Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[POCKET951]

 No trader, Poi's that vanish into thin air as you approach them. how do you fix this? struggling to get a dedicated server going

Edited December 7, 2021 by POCKET951 (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

3 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

 No trader, Poi's that vanish into thin air as you approach them. how do you fix this? struggling to get a dedicated server going

Are you using a map from Alpha19?

[POCKET951]

6 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Are you using a map from Alpha19?

I have no idea,  I would assume so though because I am not the server host/adminsitrator

[Kalex]

1 minute ago, POCKET951 said:

I have no idea,  I would assume so though because I am not the server host/adminsitrator

Well if you are, then that's your problem.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

Lol ok then. It's free food all you do is find a seed, plant it and wait. If that isn't good enough for you then go to Shamway or the Nexus, I'm sure there will be OP farm mods up in no time for people who prefer no challenge unlimited stew buffet.

 

Farming shouldn't have been touched in my opinion. You did an amazing job with autoreplant, then ruined your progress by going down the Houdini Seed route.

 

It doesn't make it more challenging. It makes it more annoying and tedious. Re farming: If people don't want to use it then why not just ignore it or mod it out, instead of having everyone else mod compensatory mods in to appease the kind of people to whom farming means nothing, much like those who cried; as I've said, about zombie digging as a challenge for all those underground bases that they would NEVER build...

 

Just on this point I play multiplayer with two friends. One likes raking about for food but she will eat what I make, the other friend will eat if theres food there but mostly goes off on his own looting poi's and brings us lots of tinned food back.

 

Neither bothered with farming and are indifferent to it, not seeing it as some OP free buffet which is a very limited evaluation to say the least.

 

On the point of the drone, outside maybe playing around with analogous prototype future bandit AI, it seems to be little more than an expanded backpack - which has been around in mod form since the dinosaurs roamed roamed the Earth. An electric stun attack would at least give some non OP offensive power to the drone.

 

One zombie stunned for 10, 15, and 20 seconds (considering feral sense and the; albeit artificial, increased zombie count) would assist in some solo play and almost negligible (but still super fun) crowd control in mulyiplayer or solo horde games. Or the ability to set zombies on fire, that would be cool also, or bleed debuffs...

Edited December 7, 2021 by Beelzebubs Ghost (see edit history)

[madmole]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

How have your experiences with A20 been recently? Any stories to tell?

 

*Offering two seats next to a roaring campfire*

I had a long wait to get a gyro and never did get a 4x4. It took me ages to get the desert vulture and SMG too, it was like close to day 70 before I found an SMG and a desert vulture schematic. So I literally was using a green pistol for 90% of the game and horde night was tiresome clicking so much lol, but a challenge. They seem to target the block above the door now sometimes, and knocked it out and were somehow crawling through that spot and I couldn't place a block there because someone was always standing on it, so I had to retreat to my upstairs. One night I went through 2700 ammo and ran out before dawn so I was running around with my machete killing the 4 am crowd.

I didn't get my drone until very late too, day 60 or so. It's ok but got in my way one time in a ladder hole and I was blocked in! It was one of those houses with an underground
lab and a really long ladder hole to the surface. I already cleared it, but outside zeds got in and were pounding on the door near the ladder hole to the surface so I had to run back down, get the damn drone to follow me, then go back up the hole first. I don't know how he got ahead of me in the first place, maybe he tried to get behind me when I looked down and somehow clogged up the exit. I couldn't put him in my backpack because it was full and his inventory was full. It was close and the damn thing almost got me killed because I was out of ammo and there were a lot of night time spawn zeds who were relentlessly following me through the POI but the vault doors were enough to buy me time.

Another cool surprise and it was kind of lucky, I picked up about 2500 rounds in bags the horde left behind, so that week was nice I didn't have to craft any ammo and just went looting after my base was repaired.

7 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

Farming shouldn't have been touched. You did an amazing job with autoreplant, then ruined your progress by going down the Houdini Seed route.

 

It's better for the game having to work for your crops and not having enough food to feed 50 players for minimal effort. Food is actually an issue now, it was OP before. We're making a survival game and having infinite food doesn't fit well. We don't need spoilage now either, so two birds, one stone.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

9 minutes ago, madmole said:

 

It's better for the game having to work for your crops and not having enough food to feed 50 players for minimal effort. Food is actually an issue now, it was OP before. We're making a survival game and having infinite food doesn't fit well. We don't need spoilage now either, so two birds, one stone.

 

I cannot and will not argue with you on that point, I even support it. 

 

But the thing is Joel, it's the way you guys went about it. Can't you just nerf crop gain? With the chance of gaining an extra crop? Or even 2 with max Living off the Land instead of vanishing seeds? Please?

