Rogue Survivor Alpha 4.3

[Lap]

Also remember NPC take items as you do, you can try to find them by trading.

I was including all the NPC's I saw in the item count even if I couldn't get them to trade their stuff away. Maybe I was just unlucky.

Fair enough on the precision rifle, most of the BO I encounter are dead or dying from the horde so I usually have little problems by the time I get to them.

I've actually never witnessed an NPC throwing a grenade. My personal preference is to have grenades be slightly more powerful, but also rarer. I was surprised at how many I could find in people's homes and equally surprised when it would take three to kill the average zombie.

With the leader thing I certainly don't expect any chain of command type stuff and it's fine the way it is. However, I don't think leadership should even be an option for followers when they level up. All it does is serve to confuse newbies and make them waste points in it.

Another interface type irritation was how limited the range for telling allies to build fortifications. It'd really be nice to be able to tell your ally to board up the window on the other side of the room so I could work on the other windows.

Any future plans on letting us tell a follower to just drop a single item? I had many a drop all just to get one or two things.

Unrelated note, is medic an entirely self only skill or is there a way to benefit teammates with it?

I also noticed it was very hard to get teammates to use beds even when they were empty only a couple of feet away. Any tricks besides pulling the beds around until they decide to hop on one?

Now that civilians can kill any thoughts about a game setting allowing for civ killing? You could probably balance it out with some sort of infamy system that makes cops and military target you.

Sorry for not mentioning this early, but great job. It's not often I can play a roguelike for eight hours straight and besides a few minor things, there's not much more I think the game really needs (core gameplay is solid). The AI felt pretty good and I mostly liked the way that companions were controlled. Definitely in my top favorite roguelikes now.

[Trisk]

So, I finally got a character to last a few days (held up in a grocery store).
*SPOILER TEXT*(just highlight it)
When the army shows up the difficulty drops immensely, though my main complaint was a lack of food to be found there's a massive polarity shift from really damn hard(but acceptable) to food no longer being an issue period once the army shows up. The supply drops are awesome, but a bit too awesome in my mind, as far as difficult is concerned.
*END SPOILER TEXT*

Also, that save I sent you (adamcaverhill) would crash in a few turns regardless of actions. It might be worth noting that I have some pretty hefty simulation options turned up.

[roguedjack]

I've actually never witnessed an NPC throwing a grenade. My personal preference is to have grenades be slightly more powerful, but also rarer. I was surprised at how many I could find in people's homes and equally surprised when it would take three to kill the average zombie.

Its difficult to balance item quantity and distribution for the player, since other NPCs will take them too contrary to standard Roguelikes.
NPCs do throw grenades, but it is very rare since they are very cautious (perhaps a bit too cautious).

With the leader thing I certainly don't expect any chain of command type stuff and it's fine the way it is. However, I don't think leadership should even be an option for followers when they level up. All it does is serve to confuse newbies and make them waste points in it.

Noobs are noobs 

Another interface type irritation was how limited the range for telling allies to build fortifications. It'd really be nice to be able to tell your ally to board up the window on the other side of the room so I could work on the other windows.

Right now for orders you can only select locations that are visible by both you and your followers. I understand it is frustrating. I'll improve that when I finally do proper pathfinding for followers -one of the thing I keep delaying 

Any future plans on letting us tell a follower to just drop a single item? I had many a drop all just to get one or two things.

That one as well 

Unrelated note, is medic an entirely self only skill or is there a way to benefit teammates with it?

Medic will allow actors to use meds items on other (hence the hospital will be good to recruit doctors etc...)

I also noticed it was very hard to get teammates to use beds even when they were empty only a couple of feet away. Any tricks besides pulling the beds around until they decide to hop on one?

They use beds if it is within their view and they want to sleep. Remember other actors have FoV too like the player.

Now that civilians can kill any thoughts about a game setting allowing for civ killing? You could probably balance it out with some sort of infamy system that makes cops and military target you.

Planned.

Sorry for not mentioning this early, but great job. It's not often I can play a roguelike for eight hours straight and besides a few minor things, there's not much more I think the game really needs (core gameplay is solid). The AI felt pretty good and I mostly liked the way that companions were controlled. Definitely in my top favorite roguelikes now.

