PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

  • Newly Updated

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Check out the newest reveals by Madmole

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Over 100 new perk books with set collecting and bonuses

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1
Status
Not open for further replies.
Alpha 17 feels good at the moment. Mining is a real pain. Its nice we can craft bullet casing out of steel, but its (for me) insanly hard to find enough coal and nitrate for gunpowder.

In any way Mining feel damn slow, block damage is nearly a joke (compared with A16) even with an Auger. Building a bigger Base like i did in A16 is way to time expensive now.

Question: I am the only 1 wo only have 1 Trader in the whole (ingame) World? Starting Quest was also bugged (trader 0,0m distance) and after this i never found 1 again. (playing MP with a friend, he join my game and found the 1 with the Quest)

Is it a known bug / already fixed? Because its a bit nasty if you want to sell something or do some Quest and its only 1 Trader avaible, make settling far away a bit time consuming for traveling (to trader)

@Snowman: If you sit on Vehicle, press left mouse button for change controll from mouse to keyboard, so you can look around with mouse then, controll with wasd the vehicle. right mouse button (hold) makes you look around if you have mouse vehicle movement thing.

@Moldy Bread: I think the only way for Mods is this higher valuable Loot Container and some Special Container like Bookshelfs to get them / or other "better" loot you need for crafting. Atm. i can build Citys out of weapons. I found more Weapon (Pistol / Shotgun etc.) as anything else. Ok its good for the ammunation inside but its for my taste WAY to much, other things like acid or mods are so damn rare. its just experimental so i think this will get a balance early

 
Last edited by a moderator:
What's the point in looting now? There is no point in doing the dungeon POIs because I can get the same loot from a small house with a safe. I am hoping there can be a way to mod the parts system from A16 into A17, because right now there's not much reason to loot any of the big places.


Weapon parts system was replaced with the new mod system, so saying there's no point in looting anymore because there are no weapon parts anymore is just rubbish. New mods that you can find are far superior to the old weapon parts because they actually have some usability unlike getting 2 chests full of magnum and shotgun stocks with no other part to combine them with.

I agree there should be higher risk areas with a chance of finding better loot, but seeing as this is experimental there's a possibility we'll see that aswell in the near future.

 
Any chance of a new experimental coming out soon? Smash is out in just a few days and I'd like to play this before it eats up all my time :apathy:

 
Hi, i have 2 questions;

1- When i digging to any ore for example from 400/400 block i only gain 6-7 lead ? in a16 i can get 20-30. is that configurable ?

2- Why obtain to iron ore is so hard ? Clay is so easy but iron like gold.

 
Love this Alpha. One thing I would highly consider increasing is the XP gained from quests. Right now 1000 XP for completing them is so minimal imo for the amount of time it take. Two zombie kills is 150% that... maybe make it like 2500-3000? at least
The problem isn't that the XP from quests is too low. The problem is that the XP from zombies is way too high.

Killing a few zombies gets you way more experience than doing anything else, and clearing a medium sized POI can accidentally take you up a couple of levels. That's way too much experience - by the time you've searched three or four POIs looking for a cooking pot or a grill your levels have skyrocketed.

At the moment you have to make a deliberate effort to avoid killing zombies if you don't want your level (and therefore gamestage) to increase too quickly.

 
What's the point in looting now? There is no point in doing the dungeon POIs because I can get the same loot from a small house with a safe. I am hoping there can be a way to mod the parts system from A16 into A17, because right now there's not much reason to loot any of the big places.
There isn't one. Some will say mods. But even without mods a level 5 sniper or smg is good enough to take on ferals provided you have bullets.

Quality level changes and the addition of mods in place of actual progression have been the biggest downfall of this otherwise superb Alpha. I find myself growing bored even quicker now, and that's a fatal flaw. But people will try to convince you the mods are going to keep this game afloat for months. They won't. Gun and weapon mods are a band aid to the bigger issue.

People will also try to convince you stamina can't be beat, horde bases do not work and building is impossible. Those people are also wrong, and it's the consistent protesting and shouting by them that will turn 17 into 16-lite. It's already begun.

Joel if I can make a suggestion continue to make the game as YOU want to. I can see 17 in its initial form was your baby until the nerfings began. It's great to have a team of assorted players to help keep the game well rounded, but the balance is starting to skew to the casual. Try to prevent that.

 
It's great to have a team of assorted players to help keep the game well rounded, but the balance is starting to skew to the casual. Try to prevent that.
Why can the game not skew to both? An experienced player starts out as a casual. Without casual players, TFP wont have new customers, which means they wont keep having the time and resources to update the game.

I think the real issue is the difficulty scaling needs some attention. Scavenger mode should be a cakewalk and playable by a child, whereas insane needs to challenge the more experienced veteran.

