Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Fanatical_Meat]

5 minutes ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

Oh... I see...

Funny and it’s still a passive-aggressive statement.

Obviously there is some sort of time frame and that time frame may be something we disagree with as in it’s ready now but we’re going to wait for the steam holiday sale so we can gain more sales. Regardless there is some kind of time frame and giving a non answer is simply avoiding the question which is pretty weak thing to do.

Truth is always the best answer.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Fanatical_Meat (see edit history)

[Roland]

4 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Truth is always the best answer.

 

I don't know what 1 divided by 0 is and I don't know when the dev stream is. Truth.

 

If anything they are racing to try and get done before the Steam Winter Sale season rather than sitting around on their butts twiddling their thumbs until that time.

[Jost Amman]

52 minutes ago, Roland said:

I don't know what 1 divided by 0

Spoiler

 

[bloodmoth13]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:09 PM, Jinx_DG said:

Would there be a medication to bring your "sickness bar" back down to zero at any point during it's progress to full? 

 

If so, what's the difference between taking something to "cure" your sickness bar or taking something to cure your dyssentry? 

 

If not, I'd have to hard pass on that idea because at some point the bar would get full and you'd get sick anyways. 

Yes, medicine to bring it down in steps. One pill might reduce it by 20%, a top tier 100%.

Problem early game or in desperate situations, solved late game.

The difference is that it would be something you can manage over time instead of a binary 'sick OR cured' state, you will be dealing with incremental steps which would be smoother.

[bloodmoth13]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:29 PM, Roland said:

Just the fact that you think this is a new feature underscores how little of a presence murky water has had in the game. The percent chance of getting dysentery has been in the game for years. It shows how badly something needed to change to make dysentery and murky water even have relevance in the game
 

It can be mitigated by taking vitamins or by drinking goldenrod tea and I’m talking right now in A20 as well as in A21. 
 

in real life we don’t know when we will get sick. Someone can smoke and get lung cancer and someone else never does. I don’t like the idea of a bar that you watch and game with— drinking right up to the limit and then stopping because you know the next drink will cause sickness. We don’t know those things nor have that much control.
 

Bad events that happen to us can be random and then we deal with overcoming rather than having full knowledge about our biochemistry and exactly how much to drink and then never having a bad event happen. 
 

 

 

Im fully aware that its in the game currently thats an unfair representation.

Its completely avoidable currently and i make a point to NEVER eat or drink bad food because i hate random chances for something to fail. I even prefered when bad food just made you lose health to outdo the hunger meter since trading health for stamina is a fair choice.

 

Also you are comparing cancer to a stomach ache, completely different. I can generally tell if something upsets my stomach if i eat something bad, I also suggested slightly random sickness values for the bad water/food because you cant tell how sick something will make you.

 

Id rather 100% chance of getting dyssentry after 5 murky waters than a 5% chance on one. It brings choice to my actions beyond luck.

I also suggested zombies inflicting sickness (infected wounds) that would make consuming rotten food/water more risky.

 

I think also the dyssentry minigame isnt fun, you get lower stamina and do everything slower for a bit, that just makes gameplay feel bad. I like the idea of prioritizing cures and stuff, which i think a sickness meter would help with (Perhaps goldenrod reduces sickness by 10%, so if im at 80% sickness i will prioritize curing it before entering a POI)

Getting punished for playing poorly consistently (eating bad food and getting struck by zombies plenty) is fine, broken bones are fine, sprained ankles are fine, i dont hate those things, its punishment for playing poorly, i dont even want less dyssentry, i just want to have better interaction with it than random chance when i cant get clean water.

[Fanatical_Meat]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

 

I don't know what 1 divided by 0 is and I don't know when the dev stream is. Truth.

 

If anything they are racing to try and get done before the Steam Winter Sale season rather than sitting around on their butts twiddling their thumbs until that time.