Thanks 

(about difficulty after XXX happens)

This is WAD, a moment you can use to breathe a bit.
I try to make the game difficulty dynamic rather than linear and too predictible.
The difficulty should go up again soon 

Also, that save I sent you (adamcaverhill) would crash in a few turns regardless of actions. It might be worth noting that I have some pretty hefty simulation options turned up.

I looked at the save and it did produce the bug. Thanks for helping.

[Lap]

They use beds if it is within their view and they want to sleep. Remember other actors have FoV too like the player.

Well I was in an unlit basement most of the time with no flashlight, so that might explain it?

Can grenades bounce to unintended places? I was wondering because it seems like people run extremely far away when a grenade is thrown. Even when civs start outside the blast radius they continue to run far from it. Is this just done for realism or is it part of the "too cautious" situation.

Nice quick response time on finding the unequip/equip bug. Thanks for letting us save anywhere. No way would I have even gotten past day 3 without it because of this bug.

[krabby]

I like your game, but why are commercial stores so easily convertible to fortresses? Shouldn't they have more windows (especially storefront windows) and such?

There could be also include back-exit firedoors (building codes and regulations?). And maybe there could be an alarm system whenever a door or window is smashed.

There could also be banks, which include an easily barricadable vault.

[Ex]

I like your game, but why are commercial stores so easily convertible to fortresses? Shouldn't they have more windows (especially storefront windows) and such?

I actually agree with this a lot. Maybe not every store, but definitely some stores. It would be kinda cool to have big glass windows every other tile or maybe every tile.

There could also be banks, which include an easily barricadable vault.

This would also be pretty cool.

[Trisk]

One request, a difficulty option that allows true Ironman Roguelike, deleting your save after death and

Two, can you tell us what causes the crash so we can avoid it? At least until the next release. I hate having to reload a save that's a hundred+ turns back because I neglected to save.

[roguedjack]

I like your game, but why are commercial stores so easily convertible to fortresses? Shouldn't they have more windows (especially storefront windows) and such?

There could be also include back-exit firedoors (building codes and regulations?). And maybe there could be an alarm system whenever a door or window is smashed.

There could also be banks, which include an easily barricadable vault.

Right now I make simple layouts to test the gameplay effects (eg: a shop with no window plays very differentlyfrom a house with lots of openings etc...) and get the basics done. I'll add more content for new versions, this includes different floorplans (eg: different shop layout, window or not....) for buildings and new buildings.
The Bank Building sounds good, I'll add it to the FAQ.

One request, a difficulty option that allows true Ironman Roguelike, deleting your save after death and

Might add it. For now just don't load 

Two, can you tell us what causes the crash so we can avoid it? At least until the next release. I hate having to reload a save that's a hundred+ turns back because I neglected to save.

NPCs can get stuck into an infinite sequence of Equip-Unequip actions (cf the blog and the video).
There is no garuanteed trick you can do to avoid it. It is provoked by NPCs on their own.
Your only chance to influence that is to reload the game and try a different action sequence (eg: move north instead of south...) than the one that lead to the bug.
I know its frustrating (enraging for me to have overlooked that bug), I'll release bugfix version 4.11 very soon.

[Sabin Stargem]

On the topic of vending machines, maybe they should be equipped with alarms and take several hits to access, trading the player's security for food?

I would like to suggest a new item:  Bedrolls, which allows the player to carry a portable bed, which allows for a wider range of safehouses the player can establish, especially if they are recruiting NPCs and want them to guard certain areas but want good sleeping accommodations.

Come to think of it, I have a suggestion about the AI.  I am not sure if it is reasonable, but maybe allied NPCs could secure the building they are living in and sleep in shifts, which they adjust according to their group's size and how many are in the building.  This theoretically should help with making them reasonably rested if trouble comes knocking or if they go on a expedition.

[roguedjack]

4.11 out. Fix the damn bug and a couple of stuff.

[Jetman123]

I love this game, even in it's incomplete state. It's very fun, even though from a strict standpoint there's not a huge amount to do yet.

Keep developing! We're hungry for MORE!

[roguedjack]

Can grenades bounce to unintended places? I was wondering because it seems like people run extremely far away when a grenade is thrown. Even when civs start outside the blast radius they continue to run far from it. Is this just done for realism or is it part of the "too cautious" situation.

