Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Ralathar44]

52 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

Loaded up a single player game last night, 200% loot abundance just to test. Raided the Working Stiff store near Jen's old location, and came out with way more weapon-oriented magazines than I did tool-oriented magazines - and not a single Forge Ahead magazine. Seems a bit off, yeah?

That's nowhere near enough information.  Bare minimum you need to include all relevant perk levels and if you're super concerned about it then recording raids on relevant POIs would be best.  And even then as many data points as possible as RNG is RNG.  You could raid 2 days and get nothing then visit a new trader and get 3 magazines from their defunct workstations.

[Big Johnson]

Hello, I've noticed an interesting bug (or feature) where no matter what setting I use, what edits I make to district XMLs, every single one of my alpha 21 worlds only have 1 of each of the skyscrapers in them, and they are always in very close proximity of each other, in 1 city per map. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so is it a bug or a feature? I don't want to make a bug report if this is an intended change, or if its a something I did in the XMLs. Thank you

[métaphore]

Hi,

Playing solo in a RWG, as I used to do in previous builds, without any trader on the map, no airdrops and ignoring working vending machine has become nearly impossible with A21. It's mainly because of the water situation (but I could work around that by allowing a single water filter in my backpack after spawning) which impact also cooking, healing, fighting and crafting -then surviving. But still, instead of fine tuning how critical items might drop during the early game, it's way easier for you (designer) to simply put them on sale at the trader and offered as a reward for (pointlessly) questing.

 

Ie. while testing A21 no-trader, I've looted several times the POI "store_hardware_02" (T3 Stiff and Tools) on day 1 and get mostly... a very few books/magazines, A LOT of nails plus 3-4 murky water jars (out of 10 toilets ~ 33% water 66% paper) and barely no critical items, like forged Iron (0-2 bars), mechanical parts (same) or repair kits (same) as I was used to find some at this place. What is also feelling very wrong is that I'm constantly getting some late game steel tool parts -motor tools and steel sledge are very common from day 1 in Stiff and Tools boxes- while we can't even recycle those items for something more useful that is actually needed (same issue with all the higher tier parts). Even a full bike -once obsolete- is not recyclable, which is lame. At some point during testing, I had many times more Steel bars (which I had absolutely no use for) than forged Iron bars that I was looking for for crafting my first wrench.

 

Now, the game without trader feels very umbalanced in the "too tedious" direction to be still enjoyable for me. All I had to do previously was a very little moding (just switching any trader building for something else in the new RWG world files), but now, it feels like a major overhaul to rebalance looting and crafting issues (that I wont even try to mod). It's a pitty as I think that it should be the core game to be well balanced first, with all Trader stuff as an addon to it.

 

My motive, in short, is that I can't actually play the game when already looted POIs will be magically reseted by questing or some supply will be magically falling from the sky or replenished in vending machines. In fact, I've got the same issue with a resucited survivor after dying: all immersion will be gone; then I start a whole new world. Moreover, all this trader stuff -including small talk- is very very repetitive and still not well implemented in game. I've already got a real life day job and I'm not going to be Rekts @%$#.

 

First playthrough to test A21, I get ALL my tier 1 missions sent at Pass & Gas POIs... (then I could craft a complete bike before the end of day 2 while still having some spare wheels and handelbars to sell them back). I ditched this game and started a new world, picked the closer first quest, which sent me again to another "Pass & Gas" POI...

 

RWG: as I've died a lot, I've made plenty of new worlds, all with different seed names: my main issue is that streets and blocks all look the same once in game (tiles and building settings are exactly the same from one world to another) and I wonder if the code for the percentage of each biome is actually working fine: ie. I get 40% of Snow instead of 20%, or 50% of Forest and 50% Desert instead of 25% of each four biome chosen in settings. There is, now obviously, a deficit in low tier buildings (T1-T2) as we can check that when runing accross the map.

