Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Jost Amman]

54 minutes ago, Neminsis said:

If you've got bars all around your fighting area that means that the 2 thick walls are somewhere else then, right? 

Look, I'm done talking with you, I don't know where did you get these 2 thick walls from, and you don't know how my base is (I posted a picture before though). You just went with something, got it all wrong, and started giving advice on wrong assumptions. Anyway, just a waste of time for both you and me.

 

[Neminsis]

2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Once the upper block is destroyed and zombies hit on the lower block that distinction is strictly academic to the soon-to-be-dead survivor. 😁

 

Both blocks being bars is obviously more sturdy than bar+plate. Red Eagle surely posted that picture just for comparison of the two types

 

Once the upper block is destroyed they attempt to path over it first, and the lower blocks are still hit less frequently, and if they were to focus the lower block the upper block is then easier to replace. Which the survivor should be already prepared to do since the blocks no longer downgrade. 

If he'd posted with bars in both the upper and lower positions then my answer would've been the same even though they had exactly the same hps.

I don't know what his reasons for posting the comparison, but from my perspective he posted a problem and I posted a solution.

[Red Eagle LXIX]

52 minutes ago, Neminsis said:

Plates can be doubled up, and because the lower plates will be hit much less frequently than the second block up their effective hps are still higher. The Z's are going to focus that second block up and attempt to go over the lower block. 

So I can double the bars too.

 

21 minutes ago, Neminsis said:

And still the Z behavior means that the second block up will take more hits than the lower one and the effective hps of the lower block will still be higher.

I could put the bars on the ground and get more strength than the plates.  I am not sure what your point is here.  Meanwhile the bars are still thinner than the plates they would replace. 

Your argument that the bars should be stronger because they are more where the zombies hit more often (if that is your point) supports the idea that only certain playstyles should be allowed.

 

14 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Both blocks being bars is obviously more sturdy than bar+plate. Red Eagle surely posted that picture just for comparison of the two types

Exactly, I was showing that it made no sense a thinner block was stronger than a thicker one.  Bars are thinner by a small amount at their thickest points and significantly thinner at the bars themselves.

 

[gpcstargate]

17 hours ago, Roland said:

 

lol...That change to LOTL 2 was planned even before experimental dropped but there was not time to implement it. It was not added because of some complaining. It was added to the very first patch that was available after experimental released.  Nice try though.

 

So now there is a bigger chance that they will break through but has anyone tested it on a horde night? Did they die? Did they have to alternate between melee and repair? I just wonder exactly how bad it is now. If zombies never had even a chance of breaking through before but now there is a chance but it can still be managed by effective horde night management-- it might turn out to be a more thrilling affair.

 

Or it may turn out to be a disaster. Are there any videos that can be linked? I'd like to see a horde night where the zombies possibly break through where before they never ever did.

 

I get the upset over the poles for melee defense on horde night. How do the plates destroy your building plans exactly? What were you using them for where 10000 hp were a must and 5000 hp are game killing?

 

I use plates as a support for floating base designs ... along with pipe.  First picture is the older style and the second picture is the Newer style using current parts in game and a much nicer and cleaner look to it with the catwalks.

Also That's a lot of steel that just went to waste and many hours of game time.

[Mechanimal]

Boy oh boy, talk about opening Pandoras Box with this block change.

Shame cause the launch of A20 was so smooth, aside from maybe the farming change(I can farm just fine, so twas worry over nothing imho).  Nearly everyone, including myself, seemed so excited... for like a week. Now no one knows what is going to happen by the time this issue settles back down and gets finalized. Wish we at least got more time with it before it got so obfuscated and unhinged all of a sudden. This could honestly turn into a never ending series of adjustments over what block has what HP, and costs what, gives x amount of HP, etc and so on. How are you going to let players know those stats in the menu? Will block menus now have tiers/sorting for block strength? Jfc you pulled off making a menu of nearly 1400 shapes not seem overwhelming or confusing, it was great,... and then this, trainwrecked it.

The change just causes a TON of turbulence when things were smooth, exciting even, like a new toolbox opened up... aaand was suddenly shut.

