and being perceptive.

 

[madmole]

Perks have always been dumb. As a concept.

Ok 1 billion Skyrim and Fallout customers would disagree with you. There are highly successful youtube channels like Fudgemuppet, where all he does is talk about specific builds, made from perk choices to fit a certain play style and a bit of backstory for character ideas. But the crux of it is the perk choices and interesting strengths and weaknesses of that particular build. It allows the game to have more replay value and get good at what you want without gear or the random number generators dictating your progression as much.

 

[madmole]

I don't think this is necessarily bad to be able to max everything out eventually. I don't know what is planned exactly, but I don't think a sandbox game as this benefits from artificial classes. In my professional career I have learnt two academic professions and I am sure, other people have learnt more. There is no reason that a doctor shouldn't also be a good plumber or gardener, given time and experience.
Maybe master of everything is not needed, but channeling people into an artificial class system is - just in my opinion - not necessary either.

It might well be a matter of balancing, though. It will no doubt be a tough task, best of luck on that.

Very much looking forward to A18

There is no problem mastering two perk trees and having bits of others. Once you get one tree maxed and rank 5 of the combat perks you are very powerful and the switch goes to looting anyway to optimize your gear to the best possible, and you start getting QOL perks. Like if you have rank 5 of blades its totally stupid to go for rank 5 of clubs or spears IMO. No sane person would want both of those. You pick one and run with it. Now there are of course combinations that might be fun requiring 10 of two attributes. Like hand to hand is under fortitude, maybe you want to be a sniper (perception) and use fists up close, then you would need two attributes maxed.

The whole class system isn't hard set, its groups of stuff that make sense together that we feel make up a decent starter set, but players will want to cherry pick a few other things or at least get ok with them which isn't much of an investment to get 1-2 ranks of some perks.

 

[Rusrec00]

Sometimes I wish this forum section, since its called Dev diary, was just MM and the pimps discussing changes and explaining why they are happening without the feedback option. Then have a separate forum channel for feedback/recommendations/but mostly whining on those changes.

 

[madmole]

My question is this.
Why is penetration not a base mechanic for every weapon?

Regardless of whether this is modified by perk or ammunition bonus the basic idea of being able to penetrate varying thickness of material really does need to be a universal mechanic.

You're adding depth and variation to the core game without any extra overhead on system resources. How is this not win/win?

It was intended for more powerful weapons. We do have armor piercing rounds, we could enable it only on those and only the perks let you shoot through more than one target. Shotguns, no way. Slugs, probably. The perk would still say you can shoot through even more targets though.

 

[madmole]

When I read that it was for the hunting rifle, my first thought was "■■■■, only on that useless weapon I didn't fire a single shot from for a year (real time).". The next thought was "ok, well, this was probably needed to make that weapon into something you would consider to use".

Exactly, people are wanting it on every weapon when the design intent was to make the sniper feel special instead of a mostly useless weapon. We have lots of interesting new things for each weapon with the perk books.

 

[madmole]

Joel, is this just a reasoning or something like that is planned in alpha 18 or alpha 19 or latter?

Possibly down the road.

 

[madmole]

Should be a perk for less complaining..
some people are more rpg oriented-others more fps oriented... Not everyone is going to like everything.

We won't make every LBD fan happy but I do believe that we've addressed a ton of concerns and the perk rebalance is playing great. It was criticized because there was no choice and too many must haves, now there is choice and specialization is a no brainer and a strong desire to loot. Perks augment abilities more than just unlock things and all the best gear is looted now. I think as a whole its the best version of the game by far, and I'm anxious to get it out. Balance is better than ever too.

 

[Shin]

Ok 1 billion Skyrim and Fallout customers would disagree with you.

A billion??? A tad exagerated to say the least.
IMHO, This is not Skyrim nor Fallout no matter how much you want it to be, and you dont have the manpower to make it like that either... I for one wouldnt have touched this game if it was. Those are something my teenage son and his friends play. Lucrative targets, I know. But they say that vanilla is unplayable so they play heavily modded.

