Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Yisiscreise]

I love this game, Jesus Christ! GJ Devs!

[dcsobral]

So, faatal did not have an AI toggle to set zombies upon prime and whoever else was playing (ork?). Or, at least, he didn't use it. Of the three playthrough dev streams so far this is the one I enjoyed the most by far. And we got shutters! Hopefully. No idea whether they are player-craftable. They would be very useful in a lot of different places where I'm presently using hatches, particularly since they come both in "inside" and "outside" orientations, whereas hatches are always "outside". 

 

We also got to see most pipe weapons in action -- the only one still not shown (that I can recall) is the pipe pistol. Oh, and Lathan put an 8x scope on the pipe rifle and the model was just awesome. The sound effects and animations on these pipe weapons has been solid and I hope the other guns got an overhaul otherwise some of them will feel rather lacking.

 

And the drone! Honestly, we didn't see much more of the drone than on the show-and-tell dev stream, and it mostly served as a flying storage box but, hey, I'll take a flying storage box any time of the day, any day of the week.

 

Oh, and prime completed the tier 1 of the trader and the rewards looked... interesting. You gotta watch and see it!

 

Plus it was fun and informative. I'm in awe of Shawn's ability to play, read chat and answer questions from it all at the same time. I'm just watching the stream and I couldn't keep up with the chat as well as him!

 

Poll time: what was the highlight of the night?

 

A) Shawn ragdolling a bear with the 4x4 while the others shot at it.

B) Bobblehead Jen.

C) Shutters.

D) Pickable ladders.

E) Other: ____

 

One negative for me: I wish there was some tweaking done to the progression. I'm not talking about this third playthrough stream in particular, but the three of them taken together and there just seems to be something missing. It's not even that I feel something needs changing, it's just that it feels a bit stale with everything exactly as in alpha 19. (that said, I do feel Agility lacks non-combat related perks)

 

 

Oh, and one thing on the wishlist for next week, @Prime  : show us what the shape categories are. So the second one is square blocks, the third one looks to be round blocks by comparison, but what are the rest?

[Doomofman]

Yeah Tier 1 Completion rewards looked decent.

 

That stream give a good demo of why it's not ready yet with the weird hand glitch

 

New dog looked cool but was it a little small?

[Mechanimal]

10 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

So, faatal did not have an AI toggle to set zombies upon prime and whoever else was playing (ork?). Or, at least, he didn't use it. Of the three playthrough dev streams so far this is the one I enjoyed the most by far....

I missed the stream, and they take forever to post it, both on Twitch and Youtube, which I don't understand because it's raw and unedited. So maybe next week sometime. Sounds fun tho, rly want to know more about these new shutters.

[Roland]

17 hours ago, dcsobral said:

Oh, cool. Is that part of today's stream? 😃

 

16 hours ago, Roland said:

I actually have no idea. Just joking. 

 

53 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

So, faatal did not have an AI toggle to set zombies upon prime and whoever else was playing (ork?). Or, at least, he didn't use it.

 

<shrug>

46 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

I missed the stream, and they take forever to post it, both on Twitch and Youtube

 

Its usually posted to YouTube the very next day and usually within hours on Twitch. Here is the link on Twitch. You can wait to watch it for a week if you want though https://www.twitch.tv/fubar_prime/video/1195412680

[BFT2020]

55 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

I missed the stream, and they take forever to post it, both on Twitch and Youtube, which I don't understand because it's raw and unedited.

I think your definition and my definition of forever is vastly different.   Relax, grab a cup of coffee, and enjoy life - the videos will be posted soon enough  😁

[dcsobral]

51 minutes ago, Mechanimal said:

I missed the stream, and they take forever to post it, both on Twitch and Youtube, which I don't understand because it's raw and unedited. So maybe next week sometime. Sounds fun tho, rly want to know more about these new shutters.

It's always immediately available on Twitch. Just search for "Past Broadcasts" instead of the default "Featured". 

15 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

 

 

<shrug>

 

Its usually posted to YouTube the very next day and usually within hours on Twitch. Here is the link on Twitch. You can wait to watch it for a week if you want though https://www.twitch.tv/fubar_prime/video/1195412680

It was being done like that for the first two or three, and then it changed to two days (?) because of Twitch terms of service. 

[Blake_]

Idk if everything was said already, but here's a little additional info on the last stream with some quirks:

 

Important stuff from the stream :

 

- You can create and place window shutters. They are very useful,cool, and well made, except if you ask Sasha.

- You can place frames of any shape, so you can place pickable ladders.

- Tier 1 Completion rewards are awesome :  Bicycle, OR a pack of farm supplies (I guess a stack that unfolds into plots, seeds and crops?), OR a pipe weapon pack (pipe weapon+a few bullets maybe?),  OR the forge OR a wrench.

 

Significant bugs were:

Spoiler

-A displaced camera bug with the 1st person hands and every weapon/tool in the game that turn you into wolverine if you use the bone shiv.

