PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Aldranon]

I suggest playing with loss of loot on death, it makes everything count a lot more.

When I KNOW that the game is over and deleted when I die, I feel a keen edgy feeling that makes the game really vivid.  The deleting of the game makes me try all the more and I sometimes add points to the start of the game for believability.  

I'm right in doing so IMO, unless 7D2D part 1 is a dream or the player is in a coma...  Part 2 would be scary if you wake up and you find yourself in something like Episode 1 of The Walking Dead.  Except the building your in is on fire... and it gets worse from there!  

 

[gurutar]

We will have game staged increases in the harder biomes you can go there to get non primitive loot early game but it will be a lot harder.

this is exactly what would "fix" the primitive stage for me. i'm a huge fan of being rewarded for taking on areas that are higher level than i am, in any game. a mixture of biomes and certain POIs that contain superior loot sounds awesome. would these areas continue being superior, even in very high game stages? could help late game to have much harder areas to take on.

 

[K1dby]

Hey, is anyone else getting the following glitches?

-Bear carcasses move away from the player when gutting

-Random lag spikes when looking north, regardless of where

-Random phasing through floors when inventory is open

-Container searching causing the game to crash

 

[XaranGames]

Hey, is anyone else getting the following glitches?

-Bear carcasses move away from the player when gutting

Yes, but I always just put it down to bear carcasses not having any "weight" when they are rag dolled.  Immersion breaking and stupidly funny at the same time.

 

[beHypE]

I think most people finding the weapon/tool loot repetitive need to change their expectations. There's tons of good loot to be found, like meganoth said. Maybe looting gun safes & shotgun's messiah isn't the best plan early game, but there's tons of value looting other POIs in the search of books, mods, schematics and recipes. 

Side note, we found a treasure map and the treasure chest was locked, is this intended ? 7000HP of metal with stone axes was painful, especially after having spent all the time digging it up already (that being said, the 6000 dukes inside felt good )

 

[STyK_]

Side note, we found a treasure map and the treasure chest was locked, is this intended ? 7000HP of metal with stone axes was painful, especially after having spent all the time digging it up already

careful with this one, it will get you band out of twitch chat 

they seem to feel pretty strongly about this.

 

[Ralathar44]

When you're weak because the game forces you to be weak, no matter how much you loot and explore, it's not fun. Hopefully the devs will find the right balance.

The game forces literally everything.  It's called game design.  The only time your experience is not forced in a game is in very specific aspects of specific games.  "Emergent gameplay" not planned for or expected by the devs.  Game design determines what you can build, how fast you can build it, how fast you can get resources, what kind of base you can build, etc.  It's all dictated by game design and it's all "forced".  It has nothing to do with forcing or not forcing, that's a total red herring.  You just don't like being weak and want to skip that phase of the game.  And that's ok.  That's valid feedback.  I just wish you didn't try to present it as something else because talking about forced vs not forced is a waste of time. 

Especially in a game so easy to mod and so easy to spawn in things if you want to skip that weakness curve.  You have all the tools at your disposal, literally, to start with iron tools and t2 weapons on day 3 if you want.  And if you're getting iron tools that early via RNG then it's not much of a celebration so you're not even cheating yourself of any real satisfaction.  The level of satisfaction from an achievement is directly tied to how hard it is to achieve.  You've presented it as preventing you from being annoyed rather than being satisfied at the discovery and progression.  So just spawn it in when you feel it's appropriate.

If you can loot and explore and quickly stop being weak then that weakness is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything.  Things that are easily achieved are less satisfying for most people.  Now is the current implementation the best balance for the most people?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if you can just solve weakness via scavenging then we're right back to where builders and crafting are utterly farked over because scavengers want to run through 2/3rds of the progression curve by day 7 lol.

Every change is a balance of helping some play styles and hindering others.  Fortunately as mentioned the game is extremely flexible, easy to mod, and easy to work around in such issues using a few basic console commands or the cheat menu.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I think most people finding the weapon/tool loot repetitive need to change their expectations. There's tons of good loot to be found, like meganoth said. Maybe looting gun safes & shotgun's messiah isn't the best plan early game, but there's tons of value looting other POIs in the search of books, mods, schematics and recipes. 

