Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Hi Madmole, I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Is it possible to count on a mini-game lockpick in the future? Or is a regular timer hacking an approved hacking method?

 

You can count on what we did for A18. No minigame, just a timer with a random chance to break a pick.

[madmole]

I always go around the area around the quest and kill all the zombies in the area so that they do not come to me at the wrong time and do not interfere with my quest. Just pull yourself together and prepare the territory for the quest

 

As mentioned I nuked the area before entering. They still seem to come from out of nowhere.

[madmole]

I see... Well let me tell you that it feels very janky. It is NOT like Redstone. It only has one input and ~4 outputs.

So you can not connect anything to a grid. You can only ever have one generator OR solar panal powering a "grid".

You can ever only have one activator (cam, pressure plate, tripwire) activate a trap, since they only have one input.

It is still great! But far from perfect.

 

 

 

He was also asking about a circle WHILE the quest is active. I quit about 10 quests because i was backpeddling (especially before the radius was increased) Could we have an indicator for that? Like a maxamount from a specific point in the top right corner or something?

I just run circles around the house and have never back pedaled too far.

[madmole]

Somewhat offtopic. Any news on networking? Are there reasonable estimates you can give on max. playercount/server for the final release?

 

8 players until further notice.

[madmole]

I believe the term you are looking for is "get off your ass".

 

LOL, I did but yeah. I'll keep an eye on these mysterious interlopers.

[crazywildfire]

There is an evil dead inspired cabin now. It might be trivial to find a book that summons a horde when you open it lol.

 

Yes please, if possible come up with some questions and answers when it opens. If you get the question wrong the horde will come if you get it right you get a reward. Could be questions that are built around the game or other questions. Either way I'm sure yall come up with something good. Lol

[madmole]

We must be playing different games. Or you games broken. I got lots of zombies in my cities. They are definitely not just "loot boxes"

 

Maybe not a ton of zombies out on the roads but there are in the buildings. And that's where the real loot is. I would argue that on higher gamestage some of those buildings aren't even worth it. The amount of ammo you use doesn't justify the buildings loot.

 

If I can get my coffee farm going, I think a pure brawler build might be possible. I'll find out soon. My only issue smashing is running out of stamina when in a phone booth with 3 zeds. I don't even have mods in my claws yet.

[madmole]

For me personally it's too much of one gameplay mechanic. I have been playing borderlands mod. 100% all zombies all the time. Balance. I'm just speaking for myself mind you but too much zombie slaying makes the game feel put of balance.

 

Some may like it, and that's cool. But it would annoy alot of people.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

This is the solution. Roland strikes again!

 

Yes we have been putting in some deliberate dead zones in POIs so you get a bit of pacing and don't become completely numb to incoming threats.

[madmole]

So excited for Alpha 18. Good thing it dident get released before summer or i would not have gotten any color on my skin hehe. When I read threw 100s of pages here and i am wondering about a simple thing that I cant find info about:

 

Q: Will flowers and mushrooms be able too be looted by the simple "E" command again in A18?

 

Keep up the awesome work, hoping for more pictures again soon ^^

 

No you destroy flowers to harvest them, press e to take doesn't offer harvest bonuses.

[madmole]

What i really wonder is the looting aspect of the game.

In this version its not really viable to go out and loot buildings anymore after you reach like lv 30-40.

In the beginning you can go in as a group shoot down or bash a few zombies get hurt or maybe killed and then you can enjoy the looting.

But after the mentioned Lv the zombies just get to numerous and strong. And i really like the aspect of making the enemies stronger. But there must be a better way to make them more difficult then just making the bullet sponges. It´s not really worthwile going in a building wasting 500 bullets to clear the house and find a coat, some scrap iron and an orange pistol and 10 bullets.

 

I don't mind fist sponges. I one shotted a fat cop and gibbed his head, it was glorious. I never dreamed of brawling against a fat cop but here we are. Fortitude you are very hard to kill if you grab everything heavy armor, mod it, pain tollerance reduces damage taken, combined with wolverine health regen its actually a ton of fun and pretty viable.

 

I think the power curve is better now, but I'm yet to face radiated enemies. So far I'm brawling with ferals and switch to AK when things get a bit hairy or stamina is low with no problem. I cleared a T4 quest last night using mostly spiked knuckles.

[sillls]

Workbench schematic is probably a quest reward already.

 

No, I was just using that as an example. Say like you do a mission for a trader the trader unlocks a skill level for you as a quest reward.

In a way it would seem that the trader is teaching you how to do stuff like build a workbench or cook or shoot to better. Things like that.

 

OFC this would be one of a few reward options.

