PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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madmole said:
They will soon:
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Madmole single handedly cured animal extinction with one patch!! No really, that's been a major issue for a few alphas for me, where animals are totally extinct by like day 2 or 3 and then you ride the struggle bus for the rest of the game trying to find meat.

Very welcome change!

wolfbain5 said:
also intel tree weapon on horde nights have a similar problem since any time a junk turret hits a demolisher from the front or side sets it off.
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Yeah, Demolishers kind of crap on a lot of builds and bases. I can see why the devs added them, but at the same time, they make a lot of weapons a hinderance and you have to design your entire base around demolishers.

I'm hoping for some more unique alternatives. I like the idea of the giant vulture that can carry zombies and drop them on top of your base, or pick up players, and I still like my idea of a zombie that builds a ladder. Like a spider zombie, leaving a trail behind it.  Add in a miner zombie that digs tunnels for other zombies and you'd have a pretty cool variety of special infected that would keep base designs fresh, while also giving the player specific zombies to target during the horde.

People mentioned a "fog zombie" or darkness zombie too, that generates fog or darkness around it which would be pretty cool

 
MechanicalLens said:
The best source of free explosives are landmines. Did you know that you can pick them up by harvesting them with a wrench? ;)
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I tried this the other day. I know the intended result, and I took zero damage because the wrench distance is pretty far, so I just got it to where the prompt would show then I harvested it. Boom, no damage. Now I can't say for sure NO damage, but I think I had 90% of my health or so when I did it, so if I did take any damage, it wasn't much. It is useful for setting off the mine without wasting ammo I guess. I don't know if I got lucky or what, because I almost die every time in that one POI where the zombie sets off the land mine in the hallway with the safe around the corner before you get to the hallway.

 
madmole said:
They will soon:

[SIZE=11pt]Changed: Added more friendly animals to all biomes (Joel)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Changed: Added a low chance for enemy animals to spawn in forest during the day and a higher chance for them to spawn at night (Joel)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Changed: Chickens can spawn in forests now (Joel)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Changed: All animals respawn much faster than before (Joel)[/SIZE]

Changed: Cougar can spawn in forest and desert (Adam)

Changed: Bears can fly with C4 (Laz)

Added: Cougars spawn in the Boobie trap (Snow dog)
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Sweet!

finally i can eat chicken in the forest! :)

 
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madmole said:
That is true, but if perception is your thing, you should have a few stacks of grenades at all times. They really are not very costly, and you are getting the most springs/parts from your savage operations perk, so relatively speaking that guy should have ability to make 100's of grenades very easily. I always craft 25 per horde night to reduce how much ammo I have to craft and it really works well on groups of zombies.
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On horde night explosives work wonders, I agree. But there it is relatively easy to get lots of zombies piled up for the slaughter, especially because you can design the horde base specifically for that use case.

But I never tried to use grenades for clearing POIs and expect some difficulties in rounding up enough zombies in a convenient place so throwing grenades instead of simply shooting them makes sense.

 
meganoth said:
Don't know how you play. But if you have an ammo-intensive play style and still don't need to work for your ammo then the game isn't balanced well in that regard.
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We have cut ammo in half, but I don't know if you guys got that patch yet.

wolfbain5 said:
pity later stages of horde nights make land mines and explosives useless. they trigger demolishers and make them blow up your bases. that and the low mag and slower firing rate of perc weapons a little less desirable at later stages. even when I perk Perc, I always keep ak's for horde nigth instead. also intel tree weapon on horde nights have a similar problem since any time a junk turret hits a demolisher from the front or side sets it off.

we just did a 3 man day 35 horde night. junk turrets had to be picked up because of that when the first 3 blew up before we saw them.
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I intend to change land mines to entities so you can get XP for them, I don't use them for that reason. We can always change the demolisher, but you could try putting land mines a LOT further away from your base, I mean I wouldn't want them blowing up near my base, when I used to use them they would be out in the fields just inside the spawn radius.

 
madmole said:
I tried this the other day. I know the intended result, and I took zero damage because the wrench distance is pretty far, so I just got it to where the prompt would show then I harvested it. Boom, no damage. Now I can't say for sure NO damage, but I think I had 90% of my health or so when I did it, so if I did take any damage, it wasn't much. It is useful for setting off the mine without wasting ammo I guess. I don't know if I got lucky or what, because I almost die every time in that one POI where the zombie sets off the land mine in the hallway with the safe around the corner before you get to the hallway.
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That's actually good info to know. :)

That POI fails to get me anymore, but one house always catches me off guard. As you make your way down a staircase to the ground floor, there lies a narrow hallway running the opposite direction to the right-hand side of the stairs, barricaded with barbed wire, spikes, and a row of landmines. Further along, a zombie lies in wait in a closet, so the moment you reach the bottom of the flight of stairs, the zombie is already on the landmines just inches away from you. That particular trap has gotten me a few times, one time almost causing my death as I did not have enough time to back off since it was, of all things, a spider zombie that had lunged out of the closet.

 
madmole said:
We have cut ammo in half, but I don't know if you guys got that patch yet.

