PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Roland]

Ah I misunderstood how the LCB worked sorry. I thought it was supposed to prevent spawns inside its perimeter.

If it's not a bug and intended then really game systems should support that in an ideal world. Leaving players to guess when a base may or may not be an appropriate size isn't particularly great game design.

Maybe something that could be looked at before Gold (e.g. a blue line within the LCB which shows those limits)

I just hope that "game systems supporting that" doesn't translate to the devs preventing players from building past a certain radius because there are plenty of people who like to build large and don't use that large base for horde night. It would be a shame to have to be limited on how big we can build just because some people want to make sure nothing can be built that doesn't work for horde night.

 

[Fanatical_Meat]

i have a question... you been around here enough to know the drill and the process so why do you think its gonna change?



thanks @Roland for your response... you actually beat me to it.

Persistence 

Zero fear of the answer

Throwing stuff out to see what happens 

 

[NekoPawtato]

It will be on a Monday... but not on an October Monday.

Now I don't have to get my hopes up for a Halloween release

Only 8 possible Mondays left in the year once you exclude October.

 

[VestedStorm6108]

As for giving extra copies to others…why? You can already craft the best. They don’t need the recipes unlocked since they have you. Just craft them one of whatever you can do that they can’t. There isn’t really a need for multiple people to be able to craft the same best things. Mags don’t give any skill benefits.  They are purely unlocks for crafting recipes.

Most of the time when at least I play in a group each player has certain tasks or jobs. Some people are looters who speedrun through quests and pois to get as much stuff as they can fit in their pockets. Some people are fighters who typically would tag along the speedrunners and just kill anything in that said speedrunners way (or being a mule for things they can't carry). Some people like to avoid looting and fighting all together and mine resources. Some people like to build epic mansions or underground bunkers. And some people like to craft. Having this new mag system completely removes MULTIPLE ways of playing the game. Crafting, building, and mining will be almost completely irrelevant if I need to not only find magazines, but have to go out of my way to loot to find MORE of those said magazines. Instead of having a dedicated looter have a (smaller) chance of finding ANY book, recipe, schematic, but lets ME play how I want to play. Not forcing me to play how YOU may play the game. Now the only way ANOYONE will be able to play is to loot for yourself...

I LOVE the idea of going back to a "use to learn" based system. Rewarding ALL playstyles. Speedrunners get looting, lockpicking, storage, and athletics. Fighters get weapon and armor skills. Miners get tool based skills. Builders wouldn't get too much but maybe crafting and storage skills? And crafters would get, well, crafting skills. This implementation is absolutely atrocious and I will refuse to play it until mods revert it, or its changed back to at least a20 system.

 

[Guest]

I just hope that "game systems supporting that" doesn't translate to the devs preventing players from building past a certain radius because there are plenty of people who like to build large and don't use that large base for horde night. It would be a shame to have to be limited on how big we can build just because some people want to make sure nothing can be built that doesn't work for horde night.

Yeh couldn't agree more, which is why I suggested just having a blue line (like the green one for LCB) in the UI. It at least gives players the knowledge of when a base becomes too large to be functional as a base - leaves it up to them. Currently it's an unknown which especially for new players / people who don't read the forums / go into XML might be confusing.

I've played all this time and thought it was just a bug that would be fixed haha. But if its staying like that for live release, UI can help a lot in guiding players. Just a thought anyway 

As always, appreciate you taking the time to explain this stuff to a pleb like me

 

[Roland]

Most of the time when at least I play in a group each player has certain tasks or jobs. Some people are looters who speedrun through quests and pois to get as much stuff as they can fit in their pockets. Some people are fighters who typically would tag along the speedrunners and just kill anything in that said speedrunners way (or being a mule for things they can't carry). Some people like to avoid looting and fighting all together and mine resources. Some people like to build epic mansions or underground bunkers. And some people like to craft. Having this new mag system completely removes MULTIPLE ways of playing the game. Crafting, building, and mining will be almost completely irrelevant if I need to not only find magazines, but have to go out of my way to loot to find MORE of those said magazines. Instead of having a dedicated looter have a (smaller) chance of finding ANY book, recipe, schematic, but lets ME play how I want to play. Not forcing me to play how YOU may play the game. Now the only way ANOYONE will be able to play is to loot for yourself...

