PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[MrSamuelAdam]

If you still have the quest in your quest log, delete it by klicking the appropriate "delete" icon above the quest list. Then the trader should have a selection of quests again.

Thank you!

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Why are wooden signs only in the CM now? :/

 

[faatal]

That's exactly why I'm asking. What was the intention of power attacks? Some mods had it in A16 and it was useful but situational. For example, early game it was life extension of a tool that can not be repaired. Or a guaranteed knock down of a dangerous zombie in a confined space. Or saving time mining or looting.
As it stands, unfortunately, power attacks are useless.

Hardly useless. I'd use one any time an enemy is weak and I have stamina to spare. Say I sneak attack with a bow, then put a few more arrows into a the target and it feels weak, then power attack. Or as I do with my first 5 skills points, put one in Stay Down!, then hit enemies with club until they drop and power attack to the head for 40% more damage and 60% it gets knocked back down. You can usually get 2 power attacks in before it is standing again. An enemy is considered stunned until it is fully standing. Put a point in Skull Crusher and get even more stunned power attack to the head damage.

 

[faatal]

I forgot about sneak power attack damage. I just snuck into a POI and power attacked a sleeper standing around a corner and with my 2 points in Hidden Strike and got 2.8x damage. With second power attack he was dead.

 

[Maynard69]

Hardly useless. I'd use one any time an enemy is weak and I have stamina to spare. Say I sneak attack with a bow, then put a few more arrows into a the target and it feels weak, then power attack. Or as I do with my first 5 skills points, put one in Stay Down!, then hit enemies with club until they drop and power attack to the head for 40% more damage and 60% it gets knocked back down. You can usually get 2 power attacks in before it is standing again. An enemy is considered stunned until it is fully standing. Put a point in Skull Crusher and get even more stunned power attack to the head damage.

Ya I like the options it opens up. Gives you the opportunity to think some about how you are going to handle the Z's while in combat. Much more fun than just spamming power attack. Good job guys, me likey.

 

[Gazz]

Some players are just salty about "hold down RMB" no longer being the optimal strategy.

 

[lesipher]

I would report this as a bug but i don't know how to describe it as anything but "HORRIBLE"]I can only describe it as severe framerate drop into the single digits... I have long since gotten comfortable with mid 20s framerate but this is ridiculous. Even in the middle of no where with no poi's around it happens....

Yes I play on a potato but this has gotten to bad to continue as is.

for those inclined to say get a better computer or upgrade..............If I could I would you (fill in the blanks as you wish)....................

 

[Jugginator]

Hardly useless. I'd use one any time an enemy is weak and I have stamina to spare. Say I sneak attack with a bow, then put a few more arrows into a the target and it feels weak, then power attack. Or as I do with my first 5 skills points, put one in Stay Down!, then hit enemies with club until they drop and power attack to the head for 40% more damage and 60% it gets knocked back down. You can usually get 2 power attacks in before it is standing again. An enemy is considered stunned until it is fully standing. Put a point in Skull Crusher and get even more stunned power attack to the head damage.

Yeah, I went with a melee build in a new build run and I am loving it. Power attack doesn't need to be spammed, it does quite a bit of work. I cant wait to try out the "whirlwind" effect heavy metal has later on.

 

[Maynard69]

The only ones are see are extra damage against stunned enemies. So it's very limited use. And not a fact that it's any better than 2 regular attacks. And still doesn't help with mining tools.

Last Experimental version the whole game was pretty much spam RMB, felt very weird. This system is so much better. Switch "very limited" with "situational" and your sentence would be more correct and take on a different tone. Also I dont think it is supposed to be better for mining from what I understand. You are suppose to mine with LMB now afaik.

 

[khzmusik]

Got to put in some hours tonight on the new build, and I'm liking it so far. I am very glad that the repair speed on the stone axe has been raised again.

I'm also not sure why folks are complaining so much about the stamina nerf with power attacks. I never used them in melee except as finishing blows anyway. I would have a problem with it regarding mining, but now that Miner 69er isn't limited to power attacks any more, I don't see that as a problem.

I will say that I am still looking forward to graphical performance optimizations. To get a consistently decent framerate I dropped my resolution to 1600x900, which is not ideal, especially on a 30" monitor. Having said that, I haven't had any stuttering issues so far, I guess that was improved with the A* GC optimizations (if I understand the patch notes).

Overall a good job, and I can definitely see this reaching stable within a few more builds.

 

[danielspoa]

glad to see more people agreeing on the power attack change

I would like to ask about the RWG, if there are any info you can share on it's improvements. What are the priorities? The missing PoIs, the larger maps, the biome distribution, etc? Or are improvements to different areas planned to be released at once? Aiming for stable a17?

ty

 

[Schatun]

Great job pimps!

I have a little suggestion about the melee perks:

Sry for my english

What about change the increased stun dmg to the normal attacks (as the last point - 5/5 maybe).

The normal attack stun imho is quite difficult to land at the zombies or it takes too many hits to stun them, they will kill me before :smile-new:

The area bleed effect at knives too...but not 60% then, maybe 30%.

Or give all effects of the power attack perks to all melee attacks with low chance and let the power attack have just high dmg and higher chance to apply these effects.

At the moment the power attacks feel like finishing moves to get the last 20% of hitpoints out of them.

