Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Johnny rebo]

Wife and I are about to log in at 21:40 for day 70 horde. We haven’t seen a demolisher yet. I feel we may very soon!

[AtomicUs5000]

We're set up now internally to deliver some small updates, so I'd like to try it at least. If it turns out to be a hassle we can always go back to yearly updates but its too much stress. It feels good to complete some stuff a-z and get it out there. THen we can get focus testing too instead of "here what do you think of our whole new game". If we do a small book update the entire conversation will be about the new books and not about 4 million possible changes, giving proper attention to each new thing we do.

 

Updates are good for business too, and for sustaining the community, so I feel like some small updates will be good. We can test and fix those things up fast too instead of getting a lot of bugs all over the place from larger builds.

 

OK, sounds cool.

Quite true that a bunch of bugs spread over various parts of the game causes some chaos and confusion. Well, not just bugs, but changes in general as well.

Sometimes it becomes hard to tell whether something was a change or a bug or possibly both on the player's end too... so some things that could have been reported and probably fixed sooner just don't get reported properly.

[meganoth]

Also why would I bother with stealth playstyle with primitive bow in early game, when I get other t2 weapons from loot almost immediately? I rarely use the first club for more then the first PoI. Stealth playstyle has little incentives in early game compared to other playstyles. You are slowed to a crawl and reap almost no benefits whatsoever. Add to it the fact that you get no resource gathering perks and conclusion is AGI is just weak.

 

But isn't everyone doing this? Find an acceptable t2 weapon and you'll often use it instead of your attribute weapon. Until you have a few points into your attributes and weapon perks.

 

On the whole agi may really be weak compared to other trees because stealth gameplay wastes A LOT OF TIME. But that isn't because of the primitive bow who like all the other tier1 weapons gets used for the first 2 days on average (very rough estimate). And that only because many players do many buried treasure quests on their first (two) day(s).

 

That you might have bad luck and not find any tier2 of your attribute for some time can happen in all other attributes too. If there is an imbalance in finding wooden bows to other tier2 weapons than that must be addressed as a bug, not as a balance problem. A strength player won't use the blunderbuss much when he finds an ak, until he has specced some into strength. I don't see a difference to Agi.

 

The Agi player also has pistols as alternative tier2 ranged weapon, did you take that into account ? I'm just not sure whether TFP kept that as an advantage or adjusted drop rate of tier2 agi weapons because there are two of them.

 

Generally it is VERY difficult comparing the attributes. They are made to be very diverse and allowing very different playstyles and that is a good thing in my book. But it also means that players prefering specific play styles (and who doesn't) will feel the weapons and perks of some attributes giving him more power than others.

 

And naturally the AK player will mow through POI's much faster than an agility player, but that saved time has to be put into mining additional ammo used while mowing. This means also that the agi player isn't as dependant on resource gathering/mining perks as others. Can the fortitude player survive without spending lots of points into strength/mother lode?

 

Caveat: I find the agility/stealth player as powerful as he was in A17, I just don't have tried other attributes in A18 yet, they might really be more powerful. I just think your arguments were all over the place, mixing in possible bugs and possibly bad luck does not really show whether agi on the whole is deficient

[kuratowakiru]

Just have a though about the spear, not sure if others would like it.

remove the spear throwing as strong attack, strong attack now is stronger stab that can pierce 2-3 zombies.

 

new weapon, Javelin.

with stone tip, iron tip and steel tip, max stack is 5 (treated as ammo type).

cost about 5 times of an arrow of the same class or cost the same as the spear - spear part (what ever is more balance).

It under the same perk as spear.

Javelin can't be use as melee, throw only, cost same stamina as spear throwing.

Damage equal to average spear damage range.

[JaxTeller718]

People were suicide farming 100s of blood bags, so there was a buff that was added on death, that TFP didn't approve of, death should clear all buffs for consistency. Without that inconsistency they could farm all the blood bags they want for a one time maximum loss of 50% xp.

 

Furthermore, the large first aid kit violated one of 18's key principal designs which is all good crafts require a loot only trinket. As it was they were 100% farmable which also goes against everything we've done making odd loot only trinkets to craft anything decent.

