[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

5 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

As you say, why ever chop down trees then?

 

Because of what they did to my family... and free honey...

 

But nah, I use a lot of frames and wood, clearing out pois, with the difficulty maxed. 

 

Spikes, wood structures, lots of crafting recipes, probably cooking. 

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

10 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Why don't they just remove wood, stone iron, coal, lead, KNO3 and shale and make ONE generic blob we can collect called "Material"?

It'd streamline the game and make every recipe so simple after all.

 

Sounds good.  +1 for the idea. 

 

Seriously though, I am sure the changes will be fine.  There will just be more gathering and crafting, instead of gathering, waiting, then crafting. 

 

A lot of that stuff is just a time sink.  They can probably make it less confusing and get more players into the game as well. 

 

Hopefully we will have better stuff to do with that time, like random encounters, bandits, and more quests.

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

5 minutes ago, madmole said:

Frames are there yet, as well as particle board (same thing) for experimental building with every shape available. That upgrades to wood, wood upgrades to stone, stone upgrades to concrete then steel. All blocks go poof.

You can build with any material but you only get XP for upgrading so if you want max XP start with particle board(frames) and then upgrade it all the way to steel. We haven't really talked about this, perhaps placing the block can grant XP for late game builders building with steel.

 

Okay, gotcha.  Sounds good.  Thumbs up. 

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

You can build steel tables if you want or cloth tables, we don't care. Having a powerful build system you can get creative with is better than using realism to determine what you can and can't make.

Finally you can just build with wood, stone, concrete and steel. All the upgrades in between have been deleted, and wet concrete is gone too so less clicking and just build with steel if you want. Nothing downgrades to anything either, when the hit bar is gone the block goes poof. A fairly big change, but now each tier is meaningful and it won't be 1000 clicks to go from wood to steel now.

 

Oh damn... that is cool. 

 

How is this going to affect building and building experience gain?

 

Do you get exp placing them, or is there a frame of that material you upgrade?

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

11 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I played that game... for some time. Then I got bored and uninstalled it.

Great graphics and animations mind you, but absolutely repetitive after a while.

 

Yeah, the story was kinda meh, but the combat was good. 

 

Playing as a Sorc was pretty fun, and the magic was done really well. 

 

The pawn system was actually kinda cool, but they did it wonky so you could only have 1 save file, which was kinda annoying. 

 

The game would have probably been a lot bigger if it had multiplayer, and if it was not only for consoles for a while.  Dragons Dogma 2 probably coming in 2022 though.

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

10 minutes ago, irontusk341 said:

Sounds like Diablo 3D,

 

 

Watch that and tell me if you can see my vision, heh. 

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

5 hours ago, madmole said:

Simple is great, stop being married or emotionally attached to old designs. A lot of stuff was prototyped as a work around because we didn't have programmers to do exactly what we wanted so streamlining is a normal part of the alpha experience. I wouldn't expect major changes to everything, but as we go gold stuff gets redesigned in a better way that is easier to understand and more streamlined. It's not going to change what the game is or how it feels, just less clicks or a smoother experience.

 

True.  The simplifications you have made to 7 days have been great.  Really like the repair kits.  Not that hard to make, but could lead to disaster if you forget to bring one. 

 

I am interested in your next unreal game. 

 

I would love to see a 3rd person game that borrowed heavily from what diablo 2 did right, with their skill system and loot system. 

 

I would also probably copy the combat and spell mechanics from Dragons Dogma with that game.  Dragons Dogma had some great combat, and is one of the few games that really nailed playing as a mage. 

 

 

A Diablo 2/Dragons Dogma hybrid game with survival and building elements, based on dota mechanics, where building requires gold, which you primarily find dungeon crawling and fighting in the open world. 

 

How close am I?

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

Zombies don't need to change targets every few seconds. Their chances to destroy your structure increase anyway if they continue to hit blocks until destroyed (and only retarget if they actually have a path to you.

 

If you have more real estate than the zombies can destroy in one horde night you haven't anything to fear anyway.

