Jump to content

Alpha 20 Dev Diary


madmole

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Roland said:

At the least it means that cities can become hub-city like  without affecting the overall spawn levels of the rest of the map or even biome that the city is in.

Well the max alive will still come into play.  Some sleepers are loaded.  So either it will balance between low biome spawns or low sleeper spawns.

 

I hope they split the max alives between the two types. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Guppycur said:

Well the max alive will still come into play.  Some sleepers are loaded.  So either it will balance between low biome spawns or low sleeper spawns.

 

I hope they split the max alives between the two types. 

 

I feel your feels... but there are no benefits in cluttering that into 2 variables. POI are extremely fine tunned and balanced for each tiered quest and they have a fixed number of entities. Why would you need a variable that allows for a higher cap to constant spawning in those cases of hard-coded design in which entities are supposed  to be in specific hand picked numbers?

 

Yes, you can say it might be more organic and useful even allowing to create an ARENA-like quest in which you fight different sets of Zds in an encased place for a reward, but even in that case it would be better to script it, period.

 

Why would it be a bad idea?

 

1- Less performance as it would be a new big parameter that can run independently to the previous fine-tunned MaxAlive cap, and can result in useless sleepers spawning for no reason inside and bloating a house while you get more Zds outside too. 

 

2- MaxAlive already gives us the illusion of more Zds by  constantly spawning those 4 Zds in the vicinity (in faatal's example), and Zds outside can eventually path to the inside too.

 

You can already manually position a sleeper volume and I believe you can also tune its respawn rate. I wouldn't ask for more than that .

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I would ask @faatal though, is the ability to change map icons via xml with parameters like fading options and size (both compass and map ones, like all the white ones the player can place and the ones from animal tracker and vehicles and drone, the trader icon, quest makers, plane supply location...etc) and place them all preferably in a new folder ("MapMarkers" maybe? or the already existing ItemIcon folder, who cares as long as it is accessible, right? )

 

Edit: That way it would help us both modders and quasimodders alike to have a way to tweak the map icons easily without using Unity himself.

 

Edited by Blake_ (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Guppycur said:

...so we could have both.  Full sleeper AND full biome spawns. 

Filling all the sleeper volumes with the variable in every hidding spot would be the only use case. Sounds meh to me for performance reasons and will unbalance tiered POIs and should only be used when not questing. I don't disagree to that intention and like you I would like more control over sleeper volumes in the future, but it might be HARD on the system to have lots of sleepers that you can't even see spawn simultaneously.  MaxAlive and your "MaxSleepersAlive" can only do 1 thing, and that would be to check and limit the spawn cap, but contrary to MaxAlive, you can't set whatever limit you like to MaxSleepersAlive or it would overflow the POI if you set it high enough, so I find it even more useless in that case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Guppycur said:

Well the max alive will still come into play.  Some sleepers are loaded.  So either it will balance between low biome spawns or low sleeper spawns.

 

I hope they split the max alives between the two types. 


I don’t think it will be an issue. Not all sleepers are loaded into nearby POIs. Only the closest sleeper volumes within those POIs. In the example that faatal gave of a spawner it was max alive “4” which, from my experience will put around 12 zombies from spawners in the vicinity around you. We could up that max alive number to 8 which would then be around 24 zombies in the chunks around you. 24 zombies spawning around you in the cities is going to feel like a lot and it’s doubtful the number of sleepers in the closest volumes is going to be anywhere near 40 so we could even pick up a few more outside roamers and it still wouldn’t affect the sleeper population inside. 
 

Even if it did and you entered a relatively empty POI it would be because you left all the zombies outside alive and they would be following you inside pretty soon. Depending on the POI that could be a death trap. Should be interesting to test. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Blake, I really don't think you understand; the very argument you're making is exactly my point.

 

Roland, think MP; one person is outside activating the biome spawns but easily avoiding them while the other goes inside a high tiered building that's now NOT going to spawn a lot of zeds; heck isn't that the reason the biome spawns went bye bye the first time?

 

Heck, you can do it in SP.  Because the pois are now basically fortresses except for that well lit correct path, go around, start a horde and go inside.  Old trick, still works.

