Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[faatal]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:04 PM, Maxley said:

would it be possible to allow vehicles to flip over. I think it would improve the driving experience if you have to drive more skillfully in order to avoid flipping over. One thing I really enjoyed about driving a warthog in halo was when you made a ridiculous jump and you almost flip over but you just barely teeter back onto four wheels. And if you do flip over then it would just kick you out of the vehicle and you would have to pick it up and place it back down.

It could be changed, but we would have to spend time to look at the issue involves with flipping it back and where you appear coming out and if we even like it that way.

[Roland]

7 hours ago, KenGross said:

that is a shame.  i rather enjoy killing things with an axe.  still thank you for the information

I don’t think Flurry of Blows ever affected the axe anyway so if you enjoyed using it before you should be able enjoy it the same in the future. 

[Jost Amman]

41 minutes ago, Roland said:

I don’t think Flurry of Blows ever affected the axe anyway so if you enjoyed using it before you should be able enjoy it the same in the future. 

I think he has confused SexRex with Flurry... just to clarify, do tools have their own SexRex skill now?

 

@faatal What happens when a vehicle reaches zero HP? Does it blow up? Does it just stay there broken? It would be cool if in some conditions your vehicle could completely blow up instead of just breaking down... (e.g.) if you crush into a wall and you go below (i.e.) -50 HP then you also blow up. What are the plans on this? 

[Old Crow]

40 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I think he has confused SexRex with Flurry... just to clarify, do tools have their own SexRex skill now?

 

@faatal What happens when a vehicle reaches zero HP? Does it blow up? Does it just stay there broken? It would be cool if in some conditions your vehicle could completely blow up instead of just breaking down... (e.g.) if you crush into a wall and you go below (i.e.) -50 HP then you also blow up. What are the plans on this? 

 

Tools will have their own baked-in sexy rex, like melee weapons

[RipClaw]

44 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

@faatal What happens when a vehicle reaches zero HP? Does it blow up? Does it just stay there broken? It would be cool if in some conditions your vehicle could completely blow up instead of just breaking down... (e.g.) if you crush into a wall and you go below (i.e.) -50 HP then you also blow up. What are the plans on this? 

I've never tested it myself, but wasn't there a video of Mad Mole accidentally blowing up his own gyro copter during a horde?

 

[Crater Creator]

12 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

I've never tested it myself, but wasn't there a video of Mad Mole accidentally blowing up his own gyro copter during a horde?

 

Currently, a vehicle that takes enough damage (e.g. goes to 0 HP) will explode. In fact it even happened for bicycles at one point, which I filed as a bug at the time.

[meilodasreh]

48 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

 

Currently, a vehicle that takes enough damage (e.g. goes to 0 HP) will explode.

 

OMG that recent post of Laz Man was actual A21 ingame footage, and we didn't even realize it 

Edited December 21, 2022 by meilodasreh (see edit history)

[Doomofman]

[IzPrebuilt]

10 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

And it's nothing to do with "I have to make a decision now."  It's "playing without Sex Rex was awful, and now you're going to make me basically play without Sex Rex for 40%-50% of what I do in the game (which would be more like 80% if I didn't always max Miner 69'er and Motherlode first) until I've invested a ton of points."  Having to stop halfway through harvesting a car or bear sucks.  Having to rest for stamina 3 or 4 times while harvesting my farm sucks (my default vanilla farm is 300 plots.)  Sex Rex made this not an issue, even when I hadn't invested into the related perks.  As I understand this change, this is going to be an issue until I've dropped tons of points into all these skills.

 

 

1. Use miner69er, it'll give you tool stamina.

2. You are already farming 300 plots, you most definitely have fortitude of 5, you can COMFORTABLY spare 3 skill points into just using your fists. That is literally the point of a fortitude build. If you are already elbow deep in fortitude, it makes logical sense to go brawling and machine guns.

Infact, now if you want to farm extensively you don't even have to touch strength. You can harvest your farm efficiently without even leaving fortitude. (or doing what i do, which is use a chainsaw)

Now instead of going 2 attribute 2 sexy rex with your 4 starter points you can just go 2 attribute 2 miner69er and go straight into having less stamina drain with tools, and doing bonus block damage. They literally made this easier for you now. "oh but my weapons"  if you're playing on default adventurer difficulty, use your miner69er axe as a weapon, this doesn't work effectively on higher difficulties but you're literally playing on a difficulty that makes you do 25% more damage. You can literally run around naked with your fists on adventurer difficulty, take 5 hits every time you kill a zombie and STILL survive.

Quite frankly, and i hate to be elitist because play games how you want, but when you're playing on such boosted settings (2x time, 25% more damage, 25% less damage taken) you really have no room to comment on the balance of the game because you can literally just do whatever and survive on those settings. It doesn't matter how efficient your build is, it doesn't matter how quickly you mine, or how quickly you progress. When you have twice as much time to prepare for the horde and can take 13 HITS before you die AT LEVEL 1 WITH NO ARMOR, you literally cannot fail. Put on some steel armor, use a first aid kit and use your own body as a horde base, you can just AFK on horde night.