 

 

 

Would be cool if they get to the point where they can make 32+ max alive zombies the default.  Zombie ai would probably be easier to balance if you can just throw more at the player, heh.

 

Been having a lot of fun with 64 max alive. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

2 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Frankly, I don't see the logic behind it. 

 

Well it was kinda like how the shades used to make you cooler, and reduced heat, heh. 

 

I think there might still be a few things like that in the game. 

 

The extended range would be be based on you being charismatic and being able to reach people, as in communicating or reasoning, but apply it directly, as being so charismatic that you can reach people better intellectually and physically, heh. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

37 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I actually agree on Charismatic Nature, I posted something along the lines a couple of months back IIRC.

My idea, at the time, was to use it also to help with animal taming (yes, it was still a possibility back then), so it would make sense and be used both in SP and MP.

 

But that's all water under the bridge now.

 

What did you think about my idea of having the last rank extend your melee range?  I can not see it objectively because it would fit my play style too well, heh. 

 

Or did you have any other ideas?  I figure that whatever it is it should only benefit the player on the last rank... and that it should be something interesting, like parkour or something. 

 

Animal friend would be cool, but no way that would work, heh. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

9 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

It's curious how the most observations on game balancing are made by someone who's playing 7D2D on the extreme scale of settings... 

 

Well I was playing Nomad with default settings not that long ago, but Charismatic Nature does not really need you to even play the game to see issues with it. 

 

The fact that it is useless for solo play makes it stick out as odd.  The bonus to attributes also seems like it was just thrown in as a place holder. 

 

I do not actually care if it gets changed, just pointing it out.  Just like I did with stealth... it seems off and should probably be changed, but I do not really care because I am not going to use it anyway. 

 

I have said the last rank should probably be something like better barter, so it is still useful as a solo. 

 

 

My favorite idea is still to have the last rank of charismatic nature extend the characters melee range, with a play on words about being able to reach out to people. 

 

Also kinda makes sense if you are playing as a Bard, heh. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

33 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

"Depending on how the ..." 😎   Your "game-breaking" ability magically appears by your assuming that Gazz f** up royally and nobody noticed this even though this perk is in since A17.

 

Lets assume it just removes 10% of the damage after everything else has been added and removed (as an example) and it becomes a nice present for everyone but nothing too OP

 

 

Surely a large group won't stay together for long. If they do they waste a lot of their power because they constantly stand each other in the way. I already get this with 3 and definitely 4 players.

 

 

Everyone can and usually does save the points of the last rank because of +1 gear, so this is not something that can count as wonderful advantage of the perk.

 

And in this game (in vanilla) you are practically past any serious danger once you maxed out one attribute. Some people, especially builders, might play on for various reasons and incidentally level up other attributes, but that is just some sugar on top. You are already king of the hill at this point.

 

Remember TFP is only concerned about vanilla. I don't think TFP balances or cares much about anything that happens long after a player has one attribute filled up. They surely expect most players or groups of players to restart at that point.

 

 

 

I am pretty sure you can already get to where you take very little damage with armor and other perks... depending on how the 10% stacks it could be OP, but kinda hard for me to test solo without doing a bunch of extra stuff.  It is not like it would be hard to miss something like that with all the other buffs in the game. 

 

The attribute bonus is the thing I do not really like though.  It is anywhere from 5 to 17 levels worth of perk points per player, but at the same time the perk is totally useless in solo. 

 

Being close to the player with the perk is not that big of a deal, because the radius was huge last time I checked.  I think it might be the same radius as the hunting perk. 

 

I believe part of the plan was that there will be npcs or companions or something that the perk will affect. 

 

 

I think the perk should be changed, but I do not really care if they change it or not, heh.  I do not mind being a Bard when I play MP if it is going to stay. 

 

I am sure some of the perks are going to get tweaked, and charismatic nature is likely to change, so I was just curious if there was any information about any potential perk changes. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Please tell us how you will abuse it. Do you want to save the 3 perk points for attribute level 10? That is nice but to stay at that level you have to follow your charismatic leader around all day. Most players would not want to do that and pay the points instead.