 

Default settings: each time I'm doing a new game, I'll have the game to revert to default settings and not to my personal ones -while there is also a "default" settings button with no use now

 

This wasn't the case previously and it's quite annoying to be honest!

 

Also, there is a bug with user settings when several games are saved for the same world. At some point (when the list is 4-5 games long), the last one, when logging off, will lose its user "general" settings (but keep the right user settings on the other tabs!). Hence, during a test, my game number 4 or 5, that was set as "not listed", "1 player", "Warrior", reseted all this tab fields to general default each time I logged off. The first time, I didn't notice it and relaunched my game which was then a "Public" server in "North-America", with "Adventurer" difficulty...

 

Fighting: it's much harder at the Warrior settings than I can remember (I didn't play much since A20 early releases - but still logged several thousands hrs since A15). Zombies are cheating like hell when stamina is low with melee weapons and there is ghost spawnings all over the place, including in low tier POIs. Silent zombie attacks seems to happen frequently now... including from dogs! But this, I can learn from my mistakes (being too reckless) how to deal with it.

Edited June 20, 2023 by métaphore (see edit history)

[falloutcloud]

4 hours ago, retrogamingdev said:

That said, I have always felt slightly annoyed by how much you do have to eat (and drink) in the game. A slider in the game setup that decreases or increases the rate of food/water consumption would be a good idea. Just one more layer to really defining how your game goes. 

 

 

The Iron Gut perk will decrease the rate your food and hunger go down. The perk has other useful bits such as extended buffs but if you nerf the hunger and thirst you'll dilute the perk and some of the challenge.

[Kosmic Kerman]

3 hours ago, hiloboys said:

Anyone else having issues with quest rewards for Tier III / IV? I havent had a good reward the entire time. It feels like what its offering me is Tier II at best. (wooden bow 2nd rank, skill books, 25 steel, Leather glove 2nd rank) All for a really hard Tier IV mission I just  completed, and all the rewards ive gotten so far have been similar including back in tier 3. It feels like the quest npc tier rewards after 2 go down the hill. (Only tested Trader Joel's quests though havent gone up a tier in the other traders missions)

Same in my game (new game for 317 but using a map generated in 313). This was true for all of my Tier V quest rewards but one. Not only were all my rewards quality 2 but what was offered was hot garbage usually a tier below what I could craft or I had already looted a Q2 or Q3 version. It’s ironic that trader items were changed (unintentionally or not) at the same time the guaranteed skill books were removed. I’m currently on day 35 and I did not receive a single weapon or tool worth selecting. And I was never offered a tier 3 weapon or tool. 

[Roland]

50 minutes ago, métaphore said:

Now, the game without trader feels very umbalanced in the "too tedious" direction to be still enjoyable for me. All I had to do previously was a very little moding (just switching any trader building for something else in the new RWG world files), but now, it feels like a major overhaul to rebalance looting and crafting issues (that I wont even try to mod). It's a pitty as I think that it should be the core game to be well balanced first, with all Trader stuff as an addon to it.

There is no game mode without a trader that is supported and so there has been no balancing for that type of mode. It should tell you something that there is a “No Zombies” option in the top menu but there isn’t a “No trader” option. The trader and doing jobs are considered integral to the vanilla game experience. In fact when you do get a “No Trader” message it is considered a world generation bug. 
 

If traders were able to be easily ignored in the past then that is simply because their role in the game was not fully fleshed out and I doubt they are still completely fleshed out.  As traders continue to be developed along with the jobs they offer, the reputation system that will be coming along with factions, and any further services they might provide beyond what they currently do, you will find that the need to mod the game to allow for their absence will become more significant.  
 

This game is not a wilderness survival sim. It is designed that at least minimal reliance on traders as well as urban areas is needed. You can mod the game to support something closer to a wilderness survival last human being on earth type of play style but that is what it is going to require more and more going forward. 

