PC Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread
- Thread starter Hated
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I find it pretty frustrating in, for example, the Shamway factory near the top. There's an area one level below the big final zombie room where a walkway Y's off to a little food crate/munitions cache with 2 zombies and the other branch goes to a room with 3 zombies, a crate, a wall safe, and a gun bag. A number of times now I've been walking on the walkways and I pop up onto the railing but since I'm moving forward I fall because there's a pipe that runs above the walkway. It's high enough that when on the walkway itself it's fine, but it's not enough room if a player is standing on the railing itself. A player should have to jump to pop up on top the rails.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
The problem is player craftable lights can be spammed. You could place a hundred close to each other. We are not trying to spam place POI lights. Yes, you try to add some limits, but then it gets complicated, which takes time, so not a priority now.
Also, I was thinking a front light on the gyro might help.
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AlabasterW
New member
I've thought about this myself, and the only thing that comes to mind is that brick blocks can be thrown down instantly, while cobblestones must be upgraded from flagstone, which requires time. Bricks are the highest-HP block that can just be tossed down freely, which gives them a nice niche of effectively patching holes on horde night. That being said, that's still not much of a niche due to their high time/resource cost and inferior showing in every other regard compared to cobbles. You can probably grief folks pretty good if you wall them in in an instant though.
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Crater Creator
Community Moderator
Thanks; it's good to get other people's perspectives.
On the argument that you can have a bank of forges running in parallel and make bricks without tying up your backpack, the same could be said for cobblestone, using a bank of workbenches.
On the argument that bricks offer an aesthetic alternative, all the brick textures have long been available to paint on whatever block you want.
On the argument that clay beats stone on acquisition time, I did another test. I had no skill points spent, and used an unmodded steel shovel and pickaxe.
One, 250 HP dirt block yielded 22 units of clay soil.
One, 500 HP stone block yielded 55 units of small stone.
That's 0.11 units of product for each 1 HP of damage in both cases. The clay yield per unit of HP is even worse for ground (the topsoil that's embedded with plant fibers) and sand. Also, dirt is not available in the desert, while stone is available in all biomes. So, other than having to dig through a few dirt blocks to reach the stone, if anything stone has the edge over clay in acquisition time.
On AlbasterW's argument that bricks provide more instant HP without the need to upgrade... well that's true, but that convenience comes at the cost of over four times as long to make the brick block in the first place.
TL;DR: fix bricks, Gazz!
Crater Creator
Community Moderator
I would point out that nobody says, "These light bulbs are dim; guess I'll just live in the dark!" They add more lights until they can see well in their bases, however many lights that takes. Nor are players likely to use many more lights than necessary since, you know, it'd be unpleasantly over-bright, and they'd have to go out of their way to make, place, and maintain them. So rather than design this around a number of lights or a maximum range, it'd make the most sense in my opinion to first assume a 'reasonable' level of illumination, and then work backwards for the most efficient per-light values to achieve that level.
With that said, I think there's a performant solution to Gareee's problem.
I notice the "Industrial Light" model disappears once you get about 20 blocks away, while the "Basic Light Bulb" model stays visible up to ~150 blocks away, right up until player placed blocks disappear. Now, what Gareee's looking for isn't illumination, per se - he just wants a bright dot he can see in the distance. So the dynamic light isn't even necessary for this. Make the Industrial Light model draw as far away as the Basic Light Bulb does, and the rest should take care of itself. Because it looks like when they're on and rendering, lights have a glow texture that makes them look bright regardless of actual lighting calculations. The Basic Light Bulb is too small to see this at its max render distance, but the Industrial Light isn't.
How does the gyrocopter not have a light?? Between all other powered vehicles having lights, and the gyrocopter accessories requiring 8 headlights in the recipe, the game really sets up an expectation that it'll have a light.
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Gareee
Tester
That might be the most cost efficient solution, as long as it casts far enough away. I'm not sure of the range, but the lcb bounding box distance might work... I see it before deco lights and have to use it to navigate at night.
Maybe a "hi beam" mod could also be made for it to cast further away?
I hate having t turn up the gamma to navigte at night, but most of the night I'm looking at a black screen with an occasional ground deco light.
BTW, while I'm thinking about it, could an altimeter be added below the compass when in flight? That might help as well to avoid hard night impacts. I don't think we can access player altitude in the xml to mod the hud with it.
Gareee
Tester
Manux had a vehicle mod that added a 45 degree forward down spotlight to the gyro and it worked great. Some of his vehicles didn't fit into balancing well, so I haven't looked into adding them in a18.
I would think players would be less inclined to spam a ton of lights if one or two had significant distance and brightness. The trash can spotlights come to mind as SO disappointing, and they should be the best player craftable light.
Thinking about this more, maybe a distant lcb point light could be added, much like the distant terrain and the distance pois.
