Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[dcsobral]

9 hours ago, Blake_ said:

BTW, I noticed that vehicles can hit an invisible wall (usually at top speed,  but happened with bicycle in a 10k map a few times too) and result in stuff like jumping several meters into the air, bouncing off the invisible wall, backflipping, etc. The physics of the invisible wall issue can vary between vehicles and where you hit it at the time.

The vehicle dipped into the ground, or so the game thinks. The "wall" thing is the game trying to get you unstuck. It used to be WAY worse, but it's been a problem since at least alpha 18 (it happened to me while I was flying in a gyrocopter in alpha 18, so it stuck to my mind).

[dcsobral]

4 hours ago, Exxodous said:

Anyone else having an issue with sledge turrets falling through the blocks they are sitting to the ground?  Solid concrete pillars (all the way to the ground) and the next thing I know they are inside the blocks sitting on the ground.  really sucks on horde night when that happens.

Yes. I was about to post -- after I caught up on this thread -- if QA wants a reproduction. I have a solid reproduction for it with a save game backup. Just start horde night, and the sledge falls through a full block.

 

2 hours ago, wolfbain5 said:

@madmolehey man, I thought you said in the previous alpha that we were supposed to start in the forest. so far I have a start in the wasteland and one in the snow biome... Did you change your mind? also. Dire wolves during the day on day 1? is that an intended change? this was snow biome.

What seeds did you use? Also, with what parameters (size, towns, hills, etc)?  Edit: nevermind, I saw "waifu" in a later reply. That's East Yarase Territory, right? I see one spawn point right on the border between forest and snow, but none inside or close to the wasteland. 

[khzmusik]

A request: Can you bring back the A18 smoke plumes for the supply crates? Not only did it make them easier to find (if airdrops aren't marked on the map), but they also looked friggin' cool.

 

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more, but I guess the writing was on the wall for them anyway.

 

EDIT: I don't want to sound ungrateful, so I also want to point out some stuff that really adds to the game that I don't think gets enough love.

 

Obviously RWG. It's so much better, and everyone has said as much, that I don't feel I need to add anything.

 

One of the small things I really like is how the new weather system interacts with the environment. When it rains/storms, the grass and other vegetation sways in the wind. That's very cool, adds a lot to immersion.

 

I also like how you can get the previous tier's quests from a trader, so you don't have to do things like decline the "opening trade routes" quest if you don't want to move to the next quest level.

 

I'm sure I'll come up with more things to like, but those are off the top of my head.

[dcsobral]

2 minutes ago, khzmusik said:

A request: Can you bring back the A18 smoke plumes for the supply crates? Not only did it make them easier to find (if airdrops aren't marked on the map), but they also looked friggin' cool.

 

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more, but I guess the writing was on the wall for them anyway.

They are still there. They disappear once the airdrop hits the ground but re-appear once you get close enough. It does disappear again shortly afterwards, but will re-appear if you move away and then move closer again. I do wish they wouldn't disappear, but I guess it is too much of a performance hit when people don't pick up the airdrops.

 

[khzmusik]

8 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

They are still there. They disappear once the airdrop hits the ground but re-appear once you get close enough. It does disappear again shortly afterwards, but will re-appear if you move away and then move closer again. I do wish they wouldn't disappear, but I guess it is too much of a performance hit when people don't pick up the airdrops.

 

 

I haven't seen that. Maybe it's because I have "mark airdrops" turned on? What I see is just the box itself. I've watched other folks' streams with airdrops turned off (mainly Jawoodle's), and it seems like the "re-appearing" is actually a bug where the smoke plume is active when the chunk loads but is immediately turned off when the code "catches up."

 

Given how few of the airdrops are in the world, I'd be surprised if they caused a performance issue, but I always try to hunt down airdrops, so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered.

[doughphunghus]

16 minutes ago, khzmusik said:

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more,

! didn't know that

[dcsobral]

21 minutes ago, khzmusik said:

 

I haven't seen that. Maybe it's because I have "mark airdrops" turned on? What I see is just the box itself. I've watched other folks' streams with airdrops turned off (mainly Jawoodle's), and it seems like the "re-appearing" is actually a bug where the smoke plume is active when the chunk loads but is immediately turned off when the code "catches up."

 

Given how few of the airdrops are in the world, I'd be surprised if they caused a performance issue, but I always try to hunt down airdrops, so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered.