 

More blood kits are in loot now, so it should be fine, just no endless best medical item in the game.

 

I agree 100 percent with this philosophy.

 

The only thing i dont see eye to eye with is the death penalty. Its way too lenient. When i get an infection now I never look for a cure, i just die. Go get my stuff (which is usually right where my bed is since i seek death out) and then take the xp hit. Its literally 4 zombies to kill then you are back in blue. No one can argue that there is any real penalty. It slows you down for maybe 4 minutes if even that.

 

Certainly do not want the old way back either, i hated the perk hit for sure, and stamina was no fun to wait on either, but the current death penalty is a minor inconvenience and I doubt anyone is in stage 3 of infection or food poisoning and waiting it out for a cure. Its a waste of time. Suicide, respawn, kill a few zeds and you're as good as new.

[AtomicUs5000]

I agree 100 percent with this philosophy.

 

The only thing i dont see eye to eye with is the death penalty. Its way too lenient. When i get an infection now I never look for a cure, i just die. Go get my stuff (which is usually right where my bed is since i seek death out) and then take the xp hit. Its literally 4 zombies to kill then you are back in blue. No one can argue that there is any real penalty. It slows you down for maybe 4 minutes if even that.

 

Certainly do not want the old way back either, i hated the perk hit for sure, and stamina was no fun to wait on either, but the current death penalty is a minor inconvenience and I doubt anyone is in stage 3 of infection or food poisoning and waiting it out for a cure. Its a waste of time. Suicide, respawn, kill a few zeds and you're as good as new.

 

I was under the impression that if you were a high level, then it might take hundreds of zombies to make up for the xp loss, since it's a percentage.

I could be wrong... this isn't something I experience due to dead is dead.

[JaxTeller718]

We're set up now internally to deliver some small updates, so I'd like to try it at least. If it turns out to be a hassle we can always go back to yearly updates but its too much stress. It feels good to complete some stuff a-z and get it out there. THen we can get focus testing too instead of "here what do you think of our whole new game". If we do a small book update the entire conversation will be about the new books and not about 4 million possible changes, giving proper attention to each new thing we do.

 

Updates are good for business too, and for sustaining the community, so I feel like some small updates will be good. We can test and fix those things up fast too instead of getting a lot of bugs all over the place from larger builds.

 

The quicker updates are keeping the people talking and anticipating each next one. I love the new more frequent updating and I agree it has to be a lot easier on you guys and your testers not having to cram a years worth of stuff in in a few experimentals. Its kept me invested in this Alpha to this day. Just started a new world on b5 having skipped b4 and looking forward to a new adventure.

[madmole]

I always do that as well. That early game dismemberment chance and/or knockdown is really valuable.

 

That said I still think the spear and the sledgehammer are better than anything else early game once you master them. No matter what build I choose, I use those two the most for quite a while. Bow is (rightfully so) a bullet sponge filler (still use it for it's range depending on the situation) and for the other ones (knuckles, knives especially) I feel they lack utility or range or damage, or a combination of all those. Knuckle wraps are very weak in my book, even with two points in them. You just get punished too hard for your mistakes and it provides little besides ASPD and low stamina usage compared to their drawbacks.

 

It really depends how you play. The sledge is great if you can manage your stamina properly and learn the timing of it. For those who are a bad aim or don't get any sex rex one miss could be life or death because of the stamina drain and the huge amount of missed dps, where the knuckles and knives are more forgiving, and generally don't tap into your stamina nearly as much, so you need less food.

 

Generally speaking I kind of agree with you, but at the same time I feel like knuckles and knives are such higher volume strikes that the chance for a dismemberment is through the roof late game and its just more fun exploding heads rapidly than using the sledgehammer to me. So if you stick with them they prove to be pretty good later game, where the sledge is probably better early game.

[JaxTeller718]

I was under the impression that if you were a high level, then it might take hundreds of zombies to make up for the xp loss, since it's a percentage.

I could be wrong... this isn't something I experience due to dead is dead.

