Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[POCKET951]

38 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Yes. I can't answer whether the devs will want to include ways to speed through the progression though I highly suspect what they would say...

They will probably say no, but I dont think it would hurt to be able to find +2 books which would be much more rare or super high gamestage/lategame

[LordMiG]

@TheFunPimps

I've always played the game on 25% loot abundance with no traders (removed by a modlet) and no loot respawn/no airdrops, because the game is soooo much better (and harder) that way. It really forces you to travel and loot. And I fricking love looting.

 

Will it even be possible to find enough skillbooks in loot with these settings to complete a skilltree in A21? 😅

Edited May 21, 2022 by LordMiG
Fixed typos (see edit history)

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, LordMiG said:

@TheFunPimps

I've always played the game on 25% loot abundance with no traders (removed by a modlet) and no loot respawn/no airdrops, because the game is soooo much better (and harder) that way. It really forces you to travel and loot. And I fricking love looting.

 

Will it even be possible to find enough skillbooks in loot with these settings to complete a skilltree in A21? 😅

 

Since the stuff found through looting and the skillbooks for crafting will drop slower by the same measure I suspect crafting will still be balanced with looting

 

 

 

14 hours ago, Trankitas said:

True, let us speculate guys 

 

I'd say it is the oven because I think I remember Madmole mentioning that once.

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

17 hours ago, ArchonMal said:

I have to admit: the crafting overhaul makes me pretty nervous. The current system works great because the majority of the key recipes (basic weapon for your tree, forge, bicycle, wrench, first aid bandages, etc) are all easily accessible and you can grab them with minimal investment. This means that with zero luck / RNG, you can get the basics set up. I always start a place from scratch in every new world and this is critical to me. With a minimal amount of luck to find a couple components to make the forge, I'm all set in a new world.

 

I'm afraid that the new system could potentially fall into the "progression blocked by RNG" trap where you can't make a key item because you haven't been lucky enough to find it. I still have war flashbacks to the A15 era Calipers. I distinctly remember a world where it was day 150+ and nobody on the server could make any bullets because we never found them. We were swimming in materials but no calipers to actually make anything with them. Our server admin eventually stepped in to give everyone some from the creative menu. 

 

How will the new system work to prevent this from coming back to the game? 

 

As Roland said perks allow you to influence it. But there are more reasons why a caliper-disaster is not likely:

 

1) The equivalent to the caliper would be if a magazine that gives you 100 points at once and is 100 times more seldom to find. Now it is easy to see that that creates a situation where you just can't find the one magazine.

While the bell curve of probability makes it much more unlikely to go far from the average case when the magazines drop a 100 times more often.

 

2) In A15 there was only one way to find a caliper, in loot. In recent alphas you always have multiple ways to get stuff, including magazines. If you can't find them in loot then visit all the traders to increase your chances. And luckily it seems location-dependant loot makes a comeback in A21 so there is another way to influence the chance what to find

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

6 hours ago, LordMiG said:

@TheFunPimps

I've always played the game on 25% loot abundance with no traders (removed by a modlet) and no loot respawn/no airdrops, because the game is soooo much better (and harder) that way. It really forces you to travel and loot. And I fricking love looting.

 

Will it even be possible to find enough skillbooks in loot with these settings to complete a skilltree in A21? 😅

 

I thinks so if you are playing SP and generating the largest world possible. Since you do mod, you could change loot respawn to a larger number like 40 or 50 or 60 days instead of never if you are worried. One of the impacts this change has is that you really do tend to spend a good amount of time in each of the tech levels. People are less likely to skip iron and go straight to steel. The trader and default looting amounts will still allow skipping to some degree but with your settings I think you will become intimately familiar with each tech level.

[Victor.19]

5 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I thinks so if you are playing SP and generating the largest world possible. Since you do mod, you could change loot respawn to a larger number like 40 or 50 or 60 days instead of never if you are worried. One of the impacts this change has is that you really do tend to spend a good amount of time in each of the tech levels. People are less likely to skip iron and go straight to steel. The trader and default looting amounts will still allow skipping to some degree but with your settings I think you will become intimately familiar with each tech level.

I know it has nothing to do with the current subject, but could you remove the gun sight when using the iron one?

[Blake_]

  @Laz Man are you allowed to tell us something about the new "POIs"? Like if there will be more specific POI triggers and if the team is making more RWG stamps (modular areas) for a21?

 

What about T5s?  Are many more of those big baddies planned for a21? (As if they were easy to manufacture, lol).

 

Thanks in advance.

[Roland]

1 minute ago, Victor.19 said:

I know it has nothing to do with the current subject, but could you remove the gun sight when using the iron one?

 

All I can say is that there has been a lot of feedback about the crosshaires and gun sights and the devs are aware. What they plan to do about it and what priority they are giving it is something I can't guess. 

[Gamida]

4 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

All I can say is that there has been a lot of feedback about the crosshaires and gun sights and the devs are aware. What they plan to do about it and what priority they are giving it is something I can't guess. 

