PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

Status
Not open for further replies.
bdubyah said:
But what does a loot option have to do with mining oil shale? Sure, 50% loot would reduce the bits of gas from pumps and stuff, but that isn't much to begin with. And I love the idea of running 50% or 75% loot, and I have in several games, but I'm not a fan of the way the game handles reduced loot.

And I never said anything about gas always being a crazy struggle. I do feel how it is now is too easy even for end game times. And sure, the beakers are RNG but for all the games I've played I have never had the issues some people have of being day 50 or 100 or whatever with not even one beaker to show for it. Maybe with reduced loot or no airdrops or not using traders it becomes an issue, but then you can't really complain.

I agree with this. Which is the point to my original post about gas. Yes, you need a beaker and a chem station, but getting those items doesn't take long enough in an average game to justify that being all it takes to have unlimited gas. And yes, I'm aware you still have to mine the oil shale and that somehow seems like a whole ordeal to some, but if you can't manage your time wisely enough to spend part of one day mining enough shale to last your whole play through, then that's on you. Vehicles in general are a bit easy mode in A20 thanks to the OP traders. Between them constantly having either the vehicle or parts themselves, the schems to make them or giving you a whole vehicle as a quest tier reward, it's easier than ever to get one and keep it fueled. I guess it's just a continuation from the last couple alphas of making the game easier in general.
Click to expand...


I agree with what you saying about gas. But at the same time (not sayin you) but some people forget about multi-player. Not everyone on multi-player plays in the same groups. So you gotta have a good balance imo. Loot can be very thin with several people. You get on and someone already looted all the gas pumps/places for gas. So it only leaves you to go mine for oil shale. But even in that case though. Like you said you can go to one shale and mine and come out in 10 minutes with stacks. So it wouldn't hurt for that to be cut back on how much you get per swing. Doesn't have to be extream/hardcore as the way it is now is extremely easy. So even cutting back a little would just feel normal.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know that there are already all new ideas realized in A21, but did you ever think of sharing the incoming XP based on kills by the environment? Maybe it is possible to set up some sort of base-owner. 

When you share the base with 2 or more other players it would become more fair. :)  

Maybe it has been discussed in the past. ^^

 
Laran Mithras said:
If one really wants fuel to be egregiously scarce, why not play on a no-desert map? And turn down loot to the lowest level.

I really think all the options are there for tailoring a particular type of scenario.
Click to expand...
I turned off the veins of oil shale through xml, increased the fuel consumption of transport by 50% and extracted gasoline only from cars.For 100 days of survival (60 minutes a day) I didn't have a fuel shortage.The number of cars that remained in the world would be enough for several survivings.This experience was interesting, but you need to look for a line after which an interesting gameplay will turn into a boring grind.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I consulted a healthcare professional today and he confirmed I am dying of impatience. The only remedy is dregs of information about A21.
It has been a problem for me in the past but my doctor said it probably flared up because of the radio silence since the holiday period. Hoping the devs just have their heads down hard at work and I might get my fix soon.

 
schwubdi said:
I know that there are already all new ideas realized in A21, but did you ever think of sharing the incoming XP based on kills by the environment? Maybe it is possible to set up some sort of base-owner. 

When you share the base with 2 or more other players it would become more fair. :)  

Maybe it has been discussed in the past. ^^
Click to expand...
Really I'd just like the share xp option to work on all gains, right now it doesn't include building or harvesting so a party that wants to stay the same will always start drifting apart.

 
UnicornSkull said:
If there is hunting in the game, then why not fishing? It would be possible to implement drying, smoking of fish and meat.
Click to expand...
Fishing has always been controversial, because hunger is an already very easy early game problem to solve.

If you add yet another way to get food to the game, you can as well remove hunger completely, because it would become a non-issue, and as such, a grind.

If they'll ever add fishing, they'll probably have to find a way to rebalance ALL food in the game, so that every way to get food stays relevant.

At least, that's my understanding of why fishing has not been a thing 'till now. Maybe I'm wrong.

 
UnicornSkull said:
If there is hunting in the game, then why not fishing? It would be possible to implement drying, smoking of fish and meat.
Click to expand...
Basically a nice idea but depending on how it would be implemented, it would take quite a lot of development time.

If it were like in Raft then you just hold the fishing rod into the water and a fish spawns in the inventory. If it were like in "The Infected", you would have to implement fish swimming in the water and the player would hunt them with a spear. That would probably be very complex to implement.

I don't think it would ever be implemented in Vanilla but for a mod an implementation similar to Raft might be possible.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jost Amman said:
Fishing has always been controversial, because hunger is an already very easy early game problem to solve.

If you add yet another way to get food to the game, you can as well remove hunger completely, because it would become a non-issue, and as such, a grind.

If they'll ever add fishing, they'll probably have to find a way to rebalance ALL food in the game, so that every way to get food stays relevant.

At least, that's my understanding of why fishing has not been a thing 'till now. Maybe I'm wrong.
Click to expand...


