Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Gazz]

53 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I understand... but hear this example: there have been several games in the past that offered to players to unlock new classes that are more powerful than the "basic" ones but also much more unbalanced.

That doesn't sound unbalanced at all.

It all depends on what you are looking at. What scope, resolution or whatever you want to call it.

 

[madmole]

3 minutes ago, Perlin_Worm said:

I do like the new tiered approach to loot tables, but what is really missing is that very rare chance of looting something awesome. That is what drives looting.. the chance of scoring something really good that is hard to come by. Please consider.

We had that for 18 alphas, and it ruined progression. It will make a comeback when legendary items come in. Sure it might be a poor quality legendary but it will spice up looting.

[FileMachete]

hmm... looks like @MechanicalLens has countered by remote controlling Gazz's keyboard.. this should be interesting!

 

Edit: nevermind, Gazz has regained control!

[Laz Man]

6 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Loot toilets then. Toilet pistols are still a thing.

Toilet Knives are a thing too..

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, FileMachete said:

hmm... looks like @MechanicalLens has countered by remote controlling Gazz's keyboard.. this should be interesting!

That was but a small taste of my true power.

1 minute ago, Laz Man said:

Toilet Knives are a thing too..

I'm not even sure if it is a knife. More of a letter opener really.

[Laz Man]

9 minutes ago, STyK_ said:

@GazzI assume you are not going to answer so I'll tell you what it seems like is happening.

The description in the options says 'the percentage of loot to spawn in containers and zombies' which means I should get 25% percent of the loot out of each box.

What is happening from a player perspective is 75% of the loot containers are empty. Empty safes, empty supply drops, empty zombie loot bags, nearly empty everything. There is no point in opening a safe cause its going to be empty, there is no point in going for the supply drop cause its always empty.

Is this by design or is there a problem with the loot tables? You probably won't answer but it should be looked into.

Curious...lets say the math is working as intended.  Are you saying people want less loot but not necessarily more empty containers?  I think one of the challenges with loot abundance is most containers dont have high quantity stacks in most cases (e.g. scrap brass, etc.) and taking a percentage of 1 or 2 is going to be 0....

 

Edit: As a side note, i think there was some recent improvement in the loot abundance area...Let me see if i can find the bug report.

Edit 2: Here is the report for you to review.  It was confirmed and may have already been adjusted.  

 

[meganoth]

12 minutes ago, madmole said:

We had that for 18 alphas, and it ruined progression. It will make a comeback when legendary items come in. Sure it might be a poor quality legendary but it will spice up looting.

I hope legendary items have disadvantages as well. Who would still know Achilles without his heel? 😉

[STyK_]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

Curious...lets say the math is working as intended.  Are you saying people want less loot but not necessarily more empty containers?  I think one of the challenges with loot abundance is most containers dont have high quantity stacks in most cases (e.g. scrap brass, etc.) and taking a percentage of 1 or 2 is going to be 0....

yes when you open something and it appears to be sealed/closed or appears to be something in the world like a loot bag, pile of food or ammo IMO shouldn't be empty there should just be less. In the case of 1 or 2 items again IMO should have bottom number of 1 so that we at least know its working atleast with junk loot/ammo/food/medical supplies, the way it is now how would you even know its working not mention the emersion break. 

 

I see a pile of food open it and there is nothing in it yet the world says there was a pile of food there, I didn't find anything good in the pile of food? Its the end of the world I'm pretty sure my character would settle for anything. Or a supply drop, is the pilot playing a practical joke 'this poor sucker is going to run 3K to get this and its empty HA!'

 

Looting becomes nearly pointless, safes are not worth the stamina if there is nothing in them and your totally dependent on the trader and trader quests.

[Jost Amman]

11 minutes ago, Gazz said:

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

I understand... but hear this example: there have been several games in the past that offered to players to unlock new classes that are more powerful than the "basic" ones but also much more unbalanced.

That doesn't sound unbalanced at all.

It all depends on what you are looking at. What scope, resolution or whatever you want to call it.

Sorry, I left out the part where those classes start as very weak compared to other ones. Only when you reach mid-late game they start to shine. So, by unbalanced, I meant in that sense: for the first part of the game they're objectively much weaker than the basic counterparts.

 

But that's exactly where I'm getting at, those classes have a reason to exist in those games because they give expert players a different way to experience the game by shifting the level vs. power ratio to a later stage in the game. Same thing is IMO in 7D2D, meaning that some attribute trees will take longer to shine, which is good, but most people just want the best performance, damage output or whatever, all game long.

[MechanicalLens]

19 minutes ago, FileMachete said:

Edit: nevermind, Gazz has regained control!

No, I got bored of his account squirming about like a fish on land, so I handed him back his control.

[Blake_]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

It isn't a critical unless you get deep laceration.

Speaking of critical injuries.... I got a broken arm the other day and neither using a melee weapon nor power attacking with it gave me an increased broken arm time penalty. Only the mild slowness. Is that intended or a bug? Maybe it was in a previous iteration of a19 and not in b169? .I am just not sure because we already have the mild slowness, but my guess is that it is a bug.

 

Also, a treated infection dissappears after relogging for clients, leaving just the infection worsening in the state that they left it. Both need more testing from my part.

 

While it's always @Gazz `s fault along with Global Warming, sometimes I think he works under too much pressure, lol.

[bjurney]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

Those of you saying you never get crits? Are you playing MP or SP?

I never really thought about this, but come to think of it, I have yet to get any criticals other than a broken leg because I like to jump from buildings and push my luck. In fact, I only bled for the first time in A19 the other night. I am playing on multi player with 2 other people. I don't think my wife has had any criticals (again other than a broken leg because she fell). 

