PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Tetrameth]

Not sure what everyone is on about, I have 100+ arrows already on day 2 but I use my fists for most fights.

Yeah, 100 arrows on day 2 is not difficult, even on 50% loot drop. Don't change the ratio of feathers otherwise we will have stupid sized stacks much too fast. It's already bad enough by day 7.

4 hits with the axe and the nests give you those few extras which makes all the difference in the first few days.

 

[Tetrameth]

This is hilarious. We had someone log into our a18 Server, and the 12th Crate she looted contained a Level 6 Steel Sledgehammer.... and you think Crafting trivializes the feeling of finding Purple loot? Fifteen minutes into the game and you have the best Sledge you're gonna get.

Haxxor !

 

[MechanicalLens]

This is hilarious. We had someone log into our a18 Server, and the 12th Crate she looted contained a Level 6 Steel Sledgehammer.... and you think Crafting trivializes the feeling of finding Purple loot? Fifteen minutes into the game and you have the best Sledge you're gonna get.

It's called RNG, and good RNG in that particular moment. It's a bit unwise to claim that one time someone got an awesome item early on, to say that that moment represents the entire system. I got a purple auger on day 20-something on my current A18 world, and you know what? I haven't seen an auger or a chainsaw since. Yes, it's possible that you could get a purple item pretty much right off the rip, but it's incredibly unlikely. In one of my long-over A16 worlds, I got a level 300+ spiked club out a bag - the first thing I looted! I was overpowered for basically the whole game beyond that point. Did the game require a nerf? Nope. Sometimes, you have rotten luck, and sometimes, you get awesome luck, and everywhere in between. Just saying.

 

[Gazz]

Hey, so, would it be too hard to implement a menu where you can check which recipes you have unlocked and which others you haven't? Sometimes while I loot I find so many recipes I forget I've unlocked them later on.
You can't really keep tabs on it in the crafting menu, since it never shows you all the unlockable recipes at once.

Yes, it does.

All unlocked recipes in a group are shown first.

 

[Hek Harris]

Yeah, 100 arrows on day 2 is not difficult, even on 50% loot drop. Don't change the ratio of feathers otherwise we will have stupid sized stacks much too fast.

Yep. Or allow us to make a pillow with one hundred feathers. I want pillows on my floor all around my hookah.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

Sexual tyrannosaurus requires only level 3 in the strength attribute to reach rank 3 in it, I call that a "minimal-investment perk". All attributes other than strength and perception completely lack minimal-investment perks, so you guys should balance attributes more to give every other attribute (agility, fortitude and intellect) at least 2 minimal-investment perks each. A player has to invest a total of 12 perk points into Fortitude and Iron Gut just so they can eat a piece of grilled meat safely, yet, it only takes 5 perk points to get sexual tyrannosaurus to level 3, along with many other perks under the strength attribute. It's pretty self-explanatory how problematic that is, I don't need to try to convince you. You already know it, and I suspect you're already working on it, but I just wanted to make sure. I'll make the following suggestions: For Intellect, Better Barter and The Daring Adventurer; Or, alternatively, move Master Chef from Strength back over to Intellect, and make it minimal-investment. For Fortitude, I strongly recommend Iron Gut and Cardio. For Agility, I recommend Flurry of Blows and Parkour. The beauty of this idea is, all the above perks benefit every play style; So even if you only dabble in other attributes, you'll be supplementing your playstyle significantly ^_^\m/

 

[DaVegaNL]

Careful man, too much rocking and you will become sand.

Don't discriminate against the smaller-sized rocks, man!

 

[Sam_Neill]

Is it normal, that higher terrain is rendered like this ?

I can see this effect coming with higher altitude, visible best in the snow biome, but also occuring in other biomes.

It happens around 140-150 altitude and gets worse in higher regions.

Happens with a custom map based on a TGA. Will test now if the random generated ones show the same too.

Or is that a bad setup of my GPU ? (AMD RX590 8GB)

Nice

 

[The Gronk]

It's called RNG, and good RNG in that particular moment. It's a bit unwise to claim that one time someone got an awesome item early on, to say that that moment represents the entire system. I got a purple auger on day 20-something on my current A18 world, and you know what? I haven't seen an auger or a chainsaw since. Yes, it's possible that you could get a purple item pretty much right off the rip, but it's incredibly unlikely. In one of my long-over A16 worlds, I got a level 300+ spiked club out a bag - the first thing I looted! I was overpowered for basically the whole game beyond that point. Did the game require a nerf? Nope. Sometimes, you have rotten luck, and sometimes, you get awesome luck, and everywhere in between. Just saying.

Although I agree with totally random loot instead of leveled loot I think the balances are currently way out of whack. It's far too easy to find great stuff.

Day 3 with minimal looting and I have a steel sledgehammer, steel pickaxe and a hunting knife? That seems a bit much to me. Where's the sense of progression?

 

[Damocles]

The loot should have cutoff-levels for the player level. Such that really high quality items only spawn later in the game, based on gamestage or whatever metric is useful here. Since the loot only "spawns" in when a player accesses a container first, this works well even in MP.

