Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

6 hours ago, Falcon197 said:

 

No opinion on pets, but LBD absolutely needs to come back to 7 Days.  The perk system has been in a weird and unnatural state for the last few alphas with the way things are categorized and gated.  There's too much rigidity in how the skill trees are structured to where it's really hard to advance skills in multiple trees without inevitably wasting points on less useful perks.

 

Even if LBD was only applied to physical skills like melee, carry capacity, jumping, etc. - that would make the leveling experience feel much more organic and points could just be used to unlock more of the crafting based perks or efficiencies for that.  

 

I know we're on the verge of A21's release, so I'll limit my case on this for now but I've had a big bone to pick on the way perks work; to the point where I'm considering learning how to code in C# just to mod a better solution.

 

Learn by Doing was a perfect system which rewarded people by boosting only the skills they bothered with.

 

This incentivised mining, farming, looting, and fighting. And they removed it. Utterly senseless to take away one of the best things that they have ever created, something which; had people played with friends, created a truly biased character build and genuine rpg like environment with your doctor, your fighter, your looter, your miner etc.

 

Each with weighted speciality, and minor skills in other areas.

 

Although you could in theory max everything out, it just made so much more sense like that. Much better than this idiotic version that is being pushed onto us - learn by reading 100 copies of the same magazine.

 

Don't be surprised when the zealots strike and you are metaphorically publicly tarred and feathered foe your heretical and blasphemous appeals to the old development gods 🤭

[4sheetzngeegles]

Soooo; If a person is primarily simplistic, and enjoys using primitive and rudimentary
tools and techniques against overwhelming odds in this game until obliterated,
are they a Spanish sun, unless modded?     Basically would my game play be "SOL".

🤔

[Gronal]

Okay okay, listen, I like basically everything about A21 I've seen so far. Looking like an amazing update.

BUT, that new eating sound is terrible. I think that's my only complaint lol

[mstdv inc]

13 minutes ago, Gronal said:

Okay okay, listen, I like basically everything about A21 I've seen so far. Looking like an amazing update.

BUT, that new eating sound is terrible. I think that's my only complaint lol

The sound when the character drinks from a water source is also a bit strange.

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

Learn by Doing was a perfect system which rewarded people by boosting only the skills they bothered with.

 

This incentivised mining, farming, looting, and fighting. And they removed it. Utterly senseless to take away one of the best things that they have ever created, something which; had people played with friends, created a truly biased character build and genuine rpg like environment with your doctor, your fighter, your looter, your miner etc.

 

Each with weighted speciality, and minor skills in other areas.

 

Although you could in theory max everything out, it just made so much more sense like that. Much better than this idiotic version that is being pushed onto us - learn by reading 100 copies of the same magazine.

 

Don't be surprised when the zealots strike and you are metaphorically publicly tarred and feathered foe your heretical and blasphemous appeals to the old development gods 🤭

[FranticDan]

Suggestion: completion bonus for Needle & Thread should be College Jacket.
Who in their right mind crafts BDU clothes?

[khzmusik]

10 hours ago, zztong said:

A related question ... do they change back to "Closed" if a player puts something into them? I guess that is also asking, do "Open" models still have an inventory into which a player could put something?

 

I was watching a few streamers today. It looks like the answer for most containers is "no." Once you loot a container, it no longer has an inventory so you can't put anything into it.

 

I definitely do not like this change. For example, I always choose a home base with a lootable fridge in it, since I like the "realism" of keeping food in a refrigerator.

 

(Not that it matters for TFP, but that also screws with the food spoilage mod.)

 

Hopefully that can be easily modded out. If nothing else, at least we can mod in craftable items like refrigerators or shelves.

 

1 hour ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

Learn by Doing was a perfect system which rewarded people by boosting only the skills they bothered with.

 

This incentivised mining, farming, looting, and fighting. And they removed it. Utterly senseless to take away one of the best things that they have ever created, something which; had people played with friends, created a truly biased character build and genuine rpg like environment with your doctor, your fighter, your looter, your miner etc.

 

Each with weighted speciality, and minor skills in other areas.

 

Although you could in theory max everything out, it just made so much more sense like that. Much better than this idiotic version that is being pushed onto us - learn by reading 100 copies of the same magazine.

