Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[CoolJ]

5 hours ago, Old Crow said:

So dew collectors generate activity heat now. Why? You guys wanted us to have tons of them - the only purpose I can think of behind this change is that you've added it for the sole purpose of being a-holes. There's no reason something that passively collects a small amount of water should be attracting attention from zombies. At the very least, TFP could increase the amount of water from dew collectors to 4 or 5 in a 24 hour in-game period.

 

Try playing the agility class if you really want to see the game masters get insidious. At first, it's kinda nice. So everyone says sneak is OP. Well, that ends quickly. It seems like the POI designers hate the agility perk tree. They have doubled down on volume triggers. Now there is always a trap in just about every POI that is designed to throw you're glass cannon stealth build with light armor and single fire, low ammo, slow reload, weapons into the exact situation that your character is not designed for.

 

There is absolutely no way that a guy in yellow leather armor (if you're lucky) with a crap bow and the worst pistol known to man, can kill three glowing bikers, a couple feral white, and a half dozen standard feral zombies, in a tiny room that you have forced them to enter. The class relies on killing from stealth to multiply the damage your weapon can do in order to kill the very enemies your are throwing at the player and then you intentionally remove the very ability to do so. That isn't even the half of it. There is now rubbish piles on at least thirty percent of the floor tiles. I understand strategic placement, but absolutely covering the floor of every POI in rubbish is lazy and designed to punish one class only.

 

I have done hundreds of POIs now. I am forced to use automatic weapons and adopt a play style that my character has no perks for in order to just stay alive inside any POI past a tier 2. There are a lot of these kinds of traps even in tier 1 POIs. They just consist of a couple of slow walker pedestrian zombies that you could handle even if you were naked. In my opinion, that is where there types of traps belong. In a tier 5 infested POI, with that kind of zombie trap, you are literally giving a middle finger to agility class. There are at least five of that exact type of volume trigger in the Sham Factory alone now.

Edited June 29, 2023 by CoolJ (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

55 minutes ago, faatal said:

This is a zombie game and we do want you to interact with zombies in various ways while at your base (screamers, biome spawns, wandering hordes and horde night).

 

 

...We already interact with zombies. A lot. Coming back from a POI to 5 screamers just because we need water to make glue and have 10 dew collectors going isn't "fun." It's annoying. Especially when they're summoning friends without screaming.

 

Again, it feels more like a choice you guys made to be jerks, not because you think it's logical or fun.

1 minute ago, CoolJ said:

 

Try playing the agility class if you really want to see the game masters get insidious. At first, it's kinda nice. So everyone says sneak is OP. Well, that ends quickly. It seems like the POI designers hate the agility perk tree. They have doubled down on volume triggers. Now there is always a trap in just about every POI that is designed to throw you're glass cannon stealth build with light armor and single fire, low ammo, slow reload, weapons into the exact situation that your character is not designed for.

 

There is absolutely no way that a guy in yellow leather armor (if you're lucky) with a crap bow and the worst pistol known to man, can kill three glowing bikers, a couple feral white, and a half dozen standard feral zombies, in a tiny room that you have forced them to enter. The class relies on killing from stealth to multiply the damage your weapon can do in order to kill the very enemies your are throwing at the player and then you intentionally remove the very ability to do so. That isn't even the half of it. There is now rubbish piles on at least thirty percent of the floor tiles. I understand strategic placement, but absolutely covering the floor of every POI in rubbish is lazy and designed to punish one class only.

 

I have done hundreds of POIs now. I am forced to use automatic weapons and adopt a play style that my character has no perks for in order to just stay alive inside any POI past a tier 2. There are a lot of these kinds of traps even in tier 1 POIs. They just consist of a couple of slow walker pedestrian zombies that you could handle even if you where naked. In my opinion, that is where there types of traps belong. In a tier 5 infested POI, with that kind of zombie trap, you are literally giving a middle finger to agility class. There are at least five of that exact type of volume trigger in the Sham Factory alone now.

 

Joke's on you, I already play agility and know how nerfed stealth builds are now.

[Kalex]

Blood moon in the newest build (on dedi): We have been seeing a lot of zombies ignoring a clear path to us, going into destroy area mode and NOT ever coming out if it even when doing them damage.

[Aldranon]

The last thing TFP want is ending up making another "Stardew Valley".  They want action, survival and a fight for your very life!

SO, you get Zombies that teleport behind you, fall from unreachable ceilings and from many other odd or even inconceivable locations.

Is that over the top? Maybe, but horde nights don't have anything that's like this.

 

I've thought how TFP could make Horde Nights great again!

