PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Khalagar]

I can definitely confirm that new players / casual players do not understand the current forge at all. My friend with 600+ hours still never touches the forge beyond knowing not to destroy mine or I'll screech at him

If he needs forged iron or steel for a weapon or mod and there's not any in the box, he just walks to the trader to buy some or asks me to make some, and wouldn't understand the crucible / clay / iron stats in the forge. There's a basically zero chance he'd sit in a mineshaft for 20 minutes IRL mining iron and stone and clay etc either. I'm not going to outright say that run and gun players  have severe ADHD but I'm going to imply it

 

[khzmusik]

The extra step of smelting adds nothing but more clicking.

I disagree. Since scrapping items (made out of brass or lead) always leads to fewer materials, it adds a trade-off between inventory space and the need for more resources.

Not much of an issue with lead (since it's 100x easier to mine than to loot) but is kind of a big deal with brass.

The scrap time for brass, on the other hand...

 

[Burrfly]

OMG STABLE IS OUT!!! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR SO LONG THANK YOU TFP NOW WE ARE GONNA PLAY FOR REAL DDDDDDD

 

[Gazz]

I disagree. Since scrapping items (made out of brass or lead) always leads to fewer materials, it adds a trade-off between inventory space and the need for more resources.

Only if you don't put down a forge in the area you're looting.

The argument of having to have the right material smelted falls apart as soon as you build more forges. Whether you have materials idling in the forge or idling in the chest next to it makes no practical difference.

Sure, many games have both smelting and smithing but the smelting is typically for crafting raw materials into ingots and nothing else so there is no choice involved in that. You always have to smelt the ore anyway...

 

[hiemfire]

Only if you don't put down a forge in the area you're looting.

The argument of having to have the right material smelted falls apart as soon as you build more forges. Whether you have materials idling in the forge or idling in the chest next to it makes no practical difference.

Sure, many games have both smelting and smithing but the smelting is typically for crafting raw materials into ingots and nothing else so there is no choice involved in that. You always have to smelt the ore anyway...

So semi implying, if taken in concert with what madmole mentioned a few months back involving smelting, that the point of pulling smelting as exists currently is to remove the molten reservoir portion of the forge but still have to craft the lower grade components together using the forge to get the old products?

Iirc isn't/wasn't there a nasty bug involved with having the amount of material stored in a forge too high causing game save corruption? If so changing out the reservoir system for direct crafting with a bit of crafting time increase is a decent way to nip that one.

 

[Grenin]

Only if you don't put down a forge in the area you're looting.

The argument of having to have the right material smelted falls apart as soon as you build more forges. Whether you have materials idling in the forge or idling in the chest next to it makes no practical difference.

Sure, many games have both smelting and smithing but the smelting is typically for crafting raw materials into ingots and nothing else so there is no choice involved in that. You always have to smelt the ore anyway...

It certainly made a lot more sense when 7DTD had raw ore.  Now it seems not to make as much sense.  The cement especially seems like it doesn't really fit.  

 

[Firecat]

But after you have your vehicles and chem station there isn't a lot more you can do with acid. The only recurring resources that use it as Learning Elixir, Moonshine, Recog and Sham, none of which seems worth spending acid on.

In your opinion. Some of us like and want to use most of those consumables. Obviously you shouldn't be able to craft them in bulk (the acid was a good gate for that even back in a19) but it's nice to be able to make the choice to use a few acid to make one or two of those when you want them later game. Right now you can't, because by horde 3 you'll still need a chemstation and be looking for wheels, especially if you don't abuse the trader. Learning Elixir and Recog are great on horde nights, and Sham Chowder is wonderful for allowing the saving of a few skill points for farming, even more crucial now that farming has been changed to really need LOTL 3. I would be okay with the current acid scarcity if it was JUST used for vehicles and chem stations, but nothing that is used to make anything consumable should be SO rare you can consistently only find like average 5 in 25 days, like I have every game a20 so far. Especially when it is also used to craft game essentials like vehicles and workstations. (Yes, you can get these from traders too, but I thought they were moving away from having the trader be the most OP thing in the game, not trying to make it worse?) Now it is easier to actually find all these consumables precrafted in loot (especially recog, for some reason) than it is to find their ingredient, which doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[doughphunghus]

Having to smelt does, to a limited extent, factor into time management.