Just turn up the player block damage in the main menu, turn the difficulty down even further and let those of us who want a balanced game, have one. You've already committed to throwing your game's balance out the window. Why is this suddenly an obstacle for you?

[mstdv inc]

5 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I think he has confused SexRex with Flurry... just to clarify, do tools have their own SexRex skill now?

 

@faatal What happens when a vehicle reaches zero HP? Does it blow up? Does it just stay there broken? It would be cool if in some conditions your vehicle could completely blow up instead of just breaking down... (e.g.) if you crush into a wall and you go below (i.e.) -50 HP then you also blow up. What are the plans on this?

  

4 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

 

Currently, a vehicle that takes enough damage (e.g. goes to 0 HP) will explode. In fact it even happened for bicycles at one point, which I filed as a bug at the time.

 

The chance to lose transport and all the loot in it motivates you well to monitor the condition of the car 👍

Edited December 21, 2022 by mstdv inc (see edit history)

[Trankitas]

5 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I've never tested it myself, but wasn't there a video of Mad Mole accidentally blowing up his own gyro copter during a horde?

 

 I got you

[Riamus]

On 12/18/2022 at 4:23 PM, faatal said:

There is currently an issue with particles sometimes colliding with moving colliders and stopping in the air.

So you accidentally added blood fog/mist?  Nice.  😜

[Riamus]

13 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

My complaint is this is going to lead to me needing to spend a bunch of time waiting around for stamina regen until I have tons of perks in all these skills.  I tried playing once without perking Sex Rex and it was miserable.  This is basically forcing me to play without Sex Rex for a long time, unless I completely misunderstand it.  Making your players stand around doing nothing is not a good gameplay loop.

Yes, I play differently than you do (though I do find your videos interesting).  I play 7D2D mainly to build.  I basically don't raid more than 1 POI a week after Day 14 or so.  And I'm usually level 70-80 by Day 7 (I play with 2 hour days.)  My horde base mainly kills things with traps.

 

I also don't play on insane.  I play on whatever the default difficulty is, usually.  I've even considered removing zombie spawns outside of horde night.

 

This has never been an issue up until this point (and I have 1700 hours played.)

 

And it's nothing to do with "I have to make a decision now."  It's "playing without Sex Rex was awful, and now you're going to make me basically play without Sex Rex for 40%-50% of what I do in the game (which would be more like 80% if I didn't always max Miner 69'er and Motherlode first) until I've invested a ton of points."  Having to stop halfway through harvesting a car or bear sucks.  Having to rest for stamina 3 or 4 times while harvesting my farm sucks (my default vanilla farm is 300 plots.)  Sex Rex made this not an issue, even when I hadn't invested into the related perks.  As I understand this change, this is going to be an issue until I've dropped tons of points into all these skills.

 

Yes, Sex Rex was really strong, and always taken.  If they wanted to get rid of that, it seems they should just make the benefits of Sex Rex the default state of the player (probably without the refund on kill) instead of spreading it out across a ton of skills.  And it's possible that they've increased base stamina regeneration, but I haven't seen anything about that.

I rarely put points into sex rex until I am leveled up with a lot.  I used to, but realized it really isn't that big of a deal unless I am doing a lot of digging without an auger and I basically just skip that until I am higher level.  Often, I don't even out points into it, or if I do, it is only one or two.  It just isn't as necessary as it seems.  Using a stone ax for harvesting very quickly uses "no" stamina (you regain faster than using it) just by peeking into miner 69er, so you can harvest without needing a break, no matter how large your garden is.  Weapons are the bigger issue and perking into them will solve this with the change and you should be perking into whatever weapons you use anyhow, so this actually saves you points.  As I mentioned, digging/mining is the more difficult issue with stamina and at your settings, you can afford to wait to dig your base and mine until you are higher level and can either find an auger or you already perked into miner 69er enough to not lost stamina too quickly.  As for harvesting animals, I can't think of a time when I ran out of stamina doing that unless I was already almost out when I started, such as from running up to the corpse.  And that isn't really unexpected.  I think you will find that this change isn't going to be much of a problem and will end up saving you points in the end.  Maybe there is a little more challenge in the first couple of days, but that is all.

[Aldranon]

Are melee weapons viable late game as a solo use weapon? 

I love the machete as I do a small roleplay thing: "Just a little off the TOP!"   

Very fun.  Silly but fun.

 

So, how do the melee masters do it without lots of fist aid and antibiotics?

I mean I tried melee in the Tier4(5?) bookstore... Infected... twice.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Aldranon
spelling, as usual. (see edit history)

[IzPrebuilt]

54 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

Are melee weapons viable late game as a solo use weapon? 

