Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[MechanicalLens]

The Urban Combat book that increases damage done and decreases damage received while indoors... What counts as "indoors" exactly? And does this include player-built structures or just POI's?

Edited December 4, 2021 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[KhaineGB]

I'm pretty sure that's in A19. It's a cvar check for "IsIndoors" last I checked.

Not 100% sure how it works though. I'll have to go DLL diving later.

[[email protected]]

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.   

[Laz Man]

22 minutes 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.   

 

Alot more was added then just a few weapons.  Check out the release notes and watch some streams.

[Khalagar]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

The farming change is one we knew would be one of those controversial polarizing A20 features...

 

Any mentions of the state of the drone in those chats lol

 

I'm glad it's finally in but so sad at the experimental version, but I had a bad feeling when every single dev purposely avoided every single drone question for over a year. It definitely confuses me on TFP spending thousands (almost certainly tens of thousands) of dollars on a year worth of dev hours + graphical design time + sound design etc to make the drone, but not make it more interesting than a flying storage box.

 

I figured it would be a major capstone of A20 and one of the forefront "Look what we added!!" features,  but it's barely mentioned at all on the dev pages and streams etc . . . which indicates to me that they kind of acknowledge it's state of being so minor. I'm pretty sure the dancing zombie twitch stuff and the pipe pistol has way more marketing than the drone lol. The drone barely got like a one line note in the patch notes, that wasn't even correct

 

It seems like robotic turret shotgun shells where it's like, the idea is neat but the execution is ???? and could def use some tweaking to make the end result more useful / important. Not even about being "stronger' so much as more interesting and having more utility than "it's better than not having it at all I guess". Well the drone  not being  stronger damage wise, shotgun turret ammo does need to be stronger since that crap is flat out trash sadly

[MechanicalLens]

3 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

Any mentions of the state of the drone in those chats lol

 

I'm glad it's finally in but so sad at the experimental version, but I had a bad feeling when every single dev purposely avoided every single drone question for over a year. It definitely confuses me on TFP spending thousands (almost certainly tens of thousands) of dollars on a year worth of dev hours + graphical design time + sound design etc to make the drone, but not make it more interesting than a flying storage box.

 

I figured it would be a major capstone of A20 and one of the forefront "Look what we added!!" features,  but it's barely mentioned at all on the dev pages and streams etc . . . which indicates to me that they kind of acknowledge it's state of being so minor. I'm pretty sure the dancing zombie twitch stuff and the pipe pistol has way more marketing than the drone lol. The drone barely got like a one line note in the patch notes, that wasn't even correct

 

It seems like robotic turret shotgun shells where it's like, the idea is neat but the execution is ???? and could def use some tweaking to make the end result more useful / important. Not even about being "stronger' so much as more interesting and having more utility than "it's better than not having it at all I guess". Well the drone  not being  stronger damage wise, shotgun turret ammo does need to be stronger since that crap is flat out trash sadly

 

(Spoilers) Considering that JaWoodle found one on day 1, unless that's not intentional, they're not an end-game find as they were once advertised, so that's some additional info right there

Edited December 4, 2021 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[Khalagar]

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

Edited December 4, 2021 by Khalagar (see edit history)

[khzmusik]

34 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Alot more was added then just a few weapons.  Check out the release notes and watch some streams.

 

You added more Alots? That's great, they're better than me at everything.

[[email protected]]

41 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Alot more was added then just a few weapons.  Check out the release notes and watch some streams.

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.   

[stallionsden]

6 minutes 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.   

You sure you read them. There is a tonne of great things above pipe weapons addedadded that we have read and seen to a20.  

 

No where do the Pimps say they were gonna add more vehicles. What we have is what we get. We get mods for vehicles and ability to re texture them tho. If you want more vehicles there is this whole thread with community made mods you can grab more vehicles. 

 

There are new zs, tiles etc I could go on... 

[Laz Man]

4 minutes 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.   

 

The new random gen system and the new shape system are the biggest features imo in this Alpha.  Hopefully the next Alpha will have something more appealing to you if those don't interest you.

 

There are no plans on anymore new weapons, tools or vehicles AFAIK.  Keep in mind the devs are pushing for gold to complete the features they planned on their roadmap/kickstarter so I doubt any of the things you listed will have more added prior to the 1.0 release.

[Khalagar]

19 minutes 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.   

 

The point of A20 was mostly world gen and adding 200+ new PoI which adds waaaay more replay value to the game than a new gun or drone or car does. There's hundreds of new areas to explore, new quests I believe, more things to do etc, and with the world gen it makes much more interesting to start new worlds and try new builds and different world gen settings

I doubt anyone with 500 hours in the game is going to come back if the only thing in the update was "We added one new shotgun!", and besides that, why would adding a new tier of weapons for the first week not be enough weapon updates? That's the "make it or break it" time for players to decide if they even like the game before refunding it, so padding that part out to have more content makes way more sense than adding another car to fill an already filled niche.

 

What car would they even add? Bike early game, mini bike mid game, motorcyle late game, jeep if you are with a friend or want more storage, gyrocopter for super late game and high mobility. There's not really any more niches they can cover besides an offense vehicle like a tank which would be OP and against the game design philosophy

Edited December 4, 2021 by Khalagar (see edit history)

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, Khalagar said:

state of the drone

Takes steel to craft.

[[email protected]]

45 minutes ago, stallionsden said:

You sure you read them. There is a tonne of great things above pipe weapons addedadded that we have read and seen to a20.  

 

No where do the Pimps say they were gonna add more vehicles. What we have is what we get. We get mods for vehicles and ability to re texture them tho. If you want more vehicles there is this whole thread with community made mods you can grab more vehicles. 

