PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Gazz said:
What are you even talking about?

Do you expect "just turrets" to do all the work for you while you watch? At no point was such a thing even suggested.
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I can confirm that BATON+TURRETS are barely enough to hold off an horde. I can also confirm that the exact same applies for every single attribute out there if you are butt-naked in the open. With a basic general-purpose Tower defense base I can also confirm that bases are perfectly defended at the same degree for any attribute, but then again Intellect has quite the trader/quest benefits and extremely cheap ways to build and save resources does it not? 

Who would've thunk uh? you need to use intellect like a person who uses intellect in order to take advantage of an attribute created after the concept of "intellect".

Let's see if the drone doesn't unbalance it further.

 
I have a question : there is idea about new "versions" of zombies like : another type of doctor , riot police , child zombie or just diffrent clothes color for zombies?

 
Gazz said:
I don't think it says anywhere that it's supposed to be the cheapest. It's certainly the weapon with the most easily attained ammo type.

The damage of 2 turrets is in no way supposed to be equal to a maxed out T3 gun. That would be silly because it works in addition to the weapon you are holding - which can be anything.
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It would be cool if the turrets were slightly better when used as a primary weapon though.  Maybe a buff to range and slight range in damage if you spec into them and while you are holding them as your primary weapon. 

The game is pretty damn good atm though, and I am sure there will probably be some weapon tweaks once bandits are in, heh. 

 
Gazz said:
The damage of 2 turrets is in no way supposed to be equal to a maxed out T3 gun. That would be silly because it works in addition to the weapon you are holding - which can be anything.
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I mean, this just loops back to the issue of "Intellect doesn't have an endgame weapon" then where it's the only perk line that isn't balanced to stand on it's own as a fleshed out build.

I don't really understand the logic of why Int isn't supposed to be a full build. Yes you can use the two turrets + hold a gun too if you want to spend the points and resources to do so. . . and doing that should definitely beat out someone who spent far less resources to do the same thing

Easy made up example comparison (not real numbers)

Fully perked Autoshotgun with all mods vs horde = Lets say 20 perk points invested and 50 shotgun shells

Fully perked Dual junk turrets vs horde = 20 perk points +  thousands of junk ammo and a dead player

Fully perked dual junk turrets + unperked auto shottie vs horde = 20 perk points + thousands of junk ammo + probably still 30 or more shotgun shells

ATM Junk turrets drain way more resources for less payoff and relies on dipping into other builds

If you don't want Junk Turrets to equal a real gun, then Int . . . needs a real gun that stands on it own end game.The drone was stated to not be offense oriented, and no dev has explained what is going to balance the drone to stop it from being used by every other build who *doesn't* have to sacrifice 50% of their damage to use it like an Int build does by giving up a turret slot to use it

Gazz said:
Do you expect "just turrets" to do all the for for you while you watch?
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I mean, yeah basically? Or at least enough of it to where the player can contribute a bit with melee and get by. Their only real use or role is basically just as an afk type defense weapon, which a lot of players like myself love. I'm always a summoner in games, I love being able to summon an army to fight for me while I walk around looting, even though it's definitely never the best meta build, it's good when it's at least viable and stands on it's own as "functional but boring to many"

That's literally their only niche, clearing rooms and roaming hordes and stuff while the player mines or is off looting.

If that's not the intended use of them . . . then what is? There seems to be a pretty big disconnect between dev logic and player expectations here lol

 
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Have there been any advances where you guys feel like you will be able to up the default max alive zombie count to 16, or greater?

 
MechanicalLens said:
Why not... do it yourself? The option exists you know. 😛
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Oh, I totally do.  I play insane, nightmare, 64 zombies, horde every night and permadeath. 

But they balance the game around default settings, and I know they have been wanting to make the default a higher number. 

Was just curious if they had made any advances where they believe they will be able to up the default number. 

After playing 64 for a while now, I think players would really enjoy 16+ zombies.  Somewhere between 16 and 32 seems about right. 

 
pregnable said:
Oh, I totally do.  I play insane, nightmare, 64 zombies, horde every night and permadeath. 

But they balance the game around default settings, and I know they have been wanting to make the default a higher number. 

Was just curious if they had made any advances where they believe they will be able to up the default number. 

After playing 64 for a while now, I think players would really enjoy 16+ zombies.  Somewhere between 16 and 32 seems about right. 
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What you have to realize is that TFP have to cater around the lowest common denominator, whatever that might be; either 2GB or 4GB computers I reckon. 8 zombies alive is probably optimal for those lower end computers. You also have to consider that a new player might find even 8 zombies max alive to be a difficult proposition to defeat every 7 days.

 
MechanicalLens said:
What you have to realize is that TFP have to cater around the lowest common denominator, whatever that might be; either 2GB or 4GB computers I reckon. 8 zombies alive is probably optimal for those lower end computers. You also have to consider that a new player might find even 8 zombies max alive to be a difficult proposition to defeat every 7 days.
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Yeah, although I am pretty sure they have said before they would like to get the number higher than 8. 

If it were 16, then they would balance it around 16, so it would be easier for new players anyway. 

16+ has a bit of a better horde feel though.  It is whatever the game engine and technology will allow though.  Maybe that will be a surprise for A20?

 
pregnable said:
Have there been any advances where you guys feel like you will be able to up the default max alive zombie count to 16, or greater?
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It’s the 64 zombie maximum that’s dictated by performance, more than the default max alive setting.  And that’s a hard limit, even if max alive x number of players is more than 64.

Outside of horde night, if the ‘budget’ for number of zombies at once does improve, I think the prevailing preference among players is to have more zombies out and about via the biome spawners.

 
Good day to you @faatal ! I have a couple of questions that might be of interest.

1-What are you working on at the moment ?

2- Any plans on revisiting trees at some point ?

I noticed that there are art/performance inconsistencies on some trees ( grown mapple less performant than the others  , some high branches don't match art and shadows of pine trees are floating and displaced in some growing stages at lowest shadow settings [near]). 

















 
Can't wait to trade all my rocks from my mine to this sexy beast
Ewu6rcUVIAIFaKT


 
The model is impressive. Very high quality, even the shells are badass. The hair finally came out perfect, the textures are a 10, both attention to detail and material accuracy. No complaints here. When it's good it's good.

I hope the animations are excellent too, mocap goodness, no clipping and all that.

 
I really appreciate all that stuff, but...well...with my potato rig any possible future "4K-turbo-rendering-version" of Joel will - in any case -just look like this:

image.png

so thanks for nothing 😂

 
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Will we ever be able to see our current handwear on the first person hand model at some point? It seems like a tiny detail, but it would definitely improve the sense of really wearing clothes rather than having naked hands despite being fully geared out. I'd love to see how military or steel gloves would look on the character's hands. Really badass when you picture it.

 
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