PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[iBane]

I like the balance just fine. I see zero fun in crafting everything, we had it for 17 alphas. Crafting lets you build a nice weapon early game, but shouldn't replace looting. Finding gun parts is immersion breaking, finding a rusted out brown shotgun isn't.

Agree. I did very little looting in A17...90% crafting & resource gathering. In A18 I loot 80% of the time and craft/gather 20% of the time. Having a reason to hit POIs is a game changer in A18

 

[meganoth]

hi. In the notes for latest exp it says "added settings for AI Block Damage and Loot Abundance of 33 and 67 percent". Can somebody confirm does this mean the only setting we can use without affecting balance are 33, 67, and 100?.
I always lower my loot abundance to 60 - 80 but now im being told this breaks the loot table. Is this true?

These are just the values you can select in the GUI. I assume you play with dedicated server and set your own values, you can still do that.

By the way, those settings always affect balance, automatically and unavoidable.

(BTW, I've get to see any minibike parts in loot. I have seen parts from all the other vehicles.)

Just found minibike handle bars yesterday (on day ~32) and could build the minibike because I bought the other part long ago from the trader. Had been using the bicycle up till now. For vehicles my playthrough seemed like the drop rate was handcrafted to be optimal :cocksure:

Shows how difficult it is to judge a game with lots of RNG on one or two playthroughs.

 

[Trankitas]

I'm glad to see people coming around to a lot of the designs we did.

Yeah, example: I wasn't very convinced about zombies not dropping loot every single time.

Now I love it, it's pretty cool being able to snipe zombies from 150m and knowing that if there is no yellow bag there is no loot. Before, it was really hard to NOT loot every zombie, it always felt like you had a chance to find some great loot on one of the 10 zeds you just killed.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Yeah, example: I wasn't very convinced about zombies not dropping loot every single time.
Now I love it, it's pretty cool being able to snipe zombies from 150m and knowing that if there is no yellow bag there is no loot. Before, it was really hard to NOT loot every zombie, it always felt like you had a chance to find some great loot on one of the 10 zeds you just killed.

yeah it was strange when i played console and i come on here and they dont drop loot until i saw what the yellow bags dropped witch made me go "im fine with this!"

 

[Brian9824]

yeah it was strange when i played console and i come on here and they dont drop loot until i saw what the yellow bags dropped witch made me go "im fine with this!"

It's just funny on low loot settins to get those yellow bags and have them contain no loot. Almost seems like they should be coded to always have at minimum 1 piece of loot

 

[seryi]

who knows how to show a screenshot, I can’t figure it out. Now I am rebuilding a building, a hotel and I would like to show it to the developers, they might like it.

 

[madmole]

A couple more balancing passes and I think you guys will be in that sweet spot. Must be a hell of a job trying to objectively review all this feedback when players have so many different settings to choose from. Thank you MM for your balancing efforts!

Its not that bad, I mainly listen for things I've experienced myself and if I see them enough we make adjustments, if I don't experience that problem I keep it in mind while I play and see if it comes up. Either way I've learned to not react too quickly and think it through if that change is really good for the game or not.

 

[madmole]

This was probably balanced for someone who doesnt leave their base or even their area but wanted everything they needed to make it to end game. This poi is almost comically OP and if you get a quest in it it is indeed end game city.
Maybe that was what it was intended as but seems silly to have all this balance in other areas and then this poi just laughs in the face of all of it.

It was built before those blue tarps dropped anything useful and were just decor.

 

[Trankitas]

Agreed, no one does indeed. I don't think I have ever crafted a single mine in this game, and I've been around since the pre-alpha. Too expensive for a one-use one-kill item.

You can kill a lot of Z's if used correctly. Try set up a tin can mine (not very expensive) and let a grenade or dynamite on the ground near it, then lead a big group of Z's to the mine (wandering horde per example).

Maybe you could find this boring, I find traps exciting!

 

[Brian9824]

That is awesome. I got outer worlds and it feels exactly like a Fallout game, and I'm sure I'll end up sinking loads of time into it, but tbh I play a bit, start thinking about my base needing this or that, and next thing you know I'm back into 7 days lol.

HAH, exact same here. Playing it via gamepass, but then A18 stable came out and it's just so hard to choose. Reminds me of a cross between fallout and the old knights of the old republic game they did with some firefly thrown in.

 

[Adam the Waster]

HAH, exact same here. Playing it via gamepass, but then A18 stable came out and it's just so hard to choose. Reminds me of a cross between fallout and the old knights of the old republic game they did with some firefly thrown in.

same lol its really fun!

 

[madmole]

Mr. Mole.
Concerning this your last measures helped alot. But you may be right and it needs further adjustments.

As of Level 23 i got 3 Armor Parts of Steel (Q2,4 and 5) and also found several Guns Q4 and 5.