1) Make teams of normal zombies that are truly mindless, following one stronger, "structural engineer" big brain zombie!

2) If the Big brain zombie is destroyed, then they just attack the nearest (non zombie?) thing until the red light of Horde Night is gone.

3) This might reduce the CPU burden (only a few path calculations) and make Horde Night not as simple as it is now.   You could have larger Hordes most likely.

 

4 minutes ago, Kalex said:

Blood moon in the newest build (on dedi): We have been seeing a lot of zombies ignoring a clear path to us, going into destroy area mode and NOT ever coming out if it even when doing them damage.

 

Is this recent?  I haven't seen that a few days ago (now waiting on stable).

[gpcstargate]

Question ... IS Stable still planned for this week?? 

That was the last post on the game screen that Stable is coming this week ... Or ... Did you mean B323 was coming this week.??

Thank you and Be Well 😌

[hiemfire]

2 hours ago, Exxodous said:

I think if I were in a real zombie apocalypses keeping a low profile would be of great importance.

POI design and the quest system would like a word with you on 7D2D and "Low Profile".🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Old Crow]

27 minutes ago, Kalex said:

Blood moon in the newest build (on dedi): We have been seeing a lot of zombies ignoring a clear path to us, going into destroy area mode and NOT ever coming out if it even when doing them damage.

 

I've noticed this too, less so on blood moon and moreso in POI. I hit a zed, it wakes up...and ignores the clear path to me in favor of beating on the nearest wall, window or door to take the long way around to get to me. I'll be right in front of it, maybe 10-15 feet away, it'll look right at me and go elsewhere.

[Kalex]

51 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

The last thing TFP want is ending up making another "Stardew Valley".  They want action, survival and a fight for your very life!

SO, you get Zombies that teleport behind you, fall from unreachable ceilings and from many other odd or even inconceivable locations.

Is that over the top? Maybe, but horde nights don't have anything that's like this.

 

I've thought how TFP could make Horde Nights great again!

1) Make teams of normal zombies that are truly mindless, following one stronger, "structural engineer" big brain zombie!

2) If the Big brain zombie is destroyed, then they just attack the nearest (non zombie?) thing until the red light of Horde Night is gone.

3) This might reduce the CPU burden (only a few path calculations) and make Horde Night not as simple as it is now.   You could have larger Hordes most likely.

 

 

Is this recent?  I haven't seen that a few days ago (now waiting on stable).

Yes, with this latest build. We were not seeing this behavior on the previous build.

[faatal]

39 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

Question ... IS Stable still planned for this week?? 

That was the last post on the game screen that Stable is coming this week ... Or ... Did you mean B323 was coming this week.??

Thank you and Be Well 😌

b323 is a stable candidate. Depends if it has any major bugs. Just played a few hours on it using my previous game and didn't see any new bugs.

[Khissi]

I absolutely do NOT agree that the changes to mod slots for lower tier weapons/gear was needed or should have been implemented.  With the nerf to magazines already slowing progression to a crawl (this does not include try-hards who do nothing but rush, rush, rush, so don't even), this means that even if we find decent mods, we only have ONE slot until we've found enough magazines of that particular type to progress to the next tier of weapon/gear.  Really?  Why did you think this was necessary?  Either fewer magazines  OR  allow us to, at very least, buff our pitiful weapon enough to stay alive to find more magazines. I was okay with the fewer magazines, did just fine since, as I got a few more and could make a little better weapon, I could add some tiny bit of damage with mods! Good grief.  This makes no sense to me.  As it stands, I doubt I'll ever be able to climb back up to the difficulty level I was able to enjoy before.   Sad and annoying...

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, Exxodous said:

I don't really feel it's unrealistic.  I think if I were in a real zombie apocalypses keeping a low profile would be of great importance.  Building a huge water collection system, farm, or massive complex would draw attention of not only to the Z's but raiders (bandits) just from the activity, noise, and movements of maintaining/collecting the area.  I look at it like this, if you have a couple dew collectors getting the water out of it is quick and I'm back inside.  Getting the water out of 20 dew collectors increases the time and effort thus I'm more likely to draw the attention of zombies....just my thoughts.   

 

It can also be fun if you like farming screamers which a lot of folks do with forges already.  I enjoy having to defend my homestead randomly from both random hoards (wish they were larger) and screamer hordes because they are slightly harder.  It adds interest to you daily activities.

