PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Guppycur]

Y'all still here? 

Go play some mods or something.

 

[Riamus]

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?

Not really.  If it takes around the same amount of time and effort to get food, then it doesn't matter where it comes from.  You won't get more by having another source.  And if they wanted, they can increase time to catch a fish and have chance to catch other stuff - Stick (1 wood), weed (2 grass) to help - keep it slower.  It can even be implemented to be less efficient overall than hunting while still allowing those who enjoy fishing to have it.  Balance really doesn't have to be a problem.  Extra sources don't have to break balance either.

 

[Doomofman]

Y'all still here? 

Go play some mods or something.

But what if new info drops and I'm NOT here?

 

[Riamus]

I have considered a playthrough like this.

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

Beyond what was said what on this, how soon you get a fuel saver and how much you drive and whether you use shift while driving will all affect this.  And also how often you go scrapping cars.

For example, if you get double loot while scrapping but scrap half as often as someone with normal scrapping loot, you will get around the same amount.  If you only drive around one city, you will need far less gas than if you drive across the map on a regular basis, so may need higher salvage operations to help cover the cost.

Though, if you plan to do a game without making gas, since cars are finite other than resetting POI that have cars, you are better off maxing salvage operations sooner rather than later.

But what if new info drops and I'm NOT here?

*Gasp* Then the world will end and 7D2D will become reality and only those who have played this game will survive.

 

[Jost Amman]

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.

Not really.  If it takes around the same amount of time and effort to get food, then it doesn't matter where it comes from.  You won't get more by having another source.  And if they wanted, they can increase time to catch a fish and have chance to catch other stuff - Stick (1 wood), weed (2 grass) to help - keep it slower.  It can even be implemented to be less efficient overall than hunting while still allowing those who enjoy fishing to have it.  Balance really doesn't have to be a problem.  Extra sources don't have to break balance either.

Sorry, but you're both missing my point. I believe that A20 is currently unbalanced. Food is too easy to procure in A20.

I remember someone from TFP saying that in A21 they're rebalancing stuff all around, I think that includes food (hopefully).

Anyway, my point is that currently the only way to rebalance food, to make it again an early-to-mid game challenge like they are doing with water, is to either make it much more scarce (hunting/looting), or to add food spoilage (like Aldranon said before).

Now, this is all hypothetical of course, since fishing won't be in A21... BUT, if they did add fishing, AND if A21 was really rebalanced to make food more scarce, then adding a new food source would break that balance. Suppose that in A21 they put a very low limit on the number of animals that can spawn in an area, this would create the situation where hunting would only work for a few days, after which, you'd have to move farther and farther away to find game. This would be a challenge to food survival, of course. But if fishing was added to the game, players would only get half the intended effect if they hanged around a lake, pond, or river.

 

[Riamus]

Sorry, but you're both missing my point. I believe that A20 is currently unbalanced. Food is too easy to procure in A20.

I remember someone from TFP saying that in A21 they're rebalancing stuff all around, I think that includes food (hopefully).

Anyway, my point is that currently the only way to rebalance food, to make it again an early-to-mid game challenge like they are doing with water, is to either make it much more scarce (hunting/looting), or to add food spoilage (like Aldranon said before).

Now, this is all hypothetical of course, since fishing won't be in A21... BUT, if they did add fishing, AND if A21 was really rebalanced to make food more scarce, then adding a new food source would break that balance. Suppose that in A21 they put a very low limit on the number of animals that can spawn in an area, this would create the situation where hunting would only work for a few days, after which, you'd have to move farther and farther away to find game. This would be a challenge to food survival, of course. But if fishing was added to the game, players would only get half the intended effect if they hanged around a lake, pond, or river.

I agree that it isn't balanced well and you can quickly have more food than you know what to do with.  But it wouldn't be difficult to balance fishing.  Fish could be only 2-3 meat if they wanted.  With it set to take a little while to catch a fish and the chance of catching other things that aren't worth much as I mentioned previously, fishing can easily be made to avoid getting too much too easily.  And if they lowered animals a little more, the extra from fishing wouldn't increase meat behind whatever level they wanted.  There are definitely ways to easily bake it is they wanted.  Still, I doubt we would see it added.

