Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[DocRussel]

Don't worry if you miss it.  Give it 2 days and it should be on YouTube, maybe sooner on Prime's Twitch channel as VOD.

[Teezer]

3 hours ago, Doomofman said:

 

Cool I was right. Not that I'm staying up for it, 3am is an ungodly hour but still wanna make sure people aren't confused by the time

3 am for me too, it's wild 💀

[Adam the Waster]

What are yall looking forward too seeing 

 

I'm looking forward to performance and new armors and the possible new skills for armor 

[Teteria]

1 minute ago, Adam the Waster said:

What are yall looking forward too seeing 

 

I'm looking forward to performance and new armors and the possible new skills for armor 

Character creation is always interesting to see. Also armors and new gameplay changes 😍

[Laz Man]

2 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

What are yall looking forward too seeing 

 

I'm looking forward to performance and new armors and the possible new skills for armor 

 

POIs...😁

[Arma Rex]

Is the plan for multiple streams covering different topics, or is it all consolidated in this current stream?

[Old Crow]

Can we get some info/sneak peeks at some of the new outfit set bonuses?

[HeLLKnight]

Oh I missed it, was at 4am here 

 

Not available yet as video on demand on Fubar's Twitch channel sorted as last videos, last video is Helldivers from 4 days ago. Do you know if should be available in the next few hours?

 

Found a tweet about the stream:

https://x.com/sl0thysl0thx/status/1796756736730087731

[Eduho]

¿Dónde se puede ver?

[Riamus]

Well, I watched the dev stream off and on and it was a lot of wasted time, unfortunately.  You would think they'd take the time to test things before going live rather than waste over an hour of everyone's time.  Not even much was shown that was really worth seeing.  Here are my takeaways:

 

• The new storage chests looked good and upgrading the chests is nice, I suppose.  Though it seems just a way to use forged iron and forged steel for no real gain besides having fewer chests. 
• The assassin's armor looked really good, though the cloak clips even when standing still.  You'd at least expect clipping to be fixed when standing still, if nothing else.  And considering this is the full set they showed, you shouldn't even see clipping.  Clipping's usually what you get when mixing items that weren't properly animated.  But when it's a full set that clips?  That's pretty bad.  The suit outfit (I forget the name) was kind of okay.  And the enforcer armor looked really horrible.  I hope at least one of the heavy armors actually looks decent since I prefer heavy armor.
• The update the the tutorial/journal is a good improvement for new players.  Not sure how much it'll benefit anyone else besides some extra experience and whatever rewards you get for each part, but it's still a good improvement.
• The changes to the dew collector will make a lot of people happier, even if it doesn't change how you can get water.  At least you don't need filters to craft the basic version, which will give you murky water.  And mods to make that into clean water, increase speed, and increase capacity to 6 per collector... that's good for those who use the dew collectors.
• Unspecified balancing to the trader quest rewards so you aren't outpacing crafting as quickly with quest rewards is probably good, though they didn't give any actual details and what they consider balanced could still be way off.
• Animations for movements are a nice improvement and seeing where other players are looking can be helpful.  Walking backwards looked a bit strange, though.  The character leaned way back when walking backwards.  If someone really leaned back that much when walking backwards, they'd most likely fall over backwards.
• There's apparently a "look at" animation when you're near stuff so that your character will turn their head to look at someone coming... I didn't see them show it off but might have missed it.  It is something that works in some games... but usually in games that are 3rd person as an indication that there's something interesting in that direction.  For 1st person, it seems odd.  But they claim it is interesting.  Not sure if your character's 1st person view will actually turn without your input to look at things.  Hopefully not.  Hopefully this feature is only something you see other people doing and doesn't actually affect any person's view.  Still, that is a very limited feature in that case.  Seems like wasted effort for a 1st person game.
• Cotton and hops art was improved... not really a big deal.  It isn't like you're looking at those close up very often.  I'd rather see other things get art improvements, such as trees.  At least those you pay attention to and see more often.
• No changes to storage chests as far as being able to craft from the chests or have multiple people using the same chest at the same time.  Not really surprising and it was stated that multiple people to use the same chest at the same time will not happen at all.  Nothing said about whether crafting from chests has any chance of ever happening.
• 4x4 gets 4 seats by default and upgrades to 6.  Motorcycle upgrades to 2.  And I believe they said gyro upgrades to 4.
• Crossplay, as has been already posted on the forum, will not be available initially.  The new info given is that it's working already and that the question about how or if it will happen comes down to a bunch of red tape certification processes with Microsoft and Sony.  For initial release, it will only be 4 player co-op on hosted locally for console players.
• Graphics have a fade in/out instead of popping in, which will make things look a lot smoother.  That's going to probably make the game look a lot better, especially on slower computers.