Sure you can. Everyone can guess. An educated guess is harder as you may need more info (as you probably have).

An accurate guess is way harder.

But yes, you can guess. You just won't lol.

[zztong]

On 5/21/2022 at 12:56 AM, saulysw said:

At the POI which is a Bee house, I fully expected the standing bee hives out the back to breakdown and give me honey, like the logs stumps sometimes do. The hives really should too, and in much higher probabilities. Perhaps they do and I was just unlucky?

 

IIRC, the beehives are made from game objects like boxes and tables. Obviously they don't want boxes and tables to give out honey. I suspect they'd have to make a unique beehive block to accomplish this. -- EDIT: I think they're Farm Plots, not tables and boxes, but the point is the same.

Edited May 29, 2022 by zztong (see edit history)

[Roland]

 

1 hour ago, Gamida said:

Sure you can. Everyone can guess. An educated guess is harder as you may need more info (as you probably have).

An accurate guess is way harder.

But yes, you can guess. You just won't lol.

 

It’s not that “I won’t”.

 

It’s that “Hell no, I won’t!”

🤣

Edited May 21, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

I'd say it is the oven because I think I remember Madmole mentioning that once.

Oh I really hope so. Sad that we can make vehicles and guns but still have to cook on a campfire in our kitchens.

[Vinny]

whats the end game? is their a story to this we can find?

[Treb]

10 minutes ago, Vinny said:

whats the end game? is their a story to this we can find?

 

Actual story questline involving White River and the Duke is the plan AFAIK.

[ArmoredStone]

.........why are you changing the skill system again? Who thinks this is a good idea? I already hate the fact that Lucky Looter makes loot magically better (and people without it in the group get yelled at for looting). I always need to remove that perk and remove better loot from level ups. This just makes that even worse. Make the loot tables once, and leave it alone, at least on MP servers. I hate this idea. Reduce the frequency of high quality/tier guns and equipment, raise their prices in the shops, and remove ANY alterations made to the loot tables by perks and levels. You will see high tier equipment become COVETED by players, instead of everyone having all quality 6 gear by day 20. This is what I always do for my crew, and it works well. We sometimes get to day 100 still looking for better rifles and armor.

 

I rate the "Learn by Looting" system a "Please God No" / 10

 

Bring back the "Learn By Doing" system if anything.

[Laz Man]

3 hours ago, Blake_ said:

What about T5s?  Are many more of those big baddies planned for a21? (As if they were easy to manufacture, lol).

 

I'm working on a large POI right now actually.  It should be done for A21 at the rate im going.  Just not finalized yet if it will be T4 or T5.

 

Some of the other guys have some large POIs in the works but not sure they will make it in A21 but knowing them, they will make every effort to try to get them in.

 

On the other hand, I have a feeling you guys will have enough to chew on in A21 regardless....😆

Edited May 21, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[palikkamaa]

32 minutes ago, ArmoredStone said:

.........why are you changing the skill system again? Who thinks this is a good idea? I already hate the fact that Lucky Looter makes loot magically better (and people without it in the group get yelled at for looting). I always need to remove that perk and remove better loot from level ups. This just makes that even worse. Make the loot tables once, and leave it alone, at least on MP servers. I hate this idea. Reduce the frequency of high quality/tier guns and equipment, raise their prices in the shops, and remove ANY alterations made to the loot tables by perks and levels. You will see high tier equipment become COVETED by players, instead of everyone having all quality 6 gear by day 20. This is what I always do for my crew, and it works well. We sometimes get to day 100 still looking for better rifles and armor.

 

I rate the "Learn by Looting" system a "Please God No" / 10

 

Bring back the "Learn By Doing" system if anything.

So you prefer crafting 800 wooden clubs to magically make a perfect, well balanced t6 steel club? Or sticking a cactus up to your butt to increase heavy armor? Sure, the first thing I do in a19 is level up my m69 to 5 and wrench some forget iron to skip early game and get above the difficulty curve. Its a big change to spent points everywhere and pray the rng gods to give me vehicle/workstation/miner schematics instead of buying/unlocking the schematic by perk points. 

[Matt115]

22 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

On the other hand, I have a feeling you guys will have your enough to chew on in A21 regardless....😆

Not so rly. Honestly... we can't talk to much about new crafting system because we still don't know how is working in practise

[Roland]

58 minutes ago, ArmoredStone said:

(and people without it in the group get yelled at for looting}

 

(That's not the game's fault. You need new friends who care more about comaradie than they do min/maxing loot rewards.)

[Matt115]

7 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

(That's not the game's fault. You need new friends who care more about comaradie than they do min/maxing loot rewards.)

Roland no! it's just much easier to convince Madmole to add zombie in white dog fursuit that find friends!

