PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

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Right, but someone was saying that taking hits would increase Fortitude (if was like A16 system). Well you don't want to get hit by zombies and risk infection, bleeding, death. So sit on a cactus, take hits, raise attribute, jump off, heal up, repeat, lol. That's why I was saying that having that be a cause to increase anything wouldn't be right since the whole aspect of survival is to NOT ever take damage. That's all.
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It should be pretty trivial to remove xp gains from cactus damage, that's a pretty weak argument.

You have obviously never trained in martial arts. Sometime you must take one on the chin to win. :-)

 
We call those kind of people "joggers" in real life. Nobody is forcing you to max out your character, that's a choice you are making. I've played many rpg games where I ignore a portion of the mechanics because the character has no interest in them.
I've advocated movement speed being tied to how far you've traveled on foot, if you want to sit in a car all day then go ahead but don't expect six-pack abs and a decent cardiovascular system from doing it.
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Yep, I agree, it's awesome and logical in real life. Makes for horrible gameplay, though.

 
Its allways bad to be forced to do things you normally would avoid in a survival situation
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Entirely true but nobody should be forced to kill a zombie they don't have to either. There should be non-dangerous and grindy way to improve a skill or a quick and dangerous way learn it. The difference between Tai-Chi and Muay Thai.

 
Entirely true but nobody should be forced to kill a zombie they don't have to either.
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Am I the only one who has read Gazz' several comments about upcoming XP rebalancing? Killing zombies is not (or will not be) the only way to advance. The complaint from most is not "there should be some non-zombie-killing way to earn XP", it's "we want to earn Agility by shooting arrows, or Fortitude by surviving food poisoning".

If all you want is a way to advance without having to go kill zombies (an idea I wholeheartedly support, BTW), then TFP has you covered. Just let 'em sleep off the New Year's hangover and they'll get to work on it. :-)

In my MP game I actually enjoy mining (just found my first iron vein last night yay me) so getting additional XP mining will be great. Of course when my co-op partner is in game he can run off killing zombies and looting POIs and I just leech off his XP (yes I expanded the shared XP radius, why do you ask?). What I don't particularly care about is that mining XP goes (only) into "mining skill". I'm fine spending some of those SPs in mining, but also some into Agility so when I help with the POIs I'm not useless.

Speaking of iron ore: please remove the ability to scrap ore into iron. This is an area where I think realism = better gameplay. I have a chunk of rock with iron ore intermixed and somehow I can - with my bare hands - convert that into iron straps to make a club? Plenty of scrappable items in the game; it's too easy to get scrap iron from ore, IMO. Everybody has a reinforced iron club in the first couple of hours. You want to convert a chunk of rock into usable iron? FORGE OR GTFO. <dons asbestos suit>

 
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I was talking about game mechanics, not xp balancing. This discussion is about "learning by doing" which isn't in A17 at all.

There should be an archery target to train in safety, that sort of thing.

 
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Just got to day 29 in A17 stable, and I really like the progression with the food so far, as I've looted most nests everywhere I can think of, farming has become more and more important, and now the change has come from bacon and eggs to meat and veg stew, really liking that.

 
Spam Crafting is bad um-kay. Sitting on cacti is bad um-kay. (heh South Park)

The current Perk system has a significant code/balance advantage; all the "experiance" goes into a single bucket. So Gazz balancing xp from mining is more straight forward than if mining xp gets split into multiple buckets.

And I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that a majority of players do -not- find sitting on cacti enjoyable. While there are, I'm sure, a few sick bastards (lets not judge now) out there who do enjoy it, that's between them and their proctologist.

Let's look at a couple counters besides xp: There's Distance Traveled. Zombie Kills. Number of Items Crafted.

I'm guessing but it may be possible & 'cheap' to add counters for: [Number of...] Blocks Placed. Blocks Upgraded. Blocks Destroyed.

Now rather than immediately trying to leverage those counters across the entire 300 lvls, say they're just used for useful but fairly minor 'upgrades' from Start till early-mid game; lvl 50? And not saying to lvl-gate them, just use a rough average of where a player would be at about lvl 50.

At 5km Traveled, un-encumber 1 Backpack slot. Similar until the entire third row is unlocked. Decrease Stamina use while Running a bit.

