Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[wolfbain5]

1 hour ago, Vintorez said:

It would be nice to get a unique texture/model for the broken vending machines.

like a crack over the glass front?

 

[SnowDog1942]

15 minutes ago, wolfbain5 said:

like a crack over the glass front?

 

I have a crack I can show you.

[wolfbain5]

7 minutes ago, SnowDog1942 said:

I have a crack I can show you.

no thanks, I know where you have been. "Devega! someone at the door for you!"

[archergod]

I play 3 horde night on A19, and Notice few things, not sure if they are bug or behaviour.

 

1. I once fight 3 Tourist z, 2 of them run away from me when I hit them. (Yes they run away) like coyote do in general. 

2. I usually make a Stand on pillar and let zombie randomly hit the pillars on horde night. But Dogs just stand below me. 

3. I often notice that zombie don't come directly to me when I was clearing building, they often just run for door and I have hit them on back to bring back to me. Even though I am 4 block away and in straight line no obstacles. 

[Eko]

Just now, archergod said:

....

3. I often notice that zombie don't come directly to me when I was clearing building, they often just run for door and I have hit them on back to bring back to me. Even though I am 4 block away and in straight line no obstacles. 

I too, have noticed some strange pathing behaviours. I think what is happening here is the Zs are finding a different path to you. The AI might be getting tricked into thinking its easier to bust through a door or walk around an edge (looking at YOU, "coal factory") rather than take the direct path to their target. Still unsure if its intentional, but I like it. Zs cant be that intelligent, right? What with their mangled and decaying brains. So for me, this adds realism and a bit of surprise. I don't want my Zs to be totally predictable - that's how cheese is made.

[JCrook1028]

5 hours ago, bobross said:

Just my 2 cents on that but yes - it WAS fixed. The fix was allowing interruption of the reload animation/process to switch to another weapon. If that wasn't an option - the equivalent of dropping the empty rifle to go for your pistol - then auto-reload would indeed be punishing. Since it is, I submit that your fix preventing auto-reload is in fact a nerf. One that really bends over crossbows completely, and hunting rifles nearly as much.

Agreed. I hate having to manually reload. It's annoying.

4 hours ago, STyK_ said:

Made it to my base finished tier 1 quests. Still haven't ran into a biker to test the lvl 3 deep cuts but it slows everything else sufficiently. I think it worked, this is how I beat the beginning of insane nightmare permadeath with 25% loot. Can finally put some points into something else. 

I'm starting to believe the vending machine here never works, I know it does cause I've seen it just never for me 3/3 times.

My Nave game I live there too.

[Gazz]

7 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

if you go to the Prefab editor and go to the AAA section! you can see some new looking POIs like a settlement, and the Theater thats reminds me of "  kino der toten" from Cod zombies!

And Cinco de Mayo as a fast food chain.

[archergod]

37 minutes ago, Eko said:

I too, have noticed some strange pathing behaviours. I think what is happening here is the Zs are finding a different path to you. The AI might be getting tricked into thinking its easier to bust through a door or walk around an edge (looking at YOU, "coal factory") rather than take the direct path to their target. Still unsure if its intentional, but I like it. Zs cant be that intelligent, right? What with their mangled and decaying brains. So for me, this adds realism and a bit of surprise. I don't want my Zs to be totally predictable - that's how cheese is made.

I disagree, that when Z is in front and ignore you (i.e. you are in straight sight of them and then they turn back to move far away from you or moving away after been hit ..) is not realism. realism can be define as you are in room and it has open door, yet Zombie try to break the window and come, as he possibly didn't know there is door on other wall and it might be open. He just see you and come straight to you breaking everything. 

 

Zombie are suppose to chase us when they see us.

[faatal]

9 hours ago, Blake_ said:

POSSIBLE FIX:

 

1- FIX all the new a19 POIS ,both tweaked and newly added to have a good elevation like most of them in a18.4.

 

2- Console warnings are useful. The easiest way to go is just disable them for players that do not wish to test and see how it goes.

The harder way to go is: try to make them cheaper or inconspicuous on the framerate and  fix the POIS and in the process waste a lot of extra time on RWG resulting in added time before stable. Or maybe elevation tweaks are (hopeful) not that time consuming for the gains?

 

I hope this helps ! Have a nice day!

