Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

On stamina: For experienced but sloppy players like me it is spot on. In my SP game I did not get any dig quests at first and missed buying the food the only time the food machine was filled with food.

 

The other mistake I (probably) made was underestimating the stamina use of targeting with a bow. If you don't notice that you can easily find yourself in the situation of always being hungry and not knowing why.

 

Consequently I'm down below 40% food for most of my first 5 days and will have a long journey getting out of this hole as there are no fast ways to get food. But I think I know what I have to change now.

 

Sadly I expect lots of new players to protest in the coming weeks and you probably will adjust stamina back somewhat, which I think is the wrong adjustment. The right adjustment would be to provide an expensive safety valve for people getting low on food. A food item called soylent green that can't be cooked, has unknown ingredients and is sold by the trader for horrenduous prices. The only good thing about it is it is available in quantities and fills you up.

 

 

 

That isn't a horrible idea. I'm sort of against it because having to find something is good, having a way to solve it easily with money doesn't really force the player to explore, hunt or loot. However the guys all tell me in MP they are starving early game so I can sympathize with some kind of solution, but in SP I'm always swimming in food once I'm past the first week.

1 hour ago, VirtualExodus said:

So typically I run the game at 75fps 80% of the time, however I lose 20-30fps when walking on or looking at roads? anyone else getting this? 

Also I lose a lot of frames the higher up I go in tall POIs... but had this issue with past 2 alphas... 

 

Seen a lot of talk on stamina and I will say it is more punishing to new players and or first week or 2 of the game.

I have maxed Sexy Rex and Cardio and still drain crazy fast when running or mining (No issues in combat) 

I get where the Devs are going with it in this alpha and it seems to be a huge emphasis on food and drink, before it was irrelevant however now you need food and drink at all times to perform any major physical task... For me it feels the changes get you to perk differently in the beginning, I would normally max Miner69er/Motherlode/Sexy Rex, but now im taking early points in farming and early points in to cooking which isn't that bad at all. 

I play Warrior difficulty 50% loot 50% exp, even on warrior dmg perks are not needed till week 2 or even week 3 for a Vet player. 

 

All in all im enjoying a slower more gruelling playstyle but as a Vet my opinion is invalid XD 

On another note here is my world seed "The Horde" (without quotation marks) 

300m spawn from Trader Joel, opposite him is a bunker POI (The one underneath a vent in a fenced of greenspace) and 3 Tier 5 POIs within 500m 

It's valid as long as its praise But seriously we listen, but ultimately the decisions on how to solve things or even consider them as a problem are up to us.

I feel the game is too easy but we're starting to get there. Food and primitive game stage are a big step in the right direction, and stamina felt broke being able to mine non stop with only one rank of sex rex so we made a few small adjustments. People need to not run in heavy armor, not use iron tools until you are ready with perks or food. Otherwise running is very easy with no armor, and so is mining with a stone axe. I level so fast my stamina woes disappear pretty quick, I gain 2 levels a day or more even on warrior.

[AV7daystodie]

Hey guys! I saw a post by @Twigg here that says:

 

RWG will be readdressed in A20

 

Does it mean that RWG likely won't be changed before A19 Stable or even during A19.0-19.X versions?

 

 

[madmole]

28 minutes ago, beHypE said:

While it isn't a buff per se, I'd like the cans to be more of an event than they currently are. I don't mind being on the lookout for food early game, it's actually quite the contrary as I think those days are the best. Yet I feel the food mini-game would feel way better if each can gave you say +25 food instead of +15. Make them a bit more rare to compensate, but make each can count. And the small ones like Miso could be brought up to +10 or +15. I mean, those are basically poor man's first aid bandages at that point, +5 food is really ridiculous. 

 

It wouldn't change much in the grand scheme of things, but I'm pretty sure getting 25% of your hunger bar back per can would lower the frustration some have with the "need to chug down 6 meals a day". 

That isn't an easy rebalance because I manually created the values and have a manual formula to decide the total calories when combined. So anything using a can that gives 25 would need rebalanced, and the cooked foods with cans are very OP already. THe easy thing to do is add some new can to the list and it has 25 calories, some kind of big can o slop thing. Like one of those gallon cans of baked beans.

