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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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1 hour ago, EmpV said:

I don’t think nerd poling is an issue, but I would love to see limits put in place for quests at POI’s.

Perhaps The limited area that you have to stay within during an active quest could be treated like a land claim area and you are not permitted to build within that zone until the quest is completed or turned in to the trader. You could still break walls/doors, but you will be at the mercy of the quest designers when navigating the POI. Getting to that box on the ceiling is now a challenge and the threat is real when you fall through a trap. 

Loot gained while in the active quest zone could be better or have unique items(legendary?) compared to a random POI where nerd poling is allowed. 

There could still be game quest area settings to adjust this for those who don’t like it. 

I appreciate the purity of completing a quest as intended. Immersion breaks for me when the magic wood frame solves all the problems.

No that is too heavy handed. Building is part of the game and from my experience is needed for many POIs where a jump or ledge is way too risky, so I build my own frame walkways.

Just now, Jugginator said:

:( That made me more anxious! lmao

Please don't kill the Wight!

I doubt it, but there are special infected coming. Maybe the wight will get replaced with the Revenant since they look kinda similar, etc. The wight doesn't have any special abilities so he could be the look for the Revenant, or another one actually. Bear in mind the Revenant isn't even for sure going into the game. I have all the special infected zombies designed now, but I need to show them to the team and then we pick the best ones, talk about how feasible the ideas are to program, etc.

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1 hour ago, Roland said:

I think the main issue with this is in SP so it really only needs to start counting down when the person who took the quest is near. 
 

For MP, people could game it by having the quest taker stay away while the rest of the crew loots the house first but that is really the choice of the whole party and if everyone wants to play that way then so be it. 
 

As was mentioned, on MP servers the house is often already looted anyway so it is a non issue. 


I have to disagree.  What someone does in single player isn’t really of much concern.

 

The current meta in MP is for a crew to visit a trader, all grab a quest, all quests are shared and all quests are completed ASAP while double looting each POI.  In this way, it is easy for group to reach end game gear by the end of the first week.  I know quests and traders won’t be fixed this alpha but anything that can be done to curb the double loot is welcome.  Your scenario of the quest taker hanging back on the first loot cycle is correct which is why it has to be all players / allies.

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5 minutes ago, madmole said:

I doubt it, but there are special infected coming. Maybe the wight will get replaced with the Revenant since they look kinda similar, etc. The wight doesn't have any special abilities so he could be the look for the Revenant, or another one actually. Bear in mind the Revenant isn't even for sure going into the game. I have all the special infected zombies designed now, but I need to show them to the team and then we pick the best ones, talk about how feasible the ideas are to program, etc.

I can live with that. I mainly liked him for his pure, not like any of the others, obvious "I am death" look and feel about him. He was my first "scared the living @%$*#! out of me" in the game as a fresh player lol. (I started in the wastelands)

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Just now, Jugginator said:

I can live with that. I mainly liked him for his pure, not like any of the others, obvious "I am death" look and feel about him. He was my first "scared the living @%$*#! out of me" in the game as a fresh player lol. (I started in the wastelands)

Yeah you don't see them often so it is a holy crap moment when you do. I think you can plan on much more of that in the future, we have some truly scary stuff in the works.

2 minutes ago, Numberz said:


I have to disagree.  What someone does in single player isn’t really of much concern.

 

The current meta in MP is for a crew to visit a trader, all grab a quest, all quests are shared and all quests are completed ASAP while double looting each POI.  In this way, it is easy for group to reach end game gear by the end of the first week.  I know quests and traders won’t be fixed this alpha but anything that can be done to curb the double loot is welcome.  Your scenario of the quest taker hanging back on the first loot cycle is correct which is why it has to be all players / allies.

Are you talking about Alpha 19? End game gear by day 7? I find that highly doubtful, or we need to nerf XP in parties to be negative.

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11 minutes ago, madmole said:

No that is too heavy handed. Building is part of the game and from my experience is needed for many POIs where a jump or ledge is way too risky, so I build my own frame walkways.

I doubt it, but there are special infected coming. Maybe the wight will get replaced with the Revenant since they look kinda similar, etc. The wight doesn't have any special abilities so he could be the look for the Revenant, or another one actually. Bear in mind the Revenant isn't even for sure going into the game. I have all the special infected zombies designed now, but I need to show them to the team and then we pick the best ones, talk about how feasible the ideas are to program, etc.

