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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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55 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

Same with Glock9, he's just having a good time as far as I can tell.

I don't think glock9 is the best example, he wasn't always like that either. Kage848 or Games4kickz would be better examples.

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46 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

But they try to entertain people and that influences the way they play. Rather tedious things are done less and instead what promises more action.

I doubt he'd do so many reckless things without an audience. He's always showing off. You can tell.

 

I remember for example that he died one time because he got cocky and wanted to jump from the crane onto the skeleton frame when looting the construction site. Instead of playing it safe and using frames he wanted to show off. That is why many of his series are so short. He gets cocky at some point and then he usually dies.

 

 

True, I try to entertain people too. But it doesn't effect how I play. I just edit the boring stuff out.

But "showing off" doesn't really mean proving anything I think.

IMO showing off is more like "hey! look what I can do! Isn't that neat!?!"

LIke BMX guys doing tricks, Stunt pilots, Pool trick shot artist's, etc.

 

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59 minutes ago, RhinoW said:

I can still how you my previous alpha bases, including THE A16 base, that was built on the scrapyard PoI and I turned it into a freaking last stand base, with catwalks, double thick walls (plates on the inside), spot lights, realistically placed traps, turrets and not a single place that was inaccessible to the player unless I had the drawbridge up (like real life). What had worked on A16 (having an open gate letting them through for the traps to take care of them, having some rogue ones being taken care of by the spikes and my friend also walking around the catwalks, yadda yadda) didn't work in A17, they prefered to break through literally 2 concrete blocks instead of going through a little open corridor (with an iron door, that has much less health than a freaking concrete t2 block) which made my base literally useless, and we just had to kite them along the catwalks because we got out swarmed through 1 little spot.

 

Oh and invulnerable? Like the funnels and unrealistic killing houses with 1 way entrances that players have built and still work now, the funny pole wall protection that let's you melee them? My "invulnerable"  and realistic A16 base, took 70 90minute days to freaking build , terraforming, gather materials with my friend and still wasn't perfect/finished. If by that point i can't get rewarded with a proper defense, then the game has failed one of the main principles of game design. Not luckily, it was the most fun i've had in bloodmoons and I was always eager for the next. Oh, and I didn't build it from scratch, as I said, it was built/upgraded on a PoI, let that sink in for your "invulnerability is bad" standard.

 

Also, did you really just compare zombies to military strategists and soldiers, with trebuchets,  catapults, oil based flammable projectiles, and other gate/wall breaching war weapons? Are you serious? They obviously had the cognitive capability and experience to know, even before the wall got damaged, where they would hit...

 

You see, I avoid making unnecessary comparisons with the real world, but, with all due respect, do you really want me to play the same game? I can start talking about real-life parkour, how flesh works, how armor works, how zombies should die easily and not be able to do jack @%$*#! against iron armor, how swat soldiers don't carry c4's on their chests, how concrete walls would never be smashed by fists (unless it's a giant), how having a working, upgraded and solid vehicle like the truck would make you king of the apocalypse. Oh and how it's unrealistic that you build a literally concrete house on your own, with metal bars and all the fancy stuff. You can pull these pretty easily out of your back pocket.

But you did make unnecessary references to the real word in your first post. I just followed suit. I count the word "realistic" 3 times in that first post of yours. But ok, lets assume that was a mistake (even though you use it again in this post to defend your A16 design) and you just were equating A16 with realism, since it seems emulating A16 is what you really want, right?

 

What you claim is that A16 is a sort of standard that the game has to keep. Because some design in A16 worked it has to work now too? Hey what about a design that worked in A12? Does that need to work in A19 as well?

Generally nearly everything worked in A16, because A16 was trivially easy, a pole you sat upon made in 2 minutes was already enough for the first hordes.

 

PS: I build a base later in A17, (after some AI bug fixes and balances) with catwalks that worked, with two block thick walls that actually held them off and led them to an open corridor. I can show you very different base designs I all made in A17, all worked. And sometimes I made a mistake I had to fix for the next horde night and that worked as well.

