Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Roland]

 

"Not changing that until feedback etc etc" - ergo, what does that tell you? That he can change that, but is not changing that because he wants feedback with the rage mechanic. That's where I got it from.

 

You keep leaving the word "valid" off. He said "valid feeback" which he defined as people playing it. Given that I still DO want nightmare to be faster than player sprinting, it is still worthwhile playing with their speed at nearly the same as player speed. There might not be anything casual about escaping zombies at that speed since they don't have any stamina concerns. He wants to hear from players who have played with it to see if they are still very casually escaping or not.

 

Reacting to his changelog report without actually playing it is not the valid feedback he is looking for and since he is the dev and has made the request we really should strive to deliver the feedback that has been requested. I haven't tried it yet and I also haven't tried increasing the values in xml to see if I can make them go faster even if it makes them look wonky and glidey now that the cap is gone. I'll give both a go and after Monday you can too and then revisit this topic.

 

 

 

Here he is just saying that the model's walk animation type dictates the speed, which afaik is what root motion is about in the first place.

 

 

Noting that rage has unfortunately nothing to do with the player being able to casually escape, since it is about fighting zombies, rather than escaping.

 

Actually zombies will rage from any damage and on nightmare level they will be raging most of the time as the percent chance of rage goes up with each tier of difficulty. So there are times when they run at you and you did not engage them in combat. Also, and again, with zombies near the player speed I can't confidently say that escapes will still be casual. Possible--yes but not casual.

[Adam the Waster]

thank you Joel for the update

 

your like Santa lol

 

but he rides a zombie bear with zombie deer and has a RPG tied to a M60

[RestInPieces]

10 or 15 posts abut he same subject IS going crazy about it. And by definition, you can't offer feedback on a18 until you've actually played a18. You CAN offer criticism, but not feedback based on experience.

 

I've only replied back to people who had replied to my posts, as I am doing right now. Apparently, that is "going crazy about it" and "harping about the same thing incessantly". It doesn't seem you are familiar with the fabled "discussion around one subject" concept.

 

Actually, no, it IS feedback and it's based on experience. Who said it's about A18? It's not about something new, it's about something constant through the alphas, which had changed a bit in A17.0 and, by the developer's words, won't essentially change in A18.0.

[Adam the Waster]

crap

[Jarod_Silverstar]

I was thinking if you put down a claim you can set up camp anywhere and take your workstations with you, so not to much different than a big camper. It would be easy to add a camper I suspect aside from the "interior part" with workstations.

 

Could pretty much do the 4x4 with a trailer attachment that has mount points for 4-6 workstations and maybe some extra storage. Make it like a super mod for the 4x4. And maybe a smaller one with half the size for the motorcycle.

[madmole]

(and @madmole, @Roland)

 

I get that you will only be releasing the experimental version now, patches will follow soon after and it would be good to wait for feedback in general etc etc, but:

 

Especially since that huge player sprint speed increase in A17, the "memory" nerf, and with the nearly endless stamina that regenerates with no delay while being used, it was always possible to escape from zombies. For years have I (and some others) been asking for multiple speed settings, so that there is one setting in which the player is not able to do that. In A17 we got 4 different settings at last, alas, even the highest did not make it possible for the zombies to reach you, due to the root motion issue.

 

Since zombies rage randomly only when you hit them and the point is whether the player is able to escape or not without hitting them, I don't see how raging is relevant. Shouldn't be there at least one setting in which the player can't escape from zombies in their base speed?

 

I won't go on babbling about how important it is to have at least one setting that allows zombies to be faster in their base speed, forcing you to fortify (rather than doing it "just for fun") and not having the ability to just run for the remainder of the night/whatever, but guys, please, give it some thought.

 

That seems like a reasonable option at some point.

[Adam the Waster]

Could pretty much do the 4x4 with a trailer attachment that has mount points for 4-6 workstations and maybe some extra storage. Make it like a super mod for the 4x4. And maybe a smaller one with half the size for the motorcycle.

 

i would think i could be like a bus or a semi truck

[madmole]

I didn't see lock picks in tbe patch notes. Did they make it into the game or did I glance over them in the patch notes by accident?

 

I guess you need to read them again, they are mentioned twice.

