PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[meganoth]

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/

Still not able to format your posts like everyone else and spam-posting each day? Don't be surprised if you get some flak for that from time to time.

A few strength perks are miminal-invest because most other classes need them. You are making the wrong conclusions, this is a neccessary boost for the other classes because they need those rather essential perks at higher levels than 1. While the other utility classes you mention often need only 1 point or can be substituted by finding recipes

Putting multipleperk points into SexTyr is needed by every melee, and mother lode by everyone except nomads.

i meant now that purple crafting is out the window, do we need lvl 6 perks again for blue item crafting, or is it still at perk lvl 5?

There are no lvl6 perks. Maybe that's why you only get joke answers.

Something that's been bothering me, under the agility tree / pistol spec, it says it gives the bonuses to pistols and smgs, but down the perk it just says "with pistols", and it only unlocks pistol crafting... the stats do apply to both smg and pistol, right?

It probably should say "handguns". What confused me enough to look into the xml was the enumeration "pistols and smgs" but not mentioning magnums. The enumeration might be necessary because it isn't readily evident that SMG is a handgun, but if you enumerate at all the list might need to mention magnums too.

 

[meganoth]

I enjoy the thought of making quality 6 more rare, but I don't enjoy the idea of that 4th mod slot being locked behind that even more rare drop. 4th slot is pretty pivotal for armors since you want to have custom fittings, armor mod, pockets, and then an insulation mod...but then there are additioanl must have mods specific to armor pieces like bandolier for chest, helmet light for helmet, and impact bracing for feet that make the mod economy tighter. Plus advanced mufflers for agility.
...

Specifically for armor. I've never once found the Well Insulated perk compelling and with the addition of pockets I don't think Pack Mule is valuable enough to consider taking without some additional bonuses. Perks that you can completely bypass via looted items like packmule via pockets, master chef via finding recipes, yeah science via schematics, grease monkey via schematics, etc feel really really bad to invest in right now without significant additional bonuses. Advanced Engineering is a good example of having compelling bonuses to complement the unlocks. Even Physician at least tries, though the power of baseline healing items and the fact that the healing perk doesn't unlock the healing item scehamtics kind of takes away from it. (maybe put the healing/drug unlocks in Physician and then give yeah science some nice secondary bonuses?)

Survival is about making hard decisions. Don't use bandolier and impact bracing or take one point in either Pack Mule or Well insulated or suffer in the heat or have stamina problems while running. Four choices, take one, it's that easy.

Arguing you need that fourth mod slot and that Well insulated is too weak in the same post is a bit ironic. While I agree that they feel relatively optional because they can be replaced with armor bonuses also means they are valuable when you don't have the armor bonuses. You might never get that lvl6 armor, and even if you were, is it sensible to have a problem for a large part of the game time just to have saved a perk point shortly before you roll a new game?

I expect we will eventually have the same situation with armor that we have with most weapons: there are more mods you want than slots. Choose what is more important to you, it may very well be that one or two points in Well insulated could become as essential as the first point in Living off the land.

That still doesn't answer my question

[question was about loot difference with Lucky Looter] Just observe what you typically get at lvl1 and what you get at lvl 100 for a more pronounced difference.

Because it changes the loot roll (so it looks up different tables of items) you can't even compare it in a specific case. You might get totally different stuff with or without a perk point in Lucky Looter. I.e. instead of 3 med kits you might get a pickaxe and 5 shotgun ammo. But on average it is simply better and more.

 

[Thecolours]

Here's my take on how to balance the loot/crafting issue with purple items. I'll use intelligence as an example.

-Give purple items a very, very low drop chance and remove them from trader.

-Remove blue items from loot and trader.

-Blue items can only be crafted.

-Add increased drop chance of certain purple items in loot table depending on perk tree*

* Example*

Turret Syndrome perk lvl 5 gives you all the same benefits you get now, but also 10% increased chance to find a purple junk turret in loot. Doing this incentives you to get max rank in a weapons perk tree.

