PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[SxR]

I may have to watch the video again, I thought he said you could use a knife, axe etc to harvest?

You can use any weapon / tool to harvest an animal for meat.. however, it will not be as efficient as a Bone Knife, Knife, or Machete.

 

[wolffblood]

Good example of overdoing it is scum.

Oh lord, yes. I've seen people play that. It is not a game I will ever play, and most people I have watched play it, quit soon after because it got too boring and frustrating to deal with it all.

 

[SxR]

This kind of stuff feels more appropriate in some hyper realism mod. Also, games which DO natively have food spoilage (Starbound and The Forest come to mind) also have mechanics to allow you to store food without spoiling (fridges and drying meat, respectively). So if you're in such a good position that food isn't an issue without food spoilage, you'll most likely also be fine with food spoilage.

Do not use The Forest as an example.. ;U

Not when the whole island is SWARMING with Rabbits and Fish.. not to mention the Cannibals themselves being edible, too.

Totally different rate of exchange between stockpiling food, and discarding when it gets too old. ;x

 

[Perlin_Worm]

Can the mods please ban the word “spoilage” on this forum? Thanks.

 

[Gnomaana]

And it is a survival game.
Do you want realism instead? Go play Arma 3 or Farming Simulator.. this game is supposed to be fun, not realistic.

I don't see where Cro666ie said a thing about realism. He complained about the game getting easier. Some of us equate difficulty AS fun in a survival game. Farming was already pretty basic, IF they made it even simpler, then I think that is a step in the wrong direction. Mind you, I don't know whether they make it simpler or not. I'll reserve judgement until I get to play it.

 

[meganoth]

At this point we don't know to what extent you can mod farming. I agree with the other posters sentiment - the game is becoming a zombie fighting game with simple crafting and survival concepts bolted on to it.

I think it is safe to assume that modding possibilites will generally get better (especially since a large part of A17 was exactly about that). Since you could mod farming in A16, it should be possible in A17 at least at the same level or better.

You say farming is simpler now? Because a very simple repetitive menial task (planting) is gone now? Or because getting up food production is not trivial anymore after a few rounds of seed production?

Actually this change is a precondition to making farming difficult. For example food spoilage does not work to make the game more difficult if you have nearly unlimited food production.

You have to leave a hot bar slot open to pick up a plant, which may then get filled because you picked it. So you have to move the item to your backpack to reopen the slot, in order to pick more plants.

[....]

What's the benefit to forcing such a change on all the players who have become accustomed to the current implementation?

I'm not saying that this particular change is good. But the attitude that forcing a change on players is not acceptable is clearly the wrong one for an EA game. What are you, 80 years old. Or just with an aversion to learn something new ?

 

[Gnomaana]

Absolutely this. We really need a food spoilage timer.
Similarly, snow needs to melt so if you take it to a warm biome it just goes away instead of allowing you to stockpile water.

I definitely agree on the snow. The first time I run across a snow biome is the last time I ever have to look for water. I just punch as I run and usually have stacks of snow by time I'm back in a warm biome.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I could see eating repeated foods and spoilage could be good to implement. But even though this is a survival game, this isn't a micromanagement survival game. Leave out the fat/protein/carbs/etc. That just gets to be a bit much in my opinion. With the new systems, I'm sure someone will mod that in, but as for the game itself, I'd just leave it out. Most people I know hates too much micromanagement short of city building games, takes out a lot of fun of most everything else. I've seen it in other games and it's an instant no to playing it.

Especially because it is survival i don't like food having not any effect on "mood". It doesn't need to be splitted in protein, carbs and fat which require you to manage each differently, but as mentioned just a decay on each meal would make you require to vary what you eat. Just like eating to much berries to fast gives you a stomach pain. It's basically the same, so everything needed is obviously already implemented.

 

[Aurelius]

I could see eating repeated foods and spoilage could be good to implement. But even though this is a survival game, this isn't a micromanagement survival game. Leave out the fat/protein/carbs/etc. That just gets to be a bit much in my opinion. With the new systems, I'm sure someone will mod that in, but as for the game itself, I'd just leave it out. Most people I know hates too much micromanagement short of city building games, takes out a lot of fun of most everything else. I've seen it in other games and it's an instant no to playing it.

Or, you could mod it out so the nutritional and spoilage aspects aren't in your game.

It's much simpler to mod something out, than to mod something in - especially when the game doesn't have hooks in the underlying code to do what you want your mod to do.

-A

 

[Aurelius]

I'm not saying that this particular change is good. But the attitude that forcing a change on players is not acceptable is clearly the wrong one for an EA game. What are you, 80 years old. Or just with an aversion to learn something new ?

Using 'E' to harvest has been around for as long as I can remember in this game. Not only that, it's a fairly common mechanic in other games.

So no, I'm not 80 years old (yet), nor am I avert to learning something new. On the contrary, you'll find my posting history is quite pro/vocal towards change.

What I am protesting is change for the sake of change - and I asked what the compelling reason for this change was. It's simply bad development practice to make a change to the existing UX without having a logical reason - EA or not.

-A

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

For the benefit of those who didn’t watch pokket’s phone video of MM briefly playing A17, here’s what it showed about farming:

1) Crops are harvested using the primary action (i.e., no “E” to harvest). He specifically said that crops can be harvested with an empty hand or a knife (I’m pretty sure you can use any item however).

2) Crops don’t need to be replanted after harvesting.

