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Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!


madmole

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!  

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  1. 1. Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

    • A18 Stable is Out!
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They do not see through terrain. People underestimate how well the AI can hear, which is why I made the breadcrumb addition to the player, so their hearing is less accurate and why we reduced hearing (and seeing) on animals, so less wolves biting you in the butt when going through a POI.

 

@faatal, is it possible to make sure that zombies do not see the player through the dense foliage of young pines?

Now in 17 Alpha it turns out unfairly, when I go into the foliage of young pines, I can’t see zombies, but they see me perfectly.

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@MadMole Yeah, as Gazz observed, I was talking about the game design process, not playing.

 

I can't imagine trying to remember All the perks and build possibilities without some digital planning aid to help balance them. Even when I was modding I had lists and ideas written down in advance.

 

Sometimes that planning work takes longer than the actual work itself!

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Exactly. It's like if TFP added a chance for a beaker whenever you wrenched a chem station, even a tiny chance (like 2-4%), everyone would be wrenching chem stations and everyone would be getting beakers.

 

Having more beaker can be bad for game, but most already get it 2-3 in their game play. So don't really harm having extra. But coming back to wheel, if you make one of each you need 13 wheels in total, and we get more than 50 Acid in A17 easily in 50 days spare. So we can almost make abundance of wheel. plus we get wheel in boxes, so I hardly have to make 2-3 maybe 5 wheel from acid and rest of all my gadget usually get wheel from poi's searches.

 

So having lot more wheel doesn't really harm, we can scrap it and get polymer/plastic from it. having 2% chance make it look good.

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Agreed. Its fun to be scared in a house while looting, not to take 40 minutes to clear it.

 

-->Snipped for space

 

I just find it odd that the BEST zombie game on the market is actively working towards LOWERING their zombie counts overall.

 

I liken it to Resident Evil 1. It also didn't have a lot of monsters, BUT when you ran into one, they could really scare you.

 

Like those damned dogs breaking into that corridor the first time.

 

Even the smaller number of 7 days zombies can be very overwhelming in a tight space. Outdoors we need faster/tougher to challenge us. Konga lines are just a xp grind.

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I liken it to Resident Evil 1. It also didn't have a lot of monsters, BUT when you ran into one, they could really scare you.

 

Like those damned dogs breaking into that corridor the first time.

 

Even the smaller number of 7 days zombies can be very overwhelming in a tight space. Outdoors we need faster/tougher to challenge us. Konga lines are just a xp grind.

 

yes but i think there could be more special zombies

 

like a zombie that is very rotten and that smells of decay so bad that it makes you lose your lunch and lure zombies with his smell. and if he attacks you you can get a very deadly infection

 

a zombie that has so much Radiation that he looks like a glowing green Xray and can emit radiation to heal and revive zombies and can shoot blast of Radiation at you.

 

and more

 

maybe a athlete zombie that runs fast and can jump really high and far.

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Yeah, I take care of vehicles.

 

 

@Fataal: PLEASE tell me that the vehicle run/speed toggle was finally fixed. (It worked in a16 I think.)

 

If not, use a controller, set to night, and try to outrun vultures and zombies at night on a bicycle for 10 minutes.

 

The thumb cramps are REAL, and hearing your controller stick grinding isn't a sound I like to hear.

 

Hell, I'd be happy to wait for a18 longer if it was added to mf bugs, because its not something we can fix with a mod, and as it is it sucks the joy out of driving vehicles.

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A little question :

 

Is there any plans to have an option to remove traders from the map ? To be honest, I'd rather not have the opportunity to buy books and mods from the merchants.

 

Or - damn it's 2 questions - is it possible to change the stock of the merchants in xml (never took the time to have a look) ?

 

(sorry for my accent)

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Having interesting sleepers beats a bunch of guys spinning circles outdoors ...

 

@MadMole: That spinning ai thing is what finally killed that alpha for me. We used to be terrified to be out at night, but when they all stopped chasing you to run in circles, nights became a joke.

 

I know a18 has wandering night zombies nerfed (you said going out at night was no longer a big deal) The looting desire will be strong, and I really hope the a19 event spawns with running night zombies put that night fear back in.

 

We can't see so far that we need big numbers, but there is a primal night fear 7 days needs to take advantage of.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Must have missed shoulder shaving day.

 

OK, I LOL'd

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I really, REALLY, wish you'd consider keeping the sleeper system for inside, and keeping the aggressive count of zombies in towns on the outside. You'll still never hit the maxAlive to juke the game to not spawn sleepers, and even if you somehow manage it, having 64 (or 80) zombies beating down the walls and doors of the poi you're in to get you is *way* more thrilling than watching them from the next room spawn in, taking a few shots to soften them up, and defeating them because you know they're going to be in rafters and closets.

 

... And do you know how I know it is way more thrilling? Because horde nights are when you're in a poi and zombies are beating down the doors and walls to get to you. And it's more thrilling.

