PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!
- Thread starter madmole
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Sirillion
Active member
Industrial grade workstations would be awesome but should be a world item only and not craftable by the player imho.
Certain POIs like workshops and factories should have a chance to spawn them, some higher than others and some guaranteed depending on type and tier. Even the odd trader should have a chance to spawn them but on rare occasions.
The yield compared to craftable workstations should be so much better so that it was worth the risk and hassle to haul the materials to one to do some crafting.
Viktoriusiii
New member
I know they are there... but nobody ever reads those
I'm sorry. Since 90% of them are more or less useless (and 99% to any veteran) they do not seem important.
Maybe make a starter quest to read them and explain that they are usefull. Seriously. They are nicely written and a good idea... but currently nobody reads them (personal experience only, but from a wide range of players).
bitmapman
New member
I just got done watching the video where Joel shows off the reorganized perks, and while this might be old news to most, I have to say I'm pretty excited for the new perk structure. I think it's a vast improvement over the current system. Instead of feeling like you have to spread your points between the different stats, you'll really feel like you can deeply specialize in one particular tree, enhancing the feeling of playing a particular role, being a particular character, and filling a particular need in the group.
The one and only concern I have about it is armor.
I feel like most people will want to use armor of some kind, and that it's a little limiting to have it only in fortitude and agility. Sure, you can dump a few points into them in order to get 2-3 points in one of the armor perks so it's not completely useless to you, but it still seems to me like those perks ought to be available to multiple trees. Maybe heavy armor could be a "shared" perk between strength and fortitude, and light armor for perception and agility.
What I mean by shared is that you can level the perk in either tree, but progress and prereqs are shared for both. This way you wouldn't be able to put a point in from strength and another from fortitude to get 2 points worth of effect out of it, instead once you put 1 point into it in either tree, it's now listed as having 1 point in both trees, but you only get the effect of 1 perk level, and you'd have to increase either strength OR fortitude in order to unlock the next point.
This way you prevent double dipping, but still allow multiple "classes" access to armor perks.
I don't think this is necessary or anything, I'm just trying to think in terms of the stated design goals, and I think the way it is now will result in most players feeling like they need to dip into fort/agi for armor perks.
I don't know if this additional functionality would be difficult to program, or if it would even solve the problem, or if TFP even considers it a problem. I'm no game programmer, I'm just a humble paper pusher irl, but that's my 2 cents anyway!
The one and only concern I have about it is armor.
I feel like most people will want to use armor of some kind, and that it's a little limiting to have it only in fortitude and agility. Sure, you can dump a few points into them in order to get 2-3 points in one of the armor perks so it's not completely useless to you, but it still seems to me like those perks ought to be available to multiple trees. Maybe heavy armor could be a "shared" perk between strength and fortitude, and light armor for perception and agility.
What I mean by shared is that you can level the perk in either tree, but progress and prereqs are shared for both. This way you wouldn't be able to put a point in from strength and another from fortitude to get 2 points worth of effect out of it, instead once you put 1 point into it in either tree, it's now listed as having 1 point in both trees, but you only get the effect of 1 perk level, and you'd have to increase either strength OR fortitude in order to unlock the next point.
This way you prevent double dipping, but still allow multiple "classes" access to armor perks.
I don't think this is necessary or anything, I'm just trying to think in terms of the stated design goals, and I think the way it is now will result in most players feeling like they need to dip into fort/agi for armor perks.
I don't know if this additional functionality would be difficult to program, or if it would even solve the problem, or if TFP even considers it a problem. I'm no game programmer, I'm just a humble paper pusher irl, but that's my 2 cents anyway!
bitmapman
New member
True, but that still doesn't solve the problem I was having. Even once I knew the reduced max stamina bar shows me that I'm hungry, it doesn't tell me anything about my thirst, so I still checked the menu pretty regularly to see my food/water level.
Plus, I still didn't know about either hunger or thirst until they actually became a problem. I had to check the menu if I wanted to be able to top myself off before I started taking penalties.