They don't bounce. Explosions are tricky due to chain reactions and people being able to throw back grenades, so the AI just run away as far as they can. A more clever behavior would requiere more CPU (eg: consider bomb blast radius, consider chain reactions, consider possibility of throwing back).

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On the topic of vending machines, maybe they should be equipped with alarms and take several hits to access, trading the player's security for food?

That's a possibility. I'm not decided on how to implement VM yet.

I would like to suggest a new item:  Bedrolls, which allows the player to carry a portable bed, which allows for a wider range of safehouses the player can establish, especially if they are recruiting NPCs and want them to guard certain areas but want good sleeping accommodations.

I prefer making use of the Hardy skill.

Come to think of it, I have a suggestion about the AI.  I am not sure if it is reasonable, but maybe allied NPCs could secure the building they are living in and sleep in shifts, which they adjust according to their group's size and how many are in the building.  This theoretically should help with making them reasonably rested if trouble comes knocking or if they go on a expedition.

Group behavior is kinda hard to do, and not very reliable or useful imho in an environement changing so fast.
Still, one thing I could improve is to make follower and leader NPCs behavior more dependant on each other (eg: follower and leader takes turn in sleeping/guarding as you describe).

[unimural]

I've enjoyed Rogue Survivor greatly, tons of fun! Thank you.

On the 22nd day I went to help a lonesome survivor that was chased by a skelly and a zombie. Which turned out to be a huge mistake as a horde descended upon us from every direction. Fortunately we run into two rather well equipped surivivors as we were retreating. We foolishly retreated into a corner of the map, and the survivors run out of ammo (I still had quite a bit left). So they started throwing grenades.

While individually grenades aren't that great, three grenades exploding in a chain reaction makes a lot of minced zombie meat.

Highlight for spoilerish section:
I definitely wouldn't want the precision rifle to be deadlier. It's easy enough to be instakilled by the BO before you get your hands on their gps. I dislike features that are reduced to blind luck.

Well, ok, you can always hide the first day or two after BO arrive, to increase your chance of finding the BO gps. And perhaps I was just very unlucky, but I had three games end with being instakilled by the BO before I managed to find the gps. And since I did not know of the existance of GPSs, I thought they were terribly, terribly unfair

All in all, I think the core gameplay is quite solid and the list of upcoming features looks interesting. I occasionally feel like the balance is a bit off. For example, the female character just seems far, far superior. But I haven't played enough yet to come up with suggestions.

[Nezur]

This game is quite addictive. I like the atmosphere.

Suggestions

• Make Esc the universal exit key like in most other programs.
• Make the 'modes' toggleable so that the same key can also be used to quit the mode.
• I think the requirement to unequip an item before dropping it is detrimental to usability.
• I feel you should be able to break furniture for makeshift weapons.

[roguedjack]

So they started throwing grenades.

I'm happy to see someone witnessing the AI using grenades. 

spoiler stuff

I hate this kind of stuff too...
But in a roguelike I think its ok!
Only the player experience with the game, rather than the character experience, can save you from this (eg: knowing when they come and what item to get). Modern games tend to spoon feed you everything with big warning signs and big arrows pointing to stuff. You're not exploring the game, you're just following tracks setup by the game designers. It is considered good game design because they think the player is a pet that needs constant reward and an easy life. Stuff like the spoilers are so considered bad design because they frustrate the player who don't want to have is game ended at seemingly random moments and don't want to invest time in finding a solution for the next games.
Well anyway, sorry for the rant, not directed at you. And thanks for keeping playing after the initial shock 

All in all, I think the core gameplay is quite solid and the list of upcoming features looks interesting. I occasionally feel like the balance is a bit off. For example, the female character just seems far, far superior. But I haven't played enough yet to come up with suggestions.

Its hard to balance the game for the player, as for instance any item modified with the player in mind is also used by baddies or goodies NPCs as well. Make a gun stronger makes the game easier for the player and the civilians... but also harder as some baddies will use them vs the player   

---

Suggestions

• Make Esc the universal exit key like in most other programs.
• Make the 'modes' toggleable so that the same key can also be used to quit the mode.
• I think the requirement to unequip an item before dropping it is detrimental to usability.
• I feel you should be able to break furniture for makeshift weapons.

I'll look into these.