 

[Syphon583]

All this talk of wondering if adding fishing would bring more imbalance to food.

Has anyone here actually been fishing? You might as well be playing the lottery. I'd have better luck hunting a deer with a pointy stick while wearing bell-covered overalls.

/s if anyone takes this too seriously...

 

[Rince]

Well, if they add fish they could gonna add giant zombie crabs which will spawn instead of getting fish.

For balance reasons of course!

 

[faatal]

@faatal Hi Faatal, I have a question regarding the painting system

'flipping' run-down broken stuff, houses, even neighborhoods is something I rather enjoy as an endgame activity, and yet the current selection of textures is quite scarce

I'm reasonably proficient at texture making and would love to be able to jump on that boat for myself (and others who may feel as i do)

so on that note, are there any plans to facilitate the introduction of new textures into the game?

Sorry, but I don't know of any plans to change it.

 

[faatal]

@Roland @faatal @madmoleWith A21 taking so long and if I am not mistaken this is the longest time between Alphas yet.

We are dying for some meaty news, I mean it's been over a year now, I have literally watched my daughter been born and she is now 1.

I know you don't owe us anything and you already do so much for this community as is.

So thank you so much for everything you guys do!

The vehicles update is awesome and all but according to @madmole, you guys were going to try for gold end of this year.

Is going gold this year still in the pipeline or has the new changes pushed it WID?

Is A21 getting closer to daylight?

With the long Dev time of A21 will bandits possibly see the light of day in A21?

Are there more environmental hazards besides fire, say toxic gas, electrical, cold, radiation, bio hazard?

Will radiation make a return?

Will zombie smelling ever return or is it dead and buried?

Does water collected from a dew collector need to be boiled?

Thanks

Anni

It may seem like that, but A17 took 1.5 years and A20 was about 1.4 years.

Thoughts of going gold with various dates have happened many times before. No one knows when that will happen.

A21 gets closer every day.

No bandits in A21, as Steve and I are the ones working on bandits from the programming side, and we are working on bugs and other improvements until A21 is stable.

 

[Rabbitslovecactus]

It may seem like that, but A17 took 1.5 years and A20 was about 1.4 years.

Thoughts of going gold with various dates have happened many times before. No one knows when that will happen.

A21 gets closer every day.

No bandits in A21, as Steve and I are the ones working on bandits from the programming side, and we are working on bugs and other improvements until A21 is stable.

This time around, are you guys looking to release a stable version of A21 right off the bat, or will it got to experimental like other times? 

 

[unholyjoe]

This time around, are you guys looking to release a stable version of A21 right off the bat, or will it got to experimental like other times? 

we go exp to get more eyes and compy setups to find more bugs so we can consider it a more stable build.

its been that way for a long long time and will most likely stay that way till its gold.

Spoiler

i wont even mention about the streamer weekend ...

 

[Riamus]

All this talk of wondering if adding fishing would bring more imbalance to food.

Has anyone here actually been fishing? You might as well be playing the lottery. I'd have better luck hunting a deer with a pointy stick while wearing bell-covered overalls.

/s if anyone takes this too seriously...

Then you are doing it wrong!  Ever watch the movie Crocodile Dundee?  He knows how to fish ... Dynamite. Lol!

 

[excali]

I haven’t posted here in awhile, but I’m just going to speak my mind and say this seems like the worst alpha to date…

I’ve gotten my money worth out of 7 days with it being my most played game (thanks to Ravenhearst & darkness falls), so thank you TFPs for the years of fun. But the direction this game is going and has been for years has taken so much of what made the game unique away.

Of course this is subjective but why are you redoing skill for the 4th time? Loot for skills is awful and punishes so many different play styles. You had a good skill system in A16-17, ALL you had to do was tweak and refine. But it seems TFPs would rather take features away people enjoyed: guns parts anyone?

