Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, madmole said:

Pretty much this. I took a day away from the forums because 2 guys crying a river repeatedly are trying to shove their crappy ideals into the game is exhausting. It isn't going to change dramatically so save your breath. We will have to agree to disagree. I like the hard choices and so does the team.

If I was one of those two people, then on my behalf I apologize.

[madmole]

On 7/10/2020 at 9:03 AM, beHypE said:

Still, having attributes providing benefits beyond boosting the weapons governed by the tree would be a welcome addition. +1% movement speed for every agility point, +1% dmg reduction for every fortitude point, +1% melee/bow damage for every point in strength, +1% more gun damage for each point in perception, +1% crafting speed for each point in intelligence or something like that. 

That is just over thinking it. Ideally they could do more, but at the end of the day they will always be a gate with something small. If they did more, then the perks themselves would start to feel watered down and that is no fun buying a watered down perk. The way it is now, the attribute is the week before Christmas, and once you get through that, you have access to a variety of presents. It teaches people sometimes you have to be patient to get what you want, or pay a price, or make a choice. Something too many kids these days don't understand, but natural selection will school them eventually.

[jdzane]

12 minutes ago, TPrice321 said:

Did you save a copy of the generated world the save was using?   That's in a different folder than the savegame itself.   You need both parts to play the save.

I have a copy of it, I forget where to put it.  But I generated it using nitrogen so I still have a copy.  I'll see where else I can throw it lol

 

Thanks!

[madmole]

20 hours ago, PoloPoPo said:

• Tech 2/3 guns are not autounlocked by the weapon perk. Go find yourself a schematic. 

Does that mean that by spending skill points on the club in strength tree I won't be able anymore to automatically craft better clubs? Right now if you have skilled to level 2 you can craft a level 2 club.

 

• Chainsaw and auger are not unlocked by perkAdvancedEngineering 

Same here. If I want to craft chainsaw / auger now I can only do that if I find the schematic?

 

Do I understand that correct?

 

Btw I love most of those new changes 🙂

It means you have to find a pump shotgun schematic now to craft one. The perk tree doesn't unlock that technology. Not sure how that A17 style brain fart made it into the build.

[jdzane]

Didn't help.  It's still not showing up in my "continue game" list.  There's nothing there 😭

[madmole]

17 hours ago, meganoth said:

Set down a land claim block, then access the forge (press E for a second)

 

I thought it was hold R to see the radial options.

17 hours ago, PoloPoPo said:

There are animals everywhere now  I like that!

 

Something weird has just happened to me though. I have died (thought I could take on the "special infected zombs quest" too early) and therefore my XP dropped for the next minutes. When my XP bar reached 0 XP though (the very left side of the bar) I got a skill level up which should not have happened I guess. Maybe something for the bug report forum but to be honest, it is too complicated to report bugs here so...

Don't get too excited, it needs a huge nerf yet.

14 hours ago, STyK_ said:

I said boiled meat or bacon and eggs, grilled meat would be a waste, its actually been pretty useless since they got rid of wellness.
Honestly this is because people don't take the time to hunt and because the animals go into the water so they are hard to find kill. Fix water don't flood the world with meat! A very good part of the game is struggle, you just eliminated that and made the game easier.

What we are doing is a temp solution for MP. We will do something that scales for servers in A20. No matter what I do it will probably be easier for single players but we'll see. I have some ideas yet we can try.

[MechanicalLens]

4 minutes ago, madmole said:

That is just over thinking it. Ideally they could do more, but at the end of the day they will always be a gate with something small. If they did more, then the perks themselves would start to feel watered down and that is no fun buying a watered down perk. The way it is now, the attribute is the week before Christmas, and once you get through that, you have access to a variety of presents. It teaches people sometimes you have to be patient to get what you want, or pay a price, or make a choice. Something too many kids these days don't understand, but natural selection will school them eventually.

That's instant gratification for ya. An unfortunate psy@%$*#!gical vessel that plagues much of the youth today, even myself to a degree. At least I had began calling @#%$%&@ on it from a very young age, but even that's not quite enough to win the tightrope contest of nature vs nurture; as with all things however, refinement is the key. I look back at previous standards, such as the ones that Madmole lives up to, and I take inspiration from them and I try to incorporate them into my own life. It's good to know that such ways have not truly died out. I by not means have a strengthened backbone but hey, at the very least I aspire to be better than I am; it seems that most youth today do not.