 

At the time it would be most beneficial (right at the start of a nw game to get a forge right away for example) you don't have the attribute bonus anyway

 

 

Sure. 

 

If you are playing with just 1 other person it is pretty strong.  If you are playing with a number of other players it is OP. 

 

From what I remember, the range is actually pretty huge, like if you are clearing a 1 house and your friend is clearing the one across the street, they are in range.  That part is fine. 

 

First rank, 20 health and 20 stamina... pretty strong early game for however many friends you have.  This part is fine though. 

 

Second rank, 20% block and 20% melee damage... pretty strong as well, especially when mining or the team is rocking sledges.  This part is fine though. 

 

Third rank, Nearby allies 10% less damage from all sources, take half damage from bleeding and stop bleeding twice as fast... Depending on how the damage reduction stacks, the 10% could break the game.  I could see an immortal team of sledge users abusing this, heh.  Might need tweaking. 

 

Rank 4, allies get +1 to ALL ATTRIBUTES when near you... lolwut... if you play with any kind of a large group, this is probably stupid strong. 

 

Lets say you only want to max out 2 main attributes, and that is all you care about... not only are you getting 6 levels worth of skill points, but for any you are wearing +1 gear for, you are also bypassing rank 9, as well as 10, getting another perk point. 

 

If your team has a 3 or 4 attribute build they are going for, everyone but you is going to get there 9 to 14 levels faster than they would otherwise. 

 

Most attributes have something useful you can get with extra points.  Intel for double turrets and bandage healing.  Fortitude for damage reduction.  etc...

 

Probably too strong.  You can get your team too many levels ahead on attributes and possibly break damage reduction with the 10%

 

 

While playing solo it is completely useless atm heh... If it actually worked on turrets or something it would be cool though. 

 

 

I have said before, I would probably dump the attribute bonuses, and make the last rank something like better barter or daring adventurer.  Something to where it is still potentially useful for solo, or when not with a team. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

10 hours ago, SnowDog1942 said:

Usually when some people complain that something is OP and some people complain its useless — it means its balanced.  Not sure what it means when one person argues with himself about it.

 

In solo it is useless, in multiplayer it is too strong. 

 

8 hours ago, meganoth said:

The word you are looking for is "situational" 😁

 

 

I do not have a problem with it, but I do not see the last rank of it sticking around.  Just curious about what the plans are for it. 

 

If they really want to keep it in the state it is in, I will just abuse it in multiplayer for fun, when I am not going solo. 

 

I do not really like using stuff that I think is going away though.

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

Any word on any perk tweaks, like charismatic nature, which is both the most useless and OP perk in the game?

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

30 minutes ago, Darthjake said:

Are you getting out and looking?

 

I've normally swimming in corn before I can start growing it, and on low loot settings as well.  Be sure to check garbage bags and trash piles, those are my #1 source for seeds.

 

Potatoes and eggs are my stopping block normally, but whenever you can clear grass from the sides of the roads to look for the plants and nests.

 

And around residences, some of those have gardens, but most of the jerks liked Yucca and Blueberries.....

 

Normally I have more than I do in my current game, probably just bad luck, although I usually never have a bunch of seeds early on. 

 

I now play on insane/always nightmare run/64 zombies/horde every night/permadeath... so I do not get around as much as I would like heh. 

 

I have not found any of the usual crops randomly in the main 2 towns I have been searching. 

 

This is not a food issue though, I have plenty to eat, but I have farm plots with cotton, goldenrod and aloe atm, because I have nothing else, heh. 

 

On day 21 and I do not even have a coffee seed.  I just left like 10+ farm plots empty because I dont really need that much cotton, and still making more aloe seeds. 

 

I doubt they would put snowberry seeds in if they did not put in recipes for them though. 

 

Since I posted this I will probably find a bunch of seeds in the next kitchen I search, heh.  Either that or I can go into the snow biome, since it is nearby, if they are still full of blueberries. 

