Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Crater Creator]

Melee Blade vs Club. I may be missing the final effects as I haven't fully spec'd into melee perks but right now it seems like Clubs always have a significant advantage over blades. The knock down chance.

 

It makes sense that a machete wouldn't be nearly as likely to knock a z down as a club or sledge. But that knock down is pretty significant in melee, especially when facing higher or multiple z's.

 

Don't have any great idea to offer that makes sense. Just bringing it up as last night I swapped out my club for the machete, to save an inventory spot, and really noticed the difference clearing a poi.

 

Blades strike me (ha!) as more multi-purpose weapons. The hunting knife should be really good for gutting carcasses, because that’s what it’s for. The machete should be really good for chopping wood, because that’s what it’s for. In other words, I think you’ve got the right idea that they can save you an inventory slot, but maybe the tradeoff there isn’t balanced in vanilla.

[madmole]

Melee Blade vs Club. I may be missing the final effects as I haven't fully spec'd into melee perks but right now it seems like Clubs always have a significant advantage over blades. The knock down chance.

 

It makes sense that a machete wouldn't be nearly as likely to knock a z down as a club or sledge. But that knock down is pretty significant in melee, especially when facing higher or multiple z's.

 

Don't have any great idea to offer that makes sense. Just bringing it up as last night I swapped out my club for the machete, to save an inventory spot, and really noticed the difference clearing a poi.

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On Mobility in general, the one thing that feels un-natural to me is the side step speed. Agree it shouldn't be full sprint, but personally I do think 'sprinting' sideways should be a bit faster than 'walking' sideways.

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Request for a variable zoom Scope/s. 2-7x or 3-9x. The way the old scope worked was really useful for the rifles

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Can't submit a bug report since running a few small modlets but wanted to mention that while I've had zero issues with the minibike, I've had both the 4x4 & the Motorcycle disappear on me.

Happens when driving them. Just a wag but seems like it happens when loading in the next area. Game hangs, have to quit via windows, come back, 4x4/motorcycle are gone.

No issues when they're parked.

I don't know I prefer blades and use a fireaxe. It has far superior range than clubs, does massive damage and you can just walk away while they bleed out and die. Apples to oranges IMO.

[madmole]

Were you guys aware that AOE buffs on blocks only works for existing AOE blocks like campfires, so we'd have to hijack a vanilla block to make cool mods like air conditioners? (See what I did there... Cool mods... Ac's...)

 

When can we start reporting bugs on the mod side of things?

 

You can report them when you want, not sure if or when they will get fixed. Nice word play.

[FileMachete]

Blades strike me (ha!) as more multi-purpose weapons. The hunting knife should be really good for gutting carcasses, because that’s what it’s for. The machete should be really good for chopping wood, because that’s what it’s for. In other words, I think you’ve got the right idea that they can save you an inventory slot, but maybe the tradeoff there isn’t balanced in vanilla.

 

very true, and, for me at least, a knife/machete is an 'always have' item due to the harvest animal/bone bonus.

And, yeah, ya know, things don't have to be balanced, right?

Actually, having to swap things around a bit depending on circumstance is a game-play plus; makes things more interesting!

 

I don't know I prefer blades and use a fireaxe. It has far superior range than clubs, does massive damage and you can just walk away while they bleed out and die. Apples to oranges IMO.

 

Yeppers. The Fireaxe out in the open is a really nice melee weapon, and a welcome change for A17!

 

Personally I tend to prefer a faster weapon for close quarters, like getting 4 radiateds in a small room, so was thinking of the knife/machete vs. the club, not the sledge or fireaxe. When I intentionally went toe-to-toe w multiples in a poi using the machete rather than the club, no knockdowns resulted in taking a few hits I probably wouldn't have, if I'd been using a club.

Can't really imagine using a sledge inside a lot of the pois, but have seen folks do really well with them. Fireaxe is about mid way between... I might have to try maxing out the Flurry perk and see if that, and some practice, would allow me to forego the club. (and I think me brain is still suffering from Stamina flashbacks from a17exp, heh)

 

Anyway, options & differences are good! & support different 'builds'.

 

Last thought: might be fun if rather than knockdowns, body shots w blades might chop off arms, leading to biting animation attacks?

[TSBX]

I don't know I prefer blades and use a fireaxe. It has far superior range than clubs, does massive damage and you can just walk away while they bleed out and die. Apples to oranges IMO.

