PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Adam the Waster]

Maybe I've got a broken arm, broken leg, infection, deep lacerations and abrasions and a concussion, so poisoning my food was the last straw to make me rage quit or suicide. Put simply, people will be getting wrecked in so many new ways that are more engaging than being crippled by eating fresh cooked food which intuitively should be a safe thing to do not a hazardous thing.
 

that is understandable. but it also depends on how much damage some foods damage you imo. if you eat a sandwich and maybe lose 5 heath? ok! but if i eat rotten flesh and only loose like 7 health. then our people must have super gut! but at the same time you get a concussion cuz some skinny zombie slaps you!   

 

[SnowDog1942]

Dildo baton?

Would take a whole lot of polymer to craft, I suppose.

Does it have dye slot? -- purple.

 

[JaxTeller718]

There were a lot of discussions about that in the forum from time to time. You are definitely wrong about one thing, and that is that it would be simple to implement. You just aren't seeing the problems

Not really. Using spherecore I was able to introduce an entire spoilage mechanic into Ravenhearst including fridges that slow down spoilage and a food processor machine that seals your foods for storage. 

This is vanilla isnt really survival focused so i doubt you will ever see spoilage. Best to leave that to modders.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Not really. Using spherecore I was able to introduce an entire spoilage mechanic into Ravenhearst including fridges that slow down spoilage and a food processor machine that seals your foods for storage. 

This is vanilla isnt really survival focused so i doubt you will ever see spoilage. Best to leave that to modders.

who knows. maybe that will change, like i said they may focus on gameplay then survival, A19 seems to be equal, nice gameplay/toys, and new survival additions like the new injuries.   

 

[mr.devolver]

who knows. maybe that will change, like i said they may focus on gameplay then survival, A19 seems to be equal, nice gameplay/toys, and new survival additions like the new injuries.   

From screenshots it looks like it's mainly focused on upgrading graphics. Not that it's a bad thing, I think that's actually one of the better changes in this new version. I don't know about others, but I love the new colors, textures and also that new navigation which draws your marks including quest marks directly into the world. That way you don't have to constantly check the map, you can really focus on the gameplay and just follow the marks. I'm kinda undecided about the new hands texture though. It's surely nice that it got some love too, but the hands now look kinda like old man's hands. I mean, you could probably argue that it's the apocalypse and everyone will get their hands dirty and damaged and whatnot, but I feel like this is kinda an overkill. You have to consider roleplay aspect of this. Many of us love to play mods that may have their own narrative, perhaps one that doesn't really want you to look like an old tired man lol

 

[meganoth]

Not really. Using spherecore I was able to introduce an entire spoilage mechanic into Ravenhearst including fridges that slow down spoilage and a food processor machine that seals your foods for storage. 

This is vanilla isnt really survival focused so i doubt you will ever see spoilage. Best to leave that to modders.

Putting any spoilage mechanic in is easy. Making a spoilage mechanic that is fit for vanilla is hard. It needs to be 1) not easily circumventable and it needs to be 2) still fun for the majority of players. And that in acceptable quality for TFP and with moderate development time.

For example True Survival had spoilage and would probably(?) achieve objective Nr. 1, but would have been fun for only a minority of the players.

 

[Xtrakicking]

To make room for radiation or food spoilage in the future perhaps.

The fact is nobody on the team liked it. It was too demoralizing to lose all your food over something random, you didn't really do anything wrong and you got punished and food is very scarce on MP servers so its not the same as SP. Rotten food will damage your health.

To be honest, it's not really about the vomiting thing, it's more about the fact that food is now even less of a problem. My statement was in fear that hunger and thirst are starting to become mechanics that are just there as a mild annoyance and as an excuse to still have the "survival" label in the game. It seems this will not be the case if hunger and thirst are revamped with the new ISS.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

     Please modify the perk system, because attributes quite frankly kill the leveling process in Alpha 18. Gaining exp late-game is waaaaaaay too grindy for the player to require a whole 5 skill points just to invest 2 points into an attribute then 3 into a single perk, even with grandpa's learning elixir and constant base-upgrades. If you make it to level 40 you'll be lucky to get a level up every few days at that point, which would be fine, if I didn't have to invest in attributes before perks - before what I really want - are made available to me.

     Even then, you can only invest in a small list of perks at a time. Investing points in one attribute, for whatever time period that you do, be it one in-game week or two, locks you out of all other attributes for the duration of your point-investment period. That's so much worse in late game. If I change the exp gain to 200% or 300% to offset this heavily constraining "feature" of attributes, it irrevocably ruins the scaling of my gamestage and I just end up seeing 10 irradiated zeds per POI upon completion of my first blood moon after changing the exp setting.

