PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Man... I literally came back to the game today after a few months of not playing it, and after just a couple hours it couldn't even hold my attention anymore. I can't believe I'm saying this but there are too many turn-off features that aren't welcome.

Pigeonhole attribute system,

untoggleable rage mode,

lag spikes in certain POI just because of what... The lighting effects or something? I don't know.

No more safe underground bases,

no more fighting zombies during the day without that rage mechanic breaking your stride,

no more balanced 25% loot abundance setting like the console version has.

Spear throwing is great, awesome weapon;

But the zombies still walk toward you in an infuriating zig zag pattern

Why can't we toggle rage mode on zombies?

Why aren't you fixing the broken 25% loot abundance feature after two entire alphas? It's been broken since Alpha 17.

Why aren't you fixing that ridiculous mechanic where, if I place a bedroll on the road and pick it up, it creates a concave or a convex on the road?

Why aren't you improving the water mechanics?

If I dig underwater, it shouldn't create this dip on the lake's surface.

 
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Maybe you could restore the old system of leveling up weapon proficiency via fighting with that weapon type? Using spears all the time makes you better with spears, for example. Just a thought.
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I really like this idea, the early game is a major struggle for survival and it becomes a hassle prioritizing either combat or survivability skills, especially given how slow EXP gain can be when first getting established and lack of said skills. If among my many deaths I could at least come out on top with my weapon proficiency it would be a lot easier to get on my feet and progress rather than die repeatedly and struggle to get back to where I was before the previous death. I think the skill system is better suited for actual skills rather than something that requires practice and proficiency like weapon usage. I think weapons deserve their own skill *mastery* so you can choose to master a couple types at the cost of skill points, but the ability to be competent with every weapon without wasting tons of skill points should be encouraged too, especially given the variety of combat situations in the game. It could even be a locked skill, to the point that you can't master a weapon without first getting to the highest level of proficiency. Maybe you could make it that successful weapon kills go to their own sort of EXP pool for that weapon where they level separately from other skills? Just a thought.

 
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I just wish the basic framework of the game could be better. Why are zombies still zig zagging? Why do you create convexes and concaves on a road whenever you place a block on it? Why, if you destroy the dirt under a lake, does the lake create a dip on the surface?

It just seems like they're ignoring longstanding issues in favor of changing the content of the gameplay. Loot abundance at 25% has been broken since Alpha 17 hit, and how hard would it be, really, to add a toggle for rage mode on the world settings page? I just feel this game no longer connects to my preferences.

When you play The Long Dark, bears don't zig zag toward you making headshots impossible. When you harvest a dirt block at the bottom of a lake in Minecraft, the water's surface doesn't change and create a spontaneous impossible dip. I just feel like TFP has had way too much time to fix these issues with their game world and yet they've failed to do it. Fix these longstanding issues with the world, make it more real. Zombies need to be able to walk toward you diagonally, terrain needs to be more fleshed out, or at least easier to restore to its prior state; IE undoing convexes and concaves in a road, flattening it, and lakes shouldn't have spontaneous dips in them whenever zombies destroy the dirt at the bottom of a lake. If it means you have to overhaul your entire game then do it. Stop overhauling the gameplay when the very foundations and mechanics of your game world are still broken.

Maybe your number of current active users wouldn't be in the horribly low 10-20 thousand if you guys actually fixed these things. Look at The Long Dark, for an example of how to get your game out of Alpha stages and refine it like a boss.

Merry Christmas.

 
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Make the stripping system more interesting. A certain loot in a certain poi. There are medicines in the hospital, food and things in the house, weapons at the military base

 
Any possibility of weapons no longer being tied to specific attributes?
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Either that or making weapons a separate attribute would make sense. The current way of handling things is very much artificial, weapons as separate attributes just like fortitude, strength or agility would make sense, though.

 
This game is just on the cusp of being perfect and most of the changes made since Alpha 17 I truly love...
This game feels like it's 90% perfect, and it's really really hard for me to find any fault with it besides the pigeonhole aspect with weapon specializations. Even then, it's a subjective fault not an objective one, it's just a problem that I personally have with it. But objectively speaking the game is funner than its ever been and there's tons of fun new features to play with...
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What happened? You started off nice, other that the wall of text, but then someone hijacked your account?

Rage? We like it. Makes the game more challenging. If you want it easier, then play the lowest difficulty, which has 0% rage.

Zigzagging? It is a side effect of pathing, but does make the game more challenging. Should we turn off the zombie animations, since they also make their heads move around? Should the AI just stand there and do nothing, so it can be real easy to hit them? If you don't like that stuff, then you are really not going to like the running, dodging, leaping, hiding, healing bandit AI (but difficulty will modify that behavior).

The easier difficulty and other settings are there for a reason, but games are a subjective experience. What you like, someone, somewhere will hate and vice versa. I'm playing Outward right now. It has a variety of bad reviews and when I described to my son, he said it sounded horrible and would never play it. I find it fun, even if it is confusing in the beginning, has simplistic graphics and clunky combat.