I LOVE the idea of going back to a "use to learn" based system. Rewarding ALL playstyles. Speedrunners get looting, lockpicking, storage, and athletics. Fighters get weapon and armor skills. Miners get tool based skills. Builders wouldn't get too much but maybe crafting and storage skills? And crafters would get, well, crafting skills. This implementation is absolutely atrocious and I will refuse to play it until mods revert it, or its changed back to at least a20 system.

If you are playing in a group then you can absolutely continue to play as you have in A20. Those who find mags can craft you anything you need. Under the old system they probably brought you what you needed from their looting. You are making huge assumptions of how the game will play without having played it or even having the full picture in front of you. Go ahead and refuse to play at all until mods revert it. We definitely want you to have fun with the game your way. 

 

[VestedStorm6108]

Those who find mags can craft you anything you need.

This IS the issue. Those people don't WANT to craft. They want to be out in the world exploring, looting, or killing. Whereas I WANT to craft, mine, and build, but now am being forced to go out and loot for the magazines that scale with how many magazines I have. Especially since the magazines ONLY effect crafting and not how effective those tools, weapons, armor are.

It's a lose-lose for everyone involved.

 

[NekoPawtato]

Yeh couldn't agree more, which is why I suggested just having a blue line (like the green one for LCB) in the UI. It at least gives players the knowledge of when a base becomes too large to be functional as a base - leaves it up to them. Currently it's an unknown which especially for new players / people who don't read the forums / go into XML might be confusing.

Are you talking about adding another option to the LCB to toggle on/off lines for spawning? Im not sure how that works with blood moon since from what I understand the spawn is relative to your location and not the lcb. So I'd imagine these lines would have to move as you move around the base.

 

[Roland]

This IS the issue. Those people don't WANT to craft. They want to be out in the world exploring, looting, or killing. Whereas I WANT to craft, mine, and build, but now am being forced to go out and loot for the magazines that scale with how many magazines I have. Especially since the magazines ONLY effect crafting and not how effective those tools, weapons, armor are.

Then they won't care about reading any of the magazines. The magazines are only for unlocking crafting recipes. They will bring them all back for you to read or they should if they understand how they work. You admitted yourself that some people in your group love being the mules who bring back all the loot for the homebodies to use. In A21 that will be magazines just like it is other stuff now. Really, not much of a change.

If your buddies really don't care about crafting as you say then they will have zero incentive to read any of the magazines. Those will be brought home by your other buddies the mules and read by you so that you can do what you love---crafting.

But...since you're just going to wait until it all gets reverted it doesn't matter anyway. Just wait for the mod and keep playing A20. It really isn't a problem if you do that.

 

[Guest]

Are you talking about adding another option to the LCB to toggle on/off lines for spawning? Im not sure how that works with blood moon since from what I understand the spawn is relative to your location and not the lcb. So I'd imagine these lines would have to move as you move around the base.

Fair criticism. Although if your base exceeded the 'blue line' you'd know for a fact you would have issues.

If it didn't, you'd know 100% wherever you were in your base you'd be ok. Could even be used to determine outside and inner walls / core base area.

It was a solution I pulled out my bum though haha. What we have now (i.e. guess work) should be able to be improved upon some way though, even if my idea is terrible .

 

[Roland]

What we probably need is to better communicate that the LCB is not meant stop Horde Night Spawns. It's main purpose is to protect your claimed area from non-friendly players and so that you can pick up your workstations. The idea that you should be able to build within your claimed zone and have no spawns within that zone is based on faulty assumptions. It is probably poorly communicated by the game and so causes confusion and people thinking it is buggy spawns.

 

[VestedStorm6108]

Then they won't care about reading any of the magazines. The magazines are only for unlocking crafting recipes. They will bring them all back for you to read or they should if they understand how they work. You admitted yourself that some people in your group love being the mules who bring back all the loot for the homebodies to use. In A21 that will be magazines just like it is other stuff now. Really, not much of a change.

If your buddies really don't care about crafting as you say then they will have zero incentive to read any of the magazines. Those will be brought home by your other buddies the mules and read by you so that you can do what you love---crafting.

