PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[meganoth]

Farming was somewhat hard and required time and patience to multiply crops and fertilize ground. Now? Buy a perk!

Farming is less micromanagement as soon as you have the correct size you want. But you still need to find the seeds or make new seeds from 5 crops respectively. Which is a much worse rate you can multiply crops. So patience is still needed, or am I wrong here?

Stamina usage was harder and leveling it required time and carefulness with properly raising wellness. Now? Buy a perk!

Now you need to balance health, max health and max stamina and thirst.

Did you really carefully level your stamina? How? I just ate whenever possible and used the good food. Nothing more needed. And in A17 you practically have to do the same, eat whenever necessary.

Making more damage with guns was a complex problem of leveling skills, crafting/finding better items and recrafting them to even better quality. Now? Buy a perk!

You are totally ignoring mods (which you have to find and/or craft), but yes, combining the guns in the 1-600 scale was a system where you had much more micromanagement to do. Complex? Doubtful.

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[Gareee]

Probably said before, but I dont like the XP notification when I kill a zombie. It let's me know they are really dead and won't get back up. Takes away that uncertainty factor that keeps me on edge, and that constant on edge feeling is part of what makes this game so great.
Perhaps if there was a way to delay the XP tag until 5 seconds after the kill?

I'm guessing that would spawn a ton of exp gain lag reports, and imho this sounds like a bad idea. On a horde night with other players it would be a mess trying to figure out of something was dead or not. Since modding the hud is VERY easy and there are already a bunch of mods for it, why not just mod the exp display out, or ask Red Eagle if he can create a modlet for it for you? He posts here and in the steam forums, and already has a BUNCH of hud improvements/alternatives for a17 out.

Mulling over comments, maybe there can be a server setting for persistent parties?

I'd also like to see a scaled down version of the behemoth make a return. Maybe 1/5th bigger than current zombies, with reduced damage capability? I'd hate to see the work on him wasted, and I could see him fitting in better now.

 

[Aurelius]

Farming is less micromanagement as soon as you have the correct size you want. But you still need to find the seeds or make new seeds from 5 crops respectively. Which is a much worse rate you can multiply crops. So patience is still needed, or am I wrong here?

Farming is now "set it and forget it". The gameplay "challenge" in A16 was being forced to choose between making seeds and planting the crops or some other activity such as scavenging or hunting zeds.

Is it slower to get a large scale garden going now? I haven't had a chance to test it out, but probably. I do remember making or looting fertilizer took forever...

What you considered to be micromanagement, I considered to be making tactical gameplay choices; and while I don't think either system is a great mechanic, I do feel A16 was better than the current implementation.

-A

 

[Hek Harris]

About farming, the fact that we have to hit the plants instead of pressing E makes me think (hope ?) that one of these days zombies or animals will be able to break them... And it will be a very nice feature (they used to do it, in a previous alpha.)

 

[DanLW]

You'd also want to delay the xp bar from moving as well, I notice that usually earlier than the bottom right notification. Though, I don't know how to delay either.

The bar doesn't bother me much since it's hard to tell if it moved unless you're staring at it. But the white XP tag is hard to miss.

 

[Erik Louden]

Have a small bit of experiance w digging z's now. While in general I like the idea, man are they fast atm! Which is in line w their 'built' block damage I suppose.
Main consequence, for me, is that now that I've spent many nights going over perk trees, I don't have much to do but wait.

Someone a few dozen pages back brought this up, and I have to agree w them. Nighttime mining seems like russion roulette w 2-3 loaded chambers; really not a sane idea, heh.

I may not be recalling this correctly but. I think the old stealth system indicated when a z locked on to you, and if you immediately froze there was a decent chance they'd lose focus after a minute or two?

If the new stealth system could incorporate something like that then maybe nighttime mining could be less suicidal?

---

In expected response No. I don't want to hide in a hole to avoid zombies. Yes, I get that this could be considered to be basically that. But really, I just want to be able to do something during the night before I have a solid base perimeter up.

If the Pimps/Players really like as is, okey doke, I'll find a mod or something.

P.s., the first couple weeks nighttime was creepy, had no idea what 'that noise...' was, etc. Nicely done, truly. Then that mostly wore off. Now that I have had a few nighttime horde encounters I know that the cobblestone (1200hps) & wood, forge house I'm in doesn't stand a chance. So I just empty backpack & crouch by the door to the balcony ready to either fight 1 or 2 or simply lead off a horde and die as far away as possible. Which I'm not finding really engaging to be honest.