[Adam the Waster]

So my question is will we get any of the decor parts later on? like the Scrap metal sheets, wooden planks, stoves? other stuff. i wanna build my hobo fort!

you may say (well just spawn them/mod them in). but my main thought is about the console. they will not get any of that stuff unless they cheat. 

also zombie spawns, if players like me like to suffer and have the max amount of zombies i can. like 3x more zombies in the wild. will that become a setting rather than going into XMS Settings and doing it like that. because again... console won't be able to do that.  

[kattenijin]

2 hours ago, Big Johnson said:

Hello, I've noticed an interesting bug (or feature) where no matter what setting I use, what edits I make to district XMLs, every single one of my alpha 21 worlds only have 1 of each of the skyscrapers in them, and they are always in very close proximity of each other, in 1 city per map. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so is it a bug or a feature? I don't want to make a bug report if this is an intended change, or if its a something I did in the XMLs. Thank you

Not a bug or anything you did, far as I can tell its a "feature". I've mentioned this several times here and in other threads, its not just the skyscrapers, its also the prisons and the new Vanity Tower. Even on a 10k map you only get 1 of each, with 4 in one city (including Vanity Tower) with one prison, one in another city with the other prison and one in a city with several of the large t5 factories. (need to check if those and Red Mesa are also 1 each) Might as well just go back to the original Center City map type.

Edited June 20, 2023 by kattenijin (see edit history)

[métaphore]

20 minutes ago, Roland said:

There is no game mode without a trader that is supported and so there has been no balancing for that type of mode. It should tell you something that there is a “No Zombies” option in the top menu but there isn’t a “No trader” option. The trader and doing jobs are considered integral to the vanilla game experience. In fact when you do get a “No Trader” message it is considered a world generation bug.

 

Considering that the looting/competence/reward system was already changed so many times,-back and forth-, and that, each time, the very last iteration implemented was supposed to resolve all the progression issues, -until it has to be fixed again in the next release-, I am definitively not surprised to read that balancing things around the core survival game wasn't even considered as a priority by the design team. So, following your reasoning, the core game should be about questing for the Traders, like in buying/selling stuff and earning dukes, while surviving hordes and looting the world for crafting stuff would be simple side kicks.

 

Let me simply doubt about that, even if you said so based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove the traders from the game settings (In fact, that's a feature that would probably add a lot to the game experience instead of being considered a bug for closing the initial quest).

 

And I'm also feeling that the actual system will be changed again before the full release.

 

Quote

If traders were able to be easily ignored in the past then that is simply because their role in the game was not fully fleshed out and I doubt they are still completely fleshed out.  As traders continue to be developed along with the jobs they offer, the reputation system that will be coming along with factions, and any further services they might provide beyond what they currently do, you will find that the need to mod the game to allow for their absence will become more significant.  

 

I'm all in for a completely fleshed out and immersive Trader system, something worth investing my time on it. Until then, as I simply find it crap not worth playing in the current version (A21),

 

I'm just pointing out to the design team, as some sort of feedback, that the only reason I'm still playing this game is because I could work around an issue which is what I think is the main flaw of this game. I have never installed or played any modded version of this game. I first simply decided to ignore Jen & Co and do all my stuff without bothering about the traders, same for the vending machines. I don't think that not eating candies would ruin my 7D2D experience. Now, I'm also pasting another POI name for each generated Trader compound for removing them totally from the map, which is a very little modding taking about five minutes for a new map.

 

And guess what? If they were really part of the core game, this would have f***ed up my gaming experience, right? Instead, it solved many issues that I felt were wrong with the progression looting/crafting system. In fact, I would rather not play the game at all rather than go back to the boring pointless questing "missions".

 

But also I'm open to try when this will change with further implementation, like bandits and factions. But, at this point, there isn't anything implemented worth going back to play with traders in A21.

 

 

Quote

This game is not a wilderness survival sim. It is designed that at least minimal reliance on traders as well as urban areas is needed. You can mod the game to support something closer to a wilderness survival last human being on earth type of play style but that is what it is going to require more and more going forward. 

 

What make you think that I'm playing a wilderness survival sim?

