PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[MechanicalLens]

So here is my proposed solution:

1. Lockbreakers effectiveness is reduced from 100% down to 15-20%

2. Higher-end loot containers should have a greater chance of breaking your lockpicks than lower-end containers, much like how Skyrim does it. Breaking 30 lockpicks on a wall/desk safe is ridiculous in my eyes, and I'm speaking purely from a gameplay standpoint here. One of the reasons why lockpicks are unattractive without Jailbreakers is you might blow all of your lockpicks on a single wall/desk safe. 

You'd have to carry it around in your inventory at all times and purchase it though.  Then remember to eat it .  That being said, you can see by my suggested buff to the lockpicking perk how much ground I believe it needs to cover to be ok.  I suggesting literally doubling it's values as well as adding a small loot bonus to the opened safe/chest.  The loot buff would be something jailbreakers cannot provide and at a doubled value it's way better than jailbreakers.  Though TBH I'd expect jailbreakers to be cut in half along that with change.  It'd still be a significant lockpicking buff worth carrying around for anyone not rocking perception.

Not necessarily. You purchase the candy, tuck it away in storage, loot POI's for the next 5 days (and you can't afford to break into the safes with stone tools), and then use the Jailbreakers to pick all the safes

And what would stop players from using both? Even a high chance is fine, but guaranteed every time? I'm definitely not in favor of that.

But again, it all boils down to the contents of the safes themselves. Again, I hope that in A20 they address this and modify to the loot tables of the higher end containers, especially the locked ones, to container better items (on average).

Also, apologies @Jost Amman for coming off as quite blunt. Nonetheless, your argument wasn't the most compelling.

 

[Ralathar44]

2. Higher-end loot containers should have a greater chance of breaking your lockpicks than lower-end containers, much like how Skyrim does it. Breaking 30 lockpicks on a wall/desk safe is ridiculous in my eyes, and I'm speaking purely from a gameplay standpoint here. One of the reasons why lockpicks are unattractive without Jailbreakers is you might blow all of your lockpicks on a single wall/desk safe. 

One of the reasons I decided double the values of the lockpicking perk was fine.  It's a niche benefit and it gives people that don't want to deal with the RNG lockpick mechanic the ability to essentially "opt out" for a cost.

As an aside, the longer the lockpick mechanic has been in game the less I've liked it.  I was originally ok with it but it's now starting to get really REALLY annoying.  There's no interactivity, it's pure rng, and you could succeed first try or break 20 lockpicks on something and it's just a frustrating experience.  Basically anything that lowers the amount of rng breaking at this point would be an improvement to me.  Especially that last 3 seconds that ends up taking 30 seconds because of constantly breaking lockpicks and the timer resetting.

 

[madmole]

The point of my post was not one out of outcry. Think of it more as a report than anything else.  Marking down safes on the map and coming back to them later is more of a natural consequence than anything else. No, nobody is forcing me to do so. Humans always find the most convenient (in this case, not out of laziness, but out of intellect) route when doing things though.

Also, don't compare my post to LBD, alright? Apples and oranges here.

At the end of the day, people tend to play smart, not hard, or at least that is the trend nowadays. Player X decides not to break into safe early on. Player X does not want to "waste" lockpicking candy on safe. Player X does not want to lose safe, so they mark it on the map. Player X returns when their lootstage is higher and when they have enough safes on the map so that they can "exploit" the lockpicking candy to its fullest potential. Them returning to loot the safes when their gamestage is higher will probably prove to be a secondary bonus rather than an influential primary objective. I see this becoming a trend, rather than an unfortunate consequence. I'm not screaming and bellowing like an SJW, I'm just the wise "old" council member sitting in the back revealing the probable data.

Again, I cannot repeat this enough, I am not complaining. (Other than Jailbreakers being too OP in my opinion. Imagine if the salvaging candy, when active, guaranteed you one brass radiator/engine/battery from every car, for example. I think that Jailbreakers should align with the rest of the game (such as the lockpicking perk) rather than being the end all be all for that one particular feature of it.) I'm simply sharing my story from my perspective.

Getting into a safe isn't hard or challenging though, it is inevitable. So I don't think jailbreakers are really OP really, since you pay 100 dukes to get in quick, because even a scrub with a stone axe is getting in.

One of the reasons I decided double the values of the lockpicking perk was fine.  It's a niche benefit and it gives people that don't want to deal with the RNG lockpick mechanic the ability to essentially "opt out" for a cost.