But here we are, the first version of the game where food was ever an issue really. Should we ruin this in its infancy?

[wolfbain5]

I personally think that the stamina usage on iron tools and steel tools are  bit too high.

summers growing up I had a job swinging a sledge hammer and pick axe to level off land did that for 3 years.

 

iron is more than twice stone tools stamina usage, and steel, which isnt really harder to use than iron is more than 3 times the usage. 8, 19, 27  for stone, iron, steel. i could understand a 50% increase in stamina usage, but more than double?

 

i am testing out 8, 16, 24. and it seems to be smoother. havent really gotten to steel yet on my playthrough

 

[Jarod_Silverstar]

15 minutes ago, madmole said:

That isn't a horrible idea. I'm sort of against it because having to find something is good, having a way to solve it easily with money doesn't really force the player to explore, hunt or loot. However the guys all tell me in MP they are starving early game so I can sympathize with some kind of solution, but in SP I'm always swimming in food once I'm past the first week.

It's valid as long as its praise But seriously we listen, but ultimately the decisions on how to solve things or even consider them as a problem are up to us.

I feel the game is too easy but we're starting to get there. Food and primitive game stage are a big step in the right direction, and stamina felt broke being able to mine non stop with only one rank of sex rex so we made a few small adjustments. People need to not run in heavy armor, not use iron tools until you are ready with perks or food. Otherwise running is very easy with no armor, and so is mining with a stone axe. I level so fast my stamina woes disappear pretty quick, I gain 2 levels a day or more even on warrior.

Agreed - once you get past a certain point food is easy and no challenge any more. Need to add some things like food spoiling or rotting and plants in your garden dying or being eaten by animals at night. I know there are no simple solutions for this but I look forward to seeing what you try.

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, Jarod_Silverstar said:

Agreed - once you get past a certain point food is easy and no challenge any more. Need to add some things like food spoiling or rotting and plants in your garden dying or being eaten by animals at night. I know there are no simple solutions for this but I look forward to seeing what you try.

I'd give any kind of excuse to declare more days of the year rabbit season. 😜

[Gromit]

Stamina use on shovels is probably the only one that's on the high side, the rest seem fine to me. Blunderbuss is great but other than a few crossbows I've had no bows drop at all in 14 days. Food is in a better spot than it was in 18 but animal spawns still feel too low right now.

[madmole]

17 minutes ago, wolfbain5 said:

I personally think that the stamina usage on iron tools and steel tools are  bit too high.

summers growing up I had a job swinging a sledge hammer and pick axe to level off land did that for 3 years.

 

iron is more than twice stone tools stamina usage, and steel, which isnt really harder to use than iron is more than 3 times the usage. 8, 19, 27  for stone, iron, steel. i could understand a 50% increase in stamina usage, but more than double?

 

i am testing out 8, 16, 24. and it seems to be smoother. havent really gotten to steel yet on my playthrough

 

Again, it is a non issue if you prepare for mining with coffee, and a good meal helps too, as well as perks. Coffee is quite abundant in the coffee makers and seeds too, I have an endless supply now by day 21 and I spent a whole week working on my medieval tavern. I think people need to simply adapt instead of complain that it isn't right.

Steel uses more because it is a two handed item, and it has a double head, much heavier than the iron which has just the pick on one side and is still one handed. And for gaming reasons, it has the best block damage, so it needs to cost more. By the time you can get one (at least once trader quest rewards are fixed in a20) you should have enough stamina to manage it pretty well. By that I mean level 50+ and 3+ ranks sex rex.

[Damocles]

The problem with food is balancing a constant consumption with an aggregating income.

This will always lead to food to be to scare in the beginning, and too plentiful in the end.

 

There is a reason other games use food spoilage to limit the possible stock, so obtaining food is still a relevant activity later in the game.

[MechanicalLens]

29 minutes ago, madmole said:

That isn't an easy rebalance because I manually created the values and have a manual formula to decide the total calories when combined. So anything using a can that gives 25 would need rebalanced, and the cooked foods with cans are very OP already. THe easy thing to do is add some new can to the list and it has 25 calories, some kind of big can o slop thing. Like one of those gallon cans of baked beans.