[Mechanimal]

Sorry to get off topic here but just wanted to say I remember back in the day getting into some of those but the 3 shooters that got me hooked back then was unreal tournament, counter strike and swat 3/swat 4. Man I miss the Sierra Swat games lol. Not sure who bought them out but wish they do a swat 5 as long as they kept to the same type of game as 3 and 4 was with a few changes.

 

Anyway back on topic A18 is really looking great. I'm really hyped about it. Looking forward to testing it out.

 

I'd say it's somewhat related in topic here, lot of those games laid the foundation for modern games like this one, and this is dev talk. As long as we don't overdo it, but the history is relevant.

 

CS:GO is Counter Strike and is very much still around, and it is admittedly weird to see, few of the same maps even, just a ton more detail to it, and loads more overall content. It's also the first major mods of an FPS game like that I can remember(Team Fortress was another one), it was built with the Halflife engine back before Steam even existed, and it seemed like no one knew wtf to do about splitting it out into it's own thing, the whole thing created a ton of buzz at the time. Not only is it one of the first mods of a game that gained mainstream popularity, it somehow remains highly popular decades later. The lifespan of it is nuts.

 

But to bring it close to home and more on topic, and I am curious if madmole knows this one, was another early 3D game that used a voxel engine: Delta Force. The 3D assets were asstastic, as one would expect from 1998, but the terrain was amazing. Not only were the maps huge, like miles in size, but they were incredibly smooth, especially for back then. The method of voxelation was a bit different though, and I don't know if anyone has done it the same way since. Ready for this: every pixel had a Z. The pixels were not on polygons, they were each floating in their own unique position in 3D space. One version had tall grass, when you got close to it you could see the stack of individual pixels that made it. So as far as voxel engine FPS games go this would be one of 7DTD's earliest ancestors, and the tech it used remains impressive over 20 years later. Here's a decent vid about it:

 

I am no game designer, I mostly design robots, but I am fascinated with development in general, how things evolve over time. Hence why this forum has been a permanent tab in my browser since last summer. I post rarely, but read daily. Interjecting a bit of history like this is great perspective. Seeing this game develop over the years, in all it's forms, has been quite the journey, this is a very special case, unique in many ways, and there is still more journey ahead. I for one love that it spans so many years and versions, so many items and mechanics come and go, it really is something.

 

I too am super pumped for A18, it's going to far better compliment the major upgrades from A17, the highlight of which to me was the incredibly large amount and detail of new POIs. That seemed the biggest part last time, this time it's far more gameplay focused, the new books, etc.

 

And yes I am going to look back on this in 20 years too, in my breaks between sessions of Alpha 42 via Neuralink.

[JaxTeller718]

We are at content lock tomorrow.

 

I played a lot of modded in 17, and was quite critical but I am always a fan at heart. Even if as a hardcore type player I was disappointed in the initial 17 offering, I am excited to go back to vanilla for 18 and see what you have cooked up. Everything so far sounds very fun and interesting so Im very willing to look at 17 in the rear view and dive back in to 18. A lot of us were a bit jaded to some of the major changes but now that they have settled in its exciting to see what 18 will do with those changes.

 

Its been a crazy ride, through every Alpha but never would I ever say i regretted any of it. Your passion project has done more for me in my life than i could ever express in proper words. Heres to a fantastic launch and a big thank you for your entire team and the work they put in to bring us this game we all love in one form or another.

[Venger7Days]

Its more lenient now. They don't beeline towards the only player on the server any more.

 

That sounds cool, I always thought it would be nice if there were different levels of Z's hearing you. IE hearing you at a distance triggers pathing/shuffling toward a random spot in your general vicinity, so they move somewhat scattered in your general direction, whereas visual detection or hearing you from very close triggers the beeline (and faster movement).

 

Would work well with distractions too.

[Survager]

You can count on what we did for A18. No minigame, just a timer with a random chance to break a pick.

 

I didn't say about 18 alpha? I mean future updates... A19, A20... may be gold... or it is finished variant lockpiking?

[sillls]

im stupid, what's content lock? q.q

 

That's when no more content is added to the latest Alpha. All that's being done from content lock to release is testing and fixing bugs.

[Callum123456789]

i imagine the team is working hard to make sure the bugs are fixed

[Pipmaister]

Wild Ones

 

No you destroy flowers to harvest them, press e to take doesn't offer harvest bonuses.

 

Hi thanks for the feedback, was thinking about those you find in the wild, I guess harvest bonus doesent work on those? Havent really checked that (hehe). Those we plant from seeds should ofcourse be as they are.

 

Cheers Pip

[Survager]

I just run circles around the house and have never back pedaled too far.

