PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

@TFP
Would you guys please look into increasing brass availability because right now brass is crazy hard to source.

Would you consider making copper and zinc available to mine if so that would be great.

Roland can you please update the front page and inform people there are books for finding more brass, harvesting door knobs, and getting lead/brass from sinks now?


done.

 

[KingSlayerGM]

They were never promised for 18, nor were they pushed back.

I remember from one of your videos "bandits are coming to A15, so you better watch out!" Lol, time flies

Edit: found it

 

[madmole]

That is one of the worst things you could ever put in the game. Number 1 worst!
There would be a #gate like you have never seen and everyone would mod it out, day 1.

I had to deal with that in some mod I used to play. It was a nightmare.

Which is why I pointed out the flaw, most players couldn't handle it. I could, but I don't make the game based on my own personal wish list, so no worries it won't happen.

 

[madmole]

Omg. Welcome to my world when I'm reading YouTube comments lol.
This is how I deal with it, might help you. Before reading YouTube comments, or the forums, just ready yourself for any potential hate. I say to myself, theres gonna be hate, get ready. Then read. I find it helps alot.

I use the term hate loosely btw. Its not really hate, just patioate people on the internet. Sometimes It can be hurtful, annoying or rage inducing lol.

Times like that I head to the gym, put on some slipknot and excersise it all away.

I was mostly kidding. I have thick skin, but I applaud you for actually reading youtube comments lol. I don't read those at all, or well I might skim 50% of the videos if its a topic I want to hear feedback on and haven't gotten enough here or on reddit. Working out is a great way to relieve stress.

 

[madmole]

Yea but this ain't 2013 anymore. Pretty sure the 7 day horde is what the name of the game refers to. Or am I mistaken @mademole?
Great hearing from us JCrook

- - - Updated - - -

He was definitely an Arnold reference. Season 3 was great.

I'm pretty sure there was always a 7 day horde. It was originally linked to the virus I think killing people within 7 days and if that didn't get you, the blood moon hordes would.

 

[Weazelsun]

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.

I argue personally for me, my main issue is with crafting and not loot. My opinion is that loot is more abundant and this on a server with the default setting of 100%, and that's just due to the dungeon POI's and quests. I have all that loot but nothing to do with them other than scrap them into raw materials, sell them to a trader, sell them to NPC's via those rentable vending machines inside the trader settlement, or sell them to other players. Eventually, on my playthrough I have a stockpile of acid, what I exactly do I do with them now? Use them to craft a bunch of vehicles that I can't sell? Also, if you did have alternative crafting recipes for things like acid or raw material components. It would open playstyles for certain roles like those who decided on becoming the resource gathering, they could gather those materials in the previous quote, and decided whether they would rather take the risk of going out or spend time at their base crafting. I would find that as a survival challenge, you can choose to spend time waiting for something to craft but IF you go out and loot, you would find ammo, and other things necessary to survival.

 

[RipClaw]

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?

I never heard of anyone using log spikes for this. I know that wooden spikes are used for this tactic. This is still a popular tactic among players who play with zombies on always run. Requires some practice to get the timing right.

 

[Crater Creator]

This is the whole underground base argument again...
Group A doesn't build UG bases, but hates that group B does it, so cries "Loophole! Must close the loophole!".

Group B is shocked because they know their play style doesn't affect group A and says "Let us play how we want!"

Group C, the silent majority, says "How about making underground living challenging in other ways?"

There is no Group A. Not a single person is in Group A. Even Socrastein and Eliphas the Inheritor, the ones who say they care how other people play, don’t say they hate what others do. Group A is composed of strawmen.

The pimps read "Loophole" and knee jerk the easiest method to close it for a problem that never really existed in the first place using man hours and pushing back release time to do so.

Knee jerk? Knee jerk would be something quick and impulsive, like turning stone into bedrock. No, I'd say hiring an AI programmer to work on overhauling the whole system for over a year, in a way that makes foundational improvements beyond just the underground problem, on which to build future features like bandits, was not the easiest method, and they put some thought into it. Calling that a knee jerk is insulting to the developers.

Oh and Roland, if that "spikes require effort to get the resources for" argument works for keeping the spike loophole in, how come underground bases, which required WAY more effort, couldn't use that argument?
(Also pretty sure getting a vehicle takes time and effort)

To make an underground base you needed to dig down three blocks and place one block. Anything more than that was fluff.

But you're right that getting and maintaining a vehicle does take time and effort, and that should be taken into consideration when balancing it against other horde night gameplay.

 

[meganoth]

I remember from one of your videos "bandits are coming to A15, so you better watch out!" Lol, time flies

They came to A15 but drove away on minibikes again when bloodmoon started. :cocksure:

 

[SnowDog1942]

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.

I really appreciate you not giving in to the people who want to just be a demi god and want no consequences of their choices.

 

[Crater Creator]

is it possible to have higher chances of rare loot drop from BM zombies, like a god roll spec item/weapon? that itself would make some people stop and kill a few before fleeing again. would also appease the ones who got butthurt from the zombie loot nerf, that have the need for a risk vs reward to engage in something.

It is technically feasible. You could write a mod to do it now, by defining Blood-Moon-only zombie types. I’m not saying it’d be easy, though.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

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.

but you AREN'T a "true rpg". You might be in alpha 25. But right now you are a sandbox survival with skillpoints. Nothing else has anything to do with and rpg. There is no story, there is no "interactive" world, you have no characteristics... nothing.

