Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Khalagar]

8 minutes ago, Dethar said:

Roland is slacking

 

Even Roland ignores Roland, it's not easy being Roland

[SnowDog1942]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

To all of you who get ignored when asking questions: I am your brother.

From another mother?

[Blake_]

Lathan is -I think-  the better player of the three. Madmole is a close second when warmed up . I 'd barely seen Rick play, but I'm guessing he will go for the Player kill  asap . 

 

This stream will be a huge success. 

We got Gru, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jason Lewis together !!

[Aldranon]

11 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Junk Turret is really weak early game, at least on difficulty I play on. Without perk investment it is definitely just a support weapon and not your main one. Even as someone who nearly always maxes out junk turrets and builds around them, I don't even usually deploy them until mid game when I've got like 3/5 on the Junk Skill. Up until that point they just fire really slow and have such short range that you are drastically better off using a shotgun, sledge, or basically any other weapon. Even a pistol would clear far easier and faster than a level 1 junk turret with no perk investment

The open floor plan of the new stores seems almost perfect for fighting with turrets.

 

I would like to see a weekend streamer use turrets in those new POI's and put the word "turrets" in there Youtube titles so I can see how it works.  

 

[Khalagar]

  

@madmole it was asked in chat but never answered, does the Tech Junkie skill affect the Junk Sledge attack speed while it's being held in hand? Also, does it get damage increases from increasing Int like the Junk Turret does?

 

 

Junk sled had some really bad showings again, it only does 14 base damage compared to an Iron Sledge doing 37, and the target tracking when placed had problems like I feared. Problems, as in it never landed a single hit on a single zombie that was moving in any way. It seems like it's mainly going to be handheld mode for me, but after seeing it's damage if it doesn't get buffs from Tech Junkie and the Int perk . . .rip

 

I think it could have some potential if it gets all the Tech Junkie attach speed buffs while held, but melee for int tree is not looking good. Stun Baton still needs love, so int tree basically doesn't have a melee weapon and will end up using Axe and Sledgehammer again which would be a waste of two really cool weapons that already have full assets and coding, they just need number buffs

 

3 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Lathan is -I think-  the better player of the three.

 

Wut. No offense to Lathan, but Madmole would 1 vs 2 both of them at the same time 10 times out of 10 lol. Lathan plays very similar to my friend who I lovingly refer to as an ADHD Run and Gun Only™ player. Drops all crafting resources like clay, cobble, cement, rotten meat etc, basically only picks up bullets.  He also does the same thing my friend does that drives me crazy,  where he doesn't place a bedroll down. He only remembered to right before he died because chat was telling him to every 3 seconds

 

I don't think he or Rick either one would last more than a couple of days max in a "One life only" play through, where as Madmole would be fine

[madmole]

3 hours ago, Khalagar said:

Madmole definitely lives the longest and does the best. Rick might honestly live longer than Lathan too. Even without seeing Rick play, we've seen Lathan and without god mode and cheats, I just dunno if I'd bet on him

I got twice as many kills as them combined, built the base, AND leveled the most, and died last I THINK. Granted Lathan was running around with fists quite a while. Anyhow GG's.

[faatal]

11 hours ago, Annihilatorza said:

@faatalI dont know if this has been answered, although I do keep a check on the forums.

 

Has any one looked at where you can place a block in front of a door way and the zombies keep trying to hit you and not the block, so you keep clubbing them with little to risk.

No bug there that I know of. If they can hit and then try to hit you, that is correct behavior regardless if they can move or not.

[MechanicalLens]

6 minutes ago, madmole said:

I got twice as many kills as them combined, built the base, AND leveled the most, and died last I THINK. Granted Lathan was running around with fists quite a while. Anyhow GG's.

I made the bet that you wouldn't die at all, but since you achieved the most and died last, I count that as a winning bet. GG!

[faatal]

10 hours ago, MajorMunchy said:

why not just make it a CC timer? no stun lock is bad, full stun lock is bad, just put in some coding/log that claims zombie can only be stun lock etc once every X seconds.

that way, if it pelts the same zombie itll be less, but if a horde come at it it could randomize the shooting to hit more zombies. Hell, do we know the extra turret ammo? maybe they are addign in shock rounds to REPLACE the stun locking????

Pain resistance is already in A18 and A19 as a decaying percentage. The difference being in 19 it builds up faster per hit and hit anim logic has been redone with how they react (blend in/out, speed).

[Khalagar]

5 minutes ago, faatal said:

Pain resistance is already in A18 and A19 as a decaying percentage. The difference being in 19 it builds up faster per hit and hit anim logic has been redone with how they react (blend in/out, speed).

 

How will this mechanic work with the Junk Sledge? It seems like it's main (intended) use is to stagger / CC zombies, so any kind of stun or CC resistance changes would hit it even harder than life is already hitting it.

 

I was trying to think of hallway set ups where you could have the two junk sledges hitting at the same time, but any kind of CC immunity will shut that down . That might even explain why the Junk Sledge basically never did anything in Lathan's stream at all, it might have been nullfiied by the zombies being immune to it's stagger

[faatal]

12 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

How will this mechanic work with the Junk Sledge? It seems like it's main (intended) use is to stagger / CC zombies, so any kind of stun or CC resistance changes would hit it even harder than life is already hitting it.

