Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Bobby Lee 298]

I know madmole was taking about adding some special zombies in the pass. Could we see more parasite zombies like that new boil one that was added in A20

[Fanatical_Meat]

On 5/12/2022 at 5:03 PM, Roland said:

In the Alpha 20 dev diary, Madmole actually talked about this change. If you go look for what he said you will have a rough outline of what to expect next week.

What day can we expect this news?

[jorbascrumps]

3 hours ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

What day can we expect this news?

 

When it's done.

[madmole]

Hi all!
We're very busy on Alpha 21 but I thought I would share the new crafting system and looting changes with you.

There are now tons of new skills that govern unlocking and the quality of items in the game.

A few examples of crafting skills are shotguns, pistols, cooking, armorer, medical, etc.

Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting skills. Many perks are being reworked to add value where before the main value was a recipe unlock.

Books no longer unlock recipes. The ones that did unlock items are being reworked to do something else.

 

Crafting skill is improved by finding magazines in the game. Mailboxes, file cabinets, book shelves etc can all contain various magazines that improve your skill.

Perking into shotguns for example, increases the odds of finding shotgun magazines, shotgun parts, and shotguns in loot. This makes early specialization work, and you are no longer at the will of the random numbers to find what you are looking for. There is still a chance to find other stuff, but you won't be level 100 and still using a brown double barrel because of random drops. Everything is weighted that you perk into. Once you find all 100 shotgun magazines, you will stop finding shotgun magazines so stuff that is still valuable to you will be found instead.

 

Skill ranges represent their unlocks. Some skills go to 100, others stop at 50, so they require less magazines read to max out.

All crafting ranges now do not overlap. For example with shotguns, skill 0 to 20 allows you to craft a brown to a blue pipe shotgun. Skill level 21-40 unlocks brown to blue double barrels. Skill level 41-75 unlocks brown to blue pump shotguns. 76-100 unlocks brown to blue auto shotguns. These numbers are just examples, I don't know the actual ranges, but now you don't just craft blue everything.

There is a new skill menu that has a few pages of skills that tracks what skill level you are at and shows what the skill unlocks.

How does it play?
Everyone on the team loves it. The search for technology is fun and you are always finding magazines and unlocking stuff every day. The magazines are useful for a very long time too, where before once you read a single schematic finding another was a disappointment. Now you always find useful magazines.

I found myself crafting nearly every range of pipe shotgun, stone axes etc. Even iron I would craft through most of the range. I would find some stuff and skip crafting for a bit, then when my skill superseded my item,  I'd be crafting again. I've never crafted so much stuff in years and it felt really great. You can no longer just sit around in your cave mining and level up and be crafting the best mining tools. You'll need to get out of the cave and search. However teams can still cooperate and share magazines with a dedicated crafter.

Traders sell magazines and offer magazines as rewards. I find myself taking those rewards quite often because it feels very rewarding to unlock things and level up your crafting skills.

Personally I love the new system. I've never seen a crafting system quite like this before, nor an intelligent loot system with deterministic random. It is playing very nice, and I'm really enjoying a long game. I like it because it feels realistic to read something and learn from it and the player can move through all the ranges of crafting and be making that choice... should I use my parts and craft a new gun, or wait another level? Personally I've always had enough parts to craft what I want because I find the parts for what I'm looking for instead of spear parts or whatever. So the new system weights the loot to what the player needs and it feels very rewarding and enjoyable to me and the testers.





 

[Spectral Force]

@madmoleSounds like you're really enjoying Darkness Falls! Looking forward to A21 and NPC's.

[Doomofman]

So would I be reading those screens right in saying that once you hit level 3 in Shotgun crafting you'll then be able to make a Quality 2 Pipe Shotgun and then when you hit level 11 you'll be able to make a Quality 1 Double Barrel?

 

Also, related to this. Will there still be the overlap in Weapon Tier vs Quality. Where a quality 6 stone axe could be better than a quality 1 iron axe?

 

Edit: Also... Nice build....