Q6 dropped so far once (Pistol)

I do medium amount of Loottours, i also spend a lot time building my Base and Hordebase. So a Player with Lootfocus might accomplish better Items even faster.

I would really appriciate if this Progression-curve (or how you call it) gets slowed down a bit further.

Let 'em fight for loot ^^

I think you got really lucky, lets keep hearing what people found and when.

 

[Laz Man]

Day 60 Horde, 3 year old gaming laptop. FPS did tank but it was still a ton of fun.

Those zeds looked pissed off st your shotgun turret. Your insane btw for doing s horde night with FPS that low lol...I would literally pull my hair out if I had to do that.

 

[madmole]

I did the exact same thing! Though I have to admit, that game feels too linear and not enough open world to me (maybe cuz i havent gotten off edgewater yet), though i do like how they did the skills/perk system

I can't even lockpick to finish my quest. I have the mag lock, but I think my skill is too low. I'm not sure how to level to raise it if you stray too far the marauders are pretty tough. There are a lot of items but with fast health regen that it has, why bother? The lack of third person really sucks I like traveling in third and fight in first, or even melee in third sometimes. It seems like it could be a great game but it hasn't sucked me in yet. As much as people complain about Fallout 4, it sucked me in immediately at least and I enjoyed it quite a bit despite its lack of certain role play choices. But I'm usually slow to warm up to most games once I know what I'm doing I have more fun.

 

[Gr.o.m.]

I think you got really lucky, lets keep hearing what people round and when.

Maybe. But my toon is lvl 30, with lucky looter 5 & the +12% looting glasses. Just found a tier 6 wrench and I think it is far to soon. Tier 6 Items should not drop before lvl 60-80 and than only with a 1% chance.

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

I have a map radius question.

when I provide a map size of 8192 is that 8K radius or 4K radius? 8K radius would be 16km X 16km and not an 8K map.

 

[MechanicalLens]

@madmole I'm gonna say it, the addition of more options for Blood Moon Frequency (1-10) is one of my favorite (new) additions to A18. I've just restarted my world to be 120 minute days, with a Blood Moon Frequency of 5 and a Blood Moon Range of 4. With less restrictions in regards to the frequency of blood moons, I can finally realize this style of gameplay. *Thumbs up*

(Spawned in a forest biome next to the desert. Trader Joels was 400 meters away from spawn, and in between him (400+ meters in either direction) are 2 massive, incredible towns. Cannot wait for the first night to pass so I can resume looting. )

 

[Adam the Waster]

@madmole I'm gonna say it, the addition of more options for Blood Moon Frequency (1-10) is one of my favorite (new) additions to A18. I've just restarted my world to be 120 minute days, with a Blood Moon Frequency of 5 and a Blood Moon Range of 4. With less restrictions in regards to the frequency of blood moons, I can finally realize this style of gameplay. *Thumbs up*
(Spawned in a forest biome next to the desert. Trader Joels was 400 meters away from spawn, and in between him (400+ meters in either direction) are 2 massive, incredible towns. Cannot wait for the first night to pass so I can resume looting. )

i can't stand the desert for a few reasons!

1: sand. i hate sand its rough , course and gets everywhere!

2: lack of clay

3: the lag i get while in there. sense A18 the snow and desert are nearly unliveable for me.

 

[ozzysfang]

Those zeds looked pissed off st your shotgun turret. Your insane btw for doing s horde night with FPS that low lol...I would literally pull my hair out if I had to do that.

That's why I keep what I have left high and tight lol

 

[madmole]

Oh I agree that they're still useful, the other effects they give are really nice to have. It's more so to address those that feel crafting is undervalued now, which too an extent I can understand. Yes you can only get a tier 6 by looting, so why would you bother trying to spec into a perk to build better stuff? The problem is I could go 50hrs into a game before I see one, and it might not even be something I use. It's ultimately down to rng and time, which is why I feel its mostly fine as is. However i'm not against giving an ever so slight buff to crafted items, or just further improving the loot drops like Madmole has suggested I believe.
While on the topic of those perks, the Machine Gunner's stamina bonus seems out of place does it not? Not saying it's a bad effect, just that I don't see how it makes sense to pair it with automatics. I'm not really running around when using one since they have pretty effective killing power. I can usually just stand in place/walk and not use any stamina while mowing down the zeds. Just me?

We already buffed the crap out of crafting and nerfed loot. No more adjustments will be made without a lot more feedback or testing time ourselves.

You wont be standing still when bandits are raining bullets on you. Sprinting in heavy armor costs stamina so its nice to play like quake, running and jumping costs a lot of stamina so you will want that perk to move quickly from cover point to cover point or to just close the distance and get to the guy hiding behind cover and spray lead into him.