But here we are, the first version of the game where food was ever an issue really. Should we ruin this in its infancy?

@madmole I do agree with one point that they said, and that being that some canned foods only reward the player with +5 food. Perhaps those canned food types could provide the player with some hydration (ex. can of sardines), or perhaps boosting them up to +10 hunger gain would be a viable alternative?

 

Also, the costs of some of the canned foods are a bit inconsistent. Canned pears and canned peas provide the same stats, but the last time I checked, the latter (or was it the former?) costs a third of the price compared to the other.

 

Another possible option would be to make the Shamway Secret Recipe a guaranteed drop from the Wall Manager's Safe in the Shamway Factory, if it isn't already. Perhaps a line of dialogue from Trader Rekt could hint at the existence of the recipe deep in said factory, and he could even provide the player with a mini side quest to retrieve it. Upon your return he takes a copy of the secret recipe while you get to keep and read the other half. Starving players, especially new ones, could find this mission pretty lucrative.

[madmole]

2 minutes ago, Gromit said:

Stamina use on shovels is probably the only one that's on the high side, the rest seem fine to me. Blunderbuss is great but other than a few crossbows I've had no bows drop at all in 14 days. Food is in a better spot than it was in 18 but animal spawns still feel too low right now.

Once you exit the primitive stage you'll see bows start spawning more. I've had at least 2 wooden bows spawn now, I'm on day 21 level 40 something.

1 minute ago, MechanicalLens said:

@madmole I do agree with one point that they said, and that being that some canned foods only reward the player with +5 food. Perhaps those canned food types could provide the player with some hydration (ex. can of sardines), or perhaps boosting them up to +10 hunger gain would be a viable alternative?

 

Also, the costs of some of the canned foods are a bit inconsistent. Canned pears and canned peas provide the same stats, but the last time I checked, the latter (or was it the former?) costs a third of the price compared to the other.

 

Another possible option would be to make the Shamway Secret recipe a guaranteed drop from the Wall Manager's Safe in the Shamway Factory, if it isn't already. Perhaps a line of dialogue from Trader Rekt could hint at its existence, and he could even provide the player with a mini side quest to retrieve it, and he takes a copy of the secret recipe while you get to keep and read the other half. Starving players, especially new ones, could find this mission pretty lucrative.

Who crafts Sham? By the time you get that you have 12 cans of it in your box. Plus it dips into your rotten flesh stack which is more useful for real food farmed from farm plots. I don't think I've ever crafted Sham, and I don't typically go to food or drug POIs, I hunt and find/buy canned foods in regular POIs.

The cost will get fixed. I'm just not really keen on making any drastic changes, I really like the new food system.

[Frankencow]

25 minutes ago, madmole said:

That isn't an easy rebalance because I manually created the values and have a manual formula to decide the total calories when combined. So anything using a can that gives 25 would need rebalanced, and the cooked foods with cans are very OP already. THe easy thing to do is add some new can to the list and it has 25 calories, some kind of big can o slop thing. Like one of those gallon cans of baked beans.

But here we are, the first version of the game where food was ever an issue really. Should we ruin this in its infancy?

I feel like the food/stamina conversation is pretty much summarized by your statement in a post above that players simply need to forgo or be more purposeful with the stamina draining items until they have leveled up enough to use them.

 

Just because your MP friend gifted you a blue iron pickaxe when you joined the game doesn't mean it is the best choice for your player level. Same with trying to run to a quest wearing heavy armor--you found the heavy armor, doesn't automatically mean it is the right choice for you right away without the perks.

 

I like that there is more to decision making than automatically being great with an item just because you found it. Perhaps MP dynamics could use attention, but SP feels pretty spot on to me. 

[Gromit]

3 minutes ago, madmole said:

Once you exit the primitive stage you'll see bows start spawning more. I've had at least 2 wooden bows spawn now, I'm on day 21 level 40 something.

Personally I think it would be nice to see the primitive bows in the early loot though. I got a level 6 blunderbuss pretty early on which has been great but it's obviously not ideal for hunting. Wooden ones not appearing until this much later doesn't seem all that right to me. Either way it's better than 18.