Edited May 18, 2022 by Doomofman (see edit history)

[madmole]

2 minutes ago, Spectral Force said:

@madmoleSounds like you're really enjoying Darkness Falls! Looking forward to A21 and NPC's.

I don't know what that is.

 

Just now, Doomofman said:

So would I be reading those screens right in saying that once you hit level 3 in Shotgun crafting you'll then be able to make a Quality 2 Pipe Shotgun and then when you hit level 11 you'll be able to make a Quality 1 Double Barrel?

 

Also, related to this. Will there still be the overlap in Weapon Tier vs Quality. Where a quality 6 stone axe could be better than a quality 1 iron axe?

Yes you move through the pipe shotgun skill pretty quickly. Each tier takes more magazines to move through.
We're removing any overlap. There is still the concept that a purple stone axe has 4 mod slots so it would arguably be better in that regard.
 

[Doomofman]

 

2 minutes ago, madmole said:

Yes you move through the pipe shotgun skill pretty quickly. Each tier takes more magazines to move through.
We're removing any overlap. There is still the concept that a purple stone axe has 4 mod slots so it would arguably be better in that regard.
 

 

Excellent

 

So is this what that Sharp Sticks artwork was all about?

[madmole]

7 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

 

Excellent

 

So is this what that Sharp Sticks artwork was all about?

Yes. Sharp sticks magazine improves your spear skill.

Forge Ahead is back in the game too, with new art

 

[BFT2020]

17 minutes ago, Spectral Force said:

Sounds like you're really enjoying Darkness Falls! Looking forward to A21 and NPC's.

 

Not the same based on the description.  DF brought back LBD, while this system is setup where you have to find and read magazines to increase the crafting skills.

 

So this is the way the TFP have introduced crafting skills but limiting it so you can't just craft the highest tier equipment at the same quality level as your lower tier.  Very interested in seeing this in A21 myself.

Edited May 18, 2022 by BFT2020 (see edit history)

[Spectral Force]

13 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Not the same based on the description.  DF brought back LBD, while this system is setup where you have to find and read magazines to increase the crafting skills.

 

So this is the way the TFP have introduced crafting skills but limiting it so you can't just craft the highest tier equipment at the same quality level as your lower tier.  Very interested in seeing this in A21 myself.

The current iteration of DF has something similar to what they are introducing into A21 with the magazines.  They're books not magazines, but basically you read a book and your level for the related skill goes up by one till it maxes out.

[meganoth]

Interesting new system. I love getting a new game with each alpha 😃

 

 

[madmole]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Not the same based on the description.  DF brought back LBD, while this system is setup where you have to find and read magazines to increase the crafting skills.

 

So this is the way the TFP have introduced crafting skills but limiting it so you can't just craft the highest tier equipment at the same quality level as your lower tier.  Very interested in seeing this in A21 myself.

Learn by looting not LBD.

[mstdv inc]

6 minutes ago, madmole said:

Учитесь на мародерстве, а не на ЛБД.

Will the new crafting system remain one of the paths forward and will better quality items still be found (loot stage) or bought (trader stage)?

[madmole]

1 minute ago, mstdv inc said:

Will the new crafting system remain one of the paths forward and will better quality items still be found (loot stage) or bought (trader stage)?

Right now there seems to be some unity between the three, so I can't tell which is the best. Like it's random enough you never know the best way to get the best weapon, just keep playing, looting and looking at traders, and craft when you can craft something better than what you found. The harder biomes have better loot so go to the wasteland for the best possible loot, if you dare.

Oh and I forgot to mention, but you can find the type of magazines you are after also by looting an appropriate type of crate. For example gun crates have gun magazines, pop n pills crates have medical magazines, mo power has tech mags, etc.

[Nattwenny]

@madmole Those crafting changes sound awesome! Keep up the good work sir!

[Uncle Al]

@madmole Thanks for the preview.  Looks like a fun system and I look forward to trying it out next alpha.

 

One thing that does concern me is your repeated use of 'brown to blue' implies the quality 5 cap on crafting is staying in.  Is that really necessary?  If, as I believe, the original point of the cap was to 'not allow someone who never goes looting to get the best stuff' that's now avoided by having to loot to up your crafting skill.