I keep suggesting a few extra 'advanced options' that are predefined according to your selected difficulty, and if the player wishes, they can adjust these further before starting a game, in the same way you would adjust day length.

It is possible to have both!

 
What's the point in looting now? There is no point in doing the dungeon POIs because I can get the same loot from a small house with a safe. I am hoping there can be a way to mod the parts system from A16 into A17, because right now there's not much reason to loot any of the big places.
Are you looting only for guns?

 
I find myself growing bored even quicker now, and that's a fatal flaw. But people will try to convince you the mods are going to keep this game afloat for months. They won't. Gun and weapon mods are a band aid to the bigger issue.
People will also try to convince you stamina can't be beat, horde bases do not work and building is impossible. Those people are also wrong, and it's the consistent protesting and shouting by them that will turn 17 into 16-lite. It's already begun.

Joel if I can make a suggestion continue to make the game as YOU want to. I can see 17 in its initial form was your baby until the nerfings began. It's great to have a team of assorted players to help keep the game well rounded, but the balance is starting to skew to the casual. Try to prevent that.

It's the same with weapon mods as it is with weapon parts, if you get bored with the game neither one will keep you interested. I just don't see what is so special with one and not the other.

Real game changer will be bandits and quests when they polish them some more.

Have to agree about the difficulty though, it seems things are repeating again and again regarding toning down mechanics and all around difficulty level.

 
Just a, 'how's it going' ramble, nothing to interesting.

Other than: how cool a boat with some small storage would be for Navezgane map. :)

Navezgane, nomad, 90-min days, morning of day 11, Lvl 25.

Spawned ~1.4km south of Trader on Raner Blvd near Docks in West side of map.

Only rng luck so far was a working forge (pot day 2!) in the old forge house SW of traders, on the lake w central island.

Haven't avoided z's except horde night. Only had 3-4 wandering hordes, 1 at night that I led a merry chase.

Been sticking near home, so only looted the docks & poi's around the lake. ALS Marina was suprisingly basic.

Completed one trader fetch/dig quest. Took me down south to within sight of Gravestown. Z-bear camping site. Took forever to lure him far enough away to dig up chest. Cheated and flew home.

Only other bit of rng love was a T5 machete at traders. Btw, try one. My new, 'in-hand' choice for clearing due to damn vultures.

Haven't found a pot or wrench & only one pair of pants. No MiningHel/wheels/acid, and other than another forge, no working stations.

Looted 4 schematics; one a Bunker Buster which uses a book for icon so no idea what it's for.

Doing ok on meat now, though eggs are lean on the ground. Have 300+ Arrows & 600+ Feathers, 7e Bacon&Egss, no eggs.

Plan is to start looting houses at Raner & 73 to the East. Was hoping to have a bike but no Workstation so hoofing it.

Don't know if smashing drops Mech Parts, so hopefully I can find a couple of wrenchs soon. (1 to make workstation for bike)

Done a fair bit of mining; 15,000+ stone in chest. Haven't been smelting it since forge house is flimsey and not really worth trying to protect from screamers.

So far in Navezgane playthroughs the best poi to set up on that I've found is the small Pass-N-Gas on northern edge of desert, almost due south of Diersville, beside Ansel Adam River. Tough little building. Hoping to find something similar in forest biome.

For day 14 horde I'm thinking of dropping a land claim on the poi that's killed/pissed me off the most, just for some revenge, heh :D

 
It's the same with weapon mods as it is with weapon parts, if you get bored with the game neither one will keep you interested. I just don't see what is so special with one and not the other.
Real game changer will be bandits and quests when they polish them some more.

Have to agree about the difficulty though, it seems things are repeating again and again regarding toning down mechanics and all around difficulty level.
Why can't we have both? I'm looting for everything however guns are more common than water. My issue with the gun system now is the only difference with a level 1 gun and level 6 gun is durability. If you got weapon repair kits then there really is no point in upgrading. With the parts system you worked hard to make your gun better (to make it your own) but now you get guns thrown at you.

I know what I am going to get in a Shotgun Messiah, plenty of guns. Before I felt excited to loot as I was not sure what I was going to get. Now it's just... Meh...

The mods aren't even that great. Like I said, why not combine both systems? The Starvation Mod did that a while back. I'm sorry I am going on about this a lot but this issue is pretty game destroying for me.

(update) yea, I know the higher the gun level the more mods you can put on it. But like I said the mods are kinda underwhelming and not really that much of a reason to go on a dangerous looting run.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
What's the deal with this build freezing my pc completely up upon starting a new game, about 3 times in a row now.. the f.

