A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[Laz Man]

6 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Ironically wouldn't a hazmat zombie be the least threatening of the lot? Their mouth, hands, and almost every part of their body is trapped inside the protective suit. 😛

He might have a toe claw attack animation? 😅

[MechanicalLens]

Just now, Laz Man said:

He might have a toe claw attack animation? 😅

 

Not gonna lie, being dropkicked or roundhouse kicked by a hazmat zombie would be awesome. 😄

[SrslyGTFO]

Just now, Laz Man said:

He might have a toe claw attack animation? 😅

Supposedly if you shoot off their limbs, they're still supposed to be able to bite you. Kinda hard with that mask in the way.

[ShellHead]

1 hour ago, SrslyGTFO said:

Supposedly if you shoot off their limbs, they're still supposed to be able to bite you. Kinda hard with that mask in the way.

Hazmat headbutt, adding 0% infection chance but a higher stun chance would be super funny

[Laz Man]

7 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Well better idea would be to create a metal cart with rolls and using it like hobo ( transporting stuff)

I hear there is another game on steam called hobo: tough life that may scratch your hobo itch hehe.

[KhaineGB]

12 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Sure, but only if collision with every rock, garbage pile, cinder block, etc. is turned on and if you skate off the paved road into gravel or dirt you fly off with critical chance to break both your arm and your leg.

People often forget you can use ANYTHING in a pinch.

Will you be as good with it? No. Will it still kill zombies? Yes.

Then use it!

[Gazz]

11 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

weird, we must be playing different games as I did not have any issues clearing out POIs and defending against hordes when I spec’d into Int as my main build.

Oh, I know. The players going with an Int build do not use the stun baton the same way they would use a club.

 

If you want both great melee dps and cool turrets then you need to invest in 2 attributes.

 

I get that some players would prefer if whatever attribute they pick had always the best dps and best effects and it should all be on one item to avoid the stress of thinking. I just don't want to do that. =P

For every single weapon, and yes, that includes batons and spears, someone will always pipe up that this is their favourite weapon.

That doesn't mean that these people are stupid or wrong because those are not always the optimal dps weapons - they just play in a different way, using the strengths of those weapons instead of stubbornly amplifying their weaknesses.

[Blake_]

11 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

weird, we must be playing different games as I did not have any issues clearing out POIs and defending against hordes when I spec’d into Int as my main build.

That's why I said that POIs are a non issue. It's pretty easy to plan ahead and make choke points. Hordes though, are extremely lacking on bases that require movility AND only use INT builds (I REALLY mean no bullets other than the turret ones, no explosives, no traps, no firearms whatsoever, I said INT and pure INT offensive melee/ranged alone, 2 turrets and the baton)). This rant is mainly about the combat effectiveness of the baton, which is arguably useful ONLY with the repulsor mod, and it should be way better than it is . DPS can be forgiven if there were OP mods for this weapon. The problem is one of DPS nevertheless  due to the fact that dps of the baton is 20-36 and turrets do around 20 each, for a grand total of "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE " even with those 130 rounds per minute of the Turret. You can't fend off an horde without explosives, traps, firearms or any other melee weapon and using only the baton and 2 turrets? Man be serious, You might be able to escape, but you won't kill much in a common base. Not nearly as much as with any other pure build (again, no traps). INT lacks killing on that front, it's just delay fluff and does not have actual combat strenght so it relies heavily on electrical traps, so while the main combat capabilities are just passive support even while the player tries to be active with that crappy baton, the traps are valuable. 

 

IF we make a funnel base and concentrate a late-game horde, we might be able to fend off the horde. In this case INT's strenght is actually in crafting traps faster and managing resources more efficiently, as we talked about before, but still, baton is pretty useless.

 

 

11 hours ago, dcsobral said:

Curious that the fireman mod makes the stone axe go over the stun baton, since it decreases the amount of damage to entities. The stone axe at quality 6 does 945 damage per minute, and the quality 6 stun baton does 1134 damage per minute (random stats not counted). There's no perks or magazines increasing the damage of either, though there's  a magazine increasing the speed of the stone axe by 5% (maybe -- it's about fireaxes, not sure the stone axe is included), which amounts to 47 damage per minute which is not enough to surpass the stun baton. Other than that, any mods ought to benefit the stun baton more than the stone axe. 

 

 

By "fire" mod I meant "Burning Shaft" mod. It was pretty clear with my explanation though. Baton cannot have the burning shaft mod, so that is also a serious (yet realistic) handicap vs the Stone Axe. 

