Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Roland]

17 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

That's good to hear. In any case, the baton would benefit from another superspecial mod (like the repulsor), like a chain eletrocution one or a superslow beam supercharger with tiny ranged capabilities. Pew pew.

 

 

Well....not so fast. I failed to take swing speed into consideration as was pointed out to me by one of the testers. The baton does greater damage than the club but is slower. So overall the one that is best depends on how you play. I realized that I tend to swing weapons at the same pace rather than take advantage of the speed differentials between melee weapons. I don't know why...huh....

[Guppycur]

Seems to me demolishers are backwards.  They should go boom *until* you deactivate them, not the other way around...

[pregnable]

TL;DR version of the intelligence balance discussion is that basically that no matter what settings you play on, you should always spec into strength first. 

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, dcsobral said:

This is a decent analysis, though it treats players being dumb as being a stun baton problem -- just remove the repulsor mod in that case, though. The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

 

The stun baton is faster than people expect so I see a lot of people using it like a club -- with the RoF of a club -- and effectively capping their DPS. That said, here are some weapons that have a higher DPS than the stun baton: the wrench, the claw hammel, the wood club, the candy cane knife and club, the iron fireaxe, the steel shovel.  And, of course, all other T2 and T3 melee weapons except the iron spear.

 

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here's the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

 

A problem with both the robotic turret and the robotic sledge is that they activate demolishers. There are things you can do with the robotic sledge to make it less likely but the robotic sledge seems almost drawn to that green light. You can have it shooting zombies in the back, but sometimes zombies decide they want to go the other way and, then... boom. I never use robotic turrets on my horde base because of that: early game the ammo is too expensive and the turret is not needed, late game it will activate demolishers. And, on top of that, you cannot use sledge and turret at the same time. I use robotic sledges to kill screamers while I mine, and that's all. And that makes all those magazines benefiting robotic turrets useless. It is fun as a novelty but if you stop and think about its effectiveness instead of just using them because they exist, you'll end up not using them.

 

 

Demos are a big problem for the turret but not for the sledge. The sledge is best used high above the ground on a ledge where it pushes zombies down far below (even better into a deep pit). The demo gets pushed and will damage the pit, but nothing that is really important. Well, at least thats how I use it

 

[Blake_]

 

@faatal I have a question:

 

Knowing that armours are on the way, have you heard about legendary weapons from anyone or do you know if they are actually planned for the future? The concern is actually threefold:

 

1-Will they simultaneously make it along with armours for a21? 

2-Will they eventually make it in a future alpha or .....

3- ...... have they been scrapped?  

 

It would be very nice if we can get a "likely" even if it's remote. Thank you beforearm.

 

[Roland]

37 minutes ago, pregnable said:

TL;DR version of the intelligence balance discussion is that basically that no matter what settings you play on, you should always spec into strength first. 

 

If you are looking for a straightforward simple game of attack the zombies by direct damage then yes. The strength build is like classic and basic gameplay. The tools for mining and harvesting, the recipes for food, and the basic club that the tutorial starts you with are all in that build so it is very easy and obvious-- a great build for your first playthrough as a noob or for someone who just likes things straightforward no matter how many times they play.

 

Choosing a different build and ignoring strength for the most part brings new challenges and a different way of playing if you so choose.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Roland (see edit history)

[Matt115]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I distinctly remember that the developers said something about the gun arsenal being done, A20 will just fill in some holes. If you want to be a game designer, get in line, all forum users here are hobby game designers but don't want to work for it. But the only real way to be a game designer is to mod and actually do the work. So, as a free hint: Propose smaller changes with watertight arguments and you might actually see one of your concepts come to reality. Like the newsstand

 

Well about INT :  well now i'm talking in  "what if...." style. I usually i don't speak how it could work from gameplay point of view. I'm focused more into aestetic ( like newsstand and skeletons) and lore that in balance/gameplay systems. Well about change of perks category now we can speaks more in mods/what if  style that  realistic suggestion now what can be changed

[Guppycur]

Seems to me int shouldn't be it's own strategy build type, but rather should be used soley for making item mods.  

 

Everyone wins.  Keep the weird electronics that are essentially mods anyway like the drone under int, move things like turrets to gun with a minor in int. 

Stun baton?  It's basically a club with a mod. 

[meganoth]

2 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Seems to me int shouldn't be it's own strategy build type, but rather should be used soley for making item mods.  

 

Everyone wins. 

 

Except players who actually want to play INT

 

2 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Keep the weird electronics that are essentially mods anyway like the drone under int, move things like turrets to gun with a minor in int. 

Stun baton?  It's basically a club with a mod. 