 
Why can't we have both? I'm looting for everything however guns are more common than water. My issue with the gun system now is the only difference with a level 1 gun and level 6 gun is durability. If you got weapon repair kits then there really is no point in upgrading. With the parts system you worked hard to make your gun better (to make it your own) but now you get guns thrown at you.
I know what I am going to get in a Shotgun Messiah, plenty of guns. Before I felt excited to loot as I was not sure what I was going to get. Now it's just... Meh...

The mods aren't even that great. Like I said, why not combine both systems? The Starvation Mod did that a while back. I'm sorry I am going on about this a lot but this issue is pretty game destroying for me.

(update) yea, I know the higher the gun level the more mods you can put on it. But like I said the mods are kinda underwhelming and not really that much of a reason to go on a dangerous looting run.

Well, I would also like them to keep both, the more complex the better. I just don't see the reasoning behind the mindset that there's nothing left to loot or risk your life for going into a tough POI, because there's plenty.

The whole damage per weapon level ordeal is apparently split in the middle in the community. Myself, I don't have a problem with it, a weapon is a weapon so it's logical two identical guns do the exact same damage regardless of their level. That's what different types of ammo are for.

All of this will probably change anyway so who knows.

 
Well, I would also like them to keep both, the more complex the better. I just don't see the reasoning behind the mindset that there's nothing left to loot or risk your life for going into a tough POI, because there's plenty.
The whole damage per weapon level ordeal is apparently split in the middle in the community. Myself, I don't have a problem with it, a weapon is a weapon so it's logical two identical guns do the exact same damage regardless of their level. That's what different types of ammo are for.

All of this will probably change anyway so who knows.
I see weapon level as a sort of reverse durability. The lower the level of the weapon the longer it has sat without maintenance and rusted. This would affect the speed and trajectory of the bullet as the barrel no longer provides a tight seal around the bullet and shaking of the frame (as seen in a real AK-47 firing) from worn parts would send the bullet off in a less than perfect direction.

How does age affect guns in real life? We don't get to play with many in this country and any I've fired have all been in just about pristine condition.

 
How does age affect guns in real life? We don't get to play with many in this country and any I've fired have all been in just about pristine condition.
Most likely impacts of poor maintenance/rough use would be;

Poor maintenance:

1) Jamming if auto/semi-auto, due to dried lube, corrosion. Also weak magazine springs could contribute if left fully loaded for years.

2) Only extreme rust would have a serious impact on 'accuracy' at the ranges we're dealing with. So extreme that the weapon would be unsafe to shoot at all. The minor rust you'd likely see after a weapon was stored for years w only light oiling prior to putting away wouldn't have much of an effect. Obviously oceanside vs. desert would make a big difference in rl.

Rough use:

1) Aim point shifted from Impact point. Sights knocked out of wack.

2) Sights damaged or loose. Result would be constantly shifting aim-point.

Even a WWI rifle that has been heavily used & abused, rifling obviously pitted & worn, can still likely manage 3-5 inch 50 meter groups; assuming sights aren't loose.

 
Ranger Redd's Dead & Breakfast, Loot-N-Scoot, and other notes from a POI flipper.

Just a, 'how's it going' ramble, nothing to interesting.Other than: how cool a boat with some small storage would be for Navezgane map. :)

Navezgane, nomad, 90-min days, morning of day 11, Lvl 25.

Spawned ~1.4km south of Trader on Raner Blvd near Docks in West side of map.

Only rng luck so far was a working forge (pot day 2!) in the old forge house SW of traders, on the lake w central island.

Haven't avoided z's except horde night. Only had 3-4 wandering hordes, 1 at night that I led a merry chase.

Been sticking near home, so only looted the docks & poi's around the lake. ALS Marina was suprisingly basic.

Completed one trader fetch/dig quest. Took me down south to within sight of Gravestown. Z-bear camping site. Took forever to lure him far enough away to dig up chest. Cheated and flew home.

Only other bit of rng love was a T5 machete at traders. Btw, try one. My new, 'in-hand' choice for clearing due to damn vultures.

Haven't found a pot or wrench & only one pair of pants. No MiningHel/wheels/acid, and other than another forge, no working stations.

Looted 4 schematics; one a Bunker Buster which uses a book for icon so no idea what it's for.

Doing ok on meat now, though eggs are lean on the ground. Have 300+ Arrows & 600+ Feathers, 7e Bacon&Egss, no eggs.

Plan is to start looting houses at Raner & 73 to the East. Was hoping to have a bike but no Workstation so hoofing it.

Don't know if smashing drops Mech Parts, so hopefully I can find a couple of wrenchs soon. (1 to make workstation for bike)

Done a fair bit of mining; 15,000+ stone in chest. Haven't been smelting it since forge house is flimsey and not really worth trying to protect from screamers.