Remember that you are already creating heat from activity you are doing so these just increase it more.  What you are saying about running around collecting stuff already creates that heat without the dew collectors doing so.  Not only that but this increases heat even when you're doing nothing with them.  Bandits... maybe.  But they'll find you simply by seeing a base.  Zombies... well, yeah, they aren't real and so you can't really determine how they'd find you - noise, smell, sight, all of the above.  But I just can't believe that if your dew collectors were not in the open or were not being touched by the player (i.e. they are filling up and not currently being emptied), then they wouldn't attract the zombies.   Maybe one would stumble upon it and attack is just because but no more than they'd do a brick building.  I just don't see any way they'd be attracted to a dew collector.

 

I think it is just a waste to have dew collectors affect the heat map.  Anyone with a dew collector farm is going to have to move it or constantly be attacked at their base.  Occasional attacks because you're using your forges or workbenches or whatever are one thing... having constant screamer attacks like you're mining iron ore would get old really fast.

 

Either way, I won't ever have a large number of dew collectors and I'm rarely at my base for long, so it won't really impact me.  But I think this is going to impact a lot of players badly.  Even at 6 dew collectors equaling 2 forges, that's a lot.  I might be fine if it was 6:1 (half that) but probably even better to be around 10:1 (10 dew collectors equal 1 forge).  After all, a forge is very loud when you're hammering out the metal.  Compare this noise with the dew collector and you can't really say that you'll attract zombies with 6 dew collectors at the same rate as 2 forges that are being used.  I'm not saying it has to be entirely realistic but at least make it at least remotely believable.

8 minutes ago, Khissi said:

I absolutely do NOT agree that the changes to mod slots for lower tier weapons/gear was needed or should have been implemented.  With the nerf to magazines already slowing progression to a crawl (this does not include try-hards who do nothing but rush, rush, rush, so don't even), this means that even if we find decent mods, we only have ONE slot until we've found enough magazines of that particular type to progress to the next tier of weapon/gear.  Really?  Why did you think this was necessary?  Either fewer magazines  OR  allow us to, at very least, buff our pitiful weapon enough to stay alive to find more magazines. I was okay with the fewer magazines, did just fine since, as I got a few more and could make a little better weapon, I could add some tiny bit of damage with mods! Good grief.  This makes no sense to me.  As it stands, I doubt I'll ever be able to climb back up to the difficulty level I was able to enjoy before.   Sad and annoying...

I actually think this is probably a good decision to even out item progression.  I know it'll take getting used to for everyone and I haven't yet tried it out as I'm on an older save still and even with the update, I have the same mod slots as before even on newly crafted stone items.  But after some getting used to it and working to upgrade more quickly, I think it'll be worthwhile.  But we'll see.

[Khissi]

7 minutes ago, Riamus said:

 

I actually think this is probably a good decision to even out item progression.  I know it'll take getting used to for everyone and I haven't yet tried it out as I'm on an older save still and even with the update, I have the same mod slots as before even on newly crafted stone items.  But after some getting used to it and working to upgrade more quickly, I think it'll be worthwhile.  But we'll see.

So, since I'm still on stone tools and spears and wooden clubs, having one mod slot at tier 3, is a good decision....  Not at tier 5 yet since I started a new map/game with this drop, but you honestly think that having ONE mod slot for the entire stone level, tier 1 through 5 is the way to even out item progression?  Seriously... so, this means the iron level would have, what, 2 mod slots for tier 1 though 5?  Those levels took me days to progress through with the magazine nerf in the last build.  I'm saying, either up the magazine count to earlier levels, or something!  I'm already getting ferals on day 1 since my trader is on the edge of a city so, yeah, sure. 

[FinkPloyd]

6 hours ago, Old Crow said:

"Batteries now scale the crafting resources per tier to prevent exploits "

Can someone explain this one? I don't understand it, I didn't know of any exploits involving it.

 

 

There used to be some items you could scrap for more resources than it required to make them, so you could have infinite amounts of that resource.

[Riamus]

2 minutes ago, Khissi said:

So, since I'm still on stone tools and spears and wooden clubs, having one mod slot at tier 3, is a good decision....  Not at tier 5 yet since I started a new map/game with this drop, but you honestly think that having ONE mod slot for the entire stone level, tier 1 through 5 is the way to even out item progression?  Seriously... so, this means the iron level would have, what, 2 mod slots for tier 1 though 5?  Those levels took me days to progress through with the magazine nerf in the last build.  I'm saying, either up the magazine count to earlier levels, or something!  I'm already getting ferals on day 1 since my trader is on the edge of a city so, yeah, sure. 