I'm not. In fact, I'm working on a small single city map accross all biome. So I'm actually playing an urban survival sim, without any trader, if you want to call it that way.

Would you allow me to?

[Blake_]

@faatal I found a few things in the experimental version that might be considered an issue.

 

.When zds reach their path destination they can stay idle for too long, allowing a player to kill them with ease. It happened to me a few times, most significantly in the buried supplies quests, where they (occasionally, 1 or 2 zds)  went directly to the location of the chest/player and refused to acknowledge my presence while passing by (I might have been able to hit them, but they should see me on their own, because it is the player they want to eat, not the path destination).

 

.Also, they are significantly bugged in situations with more than 1 player in a continuous, sizeable screamer horde. In those cases they should immediatly path in full when at X distance to the closest player, which currently they might not. I believe they update a bit too slow for those dynamic situations.

 

Performance is good. Very good, if those things get fine tunned, we could stand 128 entity hordes with absolutely no problem.

 

An idea here, we could have a performace option when creating a game that sets the complexity of the AI, like: SIMPLE, NORMAL, COMPLEX. The performace impact of the latter would be greater, yet more precise. Just a workaround if performance gets in the way of current CPU technology. This will be a non issue in 6 years.

 

Water: We cannot always directly drink from water. The option is buggy and the "press E" doesn't always appear.

[Roland]

51 minutes ago, métaphore said:

Considering that the looting/competence/reward system was already changed so many times,-back and forth-, and that, each time, the very last iteration implemented was supposed to resolve all the progression issues, -until it has to be fixed again in the next release-, I am definitively not surprised to read that balancing things around the core survival game wasn't even considered as a priority by the design team. So, following your reasoning, the core game should be about questing for the Traders, like in buying/selling stuff and earning dukes, while surviving hordes and looting the world for crafting stuff would be simple side kicks.

 

A) No one from TFP has ever claimed that each new iteration is supposed to resolve all progression issues. Development is ongoing and a work in progress. There will be further developments until the game is finished. Each update should not be viewed as an attempt to totally fix the issues with the previous version. Instead, they should be viewed as iterative advancements from the previous version with some experimentation thrown in at times.

 

B) The core survival game includes the existence of traders. You may not think of the traders as being part of the core survival game and think it a good idea to balance everything perfectly first with the absence of traders and then just add them to the game as optional additional content. But TFP has traders as part of the core survival game. So following my reasoning the core game should be about trading, doing jobs, exploring, building, mining, farming, gathering resources, crafting, killing zombies, defending your base, and any other personal objective you set for yourself. If you choose to ignore or remove aspects of the game then you need to be prepared to mod the game especially as all those parts get solidified and integrated with each other in the game.

 

51 minutes ago, métaphore said:

Let me simply doubt about that, even if you said so based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove the traders from the game settings (In fact, that's a feature that would probably add a lot to the game experience instead of being considered a bug for closing the initial quest).

 

Doubt away but you should know that my statement isn't based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove traders. I mentioned that for emphasis. My statement is based on the statements and plans of the developers. Traders aren't meant to be an add-on to some sort of survival core game that doesn't include traders. You can certainly play without them but you will have some issues that will need to be overcome if you choose to do that and the extent of what you will need to do will only become more significant as the game gets fully fleshed out for release.

Also closing the initial quest doesn't create the bug of no trader. Closing the initial quest simply means you start with zero skillpoints and must find the trader on your own without help. It is my own preferred way to start. The no trader bug happens most often when you have remnants of code from a previous version map causing problems in your new map.

 

51 minutes ago, métaphore said:

And guess what? If they were really part of the core game, this would have f***ed up my gaming experience, right?

 

Isn't that why you wrote in to say that you were finding it nearly impossible to play without the traders and that you used to be able to ignore them and play in A20 but now your game experience is messed up? Yeah, here is your own quote: 

 

3 hours ago, métaphore said:

Hi,

Playing solo in a RWG, as I used to do in previous builds, without any trader on the map, no airdrops and ignoring working vending machine has become nearly impossible with A21.

