PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

lol of course!

 

[RipClaw]

“Trader Jen has a deep voice.” Please, its time to fix it. Cannot stand deep voiced traders anymore.

As far as I know, it's fixed in Alpha 18.

I think it's a real pity. For me it was always hilarious to see how players react when they hear the deep voice for the first time.

 

[Trankitas]

I'll have to admit, I LOL'd. Twice.

A little Trankitas humor to release stress.

 

[madmole]

I'd love more zombies. Come to think of it, it's only the radiated ones I'd like reduced and made special.
They don't have an Achilles Heel. I think that's what bugs me most. Having a spot to hit, like the underbelly of a dragon, would be interesting. Hit them in the leg , drop them on the ground, expose weak spot, shoot to kill.

Loot pretty much becomes inconsequential, unless you reintroduce degradation of level through repairs. For now it's, you found your gun, you'll never need to find another.

I'm not afraid to say that I haven't opened a single yellow lootbag. There never is anything in there that I don't already have or can make. The more I think about it, the more I realize I don't need the loot. I want to feel like a job well done after bm.

Just eradicating a sea of zombies with pure muscle is nice the first time.

So yeah, how about special kill mechanics for special zombies, and a slight reduction of special zombies, perhaps one or two at a time per player max.

Just curious, what can one do while waiting out the night at a trader? How about a poker minigame with the trader? Oh, and introduce an option to limit that space, so players can have an option to compete for that space

Obviously you haven't paid attention to the A18 features, weapons have random stats now, so there is almost always a better gun or armor out there to be found now, and certainly much better than anything you can craft.

The radiated zeds were a quick idea to add a later game threat with not much design thought put into them. We're trying to create more special infected now with unique AI and weak spot just like the new Demolisher. I'm sure we can come up with a weakness for radiated so they aren't just pure bullet sponges.

 

[Crater Creator]

Boy, can you imagine if games were actually developed like this?

"Hey guys, I've got a new game called Space Invaders! Come try the Alpha build!"

"Whoa, this is cool! But I notice if you put your guy all the way to the left edge of the screen, you never get shot."

"Oh. I hadn't accounted for that. Should I make them attack you over there?"

"Sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with the aliens. I'd hate to make the game harder by forcing people into using strategies they're not comfortable with. You'll never be able to FORCE people to deal with it. It would be lovely if you don't force it on people, but have it optional under game settings. An option to turn it on/off is a win-win scenario for all players. If you feel like it is cheesy, don't do it. Or Mod it! All the good games that lasted for years and decades had exactly that: choices." 12345678

 

[PolishBerserker]

Will we get new guns beside M-60?

like i don't know maybe SVD SKS mosin AR-15/M4?maybe 5.56 caliber like marksman rifle and hunting rifle dont work for me

 

[madmole]

Noo please!
Madmole, I don't understand why this would benefit the game. New players and people who play 20 hours and then quit wouldn't be affected at all. Only experienced players who love to sink 300+ hours into a single game would get negativity impacted.

What's to gain out of this?

Replay value and no demi gods on servers. We might not need to put a cap in, the xp needed is so high that nobody in their right mind would play one character that long.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

I'm thinking more like stuff that effects the players abilities and attributes with alchemy. Extra health/stam regen for x seconds, boosts str for x seconds, run faster for x seconds etc., resistant to fire for x, etc.

Please. I know "seconds" can mean 3000 seconds...

But there is no need for 10% damage on rifles for *insert time magazines are active here* (*edit* forgot how long they are active... but I know its way WAY too short for the increase) like the A17 schematics.

There are two ways of doing buffs: hardcore (like 100-200 extra hp but for 5 minutes only) that boosts attributes to the moon and makes you significantly stronger

or character enhancement, which gives a smaller boost for a long time (meaning like... an ingame day at least.

The first should be expensive. It should be a one off if you need to clear a tier 5 poi.

The second one should be easy to come by. Like the meat stew. Not something you have in the first week, but if you really want it, you can make one each day, evne if its costly.

Like +1 stamina regen, +20 blockdamage +50 loot quality.

Stuff that you take when you know "okay today I'm going to mine a lot" or "today im exploring and looting a town".

