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Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!


madmole

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!  

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  1. 1. Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

    • A18 Stable is Out!
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    • :)
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Agreed. 8k is way two small on any map running for 200 days plus. 8k is good for some casual play but on an active map with all players on at all times with a few dozen regulars on at any time, it's very small.

 

We've filled up 16k maps inside of a real time month :)

 

Without seeing the new random gen and poi distribution, it's hard to say now though.

I like massive maps and would like a bigger one in the future even though 16k is pretty big but I love my exploration

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With quests resetting POIs you can get by with a small map. Sure it gets repetitive looting the same places, but there is infinite resources now. That said, you can keep 16k on your wish list, hopefully we can get that working at some point.

 

joel are 16k maps experimental because sometimes the game can struggle to load me in its not constant but it happens like 1/4 times when I try to load in but if they get working properly I would love that! I played it like a day ago and I had to travel 11k to the trader it was quite an adventurous experience

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Dying a lot will mean you likely need more experience, but when already at zero for that level it should not further penalize you. .

 

It absolutely has to penalize you when at 0% and kudos to TFP for thinking ahead. Still has a max cap of -200% (8 deaths). But if that cap was 0-4, death would be meaningless much of the time and that would lead players to feeling they have to take advantage of that window and grind the rest of the time. E.g. in POE when I play SC and over 92, I am only boss-ing at 0% and grind without risking for the rest of the time.

 

I disagree! Diablo is not a survival game.

 

So the new death penalty worsens from the nuisance for 30 min to a permanent penalty.

How should that improve game play? Hey there is a new penalty so the players will no longer enjoy dying while suffering lag hits, getting instakilled by driving over mines, entering rad zones...??? Sorry for that sarcasm.

Dying in a suvival game means you FAILED! If you died during a quest. You also failed the quest. You have to get your backpack. Probably dying a couple of times while trying.

 

The penalty has to stack else it's pretty meaningless, ANY penalty would be a "nuisance" - but that nuisance is the very thing that makes surivival valuable. "Failing" without a real penalty means squat.

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doesnt this mean once you get to a high enough level you have everything you want, death becomes meaningless?

seems it would hurt more at the beginning than at the end.

 

just a ponder as i usually rage quit when i die and start over anyways (because i did sommat stoopid usually).

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doesnt this mean once you get to a high enough level you have everything you want, death becomes meaningless?

seems it would hurt more at the beginning than at the end.

 

just a ponder as i usually rage quit when i die and start over anyways (because i did sommat stoopid usually).

 

Sounds that way yes. But I'm okay with that... Your overall constitution allows you to persevere.

 

Really, death is meaningless with this new system entirely. It doesn't take much to level up so what, you lose 10, 15 minutes of play? No biggie.

 

Plus, I never know what level am I at anyway so it will not affect my play one iota.

 

Hm, maybe I do want more of a penalty...

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Sounds that way yes. But I'm okay with that... Your overall constitution allows you to persevere.

 

Really, death is meaningless with this new system entirely. It doesn't take much to level up so what, you lose 10, 15 minutes of play? No biggie.

 

Plus, I never know what level am I at anyway so it will not affect my play one iota.

 

Hm, maybe I do want more of a penalty...

 

I'm pretty sure it was stated that leveling is going to take significantly longer in A18. I think this falls under "wait and see before wringing hands". We're going to have at least a few more patches in that alpha anyway.

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You lose 25% of what it would take to level in XP. If it goes below the start mark of the blue xp bar it turns the XP bar red and it grows outwards in red. So if you get in a death loop (die 4x times), you never lose a level, but there is still penalty to dying and you have to earn back a full bar of red before you are back in the blue and working towards the next level again.

 

I love this alot! Simply because a friend I play with will kill himself whenever he gets a broken leg. It's the lamest reason to off yourself but he does it because, he doesn't like how he has to wait for it to heal over time. By day 40 he will easily have 200-300 deaths.

 

he is always building these MEGA structures which requires him to jump down from very high up which results in either breaking his leg or killing himself. Very immersion breaking IMO, so I am happy with this change. I am sure moders can either add to, reduce or even turn this penalty off all together. but I think that having a death consequence is vital to a game like this. it will make you think twice going into that military base on day 1 or sky diving off your current build because you don't want to get down from there properly.

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Yes that is correct. The worst it can get is 200% well unless you keep dying it would stay -100% or the red bar would be maxed out.

 

I hate it.

 

Firstly, on multiplayer the weakest player is the one most likely to die, and the experience penalty means they'll get further behind the rest each time they do, making it even more likely that they'll die again.

 

Secondly, on single player you can reach a point where you can no longer increase in level because you can't stay alive long enough; and there's no way back from there.

 

The idea of using the same score for both character advancement and avoiding bad things (in this case you're effectively paying 25% of a level's worth of xp to "avoid" permanent death and merely have a near death experience instead) is one that's been used at various times over the decades in tabletop roleplaying design, and it's proved to be almost universally unpopular for these reasons and is something that's pretty much never used in modern games.

 

Sure, there should be a penalty for dying. But it shouldn't be something that makes it harder to avoid dying in the future by slowing and possibly stopping character progression. It should be something that you can recover from in time, not something that permanently sets you back compared to others who haven't died.

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It should be something that you can recover from in time, not something that permanently sets you back compared to others who haven't died.

 

You can. It just means you gotta work a bit harder to make up ground. Which is what a "penalty" is all about. If it doesn't have some sort of negative effect on you, it isn't a penalty. People who don't die/die often should be ahead. It's a survival game and that means they are doing a better job.

 

They tried reducing stats and such for a period of time, people hated that as well. I certainly like the sound of this one more than the A17 version.

 

Besides, you just lose some XP. Not the end of the world. Much better than respawning and being unable to craft or use certain items due to the NDT.

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Yeah, if gaining XP was a limited factor, like some games where monsters don't respawn and you can do only set number of quests, then this penalty would have been bad...., but honestly, you can make back 25% by just digging where you stand when you respawn. This is a none issue.

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Secondly, on single player you can reach a point where you can no longer increase in level because you can't stay alive long enough; and there's no way back from there.

Your math is quite backwards.

Everything you do increases your likelihood of survival. If you don't gain levels during that time the game does not get harder.

As a result the game gets easier every time you die.

 

This is not a race where a player is declared winner on day 100.

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Your math is quite backwards.

Everything you do increases your likelihood of survival. If you don't gain levels during that time the game does not get harder.

As a result the game gets easier every time you die.

 

This is not a race where a player is declared winner on day 100.

Just imagine the low gamestage with that scenario. You have all these supplies, and base building from spending all this time playing, but not leveling. Really the only deterrent is lack of perk points from not leveling. Which isn't going to be huge given the expanded book system.

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