For Zombie Kills mix it up so a couple minor Damage +x%, Swing Speed, Stamina Use per swing 1 point less

Num of Items Crafted just decrease Crafting Time, _maybe_ bump Qual once or twice

Number of Blocks Placed/Upgraded/Destroyed are basically the Miner/Builder so less Stamina per swing using Axe/Pick/Shovel, Repair/Upgrade Tools, Hammer/Wrench/Nailgun could also get minor improvements.

Was thinking of how to do similar for Light Armor, maybe Heavy? Something like; if worn for x game hours Mobility/Stamina penalty reduced by x. But no idea if that would be a pain to track.

By keeping the rewards fairly small, and based on kind of broad counters, even if lots of folks decided to 'power lvl' it wouldn't unlock late game thingys.

 
Like killing every single zombie you see just to be able to run 10m further. :)
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Lol, I just kill the ones around my house about 20m out, kill hordes and those in POIs. Otherwise, never run to single zombies and I don't have issues :p .

 
Speaking of iron ore: please remove the ability to scrap ore into iron. This is an area where I think realism = better gameplay. I have a chunk of rock with iron ore intermixed and somehow I can - with my bare hands - convert that into iron straps to make a club? Plenty of scrappable items in the game; it's too easy to get scrap iron from ore, IMO. Everybody has a reinforced iron club in the first couple of hours. You want to convert a chunk of rock into usable iron? FORGE OR GTFO. <dons asbestos suit>
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Just so you know, this change (which is a great suggestion btw) would be criticized by the same voices we’ve been hearing as TFP further removing fun play mechanics to replace them with boring mechanics. Anything that is done to make getting results less convenient or on the same early day as before results in the shreaking.

Remove the ability to scrap raw ore in your backpack and it will reap the whirlwind.

 
It should be pretty trivial to remove xp gains from cactus damage, that's a pretty weak argument.
You have obviously never trained in martial arts. Sometime you must take one on the chin to win. :-)
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Oh, I know all about that. Being best to take a blow if it means you get the K.O. Did a bit of kickboxing and some MMA in college. Nothing professional, but enough to know how it works and have had to deal with the consequences, lol.

However, that's different than getting an infection from a zombie that will kill you or bleed you out. Now if you change something to zombie hit only, not taking damage in general as you are now saying (which makes more sense, but I was using it broadly as it was first stated to be *absorb hits* which would imply any damage taken so cacti included, lol) that would be completely against the whole concept of the game to not be hit, as I stated before. Granted, they need to fix the xp a bit so people don't feel forced to kill zombies and can lvl decently from harvesting/building.

But even then, I would rarely ever use melee to get close to something that can infect me, cause me to bleed, etc. That means I'd be ranged, use arrows. So it'd be dumb for me to ever get in range to be hit, which then means whatever attribute/stat is tied to that becomes something I'd never raise because it is dumb to want to be attacked by something that wants to kill you. That's all I'm getting at. Find something else to raise that stat, because there's plenty there, lol.

And even if we want to use the "training in martial arts" as you use, you WOULD NOT let someone attack you that wants to kill you and will do anything to do it just to "toughen" you up. You do that in sparing matches where death is not the end result. So maybe add some type of machine that swings a cement bag into you, you lose hp, but it's fixed so you know you won't die, etc. Then you "toughen" up that way, gain that xp. That'd be the more realistic and more likely way someone would "toughen" their body. Maybe someone will mod that into the game? lol

 
First off, it's a game, so gameplay>realism. On that note, I think the "learn by doing" makes sense in some areas and not in others, like strength is improved through doing things that test your limits (leg day!) but doing small repetitive tasks over and over quickly plateaus any gains. I also disagree with any of the things people have suggested for increasing fortitude, that just getting hit, taking damage, food poisoning somehow improves it. Sorry, you *might* improve your pain tolerance, but more likely to be causing yourself permanent damage, pain, scaring, gut biome a complete mess, etc.

Crafting for intelligence, unless you're actively trying to improve, all you *might* be doing is learning to make that one thing better/more efficiently. As a counter, what assembly line worker would you call a knowledgeable craftsperson based solely on their work?

With most skills, you have to learn it from somewhere (even at it's lowest form of trial and error) and then practice to improve it. And alone, you're still not likely to advance beyond a certain point without learning more.

What's the best way to put that in a game? Hell if I know. I know I found the spam crafting detracted, because beyond a certain point, I wouldn't be learning anything anymore. Same thing, mining with a stone axe or claw hammer to raise construction tools skill. Is there some way to mix it, learn from a book or from a trader/instructor NPC, then improve it to a point, then learn more, rinse, repeat? Or does that then again quickly fall into the "drive people away from the game boring grindy stuff"? So I'm perfectly willing to try it out with points/perks for now.

