PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[MechanicalLens]

Fetch only was removed from tier4/5s

Since when? A19?

 

[Laz Man]

Since when? A19?

Yes

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yes

Good to know.

 

[Laz Man]

Exact same issue me and a friend are having, this has been an issue for a while where there's a ton of variety in houses from tier 1-4 with a lot of these really cool areas to see and explore, and then you hit 5 and it's just Shotgun Messiah, Shamway HQ, and 6 Story Apt and literally nothing else. I don't know if there even *is* another tier 5, if there is I don't think I've seen it. I haven't had a Hospital or the skyscrapper one in a REALLY long time, like "4-5 new games and hundreds of hours" long, so those might be removed entirely from RWG? Don't think I've seen either since like A16 or A17

Thus far I'm also only getting clear or fetch / clear as well on the tier 5's. I guess they realized literally everyone would only take fetch quests at higher level so combated that by . . .removing fetch quests instead of fixing the reason people avoided clears? Dunno

Clear quests are awful for the reason you stated and because vultures count towards the clear condition and they fly off to the void, never to be seen again and get stuck on a random rafter and force you to spend 4 hours IRL trying to find them only to give up and get 0 reward

I think Tier 4 has the coolest PoI, but you barely get to see them before you go back to the same old trusty Shotgun Messiah, Apartment of misery, and Shamway. Pretty sure I've even seen the devs say "screw the 6 story apartment" a few times lol

It'd be cool to see the lower tier PoI, but with harder zombies / more zombies / random placement or something, or maybe make it timed etc. Something to let Tier 5 have more variety

In Navezgane there was a bug with the map limiting what quests POIs were given to the player based on location.  This should have been fixed in A19 allowing for quests in areas of the map like Departure City in the SE corner of the map.

This includes POIs like dishong, higashi, Bob's builders, red Mesa facility, etc.

 

[Guppys Fur]

Tier 5 quests are horrible compared to tier 4 and now i only have 1 available until the trader resets. I seriously regret taking the last special trader quest. Any way to downgrade quests to TIER 4?

Couldn't there be sepparate menu for each tier? (with multiple quests for each tier)

I have loot respawn turned off and now I only get like 2 factories and one brick apt recycling - none of which I ever want to do again.

And on the same note, why do the same 4 POI's repeat if there are more options in the town?

Instead of letting out steam, care to elaborate what exactly you dont like on them?

Its not that the game forces you to do them in any way.

I really like those for example, they are neat End-Game Distractions

Pressing "R" on your keyboard reverses the block to its previous rotation.

A trick i found out about ca 2 months ago.... after playing the game for years.

I kinda felt like the stone age dudes who discovered Fire.

 

[madmole]

Hey Americans beyond the sea, all Fingers still attached?

Hope you had lots of fun

TFP,

Was curious how happy/satisfied you are with the A19 Launch and its response in the community?

I heard lots of positive resonance and despite the expected amount of bugs it seems to be a really smooth experience for most.

Any expectations on how long A19 will be in experimental in relation with MF Bugs?

All dates are when it's done.

 

[beerfly]

I kinda felt like the stone age dudes who discovered Fire.

Welcome to the club, I felt like walking out of the cave when found out the new tree stumps have a chance for giving honey

(when they replaced it with not lootable, but destroyable object). I walked so many times around these, crawling and infected hoping for a light in life, encumbered as a donkey before Christmas in 12th century. 

It is cool to know everything of this game, as most of us are here for that, but discovering these little obvious things makes it better every time. 

 

[Aldranon]

Anyone notice that in the open, zombies will always come at you

Spoiler

From the NE,NW, SE or SW only

.

You can plan your defense much easier, especially when its against fast moving zombies.

Hopefully that will be addressed.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

I'm feeling weird. I'm pure agility, 4/5 in archery, pistols, and knife. I have 4/4 parkour and 3/3 run & gun. But the primary aspect of the tree, stealth, has virtually no appeal to me. It just feels strange lol, I'd rather walk into a POI with my level 5 SMG and pop headshot after headshot than waste time, money, and immersion sneaking around. I feel at conflict with myself over that aspect of these character builds. I think some things should have a separate list and should not be governed by attributes, primary things that every character can opt into regardless of attribute; Mining, stealth, farming, animal hunting and harvesting. I feel those aspects of the game should not be restricted to certain builds. I'd love it if I didn't have to wholly waste points into strength just to get into mining, you know?

