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
Status
Not open for further replies.
I know its a lot to ask... but you seem to misunderstand what I mean... so could you watch those 12 minutes? Or at least parts of it? Because this is something I often find lacking in 7d2d. Reward vs punishment.

Its literally the same thing you are proposing, except instead of earning it over time without dying we are giving it to you for free up front and you re-earn it if you die. The bonus is not having any xp taken away. At the end of the day your method delivers shaky XP numbers and will lead to some min maxing style.

There are things that boost XP, like doing quests give you free xp. Drink some Grandpas learn'n elixer and get a huge boost, put on some nerd goggles. I'm old school and feel like punishment is good. I'm not a fan of participation trophies. You got rekt, deal with it. If you don't like it, don't die next time. If the feature is a bomb we'll go back to the drawing board or cut it. On paper it is appealing to us, end of discussion. Until 18 hits the streets no amount of talk will change it.

 
now:

100% xp -25% xp on death

my method:

75% +25% after not dying for a certain amount of time
It sounds like you believe the 25% penalty is applied to XP gains after death, that is not the case. It's a loss of already gained XP, that is all. An action that gives you 20XP before dying will still give you 20XP after dying. If you had, for example, 50% of the XP needed to advance to the next level, and you die, you are now only 25% of the way to the next level.

Also, it's been stated that 25% was the value when Madmole posted, and it's not that any more. They're still trying out values for the penalty to see what feels right.

 
Would you consider bringing back the 50% health and stamina penalty as well? For health it could just be the temporary damage so that all you need to do is spend food to get both stamina and health back to full.
With no spoilage we need food sinks such as this. Plus Vik would be happy because full health and stamina (even up to approx 150%) by surviving well is a reward and then that would be taken away down to 50%.

We had this in the game for years and it’s been gone the last couple alphas but I feel it was also a good part of being “anti-rewarded” upon death. Bring it back and you’ll cover the nostalgics and the participation trophy folks at the same time. :)
I'll have to pay attention next time I die.

 
DnD caps it after a certain point. Can't go wrong with gygax. :)
Cool. Yeah we just haven't determined the point where it feels like its grindy to level yet. I'm level 41 at the end of day 36 so I think its perfect so far.

 
MadMole, about those turrets, possibly in the future? would it be difficult to do?
and as to the food penalty, it is a decent idea until spoilage can be done. we do need food sinks.
You are going to need to post in detail your question, I delete 99% of what I read here after I reply.

 
You are going to need to post in detail your question, I delete 99% of what I read here after I reply.
can you make it that we get more rotations on turrets so that they can be wall mounted or mounted to hang under the ceiling. Similar as to what is in fallout

 
can you make it that we get more rotations on turrets so that they can be wall mounted or mounted to hang under the ceiling. Similar as to what is in fallout
I'm not sure, gazz might know more. EDIT: If I skip your question its because I don't don't know or don't have the most informed answer usually.

 
Its literally the same thing you are proposing, except instead of earning it over time without dying we are giving it to you for free up front and you re-earn it if you die. The bonus is not having any xp taken away. At the end of the day your method delivers shaky XP numbers and will lead to some min maxing style.
There are things that boost XP, like doing quests give you free xp. Drink some Grandpas learn'n elixer and get a huge boost, put on some nerd goggles. I'm old school and feel like punishment is good. I'm not a fan of participation trophies. You got rekt, deal with it. If you don't like it, don't die next time. If the feature is a bomb we'll go back to the drawing board or cut it. On paper it is appealing to us, end of discussion. Until 18 hits the streets no amount of talk will change it.
EXACTLY. That is the whole point of the video I was sharing.

Basicially in WoW they tried to discourage gamers from playing too long in one sitting (still recommend you watch the whole video! Really really good info), so they descided to give a penalty to players that played too long, going up and up over time.

Players HATED this. They felt betrayed by the devs that punish them for playing.

So what blizzard did was to switch it 180°. Now you get an offline bonus that slowly decreases over time. The numbers are virtually the same, but it does not feel punishing anymore.

Same with your deathpenalty. Reward survival, dont punish death. This is not to combat minmaxers or anything. That was a differnt debate.

This was purely to ask you why you don't do it this way. Since the outcome is literally the same (if you tweak the numbers right) but the feeling is a much better one.

again, please watch the video... I showed it to roland and he liked it too as far as i remember :D

It explains this idea better than I ever could :)

- - - Updated - - -

It sounds like you believe the 25% penalty is applied to XP gains after death, that is not the case. It's a loss of already gained XP, that is all. An action that gives you 20XP before dying will still give you 20XP after dying. If you had, for example, 50% of the XP needed to advance to the next level, and you die, you are now only 25% of the way to the next level.
Also, it's been stated that 25% was the value when Madmole posted, and it's not that any more. They're still trying out values for the penalty to see what feels right.
I know. This was just a small question why they want to punish the player for dying, when they could simply reward the player for surviving and taking away that reward. Which would be the same, but wouldn't FEEL the same.

 
I'm not sure, gazz might know more. EDIT: If I skip your question its because I don't don't know or don't have the most informed answer usually.
understood, I actually only thought I got lost in the scroll

 
I know. This was just a small question why they want to punish the player for dying, when they could simply reward the player for surviving and taking away that reward. Which would be the same, but wouldn't FEEL the same.
Maybe it would fool some people. I don't know.

This is on par with charging $199 for some product because it is believed that people won't see this as two hundred dollars. Seen this my whole life and cannot believe that enough people are still fooled by this that they continue this nonsense everywhere you go.

