PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

  • <img alt=":)" data-src="" src="___base_url___/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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Smashed it and put in a 12 hour day. Down to 107 MF bugs. Hopefully we can sing 99 bottles of bugs on the wall pretty soon on the hype bus.
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You explained the meaning already, but in my mind I still read it "mother ♥♥♥♥ing bugs" all the time :)

 
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You explained the meaning already, but in my mind I still read it "mother ♥♥♥♥ing bugs" all the time :)
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yeah it should be called mother ♥♥♥♥ing bugs highly agreed lol

because bugs are quite annoying to fix I imagine

 
With quests resetting POIs you can get by with a small map. Sure it gets repetitive looting the same places, but there is infinite resources now. That said, you can keep 16k on your wish list, hopefully we can get that working at some point.
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16k sounds nice. Holding out for that. We are currently hand craft maps so the usable areas are attractive enough. It's just always such a hassle to reset a server on a regular basis, so we like to stretch it out as much as possible.

The main reason is that many players,specially new ones, won't join any server that has 100+ days on the clock, so they become deserted and not fun to play anymore, since most or our regulars love to help new players. And since hosting is super expensive, if you want performance, most servers require donations to be kept up, which in turn needs long term players willing to invest in them. It's mostly economical really.

I'm holding out for the new rwg, I generally agree that a good small map is way better than a huge wasteland one. I just don't know the feeling is all. For now, space and longevity seems to be what the players chosing our server want from a map :) and after a week, they are all over the place.

It's inconsequential though, we have all the tools we need to create well running 12k maps that last about 1000 days, which translates roughly to two months of play. It just takes a week of work to make a new map. I'd love to make bigger ones, but well, editing 16k image files requires quite powerful hardware that I don't have :')

I'm happy if the game ships with 8k maps and officially supports only 8k maps, but leave the option to max out our high performance server if we so chose. Options, options, options :)

Any chance of a video of the new rwg?? I'd like to get drooling ;)

 
Guys, I get it, it is not Gazz who slows things down, but Unholy Joe! He just finds too many bugs! Now if we could hold his family hostage, or blackmail him somehow..

 
I gave him a ticket to make it 5 wide, we'll see how that works out.
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I sure hope it does!

My bases tend to always be an odd number of blocks wide, due to the door only being 1 block and I get annoyed when it's not symmetrical (habit from the minecraft days) - and the bridge always forced me to favor a side, since it could never line up with the door; because it's only 4 wide instead of 5, haha.

 
The new proposed penalty on death seems pretty.. minor. 25% of your xp is not a lot. 75% (or even all your xp gains this level) is more or a penalty.
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I very much agree. If madmole's estimate of 1 level per day is close to reality, and taking into account you probably gain more experience during the day than during the night, a death results in a 10-15min loss tops. Like others stated, a broken leg or any other condition-diminishing disease will probably gimp your progress more, on top of being more obnoxious to deal with. Thus making the suicide theoretically speaking more appealing than dealing with any disease.

50%-100% would probably feel better imo. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to consider that a day where you die is a day where you make no progress.

 
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I very much agree. If madmole's estimate of 1 level per day is close to reality, and taking into account you probably gain more experience during the day than during the night, a death results in a 10-15min loss tops. Like others stated, a broken leg or any other condition-diminishing disease will probably gimp your progress more, on top of being more obnoxious to deal with. Thus making the suicide theoretically speaking more appealing than dealing with any disease.
50%-100% would probably feel better imo. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to consider that a day where you die is a day where you make no progress.
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Or it could just be a slider, with 25% being the default? Gotta remember that it does stack, so if you get gimped a couple times trying to get your stuff back, then you're effectively stacking on several days before you see another level if it were too high. You have to remember that the defaults are designed to accommodate for as many different kinds of players as possible, not purely the hardcore survivalists - and even losing a quarter of the xp bar still is reason enough to not want to die, especially if you're playing coop (as I do with friends) and it's ideal to stay around the same level/gamestage, IMO.

 
@madmole, I have encountered a pretty exploitative bug in multiplayer that I believe needs to be addressed. Note that it can only occur in multiplayer, and it doesn't work all the time; for some players, they may rarely be able to replicate it at all, which is very odd. You know how you heal yourself using the left-click button now (if a bandage/first aid bandage is in your hotbar?) Well, I accidentally discovered that if you right-click with a bandage in hand, you can sometimes gain the healing effect, but you won't consume the bandage.