 

A suggestion. I know you guys have dialed in to the "3 weapon tiers" per attribute, but wouldn't it also be prudent to have a "found" and a "made" version of each tier? For instance, a home-made axe would not have near the utility or quality of a pre-war manufactured fire axe. Having pre-war tech found only via scavenging would also promote looting as opposed to sitting in your base crafting or waiting for your buddy to come online to give you an axe he made.

[Lonestarcanuck]

I'm going to be doing some quests at some point and I would definitely want to make them multi stage and a little more in depth than the simple stuff we have now. I particularly loved the dead drop quests in Oblivion for the Dark Brotherhood. I'm hoping to be able to combine all the quest types into some more elaborate quest chains, like steal some documents, learn x, now go find out who did what and have to kill/infiltrate to learn who that is, then a final assassination mission. Could be lock picking, getting past turrets, guards etc for those.

 

yes those would be great!

 

with all the outhouses in the game, try adding the outhouse quest like the one from WOW called "Doing your Duty"

you had to go to a Lodge and you take the Anderhol's Slider Cider (Maybe another various of Grandpa's Elixir?) and use the nearby

outhouse to retrieve the Partially Processed seeds. or get some sort of reward related to a rare plant or crop or something!

[Demonoid74]

Odd , that the most plentiful and one of the most damaging weapons is not available in game...

for Blunt Weapons...a Baseball bat...and mods for them would be easy to come up with...spiked bats ala Escape From New York...etc

 

I have 3 cold steel indestructible bats mounted to the wall at all entry points to the house...its one of the best home defense weapons you can have! aside from all the guns , knives and axes I have lol

[Dimpy]

A suggestion. I know you guys have dialed in to the "3 weapon tiers" per attribute, but wouldn't it also be prudent to have a "found" and a "made" version of each tier? For instance, a home-made axe would not have near the utility or quality of a pre-war manufactured fire axe. Having pre-war tech found only via scavenging would also promote looting as opposed to sitting in your base crafting or waiting for your buddy to come online to give you an axe he made.

 

Probably the durability would be better, but I feel like postwar weapons would be a lot more effective at zombies killing since they could be specifically made for that purpose. Maybe that could be reflected by an increase in available mod slots.

[Weazelsun]

Melee Blade vs Club. I may be missing the final effects as I haven't fully spec'd into melee perks but right now it seems like Clubs always have a significant advantage over blades. The knockdown chance.

 

It makes sense that a machete wouldn't be nearly as likely to knock a z down as a club or sledge. But that knockdown is pretty significant in melee, especially when facing higher or multiple z's.

 

Don't have any great idea to offer that makes sense. Just bringing it up as last night I swapped out my club for the machete, to save an inventory spot, and really noticed the difference clearing a poi.

 

Interestingly, enough if you compare a machete vs steel fire axe. Go with the steel fireaxe and compare the stats. Not only does the steel fireaxe deal more damage than a machete, but it also swings faster as well. I mostly see blades as a weapon for stealthy characters, especially if you have perked out in the "cut in the wounds" or something like that, at max level it has a 100% chance to cause a bleeding effect on NPC's. Hit zombie once and let it run out. While with a club it's more of a brute force weapon, knock em down and keep em down, one hit, two hit.

[Ayrton]

Im sure there will be some more.

 

 

thanks for so much love to this great game

[TSBX]

yes those would be great!

 

with all the outhouses in the game, try adding the outhouse quest like the one from WOW called "Doing your Duty"

you had to go to a Lodge and you take the Anderhol's Slider Cider (Maybe another various of Grandpa's Elixir?) and use the nearby

outhouse to retrieve the Partially Processed seeds. or get some sort of reward related to a rare plant or crop or something!

 

Don't do dumb MMO ideas please.

[TSBX]

Probably the durability would be better, but I feel like postwar weapons would be a lot more effective at zombies killing since they could be specifically made for that purpose. Maybe that could be reflected by an increase in available mod slots.

 

Where do they mill new baseball bats after the apocalypse? Same for gun smithing sites? The original bases should be over-run or otherwise inaccessible without prior clearance.

 

A custom built "aluminum bat" will be inferior to a machine shopped one every time. There should be a "make = find" dynamic and it should be directly tied to what MM was yelling about a few alphas ago, "Risk = Reward."