 

Don't be surprised when the zealots strike and you are metaphorically publicly tarred and feathered foe your heretical and blasphemous appeals to the old development gods 🤭

 

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the new "learn by looting" system should make it easier for modders to re-implement LBD.

 

Have a counter for each "doing" activity (like striking things with an axe or whatever), keep that count in a cvar, and when that count reaches a certain number, give the player the equivalent of one magazine. (And remove the actual magazines from spawning.)

Edited June 9, 2023 by khzmusik (see edit history)

[Riamus]

45 minutes ago, FranticDan said:

Suggestion: completion bonus for Needle & Thread should be College Jacket.
Who in their right mind crafts BDU clothes?

Who in their right mind crafts clothes beyond the starter quest?  😁

[Old Crow]

11 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Pretty much yes.   Most of it feels fine to me.  There are a few exceptions though like luggage loot.  I think we don't have an open state container for those that don't look strange yet.

 

 

I have to say.. having all of those other larger containers poof on looting is a weird change and I don't understand the logic behind it. Medical cabinets? Why? They have an open state. Store shelves? Why? Why reduce the overall amount of looting potential?

And the larger chests part wasn't answered, unless I missed it. Does loot respawn in them every few days, still, or ONLY on a chunk reset/quest start?

[bdubyah]

Yeah, not being able to use those blocks as storage after looting is an odd decision.

[Riamus]

48 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

I have to say.. having all of those other larger containers poof on looting is a weird change and I don't understand the logic behind it. Medical cabinets? Why? They have an open state. Store shelves? Why? Why reduce the overall amount of looting potential?

And the larger chests part wasn't answered, unless I missed it. Does loot respawn in them every few days, still, or ONLY on a chunk reset/quest start?

I know shelves don't go away and are just the empty (open) state.  I assume any containers that have an open state won't disappear and will show the open state.  I think the answer to that was just not clear.

 

But I agree that not being able to store stuff in a container after opening it is an odd decision. I'll sometimes use a container to reorganize my inventory and this makes that impossible.

[Old Crow]

9 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I know shelves don't go away and are just the empty (open) state.  I assume any containers that have an open state won't disappear and will show the open state.  I think the answer to that was just not clear.

 

But I agree that not being able to store stuff in a container after opening it is an odd decision. I'll sometimes use a container to reorganize my inventory and this makes that impossible.

 

Agreed. With the Shotgun Messiah paintball range, I like to use the dumpster outside to store/organize things as well if I double loot or just have a full inventory in general. I'm hoping normal loot respawn is still available every few days - having to wait for a chunk reset/quest reset would suck. Especially since they want us out looting more often with the learning changes.

[Riamus]

12 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

Agreed. With the Shotgun Messiah paintball range, I like to use the dumpster outside to store/organize things as well if I double loot or just have a full inventory in general. I'm hoping normal loot respawn is still available every few days - having to wait for a chunk reset/quest reset would suck. Especially since they want us out looting more often with the learning changes.

Pretty sure loot respawn has gone the way of the dodo except with chunk reset.  Which is a pain considering most solo players and many multiple who aren't on servers won't enable chunk reset.  I know I won't because I dig mines all around and don't want them getting filled in.

[Old Crow]

3 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Pretty sure loot respawn has gone the way of the dodo except with chunk reset.  Which is a pain considering most solo players and many multiple who aren't on servers won't enable chunk reset.  I know I won't because I dig mines all around and don't want them getting filled in.

 

Gross. "Let's make players focus on looting, but make looting harder." Great idea.

[Kamooti]

The simplest way to solve reusing opened containers would be to mod upgrade block on them to the closed state again. You broke it in your haste to /r and could use paper/wood etc to repair it back to the closed state. I'm surprised that wasn't the utilized in this new system by default.

[Riamus]

27 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

Gross. "Let's make players focus on looting, but make looting harder." Great idea.

Well, I would assume based on the water changes that they really want it to feel at least a little more of a survival game.  Things don't just fill back up with loot if you loot them in real life, after all.  Still, being a game, I was fine with it doing that.

 

My main issue with this change is that if you do not want to quest and want to go back through and rerun a POI, you can kill everything in it all over again but not get any loot because you already looted everything.  That is what I have an issue with.