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

Probably been brought up before, but have you thought about letting us craft and grow snowberries, for players that want to farm early, and have no luck with seeds? 

 

Sure they are kinda crappy, but better than nothing if you have like 10+ farms and no food to grow in them, heh. 

 

Not a big deal, but if it were an option I would be using them in my current game.  Strange game where I am on day 21, and have found no corn yet. 

 

The trader has yet to even sell anything that I can turn into seeds.  Half my farms are straight up empty, heh. 

[Alpha 20 Dev Diary]

I dare you to share more information on the clothing sets that have not been discussed yet, unless you are scared...

 

Plant fiber set being viable when high enough quality sounded interesting. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

10 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Then I suggest, if you can make this happen again, to open the console and check there.

I think there should be a log of why/how the spawns happen (but that's @Blake_ expertise TBH).

 

I tested it and it looks like the bear, chicken and mountain lion all despawn after about 2 default game hours. 

 

It is possible I wasted that much time, so I am not going to worry about it.  Not like I was exactly timing it, heh. 

 

Still kinda short, I would probably do 4 or 6 hours. 

 

Maybe it was shortened in one of the updates, because I know I killed a wolf on horde night, then forgot about it after and started mining... remember and was like "oh crap it is probably gone", and it was still there after a long time. 

 

Good to know anyway. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I'll be blunt: the game is not balanced on that difficulty level... so that's still your choice and if you can't find a way to skin the animal before it despawns at that level, well, too bad, not the game's problem. 

 

I do not disagree.  The game should not be balanced around the mode I am playing, heh. 

 

The despawn time on the mountain lions corpse seemed very short though, and both times a horde was summoned while I was fighting it. 

 

In this same version of the game, I am pretty sure I have seen a wolf corpse laying around for over half a day without despawning. 

 

In this case, I was fighting a mountain lion, then a horde was summoned.  I actually did not even kill the mountain lion until half of the horde was killed, and somehow it despawned before I could get to its body.  I doubt it was any more than an in game default hour. 

 

Something just does not seem right about how fast it despawned, and it died far away enough that none of the zombies should have destroyed the body.  Pretty sure it was still there when I was killing the last zombie. 

 

I am just not going to bother with mountain lions until I can 1 shot them or have better gear to kill them.  They are a massive waste of time and stamina atm for me.  Plus they only give like 25 meat.  Garbage. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

No, that's perfect as it is IMO. You have to make a choice there... do you exclusively focus on the horde, or will you try to harvest the dead mountain lion while fighting them?

Choices, consequences. I often found myself in the same situation, and while fighting I "circle back" () often to harvest a bit each time.

 

I mean, not really much of an option... there were like 10 or more of them and it is set to insane/always nightmare run speed. 

 

They were dead within a few real life minutes, and I guess the corpse just despawned right before I got to it. 

 

I mean, if they are going to spawn a horde every time and despawn almost instantly, I will just ignore them for now.  Not worth the stamina drain. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

Is there anyway we can extra time to loot meat off of animals, before they despawn?

 

I saw a mountain lion, and I could use some extra meat, so I decided to kill it at my melee base.  Start fighting it, np... then a wondering horde shows up.  This happened the last time I was trying to kill a mountain lion by my base as well. 

 

Does a single mountain lion summon a wondering horde?  heh

 

Anyway I kill it, then finish off the horde... and notice the mountain lion had despawned... super annoying.  Especially because I am playing on insane/nightmare/64/horde every night.

 

It did not even take that long for me to kill the zombies.  Not even going to bother with mountain lions again until I have gear to kill them instantly.  Huge waste of time, heh.

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

12 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

I've been harassing them about this for like 4 months without a reply lol. I think they've said there might be a pipe baton and nothing else so far. I would love a way to get Junk Sledge to work day one, as it's quickly become my favorite weapon in the game since Faatal fixed it after A19 dropped.