I don't know what the mod counts per tier are.  But the way things were before, it was pointless to ever make a quality level 1-3 or 4 iron weapon/tool if you have a tier 5 (not even 6) stone version.  The same when going from iron to steel.  You'd be taking too much of a loss if you went form tier 5 stone to tier 1 iron to ever consider doing it.  This change means that a tier 1 iron will be better than a tier 5 stone every time (supposedly... as I said, I haven't seen it yet).  This gives a good reason to work on upgrading to the next tier as soon as you can.

 

Regarding being at stone level and having only one mod slot... I am usually out of stone within 3-5 days in A21 and often don't even have 2 mods that can fit into a given weapon/tool before that point.  Now, with quality 1 actually being worth something, I'll be out of stone even sooner instead of waiting until I can make quality 4-5 iron.  So you shouldn't be staying on stone long enough for this to have much impact on you and you certainly can handle anything sent at you with stone until you can get iron, imo.  Maybe it'll take more work, especially at max difficulty, but definitely doable.  I think the place where this will have the more noticeable impact is in iron as you are likely to be in iron a bit longer than stone, though not too much longer usually.

 

All that said, I think this might end up having a reverse effect on item progression jumps.  Instead of going up to quality 5 stone, then jumping to quality 5 iron, then to quality 5 steel, this might end up resulting in going up to quality 5 stone, then quality 1 iron, then quality 5 iron (maybe), then quality 1 steel, then quality 5 steel.  It usually isn't worth making every level of item and I'm not sure if damage between quality levels to warrant making middle quality items to replace low quality items in a given tier.  We'll see.

[Kalex]

Had a zombie tonight in a POI run right past me (I even thwacked her in the head as she ran past) to go and beat on the corner of a wall and ignored me completely.

[Riamus]

5 minutes ago, Kalex said:

Had a zombie tonight in a POI run right past me (I even thwacked her in the head as she ran past) to go and beat on the corner of a wall and ignored me completely.

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of zombies just run past in A21.  They usually turn back around but they'll run past me, go into another room, and then turn around and come find me.  It's almost as if they are using the stealth-finder tactic of homing in on wherever you made the noise they first noticed and then they ignore everything until they reach that point.

[CoolJ]

3 hours ago, Old Crow said:

 

...We already interact with zombies. A lot. Coming back from a POI to 5 screamers just because we need water to make glue and have 10 dew collectors going isn't "fun." It's annoying. Especially when they're summoning friends without screaming.

 

Again, it feels more like a choice you guys made to be jerks, not because you think it's logical or fun.

 

Joke's on you, I already play agility and know how nerfed stealth builds are now.

 

It gets even worse. In this new update, cloth armor at blue craftable level, now only gets two mod slots and purple three. Did they nerf scrap armor the same you ask? Not a chance mate! Still three mod slots at blue and four for purple. I haven't even checked the weapons. Too depressing to think about. Since I had to use a blue primitive bow for about ten days until I could buy a yellow wooden one. The third mod slot certainly helped out with the damage. I also had to use a purple bone knife for about fifteen days because even with three points into knife guy, every hunting knife I could buy or could find, was way worse. I finally bought a blue machete that I have been using since then and I was only able to craft a blue machete on day 39. Making the whole parts and magazine collection process, completely pointless. Same goes for the bows. I had to buy a blue compound cross-bow to get anything better than the yellow wooden bow. I still cant craft compound cross-bows at all at day 40 with 3 points into the bow perk. I did get to make an SMG, but its still worse than the purple AK I got on like day five. So there is no point using it either. Nerf agility more Pimps. Amazing reasoning going on over there right now.

 

 

1 hour ago, faatal said:

b323 is a stable candidate. Depends if it has any major bugs. Just played a few hours on it using my previous game and didn't see any new bugs.

 

Is totally broken quests that you can't complete considered a major bug? Because you still can't complete the drive-in quest. I have heard of others but I have not run into them yet.

Edited June 29, 2023 by CoolJ (see edit history)

[Strengthinside]

Read changes of the new build, and flickering textures aren't fixed? Damn, that really bothers me...

[Jost Amman]

47 minutes ago, Kalex said:

Had a zombie tonight in a POI run right past me (I even thwacked her in the head as she ran past) to go and beat on the corner of a wall and ignored me completely.

That corner must have been awfully sexy... 

 

1 hour ago, Khissi said:

So, since I'm still on stone tools and spears and wooden clubs, having one mod slot at tier 3, is a good decision....  Not at tier 5 yet since I started a new map/game with this drop, but you honestly think that having ONE mod slot for the entire stone level, tier 1 through 5 is the way to even out item progression?  Seriously... so, this means the iron level would have, what, 2 mod slots for tier 1 though 5?  Those levels took me days to progress through with the magazine nerf in the last build.  I'm saying, either up the magazine count to earlier levels, or something!  I'm already getting ferals on day 1 since my trader is on the edge of a city so, yeah, sure. 