What do you guys think?

 

[meganoth]

Fix how? You can compare any weapon. Melee vs bow vs pistol. Which ammo type you want to load is really up to you.

A fix would be showing two numbers, the base damage without mods and with worst ammo and the current damage with effects from mods and better ammo.

Not for comparing bow vs. pistol, but for comparing a found weapon with the one you have.

 

[Maynard69]

A fix would be showing two numbers, the base damage without mods and with worst ammo and the current damage with effects from mods and better ammo.
Not for comparing bow vs. pistol, but for comparing a found weapon with the one you have.

Ya, with random stats and massive amount of schematics now, its kinda a pain to figure out where you stand.

For example, Sure you can see what crafting you have unlocked, but only when you have a workbench, chem station, campfire and a forge in front of you. Otherwise you are just seeing what you can craft in your inventory.

You can compare stats on your stuff only after taking all the mods off your current weapon and removing any special ammo, then looking at both of them.

Would be a nice thing to have the "base stats(current stats)" on stuff, and maybe a tab like the one we have to see what books we have unlocked for schematics as well. You could scroll down and see all the special stuff you have unlocked on the go instead of having to travel to wherever your different crafting stations are.

If you know specifically what you want to craft I think you can just search it in your crafting menu even if you arent at a workstation but a lot of times you dont know and you just want to remind yourself what options you have to craft out of the stuff you have unlocked.

 

[madmole]

I'm willing to admit I was wrong on this subject. I just felt bad cause I'm the one that caused the nerf in the first place. Since the latest patch the divide isn't noticable because of the pass on loot. If others are good then I'm good on this subject.

I think we added 1 feather minimum + the usual random 0-4 so gazz said that is a 30% increase or something.

 

[Alpacko]

would be nice if 9mm and 7.62 rounds would differentiate a little more than just dmg/range.

like give 9mm rounds a little dmg boost or flinching/dismemberment chance against flesh targets

and 7.62 dmg boost/penetration against armor and maybe a tiny chance per bullet 2 penetrate flesh.

would help making the smg not just a poor man's ak

 

[madmole]

What is the target day range yall want people to be decked out in quality 6 gear?

If lucky level 60 if unlucky level 120, if on standard settings. If you turn up XP, then *.5 or something. Its always going to be random and you simply won't have all purple items, ever on some characters, and that is fine, because blues are fantastic.

The whole you need purple for that extra slot is a bs argument, insulation mods do very little. All cold and heat do is make you hungry or thirsty, so a late game character can ignore all that with his surplus of food for 500 days.

 

[madmole]

If people have been playing so long that they want to restart, and they still haven't found level 6 gear. Then design focus should be shifted to other areas, as clearly its not the thrill of acquiring level 6 gear that is keeping them there.
Once the donkey gets the carrot from the stick, its game over.

Some people have restartitis. That thrill of a new character, new world, new perks, new gear is greater than the desire to fight the impending hordes and later game aspects. Its common in Skyrim and Fallout, I have probably made 500 characters under level 20, 20 made it to level 40, and 1 over level 60.

 

[Alpacko]

[...]insulation mods do very little. All cold and heat do is make you hungry or thirsty, so a late game character can ignore all that with his surplus of food for 500 days.

that makes the whole weather system a lil redundant, no?

couldnt u die from severe heat strokes/freezing in previous alphas?

 

[madmole]

Quality 6 items are not craftable????
Didnt they just make them craftable and now its not craftable anymore?

We wanted to make crafting viable, not OP and not everyone had time to attend the meeting, so once it was discovered there was a mob of angry devs at gazz's office. You can craft random stat blue's now, that is plenty awesome enough, we want the thrill of finding a purple to be a thrill to be exclusive to looting or a super rare drop at the trader. Trader purple nerf incoming soon.

 

[madmole]

is blue crafting on lvl 5 or 6 now?

Level 4 of the perk unlocks blue crafting. There is no level 6.

