Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Tete1805]

So, to get back on topic... Are we approaching feature freeze?

BTW, any new threats to players hiding on a roof during horde night?

[Crater Creator]

Yes, the chain mail was fitted over a gambeson, which the narrator says was also penetrated.

 

No, the test wasn’t at a perfect 90° angle because the target was moving laterally.

 

The proof is in the pudding. I’m not applying some expert knowledge here - anyone can see these facts just from watching the video.

 

Not to mention, zombies are rarely armored. They’re rotten, decomposing flesh, and they’re frequently shown disintegrating like rotten tomatoes from the slightest trauma in zombie fiction like The Walking Dead.

[Menace312]

One day landmine retrieval will be implemented and nobody is going to believe it's real. :-)

 

There's a modlet for that

[The Gronk]

There's a modlet for that

 

The troll has been going on so long that at this point I don't even trust a modlet :-)

 

Anyway, back off-topic.

 

Armour was, and still is, very expensive. Most arrows were shot at infantry or other archers, neither of whom are likely to be running around in a full set of field plate. Just because a handgun can't penetrate a set of SWAT flak armour without specialized bullets is no reason to dismiss the danger to everyone else.

[Survager]

Not even close.

Someone here was 100% dead on with a youtube video they showed.

There's your clue.

 

Are you mean it?

[Onarr]

@madmole

I wanted to ask, is headshot dmg perk going to be reworked? As I see it, its what forces me most into STR/PER builds. I feel it would be better baked into weapon perks itself. This as well as stamina usage. Otherwise the weapons in other tiers are pretty useless.

[Damocles]

Yes, the chain mail was fitted over a gambeson, which the narrator says was also penetrated.

 

No, the test wasn’t at a perfect 90° angle because the target was moving laterally.

 

The proof is in the pudding. I’m not applying some expert knowledge here - anyone can see these facts just from watching the video.

 

Not to mention, zombies are rarely armored. They’re rotten, decomposing flesh, and they’re frequently shown disintegrating like rotten tomatoes from the slightest trauma in zombie fiction like The Walking Dead.

Arrows actually don't have much stopping power. They dont expand like bullets in the flesh. They would make really poor weapons against zombies compared to blunt weapons and bullets.

[madmole]

@Madmole,

 

I think you were about day 20 or so from your screenshots. Have you found a complete volume of books yet?

 

Not even close. Maybe 3 volumes of 7 in a few 2, 1 and none in others.

[madmole]

Could you guys make a big grey brick texture? To make nice walls for castles[ATTACH=CONFIG]28660[/ATTACH]

 

Should be that grey brick we use for basement foundation walls.

[madmole]

BRO.

 

Second, there's a huge difference between "I have to perk strength to build!" and "I have to perk strength to build 17 block high fortresses with high walls and deep trenches all made entirely of reinforced concrete!"

 

It's like the difference between "I have to perk intelligence to travel the map!" and "I have to perk intelligence to have an MTV Cribs garage full of half a dozen motorcycles, jeeps, and a pair of gyrocopters."

 

What you call a "decent base" most would consider an epic fortress. I mean it's a 4 story building if you do three blocks of height per floor.

 

I totally agree with this and your other post on this topic. 18 is so much more flexible than 17 these comments about forcing strength on someone are ridiculous. And the fact your pulling it off in 17 means it will be much nicer in 18. I want to see conversations about interesting builds and play styles, not "I'm level 300, now what" kind of comments. Just by slowing leveling down we're getting closer to that now.

[madmole]

Of course I don't need that on day 7 but he wrote that he could build a concrete fortress with a few thousand concrete and cobblestone. A fortress for me is much bigger than what you could build with that amount of concrete and cobblestone.

 

I build my character on strength in the early game because I love mining and also fight a lot in close combat. In the later course of the game I go more on stealth and perception because I also like to do that. I don't limit myself to one build but I also don't max out all skills. For example, I don't put a single point in Gunslinger because I never use the pistol or the magnum.

 

But as far as the OCD topic is concerned, it drives me crazy that the drawbridge is 4 blocks wide and the garage door 3 blocks.

 

Yeah there was no design there. We'll make some headway on that in A19.

