PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[toores]

bro, first of all a 15k hp block is one of the highest you will ever face. 

second, you don't even have miner69 and you're only using an iron pickaxe. you're kidding right?

that's like breaking the big iron chest with a stoneaxe. ofc this is gonna take forever. you're far from the gamestage to tackle things like that. when you got a T6 steelaxe, miner69 5/5 and tyrannosaurus 4/4 then you can hit for a very long time before running low on stamina even without any buffs. I'm level 51 right now in my world. I know what I'm talking about. It would never occur to me to make a post about this just to complain while I'm not even using the approriate tools and perks. Makes you look like a fool with that second sentence.

edit: forgot to mention you might be missing the ergonomic grip mod as well

It just so happened, I was making a little farm on the rooftop of a fire station. And the red poles on the side of the red blocks didn't stand out. So I put my farm plots under it thinking I can grow corn there. When I was done with the farm, I discovererd the poles.

Now, it took a long time, but redoing the farm layout would have taken just as long. So I decided to endure the wait-until-you-can-continue-to-play and broke the blocks to keep the asthetics of my base.

I'm level 49 in the game. I don't like the STR tree, and the purple fully modded (of course including ergonomic grip) iron pickaxe is the best mining tool I have seen in this playthrough. So I took the blackstrap coffee, ate a good meal and decided to make it work.

It's not like I'm starting player, walking up to a 15k block and start complaining that it's too hard.

But it makes me wonder. Among other things it's a voxel building game, and still putting off all buildig plans because the slowed down progression has not given me a single power tool and simple tools are stamina nerf-tied to STR tree.

 

[wolfbain5]

personally, I love stealth, even early game I use it alot at night to clear poi's. the nights arent all that dark, even at 30%. indoors is great tho very dark and gives me a reason the get nvg. Like in my current play through, day 2. I started the shamway factory at 19:00 hrs. I make 2-3 mollies, blunder bus the windows next to the tower. wait for the workers to bust the windows, then firebomb them. next I dig a small tunnel under the outside tower directly in the center. get to the middle, break my way through the food boxes. good source of early game food btw. and use the tower as a temp base. Lots of food in there. and it is a steel and concrete tower. By 20:00 hours I am scaling the interior of the tower, completely looting it. then from the roof, I climb down te the first broken catwalk. bridge it, and gain access to the roof of the main building.

make some noise against the middle of the building. wake all the sleepers. as they pound the wall. see where they are, fire bomb them. usually they break out quickly, but the fire has done its work and I blunderbus the remaining few. now I have access to boss loot and more food. during the night, I start my sweep going down. snipe them from overhead in stealth. in the morning, I gather all the building supplies. can easily get 1-2k cobble and cement out of it depending on perks. and now you start day 3 with mats and food. all with a wood club, some stone arrows, a t1 primitive bow, and mollies made from gas gathered at gas station, fuel drums, and oil from garbage. Stealth rocks.

Run and gun on the other hand I have rarely ever gotten. I get a bandolier early on, and that allows for faster reload as well.

 

[madmole]

Now, I will say that the current perk system is flawed in at least one objective way: Let's say you want to invest into the perks under an attribute, so you dump some points into said attribute to unlock those perks. Unless you are using the weapons in that tree, those skills points that go into the attribute trees themselves are literal wastes of points that don't immediately benefit the player in any way. In my opinion, each attribute tree should have a small bonus accompanied with it, one per rank, that benefits everybody. For example, -1% crafting time per rank of Intellect, or +1% melee damage to enemies (or stunned/knocked down enemies) per rank of Strength.

We can always add more weight to the attributes. We just haven't landed on an idea everyone agrees with, or really decided that "hey we need to put more work into this right now" sort of thing when there are 20 other more important things not even in yet, like bandits. We've iterated on it each alpha and I think everyone can agree it has gotten better. 17 it was introduced, 18 it was massively improved, and 19 we removed redundant ranks to non combat perks more accessible.

 

[meganoth]

It just so happened, I was making a little farm on the rooftop of a fire station. And the red poles on the side of the red blocks didn't stand out. So I put my farm plots under it thinking I can grow corn there. When I was done with the farm, I discovererd the poles.

Now, it took a long time, but redoing the farm layout would have taken just as long. So I decided to endure the wait-until-you-can-continue-to-play and broke the blocks to keep the asthetics of my base.

I'm level 49 in the game. I don't like the STR tree, and the purple fully modded (of course including ergonomic grip) iron pickaxe is the best mining tool I have seen in this playthrough. So I took the blackstrap coffee, ate a good meal and decided to make it work.

It's not like I'm starting player, walking up to a 15k block and start complaining that it's too hard.

But it makes me wonder. Among other things it's a voxel building game, and still putting off all buildig plans because the slowed down progression has not given me a single power tool and simple tools are stamina nerf-tied to STR tree.

Instead you could have set down a land claim block and just relocated the farm plots to a better spot. (I never tried relocating farm plots, but AFAIK this is possible).