Good then the answer will no longer be “When it’s done”, the answer will be “We are trying for the December steam sale”

[jorbascrumps]

12 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Good then the answer will no longer be “When it’s done”, the answer will be “We are trying for the December steam sale”

 

I'm sure when/ if they aren't able to meet that timeframe you'll be the first to call them out on it because you harangued them into giving one in the first place.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Good then the answer will no longer be “When it’s done”, the answer will be “We are trying for the December steam sale”

 

The answer is "Its done when its done" If it misses or makes the Steam Sale then so be it. This very issue is exactly why independent studios exist. They don't want their release schedules to be dictated by marketing concerns. They want to release or hold until they are ready. If they can get a release out in time for a big sale event then that's great but there are no marketing execs forcing the programmers to release whatever they have ready or not to meet a marketing deadline.

 

And they certainly don't care to have you and others from the community slipping into that role either.

[Roland]

2 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

Im fully aware that its in the game currently thats an unfair representation.

 

I wasn't intending to be unfair. It really did seem like you thought dysentery was part of the new water changes. If you say you know it already exists then I believe you.

 

2 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

Its completely avoidable currently and i make a point to NEVER eat or drink bad food because i hate random chances for something to fail.

 

That is a problem in my opinion. It represents a very mild and basic post-apocalyptic setting if you are able to NEVER eat or drink anything questionable at the start of the game when you are weak and vulnerable and supposedly scraping by to survive. I don't think bad events should be completely avoidable. There should be random setbacks that you come back from and overcome and react to. Where is there any kind of adaptive gameplay and hard choices and risk if every single possible negative outcome is completely deterministic and not only deterministic but by your standard measured and marked out on a bar so that you can know exactly how far to push it and then stop so that you never experience any setback or weakness other than when you make an overt mistake. Random chance of good or bad events makes a world feel more alive and independently living outside of the player's control. Eliminating random events and making everything something that can be gamed and controlled makes the world feel fake and contrived.

 

2 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

Also you are comparing cancer to a stomach ache, completely different. I can generally tell if something upsets my stomach if i eat something bad, I also suggested slightly random sickness values for the bad water/food because you cant tell how sick something will make you.

 

I agree and give you the point on this. There is a degree of feeling that something is going to make you sick if you eat or drink it. That being said, I think that being able to track such things with another bar on the HUD is bad gameplay and goes too far beyond having a sense that something might make you sick and more into the realm of having nanites in your blood stream communicating with a chip implanted in your brain giving you biometric feedback that someone without such tech wouldn't really know.

 

2 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

Id rather 100% chance of getting dyssentry after 5 murky waters than a 5% chance on one. It brings choice to my actions beyond luck.

 

What choice? You stop after 4 drinks. Period. There is no choice there. With a random chance the chance that you will get sick builds with every drink. You might get sick with the first one but maybe not until you drink five but maybe that sixth will still be okay so now its time to choose whether to risk it or not. In addition, if you know to stop at 4 and thus always avoid ever getting sick, you never have the follow-up choices that are involved with getting the cure and dealing with the hindrance the sickness imposes. You block out a swath of choices by knowing exactly to stop at 4 drinks. Luck can be the catalyst for a lot of interesting choices and victories that never emerge if there is no luck involved.

 

2 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

I think also the dyssentry minigame isnt fun, you get lower stamina and do everything slower for a bit, that just makes gameplay feel bad. I like the idea of prioritizing cures and stuff, which i think a sickness meter would help with (Perhaps goldenrod reduces sickness by 10%, so if im at 80% sickness i will prioritize curing it before entering a POI)

 

The fun factor is going to vary from person to person so I can't address that. You know what is fun for you. Its interesting that you don't like the gameplay but you are for goldenrod tea only curing another meter by 10%. The current gameplay is that goldenrod tea completely cures you of the ailment and vitamins can make you immune so that if you eat a vitamin before drinking you have 0% chance of getting sick in the first place. But that is where the progression comes in. At first you have no vitamins or tea so you have to be lucky in order to avoid dysentery. But then your supply of vitamins starts to grow, you have a bunch of tea, and then you have dew collectors and soon the struggle for clean water is a memory. But if we remove the elements of luck and make it completely 100% avoidable then there will never be a memory of having had that struggle the progression is non-existent.

