Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[madmole]

It's probably not about the Hobo Stew but about the Farm Plots. I suppose that the recipe for the farm plots will be changed so that you need more rotten meat. With the Living of the Land Perk you then will need less ressources if you invest points.

 

Not planning on making it need more.

[Scyris]

I edit destroyed stone to yield 0-2 scrap brass when destroyed. So if I want brass I go to the wasteland and strip mine. Maybe that could be a solution. I like it-- and it is an easy mod if TFP decides they'd rather not create a mine-able source of brass. It also makes sense that there could be some salvageable scraps of brass in the nuclear ruins.

 

I think people just need to git gud and not need to rely on guns for everything, I clear poi's full of glowies with a sledgehammer on warrior difficulty only using a gun in for example the last area in the t5 poi's when you have like 10+ running at you the second u aggro any of them. I also never use the actual gun turrets in well, ever tbh, I always felt they were a waste of ammo, as the player could deal 2-3 times the damage per shot. I instead use electric fence poles for stuns and setting them up for easy headshots. I do use the junk turret on horde nights only, as I feel its exploiting and brokenly OP to use it on a 0 int char to help clear poi's the knockdown ability of the turrets needs to be removed entirely to balance them properly, maybe add the knockdown chance to turret syndrome perk, but without it, they will never knock down, ever. If I was a int build sure i'd use it, as I am built for it.

 

I always seen people complaining about brass in previous alpha's, but i've never seen how, I usually have more brass than I know what to do with since I started playing in a9 or 10. Also dukes for brass is by far the easiest solution, a t2-3 quest is easy and gets you 1500-2500 dukes with no perks, thats 750 to 1250 bullet casings right there. Then again, with the radiators in poi's I've never needed to melt down dukes for brass yet. I generally only loot a poi if I have a quest to go there, and I don't double loot it as that feels exploity, exceptions being poi's that never have quests like the pop n pills stores etc. Doing it this way respawns the radiators in any quest you do.

[Lonestarcanuck]

So far I love A18/A18.1 it is different and feels more like a challenge and purpose vs. "I need to get to 100 ASAP"

 

The book/schematic/recipe system is great - really helps with the perks and has opened up trading in a big way on servers.

 

areas I would like to see balanced out:

-- Mining - it is much improved and I like the new system of nodes, but the books are kinda weak. there should be a few changes so I can get to the UBER mining skill of A16. in A16 I could one-show a block 500/500.

 

maybe change up black strap coffee to do XX% more block damage per swing for NN minutes?

right now not much use for BS coffee vs. regular coffee and its in the mining category so make it mining related.

 

the Diamond tip mod should be increase dmg as well not just harden. my brother who does coring uses a lot of these bits and from what I understand its both harder to break (last longer) and does more damage do to a better edge retention.

[Odetta]

I edit destroyed stone to yield 0-2 scrap brass when destroyed. So if I want brass I go to the wasteland and strip mine. Maybe that could be a solution. I like it-- and it is an easy mod if TFP decides they'd rather not create a mine-able source of brass. It also makes sense that there could be some salvageable scraps of brass in the nuclear ruins.

 

 

As it stands now in A18 brass is too scarce / needed past a certain point where it's literally impossible to gather enough for the horde nights, takes a while but it will happen. I never thought brass was a problem until I started getting Uber Hordes with greens and exploding zeds probably by the thousands in a night. (number might be off)

 

 

I always like the ideas of:

 

- Having brass piping under cities that you can wrench/mine. Kinda like mining.

 

- Having brass "ingots" as a quest reward (basically bundles with no new icon to save space) that smelt for a good amount of material.

 

- Treasure and paper quests having brass "ingots" as a reward. Inside treasure boxes / trader reward (there is no reward besides a tiny amount of dukes and exp for paper quests)

 

 

 

This would add more possibilities of acquiring brass without flooding the loot table and all of them require a lot of work / travel.

 

 

*Maybe even the possibility of smelting bullets down for brass.

[Lonestarcanuck]

Animal tracker needs some work - I tried it at 3/5 and well it tells me I have an animal around for 20s (green) I can't find it. and once you are high enough level food is not a problem.

 

I would like to see animal tracker be more like putting down a feeder/blind so animals show up. and I can see them on the map.

