Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Guppycur]

Type LE in the console to find out. 

[Lord Morphleyes]

Anyone else notice glitches in the loot stage calculation in multi player?

My wife is level 36 and I am 40. She has Lucky Looter 3 and looter glasses +5. 

 

It looks like there is some bleed over occasionally where I get a loot stage bonus from her.  At one Forest Biome Tier1 (2?)  POI she and I both had a lootstage of 66. So far it has only led to an increase in my lootstage and perhaps an increase in hers ( I will have to keep closer attention) 

 

I can look deeper into it and get video and logs and witness testimony if need be, but just checking to see if its already a known issue or working as intended. 

[Quantum Blue]

4 hours ago, Doomofman said:

In today's episode of "Where has my gyrocopter been teleported to when I start the game?"

 

Madmole explained a couple years back that vehicle tracking is separate from player tracking.  Depending on various variables it can take a few seconds and up to a minutes for it to 'catch up'.  This can be a big deal if you backup/copy game files outside of the game without exiting.  (Especially after just traveling with one.)  If you didn't travel far, you can try as Guppycur noted above and use LE in console.  If you traveled a 'great' distance you can try going back to where you last were with the vehicle.  (or last couple of places...)

[Doomofman]

6 minutes ago, Quantum Blue said:

 

Madmole explained a couple years back that vehicle tracking is separate from player tracking.  Depending on various variables it can take a few seconds and up to a minutes for it to 'catch up'.  This can be a big deal if you backup/copy game files outside of the game without exiting.  (Especially after just traveling with one.)  If you didn't travel far, you can try as Guppycur noted above and use LE in console.  If you traveled a 'great' distance you can try going back to where you last were with the vehicle.  (or last couple of places...)

 

I was able to retrieve it no problem, is was inside the POI. It's just a recurring issue with A20 with I think every vehicle at this stage? It was the first time it teleported to somewhere indoors 

[dcsobral]

54 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

I was able to retrieve it no problem, is was inside the POI. It's just a recurring issue with A20 with I think every vehicle at this stage? It was the first time it teleported to somewhere indoors 

FWIW, I haven't experienced any such issue while playing SP. There's evidently a lot of people with this issue, though. I've also seen people report vehicles _drifting_ by themselves and vehicles being dragged away by moving zombies or animals. The one issue I do have with vehicles is when they allegedly dip into the terrain and have to be pushed back, which stops them and makes them lose momentum.

 

The one issue I do have (with non-player entities like vehicles) often is turrets falling through blocks. The only thing I haven't seen them fall through is terrain.

 

I've a friend whose drone keeps getting duplicated. He suspects it might be due to a mod that increases the motorcycle speed. And I saw someone else report that every time they pick up & deploy the drone it loses durability. That one is extra weird.

 

And, of course, we must not forget the chicken and rabbit sliders.

 

Overall, it hasn't been a good alpha for entities.

 

[Mahnogard]

In one of my saves, my bike was stalking me. The first time it happened, I got off my bike next to my drop box across the street from the trader, saw some zombies nearby and went to kill them. I was almost a block away and when I turned around my bike was right behind me. It was kinda creepy. LOL Another time I was killing a zombie and saw my bike just sort of slide past me. After that I just made a habit of picking it up. Already got zombies, don't need possessed bicycles.  

[pregnable]

I would not mind seeing living off the land rank 3 changed to where you get a seed 100% of the time, but reduced food harvest, so that it works about to about the same thing. 

 

The main reason is that the RNG makes it so that I have to remember the number of farms I have, and craft that amount of seeds extra every time, which can also get confusing when crafting constant farms, or switching plants. 

 

I find that when I am playing in multiplayer, my partner is rushing me while I am wasting a bunch of time crafting seeds and counting my farms. 

 

Not a huge deal, but if i get 100% seeds back, then I can think about it less and play more. 

 

If it says the same though, you should probably remove the clay requirement for making mushroom seeds.  Made sense before, but now it is just kinda annoying.  Gotta keep an extra inventory slot filled with clay when farming them. 

[Dahay]

This seems to be a problem. SI issue.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2710516593

 

I do not know how to post screenshots, so I hope this works.  You can copy paste this I believe.

I created this structure that is one wood block on the bottom.  It is 16 wood blocks wide on the top.  The few missing blocks in the center would cause the structure to fail.

I went as far out on the top as I could.  That's 11 blocks out I believe.  There was nothing stopping me from going higher.  In case the screenshot doesn't work This

structure is one wood block at the bottom.  22 wood blocks high. 16 wood blocks wide. extends out at the top 11 wood blocks.  Yes it all sits on one wood block at the bottom.

[Jost Amman]

Hi everyone. I had a rough go with COVID during the holidays, so I couldn't find the energy/inspiration to play A20 stable until a few days ago, when I got back full strength.

 

Just wanted to congratulate TFP @madmole, @faatal @Kinyajuu and the QA Team (sorry, but I don't know every TFP account) for the great new alpha version you've come up with! The game is fun, the graphics (at least for me) are very pretty even on my average system, and performance (SP) is great.