[hiemfire]

8 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

vanishing seeds

@madmole This is the issue, not farming being tuned back. Would you have stuck with weight lifting if every other session you pulled a muscle bad enough that it laid you up for days on end?

[overgoat]

One weird thing I'm noticing on my 10k RWG dedicated server world is many POIs have trees growing inside of them or next to them so the branches are inside.  Also many trees in the middle of roads.  It feels like maybe something glitched with placement during generation.  Nothing seems broken in game just oddly placed.

Edited December 7, 2021 by overgoat (see edit history)

[Darklegend222]

The city random gen is phenomenal, the wooden crates instead of reinforced crates are absolutely amazing due to the new loot table, and the fact that we won't have POIs with a locked box where it was supposed to be unlocked (looking at you Mo Electronics).

 

The new ducking feature for zombies could use some work as it is instant and can throw a melee hit off with no warning. Having access to guns very early on is amazing since we don't have to perk around the first real gun we find.

 

But most importantly, the grass is so spread out and small that I no longer have to have my grass distance set to low or be on max lookout for a birds nest.

 

The game runs way better than A19 and I've noticed a much better array of creatures and animals. Easily the best alpha to date, and the last few were very questionable, but this is godly!

[Guppycur]

Dearest tfp:

 

Prefix the save game folders with a20_, add some small code to deal with it, and never have to worry about people using prior alpha maps again. 

 

You're welcome. 

 

/Helping since 1971 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roland]

18 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

It makes it more annoying and tedious.

 

I submit that those who find planting seeds annoying and tedious are not really into farming in the first place. Returning the action of planting to people who enjoy the farming aspect of the game is definitely a step forward. Personally, I'm unhappy about any game actions that are changed to be automated. It is really too bad that the world terrain does not support the hoeing action any longer. That was a loss. I think that farming should be designed to be fun for the people who find it fun. It shouldn't be marginalized as an automated feature just to satisfy those who are annoyed by it and find it tedious. I hoed AND replanted seeds for thousands of hours of gameplay before it was changed to auto-replant and crafted planter boxes and when it changed I wasn't giddy for my release from the bondage of farming. Planting really is no more tedious than harvesting and actually more interesting if you are trying to organize and group plants together. Should harvesting be automated as well for those of you who are crying "TEDIOUS!"?

 

The chance of not getting viable seeds fits with the setting. This isn't farming in civilized times under the best of conditions. This is farming in the wake of nuclear bombs affecting the soil  so it makes sense that plants are going to struggle and some won't produce a seed that germinates.  There are more seeds in loot than there used to be so even if the worst happens and you lose your farm, you can get it back after some looting and scavenging. 

 

As for fears of losing those precious few Super Corn seeds that are super rare to be found, Super Corn is not a necessity. It is not something that any unperked farmer wannabe should be able to be guaranteed to have thrive for them. If you want to farm Super Corn then you should learn how to farm better so that you'll be assured of a productive farm.

 

43 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

Re farming: If people don't want to use it then why not just ignore it or mod it out, instead of having everyone else mod compensatory mods in to appease the kind of people to whom farming means nothing,

 

By removing the automation they are making farming more appealing to the people who actually care about farming. Replanting by hand is no more or less tedious than any other action in the game and the fact that you find it tedious is evidence that you are actually the type of person for whom farming means nothing. So in reality, the game is currently (once again) more tailored to those who actually care about farming as a feature in the game. So I agree with you that the people who care less about farming should be the ones who have to mod it.

 

Joel has mentioned a number of times that this game isn't a farming game and that he, himself, doesn't play it to farm. I never expected for farming to recover any of its old depth for its own sake. Even if he didn't change it for the reason of making farming more immersive and more action oriented instead of just an automated food dispenser, I'm glad it happened and we recovered a bit of what has been lost over the years. Too bad it is "instead of" food spoilage- but I'll take wins when they come and I'm glad farming with more active participation is back.

 

Now....what about water and fertilizer....?

[BFT2020]

3 minutes ago, Roland said:

Now....what about water and fertilizer....?

Don't forget about pesticides and weeding, then there is pollination.  Least not forget crop rotation.  Some of those plots should be fairly barren of food after the same crop is grown over and over again  😉

 

[Roland]

4 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Don't forget about pesticides and weeding, then there is pollination.  Least not forget crop rotation.  Some of those plots should be fairly barren of food after the same crop is grown over and over again  😉

 

Now we're talking some righteous tedium!

[Guppycur]

Pests were awesome in Starvation. 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

By removing the automation they are making farming more appealing to the people who actually care about farming. Replanting by hand is no more or less tedious than any other action in the game and the fact that you find it tedious is evidence that you are actually the type of person for whom farming means nothing. So in reality, the game is currently (once again) more tailored to those who actually care about farming as a feature in the game. So I agree with you that the people who care less about farming should be the ones who have to mod it.