It would calculate the total light output of all lcb area lights and generate a single distant point light that slowly fades in when maybe 1/4 mile away, and then slowly fades away once in range of the furthest player lights that start to fade in.
One distant lcb area point light couldn't be spammed either.
I know lights have been nerfed a lot since a15.. I used to put a torch near windows inside pois near my base to add a little civilized "life" to the area.
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spud42
Active member
railed catwalks along the side of a structure are a pain. worse when crouched because you seem to just climb up them.
the new water tower with the fence around it is bad . its a handy temp base overnight but those rails at the top near killed me a few times. bring back the old water towers. i really liked the solid metal one in a17.4. i used to hollow it out and put in windows on 3 sides. used to set one up in every town in case i needed a place to spend the night..
This is not an a18 thing though has been this way from the first alpha they were released in.
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Liesel Weppen
New member
Communicate it. Write it into the changelog. Name it as a known issue. Maybe even mention it in the ingame description for light sources.
If people still spam lights and complain about the framerate forward them to where they have been warned, it's their own fault.
Letting a skyscraper collapse also drops the fps. Do you make a skyscraper non collapsable just because people could do that?
Some more thoughts:
A common tactic/exploit I find myself using is that I'll toggle the INT bonus from the Nerdy Glasses in order to change my Better Barter perk level. It basically makes 2 sets of trader items available every reset from the Secret Stash tab. How to do it:
I'm guessing this is very much not intended.
Another "exploit" I find myself using is that I'll loot the hidden backpacks/purses/ammo/etc. behind false walls/floors without actually breaking the obstruction. This doesn't work for all hidden stuff, but generally if you put your crosshair on the edge of the adjoining block it will let you loot the stuff. Again, this doesn't seem intended.
In non-exploit-related thoughts, is vehicle storage usable by multiple players in A18? I haven't done a co-op game since A17, but it was really annoying that only the vehicle owner (ie. the person that placed it on the ground) could use the storage compartment. Also, let us dye our vehicles so we can tell them apart lol
A common tactic/exploit I find myself using is that I'll toggle the INT bonus from the Nerdy Glasses in order to change my Better Barter perk level. It basically makes 2 sets of trader items available every reset from the Secret Stash tab. How to do it:
- Raise INT to 4 (or 6 or 9 if you have enough points)
- Wear Nerdy Glasses to boost INT to 5/7/10
- Raise Better Barter to 3/4/5
- Visit a Trader, browse their Secret Stash section
- Remove Glasses, lowering your INT to 4/6/9, which lowers your Better Barter to 2/3/4
- Browse the Secret Stash again, it has now changed to a different set of items
I'm guessing this is very much not intended.
Another "exploit" I find myself using is that I'll loot the hidden backpacks/purses/ammo/etc. behind false walls/floors without actually breaking the obstruction. This doesn't work for all hidden stuff, but generally if you put your crosshair on the edge of the adjoining block it will let you loot the stuff. Again, this doesn't seem intended.
In non-exploit-related thoughts, is vehicle storage usable by multiple players in A18? I haven't done a co-op game since A17, but it was really annoying that only the vehicle owner (ie. the person that placed it on the ground) could use the storage compartment. Also, let us dye our vehicles so we can tell them apart lol
Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
That's some pretty good comparisons. My money is on that the devs just havent had time to rebalance/look at brick blocks. Hopefully Gazz will get to it sooner then later.Thanks; it's good to get other people's perspectives.
On the argument that you can have a bank of forges running in parallel and make bricks without tying up your backpack, the same could be said for cobblestone, using a bank of workbenches.
On the argument that bricks offer an aesthetic alternative, all the brick textures have long been available to paint on whatever block you want.
On the argument that clay beats stone on acquisition time, I did another test. I had no skill points spent, and used an unmodded steel shovel and pickaxe.
One, 250 HP dirt block yielded 22 units of clay soil.
One, 500 HP stone block yielded 55 units of small stone.
That's 0.11 units of product for each 1 HP of damage in both cases. The clay yield per unit of HP is even worse for ground (the topsoil that's embedded with plant fibers) and sand. Also, dirt is not available in the desert, while stone is available in all biomes. So, other than having to dig through a few dirt blocks to reach the stone, if anything stone has the edge over clay in acquisition time.
On AlbasterW's argument that bricks provide more instant HP without the need to upgrade... well that's true, but that convenience comes at the cost of over four times as long to make the brick block in the first place.
TL;DR: fix bricks, Gazz!
@Gazz since metal sheeting is the only type of flat block, perhaps brick could be repurposed as a cheaper sheeting alternative? Altho, I dont know having flat brick sheeting would appeal to realists. Perhaps instead of brick, can call it mud/clay splattering???
Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
Making note of something publically does no prevent it from not happening (error proofing) Just like how not everyone reads operations manuals. A good design builds quality into the system to error proof it.
The following is an example of a more controlled design:
1) Allow players to craft how ever many lights they want
2) Limit how many lights are rendered to a maximum value.
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