Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[madmole]

Hi Gazz,

 

Will the Pump action shotgun remain the top tier use for shotgun shells? The M60 turns most things into absolute dogmeat in a second or so - shotguns seem woefully lacking. A fully automatic AA12 type shotgun would be more appropriate as the top tier one, surely? Fast firing, short ranged, huge damage against unarmoured targets, very visceral and noisy, huge recoil when using sustained but with a fairly long drum replacement time.

 

Failing that something semi-auto like a SPAS12 would at least get the buckshot downrange a bit quicker.

 

The current pump action does not feel anything like an endgame or top tier weapon. It feels wildly inferior to the AK in all ways except ammo price - and the M60 is significantly better than the AK.

 

We are planning top tier weapons, like an auto shotgun. For now you'll have to do with an inflated pump that is better than it should be, (hopefully it is, I haven't tried it much yet in a real game) down the road it might get nerfed when we add an auto shotgun.

[meganoth]

Hi Gazz,

 

Will the Pump action shotgun remain the top tier use for shotgun shells? The M60 turns most things into absolute dogmeat in a second or so - shotguns seem woefully lacking. A fully automatic AA12 type shotgun would be more appropriate as the top tier one, surely? Fast firing, short ranged, huge damage against unarmoured targets, very visceral and noisy, huge recoil when using sustained but with a fairly long drum replacement time.

 

Failing that something semi-auto like a SPAS12 would at least get the buckshot downrange a bit quicker.

 

The current pump action does not feel anything like an endgame or top tier weapon. It feels wildly inferior to the AK in all ways except ammo price - and the M60 is significantly better than the AK.

 

Did anyone notice that the weapons are always compared to AK and M60 respectively? Maybe it is the AK and M60 that is too powerful, not the other weapon too weak. If we compare the hunting rifle to the AK it is lacking as well. Or the magnum to the M60.

 

But the main problem is still that we look at the weapons isolated instead of comparing the attributes as a whole class. If you call fortitude the "bruiser class" instead you would recognize that it should have the best weapons, but the rest of its perks should also be a bit limited. This is the heavy, not the miner or tinkerer.

[Gazz]

In previous alphas the AK was very powerful... but it was moderately difficult to mass produce the ammo.

That is no longer the case...

[Jay_ombie]

Good news ! and why not the return of fog to make this biome very scary...

 

There was a mod in A17 that added Biome mist which glowed different colours depending on biome. I thought that was actually really neat and didn't produce at the time any visual bugs that I noticed either..

[Blake_]

A18.1 Changelog:

Settings for Blood Moon Frequency of 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 20 days

 

7 is gone. So Bloodmoon on every sunday is not possible anymore, or did the whole calculation algorithm change?

If yes, how?

 

Why are there even fixed numbers? Is it to hard to calculate the bloodmoon night with freely choosen numbers?

 

Last I checked, the default was 7.

 

I have a better question:

 

Why are Zds in this game? I get dogs, deers and chickens.... but Zds? I can't kill any Zds on sunday. It's in the Bible.

[Liesel Weppen]

Last I checked, the default was 7.

Yes, was in A18(.0), but the changelog for A18.1 doesn't list 7 anymore.

 

So how does the change work?

 

Is e.g old 7/3 setting calculated as bloodmoon happens on day 7+0 or 7+1 or 7+3 and the new one 6/3 as bloodmoon happens on day 6+1 or 6+2 or 6+3?

 

So instead of the old default settings for bloodmoon every sunday was 7/1 (7+0) is now 6/1 (6+1)?

[moongaming]

Hey,

 

I've been trying to use block particles like stated in the A18 patch notes "Allow blocks to have particle effects from custom bundles"

 

but they don't show up in game.

 

I added this to the block xml <property name="ParticleName" value="#@modfolder:Resources/mod.unity3d?particle"/>

 

maybe this isn't working yet?

 

Edit: Nvm fixed it with the "Particle" block class, pretty sad it's limited to one class though.

[Aldranon]

Did anyone notice that the weapons are always compared to AK and M60 respectively? Maybe it is the AK and M60 that is too powerful, not the other weapon too weak. If we compare the hunting rifle to the AK it is lacking as well. Or the magnum to the M60.

 

But the main problem is still that we look at the weapons isolated instead of comparing the attributes as a whole class. If you call fortitude the "bruiser class" instead you would recognize that it should have the best weapons, but the rest of its perks should also be a bit limited. This is the heavy, not the miner or tinkerer.

 

Yeah. I think most people know the Fortitude build is a "Difficulty Modifier".

[Azazavr]

Hello!

How to update server to A18.1?