 

My suggestion is a blow pipe or something that uses junk ammo / iron darts so that ammo type and skill line has a use early game (which is a big part of why pipe weapons are being introduced). Simple and easy, could even use existing in game iron pipes or something

 

 

 

ATM, there's no int weapon pre-iron age, and there isn't one for tier 3 either since last I heard, the drone is not intended for offense and will take a Junk Turret spot (actually lowering your over all damage). I guess their concern is that you can scrap a junk sledge to get junk turret parts so they don't want them to be a pipe age weapon, but I've not really seen them address the whole "every class can use a drone, except they don't care about losing a junk turret slot like int builds do to use it" issue, so I guess they are probably still trying to figure it out internally how to make the Drone on par with other end game items and builds while balancing every build carrying a free drone vs int builds having to lose 50% of their damage to use their own item

 

Drones not counting against the turret limit would help a lot, but wouldn't really cover the "Two junk turrets are not on par with an m60 or auto shottie" problem if the int builds don't get an actual t3 weapon.  Dual junk turrets kind of feel worse in A19 than they did in A18 even with the new piercing ammo because they drain resources so insanely fast that you'll easily burn 10K+ iron clearing a single building with them compared to a shotgun using a handful of shells.  Shotgun turret ammo just needs a buff all around, it's ridiculously questionable to ever build that over real shotgun shells to the point that . . . yeah I don't know of any situation where I would say the shotgun turret ammo is usable over building shotgun shells and carrying an unperked auto shotgun or even a pump shotgun

 

The nail gun seemed to make a lot of sense as the intelligence pipe weapon.  It already used to shoot nails, maybe still does, heh.  The repair ability would need to be nerfed though. 

 

Either way it would be cool if it became a viable weapon linked to intelligence, especially with the "nail some chicks" quest still in the game. 

 

 

Robotic sledges are like my favorite thing in the game... even more since I discovered I CAN actually use my str/intel build when playing insane/nightmare run/64 zombies/horde every night. 

 

I can easily keep up with the horde until I need fortitude.  Actively fighting off the horde in a melee base and repairing with a hammer constantly is a lot of fun. 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

I still think it would be cool if you brought back crafting of quality 6 items, if you have 5 ranks in the required skill, but only for primitive tools and weapons. 

 

Then you would not need them as much in the loot pool, and you also do not have to worry about missing the game stage where they drop. 

 

Might become more relevant in A20, for people who want to rock pipe weapons late game. 

 

 

Also, is intelligence going to get a pipe weapon?  Nail gun?  Sledge turret that does not require robotic parts? 

[A20 Developer Diary Discussions]

42 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

I actually did my tests on the second hardest difficulty with zombies that sprinted, and that was where the knife did the worst of all lol

 

You basically have to rely on stun above all else when you are being chased by 2-3 irradiated ferals that are sprinting, and the DoT bleed seems. . . quite low. I'm not even sure how much damage it does as it takes so long to actually kill them it was hard to really notice. The Club is second best to Junk Sledges on the higher difficulty just because of knock back / stun + the club doing so much more damage to stunned targets and re-knocking them down etc

 

Machete is fun but from my testing it basically always came in second to last in basically every type of test, beating only the Spear which performed drastically worse than I expected. Even for hit and run, just putting a barbed wire mod on a club and bonking and kiting them just kind of outclasses the machete in it's own role lol

 

I am sure, but that is not how I use the knife.  I think a T6 bone shiv power attack to the head, on insane mode, will kill most of the weaker zombies, after the bleed damage is figured.  2 power attacks + bleed is enough to kill some of the others... probably not the fat ones.  It has been a while since I tested it. 

 

I play on insane/always nightmare run speed/64 zombies/horde every night and perma death. 

 

So early on, I can conserve stamina, and just drop zombies with a few power attacks, since the stamina cost of the bone shiv is low. 

 

When the horde shows up every night, I stab them a bunch of my bone shiv, then repair my base as they bleed to death. 

 

I have thought about trying the sledge later on though, since it might still 1 shot them and knock the rest down, giving me more time to repair and them less time to damage my base. 

 

I always 1 point the knife at the start though, for that day 1 dps for almost no stamina.  If they want to buff it though, I will certainly not complain heh.