But...since you're just going to wait until it all gets reverted it doesn't matter anyway. Just wait for the mod and keep playing A20. It really isn't a problem if you do that.

I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding. So let me try and clarify or learn as best as I can.

I understand that they will still be able to haul back the magazines to a base. But reading the confirmed features makes it sound like if the looters do not put perk points into what the crafter would need (tools, weapons, armor class, or other) they have a much less chance of getting those magazines. Which would cripple the crafters ability to craft what was in those magazines and almost force that crafter to loot with others to have a better chance of finding the mags that they would need.

And I want to be able to play the newest versions of course. The new water stuff and new pois alone is an absolutely to die for thing. Relying on mods to do a game devs job should always be a last resort thing and typically for more qol features then entire core mechanics.

 

[Roland]

I understand that they will still be able to haul back the magazines to a base. But reading the confirmed features makes it sound like if the looters do not put perk points into what the crafter would need (tools, weapons, armor class, or other) they have a much less chance of getting those magazines.

The confirmed features list does not say that you have much less chance of getting magazines you haven't perked into. The list says that you find more parts and magazines of what you perk into. You are letting your fear of what it might be like overwhelm you. The bonus your perk gives you is subtle and mainly designed to prevent you from never finding a magazine or part that you need for crafting. It guarantees that you will find some of that type and not that you will only find those and nothing else.

Which would cripple the crafters ability to craft what was in those magazines and almost force that crafter to loot with others to have a better chance of finding the mags that they would need.

I'm not going to lie. Finding magazines is fun and most players are definitely going to feel an incentive to go out and find magazines. That being said I doubt anyone who is playing multiplayer as you described your group will feel forced to do it. Single Players will definitely need to loot magazines in order to progress their crafting recipes but the team you describe will be just fine with you not participating in the looting. Of course, it is random so there may be times when you feel like you aren't getting enough of a type you want and you may experience a moment of "If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself" and get to doing some looting.

Relying on mods to do a game devs job should always be a last resort thing and typically for more qol features then entire core mechanics.

Reverting the new features to legacy features isn't the dev's job. The dev's job is to develop and many of the features in the game are still being developed and are subject to change. You bought an unfinished game so if a modder reverts something to the way it used to be, that is fantastic news for anyone who wants it the way it used to be. But don't mistake that with the modder doing the dev's job. It's not.

 

[VestedStorm6108]

The confirmed features list does not say that you have much less chance of getting magazines you haven't perked into. The list says that you find more parts and magazines of what you perk into. You are letting your fear of what it might be like overwhelm you. The bonus your perk gives you is subtle and mainly designed to prevent you from never finding a magazine or part that you need for crafting. It guarantees that you will find some of that type and not that you will only find those and nothing else.

I'm not going to lie. Finding magazines is fun and most players are definitely going to feel an incentive to go out and find magazines. That being said I doubt anyone who is playing multiplayer as you described your group will feel forced to do it. Single Players will definitely need to loot magazines in order to progress their crafting recipes but the team you describe will be just fine with you not participating in the looting. Of course, it is random so there may be times when you feel like you aren't getting enough of a type you want and you may experience a moment of "If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself" and get to doing some looting.

Reverting the new features to legacy features isn't the dev's job. The dev's job is to develop and many of the features in the game are still being developed and are subject to change. You bought an unfinished game so if a modder reverts something to the way it used to be, that is fantastic news for anyone who wants it the way it used to be. But don't mistake that with the modder doing the dev's job. It's not.

I appreciate the responses. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see when it eventually comes out and see if it interacts with my groups playstyle.

 

[Falcon197]

I just hope that "game systems supporting that" doesn't translate to the devs preventing players from building past a certain radius because there are plenty of people who like to build large and don't use that large base for horde night. It would be a shame to have to be limited on how big we can build just because some people want to make sure nothing can be built that doesn't work for horde night.

One more passing thought I'd add to this on the matter of balancing the size of bases is that if I correctly understood what was mentioned earlier about the distance from players for horde spawns being ~35 blocks - that also creates a chance of imbo spawning inside of bases that only fill a quarter of a max-size LCB if the defenders ever move too far from the portion of the claim occupied from the base.