[madmole]

Staph right there . I'm an OCD min-maxer and I LOVE the balance of trader Concrete. They have just enough to get you going even on a 4 player server while you enjoy quests and adventure. You CANT just build from day 1 with concrete though... oh wait, YOU CAN. But IF you REALLY WANT an almighty base you gotta be patient and invest in time in it. You can finish a HUMONGOUS base of 500x500 voxels in just 140 hours. No problem . PLz people enjoy the game. Do not complain about pitiful stuff .Complain about the scarcity of beards in Great Corporation etiquette and the eyebrow customization bar not working for a Manly avatar in 7dtd, for example.

 

I want to make some progress there A19.

[Socrastein]

I totally agree with this and your other post on this topic. 18 is so much more flexible than 17 these comments about forcing strength on someone are ridiculous. And the fact your pulling it off in 17 means it will be much nicer in 18. I want to see conversations about interesting builds and play styles, not "I'm level 300, now what" kind of comments. Just by slowing leveling down we're getting closer to that now.

 

Thanks mate! I also want to hear from people who are using the perks and freedom of A17 to try different ways of playing.

 

 

I’ve been playing survivalist with 120m days, horde night every 3rd night, everything always walks, 64 zombies, loot 150%, no supply drops, no horde base, no crafting perks, AGI/PER focus. I call it ‘The Walking Dead meets Doom’

 

First few days were tough cause every zombie took a lot to take down and I was in snow and kept getting lumberjack spawns. 3rd horde night was the hardest cause I got several cops, dogs, and spitting vultures which meant I was sprinting my little ass off trying to avoid acid and demon doggos. Last couple horde nights felt too easy cause there were less cops, no dogs, but a lot of slow wights and radiated. So I switched to ‘run’ on horde night and am about to see how that goes.

 

Instead of a base with traps I’m working on a battle arena that i want to have low walls, platforms, etc. so I can run around fighting and evading the horde a lot like the large battles in Doom. No tower defense, all FPS. Anywhere I can go they can go, I’ll just have to outmaneuver them.

 

I finally have enough equipment and ammo to make the fight work, and enough building materials to stage the area, so I’ll turn the horde to ‘sprint’ once I have the battle arena set up. I plan to use parkour to jump walls, leap gaps, and otherwise continue moving and evading while blasting and burning the horde for nonstop action until they’re all gone. It’s a very different horde night but thanks to the parkour and cardio perks I have the mobility to pull it off.

[madmole]

Not to thrilled about this, I always felt running zombies was a stupid concept (and still do), I mean maybe some special ones can run but every normal zed shouldn't be able to magically run once night hits. Their danger should be in their numbers, not their speed imo. I know performance issues, all this change is going to do really is force people to use ranged earlier on insted of melee, as early game you generally lack the supplies to stay healed up.

Its more of a random walk speed than what I would call running. Its enough to make it interesting and get more zombies around you, not turning guys into full on sprinting zombies. Its very rare to see a guy take off running.

 

We decide the lore not you. We're not selling "The walking dead" zombie game, where people would expect them to always walk, we're creating our own zombie game with our own lore. 28 days later and dawn of the dead are much better inspiration than the walking dead IMO, for horror and gaming purposes.

[Socrastein]

I also want to try a ‘28 days later’ style rage zombies where I play a lower difficulty but all zombies are always on ‘nightmare’ speed and do insane block damage. I’ll go heavy into intelligence/fortitude and bring generators and traps to poi’s so I can set up offensive defenses. The junk turret sounds like it’ll make this style very viable! XP will probably be at 200% to compensate for their speed and how many will die to defenses with no XP gained. I’ll set things up, run into the poi to wake them all up, then with adrenaline coursing through my veins try to make it back to the kill zone before the zerglings overwhelm me.

[madmole]

Any plans to fix gamestage spawning? so at late game its not always always run radiated zombies with massivle pools of hp that spawn and thats it? I was kinda wishing it'd be more like loot gamestage, where higher gamestate is a chance of those zombies spawning but it never gets to the point its guarteed, maybe up to always ferals is fine.

 

When I determine its actually a problem we'll make some adjustments. I need to hit a high game stage on one of my play throughs first. I usually quit or save game corruption in development prevents me from getting there, but I should be starting to get some of that pretty soon.

