Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[stallionsden]

38 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Okay let me ask a question. Where the @%$# has the " Survivor been for 50 years?

If it is 50 years later... Why isn't the hummer exposed to the elements become nothing but rust?

How can you have the skill to build a mini bike from scratch and not be able to fix a hummer engine?

Tied up by the misses. Why where have you been.

 

Where the zombies come from.. why do we have zombies for since your looking at realism. No such thing as zombies. 

 

A survivors wouldn't know how to use a m16 so how all of a sudden the survivor learn to use it at all.

 

The hummer is dead.

 

Haven't seen a hummer in vanilla at all tho so where is this hummer... 

19 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Well it doesn't matter I found a mod that does just what I wanted. 

It has a massive list of cars and truck.

There have been mods for many alphas that have added these lol. 

[[email protected]]

1 minute ago, stallionsden said:

A survivors wouldn't know how to use a m16 so how all of a sudden the survivor learn to use it at all.

Really? The survivor can't use an M-16 machine gun. But can immediately build Hogwarts. What the @%$#? 

[stallionsden]

1 minute ago, [email protected] said:

Really? The survivor can't use an M-16 machine gun. But can immediately build Hogwarts. What the @%$#? 

Really so there are hummers in the game... show me.. not a mod either. 

[[email protected]]

1 minute ago, stallionsden said:

so there are hummers in the game.

There are cars, Trucks, Jeeps, moter cycles and troop transports.

When Neebs Gaming built the tower of death there was a hummer in the thumb nail.

[stallionsden]

4 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

There are cars, Trucks, Jeeps, moter cycles and troop transports.

When Neebs Gaming built the tower of death there was a hummer in the thumb nail.

So you saw a mod a streamer had modded into his game hahahahahaha

[madmole]

2 hours ago, [email protected] said:

I did read the Release notes. Other than the guns and drone.  Everything else is reskins or visual improvements. No new tools. No new traps. No new vehicles.   

Dude, it's so much better than A19. 1000's of new building shapes, vehicle mods, new primitive pipe guns, massive balancing changes, zombies spawn, biome difficulty and improved loot/game stage in harder biomes. Cities have more zombies. I could go on and on about how you can just get lost in random gen now. I could tell you how immersive it is, but that is something you will just experience for yourself. I could argue about all kinds of things, but at the end of the day the build just feels amazing in ways that release notes can't describe.



 

[[email protected]]

3 minutes ago, stallionsden said:

So you saw a mod a streamer had modded into his game hahahahahaha

The people who run Neebs gaming Swear to god. They don't use Mods.

[khzmusik]

17 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

There are cars, Trucks, Jeeps, moter cycles and troop transports.

 

And, why didn't you jump for joy when these were added to the game as non-drivable vehicles? Why didn't you create an account at that time just to praise TFP, rather than create an account now to swear at them for not adding them as drivable vehicles?

 

I can hazard a guess. It's because those vehicles are little more than new models that did the same thing as the sedans that have been in the game forever. You loot them, you wrench them for parts, they have possibly a different amount of storage in which to put your gubs while you're looting.

 

If they made them drivable vehicles, how would that be any different? You'd drive them like you drive the jeep or motorcycle, probably have a bit more storage, a bit higher fuel consumption, a bit lower top speed compared to the motorcycle.

 

But the basic gameplay wouldn't be affected very much, any more than it was affected when the vehicles were introduced as non-drivable. Different stats but nothing new for the game loop.

 

IMHO that's not even comparable to the other stuff that made it into the game. The new POIs themselves add more than that.

 

EDIT: I should be clear, I would also love to see drivable versions of these vehicles. It would be neat. But if that never makes it into the game, the proper response is "oh well" and a shrug.

 

Now if they introduced something into the game that would change the game loop, that's another story. For example, other games have vehicles that you find in the world, but they can be fixed up and driven. It would change the game loop because the early game would be the part where you are mobile and drive around the world, then when you run out of resources (like gas) you can't use them anymore, and that's the stage where you start base building. Something like that would literally be a game changer. But it's not why you came here and swore about everything.