I intend to change land mines to entities so you can get XP for them, I don't use them for that reason. We can always change the demolisher, but you could try putting land mines a LOT further away from your base, I mean I wouldn't want them blowing up near my base, when I used to use them they would be out in the fields just inside the spawn radius.
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I noticed that if the mines are too far away, they dont blow up. set up channels for zeds to run through. barb wire was damaged, but the mines didnt go off. it was about the same distance that I stopped being able to see the lanterns.

meganoth said:
On horde night explosives work wonders, I agree. But there it is relatively easy to get lots of zombies piled up for the slaughter, especially because you can design the horde base specifically for that use case.

But I never tried to use grenades for clearing POIs and expect some difficulties in rounding up enough zombies in a convenient place so throwing grenades instead of simply shooting them makes sense.
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oh thats easy, make noise along the outside wall. they will come to attack it en masse. then throw the explosive against it. the radius off effect penetrates the walls

 
madmole said:
We have cut ammo in half, but I don't know if you guys got that patch yet.

I intend to change land mines to entities so you can get XP for them, I don't use them for that reason. We can always change the demolisher, but you could try putting land mines a LOT further away from your base, I mean I wouldn't want them blowing up near my base, when I used to use them they would be out in the fields just inside the spawn radius.
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Other than turrets, the only issue regarding the demolishers in terms of traps are blade traps; the demo's green button happens to rest at the exact height as the spinning blades of the trap, really no matter the orientation you place them in. They set them off almost every time, so I've stopped using them, and I'm far from the only one.

 
Long time lurker first time poster. Been playing since Alpha 13. Love this game to death! (pun intended) You guys have done such an amazing job with this game. I had this amazing feeling when riding on my motorcycle just how far this game has come and how enjoyable it's been.

Anyways onto why I posted. I saw you mention that in a future update you wanna allow players the chance to do previous tier quests so they weren't always forced to do tier 5. Is that something you'll add in Alpha 19 or a later Alpha? I'm super addicted to quests now and I can't wait to choose any tier of quests at anytime.

 
RhinoW said:
Hey Joel! I'm currently writting down a game design document about the feedback of the perk system and my view of some perk tree tweaks and additions, would you be willing to take a look once i'm done with it? 
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Feel free to post your feedback just like everyone else does. Well almost everyone else :D

 
MechanicalLens said:
Other than turrets, the only issue regarding the demolishers in terms of traps are blade traps; the demo's green button happens to rest at the exact height as the spinning blades of the trap, really no matter the orientation you place them in. They set them off almost every time, so I've stopped using them, and I'm far from the only one.
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ok, for that, try this. it ignores normal height zeds. tested today.

regular block

upside down blade trap

regular block

half slab, bottom oriented. head shots demos and wights. not chests

 
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beHypE said:
Madmole do you have any plans to release a new patch this week still? 
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I don't release patches nor make plans for them. QA lets us know "when it's done". I did hear a little bird whisper about an upcoming patch hopefully before the weekend, but I don't like birds, they @%$*#! on my porch.

 
wolfbain5 said:
nah, put it on the outer edge of defense with an electric fence going through it. almost kills every demo. the other traps then gets regular zeds
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Would you mind sharing an image? I'm a very visual person.

Edit: Regarding the placement of the blade traps.

 
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meganoth said:
On horde night explosives work wonders, I agree. But there it is relatively easy to get lots of zombies piled up for the slaughter, especially because you can design the horde base specifically for that use case.

But I never tried to use grenades for clearing POIs and expect some difficulties in rounding up enough zombies in a convenient place so throwing grenades instead of simply shooting them makes sense.
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Depends what you feel is economical. As mentioned in my other post, as a perception guy you can gather boatloads of resources, so I'd have no problem spending a grenade on any more than 2 zombies. You can lay land mines in doorways too, but no xp, that will get fixed 20, and I think that will really help the perception guy. I just hip fire my sniper rifle point blank to the ones that are too close, the damage is so good they go down, and then save grenades for the big rooms.

 
wolfbain5 said:
oh thats easy, make noise along the outside wall. they will come to attack it en masse. then throw the explosive against it. the radius off effect penetrates the walls
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That is a good idea. I just seem to remember that it is relatively difficult to wake up sleepers in houses if they are not directly on the other side of the wall but for example at the inner wall. I.e. the range seems very small because maybe sleepers in different chunks than yours have not been spawned at all and therefore won't wake up.

But lets see, I'll test that again.

 
Khalagar said:
Madmole single handedly cured animal extinction with one patch!! No really, that's been a major issue for a few alphas for me, where animals are totally extinct by like day 2 or 3 and then you ride the struggle bus for the rest of the game trying to find meat.

Very welcome change!
Click to expand...
Meh, food was fine but I conceded by adding more nasty animals and the majority will be chickens and bunnies so you'll either work for it or get wrecked. Dogs should be more lethal so beware :)

 
MechanicalLens said:
Would you mind sharing an image? I'm a very visual person.

Edit: Regarding the placement of the blade traps.
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gimme a day, we stopped playing the mp for today and my personal game is still early.

test this at shamway factory. stand against the barred windows, shoot out the window with a blunderbus. wait 10 seconds or less. try explosives

 
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