Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Phoenixshade35]

I dont know if this was fixed or not but has anyone figured out why the bedroll breaks? It sucks loading the game away from my base and my bedroll somehow broke.

[PO_Man_3849]

Grass + Paper + cotton = Fake cigar

 

Or a tampon?

[beerfly]

Man, there will be some crazy mods out there, when Steam Workshop is in our hands.

[unholyjoe]

or "K I S S"

 

learn it to unlock it and make it.

 

 

 

 

<ingredient name="resourceYuccaFibers" count="250"/>

<ingredient name="resourcePaper" count="1"/>

 

yes this is part of the recipe!

 

 

[Roland]

So are you adding tobacco to the game now? Will we be able to grow it?

 

I know cigars have been in the game but as is.

 

No. Cigar parts. If you find cigars or buy cigars you can scrap them to cigar parts and then craft new cigars using those parts.

 

#OneUnifiedSystem

 

 

 

/s

[Eliphas the Inheritor]

Maybe this was requested, maybe it was not, can you please make some craftable window blinds with an option to close them completely or spread them out a bit so you can sneak a peak on the window at the zombies but without being seen?

[Roland]

Greetings

 

"New Demolisher zombie.Rigged with explosives he will plow through spike traps and explode when he reaches your walls. Shoot him in the flashing sweet spot to detonate him before he gets too close."

 

Ohh great we already have zombies that eat concrete walls as if they were made of cheese, Zombie underground homing torpedoes and now we are going to have Zombie suicide jockeys with explosive vests?

 

Walls are practically useless as it is already. Just go watch how many youtubers are all about cheesing the zombie AI nowadays.

 

Why do we bother with any kind of a building system!

 

You bother by making sure to hit that sucker on his flashing sweet spot. Your wall getting destroyed is not a foregone conclusion.

[Aurelius]

I wouldn't.

 

Practically, there may not be that much difference between giving you a temporary penalty that you have to deal with (which will force you to be careful for the duration and hence gain less xp and loot) and making you re-gain experience that you lost. In the long run they may both result in around the same amount of slowed progress.

 

But psychologically they feel very different.

 

 

One of them is immersive. It makes you feel "I nearly died then, so I need to be careful till I've recovered". It feels like a natural consequence of nearly dying. Similarly, having dropped your stuff to escape and then having to go back to where you nearly died if you want to recover it also feels like a natural thing to do.

 

The other is the opposite of immersive. It just feels like you're arbitrarily having something taken away from you by the game as punishment. It feels much more like a deliberate "screw you" and less like a natural consequence of dying.

 

In fact, I think that's the crux of the matter.

 

Currently, we have a death penalty - a consequence of (near) death. The A18 system takes away the death penalty and gives you a death punishment instead.

 

It's like if they decided that you'll no longer break your leg when falling because it isn't enough of a discouragement, so instead the game will delete your Forge when you fall to discourage you from doing it. One of them feels like the natural consequences of your action, while the other is just an arbitrary punishment.

 

Yes they do feel very different. With the xp penalty, I can get back to playing a normal game, immediately. With the A17 system, I have to suffer through 15 minutes of molasses-like game play. The current system is simply not *fun*, no matter how realistic or appropriate it might be.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree

 

-A

[Trankitas]

You bother by making sure to hit that sucker on his flashing sweet spot. Your wall getting destroyed is not a foregone conclusion.

 

One thing that is on my mind: Turrets will hit them randomly and make them explode everything up? Or will they automatically it them on the flashing spot?

[Dimpy]

Question:

How will the auto turrets in POIs be powered? It seems like solar + batteries would be the best option because the turrets/motion detectors would need to be running constantly, and generators need a near infinite fuel source for that. I guess you could also have a few bandits that are sitting inside and activate the defense system when they hear an incoming gyrocopter.

 

EDIT:

 

One thing that is on my mind: Turrets will hit them randomly and make them explode everything up? Or will they automatically it them on the flashing spot?

Maybe you need a turret mod to do that?