-An eternal locked jump animation of the Zds, maybe caused by them getting stuck jumping or pushed onto half blocks. A whole new meaning to "jumpscares"

 

How interesting that both of them are probably within @faatal's area of expertise, while he certainly blamed everyone else for the A20 EXP delay (I'm kidding , lol, but he did jokingly imply that fact at some point ).

 

There were other bugs, like a Bear with a gliding glitchy hand that was quite fun to watch, or some minor quest issues, but that's ok, they were not as hilarious as the team trying to blow up a car with dynamite to see if it blew up and into the main backyard of trader Jen's.

 

Another set of awesome moments was when the team was riding together in a cheated-in 4x4 and they were mansplaining to each other and back seat driving all the time while constantly crashing into fences, walls, trash containers, fire hydrants, posts, signs, street ads, trees, zombies, roadblocks, animals, each other, etc .

 

It was one of the best gameplay streams, full of laughs and great moments.

 

[Vintorez]

From watching the stream I can't help but think that the pipe rifle could have a more interesting reload animation. Maybe a latch that keeps the barrel closed, or a have that big lug nut need to be unscrewed a bit from the barrel in order to free it. Just something that could be a pet project for a future build if anyone on the team feels the same.

 

Also going back to the idea of zombies breaking food containers, that could be an interesting function for attracting bandits when they're implemented. Could be based on quantity so having less but higher tier food would draw less attention that just stockpiling canned food.

[Mechanimal]

36 minutes ago, Roland said:

Its usually posted to YouTube the very next day and usually within hours on Twitch. Here is the link on Twitch. You can wait to watch it for a week if you want though https://www.twitch.tv/fubar_prime/video/1195412680

Oh, cool. I checked the Twitch channel and Youtube and could not find it. Ty sir.

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

How interesting that both of them are probably within @faatal's area of expertise, while he certainly blamed everyone else for the A20 EXP delay (I'm kidding , lol, but he did jokingly imply that fact at some point ).

 

He's a Hoosier.  It is never our fault  😉

 

Quote

There were other bugs, like a Bear with a gliding glitchy hand that was quite fun to watch, or some minor quest issues, but that's ok, they were not as hilarious as the team trying to blow up a car with dynamite to see if it blew up and into the main backyard of trader Jen's.

 

TBH, I would take a bear with a glitchy hand over a bear that can glitch into enclosed areas any day of the week 😁

 

Can't wait to watch it

[jdzane]

Hi.

 

I don't want to be that person, but I must, so I apologize in advance.  I'm in nursing school and don't have the spare brain cells to follow all the newest info.  I know the first post says "November" for the target release date.  Has anyone who watches the streams and what not heard mention of a more narrowed down window?  I just finished a brutal test and would love to blow off some steam in the game, but I don't want to get back into 7D2D 19 to find out we're a week away from 20.

[EffiJeff]

13 minutes ago, jdzane said:

Hi.

 

I don't want to be that person, but I must, so I apologize in advance.  I'm in nursing school and don't have the spare brain cells to follow all the newest info.  I know the first post says "November" for the target release date.  Has anyone who watches the streams and what not heard mention of a more narrowed down window?  I just finished a brutal test and would love to blow off some steam in the game, but I don't want to get back into 7D2D 19 to find out we're a week away from 20.

Hopefully it will be released at 22 or 29th november. They have around 32 must fix bugs (highest priority).

[meganoth]

10 minutes ago, jdzane said:

Hi.

 

I don't want to be that person, but I must, so I apologize in advance.  I'm in nursing school and don't have the spare brain cells to follow all the newest info.  I know the first post says "November" for the target release date.  Has anyone who watches the streams and what not heard mention of a more narrowed down window?  I just finished a brutal test and would love to blow off some steam in the game, but I don't want to get back into 7D2D 19 to find out we're a week away from 20.

 

Even if someone on that stream had said anything about a narrower time frame that would have been just a wild guess that would have been shown to be wrong two weeks later. They don't know themselves until 1 week before the date when simply their patience runs out to postpone another week (this may be a guess, but I would bet you a heap of money I'm very near to the truth).

 

And this is not because they are unorganized or sloppy developers, this is simply because the release date of an experimental is unimportant to them. Much much less important than say a showstopper bug left in the game

 

You and everyone else here will get to know the date about a week before. Therefore I can tell you it won't be this weekend.

 

[Blake_]

4 hours ago, dcsobral said:

 

 

One negative for me: I wish there was some tweaking done to the progression. I'm not talking about this third playthrough stream in particular, but the three of them taken together and there just seems to be something missing. It's not even that I feel something needs changing, it's just that it feels a bit stale with everything exactly as in alpha 19. (that said, I do feel Agility lacks non-combat related perks)

 

The "emptiness" is very obvious, and it was always there. Core gameplay is ok, graphics are ok, but there are only 3 types of basic quest tasks and there is no significant lore.