 

Joel has mentioned a number of times that this game isn't a farming game and that he, himself, doesn't play it to farm. I never expected for farming to recover any of its old depth for its own sake. Even if he didn't change it for the reason of making farming more immersive and more action oriented instead of just an automated food dispenser, I'm glad it happened and we recovered a bit of what has been lost over the years. Too bad it is "instead of" food spoilage- but I'll take wins when they come and I'm glad farming with more active participation is back.

 

Now....what about water and fertilizer....?

 

And I submit you are wrong. I am at least one exception to your absurd rule 

 

I do care about farming. I do farm. I do not see anything necessarily wrong with A19's setup.

 

I do go out and dig dirt, collect wood, harvest rotten flesh, and nitrate needed to create a farm including the incorporation into a base, and; as I have previously stated, spend weeks looting and searching for seeds sometimes.

 

I put the work in to get the food out the other side. @hiemfire and @Khalagar have said this and I absolutely second it - nerf the crop gains, not the vanishing seeds. That is a cheap way of fixing one partially non existent issue, and avoiding spoilage as a mechanic.

 

I find the contradiction you came out with rather amusing. This isn't a farming game but Joel has somehow found the time to instigate a convoluted and annoying system of 'realistic' farming? Lol? What's the point of perks and skills if we can't reap the benefits (if you pardon the pun). What about other investment categories such as those of Sexy Rex, Miner 69'er, and Lother Lode, aftrr which we end up with obscene resource stores. Isn't THAT OP?

 

Wood, stone, and dirt aren't easy to accumulate early game. Once you perk into it you have enough to build 6 block thick fortresses, isn't that ALSO OP?

 

Thats rhetorical. I don't think it is, because people have spent precious skill points to spec into something that should negate this travesty of a system.

 

I would like to call out to all people who genuinely do farm, no trolls who just wan't to upset people and data for the sake of being arses, but those who really care about farming, who think this change (above modding) is either an interesting, or fun mechanic. And go into depth with the positives and negatives ofthe change, what the goal is implementing it, and to what end this is achieved.

 

And if possible for you, or they, to show us posts of people posting genuine complaints about farming being so OP that something has to be done, and not offhand and passive comments that farmimg is OP in the context of something larger.

 

I'm not saying they don't exist, just that I would like to see them. And I don't appreciate being implied in a No True Scotsman type of fallacious depiction as being 'not a real farmer or someone who doesn't care about farming.' 

 

One final note, I think Joel is capable of speaking for himself, and I do believe I addressed him with the question. I would rather wait for him to answer it, who knows, he may change his mind 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Thanks.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Beelzebubs Ghost (see edit history)

[Odetta]

13 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Pests were awesome in Starvation. 

Bee keeping was the jam

[madmole]

52 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

@madmole This is the issue, not farming being tuned back. Would you have stuck with weight lifting if every other session you pulled a muscle bad enough that it laid you up for days on end?

I have stuck with weight lifting being laid up for months on end.

So the issue is, you are too lazy to replant crop? I don't really see it as a big deal, you have to replant crops in real life.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

3 minutes ago, madmole said:

I have stuck with weight lifting being laid up for months on end.

So the issue is, you are too lazy to replant crop? I don't really see it as a big deal, you have to replant crops in real life.

 

Thats the tedium after speccing into the farming skills and going to lengths to create your farm, Joel.

 

By all means nerf the crops to hell, but please for the love of Odins Scrotum, banish the replant mechanic, or at very, very, very least, the disappearing seeds.

 

Even the latter I would be eternally grateful for, and would take replanting any day over having the chance to lose seeds...

Edited December 8, 2021 by Beelzebubs Ghost (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

Just now, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

I would like to call out to all people who genuinely do farm, no trolls who just wan't to upset people and data for the sake of being arses, who really care about farming, who think this change (above modding) is either an interesting, or fun mechanic. And go into depth with the positives and negatives ofthe change, what the goal is implementing it, and to what end this is achieved.

 

And if possible for you, or they, to show us posts of people posting genuine complaints about farming being so OP that something has to be done, and not offhand and passive comments that farmimg is OP in the context of something larger.

 

In at least 9 out of 10 playthroughs, I create a farm.

 

I am fine with the changes to the farming.  I thought it was silly that you just had to plant once and had an endless source of food that all you had to do was go back and harvest again.  Once you set it up the first time, you didn't have to do anything else really except punch and move.  Unlike my base, where I constantly had to go out to gather resources to either repair, upgrade, or expand.  Same thing with hunting.  I can't capture an animal and then have an endless source of meat.  I always had to go out and hunt down new animals when meat was running low.  Farming was just....oh when I get home from doing these tasks this day, I will just swing by my self-sustaining farm and punch up some veggies....

