PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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I know what you are saying. BUT and please give this a thought:Lets say a zombie has 120HP. If you give us 10% extra damage on our 100 damage weapon, the boost was absolutely useless.

If he has 500hp on our 100 damage weapon, it is still absolutely useless.

I get that you don't want to make it overpowered. BUT you often say that it is not balanced for multiplayer, yet you fear overpowered things. Why can't you give the player +300% damage for 10 minutes? Sure increase the cost a little, but lets take the recog:

It costs insanely much to craft and those ressources are limited + you need to find the rare recipe or buy the perks

You lose water

You have sideeffects, so it is more or less useless for hordenight, since it punishes you.

It only lasts for seconds.

Why would I ever want that? I play on insane and i never ever EVER felt worth to drink it without these drawbacks.

Please try and OVERbuff medical buffs. Because they would be a great addition. For example fortbites make you invulnerable if you have full steelarmor. That is a great buff and the effect was what? 3-5 min without major drawbacks.

I'm not a balancer... but I think this should be close to what you want:

Candies:

2-4 min duration, static buffs (so they are more usefull early game), no drawbacks

Long term buffs (like good food):

30-60 minute, small static and small % buffs so they are always relevant and you always want to have them

Late game buffs (like recog and fort bites):

~10 minute buffs (enough for half to one hordenight), good % buff (200% dmg, 10% damage reduction, 10% faster fire/reload)

Small rant, feel free to ignore:

The game isn't hard once you really get into it, simply because the player has so many options. He can build spikes and electric fences to slow them, he can do terrain modification like trenches or pitfall base, he can make small corridors and so on. So once a player has figured out a way (until bandits arrive) to effectively fight Z's no amount of "challenge" will make this game hard for those players.

So if you make new mechanics (like buffs) useless because you want to keep it harder, all that ou do is take away the players enjoyment of that feature and he will treat it like its nonexistent.

Remember the deathpenalty?

Less staminareg, loss of food, slower movement, loss of stats... and ALL THAT for 60 minutes.

And that is only for dying once.

What I want to say is: You like to overpunish the player. But beeing punishing is not the same as beeing challenging.

Throwing more zombies at the player is not challenging. Punishing the player for eating good food isnt challenging. Coding a different A.I. for demolishers so that they wouldnt path like other Z's and actually try to blow up other parts of the base would be challenging. Because suddenly they blow up stilt bases from below. Suddenly they can jump over the 3m trench.

The demolisher is a good beginning (Even if he still needs work like propper weaknesses and not destroying every trap in one explosion) but you need to follow up on this. Then you can actually give players better buffs that actually feel worth it.
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Recog, fortbites, and grandpa's stuff are totally worth it. Anyhow we'll make them worth using otherwise its just a waste of space.

 
Down the road probably. We're putting in content like books, candy, top tier firearms, redoing old models (new wood and iron clubs on the way), zombie redo, etc. New traders, new vo.
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@MM

in time is there going to be a Tier 3 shotgun?

 
Hey @fataal, just wondering if you could check something, unless its been looked at but, when im doing melee it seems i have to aim at the zombies chin to score a headshot, ive tested it with all the melee weapons so far and that seems to be the case, gun targetting hitbox is fine, i could be wrong but when i aim for the actual forehead, crosshair lined up both normal and power attack miss, i hope its not just me.
On a side note i see we can make something with toast, why can't we make normal bread with wheat and make regular toast? lol
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Seems fine to me. Punching or using a club on Arlene's forehead or hair does normal damage. Just above head does a glancing blow.

What zombie were you trying to hit?

 
I know you guys wanted to get some kind of new content out in december and that obviously never happened. Is that slated for early Jan, or did the whole anticipated time table slip by a month?

 
I like the fact that the list doesn't bloat week to week.It gives me a sliver of hope that we might not need to wait a year for it to go live.
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Our schedule for A19 is much shorter than a year. :happy:

 
I know you guys wanted to get some kind of new content out in december and that obviously never happened. Is that slated for early Jan, or did the whole anticipated time table slip by a month?
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Getting 18.3 stable out is in the works.

 
Recog, fortbites, and grandpa's stuff are totally worth it. Anyhow we'll make them worth using otherwise its just a waste of space.
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thats good, cause as it stands only 2 are used and the rest are vendor trash.

only 2 used, boost to xp, and boost to barter.

 
I have recognized what you are talking about, but we'll start at 2 minute and see how it goes. The longer the duration the more useless we have to make the buffs, or more expensive, etc. Depends if we want a massive powerup for a bit, or just a mild boost for a long time. That is more of what I'm planning for foods, candy will be fairly short but meaty drug boosts.
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How about this:

When the candy you ate is actively assisting you, the buff timer goes down more quickly. For example, you'd lose 1 second for every 10 melee damage you deal with the skull crusher candy active.

 
thats good, cause as it stands only 2 are used and the rest are vendor trash.
only 2 used, boost to xp, and boost to barter.
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this.

Even though the xp thingy is so short that i usually dont bother with it.

 
I know you guys wanted to get some kind of new content out in december and that obviously never happened. Is that slated for early Jan, or did the whole anticipated time table slip by a month?
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We decided localization and more stable stable was a higher priority and focused on that. We're looking at April for A19 and it will be pretty meaty instead of some candy dropping in Dec.

 
A18.3 Stable as an update or is it gonna remain as it is now?

I feel you need to describe better what happens between stable and experimental.

I spend alot of time explaining to my players which is which.

not everyone understands so easily, for instance.

i host experimental servers only. when stable hits i remain on experimental since i know there is no difference.

or maybe i am reading it wrong.

at least you should leave the last experimental version listed in the betas tab.

all i know is there is a ton of confusion every single stable patch release.

 
A18.3 Stable as an update or is it gonna remain as it is now?
I feel you need to describe better what happens between stable and experimental.

I spend alot of time explaining to my players which is which.

not everyone understands so easily, for instance.

i host experimental servers only. when stable hits i remain on experimental since i know there is no difference.

or maybe i am reading it wrong.

at least you should leave the last experimental version listed in the betas tab.

all i know is there is a ton of confusion every single stable patch release.
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So you think a stable version that also is listed in the experimental tab leads to less confusion?

Strange thing to think.

Cheers

 
I am asking for it to be explained better.

and if there is no difference between the last experimental and the new stable builds, then why bother updating your server just to show stable.

the way it is done now is confusing for a lot of players. is each stable build gonna be the same or an update?

and if there is gonna be a difference between the 2 the leaving the last experimental build in the betas tab as some us are here for new and experimental builds.

 
A specific experimental will always go stable unchanged. Always has been.

Or you think they will do a blind stable without being in experimental for some time?

I guess im really not getting what your prob is. Even players that have opted in to experimental will feel no change at all when it gets tagged stable. Same version, no update. Clients as wel as servers.

Cheers

 
I wish we could do Jet, but doing slow time in a MP game has some challenges.
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Not sure if fo76 did anything with Jet, but you could have the player look like everything is slow meanwhile for others the player using jet has an increased speed of movement.

 
I'll miss Jen's original look with the lab coat but this looks great as well, hopefully all of the traders will have an update and player characters will as well

 
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