 

Nothing to do with the XML faatal added, that'll just mean we can control WHAT zeds we can round up. :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Heck, you can do it in SP.  Because the pois are now basically fortresses except for that well lit correct path, go around, start a horde and go inside.  Old trick, still works.

That's a perfectly legit tactics in my book. That's probably what a group of survivors (or you alone if you feel tough) would do to control the kills and clear areas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

That's a perfectly legit tactics in my book. That's probably what a group of survivors (or you alone if you feel tough) would do to control the kills and clear areas.

IF the zeds came out of the pois, I'd 100 percent agree.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Guppycur said:

Blake, I really don't think you understand; the very argument you're making is exactly my point.

 

Roland, think MP; one person is outside activating the biome spawns but easily avoiding them while the other goes inside a high tiered building that's now NOT going to spawn a lot of zeds; heck isn't that the reason the biome spawns went bye bye the first time?

 

Heck, you can do it in SP.  Because the pois are now basically fortresses except for that well lit correct path, go around, start a horde and go inside.  Old trick, still works.

 

Nothing to do with the XML faatal added, that'll just mean we can control WHAT zeds we can round up. :)

 

 

Well so to avoid this in MP put demo zombies inside POI as living traps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We could always ask for a Boolean called GuppyAmount that if =True,  fps instantly drop to 3. I think that would allow for more freedom in controlling our game from the shadows. Then we can add TAA to boost the sharpness of that number to Zero, so we can have more time to take screenshots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're assuming too much, because you still don't understand.

 

If the maxalive is say, 80, then you'd split it to 40 biome and 40 sleeper.  

 

40 plus 40 is *still* 80, so we aren't talking additional zombies, we're just assuring both can spawn without cheesing the other. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Guppycur said:

Roland, think MP; one person is outside activating the biome spawns but easily avoiding them while the other goes inside a high tiered building that's now NOT going to spawn a lot of zeds; heck isn't that the reason the biome spawns went bye bye the first time?


I used to worry about people exploiting limitations. They used to build fires outside the hub cities to develop a large horde and then run into an empty city and I thought the devs had an obligation to prevent stuff like that. 
 

Now, I don’t care. I know that I’m not going to use the limits that way nor would the people I play with. 
 

If they can split the max alive between sleepers and outdoor spawns and that works to stop people from draining sleepers out of POIs then great. But I know for me, I don’t want the POI to be empty so I’m not going to drain it and there could be 40 zombies surrounding the POI and that would still leave space for 24 sleepers to spawn one or two volumes at a time. 
 

Also, faatal recently said he could probably split the AI so that the zombies are more chaotic on horde night but the rest of the time they will be able to navigate POI pathways much better. If he can do that then more of those outside zombies will be coming in after us like they did in A17– which I would love. 
 

And like you, I only care about myself. 😀

Edited by Roland (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

Still no word on Intellect Ranged weapons 

 

From what I recall this is the only thing Int is going to get that is portable with any form of ranged capability that the Int tree affects:

Robotic Turret - Official 7 Days to Die Wiki (fandom.com)

 

Int is supposed to use whatever other random crap they find to supplement those.

Edited by hiemfire (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Roland said:


Pick up and carry around the junk turret. Word. 

While held: Fire rate sucks to start off then ramps up to uncontrolable after just a couple of points invested, can't aim it with sights since that function is bound to placing it, recoil makes a 10 gauge magnum look tame and fires in a cone with a doorway sized radius at 4 blocks out.

 

Using the robotic turret in hand instead of placing it is a massive waste of resources at best, complete suicide on the average.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

nt is supposed to use whatever other random crap they find to supplement those.


We’ve had widespread reports that placing a turret or two and then in concert using whatever other random crap you find is pretty powerful if not outright OP. So yeah, I agree that this is the intended design. There won’t be a rail gun or laser pistol that matches in dps to the tier three ranged weapons of other branches. 

4 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

While held: Fire rate sucks to start off then ramps up to uncontrolable after just a couple of points invested, can't aim it with sights since that function is bound to placing it, recoil makes a 10 gauge magnum look tame and fires in a cone with a doorway sized radius at 4 blocks out.

