PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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I noticed in A17 most Dogs/Wolves I kill keep staying in the standing position so that it's difficult to tell if they're dead or not. This means sometimes you waste ammo on a dead body or time bashing something that's already dead.

Did you guys by any chance fix this in A18?

*crossing fingers*

 
About Horde nights


Exactly. The problems I see with them are:

Big resource drain afterwards repairing them

Big boost in xp, BUT also higher game stage as a result as well, so there isn't really a benefit.

No tangible reward that adds fun or survivability for defending and completing a horde night.

I've mentioned that several times in the past, and Gazz always replies with, "Surviving is its own reward!" But its not.

Yeah theres a feeling of accomplishment, but when I have to spend the play hour just doing repairs, that feeling goes away REALLY fast.

I've suggested the trader could give us a reward, or there could be a special loot drop, but those ideas were just shot down cold.

There needs to be a significant reward for defending on horde nights. If nothing else, to keep mp servers from becoming deserted during them.

If there is something you don't get that you REALLY want when you avoid them then people will stick around.

The trick is having some way to determine if you are defending something in the game, even if its a rooftop.

Maybe even something simple like just adding a counter that counts kills on horde night kills and if players hit specific percents of the total horde kills, then they get an experience point or a good loot drop, or the thanks from the closest trader for thinning the herds of the undead.

That would also discourage people from just driving the night away as well, if the developers want that potential reduced without adding oddball horde night mechanics.
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I think the start of a blood moon should just trigger a quest: "Survive the bloodmoon" and optional: "Kill X zombies". Surviving grants a major reward, and completing the optional part improves that reward. That way it rewards survival in whatever way you want to do it, but actually thinning the herd does grant an extra reward. Reward could be perk points or perhaps loot being airdropped in.

 
I've played without a compass and it does force you to use the sun and landmarks more which is cool. Sometimes the way the terrain bends can get you turned around so that if you don't have a heading always in front of your eyes you can easily get off course.
I think it would be fun to have to wait to see the compass until we could find/craft one and equip it. I think that it is also a pretty common way to do it in other games. If not an item, a perception perk that enables it.

It is very easy to test for anyone interested. Just press F7 and start exploring.
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This is what I'd encourage... Finding a watch and compass in game.

 
If the player could interact with loot containers etc. while F7 was enabled then that would solve all problems. People who wanted to play without on screen aids could just press F7 and play and be able to fully function in the game until they were sick of it and then press F7 again to have it all back. Think about it for the future. The world looks awesome with F7 enabled but you can't do everything unfortunately.
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I agree with this guy, whoever he is.

 
If the player could interact with loot containers etc. while F7 was enabled then that would solve all problems. People who wanted to play without on screen aids could just press F7 and play and be able to fully function in the game until they were sick of it and then press F7 again to have it all back. Think about it for the future. The world looks awesome with F7 enabled but you can't do everything unfortunately.
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That's a quick fix but a better long term one would be finding a watch and a compass that would then add the UI elements. I'm not a UI guy so maybe it's doable via modding, but I doubt it because someone would have definitely done it.

Because it would be awesome.

 
I think needing to find/make a "compass", and working "watch", should be a thing. I mean, you wake up with 99% of your crap gone. Nuclear weapons where used (at least that's what part of the initial lore said at one time), how many electrical devices are going to be usable?

You want people to find a trader in the early game? then when you load into a chunk they are in, they use the colored smoke during the day, or spot lights in the sky at night. Who cares about the zeds, when the trader facilities are impervious to them?

It is just as much about the journey of getting self-sufficient, as it is about the destination. my opinion ofc :)

 
That's a quick fix but a better long term one would be finding a watch and a compass that would then add the UI elements. I'm not a UI guy so maybe it's doable via modding, but I doubt it because someone would have definitely done it.
Because it would be awesome.
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DMT magic required.

 
This effect shouldn't last to the next bloodmoon though
1) Players who barely manage to stave off a BM horde or get overwhelmed get an even bigger horde in the next BM while players who are already not challenged enough get even less zombies.

2) Players who skip building a base for the first bloodmoons get an especially hard horde on their first BM when their base might have still some unresolved design-problems.
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That's a good point. It would be better if these after effects occurred outside of the Blood Moon.

 
That's a quick fix but a better long term one would be finding a watch and a compass that would then add the UI elements. I'm not a UI guy so maybe it's doable via modding, but I doubt it because someone would have definitely done it.
Because it would be awesome.
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Darkness Falls mod did that with the watch. Well, the time is never on the screen. You get a watch that you can put in your slot and see what time it is.