Is it possible to do the check if an attack hits or miss the target when you click the button - in the beginning of the swing? Ok, this could cause problems if targeting blocks, but... just an idea

 

[Gazz]

Is it possible to do the check if an attack hits or miss the target when you click the button - in the beginning of the swing? Ok, this could cause problems if targeting blocks, but... just an idea

If the game does this check at the beginning of the swing, how can it know if you will actually hit the target at the end of the swing?

You could be too far away or facing a completely different direction.

 

[Jay_ombie]

Is it better to play this game

In a window or a lower resolution ?

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(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 


that is up to the individual. you play whichever is best suited for you and comfortable.


if it makes your game faster or smoother then its where you want to be and not doing what others do...

 


enjoy

 

[DaVegaNL]

Is it better to play this gameIn a window or a lower resolution ?

I'm playing in a reduced resolution to keep it playable (~16 fps).

Performance is very, very much reduced compared with A16.

 

[SickPuppy]

Anyone try always Nightmare?

It's been a little disappointing, I was hoping some would be faster than player, it seems it's the old Always run setting. Day11, GS 65, insane always nightmare, no deaths yet.

Going to try to get higher GS it might up the ante a bit. But honestly with the zombies easier to take down, less wandering hordes? It's feeling a lot easier than before.

Not a big fan of game stage especially on higher settings. Ppl play on higher settings for more challenge so the GS should be maxed out right from the start, irradiated cops, hordes of wolves, etc from day1. To put everything on hardest and game starts off easy, plus a new nightmare setting (where the zombies are slower than a16) seems kind of a paradox.

 

[vitamin]

Hardly useless. I'd use one any time an enemy is weak and I have stamina to spare.

If you saying it works as intended then I'll leave it at that.

 

[FileMachete]

06:00 on day 7 of new game. The starting game Stamina 'balance?' for the Stone Shovel is -great-.

Not so much for the Stone Axe.

Tried tweaking the Damage/SwingsPerMin/Stamina but couldn't find the same sweet spot the shovel landed on.

Takes 27 swings to mine a 500hp Stone node. T2 Stone Axes' Durability is 96. Lots of repairing. ? up Durability for early stone tools some, please? 'Cost' doesn't matter, it's just a stone, right...

Food consumption seems -really- high now when doing a lot of resource gathering.

Bug or not? No xp from upgrading Flag to Cobble.

Sell prices: scrapping a T1 Pistol yields 3 Mech Parts, each sell for as much as the Pistol. Noticed T2 firearms sell for 8x (or so?) as T1s. To me a more rational lowest price would factor in Sell price of a Repair Kit plus a few dukes; for a repaired item of course.

-- oh, haven't checked yet this build but firearms couldn't be smelted in b221

=== just my opinion on very early game atm ===

Feels a bit bi-polar :fencing: :lol: . There's the weather/temp grace period yet also... gawd, Stamina -sucketh!- honestly couldn't take it by night 5 and tweaked Stone Axe's "StaminaLoss" to 10 (orig 15) & "BlockDamage" to 24 (orig 19) {not recommending these, it's op'd and perma swing}

On default (but 90m days) z's & wolves are too easy in first week. Got blindsided by a 3 wolf pack day 4 out on open ground and didn't die. While I desperately needed the food, threat/progression wise I think a single wolf should at minimum be a tough fight, and the way I was caught; digging, so maybe half Stamina?, no armor, think they all tore off a chunk before I could switch to club.. well, that would have been a fair death. I know, balancing is ongoing, just sharing my thoughts.

Do like the smaller wandering hordes I've seen in the first week. (Edit: I'm assuming numbers will ramp up, so good to warm up on)

Xp from mining. hmm. Don't want to see it back like A16 but as is, even at lvl 10 & with my op'd stone axe, 6-7 in-game hours, basically non-stop, didn't earn a lvl. Which is fine. And if there's supposed to be Upgrade xp then might be good. Should mention that I've spent clear majority of time harvesting & building, yet would guess that roughly 3/5ths ~ 2/3ds of xp is from z's.

Took a Retrieve (buried box) quest. Sent me to the wasteland. Maybe a bit much? Not sure. Going through burnt forest was actually the painful part; hit 3 seperate times by vultures.

Anyway, enough already right?

 

[Guppycur]

The deep cuts one adds bleeding chance and dismemberment chance to power attack, off with the top of his head.

Fixed.

 

[Maynard69]

So I built a little mining tunnel at bedrock. I go down there some nights to gather mats. Every time (even when I am mining far away from my entrance) When I slowly climb the latter to get to the surface, there is Feral, or Zombie Bear or some other special waiting there for me right by the hatch. lol Nice one devs, at first I nearly ♥♥♥♥ myself because I popped my head out to see the zombie bear charging towards me (ran off the aggro and slowly pistoled him to death) Good times.

Stamina useage improvements for mining is very nice. 2/5 sex rex, 2/5 miner69, 2/5 mother load and its comfortable to mine efficiently with good yields using normal attack. (iron tools with 2 mods and im 5 shotting stone and can mine quite awhile without stopping)

 

[Jay_ombie]

I'm playing in a reduced resolution to keep it playable (~16 fps). Performance is very, very much reduced compared with A16.

16fps even playable ????? Omg

I become a nervous tick when the game falls under 30fps. (Which it does at every exciting moment i.e. POI areas).

It's come to the point I have to make it look like 8bit game and gimp the settings enough to manipulate the laws of sub playability.

I beg to wonder that at this stage of development at A17 if there was a way to speed up the game mechanics it would have already been done by now.

Which worries me that the game will suffer in the long run if we can not maintain at least 30fps throughout under stress without having to resort in making the game into a wire frame version of pong.