PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Roland]

You would also need to make attributes its own separate thing.




Attributes: gets a separate perk point

Weapon: gets a separate skill point

Character Playstle: separate skill point

this way they don't conflict with each other and you get to make the character you want to be.

Stealth, Damage Dealer, Tank/healing, Support and then Weapon that you'll use with the attribute to support it.

What would be the point of attributes if they were completely separate? What benefits would there be to putting points into them? Right now they augment the perks within their category. You really aren’t wasting points by increasing strength if all you want is shotgun because strength benefits shotgun use as well. I’m not sure why you see strength attribute as a waste of points if you want to use the shotgun. And if you unlink the shotgun perk from any attributes then those bonuses are gone and attributes would have to do something else.

So....what should they do?

 

[Zombiepoptard]

I understand you completely. Look at some RPGs, there are some that allow you to select perks freely (GURPS). And then there are RPGs where you spec into a class, automatically limiting you to a subset of perks. And there are RPGs where your perk choice closes off other perks. And there are RPGs where your attributes determine which perks make sense even though you can select from all. Whether you like that or not
Restricting you in your choices IS deliberate.

Shouldn't be in a survival game. Not one that's trying to be like fallout. Joels looking to make an identity for our character and to that I would just keep developing character playstyle perks and encourage the players to stay in that one character playstyle. but keep the choice of weapons out of it. This is a sandbox game and we need sandboxish builds. For this game implementing that kind of restriction would only hurt the game. This isn't borderland or any other RPG. The reason is that these are not only combat perks. They do not belong in the same category. The RPG's that have trees are vastly only for combat.

 

[Locusta]

We're talking about a name generator for legendary weapons, like "Noun" "Adjective" "Gun Type". So Grandpas, Slick Willies, Dukes Favorite, etc fill the noun, then the adjective could be "quick, speedy, hasty" for fast reloads, and you might find "Slick Willies hasty shotgun. For damage it might be "Terrifying, ass kickin', hole blowin' etc. So you might get Grandpa's Hole Blow'n double barrel. Mod it with slick willies hasty reload mod, and your doing massive damage and reloading faster.

A prefix and a suffix might be easier and you could have consistent tier names instead of completely random so that players know that speedy is better than hasty for example.

Something like:

Terrifying (prefix) shotgun of Haste (suffix)

The game Path of Exile have mastered this with their loot system and I strongly recommend checking it out for inspiration. It the best system out of any game I’ve ever played.

Cheers

Loc

 

[Roland]

The attributes govern specialization. The whole idea of specialization is that you either choose to be mediocre at everything or you choose to be great at 1 or 2 things. The attributes are what makes this system into a specialization system through the economy and gating of the skill points.

It is natural that not everyone is going to like a specialization system for skills but it definitely is the design that TFP is going for.

Now, that being said, they are also designing in a lot of redundancy so that if you want to do a high level Fortitude build but like shotguns you can still have a great shotgun and be very successful but you’ll need to either find or buy a top quality weapon and juice it up with mods. Then for frosting find a few books that augment your shotty abilities.

So nobody is locked out of using a weapon of their choice and being a badass with it but if you’ve specialized to be a badass in ways that don’t support your weapon of choice you need to get out there and find or buy one.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

What would be the point of attributes if they were completely separate? What benefits would there be to putting points into them? Right now they augment the perks within their category. You really aren’t wasting points by increasing strength if all you want is shotgun because strength benefits shotgun use as well. I’m not sure why you see strength attribute as a waste of points if you want to use the shotgun. And if you unlink the shotgun perk from any attributes then those bonuses are gone and attributes would have to do something else.
So....what should they do?

I'm going off of what a17 attributes look like. Honestly I just wouldn't put attributes in the game but keep the attribute lvl gating to sink a player into one play style.

 

[Roland]

Shouldn't be in a survival game. Not one that's trying to be like fallout. Joels looking to make an identity for our character and to that I would just keep developing character playstyle perks and encourage the players to stay in that one character playstyle. but keep the choice of weapons out of it. This is a sandbox game and we need sandboxish builds. For this game implementing that kind of restriction would only hurt the game. This isn't borderland or any other RPG. The reason is that these are not only combat perks. They do not belong in the same category. The RPG's that have trees are vastly only for combat.

As I mentioned there are redundant paths to getting what you want. Purchasing perks to be good at a weapon is just one way.

It is still a sandboxish design because they have not gone the route of other RPGs that actually prevent you from even equipping out of class weapons and gear.

You can equip and use any gun in the game and if you are able to acquire top tier and top quality versions of those weapons and add some mods you really aren’t going to be “weak” with that weapon despite spending no skill points in it. So really you can still do anything with everything.