So even building smaller may not matter in the grander scheme of the spawn mechanics.  I could envision zombies still popping up inside a base or perimeter wall on setups like this, where the LCB radius is big and placed to cover farms or other stuff outside the base, but even if the radius was 71 and the base size ~40, everyone moving to engage horde spawns in one corner of their base still opens the possibility for spawns to shift behind them and end up inside the wall / base.

Really appreciate the consideration though, @Roland!

 

[Roland]

I appreciate the responses. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see when it eventually comes out and see if it interacts with my groups playstyle.

I hope it does or if not only slight changes in what you do are necessary or if not it turns out that the new way is at least as much fun or if not the modders come to your rescue.

 

[Falcon197]

What we probably need is to better communicate that the LCB is not meant stop Horde Night Spawns. It's main purpose is to protect your claimed area from non-friendly players and so that you can pick up your workstations. The idea that you should be able to build within your claimed zone and have no spawns within that zone is based on faulty assumptions. It is probably poorly communicated by the game and so causes confusion and people thinking it is buggy spawns.

Also agree with this, but I'd challenge the logic on making LCB's totally irrelevant to the horde spawning equation.

 

[Roland]

Also agree with this, but I'd challenge the logic on making LCB's totally irrelevant to the horde spawning equation.

LCBs were created for multiplayer. There was a time they didn't exist and we still had to defend against zombies coming for our bases. So for anyone who was around pre-LCB and then saw it added as an anti-griefer device, there wasn't necessarily any logical connection conveyed that it was supposed to stop zombies spawning. We did have our bedroll for ages before the LCB which WAS supposed to stop spawns within a radius and there were plenty of bugs and lots of development that went into that but not really the LCB other than making sure teammates were recognized and workstations able to be picked up.

In fact, we could make multiple LCBs in the beginning to extend our claimed area and have redundant protection against other players. Nobody used them to try and completely block out all horde night spawns because that wasn't what they were for. A few alphas back they reduced them to only one active LCB at a time per person.

 

[Jinx_DG]

Also agree with this, but I'd challenge the logic on making LCB's totally irrelevant to the horde spawning equation.

I understand your concern and the reasons why. I also was taken aback when zeds spawned inside my home base even tho I had built a horde base not to far away. The "not to far away" was the problem. For me, lesson learned, Lol. 

Your thinking in purely game function mode. How the mechanics work and how you would like them to work, logically. I respect that. Now I'm going to ask you to set logic and game mechanics aside and offer you an explaination that is purely game lore. An explaination that fits the premise of the game. 

The game wants you dead. It's only function is to kill you. You're allowed 7 days to prepare before the Blood Moon Horde desends upon you to fullfill it's objective. This is the real survival test. Everything before that is just a tease, a poke, a prode, an interferance to your preperations. The Blood Moon Horde ALWAYS knows where you are. It ALWAYS makes a beeline to you at a rate of speed unseen before. NOTHING can hinder it. It's function is to find you and kill you. That's the core of this game. 

If the LCB is changed to prevent the Blood Moon Horde from spawning (in an area), then that LCB is a hinderance to the Hordes function, which at it's core is not allowed. The LCB can not be allowed to interfere with that Blood Moon Horde Night. Nothing is allowed to interfere with their objective to get to you, by any means and kill you. Except what you have prepared in the time allowed. Not even game mechanics or function. Without that there would be no 7 Days To Die. 

 

[Falcon197]

The Blood Moon Horde ALWAYS knows where you are. It ALWAYS makes a beeline to you at a rate of speed unseen before. NOTHING can hinder it. It's function is to find you and kill you. That's the core of this game. 

Tell that to every cheeseball base builder who abuses the voxel system and AI pathing to create infinite loops so they can claim they've mastered the game lol.

My objective isn't to hinder the blood moon.  It's to establish sensible conditions for viable (not impervious) base defense.  What's the point of building a base or walls if the "spirit of the game" reserves the right to render all that work useless by spawning zombies to circumvent those defenses?  Why not simply get rid of building altogether at that point?

I appreciate the thought, but I think you misunderstand where I'm coming at this from.  I'm content to have the horde bust down my defenses and kill me - but not by spawning hordes ad hoc inside my walls.