So far in Navezgane playthroughs the best poi to set up on that I've found is the small Pass-N-Gas on northern edge of desert, almost due south of Diersville, beside Ansel Adam River. Tough little building. Hoping to find something similar in forest biome.

For day 14 horde I'm thinking of dropping a land claim on the poi that's killed/pissed me off the most, just for some revenge, heh :D
There is a nice Pass-N-Gas just East of Diersvill, that one is in the forest biome. I usually base up a house in Diersvill, although in in A17 that is 1,000% trickier to accomplish very early game. However if you manage to do so then you are surrounded by awesome POIs with equally awesome loot, and short trips home each time. In A16 I used the Hospital roof on horde nights, spike up and reinforced the lobby and rain down on them through the huge roof window, sparing my base. Do not try this in A17, just, don't, lol, trust me. I did eventually conquer the Hospital in an MP game with 3 others and discovered the lobby is now useless for my old method anyway. But overall Diersvill is a great spot to settle in, then branch out once I get a vehicle, though I've only managed to do so on bicycle so far because of the save wipe from my v197/199 game. About to make a motorcycle in a RWG world now, and although I am excited, I am also bummed that there are no Navezgane destinations to go explore with it.

I'm very much a builder, but I always overtake and "flip" a POI for my base, albeit dramatically so, then build BM towers, a full Trader-esque catwalk perimeter, other structures from scratch later in game. Building a base from scratch ruins the immersion for me, makes no sense with so many empty structures available, no one would actually do that. If I want to get really into a remodel and/or BM tower, and/or tunnel system, that's when I used to use the Hospital roof for BMs until they were ready, but again that is now a very, very, bad idea. I used one of the other local house roofs during my first BM in A17, the POI was so full of mines that it sounded like popcorn under my feet on horde night, but it survived, as did I.

Overall I love A17, the biggest gripe I had, being a builder, was now needing a tablesaw(it was bugged, fixed now) to make a ton of the blocks I usually use, as well as needing a mixer to make wet block shapes in. I've gotten used to it, just makes building a ton more tedious and keeps the best block shapes out of reach until mid-game, therefor I am very glad I was not a base-from-scratch builder or my annoyance would be 10 fold. But, it's adaptable, and the new POIs are worth it with my play style.

There's only one thing that ruins, and I mean just ruins, every base design I have ever made, even in A16: the 4 wide drawbridge. Like, wth, seriously TFP why would you DO that, it never, ever, fits, unless I have it in some obscure side of the house place, or on an entirely separate building I can customize it to. Only one time did I manage to use it in a way I liked, loved actually, and it was by using 2 of them. One of my favorite builds ever, "Ranger Redd's Loot-N-Scoot". If I make a sign you know I'm getting seriously into it. I also like converting those simple lone houses, the 2 story ones that often have the forge, into "Ranger Redd's Dead & Breakfast" in MP games and let noobs and new joins use it early game, especially once I move on, I don't like my main base so far from POI clusters.

Anyway, the drawbridges, I had 2 of them close together going sideways over pits right in front of one of those 3 story brick buildings, the ones with stores on the 1st floor and an apartment above it. It was where the "Loot-N-Scoot" name came from, that's how I used it, could enter from one side on minibike, drop my goodies, then go straight back out the other side, it worked awesomely, and lured many Z right into the pits where I wanted them. One other prob with drawbridges that it solved was visibility, instead of a huge wall blocking my view when it was up I now had 2 thin lines I could easily see around to cover my front from ground level, so that was a nice bonus, casually picked off many a screamer from inside thanks to it. Man did I love that base, was my first in-depth game in an RWG. Also my first time getting all into the electrical system, man did I get elaborate, wired the F out of that place. Inside turrets to cover my back when my dumb arse left the drawbridges down and the front door open, which I did repeatedly. Worked great as long as I was not standing in between the turret and it's target, ouch, but we don't talk about that. Had a well placed series of switches to turn on lights and turrets for each building side separately, only when needed to spare the ammo. I could resolve almost any problem without breaking a stride in my daily busy work of organizing, running forges, and crafting, without leaving my main room. Had 2 solar banks up in my roof garden running it all. I was living large in the Zompocalypse, and I am determined to do it again, though I will wait for stable before getting that into a build, and this time I want to do it somewhere in Navezgane. So I'm spending experimental scouting for locations more than anything, there are so many now, it's gleefully overwhelming, real estate christmas.

Just, PLEASE guys, pleeeeease fix or add a new drawbridge size. And that new garage door, it'd be great if we could actually make it, can only find in creative menu, and it's hard to determine which way it is facing until you've placed it and opened it. I can deal with all the other changes, in fact I prefer it all, you've seriously upped the game:) My late game bases are going to be beautiful, elaborate, luxurious middle fingers to the end of the world.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top