 

 

[Guppycur]

13 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Except players who actually want to play INT

 

 

 

 

...they're the Linux users of the player base.

 

important?  Sure.  But there's only six of them.

 

/Runs away 

[BFT2020]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Yeah, who I hire to play the strength build for me is nobody else's business!

Haha

 

I was too lazy to check my spelling, though I got it wrong in any case

 

personal vs personnel

 

When I typed it up, I said to myself that word didn't look right.  But that was the extent of my concern this morning on it  😉

33 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Except players who actually want to play INT

Are we talking about players who want to play INT but convinced themselves that you cannot play as an INT player, or those of us that said, yes it is possible and actually play as an INT only player?  😉

[Demonoid74]

I like playing a Strength build because punching @%$# to death is always amazing in any game!

Fist build in Fallout 1 , 2 , Tactics , 3 , New Vegas , 76...and Elder Scrolls games...I just find it fun

 

BUT

 

I also agree that INT , should be a support stat for mods etc then it's own "build" and be an important secondary stat...because come on now , really smart people that are weak will be zombie food just as fast as really strong stupid people!

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Guppycur said:

 

...they're the Linux users of the player base.

 

important?  Sure.  But there's only six of them.

 

/Runs away 

 

Oh, look, another one who elected himself to speak for the majority 😁

Edited October 25, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

16 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Oh, look, another one who elected himself to speak for the majority 😁

Guppy's been doing that since 1971.

[Guppycur]

43 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Oh, look, another one who elected himself to speak for the majority 😁

Lemme know where I did that, thanks.

 

...no? 

[dcsobral]

6 hours ago, hiemfire said:

One of these just requires investing perk points while leveling, the other requires rolling 652 twice on a pair of d1000 at GSy or higher, 652 twice on a pair of d2500 at GSx or lower...

That's just the repulsor mod, and it's not more difficult than, say, crafting 7.62mm AP when you go Perception and Penetrator skill. The AoE depends only on nerd tats, which are readily available from vending machines.

[EggsAisle]

INT stands apart from the other perk trees, no doubt about it. I wouldn't call it a weak tree overall, but I would call it extremely uneven. The trader/quest perks in particular are absurdly strong. The earlier poster talking about having motorcycles and auto-shotguns and chainsaws in 10 days? Yeah, that's INT. It lets you break the normal progression over your knee. It was gloriously fun for a playthrough or two, but after a little experience/optimizing, it started to feel like cheating to me. 

 

At the same time, a lot of the crafting perks (Physician, Grease Monkey, etc.) wound up in INT. In the pre-blueprint days, these were obligatory if you wanted to advance the crafting game. Blueprints made them into shortcut perks, which are extremely useful in the short term and extremely useless in the medium to long term. The devs know this and have been adding functions to them ever since in an effort to make them worthwhile, and I've actually been pretty impressed at their progress so far. They still feel pretty rough and prone to "essential or useless" design, but as the rest of the game takes shape and is refined, they're slowly getting pushed away from both extremes into more situational ground. Which is a much healthier space, IMO.

 

The INT weapons are interesting. On their own, in a straight fight, they're pretty mediocre. That's not really controversial. The disagreement is over whether this disadvantage is outweighed by its other advantages, namely being able to deploy them to fight independently (turrets) or crowd control (baton). Personally, I think the junk sledge is great, the turret is finicky but adequate, and the baton is the same except with a hideously overdone electrocution visual and sound effect. I really, really can't stand it. I don't care if they give batons better than sledgehammer DPS, I'm never using one again until/unless they tone down the obnoxiousness by like 75%. 

 

So we wind up with a tree that consists of wildly overpowered perks (trade and quests), half-cooked leftover perks (crafting), and whatever INT weapons are to you. I don't think the solution is just beefing up some numbers or percentages; fixing INT really involves refining traders, questing, crafting, and other larger systems. Once those are smoothed out, I think INT will start to feel less clunky.

[Treb]

3 hours ago, Demonoid74 said:

I like playing a Strength build because punching @%$# to death is always amazing in any game!

Fist build in Fallout 1 , 2 , Tactics , 3 , New Vegas , 76...and Elder Scrolls games...I just find it fun

 

BUT

 

I also agree that INT , should be a support stat for mods etc then it's own "build" and be an important secondary stat...because come on now , really smart people that are weak will be zombie food just as fast as really strong stupid people!

 

Punching things to death is fortitude in this game. 😁

[Blake_]

4 hours ago, Guppycur said:

 

...they're the Linux users of the player base.

 

important?  Sure.  But there's only six of them.

 

/Runs away 

Seven. Kinyajuu has Linux for sure. 

[Guppycur]

22 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

Seven. Kinyajuu has Linux for sure. 

