PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Perlin_Worm]

I am enjoying the early game re-balancing. 

- Less frustrating and more enjoyable harvesting of wood and stone. 

- Eggs and feathers are more plentiful. Why not?

- Stone age loot is wonderful and refreshing. This will make later finds more spectacular.

- Blunderbuss is fun and effective. The go to early weapon as it should be.

- Early game zombies seem easier to kill than a18. This is needed for new players. I trust it will scale in difficulty as the days progress so I am not concerned.

- The lack of guns yet plentiful bullets early game is a smart implementation. Keeps true to the stone age theme yet ammo stockpile is ready once that first gun is scored.

One questionable balance concern is why are Bows sneak damage so over the top without perks? Why would I spec agility if I can already one shot without any investment?

Also, crafting First Aid bandages are too easy to achieve. I believe it is only 3 perk points now. In addition, only 1 aloe to make a First Aid bandage? Why so easy now?

 

[Laz Man]

hmm.., that's not a bad idea @Laz Man while I've only recently played around a bit with prefab/world editor (and region reset bits) think I've got the basics enough to handle that. And it would beat gen'ing a map, search poi xml for skyscraper_02, if none, gen another map...   Thanks for the idea

Edit: would still be nice to have a couple more 'book' poi in vanilla, imo of course, like a small town or rural library.. heck most grocery stores have magazines and books for sale, so a couple few book cases in Shamway wouldn't actually be out of place.

Your wish has come true.  Explore more of the new/updated POIs to find out.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Mine have a lot above 1k. My entire Day 1 list was 1.1km - 1.7km (they were all clears and fetches). It was kind of weird because the town my trader was in had a lot of tier 1 POIs.

This was in MP, so there may have been collisions with other player quests?

This happens a lot in singleplayer as well. The trader is basically like, "Listen, I know there is a town just a hundred meters away, but instead I'm going to send you to that town down yonder, past several rows of mountains, scorching deserts, and perilous desolated wastelands. Oh, and the satchel will be right in the front entrance beside the door. After opening the door and snatching it, make the journey back here."

Following that epic adventure, the trader rewards you with some paper.

 

[Ranzera]

I'd like to congratulate faatal specifically for adding hit-feedback to the zombies.

Melee combat feels great now! 

Hit detection seems improved all around in MP for melee weapons. My melee horde base felt much more satisfying in A19 MP than it ever did in A18 SP. All the zeds are still Mr Fantastic though~

 

[Blake_]

At higher tiers? If you don't have at least a minibike at higher tiers, the Duke has a job as dishwasher for you

That's a fair point.

 

[Ranzera]

This must be pretty subjective, my seeds have been fantastic so far. But I just play the game, I don't preview the map, I don't cheat and fly around, I see what I see playing organically. There could be roads crashing into mountains and craters yet, but so far I haven't seen anything too horrible one sloped road that I was still able to traverse on my bicycle. When in doubt I just go around and role play a bomb dropped there or something. Sometimes I fix the roads it gives me something to do and I feel like I'm improving the apocalypse. I only chop down dead trees too, at least where I am settled, unless they interfere with line of sight at my base for some sniping.

I generally don't look at the RWG maps myself. I do, however, check out my first few to see if patterns emerge. All evidence so far suggests that A19 RWG biome placement is even less random than A18. Sure the lines might be drawn algorithmically but you always go to the same area on the map for each biome. At least in A18 you didn't know which way to run to get to the biome you're trying to find.

Map Generators like Nitrogen will be better than RWG until you manage to create something resembling what you had in A16. 

 

[meganoth]

What if the rest of us are concerned about pollution?

Don't put fuel into your minibike ---> zero emission vehicle

 

[Guppys Fur]

did any of you got a Skyscraper like the Higashi ones in RWG? Had 3 Maps generated each 8x8 and couldnt find one.  (fav Prefab of mine)

Either i got really bad luck or the Statement "Every PRefab gets spawned" is a bit buggy.

 

[MajorMunchy]

i generated 4 8k maps. all the same. all pois are there. just forest in the middle then its hunger game districts around that of biomes. 1 of each biome only. RWG needs work

 

[rivle]

did any of you got a Skyscraper like the Higashi ones in RWG? Had 3 Maps generated each 8x8 and couldnt find one.  (fav Prefab of mine)

Either i got really bad luck or the Statement "Every PRefab gets spawned" is a bit buggy.

Yes i found one, but i generated my map with nitrogen. 

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

I like the slower progression, it looks very nice, runs fine with stable 60FPS on FHD (R5 3600/Gtx1070/16gb RAM) with high settings.

Overall i am happy so far. Food is a bit harder to get, still too easy for my likes tough. Vending machines are still an easy way combined with questing.

 

[Damocles]

"skyscraper strike team" needed 

 

[Drithyl]

One questionable balance concern is why are Bows sneak damage so over the top without perks? Why would I spec agility if I can already one shot without any investment?