Like, this change should have been hashed out behind the scenes, first, even for an alpha, imho. Releasing it in the state it was, which I saw no one, no one, complain about, and then pulling this move a mere week into the alpha, which has tons of players now in base-building limbo, is a weird af decision. Any dev input on this(it's been mainly us so far) would be greatly appreciated. Like, xplain to me, please, why you do dis?

[Neminsis]

12 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Look, I'm done talking with you, I don't know where did you get these 2 thick walls from, and you don't know how my base is (I posted a picture before though). You just went with something, got it all wrong, and started giving advice on wrong assumptions. Anyway, just a waste of time for both you and me.

 

The use of "inside" blocks and "outside" blocks in your precious post implies two layers of walls. I do apologize if I misunderstood. I obviously haven't seen your particular base, but another solution would be to add sheets to the outside of the half blocks bring their effective hps up. Sure, this creates the argument that you now have a higher resource cost for the same layout, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to change your layout.

Shame that you're so easily done with me since I've enjoyed this discussion so far.

[MechanicalLens]

6 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

Boy oh boy, talk about opening Pandoras Box with this block change.

Shame cause the launch of A20 was so smooth, aside from maybe the farming change(I can farm just fine, so twas worry over nothing imho).  Nearly everyone, including myself, seemed so excited... for like a week. Now no one knows what is going to happen by the time this issue settles back down and gets finalized. Wish we at least got more time with it before it got so obfuscated and unhinged all of a sudden. This could honestly turn into a never ending series of adjustments over what block has what HP, and costs what, gives x amount of HP, etc and so on. How are you going to let players know those stats in the menu? Will block menus now have tiers/sorting for block strength? Jfc you pulled off making a menu of nearly 1400 shapes not seem overwhelming or confusing, it was great,... and then this, trainwrecked it.

The change just causes a TON of turbulence when things were smooth, exciting even, like a new toolbox opened up... aaand was suddenly shut.

Like, this change should have been hashed out behind the scenes, first, even for an alpha, imho. Releasing it in the state it was, which I saw no one, no one, complain about, and then pulling this move a mere week into the alpha, which has tons of players now in base-building limbo, is a weird af decision. Any dev input on this(it's been mainly us so far) would be greatly appreciated. Like, xplain to me, please, why you do dis?

 

I've personally seen tremendous support for this change from the community, but maybe that's just my experience. The top two arguments I'm seeing is that this is great for immersion and that this change should have been made years ago, while others praise this as the final nail in the coffin for melee and cheese bases alike.

 

Note: I'm personally not a fan of the change myself. But I doubt TFP will revert it. Tinker with it, absolutely. Balance it, if need be, absolutely. But now, it is what it is, unless you mod the changes out.

[meganoth]

9 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

...
Like, this change should have been hashed out behind the scenes tested in experimental first, even for an alpha, imho. Releasing it in the state it was, which I saw no one, no one, complain about, and then pulling this move a mere week into the alpha, which has tons of players now in base-building limbo, is a weird af decision. Any dev input on this(it's been all us so far) would be greatly appreciated. Like, xplain to me, please, why you do dis?

 

There, corrected it for you. 😁

 

My adivce; Play stable.

 

[Neminsis]

9 minutes ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

So I can double the bars too.

 

I could put the bars on the ground and get more strength than the plates.  I am not sure what your point is here.  Meanwhile the bars are still thinner than the plates they would replace. 

Your argument that the bars should be stronger because they are more where the zombies hit more often (if that is your point) supports the idea that only certain playstyles should be allowed.

 

Exactly, I was showing that it made no sense a thinner block was stronger than a thicker one.  Bars are thinner by a small amount at their thickest points and significantly thinner at the bars themselves.

 

I'm literally saying that this change isn't going to really be as consequential in this actual use/case that it's going to make a particular playstyle untenable.  The total hps of any particular block isn't the only mechanic in play, and in this case not even the most important one. 

I do agree that it doesn't make sense that the bars have higher hps than the plates, but are you really asking that the bars should likewise be lowered? 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

6 minutes ago, Neminsis said:

I'm literally saying that this change isn't going to really be as consequential in this actual use/case that it's going to make a particular playstyle untenable.  The total hps of any particular block isn't the only mechanic in play, and in this case not even the most important one. 