I love the machete as I do a small roleplay thing: "Just a little off the TOP!"   

Very fun.  Silly but fun.

 

So, how do the melee masters do it without lots of fist aid and antibiotics?

I mean I tried melee in the Tier4(5?) bookstore... Infected... twice.

If you're gonna use a machete in the late game, you'll want to use it stealthily. The knives are balanced in a way that makes them weaker in open combat but they have like 400% sneak attack damage. Clubs, sledgehammers and knuckles do fine. (Spears currently suck so ya know)

[LostCauseDoge]

16 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

My understanding is that the magazines are solely for crafting, not actual perks. 

Yeah thats my bad, i thought it had read that its gonna mean leveling becomes obsolete but i misread and remembered wrong xD but still gonna love the magazines since i needed more reasons to loot a lot of places

[Laran Mithras]

3 hours ago, Aldranon said:

Are melee weapons viable late game as a solo use weapon? 

Vanilla, not entirely, no. Melee is getting in dirty. In a T5 POI you're going to get really dirty (infections, crtis, etc).

 

I've found melee end-game is fine outside of POIs for your typical biome spawn wanderer. But inside where you get a stack of 5 radiateds... melee alone just isn't going to cut it without a ton of maneuver and Parkour - and there often isn't much of an opportunity to do it when zombies drop in on you from the ceiling or you on them.

 

Which is why there are guns.

 

Modded? Sure.

[faatal]

12 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

@faatal What happens when a vehicle reaches zero HP? Does it blow up? Does it just stay there broken? It would be cool if in some conditions your vehicle could completely blow up instead of just breaking down... (e.g.) if you crush into a wall and you go below (i.e.) -50 HP then you also blow up. What are the plans on this? 

At 1 it stays there and each time it takes damage, there is a chance it explodes and goes to 0 health. Since it takes more damage now, you might actually get to see one explode.

[NekoPawtato]

If a vehicle had items stored inside when it blows up, do you lose those or they drop as bags?

[Riamus]

4 hours ago, IzPrebuilt said:

If you're gonna use a machete in the late game, you'll want to use it stealthily. The knives are balanced in a way that makes them weaker in open combat but they have like 400% sneak attack damage. Clubs, sledgehammers and knuckles do fine. (Spears currently suck so ya know)

 

I use spears all the time and enjoy them. I do have a gun handy for when there is a rush of zombies.  But for normal use, even in a tier 5, I'll still use a spear.  I can one shot most zombies other than greens, and even then, I can usually knock them down in one shot and finish them in the next as long as I get a clean headshot.  Of course, I don't play at the highest difficulty levels, so can't comment on that.

 

I won't melee a horde night, but I think spears and melee in general late game work fine as long as you are aware of what is around you.  Having a gun for the rushes is a good idea, but with enough first aid, you can do it without, though I don't really consider that enjoyable.  But that's just my opinion.

[Survager]

On 12/18/2022 at 11:23 PM, faatal said:

It is possible, but the particle alignment looks best on horizontal surfaces. There is currently an issue with particles sometimes colliding with moving colliders and stopping in the air.

 

This problem also exists with arrows or crossbow bolts when hitting a block that is immediately destroyed, in which case the arrows continue to hang in the air. Will this be changed in Alpha 21?

[Survager]

4 hours ago, faatal said:

At 1 it stays there and each time it takes damage, there is a chance it explodes and goes to 0 health. Since it takes more damage now, you might actually get to see one explode.

 

Once upon a time, someone from the developers said that a vehicle could sometimes receive the same critical damage as a character, only for a vehicle it would be critical damage to the wheels, engine, headlights, and so on.

Critical damage to the wheels should have had a negative impact on the handling of the vehicle, critical damage to the engine at speed, and damage to the headlights would logically turn off the headlights.

Is this mechanic in the plans or was it abandoned?

[Mister Forgash]

Come to think of it, that does sound a little familiar- Oh man I hope that's still on the table, even if not for this coming alpha.

[Old Crow]

44 minutes ago, Survager said:

 

This problem also exists with arrows or crossbow bolts when hitting a block that is immediately destroyed, in which case the arrows continue to hang in the air. Will this be changed in Alpha 21?

 

What, you don't like your anti-gravity arrows and bolts?

In seriousness though, it would be nice to see this fixed/changed. The current problem though is that a salvageable bolt or arrow would probably be destroyed in the current system, like what happens when debris collapses even further after breaking a block below it.

[Survager]

22 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

What, you don't like your anti-gravity arrows and bolts?

In seriousness though, it would be nice to see this fixed/changed. The current problem though is that a salvageable bolt or arrow would probably be destroyed in the current system, like what happens when debris collapses even further after breaking a block below it.

 

I'm ready to lose my arrow when I shoot at a block that will break from the shot )