[Mechanimal]

I think we've ironed out what's off about the T5 POIs, the reward does not match the effort properly. Like Kage said the loot at the end of a T3 is pretty much the same as a T5. I did a number of T5's anyway, mostly for the experience since they are awesome POIs, but after doing each of them once I had no meaningful reason or desire to do them again. In every game afterward I would just stroll past them with no intention or motivation to bother, ever, the net gains vs the time/effort/ammo they require is out of balance as it is in A17. Very understandable since they are so new, but as a final verdict I admit they need some balance. A major loot buff of some kind, which it sounds like is in the works already, would help the situation immensely. Seems like a well covered topic at this point, that's just my 2 cents on it.

[Roland]

...that's just my 2 cents on it.

 

Thanks. We were at a buck ninety-eight on opinions about this so your post was culminating.

[Laz Man]

You missed alot of the conversation. Understandable in this thread lol.

 

I never have 10k ammo. That was just an example. I usually have between 500-1k ammo. Now maybe you use no ammo going through a poi. There could be many reasons for that. Its irrelavent to me. I come out with negative ammo. I can only speak for myself and my own game.

 

All the extra stuff you get in there is stuff i can get elsewhere and without using ammo.

 

And for my game ammo is king.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

Wait I'm confused. I'm not sure why but I never thought youd be one of the "let them play the way they want" guys.

 

There needs to be a reward in t5 POIs that are unique (or drops more frequently in them) to justify to resource/time spent then the issue is resolved.

[RevenantWit]

I would like to see stamina\hunger\thirst drain be tied to difficulty level so when you raise the difficulty these things get harder to manage. As it is even when I play on the hardest difficulty stamina\food\thirst are just as much a complete non issue as playing on the easiest difficulty setting. I just think it would actually help bring some kind of challenge to playing on the harder difficulties

[Mechanimal]

One thing that is on my mind: Turrets will hit them randomly and make them explode everything up? Or will they automatically it them on the flashing spot?

 

Well I don't know exactly what kind of AI/targetting method they use now, but it is definitely not consistent, which is fine since they are McGuyver'ed together in a post-apocalyptic setting afterall. And there is no internet for them to connect to a server-size AI targeting system, yet they can tell the difference between the player, their friends, and zombies, somehow. From a robotics point of view that level of effective functionality is already an extreme long shot, but works fine for now, and their fluctuation in accuracy helps make it more realistic, to me. Sometimes my turret will one-shot head pop a screamer, other times that same turret will empty half a clip trying to hit it. I am ok with that because to me it feels about right, even though the loss of ammo gives me sad face sometimes, it is fair, I think. It takes a lot more than a mere motion sensor to differentiate between different target types effectively, and as some of us surely know, if you step in front of a turret that is shooting at zombies then you will def get hit in the crossfire, they don't notice you and stop. Having that level of on-board recognition is not impossible, noticing the player from their friends from zombies, is not far-fetched these days, just very very uncommon as an on-board ability since most people have become hooked on cloud services. If it were cloud based it wouldn't happen, obviously, since wi-fi and facebook wouldn't be a thing in the apocalypse.

 

I am curious though, what kind of targeting AI mixed with random-ness they have now, a true system would not miss, ever, would be head shots every time, so I am guessing you had to add in that inefficiency, it did not happen on it's own. Like what is your technique for that?

[rdunham3]

Perhaps it's already been addressed but I've lost track. Is the gamestaged mix of zombies better in a18 than in a17? My kids (both of them now...game's been in alpha that long) have me playing a map with them and it's really noticeable when the last few wandering hordes were 80% fat women and 20% spiders, or some similar not-very-mixed mix. The one group that was mostly utility workers, fairly close to a docks complex, just about fit in. It was the exception.