 

I was trying to think of hallway set ups where you could have the two junk sledges hitting at the same time, but any kind of CC immunity will shut that down . That might even explain why the Junk Sledge basically never did anything in Lathan's stream at all, it might have been nullfiied by the zombies being immune to it's stagger

Zombies are not immune to its stagger. I just tried a q1 sledge, with no perks and it worked reasonably well. The main weakness is a typical zombie gets hit once by it and staggers past it. If I kite it back around it does several hits and if it gets a knockdown, that zombie is generally dead as it repeatedly bashes them.

 

The better way to use it seems to be to place it sideways to the enemies path and it will hit them twice as they walk by. Free hits. Free damage. I'll take it. Once you get some perks, it should be even more useful.

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, faatal said:

Zombies are not immune to its stagger. I just tried a q1 sledge, with no perks and it worked reasonably well. The main weakness is a typical zombie gets hit once by it and staggers past it. If I kite it back around it does several hits and if it gets a knockdown, that zombie is generally dead as it repeatedly bashes them.

 

The better way to use it seems to be to place it sideways to the enemies path and it will hit them twice as they walk by. Free hits. Free damage. I'll take it. Once you get some perks, it should be even more useful.

I suppose using it facing a closed door the zombies are bashing on (such as on horde night) would work well?

[Khalagar]

20 minutes ago, faatal said:

The main weakness is a typical zombie gets hit once by it and staggers past it. If I kite it back around it does several hits and if it gets a knockdown, that zombie is generally dead as it repeatedly bashes them.

 

Is there a chance of it being able to rotate to track enemies? It seems like it currently only hits things directly on the block in front of it, perhaps not even at a 2 block range. Not sure if making it able to hit on all sides of it would cause a ton of head aches engine and programming wise, but it would make it more appealing.  Even Lathan in stream just threw it down and went back to knuckles, and even the basic wooden club seemed more useful sadly

 

Don't want to be negative, just don't want another stun baton situation. I was initially the most hyped by far for the Junk Drone, but the more I learn about the Junk Sledge the more I really want it to be good! It just seems like it's in a situation similar to the knife and stun baton where you are like "I could use this thing to hit the enemy 24 times and kill them after 10 seconds of fighting for my life. Or  I could just one shot them with a sledgehammer with zero perk investment"

 

17 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

I suppose using it facing a closed door the zombies are bashing on (such as on horde night) would work well?

 

That's how Madmole had his in the castle video, but if that's the only way to use it, it would  basically would confirm it for auto vendor tier past super, super early game because a single junk turret would just be flat out superior and you can only have one active so you will obviously choose the better one.

 

People keep saying "It's only a tier 1", but ignore the rebuttal "It's the only melee weapon the Int tree has besides the stun baton". ATM even if you were using Stun Baton + junk sledge you would *would* still be super gimped compared to someone just using a better melee weapon and actually killing their target outright.

 

Lathan may not be using it optimally, but his usage seems exactly like how new players will try it, and the chat pretty much instantly wrote it off as garbage, which is how new players will see it after they throw it down then get their teeth knocked out when the turret fails spectacularly to do anything.

 

Waste of assets and dev work, too cool to fail! I think if it could at least just swivel to target a 2 block radius around itself with better hit tracking it would at least be arguably viable in more situations than "throw it down outside your door for horde night and forget about it as soon as you get a junk turret"

[MechanicalLens]

4 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

That's how Madmole had his in the castle video, but if that's the only way to use it, it would  basically would confirm it for auto vendor tier past super, super early game because a single junk turret would just be flat out superior and you can only have one active so you will obviously choose the better one.

Well, you saw the contents in the chests that Fubar_Prime was getting. Stone spears, scrip iron and padded armor, bone knives, some ammo... And since we apparently won't be getting guns in loot until levels 10-15 (maybe 20), we probably won't be getting Junk Turrets until around day 14, or 21 for slower levelers... So yeah, super early game.

[Khalagar]

13 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Well, you saw the contents in the chests that Fubar_Prime was getting. Stone spears, scrip iron and padded armor, bone knives, some ammo... And since we apparently won't be getting guns in loot until levels 10-15 (maybe 20), we probably won't be getting Junk Turrets until around day 14, or 21 for slower levelers... So yeah, super early game.

 

Problem with this mentality is it's all the int tree has. So their main melee weapon is basically a bone shiv. They were already hitting level 10 by the end of a 3 hour play session and starting to get tier 2s like double barrel shotguns, iron and steel knuckles, baseball bats etc. Even if traders get nerfed to match loot in A20, you'll move past the Junk Sledge within a couple of days in game and then just throw it in a box or vendor it.