 

This could be possible, My highest level char was a 26 and it wasnt that difficult to get it back. I may have to reserve my judgment until I reach the 40's or so. If i can sustain interest that long lol. Usually have all the good quality stuff well before that and itching for a new play.

[madmole]

I know, I got little mischievous But really what I feel the real problem is that their drop seems lower than "firearms." On day 14 I looted plenty of pistols, shotguns and ak-47 but crosbows and bows are quite rare (Is it so, or just bad luck?) in addition you can use any firearm for any build and be effective but for stealth builds you are forced to use bow/crosbow. For this reason I do not really bother with stealth agility build at the beginning. Also, from what I read on the forums, I havent seen many people specing into stealth either.

 

And that might stem the desire for easier T2 bow crafting. To enable stealth builds early.

 

Its a big list of all the parts in a list, its just random. You can use any firearm for stealth, but the silenced pistol or smg is best because agilty governs it.

[AtomicUs5000]

This could be possible, My highest level char was a 26 and it wasnt that difficult to get it back. I may have to reserve my judgment until I reach the 40's or so. If i can sustain interest that long lol. Usually have all the good quality stuff well before that and itching for a new play.

 

Unless something changed. I'm pretty sure this is the way they went. Level 80+ from what I've heard can be a severe blow if you were almost to the point of leveling up.

 

What I don't like with the death penalty, is that there is some point where you have a decent chance to get some higher-end loot, but the penalty isn't great enough to deter people from dying daily after loot runs. The result is a well-stocked arsenal at a low game stage that then allows you to progress easily into late game from that point forward.

[madmole]

Wife and I are about to log in at 21:40 for day 70 horde. We haven’t seen a demolisher yet. I feel we may very soon!

 

Wow you are lucky. I predict 5-10 this horde

[MechanicalLens]

I agree 100 percent with this philosophy.

 

The only thing i dont see eye to eye with is the death penalty. Its way too lenient. When i get an infection now I never look for a cure, i just die. Go get my stuff (which is usually right where my bed is since i seek death out) and then take the xp hit. Its literally 4 zombies to kill then you are back in blue. No one can argue that there is any real penalty. It slows you down for maybe 4 minutes if even that.

 

Certainly do not want the old way back either, i hated the perk hit for sure, and stamina was no fun to wait on either, but the current death penalty is a minor inconvenience and I doubt anyone is in stage 3 of infection or food poisoning and waiting it out for a cure. Its a waste of time. Suicide, respawn, kill a few zeds and you're as good as new.

 

Hit every tree stump you find, and you'll be swimming honey. While lose XP when you can just use a jar of honey out of the 40-50 you have in your chest? Seems like a massive waste to me.

 

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Unless something changed. I'm pretty sure this is the way they went. Level 80+ from what I've heard can be a severe blow if you were almost to the point of leveling up.

 

What I don't like with the death penalty, is that there is some point where you have a decent chance to get some higher-end loot, but the penalty isn't great enough to deter people from dying daily after loot runs. The result is a well-stocked arsenal at a low game stage that then allows you to progress easily into late game from that point forward.

 

Level 80+ takes 500000+ XP to level up, or about a level every 2-3 days.

[JaxTeller718]

Hit every tree stump you find, and you'll be swimming honey. While lose XP when you can just use a jar of honey out of the 40-50 you have in your chest? Seems like a massive waste to me.

 

 

Not really. Why use the honey and then wait a few minutes for it to tick down when i can suicide, clear my buff and then use my level 5 modded out shottie in a house and gain it back in seconds while also continuing to level?

 

All while gaining back full health and water. Its almost a gimme at that point.

[Johnny rebo]

Wow you are lucky. I predict 5-10 this horde

 

I guess we were! We did have Two show up. Luckily we were able to see them coming and get them activated before they got up to the base. Was actually apprehensive about the horde and when the first one showed my heart was pounding a little. It was awesome. We have a tier 5 quest to do next so I am sure 77 will be super “explosive”!

 

Also, after the update the .44 magnum only reloads to 5 rounds FYI.

