PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Old Crow]

I want to say that it's been that way since Alpha 19. But see? You didn't know and so it didn't matter. Its not supposed to be an attempt to mirror reality-- although at the time there were plenty of people making a case for how driving in rough conditions does work out your core quite a bit which would burn lots of calories and result in greater hunger. But regardless, the real reason was to add a much-needed food sink when it was noticed that once vehicles were built and people weren't running any longer people weren't getting hungry like they were. 

The fact that you've been playing with this mechanic for the past two years and never knew is exactly how it and heat should be. They are just background processes and it doesn't really matter what they are tied to in order to make them keep generating.

It's not even a matter of whether or not it mirrors reality. A "much-needed food sink?" Really? As if we don't already burn through it exploring, looting, questing, mining/harvesting, fighting zombies and animals, and just moving around.

That reasoning is an nonsensical as the "We want players to engage with zombies" explanation I got the other day regarding dew collectors generating heat activity. WE ALREADY ENGAGE WITH ZOMBIES. A LOT.

 

[Roland]

It's not even a matter of whether or not it mirrors reality. A "much-needed food sink?" Really? As if we don't already burn through it exploring, looting, questing, mining/harvesting, fighting zombies and animals, and just moving around.

lol...You're acting like they just added this mechanic to the current build. This has been in the game for literally years now and the only difference is that you're just finding out about it. The important thing is that your character gets hungry as time goes on and you can eat to rectify that. By the time players have vehicles they usually have enough food production going to not have to worry about whether they are lead-footing the accelerator.

 

[Old Crow]

lol...You're acting like they just added this mechanic to the current build. This has been in the game for literally years now and the only difference is that you're just finding out about it. The important thing is that your character gets hungry as time goes on and you can eat to rectify that. By the time players have vehicles they usually have enough food production going to not have to worry about whether they are lead-footing the accelerator.

There was no reason to add it in the first place though, that's my point.

 

[hiemfire]

Choices could be to lower the difficulty

Unless they changed it and I missed it, all changing the difficulty does is change the amount of damage the player and enemies (zombies, bears, dogs , etc.) do. The Game Stage reference for difficulty is set to 1.2 iirc.

 

[Roland]

There was no reason to add it in the first place though, that's my point.

How do you know?  If the hunger rate has been manageable but present at current settings for the last few years then perhaps there was a need because now it is better balanced than it was. 

 

[beerfly]

It's not even a matter of whether or not it mirrors reality. A "much-needed food sink?" Really? As if we don't already burn through it exploring, looting, questing, mining/harvesting, fighting zombies and animals, and just moving around.

That reasoning is an nonsensical as the "We want players to engage with zombies" explanation I got the other day regarding dew collectors generating heat activity. WE ALREADY ENGAGE WITH ZOMBIES. A LOT.

If these things bother you wait till bandits join us. The "heat" is what makes us find ways to survive and move on. 

Also balance is a process till gold version. 

Enjoy and have fun till then. And have much more after. 

 

[zztong]

I hope I'm not ruining driving for you if you didn't know this but....When you drive and especially when you press the shift button to increase your top speed it drains your hunger bar at a greater rate. Same type of thing.

Really? I assumed it drained gasoline faster. So, if it makes me hungrier, does it not drain gasoline faster?

 

[beerfly]

Really? I assumed it drained gasoline faster. So, if it makes me hungrier, does it not drain gasoline faster?

Yeah, it drains gas a bit faster when using boost with shift key. Same as when we use the pedal thing and sucks our stamina off. 

 

[Numberz]

Hello,

Are there any plans to increase the block limit from 32K before gold?

With all of the added shapes into the shapes menu, I was able to reach 32K pretty quickly just adding a few new "shapes" types/textures.

 

[jorbascrumps]

There was no reason to add it in the first place though, that's my point.

The point is you didn't realize it was a thing until recently so obviously it had little impact on your gameplay, just as whatever you're upset about now likely won't be noticed by most players - or you if you hadn't read the patch notes. The game has to have some mechanics running in the background to propel gameplay forward, all of which will feel artificial if you look under the hood.

I really feel like you'd enjoy the game more if you stopped analyzing every change or waited for the game to be finished. You're always on here complaining about something or other.