 

[Crater Creator]

Cops could throw spike strips
That was a joke...but tire punctures might have some merit. They could happen when driving off road or from driving over zombies or from cop spit and would require a tire change...something you wouldn't want to do with horde coming at you.

There we go. On horde night, geysers of sticky tar burble out of the ground in random spots, slowing you down if you touch them. They’re easy enough to sidestep on foot, but if you’re going faster than that... look out! It adds to the horror ambiance of horde night while serving the function of zombie spike strips.

 

[Ricowan]

Generally people on a server could arrange that one of them stays in the hotel so that time forwards.

Um, time DOES NOT stop on dedicated servers when nobody is logged in. Unless that changed in one of the recent alphas? I haven't had a dedicated server set up for A17...

 

[madmole]

How far along are survivor/bandit AI anyways since they're going to be pushed back to Alpha 19 (for now)?Like how much is done, what is left exactly that needs work before they can be considered for a new build.

They were never promised for 18, nor were they pushed back. They will come when they are done, just like everything else. I would not expect them for 19 either. Pulling them off is a big risk. We're committed to it but it will a lot of time since we're focusing on a lot of other things in parallel.

 

[Crater Creator]

I disagree. When making suggestions people should always state plainly their own preferences and what they want to see in the game. Making suggestions for some perceived group of people to try and add weight to your suggestions is fake-- and when someone suggests it for some alleged faction that they themselves are not even part of it becomes ridiculous.
Focusing on the motives for wanting a change instead of discussing and brainstorming the changes themselves is a waste of time. Who cares if one guy wants to stop others from doing something and someone else only wants to make their own game more fun? What was the suggestion that they made? Is it a good one? Are their downsides?

Let's discuss the actual suggestions and list pros and cons instead of trying to turn the conversation to why people are making suggestions.

Finally, when talking about balancing it is easy and simple to talk about loopholes and exploits in terms of "people can do this" or "people shouldn't be able to do this". These statements are to demonstrate that an imbalance exists and I seriously doubt they are meant to mean, "I don't want someone else to have fun by playing in this manner". It's not personal.

So maybe saying "People shouldn't be able to just drive around all night long without any cost or risk" is not as well phrased as "The game is currently not balanced well for the choice to drive around at night on blood moon vs the choice to defend a base" but I'm thinking they mean the same thing for most people and nobody is sitting around thinking of ways to ruin the fun of others.

Dang it Roland, I can't +rep you. Sticky this post or something.

 

[meganoth]

Um, time DOES NOT stop on dedicated servers when nobody is logged in. Unless that changed in one of the recent alphas? I haven't had a dedicated server set up for A17...

EDIT: Huh? It does. I got a dedicated server and it sure stops time if we are not arround

 

[madmole]

Originally Posted by Phoenixshade35
2. Acid - Like my above question what about crafting it? Like take 10 Polymer, 10 Lead, Plant Fiber and 1 Bottle of Water in the Chem station, that could work.

Since Snowberries are gather only and not farmable.. why not make an acid recipe that uses a huge amount of snowberries along with other "heavy resources" as well as long craft timers for each stage.

For example:

Step 1:

Acid paste base = 1x murky water + 10x Hops + 50x Snowberries + 10 Polymer

Craft time per unit = 5 minutes

Step 2:

Raw Acid mash = 1x Acid paste base + 1x Bottle of water + 1x Military fibre (for filtration) + 100x plant fibres + 5x Jars of honey and 20x Blueberries (the latter 3 for fermentation)

Craft time per unit = 10 minutes

Step 3:

Bottle of Acid = 1x Raw Acid mash + 1x Bottle of water

Craft time per unit = 30 minutes

This would be 45 minutes of game time for crafting ONE Bottle of Acid not including going out to find the Snowberries..

OR players can get up off their butts and go loot some.

How about get off your ass and go find some acid until we decide if the chemist perks need a boon. We added books that make it possible to find more acid. I just explained why high end items require a non craftable trinket you must find/buy and here you are asking for a ridiculous recipe lol. There is zero value to making everything craftable. That is why people didn't like 17, there was zero reason to loot.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Boy, can you imagine if games were actually developed like this?
"Hey guys, I've got a new game called Space Invaders! Come try the Alpha build!"