Also, In most survival games this stuff is intuitive because it's displayed on the hud, so you understand it immediately just by looking at it instead of having to read a paragraph explaining how it works, and then having to press a button and sometimes click a tab every time you want to check. Like, for instance, having hunger and thirst bars.
It's no big deal at this point, I already modded them in, I'm just saying!
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Dimpy
New member
In A18, armor protects you to same regardless of how many points you have in the perks. In no way is non-perked armor useless.
When the video came out, the perks increased durability and decreased encumbrance. Since then, light armor was changed to not provide any encumbrance. I'm wondering, what does the light armor perk provide for players in lieu of the encumbrance assistance?
Roland
Moderator
Not having any heavy armor perks doesn’t stop you from using heavy armor so people in other perk trees can still use and benefit from heavy armor. They just can’t craft it and miss out on the extra bonuses enjoyed by those who take the perk.
Same is true of everything. Not having the perk doesn’t deny you usage. In fact, all craftable items like weapons and armor have schematics that you can find to be able to learn how to craft them without the perk.
Same is true of everything. Not having the perk doesn’t deny you usage. In fact, all craftable items like weapons and armor have schematics that you can find to be able to learn how to craft them without the perk.
bitmapman
New member
I know I said I would stop harping on this but Gazz got me thinking! Here's how I would do it.
The food and water bars are displayed under your stamina/health bars and show the max food/water you're able to have, but also have little indicators showing at which points you start taking penalties.
Here's a quick and ugly mockup of what I mean:
Pretend the above bar represents your water. Imagine there's a little cup or droplet or whatever icon you want on it so you can easily tell that's water the second you spawn in for the first time. Also pretend it's an appropriate color for a water bar :crushed:
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe water penalties are tiered and get worse at specific points. That's what the yellow, orange, and red lines represent. If the penalties all occur at a specific point and scale linearly from there, then I guess you would just need one line to show where the penalties start kicking in.
The bar could maybe also change color as you hit those penalty points in order to make it obvious that something is going wrong. If it scales linearly you could have it transition from yellow->orange->red as the hunger/thirst gets worse. That's not as necessary, though, because that's already what the icons do.
This way, you can see plain as day what your food and water levels are at right now and whether you're at risk of dropping under the penalty threshold any time soon.
As an added bonus, a little warning in the UI next to the Use button on food/drink could appear if the item you're looking at is going to be partially wasted because you're going over the food/water maximum. This would just save you the trouble of doing the math to figure it out. Not that it's hard math or anything, it would just save you a moment's bother is all.
Just to reiterate, I know TFP have their way they want to do things, and I'm not trying to sound demanding, so apologies if I am! Maybe this is more info than they want the player to have access to, and maybe something like this would work better as a mod for obsessive optimizers like me!
- - - Updated - - -
The food and water bars are displayed under your stamina/health bars and show the max food/water you're able to have, but also have little indicators showing at which points you start taking penalties.
Here's a quick and ugly mockup of what I mean:
Pretend the above bar represents your water. Imagine there's a little cup or droplet or whatever icon you want on it so you can easily tell that's water the second you spawn in for the first time. Also pretend it's an appropriate color for a water bar :crushed:
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe water penalties are tiered and get worse at specific points. That's what the yellow, orange, and red lines represent. If the penalties all occur at a specific point and scale linearly from there, then I guess you would just need one line to show where the penalties start kicking in.
The bar could maybe also change color as you hit those penalty points in order to make it obvious that something is going wrong. If it scales linearly you could have it transition from yellow->orange->red as the hunger/thirst gets worse. That's not as necessary, though, because that's already what the icons do.
This way, you can see plain as day what your food and water levels are at right now and whether you're at risk of dropping under the penalty threshold any time soon.
As an added bonus, a little warning in the UI next to the Use button on food/drink could appear if the item you're looking at is going to be partially wasted because you're going over the food/water maximum. This would just save you the trouble of doing the math to figure it out. Not that it's hard math or anything, it would just save you a moment's bother is all.