I know MM likes the attribute system but it just seems like it's way too multiplayer centric, and doesn't cater to the enjoyment of single-players. It's meant for repeat playthroughs, but I like to invest myself in one world and build all kinds of bridges and monuments and tunnels through mountains to drive through, etc. Having a "classic" perk option in the world settings would be perfect, where nothing is limited by attribute specialization, and you can specialize into different perks freely, independent of attribute investment. Let's face it, I have 1.5 megabits of internet here in the country, I'm not playing online any time soon. So I have to do everything alone. I'd love to have a single playthrough where I don't feel like I'm missing out on other things in other attributes. I had this problem with Alpha 18/17 too and it always ends up coming back to this.

I'm not enjoying a stealth build, I'm enjoying an agility build. It's effective, but if I specialize in strength first, for example, I can't just run around on bloodmoon night shooting and throwing molotovs, because I won't have Run and Gun from the agility tree to reload while sprinting. So I am essentially forced (Yes, forced) to spec into agility first every time I play, if I don't want to engage in tower defense and rather, take the fight to them directly. I can, technically, have agility first and strength second, but not without weeks of dreadful zombie kill grinding to make it so. I feel like attributes themselves belong, agility, strength, etc, but putting POINTS into attributes doesn't belong. It would be better if the benefits of the attributes, IE headshot damage and dismemberment chance, were localized into new perks listed under each attribute. I know a lot of time and resources went into the development of this attribute system, but it just seems like a cheap way to make every player feel like they're missing out on things they want every playthrough. You can't reasonably brag about "this many hours" of play time on your game per year if you're really just psy@%$*#!gically (Psych - ologic - ally) manipulating people into engaging in multiple short-term playthroughs that always make them feel like they're missing out on things they want. 

Essentially the biggest solution I can recommend, is keep attributes, they fit; But don't gate every perk behind an attribute that I must first put points into. If anything, make new perks for headshot damage and dismember chance per weapon type, and remove the attribute requirements for different ranks of different perks. 

 

[Jost Amman]

I'm feeling weird. I'm pure agility, 4/5 in archery, pistols, and knife. I have 4/4 parkour and 3/3 run & gun. But the primary aspect of the tree, stealth, has virtually no appeal to me. It just feels strange lol, I'd rather walk into a POI with my level 5 SMG and pop headshot after headshot than waste time, money, and immersion sneaking around. I feel at conflict with myself over that aspect of these character builds. I think some things should have a separate list and should not be governed by attributes, primary things that every character can opt into regardless of attribute; Mining, stealth, farming, animal hunting and harvesting. I feel those aspects of the game should not be restricted to certain builds. I'd love it if I didn't have to wholly waste points into strength just to get into mining, you know? I know MM likes the attribute system but it just seems like it's way too multiplayer centric, and doesn't cater to the enjoyment of single-players. It's meant for repeat playthroughs, but I like to invest myself in one world and build all kinds of bridges and monuments and tunnels through mountains to drive through, etc. Having a "classic" perk option in the world settings would be perfect, where nothing is limited by attribute specialization, and you can specialize into different perks freely, independent of attribute investment. Let's face it, I have 1.5 megabits of internet here in the country, I'm not playing online any time soon. So I have to do everything alone. I'd love to have a single playthrough where I don't feel like I'm missing out on other things in other attributes. I had this problem with Alpha 18/17 too and it always ends up coming back to this. I'm not enjoying a stealth build, I'm enjoying an agility build. It's effective, but if I specialize in strength, for example, I can't just run around on bloodmoon night shooting and throwing molotovs, because I won't have Run and Gun from the agility tree to reload while sprinting. I can, technically, but not without weeks of dreadful zombie kill grinding to make it so. I feel like attributes themselves belong, agility, strength, etc, but putting POINTS into attributes doesn't. It would be better if the benefits of the attributes, IE headshot damage and dismemberment chance, were localized into perks listed under the attributes. I know a lot of time and resources went into the development of this system, but it just seems like a cheap way to make every player feel like they're missing out. You can't brag about play time on your game if you're psy@%$*#!gically manipulating people into multiple playthroughs. 