 

Keeping the cap means the new, rich, and interesting looking crafting system is going to be completely sidelined as soon as you get a quality 6 drop or quest reward.  My current playthrough is an excellent example:  My very first tier 4 quest offered a quality 6 compound crossbow as a reward.  Lovely, but if I got that under the new, proposed system I'm now in the weird position of being encouraged NOT to perk into archery because all archery magazine and parts drops are now useless to me and I'd rather other useful stuff drops.

 

If you could craft quality 6 at top skill levels you at least have the, admittedly fairly minor, benefit of being able to use any parts you loot to occasionally craft quality 6 weapons and roll the dice on getting an improvement through random stats.  It at least gives you a reason to be happy when you find bow parts or magazines, not think 'oh well, in the bin' which seems a real shame.

 

There might also be value in being able to craft some sort of consumables, e.g. a cleaning kit/bowstring tensioner/whetstone etc. that gives + 1/10 of your crafting skill as percent bonus damage (probably rounded into tiers so you don't get a nightmare with itemisation/stacking) for 10 minutes and takes an appropriate weapon part to craft.  Basically something that makes crafting, and finding magazines and parts, still exciting beyond midgame.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Uncle Al (see edit history)

[madmole]

3 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

@madmole Thanks for the preview.  Looks like a fun system and I look forward to trying it out next alpha.

 

One thing that does concern me is your repeated use of 'brown to blue' implies the quality 5 cap on crafting is staying in.  Is that really necessary?  If, as I believe, the original point of the cap was to 'not allow someone who never goes looting to get the best stuff' that's now avoided by having to loot to up your crafting skill.

 

Keeping the cap means the new, rich, and interesting looking crafting system is going to be completely sidelined as soon as you get a quality 6 drop or quest reward.  My current playthrough is an excellent example:  My very first tier 4 quest offered a quality 6 compound crossbow as a reward.  Lovely, but if I got that under the new, proposed system I'm now in the weird position of being encouraged NOT to perk into archery because all archery magazine and parts drops are now useless to me and I'd rather other useful stuff drops.

 

If you could craft quality 6 at top skill levels you at least have the, admittedly fairly minor, benefit of being able to use any parts you loot to occasionally craft quality 6 weapons and roll the dice on getting an improvement through random stats.  It at least gives you a reason to be happy when you find bow parts or magazines, not think 'oh well, in the bin' which seems a real shame.

We can consider it. Now that it requires great effort to reach the top skill level crafting Q6 doesn't feel so bad.

[Roland]

11 minutes ago, madmole said:

We can consider it. Now that it requires great effort to reach the top skill level crafting Q6 doesn't feel so bad.

My take on it is that Q6 gear is too frequently and easily given out as quest rewards...

[Doomofman]

I'd personally like to see Q6 items be available through all 3 paths (loot, craft and trader)

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

My take on it is that Q6 gear is too frequently and easily given out as quest rewards...

 

I still think Q6 should be craftable but I also agree that Q6 is too common as a quest reward. Well, really, quest rewards are just too generous in every way. They hand you Q5-Q6 of every item and then wrap up by giving you 500 steel blocks!

[Jost Amman]

This new crafting system is EXACTLY what I'd hoped to see!

Incredible! A21 is already my favorite alpha! 

 

Now, let the party poopers in!          

[Survager]

@madmole 

Did I understand correctly that now in Alpha 21 it will not be possible to find a recipe for a weapon / tool / food / drink in the game? So players will be less likely to say "WOW" as progress will be very smooth?

[POCKET951]

so what will happen to the skill tree ? how will this new system change skills like physician, advanced engineering and grease monkey?

 

These skills in A20 are almost entirely based on unlocking crafting recipes and crafting 

[Doomofman]

5 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

so what will happen to the skill tree ? how will this new system change skills like physician, advanced engineering and grease monkey?

 

These skills in A20 are almost entirely based on unlocking crafting recipes and crafting 

 

Hopefully @madmole can answer for definite but I'd guess that those perks will be removed and whatever non-crafting bonuses they had would get redistributed to the remaining perks