 

Using the robotic turret in hand instead of placing it is a massive waste of resources at best, complete suicide on the average.


Regardless, it is the intellect ranged weapon. That you can place it for better effect and join in yourself with another ranged weapon for even better effect doesn’t change that. I doubt there will be a better range weapon created for intellect. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Roland said:


We’ve had widespread reports that placing a turret or two and then in concert using whatever other random crap you find is pretty powerful if not outright OP. So yeah, I agree that this is the intended design. There won’t be a rail gun or laser pistol that matches in dps to the tier three ranged weapons of other branches. 

It works good if not cross specced. Once you cross spec is when it ramps up to being "op". Eats allot of resources. At least 3 into M60, Auto shotgun with auto trigger group, or SMG + 2 turrets is really good at chewing through tougher swarms. Sniper rifle/AK/Tac rifle/9mm handgun/Desert Vulture + 1 turret with only the turret specced is decent. Don't bother with rifles + 1 turret before you get a Marksman rifle or higher , the bolt action will get you plowed. As will the magnum revolver. Save doing melee + turret for wide open areas or a kill corridor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Roland said:


Pick up and carry around the junk turret. Word. 

I CAN'T AIM WITH IT!

i can't do a 360 No sco- oh wait i could...

well it still gets boring just hauling that fat Rat

2 hours ago, hiemfire said:

 

From what I recall this is the only thing Int is going to get that is portable with any form of ranged capability that the Int tree affects:

Robotic Turret - Official 7 Days to Die Wiki (fandom.com)

 

Int is supposed to use whatever other random crap they find to supplement those.

Well that should be the point of Intellect range weapons, uses Junk and not used items too much

Darts, nails, Glass, Scrap, Your bullet tips you forgot you made and then some. 
Make them muli tools

Plus the Junk turret is really meant for Support, Yes you COULD uses the Gyro as a 4X4 but thats not the purpose, You COULD uses the Junk sledge as Snowdogs Fun toy but thats not what its ment for! (unless your really lonely)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

I think people are too focused on what Int tree doesn’t have and missing what it does

thats becauases right now we don't have much

its mostly a crafting skill then a Gameplay skill right now

We have Right now is the shock baton, Junk sledge and junk turret... Thats it in terms of weapons

in Alpha 20 we will get the Junk baton and junk drone

We still missing a tier 3 Baton and although its a nitpick. we got no dedicated range weapon class, Like i said Yes you could uses the junk turret as a Run in gun weapon, but the Recoil is Trash and you have to hug the target to uses it. you can't aim with it, And the only uses is a "Stand your ground/defend" weapon. its a Unity tool like the Junk sledge  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Adam the Waster said:

thats becauases right now we don't have much

its mostly a crafting skill then a Gameplay skill right now

We have Right now is the shock baton, Junk sledge and junk turret... Thats it in terms of weapons

in Alpha 20 we will get the Junk baton and junk drone

We still missing a tier 3 Baton and although its a nitpick. we got no dedicated range weapon class, Like i said Yes you could uses the junk turret as a Run in gun weapon, but the Recoil is Trash and you have to hug the target to uses it. you can't aim with it, And the only uses is a "Stand your ground/defend" weapon. its a Unity tool like the Junk sledge  

Honestly  INT is a problematic because food in mid/late can be find easy, so live off the land is not so o. this same problem with top chef. So INT could be underpower or overpower.  welll it is too late to remade this system but in my suggestion how perks should looks would be:  tree with 5 parts :

1. melee combat

2. range combat.

3 body

4. crafting

5  surving 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Honestly  INT is a problematic because food in mid/late can be find easy, so live off the land is not so o. this same problem with top chef. So INT could be underpower or overpower.  welll it is too late to remade this system but in my suggestion how perks should looks would be:  tree with 5 parts :

1. melee combat

2. range combat.

3 body

4. crafting

5  surving 

Thats fortitude with living off the land
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Roland unpinned this topic
  • Roland locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...