I'm assuming it is a MP issue. I can easily see it happen on servers that go on for hundreds of days if the players aren't interested in picking them up.

[Blake_]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

You are supposed to start in the forest, but I think there is a bug with it finding or not having a nearby point.

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

 

 

Edit: I've only tested this issue in Single Player.

[MechanicalLens]

3 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

 

 

I can confirm. One of my spawn points in A20 has been 3 meters away from the wasteland, and I got mauled by two zombie dogs within a few moments of spawning in. Haha

[katarynna]

7 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

 

In a game played with my son, where he hosted and generated the map, we definitely spawned in the desert with the forest quite a hike away. That map did not have a forest town or trader though.

 

I didn't do a bug report because when i asked, he had not cleaned all a19 files from his game. He cleaned, we restarted on a new map, and everything was normal. Every map i have generated in a20 has also been normal.

 

I wonder if the people having these spawning issues are not doing a thorough clean of a19? or maybe just coincidence.

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

 

This is an interesting take. The general consensus I've seen is that the game is trending more towards FPS/ action-oriented and away from survival/RPG. The game has definitely has been trending towards guns and heavy looting since I first started playing in A15.

Level grinding and skills are RPG to me. I mean don't get me wrong, when I was young I enjoyed it.

As an old man I just want to jump in and play. I get enough spreadsheets at work. I also like to start fresh maps frequently but it gets to be a chore doing the same old grind over and over to get decent skills.

Granted this game is not as bad as many these days, at least I'm only joking about the spreadsheet for 7D, I can't say the same for some others.

 

Rust is a prime example of a more FPS game that is somewhat comparable. There are no levels, no skills. There's the @%$#ty tech tree, but that's just a matter of getting stuff.

You can use whatever you find just as effectively as the next guy. That's how this game used to be and that was what I liked. There was no min/maxing of a character build or equipment, you used what you found or could make with what you found. And you explored, because the maps while far from perfect were worth exploring. You never knew what you were going to find. Now the biome layouts are all more or less the same, we go from trader to trader and POI to POI and how good a map is can be rated strictly by what POIs it contains or doesn't. The game has lost a lot of its charm.

[Khalagar]

1 hour ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

 

This is an interesting take. The general consensus I've seen is that the game is trending more towards FPS/ action-oriented and away from survival/RPG. The game has definitely has been trending towards guns and heavy looting since I first started playing in A15.

 

Yeah, the game is definitely turning way more into a looter shooter FPS than an RPG, I'm surprised anyone would feel the opposite. The survival stuff goes back and forth between patches, but it usually still feels important to the design, but as seen by the Anti-Intellect Defense Force™ that argues against focused and optimized  builds that focus on one attribute, by saying "just use shotgun on all builds lol" and "game isn't balanced around focusing on one attribute", the RPG side definitely has been falling by the wayside for a while.

 

You can still gimp yourself by roleplaying a narrow focused build, but it doesn't really feel supported / intended / balanced for. Like with your entire stealth build not even working on the most important night of the week or 80% of the intellect tree perks being completely useless compared to just finding schematics / getting rewarded the item outright by traders

[Blake_]

18 minutes ago, katarynna said:

In a game played with my son, where he hosted and generated the map, we definitely spawned in the desert with the forest quite a hike away. That map did not have a forest town or trader though.

 

I didn't do a bug report because when i asked, he had not cleaned all a19 files from his game. He cleaned, we restarted on a new map, and everything was normal. Every map i have generated in a20 has also been normal.

 

I wonder if the people having these spawning issues are not doing a thorough clean of a19? or maybe just coincidence.

I see, that must be Multiplayer then. I've only tested in Single player.

[Callum123456789]

very small thing but paper should have the corrected description to not include blunderbuss ammo 

 

[LostBoy]

Something seems off with the weather.

 

I'm in the Forest, and I'm getting two to three rain sessions each day.

Quite a few storms as well.

 

I've looked at the Biome settings for Forest and it looks like rain 7 and storm 3 should only give a 10% chance of rain.

Seeing a whole lot more than that.

 

Is there a multiplier somewhere for this ?

 

 

 

[Exxodous]

2 hours ago, dcsobral said:

Yes. I was about to post -- after I caught up on this thread -- if QA wants a reproduction. I have a solid reproduction for it with a save game backup. Just start horde night, and the sledge falls through a full block.