I tried this command in SteamCMD, but nothing works:

app_update 294420

app_update 294420 -validate -beta latest_experimental

app_update 294420 -beta latest_experimental

app_update 294420 -beta latest_experimental-unstable

 

What is the command to update to 18.1?

[agrastiOs]

People were saying how ugly the game was when it was foggy and some people would get stuck on fog until they logged out, so I removed it for now until we can get a better weather system and our fog is buggy anyway with alpha sorting so we're hiding our bugs for now.

 

Alright, that's great! It's good to know that you guys are planning to bring back the atmosphere (which fog gave a lot) to the Burnt Forest.

 

That is the way it used to be, but we wanted a harvest bonus for the hunter and 1 plus 20% more harvest = 1. So we went with a more granular meat amount so the perks could scale correctly.

 

I think it would be a great idea to change name and icon to "Strip of Meat". (Or the icon at least)

[Chairkicker]

We are planning top tier weapons, like an auto shotgun. For now you'll have to do with an inflated pump that is better than it should be, (hopefully it is, I haven't tried it much yet in a real game) down the road it might get nerfed when we add an auto shotgun.

 

Do you mean a semi-automatic magazine-fed shotgun, like a Saiga 12k? Or a fully automatic drum-fed beast like an AA-12? I kind of feel like we should have both; there are a lot of permutations of feeding and firing mechanisms, though I guess it doesn't help that the pump shotgun currently reloads like it has a magazine.

 

It'd be nice if we got per-shell reloading for the pump, and then a proper magazine fed shotgun that could accept a drum mod. The real AA-12 gets both mags and drums, after all.

 

Plus, the gulf between the double-barreled shotgun and the pump shotgun in usefulness makes me wish that instead, the double-barreled shotgun was only a step above blunderbuss, and above the pump we got a semi-automatic tube-fed shotgun like a SPAS-12.

[Crankster]

Hello, I just got through reading the 51 pages looking to see if anybody was having this issue and have not seen it yet, or I could be blind. When you go to the Cell Tower poi and start disassembling the Cell Tower for metal starting from the top and going down you get different amounts of scrap iron for each block. I have miner 69'r 5/5 and mother lode 5/5, and a steel pick axe level 6 that has structural brace, iron breaker, bunker buster and ergonomic grip. One metal block on the tower you get between 1 and 14 when you break the block. You break down the fence around the poi that has 300 hp versus the 1000 for the tower blocks and you get about 32 when you break the block. Is this working as intended? If so I can live with it, was just an observation I had.

[dcsobral]

I think the night stalker book should _also_ benefit the machete. Alone in all magazine sets with weapon benefits, its benefits applies only to the lesser weapons in an attribute. I'll grant that Intellect has no corresponding weapon-enhancing magazine set, but, on the other hand, it doesn't need any enhancing.

[madmole]

I think the night stalker book should _also_ benefit the machete. Alone in all magazine sets with weapon benefits, its benefits applies only to the lesser weapons in an attribute. I'll grant that Intellect has no corresponding weapon-enhancing magazine set, but, on the other hand, it doesn't need any enhancing.

 

Its meant to augment an assassin, dagger type play, not swordsmen.

 

Books are coming to enhance spears, brawler and junk turrets.

[Laz Man]

I added some wildlife and um... unlife to the burnt forest. Dogs to be specific.

 

You evil man! Challenge accepted!!😂

[manteliukasx]

This is my first post and here are my five cents with survivalist difficulty experience:

 

Bloodmoon is boring. No, really. Due to extreme FPS drops horde nights feels like a chore (Defend -> build/repair -> harvest resources -> repeat or die and wait). Just build defences you might say. Sure i can build spikes around my base to stop zeds for a while but they keep spawning and you get no XP. Electric fences gives only fraction of XP and has low durability. Shooting zeds in head while they run towards are almost impossible, due to fps drops and jerky animations. Oh, and their heads clip in walls while attacking them. Zeds run around base destroying everything due to weird pathfinding when they dont know how to get to the player. Vultures are good addition to the game, but they suck due to flying mechanics. "If you dont want horde nights then disable them". Ok, but then the game will very very quickly become "played through", like in 6 hours.

 

So what do you suggest? Uhm, well. Start with performance. I believe that pathfinding causes fps drops due to very poor design. Next, change the horde response to the unreachable places. It would be cool is huge horde running towards players and climbing on each other just like world war z. Spider zombies could be assassins that climbs up walls and gets unexpecting players from behind. No matter what, the bloodmoon should be changed.

 

However, A18 is the best version so far. The best part of this game is POIs, especially the new ones. Very well designed. The game has improved performance wise. Now i can play 20fps during blood moon with high-ultra settings on my high-end PC, 50-90fps on normal day and in buildings.