 
If I'm not mistaken, you can already unlock the turret rotations in xml.. the only problem is then using the camera on them to target them, because its thinking its right side up.

Ideally the turret would adjust its camera based on it's bottom orientation.

 
If I'm not mistaken, you can already unlock the turret rotations in xml.. the only problem is then using the camera on them to target them, because its thinking its right side up.
Ideally the turret would adjust its camera based on it's bottom orientation.
currently in green dev notes, it says the targeting math is off unless it is upright

 
Maybe it would fool some people. I don't know.This is on par with charging $199 for some product because it is believed that people won't see this as two hundred dollars. Seen this my whole life and cannot believe that enough people are still fooled by this that they continue this nonsense everywhere you go.
Simple: you know of it, that is why it loses its effect on you (not 100% but a lot compared to the unaware)

there are so SO many other marketing tricks that DO work on you and me, because we don't know its a trick.

From most expensive food beeing on shoulderheight (only works if you have enough money to not seek out the cheapest food) to where wares are placed (most bought items are the furthest away from the counter so you have to walk through the entire mall to maybe pick up extra stuff or sweets on the counter so that kids that are staying in line for too long start nagging their parents)... there is SO MUCH stuff that unconciously gets you... because we are subconcious beeings. most of our thinking goes on beyond the veil. Our mind is just really REALLY good at making nicely sounding excuses.

This explains it a bit better.

Trust me... you aren't better... just better educated...

 
give us the dam update already, been ages

Madmole was halfway through the day when he decides to peruse the forums. He goes through the usual garbage where half of us ask for more decoration blocks while the other half asks for some random crap like zips lines or trains or whatever.

“Hmm... ‘Ledge grip keys’... no, that’d never work… ‘Prone?’ What is this, Metal Gear Solid? Eh…” and that’s when he saw it. Post #8383. As soon as he read it he knew he had stumbled across something special. He read it, and read it again, cementing the words in his mind, letting the truth of the text fill his soul, already formulating in his mind what would become the riskiest move in Fun Pimps History.

“give us the dam update already”

Did we not swear to listen to our fans?

“been ages”

How could we have disappointed them so? Have we lost sight of our vision, of who we were to become?!

There was one way to fix this but it had to be done fast. Madmole leaps to his feet, nearly knocking over his triple XXL super double glug limited edition sized coffee in the process, and launches himself into a nearby room of colleagues.

His sudden entrance gave him the workspaces’ attention. Met with confused stares, he wastes no time in announcing, “Stop. All. The things.” The workers do stop, but only to improve their staring posture. Now being met by increasingly bewildered looks, Madmole took initiative. He goes to the nearest desk and sweeps everything off, sending mouse, keyboard and monitor flying furiously. “Today, ■■■■it, we release alpha 18 TODAY. ■■■■ the schedule.”

A man braver than the rests rises. “But Madmole, releasing an incomplete product at the behest of our tech illiterate juvenile fanbase would only leave us with a rushed inferior product which would slander our good name while simultaneously ■■■■ing off those very people we were trying to pleas-“

He never finished that sentence. Or the one after it. What the man had in bravery he lacked in spatial awareness, considering he never did see Madmoles punch. He did however notice the hole he made as he flew out of the office building, and he saw the funny way the air rippled as he passed the stratosphere and entered into orbit in outer space.

Madmole hardly pauses to look at the carnage. “Alpha 18. Now. Anybody else have counter arguments?”

This time a woman rose. Silently she walked up past Madmole to a giant framed button on the wall. ‘BREAK ONLY IN CASE OF ORBITAL DEPARTURE / EARLY ALPHA 18 RELEASE’. With a sigh she grabs the tiny hammer, breaks the glass, and presses the button. Millions of clients across the globe get a popup on their machines, ‘An Update is Ready to Download’.

Madmole cries for joy, woman gets promoted to Chief Releaser of Alphas, the man fist bumps Voyager, but most importantly, somewhere out there, blackice2142 was gaming on.

Originally Posted by blackice2142. Alpha-10. Edited by Sillls

Also edited by Magikarp; 11-13-2014 at 05:51 PM.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I understand the supposed science behind these things, I'm just saying that I don't believe how effective it is to try to take advantage of it long term.

Even if you maintained a psychological stance on game design, there is still something that is not considered in this. There are people playing this game who want the punishment because right now it is all about reward. Reward is good, but punishment can be too. I can also use psychology to argue for that stance.

First I will say that just rewarding everything in an environment with zero punishment is not that effective. The chance for reward is almost always better. There isn't just evidence of this in people, but in animals as well. The bottle that spits out a treat occasionally will be visited more than the bottle that spits out reward constantly.

The

kicks in rather quickly in this game since so much provides constant reward as is. In a survival game, your motivation to survive should be a constant, but right now it isn't. Your motivation to play, aka survive, diminishes along with the diminishing value of the rewards because that's all there is. This could be the reason why so many people play this game less than 20 hours. Players want an impending doom, a will to survive, a reason to play. You bring up risk aversion, but how does that even relate to a situation where you are expecting risk the moment you launch the game? How does that even apply to the current state of the game in which the risk is ridiculously minuscule?
This death penalty is a constant and I find it fitting for a survival game. Staying alive is the best intrinsic motivator that keeps you playing. Dead is dead is the ultimate experience in this regard and I understand not everybody likes to play that way... but at least some element of punishment for death should exist in order to justify the survival tag and to push that motivation.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top