 

That's all I can think of right now.  Again, I just watched off and on because of all the wasted time, so there may have been some other things that were worthwhile that I missed.  If anyone has any other interesting items that I missed, please share.  I doubt I'll waste my time on watching the VOD.  All said, the dev stream was pretty lackluster and if I was deciding whether or not I was interested in the update based solely on that, I would not be impressed.  They like to have fun in the streams and there's nothing really wrong with that but they really should make at least some effort to make these streams actually worthwhile to people.  They are already late at night and then wasting so much time in them just joking around and trying to figure out sound and whatever else is kind of a slap in their viewers' faces.

Edited June 1 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

47 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Well, I watched the dev stream off and on and it was a lot of wasted time, unfortunately.  You would think they'd take the time to test things before going live rather than waste over an hour of everyone's time.  Not even much was shown that was really worth seeing.  Here are my takeaways:

 

• The new storage chests looked good and upgrading the chests is nice, I suppose.  Though it seems just a way to use forged iron and forged steel for no real gain besides having fewer chests. 
• The assassin's armor looked really good, though the cloak clips even when standing still.  You'd at least expect clipping to be fixed when standing still, if nothing else.  And considering this is the full set they showed, you shouldn't even see clipping.  Clipping's usually what you get when mixing items that weren't properly animated.  But when it's a full set that clips?  That's pretty bad.  The suit outfit (I forget the name) was kind of okay.  And the enforcer armor looked really horrible.  I hope at least one of the heavy armors actually looks decent since I prefer heavy armor.
• The update the the tutorial/journal is a good improvement for new players.  Not sure how much it'll benefit anyone else besides some extra experience and whatever rewards you get for each part, but it's still a good improvement.
• The changes to the dew collector will make a lot of people happier, even if it doesn't change how you can get water.  At least you don't need filters to craft the basic version, which will give you murky water.  And mods to make that into clean water, increase speed, and increase capacity to 6 per collector... that's good for those who use the dew collectors.
• Unspecified balancing to the trader quest rewards so you aren't outpacing crafting as quickly with quest rewards is probably good, though they didn't give any actual details and what they consider balanced could still be way off.
• Animations for movements are a nice improvement and seeing where other players are looking can be helpful.  Walking backwards looked a bit strange, though.  The character leaned way back when walking backwards.  If someone really leaned back that much when walking backwards, they'd most likely fall over backwards.
• There's apparently a "look at" animation when you're near stuff so that your character will turn their head to look at someone coming... I didn't see them show it off but might have missed it.  It is something that works in some games... but usually in games that are 3rd person as an indication that there's something interesting in that direction.  For 1st person, it seems odd.  But they claim it is interesting.  Not sure if your character's 1st person view will actually turn without your input to look at things.  Hopefully not.  Hopefully this feature is only something you see other people doing and doesn't actually affect any person's view.  Still, that is a very limited feature in that case.  Seems like wasted effort for a 1st person game.
• Cotton and hops art was improved... not really a big deal.  It isn't like you're looking at those close up very often.  I'd rather see other things get art improvements, such as trees.  At least those you pay attention to and see more often.
• No changes to storage chests as far as being able to craft from the chests or have multiple people using the same chest at the same time.  Not really surprising and it was stated that multiple people to use the same chest at the same time will not happen at all.  Nothing said about whether crafting from chests has any chance of ever happening.
• 4x4 gets 4 seats by default and upgrades to 6.  Motorcycle upgrades to 2.  And I believe they said gyro upgrades to 4.
• Crossplay, as has been already posted on the forum, will not be available initially.  The new info given is that it's working already and that the question about how or if it will happen comes down to a bunch of red tape certification processes with Microsoft and Sony.  For initial release, it will only be 4 player co-op on hosted locally for console players.
• Graphics have a fade in/out instead of popping in, which will make things look a lot smoother.  That's going to probably make the game look a lot better, especially on slower computers.