 

Perk/skill system has improved a lot. Now people can actually have classes. Intellect class is extremely tempting due to crafting skills, however, big push-off due to junk turrets as main ranged weapon. So no one in team wants to waste skills on intellect to craft few goodies.

 

Stealth system feels useless. Unless you using it for the bonus damage on the first shot. Cant say much about it because i never use it.

 

And here is some ideas that i would like to mention for consideration. The storage system feels off. Whole teams loot could be stored in 5 crates. What if storage system would be redesigned? lets take concrete as an example, you have 6k of concrete., hats a lot of concrete blocks that can just fit in your pocket. Instead you could store concrete just like you find in POIs and carry only 10 bags (or blocks) per inventory slot. The more loot you have the bigger base. More loot -> bigger base -> harder to defend -> more resources you need. It would extend playthrough time by a lot.

 

Thanks for reading

[JaxTeller718]

Its meant to augment an assassin, dagger type play, not swordsmen.

 

Books are coming to enhance spears, brawler and junk turrets.

 

Machete = Sword?

 

Ok add a katana to it and we can call it even.

[meganoth]

This is my first post and here are my five cents with survivalist difficulty experience:

 

Bloodmoon is boring. No, really. Due to extreme FPS drops horde nights feels like a chore (Defend -> build/repair -> harvest resources -> repeat or die and wait). Just build defences you might say. Sure i can build spikes around my base to stop zeds for a while but they keep spawning and you get no XP. Electric fences gives only fraction of XP and has low durability. Shooting zeds in head while they run towards are almost impossible, due to fps drops and jerky animations. Oh, and their heads clip in walls while attacking them. Zeds run around base destroying everything due to weird pathfinding when they dont know how to get to the player. Vultures are good addition to the game, but they suck due to flying mechanics. "If you dont want horde nights then disable them". Ok, but then the game will very very quickly become "played through", like in 6 hours.

 

So what do you suggest? Uhm, well. Start with performance. I believe that pathfinding causes fps drops due to very poor design. Next, change the horde response to the unreachable places. It would be cool is huge horde running towards players and climbing on each other just like world war z. Spider zombies could be assassins that climbs up walls and gets unexpecting players from behind. No matter what, the bloodmoon should be changed.

 

However, A18 is the best version so far. The best part of this game is POIs, especially the new ones. Very well designed. The game has improved performance wise. Now i can play 20fps during blood moon with high-ultra settings on my high-end PC, 50-90fps on normal day and in buildings.

 

Perk/skill system has improved a lot. Now people can actually have classes. Intellect class is extremely tempting due to crafting skills, however, big push-off due to junk turrets as main ranged weapon. So no one in team wants to waste skills on intellect to craft few goodies.

 

Stealth system feels useless. Unless you using it for the bonus damage on the first shot. Cant say much about it because i never use it.

 

And here is some ideas that i would like to mention for consideration. The storage system feels off. Whole teams loot could be stored in 5 crates. What if storage system would be redesigned? lets take concrete as an example, you have 6k of concrete., hats a lot of concrete blocks that can just fit in your pocket. Instead you could store concrete just like you find in POIs and carry only 10 bags (or blocks) per inventory slot. The more loot you have the bigger base. More loot -> bigger base -> harder to defend -> more resources you need. It would extend playthrough time by a lot.

 

Thanks for reading

 

Suggestions: Experiment with your settings. I have normal day fps like you but no serious drops on horde night.

 

On stealth: You are right that stealth has no use if you are not using it

[iamnuff]

Its meant to augment an assassin, dagger type play, not swordsmen.

 

Books are coming to enhance spears, brawler and junk turrets.

 

But in every single other respect, the machete is a knife but better. They benefit from all the same perks (except this set of skillbooks) but have better stats.

 

It's not like the difference between a bow and a hunting rifle, which is two different weapon types.

If you want knives to be some sort of 'stealth weapon' that gets extra bonuses from sneak-books and the machete to be a 'sword weapon' then there should be a steel version of a knife, and an stone/bone and iron versions of a sword.

 

Hmm... Actually, that could work. Differentiate them like clubs vs sledgehammers.

 

They could share bleed but swords would dismember more reliably, and knife sneak attack better (from the perk, not just the skillbooks)

Hell, I'd be down for a sword weapon-tree. Stone swords (or would it be bone?) would look really cool.

 

If they're part of the same weapon-type though, then they should benefit from the same skill-trees, and from the same books.

If it were the other way around and the final version of the weapon got a bonus that the iron-version didn't, then it'd be fine. Extra decapitate chance on the machete from a skill-book or something. But the knife?