[beHypE]

Ive done a few fort setups across the updates and found taking points into brawler in the first few levels really to set me back too much personally. I push 2 into fort and 2 into regen for the starter quest points cause lets be real, when you hide the first few nights, that free regen is baller. Brawler is rough with zombie rage, you dont have the range of something like sledge/spear/bow or even club to give you that extra second to react, and you cant take hits like you need to to apply the fast attack speed that makes brawler great.

 

Then 2 points into pain tolerance, and 2 points into heavy armor off exp from doing some initial trader quests and figure out the resources for scrap armor as I go (had issues with that in my current game till I found a bear ). Only after getting the 3 defensive perks at level 2 do I think brawler starts to shine. Take very little damage, basically never get stunned, regen what little damage you do take, and start knocking off those heavy armor penalties before you can find the armor mods, which you can add 2 of to the level 3 armor you can make when you do find them. Then you can just go in and unleash without worrying so much and use that fast attack speed to decapitate everything

 

This is the first run I haven't died in the first few days and its def because I avoided knuckles for the first 2 hours

 

Fits my (small) gaming experience with fists pretty well. Once you can take some blows and not be in big trouble because of it it's probably easier to line em up with some combinations, but very early game I felt there was no point tap-retreating with knuckles if I can do it with a sledge that packs more punch and adds extra knockdown frequency for an easy power-attack finish. I'll definitely be playing a pure fort build in the upcoming weeks to see how it fares later on.

[madmole]

But isn't everyone doing this? Find an acceptable t2 weapon and you'll often use it instead of your attribute weapon. Until you have a few points into your attributes and weapon perks.

 

On the whole agi may really be weak compared to other trees because stealth gameplay wastes A LOT OF TIME. But that isn't because of the primitive bow who like all the other tier1 weapons gets used for the first 2 days on average (very rough estimate). And that only because many players do many buried treasure quests on their first (two) day(s).

 

That you might have bad luck and not find any tier2 of your attribute for some time can happen in all other attributes too. If there is an imbalance in finding wooden bows to other tier2 weapons than that must be addressed as a bug, not as a balance problem. A strength player won't use the blunderbuss much when he finds an ak, until he has specced some into strength. I don't see a difference to Agi.

 

The Agi player also has pistols as alternative tier2 ranged weapon, did you take that into account ? I'm just not sure whether TFP kept that as an advantage or adjusted drop rate of tier2 agi weapons because there are two of them.

 

Generally it is VERY difficult comparing the attributes. They are made to be very diverse and allowing very different playstyles and that is a good thing in my book. But it also means that players prefering specific play styles (and who doesn't) will feel the weapons and perks of some attributes giving him more power than others.

 

And naturally the AK player will mow through POI's much faster than an agility player, but that saved time has to be put into mining additional ammo used while mowing. This means also that the agi player isn't as dependant on resource gathering/mining perks as others. Can the fortitude player survive without spending lots of points into strength/mother lode?

 

Caveat: I find the agility/stealth player as powerful as he was in A17, I just don't have tried other attributes in A18 yet, they might really be more powerful. I just think your arguments were all over the place, mixing in possible bugs and possibly bad luck does not really show whether agi on the whole is deficient

 

Weapons drop equally but since there are loads of agility weapons they are rarer. There are two automatic weapons, 4 ranged agility weapons, so statistically you will have a harder time getting exactly what you want.

 

IMO the stealth guy may take longer to clear a POI, but he doesn't take damage, he can do a ton of damage with stealth shots using the cheapest ammo in the game so it balances out fine. My agility character always had loads of ammo for horde nights, where my fortitude builds seem to spend a ton of time mining for ammo. At night I would roam around and head shot everyone for xp with one shot usually from my maxed out pistol. Even if you wake someone up just empty a mag into them and its all good. 9mm ammo grows on trees and is SO cheap to craft. Exploding arrows are nice for hordes.

 

Some builds just take longer to get off the ground is all, but the payoff is worth it IMO.

[MechanicalLens]

Not really. Why use the honey and then wait a few minutes for it to tick down when i can suicide, clear my buff and then use my level 5 modded out shottie in a house and gain it back in seconds while also continuing to level?