 

I am also fine with the 50% chance of loosing a seed.  By the mid game, I was typically swarming with so much food, I wished there was just an automatic process now for consuming it as there was really no point anymore.  The only thing at that point hindering me was finding the canned food to make a lot of the recipes, but that wasn't a hinderance because I had so many T3 dishes just sitting in my storage crate, the only choice I had to make was which one to take to eat.

 

That's my opinion.

 

 

[hiemfire]

32 minutes ago, madmole said:

I have stuck with weight lifting being laid up for months on end.

So the issue is, you are too lazy to replant crop? I don't really see it as a big deal, you have to replant crops in real life.

No. Having to replant after every harvest is absolutely fine. Having invested 1-2 points into Living of the Land and ending up with less planted plots after a harvest and crafting up the seeds to replant is the issue I have.

My idea was to instead make sure that a player who has invested those points will still be able to replant with what they got from the plant, even if that plot nets 0 food for that harvest, while still having a good chance of not being able to expand the farm by making the 50% chance to get a seed on harvest even lower. Originally I suggested 25% instead, but that % is really only something you guys can determine.

 

My idea for clarity:

• Change number of ears/spuds/caps/blossoms/fruit to craft a seed to 4 since Living off the Land 1 increases the ears/spuds/caps/blossoms/fruit gotten from a harvest from 2 to 4.
• Decrease the chance to get a seed from harvest from 50% to x% with x% being lower than 50%

 

How much food is gotten out of a harvest will still be governed by the rng of getting a seed directly from the harvest. The difference is having the next roll of the die growing in a plot instead of waiting behind another series of die rolls for you to find that 5th ear/spud/cap/fruit or another seed to roll the die on a harvest again. Still need to find the recipes or perk into Living off the Land 2 to be able to craft seeds for the non-tea/non-coffee crops as well leaving that gate intact. Also will still require a full 3 points into Living off the Land to ensure a net positive crop return from every planting.

Edited December 8, 2021 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

Too much knee jerking on farm changes.  This sounds like people not giving change a fair shake.  One thing everyone seems to agree upon though is food was a non issue in A19.  With that said, why not test things out for a good while and see what its like in a full play through or two?  I am pretty sure Joel and anyone else who is a decision maker in this would be more open to your feedback if you provided some good pros/cons of the change after doing so versus day # 2 of public experimental release....

[vergilsparda]

19 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Pipe Baton sometimes hits two targets, I have noticed that, so you might be right.

 

Wish I would have recorded it last night but I managed to hit/glance about 4 enemies in a POI with the pipe baton power attack. Saved my life because it knocked the one closest to me down before it could hit me. In the words of a crappy TikTok audio: the gamer was too stunned to speak

 

Pipe baton @%$#in' rules 🤘

 

(at least, i'm fairly certain it was 4, they were surrounding me in the front and all of them squirted blood)

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

24 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

In at least 9 out of 10 playthroughs, I create a farm.

 

I am fine with the changes to the farming.  I thought it was silly that you just had to plant once and had an endless source of food that all you had to do was go back and harvest again.  Once you set it up the first time, you didn't have to do anything else really except punch and move.  Unlike my base, where I constantly had to go out to gather resources to either repair, upgrade, or expand.  Same thing with hunting.  I can't capture an animal and then have an endless source of meat.  I always had to go out and hunt down new animals when meat was running low.  Farming was just....oh when I get home from doing these tasks this day, I will just swing by my self-sustaining farm and punch up some veggies....

 

I am also fine with the 50% chance of loosing a seed.  By the mid game, I was typically swarming with so much food, I wished there was just an automatic process now for consuming it as there was really no point anymore.  The only thing at that point hindering me was finding the canned food to make a lot of the recipes, but that wasn't a hinderance because I had so many T3 dishes just sitting in my storage crate, the only choice I had to make was which one to take to eat.

 

That's my opinion.

 

 

 

Great post. How did you handle the situation?

 

Did you ditch farming, or find a mod to reduce or even negate seeds?

 

One thing you brought up could actually be exploited so vanishing seeds can ironically vanish: meat.

 

Perhaps diminishing the food gains or increasing recipe costs for vegetable recipes would aid in balance, meat after all takes longer to digest and would in principle keep you fuller for longer. With fewer animals for meat sources, that may actually be a viable suggestion. What do you think?

[Krougal]

After all the waiting and hype I think this is the most disappointing build ever and after an hour I am done. The terrain gen still sucks. Oh sure the up close details are better but overall the maps still look just like the last version.

 

Wow! Madmole pulled out the in "real life" argument on someone when nothing else about this game makes any sense IRL, and they work to make it even further removed every new build. Bravo! And lifting beer cans up to your mouth doesn't count as lifting weights.