PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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Wow, a18 is so much fun!!! Thank you for releasing it a week early!!!!!!

...that's what I would be saying if it was released today....😅
 
Over 70 pages in less than 24 hours? Holy smokes it took me forever to catch up. I’m not making an opinion on farming until I play it. But some of you guys are just pushing hard enough to get what every other game has.....no developer interaction. You will get Madmole and the other developers to stop using the forum to interact with the fans. I’m not talking about people disagreeing with or discussing the changes, I’m talking about the nastiness. Go ahead and argue, stop being jerks. I, for one, enjoy them on the forums. If I was him, I’d have been long gone. Take Guppy’s method.....no one is more negative about the changes than him and he hasn’t been at all nasty. Come on guys(gals), keep it civil at least. (Grandpa mode over)

On another note, I’m getting the feeling that the changes from A17 to A18 might be bigger than between any other 2 alphas. It’s going to take an entirely different approach to things. I’m pretty excited, for the good and not so good and hopefully mostly good.

 
And random guys spawning isn't? 85% of them aren't seen and are wasting cpu, and like I said, I tried it last night, brand new game and it felt the same to me, I had 5 jerks harrassing me, I felt like I was still on the forums ;)
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Lol...MM got jokes...

 
Zombies now have random bursts of speed when hit, "rage-mode" basically. That way, the combat is less formulaic and not as easy to avoid getting hit.
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Hmm, hopefully it is done right and not gamey. If the player has no way to counter the new behavior, it will feel like a cheap trick .

 
Well said.
As I've asked a handful of times now, why does the addition of one thing (planters) necessitate the removal or alteration of another (hoe and tilling)?
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Both you and Guppycur sound like the two who complained when the starter motor for cars was invented. "Oh Woe, you have killed cars for ever... Why did you remove the crank when we could have both!

You have ruined cars forever...

 
truer words were never spoken... :)
i have been forced to set up BR and chest just a small distance away from a poi before i start it... bigger pois may need a 2nd chest.
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My comment was not about how to make sure you can come back close to where you were. It was only in regards to early game and lessening the impact of a quick death. One example from 17... I spawned in, nothing on me but what we get starting out. I did the quests and of course put down my bedroll. Then I saw in the distance a trailer and started heading toward it. When I got close, a wolf came up and attacked me, killing me. I lost all the starting stuff and had hardly anything else (maybe loot from a couple of bags and a car. I spawned back on my bed with 0 loot. Now to go get that very important torch, water, and food, and bandage, I had to go back to the POI and guess what was there - the wolf - died again - and again.

Needless to say, I quit that world and started another one.

So how would it make it horrible that if a player has not yet even killed a zombie or for some early game time, they would respawn with what they had?

That was my original idea - not how to make sure I can get back to a poi and find my bag. I don't want to go find my bag! It has a wolf guarding it and I'm a new character with nothing but a wooden club.

 
Both you and Guppycur sound like the two who complained when the starter motor for cars was invented. "Oh Woe, you have killed cars for ever... Why did you remove the crank when we could have both!
You have ruined cars forever...
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Naw, I'm perfectly fine with forward progression.

 
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MM, after the return of books, when libraries and bookstores again became a very tidbit, you need to introduce a zombie librarian into the game, who will guard all this wealth!

It seems to me that this person (

) very easily got all these books, diagrams and recipes! =)
 
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MM, after the return of books, when libraries and bookstores again became a very tidbit, you need to introduce a zombie librarian into the game, who will guard all this wealth!

It seems to me that this person (

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Either that, or the guardian to all things precious could be:

cZyJPVh.jpg


 
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Well said.
As I've asked a handful of times now, why does the addition of one thing (planters) necessitate the removal or alteration of another (hoe and tilling)?
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You guys still dont understand this by now? There is a limit to how much can be added to the game. Development/engineering, especially in the early phases is alot of the addition/subtraction until everything comes together how the product is supposed to perform.

