PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Roland]

I fought the day 7 horde with a wooden club and had stone tools until day 8. Does that count as "long enough" ?
 

If you feel that it is. If not, take Daring Adventurer and go to the wasteland. You can control how long or how soon it happens. 

 

[Neminsis]

If the problem is people don't want to start looting until they are both overgeared and overskilled for Tier 1 quests

Overgeared and overskilled are completely subjective measurements, but maybe they really aren't that good at the game and just want to play with people that are? Sure, they can turn down the difficulty in solo games, but try finding a game with veteran players where doing so is even a thing. 

I don't know where you're getting this, "it seems less punishing with early gear" stuff. You do understand that the better your gear the higher your crit resistance is, right?
 

 

[Roland]

there's a whole 8 human beings out scouring for them and there's just *not* enough to go around for everybody.

What does this mean? To me it sounds like you’re sharing magazines around with everyone instead of specializing. Added to that the fact that TFP has further nerfed the amount of magazines in loot because most reports coming in have been that magazines are too abundant and the only conclusion I can think of is that you have multiple people reading the same magazines. 
 

If that isn’t the case then it could be that your loot tables are bugged somehow. It’s not about proving your team is playing wrong, it is about helping your team be successful. 
 

I guess your only purpose for coming here was to ask that the feature be reverted and you aren’t interested in learning how to adapt to the new system. Fair enough. I’ll drop it and refrain from responding to the issues you raise. 

 

[Ralathar44]

My group is still playing - still not liking this magazine thing. 
We've halted work on the base for now as the highest tier item I can craft at this point is the damn workbench and literally none of us are reading any magazines at all, there's a whole 8 human beings out scouring for them and there's just *not* enough to go around for everybody. The ratios are off, loot tables, whatever you want to call it but to sustain a group of more than just 2 or 3 people and make the rate of progression not be a complete snoozefest of just digging through trash piles all day pretty much every thing we loot would need to give us 2 or 3 magazines or more. It's tedious as hell.

Choose 1 person to give all the forge ahead magazines too. Also have at least one of your main looters take ranks of lockpicking and advanced engineerings.  At least 1 but if you have an intellect focused person then have them take at least 2 ranks of each of those.  Do the same with vehicles and the grease monkey skill.  Prioritize Working Stiffs, construction sites, pass n gas, etc.  Hit up air drops.  Use Traders.  Yall should be swimming in magazines with 8 people concentrating them on individual players.

Magazines drop more from the appropriate POIs.  Stuff thematically matches them.  Gas stations for vehicle stuff, gun store for gun stuff, working stiff for tools/construction, etc.  And specific skills that make sense make the magazines drop more.  If you want to see what skills for what magazine then open up your skills menu and choose the hammer icon up top.  1 rank in a skill with make a modest difference in how much that players finds those magazines, 2 ranks will make a fairly significant difference.

Really TFP have given us the tools to beeline for the stuff we want.  But the system is new and people dont know it yet.  That'll change within a week or two.

I fought the day 7 horde with a wooden club and had stone tools until day 8. Does that count as "long enough" ?
 

How long you spend in the stone age is really heavily dependent on how you play.  I dont think there is a wrong answer.  Want to get to higher gear fast?  Take multiple ranks of the weapons/tools you want to rank up + take at least 1 point in grease monkey (for vehicles) as well as locking picking + advanced engineering (for forge/workbench/etc).  Loot the POIs you need to for starting out and then start focusing stuff like working stiffs and fun stores and pass n gas and construction sites and stuff.  The POIs affect the magazine drop rates so for example gun magazines will drop more often at a shotgun messaigh and food magainzes at a grocery store or convenience store.  Also make sure air drops are on and visit your trader when you have cash.  Air drops often have magazine boxes in them (and they seem pretty balanced now).  Traders often sell magazines.

Keep in mind you'll prolly progress like this:  Stone weapon 1>2>3>4>5/6 >>>>>> Iron Weapon 3>4>5/6 >>>>>> Steel Weapon 3>4>5>6 because the best quality versions of the tier before are usually better than the first couple quality levels of the next tier.  Though ofc if you're using a stone Spear quality 3 and you find an iron spear quality 2 then you can make some leaps .  Loot RNG will be Loot RNG after all.

I'm at day 17 still using rank 5 knuckle wraps because my build is fortitude/agility.  Just got my workbench and bike a few days back.  I've been playing slow and in areas without a ton of POIs though so I'm sure I could be "progressing" like 3 times faster.

 

[Thaledwyn]

Regarding loot stage:

- Before the 317 patch we could buy a crucible from a non quested Bob for 15k on day 13 (both players at about char lvl27 on insane, normal loot settings).

- After the 317 patch we found a crucible in a final loot chest of a random tier 4 building (no quest).

Both in the forest biome.