Will the revenant shoot with missiles and play the trumpet? :)

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10 minutes ago, madmole said:

No that is too heavy handed. Building is part of the game and from my experience is needed for many POIs where a jump or ledge is way too risky, so I build my own frame walkways.

I doubt it, but there are special infected coming. Maybe the wight will get replaced with the Revenant since they look kinda similar, etc. The wight doesn't have any special abilities so he could be the look for the Revenant, or another one actually. Bear in mind the Revenant isn't even for sure going into the game. I have all the special infected zombies designed now, but I need to show them to the team and then we pick the best ones, talk about how feasible the ideas are to program, etc.

ummm that sounds familiar...... but what will it do if it comes in game?

 

 

also maybe the feral wight could stay :(

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13 minutes ago, madmole said:

No that is too heavy handed. Building is part of the game and from my experience is needed for many POIs where a jump or ledge is way too risky, so I build my own frame walkways.

 

You just need to remember to bring your Oh @%$*#!z Drops! :p

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

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@faatal: you've mentioned in the dev stream with lathan a performance problem on your side (huge frame drop, where may be a terrain texture wasn't loaded). I too suffer from this from time to time.

 

I've testet the new console commands and both times when it happends

Gfx st forceload

solved the issue for me 😀

 

Just fyi (in case you need feedback).

 

Update: happend right now again - and this time forceload wasn't helping. Maybe it was just luck last time... :(

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28 minutes ago, Numberz said:


I have to disagree.  What someone does in single player isn’t really of much concern.

 

The current meta in MP is for a crew to visit a trader, all grab a quest, all quests are shared and all quests are completed ASAP while double looting each POI.  In this way, it is easy for group to reach end game gear by the end of the first week.  I know quests and traders won’t be fixed this alpha but anything that can be done to curb the double loot is welcome.  Your scenario of the quest taker hanging back on the first loot cycle is correct which is why it has to be all players / allies.


Well technically what a collective team of players choose to do together in their own game is just the same as if it was one player. They are all choosing to play it a particular way that they all agree upon and it really has no bearing on what anyone else does or how you or I play the game. 

I just was going for simple. I guess if you really wanted to stop it in all cases just start the timer as soon as anyone in the party got close enough and the party would have to coordinate well to make sure everyone gets there together. 
 

I think starting and stopping and resetting the timer any time some player walks near and then leaves is more complicated—but maybe not. 

 

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5 hours ago, madmole said:

Blake? Any plans for you to gain some self control? Does the min maxer in you compel you to go in and clear it/loot it before hitting the exclamation? I stopped doing it, so can you!

I keep telling them all you need to do is reset it when you are close to the chunk. Then they give me these edge cases about what if they don't go there? I say "mission fail" if somehow a voxel gets changed or another player not in the party dirties the chunk before you hit the exclamation mark. So we go round and round about this. At the end of the day it is only the 5000 hour SP guys with no self control that it affects so it is low priority. Because in MP there is possibility it was already looted.

This is true. I play all my hours in sv MP and the POIs are always empty. 
So doing missions is the only option to find virgin loot

 

5 whole pages fighting for nonsense. Anyway, I liked more the discussion about the damage of the stone shovel JA

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4 hours ago, madmole said:

Turns on god mode and fly, which would simulate what building with a bot could be like.

Maybe make a special storage box you can place in your base.  Then you can send it your base with a few items?  Perks/books to increase capacity and round trip time.

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3 hours ago, Roland said:

Here’s all you need to do. When the quest marker is within 30 meters start a timer countdown of 30 seconds. If the quest marker isn’t activated in that time the quest fails. No time to loot the house before the quest needs to start and no need to activate the quest from the edge of the chunk. Just put a time restraint when the player is near enough to easily make it but not pre-loot the house. 

I don't like this idea because I play MP and generally like to make sure we're all prepared right at the marker, it'd need to be at least a few minutes long if there was a timer, or an adjustable setting
On second thought I suppose I could start the quest once at the marker but I guess I just feel like once I start it I'm in for a ride. Not entirely sure how it all works but I think if there was a timer, making it 1-2minutes wouldn't hurt

Either way this can also be handled pretty simply with player self discipline

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2 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Might want to check the loot tables of hidden stashes. I got a level 1 baseball bat on day 1 at gamestage 7. I mean, I'll take it, but I have a feeling I'm not supposed to have this.

Spoiler

7_Days_To_Die_2020-07-30_1_52_47_PM.thumb.png.a453e34bfb4b16facaabd4126ebeb48e.png

Edit: Day 3, not day 1

I've been reading for days (after the A19 release) people complaining about the stone age being boring and too long.