Thankfully there’s mods to fix most of the issues people have with the direction the game is going but shouldn’t be needed. And it’s clear from the interview with Rick and madmole they don’t care what their players want, but “active player count says otherwise!!!” Right. When the negative reviews start bombing the steam page you’ll know then. 
 

but hey congrats you removed glass jars (nobody asked for this) and added a couple QoL features! It’s only taken over a year…

 

[khzmusik]

I haven’t posted here in awhile, but I’m just going to speak my mind and say this seems like the worst alpha to date…

I’ve gotten my money worth out of 7 days with it being my most played game (thanks to Ravenhearst & darkness falls), so thank you TFPs for the years of fun. But the direction this game is going and has been for years has taken so much of what made the game unique away.

Of course this is subjective but why are you redoing skill for the 4th time? Loot for skills is awful and punishes so many different play styles. You had a good skill system in A16-17, ALL you had to do was tweak and refine. But it seems TFPs would rather take features away people enjoyed: guns parts anyone?

Thankfully there’s mods to fix most of the issues people have with the direction the game is going but shouldn’t be needed. And it’s clear from the interview with Rick and madmole they don’t care what their players want, but “active player count says otherwise!!!” Right. When the negative reviews start bombing the steam page you’ll know then. 
 

but hey congrats you removed glass jars (nobody asked for this) and added a couple QoL features! It’s only taken over a year…

Catching flies with vinegar confirmed in A21

 

[Laz Man]

But what if new info drops and I'm NOT here?

Of course this is subjective but why are you redoing skill for the 4th time? Loot for skills is awful and punishes so many different play styles.

Read the first post of this thread for more specifics about the "Crafting" change.

 

[Laz Man]

Thankfully there’s mods to fix most of the issues people have with the direction the game is going but shouldn’t be needed. And it’s clear from the interview with Rick and madmole they don’t care what their players want, but “active player count says otherwise!!!” Right. When the negative reviews start bombing the steam page you’ll know then. 

Thankfully the devs care enough to make large portions of the game moddable so players can enjoy the game hundreds / thousands of hours once they have finished playing the vanilla version.  

No doubt there will be many more assets and features for modders to work with in A21 and beyond, so you can continue to enjoy different variations of the game for no additional purchase.

 

[Crater Creator]

Sorry, but you're both missing my point. I believe that A20 is currently unbalanced. Food is too easy to procure in A20.

I remember someone from TFP saying that in A21 they're rebalancing stuff all around, I think that includes food (hopefully).

Anyway, my point is that currently the only way to rebalance food, to make it again an early-to-mid game challenge like they are doing with water, is to either make it much more scarce (hunting/looting), or to add food spoilage (like Aldranon said before).

Now, this is all hypothetical of course, since fishing won't be in A21... BUT, if they did add fishing, AND if A21 was really rebalanced to make food more scarce, then adding a new food source would break that balance. Suppose that in A21 they put a very low limit on the number of animals that can spawn in an area, this would create the situation where hunting would only work for a few days, after which, you'd have to move farther and farther away to find game. This would be a challenge to food survival, of course. But if fishing was added to the game, players would only get half the intended effect if they hanged around a lake, pond, or river.

Why do people assume that, if TFP did add a new feature like fishing, they’d just throw it in without accounting for the effect it had on balance? I don’t mean to single you out - this critique seems to come up frequently whenever users propose changes. Sometimes we see a proposal for something that really would break the balance in a fundamental way, like crafting an unbreakable block. But I’m sure they could adjust the numbers so food scarcity is easier, the same, or even harder with fishing than without. “What if it’s not balanced?” presupposes the devs will do a bad job, and is not a good reason to shoot down an idea.

 

[excali]

Thankfully the devs care enough to make large portions of the game moddable so players can enjoy the game hundreds / thousands of hours once they have finished playing the vanilla version.  

No doubt there will be many more assets and features for modders to work with in A21 and beyond, so you can continue to enjoy different variations of the game for no additional purchase.

Absolutely correct! Thankfully modding is a thing so the community can make the game into something much better and add back in features and revert dumb changes.

 

[Roland]

Absolutely correct! Thankfully modding is a thing so the community can make the game into something much better and add back in features and revert dumb changes.

So if you’re thankful why do you sound so aggressive against the people who made it all possible?  Why do you say it shouldn’t be this way?  Usually when folks feel thankful they just say….”thanks”.