As an aside, the longer the lockpick mechanic has been in game the less I've liked it.  I was originally ok with it but it's now starting to get really REALLY annoying.  There's no interactivity, it's pure rng, and you could succeed first try or break 20 lockpicks on something and it's just a frustrating experience.  Basically anything that lowers the amount of rng breaking at this point would be an improvement to me.  Especially that last 3 seconds that ends up taking 30 seconds because of constantly breaking lockpicks and the timer resetting.

It picks up where the last one left off, so if you were down to only 25% left it starts at 25%.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Getting into a safe isn't hard or challenging though, it is inevitable. So I don't think jailbreakers are really OP really, since you pay 100 dukes to get in quick, because even a scrub with a stone axe is getting in.

True, and I've changed my mind since then, but it makes no sense balance wise for a locked and very durable loot container to give you the same types of loot as an alternative unlocked container. Perhaps this could be addressed in A20? Sure, I could break into that gun safe... But I don't know what RNG holds. All I do know is during the time I crack into it (lockpicks aside here), I could loot a small home AND loot a reinforced chest which will give me the same types of loot. It devalues gun safes into, "I'll get back to you later" territory for the most part.

Even shaking up the loot table within safes in other areas would be fine imo. Higher quantities of ammo, gear parts (steel spear parts, etc.), so forth; giving us that incentive to break into them early game, and not for another T2 blunderbuss or T3 stone axe.

 

[madmole]

Jailbreakers replaces the Lockpicking perk. Enough said.  3 perk points vs 100 dukes that could open as many as 30+ safes. Hmm... 

Not likely unless you are meta gaming it like you do. Shotgun with breachers or c4 does the trick easily too.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Not likely unless you are meta gaming it like you do. Shotgun with breachers or c4 does the trick easily too.

speaking of Lock pick!

i think you guts should mix "the Infiltrator" and "lock picking"

i mean. what do you think of when you "infiltrate" somewhere! Breaking in to something! what a way to break into something? Lock picking!

Plus it could give more Uses to a person rather then picking one or the other!  

 

[MechanicalLens]

Not likely unless you are meta gaming it like you do. Shotgun with breachers or c4 does the trick easily too.

Again, you're not wrong, but what's mostly being discussed here is early game, or at least that's the direction I've tried to steer this in. (Pre iron tools, for instance.)

 

[pregnable]

Speaking of spears with a chain you can pull back, I would rather have a yoyo.

Yoyos were originally weapons, lel. 

 

[Adam the Waster]

Speaking of spears with a chain you can pull back, I would rather have a yoyo.

Yoyos were originally weapons, lel. 

i would rather have a whip class then a Yoyo!

BARBED WIRE WHIP!

and plus snowdog can live out his fantasy!

could be in the fortitude class!

Rope whip (tier 1), Wire Whip (tier 2) Barbed wire Whip! (tier 3)

 

[pregnable]

Spears seem really cool and I want to like them and like throwing them, but it is just a lot of investment for something that ends up not being that great. 

You really need a lot of points in sexrex and with a fair amount of investment I still could not 1 shot a basic zombie with a tier 5 stone spear on thrown headshot. 

It almost makes me wonder if spear throw damage is not still bugged. 

 

[Adam the Waster]

Spears seem really cool and I want to like them and like throwing them, but it is just a lot of investment for something that ends up not being that great. 

You really need a lot of points in sexrex and with a fair amount of investment I still could not 1 shot a basic zombie with a tier 5 stone spear on thrown headshot. 

It almost makes me wonder if spear throw damage is not still bugged. 

im still a firm believer that the Spear should give you a option on how you want to uses it!

If you Hold R!

you can get spear mode, or pike mode 

Spear would allow you to do a jab and throw it and the father you throw it the more damage it will deal, has a very high damage for the cost of stamina

Pike mode would be best for Close quarters, able to do the simple jab and a power attack that just a Very strong Jab but uses less stamina!

it could also give player a bit of a new play style! Plus it makes sense! 

But hey! im the crazy person who talks to themselves hahahaha

 

[stallionsden]

Spears seem really cool and I want to like them and like throwing them, but it is just a lot of investment for something that ends up not being that great. 

You really need a lot of points in sexrex and with a fair amount of investment I still could not 1 shot a basic zombie with a tier 5 stone spear on thrown headshot. 

It almost makes me wonder if spear throw damage is not still bugged. 