 

Please keep ironing out the few remaining bugs/glitches, and I'm sure we players will play A20.x with great fun for months!

That, IMO, will also give you more time and less pressure from the community to push out A21 (lol).

 

[Gazz]

On 1/5/2022 at 12:49 PM, Aero said:

Here are the 3 screenshots I uploaded earlier.

 

The first 2 are showing the popping in and out of different PIO's.

The 3rd shows a part of a PIO that stays in the same place.

In both cases you can walk trough the wrong parts.

 

That's an imposter (distant POI) mesh needing an update.

There will be a batch run to update all of them for the next release.

(I did a manual update on some city tile for the server I play on)

[Morloc]

A thing of beauty...

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

 

[Games'n'Grumble]

Hello @faatal!  I am interested in your opinion about the possibility or impossibility of drawing up a common navigation path for zombies? At least in POIs. Of course, this method of orientation is used on pre-modeled and indestructible terrain, but after all, the tile system and POI in a sense are small pre-modeled locations. And where the paths are broken (destroyed or built up), the "classic" method of path finding can already be included.
However, it is possible that I am talking some nonsense 😅

[Red Eagle LXIX]

I'm enjoying A20 quite a bit, but one thing is really bugging me (even more than distant meshes not removing placed items as they get removed).

Stealth.

Virtually all the new POIs have danger close spawns.  Some are so bad they don't spawn till you are in the room and then do it right in front of you.

All are willing to spawn even though you have already made sure the area was clear (which is bulldung IMHO).

This makes it so one has to cheese to use stealth.  By cheese, I mean doing things like where the player is supposed to drop into a room, instead build a set of stairs down far enough you can descend in stealthily triggering the spawn without them spawning right next to you and instant waking.  It is weak sauce that break immersion but not as weak sauce as dropping into a room with a closed door and nothing in the room then getting jacked by 2 zombies that spawned in as you were falling into the room.  This is with full points in stealth and all stealth gear.

 

It is annoying to use a cheese built stairway, go down 2 blocks and WATCH zombies magically appear.  7 Days To Magic?

 

Stealth has no value on horde night and the only way to use it effectively outside horde night is to use cheese tactics (build stairs, break walls).  Honestly feel it could be removed as a skill and just everyone the same basic level since it wasting points on it is not worthwhile.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Red Eagle LXIX (see edit history)

[hiemfire]

8 minutes ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

I'm enjoying A20 quite a bit, but one thing is really bugging me (even more than distant meshes not removing placed items as they get removed).

Stealth.

Virtually all the new POIs have danger close spawns.  Some are so bad they don't spawn till you are in the room and then do it right in front of you.

All are willing to spawn even though you have already made sure the area was clear (which is bulldung IMHO).

This makes it so one has to cheese to use stealth.  By cheese, I mean doing things like where the player is supposed to drop into a room, instead build a set of stairs down far enough you can descend in stealthily triggering the spawn without them spawning right next to you and instant waking.  It is weak sauce that break immersion but not as weak sauce as dropping into a room with a closed door and nothing in the room then getting jacked by 2 zombies that spawned in as you were falling into the room.  This is with full points in stealth and all stealth gear.

 

It is annoying to use a cheese built stairway, go down 2 blocks and WATCH zombies magically appear.  7 Days To Magic?

 

Stealth has no value on horde night and the only way to use it effectively outside horde night is to use cheese tactics (build stairs, break walls).  Honestly feel it could be removed as a skill and just everyone the same basic level since it wasting points on it is not worthwhile.

 

 

 

Sneaking is probably going to get even worse with the clothing/character overhaul they have/had planned for A21 before they address how the changes/additions in A20 affected it.

[Guppycur]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

 

Sneaking is probably going to get even worse with the clothing/character overhaul they have/had planned for A21 before they address how the changes/additions in A20 affected it.

Whaaaaatttt....

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

It is annoying to use a cheese built stairway, go down 2 blocks and WATCH zombies magically appear.  7 Days To Magic?

I think that part could be addressed by the POI designer (at least partially).

But if you could decide a change, how would you handle "surprise spawns"? Any ideas?

[Dahay]

This shouldn't work  but  it does .   

[PoloPoPo]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

But if you could decide a change, how would you handle "surprise spawns"? Any ideas?

"Surprise spawns" right nearby the player only inside closets or above the ceiling, therefore those spawns don't magically appear in front of the player's eyes but are rather hidden and one would not know whether the zombies have been waiting there forever or just spawned.

  

2 hours ago, hiemfire said:

 

Sneaking is probably going to get even worse with the clothing/character overhaul they have/had planned for A21 before they address how the changes/additions in A20 affected it.

In A19 it was possible to clear an entire room with a sneaky approach. You could have killed a zombie with a bow / crossbow and another zombie standing right next to it would not wake up. Now the first bow / crossbow kill always wakes up the remaining zombies of that same group.

[Jost Amman]

26 minutes ago, PoloPoPo said:

"Surprise spawns" right nearby the player only inside closets or above the ceiling, therefore those spawns don't magically appear in front of the player's eyes but are rather hidden and one would not know whether the zombies have been waiting there forever or just spawned.