 

[madmole]

This game have come a loooooong way View attachment 29884 View attachment 29883

"Persevere and you will triumph".

Awesome! Indeed.

 

[Blake_]

I think we added 1 feather minimum + the usual random 0-4 so gazz said that is a 30% increase or something.

That is a very nice tweak. Nothing in a nest is a bit climate changy. Also, deserts have too many nests.

BTW my sincere congratulations to Kinyajuu for his amazing Random Gen baby. I tried a couple of RWG seeds and I could not find anything amiss. That is, in the 8k x 8k map. Even the roads were very polished.

If I'm forced to complain about something, it would be that some roads and paths lead to nowhere at all. Maybe a Random encounter or a sports bag or something at the end of those?. Still some dented road curves on some isolated dirt paths, but nothing jarring or ugly.

And OMG the landscapes !

Breathtaking 9 out of 10 times.

We should make a screenshot contest!

 

[madmole]

Aha! And you told me a couple of months ago that it was a bad idea.

Maybe how you worded it sounded bad? Sometimes things sound bad at first but you warm up to them once your objections are calmed. Sometimes you just have to try stuff with a proof of concept too, but usually we can settle on a nice design on paper.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Then you still need an empty slot for figthing, doesn't change a thing

Please explain, I’m not following. The entire toolbar as we know it could be for that. I’m talking about a single slot that allows you to switch to fists even if you have a full tool belt. Look at it like this... your tool belt is full, but why then can you not punch? Your fists already belong to you, even if you didn’t own a tool belt or backpack.

 

[madmole]

Blue is level 5 and Purple is level 6. At some point there will be a level 7 (legendary)

It might just be some purple have a legendary effect added.

 

[madmole]

I really like the idea, take way too long to explore all of them. What about a chain of quests on the same POI? The trader gives you the quest to go clear a place then he gives you another quest where you need to fix up the place maybe for making an outpost. Then maybe he gives you another quest where you need to defend the place. These place can give you some resources in exchange but a really little for balancing reasons.

We've talked about doing multiple quests in the same poi, first one is clear, then later settlers moved in and you have to protect them from a horde, then later bandits killed them and you go kill the bandits, then it restarts the cycle as the dead bandits become zombies or zombies came there to eat the dead bandits, etc.

 

[Jacoviz]

We've talked about doing multiple quests in the same poi, first one is clear, then later settlers moved in and you have to protect them from a horde, then later bandits killed them and you go kill the bandits, then it restarts the cycle as the dead bandits become zombies or zombies came there to eat the dead bandits, etc.

Just BEAUTIFUL! Nothing else to say. Only that i'm really hyped for the "fix something" quests that you mention before. Doing quest in this game is a real drug!

 

[madmole]

Making crafting damn near pointless is bad design as well, when you can find all The T6's you need before you even have an inclination about crafting them there is no point and, on top of that looting will still have a purpose seeing as you wont be spec-ed into crafting for every single item. I play thins game for the base defense not because "OOOOH I CAN CRAFT".
That's just one of the issues, with the removal of barbed wire we are down yet another trap; I wont say it was my favorite or most used trap, but it gave you an option for your base defense. It makes me wonder how long until the other traps are removed because I cant help but feel we are going to see the actual skill of making a well designed base with layers off varied traps lost, because god forbid a player decide he wants to put time and resources into the base for defense and not just 420000 rounds of ammo. I don't get why you are just so ♥♥♥♥ing against that style of play.

But hey you are just going to call me a hater and call it a day 0 discussion amiright.

Fine we'll push browns out to level 120, then crafting will be relevant. Have you started a new game yet? The goal is to make crafting relevant not OP. We pushed out how long a player will find crappy gear, so this should get people crafting again.

The trap was removed because its OP and zombies can't attack it, and it looked like crap at best. It was a level design block when gazz got on early he made way too many things available and it slows the game down so we're removing stuff that is op or looks bad, or was never intended to be a player craftable block. Make a recipe and mod it back in if you want to cheese the game up, amiright?