Well, what you think would be a better system sounds cool and fine on paper, but IMO without attribute gating you'd probably be end-game in the first week or two.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

Well, what you think would be a better system sounds cool and fine on paper, but IMO without attribute gating you'd probably be end-game in the first week or two.

Plausible deduction, reasonable and makes sense. But any single-player playthrough usually only lasts 4-7 weeks anyway with the current system. The multiplayer worlds though can last ages: Building tunnels through mountains for the community, building bridges over rivers, town-making, etc, that's the direction I feel the game could benefit to go in, if they want it to be multiplayer centric. Encourage settlement creation, faction division in servers, etc. 
 

Honestly, I would be satisfied if these following perks did not have attributes gating my investment into them: Run and Gun, Miner 69er, Motherlode, Living off the Land, The Huntsman, and Master Chef. Parkour is an exclusively awesome thing in agility, leave it there, leave it gated. But those other skills I listed are too universally useful to gate for single-players, and should be accessible to all players regardless of specialization. Boom, I'm satisfied if this is the case. Leave attribute gates, but make key things more accessible etc. That's just my opinion. I feel it could be a win for both single players and multiplayers, because two characters in different attributes could still mine together, hunt together, tend to gardens, cook while traveling and camping out, etc; And that form of cooperation is what makes an in-game server community or township feel more real. It is possible to have TOO MUCH privatization involved. There should be a Survival Basics attribute, with no gates, just useful perks. That's my ultimate solution, and that's the note I'm ending on I think. I hope the devs entertain the possibility, I know it sucks when somebody criticizes your baby. I speak all of this from a place of love for your baby, devs. Just so you know. I love it.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I'm feeling weird...

I wouldn't feel weird about it. It is true that if you want to succeed with a more pure build, MP is the way to go with that. Otherwise, when you play solo, you have to spread out your talents and find the right combo that works for you in terms of your playstyle but also to survive. That's kind of expected. Some of us who play solo consistently stick to their comfort zone and play what feels right for them. Some of us like to take different paths, paths we don't really like, from time to time to challenge ourselves. I wouldn't call setting up the game for multiple playthroughs manipulative. I call it getting your money's worth.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

I wouldn't feel weird about it. It is true that if you want to succeed with a more pure build, MP is the way to go with that. Otherwise, when you play solo, you have to spread out your talents and find the right combo that works for you in terms of your playstyle but also to survive. That's kind of expected. Some of us who play solo consistently stick to their comfort zone and play what feels right for them. Some of us like to take different paths, paths we don't really like, from time to time to challenge ourselves. I wouldn't call setting up the game for multiple playthroughs manipulative. I call it getting your money's worth.

Also a valid point. Manipulative seems like an unfair assessment on my part and I have to apologize for it. It's possible I feel sour lol

 

[Perlin_Worm]

I'm feeling weird. I'm pure agility, 4/5 in archery, pistols, and knife. I have 4/4 parkour and 3/3 run & gun. But the primary aspect of the tree, stealth, has virtually no appeal to me. It just feels strange lol, I'd rather walk into a POI with my level 5 SMG and pop headshot after headshot than waste time, money, and immersion sneaking around. I feel at conflict with myself over that aspect of these character builds. I think some things should have a separate list and should not be governed by attributes, primary things that every character can opt into regardless of attribute; Mining, stealth, farming, animal hunting and harvesting. I feel those aspects of the game should not be restricted to certain builds. I'd love it if I didn't have to wholly waste points into strength just to get into mining, you know?

I know MM likes the attribute system but it just seems like it's way too multiplayer centric, and doesn't cater to the enjoyment of single-players. It's meant for repeat playthroughs, but I like to invest myself in one world and build all kinds of bridges and monuments and tunnels through mountains to drive through, etc. Having a "classic" perk option in the world settings would be perfect, where nothing is limited by attribute specialization, and you can specialize into different perks freely, independent of attribute investment. Let's face it, I have 1.5 megabits of internet here in the country, I'm not playing online any time soon. So I have to do everything alone. I'd love to have a single playthrough where I don't feel like I'm missing out on other things in other attributes. I had this problem with Alpha 18/17 too and it always ends up coming back to this.