[Marinxar]

35 minutes ago, madmole said:

Pretty much this. I took a day away from the forums because 2 guys crying a river repeatedly are trying to shove their crappy ideals into the game is exhausting....

Well, that's the problem with creating a game this good. You will always have fans that is just as passionate about the game as you, but with opposing interests and views. 

 

You should not see it as an attack, or battle that should be tiring. Appreciate the intent, and be happy of the success that is leading people to be this enthusiastic. 

 

 

[canadianbluebeer]

b163 drops. did all the updates.  fire up the server. Have 2 treasure maps to do that dropped on horde night.

Hop on the bicycle. go half a block.  ooohh a bear.

Shoot bear. take a bit of claw damage. Loot bear.

get on bike, go another block... oh another bear.  shoot, loot. keep going.

A wolf. more fresh meat.

Get to where the treasure is. Bear is guarding it. Kill bear.

Loot treasure. (much digging)

head back to base, to start 2nd treasuremap.

Enter town. Hey, didn't I kill that bear?  bangbangbang... need a better pistol.

Where did YOU come from? (bear hiding on other side of building)

 

Yes 5 bears couple wolves just on that one run (800m from base)

Next treasure map got a couple more. Town pretty much cleared out.

 

Take the quest to go to the next trader.

Bears, wolves, boars, stags, and 2 chickens. (those get clubbed)

 

So in 2 days, the 2 of us got the meat pile up from about 60 to 840!!

 

wee bit much.

 

Now, I hope all that largesse was just because it was the new update, and it was populating the critters for the first time, and I won't have that as a daily thing.

(otherwise, I'll be doing 5 thousand steaks for MM again)   😛

 

It was fun though!

 

[madmole]

10 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Well... please, @madmole setting the animal respawn to 3-4 days ONLY in multiplayer would be more than enough. The actual amount of animals at a given time was always ok since those freaky ancient alphas.  The 7 day animal respawn was what resulted in scarcity in worlds ranging from 3 to 8 players, not the abundance.

 

Also, automatically scaling the animal count when 3,4,5,6,7 and 8 players are in the game would be the ideal way to go but requires more code.

 

Wolves, bears and Mountain lions should not spawn at day the first few days, and should always be the rarest.

 

 

 

 

No @%$*#! Sherlock, but I don't have any code and we are in feature freeze. I'm trying to hack my way around this with existing xml for now.

I was thinking rabbits and chickens can spawn every day, so if you work for it you can always find them, and then big game will spawn very rare on a slower interval could work well for sp and mp, for now until we get something that scales it based on server pop.

[Jay_ombie]

4 hours ago, Blake_ said:

So... do you guys like the current amount of animals? I do ! Kinda makes me want more animals in the game. If only there was a way to balance all  that meat.... Snowdog? anyone?

 

The gliding sausage snake needs an animation pass, and probably a complete animal pass for every model wouldn't hurt a bit. Maybe more animals!, different shaped dogs with the same texture for example, I refuse to play make believe in a world in which ALL of them are Dobermans lol.

I really like the animals, the spawns seem okay to me and natural. Increases the danger too as I got killed by wolves, cats and dogs in my current game so far.

 

Animations are still stiff for animals, also when they die there mesh mangles up to and deforms for some reason. 

 

3 hours ago, max2k said:

 

Only that most agresive animals are not in the wild. The 5 Bears and 10 Direr Wolves i saw wher all in cities and towns. I saw not one of them in the wilds the only things that are the  normal wolves.

 

Animals in towns is geographically correct, the power of nature ! Over the lock down we had Goats coming down from the mountains into towns and bears wondering around the built up areas... 

[madmole]

9 hours ago, max2k said:

How was that you tie loot and enemies to gamestage? The animals are since the patch yesterday not tied to game stage any longer. A fresh character with a club a bow and a few arrows will now get Bears and Dire Wolfs on every corner. Because you need to runaway most of the game you will not rise you gamestage in the near future to get any guns ... If you are at later stage and have guns food is totaly meaningless again. I was on of the few who loved the progresion ... but if animals are not tied to game stage then i am done.