 

That's all I can think of right now.  Again, I just watched off and on because of all the wasted time, so there may have been some other things that were worthwhile that I missed.  If anyone has any other interesting items that I missed, please share.  I doubt I'll waste my time on watching the VOD.  All said, the dev stream was pretty lackluster and if I was deciding whether or not I was interested in the update based solely on that, I would not be impressed.  They like to have fun in the streams and there's nothing really wrong with that but they really should make at least some effort to make these streams actually worthwhile to people.  They are already late at night and then wasting so much time in them just joking around and trying to figure out sound and whatever else is kind of a slap in their viewers' faces.

 

This is a pretty good breakdown.

 

As far as "look at" animations, I doubt we will see our first person view turn to look at things or people, but we will see other players and NPCs possibly turn to look at the players.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

They are already late at night and then wasting so much time in them just joking around and trying to figure out sound and whatever else is kind of a slap in their viewers' faces.

 

I think the format you will probably always prefer is a down-to-business recap video produced by a professional streamer. People really do enjoy viewing the developers joking around and having fun while others are going to see such things as fluff and a waste of time. It's pretty much how they do every video and is unlikely to change in the future. Best advice is to avoid the original dev stream if such shenanigans and amateurish newscasting is off-putting and just wait until someone else recaps the highlights professionally.

Edited June 1 by Roland (see edit history)

[Watermelon]

@faatal, Hello, do you remember when was the last time you updated the first person controller? It seems to me that this was back in the 13th alpha, or maybe even earlier. in those days you posted news on tumblr 😁
What I mean is all the first person movements, when you jump, when you move, when you turn, when you run, the camera swaying from side to side, up and down physics, acceleration effects, as well as realistic and effective swaying of weapons, tools in your hands when walking and running
that is, roughly speaking, the effects of first-person camera behavior, character movement
I think this would greatly increase the immersion effect
update this please 🙂😉
Thank you so much! My english is very bad, sorry

Edited June 1 by Free Palestine
forgot to add a few words (see edit history)

[DaVegaNL]

Wow. 'Embarrassing' would be the first word to come to mind for the live stream.

[Aero]

Is there still a bug in the current version where you can just lose your (in this case) minibike and drone?

 

I stopped the game at a POI for a quest and now I loaded the game again and both are gone?

 

I did nothing weird last time playing, quit the game normally etc.

[Doomofman]

Still no sign of the VOD for us Europeans who didn't fancy staying up all night

[User]

I'm not sure how I feel about how completely different some of the female armor sets are. Some of them look like completely different sets. A lot of the male sets look really sick, I don't really play female characters so its not a big deal, but it kind of feels bad to me, IF thats how they all are. Like I said, I didn't catch too much of the dev stream, so I could be wrong. I hope the raider set doesn't change based on gender since it looks sick. I'm sure nobody else cares, but those are just my thoughts.

 

I very much hope that the assasin set we've seen is not gender specific/too different as well, because the male variant looks cool.

 

The new characters really make a lot of the game (espescially the hud, trees and ground textures) look dated, since the models are so detailed. But the characters themselves actually look better then I expected! In future, if webcams are causing issues, they could disable them during gameplay. 😅

Edited June 1 by User (see edit history)

[Teteria]

5 am in my TZ and felt asleep several times.

I understood this as we are getting 3rd person camera? The characters look so good now.

[MechanicalLens]

I didn't manage to catch the dev stream, but I did watch some recap videos on YouTube.

 

I'm quite curious about two things. First, the proposed "more difficult (early game only?)" horde nights. I'm intrigued to see how this will affect horde every night playthroughs. Will the first horde last until dawn? That would definitely shake things up.

 

Secondly, the trader nerf. Unsure if this relates to quest rewards, or their stock, or both. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one, but very skeptical - the same goes for the proposed "70+ hours until you reach endgame" claim. Going back to the former topic, will quest spamming still be a viable strategy or will that be artificially locked away? (i.e. limited quest hand ins a day.) How would they nerf quest rewards, I wonder? Will quality be gated behind loot stage, game stage, or trader stage, so rushing to T5 quests will only net you junk? Will they remove gear from quest reward options, or make them low quality level only? Extend the amount of quests in-between tiers? More than one of the above?