I'm not enjoying a stealth build, I'm enjoying an agility build. It's effective, but if I specialize in strength first, for example, I can't just run around on bloodmoon night shooting and throwing molotovs, because I won't have Run and Gun from the agility tree to reload while sprinting. So I am essentially forced (Yes, forced) to spec into agility first every time I play, if I don't want to engage in tower defense and rather, take the fight to them directly. I can, technically, have agility first and strength second, but not without weeks of dreadful zombie kill grinding to make it so. I feel like attributes themselves belong, agility, strength, etc, but putting POINTS into attributes doesn't belong. It would be better if the benefits of the attributes, IE headshot damage and dismemberment chance, were localized into new perks listed under each attribute. I know a lot of time and resources went into the development of this attribute system, but it just seems like a cheap way to make every player feel like they're missing out on things they want every playthrough. You can't reasonably brag about "this many hours" of play time on your game per year if you're really just psy@%$*#!gically (Psych - ologic - ally) manipulating people into engaging in multiple short-term playthroughs that always make them feel like they're missing out on things they want. 

Essentially the biggest solution I can recommend, is keep attributes, they fit; But don't gate every perk behind an attribute that I must first put points into. If anything, make new perks for headshot damage and dismember chance per weapon type, and remove the attribute requirements for different ranks of different perks. 

The attribute system works fine single player. There are plenty of points to spend in multiple trees. You just wont be maxing out everything and you really dont need to. Reduced perk levels in a19 from 5 to 3 helps this too.

I do agree that the Agility tree is not attractive at the moment. Bows are having a hard time differentiating themselves from the massive fire power in other trees. No one wants to stealth through a dungeon crawl which doubles the time it takes while smashing through with the right firepower has no repercussions. Agility does need work. 

Not sure what can be done for stealth to make it more attractive but I propose bows do stacking bleed damage when perked up. That would make Agility the DOT tree and it would lend itself a unique play style.

 

[beHypE]

While I understand your point about Terra forming the whole world for months, I don't think the base game is meant to provide that experience. You can always raise experience gains %, play creative mod, or mod the game to your taste. Besides, nothing prevents you from making anything even if you are not maxxed out in Miner 69er and the likes. 

Also, if you plan to play the same playthrough for months, it's pretty easy to be maxxed out in at least two trees. 

Not saying I like the whole 'one tree one specialization' that much myself, but just providing some feedback to the concerns you expressed. 

 

[Trunks_Budo]

I take back what I said about Attribute gates not belonging in the game, I was dead wrong. But I do feel like my "Survival Basics" attribute idea is the perfect solution; Have universally useful things that anybody can opt into, and keep the rest gated, that's what I think I'm settling on in terms of my criticism and advice, that's my opinion for how to improve this perceived flaw of mine. I recognize it's a perceived flaw of mine and others may not agree and that's totally cool. Just speaking my mind, and trying to keep tame my inner sourness lol

 

[Khalagar]

I feel at conflict with myself over that aspect of these character builds. I think some things should have a separate list and should not be governed by attributes

Yeah, I really feel like attribute system needs another rework, it just doesn't make sense.

10 strength, I bet I'm really strong and do a ton of melee damage and . . .what? Strength increases how much damage I do with shotgun and isn't just block damage or how much I can carry??

10 Agility, I bet I'm fast AF boye! Wut? 10 Agility has literally nothing to do with how fast I run or can jump??? Cardio isn't even in agility??!!?!?

But with 10 fortitude I bet I'm SUPER TANKY!! Wait . . .fortitude increases how much damage I do with an m60??????? I don't even get more health or durability???

Weapons being tied to the attributes is weird and not at all intuitive and even my friend with like 500+ hours I have to constantly try to re-explain it to him and explain that just because he's "an agility character" it doesn't mean he's fast or better at running if he doesn't invest in the specific perks.

The attributes being completely unrelated to what their name implies is really weird. Sure,some of the perks in the tree are kind of relevant, but not all, and rather them even being perks, they should be part of the base attribute instead and the perks should be related things.