If you like another game more, then maybe you should just play it instead of trying to bash us over the head with how you think our game should be.

 
This is prolly a dumb idea, it may require to many things.

What if the farming perk included husbandry. Grow and protect your garden and livestock. It could serve as an excuse for bandit attacks including a larger heat map for fat zeds who even in death crave hamburger. Maybe even script bandits with the ability to steal crops and seeds.

Looking forward to bandits. Looking forward to a new dynamic.

Maybe, bandits send out a scout first to potential player base. Maybe they graffiti a few walls, marking their target, before heading back to their camp to devise an attack plan. Maybe, if the scout doesn't go back, the camp deems that location to dangerous for a week or so. Maybe a bandit camp slowly builds over time as well.

Maybe I should shtap talking..

 
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What happened? You started off nice, other that the wall of text, but then someone hijacked your account?
Rage? We like it. Makes the game more challenging. If you want it easier, then play the lowest difficulty, which has 0% rage.

Zigzagging? It is a side effect of pathing, but does make the game more challenging. Should we turn off the zombie animations, since they also make their heads move around? Should the AI just stand there and do nothing, so it can be real easy to hit them? If you don't like that stuff, then you are really not going to like the running, dodging, leaping, hiding, healing bandit AI (but difficulty will modify that behavior).
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I love the move to have game difficulty modify behaviour, such as rage and other AI pieces.

Would prefer even the current items of zombie vs player and player vs zombie settings were at some point shifted to pure game settings, so that one can tweak it independently. Ie, I would love to have zombies hit harder (ie, 50-100 % harder) but I don't at the same time want to make the zombies bullet sponges.

Personally love the rage, no more "easy cleaning" during daytime, there's always that risk the zombies rage and start rushing you. I'd even want to have ALL zombies also have a risk of rage'ing and not just the hit zombie :)

 
Dude wasn't wrong that the small "corrections" that zombies make are fairly irritating.

 
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The only comment I have on rage, is I would love it to be XML controlled.

Example... from a modding standpoing (but could be good for vanilla).

I have "weak" daytime zombies that I don't want to rage. So I would turn it off on them. Then the "vanilla" zombies I would give a low chance of rage, ferals a higher chance and the rads an even HIGHER chance.

The reason I mention that is because it could be good for vanilla too, so the "normal" zombies don't rage often, ferals do (and since there's no move speed cap, they could go super sonic), the rads are almost guaranteed and you guys could do interesting stuff with it on the legendary zombies as well. :)

 
Yeah the more knobs and switches we have to play with, the more entertained we will be, and making an entertainment product, isn't that the goal?!

 
One of my dogs passed away a few days ago.... :( <snip>
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It sucks losing a dog that is part of the family. 2 months ago our family cat died that has been with the family for 15+ years, thankfully we have not lost a dog in many many years. You have my condolences Joel.

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's" -Mark Twain

 
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As expected, a lot of .50 caliber rifles were mentioned but... they really only look cool in movies where you don't see the guy with the wheelbarrow carting all the ammo.100 rounds of 7.62mm weigh around 2.5 kg.

100 rounds of .50 cal weigh around 12 kg.

While we don't actually model weight in the game it gets hard to maintain suspension of disbelief at this level of crazy. =)

If it must be a bigger round, the .338 Lapua has already been suggested. This round was developed specifically for roles like a military sniper and it's been around long enough to not be a highly exotic caliber.

There are plenty of "cool looking" rifles that use it, like the

Ruger Precision Rifle,

AXMC,

Noreen Firearms Bad News.
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How is your disbelief suspended when you pickup your jeep to swim it across the river? ...asking for a friend :p

And on another note... I am somewhat stumped that the obvious weapon mod or perk bonus for the double barreled shotgun is not made yet ... fire both barrels at once! (I am sorry if it actually exists but I couldn't find one in 18.3 atleast) :p

Would also be nice to see a selector for different fire modes for weapons that support it or is able to be modded into it. Could work nice if added to the radial menu. Fire modes in an arc in the bottom and ammunition selection in an arc on top for instance.

 
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How is your disbelief suspended when you pickup your jeep to swim it across the river? ...asking for a friend :p
And on another note... I am somewhat stumped that the obvious weapon mod or perk bonus for the double barreled shotgun is not made yet ... fire both barrels at once! (I am sorry if it actually exists but I couldn't find one in 18.3 atleast) :p

Would also be nice to see a selector for different fire modes for weapons that support it or is able to be modded into it. Could work nice if added to the radial menu. Fire modes in an arc in the bottom and ammunition selection in an arc on top for instance.
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that's nice I see what you mean ands it balanced so you could fire both shots and risk missing as a consequence but then you can hit your target for high damage that would be nice in-game good suggestion

 
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