Now when someone gets something a bit better than stone age in the early GS/days sounds like the game is broken...

 

So, which is it? Do we want the boring stone age lasting the entire first week or do we want some variation here and there?

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Just now, Jost Amman said:

I've been reading for days (after the A19 release) people complaining about the stone age being boring and too long.

Now when someone gets something a bit better than stone age in the early GS/days sounds like the game is broken...

 

So, which is it? Do we want the boring stone age lasting the entire first week or do we want some variation here and there?

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

If I'm not supposed to have this, I'll scrap it, but if so, then I'll replace my wooden club with it.

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1 minute ago, MechanicalLens said:

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

If I'm not supposed to have this, I'll scrap it, but if so, then I'll replace my wooden club with it.

I'm fairly certain they dont make it impossible to get higher tier stuff, just more rare than it used to be with the GS scales tipping you further towards certain loot, probably impossible to jump to the highest tier stuff from lowest though

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Just now, MechanicalLens said:

It wasn't a complaint from my end, it's just a genuine question. Was I supposed to get this, yay or nay? *Shrug*

Yeah, but my question is also in general... which one do we really want?

 

Personally I'd vote for a bit of variation here and there, especially inside the final loot chests, so that we have a very low chance to find something "not of this age" even when we're still in the stone phase.

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10 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I think starting and stopping and resetting the timer any time some player walks near and then leaves is more complicated—but maybe not. 

 

Not complicated. It could perform better than music transitions at the moment : a bit slow and hitting fps on lower end systems. Best case scenario will just be like if every player on the server opens a working forge at the same time.

 

I like the idea though. I really do. Sounds good for an a20 fast tweak.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Jost Amman said:

Yeah, but my question is also in general... which one do we really want?

 

Personally I'd vote for a bit of variation here and there, especially inside the final loot chests, so that we have a very low chance to find something "not of this age" even when we're still in the stone phase.

I vote for some small variation all the way. A toilet pistol here, a baseball bat there. It helps break up the monetary. But again, if it was an oversight in the loot table, then I'll scrap it. I'm keeping it away in storage for now.

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42 minutes ago, madmole said:

Yeah you don't see them often so it is a holy crap moment when you do. I think you can plan on much more of that in the future, we have some truly scary stuff in the works.

Are you talking about Alpha 19? End game gear by day 7? I find that highly doubtful, or we need to nerf XP in parties to be negative.


But remember that with shared quests all players collect the reward items and dukes from the traders.  Multiply it out for a crew of five doing a few sets of quests each day... you are talking about some serious rewards and big stacks of dukes...

 

But here is another thought.  Maybe the best way to nerf this is to make it so that only the quest taker can collect the dukes and reward items?

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4 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

I wonder if this will include any additional aerial threats? 🤔 Out with the vulture, in with the condor.

 

Any chance of a fire-puking variant? ;) (Or perhaps bandits could throw molotovs on top of their conventional arsenal, idk.)

Forget vultures and condors ... I'm holding out for dragons.  But only if you have a chance to tame them and ride them too. 

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The problem with quests is that they need some prerequisites to work, but those premises are different depending on the type.

  1. Clear quests need all spawns/sleepers to be reset for them to work
  2. Fetch quests need to place a satchel in an hidden compartment or block that must be still there

So when someone destroys the POI or kills the zombies in there the starting conditions are not valid anymore.

The most logical and realistic solution would be to treat quests like we'd do in a real situation.

 

If a POI has already been cleared the game must check that and exclude that POI from the list of "Clear" type quests.

At the same time, the Fetch quests, could work anyway, since you'd just have to place the satchel somewhere upon quest activation.

 

Using this approach you don't need to magically rebuild POIs upon quest activation, they will stay the same for the rest of the game.

 

Now the problem becomes that in MP games all POIs would at some point become looted and cleared.

We have several possible solutions to this:

  1. The normal zombie respawn rate for sleepers will take care of the Clear type quests automatically (placed will be filled again after some time)
  2. The normal loot respawn rate for containers will take care of the scarcity of loot in MP games (it already works like this)
  3. We need a new type of quest called (i.e.) "Rebuild/Refurbish" where you are sent to a POI to repair it and will succeed only after you have repaired a number of blocks and furniture to their original status.

This way the quest activation marker will become just a normal quest-start point while the POIs will always be in the state the player/s left them (unless you rebuild them with the appropriate new quest type that is).

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