PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Tmodloader]

I'm hoping they can nail down the sledge and turret issues in the next patch or two, the robotic weapons are in a pretty bad spot in A20. 

While I agree with literally everything else you said, including int tree issues (it's very niche compared to the others and a bit too focused on crafting when crafting is bad in general). I started using a turret I found and setting it up in POIs to run back to as I clear rooms (maining club and shotgun) and it has actually been a big help so far. I've only tried it for a little bit though so it's anecdotal, I'll have to see how it works in higher tier areas. I want to see some of the niche stuff get fixed like buffing the party, perhaps if you are alone, it can buff you? Stuff like that. 

Somehow strength feels so strong compared to everything else I've tried. I can't think of a good way to fix it though.

 

[Doomofman]

On an unrelated note to what's currently being discussed in this thread... 

One thing I'm loving in A20 is that some POIs have zombies in them that aren't included in the Clear quests which can lead to some nice surprises/panic moments when you think you've killed all the zombies because the clear quest is complete.

Can't remember all the ones I've run into so far but one of the farms has a hidden lumberjack, one of the factories has some surprise vultures and some other POI has a couple of Lois zombies (I forget her real name, I think she's Marlene or Darlene). 

 

[DEATH MECHANIC]

I have been playing with vulkan (on Linux) for all of a19 and a20 (though I had to disable a few advanced features like SSAO).

Except for the last patch, there seems to be a change that destabilized vulkan on my machine or made another feature not work. Eventually I have to get off my a** and make a bug report.

i didn't think that vulkan was "fully supported" yet, so i just figured that was probably the reason it has issues. i have some log files if you want them to go along with your report

I use Linux as well.

If the freezing is an unexpected bug i hope that its an easy fix, and maybe gets straightened out with the next hotfix.

I tried it during experimental, but abandoned it due to the freezing issues. It sounds like performance is going to greatly depend on specific graphics settings. I play on high with things like shadows turned down because shadows specifically murder performance in this game during certain times of day. If you play with shadows I could see Vulkan doubling your performance, but i'm not sure what other setting might have that effect.

Edit: I should mention I'm playing on Linux which may or may not affect the result.

If i play using glcore i have to stay around the medium settings with shadows off to have a decent experience gaming. Using vulkan i can play on high setting with shadows on low and have a much better gaming and visual experience. You are correct about the shadows "murdering performance" but the game looks sooo much better with the shadows on, with them off the games is way to bright and whitewashed for me to really enjoy.

Basically if i set the presets to high the game can become unplayable at times because the lag is so bad on glcore, framerate can drop to the teens. If i switch to vulkan and change no settings at all, i average almost double frame rates all over the map and the lag is almost gone completely. framerates stays above 40-50 fps in the same areas that it can drop to the teens using glcore.

i use Linux as well, btw

 

[Matt115]

Yeah, Madmole has hinted that A21 will have a lot of crafting changes to maybe make it more appealing. ATM crafting is basically pointless besides just for mods or *maybe* to craft a quality 5 t3 weapon if you didn't get one already, but once you've crafted it once you are done.

I'm really hoping the crafting perks get a pretty good overhaul as well, they are just a noob trap atm and are a complete waste of points. Madmole also mentioned knowing the int tree sucked as well, so hopefully it also gets a nice pass through to give it some buffs.  I'm hoping they can nail down the sledge and turret issues in the next patch or two, the robotic weapons are in a pretty bad spot in A20. The sledge can't hit jack crap thanks to the zombies crawl animation, and they both fall through the floor constantly so you can't even use the turrets in a PoI

Sad int boy is sad

Damn i want A21 roadmap now XD

 

[Demonoid74]

I really wish I could craft a Beaker right about now

 

[icehot]

I really wish I could craft a Beaker right about now

Day 43, still not found a beaker, but luckily found a chem station for sale!

 

[pregnable]

This game is weird, I see so many complaints that it's too hard but I frequently find it too easy but upping the settings any more makes the zombies become bullet sponges which I don't like either. It took me a few runs to get going but I'm almost on my second blood moon in permadeath with nightmare speed at night and run speed at day with 300% block damage for player and AI (including horde night).

My biggest dilemma lately is whether to try feral sense or not to see if that makes it feel tough for me without bullet sponges. I fear feral sense will make me want to go guns blazing everywhere instead of trying to sneak around.

You should try nightmare run speed at all times.  That is probably the setting that made the biggest difference for me.  I would try that before feral sense. 