On paper seems to do higher damage, but it's actually false if we use the burning shaft mod. The actual result is several Zds burning and the baton lagging WAAAY behind the Stone Axe, resulting in the Stone Axe being better with little argument (even talking into account the repulsor mod).

 

At the end of my test those 25 radiated workers had from 300 to 400 (out of 800+ hp if I remember correctly). Yet the baton was only doing those 1200 damage with little to no dismemberment and just some flying electrocutions which did nothing more than delaying the kills.

 

Just try the test yourself. Also, remember to do it FULLY MODED LVL 6 on all the weapons.

 

The baton is the best roll I could find. They do not differ more than 1 or 2 points within it's level though. Balance reasons.

 

 

11 hours ago, dcsobral said:

But I'm surprised you had any trouble fending off a horde with the stun baton, because I could do so easily. The stun baton will stun every nearby zombie, and throw them away, so it's trivial to make a base where any pressure from zombies is relieved by dropping them to the ground so they have to go around to you again, and having a robotic sledge hitting them on their way back to you. Not to mention electrical traps, since they are part of the Int build and you get up to 50% XP from their kills.

 

As for your next test, first make sure you are using the repulsor mod on the stun baton and taking nerd tats, plus using fort bites and recog (physician) and electrical traps on the Int horde night, and not doing so on the machine gun test.

 

Though using electrical traps is kind of OP. I made an AFK base with them and during horde night I just fly around with the free camera to watch the carnage. Then again, Double Robotic Turrets is also very OP, as is the stun baton with repulsor mod and nerd tats.

 

And for POI clearance? Yeah, the stun baton is not the best weapon, just like the club is not the best melee weapon to use on horde night.

 

 

You can fend off an horde, but the kill count is pretty low, because the baton does 20 damage and both turrets also do so (18-21 damage fully modded). So with no traps nor explosives nor any firearm nor any other help but height, you will not kill at all and therefore a pure INT build is lacking on dps combat without traps , which doesn't happen at all with any other builds.

 

11 hours ago, dcsobral said:

 

 

Then you compare the stun baton with other weapons. 400% less than clubs? The base damage of the baseball bat (the club at the same tier as the stun baton) is 17.4, and the stun baton's 10.8. That's not even 50% less (or 100% more). And that does not even account for speed. Your math is just wrong.

 

As for your next test, first make sure you are using the repulsor mod on the stun baton and taking nerd tats, plus using fort bites and recog (physician) and electrical traps on the Int horde night, and not doing so on the machine gun test.

 

Though using electrical traps is kind of OP. I made an AFK base with them and during horde night I just fly around with the free camera to watch the carnage. Then again, Double Robotic Turrets is also very OP, as is the stun baton with repulsor mod and nerd tats.

 

And for POI clearance? Yeah, the stun baton is not the best weapon, just like the club is not the best melee weapon to use on horde night.

 

I was talking about the top tier club, which is not the baseball bat my man. It's the Steel Club. And Yeah. It's actually around 250% more than the baton, which is brutal and unbalanced. A sledge is around 400% more (always with full mods and best roll I could find of course).

 

 

I see you didn't see the screenshots. I showed pictures of the baton inmy test with the best of the best  mods and ALL BOOKs and ALL perks man.  If you didn't see the pictures then I will give you additional info: As you can see, steel club lvl 6 is around 2.5 times better than the baton base damage (250%) and the Sledge is more than 4 times better (400%+ more). You get the gist of it.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also. YOU CAN win the horde with a club and a wall. Actually done it several times with nothing but the base and the club. No traps. Melee base with a corridor to escape little by little with hatches. 

 

 

You cannot do that with baton+turret+sledge and no traps (combined damaged is 60-80 dps)  But yeah, you are absolutely right that INT has an edge with materials and electrical traps, yet the baton is still crap and absolutely useless in many a situation , which is the main point of my sexy rant.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Blake_ (see edit history)

[canadianbluebeer]

Int with traps can basically sit back and take a nap during hordes if done right.

 

You will need mining and LOTS of iron though.

 

60 dart traps take a lot of feeding, but can handle pretty much ANY horde.

It gets kinda boring.

 

(just remember to turn OFF the 'lectricity before you go collect the loot bags)

oops!

😛

 

 

(yes, I forgot once)

(once)

 

[Blake_]

11 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Oh, I know. The players going with an Int build do not use the stun baton the same way they would use a club.

 

If you want both great melee dps and cool turrets then you need to invest in 2 attributes.