[MechanicalLens]

8 minutes ago, madmole said:

Once you exit the primitive stage you'll see bows start spawning more. I've had at least 2 wooden bows spawn now, I'm on day 21 level 40 something.

Who crafts Sham? By the time you get that you have 12 cans of it in your box. Plus it dips into your rotten flesh stack which is more useful for real food farmed from farm plots. I don't think I've ever crafted Sham, and I don't typically go to food or drug POIs, I hunt and find/buy canned foods in regular POIs.

The cost will get fixed. I'm just not really keen on making any drastic changes, I really like the new food system.

True, but unless its counter intuitive, can't the player craft cans of sham to then craft sham chowder out of those cans of sham with some additional ingredients? Nonetheless, I respect your opinion on this one; I personally have never crafted sham either.

 

Good show.

[AtomicUs5000]

17 hours ago, madmole said:

That is not a bad idea. I've been annoyed at how I spec into mining, shotguns and clubs and I'm pretty much crafting blue the first time I even try. That ability to craft blue so quickly pretty much kills a big chunk of progression.

I agree. Not to mention that this schematics idea enhances the reusability factor of those items, especially when playing with a group, which in turn, means more going out to loot.

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I agree. Not to mention that this schematics idea enhances the reusability factor of those items, especially when playing with a group, which in turn, means more going out to loot.

I second this. Back in A18 the gun schematics were completely worthless since firearms were so common in loot even from day 1, and no one was going to craft a T1 AK-47 or a T1 pistol or whatever. Even in A19 they are mostly pointless since they require extremely specific circumstances for them to be useful. The player first has to find one of the gun schematics before they start finding firearms in loot (and assuming they don't buy the guns from the traders themselves), and then they have to find the weapon parts to craft it, along with a working workbench. The chances that they'll find the gun parts before that are pretty slim, since I find they really only begin to drop once you reach a certain gamestage above 10 or 11, and I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that TFP want you to be crafting guns before they start actually dropping anyway.

[meganoth]

54 minutes ago, madmole said:

That isn't a horrible idea. I'm sort of against it because having to find something is good, having a way to solve it easily with money doesn't really force the player to explore, hunt or loot. However the guys all tell me in MP they are starving early game so I can sympathize with some kind of solution, but in SP I'm always swimming in food once I'm past the first week.

Then soylent green could be a balancing solution as MP players can generate more money than a single player but also need more food sources than a single player (as they have to share food machines and wild life in an area)

 

[wolfbain5]

27 minutes ago, madmole said:

Again, it is a non issue if you prepare for mining with coffee, and a good meal helps too, as well as perks. Coffee is quite abundant in the coffee makers and seeds too, I have an endless supply now by day 21 and I spent a whole week working on my medieval tavern. I think people need to simply adapt instead of complain that it isn't right.

Steel uses more because it is a two handed item, and it has a double head, much heavier than the iron which has just the pick on one side and is still one handed. And for gaming reasons, it has the best block damage, so it needs to cost more. By the time you can get one (at least once trader quest rewards are fixed in a20) you should have enough stamina to manage it pretty well. By that I mean level 50+ and 3+ ranks sex rex.

yes, level 32  this is for iron.

 

with 2 of 4 from trex 3 in miner 69, 3 in mother load, 5 st, 2 in iron gut for slower food and drink loss due to exertion. and then red tea for slower hunger and thirst plus bacon and eggs. that not enough? which means more than 50% of the way perked into the skills

 

people on my server are all saying the same, newbs and continuing players

 

perks should make it standard going, food and drugs should make it gravy. basic character usage v's buffs, buffs are the cherry on the ice cream. sounds more like you are saying that buffs are to be the normal. cant word what not using buffs is to be without being too confrontational.

 

People are adapting. this is experimental and we are telling you this isnt tweaked enough.

[MechanicalLens]

Now is it just me, or does shooting a living animal with a shotgun no longer decimate the corpse of the animal? I've hunted a couple boars with a double barrel recently and I've lost no meat from either of them.

[wolfbain5]

4 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Now is it just me, or does shooting a living animal with a shotgun no longer decimate the corpse of the animal? I've hunted a couple boars with a double barrel recently and I've lost no meat from either of them.