[beHypE]

MP here aswell on a dedi, 3 man squad, 1 concussion in 25 hours of game play with around 9 deaths total. 

[Alpacko]

18 hours ago, madmole said:

I was watching dying light and they jump up on stuff and pull themselves up, it looked awesome. Able to get up 3 meter high obstacles no problem.

only the Virals tho:

 

Quote

Virals are humans that have only very recently succumbed to the infection. However, they are still physically alive as they are seen speaking multiple times. As a result, their bodies still retain the physical strength needed for them to possess a high level of fitness and agility. They run far faster than any other Infected[...]They can also jump and climb over obstacles and buildings, allowing them to chase after the player even when he's in a spot where most normal infected can't reach.

would love to see them in 7days too.

[JCrook1028]

14 hours ago, meganoth said:

Iron tools and tier1 weapons need a forge (mostly for the forged iron) and a workbench. But the forge is already impossible to build without RNG, because a short iron pipe is made from forged iron, for which you need .... a forge.

Ever torn down a toilet? or a sink? Or a car? how about a bed? Pipes are everywhere! RNG my butt. You can't turn around w/o running into an iron pipe.

[Laz Man]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

Those of you saying you never get crits? Are you playing MP or SP?

Mostly SP for me, I generally don't get very many criticals on a serious playthrough (Early Game) as I try not to engage more then 1 enemy at a time if I can control it.  But I can confirm when getting hit by multiple targets (testing) the criticals do start pouring down. 

 

For example, the screenshot below is the result of trying to take on multiple wolves + dire wolves wearing mostly iron armor (player level 1 no perks).  This was in a prefab editor playtest environment (custom POI) using a T4 loadout where I didn't know the wolves were coming until it was too late...

 

 

[JCrook1028]

6 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Sooo there was just a power outage at my place - it lasted for about a tenth of a second I'd say - and it corrupted my world files completely. I think I'm just going to wait for stable, the world is angry at me for playing EXP right now. 🙄

 

Edit: Nevermind, managed to salvage my save files. It wiped my bike though, so I just spawned a new one in.

Always always always backup your save files.

[Alpacko]

18 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Well, there are 61320 hours in 7 years if my calculations are correct, so it isn't completely infeasible. 😜

61344 hours due to 2016 being a leap year. 

[MechanicalLens]

Just now, Alpacko said:

61344 hours due to 2016 being a leap year. 

Huh. Yet another myth.

[Phoenixshade35]

I think a long range zombie would be neat, and a game changer, sitting on horde night and not knowing where your getting hit from only to see a zombie vomitting at a distance and not getting closer, or even a rare zombie who is recently infected and still knows how to throw a spear haha

[Adam the Waster]

5 minutes ago, Phoenixshade35 said:

I think a long range zombie would be neat, and a game changer, sitting on horde night and not knowing where your getting hit from only to see a zombie vomitting at a distance and not getting closer, or even a rare zombie who is recently infected and still knows how to throw a spear haha

Spoiler

don't get me started!
 

 

[Jay_ombie]

29 minutes ago, Phoenixshade35 said:

I think a long range zombie would be neat, and a game changer, sitting on horde night and not knowing where your getting hit from only to see a zombie vomitting at a distance and not getting closer, or even a rare zombie who is recently infected and still knows how to throw a spear haha

Sounds it could be frustrating to me, a zombie far out with a high probability of not being able to locate and kill it for what ever reason.

Police Zombies play the 'flob vomit from afar' game quite well even if they do run towards you at the same time. 😁

[Khalagar]

I really like the idea of specialized zombies in general. It would make base design and horde night way more tactical. Stuff like a spider zombie that leaves a web ladder behind it so other zombies can climb your walls and attack you from different angles, a miner zombie that digs tunnels that other zombies can use, a fog / darkness zombie with an AoE aura that masks a 5~ish block radius around it that turrets won't shoot into and can hide other zombies, ranged zombies that hit you from a distance or blind you or something etc.

 

That approach would make the player have to actually think during horde nights and try to target specific zombies, instead of just standing on bars safely throwing down OP molotovs and pipe bombs until the horde music stops

 

For a ranged zombie they could do some kind of infested zombie that stays at range and summons tiny hornets or something that fly at the player to attack. The devs already have the old hornet coded and everything, so they could just downsize that and have a zombie that spam summons them until it's killed

[RhinoW]

@madmole Some questions if some quality of life changes are being worked on:

 

- Option to change toggling/holding ADS? (I know they are both implemented, but the response for the holding ADS is super slow compared to any other shooter)

 

- Buyable/Craftable in-game lights for the players to use (some were removed since A16 for some reason, and i keep getting teased by the construction lights in PoIs)?

 

- New honk sounds for the motorcycle and truck?

 

- Actually shifting sounds for the vehicles instead of the boring loop one? (You have the gear shift sound when you start moving after being still, then it goes into a monotone loop)

 

- Make burst fire actual burst fire? Right now it's just better to spam tap shoot with burst fire weapons, i thought burst fire was supposed to be a really fast burst but with a lower fire rate per burst.

 

[Khalagar]

4 minutes ago, RhinoW said:

Make burst fire actual burst fire? Right now it's just better to spam tap shoot with burst fire weapons, i thought burst fire was supposed to be a really fast burst but with a lower fire rate per burst.

 

I don't understand the point of the semi or burst fire mods. I always just burst fire my full auto guns in all games with short controlled bursts, there's no reason that I know of to not just use a full auto mod and use controlled bursts. Gives you the option of going full auto in a pinch too