Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Roland]

13 hours ago, khzmusik said:

I don't think it's about gratitude, it's about feeling justified in their opinions. It's the mindset of "if people mod it back in, then people want it, so I am justified in complaining about removing it."

I don’t have any problem with that mindset. It is a reasonable justification. Unfortunately, they never stop with that but go on to say that mods shouldn’t have to exist to make the game better (for them). They treat modding as some underground rebel movement that the devs must not want but the more they tighten their grip the more star systems slip through their fingers…

 

I wouldn’t say a peep if someone said, I hate the skillpoint system and I wish LBD was back but thank goodness there are mods that return it! I love that the game is so moddable. I’m glad everyone can get a version they like!!

 

But since they say, I hate the skillpoint system. LBD should be the base game and it’s terrible that it has to be modded in. These devs can’t do what needs to be done but modders fix all their mistakes. It shouldn’t be this way!! It’s sad when it takes mods to make the game playable!!

 

peep.  peep.  peep. peep…..

[Doomofman]

@Roland is like that old retired cop who just can't help but get back into action for one last case

[Aldranon]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

I hate the skillpoint system and I wish LBD was back

 

 

 

Found the answer to your puzzle again!

Next time, make it a little harder. 

[meganoth]

18 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

What?? I never suggested nerfing canned food in loot!

 

If I understand him correctly, Crazywildfire was protesting about making food harder to get (for 8 person servers). He was complaining that it was so hard to get meat that they had to mod the game even though they were playing in the server population limits supported by TFP.

 

So yes, his counter-argument is square in your court.

 

18 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I was just talking about a "general rebalance". Please don't put words in my mouth.

They should simply add a "hidden" animal spawn multiplier based on the number of players. Problem solved.

 

See, you obviously are aware that Crazy was not talking about canned food alone. 🤔 . So why the indignation above?

 

18 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Yes, but not more than one point, because at 2 (or was it 3?) it bugs out and doesn't work until you reach max.

Unless they fixed it for A21 that is...

 

 

I think that was a pretty old bug, I nearly forgot about it. I would have said that was fixed in A19 if I had to guess. I also don't see it on the official A20 bug list suggesting it was fixed before.

 

Anyway, two points in that perk is less useful as deers and pigs are much better visible.

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

19 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

 

Around 7 or 8 people.  Been around for years so already know they not balancing for mega servers. But we have several groups. Spread across the map. Maybe you play on a server as one but not everyone does. Once you spread out things start to not spawn regularly once you get around 7 to 8 people on.

 

If there is a bug in the spawing system that makes animals or everything spawn differently whether you are in one group or two groups then maybe they should be asked to fix that bug.

 

Since agility is my prefered attribute and cleaning a POI with 4 people is already too crowded for my liking I often go separate ways. Didn't see any spawn problems that way. But it is conceivable that there is a bug that is only conspicuous or even active with actually 7 or 8 players.

 

Though I'd like to see actual proof of that, not only your subjective impression. AFAIK the logfile has all spawns listed. You could find a few areas in your world not visited already and multiple people could drive into each of those area. And then you could count the spawns in the logfile. If that is actually much less than what you would get on a less populated server THEN you would have a factual point.

 

Can you really vouch for your co-players that they aren't just overlooking all those animals left and right just because they have tunnel-vision and not the right perk for that? And later complain about having seen no animals? Sounds the much more likely cause to me.

 

19 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

 

 

If they are only balancing for single player and servers that play together then so be it.

 

They are balancing for up to 8 players and I have never seen them add anything like "...but they have to stay together"

 

19 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

But you don't need 9 plus people for spawns to act up. Even bloodmoons, we have several people that hardly get a full bloodmoons. But that a different story.

 

It might not. But are you really playing with the standard setting of 8 spawns per player? Or did you increase that?

 

If yes and you didn't likewise increase MaxSpawnedZombies to 8 times that value then you don't need to look for a bug. When max zombies is set at 64 and 64 / 8 players = 8 zombies per player still. So on a full server each player can only have 8 zombies on himself at the same time. If one player has 12 then another can only get 4. If two get 12 or one 16 that may mean one doesn't get anything at all.

 

19 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

But back to animals we get to day 40 and if it wasn't for can food / farming we would struggle even more if we just counted on meat.

 

Huh, who gave you the guarantee that you can feed 8 players on meat alone? "if we just counted on meat" is the wrong expectation. If you want to solve the food problem you have to farm. And there is no limit on how big a farm can get. It is always possible to feed all 8 on vegetable stews alone if it was necessary. Is it possible you just have not enough players who want to do the boring farming stuff? 😉

 

19 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

We got to a point where we did mod for animal traps just to get meat to make better food because animals hardly spawn unless you talking about zombie animals and those don't give raw meat. But like I said if they are balancing for only single player and group play only then it is what it is. 

 

Yeah, only I'm sure they don't do that. It is possible you experience a bug and it is possible that you or your co-players are just not aware of some limitations of themselves or the game. None of those causes would make it necessary to change the balance at all.

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

See, you obviously are aware that Crazy was not talking about canned food alone. 🤔 . So why the indignation above?

Because you put words in my mouth I didn't say.

I'm not Crazy! 

[Roland]

Yeah, its crazy Jost Amman not Crazy Amman!