I love the spear its my melee weapon. I have many times one killed a z decapitated its head etc with a brown spear no points in sex rex either.

YOu like got to aim for the head the more confident you get with the spear then eventually you will be able to one shot a z.

 

[Khalagar]

I have many times one killed a z decapitated its head

All weapons do that, it's the % dismember chance. If you hit them in the head, there's a % chance to auto dismember the limb (head in this case) and auto kill them. The percent goes up as you invest more into the perk. Attacking really fast and spam proc dismember is  what makes even the bad weapons like the Stun baton at least usable.

It's not reliable though, so you can't say the spear is balanced because you can sometimes get a lucky RNG dismember on it. There was a melee weapon test several pages back showing the TTK (time to kill) of a few melee weapons against Irradiated and the spear did by far the worst, taking entire minutes longer than the others to kill a couple of irradiated.

 

[stallionsden]

All weapons do that, it's the % dismember chance. If you hit them in the head, there's a % chance to auto dismember the limb (head in this case) and auto kill them. The percent goes up as you invest more into the perk. Attacking really fast and spam proc dismember is  what makes even the bad weapons like the Stun baton at least usable.

It's not reliable though, so you can't say the spear is balanced because you can sometimes get a lucky RNG dismember on it. There was a melee weapon test several pages back showing the TTK (time to kill) of a few melee weapons against Irradiated and the spear did by far the worst, taking entire minutes longer than the others to kill a couple of irradiated.

I had never put any points into any perk let alone the sex rex one.

It is random but the game is alot of random, Random amounts of loot, random amounts of guns found, ammo found etc. The game be boring if it was always predictable and the spear is no different really, The chance of decaping a z with the spear is just as random as a gun shooting a zs head off. one shotting zs constantly is a mod and the randomness of these events should stay that way. The spear to me feels balanced and fair not over powered or under powered.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

I have found with lockpicking that i have a new love for the timed charges, no structural damage and only safe and door damage, its so awesome it almost makes lockpicks useless if your simply loud and proud lol

 

[Slingblade2040]

ok. how much time and effort go into getting jail breaker candy vs using other methods?  also amount of resources and perk points. the idea of a 100 duke candy letting you 100% lockpick is very OP. 100 duke is a joke to get and with vending machines respawning what every day? it's very easy to obtain jail breakers. 

the idea of not calling those candies anything outside of OP is kinda ridiculous. kinda weird that those candies are OK while other things that weren't even close to being that good got nerfed to hell.

 

[Khalagar]

I had never put any points into any perk let alone the sex rex one.

It is random but the game is alot of random, Random amounts of loot, random amounts of guns found, ammo found etc. The game be boring if it was always predictable and the spear is no different really, The chance of decaping a z with the spear is just as random as a gun shooting a zs head off. one shotting zs constantly is a mod and the randomness of these events should stay that way. The spear to me feels balanced and fair not over powered or under powered.

Uh, you mis-understood what I meant lol

It's not Sex Rex, it's the your governing attribute (and all tool and weapon get the exact same chance from their attribute) that increases your chance to dismember on hit. It goes up to 50% at max I think, forgot to look after I maxed out perception just now

Loot and other stuff being random is totally unrelated to a weapon not being able to consistently kill targets. People are of the opinion the spear is not great because other weapons *can* kill targets more reliably.

It's a really easy thing to test, just load up a new game, give yourself some EXP and weapons, spawn zombies and hit them with the weapons. Try different perks and different builds, document results. It's not opinions when you can just use use statistics to back them up

Here is the damage for a fully modded spear vs a fully modded steel club, with both attribute maxed and with perks maxed

Steel club does more per light attack, less on a power attack, attacks faster, and costs one more stamina.

I just ran about a dozen tests on basic zombies, ferals, and irradiated zombies comparing Club to Spear

Spear can easily dispatch a solo fodder zombie in one hit to the head with a throw. It takes several to kill ferals and especially irradiated, but it can usually do it in about 4-5 hits if I mix in throws and pokes and throw it at their head when they are knocked down for the 50% extra damage. It's fine 1 vs 1 against a feral, basically anything in the game is

The club was infinitely easier and more reliable though. M2 M1 M2 and the fight was over, every time on club. You stagger, knock down, then kill and they weren't even fighting back.

