Roland

So what? As long as they are funded enough to do so there is nothing wrong with continued development. They have been saying that they'd like to go gold "next year if possible" for the last few years and not just last year for this year. They could keep their goal and rush out the rest of what they want to add. Why would anyone want them to rush out the rest of the features just for the sake of hitting a sooner date?

@schwanz9000 would most likely know these answers. He is incredibly busy right now with A21 right around the corner but I just pinged him so he might be able to give some answers.

I think anything that makes the game more of a sim in a particular area is usually best left to mods. Most of the people that I read who are unhappy with the base game and who love to use mods, do so because they love the detail and complexity and immersion in particular areas that they like. But not everyone craves that level of detail or complexity for the same features in the game. Some people just want the result and are happy if it only takes 1-2 steps or tasks to gain that result and would become quickly fatigued with the gameplay if they had to take 5-6 steps to gain the result they want. Some people can't stand to play the game if the weapons are not perfect representations of real world guns that they are intimately familiar with while others only care that when they push the button and aim a bullet goes where they want. For every player who can't get enough of an overhaul mod that provides more real world complications and detailed multi-step objectives there is another who uninstalls the mod because it was "too much". People who are happy with vanilla probably align pretty closely with the developers' own sensibilities on what aspects of the game to go deep and which to keep shallow whereas those who are unhappy are misaligned with the devs. Where the devs want it streamlined and abstract, they want it detailed and realistic. Where the devs are more on the arcade side of the spectrum they are more on the sim side of the spectrum and vice versa. As far as the water and crafting changes go, once you get used to them they really don't seem as radical as it must seem like to people who can only read about them. I keep hearing people talk about the water change and crafting change as "another complete rework" but it really doesn't feel like something completely new. When I find a Forge Ahead magazine it actually feels a bit nostalgic. It will be interesting to see whether people who have been hating on the idea of these changes come around to actually liking them before the modders can manage to erase them from their consciousness. Of course, some are still bound to hate them after giving them an honest playthough. What I am really interested in seeing is whether people who play without jars and get used to the early water survival mechanic and think they hate it, go back to playing with jars once a mod exists to do so only to realize that it practically feels like playing with the creative menu activated by comparison and also come to hate getting them in all their loot. When I watch people play A20 and I see jar after jar going into their inventory instead of the stuff I am finding I'm so glad they are gone. Then again, maybe in that area of the game all they really want are the stacks of easily obtainable water and don't like the process of acquiring them. With the crafting change, the divide is going to people who want deterministic gameplay. These folks would revert back to A20 and breathe a sigh of relief once again having full control over what crafting recipes they can learn and when. The "making do with what you have instead of what you want" isn't for everyone and no matter how much bad luck mitigation is built into the code, the pace will not be fast enough for some people to learn the higher tier recipes they want. Development is so interesting to experience.

1. Still in flux. Damage values vs blocks and vs other entities will probably change several times. They are pretty weak at the moment as that is not the purpose for them being enabled right now. 2. Maybe. 3. I don't think so other than having new POIs placed somewhere within it. 4. Not from the devs before release unless someone does something as a secret side project but nobody has included me in such a secret. The Pregen maps have not been updated to A21 and don't currently work so those will most likely be the priority in regards to map making so that there are four ready to play maps when A21 launches. Cool story bro... Sure. They hire people from the community who were modders of one kind or another. @Laz Man is a recent example of someone they hired to help with level design. If they feel that bringing modders on board to help with bandits would be advantageous then they will do it. There are plenty of precedents to show they are willing. If they don't do it then you can be assured that it is because it wouldn't be a help. They are completely absent from the game as of October 25, 2022

Those models could all be mutations and experiments performed on zombies that went wrong. The behemoth is a two-story tall humanoid that looked like an alien and nothing like a zombie or even a mutated zombie. Maybe if they decided that the zombie virus was aliens and the behemoth was one of those alien bosses it would have fit but saying that the behemoth was on the same level as a zombie having sharkish teeth or another zombie having mandibles is really pushing it. I agree that there are basic zombies and some mutated zombies that were obviously altered artificially in a lab rather than through random mutations of the virus in nature. But the behemoth was on another level. At least Gracie who is giant still looks like a boar and is just big. I wasn't even bothered or triggered by the behemoth but even I with my much higher threshold of genre angst than you was able to recognize that it had absolutely nothing in common with anything else in the game while the other mutants still do have some commonalities.