 

Iron quality tools or weapons should never be able to do something that it's steel-version can't do. The steel version should be a straight upgrade. Otherwise what's the point of even having them?

 

Like, the steel knuckles can also harvest meat, (and, IIRC, have bleed damage?) but also do everything the iron knuckles do, right?

... actually, speaking of knives and bladed knuckles (and spears) have you considered rolling all bladed weapon parts into one set of 'parts'?

I mean, the steel knuckles look just like iron knuckles but with knife-blades and corkscrews strapped to them, and the steel spear is clearly just a knife on a stick (then again, so is the iron)

I assume that the 'spear parts' are just a bunch of knife-blades to use as a spearhead, though that does make me wonder what i'm doing with all the forged steel in that recipe though, I'd assumed I was casting and forging blades, like you (presumably) do with the iron spear.

 

Part of the reason I never liked the 'weapon parts' system is because i can't quite understand what they're supposed to represent in-setting.

I know their intended function, mechanically, but... if I'm forging a sledgehammer out of 60 bars of forged steel, then presumably i'm making the hammerhead and steel shaft myself, so i'm not sure where the 'parts' come in. A steel hammer isn't much more complex than an iron one.

 

... anyway,

You could have bladed parts and blunt parts as broad groups to go with 'tool parts' and ' heavy/light armour parts' and the different types of gun parts.

That might alleviate the issues with gathering enough of the same type of parts together to make a specific type of melee weapon, and put stuff like the machete on the same difficulty-level as making a piece of t3 armour, a tool or a gun.

 

Tools would still be annoying, because you need to make three steel tools for each person (pick, axe, shovel) whereas you generally only need one steel weapon and one of each type of gun, but you could just make drops for brown versions of steel tools a little more common in balancing.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was intended to be a separate post, because the last post was already long, and I got a lot of unrelated musings about weapons to ramble about. Forum auto-merged the posts though, so you're now subjected to this long-ass text block.

 

I feel like the final weapon in the clubs tree should be a solid steel club, or a lead pipe. Or like... an actual old-timey spiked mace. (... no, a smoothheaded mace, so you could add the metal spikes mod to give it big ole spikes.)

 

Going from an iron reinforced club to a wooden baseball bat feels like a downgrade. You've basically made a wooden club, but a little bigger.

 

Also, the stun-baton feels more comparable to the burning shaft mod on a low-level club, than a weapon in it's own right.

It's basically a weak club with a chance to cause a status effect (chance boosted by an int perk)

Don't get me wrong, the stun baton is a really cool idea, but kind of boring in practice, since it doesn't go off with every hit, it just feels like you're hitting Zeds with a stick most of the time.

 

You could keep all the current weapon's mechanics (charge up by attacking, then deliver a shocking hit) but turn the weapon itself into a mod (Shock Pack, a weaponized battery pack) and have the mod be slottable in all melee-weapons or tools (or maybe just all metal weapons and tools) and then have the stun-baton perk unlock the mod-pack, do all the stuff it does now, and maybe boost electric fence damage or something.

 

A shocking machete, or sledgehammer would be more vicerally satisfying than a puny baton. Ooh, ooh! Taserfist!

They'd have decent base damage in addition to having their shock-chance, just like how a weapon with Burning Shaft still does it's normal damage, but has a chance to set a zombie on fire. (putting the taser-pack and burning shaft on a machete would let you hit them with three burn, bleed and shock, for that big DoT)

 

Hmm... Or maybe split the difference. Keep the stun-baton as is, but near the end of it's perk tree (level five?) you unlock the shock-pack mod for crafting, and can slot it into other stuff to make it function like a (weaker?) stun baton.

But the shock-pack still benefits from the stun-baton skilltree, even if you slot it into another weapon.

Making one and giving it to your non-int using teammates would give them a minor boost, but you as a stun-baton build would get the best mileage out of it, or you can add the shock-pack to the stun-baton itself, giving it even more shocking chance/halving it's charge-up time, but keeping the same low base-damage from the stun baton.

 

The battery pack would be made out of stun baton parts, obviously. Maybe that would be the 'next level' of stun baton?

Every other tool/weapon besides the baton and the junk turret has stone/iron/steel versions. I totally get that stone versions of these electrical tools aren't really very sensible, but the stun baton could be the iron version and the stun-pack could be the 'steel' version. (or rather, the stun pack on another weapon, giving you either double-stun, or stun+ another melee weapon)

 

Not sure about turrets, tbh. They're useful, their ammo is really cheap, and the ability to pick up a turret and use it as a weapon is absurdly good, but they're kinda magical, aren't they?