I would also try insane difficulty again.  It is true that they become bullet sponges, sorta, but it is actually not that bad.  I did not want that either when I started insane, but after playing it for a while I found it to be just about right.  Any more and it would probably be annoying though.  Depends on what weapons you like to use. 

If your computer can handle it, try upping the number of max alive zombies.  I go with 64, but it does not really start to matter until later hordes. 

I had the same thoughts about feral sense... I am not going with it at the moment, because in a way, it could almost be easier.  I would probably just find myself luring zombies in a larger area to a kill zone, and then being more safe when I go out. 

The other thing you could try is horde every night.  It is not as annoying as it sounds, but it will probably make night time quests impossible lel.  Or just make it more frequent. 

 

[Star69]

I really wish I could craft a Beaker right about now

If they do allow us to craft beakers, it'll probably need 10 acid lol

 

[Khalagar]

I've only tried it for a little bit though so it's anecdotal, I'll have to see how it works in higher tier areas.

Try it in a laggy area, like T5 skyscrappers or cities when there are a ton of zombies chomping at your bits. That's when it starts happening for me

The sad part though is those moments are the times when you actually need a junk turret, and then it falls through the floor instead. I think I started having the no clip issues around t3 or t4 PoI

 

[Morloc]

Santa's helper says please!... "A command to either teleport your (missing) backpack to you, or teleport you to it."

Turning off drop is the cheese!

(Fixing missing backpacks would be most welcome of course.)



-Arch Necromancer Morloc 

 

[Callum123456789]

* yeah i feel like intellect as a whole is busted right now i basically have done a speed run to get a motorcycle as fast as possibly and my result is literally in 4 in game days.. this is by buying it from the trader and not crafting it all i had done was sell a bunch of brass break into a few city atms for the old cash got some sugar butts took apart roughly 50 cars and bam motorcycle the traders most definitely need reworking eventually lol

 

[Khalagar]

Judging by the fact that you appear to be level 22, with steel tools and quality 6 primitive ones etc, you definitely don't look like you are playing on standard day length / exp etc, and are likely on a MUCH higher gamestage than anyone would normally be on day 4.

Also, none of your strat involved intellect lol, unless that was your point. I guess you could have put a couple of points into better barter, but on normal progression most people would be level 6-8 by day 4 and wouldn't have maxed out better barter so it wouldn't impact the price that much

 

[Callum123456789]

Judging by the fact that you appear to be level 22, with steel tools and quality 6+ primitive ones etc, you definitely don't look like you are playing on standard day length / exp etc, and are likely on a MUCH higher gamestage than anyone would normally be on day 4.

Also, none of your strat involved intellect lol, unless that was your point. I guess you could have put a couple of points into better barter, but on normal progression most people would be level 6-8 by day 4 and wouldn't have maxed out better barter so it wouldn't impact the price that much

i mean im on nomad 100% xp and 90 min days  all i had done was go on a non stop killing spree to get max better barter thats my strat and the good old double looting technique and non stop quests for the extra salvage same case goes for alpha 19 too it was incredibly easy to just punch out a scrapping spree and sell things to the traders the best things are when you scrap a whole lot of cars they have to be full cars and if the game blesses you with good rng like it did with me it gave me a lot of tier 4 some tier 3 batteries and like one tier 6 if one trader doesnt want to buy more you just go to the other one same goes for if you are to sell any brass and for my tier 6 primitive tools thank the snow biome for that lol the modifier makes things much easier for getting good loot but the wasteland is too much of a push either way i didnt spawn there but i did spawn in the snow biome though

the main point i am trying to make from this is that the trader speeds up the game too fast if utilised efficiently early game before i had a teammate when playing mp just buy a lvl 2 ak rather than using the pipe machine gun for example like i do like getting better stuff from the trader but its too powerful

 

[Callum123456789]

Judging by the fact that you appear to be level 22, with steel tools and quality 6 primitive ones etc, you definitely don't look like you are playing on standard day length / exp etc, and are likely on a MUCH higher gamestage than anyone would normally be on day 4.