[BFT2020]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

Huh, who gave you the guarantee that you can feed 8 players on meat alone? "if we just counted on meat" is the wrong expectation. If you want to solve the food problem you have to farm. And there is no limit on how big a farm can get. It is always possible to feed all 8 on vegetable stews alone if it was necessary. Is it possible you just have not enough players who want to do the boring farming stuff? 😉

 

I also wonder what they are doing with the canned foods.  If they are eating them right away rather than taking back to base and using them for the higher tier recipes, that can also lead to food issues.  A can of chili by itself gives you 15 food, while just adding some meat and corn, you get 53 back if you cook it into a chili dog.  Gumbo gives you 113 food back if you save the stock, peas, and canned beef.  Eating the canned food at the start is fine if you are hurting for food, but by mid game you should start saving it for the higher tier foods to get more back from them.

[mstdv inc]

@faatal Is it possible to make a counter (status) for completing a quest?The player cleans 75% of the location from zombies and after that the final loot appears. 90% is the completion of the quest, 100% is a minor additional reward.This will allow you not to take valuable loot without clearing the location.This will save you from problems if the last zombie did not appear.This will allow you to create the final loot that best matches the loot stage.

[Jost Amman]

6 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

@faatal Is it possible to make a counter (status) for completing a quest?

There's already the trader's counter when you go get the reward. 

[Burrfly]

On 1/28/2023 at 4:13 PM, Crater Creator said:

 

I was just asking about this as it happens, and I was told there is no plan for animations on stations due to the logistics involved.

if cementMixer == enabled then

    animation.Rotate:Play()

else

    animation.Rotate:Stop()

 

 

 

 

 

(I know it's not that simple)

[Cr0wst0rm]

On 1/29/2023 at 12:31 AM, Roland said:

I don’t have any problem with that mindset. It is a reasonable justification. Unfortunately, they never stop with that but go on to say that mods shouldn’t have to exist to make the game better (for them). They treat modding as some underground rebel movement that the devs must not want but the more they tighten their grip the more star systems slip through their fingers…

 

I wouldn’t say a peep if someone said, I hate the skillpoint system and I wish LBD was back but thank goodness there are mods that return it! I love that the game is so moddable. I’m glad everyone can get a version they like!!

 

But since they say, I hate the skillpoint system. LBD should be the base game and it’s terrible that it has to be modded in. These devs can’t do what needs to be done but modders fix all their mistakes. It shouldn’t be this way!! It’s sad when it takes mods to make the game playable!!

 

peep.  peep.  peep. peep…..

4 days until release?

[beerfly]

On 1/29/2023 at 1:31 AM, Roland said:

peep.  peep.  peep. peep…..

Boom !

 

Wonder, is Matt alright after his latest order in front of a news stand. Demolishers are nasty, are they ? 

Edited January 30, 2023 by beerfly (see edit history)

[meilodasreh]

7 hours ago, Burrfly said:

if cementMixer == enabled then

    animation.Rotate:Play()

else

    animation.Rotate:Stop()

 

 

(I know it's not that simple)

 

it is even more simple:

put cement mixer in hotbar

select cement mixer

select "advanced rotation" from the "item placement" menu

click or shift+click to rotate cement mixer the way you like most

 

 

 

(I also know it's not that simple...or never was meant that way altogether) 

Edited January 30, 2023 by meilodasreh (see edit history)

[Trankitas]

@faatal How many MF's are left? I was going to start a new A20 server but I feel like A21 is close to release. 

[Gamida]

3 minutes ago, Trankitas said:

@faatal How many MF's are left? I was going to start a new A20 server but I feel like A21 is close to release. 

 

 

I think they will announce the streamer weekend before even experimental gets released so would guess there is still a bit of time to play a game or two of A20

 

[Doomofman]

Assuming they follow the previous couple of alphas in terms of Dev streams and streamer weekend, we're probably still at least two months away from experimental dropping

Edited January 30, 2023 by Doomofman (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Gamida said:

 

 

I think they will announce the streamer weekend before even experimental gets released so would guess there is still a bit of time to play a game or two of A20

 

And by "a bit of time", you mean months, am I right? 

[meilodasreh]

yes, this and the fact that Roland didn't even specify the release date to something like "early 2023", "Q1 2023" or anything, but just "2023",

also makes me think that we're really not close at all.

 

[Morloc]

11 months tops!

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

[DocRussel]

For A20, the first dev stream was Sep 11 and the game was released Dec 6, so nearly 3 months.

 

@faatal Do you expect similar timing for A21?

[pApA^LeGBa]

Will there be any change to the limited options for trader quests? Aka getting the same locations over and over again even when there is a ton more options for the same tier?

[Rabbitslovecactus]

2 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Will there be any change to the limited options for trader quests? Aka getting the same locations over and over again even when there is a ton more options for the same tier?

I fully agree with this. When we complete a mission at a POI, it should be crossed off the list. It gets boring when we are presented with the same missions over and over. 

[Callum123456789]

2 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Will there be any change to the limited options for trader quests? Aka getting the same locations over and over again even when there is a ton more options for the same tier?

or maybe some sort of quest poi delay thing lets say you do house_old_gambrel_05 which is bob boars once you do it it then has some sort of day count required for it to be added to the quest pool i would say like 3 or 5 days.

[Uncle Al]

1 hour ago, Callum123456789 said:

or maybe some sort of quest poi delay thing lets say you do house_old_gambrel_05 which is bob boars once you do it it then has some sort of day count required for it to be added to the quest pool i would say like 3 or 5 days.

 

My dream is a trader offers every suitable POI within range (say 1km per tier) before offering the same location again. So rather than a day count, a POI doesn't come around again until all the other locations in that tier have been offered.

 

That probably gets complex for multiplayer though.