[madmole]

are mines in A18 rich enough enough as to allow players to spend so many bullets per horde? i would love not to have to spend the whole week mining to afford the fun (imo mines should be much richer than they are in A17)

 

Don't know because mining sucked in 17, but IMO we finally have awesome mining. You can get the resources for 1000 rounds mining one or two nights with a steel pick and 3 ranks of mining.

[madmole]

Lockpicks are in the game. There were a few things that I can name that didn't make it into the patch notes either, like lootable gas barrels.

 

Those have been in the game forever.

[madmole]

I’d rather bullets be more scarce. If I want to play Doom I would. Not Having enough ammo should One of your issues in this game, time management should have decisions with repercussions. Same with gas, etc.

 

They are fairly scarce if you only use guns you will run out. You have to buy up every round from traders, mine a bunch then you get to have fun. Trust me, you will be FRANTICALLY SCROUNGING 24/7 to do everything you want to do. 7 hours goes by and you are eating another 5000 zombies. We had to bump the ammo because, well, have you seen all the zombies that came at me on day 42? Its not doom, you make choices. I still melee to save ammo, and I only have ammo because I work my ass off for it.

 

Hordes are no joke any more, its 6 hours of hell every 7 days.

[madmole]

Then turn down the loot abundance, or have the server admin do it. That should help a bit.

Your playstyle is your playstyle and you can choose the server accordingly.

For example my playstyle is very bullet-conservative during normal days, but on bloodmoon night it's 1500-2000 bullets easily. I'm glad to see madmole's generous use of bullets in his videos, so a nerf is unlikely.

 

Heck, I'd like to see a large submenu under "Loot abundance", where you can specify what is rare and what is not.

 

Loot isn't going to make or break ammo. You get ammo from the trader or grinding harvesting radiators and in the mines. There isn't a ton of ammo in loot.

[Blake_]

Those have been in the game forever.

 

Wrong. Gas barrels were there since forever. You could pick them up with E. A18 is the first to implement lootable Gas barrels, quite different from pickable ones. The fundamental behaviour has changed, so I believe he meant exactly that.

[madmole]

+1

Lets see the balance first, I am curious on that part a lot.

 

I struggle for ammo if I screw around too much, the balance is awesome IMO. You will juggle your time between looting, scavenging cars for gas, mining, and traveling a ♥♥♥♥ load. Traders are typically a 15 minute DRIVE away from each other, so making the rounds every 3 days to see the new inventory eats a ton of your time, but now that you are collecting 112 books and hundreds of schematics... you literally can't NOT go. You just have to look to see what he has for sale.

[Odetta]

Hah, Yeah back when I used to leg press 900 to 1000 pounds I'd fart each rep lol. I have a more solid diet now, protein shakes are overrated. I don't even fart any more and i used to be a fart machine. Too many carbs and diary cause gas IMO.

 

I'm sorry to hear that, farting is one of the few joys in life and I relish each and every one.

[Jarod_Silverstar]

madmole

 

were do mountain lions and coyotes spawn?

 

so i can go "sightseeing"

 

From the patch notes:

Coyote to desert spawns

Mountain lions spawn in the snow biome

[Adam the Waster]

From the patch notes:

Coyote to desert spawns

Mountain lions spawn in the snow biome

 

didn't see that

[Odetta]

I guess you need to read them again, they are mentioned twice.

 

What about the new Block selector menu? I don't think I seen that. I could've have missed it.

[AlabasterW]

You are welcome, I put my soul into A18 and A1-16. 13 was a framework build so 14 was much better, 17 was a framework build so 18 is much better and I have 500 hours testing it, so that never happened ever. The most we got was 60 to 100 on any build before I'd guess. Late game is tested up to 100 hours into it. Now that dukes are smeltable I think any late game stage is viable now for sure, brass was the only bottleneck now you can get unlimited brass if you work for it.

 

Dukes are brass once again! Brass being the de-facto currency makes so much sense from both a lore and gameplay perspective; what's more important than BULLETS? Now, will you be able to resmelt the brass into dukes? I doubt it but that could be a funny way to make some more cash if you're insane enough to not use bullets.

[SnowDog1942]

They are fairly scarce if you only use guns you will run out. You have to buy up every round from traders, mine a bunch then you get to have fun. Trust me, you will be FRANTICALLY SCROUNGING 24/7 to do everything you want to do. 7 hours goes by and you are eating another 5000 zombies. We had to bump the ammo because, well, have you seen all the zombies that came at me on day 42? Its not doom, you make choices. I still melee to save ammo, and I only have ammo because I work my ass off for it.