I don't think food balance would be a problem. In the same time that you hunt for meat walking around you could consume your time with fishing. If it was fishing with a spear you would also waste some stamina. Same effort in time and stamina, same random risk to even find anything to hunt or fish at all. And the result would be 5 meat as well if they want to keep the recipes simple.

 
yeah i gotta agree with food being very easy to deal with in a20 at least however i spec into rule 1 cardio and never wear armour early game so i barely burn stamina furthermore i dont burn much food at all and since i loot a lot i have plenty and if i dont i just go to the snow biome AKA the meat farm.

 
mstdv inc said:
I turned off the veins of oil shale through xml, increased the fuel consumption of transport by 50% and extracted gasoline only from cars.For 100 days of survival (60 minutes a day) I didn't have a fuel shortage.The number of cars that remained in the world would be enough for several survivings.This experience was interesting, but you need to look for a line after which an interesting gameplay will turn into a boring grind.
Click to expand...
I have considered a playthrough like this.

At how many points in Salvage Operations do you find that gasoline becomes trivial?

 
Laran Mithras said:
I have considered a playthrough like this.

At how many points in Salvage Operations do you find that gasoline becomes trivial?
Click to expand...
I prefer to get a bike as soon as possible, then a motorcycle and then a 4x4. Long before I got a motorcycle, I found my first wrench.Since then, I have periodically disassembled cars.Brass and gasoline were sent "to the warehouse" mechanical parts and electrics, and so on, I sold.By the time I got a motorcycle, I had more than 30,000 gasoline.In order to cover the cost of gasoline on a motorcycle, I had to disassemble cars once a game week for 15-20 minutes.Modification to reduce fuel consumption made life easier.Until the end of my survival, I did not use an auger and a chainsaw.When I started using 4x4, even with the modification, gasoline went much faster, but it still wasn't a big problem.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jost Amman said:
Fishing has always been controversial, because hunger is an already very easy early game problem to solve.

If you add yet another way to get food to the game, you can as well remove hunger completely, because it would become a non-issue, and as such, a grind.

If they'll ever add fishing, they'll probably have to find a way to rebalance ALL food in the game, so that every way to get food stays relevant.

At least, that's my understanding of why fishing has not been a thing 'till now. Maybe I'm wrong.
Click to expand...


The balance to easy, abundant food, would be that food goes bad.  All food spoils in 7 days (or on blood moon night for extra drama! ( EDIT: This would save on computer processing too)).

There are 3 tiers of food protection (of course):  Snow Box, Refrigerator and the Dehydrator.

All food can be "treated" only once:

-The Snow box is "fueled" with snow and adds 7 extra days to food, if items remain inside device.

-The Refrigerator is powered by electricity and adds 2 weeks of preservation if items remain inside device.

-The Dehydrator is powered by electricity and adds 4 weeks of preservation once the items are dehydrated, they can be removed.

Something like that.

Edit2: Items that are cooked becomes new food items and reset the spoil time to 7 days and then can be refrigerated.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jost Amman said:
Fishing has always been controversial, because hunger is an already very easy early game problem to solve.

If you add yet another way to get food to the game, you can as well remove hunger completely, because it would become a non-issue, and as such, a grind.

If they'll ever add fishing, they'll probably have to find a way to rebalance ALL food in the game, so that every way to get food stays relevant.

At least, that's my understanding of why fishing has not been a thing 'till now. Maybe I'm wrong.
Click to expand...


Also, Roland said they wanna save some new stuff for 7dtd 2 whenever that happens. So got that as well. But even if it was to be added now like some have said I don't think it would be much of a balance issue with food. Just depends on how it would be done and how often you able to catch. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
meganoth said:
I don't think food balance would be a problem. In the same time that you hunt for meat walking around you could consume your time with fishing. If it was fishing with a spear you would also waste some stamina. Same effort in time and stamina, same random risk to even find anything to hunt or fish at all. And the result would be 5 meat as well if they want to keep the recipes simple.
Click to expand...
Well, you're talking about the effort to get food and how much food you'd get... but that's not all what balance is.

I was talking more about the fact that there would be an additional possible source of food. That has to account for something, don't you think?

 
Aldranon said:
The balance to easy, abundant food, would be that food goes bad.  All food spoils in 7 days (or on blood moon night for extra drama! ( EDIT: This would save on computer processing too)).

There are 3 tiers of food protection (of course):  Snow Box, Refrigerator and the Dehydrator.

All food can be "treated" only once:

-The Snow box is "fueled" with snow and adds 7 extra days to food, if items remain inside device.

-The Refrigerator is powered by electricity and adds 2 weeks of preservation if items remain inside device.

-The Dehydrator is powered by electricity and adds 4 weeks of preservation once the items are dehydrated, they can be removed.

Something like that.

Edit2: Items that are cooked becomes new food items and reset the spoil time to 7 days and then can be refrigerated.
Click to expand...
Cut all those times in half, and I think you've got something there. While that makes sense in the real world, things need to be sped up in the game (as most things are).

Making the food last so long could possibly negate a lot balance created by introducing food spoilage.

 
Jost Amman said:
Well, you're talking about the effort to get food and how much food you'd get... but that's not all what balance is.

I was talking more about the fact that there would be an additional possible source of food. That has to account for something, don't you think?
Click to expand...


Not with practically infinite sources. If fish just provide meat and you need the same effort to get meat from animals or fish, then they are interchangeable sources. If an area is temporarily empty from hunting you can go to a different area or to a pond.

There could be a minimal advantage if the area you have hunted has a pond so you save on moving 500 meters. But if that were a problem (which I doubt) they could link animal frequency to fish frequency in an area.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top