[madmole]

@Madmole Any chance that we might eventually be able to run a torch in say left hand and still be able to use right hand for club or gun? Would be nice for early game when finding a mining helmet can sometimes be hard.

 

No plans for that. Why take away from the feeling of accomplishment getting your first helmet light?

[madmole]

Awesome! Then I guess all that's left to say is I agree. Getting a big 'payout' for destroying the block (regardless of the overall total) felt much more like I was achieving something. Steady harvesting throughout feels more like grazing aimlessly, with no obvious stopping point or reason not to drift from block to block.

 

Well it would be inefficient to stop mining one block and go mine another, even without the payout, the time spend not swinging is ore gains lost.

[madmole]

Its an impressive speed and accuracy, HOWEVER, the penetrative power in those shots might not be effective against a human opponent, especially when he wears armor.

For that the bows need a lot higher draw-weight, and the arrows need to be thicker.

A heavy war-bow just cant be drawn that quickly.

 

Similar, a zombie would also be quite resistant to those (light) shots.

 

Here a video of Scholagladiatoria about that topic:

 

 

No problem he could shoot you in the eye slit.

[madmole]

@madmole

I wanted to ask, is headshot dmg perk going to be reworked? As I see it, its what forces me most into STR/PER builds. I feel it would be better baked into weapon perks itself. This as well as stamina usage. Otherwise the weapons in other tiers are pretty useless.

 

Its built into the attribute that governs its weapons so strength increases headshot damage with clubs, sledgehammers and shotguns.

[madmole]

I also want to try a ‘28 days later’ style rage zombies where I play a lower difficulty but all zombies are always on ‘nightmare’ speed and do insane block damage. I’ll go heavy into intelligence/fortitude and bring generators and traps to poi’s so I can set up offensive defenses. The junk turret sounds like it’ll make this style very viable! XP will probably be at 200% to compensate for their speed and how many will die to defenses with no XP gained. I’ll set things up, run into the poi to wake them all up, then with adrenaline coursing through my veins try to make it back to the kill zone before the zerglings overwhelm me.

 

Junk turrets grant XP.

[Socrastein]

Thoughts on throwing knives for agility?

 

I throw knives IRL and would love to be able to perk into being more of a ninja. They could be totally silent so long as you don't miss and hit the wall. Then the non-perception chars could have a quiet ranged weapon option they can excel in and you could pull them back out of the corpse. Big knife for melee, and a stack in the next slot for throwing knives.

 

No mods or quality, just stacks and perks to make them better (throw faster, faster to switch to, head shots have chance of instant kill, impede movement if you hit legs (knife stuck right in their quads/hamstrings hurting locomotion)

 

Throw in a grappling hook, some egg bombs (!), a short sword and ninja clothing. Maybe the ability to do short lateral wall runs or double jump off walls (it's called tic tac in parkour). Agility build would become my absolute favorite. In fact I would feel forced by the game to spec AGI because it's just too badass not to.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Junk turrets grant XP.

 

AWESOME!

[spud42]

It’s far from trick shooting. He works with a 30 lb bow, enough to penetrate chain mail armor as demonstrated. Stronger you are the more pound pull you can handle.

 

https://www.lykopis.com/lars-andersen-fact-or-fiction/

 

there is no way that a 30 bow at full draw would penetrate chainmail. he is holding the bow in front of him and only pulling to his chest. 10 to 15 pounds draw weight is generous.

 

http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131

 

it took a 70 pound bow at 15 feet to pierce the chain mail.

[Guest Rassilon]

Yeah there was no design there. We'll make some headway on that in A19.

 

Madmole, maybe a suggestion for that.

 

How about a official Thread for A19 after A18, where players can submit Ideas of new/enhanced Blocks and Objects and your Moderators filter that out and bring the 10 best /most do-able thing up to you and Staff?

 

Players can do a good amount in Mods and thats fine, but i am 100% Sure some clever People have ideas that will benefit lots of Players and enrich the Gameexpierience too.

[Kinyajuu]

Are you mean it?

 

That's the one. I even built a visualizer similar to that to test with.