And when di you play a sandbox and thought "huh... I just spent 200 hours building that awesome thing and gathering all those ressources with my hard work...

Lets just start from scratch and farm all that stuff again.

Please. If you have a story, npcs and a radient world, sure. Implement a skillcap.

But until then there is NO benefit in it, except that everyone is going to mod that skillcap out anyways.

 

[Crater Creator]

Not if we take some action. As long as there is risk, I'm ok with 1000 ways to escape the blood moon. I just don't like the super cheesy easy ones that have zero risk and little to no effort.

Your oft-cited example of paying the trader a small fortune to escape the Blood Moon, though... that would require effort for sure, but potentially no risk. "Risk versus reward" sounds catchier, but when I read that phrase I mentally translate it to really mean "effort versus reward."

 

[meganoth]

Eventually, on my playthrough I have a stockpile of acid, what I exactly do I do with them now? .... Also, if you did have alternative crafting recipes for things like acid or raw material components. It would

If as you say you got stacks of acid you can't use for anything, why would you need a crafting recipe for acid?

For end game a few VERY expensive crafting recipes would be nice to have some use for all the stockpiles though. For example a blade trap with 40% more HPs but 4 times the cost of a normal one. Or a "golden gun turret" with 20% more damage but 4 times the build cost and a "platinum gun turret" with %40 more damage but 12 times the build cost, and so on. Nobody is forced to use them but they are what players would eventually build after they have everything else.

 

[hotpoon]

I'm with you on that one. You need some kind of reward, and if it's just something as simple as a confirmation of what you've accomplished.
In A16, my base was covered with zombie corpses. This alone was already the confirmation of what you have accomplished. The following cleaning up and the repair work have strengthened this effect again. The loot was not so important. 99% of it were anyway only garbage. The rest I mostly sold to be able to buy new ammunition for the next horde.

I also think it's important that you are able to thrive in the long term. Without the perspective that things will get better, survival is meaningless.

I agree with this completely. I miss the corpse clean up, and also the bit about thriving. I think that is why I enjoyed the game a bit more when the zombie levels weren't linked to my own level. I think that was A15 and before if I recall correctly. It made the start of the game really difficult, but I knew that as I leveled up, things were going to get easier, not more difficult.

If I had my way, I would revert back to that, but also have harder biomes with more difficult monsters. That's the way Ark & Conan Exiles do it, and it works well.

 

[Crater Creator]

Yes dynamic events are amazing. In Skyrim they predict your travel direction on the roads and spawn a road event. These vary quite a bit but make traveling interesting. They also have a few npcs seek you out, say a quick line or two and then run off, those are great as well. Once we get some NPC framework in we can start doing things like that if we wanted.
Random heli crashes could be cool. Once we get traveling bandits in that will be interesting too. Maybe traveling merchants. If you kill them that faction will attack you for a long time and shoot on sight, making you regret it, unless you like killing them for their loot instead of having a trader available.

Dynamic, mobile traders would be amazing! They could remove the need for invincible trader compounds (which was just a temporary "Traders 1.0" feature, remember? :tongue1: ) You'd have more control over how far away the first, starter quest trader is. And the attractiveness of different base locations would change over time, almost like the game had seasons. Maybe he travels the actual roads and sets up shop in his Airstream trailer just outside an existing POI for a few days. All in all, it wouldn’t just be cool in its own right; it would improve several areas of the game.

 

[Lo-X]

Hello TFP. I administer a public server. I tried to maintain a community on a server with mods but I have now removed them because the players are not necessarily able to install them or have laziness (a lounge "installation of mods" with tutorial and download link and everything needed at the support level was available). After a while as the players were not renewed we were only a handful to play.

Do you plan to make the mods directly download by connecting to the server as for Ark? Or an official launcher?

You offer a completely moddable game but people do not have access.

Thank you for your work.

 

[Tin]

So outside of the box (but not really) [sug]:

Have special "Blood Moon Points (BMP's)", that the players obtain by "surviving" and killing Blood Moon zombies.. Player collects enough BMP's, they can trade them in at the traders to receive care packages.

What this will do:

1. People who actively participate in the BM, can build up enough BMP's, to get a reward.
   
2. People who drive all night to escape the horde, can still do so, but they only get a flat rate for surviving (still hope tfp add in a driving challenge though). You still get some BMP's, for quasi-participating.
   
3. People who log out? get nothing. Sorry, no BMP's, it is your choice for logging out.
   

RP value: The traders are actively enticing people to thin out the horde, so they get more customers.

 

[Crater Creator]

Once people see how slow leveling is in A18 they might change their tune and appreciate leveling up on a horde night. We could increase XP on horde night as well, since they are running and generally more dangerous than regular zombies.

Better yet, add 'XP buffs' based on things like zombie speed. We used to just have walking and running, but now that there are more speeds... and the user can set different speeds for day, night, horde night, ferals, etc.... plus this Mantis feature where they randomly speed up beyond their baseline... it makes increasing sense to adjust XP to the speed of the zombie, since that's where the added danger consistently lies.

 

[Roland]

Roland can you please update the front page and inform people there are books for finding more brass, harvesting door knobs, and getting lead/brass from sinks now?

done.

Updated again to make it even more clear and noticeable. What about melting Dukes down in the forge for brass? Is that going to make it into A18 or at all? You considered the idea before.