Sandbox preserved.

 

[Roland]

I'm going off of what a17 attributes look like. Honestly I just wouldn't put attributes in the game but keep the attribute lvl gating to sink a player into one play style.

Okay but we are discussing A18 here and there is a comprehensive video you can watch that explains how the attributes work with the weapons. A17 is a dead end subject in regards to development and we’ve moved on.

How do we not have attributes but keep attribute level gating to force specialization? TFP wants specialization. It’s a soft specialization since they allow you to get everything you want eventually but for early and mid game they want us to have to choose a path of strong bonuses in 1-2 areas or weak bonuses spread across the board.

Once you get far enough you will have found and bought your way into the other strengths you might want outside of what you chose to spend points on.

 

[SrslyGTFO]

The attributes govern specialization. The whole idea of specialization is that you either choose to be mediocre at everything or you choose to be great at 1 or 2 things. The attributes are what makes this system into a specialization system through the economy and gating of the skill points.
It is natural that not everyone is going to like a specialization system for skills but it definitely is the design that TFP is going for.

Now, that being said, they are also designing in a lot of redundancy so that if you want to do a high level Fortitude build but like shotguns you can still have a great shotgun and be very successful but you’ll need to either find or buy a top quality weapon and juice it up with mods. Then for frosting find a few books that augment your shotty abilities.

So nobody is locked out of using a weapon of their choice and being a badass with it but if you’ve specialized to be a badass in ways that don’t support your weapon of choice you need to get out there and find or buy one.

I agree. Did anyone ever say we can't master more than one attribute tree? AFAIK, we just won't have enough points (without modding, and there WILL be mods) to master ALL the trees. This seems like an opportunity to learn how to make a mod that uncouples perks and attributes in A18. Speaking of mods, are you updating your mod for A18?

 

[Zombiepoptard]

What would be the point of attributes if they were completely separate? What benefits would there be to putting points into them? Right now they augment the perks within their category. You really aren’t wasting points by increasing strength if all you want is shotgun because strength benefits shotgun use as well. I’m not sure why you see strength attribute as a waste of points if you want to use the shotgun. And if you unlink the shotgun perk from any attributes then those bonuses are gone and attributes would have to do something else.
So....what should they do?

Most people want to have an identity based around both their weapon and playstyle. I view them as to separate things. You can base your play style on weapon mods.

example one: steath playstyle would revolve around giving extra enhancements to the silencer addind damage to any weapon you'd put the silencer on.

example two: intelligence would have elemental mods that would increase the effect or duration of the elemental damage.

example three: inhance blade mods for strength perk

example four: fortification would increase a healing pack or maybe juuuust maybe a healing smoke grenade launch mod (that's a bit off the wall but you get my point)

- - - Updated - - -

As I mentioned there are redundant paths to getting what you want. Purchasing perks to be good at a weapon is just one way.
It is still a sandboxish design because they have not gone the route of other RPGs that actually prevent you from even equipping out of class weapons and gear.

You can equip and use any gun in the game and if you are able to acquire top tier and top quality versions of those weapons and add some mods you really aren’t going to be “weak” with that weapon despite spending no skill points in it. So really you can still do anything with everything.

Sandbox preserved.

can you mid max your weapon build without compromising your playstyle?

 

[Zombiepoptard]

Okay but we are discussing A18 here and there is a comprehensive video you can watch that explains how the attributes work with the weapons. A17 is a dead end subject in regards to development and we’ve moved on.
How do we not have attributes but keep attribute level gating to force specialization? TFP wants specialization. It’s a soft specialization since they allow you to get everything you want eventually but for early and mid game they want us to have to choose a path of strong bonuses in 1-2 areas or weak bonuses spread across the board.

Once you get far enough you will have found and bought your way into the other strengths you might want outside of what you chose to spend points on.

Just put gating lvls without the use of tacked on attribute point bonuses so that it only affects character playstyle and doesn't cross over with how the combat damage, stamina, and health is affected. stamina would only slightly be boosted my an agility perk but its default would be well balanced and good as is.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

I think I've told you my idea in full detail with the help of your questions. It's just a way to make Weapons and non-combat related playstyle have the minimal lvl of conflict with each other. Pick your weapon with no mid max worrying and choose what role you want to be in the zombie apocalypse with ease.

 

[Roland]

Just put gating lvls without the use of tacked on attribute point bonuses so that it only affects character playstyle and doesn't cross over with how the combat damage, stamina, and health is affected. stamina would only slightly be boosted my an agility perk but its default would be well balanced and good as is.

So you don’t have a problem putting points into something that’s only purpose is to gate? You don’t think people would be annoyed that they must spend extra points simply to unlock the higher tier perks with no other benefit?