Also, crafting First Aid bandages are too easy to achieve. I believe it is only 3 perk points now. In addition, only 1 aloe to make a First Aid bandage? Why so easy now?

We first played on the default difficulty and indeed, primitive bows were one-shotting sleepers with sneak damage. We turned it up to Warrior and this was no longer the case, so points in archery would be useful then. Plus once the gamestage goes up enough that the sleepers become ferals or radiated, archery points will be even more useful.

As for first aid bandages, I guess because now their function is not just to heal health, but also to cure some critical wounds that can potentially happen pretty often.

 

[meganoth]

did any of you got a Skyscraper like the Higashi ones in RWG? Had 3 Maps generated each 8x8 and couldnt find one.  (fav Prefab of mine)

Either i got really bad luck or the Statement "Every PRefab gets spawned" is a bit buggy.

The Statement is "Every prefab gets spawned only once (as long as there is a new prefab to spawn left)".

Higashi would only be guaranteed if you make a map big enough for >530 or so pois

 

[Khalagar]

I try to make the best of it, scout for a possible awesome base location

Building a base that isn't 50 feet from the trader? My lord, is that legal?! 

No really, that's why I think the game does need a Junk Teleporter style workbench you can build in your base late game that lets you teleport to a static Junk Teleporter placed at Traders. So you could actually build a base in cool places and not spend half your play time in pure travel time to get back and forth to traders. 

So done some testing with the Junk sledge with a friend and while yes as a weapon it sucks and solo it is worthless. But it can play a role in team play, with a weighted mod (Burning mod for added DoT, not needed but nice. ) It acts as a great support weapon. It rag-dolls zombies like no ones business, with such great CC its easy to clear and keep allies safe. The fact it uses no stamina is nuts, what it lacks in damage it kinda makes up for in utility. (FYI deployed mode is meh) This being said it still needs more work, but not a total flop like most are considering it. 

This is where I'd put info on my testing of the Junk Sledge . . . IF I HAD ONE

One thing I've seen reported is that your mods do not affect the Junk Sledge in placement mode, which is surely a bug. I would be happy if Junk Sledge is decent in handheld at least. It would be a shame if it's entire placement mode was useless, but just having a cool and viable int melee weapon would go a long way towards actually having a cool and viable int melee weapon

 

[Zombiepoptard]

The distance might not be ideal yet, but I don't feel like it is all that bad as you make it out to be. In Skyrim if you resist the urge to fast travel it takes the better part of a 2 days to travel to, clear the dungeon and travel back to the quest giver.

I see the issue as you being impatient and having some odd belief that everything needs to be convenient and easy. Like I said the distance isn't ideal, but there is plenty to do along the way and nobody says you need to be home by dark. Instead of complaining about it, you could actually stop to smell the roses along the way, clear a few small POIs, and make an adventure out of it, rather than feeling like it has to get done in the next 5 minutes and creating a stressful situation. In Skyrim that happens all the time you are going somewhere, find a cave and decide to check it out and get side tracked.

I think people get over encumbered, wear heavy armor, and don't eat stamina boosting foods and stamina recovery boosting drinks, then complain about it. Yeah in that context travel sucks, but if you strip off your armor and don't get over encumbered, eat a stew chased by a coffee you can sprint 1.5 km in about 2 minutes, its nothing. Mega crush and its 1 minute or so. We've provided tools to make traveling long distances feel reasonable, use them.

Skyrim has fast travels because the game isn’t optimized to play it without. Also you mean you find another quest and get side tracked. If you want to stay in a town and do quests you should be able to do that. It has it’s own immersive qualities. When your in a town with out a quest giver there is zero to do ( as far as poi’s go) in that town late game because you’ve looted every building. You need the quest system to be convenient in one place when that happens. Maybe having quest givers randomly spawn at a poi to side track the player would be better. 

 

[Adam the Waster]

I like the slower progression, it looks very nice, runs fine with stable 60FPS on FHD (R5 3600/Gtx1070/16gb RAM) with high settings.

Overall i am happy so far. Food is a bit harder to get, still too easy for my likes tough. Vending machines are still an easy way combined with questing.

the think that kinda made me go. "what the hell" is when i did a tier 1 quest for trader joel and i got 150 Magnum rounds as a reward! 

seams a but much for a tier 1! maybe 15 or 35 rounds. for a tier 3 4 or 5? sure! not tier 1!

 

[Zombiepoptard]

I guess just have a option where you can turn off and on quest boards if you want to get you steps in. 

 

[Lostpsp]

So I decided to start up a testing build to see how the new random gen maps work and to see how far out the ocean borders go. Turns out we have our good ol' guardian deities the ocean bears to keep us safe from the ocean lumberjacks.

Also, are the random gen worlds having all POIs every time confirmed working, and will the new prefab maps work the same way? I wanted to know if I should do random gen or prefab when stable hits.

 

[Adam the Waster]

question for everyone?

do you only find level 2 knuckle Wraps????