PPS: I build a base for the first two horde nights out of a derelict wood shack in A19 and it held up admirably. In SP I always use POIs I adapt slowly to my end-game horde base because it adds variety to my designs.

 

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37 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

True, I try to entertain people too. But it doesn't effect how I play. I just edit the boring stuff out.

But "showing off" doesn't really mean proving anything I think.

IMO showing off is more like "hey! look what I can do! Isn't that neat!?!"

LIke BMX guys doing tricks, Stunt pilots, Pool trick shot artist's, etc.

 

Usually showing off ended badly for me mostly with my BMX, It is about showing skills AND having fun. As in 7dtd :) Well said. 

 

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22 hours ago, Gazz said:

The district border is right between them.

Both districts were required to have their own fire station but for improved efficiency and cooperation they built them next to each other.

Seems like an easy fix with tagging. Anyhow it is on the roadmap.

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Sure hope I don't get Covid and die cause I'll be going straight down... For I have Sinned!

 

I spent day 18 and 19 running a Shotgun Factory. (really liked that even though I spent the night at home and returned, the cleared areas were still zed free)

 

Made it to the Rewards with 1 empty backpack slot.

Thought about running back through the maze, while I looked down at my minibike in the parking lot...

Said, F that. and took various dros to get down, emptied what I could into minibike and then nerdpoled back up to the top to get the good dtuff.

 

It's wrong, but I was thinking of all these posts and laughing all the way :biggrin1:

 

...but as I had just started down I saw glowing eyes below me...

and then the sound of a block breaking

then I was falling

Crack Cruntch Squish!

lying there with bones sticking out, blood spurting, wondering what the hell had happened...

then I saw him. Mr. Claws was admiring his razor sharp weapons, then he looked me in the eye for a few seconds, stood up turned and walked off into the dusk, tail held high.

 

no more multiplayer with kitty! :scared:

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17 minutes ago, madmole said:

Seems like an easy fix with tagging. Anyhow it is on the roadmap.

I don't usually advocate for realism, but I find it slightly odd that barns can be found in towns. What are your thoughts on making barns outback POI spawns only? (This is less of a point of criticism and more of a slight nitpick.)

13 minutes ago, madmole said:

Probably best to just get one to spawn then toss grenades or empty an m60 into it and find out yourself rather than go by rumors and theories.

True, I admit I was being a bit lazy there.

 

Edit: I've confirmed that gun fire, molotovs, grenades, etc. do not damage zombie loot bags (and if they do, it requires a tremendous amount of firepower), but rocket HE ammo will eliminate them. I'm quite busy today so I don't have time to test demolisher explosions and TNT right now, but I assume they will achieve identical results to the block-destructive rocket HE ammo.

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17 hours ago, STyK_ said:

if they remove 'E' pick up on frames it will at least cost the player those resources. If they made it so the frames could stack only so high before it collapses that would limit them too. Like MM said, he could make a staircase out of marble to the roof it he wanted but at least it would cost him those resources to do it. Also someone can come along and knock it down. Zeds climbing frames is a great idea combined with what I've mentioned. They have the idea that the drone can do the building that you would need nerd polling for. Its all about discouraging. Honestly the cherry on top would be that unbuilt frames can't hold wait but I can't see MM letting that one happen.

Edit: If I can do it on the hardest of the hard I can't see why people can't start learning how on adventure or whatever you feel your skill lvl is. Anyway, probably going to get a hand slap for bring it up again.

Nerd poling will not matter if you need a key from a zombie to unlock the loot chest. You'll have to go through the whole POI and hit a certain number of volumes before the special one spawns. We haven't done this yet, but it was talked about. Taking out nerd poling is a futile action because you can build ladders etc. Take out the incentive to nerd pole, problem solved.

