PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[meganoth]

Regarding the blood moon horde night, is there a reason the horde is limited to a certain amount of zombies per night?

I think this is just a fast-and-easy solution until they have a real and balanced solution in place. At least it makes sure that you aren't punished for killing the zombies faster.

If zombies were endlessly replaced whenever they died (so that always 8 zombies are attacking per player) someone killing the zombies faster would have to kill a lot more zombies. Sure, that also means more xp at the moment, but then the best strategy would be to just slow down the zombies as much as possible and shoot only the better zombies until you have only lowest-level zombies alive and then (!!) keep those alive.

 

[Perlin_Worm]

Excess guns are barter/trade currency, it’s simple as that. Easy access to functioning guns on day one was a design decision by the devs.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Whats you thoughts on gun parts?

He's probably opposed to the new lighting.. Shun!

 

[SnowDog1942]

He's probably opposed to the new lighting.. Shun!

LOL!

 

[meganoth]

No, I have a strong opinion and I will continue to share it, I also know I am not alone in this. I just simply do not like this dumbed down system.

Well, if everyone did this, the forum would be full with posters endlessly repeating their pet peeve. Gets old fast, even if only one person does it.

Doing the "I want this, I want this, I want this..." routine that childs are so good at doesn't scale well to a forum where hundreds of people have strong opinions about how the game should be changed. Do it too much and you get on the nerves of everyone and finally get ignored by everyone.

My personal opinion on this is that there is zero chance you get what you want in vanilla because TFP likes the current system and it is possible to mod the game so gun parts are in much like in A16. Wait for a mod if you can't mod yourself, eventually there will be one I'm sure.

 

[gpcstargate]

Guys, what's up with beakers drop rate? Does it even drop? I'm lvl 92, completely looted 3 large towns, including the hospital in the forest biome, killed hundreds of nurses, but still didnt get a single one? It doesnt bother be me a lot because i'm playing in Navezgane with many working chem stations, but what if it was a random gen? Maybe I'm missing smth?

I got 2 from the working stiffs store.

 

[vitamin]

And who says that the stamina loss is a percentage, and not a flat value?

It's very easy to test within the game. Don't even need a calculator. Just your max stamina above 100 and get hungry.

Because if one of the developers himself tells you you don't lose it faster, you either provide solid proof of the opposite or anything you say is all assumptions on your part.

If everything would have worked exactly the way developers meant it to work there would be no bugs.

As a proof: I have max stamina of 130 right now and fullness of 94. With linear stamina loss I should have stamina cap @ 124 right? However it's capped at 122. Here is why:

130 * 0.94 = 122.2

 

[trielkee]

I think this is just a fast-and-easy solution until they have a real and balanced solution in place. At least it makes sure that you aren't punished for killing the zombies faster. If zombies were endlessly replaced whenever they died (so that always 8 zombies are attacking per player) someone killing the zombies faster would have to kill a lot more zombies. Sure, that also means more xp at the moment, but then the best strategy would be to just slow down the zombies as much as possible and shoot only the better zombies until you have only lowest-level zombies alive and then (!!) keep those alive.

In my opinion, horde night should be a constant struggle, if you don't fight them off, you are toast as is your base. No pasive bases to keep you safe while you enjoy the red scenery around you. Zombies AI is fantastic at this point, they shouldn't get "smarter" but stronger in hordes.

If you have three or more zombies gathered at one point of your wall, the damage they do should be increased accordingly. As far as I know, something like this is allready in place, I just hope they increase the damage more.

If you manage to kill off tougher zombies it still wouldn't matter as they'd chew through your defenses pretty quick if left alive.

 

[HerrKingsley]

TFP are planning on making 300 new mods for clothes and weapons. That will probably satisfy most player to keep looting and exploring.. if its balanced right.

 

[SnowDog1942]

TFP are planning on making 300 new mods for clothes and weapons. That will probably satisfy most player to keep looting and exploring.. if its balanced right.

Trust me on this one. Moldybread will still want to collect boring gun parts instead

 

[trielkee]

This is the kind of horde night I'd like to see:

 

[HerrKingsley]

In my opinion, horde night should be a constant struggle, if you don't fight them off, you are toast as is your base. No pasive bases to keep you safe while you enjoy the red scenery around you. Zombies AI is fantastic at this point, they shouldn't get "smarter" but stronger in hordes.
If you have three or more zombies gathered at one point of your wall, the damage they do should be increased accordingly. As far as I know, something like this is already in place, I just hope they increase the damage more.

If you manage to kill off tougher zombies it still wouldn't matter as they'd chew through your defenses pretty quick if left alive.

Agree to disagree and agree...

I agree with you that IF you play offensive play style zombies should be a constant struggle, Preferably getting smarter with GS.

But survival isn't just killing all threats but also avoiding danger and playing smart.

That can be spending the night in a gyro copter, building one of these maze like bases we have sin on this forum, or have ♥♥♥♥ lots of turrets. And then wait till morning breaks and kill off the rest of the horde.

I like digging zombies but i think we should have air quality as the main threat in underground and if you don't manage the zombies that are slowly digging down they will eventually break trough and eat you alive.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Agree to disagree and agree...I agree with you that IF you play offensive play style zombies should be a constant struggle, Preferably getting smarter with GS.

But survival isn't just killing all threats but also avoiding danger and playing smart.

That can be spending the night in a gyro copter, building one of these maze like bases we have sin on this forum, or have ♥♥♥♥ lots of turrets. And then wait till morning breaks and kill off the rest of the horde.