 

As the core game gets more and more integrated with all the aspects of the game it is going to be more and more difficult to just ignore an aspect of it without modding.

 

51 minutes ago, métaphore said:

What make you think that I'm playing a wilderness survival sim?

I'm not. In fact, I'm working on a small single city map accross all biome. So I'm actually playing an urban survival sim, without any trader, if you want to call it that way.

Would you allow me to?

 

Sure. I guess I misunderstood how you were trying to play. Thanks for your feedback that the game isn't worth playing with the current implementation of traders. Hopefully you will like them once further development occurs or will be able to mod the game to be able to play the way you want. I am thrilled at all the different ways people play the game using mods and/or imposing voluntary limitations. I just don't want you to continue with the erroneous assumption that traders are some peripheral add-on to the core game and that TFP should or would balance the game with the complete absence of traders in mind.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, Big Johnson said:

Hello, I've noticed an interesting bug (or feature) where no matter what setting I use, what edits I make to district XMLs, every single one of my alpha 21 worlds only have 1 of each of the skyscrapers in them, and they are always in very close proximity of each other, in 1 city per map. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so is it a bug or a feature? I don't want to make a bug report if this is an intended change, or if its a something I did in the XMLs. Thank you

They added a setting in the POI XML file that allows controlling numbers of POI placed according to the dev streams.  A quick look and I think this is the line:

 

  <property name="DuplicateRepeatDistance" value="10000" />

 

That is from skyscraper_01.  If I am understanding this right, then these can only be placed 10km+ apart from one another, which essentially means only 1 per map except on larger maps if the POI is originally placed along one side.  If it's placed somewhere in the middle, even a large map will still only have one and that's the more likely case.

 

It is useful to have control over how many of a POI are placed on a map to avoid too much duplication, especially in a small area, but it also means that if you want more, you'll need to edit the POIs.

[RipClaw]

8 hours ago, hiloboys said:

Anyone else having issues with quest rewards for Tier III / IV? I havent had a good reward the entire time. It feels like what its offering me is Tier II at best.

Same with the Tier V rewards.

 

EDIT: There is already a bug report and it is confirmed that this is indeed a bug

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[métaphore]

33 minutes ago, Roland said:

Isn't that why you wrote in to say that you were finding it nearly impossible to play without the traders and that you used to be able to ignore them and play in A20 but now your game experience is messed up? Yeah, here is your own quote: 

 

As the core game gets more and more integrated with all the aspects of the game it is going to be more and more difficult to just ignore an aspect of it without modding.

 

Of course, you know perfectly what I meant about removing traders in previous built which wasn't an issue until now and rather made this game much more fun to play once  bored of questing and selling stuff  for Dukes. This, of course, is not true since A21, after testing it intensively: Traders are very hardly removable. From here, It looks like the easy way was chosen to reduce some important early game items from looting and put them instead in the shop or as rewards in order to force players doing those quests.

 

Maybe that's the best way to do it!

 

Then me posting here, for the first time, that it's been a fun killer and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one playing this way.  Nonetheless, as It would be too much work to fix it myself, it's just game over. Anyway, thank you TFP, I already had plenty of fun for such a small expense.

 

 

Quote

Thanks for your feedback that the game isn't worth playing with the current implementation of traders. Hopefully you will like them once further development occurs or will be able to mod the game to be able to play the way you want. I am thrilled at all the different ways people play the game using mods and/or imposing voluntary limitations. I just don't want you to continue with the erroneous assumption that traders are some peripheral add-on to the core game and that TFP should or would balance the game with the complete absence of traders in mind.

 

You are welcome.

 

 

 

 

[AaronG85]

Ill be the first to say it

 

In the wise words of Age of Empires 2

Quote

Start the (Alpha 22 Forum Topic) Game Already

 

LOL, Just kidding loving A21, thanks for all the hard work.