 

I get that some players would prefer if whatever attribute they pick had always the best dps and best effects and it should all be on one item to avoid the stress of thinking. I just don't want to do that. =P

For every single weapon, and yes, that includes batons and spears, someone will always pipe up that this is their favourite weapon.

That doesn't mean that these people are stupid or wrong because those are not always the optimal dps weapons - they just play in a different way, using the strengths of those weapons instead of stubbornly amplifying their weaknesses.

Spears are pretty good because of range and ability to be thrown alone. Not even taking into account the coolness of its stats nor perks.

 

Baton has only the repulsor mod as its core capabilities are lacking. Repulsor mod and fully perked and read character will still make it crap. So baton needs more specific cool mods/bonuses/perks to be well balanced. That's the short version of my rant. INT is good. INT is fine. And thinking is a good thing sometimes. Not for my sweet sledge though.

[Matt115]

7 hours ago, Laz Man said:

I hear there is another game on steam called hobo: tough life that may scratch your hobo itch hehe.

nope i was thinking about something like cart from valheim but this is post apo so metal cart would looks better

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

Spears are pretty good because of range and ability to be thrown alone. Not even taking into account the coolness of its stats nor perks.

 

Baton has only the repulsor mod as its core capabilities are lacking. Repulsor mod and fully perked and read character will still make it crap. So baton needs more specific cool mods/bonuses/perks to be well balanced. That's the short version of my rant. INT is good. INT is fine. And thinking is a good thing sometimes. Not for my sweet sledge though.

They have good range but preety small dmg so i think it should be buffed at least  throwned dmg like : weak melee but when it throw it would do massive dmg ( 1 quality spear like 2 quality shotgun )

@faatal there will be some changes in spear balance?

Edited June 4, 2021 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

12 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

They have good range but preety small dmg so i think it should be buffed at least  throwned dmg like : weak melee but when it throw it would do massive dmg ( 1 quality spear like 2 quality shotgun )

Raising the damage would solve nothing if you can't hit... 

 

[Matt115]

17 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Raising the damage would solve nothing if you can't hit... 

 

Nah i loves spears in lotr return of the king , hl2 last coast . M&B (in bannerlord throwing spears are good) chilvary etc  so if you have enough enemies you will hit someone still so : more  enemies easier  fight

[Fanatical_Meat]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

nope i was thinking about something like cart from valheim but this is post apo so metal cart would looks better

There is a mod that allows you to craft (or find?) a shopping cart to load stuff in and push around.

[dcsobral]

4 hours ago, Blake_ said:

I was talking about the top tier club, which is not the baseball bat my man. It's the Steel Club. And Yeah. It's actually around 250% more than the baton, which is brutal and unbalanced. A sledge is around 400% more (always with full mods and best roll I could find of course).

 

Also. YOU CAN win the horde with a club and a wall. Actually done it several times with nothing but the base and the club. No traps. Melee base with a corridor to escape little by little with hatches. 

 

 

You cannot do that with baton+turret+sledge and no traps (combined damaged is 60-80 dps)  But yeah, you are absolutely right that INT has an edge with materials and electrical traps, yet the baton is still crap and absolutely useless in many a situation , which is the main point of my sexy rant.

 

The batton can definitely do it. The electrocution does damage over time, and with the AoE of nerd tats you are applying damage over a lot of zombies. When the club cannot keep up, I switch to the stun baton + nerd tats + repulsor. Why that isn't the case for you I have no idea, but I have held off hordes of 64 simultaneous zombies with it.

 

As for steel club vs baton, the baton is a mid-tier melee weapon so of course it's much worse. You have to compare it to the baseball bat, iron spear, iron sledgehammer or knife. There's no top tier melee weapon in the intellect build.

 

[Matt115]

12 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

The batton can definitely do it. The electrocution does damage over time, and with the AoE of nerd tats you are applying damage over a lot of zombies. When the club cannot keep up, I switch to the stun baton + nerd tats + repulsor. Why that isn't the case for you I have no idea, but I have held off hordes of 64 simultaneous zombies with it.

 

As for steel club vs baton, the baton is a mid-tier melee weapon so of course it's much worse. You have to compare it to the baseball bat, iron spear, iron sledgehammer or knife. There's no top tier melee weapon in the intellect build.