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12 hours ago, STyK_ said:

Nerd poling, if you've been playing long enough you've probably figured out that having frames on your tool belt is an excellent way to evade zombies. Run up to the side of a building nerd pol up high where they can't get you and rain hell on them till they are dead. Congratulation you pretty much just beat the game using this tactic everywhere until you get enough exp, perks, and weapons to grow some balls and take them on the right way. The more realistic emmersive way. You bat way above your average using that tactic, anyone can beat the game on the hardest difficulty/speed doing that. Take a way the frame and play the game like a man. #$%^#'s!:boxing2:

So the problem isn't necessarily nerd poling, its that you don't like people finding ways to avoid zombies?    Because people could just as easily do what you're saying using 2 columns of frames..... or even concrete blocks if you don't like the re-usability of frames.    So removing nerd poling wouldn't really accomplish what you''re complaining about here.

 

12 hours ago, STyK_ said:

Then there is the problems on multiplayer, loot rooms being short cut to and raided with minimal fighting with zeds, being able to nerd pol to the sky and 'oh$&%drops' into the fortified perimeter of someone base. If you read what I said about security and using the solar panel, pretty much a waste of money when someone can just fall out of the sky with nothing to lose and hack it apart. Not specifically multiplayer but blocking doorways with frames un-upgraded, the cheesy base designs and exploits it helps create. I can come up with more reasons and have. It all goes back to %$&*# tactics.

Again, not really a nerd poling issue, as this can be accomplished without nerd poling.

 

12 hours ago, STyK_ said:

When the game is definitely playable without the frame and all its power. I'm playing Permadeath on Insane Nightmare with 25% loot 64 zed horde nights and doing just fine without it. There is no reason why anyone else should need it on a lower difficulty. Play at the level you think your at without it, its way more rewarding. Everything you do with the frame legitimately is do-able without the frame. 

If it came between me dieing or nerd poling up a wall to get away I'd rather die cause I wouldn't feel like a $##^& afterwards.

Ok, so this really clarifies your point.... it's not nerd poling thats the issue.... you don't like wooden frames.   Just because you can pick them up?    So you probably feel the same way about hay bales or rebar?     No offence, but this sounds an awful lot like "Everyone should play my way, because I do it 'right'"  Games don't really work like that.

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23 minutes ago, madmole said:

Nerd poling will not matter if you need a key from a zombie to unlock the loot chest. You'll have to go through the whole POI and hit a certain number of volumes before the special one spawns. We haven't done this yet, but it was talked about. Taking out nerd poling is a futile action because you can build ladders etc. Take out the incentive to nerd pole, problem solved.

I love the key idea. 

7 minutes ago, Kalen said:

So the problem isn't necessarily nerd poling, its that you don't like people finding ways to avoid zombies?    Because people could just as easily do what you're saying using 2 columns of frames..... or even concrete blocks if you don't like the re-usability of frames.    So removing nerd poling wouldn't really accomplish what you''re complaining about here.

 

Again, not really a nerd poling issue, as this can be accomplished without nerd poling.

 

Ok, so this really clarifies your point.... it's not nerd poling thats the issue.... you don't like wooden frames.   Just because you can pick them up?    So you probably feel the same way about hay bales or rebar?     No offence, but this sounds an awful lot like "Everyone should play my way, because I do it 'right'"  Games don't really work like that.

Can I get an Amen? AAAAAMEN.👏 Well said!

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52 minutes ago, meganoth said:

But you did make unnecessary references to the real word in your first post. I just followed suit. I count the word "realistic" 3 times in that first post of yours. But ok, lets assume that was a mistake (even though you use it again in this post to defend your A16 design) and you just were equating A16 with realism, since it seems emulating A16 is what you really want, right?

 

What you claim is that A16 is a sort of standard that the game has to keep. Because some design in A16 worked it has to work now too? Hey what about a design that worked in A12? Does that need to work in A19 as well?

Generally nearly everything worked in A16, because A16 was trivially easy, a pole you sat upon made in 2 minutes was already enough for the first hordes.