It would make way more sense if it was just . . .y'know, common sense

Raising Fortitude = More Health and Damage resistance

Raising Agility = Cardio and Parkour perk

Raising Perception = Gun Damage

Raising Strength = Block damage like Miner 69 and Melee damage

Raising Int = Unlocks crafting stuff

The focus of the entire game ATM is just on the ADHD run and gun players who want to play Call of Duty, but with zombies. Mining is now super late game only, schematics making the entire int tree pointless, and basically everything that isn't just a "MOAR DAMAGE NAO" perk has a direct work around in game like just eating a candy or drinking a megacrush. Why waste points on cardio when you can megacrush? Perk points are WAY too  valuable to waste on anything that isn't useful 24/7

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Also a valid point. Manipulative seems like an unfair assessment on my part and I have to apologize for it. It's possible I feel sour lol

Understood. In A18 dev, madmole played a few different builds to test the progression and survivability of each. A couple he may not have gotten around to. Now in A19, things are likely different, and this should be done again. However, I don't think it's possible for them to try everything, every character build, for every alpha build. That's what we're here for while playing alpha. It might be helpful to report back something like, when I try playing with x build, at some y point in the game, I really need z and I can't progress without it... but with this other build, there is no problem.

 

[Trunks_Budo]

Yeah, I really feel like attribute system needs another rework, it just doesn't make sense.

10 strength, I bet I'm really strong and do a ton of melee damage and . . .what? Strength increases how much damage I do with shotgun and not block damage??

10 Agility, I bet I'm fast AF boye! Wut? 10 Agility has literally nothing to do with how fast I run or can jump??? Cardio isn't even in agility??!!?!?

But with 10 fortitude I bet I'm SUPER TANKY!! Wait . . .fortitude increases how much damage I do with an m60???????

Weapons being tied to the attributes is weird and not at all intuitive and even my friend with like 500+ hours I have to constantly try to re-explain it to him and explain that just because he's "an agility character" it doesn't mean he's fast or better at running if he doesn't invest in the specific perks.

The attributes being completely unrelated to what their name implies is really weird. Sure,some of the perks in the tree are kind of relevant, but not all, and rather them even being perks, they should be part of the base attribute instead and the perks should be related things.

It would make way more sense if it was just . . .y'know, common sense

Raising Fortitude = More Health and Damage resistance

Raising Agility = Cardio and Parkour perk

Raising Perception = Gun Damage

Raising Strength = Block damage like Miner 69 and Melee damage

Raising Int = Unlocks crafting stuff

The focus of the entire game ATM is just on the ADHD run and gun players who want to play Call of Duty, but with zombies. Mining is now super late game only, schematics making the entire int tree pointless, and basically everything that isn't just a "MOAR DAMAGE NAO" perk has a direct work around in game like just eating a candy or drinking a megacrush. Why waste points on cardio when you can megacrush? Perk points are WAY too  valuable to waste on anything that isn't useful 24/7

I totally agree with your dislike of how Attributes govern weapon specialization. I get what they're going for, and I get your criticisms of it. I trust that within a few alphas they will have sorted out everything. They're just between places right now and it's not easy to keep a game cohesive and whole, while also trying to transform many aspects of it.  If we can unlock 2 points for attributes per level, and 1 point for "universal perks" like cooking, mining, farming, hunting, Run and Gun, and hey even swimming (bring back olympic swimmer lol), then that would be awesome.  Maybe they could give you 1 combat-centric point and 1 otherwise-centric point per level, and increase the amount of otherwise-centric perks available to the player, while ungating them? Possibilities abound.

 

[JCrook1028]

I'm like 400 posts behind, but has anyone encountered this?



I can't modify my Wrench to get my mods off it, the "Modify" button is totally missing

I think it has something to do with me making a Workbench and it using a different wrench in my inventory, but it broke my actual wrench. I tried dropping it, equipping it, putting it in a box etc, but the wrench was FUBAR. Only way I got mods off it was by handing it to my friend and he was able to take the mods off after he equipped it

I've had issues with the modify option being gone one time I look at it and back when I look at it again.