I play 7d2d and have loved doing so until A17 dropped, now i dont like it at all. I'm hanging around til A18 drops, playing modded. If you keep referring to, and try to "copy" those games you keep mentioning, 7d2d will just turn in to a bad copy. You said yoursekf before A17 droppes that it was the best Alpha yet. Now tou say the same about A18 and that worries me...

All my personal opinion so feel free to disagree anyone.

Shin

 

[Survager]

Clothing will support 1 mod slot in A18. Right now if you find the right needle and thread book you can install pocket mods to reduce encumbrance. One step closer to not needing strength/pack mule.

Madmole, is that, if we find the book "Needle and Thread", then we will be able to install an additional pocket mod on clothes, even if the first cell is already occupied by another mod, for example, an insulated mod?

 

[Lanadon Conners]

This new "Specialization" aspect has me very interested.

Nobody is a Master of All... Some like to get in close and others like to sit back and Touch someone from afar..

More options, more choices..

And I will finally be able to snipe a zombie through a pane of broken glass and actually kill it.

 

[Survager]

No that would be infinite ammo. 80% of the cost to craft 100 rounds in mats. For 9mm its 80 casings, 80 GP, 80 tips to make a box of 9mm ammo which is 100 rounds. You unpack it when you need them and it converts to 100 9mm bullets.

Madmole, why do we need the advantage of 20 bullets. We already have the advantage of free cells in the inventory, since we can put several boxes of bullets in one cell.

 

[Odetta]

Actually no the 9mm can't do it at all, he can ignore armor at point blank range is what his perk does. Another risk reward design I came up with for the 9mm guy to be able to deal with armored enemies.
Right now its only on the sniper (bought with perks)and magnum, sniper buys the perks, magnum guy collects 7 books to unlock it, good luck with that. I'm on day 13 and have 2 magnum books so far, finding the full set to complete the bonuses is not easy, and has never even been done in testing afaik, but we don't play long games usually so many things chance during balancing we restart to get an accurate assessment of the changes.

I like what you did with the 9mm pistol and I think each weapon can have unique attributes inherent.

Shotguns - Hits like a truck causing guaranteed knockdown via ragdoll (buckshot, lesser zombies only) same for slugs but more exaggerated ragdoll and a winded effect making them slow for 3 seconds (works for both high tier enemies and lesser foes)

Rifles - Penetration Power, line them up and take them out.

Assault Rifles/Smg/M60 - High Dps bullet hoses with an available mod specific to them to greatly increase their magazine size (drum magazines and larger ammo box for M60) Bullets ain't cheap so use wisely.

Magnum - Very High chance to dismember on non armoured foes, causes ragdoll on armored enemies.

Nailgun - Shoot their feet to nail them in place

 

[Grandpa Minion]

a17 coming to an end looking forward to a18. I have 13000+ hours in game, have been here daily running our server , the biggest issue I had with a17 was the start of it when the bug existed only a set amout of players could log in. I still feel that really hurt server owners bad because a16 we had over 5000+ players join first month alone | a17 we where expecting the same but for the first month of a17 that bug really hurt the population. Glad it was eventually fixed but i am hoping moving into a18 this problem doesnt re invent itself. That being said our server is looking forward to a18 and i know for fact alot of our players which exceed in the thousands well make a return. I also really like all the new features and work that the devs have put into the game moving into a18... thanks for your hard work!

 

[Haidrgna]

Exactly, people are wanting it on every weapon when the design intent was to make the sniper feel special instead of a mostly useless weapon. We have lots of interesting new things for each weapon with the perk books.

I have noticed that if you give every weapon it's own type of ammonition rather than sharing it on multiple guns a gun will never feel useless. Since 762 rounds are shared on 3 guns in the game, essentially means everyone will take the best one that shoots that ammo. Even just changing the hunting rifle to be a .44 caliber rifle already makes it feel way less useful (and no need to add new a new caliber).

Why? Well because if you play survival and you find rounds for every kind of gun but only limit yourself to use just one gun, you either need to invest a lot in making that ammo or run out. Having ammo of every gun makes them all relevant, even if they are just a backup weapon to conserve ammo.