Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[v3tro]

2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

If you still see diminishing returns, please explain.  

 

From Quantums provided table you get a diminishing returns without spending a perk point.

 

But at that point one could wonder if you even should be able to farm safely without investing into farming.

As I see it you find seeds by looting -> plant them and be happy that you got some food out of those seeds without perks instead of wanting unlimited food supply from them.

[meganoth]

14 minutes ago, v3tro said:

 

From Quantums provided table you get a diminishing returns without spending a perk point.

 

But at that point one could wonder if you even should be able to farm safely without investing into farming.

As I see it you find seeds by looting -> plant them and be happy that you got some food out of those seeds without perks instead of wanting unlimited food supply from them.

 

Xeens point is that he sees diminishing returns even with 1 or 2 perk points invested.

 

But I will edit my post now to make it clearer.

Edited August 25, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

7 hours ago, Xeen said:

Even with a small data set I think he proved that seed return isn't where it should be to prevent diminishing returns. I think a seed perk would be helpful here, at least then we wouldn't have to spend a large portion of crops on making seeds.  A perk that reduces the amount of crops needed to craft seeds per perk level would work well. I think we spend enough time at our bases crafting and the last thing we need is to spend more time farming with discouraging results.

 

It looks like it is working as intended mostly based on his small test.  1 perk point investment is not a lot to ask imo.

[Uncle Al]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Xeens point is that he sees diminishing returns even with 1 or 2 perk points invested.

 

But I will edit my post now to make it clearer.

I don't understand what they're seeing if that is their point?

 

There are no dimishing returns except for zero perk points in that table.

 

A diminishing return would be a negative number in the final column.  There aren't any except for zero perk points.

 

Even the really unlucky crops like only getting six corn seeds back with two perk points are showing a net gain.

 

Diminishing returns on zero perk points is by design. The stated intention is that crafting seeds is a bad idea if you have no farming skill at all.

[Matt115]

13 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

 

Looks so good. I hope there will be new body props as well ^^

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

Looks so good. I hope there will be new body props as well ^^

Here's a "body prop" for you! 

Spoiler

 

[Matt115]

22 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Here's a "body prop" for you! 

  Hide contents

 

I mean good old corpse. She is just alive so meh. She can't be source of bones 😕

Edited August 25, 2022 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[Syphon583]

38 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

She can't be source of bones

Are you sure about that?

[Xeen]

I guess if everyone is happy with current seed returns and spending large amounts of the crops on crafting seeds then my small voice of dissent doesn't matter.

[meganoth]

9 minutes ago, Xeen said:

I guess if everyone is happy with current seed returns and spending large amounts of the crops on crafting seeds then my small voice of dissent doesn't matter.

 

A lot of people have posted dissenting opinions, so not everyone is happy. But everyone happy is NEVER the case anyway when a feature changes or has its balance changed.

 

In my opinion a seed that I get back should just stay in the plot so the replanting isn't so tedious. But mostly I don't like all the clicking necessary to recraft seeds and put them into the plots again, switching around all the different seed stacks into the toolbelt and out again. Just too many clicks for my taste. But this is critizising the UI, not the harvest returns, which I find quite ok.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

9 hours ago, meganoth said:

By the way, according to TFP seed production from harvest with no points in LotL is a losing bargain on purpose. 

 

QFT.  If you have not spent any points on Living off the land you should not be trying to build a huge farm. You should just plant whatever seeds you find and harvest the crops for food and live off of whatever you manage to get as a supplement to however else you are getting food--presumably hunting.

 

With one perk point spent you can slowly and painfully build a farm but often with setbacks. With two and with three perk points spent it gets easier and faster to build up a self sustaining farm.

 

1 hour ago, Xeen said:

I guess if everyone is happy with current seed returns and spending large amounts of the crops on crafting seeds then my small voice of dissent doesn't matter.

