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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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We will always reset the POI when you take the quest. Probably just not in front of your face like now. So in theory you could clear that house before its given to you as a quest, then clear it again after you got the quest, just not like you can now twice straight in a row right in front of your eyes.

Sounds good, would be much better if the POI reset when you take the quest.

 

By the way, will skin color ever change first person hands?

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Books aren't needed, so there is zero frustration unless you have OCD about completing things. I wouldn't expect to complete any book sets unless you spend 500 hours or have all the traders located. To me the books are just a bonus, not a requirement so they are never a source of frustration. 50 XP for one click is more than you get for a lot of things. We could up it to 500 and it wouldn't break anything. 5k is too much for what it is though.

 

Since I don't quite know how skills and books intertwine I can not tell you an exact response so I will make a two parter:

 

Possibility 1:

you can buy perkbooktalents with skillpoints:

the books are not needed and 500xp is allright (still less than most zombies) since finding them is just a bonus.

 

Possibility 2:

skills and "book bonuses" are seperate and you can only unlock those perks (like 10% more damage with fireaxes against wood) by finding them.

Now the books are essential. While their bonus is not that great, it is a character improvement. Especially huge things like beeing able to craft lockpicks. If I am missing one book to finally be able to craft them, this is HUGE and my frustration of finding the other books over and over and only getting 50xp for it will be insane. "YES BOOK! Oh god just another waste... YES BO-... f***... FINALLY A BOO... FK THIS ♥♥♥♥! IMMA JUST CHEAT THAT STUPID PERK!!!!"

But if there is like a 2000xp reward for finding a book twice I can go: "well... its not the right one again, but at least it is worth the xp"

 

I am sorry that I do not know this but it has me confused for a while now, with perks like fireaxe doing more damage in the burnt biome beeing more or less useless and I would never buy it with perks, but others like beeing able to craft your own lockpick beeing such a hardrequirement for any stealthbuild, that it would be close to the first things I would buy.

 

If you could elaborate what you can buy with perkpoints, that would be great (or show that in your next video)

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If you want the books giving you 2,000+ XP, mod that in yourself. Whatever TFP devise, I'm sure it will be balanced from the get-go, and if not, tweaked later on. However, even 500 XP would be asking for too much, in my opinion. I'm sure the majority of the playerbase will be fine selling them, re-reading them, or scrapping them.

 

Just saying, I think TFP have made up their minds, and if you don't like it, then deal with it.

 

- Sage

 

Post edit: If I want 50 XP, I would theoretically go and punch 5 cotton; but if I want XP, I kill a zombie, I mine, I do whatever. 50 bonus XP is just that, a bonus.

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Oooh. I'm familiar with that square from my underground dungeons in medieval mod. Yes, this means I can have NON obvious pitfalls using terrain block traps into a dungeon below...

These terrainfillers only create "biome blocks", not make special trap blocks, but that goes a long way.

 

Instead of a square you can blend a round / jagged "flat surface" into the overall terrain now. Pretty useful tool although it has barely been used, yet, in A18. =)

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If you want the books giving you 2,000+ XP, mod that in yourself. Whatever TFP devise, I'm sure it will be balanced from the get-go, and if not, tweaked later on. However, even 500 XP would be asking for too much, in my opinion. I'm sure the majority of the playerbase will be fine selling them, re-reading them, or scrapping them. (Although, on a side note, may I suggest more than one piece of paper for scrapping them? :p If not, that's perfectly cool.)

 

Just saying, I think TFP have made up their minds, and if you don't like it, then deal with it.

 

- Sage

 

That is what EA is all about. I think they didn't QUITE think that through. And yes they might change it afterwards... but why wait when they get told before releasing it? Yes they fixed quite a bit in A17.3 but 5 months of <50% approval rating on steam couldnt have boosted their sales :D *edit* dont want to sound condescending, but ppl have told them 90% of the changes they implemented in the early experimental release.

 

And selling them for ~100 dukes is not worth the space in your inventory. 500 xp is ~ 1 1/2 basic zombies but have a lootdropchance of what? 10% per bookcase? How many zombies are there? How many bookcases?

If I wanna level I just go kill zombies or hit up my auger. 2500 xp is about 1-2 molotovs. How is that gamebreaking at that level of rarity?

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If I want XP, I don't want to obtain obscene amounts just by pressing a button. I'd rather get my fists into the action. By your logic, we should be getting 100 XP for every crop we punch, since we harvest them only once every three days; but that would be highly unbalanced. I'll summarize my thoughts with this simple sentence: It's fine the way it is. Again, if TFP choose to change it in the future, that's their prerogative. You can suggest, but not spam.

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You should look at the screens I've posted, the sky is very vibrant. Not that it matters, its all going to change a lot when we switch to linear color space in A19.

 

We're going for a dusty, cracked apocalyptic depressing theme. Always have been. The game palette looks the same as it did 6 years ago if you squint your eyes.

 

Its still got plenty of color: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_I1QIWUIAA2MZR?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

 

We did recently change the reflection probe so this might be making things look a little blown out at times. The gamma lighting definitely makes things look blown out and removes some saturation.

 

The cracks IMO need to be a little more subtle.