Spear isn't trash, it's totally usable, it's just high skill and high risk for lower reward than the low skill options like bonking them on the head with a club. Honestly though, Club is just OP at the moment. In every melee test I've run, Club is basically the defacto comparison because it overshadows everything else

Disarming yourself to do your main damage is also not a very good idea as it's REALLY easy to miss, and even if you hit, I was really, really struggling to get my spear back from the zombies pretty frequently. Even when looking directly at it and spamming E on the spear while the zombie was dead, it would take 2-8 seconds to get it back nearly every time. I think it has something to do with the zombie animation, as it only happened on dead zombies or zombies in the process of standing up

Melee agility build is by far the strongest in the game, not even comparable to anything else. Bleed + fast chance to insta kill + good stamina efficiency per hit + no movement penalty + easy crafts (bone knife).

You can make a club out of wood lol, bone knife isn't adding much

Run tests on it, the machete is about like the spear where "It's usable, but Club does it's job a lot better". I'm not even sure what the numbers on bleed damage is, but it's not really high enough to bother with, you are better off just doing like MechanicalLens mentioned and just spamming M1 until the zed stops moving.

Number wise, club was shown above so reference the numbers there so I don't make the post look longer than it already is

Club only costs 3 stamina more per swing, and attacks slightly slower while doing way more damage per hit.

I just tested TTK with no decapitation RNG, on second hardest difficulty

Club = 1 M2 + 2 M1 = Dead Radiated Arlene

Machete = 1 M2 + 4 M1 = Dead Radiated Arlene

I tried to test DoT but I don't know how  you tell when she's even bleeding. I hit her until she was on fire and it took about 7 minutes in game for her to die, and that was with me having to hit her a few more times to re-apply the fire and bleed. The DoT basically did so little damage it was negligible as I had to hit her at least 4 times with M1 which would have taken most of her health bar off with just those

Edit: Basically the To Long Didn't Read take away of my tests is

TLDR; Club is OP and outclasses everything else. Spear and Machete (and probably Stun Baton) are called weak (by comparison) but are usable, they are just under tuned. Spear getting a chain that pulls it back to you after you throw it would solve a lot of it's issues, and Machete just needs number tweaks to make bleed less non-existent 

Sledge, Spear, Machete, and Axe can all get the job decently well, they are just all outclassed by the Club and all have downsides the club does not have. Junk Sledge is terrible in handheld, and I didn't test Stun Baton

 

[RhinoW]

All weapons do that, it's the % dismember chance. If you hit them in the head, there's a % chance to auto dismember the limb (head in this case) and auto kill them. The percent goes up as you invest more into the perk. Attacking really fast and spam proc dismember is  what makes even the bad weapons like the Stun baton at least usable.

It's not reliable though, so you can't say the spear is balanced because you can sometimes get a lucky RNG dismember on it. There was a melee weapon test several pages back showing the TTK (time to kill) of a few melee weapons against Irradiated and the spear did by far the worst, taking entire minutes longer than the others to kill a couple of irradiated.

Melee agility build is by far the strongest in the game, not even comparable to anything else. Bleed + fast chance to insta kill + good stamina efficiency per hit + no movement penalty + easy crafts (bone knife).

 

[bloodmoth13]

So here is my proposed solution:

1. Lockbreakers effectiveness is reduced from 100% down to 15-20%

2. Higher-end loot containers should have a greater chance of breaking your lockpicks than lower-end containers, much like how Skyrim does it. Breaking 30 lockpicks on a wall/desk safe is ridiculous in my eyes, and I'm speaking purely from a gameplay standpoint here. One of the reasons why lockpicks are unattractive without Jailbreakers is you might blow all of your lockpicks on a single wall/desk safe. 

Lockpicking just needs a minor rework, all it needs is for a guaranteed 1s advancement per lockpick, and the perk can just reduce the total time it takes to pick a lock from 15 - 12 - 9 - 6. or lower. For higher end containers just increase the time it takes to pick from 15 to 20. 

The lockpicking perk though i think does need a loot multiplier, saving time and lockpicks isnt really enough for an investment.

 

[pregnable]

Yeah for my throwing build it is just meant to be another source of cheap ranged damage, so there is not any point in using anything other than a tier 5 stone spear, as that is the best I can craft and spam, with no mods. 

So at some point the tier 5 stone spear needs to 1 shot a zombie on nomad with a headshot or the build is a bust.  Rather just use stone arrows at that point, which kinda got a buff with all the chickens around now. 

It does have a range advantage for my melee from above horde bases, where you can just melee the horde while mostly safe... but I could probably change it slightly and do the same thing power attacking with the sledge or steel axe... so meh.