I concur. It also adds heat and can call screamers, which is also a time management issue (save time but smelt less by trying not to get them called, or have to spend time dealing with them).  I think the mechanic of "time management" is good when you have 7 day (or whatever) hordes turned on as it makes you make decisions vs just grinding and having to make mini sacrifices ("do I craft or do some looting/selling... or reinforce the base. I only have a few hours!"). Insta crafting (or just faster crafting) takes away that mini panic feeling of having to hurry which, I believe, makes the game/zeds a bit "scarier" because you're already amped up (even if a little bit) rushing around.

 

[hiemfire]

I concur. It also adds heat and can call screamers, which is also a time management issue (save time but smelt less by trying not to get them called, or have to spend time dealing with them).  I think the mechanic of "time management" is good when you have 7 day (or whatever) hordes turned on as it makes you make decisions vs just grinding and having to make mini sacrifices ("do I craft or do some looting/selling... or reinforce the base. I only have a few hours!"). Insta crafting (or just faster crafting) takes away that mini panic feeling of having to hurry which, I believe, makes the game/zeds a bit "scarier" because you're already amped up (even if a little bit) rushing around.

Time is the core resource of the game, especially with Bloodmoon Horde turned on. Everything you do, you trade time for. Everything.

 

[Khalagar]

the point of pulling smelting as exists currently is to remove the molten reservoir portion of the forge but still have to craft the lower grade components together using the forge to get the old products?

Sounds like they just want the Forge to be another workbench like the workbench / chemstation / fire etc

Which would make more sense than it currently being a weird outlier / relic of an old game design that doesn't really make sense / add anything of use

Heat management and time management etc can all be easily applied to any new form of forge without much issue, all while being less clunky and confusing to people who have the attention span of a dead gnat

 

[SnowDog1942]

 Size does not matter. 

Thats what she tells you but then behind your back she complains to her best friends and when they meet you they give you funny looks and you feel embarased and it makes me want to cry and never come outside and meet chicks again. /cry  

So ive heard

 

[faatal]

Thats what she tells you but then behind your back she complains to her best friends and when they meet you they give you funny looks and you feel embarased and it makes me want to cry and never come outside and meet chicks again. /cry  

So ive heard

When I wrote those words, I figured I would be hearing from you.

 

[meganoth]

Only if you don't put down a forge in the area you're looting.

The argument of having to have the right material smelted falls apart as soon as you build more forges. Whether you have materials idling in the forge or idling in the chest next to it makes no practical difference.

Sure, many games have both smelting and smithing but the smelting is typically for crafting raw materials into ingots and nothing else so there is no choice involved in that. You always have to smelt the ore anyway...

Ah yes, multiple forges destroy my argument. Which leaves ambience as an argument to keep the current forge.

Sounds like they just want the Forge to be another workbench like the workbench / chemstation / fire etc

Which would make more sense than it currently being a weird outlier / relic of an old game design that doesn't really make sense / add anything of use

Heat management and time management etc can all be easily applied to any new form of forge without much issue, all while being less clunky and confusing to people who have the attention span of a dead gnat

If someone like the friend you talked about has no interest in learning the game but just wants to tag along or shoot at anything moving or do other things in the game, that is totally fine. But the game doesn't need to be dumbed down for people who don't want to learn it anyway.

Because forges are not so complicated that someone interested couldn't learn it, even with a low IQ. This is just indifference that keeps him from understanding it.

 

[Darklegend222]

Are the settings on the test world PvP enabled? I'm all for playing on it and doing what I normally do if it's disabled. Otherwise I'll just head back to singleplayer. Edit: it is set to PvP enabled so I'm gonna head on out, props to everyone in PvP for sticking with it! I wish all of you the best of luck.

 

[bdubyah]

That's the problem right there. It is complex, yes, but it has zero depth.

You have a forge so you can craft forged iron and other things as long as you have the iron.

The extra step of smelting adds nothing but more clicking. The time spent can just as easily be rolled into the crafting time.

Features that add complexity but no depth are nothing but bloat.

I have to disagree with that. It's part of the game. Anyone who has any time in this game knows that. It lacks depth because that depth has been removed over the years. As stated, it made much more sense when you mined raw iron and other raw resources instead of the same resource you get from scrapping something. I just don't see that being an improvement. The only reason the forge seems to be an outlier is because it was made that way with all the other bits around it being stripped out. There's nothing wrong with it.