Nope - It always bothered me that nighttime was so easy.

Nighttime harvesting/looting should be suicidal (I also think zombies should run faster than player at night).

 

[Gareee]

Farming is now "set it and forget it". The gameplay "challenge" in A16 was being forced to choose between making seeds and planting the crops or some other activity such as scavenging or hunting zeds.
Is it slower to get a large scale garden going now? I haven't had a chance to test it out, but probably. I do remember making or looting fertilizer took forever...

What you considered to be micromanagement, I considered to be making tactical gameplay choices; and while I don't think either system is a great mechanic, I do feel A16 was better than the current implementation.

-A

My wife always does the farming, and now that she is used to the new system, she prefers it. Of course, YMMV

 

[Erik Louden]

Does the Archery perk also affect crossbows?

 

[Con Agni]

Where is my new map? You guys have had a full 5 days to create new maps. How long are your maps going to be in alpha? When is the release date of the next map? When can I get your map on console? Will your map run on my 386 with 4k of memory? Can I mod your map? Can you release the psd of your map before its out so I can mod the things I don't like about it? Can I see the release notes at least so I can read them while your map is downloading? Will your map fit in my recycle bin if I don't like it?

+1 =)

 

[Thecolours]

The thing is, there is now a reason to make such a plan instead of putting up log spikes and having a nice cup of tea during horde night. =)

The AI might be better now, but it has become more predictable. Instead of taking the shortest path now they run around through a doorway. This can be exploited on horde night.

 

[Drithyl]

Im sorry, I didn't get the memo that we were ONLY allowed to make suggestions geared to a certain play style, or audience. I will continue to champion for what I feel is best for the game, even if you disagree with it.
Personally there are a lot of people around here who need to take it easy on the knee jerk condemnations and reactions to changes in week 2 of an experimental build where if things do not immediately go the expected route the pitchforks come out and demands for changes and balances echos the hills.

If people would sit down and think a little and plan out their first few days and not be married to one play style they have been holding on to since A11 they would realize that this so called difficulty increase is very much early game and once you get the gist of food and health and perks you can do all the things you used to love. Instead people want to rah rah for everything to be nerfed into the ground without really even trying to step outside of their box.

I mean people were already judging within 2 hours of Exp drop, and that continues to this very day.

At no point did I say you were not allowed to make suggestions. I just criticized your suggestion with my own opinion, which is also allowed. I don't know why you feel like I'm trying to silence you.

And talking about knee jerks, isn't yours one as well? Someone points out that the infection status is bugged, dev replies it will be fixed, and you suddenly make a post going "rah rah" with a very constructive sentence such as "b214 - Infections now buff loot chances. Go out and grab dem infectionz boiz."

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Does the Archery perk also affect crossbows?

It’s supposed too. You’d have to check the xml to make sure the perk is actually being applied though.

 

[cork]

Probably said before, but I dont like the XP notification when I kill a zombie. It let's me know they are really dead and won't get back up. Takes away that uncertainty factor that keeps me on edge, and that constant on edge feeling is part of what makes this game so great.
Perhaps if there was a way to delay the XP tag until 5 seconds after the kill?

Since this is likely a minority view, an option to hide the xp notification and xp bar would probably be a better feature request than delaying the xp gain.

 

[Henrique]

Hello everyone

 

[Gareee]

Since this is likely a minority view, an option to hide the xp notification and xp bar would probably be a better feature request than delaying the xp gain.

The hud can already easily be changed with the new modlets

 

[Gazz]

My wife always does the farming, and now that she is used to the new system, she prefers it. Of course, YMMV

The wife has spoken. That settles it.

 

[Guppycur]

@Faatal

Unity question.

Whenever I assign rigidbody's to entities, they still don't ragdoll. I have both Gravity and Kinematic checked. Would you mind posting your Rigidbody Inspector screen?

 

[DanLW]

Since this is likely a minority view, an option to hide the xp notification and xp bar would probably be a better feature request than delaying the xp gain.

Wanting to feel unsafe in a zombie survival game is a minority view? If everybody wants to feel safe, might as well implement a radar with distance to sleepers, and increase the global light level so you can always see everything.

 

[TSBX]

The hud can already easily be changed with the new modlets

Not that part.

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

Since this is likely a minority view, an option to hide the xp notification and xp bar would probably be a better feature request than delaying the xp gain.

You can hide the XP bar easily via a modlet. I may have even put one out to do just that.

However, the XP pop-out notification from my initial tests was not able to be done via XML only since it would also lose the Item Pickup notifications.