 

Maybe this will help in time to determine the boundaries of the quest and not fail it? This countdown is used in many games and works great.

 

 

Sorry, I am not designer =)

[sillls]

What I have noticed is that it seems harder to stir up trouble by making noise on the outside of a POI. I do that on purpose just to cause a ruckus inside. But I sometimes have to literately break through part of the wall and fire a gun just to wake them up.

 

Why does it seem easier to get into trouble going in and shooting?

Why does it seem easier for zombies to hear noise from the outside?

Finding that out may allow zombies in the streets in towns.

 

 

 

On the other hand, back in playing Alpha 9.3. Being sandwiched put a real fear in me when I was raiding a house in a town Stealth was a must. Sometimes that wouldn't work and I would have to jump out of a second story window with only a part of a roof-ledge to land on.

 

Good times.

[Roland]

And empty POIs because the world has used up all the alive zombie slots.

 

When I played with 4x biome spawns there were still sleepers in the house. However, I never tried to game it by deliberately waking up zombies from a house or two to reach the 64 max and then go into a new house with zero spawns inside.

 

I wonder if that tactic could work now in cities. Wake up five houses and keep all the outside zombies alive until there are 64 alive and then start looting in empty houses...

[beerfly]

That's when no more content is added to the latest Alpha. All that's being done from content lock to release is testing and fixing bugs.

 

This, and glue together all the content they made, to be able to call it A18.

 

Man, MM and Roland shared so much lately and hype level is getting higher and higher.

[TSBX]

@Gazz, what new buff keys were you guys able to get hooked up?

 

@Rip claw you're still wrong, the placeholder magazines were only placeholders in the context of A17 due to recipes moving to perks. Also asking if books were going to be removed in the context of the A18 thread is what made Callum's question a bad one. Not sure why you're hellbent on defending it.

[Roland]

I think he is just trying to emphasize the point that things have been cut before. At this point with books almost getting removed and now with them coming back in stronger than ever and in a way that integrates well with perks it’s safe to say that this feature at least will ship with the game.

 

Especially since Madmole confirmed it’s one of his horcruxes.

[madmole]

Disclaimer, I don't watch any youtube videos hardly on the games I play (mostly just dont have the patience to spend the time to watch them when I could just as easily play lol) so if this is a well know thing already then I apologize in advance.

 

A "trick" I managed to work out helps with some of the large loot POIs(hospital, pharmaceutical building, etc) . Specifically the ones with the clustered loot containers on or near the roof. I was in my SP game and was traveling to one of the traders in my Gyrocopter and noticed that there were 3-4 sky scraper type POIs that had the flat space on the roof where the loot boxes were.

 

Now normally I cruise in for an extended landing, so landing on a relatively small surface was something I wasn't sure if I could pull off. However, I practiced some landing maneuvers and discovered for myself that if you come in at a really steep angle and then pull way up right before your landing zone, that you cut out almost all of your speed and have next to zero forward momentum. Done just right the Gyro stops a few feet above the surface and then gently floats down that last few feet. Doing this properly you can pretty effectively land the vehicle on a dime.

 

After practicing this several times to improve my accuracy and timing I went back to those tall POI buildings and managed to land right beside the loot boxes I was trying to reach. Sure there were multiple zombies sleeping on the roof but I had plenty of time to hop off the Gyro and pick it up (so it was safe from random swipes) before they finished getting up and I just kited those few around the roof until they were all dead. They were mostly all irradiated as well so it was a bit touch and go for a minute but I survived and only had to deal with that small hand full of zombies.

 

I was feeling super accomplished for figuring out a quick an easy way to access the roof top loot area (without resorting to nerd poling) when I realized there was now a large POI filled with zombies between me and the ground and I could already hear them getting angry on the first floors below me. Now I decided since I was a bit reckless getting on the roof initially I should go ahead and try out a different method of escape. So I cleared the roof of obstacles and broke the railings and planted my gyro on one side of the roof. It wasn't long enough to actually take off but I was hoping the elevation would help. Sure enough I got to the end of the roof and dropped off but soon after the Gyro started climbing and I soared away feeling very satisfied with myself. I then proceeded to practice on several other POIs and got pretty good with it. Even going back to my base or the trader I now use the dive and pull up landing strategy because it makes it so much easier to land where I actually want to land at.

Don't get used to it, auto turrets will be a thing and vehicle health is too generous right now. You'll probably have to cut the power to stop these things or shoot them before getting to the roof, impossible to do from a gyro.

 

Also try landing a heli in Rust, it takes a huge amount of skill to fly those. Very rewarding though. Ours is super cake to fly and it should be more difficult IMO.