If a new player cannot figure it out without flashing signs and excessive hand-holding, then that should be on them to put the effort in to learn it. It's not on the game to dumb itself down until the slowest player can do it with ease. Some hover tooltips wouldn't be the worst thing, and I would much rather see that than have the forge basically removed from the game. But constantly changing things because 'iz 2 hrd" isn't good because it just makes people that aren't new to the game confused as well because @%$# keeps changing. This game really just needs to be pushed to gold before it's a completely different game. Take all these ideas and use them for the sequel.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I have to disagree with that. It's part of the game. Anyone who has any time in this game knows that. It lacks depth because that depth has been removed over the years. As stated, it made much more sense when you mined raw iron and other raw resources instead of the same resource you get from scrapping something. I just don't see that being an improvement. The only reason the forge seems to be an outlier is because it was made that way with all the other bits around it being stripped out. There's nothing wrong with it.

If a new player cannot figure it out without flashing signs and excessive hand-holding, then that should be on them to put the effort in to learn it. It's not on the game to dumb itself down until the slowest player can do it with ease. Some hover tooltips wouldn't be the worst thing, and I would much rather see that than have the forge basically removed from the game. But constantly changing things because 'iz 2 hrd" isn't good because it just makes people that aren't new to the game confused as well because @%$# keeps changing. This game really just needs to be pushed to gold before it's a completely different game. Take all these ideas and use them for the sequel.

What you want and what needs to be done are two totally separate things. We, the 1000+ hour players who want and love depth, are simply not the target audience, and that isn't an outcry, that's just life. That's just business. What's bad for business is a new player attempting to figure out what to do with the forge, getting frustrated, rage quitting the game, and leaving it a bad review. A good mainstream game should have every mechanic be easily accessible and easy to understand at the snap of a finger. It's a major problem, if you follow the subreddit - new players being puzzled with the mechanics of the forge (or "smelter") happens a lot more than you'd might think.

Regardless of what we want, the best possible system imho is for the forge, campfire, chem station, and cement mixer to be deleted and for the workbench to be the end-all-be-all, and for it to be simplified as well - no schematic, and only crafted with wood, glue, and short iron pipes. Additional pointers and hover over text would be beneficial as well.

Or at the very least, forgetting all that is above, a tutorial map that the game defaults to when creating a world.

 

[bdubyah]

Regardless of what we want, the best possible system imho is for the forge, campfire, chem station, and cement mixer to be deleted and for the workbench to be the end-all-be-all, and for it to be simplified as well - no schematic, and only crafted with wood, glue, and short iron pipes. Additional pointers and hover over text would be beneficial as well.

Annnd that's the dumbest thing I've read today. I want to laugh, but I'm too afraid you're serious. If the forge has been in the game as long as it has and people somehow can't figure it out, then let them not use the forge. Let them look up a video or ask in the forums. "Every mechanic be easily accessible and easy to understand at the snap of a finger" is absurd. When you pick up a new RPG game or strategy game or tower defense game, do you automatically know everything about it? Does the game tell you the best path to win? No, it doesn't. It gives you some hints and hopefully leaves you to figure it out. That's how it should work. If you want to play a game that is on rails and holds your hand beginning to end, go play COD or something. This game, while very successful, isn't a "mainstream" game and never will be. And I don't mean that in a negative way towards TFP or anything.

As I said before, this game just needs to go gold. Otherwise it will just continue to keep changing because things seem old and outdated. Which, they kind of are because this game is, what, 8 years old now? Quit changing core parts of the game and just be done with it. I love this game, and I respect TFP for what they've made, but at some point you've just got to accept what this game is and let it be. Make a sequel and try out all these other ideas and see how they work.

 

[mstdv inc]

Can we add a new reaction emoji? Christmas tree or Latan in Santa hat 
 

 

[Outlaw_187]

What? What Is your secret? With how little acid I find, the Greasemonkey perk feels so useless and wasteful because I'm not even finding enough of a key resource to craft with it. Why invest in something I will never have the resources to craft? 

In a19 you'd find enough acid to actually craft stuff.

 In alpha 20 atm anything that requires acid to craft  is like playing in a sandbox with no tools. You can't really do anything 

Yeah I'd say rng is F'ing you right in the A. I'm on day 6 now after a restart & I've got like 7 acid. 

Now my 1st playthrough when A20 dropped, I couldn't find antibiotics to save my life. Got to like day 7 or 8 & only found 2 honey. 

This playthrough I've got 4 blue & white antibiotics. Rng dude....

 

[Khalagar]

We can all agree that the rarest item in the game is actually the SMG. I've never seen a single one yet despite having almost every other weapon in the game, and haven't found the book either. Every streamer I saw said the same thing as well

SMG has to have some kind of super low RNG spawn chance. I guess that could be one alternative to the 44 mag issue. Have a pipe SMG that uses 9mm and have the pipe revolver use 44 mag rounds