 

It doesn't have to be just horde night.  Mine fell through the blocks twice while just working on the base.  Of course it also happened about half way through horde night.  Almost got wrecked.  It's a shame too because I built my base relying on a little help from a couple of them, which is why I spec'd heavy into intellect. 

[Roland]

44 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

Yeah, the game is definitely turning way more into a looter shooter FPS than an RPG, I'm surprised anyone would feel the opposite. 

Depends on when you started playing most likely.  To me, the game is still firmly on the RPG end of the spectrum compared to when I first started. 
 

To someone who started in the last few alphas, some of the changes may seem like a trend towards FPS, but to me it is just a small fluctuation and one that will probably continue until the devs settle on the exact mixture they want for this hybrid genre busting game. 

[Callum123456789]

for me it feels kind of like a looter shooter compared to the older alphas but its mostly rpg based for me too

[wolfbain5]

Waifu, already tested and confirmed. sorry about the caps. definitely solidly in the wastelands. sorry about the confusion
 

[Aldranon]

If they also drop the forge or simplify it any more, then it will be mostly in the Looter/Shoot category.

Now, if I squint my eyes a bit, its still a survival game with Loot-n-Shoot aspects. 

 

As I'm still having fun, the active player numbers are high, so a part 2 is a done deal IMO.  Which is a win for gamers!

[Geoarrge]

On 12/20/2021 at 2:15 AM, Sal said:

So you actually wanna make the game easier? Sorry but I can't get behind that idea at all.  My biggest complaint with the game in the past is that it's been way TOO easy.  Even playing perma. By day 30 your almost invincible regardless of settings. That's what I do like about the new feral system (which I always set to all and have NEVER played with other settings).

Well, no. Not the entire game. Day 1.
I may be getting a distorted impression from one game in which Day 1 RNG was extremely unlucky.  After more games in this alpha I'm starting to see that this was an extremely unusual case.  
On that game I was finding no glue/tape, no ammo for the gun I had, no healing (every med pile had either basic bandages or drugs), and the trader didn't have any meds, ammo, or glue either.  Which made questing in the city seem particularly brutal. 

I still think some fine tuning is warranted for wandering zombies in city areas. In later days when you have decent weapons and plenty of ammo, it's possible to farm them almost indefinitely from a secure perch. 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

3 hours ago, khzmusik said:

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more, but I guess the writing was on the wall for them anyway.

Don't feel too bad.  Their annoying growths will still block building.  You just get grass for punching them out now.

[Laz Man]

3 hours ago, Krougal said:

Level grinding and skills are RPG to me. I mean don't get me wrong, when I was young I enjoyed it.

As an old man I just want to jump in and play. I get enough spreadsheets at work. I also like to start fresh maps frequently but it gets to be a chore doing the same old grind over and over to get decent skills.

Granted this game is not as bad as many these days, at least I'm only joking about the spreadsheet for 7D, I can't say the same for some others.

 

Rust is a prime example of a more FPS game that is somewhat comparable. There are no levels, no skills. There's the @%$#ty tech tree, but that's just a matter of getting stuff.

You can use whatever you find just as effectively as the next guy. That's how this game used to be and that was what I liked. There was no min/maxing of a character build or equipment, you used what you found or could make with what you found. And you explored, because the maps while far from perfect were worth exploring. You never knew what you were going to find. Now the biome layouts are all more or less the same, we go from trader to trader and POI to POI and how good a map is can be rated strictly by what POIs it contains or doesn't. The game has lost a lot of its charm.

 

Can't say I remember a past alpha where exploration was more rewarding / immersive than it is now.  More POIs added/updated  then ever, the tile system more seamlessly connects everything in different configurations.  POis don't repeat within the same towns/cities like in the past.

 

It should only continue to get better. As more POIs and tiles get added.  Keep in mind different variations of each tile type can be made quickly for even more variety. (E.g. downtown_straight_02, 03, 04)

[Callum123456789]

 

both of these poi buttons to open the doors arent opening when i pressed it it turned green nut nothing opened so gonna guess this is a bug?

[Roland]

6 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

both of these poi buttons to open the doors arent opening when i pressed it it turned green nut nothing opened so gonna guess this is a bug?

 

Weird. Two of the doors in my base kept opening and closing for no reason!!!