PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Vechs]

All the guns use falloff damage. Even the journal entry points that out.

Are you sure?  I set up a gun range at my base and measured out the blocks, and put log blocks as targets to try and figure out what the max range of "5" actually meant.  It was from these tests that I figured out it was 10 blocks.  The pump shotgun I had didn't even do 1 point of damage to the log block on the 11th row (no repairs needed on it), but would readily kill the block on the 10th row.

 

[bdubyah]

Are you sure?  I set up a gun range at my base and measured out the blocks, and put log blocks as targets to try and figure out what the max range of "5" actually meant.  It was from these tests that I figured out it was 10 blocks.  The pump shotgun I had didn't even do 1 point of damage to the log block on the 11th row (no repairs needed on it), but would readily kill the block on the 10th row.

Regular shotgun shells have a MaxRange of 10, with DamageFalloffRange set to 5. So, max damage out to 5 blocks, after 10 blocks, no damage. Also remember they do extra damage to wood, especially slugs and breaching rounds.

 

[Jugginator]

Once you put points into the shotgun perk you'll be decapitating their heads a good portion of the time. I've hunted bears in A19 before with a level 2 or 3 pump shotgun (and on foot), about 130 health, and with subpar armor, and even with only 3 points into Shotgun Messiah I was taking off their heads about one in every five shots.

Honestly, if shotguns had more range, they'd just outclass every other gun. If you're so worried about bears, carry a sniper rifle or a marksman rifle with you. Even unperked they can take down bears with ease, since you're at a distance. Keep it in your vehicle exclusively for hunting; that's what I always do as a shotgun build, since the pellets end up eviscerating the carcass anyway.

You don't even need points into boomstick, nor a q6 shotgun; hell, you could do that with a level 1 pump shotgun lol. I still say shotguns need more nerfing, not increasing their range lol. But yeah what you said, added you don't need to perk into something to use it. Shotguns are ridiculous as it is xD

By the way shotguns shouldn't be blowing through carcasses anymore, I think that got fixed

 

[FileMachete]

Recap of my wolf/zdog encounters so far. It's ~11pm Day 10. Pregen02, 90m days, Adventurer, no quests (fresh install of b173).

1) Day 3 around dinner time about a hundred meters from the trader got jumped by a wolf. He came in from the side, out of the trees, no way to have seen him, by the time he made a noise and I turned he was already biting. Infected, abrasion, sprained leg, ~30 health. Spent the next day and a half searching for Honey &/or Antibiotics. Lucked into a Clinic in the middle of nowhere at 21:00 day 4, had to come back on day 5 to finish clearing. It had 1 antibiotic.

2) Day 5 night time 3 wolfs. Was in my base, they broke through upgraded wooden door (scrap metal patches lvl) pretty quick, but base has a murder hole, so dropped arrows on them, took quite a while but finally got all three. There was another wolf near base in the morning, assuming he was part of the night horde, but not sure.

3) Day 7 morning, at traders to pick up cooked glue, went back out the gates and a zdog horde just appeared out of thin air right beside me.

## I mean all 6 or 7 were just clustered together on the road beside me. Had to have just spawned in as I had time to turn around, open up the trader door, go inside and close it without even one getting inside. Also was weird because only a couple aggro'd on me, the others ran off. I had to shoot them to get them to come back.

4) Day 8 morning. See a wolf just outside the church a couple hundred meters from the trader.

5) Day 10 midmorning. At a new city dropping off supplies at what will be a base, come out to minibike for boxes, there's a wolf 30m away.

No idea if that's all intended or not. Worth noting that other than the last one, all have been within a fairly small area.

Should also mention that I've killed two stags in basically the same 50m area, a day apart. Site is beside the gravel road that goes by the strip club on the way to the new city; guessing about half a klick from my first base.

Also might be a factor; built a Bike morning of day 4, rode around most of the day searching for Honey, found a new city & wound up 2+ks from base, so maybe being away fom Base chunks reset things? Built a Minibike day 6, traveled a bit to loot scattered pois as almost all of the city the trader quest took me to is in the snow. Have made 2 trips to new city a couple klicks away.

 

[Jost Amman]

It's the third time I start a new world after each patch and for the life of me I can't find ANY workstation blueprints inside the broken ones (which btw are 99%).

I've looted dozens of them but no luck... this begs a question : have the blueprints been removed inside broken workstations?  :mmph:

Edit: and the traders don't sell them anymore either apparently. So how is one supposed to craft stuff without heavily specializing into INT??

 

[bdubyah]

It's the third time I start a new world after each patch and for the life of me I can't find ANY workstation blueprints inside the broken ones (which btw are 99%).

I've looted dozens of them but no luck... this begs a question : have the blueprints been removed inside broken workstations?  :mmph:

Edit: and the traders don't sell them anymore either apparently. So how is one supposed to craft stuff without heavily specializing into INT??

Must just be bad RNG. They are still in the loot for the broken stations and traders.

 

[Khalagar]

It's the third time I start a new world after each patch and for the life of me I can't find ANY workstation blueprints inside the broken ones (which btw are 99%).