 

But I know it is a gaming preference. Nobody is right or wrong it is just how each person has fun. I wish the chance to vomit was back. Some of my most memorable games were when I vomited out all my food on Day 1 and had to spend the first couple of days trying to get my hunger under control. It was tough but felt good when I overcame it. Anyway....you'll get a chance to see whether or not the chance for dysentery is too upsetting for your gameplay style or not. Maybe it will still be largely negligible being that you are an experienced player and can get food and water pretty easily over new players. It may not even be an issue for you.

[NukemDed]

3 hours ago, SnowDog1942 said:

windows also?  There are no nice windows, lol.  Nice as in pristine like the doors can be.

lol, you just want curtains to peek thru

Edited November 16, 2022 by NukemDed (see edit history)

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Yukkie said:

Dear TFP
Is there anything you can tell us about changes to the skill tree?
For example, Master Chef has had recipes opened up until now. If that is gone, won't it just be able to make them quickly?

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season.

 

Dear Yukkie,

 

Master Chef no longer opens up recipes. Now there is a recipe and cooking magazine that as you find issues of it out in the world you learn more and more dishes that you can prepare. Master Chef still exists but it mainly makes cooking faster and use less ingredients (You don't burn your food so much). So the good news is that anyone can learn to cook dishes now without having to perk up in the Strength tree or spending any points at all. The could-be-good-could-be-bad news is that you're going to have to loot and quest to find better and better recipes so hopefully you actually enjoy playing the full game and not just one aspect of it that requires you to stay in and around your base wishing that everything would just get delivered to you....er....like Christmas.

 

Happy Holidays to you too!

[NukemDed]

i dunno...

 

kinda get the feeling that these changes are going to affect how we spend our points. i sometimes put points into master chef to unlock recipes, because i want them. if that no longer applies, i dont think i will spend them there, ever.

if we have to loot lots to advance (i lot a LOT btw) then efficiency doesnt matter too much because i have heaps of resource anyways.

 

that means points will be spent more and more on more immediately useful skills, narrowing down the scope of character builds, unless we are properly role playing and want to become a cook for example.

 

take better barter. if bonuses dont allow for a better trader inventory, im better off investing in a different skill to generate cash. like miner 69er to make lvl5 tools to sell (with mods of course). that way i get the cash as a spin off from utility skills.

 

probably not well explained, but it seems there will be a narrower path, with fun stuff accessible only thru grind.

 

i think if we want to specialise in something, like being a cook, then we should be able to spend points and get the recipes. otherwise, whats the point of the skills like master chef and better barter? having a @%$# ton of stuff in your chest when you die or move on to another play thru?

 

who cares about efficiency cooking when you have just killed 20 cougars/bears/wolves in 5 minutes in the snow biome from the safety of the trader compound and harvested them all for meat?

 

 

[bloodmoth13]

 

Quote

I wasn't intending to be unfair. It really did seem like you thought dysentery was part of the new water changes. If you say you know it already exists then I believe you.

No worries.

Quote

That is a problem in my opinion. It represents a very mild and basic post-apocalyptic setting if you are able to NEVER eat or drink anything questionable at the start of the game when you are weak and vulnerable and supposedly scraping by to survive.

I agree

Quote

I don't think bad events should be completely avoidable. There should be random setbacks that you come back from and overcome and react to. Where is there any kind of adaptive gameplay and hard choices and risk if every single possible negative outcome is completely deterministic and not only deterministic but by your standard measured and marked out on a bar so that you can know exactly how far to push it and then stop so that you never experience any setback or weakness other than when you make an overt mistake. Random chance of good or bad events makes a world feel more alive and independently living outside of the player's control. Eliminating random events and making everything something that can be gamed and controlled makes the world feel fake and contrived.