Regarding magazines:

My wife put 3-4 points in sledge hammer

Me had 3 points in spears

- Before the 317 patch she rarely found "Get hammered" magazines but I could already craft tier 5 iron spears due to the insane amount of "Sharp sticks" we both found

- After the 317 patch she found 9 (!) "Get hammered" magazines in half an hour while I did not find any single spear book since then.

Fells strange

But the nerf in finding magazines seems to be OK. It felt quite fast before. Let's see how this plays out now.

 

[Gronal]

I suppose we do have to acknowledge that a lot of us who are posting here on the forums, and complaining about progressing a bit too fast, are probably veterans of the game at this point and we're probably power-gaming and taking full advantage of mechanics we've had plenty of warning to adapt to.

In both single player and coop with one other person, I've had a quality 2 or 3 stun baton, and a quality 2 or 3 t1 gun (in my case double barrel shotgun in one game and bolt action rifle in the other) by first horde night. Both games I've been dual speccing into intellect and another skill. Completely default loot and xp settings. Not even specced into daring adventurer, as I already am questing a lot and it would simply make it too OP for my tastes I think. And also the problem with quests imo, is if you're already looting POIs then you'd be silly not to do quests cos quests are just looting POIs and getting paid for it.

How can they balance the game for both new players and very experienced players? It does seem quite challenging.

 

[Uncle Al]

- Before the 317 patch we could buy a crucible from a non quested Bob for 15k on day 13 (both players at about char lvl27 on insane, normal loot settings).

Just had exactly the same in my last game, which I'm abandoning due to the patch. Felt VERY strange to have the crucible available for sale with zero quests done, no points in daring adventurer, and level in the low 20s. I'm over 50 books away from crafting a crucible, and have a point in advanced engineering.

Finding a Q6 iron pickaxe in a snow biome car at level 20 also seemed a bit early, although I could already craft Q5 by that point. Likewise getting a Q3 iron crossbow for a Tier 2 quest reward. Especially now crossbows are ranked way above their bow equivalents in crafting. I do quite like that change though as it means crossbows can be just straight up better than bows, balance wise, which they always were.

The effect of perks on magazine finding is a lot stronger than I expected. By day 14 I'd completely maxxed out spear and salvage tool crafting (75 magazines each), with 4 points in both skills (and only added the fourth skill point for the last couple of days). For crafting lines that I have no perk investment in I'm barely into double figures in most cases. Skills with one point I'm in the teens to twenties.

10 magazines for no points, 20 odd for one point and 75 for 3-4 points is a massive variation!

Couple of minor other observations:

Fruit and vegetable prices seem very high. I'd expect those prices for 5 of berries or whatever, but for 1 it's extortionate and pretty much never worth spending the money. Almost the same cost to just buy the finished foodstuffs. Fruit and vegetables used to sell in units of 5 and now sell singly, so it's possible the prices weren't changed to reflect the smaller unit quantity?

I thought parts were too rare and expensive, until I saw the new recipes! One part per quality level is a superb change. Slightly ameliorates the 'not worth crafting Q1 or Q2' for guns at least. For tools and melee it's still better to stay at T5 iron then jump to T3 steel, but I happily crafted a T1 lever action rifle rather than a T5 hunting rifle because not being single shot is such an improvement and the lever action rifle only cost me 1 rifle part which I can get back when I scrap it, as my crafting skill improves.

 

[RipClaw]

If you feel that it is. If not, take Daring Adventurer and go to the wasteland. You can control how long or how soon it happens. 

For me, a week of running around with stone tools and primitive weapons is perfectly fine. Especially when you consider that the iron tools on Q1 are worse than Q5 stone tools. It just shouldn't be significantly longer. If we are still using stone tools after 3 weeks, I would consider that too slow.

My post was meant as a counterweight to the "The progress is too fast" posts. Progress in the Learn by Reading system is based on how much you loot and if you are lucky. Even with all the balancing in the world, you can't change that.

I avoid putting points into Daring Adventurer because I don't like that it boosts the trader stage so much and I limit myself to one quest per day. And I haven't found the Wasteland yet.

 

[meganoth]

Well, if you'd noticed that I'd argued multiple times by that point that it doesn't solve anything, then you could've concluded rightly that it wasn't hyperbole but sarcasm to call it "perfect". 

Well, I did not get that it was sarcasm. And it should have been clear from my attempts at making sense of it that I wasn't.

That is the danger of employing sarcasm or irony. If the other doesn't get it you should be prepared to clear it up, half the discussion was only about this misunderstanding

 

[meganoth]

Why do you keep saying this? 
We are *not* just reading all the magazines we come across, I'm streaming the game dude, we bring everything back to the base what is your deal with always insisting it must be something *we* are doing wrong? 

Can happen when people need to guess. Maybe provide some details:

What day is it in your game? (And are you playing on normal daylength?).

What is the average level of you guys?

What is the highest number of a specific magazine read by anyone of you?

What is the number of magazines read for the respective main melee weapon for each of your 8 guys?