1 Is not the fix I'd want, since the message should not happen period.

2 There are many console messages that are in the game for the devs, not for you. Those messages should never happen and are supposed to be in our face, so we fix them. The values in the error are very close, so it could be a floating point precision issue and just needs a bit of tolerance.

 

Thx for the info.

[Laz Man]

55 minutes ago, Eko said:

I too, have noticed some strange pathing behaviours. I think what is happening here is the Zs are finding a different path to you. The AI might be getting tricked into thinking its easier to bust through a door or walk around an edge (looking at YOU, "coal factory") rather than take the direct path to their target. Still unsure if its intentional, but I like it. Zs cant be that intelligent, right? What with their mangled and decaying brains. So for me, this adds realism and a bit of surprise. I don't want my Zs to be totally predictable - that's how cheese is made.

I've noticed this before as well.  The most jarring is when your in the same level as them but they go off in a different direction to smack a nearby pillar or tree...

 

I'll try to repro and submit bug report if I can...

[Jay_ombie]

6 hours ago, Khalagar said:

The shotgun is still the bigger issue because it's just too good. The only real reason to use the Sniper over the M60 is to save a bit on ammo, but if you are going for resource conservation, the shotgun is king, bar none. One shell per zed and the shotgun will clear an entire PoI for pocket change resource expenditure

 

Sniper play style is fun though, Hunting Rifle has always been one of my favorites in this game, but I never put perks into it. I usually carry one until I get an M60, but later on the M60 handles any long range  needs well enough to not need a sniper,  as well as many other roles the Sniper can't

Maybe guns like the shotgun should simply have a slower reload animation, that alone will make it less effective with multiple zombies coming at you. Right now the reload is like two seconds to insert two cartridges ‘simultaneously’ which is rather out there but I know it’s only a game. 

 

Sniper options and gun mods present so many variations I think it be really hard to make all guns equal or better for one thing specific.

 

[Jost Amman]

IMO the problem is not with the Shotgun, the problem is with all long range weapons, but it's not TFP's fault.

The problem is that rifles and sniper-rifles should shine in VERY long range hits, but the game engine is not able/programmed to load entities that far.

 

In an ideal world IMO you should be able to zoom-in with the scope and see (i.e.) biome spawns (or even sleepers) that are 300/400 blocks away.

Then a sniper rifle would allow you to use that weapon tactically in the proper way.

Example: if you plan to go in the Factory POI you'd first be able to climb in a nearby rooftop and snipe out all zombies near the windows.

[Jay_ombie]

38 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

In an ideal world IMO you should be able to zoom-in with the scope and see (i.e.) biome spawns (or even sleepers) that are 300/400 blocks away.

Then a sniper rifle would allow you to use that weapon tactically in the proper way.

Example: if you plan to go in the Factory POI you'd first be able to climb in a nearby rooftop and snipe out all zombies near the windows.

Ohhhh so true. The price of a

fully destructible world and keeping the frames up.

 

Maybe with that in mind perhaps we should not have snipper rifles or at least scopes in the world  ?

 

As you rightfully say we can’t use them for there intended purpose after all. It reduces variety unfortunately but more hip or iron site guns could easily be introduced I am sure.  

[Tmodloader]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

IMO the problem is not with the Shotgun, the problem is with all long range weapons, but it's not TFP's fault.

The problem is that rifles and sniper-rifles should shine in VERY long range hits, but the game engine is not able/programmed to load entities that far.

 

In an ideal world IMO you should be able to zoom-in with the scope and see (i.e.) biome spawns (or even sleepers) that are 300/400 blocks away.

Then a sniper rifle would allow you to use that weapon tactically in the proper way.

Example: if you plan to go in the Factory POI you'd first be able to climb in a nearby rooftop and snipe out all zombies near the windows.

Perhaps a buff could be something along those lines. Worth asking. 

[Jost Amman]

51 minutes ago, Jay_ombie said:

As you rightfully say we can’t use them for there intended purpose after all. It reduces variety unfortunately but more hip or iron site guns could easily be introduced I am sure.  

I don't know how to solve this problem... I'm not a game designer after all.

If they can find a way to even up for the rifles range limit disadvantages in a voxel world then kudos to them!

 

But I don't think that adding more hip-fire weapons is the way to go, it's just a workaround, not a solution.

[Matt 1977]

@madmole just a quick question, zombie bears on horde night. Wondering why its not a thing? 