 

[Riamus]

Hello,

Are there any plans to increase the block limit from 32K before gold?

With all of the added shapes into the shapes menu, I was able to reach 32K pretty quickly just adding a few new "shapes" types/textures.

A few?  According to my logs (vanilla A21 stable), I'm using just over 22k.  I'd say 10k is more than a few.  If you're using an overhaul mod that adds a ton of blocks, then that is probably the reason.  Still, it would probably be worth increasing this but I'm not sure they'll do that as they are trying to remain within a certain level of resources so it works on console and more people can play the game.  I don't know how much effect increasing it would have on that.

 

[Roland]

Really? I assumed it drained gasoline faster. So, if it makes me hungrier, does it not drain gasoline faster?

Let’s put it this way: It costs you more food, gas, and possibly repair kits for the privilege of speeding during the apocalypse.

 

[Old Crow]

The point is you didn't realize it was a thing until recently so obviously it had little impact on your gameplay, just as whatever you're upset about now likely won't be noticed by most players - or you if you hadn't read the patch notes. The game has to have some mechanics running in the background to propel gameplay forward, all of which will feel artificial if you look under the hood.

I really feel like you'd enjoy the game more if you stopped analyzing every change or waited for the game to be finished. You're always on here complaining about something or other.

So we should only heap mounds of praise on the devs for doing weird nonsensical things? Gotcha.

 

[vergilsparda]

a really cool addition to the dew collector would be making it work faster based on if its raining or not; i mean it makes practical sense that it would fill up more (and yes i'm aware rainwater is not actually fully drinkable, but it's a game, yknow? maybe it could switch to murky water if it rains or something, water you have to cook. idk).

based on that it would also be super cool if you could get a small sneak buff based on whether or not it's storming because of the noise of the storm masking your noises (it definitely does for the zombies LOL).... and the fact that being wet would muddy your 'scent'

but I have no idea if either is even possible, I've tried myself a few times but I am not very smart when it comes to xpathing buffs lol

 

[meilodasreh]

crafting progression is being outpaced by the progression in gamestage mobs.

So, IOW, T1-2 weapons vs T4 mobs.

Weapon tiers were never intended to match "opponent tier".

In fact what was intended is, that the game should be harder in A21, which is achieved by - amongst many other things - slower progression, considering also your armament.

I have to say this is one point I like very much in A21.

I don't see it as "now it's too slow", but "it was too fast before".

Yes of course one does feel somewhat "limitied" in A21, but that's just because you "insist" to play A21 how you're used to play A20.

Yes, you still progress fast through the trader quests and therefore get into the higher tier quests, that are now far more challenging, as you noticed.

But you don't necessarily have to accept these quests when you realize that they "outpace" your current state of equipment.

Do accept them if you like the challenge and are willing to make the effort.

If not, you can always stay to the lower tier quests and pois until you are better prepared for the tougher stuff.

 

[khzmusik]

a really cool addition to the dew collector would be making it work faster based on if its raining or not; i mean it makes practical sense that it would fill up more (and yes i'm aware rainwater is not actually fully drinkable, but it's a game, yknow? maybe it could switch to murky water if it rains or something, water you have to cook. idk).

I have a mod that does the rain bit. (TFP don't really want this thread turning into a mods discussion, so just look in the Mods section of the forum.) It does require C# changes though.

It isn't possible right now to have the dew collector fill up with more than one type of item, so you'd have to make it fill up with murky water all the time (or just leave it as it is). That's a pretty trivial XML change, I'm going to make a separate mod that does it. (This would be in return for the dew collectors not generating any heat - the heat would all come from the campfires when boiling murky water to clean water.)

EDIT: I realized this sounds like I'm advertising my mods. I was trying to get the point across that this stuff can be modded in. There are a bunch of other dew collector mods out there if you look, and I recommend you do.

 

[Sephiroth87xz]

Weapon tiers were never intended to match "opponent tier".

In fact what was intended is, that the game should be harder in A21, which is achieved by - amongst many other things - slower progression, considering also your armament.

I have to say this is one point I like very much in A21.

