PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

if I drop a Junk turret and walk way what happens to it?
I was thinking I could put a few around my base and they would only be active while at my base.

They are only active when you are fairly close to them. They go dead when you exceed the radius.

 

[madmole]

I may have missed this but is this replacing the ability to plant in the wild? are we still able to make fertile ground and plant outside our base or do we need these boxes for farming now?

Boxes only.

 

[madmole]

It’s just a visual thing. You still make fertile ground but the appearance is that of a garden box. It costs no wood and isn’t crafted.
So yes, you can still farm on soil anywhere.

You don't hoe. The hoe is gone. You craft a box and put it where you want a crop to be.

Mod Note: If you’re catching up please watch this video by Unholy Joe that demonstrates what Madmole is saying here.

 

[JCrook1028]

Na, I got attacked from behind while fighting zombies and instant bleed with no bandages. At a minimum they need to howl before they go agro and bark or something. Its completely unfair for day 1 survivors unless we changed them like pigs but they aggro if you get too close. Right now they just rush up silently and cheaply kill players who aren't armored yet, that isn't fun for noobs or veterans. Had I been in the wasteland and it was a rad dog, sure, cool eat me I deserved that, but it wasn't.

Well making the dogs/wolves not so silent has only been suggested maybe 1,000 times..... smh

 

[madmole]

What biome are you in?

I was in the desert. Coyotes are not hard to kill but sneak up and ninja bleed, kinda bs, we're working on improving that. I started a new char same map, spawned in the forest and got rekt by wolves in the same situation, fighting zombies, back pedaling to stay out of hit range (the brawler you just plow forward and eat shots, who cares you aren't getting infected) so my spear kept me at range but I'd back into a nest of wolves and get bleed, and bleed out or get bit too much in a short time and die. It was too cheap.

 

[JaxTeller718]

I'm fantastic at the game, I rarely die except when something cheap happens. Like you are fighting a zombie on day 1 with your meager club or whatever, and you are back pedaling and out of nowhere a wolf bites you a couple times, there are no bandages and no chance of stopping the bleeding. That is a cheap bs move on the games part that needs to be addressed. Its actually already fixed, and ready to be tested.
Animals will not investigate sounds so far away. What happened was they hear a sound for a long ways away and go investigate the crumb, then when you least expect it they attack you because the noise you are making fighting a zombie. So now you will need to get pretty close for an animal to attack you. I also increased chance for them to flee when hurt (something new), so after trading some blows hopefully the pesky wolf will f off and run, instead of fight to the death every time.

It has nothing to do with getting good. Animals lurk in trees or behind a barn, and investigated sounds.

Anyhow we thinned biome spawning of zeds (they are all like the snow biome now). Its good for the performance of the game, and biome zombies don't do anything but get in your way for no reason. WE did add more zombies to the night in the wasteland so if you want that challenge, go there at night, but the average guy doesn't need to get raped 10x on day 1 and rage quit.

You guys can mod it back in if you want, we don't care, but most zeds in the wild are just costing performance and aren't adding any game play value. Half the time they follow you to the POI and you have to kill 10 guys before you can even go in, and are out of ammo and screwed. So now it will be 5 guys instead of 10.

Down the road with random encounters, we can simulate an extremely populated world without being stupid and spawning 10 zombies in every region like now, which is a waste of resources most of them you'll never see anyway. We could have zeds eating a corpse on the road with some loot left in it, a pack of wolves, group of coyotes, or bandits try to ambush you or rob you, etc. It would seem like more is going on with less actual resources being wasted.

Nobody at TFP minds dying in the game, but when its a cheap death, that irks even veterans. "Getting Gud" has nothing to do with it. Its about proper pacing. Its like a poi you walk into and the first room has 10 guys in it, that is bs. There needs to be some dead spaces so when you do have an encounter, its actually meaningful. Anyone who's watched an action movie with no story knows this. Games are no different. If zombies spawn constantly there is no fear you grow numb to it. If its dead quiet for a bit, then out of nowhere theres 10 guys you ♥♥♥♥ your pants, and its awesome.

Anyhow you and a few others can grumble all you want, but having a wilderness chock full of zeds is a poor design, bad for performance, and a nuisance to the players.

Wow man. Ok. You said it all i guess. 5 zombies it is. Cant be scared of something you can faceroll. I wont get into the technical details of not having bandages, not taking advantage of the spawn free time or how it isnt hard to beat a zombie with a club.

Ill do my best to reserve judgment until I get to experience it. But honestly with less zombies in the world who even needs a junk turret. Feels like feature creep to fight an enemy you are cutting the balls off of. anyway.

 

[madmole]

Less sleepers and more roamers outside and around high end POI’s can go a long way to help balance early game. Noobs can stick to rubble buildings and cabins for a modest challenge while advanced players will go for city hubs densely populated.
Before sleepers this was the approach and it worked.

No it didn't. POis were a bore fest and ther were never enough threat. POIS are now dangerous as they should be and the wild moving towards low risk as it should be. We'll spice it up with random encounters by A20.

 

[JaxTeller718]

You don't hoe. The hoe is gone. You craft a box and put it where you want a crop to be.

LOL What?