 

Well in my opion sledgehammer is the best melee so rest of them became useless xd so baton should get buff or and new better baton high-tier /

[katarynna]

4 hours ago, Blake_ said:

That's why I said that POIs are a non issue. It's pretty easy to plan ahead and make choke points. Hordes though, are extremely lacking on bases that require movility AND only use INT builds (I REALLY mean no bullets other than the turret ones, no explosives, no traps, no firearms whatsoever, I said INT and pure INT offensive melee/ranged alone, 2 turrets and the baton)). This rant is mainly about the combat effectiveness of the baton, which is arguably useful ONLY with the repulsor mod, and it should be way better than it is . DPS can be forgiven if there were OP mods for this weapon. The problem is one of DPS nevertheless  due to the fact that dps of the baton is 20-36 and turrets do around 20 each, for a grand total of "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE " even with those 130 rounds per minute of the Turret. You can't fend off an horde without explosives, traps, firearms or any other melee weapon and using only the baton and 2 turrets? Man be serious, You might be able to escape, but you won't kill much in a common base. Not nearly as much as with any other pure build (again, no traps). INT lacks killing on that front, it's just delay fluff and does not have actual combat strenght so it relies heavily on electrical traps, so while the main combat capabilities are just passive support even while the player tries to be active with that crappy baton, the traps are valuable. 

 

Int tree by design encourages the use of guns outside of the int tree. Why would you rely on only turrets and stun batons when you lose no advantages by also using an ak or shotgun or w/e. 

 

Since the int tree ranged weapon is the turrets, which can be placed, it is obvious to me that you are also supposed to use the non-perked or minimally perked gun of choice from the other trees. Not doing so seems stupid to me.

 

As for no traps, traps are in the int tree. You should definitely be making use of your ability to make them cheap and obtain some experience from their kills. 

 

You are setting up arbitrary restrictions for no real reason that i can see. When you test strength builds, do you disallow the use of concrete since you get that by mining?

Edited June 4, 2021 by katarynna
reread the quoted post and noticed i missed something big (see edit history)

[dcsobral]

2 minutes ago, katarynna said:

 

Int tree by design encourages the use of guns outside of the int tree. Why would you rely on only turrets and stun batons when you lose no advantages by also using an ak or shotgun or w/e. 

 

Since the int tree ranged weapon is the turrets, which can be placed, it is obvious to me that you are also supposed to use the non-perked or minimally perked gun of choice from the other trees. Not doing so seems stupid to me.

Make a pit, surround it with robotic turrets, throw zombies into the pit with stun baton (+ repulsor mod + nerd tats), profit. Use more than two turrets so that new turrets take over as turrets run out of ammo. Either AP or shotgun ammo. That's one way of using turrets and not using guns, but the point of this thread (which is entirely off-topic and will be moved away sooner or later) is analyzing the effectiveness of the weapons of Intellect tree by themselves, vs the effectiveness of weapons of other attributes.

 

[BFT2020]

You can not simply just compare Weapon A to Weapon B.  That is not how this is game was designed.  You have to understand how the setup you have chosen should be played effectively.  How you play a pure Strength build is different from how you would play a pure Agility build vs how you would play a pure Int build.  When I max my perks into strength build, I know I can stand toe to toe with zombies (Heavy armor, Club or Sledge, Shotgun) and tear them apart at close range.  When I spec into the agility build, I am all about mobility and getting in an initial sneak attack (Light armor, blades, archery, gunslinger, hidden strike, flurry of blows).  When I play Int, it is all about making use of my turrets with my baton as my backup should things get too hairy.

 

In all of these cases though, I am always using weapons outside of my primary builds (including sniper rifles and assault rifles - nothing is preventing me in my current Agility playthrough of using the sniper rifle, the shotgun, assault rifles, or turrets).  Heck, the last time I played Int as my primary build, I was using a compound bow to get sneak shots in when clearing out POIs even though I didn't put one point into the archery perk tree.

 

If you want to limit your weapons based on the tree you picked, that is your choice.  The game is not pushing you to do that and more power to you.  But you cannot claim that the game is unbalanced because you made those choices.  I have not seen any comments from TFP staff that should you perk into strength, you are not allowed to use pistols or assault rifles.  The same thing applies to Int builds.

 

My biggest complaint about the Int tree is obtaining the stun baton.  Right now in Alpha, I can be very unlucky and not get it for a long time.  That is why I am excited to see A20 with the pipe weapons and the pipe baton.

[dcsobral]

2 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

My biggest complaint about the Int tree is obtaining the stun baton.  Right now in Alpha, I can be very unlucky and not get it for a long time.  That is why I am excited to see A20 with the pipe weapons and the pipe baton.