[FileMachete]

Interestingly, enough if you compare a machete vs steel fire axe. Go with the steel fireaxe and compare the stats. Not only does the steel fireaxe deal more damage than a machete, but it also swings faster as well. I mostly see blades as a weapon for stealthy characters, especially if you have perked out in the "cut in the wounds" or something like that, at max level it has a 100% chance to cause a bleeding effect on NPC's. Hit zombie once and let it run out. While with a club it's more of a brute force weapon, knock em down and keep em down, one hit, two hit.

 

From what I saw going into the 'modify' screen the machete was a hair faster when the mods were the same for both it and the fireaxe.

But it did seem like going in & out of the modify screen could result in swings/sec not getting updated... not 100% sure though?

 

Glad you brought this up as it prompted me to look at the items.xml, and found something interesting!

 

Neither the Machete nor the "meleeClubIron" (think that's the Reinforced Iron Club) have a Power Attack delay penalty (if I'm reading the xml right), while the "meleeToolFireaxeSteel" _does_ get one;

effect_group name="Power Attack" ---> "AttacksPerMinute" operation="perc_add" value="-.3"

 

Most suprising was finding that of the three, -only- the Club could hold the 'Rad Remover' mod.

Couple that with the club specific Perk Stay Down! which appears to sort of feed itself; Power Attacks to Stunned enemys do 40-200% more damage, plus 60-100% chance to knock foes back down. Plus at lvl 3+ 5-3 blows in a 'short time' can have another 100% damage add.

 

While I really don't know what counts as "stunned", I've been thinking that 'knocked down' equaled stunned. Now, not so sure. Mainly due to closely reading the Blades Perk Deep Cuts. First listed benefit is a 40-200% damage add to Stunned Enemies. While the Fireaxe has a noticible chance to knock down zeds, the Machete definately falls way behind here; didn't get a single knock down out ~20 zed kills with it.

 

So for Bladed weapons, at least as I understand all the various bits, the Fireaxe is a clear winner over the Machete except for Stamina.

Though my guess is that if someone chooses a tank build w Heavy Armor, they may be better off with Clubs. More knock downs and lower stamina consumption. (while Sledges & Heavy Armor seem a perfect match, the stamina draw from both seems, to me, like it makes that combo pretty rough until end-game when you'd have all the heavy-metal/sexrex/agiity perks to support it)

And with only Clubs being able to hold a Rad Remover, well, besides personal preference, it's difficult to not see them as the go-to choice for late game melee-ers.

 

Anyway, good stuff, lots of interconnecting bits. Makes me want to cheat in a bunch of points and max em all out to test, heh

[KingSlayerGM]

Thats not very efficient maxing out both light and heavy armor perk trees though.

 

If you gave us enough points to max out everything though, like we asked many times..

[RipClaw]

Where do they mill new baseball bats after the apocalypse? Same for gun smithing sites? The original bases should be over-run or otherwise inaccessible without prior clearance.

 

A custom built "aluminum bat" will be inferior to a machine shopped one every time. There should be a "make = find" dynamic and it should be directly tied to what MM was yelling about a few alphas ago, "Risk = Reward."

 

Industrial manufacturing is not designed for quality but to produce high quantities at low cost. Therefore, the quality of one-off products is usually better than that of mass-produced products.

 

A melee weapon produced by an experienced blacksmith is at least as good as an industrially manufactured weapon or even better. Moreover, in the apocalypse nobody pays attention to the fact that it is particularly pretty. A branch from a tree or a squared timber with a few rusty nails in it is just as suitable for hitting heads as an industrially made baseball bat.

 

You can also make your own firearms if you have the necessary equipment and materials. In the times before the industrial revolution almost everything was made by hand. After an apocalypse people would have to learn again how to make what they need themselves.

[TSBX]

Yeah, but gameplay wise that's boring.

[Menace312]

If you gave us enough points to max out everything though, like we asked many times..

 

giveselfxp <number>

 

You're welcome

[Kage848]

If the shotgun is going to be the weapon of choice for the brawler playstyle, it's going to need some love. I maxed out all gun perks and had a full modded lvl 6 shotgun and it never felt "good" at end game.

 

I would buff the range, shell capacity and rate of fire to make it feel viable endgame.