The behemoth was as tall as a two story building. So more like 2x4x8 and it was the pathing issue and the final decision that such a creature didn't really fit the theme. Its arm was the size of a regular entity.

It’s definitely not no on bandits for A21. We haven’t reached content lock yet so anything is still possible. Don’t listen to people who want to sensationalize the situation for their own gain. As to modders helping, it wouldn’t work. The code they are modding for NPCs is old legacy code and old legacy models. Everything being worked on for future bandits is brand new from models, to animations, to AI, to implementation and spawning. There’s nothing that current mods could contribute to speed things up because the “versions” are completely different. “Bandits” are not just bandits. They also reach into and have connections to 3rd person player animations and clothing and armor sets. There is a lot being worked on and it is impossible to know how much will be ready and whether or not some initial aspects can be parsed to be included in A21. Right now faatal has wandering bandits enabled while he tests. Will that much remain in A21 when they release it? I don’t know. I hope so. It’s still a maybe. We are in the final stretch though!

But what if the devs shafted us...?

My post was just a joke. Don't take it so seriously. Sorry if that didn't come through in the text format.

This game is not a dedicated fully featured RPG. It has RPG elements. Therefore, your expectations on exactly how sophisticated NPCs will be should be measured. There is supposed to eventually be a reputation system which seems to indicate that some bandits will be hostile and others friendly depending on the reputation we have earned with their faction. Does this mean we can take them as followers and they will live in our base and be able to do tasks? I wouldn't count on that. Does that mean they might give us a quest or trade with us? Possibly. Will we have long conversation trees with them and learn their backstories? I doubt it. I think it will probably simply be that if you go into a bandit occupied POI and your rep is hostile with them it will be a shoot out but if your rep is friendly with them you can move within the POI and not be attacked and they ignore you. Could you upgrade that POI and fortify it and then fight a bloodmoon with all those friendly bandits by your side? Maybe. It will all depend on how much time the devs have. Of course they have to get bandits in the game in the first place and at first the bandits will always be hostile. Reputation and rules governing how they behave in your proximity when friendly will come later but I wouldn't expect things like conversation trees and commands and attracting characters to create a settlement. If those things are your base level definition of the game having a legitimate NPC then its possible the game won't ever have legitimate NPCs by your standards. I don't know your standards so I don't really mean YOU, I mean somebody.

No.

Polish Approval is like Polish Sausage. Smoky and somewhat circular but welcome all the same.

Also when you swim in it, it feels like molasses. In A21 swimming is silky smooth. I don’t get why people wanted water to just stay the same forever. It needed some love… Was that too inappropriately jokey for anyone? 😜

Yeah, I did joke around at times but that in no way accurately shows the totality of my responses. I have also clearly stated the purpose, clarified how it works, and given many legitimate answers over and over and over since the very first moment it was announced. He didn't showcase any of the informative responses and there were plenty of those at the time he made the video. He just cherry picked what he wanted to show. Even Schwaanz "non-answers" do answer the overall concern of whether there will be enough glue. The answer is "Yes, there will be enough glue". The question was whether TFP considered roof sizes of POI's when they decided to make the dew collector footprint 3x3 and the answer is "Yes, because the player can build their own building and so all POI's don't have to accomodate a 30 dew-collector farm. The game is fully destructable and buildable so a 30x30 dew farm is totally possible regardless of it not fitting on the roofs of many POIs that a player might want to choose as their base. In my Cursed People joke I even included a winky to show I was only joking and yet the streamer ponders whether I actually was or if I was being intentionally insulting...haha. In that case, I had already explained at least once in a serious way that the perk boost would mitigate bad luck so that nobody should ever experience never finding a magazine or part they needed for the weapon they perked into. Also he didn't highlight the part of the questioning fan where they called themself a party-pooper and laughed which made me think that it would be okay to joke around with the guy since he wasn't really distraught and was able even poke fun at themselves. Of course, he didn't show those serious answers because....boring and outside the scope of his narrative. Finally, in my "insult" about getting new friends, I stand by and double down on the idea that a lot of the fun you experience in the game in multiplayer has to do with the people you play with. If you have fun looting and want to loot but get yelled at by your teammates for doing it because they care more about maybe getting a blue pipe rifle to replace their green pipe rifle than about you having fun playing with them then, yeah, play with different people. That point comes across in the entire post. If had ONLY stated what he highlighted without anything else then I agree that would be an unkind thing to blurt out. But the guy shares publicly about how his friends are being unkind to him while they play the game together. Its fair game to point out to him that part of his problem with the game are the people he is playing with. The information that answers all of those concerns is available and I continue to answer seriously and sincerely questions concerning the new system-- especially if the one asking is doing so politely and with an attitude of wanting to learn and understand. If I chew on people a bit who come with a toxic attitude and make wild and insulting speculations based on nothing substantial, I admit it isn't very professionally customer-service-like of me to do so but I've done it this way for going on six years now and I'll do it until the day I no longer moderate. If TFP has a problem with that they can easily make changes.