[meganoth]

As it stands now in A18 brass is too scarce / needed past a certain point where it's literally impossible to gather enough for the horde nights, takes a while but it will happen. I never thought brass was a problem until I started getting Uber Hordes with greens and exploding zeds probably by the thousands in a night. (number might be off)

 

So smelting dukes into brass doesn't give you enough brass?

[madmole]

TL : DR

The characters ability to climb a gradient should be a skill.

 

Due to the fickle nature of RNG I've spent a quite a bit of time in the desert. The mesas look great but I was expecting them to be a greater hazard to navigation than they are. This is largely because my character seems to have the rock-climbing ability of a Skyrim horse. Limiting the characters ability to scale damn near vertical surfaces would make a mesas into interesting navigational hazard with known safe passages and one-way routes instead of a really large set of stairs.

 

I know this all has to do with colliders and physics materials so it may not be quite so simple to implement but hear me out. :-)

 

A low level character should have to find a reasonably easy route across a mesa. There are plenty of shallow routes up each of them. If a character practices climbing they should then be able to climb increasingly steeper gradients which, in turn, will open up more routes over the mesa.

 

This will also benefit tactical assaults in PVP. A sniper with a high climbing ability can use the mesa to great advantage if the enemy cannot get to them by the shortest route.

 

Sounds like an agility perk or integrate to parkour

[Blake_]

Yeah Science is getting deleted and its perks moved to demolitions, physician, grease monkey and engineering etc to improve consistency and give more weight where its needed. We are reducing several non combat perks to three ranks to make them more enticing and affordable.

 

Yes! That is on point about my whining about intelligence still being bland. Because those last perks where just a bunch of recipes with little more to them.

 

I think that change is absolutely lovely.

 

More a18 feedback within a similar topic:

 

The UI and the loading screen:

 

I usually don't give much thought about those because currently they are just fine and do their job.

But it happened to me twice already that I introduced two work buddies into the game that knew the game a little from alpha 4 and their comments were:

 

Subject 1: (...) I find the Menus a little void and out of place (arguing about the aesthetics).

 

Subject 2: (...) 10 (swearing) years making this game and they still have those (swearing) red letters from an 80s videogame on the bottom of the loading screen. (He was ok with the rest of the menus LOL).

 

 

I bring this up because my own opinion -now that they brought that up - is that the red letters on the loading screen don't match anything else and therefore look out of place. A nice solution would be to make everything like the letters or vice versa or change them altogether, idk.

 

I got used to the rest, but I would be partial to a little coloring, or theme for said UI/menus/loading screen.

 

 

The question is: Is a theme for the UI/menus/loading screen planned?

[Odetta]

So smelting dukes into brass doesn't give you enough brass?

 

Usually using all my dukes for buying 9mm, 7.62 and Shot Shells from 4 traders (turrets need ammo too). I always run out now (very late game). Believe me, it's not a problem for a while until you start getting massive non-stop hordes (green and demos).

 

Maybe I use too much ammo?

 

 

Edit: playing on 64 horde right now, but same thing on 16 horde I've tried.

[madmole]

So far I love A18/A18.1 it is different and feels more like a challenge and purpose vs. "I need to get to 100 ASAP"

 

The book/schematic/recipe system is great - really helps with the perks and has opened up trading in a big way on servers.

 

areas I would like to see balanced out:

-- Mining - it is much improved and I like the new system of nodes, but the books are kinda weak. there should be a few changes so I can get to the UBER mining skill of A16. in A16 I could one-show a block 500/500.

 

maybe change up black strap coffee to do XX% more block damage per swing for NN minutes?

right now not much use for BS coffee vs. regular coffee and its in the mining category so make it mining related.

 

the Diamond tip mod should be increase dmg as well not just harden. my brother who does coring uses a lot of these bits and from what I understand its both harder to break (last longer) and does more damage do to a better edge retention.

 

We don't want players carving out huge areas easily. The goal is to get more resources, not create giant craters in the world, so more harvest is 1000% better than more damage which might give you a false sense of accomplishment or feel good to one shot a block, but at the end of the day giant craters and cave ins are bad for performance, visuals, etc.

[Brian9824]

Usually using all my dukes for buying 9mm, 7.62 and Shot Shells from 4 traders (turrets need ammo too). I always run out now (very late game). Believe me, it's not a problem for a while until you start getting massive non-stop hordes (green and demos).

 

Maybe I use too much ammo?