[Paiper Zombee]

On 3/16/2022 at 11:02 AM, Roland said:

CONFIRMED A21 FEATURES

 

 

• Learn By Looting System
  • 23 new skills to govern crafting (photo in gallery below)
  • 23 new magazines added to loot
  • Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting at all
  • The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments. 
  • Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines
  • Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points as well as increase quality of crafting for items with quality
  • Each tech level has a separate range in the skill spectrum so that you have to work up through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone axe no long means you automatically can also craft a blue iron axe.
  •  Some skills have 100 levels but others have less depending on how many unlocks there are for recipes and quality tiers.
  • A new skill page showing your progress has been added to the player interface (photo in gallery below)
  • Skill magazines can be found, bought, and/or received as quest rewards. The topic of the magazine matches the location you would expect to find it in the world.
  • Perks now govern the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world
  • When you max out a skill, the probability bonus granted by perks for finding the corresponding magazine for that skill drops off. The magazine will still show up randomly in loot but no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching parts will remain.

Uh oh...here comes one of the party poopers right now! lol

 

I'm very glad to see that A21 is shaping up to be another game changer. But what is the purpose behind "Learn By Looting?".

 

With the way the system is now, I like that I DON'T have to rely on the RNG gods to bless me. For whatever reason I ALWAYS have horrible RNG in games. I hear so many talk about how overpowered questing is and quest rewards and I immediately want to ask "What mods are you using, or what spec are you running because the only worthwhile thing I've ever gotten while questing that just changed my entire world is a bicycle." If it were not for the fact that I COULD perk up and craft my own forge, workbench, chemistry station, weapons, ammo, and other useables I'd be SOL most of the time. And this bad luck continues even once I pick up and mack out all the Ho-Perks (i.e. Lucky Looter, Better Barter, and Daring Adventurer) and slap on Lucky Looter goggles.

 

I hope I'm absolutely wrong, but this just sounds like a horrible way to go. Everyone who has ever played this beautiful game knows how rare books and magazines can be.  Even with all the Ho-Perks and loot goggles I can go into a big ol Crack-A-Book Tower or store, which is dedicated to books/magazines, and walk out with 1000 pieces of paper and 2 whole books. If Lucky Looter AND the loot goggles with their increased probability factors didn't help me out in this situation, (or in any situation when it comes to finding Rank 6 anything on my own or through vendors) I have little hope that this new A21 perk system will be any different.

 

[KhaineGB]

14 minutes ago, Paiper Zombee said:

With the way the system is now, I like that I DON'T have to rely on the RNG gods to bless me.

This is why I suggested lowering the amount of levels and adding the ability to buy them via skill points.

Because not everyone wants to worry about looting to get the stuff they need.

[SnowDog1942]

24 minutes ago, Paiper Zombee said:

 

I hope I'm absolutely wrong, but this just sounds like a horrible way to go. Everyone who has ever played this beautiful game knows how rare books and magazines can be.  

Im sure as part of this change they will balance drops to something that feels

good. May not be exactly how u would balance it but im sure its on their to do list

Edited May 21, 2022 by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

[ArmoredStone]

1 hour ago, palikkamaa said:

So you prefer crafting 800 wooden clubs to magically make a perfect, well balanced t6 steel club? Or sticking a cactus up to your butt to increase heavy armor? Sure, the first thing I do in a19 is level up my m69 to 5 and wrench some forget iron to skip early game and get above the difficulty curve. Its a big change to spent points everywhere and pray the rng gods to give me vehicle/workstation/miner schematics instead of buying/unlocking the schematic by perk points. 

You do have enough meat in that skull to realize they could implement the "learn by doing" system in a way that doesnt require you to craft 800 wooden clubs right? Just a quick 5 second idea I came up with: You use clubs to gain experience with clubs. As you gain experience with clubs, you can craft better clubs. *gasp*

 

Also, why do you support gameplay that makes you feel like you're REQUIRED to invest points in something in order for you to do it at all??? (Such as Salvage Operations)

 

Gathering/looting perks should only be for harvesting speed and calorie efficiency. Not for amount harvested. That just results in people feeling like they can't even play the game until they invest points.

 

Have you ever played with friends? Have you ever experienced the fruatration of one person being specced into Lucky Looter and when ANYONE else loots, they get yelled at because the containers they open magically have worse gear than the lucky looter? LOGIC! Now imagine that but only even worse with this new system they want to implement.

 

On a side note, if you bothered to read the rest of my initial message, i wasn't even suggesting that system to be better than the current "buying skills" system. Just stating its preferrable to this new "learn by looting" system. Granted I think not having skills at all would be preferrable to that, but thats just me

2 hours ago, Roland said:

 

(That's not the game's fault. You need new friends who care more about comaradie than they do min/maxing loot rewards.)

Or just don't have the perk at all

[Roland]

53 minutes ago, Paiper Zombee said:

For whatever reason I ALWAYS have horrible RNG in games.

We try to extend a broad reach across as many demographics as we can so that the game has wide appeal but Cursed People aren’t really our target market.