PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Yea. Be carefull with gas nerfs please. I'd hate the idea of me not being able to explore large rwg maps because people use bikes to avoid hordes. Just have the bikes disabled on horde night and auto break the players legs. There. No running from hordes and i dont have to be penalized for others actions

We're going the route we went with mining. You can probably get by scrounging it, but if you want to thrive you will need to mine.

 

[Trekkan]

What if you had containers that could only contain specific items, and also had stack limits, etc?

Meaning, I think everything should always be a hunt. So fuel, ammo, etc... you're always on the lookout for it (or the materials to craft it). If you don't want people stockpiling massive amounts, you could do something (in addition to other changes) such as make it so you could only use fuel barrels to hold gas cans, otherwise you can only hold X amount of gas cans. This would mean they need to be stored in the world somewhere and subject to theft/destruction, etc.

Not really a fleshed out idea, I get that and technically people could still stockpile things, but at the same time, there would have to be effort in it. Make it so you can only store food in a fridge/cooler/etc (of course, always your pack). Then the containers and items in the world make more sense and have more individual value.

 

[madmole]

Except the trader doesn’t get his fun since he won’t ever be paid for a room to rent on blood moon night if spending the night on a motorcycle carries absolutely no risk and/or has negligible fuel costs....

We've talked about horde nights creating an electromagnetic storm that shuts down vehicles, or have zombies run in front of you and really damage vehicles because they are feral.

 

[madmole]

I think we agree. The issue is that conversation about a gas nerf was started because others are concerning themselves with how others play the game. People use the bike to avoid hordes, so mm starting talking about gas nerfs.
And yea, I have a shale mine. If the gas is nerfed it would be ok but I got news for you, your shale mine is next.

Its never enough for some people. I dont mind someone having alot of gas, as long as they have to go out and get it, and we do. Some want every bit of gas to be rare and have us walking everywhere. That's not the game I want to play.

Me neither. The issue was level design started using those gas barrels which scrapped to 1000 gas or whatever and they are everywhere. Now they are loot containers and drop an average of 50 so your not getting OP amounts of fuel from pressing E for 1 millisecond. Shale mining and buying up fuel from traders will be the way to go if you drive a gas hog.

EDIT: 19 will have fuel economy mods you can install in your vehicle too, so initially they would be gas hogs but you get the mods to reduce fuel consumption.

 

[Roland]

We've talked about horde nights creating an electromagnetic storm that shuts down vehicles, or have zombies run in front of you and really damage vehicles because they are feral.

I like Tin's idea of a zombie spawner that is always in front of the vehicle and spawns zombies in your path. This would require the player to swerve and avoid.

And to you extremoids out there-- No, I don't mean a spawner that spawns them in 3 meters in front of you so you can't avoid and must take damage, I mean about 30 meters ahead of you so they start running towards you from ahead and you do have time to avoid if you are vigilant.

 

[madmole]

That's a whole thread on this subject.


I don't think oil shale gets nerfed. My impression is rather that madmole wants the game to shift from "I find everything I need" to "I have to work to get everything I need".

I agree. Always walking would really not be fun. That's why I'm glad we got the bicycle in A17.

I remember how happy you were in the last A16 series when you finally found the minibike book.

I consider looting work. I envision it that you can find enough gas to use a minibike non stop, but if you get into 4x4 and gyro your going to require a mine to drive them non stop and want the fuel economy mods too.

 

[madmole]

That's a fair point. And I'm saying nerfing gas to the point people cant use bikes to run from hordes wont work. If gas would be so rare to not let people use bikes against the horde then how can we have enough to travel rwg for looting purposes?
I dont see a solution.

I am a fan of having this game be as popular as possible. And removing playstyles doesn't help that. Maybe TFP dont agree. Maybe they think these moves make the game more popular. I can see that opinion, even if I disagree. Or maybe they dont care about popularity and just want to make the game they want to make. I can respect that.

I dont think anyone is "evil". And I dont think of myself as a "saint" I simply want the game to do as well as possible.

The game is an RPG, how you win should be up to the player. We typically only put in anti measures if it just plain feels too easy. There should be risks driving a vehicle somewhere on horde night, like random engine failure or zeds running out in front of you causing a wreck and ragdolled player. Eventually we'll get there. Nerfing gas to that point isn't the goal though.

 

[madmole]

It reminds me a lot people classifying underground bases as an exploit. That's why I think this "gas nerf thing" isn't a good idea (and a very good reason to keep people away > nerf, nerf, nerf...), because next step obviously will be nerfing oil shale, like you said. I'm not worried about vehicules, but think about horde defenses based on electric fences, dart traps, blade trap...etc.
I don't know, maybe overreaction, but I'm legitimately concerned about this "nerf route".

Keeping your vehicle gassed up should be more involved than grabbing 2 red barrels a week.

 

[madmole]

I think a lot of people are forgetting this game existed BEFORE A17. How quickly we become married to the idea of a bicycle or things of that nature when we have had them for 6 months or so.
Previously the Minibike was the must have item, and it wasn't easy to get for sure. Walking was just fine back then, but now we cant fathom the idea. No one outdrove horde, or if they did horde followed them around something it does not do now. Thats not interesting.