 

[madmole]

----Is it possible to fix the gamma settings, i want to say that it should with a limit when u play Online and in PVP map it would be Awesome all to have the same or Slightly different Gamma settings as to make use of Flash light etc and even make the game scarier But as for now Using Gamma to "Cheat" the game Mechanics (Day-Night) is not the best way to pass the Zomb apocalypse feeling.

The Dark is always nicer and You will think twice to use a light source at night (when in PVP Server)

Just an idea tho.

Use some self control? I never touch gamma, ever.

 

[madmole]

That sounds awesome.
Concerning events, you mentioned "gatherer quests" in the past. (Ex. Gather 1,000 wood and 1,000 scrap iron for the trader.) If these types of quests are implemented, would we lose these materials upon exchanging them in at the trader for the quest reward? If so, just saying, it would suck (aka not be worth it) to turn in thousands of materials for, say, a level 1 iron reinforced club. I doubt this is the way they would be put in, but I'm just saying.

Yes it would be how we do it. The guy paid for 1000 wood, he wants his wood. You get dukes, bonus xp, and xp for doing the work, how would it suck? The bonus item is a bonus, the base pay is still great.

 

[madmole]

Good luck trying to find brass in a game where 5 other players have looted before you.
The "no recycling of brass rule" worked fine when the world size was unlimited. And to some

extent, the door knobs (with or without the magazine) works well enough for singleplayer.

But with A18 comes what seems like a much higher focus on guns. And that is one of the

reasons i'd like to see recycling of spent bullet casings. Either by default, with a perk magazine ,

or weapon mod.

And even with recycling, one still need to mine coal, nitrate and lead and do the reloading.

Unlimited ammo, well, kinda , but so are feather based weaponry with the nearly endless supply

of birdsnests and vultures. And melee weapons do not require ammo at all.

For a long term play, or multiplayer, it does not take a lot to see why guns are less desirable then

feather based weapons or melee. Simply because guns are not sustainable in the long run. Unless

doing some quest reset or duping, or beeing very aware of not wasting brass.

So please consider a way to not run out of brass. I don't really care how, as long as it is done.

Recycling spent bulletcasings just seems to be the most logical.

We're going to smelt dukes.

 

[unlike them]

You don't hoe. The hoe is gone. You craft a box and put it where you want a crop to be.

One of the strongest sides of 7d2d was that it was 'minecraft that looked natural, not cubical'. And now we have those boxes.. Yes, they look good, and easier to tend to/harvest. They look appropriate for indoor growing, for greenhouses. But outdoors they look out of place (I imagine). I don't feel the need for cubical grow boxes. Can we have both?

Then again, if we have both, if the new ones are really easier to handle, will I still use the old way?

 

[Gnomaana]

You don't hoe. The hoe is gone. You craft a box and put it where you want a crop to be.

Wow. Farming has gone from: tilling the soil, making and using fertilizer, planting the seeds and coming back to harvest later. To: Craft a box, drop it somewhere and wait. The sadness is real.

 

[madmole]

I have to agree with my fellow Texan - animals should not be gated because I am a noob. Damage scale sure, but ignoring me because I am level 1 that should not happen. vultures are a great example. often on the MM servers we will see a noob go "Ack! there are vultures chasing me" and sure they die, its fun and we all laugh and learn.
I never saw a creeper ignore me in Minecraft because I was new and they always sneak

Its a couple of issues we're already fixing. Less investigate sound distance (was sharing zeds) and hopefully can get their alert sound playing better, right now they don't give an alert sound or its rare/broken. We're not removing them just removing the cheap death chances. I increased their chance to flee, they aren't zombies they have a chance flee when they are hurt.

 

[madmole]

In A17, we could perk up to full inventory. I guess we can so in A18 too.But we also had pocket mods for armor. Any chance that if we have perked

up our inventory to max , using pocket mods would extend the inventory

even further? In A18 or beyond.

No sorry. Its already way more than it ever was.

 

[madmole]

How do you (re-)load the deployed turret? Hit R when near the turret?

Same as a gun.

 

[unlike them]

Wow. Farming has gone from: tilling the soil, making and using fertilizer, planting the seeds and coming back to harvest later. To: Craft a box, drop it somewhere and wait. The sadness is real.

I remember the time when we needed water near the tilled ground.

 

[The Gronk]

You don't hoe. The hoe is gone. You craft a box and put it where you want a crop to be.

Why was that changed? My guess is to free up a terrain texture.

It's a pity though, I like the more natural look of the original. How does that affect the farming lots in towns? Will the crops still grow without a planter,?

 

[madmole]

No, Aurelius is right; MM is *finally* playing the game and is making game design decisions as a result of his playtime, the time is now, and then, so that when/if he comes up short on brass, it's in his head. Will it go into a18? No, that's been feature frozen for a month now. But who knows? 18.1? 19? 20?
If he deems it necessary.

Hell, he has waffled on food spoilage a few times now. =)

We're not adding new features but we are still tweaking and balancing stuff, and will continue after release. We're adding smelting of dukes so late game that money always useful. The way it plays now I'd cringe smelting precious dukes but again, I never bought barter perks or only 1 rank to close the deal on a vehicle when I was short.

 

[madmole]

So what are your plans to make this better?

I've already outlined it in my previous posts.