Just to reiterate, I know TFP have their way they want to do things, and I'm not trying to sound demanding, so apologies if I am! Maybe this is more info than they want the player to have access to, and maybe something like this would work better as a mod for obsessive optimizers like me!
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Oh, I was under the impression that the perks increase the amount of armor you get from heavy/light armor. If not, that makes it a lot less important to have the perks. If that's the case then nevermind!
Viktoriusiii
New member
looks great/great idea.
I don't know why they chose to do it the way it is... it is really weird to always have to look how much i have overeaten
Roland
Moderator
I never check and I manage my hunger/ stamina and thirst/recovery rate quite easily.
So “always having to check” is pretty subjective.
That’s not to say that having a hunger and thirst meter visible wouldn’t be a good thing. I wouldn’t be against it. I just can’t agree that one MUST often check in order to be able to manage.
So “always having to check” is pretty subjective.
That’s not to say that having a hunger and thirst meter visible wouldn’t be a good thing. I wouldn’t be against it. I just can’t agree that one MUST often check in order to be able to manage.
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Phoenixshade35
New member
One thing i hope is added, more things to do while digging, I dunno why, I enjoy digging and mining yet i wish there was more lol, heck even treasure maps sold from the traders haha.
andrough
New member
I always read that stuff in games and I always check for new ones and scan the ones I recognize for any changes. A quest to read a paragraph sounds silly to me. If players aren't being observant and trying to use the tools provided, then that's on them for failing at whatever they wouldn't have by paying a little more attention.I know they are there... but nobody ever reads those
Maybe make a starter quest to read them and explain that they are usefull. Seriously. They are nicely written and a good idea... but currently nobody reads them (personal experience only, but from a wide range of players).
I don't like the sound of UI clutter, but the hot key to show more info kind of intrigues me. I don't really see how it's much different from just opening a menu, unless maybe it could be customized with info we want. But all this sounds like mod territory. If the devs have provided all this info and explanations already, it just feels redundant and hand-holdy to add the extra uis and visual indicators for debuff thresholds top of it. I like to not have a HUD like a fighter jet while I'm playing.
bitmapman
New member
Yeah that's the next best thing. At least that way you wouldn't have to stop what you're doing in order to check. Not my personal ideal, but better than what we have now.
So just to be clear, you're saying a food/water display on the HUD is superfluous clutter in a survival game? Can you name a survival game aside from this one that doesn't display it on your HUD somewhere? It seems like a pretty standard feature of the genre to me, and it certainly isn't useless clutter. It's an important piece of information that people should be able to easily reference and understand. Maybe showing the penalty thresholds is too much, I can understand why you'd think that, but it's hardly a "fighter jet HUD," that's a pretty extreme exaggeration.
And while I understand that you're very proud of being diligent about reading the journal entries, most people aren't. Typically in games "journal entries" are lore and background information, not necessary to understand the UI, which should be intuitive. Plus, as I pointed out before, even being aware of how the current display works doesn't solve the problem of needing to check the menu to see your actual food/water levels.
Look, none of this is super important, it's just a minor QoL thing, and the current system is fine for people who aren't hyper vigilant about avoiding hunger/thirst penalties. People like me will live pressing B every so often, or downloading a mod. The rest can just eat and drink whenever the icon appears, or their max stamina dips, or however they see fit to handle it.
Apologies if this topic has derailed the thread, I didn't think a hunger/thirst display on the hud of a survival game would be controversial. Anyway, I've said my piece and I'm just going to let it go now.
Back to A18 hype everyone!
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Grandpa Minion
Active member
Keeping cans non-craftable is a much better idea. When players have the ability to have everything without going out and searching for items kills pvp. Not being able to craft cans makes players get out and search for cans to make repair kits which are heavily relied on to break in bases with. My recommendation would be make more items such as guns, anything valuable including augers non-craftable. Btw i have 13500+ hours playing this game so please dont tell me "valuable items should be craftable." Ive seen first hand from thousands of players though out the last few years to know that is not the case.
thanks
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