I'll have to test this and see how it feels... but personally, I like the concept.

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[Coalthrush]

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

There is a legitimate reason for the water/jar changes.  It is meant to make water more difficult to acquire.  Even though it's still fairly easy for anyone who knows the game, it doesn't change that it does make it more difficult.  You might consider it a punishment but at least there is a valid reason to want to reduce how easy it is to get water.  The change for dew collectors is different.  That offers no reason other than that they don't want players building large dew collector farms and that isn't a legitimate reason.

I understand that, and as I said I have no problem with changing things that are too easy, but it has to make sense.

 

With that logic, TFP could just remove firearms because how easy you can kill zombies with them.

 

I just want the realism aspect to mirror what one would do in real life. That's the point with simulators, and survival games are a survival simulator. 

In real life I would have gathered water from a river to boil, or collect rain in a rain barrel.

 

And to your statement about TFP not wanting players to build large dew collector farms. 

That is the base of all their changes.

"The Fun Pimps don't want" 

As many people has constantly said, TFPs keep change the game so the players have to play the way THEY want the game to be played. Like a kindergarten teacher telling the kids what to draw.

 

It's gonna be the same thing with the new outfit system, which is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Coalthrush (see edit history)

[Riamus]

5 minutes ago, Coalthrush said:

I just want the realism aspect to mirror what one would do in real life. That's the point with simulators, and survival games are a survival simulator. 

The only thing I don't really agree about in what you said is this.  Survival games do not need to be simulation games.  They can be but they don't have to be.  This game is not a survival simulation game and I'm pretty sure they never claimed it was.  That doesn't mean they can't have simulation aspects in the game and make things realistic in the game but it also doesn't mean they have to make everything realistic or a simulation.  If it was a survival simulation, you'd never be allowed to carry more than a certain weight around and never pick up and walk around with any vehicle other than a bicycle and it would take months in game to grow crops and so on.  That isn't what this is.

 

Gameplay trumps realism with this and many other games.  But that doesn't mean making a change that makes no sense and has no valid gameplay improvement to it is a good decision.

[icehot]

To go along with the mod slot discussion, I think it's a good change and adds another reason to upgrade - I was actually thinking about this change a week ago or so, but I was also thinking it doesn't really make sense that the pipe weapons have any slots at all, for example I don't get how a professionally made silencer would ever fit onto something made of glue and pipes that you put together in your hands.  So I'd probably have made this change a little more extreme if it were up to me.

[Khissi]

3 minutes ago, icehot said:

To go along with the mod slot discussion, I think it's a good change and adds another reason to upgrade - I was actually thinking about this change a week ago or so, but I was also thinking it doesn't really make sense that the pipe weapons have any slots at all, for example I don't get how a professionally made silencer would ever fit onto something made of glue and pipes that you put together in your hands.  So I'd probably have made this change a little more extreme if it were up to me.

Well, the suppressor on the pipe guns doesn't really look like a professionally made one, it's well done visually and fits, in my book.  And, to note, I just hit tier 4 stone tools, and they have 2 slots where the tier 3 had 1.  I purchased a tier 5 iron spear from Rekt, wonder of wonders, and it has 3.  So, it's rearranged but I'm not entirely sure of what it's going to be as we progress, so I'll hold my ire and shoot at the ferals with my primitive bow, and hope.

[Old Crow]

59 minutes ago, Khissi said:

Well, the suppressor on the pipe guns doesn't really look like a professionally made one, it's well done visually and fits, in my book.  And, to note, I just hit tier 4 stone tools, and they have 2 slots where the tier 3 had 1.  I purchased a tier 5 iron spear from Rekt, wonder of wonders, and it has 3.  So, it's rearranged but I'm not entirely sure of what it's going to be as we progress, so I'll hold my ire and shoot at the ferals with my primitive bow, and hope.

 

Basically as you go up in material tiers, you get more slots sooner. rank 4 stone axe only has 1 mod slot, rank 4 iron fireaxe would have 2, and a rank 4 steel axe has 3,

2 hours ago, FinkPloyd said:

 

There used to be some items you could scrap for more resources than it required to make them, so you could have infinite amounts of that resource.

Ah ok, I understand now.

[Outlaw_187]

Sooooo..........when does A22 come out.....🤣🤣😂😂

 

Just kidding, please Roland, don't ban me!!

 

Loving A21. Man this game is definitely more challenging in this new alpha. The infestation quests are a$$ kickers.