I don't see it as "now it's too slow", but "it was too fast before".

Yes of course one does feel somewhat "limitied" in A21, but that's just because you "insist" to play A21 how you're used to play A20.

Yes, you still progress fast through the trader quests and therefore get into the higher tier quests, that are now far more challenging, as you noticed.

But you don't necessarily have to accept these quests when you realize that they "outpace" your current state of equipment.

Do accept them if you like the challenge and are willing to make the effort.

If not, you can always stay to the lower tier quests and pois until you are better prepared for the tougher stuff.

There is only a problem in this theory.

Crafting weapons/tools progression is slower compared to enemies progression.

Trader/quests/loot weapons/tools progression is alot faster than enemies progression.

Even the quests tier can't keep up with how fast weapons/tools progress with trader/quests/loot.

The trader offered me a .44 magnum quality 2, when i still crafting normal pistol quality 4, with quest level 3 which i can clean them easily with only a hunting knife level 2.

So no isn't about challenge.

Crafting quality progression is slower than Trader/loot/quests.

Trader/loot/quests make the game too much easy to be a main part of the game.

So there is a unbalanced situation.

Now is intentional because developers want to people stop using crafting for weapons/tools or is an error of balancing?

 

[Jost Amman]

Crafting quality progression is slower than Trader/loot/quests.

I know my experience is anecdotal, but I've noticed this too.

Edit: I'm playing with standard setting BUT 120 mins/day on Warrior dif.

 

[meilodasreh]

The trader offered me a .44 magnum quality 2, when i still crafting normal pistol quality 4, with quest level 3 which i can clean them easily with only a hunting knife level 2.

Stuff will start to show up in the trader's inventory when you reach a certain gamestage.

Balancing this is a problem because of all these modifiers like biome, candys, glasses, books,...so yes you can regularly get lucky to get a very good reward for your quests.

Though the example with the magnum, I'm not quite sure if this is really a big jump 

A tier4 pistol should have one more mod slot, and also a bigger magazine capacity. So damage output over "longer time" (not just per bullet) should not be that "outpacingly lower" compared to the magmun. And taking into consideration that you should be notoriously low on magnum ammo also, I guess you wouldn't say "oh now I've got a magnum, great, I will only use this from now, what a gamechanger"

The pistol should be the thing one would normally stick to for quite a bit, and save the magnum just for "oh sh$%" situations.

 

[Sephiroth87xz]

Stuff will start to show up in the trader's inventory when you reach a certain gamestage.

Balancing this is a problem because of all these modifiers like biome, candys, glasses, books,...so yes you can regularly get lucky to get a very good reward for your quests.

Though the example with the magnum, I'm not quite sure if this is really a big jump 

A tier4 pistol should have one more mod slot, and also a bigger magazine capacity. So damage output over "longer time" (not just per bullet) should not be that "outpacingly lower" compared to the magmun. And taking into consideration that you should be notoriously low on magnum ammo also, I guess you wouldn't say "oh now I've got a magnum, great, I will only use this from now, what a gamechanger"

The pistol should be the thing one would normally stick to for quite a bit, and save the magnum just for "oh sh$%" situations.

Is not a matter of luck when you regularly get from trader list, quests and even loot weapons and tools 3-5 quality higher than the crafting.

And from weapons class i don't have any perks.

I playing knife pistol only and i have found multiple first/second tier quality 3-5 rifle and shotgun.

In loot i found only 2 pistol and one knife and from trader only the magnum.

I surpassed 50 days so the situation is start to be really clear.

Can be luck one, two, three times, but after dozens of times, there is a precise "scheme".

A good balanced game shouldn't have a so different progression between main parts of the game.

Now the question is, crafting for weapons/tools is still a main part for developers?

I know my experience is anecdotal, but I've noticed this too.

Edit: I'm playing with standard setting BUT 120 mins/day on Warrior dif.

I was playing all standard too except the airdrop disabled, loot respawn disabled and the difficulty, not sure the english name, the one before the maximum difficulty.

Now i want to check how much gamestage influence traders/quests/loot compared to crafting and lowered the lenght of day to 20 min.

In this way i even hope to raise the difficulty raising the gamestage more quickly.