 

And before you bring up the upcoming encounter system, while that sounds interesting and all, it won't take the place of coming over a hill and seeing the dead walk the streets of a town or city, dogs patrolling, making you think twice about going into town for the daily loot fests...

 

City masks will hopefully allow us the honor of actually having to deal with hordes of zombies in your zombie game... Because the 8 we get at a time on horde nights, and the 1 to 8 we get in each volume, doth not a horde make.

 

I don't always agree with Guppy, but when I do, IMHO he is dead bang right. I can remember playing a a15 town with SO many zombies outside that it was just nuts.

 

In comparison now, I'd say we only had 5% of that at best in a17, maybe less.

 

I'm hoping MadMole's event system make it look like what Guppy wants, but with the control MM is talking about. Imagine a platoon of soldier zombies spawning in near a military poi, or a crap ton of doggies outside of Doggos.

 

Since textures can be loaded on the fly, maybe cities or biomes could have different zombie skins, like dark suited zombies in cities instead of the blue gray suited one? That would give us some of the old uma diversity in appearance back, and I'd think a rule chnaging them when none are in player sight might be possible.

 

I miss the old uma zombie diversity as well.

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Jesus christ. You remind me of an early 80's James Hetfield there.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I don't always agree with Guppy, but when I do, IMHO he is dead bang right. I can remember playing a a15 town with SO many zombies outside that it was just nuts.

 

In comparison now, I'd say we only had 5% of that at best in a17, maybe less.

 

In relation to this... I REALLY miss Hub City from A15 and earlier.

 

I see TFP's point that they don't want a guaranteed city at 0,0 but I really, really miss knowing I can go to 0,0 and there will be a deadly wasteland, with a huge city FULL of ferals roaming the streets.

 

Cities really need more roamers.

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I watched a streamer awhile back...Kage848, I believe, that was testing the silencer to see if it woke up zombies...I don't recall what the outcome was and can't remember what video it was. When I get home today I'll cheat it in (I never find any) but if someone has knowledge on this please let me know if the silencer works correctly. Thanks...

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I have faith in the event system to come.

When every POI is loaded, very few people like that. Same goes if they were all empty. Same applies to outside. If zombies are everywhere, there are no surprises and it is constantly taxing on any system running the game. If there are none, then the game is dull.

They will have more control over things, and I wouldn’t doubt they would be able to do something to have event that occur in cities to make them interesting.

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Cities really need more roamers.

 

Hopefully the event system will cover that, but sadly it'll probably be June before we see it.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I watched a streamer awhile back...Kage848, I believe, that was testing the silencer to see if it woke up zombies...I don't recall what the outcome was and can't remember what video it was. When I get home today I'll cheat it in (I never find any) but if someone has knowledge on this please let me know if the silencer works correctly. Thanks...

 

Odds are it'll be different in a18 in a week's time, so why bother?

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Everything about "more zombie" has one answer.. performance ...

 

Why not just make it an option, configurable. So default would be as-is now, for the potatoes out there. But for everyone else who wants more zombies you could have them. I have seen many more Z roaming in some of the mods, especially in the wild, and I had no performance issues. I would like more too, yes, but I also understand why they have it set where it is now.

 

Friday can't get here quick enough(well Monday for us), we're all just nitpicking while we wait at this point. FFS people I've been getting my fix via Minecraft and I'm bored, even though the RLcraft mod made it fun again(so much death, everywhere), but that is getting old now too. Anyway, for this issue why not just leave it as it is and just add another damn option amongst the many others and put this debate to an end already, seems like a win-win for both sides.

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@unholyjoe:

 

is there any changes to the zombies/zombie behavior???

 

funny you should ask... i had a few (local residents) invite me to a community outdoor bbq and they displayed proper courtesy and etiquette towards me... we established a good love-hate relationship. they managed to show me that my old ways of thinking needed some improvements and since then... i will never underestimate them again.

 

of course not everyone will meet such a social-able crowd as i did so you may have to check out your neighbors on your own. good luck :yield:

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Why not just make it an option, configurable. So default would be as-is now, for the potatoes out there. But for everyone else who wants more zombies you could have them. I have seen many more Z roaming in some of the mods, especially in the wild, and I had no performance issues. I would like more too, yes, but I also understand why they have it set where it is now.

 

Friday can't get here quick enough(well Monday for us), we're all just nitpicking while we wait at this point. FFS people I've been getting my fix via Minecraft and I'm bored, even though the RLcraft mod made it fun again(so much death, everywhere), but that is getting old now too. Anyway, for this issue why not just leave it as it is and just add another damn option amongst the many others and put this debate to an end already, seems like a win-win for both sides.

 

Funnily enough we used to have the option to increase the amount of spawns (though that just multiplied all spawns). But having an option to configure spawns for world, wandering hordes, sleepers, in addition to blood moon count would be a nice to have feature.

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