     Attributes suck all the previous alpha's enjoyment out of leveling, and that's kind of objective not subjective. You have to choose between the weapons you want proficiency in and the skills you want proficiency in most of the time, don't pidgeon hole me into a shotgun/club/hammer build just so I can have miner 69er and motherlode, that's poorly designed and it's pretty obvious now, after several months of having access to alpha 18 and playing it. Just have a massive list of perks with weapon perks among them, and by all means, maintain an ability to increase the dismemberment chance and headshot damage of certain weapons through perks, I love that.

     A bow is pretty useless late game, unless 50% of your headshots make their heads explode. I really love that dismemberment chance feature because it makes every weapon viable late-game by enabling enhanced crippling or decapitation of zeds. You just need to not let those bonuses be confined to attributes, you need to convert them into perks and make one massive list with no level gates except for a few key perks like steel forging and other things like that. Let me invest all my perk points into a wide variety of perks governing my proficiency in both skills AND weapons, without having to feel like I'm choosing between this one thing I would like and this other one thing I would like. I want to feel like I can realistically obtain everything I want in perks without changing the exp gain and dramatically ruining my gamestage.

      I trust you perceive the design flaw here, it's waaaaay too limiting and it makes the game such a god damn stale grind. The poi's got 100x better while the leveling got 100x worse and I think you guys need to touch on that for alpha 19. No more of this spending 5 points before I can even invest in a skill crap, it just siphons all the fun and reward out of leveling and limits all the fun and reward to poi looting or quest completion.

 

[Dimpy]

I have a feeling that if the attribute gates were removed, a common player strategy would be to max out their favorite perks to level 5 one at a time. That probably wrecks havoc on the balance of the game.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

     Please don't tell me that this perk/attribute system works for most people, please don't tell me that there are no recognized flaws with the current attribute system among TFP devs 0.0 Please don't tell me I'm crazy and wrong, because it honestly feels like I'm spending more points in attributes than I am in actual perks most of the time.

     I prefer to use the AK-47 and Spear yet I have to sink points into intellect just to build a half-adequate base, can't even touch Fortitude or Perception for the first 2 in-game weeks, it's racist lol. Racist to every other attribute, it's Intellect Power is what it is. Yet Intellect also sucks, because it pidgeon holes you into scrap turrets (Epic overpowered at rank 10) and stun batons (Complete garbage no matter how many points you sink into them). Why can't I build a good base AND have my preferred weapons specializations? I don't want to focus on Intellect until character level 20, then start upgrading my combat skills, in the other Attributes which contain them... 

     Yeah, there's no way you guys are going to tell me this attribute system is preferred. The only possible way you'll tell me it's preferred is if you're trollin' me hard lol, I mean how daft would someone have to be to actually prefer a leveling system that I have concisely perfectly described as inadequate and ineffectual? Nobody with brain cells would. The "End-game" is basically having 2 attributes fully invested in, and the rest profoundly ignored; Missing some of those other perks hurts, every playthrough. There's like 3 perks I want within each attribute, yet, I don't want to spend 4 levels on strength, get level 4 miner 69er and motherlode, then start investing 4 levels into fortitude, then finally become able to invest in machine guns, then invest 4 points into perception, then finally invest in spears, etc. It's just pointless.

     If you want people to play longer, make a longer list of perks; Don't make us waste points on attributes to extend our playtime. Transform those attributes into perks, and just make more and more perks on top of that =/ Olympic swimmer should come back, maybe make those ocean-based random gen worlds more interesting. Or just make a boat, and make a sailing perk. Hell, make boats, a sailing perk, a perk for fishing bonuses on the boat, AND an Olympic swimmer perk. Make them all! Just add more perks and waste the idea of attribute gates, just completely scrap it because it doesn't serve your game. The only people who think it does, are people who work full-time and can never play the game enough to sufficiently realize they are wrong. You end up investing in strength, getting mining, then settling for sledge hammer and shotgun instead of pathing over to fortitude or agility, just because "I've already invested in strength; To be stronger as soon as possible, I shouldn't waste time investing in another tree, I should just expand on this one."

PIDGEON HOLING! It sucks! Scrap it, just to hell with all attributes and liquidate their bonuses among perks.

 

[tankedup_]

I dunno how you farm exp, but if you're struggling to get 1 level every couple days at level 40 only then it seems like you aren't trying very hard.

and also paragraphs exist, look it up.

 

[Dimpy]

My recommendation is turn up player block damage to 200%, and pretend that miner 69'er doesn't exist. That way's you'll be more free to actually spend points in non-strength. I will admit it doesn't address your core complaint though.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

To make room for radiation or food spoilage in the future perhaps.

The fact is nobody on the team liked it. It was too demoralizing to lose all your food over something random, you didn't really do anything wrong and you got punished and food is very scarce on MP servers so its not the same as SP. Rotten food will damage your health.