 

The last two mission POI's were a bit more varied but still a lot of the same few things. Feral mothers all over the church, for instance. (hmm...might not have been random, come to think of it)

[Trankitas]

Well I don't know exactly what kind of AI/targetting method they use now, but it is definitely not consistent, which is fine since they are McGuyver'ed together in a post-apocalyptic setting afterall. And there is no internet for them to connect to a server-size AI targeting system, yet they can tell the difference between the player, their friends, and zombies, somehow. From a robotics point of view that level of effective functionality is already an extreme long shot, but works fine for now, and their fluctuation in accuracy helps make it more realistic, to me. Sometimes my turret will one-shot head pop a screamer, other times that same turret will empty half a clip trying to hit it. I am ok with that because to me it feels about right, even though the loss of ammo gives me sad face sometimes, it is fair, I think. It takes a lot more than a mere motion sensor to differentiate between different target types effectively, and as some of us surely know, if you step in front of a turret that is shooting at zombies then you will def get hit in the crossfire, they don't notice you and stop. Having that level of on-board recognition is not impossible, noticing the player from their friends from zombies, is not far-fetched these days, just very very uncommon since most people have become hooked on cloud services. If it were cloud based it wouldn't happen, obviously, since wi-fi and facebook wouldn't be a thing in the apocalypse.

 

I am curious though, what kind of targeting AI mixed with random-ness they have now, a true system would not miss, ever, would be head shots every time, so I am guessing you had to add in that inefficiency, it did not happen on it's own. Like what is your technique for that?

 

It's a curious thing, how will they address this issue (maybe they already did). But I think it shouldn't target them at all and that's it. Cause if they do, they should oneshot them with a bullet on the flashing spot. You can't afford them spraying and praying on Demolishers, destroying all your surroundings and your base in the process. Turrets would be useless if that was the case.

[Mechanimal]

It's a curious thing, how will they address this issue (maybe they already did). But I think it shouldn't target them at all and that's it. Cause if they do, they should oneshot them with a bullet on the flashing spot. You can't afford them spraying and praying on Demolishers, destroying all your surroundings and your base in the process. Turrets would be useless if that was the case.

 

I'm just mildly curious as to how they implement it as is, not that I would change it. Overall it feels about right for what one should expect from a scrapped together turret with AI within the lore of the game. In other words, I am not trying to get them to change the way it is now, nor should they. Sometimes it is a great shot, other times it is not, ok. If it were a perfect shot every time that would be OP, even if such a system is more likely than not, with good AI/targetting that is. The stretch is more in their ability to differentiate effectively between different players and zombies. But it is not an impossible stretch, just difficult, even now. Thing is current systems vary, still, but cumulatively have all come a far way from where they were when I first got into robotics decades ago. But playing a game against robots would be no fun if it were realistic, no human would stand a chance, thus any game with robot enemies in it has to introduce flaws and misses just to give the player any hope of fighting back at all. Point is they have a decent balance already, no need to f with it, I am merely curious as to how they implement it from a technical perspective.

[jdm311]

I'm about 100 pages behind, I know, but someone mentioned the necronomicon and I feel obligated to say the words. Klaatu verata n... necktie... nectar... nickel... noodle... Definitely an 'N' word...

[Gilthanaz]

Maybe I missed it, but was there any mentioning about new POIs? I really like how many were added A16->A17 and that there was a lot to discover again, as well as the lower probability of encountering the same POIs all the time (with the exception of the junkyard spawn bug.. hehe).

 

Wondering if we get to discover new POIs in A18 soon

[Anthonydevidal]

release the alpha 18 please...

[Trankitas]

release the alpha 18 please...

 

Soon, very soon.

[ravend]

release the alpha 18 please...

 

Of it's like a17 the streamers get it first and then get it on Monday or Tuesday.

[MajorMunchy]

Of it's like a17 the streamers get it first and then get it on Monday or Tuesday.

 

Thats the plan i believe, but if they say streamers here is A18 we have about 10 bugs left, enjoy!.

 

the streamers may find 100 more bugs. now A18 delayed a month lol

[DaVegaNL]

Ah the good ol' days when you could just punch people and throw fridges and get what you wanted.

 

That's still the way my wife indicates to me that i need to do the dishes.