[[email protected]]

1 minute ago, khzmusik said:

Why didn't you create an account at that time just to praise TFP,

When I was playing the game and saw a troop transport truck.

The first thing that came to mind was can I drive that?

When I could not I asked myself. " Why is this here? "

The troop transport truck didn't have camo clothes, helmets , guns or anything military in it.

I got a pick axe from the cab. Why does a troop transport  truck at a missile base have a pick axe in it?

[khzmusik]

18 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

When I could not I asked myself. " Why is this here? "

 

Please re-read my reply and ask yourself the same question about drivable vehicles. Why would they be there? What would that add to the game loop? Etc.

 

EDIT: That logic could just as easily be used as an argument for removing them from the game altogether. "If I can't drive them they shouldn't be in the game." Personally I would prefer that they stay, even if I could never drive them.

[POCKET951]

7 hours ago, hiemfire said:

That would be a change since in A19 the increase in harvest return was +1 at rank 1 and +2 at rank 3 meaning it'd be capped at 4 per plant if there was no change.

A19 Living off the Land Rank 1

A19 Living off the Land Rank 3

 

I saw Alpha 20 living off the land on a stream. Rank 3 is Tripple the harvest, and if base harvest is +2, you should get 6 per seed

and its 50% to get a seed, my concern is if you get super bad RNG and you get a third back in new seeds.

is it 50% random, or is it pseudo RNG so that you will ALWAYS get a seed every other harvest

theoretically every other crop yields a seed, but RNG can be really fickle and brutal sometimes, even at 50%

like taking a look at 10 coin flips, ideally you would get 5/5, but I think something like 7/3 or 6/4 are both very possible. if you harvested 10 crops and only got 3 or 4 seeds back that would feel @%$#ty. but then maybe you would get 6 or 7

 

Idk, I don't like that negative/frustrating or annoying outcomes exist because you can get really unlucky sometimes and it just sucks

[Laz Man]

5 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

I saw Alpha 20 living off the land on a stream. Rank 3 is Tripple the harvest, and if base harvest is +2, you should get 6 per seed

and its 50% to get a seed, my concern is if you get super bad RNG and you get a third back in new seeds.

is it 50% random, or is it pseudo RNG so that you will ALWAYS get a seed every other harvest

theoretically every other crop yields a seed, but RNG can be really fickle and brutal sometimes, even at 50%

like taking a look at 10 coin flips, ideally you would get 5/5, but I think something like 7/3 or 6/4 are both very possible. if you harvested 10 crops and only got 3 or 4 seeds back that would feel @%$#ty. but then maybe you would get 6 or 7

 

Idk, I don't like that negative/frustrating or annoying outcomes exist because you can get really unlucky sometimes and it just sucks

 

Testers have tried the change and it is still possible to be sustainable when perked up.  Of course balancing is ongoing.  We will see where things land.

[khzmusik]

13 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

I saw Alpha 20 living off the land on a stream. Rank 3 is Tripple the harvest, and if base harvest is +2, you should get 6 per seed

and its 50% to get a seed, my concern is if you get super bad RNG and you get a third back in new seeds.

is it 50% random, or is it pseudo RNG so that you will ALWAYS get a seed every other harvest

theoretically every other crop yields a seed, but RNG can be really fickle and brutal sometimes, even at 50%

like taking a look at 10 coin flips, ideally you would get 5/5, but I think something like 7/3 or 6/4 are both very possible. if you harvested 10 crops and only got 3 or 4 seeds back that would feel @%$#ty. but then maybe you would get 6 or 7

 

Idk, I don't like that negative/frustrating or annoying outcomes exist because you can get really unlucky sometimes and it just sucks

 

I guarantee that this is going to be the biggest controversy about the A20 changes. I watched one streamer this weekend who went off on a five-minute rant about it.

 

Personally I like this change, because farming was OP. Once you set up a farm you had zero chance of ever needing food again. This system at least makes you work for it.