 

[MechanicalLens]

We can always add more weight to the attributes. We just haven't landed on an idea everyone agrees with, or really decided that "hey we need to put more work into this right now" sort of thing when there are 20 other more important things not even in yet, like bandits. We've iterated on it each alpha and I think everyone can agree it has gotten better. 17 it was introduced, 18 it was massively improved, and 19 we removed redundant ranks to non combat perks more accessible.

Well, what I'm advocating for here is... really just some nitpicking. When people can only nitpick, you know you have a good product in your hands.  It's by no means important, just a small inconvenience, I suppose.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

We can always add more weight to the attributes. We just haven't landed on an idea everyone agrees with, or really decided that "hey we need to put more work into this right now" sort of thing when there are 20 other more important things not even in yet, like bandits. We've iterated on it each alpha and I think everyone can agree it has gotten better. 17 it was introduced, 18 it was massively improved, and 19 we removed redundant ranks to non combat perks more accessible.

We could always do something like

Agility - Movement Speed increased by 2% per rank and reload Speed same percent

Intelligence - Crafting Materials Reduced by 4% Per level and Crafting Speed Increased by 2 Percent per level

Strength - Bow Damage increased by 3% per rank and 1 Less Encumbrance Level per Rank

Perception - Ranged Weapon Sway Lessened per Rank and Ranged Damage Increased by 1% Per Rank

Fortitude - Max Health and Stamina 1% Passive Increase Per Level and Stamina Use Decreased by 2% Per Level

Those are examples i tossed together out of the blue, nothing i would consider perfect by any means but maybe a starter point for conversations on balance and possible skill reworks and removals making room for different perks

 

[Jarod_Silverstar]

One funny thing I see about people who are talking about have to put skill points in independent trees in order to accomplish certain tasks always seem to forget one thing. Grampa's Forgetting Elixir.

Take your first couple of weeks to get the basics up and running and then take a swig of the elixir and respec into mining for a week to dig out your underground fort or get your ore mines started and ready for production. Once those are done, hit the bottle again and go back to your brawler build or what ever suits your needs for the moment.

Yes, the stuff is expensive when you can find it, but you see people on the forums all the time talking about grinding out some quick money to grab the crucuble or motorbike they find for sale. If you must have the ability to do all the things, there is a way, but it will cost you somewhere else. Besides isn't the point of the game to present challenges and have you make choices to over come them?

 

[MechanicalLens]

Strength - Bow Damage increased by 3% per rank

Nope, that wouldn't solve anything, since you would be forced to use a bow to gain the additional benefit. I suggest conjuring up small, passive bonuses that are by no means situational or overpowered. Some of your suggestions were the latter unfortunately.

Examples:

Perception: +1% looting speed per rank

Strength: -2% stamina loss while power attacking with tools per rank (or +1% damage to stunned or knocked down enemies per rank)

Fortitude: +1% stamina regeneration while sprinting per rank

Agility: +1% movement speed per rank

Intellect: +1% crafting speed per rank

 

[Phoenixshade35]

Nope, that wouldn't solve anything, since you would be forced to use a bow to gain the additional benefit. I suggest conjuring up small, passive bonuses that are by no means situational or overpowered. Some of your suggestions were the latter unfortunately.

Examples:

Perception: +1% looting speed per rank

Strength: -2% stamina loss while power attacking with tools per rank (or +1% damage to stunned or knocked down enemies per rank)

Fortitude: +1% stamina regeneration while sprinting per rank

Agility: +1% movement speed per rank

Intellect: +1% crafting speed per rank

I admit, im not good at thinking up stuff like that lol, but it gets the gears turning for those more adept at it, i like yours so much better than mine hahaha

 

[madmole]

The same way I'm not forced to live in a existing POI. But it's fun to rework them into bases and hord bases.

I really don't get the attitude - we have a voxel-breakable world, but you don't have to break blocks to play the game... Of corse I don't have to but literally every character wants to do that at some point.

IMO tools and tool related stamina should not be connected to any specific build. I wouldn't mind if STR got power tools to make them superior but forcing all players to STR tree seems like a suboptimal solution.

And having to carry c4 or shotgun, which yet again belong to different tree, isn't a good solution either. It's upside down at the moment - c4, special shotgun and power tools are advanced gear that should require specialisation. Everybody should have should have the ability to use primitive tools like pickaxe without forcing you to a speciffic tree.

I'm totally for giving STR tree perks that give bigger harvest, and more tool damage, but stamina to mine/break blocks should be assessible to all. (because of the nature of the game)

Solar - I don't mind if I have to wait and paciently loot and buy the stuff. But generators are noisy and as an end content, solar is nice to work towards.

Again, I don't get your logic. "We put this cool tech in the game, but why bother with it? So we gate it out of your reach"... Why put it in the game then?

So you want to be an awesome miner, and be able to shred blocks quick and easy without training your body or gaining any skills associated with that?