I've looted dozens of them but no luck... this begs a question : have the blueprints been removed inside broken workstations?  :mmph:

Edit: and the traders don't sell them anymore either apparently. So how is one supposed to craft stuff without heavily specializing into INT??

Madmole mentioned nerfing them on the forum a week or two back. As for how you can craft them without int . . .buy what you need or spec into int! Int is already questionable enough spot as is, letting every class have access to it's main feature kinda defeats the purpose. It would be like if you could find a book that granted you full Miner 69 stacks

 

[beHypE]

The Blunderbuss and it’s generic gunpowder ammo are perfect as implemented in a19. Props! Why do we need yet another tier of firearms with these pipe guns? What gap does it fill? 
 

Early level is mostly about melee and it is refreshing. IMO, don’t mess with a winning formula.

Increasing more tiers and expanding the loot tables will put the game in the position where many will desire to start a new map before ever seeing the highest tier weapons.

Don't really know to be fair. I hope they will drastically reduce the amount of ammo you can find, because if you're supposed to carry a pipe gun from the very first days and ammo is still as abundant, playing with the melee weapons will just get another significant nerf.

from patch to patch i got the same situation, late game stage zombies too weak.

What if zombies HP and damage increased with game stage?

e.g.

Stage - HP | Damage

Player is under 5 level - 100% | 100%

First GS - 125% | 100%

Second GS - 150% | 175%

Third GS - 175% | 350%

Fourth GS - 200% | 500%

Without looking at the numbers, I agree something needs to be done in regards to ramping up the difficulty over time. The "basic" zombies are way too easy for way too long (past the first few days), and once ferals start appearing in the world you're swimming in guns/ammo and can just empty the clip on them without much worries either. If the progression of the loot is such a strong concern, the difficulty needs to scale properly in time, and not have as many treshholds. Adding pipe guns will only make the early-mid game easier.

 

[bloodmoth13]

The Blunderbuss and it’s generic gunpowder ammo are perfect as implemented in a19. Props! Why do we need yet another tier of firearms with these pipe guns? What gap does it fill? 
 

Early level is mostly about melee and it is refreshing. IMO, don’t mess with a winning formula.

Increasing more tiers and expanding the loot tables will put the game in the position where many will desire to start a new map before ever seeing the highest tier weapons.

I think having a pipe gun for each branch would help starting players pick a tree earlier. Currently i cant craft a pistol till i get pistol parts, but i might be more interested in speccing into pistols earlier if i can craft a shoddy flintlock pistol, and speccing weapons early means less points spent in questing perks or survival perks.

I like the idea of stretching out the blunderbuss stage, i enjoy having 3 blunderbusses on my toolbar, id like to try out a musket and flintlock pistol too. Melee is useful for a long time still, pipe weapons are a liability when dealing with large numbers.

I think they need to tune down the amount of ammo we get by a LOT. Traders offer full stacks of shotgun ammo on t1 quests, i have more shotgun ammo on my current game than blunderbuss ammo, and the trader was selling a pump action for 800 dukes, so it was kind of a no brainer, my blunderbusses are just there for aesthetics.

Id like to see more gunpowder in loot and less ammo even if it is unrealistic. gunpowder means you need to unlock a bunch of things before really being able to get your regular ammo, but having a ton of GP, no workbench and a couple of pipe weapons, making blackpowder ammo seems like a tempting choice.

 

[Tmodloader]

from patch to patch i got the same situation, late game stage zombies too weak.

What if zombies HP and damage increased with game stage?

e.g.

Stage - HP | Damage

Player is under 5 level - 100% | 100%

First GS - 125% | 100%

Second GS - 150% | 175%

Third GS - 175% | 350%

Fourth GS - 200% | 500%

I incredibly strongly disagree with this and believe it would even be game ruining. If both loot and all zombies scale in health and damage, you'll end up with a very samey feeling game and it would ruin the fun of seeing yourself get stronger. More special zombie variants as game stage goes up are welcome but scaling all zombies and loot at the same time would be very damaging to fun.

 

[bloodmoth13]

I incredibly strongly disagree with this and believe it would even be game ruining. If both loot and all zombies scale in health and damage, you'll end up with a very samey feeling game and it would ruin the fun of seeing yourself get stronger. More special zombie variants as game stage goes up are welcome but scaling all zombies and loot at the same time would be very damaging to fun.

I have to agree. Maybe a zombie that buffs nearby zombies or something could work, effectively the same thing only there is a reason for it that wouldnt undermine your progression.

 

[Yopo]

from patch to patch i got the same situation, late game stage zombies too weak.

What if zombies HP and damage increased with game stage?

e.g.

Stage - HP | Damage

Player is under 5 level - 100% | 100%

First GS - 125% | 100%

Second GS - 150% | 175%

Third GS - 175% | 350%

Fourth GS - 200% | 500%

Looks like a recipe for zombie bullet sponge tanks. 

A demo with fourth gs would reck anything and everything it hit 

then the zombie are to op complaints would come rolling in I’m sure

 

[Onarr]

All the guns use falloff damage. Even the journal entry points that out.