I do agree that it doesn't make sense that the bars have higher hps than the plates, but are you really asking that the bars should likewise be lowered? 

Yes, it would only make sense for bars to be lowered under this system.  They should have less HP than the thicker solid plate they are sitting upon.

That is why I even said:

13 hours ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

Were bars missed in having HP reduced or was that purposeful?  They are thinner than plate.

Then followed with this post that had screenshots showing the difference in both HP and thickness.

1 hour ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

I'm still curious if not lowering the HP of bars was a mistake or intended.

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

Yes, it would only make sense for bars to be lowered under this system.  They should have less HP than the thicker solid plate they are sitting upon.

 

I'm surprised that they don't have lower HP right now. What's stopping people from making horde bases consisting almost entirely out of bars? You think the pole defenses of old were effective, this might become the new meta unless TFP...

Not complaining or taking sides on this, just observing.

[JCrook1028]

On 12/16/2021 at 5:46 PM, Khalagar said:

I'm pretty sure "boss horde" is the internal term for the spam of high level sleepers that guard the loot room at the end of a PoI

No, a Boss Horde is a Twitch Integration thing that can be spawned.

[Callum123456789]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

I just realized it takes over 2 minutes to craft a steel block... Right... 😛

some recipes in the game really makes me miss the quicker crafting perk that was under miscellaneous in the old skill tree that perk was so good for base building.

[gpcstargate]

Just a thought ... the Finished product of many hours and Now I will have to rethink it ... if plates stay as they are now.

 

Everyone Have a Great Weekend ... the Old Gamer .. 😌

[Aldranon]

So...

 

Should I mention that building a "Cliff Hanging" BM base, against the trader wall below ground, is completely invincible if done correctly?

 

I do that only if I tire of repairing my "Brute force" base.  Rule of thumb is if it takes a full day to repair then its time to quit or go cliff hanging. 

I don't normally waste ammo on zombies for BM, but the nice loot bags you can get are starting to change my mind.

 

I know, I'm not doing it "right". 

 

[JCrook1028]

On 12/17/2021 at 2:32 AM, Eighmy_Lupin said:

He clearly isn't building with them too much if it's OK with making most of them useless..... Ugly square towers are once again the only viable build. Are you sure y'all aren't members of some weird HOA? All bases/houses MUST be build the same! Any variety or originality MUST be crushed.

 

Also doesn't change the fact he nerfed/removed a bunch of other things this Alpha because he didn't like that others were using then in a way he didn't like.... I mean he flat out admitted that when people were asking about the farming and workbench changes. He very clearly believes his playstyle, his goals in game and what gives him a sense of satisfaction is the ONLY playstyle/goals/satisfaction. 

 

He often claims sweeping statements like "players feel X about Y" only to be met with players going "no that's not how we feel" and instead of listening he just tells them they are wrong about how they feel. 

 

So many this one dumb @$$ change isn't his doing, plenty of others were.

I would expect the game to be developed how the owner of the game wants it to be..... Joel is an owner... Making the game according to the players is a huge mistake.

[Mechanimal]

26 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

I've personally seen tremendous support for this change from the community, but maybe that's just my experience. The top two arguments I'm seeing is that this is great for immersion and that this change should have been made years ago, while others praise this as the final nail in the coffin for melee and cheese bases alike.

 

Note: I'm personally not a fan of the change myself. But I doubt TFP will revert it. Tinker with it, absolutely. Balance it, if need be, absolutely. But now, it is what it is, unless you mod the changes out.

I actually buy the realism argument or less mass = less HP, ok. But then I look at the array of ~1400 shapes and think, how are they going to calculate that? Is a one pole piece the same as a 3 pole piece? Are they taking into account angular support? Are they going to just calculate volume on each piece multiplied by a set HP value per cubic meter, etc etc, and so on. That's what I meant by opening Pandoras Box... but I used the wrong box metaphor, this is definitely a Can of Worms situation. We went from smooth and set conditions, that managed taking an enormous library of shapes and presenting them in a surprisingly well working menu system that was even easy to navigate. That alone is hard to do in the first place, but then introduce a "simple" variable like this and... pffft.. there it goes, good luck EVER getting those worms back into that can again. Base building is going to be far more complicated now. Will I hate it? Well if, and I do mean IF, they get these worms back in the can, I might honestly prefer it, because I do like realism... when implemented well.