 

This. The shotgun is subpar when dealing with later gamestage. And by subpar I mean it blows lol

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

That might be the way, I always loved those.

 

Please add this madmole.

 

+1 from me

[Menace312]

Blades strike me (ha!) as more multi-purpose weapons. The hunting knife should be really good for gutting carcasses, because that’s what it’s for. The machete should be really good for chopping wood, because that’s what it’s for. In other words, I think you’ve got the right idea that they can save you an inventory slot, but maybe the tradeoff there isn’t balanced in vanilla.

 

I'm no expert... But chopping wood with a machete??!? That's definitely not what that thing is for...

 

Bushes, plants, sticks, grass. Yes.

Wood. No.

[Poutre]

Hello Madmole,

 

17.2 is really good. Everything is starting to work well together.

 

I know performance is the goal now, so i have to ask this sad question : will explosions be stronger at some point ?

 

i'd love to see the fully destructible environnment at work when a car or a mine explodes, but i know it's headache because lower specs can't calculate this at the moment...

 

And yes, it would be cool to give zombies other animations. I'm talking about immersion : zeds can be found walking, or sleeping.

 

i'd say we would need : 1. zeds sleeping outside of POIs, in the wilderness, in rare occasions.

 

 

2. Zeds eating dead bodies. You already have this animation, it happens when zeds kill you. This one is VERY

IMPORTANT, you could enter a POI, and stumble upon some ferals eating a dead body.

 

I remember this freaking me out as a kid when i played the old Resident Evil 2 on PS1

[RipClaw]

Yeah, but gameplay wise that's boring.

 

It always depends on the individual. For example, I have more fun building bases and collecting resources than killing zombies and looting POIs. Having the freedom to do what you enjoy the most is one of the features that makes this game special.

 

Legendary objects that you can't make yourself have already been announced. This is the reward for those who take more risks.

[Crater Creator]

I'm no expert... But chopping wood with a machete??!? That's definitely not what that thing is for...

 

Bushes, plants, sticks, grass. Yes.

Wood. No.

 

I did research this for ComSenMod, to make sure my change to make the machete as good on wood as an (iron) fire axe was reasonable, and I believe it was. What I'm getting at is, at a more basic level, a machete is as much a legitimate agricultural tool as it is a weapon. I think when we're immersed in zombie lore, we can lose sight of that. But thankfully this game has zombies and crafting/building, so it comes up. It's reasonable for the player to expect a machete to work well as a tool - better than, say, a cavalry sword that isn't designed for plants at all.

 

Remember, our point of comparison here is a firefighter's axe. That's not designed for felling trees, either, but there's nothing better available. And I did say wood, meaning all things wood, not just trees. There aren't that many damage categories, so they don't get that specific. The "wood" one is assigned to things like yucca fibers as well as trees.

 

...But even if trees are the gold standard for chopping wood, it only takes a

to show machetes do it just fine.

[The Gronk]

I'm no expert... But chopping wood with a machete??!? That's definitely not what that thing is for...

 

Bushes, plants, sticks, grass. Yes.

Wood. No.

 

At the risk of pedantry you are correct that a machete is generally used for cutting through undergrowth. A significant portion of that undergrowth consists of bushes and sapling which are... largely... made of wood.

 

You'll not be cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a machete but if it can't get through a few reasonably thick branches either you need to sharpen it or you're not swinging it hard enough.

[iBane]

I don't know I prefer blades and use a fireaxe. It has far superior range than clubs, does massive damage and you can just walk away while they bleed out and die. Apples to oranges IMO.

 

Any thought given to adding a visual indicator for MOB bleeding? No way to tell currently if one has made an animal or zed bleed.

[meganoth]

At the risk of pedantry you are correct that a machete is generally used for cutting through undergrowth. A significant portion of that undergrowth consists of bushes and sapling which are... largely... made of wood.

 

You'll not be cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a machete but if it can't get through a few reasonably thick branches either you need to sharpen it or you're not swinging it hard enough.

 

I would guess the difference is between speed and impulse/mass. The machete is able to swing at high speed making it possible to cut branches who tend to be flexible and simply evade a relatively slow moving fire axe. It doesn't work well with hard or laminar wood though as you need impulse to get deep into the wood

 

The fire axe on the other hand has the bigger impulse, good for massive trees and doors or walls, anything that doesn't soak up the impulse through yielding.