 

All while gaining back full health and water. Its almost a gimme at that point.

 

Good luck when you get to level 80+ and it takes you 2-3 days to level up then.

[madmole]

I agree 100 percent with this philosophy.

 

The only thing i dont see eye to eye with is the death penalty. Its way too lenient. When i get an infection now I never look for a cure, i just die. Go get my stuff (which is usually right where my bed is since i seek death out) and then take the xp hit. Its literally 4 zombies to kill then you are back in blue. No one can argue that there is any real penalty. It slows you down for maybe 4 minutes if even that.

 

Certainly do not want the old way back either, i hated the perk hit for sure, and stamina was no fun to wait on either, but the current death penalty is a minor inconvenience and I doubt anyone is in stage 3 of infection or food poisoning and waiting it out for a cure. Its a waste of time. Suicide, respawn, kill a few zeds and you're as good as new.

 

Beyond level 20 loss of xp is a fairly significant hit to progression. I doubt you suicide at level 60. I mean infection doesn't even cause sides until it turns orange. It happens frequently early game as well if you play nightmare you get hit a lot.

 

I'm all for a slider for death penalty or something, When we first put it in it was like 50% or something brutal.

[madmole]

The quicker updates are keeping the people talking and anticipating each next one. I love the new more frequent updating and I agree it has to be a lot easier on you guys and your testers not having to cram a years worth of stuff in in a few experimentals. Its kept me invested in this Alpha to this day. Just started a new world on b5 having skipped b4 and looking forward to a new adventure.

 

Yeah keeping the community engaged is key to staying relevant. We're not going to rush to get patches out, but rather when stuff gets tested in trunk and we're ready we'll move it to an experimental build just like how we're patching the live build now. We're developing risky content in a research branch so trunk is always in good shape. I've already got 4 book sets designed and I'm super excited to get the brawler books, you guys will be pleased

[DaVegaNL]

This is the first time I've seen a bridge in random gen. Well done pimps!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

i hate sand

 

I hate you!!

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah keeping the community engaged is key to staying relevant. We're not going to rush to get patches out, but rather when stuff gets tested in trunk and we're ready we'll move it to an experimental build just like how we're patching the live build now. We're developing risky content in a research branch so trunk is always in good shape. I've already got 4 book sets designed and I'm super excited to get the brawler books, you guys will be pleased

 

The more books, the merrier! Thank you!

[madmole]

Not really. Why use the honey and then wait a few minutes for it to tick down when i can suicide, clear my buff and then use my level 5 modded out shottie in a house and gain it back in seconds while also continuing to level?

 

All while gaining back full health and water. Its almost a gimme at that point.

 

So are cheese ramps on horde night, but do you use those? Have some self respect and face infection head on. On my recent night mare run speed game in the beginning all zombies were nightmare. The first 3 days were hell and I spent all my time looking for honey and it was a huge game changer in a positive way. Like it was hard and frustrating, but suddenly I couldn't do dig quests because 5 nightmare guys was too much. So I had to search for ruins houses and use my crappy junk turret and whatever, I couldn't even do entry level quests so my whole game has been very hard. After day 3 I put them on jog during the day, sprint and night and nightmare for the other two. I'm nearing day 35 and still don't feel fully recovered for whatever reasons.

 

Like I'm permanently behind the curve for some reason. I tried to smash a tier 4 skyscraper last night and couldn't even nerd pole up the side they broke my nerd pole and surrounded me, used my limited m60 ammo and crawled to my minibike and drove away with like 10 debuffs and 5% health, after several failed attempts. The nightmare run speed ferals are a huge game changer for me. My old fort build would just fist everything and out tank, but for whatever reason this game is cursed and my character is always struggling lol.

[Adam the Waster]

This is the first time I've seen a bridge in random gen. Well done pimps!

 

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I hate you!!

 

well i hate you and ill turn your sand into CEMENT! (evil laugh)

[DaVegaNL]

Yes you are, I mean, you broke my brother's house door, then you kidnapped me. Funny stuff!

 

I played as a female character with a rather large.. uh.. personality? So that balances things, no? ^-^