Well from my experience maximal falloff damage means min damage, like 30% not 0 damage. Could at least mods like shotgun choke increase the range by 5?

And when we are on topic of shotguns, I do not really think they are in good place right now. Especially with their block damage. I have to be really pressed into corner to be willing to use them, because they just make every PoI into swiss cheese. You always risk destroying loot containers. 

I dont know, can anyone honestly say they like using shotguns how they are now? I got lucky last game and found schematic for combat shotgun. I was like: "Bingo!" I crafted Q2 on day 7. I used it like 10 times and soon completely stopped using it.

 

[Aldranon]

All the guns use falloff damage. Even the journal entry points that out.

I'm looking forward to fighting bandits with various ranged and melee weapons!

*End game, elite bandit "Kill Order" squad of 10*:

2 Snipers

2 Shotguns

2 MG's

4 Melee/tanks

There should be two of each (effective) ranged weapon, so it would be harder to disable their effectiveness.

Using a shotgun build against them would require some tactical skills.  

 

[Onarr]

I'm looking forward to fighting bandits with various ranged and melee weapons!

*End game, elite bandit "Kill Order" squad of 10*:

2 Snipers

2 Shotguns

2 MG's

4 Melee/tanks

There should be two of each (effective) ranged weapon, so it would be harder to disable their effectiveness.

Using a shotgun build against them would require some tactical skills.  

You mean charging them with grandpas moonshine and painkillers in full steel armor?

 

[Aldranon]

You mean charging them with grandpas moonshine and painkillers in full steel armor?

Thats what I was thinking!  

Playing SP, you'll have to fight in or around a POI using just a shotgun! 

Now playing MP... You got some serious options.  (Think sending one or two players in vehicles to take out the snipers, then your snipers could start to play.)

 

[Onarr]

Thats what I was thinking!  

Playing SP, you'll have to fight in or around a POI using just a shotgun! 

Now playing MP... You got some serious options.  (Think sending one or two players in vehicles to take out the snipers, then your snipers could start to play.)

I wonder if the AI is going to be that advanced that they try to stay at certain range, take cover etc. Enemy AI especially in voxel world got to be tough to program. But it would be pretty sweet. I remember playing dying light for the first time and encountering "bandits" for the first time. I died like 5 times before I learned how to deal with them.

 

[beHypE]

I think they need to tune down the amount of ammo we get by a LOT. Traders offer full stacks of shotgun ammo on t1 quests, i have more shotgun ammo on my current game than blunderbuss ammo, and the trader was selling a pump action for 800 dukes, so it was kind of a no brainer, my blunderbusses are just there for aesthetics.

Id like to see more gunpowder in loot and less ammo even if it is unrealistic. gunpowder means you need to unlock a bunch of things before really being able to get your regular ammo, but having a ton of GP, no workbench and a couple of pipe weapons, making blackpowder ammo seems like a tempting choice.

This. They chose to bottleneck the guns instead of bottlenecking the bullets, which imo is a big part of the overall problem. It would be way better if you had a gun early but only half a clip of ammo. Each bullet counts, use it sparingly. 

Also yeah, a T1 quest should give you maybe 30 bullets, not 120 as it currently is. Regarding buying guns, my 3-man party decided not to, in order for our first finds to be meaningful. Traders sell green AK47's for around 4K dukes, it's way too cheap and basically turns the game into a breeze instantly, while also devaluing everything you'll find for quite some time.

 

[JordanHameski]

If both loot and all zombies scale in health and damage, you'll end up with a very samey feeling game and it would ruin the fun of seeing yourself get stronger.

i didn't write nothing about loot scaling

in late game you have Stainless Steel block with 17000 durability

lets take ZombieBear base HP - 2000

Scaling it to the Game Stages


Gamestage


HP


Damage Entity


Damage Blocks


First


2500


50


80


Second


3000


87.5


140


Third


3500


175


280


Fourth


4000


250


400



As you can see, yeah, ZombieBear can probably one hit kill you in late game, but still can't break your Stainless Steel block for long time.

ok, i know what you think, what's about server settings on 200% zombie difficulty with 300% zombies block damage, lets calculate, again with ZombieBear


Gamestage


HP


Damage Entity


Damage Blocks - 300%


200% difficulty | Base stage


4000


100


400


First


5000


100


400


Second


6000


175


700


Third


7000


350


1400


Fourth


8000


500


2000



Yeah, now its kinda OP for late game if you like hardcore. But if you got all Tier 3 guns with full armor perks, you can kill him.

At the Blood Horde night you need more Stainless Steel block on your def place, because ZombieBear can remove one block with 8-9 hits, but in late game, you got turrets, traps and modded weapons with 30% chance to One Shot any zombie.

I want more late game improvements, IMHO

Sorry if i write with mistakes, i have only Pre-Intermediate knowledge of English language

 

[JordanHameski]

All streamers who played A18.4 and A19 Experimental play in one way.
Day 1 - God damn't so hard

Day 10 - Wow, I am invulnerable

Day 20 - Damn, radiated zombies

Day 30 - Kill chamber, tons of loot "Ok guys, I done for now, waiting till next patch come. For now i play another survival game"

hit me in my face if i wrong