I will probably move the worst predators dires and bears to night spawn only so you can be safe from them unless you go out at night, and if you want to hunt them, then the big challenge is there.

[wolfbain5]

@madmole don't stress too much yet. knee jerking all around. moving the dire and the bears to night sounds good. getting killed day 1 by a dire at 1100 am was a sight, seeing a bear at day 1 3 hours later, all in the city. well, that is what sneaking the other way around a building was for. brought survival down. but with animal spawns up, you can lower meat harvest back down. I mean they want the challenge but are crying about too much meat. leave rabbits, snakes, and chicken be tho. now I can finally complete a buy the farm or nail some chicks challenges

[Aldranon]

Best use of the sledge turret I've seen to date.  The Zombies started to focus there attacks on damaged areas so the streamer put his sledge down perfectly!

 

 

 

[madmole]

Here is what I'm testing locally now:

Small game spawns any time of day or night.

Large game spawns every 9 days at night.

Predator animals spawn at night only every 10 days.

So if you want lots of meat hunt at night, otherwise it won't spawn. Risk and reward. Otherwise work your butt off scrounging on chickens and rabbits.

Scared of predators? Stay indoors at night, they won't spawn except perhaps in your immediate area once every 10 days.

[canadianbluebeer]

Oh, forgot to mention, THANK YOU for the new ragdoll effects on the zombies. Absolutely hilarious!

 

Horde base is a 7x7 block a bit back from one of the trailers. zombies go up the ramp or the trellis, across the roof, then 1 block hop up to the single line of blocks leading to the top of the base.

 

that 1 block hop worked great in 18, but now? Comedy gold.  When they're all piling up, they jump, stagger and .... some fall off.

Shoot them in the leg? Stagger and the one behind, so eager to get to my minimal braaaiinnsss... pushes the wounded one off.

 

The zombie dogs? hee-hee. Hop. fall. hilarious yip when they hit the ground. repeat.

 

Run out of the crypt in the church. stagger, then trip over the gravestone and faceplant?

 

This effect is a solid winner!

 

2 minutes ago, madmole said:

Here is what I'm testing locally now:

Small game spawns any time of day or night.

Large game spawns every 9 days at night.

Predator animals spawn at night only every 10 days.

So if you want lots of meat hunt at night, otherwise it won't spawn. Risk and reward. Otherwise work your butt off scrounging on chickens and rabbits.

Scared of predators? Stay indoors at night, they won't spawn except perhaps in your immediate area once every 10 days.

 

I hope we still get SOME larger critters in the day. (deer, boars) 

The odd bear/wolf would be nice too.  (just not 5 in one 800m stretch)

 

I know, yer gonna be tweaking this a bunch. (so Ima stockpile while I can)  

 

[PoloPoPo]

3 minutes ago, madmole said:

Here is what I'm testing locally now:

Small game spawns any time of day or night.

Large game spawns every 9 days at night.

Predator animals spawn at night only every 10 days.

So if you want lots of meat hunt at night, otherwise it won't spawn. Risk and reward. Otherwise work your butt off scrounging on chickens and rabbits.

Scared of predators? Stay indoors at night, they won't spawn except perhaps in your immediate area once every 10 days.

Have you also thought of decreasing amount of meat that can be looted from animals? Could be a middle way to solve meat abundance problem but simultaneously keep animal count (also predators and big ones) higher. Once every 10 days for the bigger guys isn't much again.

 

Just an idea

[MechanicalLens]

4 minutes ago, madmole said:

Here is what I'm testing locally now:

Small game spawns any time of day or night.

Large game spawns every 9 days at night.

Predator animals spawn at night only every 10 days.

So if you want lots of meat hunt at night, otherwise it won't spawn. Risk and reward. Otherwise work your butt off scrounging on chickens and rabbits.

Scared of predators? Stay indoors at night, they won't spawn except perhaps in your immediate area once every 10 days.

Sounds like good changes. The perks The Huntsman and Animal Tracker went from semi-decent perks in A19, to being mostly pointless in the current patch, and now they're back in the game again.

 

I suppose "large game" refers to boars, deer, and bucks? Or is large game bears, dire wolves, etc. and predator animals refer to wolves, coyotes, etc.?