I found a level 3 Auger at the second day. After looting 2 POIs... This is really overpowered in terms of progression.

Its fun, but too much candy is not good either.

 

[Aldranon]

Yep. Or allow us to make a pillow with one hundred feathers. I want pillows on my floor all around my hookah.

And the 50,000 feather, bed! The perk for that is you character feels refreshed and happy in the morning and will whistle, loudly, throughout the glorious morning!

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

Y'all using any api mods?

I just have Alloc mod at this time and I used Putty to issue a saveworld and shutdown.

 

[RotaryPSi]

@Madmole So I've been playing A18 Experimental for awhile now. Love it by the way, zero complaints.

But I have noticed some things that could be looked into. So something is off with the Hunting Rifle, it doesn't always aim when you want it to, something about it feels really clunky.

(for example, when you're running around with the gun in your hands and see a zed, I try and quickly aim at it, but the gun doesn't seem to aim half the time and I have to re-aim.)

And the other thing, I really wish it didn't auto-aim after each reload. A lot of times I get stuck aiming when I would like to be moving after each shot.

Also, I really wish crouch didn't break your aim. I like to aim before going into sneak mode, but it breaks aim, so I have to re-aim after crouching.

(all of this is with the iron sights too, I haven't tried with a scope.)

There's also a bug to where if you click really fast with the Hunting Rifle it will keep firing without reloading.

<3

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

We have a Skype group chat with them going. There are 2 tickets open for shutdown errors, so it could be one or both of those causing a problem.

good to know, thanks.

PS: A15 to A17.x worked without any problems.

only mod on the server is ALLOC latest AND I tried telnet shutdown without ALLOC mod to make sure it was not the mod and had same problem.

 

[Jedo]

I gave a test today in my classes so I was able to actually keep up with the thread for once so I can't help but feel smug that Brian just heard about it now from the patch notes.

LOL the new build must have been pushed minutes after I started a game with my friend.I love this game! no sarcasm, I really do

I did not keep up with the forum as much as usual yesterday; and it turns out that the (unexpected) patch dropped minutes after I logged off for the night. What a surprise before my morning session.

After playing A18 for a while now, I have been wishing for a special slot in my toolbar to be fists only. The only thing allowed in it would be knuckles.

I hear you. In the early game, I often will punch the little trees instead of using my ax. If I loot too vociferously, my "empty" toolbar slot fills with loot.

Although I agree with totally random loot instead of leveled loot I think the balances are currently way out of whack. It's far too easy to find great stuff.
Day 3 with minimal looting and I have a steel sledgehammer, steel pickaxe and a hunting knife? That seems a bit much to me. Where's the sense of progression?

Yes, but for all of the stories like yours, there are stories like mine where I have found one T3 double shotty and one T2 steel sledge and it is Day 9. (I'm still gonna need steel bars to repair the latter.)

- - - Updated - - -

The first time was against a fatty and I just had no stamina to keep banging with him. The second time...I had planned an escape route but it was too craggy and I got stun locked by a fatty and it was over before I could do anything.

No stamina to keep banging? Stun locked by a fatty and it was over before you could do anything? You, sir, are no Snowdog.

 

[Thecolours]

Did the patch last night remove purple items from the trader or is that coming in a future patch?

 

[unlike them]

So something is off with the Hunter Rifle, it doesn't always aim when you want it to, something about it feels really clunky.
(for example, when you're running around with the gun in your hands and see a zed, I try and quickly aim at it, but the gun doesn't seem to aim half the time and I have to re-aim.)

It is because SHIFT (running) cancels aiming.

 

[Maynard69]

It is because SHIFT (running) cancels aiming.

No, it gets stuck. Like pressing RMB wont aim occasionally, standing perfectly still. And the fact that it locks you into ADS mode every time you take one shot is super annoying. Takes away control of the flow of battle if you are doing anything besides sniping z's from a safe spot.

But ya it is different than canceling your aim by running, it just fails at aiming sometimes.

 

[Crater Creator]

I was using a patched terrain shader that turns off layer scaling, which fixes the random triangle edge noise in grass and other common places. It does not fix the edge noise between rock and snow, but that is a smaller percent of the terrain. Spent a few hours disabling a lot of shader code and it refuses to go away, except when I make the terrain a single color.

Thanks; I'm sure you'll get there. I'm just glad you're able to reproduce it at this point. I'm also highly suspicious that this is what's killing my framerate outdoors. All the other performance fixes here and there do add up, though.

Shame nobody else can reproduce the 'psychedelic shrooms vision' bug that I'm still getting (screenshot/report).

 

[Crater Creator]

That's hilarious... whats so confusing about physically clicking on a button which clearly opts you into an experimental release?
I'm laughing, but I also honestly think its a little sad at the same time, that for some, the confusion is real.

It's pretty much the same inquiry every time: "I heard somewhere that Alpha 18 is out, but my game is still on 17.4. What's going on?" It's exactly what a Steam announcement is for.