 

But even with these changes, getting the max perk means you get at least 6 "fruits" per harvest, which is enough to make one seed and have one fruit left over. So even if the RNG gods give you no seeds, you still have enough for a sustainable garden plus  one fruit. But statistically you'll get 1.5 seeds per harvest, which still allows you to grow your farm, gathering more and more fruits in the long run.

 

At the worst it will force you to supplement your food using the many, many canned goods you inevitably find in the world that you hardly ever use in late game. So I personally don't think it's anything to complain about.

 

EDIT: I do have one suggestion though - higher perk levels should give you a higher percentage of getting a seed back. So, with no perks there's a 50% chance of getting a seed back, while at the highest perk there's (say) a 75% chance. I think this would be reasonable and would also calm the critics who would complain that the perk isn't worth it.

[Blake_]

I find a20 significantly polished for an experimental. Issues that I could see making a bit of damage:

 

-Pipe bombs cost exactly the same as normal grenades. Unknown about the other explosives. Easy to fix.

 

-Generator quest shows 0/-1 on clients upon admin completion (p2p). 

 

- Buried supplies quests can be located at the exact same spot as a previous one (both multi and singleplayer, though significantly more common the more players are in a server picking buried supplies quests). Also happened in a19. Solution: buried supplies has to have a check across players that avoids repeating the same location as much as possible (until the world runs out of landscape )

[Aldranon]

My few hours of viewing some streamers have highlighted how fun the cities now are!

In the city, the first 24 hours you can find dogs and police.  Its deadly and you cant just run anywhere without some risk.

 

Outside the city is safer but its all risk/reward so cities are the thing IMO.  Will max out cities on my second play though.

 

Perfect game IMO.

[Laz Man]

It will get even more polished.  Been on team chats throughout the day discussing lots of feedback from the stream event so far.  There has already been some updates already...

 

It amazes me how fast some people work...😄

[khzmusik]

3 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

My few hours of viewing some streamers have highlighted how fun the cities now are!

In the city, the first 24 hours you can find dogs and police.  Its deadly and you cant just run anywhere without some risk.

 

Outside the city is safer but its all risk/reward so cities are the thing IMO.  Will max out cities on my second play though.

 

Perfect game IMO.

 

I agree, the RWG changes regarding cities (and tiles) are without a doubt the best thing that will come out of this alpha.

 

I cannot wait to see all the crazy crap that modders and POI designers will do with custom tiles. Elevated railways, subway systems, tagged POIs, etc.

[POCKET951]

26 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Testers have tried the change and it is still possible to be sustainable when perked up.  Of course balancing is ongoing.  We will see where things land.

sorry if I seem skeptical of 50% RNG, I have played alot  path of exile and there is just so much RNG in that game that it can be frustrating sometimes when your luck is awful

I am glad TFP made the change and are aware of it, and that it is something that can be balanced and adjusted as needed. Farming was def too OP in alpha 19

I imagine if the RNG feels to crappy a  slight buff to LoTL would be to make it so seeds cost 1 less plant to craft..(4). If it was a 40% reduction to cost(3 blueberries to make a blueberry seed  it would make seeds only cost 3 and that would seem too good

[khzmusik]

1 minute ago, POCKET951 said:

a  slight buff to LoTL would be to make it so seeds cost 1 less plant to craft.

 

That's a pretty good idea, and even if TFP don't implement it, that should be easy to mod in. Probably better than my idea of increasing the chance of getting a seed (which I don't know if that is open to modding).

[Jost Amman]

7 hours ago, bdubyah said:

I'm saying they should make it that way so you at least have to get to the trader and hope, or stumble across a working bench somewhere else. They keep making the beginning of the game easier when there's not much of a mid or late game yet.

 

Also seems to help this along there is also all the ingredients to make a pipe weapon in every container you loot. Really hope there's more balancing coming, but I doubt it. Ammo was already too abundant, but you usually didn't find a gun right off the bat so it kind of worked. But now you can just craft one within about 5 minutes of starting a game. Just feels like it's going the wrong way to me, is all.