I know I might receive some backlash from other players, but hey, glitches have got to be tackled at some point.

 
Guys, I get it, it is not Gazz who slows things down, but Unholy Joe! He just finds too many bugs! Now if we could hold his family hostage, or blackmail him somehow..
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Its none of them, good things take time, you know it.

 
Your math is quite backwards.Everything you do increases your likelihood of survival. If you don't gain levels during that time the game does not get harder.

As a result the game gets easier every time you die.
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My maths is perfectly fine, thank you.

If each time I die I lose 25% of the xp needed to gain in level, then to gain a level I have to be able to re-gain at least that 25% xp before dying again.

If I can't manage that, then I'll never increase in level again. The maths is simple and straightforward.

With other forms of death penalty I can at least slowly crawl up to getting to higher level and therefore being able to buy perks that will help keep me alive, but with a cumulative direct xp loss I can't unless I can gain xp faster than I lose it.

Even if the penalty was "you only gain a tenth of the normal xp for the next hour" at least you'd still be gaining it slowly and it might take you ten times as long to go up levels but you wouldn't be able to get stuck in a vicious circle of losing it quicker than you re-gain it.

 
It absolutely has to penalize you when at 0% and kudos to TFP for thinking ahead. Still has a max cap of -200% (8 deaths). But if that cap was 0-4, death would be meaningless much of the time and that would lead players to feeling they have to take advantage of that window and grind the rest of the time. E.g. in POE when I play SC and over 92, I am only boss-ing at 0% and grind without risking for the rest of the time.
The penalty has to stack else it's pretty meaningless, ANY penalty would be a "nuisance" - but that nuisance is the very thing that makes surivival valuable. "Failing" without a real penalty means squat.
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You probably have a point there, though that only applies on high level, PoE has the penalty progress as you get further in the story. But I can see this working most of the time, players that die a lot will stay at lower gamestages and the penalty becomes less of an issue as you get higher level though the amount of xp lost will be bigger.

I wonder if this means the lowering of gamestage on death is getting removed, as this will just stall gamestage instead if you die regularly. I always find the lowering of gamestage on death a bit weird.

Edit: I also wonder if this new death penalty is xml configurable.

 
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50%-100% would probably feel better imo. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to consider that a day where you die is a day where you make no progress.
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...until you reach the stage where you die at least once per day and never make progress again.

Death penalties should slow progress, but they should never completely block it or reverse it (not in this type of game, anyway).

 
I always avoid large-scale multiplayer for another reason. I don't like being effectively "punished" for not being on 24/7, and the world advances while I'm not there, asleep or otherwise. I personally have never been a fan of logging off on day 10 and, 24 hours later, logging back in to discover that people have been playing while I was off, and it is now day 52.

 
If each time I die I lose 25% of the xp needed to gain in level, then to gain a level I have to be able to re-gain at least that 25% xp before dying again.
If I can't manage that, then I'll never increase in level again. The maths is simple and straightforward.
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Exactly. That side of the equation is simple.

What you are ignoring completely is the other side where you can play normally - without any penalties - and continue to gain more gear and resources while the gamestage does not increase.

This new system does only one thing: make the game objectively easier.

It's not a penalty in any way.

I very much agree. If madmole's estimate of 1 level per day is close to reality, and taking into account you probably gain more experience during the day than during the night, a death results in a 10-15min loss tops. Like others stated, a broken leg or any other condition-diminishing disease will probably gimp your progress more, on top of being more obnoxious to deal with. Thus making the suicide theoretically speaking more appealing than dealing with any disease.
50%-100% would probably feel better imo. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to consider that a day where you die is a day where you make no progress.
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None of these numbers are set in stone. This hasn't been in long enough to even get feedback from the testers and I think the numbers that Joel quoted were already outdated so... don't get hung up on any particular number. ;)

 
As in he fixed 92 bugs? Or are you down to 92 bugs?
Hopefully fixed. Because that would bring it down to only about 10 or so, right?
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No sorry, this was posted yesterday:

154 MF bugs now. Interesting enough the programmers have hardly any and its levels and art who have more. Gazz has over 50, so you guys can pretty much badger Gazz to get A18 out, the rest of us are in good shape. I'll start bailing him out when I'm done with mine, I have 10 left.
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As you can see, Gazz only had 50 yesterday. Today he as 92.

 
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