[beHypE]

Like Jost Amman said, the issue is snipers have no real use case in a game where all the combat is at most at medium range. Also, it doesn't help that you can attach a big scope on a AK47, essentially turning it into a on-demand sniper with a bigger magazine and rate of fire...

[Gr.o.m.]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

I don't know how to solve this problem... I'm not a game designer after all.

If they can find a way to even up for the rifles range limit disadvantages in a voxel world then kudos to them!

 

But I don't think that adding more hip-fire weapons is the way to go, it's just a workaround, not a solution.

One way to solve the problem: Nerv the 2x scope and remove the option to put 4x scopes on AK, tactical rifles and M60.

[MechanicalLens]

42 minutes ago, beHypE said:

Like Jost Amman said, the issue is snipers have no real use case in a game where all the combat is at most at medium range. Also, it doesn't help that you can attach a big scope on a AK47, essentially turning it into a on-demand sniper with a bigger magazine and rate of fire...

Which raises a side question, how many people actually use an 8x scope mod? I certainly haven't. Again, there's no need.

 

As I see it, the only workaround to make snipers more effective is to allow the higher end tiers and quality tiers to one-shot most zombies... which would most certainly raise balancing issues.

[Gazz]

Tricky issue since as you pointed out, the primary use case for long range rifles cannot exist in the game.

Disallowing the 4x scopes for the MG is something I had been thinking about because they really are too universally useful with that. =P

Disallowing all scopes for MG is likely not going to fly since we have models for those.

 

What the rifles are definitely good at is AP / penetration in corridors. A lot of players just can't be arsed to make that work for them and instead grab and AK and fire a lot more bullets. /shrug

[Gr.o.m.]

40 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Tricky issue since as you pointed out, the primary use case for long range rifles cannot exist in the game.

Disallowing the 4x scopes for the MG is something I had been thinking about because they really are too universally useful with that. =P

Disallowing all scopes for MG is likely not going to fly since we have models for those.

 

What the rifles are definitely good at is AP / penetration in corridors. A lot of players just can't be arsed to make that work for them and instead grab and AK and fire a lot more bullets. /shrug

You can use AP Ammo on MGs. Also doing headshots while suffering from hordelack forces yout to use weapons with a high rate of fire and big magazins. So it is not only player slacking.

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Gazz said:

Tricky issue since as you pointed out, the primary use case for long range rifles cannot exist in the game.

Disallowing the 4x scopes for the MG is something I had been thinking about because they really are too universally useful with that. =P

Disallowing all scopes for MG is likely not going to fly since we have models for those.

 

What the rifles are definitely good at is AP / penetration in corridors. A lot of players just can't be arsed to make that work for them and instead grab and AK and fire a lot more bullets. /shrug

I was thinking that maybe ALL rifles (but especially the sniper one) could have a very high chance of a critical shot that multiplies the damage.

Just throwing there ideas that have already been used and tested in other games...

[LewZephyr]

@madmole

 

Are there plans to re-visit the apartment building (sorry I dont know the POI name)  its the one thats 4 or 5 stories, very square shaped and each apartment has its own balcony.  Top floor has skylights in 2 of the apartments.

 

We ran into this one yesterday (hadn't seen it in a while).  It was pretty meh compared to all the new and re-vamped POI's.  But the building looks like you could do a great dungeon rework on it.  Heck even just an update that brings it on par with the other buildings.

 

A19 has been very solid and impressive.  The game is better than ever. 

Thanks for all of TFPs  hard work. 

[BadPlayer]

Any indication when stable is hitting??

[MechanicalLens]

So there I was, mining clay during the middle of the night with nothing to illuminate the area but my headlight (I have my brightness down to 38%)., listening to the eerie tunes of the night. I went through a sudden palpitation, my eyes wide and my body very temporarily petrified, as I heard the blood curdling growl of a bear right behind my #@&, so without thinking I immediately booked it in the opposite direction and quickly switched off my headlight before eventually coming to a stop and crouching in the tall grass surrounded by shadow. I am now slowly crawling my way back to my house where I'll spend the night tucked away in the basement next to my storage to wipe off the sweat and get over what just happened. It's night 5 and I don't have a gun as of yet. I should not have been out there. TFP have convinced me that until I get a trusty firearm... I'm staying indoors during the early hours. Well played on the animal spawns. Well played.