3) Without any perks unlocked, most, if not all, crops only return one item when harvested.

4) Seeds are more expensive to craft. MM discussed a 5-1 ratio for some crops.

ETA - Roland, please feel free to weigh in on this since the beans have already been spilled. I’m pretty sure you can clear up any misunderstandings on how farming works. For example, can any tool be used to harvest or only certain tools.

 

[DaVegaNL]

I can think of one.The punch uses stamina, In turn food and water.

While just using the 'E' button didn't.

That makes sense. Will they therefore also implement a similar 'empty-hands' system for looting? Else it wouldn't make sense, IMO.

 

[Manchild]

This is alpha you know everythings gonna change. So before you clock 1000 hours on game.know this.

 

[Aurelius]

@Tin -

Didn't see your post before. That makes sense, and if as Kosmic Kerman points out, a tool can be used (not just an empty hand) then I really have no problems with the harvest key change.

I could even see some type of bonus being applied with the right harvesting tool...

-A

edit:

Found the timestamp where MM starts talking about farming:

 

[Aldranon]

What I am protesting is change for the sake of change - and I asked what the compelling reason for this change was. It's simply bad development practice to make a change to the existing UX without having a logical reason - EA or not.

With the different button, maybe the E key will be for a certain type of task and left mouse for others.

With the farming change, the probable reason was to make food an important issue in the first part of the game and to encourage getting farming skills.

Ether way, by mid game, the player is going to have a lot of other problems to deal with.

Then food will lose some importance, unless the master cook skill can give you some really nice buffs, then food will always stay important.

What button you push is not a big deal. People are just getting antsy for A17.

 

[wolffblood]

@Tin -
Didn't see your post before. That makes sense, and if as Kosmic Kerman points out, a tool can be used (not just an empty hand) then I really have no problems with the harvest key change.

I could even see some type of bonus being applied with the right harvesting tool...

-A

edit:

Found the timestamp where MM starts talking about farming:

Granted, you currently get a bonus to crops using a hoe to till the land before you harvest with "E". I wonder if that's being replaced with the perk, or if it will be a combined bonus. Can only wait and see.

 

[Scyris]

Hmm.

"All harvestable plants are harvested by hitting with free hand instead of using with "e" 11/1/18

Harvested crop returns to first stage "baby plant" and regrows 11/1/18

Seeds very rare 11/1/18"

I'd rather it be E myself, having to remove something from the hotbar everytime I wanna harvest a plant is going to get very annoying very quickly, as I often pick plants as I run around. I am guessing you have to punch it due to a code issue? Would be nice if there was a key to holster weapons so you can use your bare hands, insted of having to play inventory tetris everytime to free up a hotbar space.

Plant back to baby plant the regrows, sweet, I loved a mod in starbound that did that, once harvested it'd regrow again from a seedling.

As for seeds, If you can still craft seeds from plants I don't think that'll hurt much, unless your removing the crafting of seeds as well. Or, does it mean when you punch like dead corn stalks there is now a rare chance to get a seed insted of 100% chance?

 

[wolffblood]

Or, you could mod it out so the nutritional and spoilage aspects aren't in your game.
It's much simpler to mod something out, than to mod something in - especially when the game doesn't have hooks in the underlying code to do what you want your mod to do.

-A

Yes, typically, you can mod it out to be easier. However, this micromanagement is more than likely a very small percentage of players. Programming it would only cause more headaches and difficulties to change things around for future updates, so why would TFP do this to themselves for a very small few and then have someone mod out their hard work for the vast majority. They can be focusing on other things instead that would benefit the majority. However, the spoilage aspect would be smart to put in at some point in the future, once A17E is already out. Make it an update. Don't extend the release date more than it is already. Remember, they are refining current features and freezing anything new currently, so short of if it's one of the "secret feature" they are adding in, no use adding it this update. And as for hooks, you could easily add it in now, especially since with how they are doing it, you can create your own variables now. So you could easily create fat/protien/etc and then link it to food. Just they don't need to be adding that extra work on themselves as I stated above.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm.
"All harvestable plants are harvested by hitting with free hand instead of using with "e" 11/1/18

Harvested crop returns to first stage "baby plant" and regrows 11/1/18

Seeds very rare 11/1/18"

I'd rather it be E myself, having to remove something from the hotbar everytime I wanna harvest a plant is going to get very annoying very quickly, as I often pick plants as I run around. I am guessing you have to punch it due to a code issue? Would be nice if there was a key to holster weapons so you can use your bare hands, insted of having to play inventory tetris everytime to free up a hotbar space.

Plant back to baby plant the regrows, sweet, I loved a mod in starbound that did that, once harvested it'd regrow again from a seedling.

As for seeds, If you can still craft seeds from plants I don't think that'll hurt much, unless your removing the crafting of seeds as well. Or, does it mean when you punch like dead corn stalks there is now a rare chance to get a seed insted of 100% chance?

I could see that with the hot bar issue. What if there was basically a hotbar slot, say "F" that locked out putting anything in there, so always made it fists. Or 1-9, 9 locked out, something simple like that if it is a coding thing.

 

[Madholont]

Re: Food Spoilage....this has already been modded with the Starvation Mod for those of you who feel this "must" be part of your game play. I, for one, will play A17E for a fair while before seeking out modded game play. There is a lot to learn and experience with the changes that are coming.

 

[dwallorde]

Anybody notice on Pokkets stream that Joel trimmed his beard... wtf? Isnt that breaking some sort of code or something?