PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Khalagar said:
Silencer does not work, or rather, not in any way that's useful. From my tests, silencer only works on roaming hordes or zombies that are already awake. Stealth as a whole basically doesn't work, which is why hunting rifle is better than the bow IMO.

You won't wake any sleepers if you stand outside their aggro radius with a hunting rifle and just crouch and head shot them. Sleepers only wake when you enter their aggro zone, there's basically a big invisible border denoting where the "sleeper room" starts. Up to that zone, you can literally just take a fire axe to the wall and open a window to shoot through, crouch, and stand there head shotting every single sleeper in the room from outside the room, and the zombies won't wake up. Even when there are two standing side by side, they won't wake up when you kill the one next to them

They seem to only wake up if you miss a shot and hit a wall or the floor etc, which probably registers you as being in the room, or if you don't get a one hit kill they will sometimes wake up when the angry sleeper does.

Stealth as a whole is in as bad of / worse shape than the Int perk line is imo, as stealth is completely pointless on the most important night of the week, and it doesn't matter against  sleepers either. Stealth really only matters against roaming hordes and already awake zombies, which are rarely ever a threat
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Oh, so it really is that bad, oof. What is the point of the silencer then, seriously, why bother.

I know they aren't totally silent irl, but making them silent enough to not wake sleepers would make sense, otherwise, again, what is the point.

As for wandering hordes, I handle those differently, stealth is the last thing I'm worried about. Usually solved via molotov & AK, or if I am in the mood I'll kite them all around and take'm out one by one with a bat. Nades are fun if I have'm.

When I "level up" stealth I only really get the damage increase perk, don't bother with the increased silence stuff as it does not seem to make a difference. I can successfully stealth a POI as things are, with a bow & stone arrows. Headshots are key, until you level up that damage anyway, then it gets easier and even body shots can be a one shot kill.

 
Yeah stealth is weird often, zombies really wake up only if you are in thir aggro radius but once you enter POI when you shoot one with rifle, you are always in the aggro radius of several zombies and you wake up them. Stealth skill work fine for me, if you combine it only with cloth armor, and bow you can stay almost next to them + bow has 200% steath bonus combine with assassin skill you can kill almost every zombie with just one arrow to the head even on higher difficuilties like warrior or survivalist. 

Weird is when you stand outside of POI, there is some parking with some sleepers you can just shot them from one meter with shotgun and you don't wake up anything because you are out that aggro radius... But what break the stealth most for me are skripts. Often in the POI are rooms with skripts, once you enter them every zombie wake up no matter how good is your stealth. I hate that.

 
Khalagar said:
Sorry, it's strength itself that does

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Not when I'm doing an int build no. Bows are . . . . okay, kind of. They are pretty outclassed by hunting rifles which will one hit headshot kill with sneak attacks without needing perks, and with better range. Arrows are easier to craft, but you get bullets so commonly in A19 that I almost always have 500+ 7.62mm rounds before I've even found a gun

You can obviously use off attribute weapons, but my point was more talking about focused builds like you typically have when playing in coop, where each person specializes in a specific weapon and play style so they don't compete for resources / because it's more fun. Int doesn't have the weapon variety to even *do* a full int focused build for the first few weeks, and even later on it just doesn't work well for it, so you end up just relying on shotguns typically, since most int builds will probably have strength for Miner 69 and Motherlode as those are basically required for the int play style to even work

Yeah, I don't like the change either honestly. Mainly because the attribute points are wasted if you are using an off attribute weapon. Like if you really want Parkour but don't even use bows or pistols, every point you sink into Agility doesn't do anything and is just filler. I'd much rather attributes act like, y'know, attributes. Increase strength to get more inventory slots / melee damage, increase agility to increase jump height / run speed, increase endurance to increase stamina regen etc

The "asymmetrical play-style" can be kept while also just making the perk line better designed towards that goal. You can still have a defense focused play style that plays different from the others, that's fine and cool. The part that isn't is that the perk line doesn't even work for the first few weeks. That doesn't benefit anyone and just makes the playstyle *less* unique in that you have to just use the same off attribute shotguns and bows like every other build.

I wasn't talking about the stun baton perk, I was talking about the robotic perk line. You can buy both  the melee / ranged perk starting level 1 in every other tree, but not in the Int tree

I have like 500+ hours alone on int builds lol, the only build I've never done is a brawler build based on knuckles, and a full machete only focused build because machete is bad in every test I've tried it with.  Nearly every build I do ends up just being strength / int because they fit my playstyle.