Bad events arent entirely avoidable regardless and there is already a ton of random events that are a blast to interact with. A random zombie wandering into your clay pit or a horde appearing when your base isnt finished. Those are good things to adapt to.  You are constantly adapting to changes in the game and thats the way it should be. Then there are lesser things like getting hungry making you prioritize food, being thirsty making you look for a water source, needing ammo making you mine for lead or being sick making you look for medicine or better quality food. These are also things you react to by preparing . If we applied the dysentery rule to other things the game would be insanely annoying, like getting a bleed effect from looting a cabinet because you 'cut yourself on the counter' or something. Getting a cut from not being careful around zombies though is the right kind of bad.

 

Quote

I agree and give you the point on this. There is a degree of feeling that something is going to make you sick if you eat or drink it. That being said, I think that being able to track such things with another bar on the HUD is bad gameplay and goes too far beyond having a sense that something might make you sick and more into the realm of having nanites in your blood stream communicating with a chip implanted in your brain giving you biometric feedback that someone without such tech wouldn't really know.

While having hud bars for everything might feel too gamey and lose immersion we already have it for health and we have bars for hunger and thirst. Its really no different to those. If the game could make me feel hungry or thirsty or sick then we could remove them, but conveying stimulus like that is impossible (and im pretty certain playing a game that makes you feel horrible would be awful)

So status bars are the best compromise we can get. Its also an incredibly simple solution.

I mean we could apply that same argument to everything else on the hud, the exact argument applies to health, i could get cut up and mangled and not have any idea whether im going to survive or die. Sometimes you get tapped on the arm by a zombie and you die instantly (because you were on 1 health) but thats just the way the game works, its how you convey information to players that is incredibly important. You could hide the health bar too but you would need another way to communicate that information. The game might feel even more immersive but i imagine players would feel incredibly frustrated with no information bars to communicate health, hunger or thirst. Sickness wouldnt be any different, in fact we have debuff timers already where we know what percentage of infection we have or how many seconds left of dysentery we have. I dont think a sickness bar that consolidates some of the debuffs would really ruin immersion for anyone.  (Also i originally thought of this idea as a replacement to infections which could be interesting to interact with a 'sickness' system)

 

Quote

What choice? You stop after 4 drinks. Period. There is no choice there. With a random chance the chance that you will get sick builds with every drink. You might get sick with the first one but maybe not until you drink five but maybe that sixth will still be okay so now its time to choose whether to risk it or not. In addition, if you know to stop at 4 and thus always avoid ever getting sick, you never have the follow-up choices that are involved with getting the cure and dealing with the hindrance the sickness imposes. You block out a swath of choices by knowing exactly to stop at 4 drinks. Luck can be the catalyst for a lot of interesting choices and victories that never emerge if there is no luck involved.

I see what you are saying but i think you are making too many assumptions here. Perhaps that is my fault for not giving better examples so i will try to communicate as best i can what i mean.

I agree that its a problem that i never get dysentery, but i think making it a core part of the early game where you either go thirsty or get the runs if you are unlucky isnt great. Playing blackjack with the poor food you get at the start is more interesting, try eat as much awful food as you can without getting sick is a lot more fun than rolling a bad roll and facing consequences. Also the reward of not getting dysentery really isnt enough to ever feel like you are getting lucky, its the kind of risk/reward where you only ever feel unlucky since 5% is low enought that you feel like you shouldnt get ill but you do. 

Also i suggested making zombie attacks inflict a small amount of sickness on you, this will mean that you cant just eat 4 rotten meat/murky water and be fine, you will be at high risk of getting sick from zombie attacks. I also suggested some mitigating factors early game where you can craft items that reduce it a small amount like goldenrod tea perhaps giving a buff that reduces sickness by a small amount over time (perhaps something like 10% per minute for 1 minute per drink) so you can give yourself sidequests to stay healthy instead of just gunning for the power loot.