[Belgarion32]

I remember there was a chart or something with the expected timelines to obtain items based on gamestage and lootstage, is that still available?

I'm having an extraordinarily easy run. Dew collector hasn't been a need at all in any of my runs but this one's been the longest so far at 8 days, I used a q1 club all through t1/2 quests in the first 3-4 days and found a q3 bat with no points into any weapons.  Found a q2 ak on day 4, and seems on day 5 I ticked over the magic mark to start getting toilet pistols (2 weirdly close to each other). On day 6 I was sent to my third trader, bob in the snow, and he already had a crucible and bellows for me, expensive but I already had an entire stack plus of dukes so I bought some items from vending machines and got both for ~11k without points in better barter or DA. When I got back to my main city I finally unlocked the workstation.

All this to say, something's funky with the math and the progression feels both stretched and compacted, this is default everything on a new RNG world for 317.

[DrunkZombie]

2 hours ago, Blake_ said:

@faatal

 

Water: We cannot always directly drink from water. The option is buggy and the "press E" doesn't always appear.

To drink water from a source you need to have nothing in your hand and don't move for a couple of seconds. Should work everytime then .

[fragtzack]

I am finding the end game is greatly delayed and progression is more smooth.  Salute 

[Old Crow]

Any reason breaking windows and pictures no longer gives you broken glass? I've only been able to get any from mirrors so far. Bug?

[Laran Mithras]

10 hours ago, Big Johnson said:

Hello, I've noticed an interesting bug (or feature) where no matter what setting I use, what edits I make to district XMLs, every single one of my alpha 21 worlds only have 1 of each of the skyscrapers in them, and they are always in very close proximity of each other, in 1 city per map. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so is it a bug or a feature? I don't want to make a bug report if this is an intended change, or if its a something I did in the XMLs. Thank you

I've noticed this.

I'm thinking a tweak to the RWG that limits repetitiveness.

 

Really though, there probably only should be 1 Shotgun Messiah, or other T5.

[Morloc]

On 6/18/2023 at 1:24 PM, faatal said:

It probably should.

 

I'm not certain if it changed the stealth meter, but I'm 100% certain it used to draw zombies within a certain radius to investigate when the tree fell.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

[archergod]

Okay, I get a chance to play new Experimental, few things I am not sure if are bugs:

 

1. When the latest 317 update came in it wiped my Skill point allocated already, and magazine read before it. I have to restart new game 

2. Performance is laggy. I have 1660 GTX, on Core i7 A20 give good 100+ FPS on settings (medium) I play, but now it jump between 14 to 50 and become so unplayable at time. 
3. I was cleaning this room and I see 3 Z coming to attach me (as it was level 1 house end loot) So I close the door between them and me, and before I can make switch to my pipe machine gun. and hit between door (as they break part of it). my player is dead. there were not feral and I am sure they hit me from behind closed door  (same way we use to hit them from ages) ..

[Blake_]

5 hours ago, DrunkZombie said:

To drink water from a source you need to have nothing in your hand and don't move for a couple of seconds. Should work everytime then .

Yeah, well. It doesn't.

[Big Johnson]

7 hours ago, Riamus said:

They added a setting in the POI XML file that allows controlling numbers of POI placed according to the dev streams.  A quick look and I think this is the line:

 

  <property name="DuplicateRepeatDistance" value="10000" />

 

That is from skyscraper_01.  If I am understanding this right, then these can only be placed 10km+ apart from one another, which essentially means only 1 per map except on larger maps if the POI is originally placed along one side.  If it's placed somewhere in the middle, even a large map will still only have one and that's the more likely case.

 

It is useful to have control over how many of a POI are placed on a map to avoid too much duplication, especially in a small area, but it also means that if you want more, you'll need to edit the POIs.

Ah I see, so all I need to is change those lines in the XML. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it!

[Silverridge]

a small question from me. nests and loot containers (garbage and rubbish) in the area. do they respawn on their own or only after a wipe?