Side note, we found a treasure map and the treasure chest was locked, is this intended ? 7000HP of metal with stone axes was painful, especially after having spent all the time digging it up already (that being said, the 6000 dukes inside felt good )

i would love to Play Random gen! so many more cool areas! but for Some reason my maps load 90% done!

 

[Ralathar44]

Body or it didn't happen

Body was there, it became a zombie and tried to eat you .

 

[Gazz]

Edit - I see faatal has already semi-addressed this. Here are my 2 cents. I think hovering (one of the hardest parts of flying a RL helicopter) should not require any input from the player. It would be cool, however, if moving forward caused the nose of the helicopter to pitch down and required "up" input to maintain elevation and stopping required flaring back. However, I'm not sure what is the best way to handle strafing. Canceling sideways inertia could be a real pain in a game that's not built or intended to be a physics simulator.

There are multiple degrees of accuracy in which games model helicopter controls.

Modeling both cyclic and collective pitch as well as engine RPM is unreasonable with common game input devices. Some old sims did that but those were hardcore.

Combining collective + RPM is the next step down and probably what you describe.

The downside is that it makes it quite hard to maintain altitude both while hovering and moving.

You'd need a HUD instrument for that at the minimum or a pretty intelligent system for interpreting that combined input.

The most gamified version is... basically god mode movement.

 

[Laz Man]

I never once questioned the best rpgs of all time when looting. I diablo I got what I got. Same in Skyrim, Fallout, etc. I opened up a loot container and got something a little better and I was happy about it. You just aren't used to it. Once we get pipe guns and a bit more supplies to craft your own things it might feel less repetitive which I think is the larger problem.

We will have game staged increases in the harder biomes you can go there to get non primitive loot early game but it will be a lot harder.

Hi Madmole, I am with you on the getting use to it route.  However, I think it would help if something like the following is done at some point to help people with this transition?  I think it will go alooooong way. 

• Remove the word "Sealed" from all shipping crates
  
  Sealed Shipping Crate >  Shipping Crate
  
• Shotgun Messiah Sealed Shipping Crate > Shotgun Messiah Shipping Crate
  

[*]Make Shipping Crates look more cobbled together (see picture below as an example) and not PRE-Apocalypse...



I am hoping something like this wouldnt take a lot of time dev time since its just a block label change and maybe a quick edit to existing texture...  I am not an environmental artist though so not sure how fast or long that would take...

 

[MechanicalLens]

The game forces literally everything.  It's called game design.  The only time your experience is not forced in a game is in very specific aspects of specific games.  "Emergent gameplay" not planned for or expected by the devs.  Game design determines what you can build, how fast you can build it, how fast you can get resources, what kind of base you can build, etc.  It's all dictated by game design and it's all "forced".  It has nothing to do with forcing or not forcing, that's a total red herring.  You just don't like being weak and want to skip that phase of the game.  And that's ok.  That's valid feedback.  I just wish you didn't try to present it as something else because talking about forced vs not forced is a waste of time. 

Especially in a game so easy to mod and so easy to spawn in things if you want to skip that weakness curve.  You have all the tools at your disposal, literally, to start with iron tools and t2 weapons on day 3 if you want.  And if you're getting iron tools that early via RNG then it's not much of a celebration so you're not even cheating yourself of any real satisfaction.  The level of satisfaction from an achievement is directly tied to how hard it is to achieve.  You've presented it as preventing you from being annoyed rather than being satisfied at the discovery and progression.  So just spawn it in when you feel it's appropriate.

If you can loot and explore and quickly stop being weak then that weakness is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything.  Things that are easily achieved are less satisfying for most people.  Now is the current implementation the best balance for the most people?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if you can just solve weakness via scavenging then we're right back to where builders and crafting are utterly farked over because scavengers want to run through 2/3rds of the progression curve by day 7 lol.

Every change is a balance of helping some play styles and hindering others.  Fortunately as mentioned the game is extremely flexible, easy to mod, and easy to work around in such issues using a few basic console commands or the cheat menu.