But I see your point, UI wise. That would be ok. Since if it's on your watch, it's literally a simple look and you know the time, so I don't have an issue with the time being on the screen always because you still have to look at it, and that's the same as wearing a watch.

 
Devs should keep in mind how potentially difficult a18 is shaping up to be for new players. A good challenge to this community spells incredibly difficult for noobs just learning the ropes. Inclusion of infection alone in a18 will change combat dramatically not to mention rage bursts. Very excited for these challenges but throw a bone to the noobs at least the first few days.
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Since balance is a top priority for A18, and Madmole and others are doing real playthroughs using different character builds, I think the game's in good hands where it comes to making it fun for novices and veterans alike.

I will say that I find the hardest thing about putting yourself in the shoes of a new player is forgetting your knowledge of how things work. Often times what's most difficult for new players is something out of left field you weren't even designing to affect the difficulty. For instance, the game currently does a very poor job of explaining how to do things like access the journal, and equip your first item. And those can be make-or-break issues for a new player, while veterans don't even notice.

 
Why do you want boats when water is 2% of the map?
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Only 2% water? No way. The Navezgane map is more like 10 to 15% water and that's not counting the streams and such.

I thought the idea was to add two different types of boats. Once small and one large enough to be a dock for the little boat and act like a small base.

OFC it's been awhile since anyone talked about it.

 
Its a technical thing, we can't track kills from regular blocks. If we make the spikes model entities the FPS will crash and burn.
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Hmm. Well...

If this is a serious answer and not an excuse... if XP for spike kills are compatible with your design goals, and the problem really is only technical...

...Then you could give the 'shared XP' value to any player that's near a zombie when it dies. Period. Don't even track what killed the zombie. Ignore the block involved.

This sounds radical, and requires a change of thinking. "But what if a zombie dies from walking into a cactus? Or falling down a naturally occurring ravine? The player didn’t do anything to cause that and shouldn’t get credit for it."

But let's think about it. If the player steers or funnels or 'tricks' a zombie into hurting itself on something they didn't craft themselves... didn't the player still do the key part? Which part of that interaction is more worth rewarding: the wood-chopping, spike-crafting, block-placing part; or the 'finding a way to dispatch the zombie' part? You already get some XP for those first parts. There will be the occasional freebie where a zombie really does die through nothing a player did. But I would say 99 times out of 100, zombies die because of something the player did.

Even the exploits that would crop up would arguably not really be exploits. If you steer a zombie into the existing traps in an unmodified POI (which would only be unpowered), or even into your enemy's defenses in PvP... that's not exploiting. You're still reacting to and taking steps to counter the zombie problem, just in a more resourceful, Macaulay Culkin-type way than we're used to. And if killing zombies merits a pat on the back in the form of XP in the first place... you might as well do that in a way that doesn't pick and choose which ways are 'right'.

 
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The old generic stones will probably just drop stone and a bit of iron.
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That would be great! In particular, I'd look forward to mining surface boulders and just getting the stone & iron I need, and NOT getting dibble dabbles of lead, coal, and potassium nitrate that aren’t enough to do anything with and clutter my inventory.

 
Hmm. Well...
If this is a serious answer and not an excuse... if XP for spike kills are compatible with your design goals, and the problem really is only technical...

...Then you could give the 'shared XP' value to any player that's near a zombie when it dies. Period. Don't even track what killed the zombie. Ignore the block involved.

This sounds radical, and requires a change of thinking. "But what if a zombie dies from walking into a cactus? Or falling down a naturally occurring ravine? The player didn’t do anything to cause that and shouldn’t get credit for it."

But let's think about it. If the player steers or funnels or 'tricks' a zombie into hurting itself on something they didn't craft themselves... didn't the player still do the key part? Which part of that interaction is more worth rewarding: the wood-chopping, spike-crafting, block-placing part; or the 'finding a way to dispatch the zombie' part? You already get some XP for those first parts. There will be the occasional freebie where a zombie really does die through nothing a player did. But I would say 99 times out of 100, zombies die because of something the player did.

Even the exploits that would crop up would arguably not really be exploits. If you steer a zombie into the existing traps in an unmodified POI (which would only be unpowered), or even into your enemy's defenses in PvP... that's not exploiting. You're still reacting to and taking steps to counter the zombie problem, just in a more resourceful, Macaulay Culkin-type way than we're used to. And if killing zombies merits a pat on the back in the form of XP in the first place... you might as well do that in a way that doesn't pick and choose which ways are 'right'.
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+1

Work smarter, not harder.

 
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