I edited the clue with a couple of new details and I won't confirm or deny any guesses for a few days at least. I'll give all guesses a like.

You aren’t allowed to “guess”. Pitfall of your promotion.

Well then how about being cool with this thread being described as a zombie pandemic conversation even if we aren’t sticking to classic definitions?

Nice work everyone on the 7 Brutus Denied 5 puzzle. Here is a visual puzzle for another A21 feature that has nothing to do with Hunger Games. Can you solve my clue and figure out what is coming to the game?

If I remember what A20 was like accurately I'd say it is harder than the beaker.

Good luck with that. Literally.

For now....nobody ever said having OP weapons wasn't useful. But, no amount of XP gained at any speed is going to get you the recipe for granades in A21. You gotta read enough of the right magazines and good luck forcing that into a speed run strategy.

I bought all three. I have found a filter before but it definitely is a rare occurance. By contrast, both my original trader and the one I went to next had filters and my first trader (Rekt) had filters after each restock. Also I could have chosen to take a filter as a reward for completing the tier one quests (but I chose the bike instead). So filters are very easily obtained and in numbers necessary to make a full dew collector farm if you use the trader. Currently they cost 1500 dukes a piece.

In my A21 play I have been able to make duct tape without any issue. In my current play it is Day 13 and I have just built my third dew collector which means I will passively gain 9 water per day on top of whatever I find in loot and boil. I'm playing 40 minute days as well so that would compare to being able to have 3 dew collectors by about Day 8 using 60 minute days or day 4 using 120 minute days. Yes, I have to make some choices about what I use for drinking water and what I use for recipes but after I get a few more dew collectors I see myself graduating from that situation to having stacks and stacks of water ready to be turned into stacks and stacks of glue beyond my own hydration needs and that is exactly the point of the change. The game is supposed to be a progression but empty jars together with having recipes unlocked by skill points bypassed any type of progressive gameplay. Now it is true that if you are playing longer days your water will collect more slowly as it is three water per day and not three water per real time timer. But that simply means you should focus on getting lots of dew collectors going as a priority right from the beginning. It may not be possible to make a supply of explosive arrows and bolts and grenades during the first week or two but do you really need those during the first two horde nights anyway? Not only that, but will you even be able to craft the recipes for explosive arrows and bolts and grenades during the first couple of weeks anyway? If you focus your efforts on developing your water supply early on then by time you need lots of explosives you should easily have the means to craft what you need. I agree that it probably won't be possible to have explosives in time for your first horde night but in my opinion it has been OP for the first horde night anyway. I understand that someone might like that sort of gameplay where they start out OP from the beginning and be mad that the devs are forcing them to start out weak and progressively develop their skills and knowledge to become strong and then eventually super strong and then even over-powered for anything the game can throw at them. Sorry, but that is the game the developers are creating and they have provided us with the creative menu and godmode if we want to bypass the progression aspect of the game and have the powerful stuff earlier.

I believe A20.7 is simply a build Prime uses for his twitch stream that includes A21 twitch integration features for testing. It’s possible they could push it out to everyone but I think the public will jump from A20.6 to A21.

That hasn't been my experience with A20. Gamestage and Lootstage got boosted. You can view your gamestage on the allies screen and it dynamically changes when you enter into a tougher biome. I don't know exactly how bandits will fit into gamestage. Faatal would have to answer that. EDIT: I see you were talking about wilderness spawns rather than sleeper volumes.... yeah, I don't know whether wilderness spawns are affected by gamestage and how bandits will fit into that. There may be no wilderness spawns of bandits-- simply wandering groups of them and fixed POI spawns of them.