You know what they say, "If you try to please everybody, you end up please no-one."

 

[wolfbain5]

Nah, I don't care if there's a stone axe in the loot stashes. I do care when there's three in each, and not much else though.

same here, I mean at least add like mechanical parts or duct tape in working stiff boxes so we can make a wrench when we have salvage level 1 in stone age.

 

[Onarr]

Would you be so kind to tell me why stone age is boring to loot for you?

I like stone age loot progression and what it is.. I get in loot everything I would get if my game stage would be 100+.. you still get sewing kits, duct tapes, anvils, all kind of raw mats etc, the only difference there is is tools/weapons. But how is getting stone variations any different than getting iron/steel? If I`m mid game and every box I open there is Iron shovel/pickaxe/hunting rifle it`s the exact same boring @%$*#! all over again, no? What`s different? Or are you saying that that is the problem and you should be getting Q2 stone axe in T5 quest loot boxes?

There is still plenty of variations for primitive age - stone axe, shovel, clubs, spears, bone knives, sledge, blunderbuss and hopefully more to come in A20 with new primitive weapons for each class. Same as there is in any other gs - pickaxe/shovel/sniper/m60/machete/magnum etc. To me, personally, that feels like natural progression.

Why it is boring? Because you know you will not get upgrades, and unlike later loot you cannot use stone axes and shovels in other way like selling them or getting some scrap out of them. You get same loot from T1 and T5. Later on when you start getting to iron tools you wont use them until you get at least quality 3-4, because that epic stone shovel has just better stats. The progression in current state is not good. But thats ok, because its work in progress. I believe in Madmole an rest of his team to do good on his players, even if its not down to my exact expectations and desires.

 

[Ralathar44]

Why it is boring? Because you know you will not get upgrades, and unlike later loot you cannot use stone axes and shovels in other way like selling them or getting some scrap out of them. You get same loot from T1 and T5. Later on when you start getting to iron tools you wont use them until you get at least quality 3-4, because that epic stone shovel has just better stats. The progression in current state is not good. 

You do get upgrades.  You get recipes, schematics, books, resources, and rare materials and higher level stone tools than you can make unless you specifically skilled into miner69er.  Looting stone tools is actually extremely beneficial for people not skilling into miner69er.  I get it that most people prioritize that asap, but this isn't the same game as it used to be and ever since all the cobblestone and cement was added to POIs you haven't needed to skill into those to start, so multiple alphas now.

I'm at Day 35 currently.  I have no miner69er or motherload.  90% of my stone came from POI stone pallets and scrapping things.  90% of my cobblestones and cement came from POI pallets or the trader.  90% of my metals came from scavenging/scrapping.  90% of my clay came from buried treasure quests.  I've never had to dedicated farm for any resources.  I've just scavenged and used the trader.

My bone knife and blunderbuss handled everything quite well including the early 2 horde nights and then I started finding all sorts of weapon upgrades as my gamestage rose.  At day 35 I have t5 iron tools, a t4 wrench, I crafted a T5 pistol/hunting knife, and I'm making steel now.  I'm 100% agility skill points atm.  I have all crafting stations and my base is almost fully reinforced concrete with electric traps.  What's your excuse?

I feel like people are stuck in past alphas.  You don't need to mine anymore.  You don't need anything more than stone to fully cement out your base easily.  You'll be able to craft the weapons you use if you invest in that weapon tree.  You WILL find a workbench or recipe for one eventually.  The Forge is the only real stumbling block that is often harder to find for some reason.  People seem to have a real issue with adjusting to the current state of the game, one that existed honestly before A19 dropped.  Folks are still stuck in that A14 miner/find my gear mentality but the game is far more flexible than that now.

 

[MechanicalLens]

You do get upgrades.  You get recipes and materials and higher level stone tools than you can make unless you specifically skilled into miner69er.  Looting stone tools is actually extremely beneficial for people not skilling into miner69er.  I get it that most people prioritize that asap, but this isn't the same game as it used to be and ever since all the cobblestone and cement was added to POIs you haven't needed to skill into those to start, so multiple alphas now.