Your video is likely on a lower difficulty than mine, and you seem to have exp turned up. You used the stun baton against a couple of basic zombies and still had to kite and struggle, spawn those same zombies and try the same test with a fully perked level 6 steel club, you'll 1-2 shot them and be done in a fraction of the time without needing to kite.  The baton wasn't really doing anything for you there that a steel axe wouldn't have done, probably done easier as well. Steel axe did pretty well in my tests of all the weapons actually
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There are two things deliberately done by the game designers AFAIK:

1) strength as the entry level beginners attribute is easiest to play, with the best weapon selection in the game and best resource perks as well.

2) Int is supposed to be weaker at fighting than other classes.

If we just look at weapons it is roughly Str > For > Agi, Per > Int  .

What does that mean:

1) It is no surprise you can play a str build in a higher difficulty and have difficulties with all other attributes (maybe except for Fortitude because you get ammo too easy so its disadvantage of high ammo costs and subpar melee never really surfaces early enough to be relevant)

2) ALL attributes look bad when compared to Str. The solution, if desired, would not be to make INT weapons better but to make Str weaker

3) If you always compare Int to Str weapons only but never allow Int to use the strategy where it works best by using whatever off attribute weapon you have ammo for in combination with turrets and baton, then that comparison is stacked against it three times.

As single player you have tons of ammo for other guns, if you use them even without perking into them you have an easy time and don't need to perk into miner at all

As co-op multiplayer you could easily go into pois with your co-op player and let them use the ammo while you can easily stun zombies and have the turrets stay as safety a little behind where they don't use much ammo. Also you then usually have a miner in the group who can supplement your scrap ammo diet.

 
Firingo said:
But what break the stealth most for me are skripts. Often in the POI are rooms with skripts, once you enter them every zombie wake up no matter how good is your stealth. I hate that.
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I wonder if the script isn't doing a stealth check?  (Or maybe it is but isn't working?). I would make it so that a room wouldn't wake up if stealth was above the rooms threshold.  The stealth required would be based on zombie level.  Rooms with higher level Zs would require higher stealth to not wake up.

BUT I would also make it so that if the player messes up, there is a good chance the whole POI could wake up.  Sneaking deep into a large POI only to have everything wake up toward the end could make for some heart pounding moments, especially for those underground ones with only one way out!

 
Roland said:
 He just posted that there is a minimum of 32. But that number will rise and fall over the next few weeks. Better to trust an emoji countdown than a MF countdown...
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You don't realize how many members you put into a spiraling deep depression with that remark

 
DanLW said:
I wonder if the script isn't doing a stealth check?  (Or maybe it is but isn't working?). I would make it so that a room wouldn't wake up if stealth was above the rooms threshold.  The stealth required would be based on zombie level.  Rooms with higher level Zs would require higher stealth to not wake up.

BUT I would also make it so that if the player messes up, there is a good chance the whole POI could wake up.  Sneaking deep into a large POI only to have everything wake up toward the end could make for some heart pounding moments, especially for those underground ones with only one way out!
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Roland talked about this just 9 hours ago






 
Roland said:
 He just posted that there is a minimum of 32. But that number will rise and fall over the next few weeks. Better to trust an emoji countdown than a MF countdown...
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You don't realize how many members you put into a spiraling deep depression with that remark

for some reason this posted twice. Maybe someone higher up knows the importance of this statement :)

 
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Roland said:
@hiemfire I feel it incumbant to inform you as your main foil in this issue that today a ticket was created to look at making the attack volumes run a stealth check first and only if that stealth check fails will they attack. Seems "Auto Attack" is getting fixed.

Congratulations on a year's worth of lively debate ending in your favor. You have my capitulation. 🏳️

As long as there is still a chance for a failed roll and therefore some variation to stealth play, I'm fine with it. I just hope it isn't essentially a nonexistent chance.

Maybe it could be like the chance for vomiting used to be.... ;)
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Yes there is a ticket, but how stealth will be improved in those situations is still up in the air.  Programming will have to take a look and see what can be done first...