 

 

Edit: playing on 64 horde right now, but same thing on 16 horde I've tried.

 

 

Do 1 t5 quest and use the dukes for that for brass. That will give you enough for around 2,000 casings. I find its far more time efficient to mine and make your own bullets then to buy them.

 

A few hours mining each resource and you will have enough to make a ton of ammo.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

We don't want players carving out huge areas easily. The goal is to get more resources, not create giant craters in the world, so more harvest is 1000% better than more damage which might give you a false sense of accomplishment or feel good to one shot a block, but at the end of the day giant craters and cave ins are bad for performance, visuals, etc.

 

Heck would be pretty sweet if the mining books let you create mining gear that when worn gave you a bonus to your yield when mining.

[madmole]

Animal tracker needs some work - I tried it at 3/5 and well it tells me I have an animal around for 20s (green) I can't find it. and once you are high enough level food is not a problem.

 

I would like to see animal tracker be more like putting down a feeder/blind so animals show up. and I can see them on the map.

 

We're adding sprite markers like fallout/skyrim so finding stuff will be easier, we could maybe use them on the animals if you have that perk.

[madmole]

Yes! That is on point about my whining about intelligence still being bland. Because those last perks where just a bunch of recipes with little more to them.

 

I think that change is absolutely lovely.

 

More a18 feedback within a similar topic:

 

The UI and the loading screen:

 

I usually don't give much thought about those because currently they are just fine and do their job.

But it happened to me twice already that I introduced two work buddies into the game that knew the game a little from alpha 4 and their comments were:

 

Subject 1: (...) I find the Menus a little void and out of place (arguing about the aesthetics).

 

Subject 2: (...) 10 (swearing) years making this game and they still have those (swearing) red letters from an 80s videogame on the bottom of the loading screen. (He was ok with the rest of the menus LOL).

 

 

I bring this up because my own opinion -now that they brought that up - is that the red letters on the loading screen don't match anything else and therefore look out of place. A nice solution would be to make everything like the letters or vice versa or change them altogether, idk.

 

I got used to the rest, but I would be partial to a little coloring, or theme for said UI/menus/loading screen.

 

 

The question is: Is a theme for the UI/menus/loading screen planned?

 

New menus are being worked on, and load screens will have random text generated user tips displayed each time instead of part of the background image.

[madmole]

Usually using all my dukes for buying 9mm, 7.62 and Shot Shells from 4 traders (turrets need ammo too). I always run out now (very late game). Believe me, it's not a problem for a while until you start getting massive non-stop hordes (green and demos).

 

Maybe I use too much ammo?

 

 

Edit: playing on 64 horde right now, but same thing on 16 horde I've tried.

 

Sometimes you just have to stop shooting and let them chew on your walls for a while and hope it holds to conserve enough ammo the rest of the night. Sure you lose XP now but you will get some back repairing your base and not be completely out of ammo which makes getting more ammo... interesting late game.

[madmole]

Do 1 t5 quest and use the dukes for that for brass. That will give you enough for around 2,000 casings. I find its far more time efficient to mine and make your own bullets then to buy them.

 

A few hours mining each resource and you will have enough to make a ton of ammo.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

Heck would be pretty sweet if the mining books let you create mining gear that when worn gave you a bonus to your yield when mining.

 

Alright, I will let this ONE cat out of the legendary loot bag:

 

Herb's Pickaxe Legend has it this pickaxe belonged to Herb "Cackler" Dugall. One shots all ore but uses twice the stamina.

[Laz Man]

Alright, I will let this ONE cat out of the legendary loot bag:

 

Herb's Pickaxe Legend has it this pickaxe belonged to Herb "Cackler" Dugall. One shots all ore but uses twice the stamina.

 

Nice, sounds cool!

[meganoth]

Usually using all my dukes for buying 9mm, 7.62 and Shot Shells from 4 traders (turrets need ammo too). I always run out now (very late game). Believe me, it's not a problem for a while until you start getting massive non-stop hordes (green and demos).

 

Maybe I use too much ammo?

 

 

Edit: playing on 64 horde right now, but same thing on 16 horde I've tried.

 

How much have you invested in electric fences and traps? Slowing them down on the way to your walls should save lots of ammo. At least it seems to do that at the much lower gamestage we are at the moment.