 

I dunno, I just don't see why people are so opposed to just, y'know, making it viable and having it scale to end game as you invest perks into it. The asset and dev work is already done, all they would have to do is just make sure it scales well with bonus damage and attack speed and stagger chance from the Tech Junkie skill so that at max perk rank it can actually have it's own niche

[bloodmoth13]

20 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

well if they did that they should update the primitive bow! so it can compete with them!

plus for assault rifle class!

it could ether be a Makeshift Machine gun that uses the blunderbuss rounds (or it could be called black powder ammo!)

or it can be a harmonica rifle! like this

it would have more ammo then the flintlock and musket but would have lower damage and a Much slower reload!

pic here

 

  Hide contents

 

 

I dont think that the primitive bow needs a buff (maybe it does, it feels awful) but i agree with turning blunderbuss ammo into blackpowder ammo to share across antique weapons though, i was going to suggest it myself but didnt want joel to reply with TLDR.

For an antique machine gun i think giving it a high reload time and recoil and about 5 shots would be pretty good, fire rate would be the only thing going for it so id keep it pretty fast, just really clunky.

I have always wanted the blunderbuss to be relevant so im looking forward to A19.

[wolfbain5]

not to happy with the stone age part. watched as he opened a crate from working stiff to get a stone shovel. Can see the conversation now

 

"Hey guys, I found a sealed crate from a pre apoc manufacturer! it's gotta have something good... a Flinstone's shovel? WTF? this is what they sold in stores?"
 

doesnt make sense. I agree that finding stone age in bags and such, but sealed manufacturers crates? no. I hope that was a fluke.

[Gazz]

A 17th century machine gun?

 

All the REALLYs. =P

[Jost Amman]

1 minute ago, wolfbain5 said:

not to happy with the stone age part. watched as he opened a crate from working stiff to get a stone shovel. Can see the conversation now

 

"Hey guys, I found a sealed crate from a pre apoc manufacturer! it's gotta have something good... a Flinstone's shovel? WTF? this is what they sold in stores?"
 

doesnt make sense. I agree that finding stone age in bags and such, but sealed manufacturers crates? no. I hope that was a fluke.

Probably it's just that they don't have this level of fine control on loot tables for every single crate type.

[Gazz]

2 minutes ago, wolfbain5 said:

doesnt make sense. I agree that finding stone age in bags and such, but sealed manufacturers crates? no. I hope that was a fluke.

You can mod the game so that store crates only drop steel tools.

I absolutely agree that iron/stone tools in such a loot container are highly unrealistic. (like it currently is in A18)

 

By using that mod you just have to accept that realistically there will only be one tier of items in the game. /shrug

[wolfbain5]

Just now, Gazz said:

You can mod the game so that store crates only drop steel tools.

I absolutely agree that iron/stone tools in such a loot container are highly unrealistic. (like it currently is in A18)

 

By using that mod you just have to accept that realistically there will only be one tier of items in the game. /shrug

nah, I have never found stone tools in those boxes in a18, only iron and steel. which is 2 tiers

 

[Khalagar]

31 minutes ago, bloodmoth13 said:

I dont think that the primitive bow needs a buff (maybe it does, it feels awful)

 

It's so bad it's a meme, even on the dev stream you could tell by Lathan and Rick's reactions they knew it was pretty much a waste of time to even try it. Even the full bow is only okayish. The bow is in a pretty weird spot. It competes against the Pistol for use in it's own tree, and loses badly. The only advantage the bow has is explosive ammo, but actual explosives from the perception tree are better. In fact, the hunting rifle from the perception tree is better than the crossbow too . . .

 

I do think bows need a bit of a TLC update, I think most players would rather have a level 3 pistol than a level 5 compound bow or compound crossbow, and that's a problem. I tried doing a crossbow build in A18 and even with perk investment and a level 5 compound crossbow, I literally couldn't find a use for it that my level 2 unperked hunting rifle didn't do 10 times better.

 

Compound bow is kinda where where the Wooden bow needs to be damage wise imo, and primitive bow is just bad, I can't think of a single situation where a primitive bow is worth building over just crafting 4-5 spears and throwing those instead

 

 

[Gazz]

6 minutes ago, wolfbain5 said:

nah, I have never found stone tools in those boxes in a18, only iron and steel. which is 2 tiers

 

Exactly. You suggested your change on grounds of realism and in A18 there are iron tools in store boxes which is not a thing in reality.

You would have to find an antiques store to find any iron tools.

 

So doing that would limit most loot to the highest tier.

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Exactly. You suggested your change on grounds of realism and in A18 there are iron tools in store boxes which is not a thing in reality.

You would have to find an antiques store to find any iron tools.

 

So doing that would limit most loot to the highest tier.

So are you saying that iron/steel tools have been removed from the loot table of those store boxes, or do you mean that the player has to be around x loot gamestage for them to begin to appear in them? I'm confused...

 

Also, have motor tool parts been touched in the toolboxes? In A18 it's usually relatively easy to craft an auger somewhat early on (at least in my experience) since motor tool parts are occasionally found in bunches of 3-4 at any loot gamestage in those toolboxes; provided you find the auger schematic as well.

[wolfbain5]

7 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Exactly. You suggested your change on grounds of realism and in A18 there are iron tools in store boxes which is not a thing in reality.

You would have to find an antiques store to find any iron tools.

 

So doing that would limit most loot to the highest tier.

actually. I see the iron as the cheap quality while the steel are the high quality. but most stores dont carry poor quality