I challenge you to go grab a pickaxe and swing it as hard as you can against a boulder IRL for a few minutes. A, you can't even do it for long, B you won't even crack that rock because you don't have the technique or strength yet. C you will have blisters all over your nerdy soft hands unless you are a laborer IRL. Your whole body will be sore for a week or two, unless you are an athlete or conditioned worker.

That is like wanting to be a brain surgeon, yet you are unwilling to go to school for 12 years and learn what is needed to do such a thing. There is a price that must be paid and either pay it or don't do it. Simple as that. If you want to cast the biggest fireball in Skyrim you grind up your destruction skill to 100 and drop 5 grand on the spell that is only sold from one guy a 2 hour walk from Riften.

You are choosing to do uncommon things that are hard to do but do not want to pay the learning cost. I can't really sympathize with that. We can't make mining super easy, hard blocks are hard for a reason. I'm sure though you could use some TNT or mine the block under neath of this 13000 hit point pole and get rid of it a lot easier.
 

I put my generator in the basement and use relays to bring power to my main areas and can't even hear it.

Solar: I've never used them. They are OP and turned out to be not very performant so they are deliberately inaccessible. Until we can optimize them they are stuck where they are.

I'm sorry but there are costs to the game. Pay the price to do them efficiently. It isn't even a steep price.
 

 

[PoloPoPo]

2) That is AFAIK a compromise so that the area between different types of blocks look smooth instead of having a gap. A one-block shaft still works, better is to make more room or even make a scaffold out of wood frames to put the ladders on.

I have played on quite a few different maps already, including randomly created maps, and never did this misalignment of holes appear. Right now on my custom map no matter where I dig a hole it is always angular to anything else in the world. Not sure if this really is a feature as playing like that is very weird. Looks more like a bug with random world generator to me.

 

[madmole]

Instead you could have set down a land claim block and just relocated the farm plots to a better spot. (I never tried relocating farm plots, but AFAIK this is possible).

You don't need a land claim, just shovel them up (the ones you made at least, not poi ones)

 

[HeavyMetalGamer8]

We will improve it. This is just a first quick attempt at a primitive stage. Part of the problem is we only have a few primitive weapons, once we get the pipe pistol, pipe machinegun, pipe rifle and pipe baton in, then all classes will be treated fairly and there will just be a lot more things in the loot pool. We could always bring in a low chance to start getting iron tools and iron guns sooner, but the general idea is, as long as you are getting something a little better you are pretty happy. We also have talked about doing a faster loot and a slower loot modifier so if you want you could start in the iron age, or have primitive last even longer, just with a slider. There is no way to make everyone happy with it, but it will get better for sure in the future.

I imagine some overlap at all tiers, so there is a rare chance for something good but we haven't finalized any of that yet. My take on it is if I have nothing, a bicycle is good. Once I have that I'd be happy with a minibike, so on and so forth.

That sounds great! thanks for the response.

 

[meganoth]

I have played on quite a few different maps already, including randomly created maps, and never did this misalignment of holes appear. Right now on my custom map no matter where I dig a hole it is always angular to anything else in the world. Not sure if this really is a feature as playing like that is very weird. Looks more like a bug with random world generator to me.

I have had angular holes all the time, in any map, in any alpha.

 

[Dracula]

Terrain digs great; no idea what that's about.  I have issues with the placement texture, but I'm probably the only person out there were the ground texture not remapping is my biggest fault with the game and the first thing I checked in A19.

I do miss the organic-looking farms of A17 without the farm plots and wish it would return for smoother creation of organic farms as a low-yield alternative to give support at lower levels.

 

[XYR0]

What about simple idea to wood frame breaks when player steps on it, so nerdpolling is not super cheap way to the main loot on the roof top?

 

[Worrun]

I challenge you to go grab a pickaxe and swing it as hard as you can against a boulder IRL for a few minutes. A, you can't even do it for long, B you won't even crack that rock because you don't have the technique or strength yet. C you will have blisters all over your nerdy soft hands unless you are a laborer IRL. Your whole body will be sore for a week or two, unless you are an athlete or conditioned worker.

I was a construction worker for 10 years IRL, why can't i transfer those skills in to the game? This should be a feature, allow us to connect a USB to our belly button's and xfer data. My character is about 1 10th of my strength

 

[MechanicalLens]

I was a construction worker for 10 years IRL, why can't i transfer those skills in to the game? This should be a feature, allow us to connect a USB to our belly button's and xfer data. My character is about 1 10th of my strength

Contact Elon Musk in that case, I'm sure he can hook you up.

 

[Laz Man]

I was a construction worker for 10 years IRL, why can't i transfer those skills in to the game? This should be a feature, allow us to connect a USB to our belly button's and xfer data. My character is about 1 10th of my strength

Belly Buttons?  Snowdog can do better then that LOL...

 

[meganoth]

What about simple idea to wood frame breaks when player steps on it, so nerdpolling is not super cheap way to the main loot on the roof top?

nerdpoling is used legitimately by crafters to build high structures. There were lots of discussions about this and solutions offered. Until now the best solution is still to allow nerpoling and accept the disadvantage