We already have gun turrets but they all need motion sensors and to be plugged into the electrical grid to work, these ones seem to just... run off the player's bio-electricity, and track their prey via magic.

 

A turret that isn't automated would be interesting.

You can fire it while carrying it, but if you place it on the ground and actually sit behind it to control it, it shoots much better.

I dunno, you get iron-sights and full-auto while it's placed, to make up for it being immobile? Maybe it reloads faster too?

 

Oh, idea!

You could turn them automated by plugging a motion sensor and a car-battery into the mod-slots! Or maybe you could wire it up for power while it's at your base, so you don't need to spend two mod-slots on that?

 

Then again, if you use batteries/wires to power them, it makes it hard to use them when away from your base. and it'd have them directly competing with shotgun/smg turrets.

 

From the way the turret moves/sounds, I figure it's probably supposed to have an engine in there, right?

It rumbles like one, anyway. Maybe once you automate them, they run on gas, like a minibike?

That'd make them a lot more portable than needing to be plugged into your base's electrical system, and refilling an engine with gas is a lot easier to do while out-and-about away from your base.

 

So, couple of ideas. Turrets that require a player to sit in and man them but can be upgraded with an engine and a sensor into something more like the current junk turret.

Maybe a blunderbuss version of the junk-turret? They both fire non-bullets made out of scrap, and the blunderbuss is a badass idea that's kind of wasted where it is now, since it's overshadowed by other shotguns.

 

... wouldn't a blunderbuss turret just be a cannon? Cos i'm totally down to defend my base with an actual honest-to-god cannon.

 

Also, if the blunderbuss fired junk ammo instead of blunderbuss ammo, it wouldn't require gunpowder, and thus would be much easier to craft than even shotgun shells, thereby making it the easiest firearm to obtain and use, as I expect was intended.

 

If the blunderbuss/cannon turret is t1 (pipe/tape) and the manual turret is t2, then the automated junk turret would be t3.

 

I wouldn't make it take 'turret parts' to build, I'd just have the players either plug in the motion sensor and generator as mods (What mods even work on the junk turret? What would they be competing for slots with?)

 

Or you could craft the automated junk turret in the workbench, but the only ingredients it requires are an already made junk turret (like, the whole weapon is an ingredient for it's upgrade) and the sensor and generator.

Maybe a smattering of mechanical and electrical parts, if that seems necessary.

 

I'd even say that the end result auto-turret is the same quality as the turret you used as an ingredient.

[Darkest Night]

Anyone else feel the Water Purification Mod is completely useless? I think it could be removed to save that asset for something else. Or grant the same buff the purified water gives. Or, turn it into something that crafts bottles of purified water.

 

I do not since I have found that with the Purification mod in place I have NEVER had Dissentary from drinking any liquid, including murky water.

[AtomicUs5000]

I do not since I have found that with the Purification mod in place I have NEVER had Dissentary from drinking any liquid, including murky water.

 

Jugginator didn't mention why he feels that the mod is useless.

There is no doubt that the mod works and does what it is supposed to do. I think what Jugginator is getting at is that on day 1 (at most 2), you already have dysentery solved with the tea making. The mod removes the need to craft/cook it, but it's so ridiculously easy anyway, that the mod simply brings very little value to the table.

[Jugginator]

I do not since I have found that with the Purification mod in place I have NEVER had Dissentary from drinking any liquid, including murky water.

 

Well yeah, but teas, coffee and purified water don't give dysentery. By the time you find a water purification mod you really shouldn't be dinking murky water, and really shouldn't be drinking reg bottled water either. Punch some leaves for 5 mins and be set for 4 weeks on tea.

[AtomicUs5000]

Well yeah, but teas, coffee and purified water don't give dysentery. By the time you find a water purification mod you really shouldn't be dinking murky water, and really shouldn't be drinking reg bottled water either. Punch some leaves for 5 mins and be set for 4 weeks on tea.

 

Yep, I was right, lol

[Jugginator]

Hah lol beat me to itand beat me to saying you were right.

[rdunham3]

Well yeah, but teas, coffee and purified water don't give dysentery. By the time you find a water purification mod you really shouldn't be dinking murky water, and really shouldn't be drinking reg bottled water either. Punch some leaves for 5 mins and be set for 4 weeks on tea.

 

The (marginal) benefit is not needing to spend a perk on cooking, you can simply drink whatever comes your way, and it is possible to find one of those mods or its schematic on day 1. I did, in fact. Still not using it but I could.

 

If they needed to delete something to make room for something else cooler, I'd nominate this mod for that ASAP, but it's fine as-is if its spot isn't needed by anything else.