 

There are new zs, tiles etc I could go on... 

Let me explain something. When I walk into a military base and see a hummer.

The first thing I think is can I drive that.

Only for my memory to recall it is just window dressing.

Then when I loot the Hummer I expect to find

a M16, a grenade or an army helmet.

But instead I find a level two pick axe.

Even the next update won't fix that.

[Khalagar]

26 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Takes steel to craft.

 

Have you seen anyone try to scrap it yet? It def sounds like a bug to spawn week one if it takes steel to craft

 

It feels like there's a pretty major disconnect internally on what they are doing with the drone / what they designed. Literally no dev that I saw in any of the streams knew anything about it, as it seems Madmole led the team working on it, but even Madmole barely talked about it. It seems like one team has spent months working on it trying to get the pathfinding and bajillion implementation issues worked out on it, and then they presented their work and it was just kind of stuck into the game without much quality control or fanfare and swept under the rug

 

I guess absolute  worst case scenario it will exist as a place holder for modders to tighten up / maybe replace with followers and other random companions

 

  

2 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Well that is quite simple. Do you know how the world is cluttered with loot able junk cars you disassemble to get parts to build a mini bike?

Well what if instead of just collecting a bunch of crafting items you have the option to repair the engine.

 

 

What does that offer over the jeep? I'm pretty sure they already mentioned just being able to reskin the jeep to look like the various car models that are in the game at some point. My point mainly is, why would a player return to this game after putting hundreds of hours into it, just because they could now drive a sedan instead of the jeep? What niche does that even cover and what value does that have

Edited December 4, 2021 by Khalagar (see edit history)

[[email protected]]

47 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

What car would they even add? Bike early game, mini bike mid game, motorcyle late game, jeep if you are with a friend or want more storage, gyrocopter for super late game and high mobility. There's not really any more niches they can cover besides an offense vehicle like a tank which would be OP and against the game design philosophy

Well that is quite simple. Do you know how the world is cluttered with loot able junk cars you disassemble to get parts to build a mini bike?

Well what if instead of just collecting a bunch of crafting items you have the option to repair the engine.

[SurvivalUK]

2 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.   

This is TFP's, over promise and under deliver each Alpha, you should be used to it!

 

Tbf there does appear to be some good new content, rwg overhaul looks massive, quality of life improvements, fixes etc. but as usual progress is absolutely glacial.  Lots to commend to the team on but after a year it's all a bit meh.

 

The game was released circa 2013 and while a lot will laud it's continued development that's only because of the snails pace progress.

[[email protected]]

6 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

What does that offer over the jeep?

If I had the option between the Jeep I have drove a dozen times or being able to drive a military hummer or Army tank.

I would pick the military options.

[stallionsden]

24 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Let me explain something. When I walk into a military base and see a hummer.

The first thing I think is can I drive that.

Only for my memory to recall it is just window dressing.

Then when I loot the Hummer I expect to find

a M16, a grenade or an army helmet.

But instead I find a level two pick axe.

Even the next update won't fix that.

Ok go for it and go loot a hummer.. tfp lore of the game we are bout 30 to 50 yrs into the apocalypse. Vehicles don't work anymore.  I saw a guy loot the hummer you checked and they couldnt carry those 2 pick axes and preferred the m16. This is the apocalypse first in best served sorry.. 

 

 

[Khalagar]

2 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

If I had the option between the Jeep I have drove a dozen times or being able to drive a military hummer or Army tank.

I would pick the military options.

 

That sounds like it would just be covered by the vehicle skin system they talked about before. Not sure if that's still in development, but the way it was described IIRC was basically just swap the Jeep skin for whichever car you wanted, with it just having the same stats and hitbox

 

Speaking of copied stats and hitbox, the pipe baton lol. MisutoM was testing it and it's literally just a wooden club with the exact same stats, damage, durability etc, but a slower attack speed. Not the worst though, it scales with intellect so I'm happy, just found that funny. I'm curious if pipe baton will out damage the stun baton now, I'm pretty sure a wooden club actually out DPS'd the stun baton in A19 so that'd be pretty funny haha

[[email protected]]

7 minutes ago, stallionsden said:

lore of the game is that we are bout 30 to 50 years into the apocalypse

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?

[faatal]

37 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

If I had the option between the Jeep I have drove a dozen times or being able to drive a military hummer or Army tank.

I would pick the military options.

Of course you would and so did everyone else years ago. Those vehicles are now trashed and gone, leaving you with roadside junk and stuff you build yourself.

 

In any event, it is a game and it is designed for fun, not realism. I can pick apart this or any other game, but I'd rather ignore the nonsense of, in this case, zombies and just play the games or watch the movies they are in.

[[email protected]]

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

It has a massive list of cars and truck.

[khzmusik]

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.   

 

IMHO that is utterly ridiculous. The new RWG system is awesome, they've added hundreds of new POIs, there is a hugely expanded shape system, they've added tools that make it much easier to mod the game, etc.

 

Even the "visual improvements" - like the improved grass, or the more immersive weather - swamp whatever fleeting enjoyment I could get out of driving a reskinned vehicle or wielding a new weapon model. Especially since new vehicles or weapons add very little to the actual gameplay - new weapons would shoot like the current weapons, vehicles would drive and hold inventory like the current vehicles. To me those have the same degree of importance as adding new zombie models: definitely nice to have but doesn't add all that much once the novelty wears off.

[Aldranon]

Mods are perfect for people wanting a new or different experience.

TFP knew right off that people are different and like different things.  So they made mod'ing a "relatively simple" endeavor.  Some Mod's are huge efforts however.

 

The vanilla game looks GREAT to me!  I will most likely play for a few hundred hours before I look to the mods (the good ones will be ready).