[Old Crow]

1 minute ago, Riamus said:

Well, I would assume based on the water changes that they really want it to feel at least a little more of a survival game.  Things don't just fill back up with loot if you loot them in real life, after all.  Still, being a game, I was fine with it doing that.

 

My main issue with this change is that if you do not want to quest and want to go back through and rerun a POI, you can kill everything in it all over again but not get any loot because you already looted everything.  That is what I have an issue with.

 

Exactly. That's the stupid part, and I hope they make changes to make it less hostile to people who prefer to play that way. "It's a sandbox, but play the way WE want you to."

[spud42]

most of the recent alpha changes have been trying to force people to play the way they want insted of the way we want to play. 

 

im going to try to keep an open mind when i get to play it. i dont think i will bother with the experimental this time . i will wait till the public release. hopefully some more balancing and fixes to this #lootbaggate happen.

[Riamus]

3 minutes ago, spud42 said:

most of the recent alpha changes have been trying to force people to play the way they want insted of the way we want to play. 

 

im going to try to keep an open mind when i get to play it. i dont think i will bother with the experimental this time . i will wait till the public release. hopefully some more balancing and fixes to this #lootbaggate happen.

I mean, having watched some streams, people seem to be saying they were wrong to criticize things and that they like how it's playing.  But everyone has different opinions on what is good or bad.  For me, I think most things are going to be fine with me.  My only real issues are the danger meter popup, huge vehicle damage values, and loot not respawning without chunk reset enabled or resetting via quests.  Everything else seems either very good or at least not bad.

[khzmusik]

2 hours ago, Riamus said:

My main issue with this change is that if you do not want to quest and want to go back through and rerun a POI, you can kill everything in it all over again but not get any loot because you already looted everything.  That is what I have an issue with.

 

Sorry, did I miss something? Unless you reset the POI due to a quest, then POIs in A20 behaved exactly as you describe. Zombies might respawn but loot wouldn't.

[Aldranon]

Well, my fears that learn by reading would be bad was incorrect!

I now like the flow of it and the choices the player must make:  Higher tier of a weaker material VS a lower tier of a stronger material. 

[Old Crow]

51 minutes ago, khzmusik said:

 

Sorry, did I miss something? Unless you reset the POI due to a quest, then POIs in A20 behaved exactly as you describe. Zombies might respawn but loot wouldn't.

 

Wrong. A20 loot would respawn a number of days chosen in the settings (usually every 5 days by default) in looted POIs as long as you didn't approach them before then. So I'd say yeah, you missed something.

[Riamus]

58 minutes ago, khzmusik said:

 

Sorry, did I miss something? Unless you reset the POI due to a quest, then POIs in A20 behaved exactly as you describe. Zombies might respawn but loot wouldn't.

As Old Crow said, loot respawned in POI just like it does anywhere in the world as long as no player has been near it within the respawn time period.  You can rerun a POI a week later (less, but I don't know the exact time) and loot everything again.  In fact, if you left something in a container the first time around, when you go back, you can loot that and then wait a second and the container will update to the respawned loot, saying it had not yet been checked and you'll be able to loot it again.  It is like leaving paper in a mailbox... when you go back a week later, it'll still have that paper in it.  If you loot the paper and wait a second, it will change back to unlooted tooltip and when you loot it again, you'll get a new set of loot.  Leaving something in the container doesn't make it so you can loot it again but it hides that it can be looted again because it still shows the old loot.  That may be why you think it doesn't change, if you are leaving some loot that you don't want in containers.  So, yes, it's a change.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[FranticDan]

6 hours ago, Riamus said:

Who in their right mind crafts clothes beyond the starter quest?  😁

Aside from the pockets and college jacket, very true!

[seven]

4 minutes ago, Riamus said:

As Old Crow said, loot respawned in POI just like it does anywhere in the world as long as no player has been near it within the respawn time period.  You can rerun a POI a week later (less, but I don't know the exact time) and loot everything again.  In fact, if you left something in a container the first time around, when you go back, you can loot that and then wait a second and the container will update to the respawned loot, saying it had not yet been checked and you'll be able to loot it again.  So, yes, it's a change.

 

"Loot Respawn Time" is still an option in the Advanced tab, defaulting to 7 days. So, assuming that's really there and not something tfp forgot to remove, loot still respawns.