[madmole]

1 minute ago, PoloPoPo said:

Have you also thought of decreasing amount of meat that can be looted from animals? Could be a middle way to solve meat abundance problem but simultaneously keep animal count (also predators and big ones) higher. Once every 10 days for the bigger guys isn't much again.

 

Just an idea

People have complained a lot about how stingy we are about the meat drops for years.

1 minute ago, MechanicalLens said:

Sounds like good changes. The perks The Huntsman and Animal Tracker went from semi-decent perks in A19, to being mostly pointless in the current patch, and now they're back in the game again.

 

I suppose "large game" refers to boars, deer, and bucks? Or is large game bears, dire wolves, etc. and predator animals refer to wolves, coyotes, etc.?

Large game is doe, stag, boar. Predators are bears, wolves and dire wolves.

[MechanicalLens]

7 minutes ago, madmole said:

Large game is doe, stag, boar. Predators are bears, wolves and dire wolves.

Right, right. Got to work on my terminology a bit more it seems.

 

So with rabbits and chickens (snakes as well?) being the only creatures that will spawn during the day, this should be an interesting shake-up.

 

Edit: Just so I'm understanding this correctly, the larger game will only spawn at nighttime specifically every 9 days and for the predators every 10 nights, and if we miss those specific nights we'll have to wait a further 9-10 days? Also, how are the spawn rates for those three categories going to be like?

[SnowDog1942]

6 hours ago, Black Hat said:

Can't wait the stable build!

Can someone give a hint when its done?

 

Other than done when is done. 😂😂😂

Sure, when its not not done

[Onarr]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

That is just over thinking it. Ideally they could do more, but at the end of the day they will always be a gate with something small. If they did more, then the perks themselves would start to feel watered down and that is no fun buying a watered down perk. The way it is now, the attribute is the week before Christmas, and once you get through that, you have access to a variety of presents. It teaches people sometimes you have to be patient to get what you want, or pay a price, or make a choice. Something too many kids these days don't understand, but natural selection will school them eventually.

I have no problem with hits, what I hate is for certain playstyle you are locked with 1 melee and one ranged option. Imho perks should be separate from weapons. A possible solution I offer:

• Remove weapon specific perks, put their damage progression into weapons themselves and add perks similar to penetrator, run and gun or flurry of blows. For example
  • Perception - Exploit weakness - body shots have chance for criticals
  • Strength - Unstoppable force - Higher chance for ragdolling enemy
  • Fortitude - Berserker - you increase your damage based on damage taken
  • Agility - Combo attack - every third attack is critical strike
  • Intelect - Calculated strike - after not attacking for 5 second your next strike will be critical strike

These would still guide you towards certain weapons (fast vs slow, long range short range etc.), but you would not be hard locked to them and you could enjoy their benefits with all weapons. With some more with others less.

 

[PoloPoPo]

I have to play as much as possible then before the next update comes in to further enjoy the increased animal frequency

[madmole]

6 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Right, right. Got to work on my terminology a bit more it seems.

 

So with rabbits and chickens (snakes as well?) being the only creatures that will spawn during the day, this should be an interesting shake-up.

I am trying all game can spawn any time, every day or night now, with the larger game being really rare. Then there isn't ever a dumb blackout period of no chance of getting a stag which seems like a better design. One problem with the old setup was a guy joins a server on day 2 and all the other jerks cleared out all the meat so you are stuck waiting for 2 weeks before anything respawned. So I think this will actually be better the more I think about it, a constant supply of small game and very rare chance for wild game to spawn too, at any time, with only a 1 day delay.

[SnowDog1942]

Just now, madmole said:

I am trying all game can spawn any time, every day or night now, with the larger game being really rare. Then there isn't ever a dumb blackout period of no chance of getting a stag which seems like a better design. One problem with the old setup was a guy joins a server on day 2 and all the other jerks cleared out all the meat so you are stuck waiting for 2 weeks before anything respawned. So I think this will actually be better the more I think about it, a constant supply of small game and very rare chance for wild game to spawn too, at any time, with only a 1 day delay.

When do the naked amazon women spawn?

 

Also, does Masvidal have a chance in hell??