 

It matters and it isn't just your small voice there are lots of voices saying the same thing you are. Its just that this whole debate raged at the beginning of A19 when the changes first hit the fan, so to speak, and that was about 2 years ago. You're just late to the party. TFP did spreadsheets and tests before it was ever released to experimental. Then when a lot of voices said the same thing you did, lots of people did exactly what Quantum Blue just did and we all talked about it and TFP saw all of it and internalized it and made the decision to keep things largely as they are. They DID adjust LotL 2 so that it was better than it was and that was thanks to community feedback.

 

It really is simply that everything that is being brought up now (including the math, spreadsheets, and tests) were done vigorously and thoroughly by people internal to TFP and people external to TFP a long time ago and they are very unlikely to change farming at this point and what they have chosen is definitely not out of some lack of understanding about the ramifications of the math. They really truly don't believe that a self-sustaining farm should be possible unless at least one point is spent in farming.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[zztong]

2 hours ago, Xeen said:

I guess if everyone is happy with current seed returns and spending large amounts of the crops on crafting seeds then my small voice of dissent doesn't matter.

 

You voice matters, I'm sure, but you're not getting uniform and extensive concurrence.

 

My personal preference would be not to have to replant. But, by the time I'm ready to focus on farming, I can make converting produce back into seeds and replanting into a minor annoyance. Until I get Living Off The Land 3, I don't bother to plant a farm and I just bank seeds and produce.

 

Update - How about Living Off the Land 4 means not having to replant but doesn't drop a seed? I'd take it, mostly because I'm lazy.

Edited August 25, 2022 by zztong (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

3 hours ago, Matt115 said:

I mean good old corpse. She is just alive so meh. She can't be source of bones 😕

 

I dunno, did you ask Snowdog? 😆

13 hours ago, RipClaw said:

There is an easier way to determine if skyscrapers are on the map. Open the command line with F1. Switch to debug mode with "dm" and then execute the command "tppoi". A window should open with a list of all POIs. There you can search for "skyscraper". A click on the POI will teleport you right in front of it.

 

 

You don't even need the tppoi command anymore.  After enabling debug mode, there is a button next to the exit button as well.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

 

I dunno, did you ask Snowdog? 😆

 

I think he don't like skeletons but... bones😜

[Blake_]

@Roland can you tell us more about the perks that are filling the "crafting gap" that magazines opened? It would be quite exciting to be able try out new things brought up by those new additions. The best part of magazines is that there will be more of that "perky stuff" for us to play with.

I mean, I believe madmole is on that with the team at the moment, right?

[Weazelsun]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:07 PM, Khalagar said:

 

I don't think there's much they can do to make those not lag like mofo. Even with a high end rig with a 6900xt and 5600x I still lag down to single digit fps in the big sky scrappers when stuff starts happening. They still spawn in A20 tho, the bigger cities usually have 1 or 2 of them

 

 I think @faatal was working on optimizing the window blocks or something? So hopefully that should make them less laggy in general. 

[Roland]

45 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

@Roland can you tell us more about the perks that are filling the "crafting gap" that magazines opened? It would be quite exciting to be able try out new things brought up by those new additions. The best part of magazines is that there will be more of that "perky stuff" for us to play with.

I mean, I believe madmole is on that with the team at the moment, right?

 

You haven't perked into Forum Negotiations enough to convince me to spill those beans. Even if you did, I haven't perked nearly enough into Madmole Knuckle Rub Avoidance to risk it.

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Even if you did, I haven't perked nearly enough into Madmole Knuckle Rub Avoidance to risk it.

That's a good point. It will be interesting to see what the recipes replace. Some perks are practically almost just recipes. Particularly worth mentioning here would be Grease Monkey, Advanced Engineering, and Master Chef.

 

Maybe we could collect ideas for perks. My idea would be a perk that reduces the heat from workstations so I don't have to deal with all this undead Karen's. The same for tools please 

Edited August 26, 2022 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Uncle Al]

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

That's a good point. It will be interesting to see what the recipes replace. Some perks are practically almost just recipes. Particularly worth mentioning here would be Grease Monkey, Advanced Engineering, and Master Chef.