Also, loot is good but it lacks flavor in the form of "enchantments", as they are few and inconsistent when talking about armours, weapons or tools (no enchantments on weapons and only 1 enchanted tool actually, Taza's stone axe).

 

Fortunately, everything that the game lacks is actually planned: legendary weapons/tools, enchanted armour pieces, more quests, npcs and campaign. That should do it.

I doubt Perks get any significant changes, I mean, they could be improved upon a bit to make builds like farmer and hunter more interesting or your "lacking" agility speech, but I guess that can actually be compensated with stuff like armour sets tailored for stealth players.

[Jost Amman]

There's also a small "reflection glitch" I noticed on Trader Rekt.

His mouth was reflecting light like it was made of metal or something... anyone else noticed it?

 

@faatal I also noticed that sometimes the zombie AI gets stuck hitting objects when the player is just a few feet away and completely reachable. Do you think this is a bug or is it just some random "destroy mode" behavior? If it is, I suggest turning it off when the player is nearby and can be reached. 

 

[Blake_]

15 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

There's also a small "reflection glitch" I noticed on Trader Rekt.

His mouth was reflecting light like it was made of metal or something... anyone else noticed it?

 

@faatal I also noticed that sometimes the zombie AI gets stuck hitting objects when the player is just a few feet away and completely reachable. Do you think this is a bug or is it just some random "destroy mode" behavior? If it is, I suggest turning it off when the player is nearby and can be reached. 

 

Yeah, Those might already be ticketed. Also, the AI one is already in a19. It might be just a headstrong disengaging behaviour due to the pathing check and performance and stuff. Faatal said it would be fixed, but he might be having trouble "engaging" with the issue . Might be due to the 9274857 bugs that are in the queue.

[Rabbitslovecactus]

In Alpha 20, will the bug where vehicles vanish into the ground be fixed?

[Weazelsun]

@faatal I noticed in the recent stream, there no longer looks to be random bags of trash on the streets anymore. They look like they have been replaced by card box loot containers instead?

[Khalagar]

41 minutes ago, Rabbitslovecactus said:

In Alpha 20, will the bug where vehicles vanish into the ground be fixed?

 

The first step to fixing a bug is being able to replicate it. I've only had vehicles fall through the ground once or twice, and couldn't even begin to replicate it, so it's likely the same on the dev side

[Star69]

I had a motorcycle disappear yesterday.....first time in over a year. Dedicated server. Booted the server and my motorcycle wasn't there by the base. Spawned myself a replacement, went out questing for a few game hours, came back to the base and my 'lost' motorcycle was sitting on top of a row of 5 high wooden bars! I've never had that happen before but I've heard others say it has happened. There's no way to reproduce that for the bug fixers so no report. Random internet weirdness.

[faatal]

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

There's also a small "reflection glitch" I noticed on Trader Rekt.

His mouth was reflecting light like it was made of metal or something... anyone else noticed it?

 

@faatal I also noticed that sometimes the zombie AI gets stuck hitting objects when the player is just a few feet away and completely reachable. Do you think this is a bug or is it just some random "destroy mode" behavior? If it is, I suggest turning it off when the player is nearby and can be reached. 

 

They are not necessarily stuck. Sight checks and pathing calculations have delays for performance reasons. They could be destroying area and not seeing you since they are not facing you. Destroy area locks them in for a bit or you could just yo-yo them back and forth by moving. I actually have a MF I'm looking at now of that happening in a warehouse and the player on shelves.

[faatal]

3 hours ago, Rabbitslovecactus said:

In Alpha 20, will the bug where vehicles vanish into the ground be fixed?

I don't know of a bug for that exact thing. It depends on what is causing it and if those problems are fixed by other changes for other problems. Like I made a work around for Unity deciding to ignore the ground checks vehicles make to see if they have fallen outside of or under the ground, but that bug caused them to shoot into the air, not down.

 

That reminds me, I need to respawn vehicles a bit higher, since I've seen the occasional messages where it is having to push them up, since I think their saved position can end up right below ground collider level.

3 hours ago, Weazelsun said:

@faatal I noticed in the recent stream, there no longer looks to be random bags of trash on the streets anymore. They look like they have been replaced by card box loot containers instead?

I don't know of any change to that.

[Laz Man]

4 hours ago, Weazelsun said:

@faatal I noticed in the recent stream, there no longer looks to be random bags of trash on the streets anymore. They look like they have been replaced by card box loot containers instead?

 

A couple new trash lootables were added recently to replace redundant ones.

[Gazz]

11 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

 I also noticed that sometimes the zombie AI gets stuck hitting objects when the player is just a few feet away and completely reachable. Do you think this is a bug or is it just some random "destroy mode" behavior? If it is, I suggest turning it off when the player is nearby and can be reached. 

If they do stop to destroy a block once in a while that makes it less easy to cheese the AI with an infinite loop horde base. =P