 

This would actually create more decision making since you cant just cure it, you need to manage it till its gone. The way the debuffs interact with the spec could be different too, perhaps after getting to 75% sickness you get dysentery, when you go below your dysentery is cured. Id expect the way debuffs interact with a new system would be revised too, perhaps at 100% instead of getting dysentery you get infection and more sickness after that adds to infection (which could replace the current infection system)

Quote

The fun factor is going to vary from person to person so I can't address that. You know what is fun for you. Its interesting that you don't like the gameplay but you are for goldenrod tea only curing another meter by 10%. The current gameplay is that goldenrod tea completely cures you of the ailment and vitamins can make you immune so that if you eat a vitamin before drinking you have 0% chance of getting sick in the first place. But that is where the progression comes in. At first you have no vitamins or tea so you have to be lucky in order to avoid dysentery. But then your supply of vitamins starts to grow, you have a bunch of tea, and then you have dew collectors and soon the struggle for clean water is a memory. But if we remove the elements of luck and make it completely 100% avoidable then there will never be a memory of having had that struggle the progression is non-existent.

Your mistake is thinking i want things to be easier. The fact that vitamins make you immune and goldenrod is an instant cure go completely against making dysentery a problem at all. The problem is that the sickness is too random to get and too easy to fix. At the moment its just in the realm of annoying where in the first week you get frustrated and get dysentery maybe once or twice from doing nothing wrong. I want things to be risks through the whole game, making later stages have more effective ways of avoiding and managing the problems but still being a conscious thing to mitigate and avoid. After getting the dew collecters its a non-issue, thats binary.

I just want to have better control over those things, im happy to get punished for playing poorly, but im not happy to be punished for being unlucky.

 

Quote

But I know it is a gaming preference. Nobody is right or wrong it is just how each person has fun. I wish the chance to vomit was back. Some of my most memorable games were when I vomited out all my food on Day 1 and had to spend the first couple of days trying to get my hunger under control. It was tough but felt good when I overcame it. Anyway....you'll get a chance to see whether or not the chance for dysentery is too upsetting for your gameplay style or not. Maybe it will still be largely negligible being that you are an experienced player and can get food and water pretty easily over new players. It may not even be an issue for you.

See, i kind of want it to be an issue, just an issue i can manage. Random chance just means if im unlucky im unlucky.

I was thinking that getting to 100 sickness would make you vomit and reduce you to 75%. I didnt realize vomiting was removed tbh, i genuinely want it integrated into the sickness system! Its the exact kind of punishment id expect, even worse is the idea that i play blackjack with my sickness and get to 90% sick, go into a poi, get mobbed by a few zombies that tap me up to 100% and i vomit right there in the middle of a fight. that would be horiffic. 

 

Numbers subject to balance of course, it would be up to TFP to decide how they would want it implemented if at all so any numbers i suggest are just examples. Im just presenting a concept that i think would make things feel a little more deterministic.

[Roland]

20 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

like miner 69er to make lvl5 tools to sell

 

lol...this punctuates exactly how hard it is to wrap your head around these changes. Miner 69er no longer governs the quality of tools you make-- none of the perks do. The magazine for tool crafting does that. Even after playing, I also would often forget that this perk or that perk no longer had anything to do with crafting. This change will very much affect how you spend points and what you spend them on. It will be interesting to see what everyone gravitates to and the relative importance of certain perks has changed a lot.