[Hek Harris]

Alright, I will let this ONE cat out of the legendary loot bag:

 

Herb's Pickaxe Legend has it this pickaxe belonged to Herb "Cackler" Dugall. One shots all ore but uses twice the stamina.

... and now we are all spinning around the bag, kicking in for other cats to escape. I just hope they are not schrodinger cats.

[Arma Rex]

Alright, I will let this ONE cat out of the legendary loot bag:

 

Herb's Pickaxe Legend has it this pickaxe belonged to Herb "Cackler" Dugall. One shots all ore but uses twice the stamina.

 

Is the plan to change the model of the legendary items to make them look unique, rather than just like a recolor or something?

[Lonestarcanuck]

We're adding sprite markers like fallout/skyrim so finding stuff will be easier, we could maybe use them on the animals if you have that perk.

 

That would be great. my son was excited to see this perk and so we both tried it at 2/3 and 3/3 and after many crouched sessions around the map we finally saw a green 20s timer but no indication of anything or what it might be. was I looking for a deer/stag/rabbit/snake? it was not clear.

 

standing up we would see the 20s count down and reset when we crouched but nothing was visible.

 

so yes a visible marker would be awesome like you do for a fetch quest that maybe only shows when you are crouched so I see it, run and crouch again to see it again.

 

I would also like to see a hunting mod like a feeder or crop I can plan to attrack animals

 

PS: the new compound bows rock.

[Lonestarcanuck]

Lets talk about BRASS...

 

yes Brass is easier to find and with the wasteland mod its pretty good. now...

 

put yourself on a server running for 100s of days and 10-40 players who have looted all the doors/sinks, etc. so now you have no more brass to find.

 

option 1- introduce Copper and Zinc and a skill to make brass that requires some advance T6 questing or

option 2 - some sort of metallurgy feature of the chem station like Merlin and allow me to have a chance to get brass from maybe smelting Lead (lead to brass instead of lead to gold as per Merlin)

 

Option 3 - Brass Balls quest you get from the Trader

[Liesel Weppen]

I edit destroyed stone to yield 0-2 scrap brass when destroyed. So if I want brass I go to the wasteland and strip mine. Maybe that could be a solution.

I'm pretty fine with being not able to loot brass in lategame, but only get it by trader quests via dukes, but it would be nicer, if you can trade in brass additionally. On a server with some players it still takes a long time to loot ALL brass and with the fetch quest you have an additional source of respawning brass.

But the trading values of items is bad, at least if it comes to brass.

[Hollowprime]

It means only a 10 year old would want that fast of XP gain. Most players want to slow things down. What use case do you need to be level 20 on day 1?

 

Lets not use words like "everyone" to add false weight to your statements. Clubs are OP, what are you talking about? Spears have so much range you would have to go AFK to actually take damage.

 

No need to level past 70, but you want to get there in 2 hours with 1200% xp?

 

Armor works fantastic without any perks at all, and since it contains crafting tiers at most we could reduce it to 4.

 

How did you come into that assumption that only 10 year old want that amount of xp?

 

Actually how did you come into the conclusion that Clubs are OP and spears have a huge range? It's 18 range and iirc they have a little less gravity to travel further but they are still mediocre. Why would you want to toss your level 6 fully modded spear 18 meters away?

I need to level up because the perks of those weapons are almost useless and require a lot more levels to get the 25% attack speed. Do you know that the perk of the club which activates every 4th hit is basically a 25% flat damage increase on average?

How is that comparable to the godlike sledge hammer splash-aoe-crowd control-roundhouse kick hit? I just want to play with something other than sledgehammer e.g. an axe. I don't recall the axe dealing 100% knockback on every unit around me.

 

Hell I might even be able to use a stone sledgehammer with 2 turrets perma stunning the enemies with ultra cheap power attacks while my turrets pulverize the horde. You can't do that with any other melee weapon except maybe the knuckles.

[beerfly]

How did you...

 

Easy, they have plans that you are not aware of in a matter of balance, and there is a reason. What is the fuzz ?

[Odetta]

How much have you invested in electric fences and traps? Slowing them down on the way to your walls should save lots of ammo. At least it seems to do that at the much lower gamestage we are at the moment.

 

I probably just got to adapt and change some base design aspects. I could use a lot more spikes and barb wire since I'm swimming in iron. I love the Electric fence but with the design I have now it would be inefficient. So I could make some adjustments to include them. If blade traps got a durability buff I wouldn't mind