The attributes don’t affect stamina and health in A18. Your stamina and health are now directly tied to player level. Each time you level up so does your health and stamina.

The only thing attributes do in A18 is augment combat for the weapon types within their class and act as gates for all the perks within their class. If you remove the combat benefits and have them purely be there as gates I think that the feeling of wasting points on them would only increase.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

So you don’t have a problem putting points into something that’s only purpose is to gate? You don’t think people would be annoyed that they must spend extra points simply to unlock the higher tier perks with no other benefit?
The attributes don’t affect stamina and health in A18. Your stamina and health are now directly tied to player level. Each time you level up so does your health and stamina.

The only thing attributes do in A18 is augment combat for the weapon types within their class and act as gates for all the perks within their class. If you remove the combat benefits and have them purely be there as gates I think that the feeling of wasting points on them would only increase.

have a separate gating point so that problem won't be an issue. It would also further emphasize that sinking into one specialization. having a dual skill point system might be a good idea if you want to cap one skill point and not the other.

 

[madmole]

I volunteer my name to be used for the Mining Manual

Its already done, sorry. Herb "Cackler" Dugall. Cackler was what they called foremen or guys who stood around talking more than mining. Dugall, like he dug it all up.

 

[madmole]

Any chance you could give us some examples - for example some cooking perks/recipes - in your next video?

There are no cooking perks yet, they are still recipe unlocks. We need to come up with some passives.

 

[Roland]

I think I've told you my idea in full detail with the help of your questions. It's just a way to make Weapons and non-combat related playstyle have the minimal lvl of conflict with each other. Pick your weapon with no mid max worrying and choose what role you want to be in the zombie apocalypse with ease.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how it works in A18. Once you get a yellow quality level weapon and add a couple of mods you can be very successful. So regardless of where you spent your points for non-combat character development you can still pick a great weapon from any class and do very well.

And if not maybe someone who can mod will have the same vision as you and overhaul the perk system in a way you like better.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

If you do add blocking to the game make it the reload key by default so that you still can use your heavy attack. If you add a shield make the heavy attack into a shield bash.

 

[madmole]

Hi @MM, This answer was surprising to me. can you plz explain the design choice behind this implementation a bit?

gameplay:

- the new design designate a melee + gun to each class.

- guns waist precious ammo while melee only use stamina (regenerate over time)

= i would think dmg-wise gun >= melee ALWAYS, regardless of perks, and gun rarity > melee rarity,

just for balance sake. (otherwise all the unperked guns are rendered useless to the player in cost-benefit terms, no?)

intuitive to new players:

- personally i would never have guessed that selling a gun/ammo i found to buy a new melee wep could actually up my DPS. im really not a realism nazi gamplay > realism always for me. but in this case i cant figure this one out, on both aspects.

Edit: with that being said, it would make more sense to me if it was just the accuracy taking a big hit for non perked guns. the gun still does >= melee dmg, but a noob cant reliably land his shots so he might choose a perked melee wep instead in most cases, and only use the unperked gun in a pinch situation at a very close range (thus still preserving some player value in some situations, encouraging player choice).

I think you are confused. I got really lucky and found the best spiked knuckles in the game, a T3 Q6 pair. I have 3 ranks of brawler so I am pretty damned formidable with my wolverine claws. Compared to a brown pistol, yes its better. Now if I had a pink pistol and 3 ranks of gunslinger, perhaps the pistol might be more effective. That said, there are always some randoms involved, like a chance to gib a head, etc making the spec'd into weapon feel better.

Take a trained MMA killer with wolverine claws and stick him in a phone booth with a noob with a pistol. My money goes on the MMA killer.

So no, guns are not always better than Melee, its a matter of perks, mods, quality of the weapons. I would hope the best perks up specialized melee is better than an unranked brown pistol. Again, when the stamina runs out I'm dead in the water, the pistol guy can keep going, repload or change to another pistol.

 

[padolamap]

Hi,silly query, will be fully translated, for example into Spanish, otherwise there would be some possibility that we could know which file we should translate for this to happen, even to customize it according to the taste of each player or the different idioms that have the regions.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how it works in A18. Once you get a yellow quality level weapon and add a couple of mods you can be very successful. So regardless of where you spent your points for non-combat character development you can still pick a great weapon from any class and do very well.
And if not maybe someone who can mod will have the same vision as you and overhaul the perk system in a way you like better.

I hope a modder is listening *looks back and forth for modder* I bet whatever you guys have cooking will be good but feel free to take from my idea if you ever do go back to the drawing board. I have watched the video of the perk system. have Joel and 7dtd on twitter ready to get them sexy 7 days to die pictures. Everything looks great can't wait to get my hands on alpha 18.