My complaint is that there's only one tier of melee weapon in the Int tree, and it's the middle one so it doesn't benefit you in neither early game nor late game (and, honestly, I usually skip mid-tier weapons and tools since they can't compete against lower tiers of higher quality or high tiers). It also has a limited set of mods available, but so do other melee weapons. As far as DPS goes, it isn't the worst and it's one of the only two melee weapons with AoE and when you combine it with the Repulsor Mod it has unmatched area control. I do wish it was slightly faster, though, to be more effective in POI clearing.

 

People usually compare Perception, Agility and Intellect melee weapons vs Strength and Fortitude melee weapons and come to the conclusion they are underpowered. I'd argue STR and FOR melee weapons are overpowered, and at least for strength yeah it makes sense they do the most damage. The melee weapon of other attributes have non-damage offsetting benefits. Spears can attack outside zombie's range and can even be used as a ranged weapon. Blades can attack then move away and let the zombie die by itself (except bleeding causes rage too often, negating the slow down debuff). Intellect has crowd control. If these benefits do not interest you, then they are not for you. Clubs rely on killing fast. Sledgehammers have some added advantages offset by its slow speed.

 

Which is not to say they are BALANCED. Knuckles have as much DPS as Clubs and some seriously unbalanced perks, such as high chance of knocking down enemies and healing up to 130 points per minute. Batter Up completion bonus makes a joke of every other melee weapon but knuckles (which doesn't need stamina regen). The perk for both get extra effects at levels 3, 4 and 5 (Batter Up 5 extra effect is on par with Spear Hunter's completion bonus!). So it's much more STR and FOR being OP than all others being underpowered.

 

For curiosity, here's a DPS table for 19.5:

 

meleeHandPlayer              6.67
Flashlight                   7.80
Stone Shovel                 8.00
Torch                        8.50
Stone Spear                  9.44
Iron Shovel                  9.67
Bone Knife                  10.20
Knuckle Wraps               10.33
Stone Axe                   10.50
meleeToolFarmT1IronHoe      10.78
Iron Spear                  11.37
Iron Pickaxe                12.13
Hunting Knife               12.20
meleeWpnBatonT1JunkBaton    12.60
Plasma Baton                12.60
Stun Baton                  12.60
Wooden Club                 12.65
Candy Cane Knife            13.20
Impact Driver               13.75
Ratchet                     13.75
Wrench                      13.75
Claw Hammer                 14.00
Taza's Stone Axe            14.00
Steel Shovel                14.50
Stone Sledgehammer          14.58
Baseball Bat                15.08
Iron Fireaxe                15.10
Iron Knuckles               15.17
Candy Cane Club             16.64
Steel Spear                 17.05
Iron Sledgehammer           17.45
Machete                     18.15
Steel Pickaxe               21.27
Steel Axe                   22.64
Steel Knuckles              22.67
Steel Club                  22.71
Steel Sledgehammer          26.18
Dev: Hammer Of God        5833.33
Dev: Super Wrench         8333.33

 

This table is computed from the configuration files for items (Data\Config\items.xml) by multiplying entity damage by attacks per minute, then dividing by 60. They are base values which means quality 1, no random stats, no mods, no attributes or perks or books. Numbers are being rounded to two decimal cases, and sorted from lowest to highest DPS. For weapons without localization the internal name was used. Note that there are things in the configuration file which are only available through the creative menu or even not at all.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by dcsobral
Updated, localized, replaced DPM with DPS (see edit history)

[dcsobral]

On a side side note, thinking about unbalanced weapons reminded me of one very weird factoid I came upon.  Shotgun shells have penetration count 2. Enforcer (magnum) completion gives both normal and HP magnum bullets penetration count 2. Pistol Pete completion makes 9mm ignore armor at point blank range. But 7.62mm normal ammo has no advantage against armor and no penetration, with even 7.62mm AP needing Penetrator 3 to get to penetration count 2. So 7d2d is basically going for the reverse of real life when it comes to ammunition properties...

 

[Fanatical_Meat]

23 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Btw any news about  ambient?  there will some creepy stuff similar to A11 like wispers , screams ,  random shots or  more "calm" like : more footsteps types , wind etc ?

 

Came up earlier. Audio is due for an update but not sure if that was for A20.

[Matt115]

13 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

 

Came up earlier. Audio is due for an update but not sure if that was for A20.

Well still they can add something right?

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, dcsobral said:

meleeWpnBatonT3PlasmaBaton 756

meleeToolFarmT1IronHoe 646.8

?

These do not exist in unmodded 7 Days to Die. You've invalidated your point.