[NukemDed]

40 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

lol...this punctuates exactly how hard it is to wrap your head around these changes. Miner 69er no longer governs the quality of tools you make-- none of the perks do. The magazine for tool crafting does that. Even after playing, I also would often forget that this perk or that perk no longer had anything to do with crafting. This change will very much affect how you spend points and what you spend them on. It will be interesting to see what everyone gravitates to and the relative importance of certain perks has changed a lot.

all i take from this then is good stuff comes from grind

unless points in miner increases whatever stat regardless of quality of tool used...   significantly

otherwise good things are gated behind how many mags you read (looting rng aside).

yes i understand putting points in will increase the chance of getting the mag you order via skill point expenditure

 

sounds like uber apocalypse

 

hopefully i am as dumb as i seem and am missing some nuance here

[NukemDed]

so heres a question for you  @Roland

 

if you wanted to role play as chuck norris, what skill trees would you invest in and why.

 

and what if you wanted to build an impenetrable fortress, what skill trees and why

 

i swap between these two usually. tending more towards mass murder mwah ha ha ha 

 

you may answer in photo clue style, engrish or interpretive dance, your call

Edited November 16, 2022 by NukemDed (see edit history)

[NukemDed]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

this punctuates exactly how hard it is to wrap your head around these changes. 

as in

?

 

sorry, had to

🙂

Edited November 16, 2022 by NukemDed (see edit history)

[Jugom]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

lol...this punctuates exactly how hard it is to wrap your head around these changes. Miner 69er no longer governs the quality of tools you make-- none of the perks do. The magazine for tool crafting does that. Even after playing, I also would often forget that this perk or that perk no longer had anything to do with crafting. This change will very much affect how you spend points and what you spend them on. It will be interesting to see what everyone gravitates to and the relative importance of certain perks has changed a lot.

 

Considering I never spent points to unlock recipes, I don't think my playstyle will change that much in A21.
I always spent points on mining to gather resources faster, or any other of the different bonuses but I never really cared for crafting the tools/weapons they also unlocked. always looted them or bought them. But as everyone is always saying that in A21 you will be crafting more often, I'm actually looking forward to how that goes.

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, Gronal said:

Gone will be the days of strength and intellect being king (hopefully).

Or intellect will be more powerful than ever because of Daring Adventurer.

[Matt115]

Hey i'm not skeleton yet so. This looks like electric wire can be hidden. 

I would say i'm glad about door but.... i hate doors. Rly. i hate doors. I have so many bad memories connected with doors  both in games and in real life that i wish could blow up every door i see

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, NukemDed said:

all i take from this then is good stuff comes from grind

unless points in miner increases whatever stat regardless of quality of tool used...   significantly

otherwise good things are gated behind how many mags you read (looting rng aside).

yes i understand putting points in will increase the chance of getting the mag you order via skill point expenditure

 

sounds like uber apocalypse

 

hopefully i am as dumb as i seem and am missing some nuance here

 

I am pretty sure for most players miner69er was not the must-have perk because of crafting tools. It was because it gave a boost to both resource gathering and destroying blocks (important for building, breaking in, opening safes, ...), both combined was and still is a killer feature. 

 

10 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Hey i'm not skeleton yet so. This looks like electric wire can be hidden. 

I would say i'm glad about door but.... i hate doors. Rly. i hate doors. I have so many bad memories connected with doors  both in games and in real life that i wish could blow up every door i see

 

Newstands have a door

 

[Matt115]

2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Newstands have a door

 

At least not from front side :

 

Any visible door

[Laz Man]

56 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

At least not from front side :

 

Any visible door

 

There are rollup doors in that image.  You just can't see them because their open. 😁

[meganoth]

57 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

At least not from front side :

 

Any visible door

 

And the newsstand operator is crawling through the small window in front every morning to get inside, right? 😎 If he is slim enough, that is.

 

 

[Matt115]

40 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

And the newsstand operator is crawling through the small window in front every morning to get inside, right? 😎 If he is slim enough, that is.

 

 

No no doors are behind but "not visible"  from front so i can't be angry on doors if i don't see them

 

58 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

There are rollup doors in that image.  You just can't see them because their open. 😁

rollup doors doesn't count here because here have diffrent name 😜 Fun fact - 10 years ago most them had iron bars

Edited November 16, 2022 by Matt115 (see edit history)