 

Maybe we could collect ideas for perks. My idea would be a perk that reduces the heat from workstations so I don't have to deal with all this undead Karen's. The same for tools please 

Some love for the really sub-par perks as part of a general perk overhaul would be lovely, even if they're not directly impacted by the crafting change.

 

Combining animal tracker and the huntsman, and also lockpicking and treasure hunter, into single perks is a standout quick win as far as I'm concerned.  Oh and changing Rule 1 Cardio to a flat stamina regen bonus while we're at it.

 

I'm still not convinced I'd ever take them but I might at least think about it.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Uncle Al (see edit history)

[Aldranon]

18 hours ago, Uncle Al said:

I don't understand what they're seeing if that is their point?

 

There are no dimishing returns except for zero perk points in that table.

 

A diminishing return would be a negative number in the final column.  There aren't any except for zero perk points.

 

Even the really unlucky crops like only getting six corn seeds back with two perk points are showing a net gain.

 

Diminishing returns on zero perk points is by design. The stated intention is that crafting seeds is a bad idea if you have no farming skill at all.

 

I'm guessing he might have meant the margin of gain per point, reduces.

Regardless, at max points in the farming skill, it's as close to game breaking as anyone should want it to be.   Maybe its too much.

[RipClaw]

30 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

Some love for the really sub-par perks as part of a general perk overhaul would be lovely, even if they're not directly impacted by the crafting change.

 

Combining animal tracker and the huntsman, and also lockpicking and treasure hunter, into single perks is a standout quick win as far as I'm concerned.  Oh and changing Rule 1 Cardio to a flat stamina regen bonus while we're at it.

 

I'm still not convinced I'd ever take them but I might at least think about it.

Lockpicking and Treasure Hunter are thematically related. Therefore it would make sense to combine them. However, I would not include Animal Tracker.

Animal Tracker and Huntsman would make a nice combo, even though they are actually in different skill trees but they are thematically related.

 

I also agree that Rule 1 Cardio is a bit underused at the moment. In the beginning it's interesting to have more stamina when sprinting but later on you have a motorized transport anyway.

 

 

[Uncle Al]

4 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Lockpicking and Treasure Hunter are thematically related. Therefore it would make sense to combine them. However, I would not include Animal Tracker.

Animal Tracker and Huntsman would make a nice combo, even though they are actually in different skill trees but they are thematically related.

 

 

 

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Two pairings not lumping them all into a single perk!

[Zombiepoptard]

Zzzzz I'm waiting for the big update punch. In Alpha 20 It was pipe weapons and prefab stamps that made cities look like cities. I'm not here to dog but I know you guys are withholding a lot of what makes these updates huge game improvements. I'm just wondering what the first person animation team is working on. Are they working on the other game or are they still being used to improve 7 days? 

 

quest types?

 

clothing stats update?

 

New weapons? 

 

First person animation improvement?!? 

 

JOEL!!! Where are you Joel!!!! come back!! I miss you! lol 

 

I also miss when Joel did Q&A's on is youtube channel. Made some wild projections but was food for my imagination. Now the dev team has gotten chunky and Joel probably wants to slip into more of a management role and not be as hands on. Where is The Fun Pump! 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Zombiepoptard (see edit history)

[Zombiepoptard]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

 

QFT.  If you have not spent any points on Living off the land you should not be trying to build a huge farm. You should just plant whatever seeds you find and harvest the crops for food and live off of whatever you manage to get as a supplement to however else you are getting food--presumably hunting.

 

With one perk point spent you can slowly and painfully build a farm but often with setbacks. With two and with three perk points spent it gets easier and faster to build up a self sustaining farm.

 

Hope they're okay with using the shotgun am I right Roland 😛

[Laz Man]

12 hours ago, Zombiepoptard said:

In Alpha 20 It was pipe weapons and prefab stamps that made cities look like cities.

 

You mean tiles...😅