 

PS: I build a base later in A17, (after some AI bug fixes and balances) with catwalks that worked, with two block thick walls that actually held them off and led them to an open corridor. I can show you very different base designs I all made in A17, all worked. And sometimes I made a mistake I had to fix for the next horde night and that worked as well.

PPS: I build a base for the first two horde nights out of a derelict wood shack in A19 and it held up admirably. In SP I always use POIs I adapt slowly to my end-game horde base because it adds variety to my designs.

 

I used the world realistic to separate the base designs in cause from the slaughterhouses players build, I believe that was fairly obvious. As in, something that someone could live in (not necessarily real life) and have permanent entrances, not entrances that you get to by placing down 2 frames and removing them, but anyways.

 

Well, my first base in A19 was made from the destroyed house PoI with the water filled basement (has an ammunition box inside the water) and was holding up pretty well, until zombies "found" a weakness (literally the same blocks throughout the whole house, but these were slightly damaged) in the opposing side where they were originally coming from, and their hive mind AI simply sent them into attacking those 2 single blocks. 

 

And no, not everything has to work, but practical things that look good and are built to protect, should continue to be viable strategies. The example you said "pole sat on", is one of the things that in fact YOU SHOULD remove...Oh and i did have working designs on A17 and A18, otherwise I probably wouldn't be playing the game. The point here is not to see what works, but to ask yourself why don't the others work, when they obviously should? I'm not putting in cause the bases that work, that has never been my point, I merely questioned why do they keep working, but the others don't.

 

Oh and when you have double walls, triple, quadruple, you really SHOULD have it working. But as for someone who is putting concrete walls simply to direct them to the BIG *SS open entrance and mitigate focused damage, it's kinda frustrating when they prefer to break 2 blocks instead of going through an open area with traps (yes, zombies don't know what traps are) or each attack different spots at the same time.

 

But hey, each to their own, i'll make my own final judgments when the game finally comes out.

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The way I see it, nerd poling ain't that big an issue. The people that "cheat" will get to late game stage much faster and become bored. If they become bored with the game faster they leave faster, while I get to continue to appreciate the game with others that are still playing without shortcuts. If it's a solo game they're playing, what's the point of the argument at all? I think the zombie/ key idea is perfect if it could be added in. 

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40 minutes ago, madmole said:

Nerd poling will not matter if you need a key from a zombie to unlock the loot chest. You'll have to go through the whole POI and hit a certain number of volumes before the special one spawns. We haven't done this yet, but it was talked about. Taking out nerd poling is a futile action because you can build ladders etc. Take out the incentive to nerd pole, problem solved.

So I do like the key idea some of the time.   It would get annoying if it was in every POI.   Additionally, you've built a pretty awesome, fully destructible, voxel world.   I'm a little disappointed that using the fact that the world IS fully destructible to, for example, break into a loot room is being categorized (by some people) as cheating or cheezing and that you're looking for ways to remove that ability.   

 

Personally, I do the dungeons following the intended path because I find it fun.... but, in my opinion, you shouldn't remove the ability to break your way into the loot room in every POI.  Use this key idea in some of them, not all.

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18 hours ago, Demandred1957 said:

I think if you guys..literally the "gods" of this virtual world have to turn stuff down from default settings, that should maybe be telling you something..

I challenge all of the fun pimps staff to play on default settings for a month, with the only restriction being self imposed "permadeath".

Then if you can do that, I wont fuss when Madmole wants to add feral night sense or other unbalanced things to the game...

Don't take things out of context. He probably left out the fact that he had hordes every night or two so that may be why he had block damage reduced significantly. Devs don't need to be good at the game they need to be good at their job. There is a portion of the team myself included that does play the game a lot but an animator needs to be good at animating, not knowing every in and out of the game design or being awesome at playing the game. It helps to some degree some more than others but is only critical for a few people on the team such as system designers and people doing balance.

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1 minute ago, GuyFleegman said:

There is no point to the argument, as long as there are both free building and survival mechanics people will manipulate the environment to survive. 