I don't see any difference with how crafting a BB worked.

Why should pipe weapons be different? 

[Khalagar]

Another thing I'm confused on as far as the "You already did tons of work so . . . why not make it usable??" line of thought, is why are there no new T5's? 200+ new POI but none are t5's even though some seem as big or hard etc. Seems really weird to me to not just flag a couple as T5 for now to expand the end game more and then work on the "story t5s" later

[CoolJ]

8 hours ago, Roland said:

 There was a lot of discussion about this in the dev chat. Same concerns you are voicing were raised and assessed and after testing it they felt it was viable. You'll have to try playing it to see how it feels for you. The farming change is one we knew would be one of those controversial polarizing A20 features...

 

This was a mistake. Not having to replant the entire garden every time was a feature. If you want to slow down crops, make them take longer to grow. The whole RNG and replant thing is bad design. There was a reason farming was changed so we didn't have to replant each time. Because it isn't fun and it isn't necessary. They already grow at a pace that is comically fast anyway. At least they did in A19. There is no reason to force us to replant and then give some trash RNG. The other system was better, even if it was too fast.

[Jost Amman]

5 hours ago, [email protected] said:

So your @%$#ing telling me that the Fun Pimps have had a year or more to up date this game.

But the only weapons they added were some FALLOUT rip off pipe weapons.

Everyone who has played Fall Out knows that pipe weapons are convenient when starting out

but immediately are discarded once something better comes along.

When I heard about this Update I was excited.

But the moment I read the details about the poor excuse of update.

Any excitement I had vanished instantly.

I wanted to apply for the weekend steamer event until I discovered the update details.   

Oh man! ... of all the people with no clue, you win the cup for the most clueless player in the entire world lol 

4 hours ago, Khalagar said:

I feel like that probably isn't intentional, assuming you can scrap it and get robotic parts, since the devs are / were super against robotic parts week one for what ever reason. I don't know if it gives parts though, as it seems just unrelated to intellect now tbh

 

Honestly the drone just being unrelated to the robotic line and the robotic line getting a real t3 item of it's own would alleviate a lot of the issues with it, although I do still find it really weird for it to not be marketed and more impactful for the amount of time and hype (from fans, the devs have hated talking about it since day 1) surrounding it lol

 

If it is a t0 item it would make it a bit less sad since it wouldn't be competing with head lamp mods and pocket jeeps for utility

From what I understood, the drone is a very important step towards the addition of Bandits in A21.

After all, if an "NPC" is already able to navigate the world, follow you and execute simple commands, then you have 20/30% of the Bandits/NPC AI already done IMO.

[CoolJ]

Just now, Jost Amman said:

Oh man! ... of all the people with no clue, you win the cup for the most clueless player in the entire world lol 

Indeed. Those pipe weapons look awesome. I can already see my self doing runs where I am only allowed to use pipe weapons. Or a theme run like a cowboy run. Look, at that, there is already a revolver available from the start of the game now. I just wish it was single action. Seems to me like it should be. A single action revolver is a lot easier to improvise than a dual action one. I get the magnum should be dual action because that style of revolver is dual action. The pipe version should be single action. Maybe later they could add a fan fire ability in gunslinger.

 

[POCKET951]

lets just make an example with how it currently works

say we plant 10 Blue berry seeds and we have living off the land 3

we will get back 60 fruit and 50% chance to get seeds

say were unlucky and we only get 4/10 back

we plant the 4, and then craft 6 x 5 (30) so were left with 30 blueberries.

 

Seems reasonable. you could get super lucky and get 7 out of 10 though and only spend 15 blueberries replanting and net 45

 

suppose you get really unlucky..you get only 2 seeds back... you used 40 blueberries to replant and you still net 20 ..you can still make stuff and sustain

honestly these changes seem reasonable

however, it makes farming much more laborious and tedious

I know it isn't in A20, but if farming is going to be this  micro intensive than I think having a farming tool for A21 to speed up the process would be really nice