I'm at Day 35 currently.  I have no miner69er or motherload.  90% of my stone came from POI stone pallets and scrapping things.  90% of my cobblestones and cement came from POI pallets or the trader.  90% of my metals came from scavenging/scrapping.  90% of my clay came from buried treasure quests.  I've never had to dedicated farm for any resources.  I've just scavenged and used the trader.

My bone knife and blunderbuss handled everything quite well including the early 2 horde nights and then I started finding all sorts of weapon upgrades as my gamestage rose.  At day 35 I have t5 iron tools, a t4 wrench, I crafted a T5 pistol/hunting knife, and I'm making steel now.  I'm 100% agility skill points atm.

I feel like people are stuck in past alphas.  You don't need to mine anymore.  You don't need anything more than stone to fully cement out your base easily.  You'll be able to craft the weapons you use if you invest in that weapon tree.  You WILL find a workbench or recipe for one eventually.  The Forge is the only real stumbling block that is often harder to find for some reason.  People seem to have a real issue with adjusting to the current state of the game, one that existed honestly before A19 dropped.  Folks are still stuck in that A14 miner/find my gear mentality but the game is far more flexible than that now.

As long as you're not saying that most of us miners are "stuck in the past" for still wanting to swing a pickaxe at some stone while admitting that it isn't needed anymore (or at least some of us do), we're cool.  But agreed, it is no longer a requirement for base building and repairs.

 

[Ralathar44]

As long as you're not calling us miners "boomers" for still wanting to swing a pickaxe at some stone while admitting that it isn't needed anymore (or at least some of us do), we're cool.

I'm actually a miner/builder at heart myself.  3 updates again I was building things from scratch as my first horde base.  But the game has shifted away from that to "convert POI, get secure, level up a bit, then you can build your own base".  I like mining, I like diggy diggy hole lol.  But when the game shifted I took a step back, thought about it, and TBH I agree this is a better progression.  The idea of building your own stone base in 7 days after starting naked in the wilderness just makes alot less sense both from a gameplay perspective and the dreaded "realism" perspective.

The last few updates made me step outside of my miner/builder comfort zone a little and adjust.  And if I want to do that now I still can .  I'll just be making that stone base on Day 14 instead of Day 7.  Getting a forge early and going heavy mining is still very viable.  But now not doing that is equally viable.  The current game feels like a series of tradeoffs whereas pre-A17 you could get basically everything by going a single route skill path.  I think people are still spoiled to getting everything without having to pick and choose what they want to be good at.  I've seen that friction increase a little more in each update A17-A20 as the developers make changes that diversify the gameplay styles and make you make hard choices about what you want to be good at.
 

If you want good tools early, grab the skills for it.  If you want good weapons early grab the skills for it.  Etc.  But you can't skill everything you want right off the bat now .  TBH progression is still Much faster (in the things you skill into) than the learn by doing days where I'd spam craft and smelt for weeks.  You can still progress by playing how you want now.  But people will always complain .

 

[Xtrakicking]

Body was there, it became a zombie and tried to eat you .

Boo!

You just don't like being weak and want to skip that phase of the game.

No, I just don't like predictable, underwhelming and unbalanced loot.

 

[madmole]

I suggest playing with loss of loot on death, it makes everything count a lot more.

Yeah I lost my backpack due to a glitch, and actually enjoyed rebuilding all my lost gear.

You know what they say, "If you try to please everybody, you end up please no-one."

We had a meeting about adding a generic skill tree, and came to the conclusion that we'd piss off more people than we would please removing the meaningful choices there are now, or we could polish combat to a AA quality bar with that time spent and make everyone happier. We're going to wait for stable data though to make the decision.

 

[lord_ahriman]

We don't have the bandwidth, performance is bad an animal spawns are way too heavy, there is a massive nerf coming. It might even be harder to survive than before, but only in SP. I did turn up the zombie spawning, just not the amount alive all at once. What you will see is a faster repopulation of killed zombies in the wild which will help a bit. I randomized the times too, not that it matters much, but I didn't know we could do floats until a few days ago.

I hope you have something in mind to help SP because a lot of players like to play solo and if even harder it would make new players abandon ship. Not overreaction, just an observation from what you are saying.