 

Personally, I would like to see the following changes made to quest completion bundles, as a series of examples. Feel free to disagree!

 

1) The bicycle would no longer be a guaranteed quest reward option and/or would come in the form of a parts bundle, containing only one part, or both, but you would require a workbench to assemble them. Tires would be included.

 

2) Granting the player a free chem station for T3 quest completion is a bit overpowered in my eyes? Perhaps a beaker instead?

 

3) They're addressing bundles and bonus bundles, so I won't discuss them here. A heavy nerf would be welcome, though.

 

4) Certain bundles, such as the traps bundles, could be buffed up a little. Receiving a few wooden spikes and some land mines is quite underwhelming compared to some of the other choices, even the security camera and farm bundles. Perhaps this could be brought up to something along the lines of 100 wooden spikes, 50 barbed wire fences, and 25 land mines for the T1 version, and 100 iron spikes and 50 land mines for the T2 variant?

 

 

Edit reason: spelling errors. It's only 4:30 AM where I am.

Edited June 1 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, User said:

I'm not sure how I feel about how completely different some of the female armor sets are. Some of them look like completely different sets. A lot of the male sets look really sick, I don't really play female characters so its not a big deal, but it kind of feels bad to me, IF thats how they all are. Like I said, I didn't catch too much of the dev stream, so I could be wrong. I hope the raider set doesn't change based on gender since it looks sick. I'm sure nobody else cares, but those are just my thoughts.

 

I very much hope that the assasin set we've seen is not gender specific/too different as well, because the male variant looks cool.

 

The new characters really make a lot of the game (espescially the hud, trees and ground textures) look dated, since the models are so detailed. But the characters themselves actually look better then I expected! In future, if webcams are causing issues, they could disable them during gameplay. 😅

 

I think most of the sets look the same on males vs females.

38 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

I'm quite curious about two things. First, the proposed "more difficult (early game only?)" horde nights. I'm intrigued to see how this will affect horde every night playthroughs. Will the first horde last until dawn? That would definitely shake things up.

 

Yes, the first couple of bloodmoons should last until the morning now.  I started a playthrough recently and enjoyed it.

41 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Secondly, the trader nerf. Unsure if this relates to quest rewards, or their stock, or both. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one, but very skeptical - the same goes for the proposed "70+ hours until you reach endgame" claim. Going back to the former topic, will quest spamming still be a viable strategy or will that be artificially locked away? (i.e. limited quest hand ins a day.) How would they nerf quest rewards, I wonder? Will quality be gated behind loot stage, game stage, or trader stage, so rushing to T5 quests will only net you junk? Will they remove gear from quest reward options, or make them low quality level only? Extend the amount of quests in-between tiers? More than one of the above?

 

Balancing is still ongoing.  However, I can confirm that trader rewards are not as strong as before.  For example, Duke rewards are less compared to A21.

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, Teteria said:

5 am in my TZ and felt asleep several times.

I understood this as we are getting 3rd person camera? The characters look so good now.

 

Currently, no.  They used debug commands to go into 3rd person during the stream to show off the new character system and armors.

[XYR0]

19 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Balancing is still ongoing.  However, I can confirm that trader rewards are not as strong as before.  For example, Duke rewards are less compared to A21.

 

Remove gear from trader rewards.

Add to rewards skill crafting books (amount based on tier).

No more m60s from T5 quest. You getting now 5 machine gun crafting books.

 

Imo the best way to do it.

[Arma Rex]

Please tell me the developers will fix the iron sights on the firearms. The pistol in particular I saw was still present in the 1.0 version, as well as still having the janky firing animations too.

[Gronal]

23 minutes ago, Arma Rex said:

Please tell me the developers will fix the iron sights on the firearms. The pistol in particular I saw was still present in the 1.0 version, as well as still having the janky firing animations too.

This appears to be a stylistic choice, that many of us think is dumb, but it's their choice to have stupid iron sights and I don't suspect they will change it.

[SylenThunder]

4 hours ago, Doomofman said:

Still no sign of the VOD for us Europeans who didn't fancy staying up all night

 

He was knocked out by an errant horde before pushing the publish button.  It is up now.