Tell us details and everyone here can either tell you that there is either something bugged, that the game is truely imbalanced or that your expectations are wrong or .... 

 

[Neminsis]

If the other doesn't get it you should be prepared to clear it up, half the discussion was only about this misunderstanding

And the other half was making sure the topic didn't get buried too quickly under posts saying "omg this game is great" and "I'm never playing this again"

I may not be one but casual gamers are people too!

 

[meganoth]

My issue with magazines right now is what I said before... it can't really be balanced properly.  ...

I think that isn't cast in stone. Sure, MP will always have some advantage. The synergy of finding something only the other needs is always there (this includes items and books and magazines). And the ability to pool money for expensive stuff is also something the single player will never have.

But apart from that looting by itself is quite balanced between SP and MP. A single player can loot about as much as someone in a group in MP.  He is slower in clearing a POI but he got all loot for himself, and the group of 8 players would need to clear 8 POIs in the same time to get the same loot amount as the single player **per player**. If it weren't for the quest rewards and the shared XP the group of 8 players might only catch up to the SP if they split up and each would do his own quest!

In my own experience with 4 players we are naturally faster at clearing a quest POI than a single player, but not at 4 times the speed.

So the task of SP/MP balancing for TFP is to tune the quest rewards and shared XP so that it still gives an incentive to quest together but that synergies and the boost of quest rewards together are just a bit better than what a single player would get.

 

[Aldranon]

My Observations have made me think that the desert is now the easy mode for Alpha 21.

1) Food is not an issue there (munch on yucca and harvest with bone knife) while travel to and from the trader.

2) Water is a thing but if you find vitamins you are golden (I overdid it a bit by drinking almost 200 water (had over 170 backlog of water before I died which surprised me as I was 100% immune to dysentery.  Did I drown??) 

So, I will see how much backlog of water I can drink on one vitamin unless someone already [SIZE=14.6px]knows. [/SIZE]

 

[meganoth]

My Observations have made me think that the desert is now the easy mode for Alpha 21.

1) Food is not an issue there (munch on yucca: harvest with bone knife) while to travel to and from the trader.

2) Water is a thing but if you find vitamins you are golden (I overdid it a bit by drinking almost 200 water (had over 170 backlog of water before I died which surprised me as I was 100% immune to dysentery.  Did I drown??) 

So, I will see how much backlog of water I can drink on one vitamin unless someone already [SIZE=14.6px]knows. [/SIZE]

Drinking murky water will damage you, the vitamin is only preventing the dysentery.

You should have a first aid kit with you when you do this

 

[Aldranon]

Drinking murky water will damage you, the vitamin is only preventing the dysentery.

You should have a first aid kit with you when you do this

Ahh!  Thanks!

Well, the desert provides with piles of Aloe cream!  So, I guess I could have 200 water in overflow and live, if done carefully. 

 

[RipClaw]

My Observations have made me think that the desert is now the easy mode for Alpha 21.

Just a quick note on this. In A21, the game stage depends on the biome you are in. So you will encounter feral zombies much earlier in the desert and the hordes are much harder.

 

[Strengthinside]

GUYS, is stealth working in this alpha? I maxed out stealth perks, using padded armor for no noise penalty, and it's weird, zombies just spawn when I am near them, immediately waking up and smacking my *ss to oblivion Does steal require some additional knowledge on how to use it?  Not every zombie is like that, mostly during an infestation quest, or near the POI loot room.

 

[Thaledwyn]

GUYS, is stealth working in this alpha? I maxed out stealth perks, using padded armor for no noise penalty, and it's weird, zombies just spawn when I am near them, immediately waking up and smacking my *ss to oblivion Does steal require some additional knowledge on how to use it?  Not every zombie is like that, mostly during an infestation quest, or near the POI loot room.

I have the feeling that stealth does even work better now. I opened a cabinet where a zombie was still sleeping inside (even with my helmet light on).

But lots of POIs have "trigger points" where zombies awake anyway when you walk over them.

 

[Fish36]

I have the feeling that stealth does even work better now. I opened a cabinet where a zombie was still sleeping inside (even with my helmet light on).

But lots of POIs have "trigger points" where zombies awake anyway when you walk over them.

Yeah, this was new for me, I died because I was unprepared for zombies to wake up while I was stealthing. I'm used to being able to stealth through and just execute sleepers. 

Unrelated to above, some constructive feedback on magazines. I love the new system. However, if you could adjust the drop rates so places like garages are more likely to drop tool related ones. Could just be me but all the magazines I've gotten from garages have been cooking (and I'm specced into, miner 69er, salvaging and master chef). 

I like the learn by looting a lot more, although like the above person, the reset killed my previous game, I chalked it up to "early experimental". 

 

[Exxodous]

I've done the tier 2 infested quest at gas station 10 twice and I think 3 times as a tier 1 and didn't notice it having more zombies, is it just such a small building it wasn't noticeable?  I was expecting more lol.