 
Roland said:
@hiemfire I feel it incumbant to inform you as your main foil in this issue that today a ticket was created to look at making the attack volumes run a stealth check first and only if that stealth check fails will they attack. Seems "Auto Attack" is getting fixed.
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Nice. Looking forwards to testing it out if/when it gets implemented. Hopefully my pc will be fixed so I can play again by then.

Roland said:
Maybe it could be like the chance for vomiting used to be.... ;)
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A coinflip? Please not that bad above 2 points into the perk.

 
DanLW said:
I wonder if the script isn't doing a stealth check?  (Or maybe it is but isn't working?). I would make it so that a room wouldn't wake up if stealth was above the rooms threshold.  The stealth required would be based on zombie level.  Rooms with higher level Zs would require higher stealth to not wake up.

BUT I would also make it so that if the player messes up, there is a good chance the whole POI could wake up.  Sneaking deep into a large POI only to have everything wake up toward the end could make for some heart pounding moments, especially for those underground ones with only one way out!
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It's not a script. Some sleeper areas are configured to wake up the sleepers as soon as someone enters it.

 
Roland said:
 He just posted that there is a minimum of 32. But that number will rise and fall over the next few weeks. Better to trust an emoji countdown than a MF countdown...
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Where is this Emoji countdown you refer to.  Is it on some double secret internal page?

🤣

 
Question why the heck can you guys all use MFS and i upload one picture of it to a rude post.

I get placed in watch for each post?

Middle Finger Salute. ( MFS )

I see a lot of people posting it and i post it once and i get punished?

Whats up you hate Canadiens or have something against Native Americans?

Or am i missing something?

I am not going back 100 pages to find out either.

 
wicketness said:
Question why the heck can you guys all use MFS and i upload one picture of it to a rude post.

I get placed in watch for each post?

Middle Finger Salute. ( MFS )

I see a lot of people posting it and i post it once and i get punished?

Whats up you hate Canadiens or have something against Native Americans?

Or am i missing something?

I am not going back 100 pages to find out either.
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MFs stand for Must Fix bugs which is how it has predominantly been used. Some people joke about what else MF could stand for but nobody posted a picture actually showing the gesture or having it spelled out and to at least two moderators it seemed it was also part of an angry retort to someone else's post so....flaming.  Any time anyone gets an infraction for any reason their account gets a cooldown period of a day or two where any further posts must be approved before they show up because some people react to an infraction point initially with a burn the world attitude. Discussing moderation publicly disrupts the forum so if you have further questions or need further explanation please PM a moderator.

 
khzmusik said:
As a professional programmer, that was not the wrong interpretation. :) There have been numerous times where our team was getting ready for a release, only for QA to find bugs that we caused when we fixed other bugs, and those new bugs were an order of magnitude more than the bugs we fixed. Really made CAB meetings exciting.

As far as the literal number goes, I was assuming MF bugs were the same as "Highest" plus "High" bugs, and the rest were "nice to have, but don't hold up a release" bugs.
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It was the wrong interpretation of those numbers. Having 100 bugs and then having 32. Apples to oranges comparison, since they were different stats.

 
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Khalagar said:
Your video is likely on a lower difficulty than mine, and you seem to have exp turned up. You used the stun baton against a couple of basic zombies and still had to kite and struggle, spawn those same zombies and try the same test with a fully perked level 6 steel club, you'll 1-2 shot them and be done in a fraction of the time without needing to kite.  The baton wasn't really doing anything for you there that a steel axe wouldn't have done, probably done easier as well. Steel axe did pretty well in my tests of all the weapons actually
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That's not my video.  If it had been, I would have broken out my guns a lot sooner when I realized I was going against specials and radiated zombies in that area...or go back over the wall to try to string them out.  That was a bad situation for the player as turrets were not placed in good spots and totally ignored after they were initially placed.  Not playing to the strengths of Int build / equipment and not accounting for the weaknesses.  Sure fully perk steel club would have kept the player alive and survived it, but that is because that tree is geared towards the starting player and the strengths are there to overcome mistakes the player makes.

Is a fully perked steel club easier to use than a knife or a stun baton?  Sure, nobody is going to argue that.  But why does the Int attributes or Agility attributes have to be on par with the strength attributes?  If everything must be on the same level, then they should just eliminate everything else as it wouldn't matter what choices you make in the game.

You can survive with agility builds and int builds, as long as you play smart.  The difference in those builds is that they are less forgiving if the player makes mistakes.

 
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