(Sorry, probably a bit rambling, brain dead with a cold and little sleep)

 
And even if we want to use the "training in martial arts" as you use, you WOULD NOT let someone attack you that wants to kill you and will do anything to do it just to "toughen" you up. You do that in sparing matches where death is not the end result. So maybe add some type of machine that swings a cement bag into you, you lose hp, but it's fixed so you know you won't die, etc. Then you "toughen" up that way, gain that xp. That'd be the more realistic and more likely way someone would "toughen" their body. Maybe someone will mod that into the game? lol
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Some people actually train that way.

Go to the centre of a large British city on a saturday night wearing the colours of their most hated football team and start shouting insults. It shouldn't take long for you to meet someone who, although they've never had formal training, is as tough as coffin nails.

 
Some people actually train that way.
Go to the centre of a large British city on a saturday night wearing the colours of their most hated football team and start shouting insults. It shouldn't take long for you to meet someone who, although they've never had formal training, is as tough as coffin nails.
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Oh yeah, no, I know using bags like that is a good way to train. Same idea with kickboxing a 100+lb bag. It will toughen up the legs and arms real quick. Same as being hit by it or the people that let you hit them in the stomach. It will for sure toughen you up. Which is why I thought of it :p .

Just get rid of the whole, go do something that will kill you and you are to avoid to something that makes more sense, hehe. I would love to see someone just stand there, look at someone that wants to kill them and will kill them and say, "hit me, do it, I need to toughen up"... lol

 
That works too, but I tend to only eat cooked food. Have yet to be forced to eat canned stuff. Even on low loot abundance. But, that'd be a good way, too.
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I'm very omnivorous. I've even eaten The Sandwiches when I had perfectly good food maybe a km away. I get by. ;)

What's the best way to put that in a game? Hell if I know. I know I found the spam crafting detracted, because beyond a certain point, I wouldn't be learning anything anymore. Same thing, mining with a stone axe or claw hammer to raise construction tools skill. Is there some way to mix it, learn from a book or from a trader/instructor NPC, then improve it to a point, then learn more, rinse, repeat? Or does that then again quickly fall into the "drive people away from the game boring grindy stuff"? So I'm perfectly willing to try it out with points/perks for now.
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The funny thing is that I'm not even against learning by doing mechanics in principle - I just haven't come across one that doesn't revolve around sitting on your butt and crafting 3000 stone shovels or running a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts.

I know that some had suggested to have different grindable skills for stone and metal tools... but tripling the grind is not an effective way to reduce the grind. ;)

All the MMOs and their crafting skills struggle with the same issue. It's boring as hell.

Base the crafting on some sort of rare loot or mined resource and it turns into a mining/farming game with the crafting being rather perfunctory.

The classic MMO solution is to throw mass amounts of content and recipes at the problem and mask the issue, an approach that would not work for TFP.

 
Just so you know, this change (which is a great suggestion btw) would be criticized by the same voices we’ve been hearing as TFP further removing fun play mechanics to replace them with boring mechanics. Anything that is done to make getting results less convenient or on the same early day as before results in the shreaking.
Remove the ability to scrap raw ore in your backpack and it will reap the whirlwind.
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Remember stick gate. I was in favour for keeping it. Also in favour for a16 skillsystem.

Argument for removing sticks and logs was for easier recipes and memory. I accepted it because of performance not out of game play value! But that's just me.

 
<snip>The funny thing is that I'm not even against learning by doing mechanics in principle - I just haven't come across one that doesn't revolve around sitting on your butt and crafting 3000 stone shovels or running a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts.I know that some had suggested to have different grindable skills for stone and metal tools... but tripling the grind is not an effective way to reduce the grind. ;)

All the MMOs and their crafting skills struggle with the same issue. It's boring as hell.

Base the crafting on some sort of rare loot or mined resource and it turns into a mining/farming game with the crafting being rather perfunctory.

The classic MMO solution is to throw mass amounts of content and recipes at the problem and mask the issue, an approach that would not work for TFP.
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So Gazz, I'm really curious what you think about what I posted? Small, general improvements for the early game?

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?74084-Developer-Discussions-Alpha-17&p=916585&viewfull=1#post916585

 
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