BUT what if we look at the proposed idea of renting a safe spot from the trader. Now THAT is interesting. It gives a game sanctioned way of avoiding BM, at the same time forcing the player to have to scavenge and sell to earn Dukes for the right, or possibly earn rep with a faction.

Take that idea a step further. For servers (of which a lot of people like to bring up as a crutch) think of the gameplay value in that sanctioned system. What if you could make your OWN safe habitat as end game content. So now you can rent your own room to new players, promoting economy and trade. Or set up a town with taxes. Pay the tax, the player can stay. Enabling the safe habitat system would bring a lot of new functionality to vanilla and to modders.

Now isnt that WAY more interesting from a gameplay perspective than just hopping on a bike or jeep and driving aimlessly all night?

This. But I'm more interested in making driving a vehicle on horde night a dangerous thing than nerfing gas to the point where you couldn't drive all night.

 

[Ayrton]

We've talked about horde nights creating an electromagnetic storm that shuts down vehicles, or have zombies run in front of you and really damage vehicles because they are feral.

What if we have a magnetic storm during the night of Orda and that the vehicles do not work with the exception of the bike, and if you move by bike, then send a super fast vulture orda that spits green balls that affect the player's stamina, this of riding a bike the night of orda will not be a good idea hahaha

 

[madmole]

How much gas do I get if I sell my kidney ?

Thats what the trader charges you to stay the night.

 

[madmole]

Madmole, great work to be putting together, I love, I will buy more copies of this great game just for the pleasure of helping this company and of course to play with my friends, today I have several friends and family to recommend 7 days, and all were very satisfied, only the Spanish translation would be missing that I already commented to them that it is coming when we have A18 stable, as you told me, how far we are from the experimental A18? will they have the serpentines three days before we the mortals? or is it released to the general public? the desire to play A18 is great friend!

As always, when its done. I can't predict how long a localization company will take to do their job.

 

[Grandpa Minion]

This. But I'm more interested in making driving a vehicle on horde night a dangerous thing than nerfing gas to the point where you couldn't drive all night.

I hope actually your more interested in making vehicless less powerfull in PVP, Currently they ignore player placed lcb and do way more damage than prob initially intended. The Jeep itself hits for at least 5 blocks of damage on a players's base which means it can drop a base in minutes while ignoring the lcb modifier not to mention The passenger in a jeep can use xray exploits to locate the base. The other vehicles have their own issues to but if this problem isnt solved a18 alot of players are going to remain pissed off about it actually still wondering why that problem hasnt been fixed a17.

 

[madmole]

I like Tin's idea of a zombie spawner that is always in front of the vehicle and spawns zombies in your path. This would require the player to swerve and avoid.
And to you extremoids out there-- No, I don't mean a spawner that spawns them in 3 meters in front of you so you can't avoid and must take damage, I mean about 30 meters ahead of you so they start running towards you from ahead and you do have time to avoid if you are vigilant.

I wouldn't want to see them spawn in front of a player, but run in front of you so you need to swerve out of the way. I think state of decay had fat guys kind of run in front of your car and mess it up, something like that.

 

[madmole]

What if we have a magnetic storm during the night of Orda and that the vehicles do not work with the exception of the bike, and if you move by bike, then send a super fast vulture orda that spits green balls that affect the player's stamina, this of riding a bike the night of orda will not be a good idea hahaha

Vultures already do that on horde night.

 

[Tin]

I wouldn't want to see them spawn in front of a player, but run in front of you so you need to swerve out of the way. I think state of decay had fat guys kind of run in front of your car and mess it up, something like that.

That's the beauty of it. You don't really need the spawn point(s) directly in front. You could have 2 spawn points offset to the sides of where the vehicle is pointing, and you just spawn the entities facing towards each spawn point.

Since it would be night, they would be running anyhow. Also they would be adjusting their path to go straight for the player already, since it is a horde night.

Plus it was just a proof of concept suggestion, to see if it was really applicable and fun to play

 

[RipClaw]

I wouldn't want to see them spawn in front of a player, but run in front of you so you need to swerve out of the way. I think state of decay had fat guys kind of run in front of your car and mess it up, something like that.

In other words, the driver must take care of what is in front of him. This is not much different from riding a motorcycle every other night. I don't know how often I've bumped into rocks in the dark because I haven't seen them in time.

 

[Gnomaana]

Its standard industry practice to position something in first person to feel big and meaty, realism fails and makes firearms look weak and underwhelming.

Yeah but a firearm emits a projectile so it doesn't affect your perception on what will and what won't hit. Melee weapons are another thing. The hit box can't be too far away from the visual cues or it becomes very difficult to judge and looks AWFUL.

 

[RipClaw]

We've talked about horde nights creating an electromagnetic storm that shuts down vehicles, or have zombies run in front of you and really damage vehicles because they are feral.

An electromagnetic storm, however, would also affect the generators in the bases if one assumes that the game behaves consistently. All electrical traps would be useless.

 

[Ayrton]

An electromagnetic storm, however, would also affect the generators in the bases if one assumes that the game behaves consistently. All electrical traps would be useless.

that affects everything that is not inside your reclamation block, works as waves that repel the magnetic field, then you can use turrets and generators.