 

You can still maintain the atmosphere with just ease back on the grim on the texters. I don't think the players want to feel depressed they just want enough dinge so that it fits and it looks good at the same time. We make bases and homes out of these pois.

 

I know I start these rants frustrated because I'm looking at the footage and just thinking to myself do people not see a problem with this.

 

I come to the conclusion that voxel games are hard to look at as it is. Having textures that have a lot of visual noise and being multiplied in copied can distract from the more detailed decoration. Stop making the excuse that it's the apocalypse that's why everything looks so gray and a lot of the walls have no contrast to the floors and ceilings.

 

One block texture has 4 paint chips and looks like it's made out of concrete. Just make a simple subtle drywall texter that has a little bit of grim on so it doesn't pop out like an eyesore. Please

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If I want XP, I don't want to obtain obscene amounts just by pressing a button. I'd rather get my fists into the action. By your logic, we should be getting 100 XP for every crop we punch, since we harvest them only once every three days; but that would be highly unbalanced. I'll summarize my thoughts with this simple sentence: It's fine the way it is. Again, if TFP choose to change it in the future, that's their prerogative. You can suggest, but not spam.

 

books are there to learn.

books are super rare and nonplantable

books ARE "getting into action" how do you think you get to those bookshelves? Do they just fly by your house or something?

 

and those 2500xp are balanced around crops and zombies. (funny that you took the example of the lowest xp, think of mining ore or getting wood and farming zombies)

One small field of potatoes is ~400-800xp one zombie (super early) gives 350 (late) 1400.

How is getting 2500 xp "too much"? You have to: Find it once (for the initial reward) and then again. With such a low droprate that only happens at bookshelves, with normal pois only having what 1-5 shelves?

 

2500 xp sounds like a lot... but those books aren't just laying around, based on MMs description. Even if he had 40 books at day 40 (which was incredibly lucky) half of those are probably doubles, which means 50.000 xp over 40 days AT MOST.

 

That is half a hordenight. With the right perks and luck.

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If I want XP, I don't want to obtain obscene amounts just by pressing a button. I'd rather get my fists into the action. By your logic, we should be getting 100 XP for every crop we punch, since we harvest them only once every three days; but that would be highly unbalanced. I'll summarize my thoughts with this simple sentence: It's fine the way it is. Again, if TFP choose to change it in the future, that's their prerogative. You can suggest, but not spam.

 

Agreed.

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These terrainfillers only create "biome blocks", not make special trap blocks, but that goes a long way.

 

Instead of a square you can blend a round / jagged "flat surface" into the overall terrain now. Pretty useful tool although it has barely been used, yet, in A18. =)

 

Why did it need to be just one placeholder and not do it for all terrain blocks in a POI? Is it resource intensive or something else I am not aware of? Curious to why it would not work for any block classified as terrain..?

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hmmm maybe... i will submit a suggestion to the pimps to change all vending machines in game to randomly do the following... take money and give nothing, take money and give wrong item(s) or just give money back without the item(s) or even just take money and apply poison gas killing nearby player(s).

 

seems to me to be a gambling experience... :)

 

 

 

i am kidding btw.

 

 

If the game ever needed a money sink, you could implement a purchase option for random loot type on the trader. For example, trader has recently scavenged an unidentified armor type and has it up for sell.

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For my first play through, I think I will focus on whatever gives you a spear bonus. Hated played almost exclusively with spears. Mostly throwing them. Maybe the iron and steel spears don't break, but it seemed like he made around 20 stone spears fighting in the apartment complex.

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Sounds good, would be much better if the POI reset when you take the quest.

 

By the way, will skin color ever change first person hands?

 

Well no that would be bad. The best choice is when the chunk is loaded for you, otherwise some jerks might go in and loot it before you get there, for those people who take quests and do them 4 days later lol.

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Since I don't quite know how skills and books intertwine I can not tell you an exact response so I will make a two parter:

 

Possibility 1:

you can buy perkbooktalents with skillpoints:

the books are not needed and 500xp is allright (still less than most zombies) since finding them is just a bonus.

 

Possibility 2:

skills and "book bonuses" are seperate and you can only unlock those perks (like 10% more damage with fireaxes against wood) by finding them.

Now the books are essential. While their bonus is not that great, it is a character improvement. Especially huge things like beeing able to craft lockpicks. If I am missing one book to finally be able to craft them, this is HUGE and my frustration of finding the other books over and over and only getting 50xp for it will be insane. "YES BOOK! Oh god just another waste... YES BO-... f***... FINALLY A BOO... FK THIS ♥♥♥♥! IMMA JUST CHEAT THAT STUPID PERK!!!!"

But if there is like a 2000xp reward for finding a book twice I can go: "well... its not the right one again, but at least it is worth the xp"

 

I am sorry that I do not know this but it has me confused for a while now, with perks like fireaxe doing more damage in the burnt biome beeing more or less useless and I would never buy it with perks, but others like beeing able to craft your own lockpick beeing such a hardrequirement for any stealthbuild, that it would be close to the first things I would buy.

 

If you could elaborate what you can buy with perkpoints, that would be great (or show that in your next video)

 

You don't need to craft lock picks. You can find them or buy them at traders. You can always use your trusty pickaxe if needed. I wouldn't want them buyable via perk points, that ruins the accomplishment of collecting them all.

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