Also, none of your strat involved intellect lol, unless that was your point. I guess you could have put a couple of points into better barter, but on normal progression most people would be level 6-8 by day 4 and wouldn't have maxed out better barter so it wouldn't impact the price that much

another thing id like to mention i also bought the steel axe from the trader lol

 

[Khalagar]

Default day length is 60 minutes I think? So that's an extra 50% time per day, so day 4 on 90 minute days is about day 7 normal I think? A motorcycle on day 7 is still fast, but not like absolutely insanely unheard of fast. And yeah if you super sweaty min max it traders are good, but I think that's just one of those "Don't super sweaty min max it if you don't want end game gear that fast" situations imo

Traders could use some rebalancing, but I don't think the devs are balancing it based on hard core min maxing veteran player strats vs just making sure new players playing a normal pace don't buy a motorcycle before they've even got a bicycle

Honestly the main reason the traders out pace loot so fast is because the loot perks aren't as impactful as better barter + rng rolling from multiple traders is. If you just head straight to the wasteland with all the loot perks + loot candy and googles etc and rush to the top of a t5 to the loot room, you can find some pretty crazy stuff day 7 too. Day 1 alone I think you can find entire stacks of ammo per ammo container and you will very likely be finding level 1 steel tools etc there as well.

IIRC Wasteland adds like 50 to the loot stage, and a tier 5 PoI adds another bonus to it, so you can push your loot stage pretty high if you min max it

 

[Callum123456789]

Default day length is 60 minutes I think? So that's an extra 50% time per day, so day 4 on 90 minute days is about day 7 normal I think? A motorcycle on day 7 is still fast, but not like absolutely insanely unheard of fast. And yeah if you super sweaty min max it traders are good, but I think that's just one of those "Don't super sweaty min max it if you don't want end game gear that fast" situations imo

Traders could use some rebalancing, but I don't think the devs are balancing it based on hard core min maxing veteran player strats vs just making sure new players playing a normal pace don't buy a motorcycle before they've even got a bicycle

Honestly the main reason the traders out pace loot so fast is because the loot perks aren't as impactful as better barter + rng rolling from multiple traders is. If you just head straight to the wasteland with all the loot perks + loot candy and googles etc and rush to the top of a t5 to the loot room, you can find some pretty crazy stuff day 7 too. Day 1 alone I think you can find entire stacks of ammo per ammo container and you will very likely be finding level 1 steel tools etc there as well.

IIRC Wasteland adds like 50 to the loot stage, and a tier 5 PoI adds another bonus to it, so you can push your loot stage pretty high if you min max it

i mean i have some sort of idea where the trader has 4 tiers of inventory stages for example stage 1 player level 0 to 15 is the primitive stage stage 2 for player levels 15 to 30 with iron tools and slightly higher tier weapons foods and all the sorts stage 3 for player levels 30 to 45 with a moderately higher chance for higher tier weapons and finally stage 4 player level 45 to 60 where high end gear is almost guaranteed this is what i thought up in literally 2 minutes so of course it might be flawed

 

[POCKET951]

where do you find high quality weapons and armor in the late game? currently tier 3-5 end POI containers only have ammo and medical supplies. you occasionally get stuff in the weapon bags and other containers.

is this the intended philosophy?

 

[Callum123456789]

where do you find high quality weapons and armor in the late game? currently tier 3-5 end POI containers only have ammo and medical supplies. you occasionally get stuff in the weapon bags and other containers.

is this the intended philosophy?

Hit up some tier 3 4 and 5 poi's in the snow biome or wasteland that'll do the trick try wearing some lucky goggles and popping some eye kandy too

 

[POCKET951]

Hit up some tier 3 4 and 5 poi's in the snow biome or wasteland that'll do the trick try wearing some lucky goggles and popping some eye kandy too

I have been... lvl 90 ish, loot stage 200+ in the winter biome and with goggles, and all I get is heaping piles of ammo for the most part

 

[Callum123456789]

where do you find high quality weapons and armor in the late game? currently tier 3-5 end POI containers only have ammo and medical supplies. you occasionally get stuff in the weapon bags and other containers.

is this the intended philosophy?

Hit up some tier 3 4 and 5 poi's in the snow biome or wasteland that'll do the trick try wearing some lucky goggles and popping some eye kandy too

I have been... lvl 90 ish, loot stage 200+ in the winter biome and with goggles, and all I get is heaping piles of ammo for the most part

Well that's really odd hmmmm is your loot abundance lowered by any chance?

I have been... lvl 90 ish, loot stage 200+ in the winter biome and with goggles, and all I get is heaping piles of ammo for the most part

I guess just keep on looting id probs recommend doing a lot of tier 3 and 4 poi's rather than 5 because they take a long time