I like digging zombies but i think we should have air quality as the main threat in underground and if you don't manage the zombies that are slowly digging down they will eventually break trough and eat you alive.

Air quality as main threat underground? Ok, so you setup your filtration system. Then????????

 

[meganoth]

It's very easy to test within the game. Don't even need a calculator. Just your max stamina above 100 and get hungry.

If everything would have worked exactly the way developers meant it to work there would be no bugs.

As a proof: I have max stamina of 130 right now and fullness of 94. With linear stamina loss I should have stamina cap @ 124 right? However it's capped at 122. Here is why:

130 * 0.94 = 122.2

Ok, but this is still only half the equation. If for example you lose a constant amount of fullness (I assume 1 to make it simple) whenever you expend max stamina once, then the calculation is:

With 100 stamina and 100 fullness you would use up 100+99+98= 297 stamina to get to fullness of 97 and max stamina of 97.

With 130 max stamina and 100 fullness you would use up 130+128+125= 383 stamina to get to fullness of 97 and max stamina of 117

That is, with 130 stamina you have expended about 50% more stamina and your max stamina is still higher.

 

[Thecolours]

So I finally got a laser sight mod and put it on a shotgun. The laser sight dosen't line up with the center of the crosshair. Is it like this for all the weapons? Really disappointed with it.

 

[meganoth]

One thing I am noticing though is level gating on perks is hampering diverse play styles... for instance, I found all the minibike parts in looting on day one. The minibike building perk is gated behind intellegence, level 6, which is gated behind level 40.

I haven't cared either way if level gating is in or not but in this example, e can see that the level and perk gating combined is hampering more diverse gameplay. I should have been able to just unlock the minibike building perk, and after finding a working workbench, just assemble it.

Exactly. If you are lucky enough to find/buy all parts of a minibike it should be possible to get it to work aka assemble it. Otherwise finding minibike parts in the world would be practically useless.

Either only crafting the parts is gated behind the perk, or the perk can be bought from the start and crafting the parts is gated somewhere else, for example behind steel crafting. But I don't see where the gates for all the vehicles in the game should come from so I really don't see an alternative to the former solution.

I think what is making people say that the zombie xp needs to be nerfed is because the xp gain is based on them being tougher in 199. If they are made easier, then the xp probably also needs to be adjusted down for balance, and visa versa if they are made tougher, xp needs to be higher to make the struggle more worth it.

No, the simple fact that I as scavenger reached level 13 while the miners/builders in our group were still level 4 (in b199) is the reason zombie xp should be nerfed. Now sure, because of gamestage they also still get easier zombies, but co-op play simply doesn't work well when the scavenger can buy the crafting and mining perks long before the miners/builders.

Also the developers have to make a decision. Is it more important to support stealthy scavenging playstyle or a straight fighter (without scavenging) playstyle. But the fighter without scavenging isn't really possible anyway as you need to scavenge for ammunition and food anyway, And zombies should not be a "loot" bring-in service anyway and xp is just another form of loot

So at least 75% or more of the xp a scavenger gets must come from looting and not from zombie xp. So a stealthy scavenger doesn't fall too much behind a fighting scavenger. And that goes for other "classes" as well: A player specializing in mining should get 75% or more of his xp from mining. Not from stray zombies hitting his base.

 

[wolffblood]

This is the kind of horde night I'd like to see:

YES, that's what I want to see too. Of course on Never Run if there will be that many. There becomes a point that if they all run, the base won't survive if there is that many coming at you.

The shared xp is really nice, but one thing I noticed, my friend that likes to mainly harvest and build, he lvls so much faster than me now. I increased the range to make sure he could be in it mostly so I don't lvl way past him (unless I go way off for a town or something), around 1km. With that shared xp, building, and harvesting, he lvls faster than I do. Only way I can catch up is go outside the range, kill a bit to equal level, then come back. Now I know I can lower the range of shared xp, but then he gets way behind (it was this way in A16.4, so doesn't have anything to do with zombies giving more xp in A17E right now). It'll be a bit rough balancing that out, so I'm waiting till stable to do much messing with the shared xp stuff.

 

[HerrKingsley]

Air quality as main threat underground? Ok, so you setup your filtration system. Then????????

Or gas mask. Either way I dont see it as a problem.

It's like starving? Set up a farm..then???

Low stamina? Buy perks or build a vehicle...then?

You might enjoy an constant struggle but I enjoy to overcome the struggle and then thrive.

 

[trielkee]

Was wondering, will we get zombie wolves in future builds?

 

[JDogg126]

I have really been enjoying Alpha 17. I like the changes to the core progression experience. Definitely needs some balancing to better fit with the pace of the game but it's a solid step forward for sure.

Most of what is missing in the game is a reason to stick with it after you have all the perks and gear and built your base but the seeds to solving this are already planted. This is an area where NPC's and quests will fit quite nicely and can scale as you progress. Rather than having an "escort" question, you can have a "protect" quest where you need to keep an NPC survivor alive X days. You could also have quests to deal with an expected zombie herd that comes at you like a blood mood but lasts for X days and goes right through your base area.

It would be interesting if weather could be more lethal. A massive sandstorm or blizzard that requires shelter from the elements but also brings with it zombies that are tied to that storm. Zero visibility, extreme hot/cold, and special mutant zombies? What's not to like?

Great job so far TFP! Keep holding the hammer!