He and alloc we're 2 of the 6. 😉

[Callum123456789]

The new city tiles districts are looking phenomenal great job pimps 

[Khalagar]

  

8 hours ago, dcsobral said:

This argument is a good example of the Great Intellect Divide. Here are the two sides of this divide:

• Jawoodle perks up early in weapons, and has level 5 in his weapons of choice as his ultimate goal. He hates Intellect.
• I never perk up in weapons until I'm pretty much done with every other skill I might possible want. I love Intellect.

 

I mean, I barely put points into weapons early game too, I almost always rush Miner 69 and the Quest Trader perk. Usually getting 5 strength is priority because it gives sex rex, miner 69, motherlode, Pummel Pete, Shotgun perk, cooking etc, which are all top tier. As others said,  not playing strength is hard mode lol. I'll usually get a point or two of the better quest reward while working on strength, then switch from strength to Int after I get strength to 5 since that gets *most* of the bang for buck from strength

 

I don't even think Int is all *that bad*, I think people are misunderstanding me. It's not really that it's bad, it's more that it's wonky and inconsistent, and there's literally no reason for it. People keep saying "But it's support!" except it's not any more support than Strength is, and "But it's asymmetrical!" to which the reply is "Why is that better?" especially when you say "It's asymmetrical, so use a shotgun and club to fill in Ints weak spots!" which is just . . . a bad argument

 

My point still stands, "What of value would be lost by int having a tier 0 ranged weapon, a tier 3 stun baton?"

 

Having a crappy blow pipe that worked similar to a crappy bow where you could craft ammo for it yourself without relying on bullets would give int an early game option for mediocre damage in return for less scare ammo type, and int just having a tier 3 stun baton type weapon would just give it a more interesting late game, since late game is just "Use a club + shotgun + junk sledges"

Edited October 26, 2021 by Khalagar (see edit history)

[Kalex]

7 hours ago, Guppycur said:

 

...they're the Linux users of the player base.

 

important?  Sure.  But there's only six of them.

 

/Runs away 

OK, where's the other five of you? We need to go hunt down Guppycur.

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Guppycur said:

Lemme know where I did that, thanks.

 

...no? 

 

You spoke for 6 Linux users. Since the actual number is 9 you were clearly speaking for the majority of them.

[Roland]

2 hours ago, Khalagar said:

"But it's asymmetrical!" to which the reply is "Why is that better?" especially when you say "It's asymmetrical, so use a shotgun and club to fill in Ints weak spots!" which is just . . . a bad argument

 

Asymmetrical is better because when you replay the game you get a different experience than you did the last time. Giving intelligence all the equivalent tiers of all the weapon types will result in playing the game the same way that you play other builds by leveling up and progressing through those tiers. It is the same path but you are just exchanging the same tiers of weapons with others of the same tier and the game ends up feeling very samey.

 

It's fine if asymmetrical design doesn't appeal to you. But for those who enjoy playing through the game with a big difference in experience and with different challenges, the way it is right now is great. You have every right to push for equivalency between intelligence weaponry and strength weaponry but it is not a bad argument for us to push for keeping the current design. 

 

We don't see it as picking up a shotgun to fill in the intelligence weak spot, by the way. We see it as having the freedom to use any tier 3 weapon of our choosing in tandem with our robots which gives us a lot of versatility.

 

2 hours ago, Khalagar said:

My point still stands, "What of value would be lost by int having a tier 0 ranged weapon, a tier 3 stun baton?"

 

It would be pointless to have a tier 0 ranged weapon. Who would perk into it without  corresponding T1, T2, and T3 weapons to make spending the points really worthwhile? And if we are just going to add a crappy blowgun to say that intelligence has its own tier 0 weapon but we won't add a perk branch for it, then why not use a bow, or a pipe pistol, or pipe shotgun, or pipe rifle anyway? 

 

If there is no perk line for the ranged weapon then any existing weapon will do. If you add a perk line then it is pointless to stop at tier 0. Players will demand corresponding higher tiers of the same weapon--er-- just like you are demanding a tier 3 for the stun baton.

 

And then once again, we are back to a ranged weapon that will be easily and cheaply perked to max since it resides in the intelligence branch being used in tandem with robot sidekicks. What then? The strength people will want to be able to have "strength mechs" to go with their shotguns and then every branch eventually ends up the same.

 

I'm not against a tier 3 cattle prod thing, per se, as it would be the end of it as the last piece of the baton line. But a tier 0 ranged weapon would not stop at only that. It would just be the beginning of the can of worms and your line I quoted is proof. If you can't be happy without adding a T3 baton, I know you won't be satisfied with just a tier 0 ranged weapon...