 

Hordes are no joke any more, its 6 hours of hell every 7 days.

 

I just got hard.

 

 

Edit: please don’t make everything easy when the whining starts

[Adam the Waster]

I just got hard.

 

when arnt you lol

[Odetta]

Can throw and melee through bars with the spear.

 

nice

[RestInPieces]

You keep leaving the word "valid" off. He said "valid feeback" which he defined as people playing it. Given that I still DO want nightmare to be faster than player sprinting, it is still worthwhile playing with their speed at nearly the same as player speed. There might not be anything casual about escaping zombies at that speed since they don't have any stamina concerns. He wants to hear from players who have played with it to see if they are still very casually escaping or not.

 

Reacting to his changelog report without actually playing it is not the valid feedback he is looking for and since he is the dev and has made the request we really should strive to deliver the feedback that has been requested. I haven't tried it yet and I also haven't tried increasing the values in xml to see if I can make them go faster even if it makes them look wonky and glidey now that the cap is gone. I'll give both a go and after Monday you can too and then revisit this topic.

 

Actually zombies will rage from any damage and on nightmare level they will be raging most of the time as the percent chance of rage goes up with each tier of difficulty. So there are times when they run at you and you did not engage them in combat. Also, and again, with zombies near the player speed I can't confidently say that escapes will still be casual. Possible--yes but not casual.

 

What about words you leave off? Like "Nightmare rage is about as fast as the player". So they will be about as fast, when enraged. Meaning their default nightmare speed will certainly be slower. If I am not mistaken chances mean nothing as long as you don't hit them, correct? Except if they rage by themselves randomly. Do they?

 

Also, valid for you only means "when playtested", because that's exactly what you think the definition of valid feedback is (not that it isn't, but reminding you that I am not giving feedback about a new feature). The general meaning of valid in that case could mean anything - most like "give me a good reason to change it".

 

Again though, even if faatal meant exactly what you are saying - what difference does it make? Am I supposed to be convinced that slower zombies need "playtesting" in order for the player to experience that slowness and see what is painfully obvious? As for the stamina concerns, I'd wager you are trying your hand in comedy if I didn't know you better. The jogging pause one has to make without perks to sprint perpetually is nearly negligible even perkless.

 

A18.0 is a few days away, if I experience something different than the obvious, I will be here telling you I was wrong. I hope that I am actually, but unfortunately, I doubt it.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

That seems like a reasonable option at some point.

 

And direly needed, from my perspective

[Trankitas]

I'm sorry to hear that, farting is one of the few joys in life and I relish each and everyone.

 

Colony Farter title coming?

[andrough]

You are welcome, I put my soul into A18 and A1-16. 13 was a framework build so 14 was much better, 17 was a framework build so 18 is much better and I have 500 hours testing it, so that never happened ever. The most we got was 60 to 100 on any build before I'd guess. Late game is tested up to 100 hours into it. Now that dukes are smeltable I think any late game stage is viable now for sure, brass was the only bottleneck now you can get unlimited brass if you work for it.

 

@madmole: Before it gets too busy this weekend and onward, feel like briefly outlining any plans you have for vanilla late game? Not specifics, but you have mentioned the industrial forge and we have the demolisher coming. Do you think most of the replayability will lie in restarting as a new build? (I think a lot of people might just chug the forgettin' elixir we have coming instead.) I get the feeling a lot of this stuff will be relegated to mods and, if that's true, do you all have plans to expose whatever is possible and maybe even add some requests for hooks, etc. as you develop for gold and mod support? (If this one will probably open up a can of worms, I can understand if you stay sealed up on it some.)

 

I'm curious because of how you seem to feel about more complexity in systems like electricity and what the industrial forge adds to the game. For me, the forge will kind of just be a new decor item. If I have a big build planned, I get cement started ASAP at forges around the map and have never really needed more than 3, maybe 4 if I'm building something crazy out of concrete. So, the forge will definitely be a cool, new milestone to reach and sounds like it will take the place of multiple regular forges, but by the time I get to it I doubt I'll be hurting for materials. I enjoy decorating the base, but looking at all the neat stuff only goes so far. I like complex systems to play with for improving my base after I am totally self-sustained and mostly decked-out.

 

I'm like the zombie apocalypse- I got almost all the patience(ts) in the world. Still, though, I am dying to know if some of my pimp dreams may eventually come true.