"Whoa, this is cool! But I notice if you put your guy all the way to the left edge of the screen, you never get shot."

"Oh. I hadn't accounted for that. Should I make them attack you over there?"

"Sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with the aliens. I'd hate to make the game harder by forcing people into using strategies they're not comfortable with. You'll never be able to FORCE people to deal with it. It would be lovely if you don't force it on people, but have it optional under game settings. An option to turn it on/off is a win-win scenario for all players. If you feel like it is cheesy, don't do it. Or Mod it! All the good games that lasted for years and decades had exactly that: choices." 12345678

This is so true... wow...

 

[madmole]

Any chance of making a soft level cap instead of hard one? I'm talking about a way to mix "pushing your envelope" with a limited gradual respecification ability.
I think it could be a thing, because early game requires a set of skills that is quite different from late game. Let's say, early on you usually want to build yourself a nice, safe and functional base, so it makes sense to invest in mining, building, and crafting skills. Later on, you have your impenetrable fortress set up, so you want to go looting and questing for some fun and danger. But alas, you have already used up all your skill choices for building stuff, and reached your level cap. So it's game over, man, game over!!!

Wouldn't it be nice if you could start gradually moving from a builder or miner to a silent ninja looter, or fearsome sledgehammer-wielding zombie smasher instead? Please note I'm not talking about cheesy mechanims like borderlands or pillars of eternity, where you can buy instant respec with money. I'm talking about gradually trading some skills for other skills over time, as you gain levels past your "soft cap".

I'd like to think it's like in real life. If you stop working out because you have to go study some quantum physics, you start losing all your hard earned muscle after a couple of weeks or so, but you will start learning science skill instead. When you have finally finished your nerdy science project and built your null energy reactor or whatever, then you can choose to go hit the gym again in hopes you can still one day bench that 221 lbs once more. So, instead of thinking of skill advancement as a one way road, it would be more like filling a leaking bucket. You know, kind of like body building

Not sure how that would do with the single scalar level value, though. Maybe have one-way progress up until level cap, and start losing xp and levels over time with an increasing pace for every level over cap? Perhaps the game could keep track of what skill has been used the least since last level change, for choosing which skill to degrade when player loses a level due to stagnation.

This way players could push real hard to reach a very high level, but keeping it up would demand constant hard work, determination and dedication. Also, the soft cap would ensure new players will get past the first levels, and not keep regressing to level 1.

We haven't even capped it yet. Too late, grandpa's forgett'n elixer is in, and its 20k.

 

[Crater Creator]

I wasn't on the fourms when this was a thing, but wasn't the "throw down spikes and laugh" strategy considered an exploit back when log spikes were a thing? How comparable is it to the use of veichles to run away?

Well, it’s somewhat more engaging, as you have to track the individual zombie’s movement to place the spikes in their path. The resource cost isn’t nothing, but it’s lower (wood instead of gas cans). Driving away scales better as the number of zombies increases. You can drive away from any number of zombies equally well, but more zombies require more spikes with the spike method. Perhaps most importantly, both methods have an increasing cost the longer you use them, which make them more balanced than, say, staying underground in A16, which provided infinite safety for finite effort.

 

[madmole]

Please no.

Any true RPG player knows there is massive value in restarting a new character with different strength/weaknesses, and turning on god mode is not fun for long. Rolling a new character and focusing on a new build has given me 1000's of hours of fun in Skyrim and Fallout. Once those characters are level 60-80 they are demi gods and the game is boring. What value is there having all the perks? Nobody IRL can master everything and if its too easy its just boring.

 

[KingSlayerGM]

I'm thinking more like stuff that effects the players abilities and attributes with alchemy. Extra health/stam regen for x seconds, boosts str for x seconds, run faster for x seconds etc., resistant to fire for x, etc.

Basically magic potions n Minecraft

- - - Updated - - -

Replay value and no demi gods on servers. We might not need to put a cap in, the xp needed is so high that nobody in their right mind would play one character that long.

Challenge accepted!

 

[madmole]

The moment they are going gold. When that will be, even the developers might not know for sure.

Pretty much this. Everything is subject to change, even post gold, just not as much. I feel pretty good about the attributes and their perks now. I don't see much new or removal from A18, but balance will go on for a while.