 

 

Real life is a testament to that. Did the people who built our cities, our towns, our monuments use nerd poling? No, but if they could have, it would made things a lot easier. ;) But as the saying goes, life finds a way.

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17 hours ago, STyK_ said:

you guy are going to get me in trouble, I didn't want to start another debate, it was an interesting fact that we share the same opinion.

You might want to elicit some of that self control you claim to be so good at then, but here on the forums instead of in game.

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I asked about these some time ago, and was wondering if TFP would actually include info explaining things the Tool is geared more for in this case breaking up stuff and not always will these be used in Melee but I understand some players will.

 

Is block damage the indication of how much stuff we get when we break down stuff ?

 

This is what I am confused about and consequently I still do not know which out the two is better.

 

Image1.jpg

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2 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

So what, REAL castles where build with thick walls and the understanding that attackers would definitely target the weakest spot on their walls. And attackers focused on it. And they were built so the defenders could shoot on the attackers while they were focusing their attention on getting the wall breached. Oh look, that is just what works perfectly in this game too. You are perfectly fine with such a castle, definitely on default difficulty. And like reality, if the archers don't do their job, the attackers might actually breach the wall and enter the castle.

 

 

 

I want boiling oil!  LOL  although if you guys give the zombies those climbing ladder things that people used to use to go over the walls ... siege ladders I think they were called?  Or catapults...  

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15 hours ago, Demandred1957 said:

whatever. was just pointing out that would hash out if it's a exploit or not really quick.

yeah I think the swimming zom's is broken.

It's a fantasy game based on movie monsters, but still..

no other media that i'm aware of has ever had SWIMMING zombies..

It's op, and immersion breaking for sure.

I know tons of LIVING people that can't swim.. And these undead corpses can do it faster than a athlete...

Dead bodies float though, so all the other zombie fiction completely got it wrong.

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37 minutes ago, Kalen said:

So the problem isn't necessarily nerd poling, its that you don't like people finding ways to avoid zombies?    Because people could just as easily do what you're saying using 2 columns of frames..... or even concrete blocks if you don't like the re-usability of frames.    So removing nerd poling wouldn't really accomplish what you''re complaining about here.

 

Again, not really a nerd poling issue, as this can be accomplished without nerd poling.

 

Ok, so this really clarifies your point.... it's not nerd poling thats the issue.... you don't like wooden frames.   Just because you can pick them up?    So you probably feel the same way about hay bales or rebar?     No offence, but this sounds an awful lot like "Everyone should play my way, because I do it 'right'"  Games don't really work like that.

Most games don't have a hollow box that has unlimited uses that helps them beat the game. Zero survival games have this.

'So the problem isn't necessarily nerd poling' - you described scenarios that would have costed you resources, at least it costed you something. In the current state it costs you nothing, nerd pole up, E pick up down. Even a ladder costs you resources. If you look later where I was talking with Toban there are ways that player made blocks can be cleaned up by the server every however many days. So it will cost you every time you want to go pull off your marble staircase to loot.

'not really a nerd poling issue, as this can be accomplished without nerd poling.' - The base you could do it with a gyrocopter but at the risk of losing your gyrocopter, again there is a cost instead of none. Also some of that is just general issues with the powers of the frame.

 

'Ok, so this really clarifies your point' - I don't like anything you can stack and E pick up making no cost to the player. Again most games and survival games don't allow this at all. But of course single me out cause you think it proves your point.

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2 minutes ago, Jay_ombie said:

I asked about these some time ago, and was wondering if TFP would actually include info explaining things the Tool is geared more for in this case breaking up stuff and not always will these be used in Melee but I understand some players will.

 

Is block damage the indication of how much stuff we get when we break down stuff ?

 

This is what I am confused about and consequently I still do not know which out the two is better.

 

Image1.jpg

block damage just means how fast you damage the block your breaking apart, higher block damage, faster breaking, and you get resources faster, i don't think it affects the amount u get but i could be wrong on that one, i think only scavenger makes a difference in how much stuff, i could be wrong though

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