I do a lot of physical engineering irl, so IF done well I should end up liking this, hopefully. But aside from robots I also worked a ton in natural history, mostly birds and dinosaurs, point being I am very familiar with how the SHAPE of mass contributes to strength, example being bird bones. Far less mass but just as strong, I implemented this many times in irl robot designs(one even ended up in the Smithsonian), so I USED to do a lot of this in my bases, honeycombing and framework, the new pole shapes(corner angles and 3-way) were perfect, preserving strength but increases visibility, and WOULD be strong irl. Now I can't, even though I KNOW it would work irl. This is yet another aspect of what I mean by invoking next level realism being a can of worms. They won't get it right, maybe close, eventually, but it is always going to have flaws, where-as before it just had it's own flavor of physics, as all games inevitably do since they cannot fully embrace reality down to the atoms and quantum field behaviors(mass/gravity, light, etc).

I always try to make my bases look real, structurally sound, but now I can't even do that, because the block HP is "complex generic" in it's distribution, and always will be, now.

I dunno, just sad that it worked as-is and I was on an adventure with it, had a few neat structures built, with a growing plethora of new ideas and plans, then poof, now I have just turned off horde nights altogether and will explore the new cities and POIs until these gatdang worms get the F back in their mf-ing can.

[Aldranon]

35 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

I would expect the game to be developed how the owner of the game wants it to be..... Joel is an owner... Making the game according to the players is a huge mistake.

 

So, there is intelligent life here! 

But seriously, the only way a dev can make a fun game is if its fun for them.  Otherwise they're lost.

[Jay_ombie]

• Several pipe weapons have random stats. No primitive items should have any. 

 

I find that a little poopy for varied weapon findings. I could find 2/3 same level coloured guns but before they had slightly different stats for comparison this made it fun to still look out for them and find the 'better' one.

[Gamida]

15 hours ago, Roland said:

...or damsels tied to railroad tracks.

 

OMG, we are finally getting trains! Toot Toot...all aboard

[Aldranon]

27 minutes ago, Gamida said:

OMG, we are finally getting trains! Toot Toot...all aboard

 

I asked for airships... I get trains.

Hopefully they're at least Maglev trains...

[JCrook1028]

15 hours ago, Eighmy_Lupin said:

Ah yes someone dares disagrees with you better insult their mental health and talk down to them.

When someone posts as a whiny child they get treated as a whiny child.

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

When someone posts as a whiny child they get treated as a whiny child.

 

And as the saying goes, "Never say anything you wouldn't want to listen to yourself.", or alternatively, "Never say anything you wouldn't want someone to say to you."

[Kosmic Kerman]

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

nope? Wood frames after upgrade became wood block. so Make rebar was quiet pointless if you wanted to get a lot of exp fast

 

I don't think TFP needs to buff XP just so people can power level at the same efficiency they used to. You can always turn up the XP slider if you want to level faster. 

 

 

20 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

I actually buy the realism argument or less mass = less HP, ok. But then I look at the array of ~1400 shapes and think, how are they going to calculate that? Is a one pole piece the same as a 3 pole piece.

I dunno, just sad that it worked as-is and I was on an adventure with it, had a few neat structures built, with a growing plethora of new ideas and plans, then poof, now I have just turned off horde nights altogether and will explore the new cities and POIs until these gatdang worms get the F back in their mf-ing can.

 

I don't know if you've taken a look at the blocks but they've done a pretty reasonable job separating the full HP blocks from the partial HP blocks (with the exception of the bars I guess).  In terms of being sad that stuff that once worked in an Exp Beta build, no longer work, I would suggest waiting for Stable.  Don't expect any sort of permanence in experimental.

 

[Neminsis]

36 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

Just a thought ... the Finished product of many hours and Now I will have to rethink it ... if plates stay as they are now.

 

Everyone Have a Great Weekend ... the Old Gamer .. 😌

Nice build.

I don't think that you'll have to worry much about those plate supports though as the Z's are more likely to path through that space than attack the blocks themselves and you've got a lot of redundancy in your supports even so.