Maybe I've got a broken arm, broken leg, infection, deep lacerations and abrasions and a concussion, so poisoning my food was the last straw to make me rage quit or suicide. Put simply, people will be getting wrecked in so many new ways that are more engaging than being crippled by eating fresh cooked food which intuitively should be a safe thing to do not a hazardous thing.
 

ok, hearing all of that stuff that can happen to me, im quite impressed, its more than I thought, im going to be having a lot of fun when it comes to keeping myself healthy, im liking it.

 

[Roland]

Not really. Using spherecore I was able to introduce an entire spoilage mechanic into Ravenhearst including fridges that slow down spoilage and a food processor machine that seals your foods for storage. 

This is vanilla isnt really survival focused so i doubt you will ever see spoilage. Best to leave that to modders.

Even though the game is coelescing into its final form there is still some flux to it. This is for sure a hybrid of genres and to say that you know at this point that vanilla is meant to be just an arcade looter shooter or that it isn't a game focused on survival is too premature. The game shifted to a more looter shooter balance in Alpha 18 because of changes. There will be more changes that could shift the balance back toward more crafting. Survival elements will be added which will emphasize that aspect of the game.

Too many people keep pronouncing that they know what the game can be defined as after a single Alpha update. It can't be defined yet except as a game under development that will be a hybrid of several genres. Stating that this or that should be left to modders because the game is type "x" is never a good idea. For sure things like food spoilage and bandits and large spawn numbers should be left to modders for the moment if you want to play with those things now because TFP hasn't implemented them. But we know that bandits WILL be implemented, we fear/hope that food spoilage will be implemented, and we dream of larger spawn numbers.

None of this, however, defines what this game will be when it is done. It is only a snapshot of the current state midstream of its development.

 

[Roland]

          I trust you perceive the design flaw here

It isn't a design flaw. It is a design philosophy different than what you personally prefer. There are those who want to be able to get everything and be the same super god every time they play (or maybe they only play once). There are others who want tough choices and to play a character who has strengths in a few areas and then perhaps play through again and make different choices. 

The current design supports multiple playthroughs where you choose a smaller set of perks to emphasize the strengths of different kinds of heros. There is nothing flawed about that. Some people will like it and some won't. Whatever the developers decide ultimately to do for the final version (keep attributes vs cut attribrutes) people of the opposite persuasion will need to mod it the way they want it.

I am 99% sure you better start getting used to the idea of modding out the attributes if that is what you want because Madmole has called this perk system the final version a number of times.

Sidenote: You could simply double or triple the number of skillpoints you get for leveling up. More skillpoints would allow you to pay the high attribute costs easier and purchase perks across more of the trees if that is what you want.

 

[FranticDan]

There have been discussions about food spoilage at TFP from time to time as well and it always comes back to implementation and consensus. Perhaps they will consider it as part of their A20 redesign but I wouldn't count on it too much. They want to get this game to gold and figuring out a way to implement food spoilage that won't add inordinate delays to their schedule could be hard. And then there is consensus. It is just a fact that some people love spoilage and some people hate spoilage. From past polls it seems pretty evenly split among players. So not only are they hesitant to add something that could potentially alienate half the player base-- even among the team of developers there are some who are opposed to adding spoilage because they hate it in games.

Might be too much to ask, but they could add a toggle option to turn on or off food spoilage, and if on, the rate of spoilage. So then if people who aren't initially keen on spoilage, they can dip their toes into spoilage but with a low rate selected.

 

[Dethar]

I thought spoilage was off topic. Aren't you the forum police Roland?

 

[DaVegaNL]

You're trying to trigger me. Don't think I don't know it.... lol

The banner reads "Summer". Joel said before the Steam Summer Sale which is usually sometime around July 4th. 

Yeah, and Joel was talking about the stable version, not just the test-builds.

As a cop I take offense to this.  I would NEVER let a donut spoil.

WAIT, you're a cop??

You can arrest me anytime, mister!

 

[Khulkhuum]

  -Snip-

You do understand you're moaning about the last upgrades to skills? These first ones usually bring the most advantage, because they give any bonus (while without them it's in most cases 0, like Healing Factor). Sure the last upgrade could enhance even further what you have, but already investing 4 points into a perk is way more than adding that one last point. I don't mean you shouldn't do that, but considering various other skills you might want, it's still your choice on what is more important.

Considering building - I have not invested any points into INT nor its perks (apart for Daring Adventurer for additional quest rewards) until mid game, because i found more pressing skills to buy and upgrade. Managed to build a quite decent base and am making lots and lots of concrete, smelting steel and making my own ammo. I FOUND recipes for the forge, cement mixer and chem station, as well as the one for the crucible (but i still bought 2 from the trader before that). I HAVE FOUND all motorcycle component recipies and am driving it around the world. So please, don't tell me it doesn't work with the current skill/perk system. Many others could give similar examples.

 

[Roland]

I thought spoilage was off topic. Aren't you the forum police Roland?

It was..until Madmole opened a fresh can of food talk. I'm sure it will become off topic again really soon. 

Before it does, though, I just want to say.....

I'm for it!