I have lost meat from a boar, blew his head off. wonder if harvest has ties with dismemberment

 

[madmole]

29 minutes ago, Frankencow said:

I feel like the food/stamina conversation is pretty much summarized by your statement in a post above that players simply need to forgo or be more purposeful with the stamina draining items until they have leveled up enough to use them.

 

Just because your MP friend gifted you a blue iron pickaxe when you joined the game doesn't mean it is the best choice for your player level. Same with trying to run to a quest wearing heavy armor--you found the heavy armor, doesn't automatically mean it is the right choice for you right away without the perks.

 

I like that there is more to decision making than automatically being great with an item just because you found it. Perhaps MP dynamics could use attention, but SP feels pretty spot on to me. 

Agreed, and I think the problem lies with people assuming it should play how it used to, etc. In normal play where you earn things in the normal way the progression feels just fine to me, in fact once you know the ropes, its pretty easy. And like I said, you can mine almost endlessly with a stone axe, so we aren't punishing new players, their friends are punishing them by gifting them gear they aren't ready for.

31 minutes ago, Gromit said:

Personally I think it would be nice to see the primitive bows in the early loot though. I got a level 6 blunderbuss pretty early on which has been great but it's obviously not ideal for hunting. Wooden ones not appearing until this much later doesn't seem all that right to me. Either way it's better than 18.

Wooden bows are great. You might be thinking of primitive bows. Primitive bows drop all the time early game just like the blunderbuss. Wooden bows start dropping as soon as hunting rifles, aks, double barrels start to drop.

[Thecolours]

MM, when do you guys start adding in the main storyline? That's something I'm really looking forward to.  

[wolfbain5]

loot drops are pretty good imo. the stoneage lasts about 9 days in my mp games. food in mp games tho is rather low as finding enough to go around for more players isnt quite balanced yet. but primitive bows, wrenches, blunderbusses, stone tools, they drop really well. cant comment on higher level stuff yet as we are only at day 15. we finally just started getting 9mm to drop. iron tools I crafted. still raise levels fast as can be with being the base builder

in sp, day 15 as well as i just finished my day 14 horde, I bought a q1 ak, other than that. still in stone age. not bad honestly. better than I expected. food was an issue, but rngesus was never my friend.

[Gromit]

17 minutes ago, madmole said:

Wooden bows are great. You might be thinking of primitive bows. Primitive bows drop all the time early game just like the blunderbuss. Wooden bows start dropping as soon as hunting rifles, aks, double barrels start to drop.

No, I actually haven't had a primitive bow drop yet. If they're dropping for others just fine though it's just me being unlucky.

[bobross]

34 minutes ago, madmole said:

Agreed, and I think the problem lies with people assuming it should play how it used to, etc. In normal play where you earn things in the normal way the progression feels just fine to me, in fact once you know the ropes, its pretty easy. And like I said, you can mine almost endlessly with a stone axe, so we aren't punishing new players, their friends are punishing them by gifting them gear they aren't ready for.

I love ya Madmole, but sometimes I wonder. Do you really think I'd be in here saying early game A19 is too rough for newbies if the reasoning was they can't use the Blue Iron Pickaxe I found for them?

 

Our newb is our second miner. She had points in Miner 69er before I did and made the (orange) pickaxes we're currently using. She is angry and frustrated by the fact that she cannot use the tool she spent her first perk point to enable her to make worth a damn. She is frustrated that there is nothing saying "iron tool mining won't work unless you're overeating and drinking coffee" anywhere in the game. She accepts that I'm correct about it, but here we are very early Day 6 with nowhere near enough food for us to keep uniformly above the 50% hunger mark, and she can either "mine endlessly with a stone axe" and take 3+ times as long to break down a block, or she can take a 5 second pause after every block.

 

You want this game to bring in new players, then you need to make sure they can figure out how to play the game without coming to the forums. Right now, for mining, you are failing at that objective.

 

EDIT: 3 times as long was a pick from a hat, but it's close. 13 seconds vs. 29 seconds for iron pickaxe vs. stone axe. Except for the running out of stamina part, anyhow, that pushes it to 2 times as long.