A good example of this is the all the block changes/consolidations that have been done.

Once the game is gold will subtraction will stop/reduce.

 
No we didn't do it for performance, we did it for gameplay and it is a performance bonus. We have rage zombies now, they get mad when hit and basically sprint in your face. This is overwhelming to new players and with bread crumbs it felt like the whole city came to my poi and sandwiched me in there. There are still plenty of zombies in the wild, the number and what it does is deceiving. Last night I had 5 snow zombies from across the lake raid my dig quest and I got rekt, no way out. I was in that hole for under a minute and they broke out my frame box and dropped in the hole and I was toast.
Putting it simple, A18 is much harder than 17 "in the wild". There are cougars that pounce on you, coyotes that are fast, vultures etc. Its nasty. So nasty we set the default difficulty to adventurer and the team was still getting raped and it just felt like the biome zombies were this annoying pest that hunted you and there were way too many of them, maybe Shawns voodooo ai code is so nice now that there were always a LOT more zombies than we ever knew there were.

So we turned it down, there are still a lot, and they are pain in the ass, combined with rage speeds and animals, you will thank me for this change. The AI is so much better they hear and investigate to a new player with a fresh look at 18, I should have kept my mouth shut, nobody would have noticed, but instead it would be oh wow I'm surrounded and this is scary af.

So yeah the idea of less zombies sounds bad on the surface. Put simply there are less stupid zombies that can't find you or hear you idling around wasting cpu, but now more zombies (than 17) trying to eat you in your face. How does that sound?
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Or you could just select an easier difficulty. ;)

 
Or you could just select an easier difficulty. ;)
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Who knows, perhaps they're all already playing at the easiest difficulty at TFP and still dying plenty, which is why they're having this idea of making the game easier for new players.

...because if they're not playing on the easiest difficulty then indeed, they really should simply lower it instead of lowering the challenge bar. It seems like they're terribly afraid of a new player dying an "unfair death" and writing a knee-jerk negative review on Steam. Dying and learning from the mistake seems like something they want to avoid entirely for new players. Which is pretty strange in a survival game that's not precisely meant to be a casual, relaxing experience, really.

 
Who EVER got boxed in by 10 zombies out in the open wilderness?
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snip...
Here:

No we didn't do it for performance, we did it for gameplay and it is a performance bonus. We have rage zombies now, they get mad when hit and basically sprint in your face. This is overwhelming to new players and with bread crumbs it felt like the whole city came to my poi and sandwiched me in there. There are still plenty of zombies in the wild, the number and what it does is deceiving. Last night I had 5 snow zombies from across the lake raid my dig quest and I got rekt, no way out. I was in that hole for under a minute and they broke out my frame box and dropped in the hole and I was toast.
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snip...
 
One bedroll is way too limiting. Not unlimited, and maybe the grass bedrolls decay and you need a bed for a perma spawn location. Be nice to plop a grass bedroll down outside a poi and still have your fort bed. Or place one for a pal and he can spawn near you when you both join a new server.
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How many?

 
We had that. You could hoe the ground into a cube farm plot. Took it out and landed where we are. I don't recall if it made a cleaner look or not.
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The old farming did have a cleaner look to it. No gaps forming for one thing.

- - - Updated - - -

You aren't as bad as this guy.

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The glider looks cool, to the person that made this mod. Good work. :)

 
Who knows, perhaps they're all already playing at the easiest difficulty at TFP and still dying plenty, which is why they're having this idea of making the game easier for new players.
...because if they're not playing on the easiest difficulty then indeed, they really should simply lower it instead of lowering the challenge bar. It seems like they're terribly afraid of a new player dying an "unfair death" and writing a knee-jerk negative review on Steam. Dying and learning from the mistake seems like something they want to avoid entirely for new players. Which is pretty strange in a survival game that's not precisely meant to be a casual, relaxing experience, really.
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No, Adventurer is the second easiest. Scavenger is the Easiest.

 
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