Ok, that would cover small number spawns in rooms.

 

But what about those areas in POIs where the designer wants you to be, basically, ambushed?

Those are often bigger areas (like a warehouse or a big room) where you can't really hide the spawns from view.

[Syphon583]

13 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Ok, that would cover small number spawns in rooms.

 

But what about those areas in POIs where the designer wants you to be, basically, ambushed?

Those are often bigger areas (like a warehouse or a big room) where you can't really hide the spawns from view.

If it's the desire by the designers to have "ambush rooms" then those rooms need to be designed in a way where zombie spawns are hidden. That can be done by cleverly-placed objects or a wall/ceiling that breaks. If zombies are popping out of thin air, it kinda breaks the immersion.

 

Honestly, I've never experienced anything like this prior to A20. I'm not sure what changed, but stealth definitely feels broken. They should either find a way to fix it or remove stealth as a mechanic. These are two separate issues, though. Zombie surprise spawns should be fixed.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Syphon583
Added clarification (see edit history)

[Red Eagle LXIX]

2 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I think that part could be addressed by the POI designer (at least partially).

But if you could decide a change, how would you handle "surprise spawns"? Any ideas?

Increase the sleeper volume sizes such that at least any area the designer expects the user to come from is covered and causes the spawn before they enter the area.  Some examples:  In the old west towns there is often saloon with 2 sleeper closets at the top of the stairs.  you can "open" those sleeper closets and see nothing in them from downstairs.  That should either mark those volumes cleared, or have already spawned the sleepers when I walked in the door to the saloon.  However, it does not, and the spawn don't occur till you are at the top of the stairs with an off-angle view that can't really look into the closets.  Solution is more cheese, go up the stair rails so you can watch them spawn as you go reach the top.

Another example, I have to walk through a second floor room into another second floor room, then drop back down to the first floor (as the designed path of the POI.  The sleeper volume for the room I drop into should be at least as tall and wide enough to spawn the sleepers before I can look down the broken hole and see nothing in the room.  If I look in the room and see nothing, then nothing should be there when I land.  I should not have to lower myself by 2 full meters before the spawn occur.

1 hour ago, Syphon583 said:

If it's the desire by the designers to have "ambush rooms" then those rooms need to be designed in a way where zombie spawns are hidden. That can be done by cleverly-placed objects or a wall/ceiling that breaks. If zombies are popping out of thin air, it kinda breaks the immersion.

 

Honestly, I've never experienced anything like this prior to A20. I'm not sure what changed, but stealth definitely feels broken. They should either find a way to fix it or remove stealth as a mechanic. These are two separate issues, though. Zombie surprise spawns should be fixed.

Exactly.  I find the ceiling droppers more acceptable then looking and seeing an empty space until I cross an invisible line.

 

EDIT: and just to be clear I am only speaking when following the intended path of the POI.  I find it acceptable not following the path to see such events.  They should not be visible though following the correct/designed path.
 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Red Eagle LXIX
Clarification that I only find issue when following the designed path of the POI and seeing such magic zombies. (see edit history)

[faatal]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:39 AM, HeLLKnight said:

Awesome analysis Blake_! I've just confirmed how 100 zeds stop eating fps after disabling shadows (in a plain without trees or buildings), vs shadows lowest quality.

 

Hope they find a way to create simpler shadows for zeds and trees, at least in low and medium quality shadows settings. It's sad how I saw a +3000h big 7d2d streamer with a beefy PC prefered to completely disable shadows to keep performance, showing people a terrible ugly version of the game.

 

Did you analyzed other settings like object quality? I did a little testing here: 

Yesterday I tested 100 zeds and various shadow settings and did not see that much difference on an RTX 2070. I do have Unity's gfx jobs enabled, which may have some effect on that even though FPS generally seems the same with it enabled. I moved the gfx jobs change into the project, so it will be on in a20.1.

 

Object quality setting matters more than it used to, since we have more block models, which cause more draw calls.

 

One of our new programmers is researching trees.

On 1/4/2022 at 11:58 PM, mle_ii said:

Likely already part of the bug ticket, but just in case it's not.  I've found a scenario where building down, even to ground has a little bit of a different SI issue.  I posted this in our discord where folks were running into SI issues and I took a bit of a look to see if there was a workaround.  The one issue I saw reported elsewhere is replacing the lowest blocks.  This other scenario was around building down rather than up and SI not being recalculated correctly.

I fixed it today. Fix will be in 20.1.

5 hours ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

Hello @faatal!  I am interested in your opinion about the possibility or impossibility of drawing up a common navigation path for zombies? At least in POIs. Of course, this method of orientation is used on pre-modeled and indestructible terrain, but after all, the tile system and POI in a sense are small pre-modeled locations. And where the paths are broken (destroyed or built up), the "classic" method of path finding can already be included.
However, it is possible that I am talking some nonsense 😅

I don't want canned pathing, if that is what you mean by common. The AI should react dynamically to whatever block combination is presented to them and make a reasonable job getting to you. Bandits, once in, will do the same.

[faatal]

2 hours ago, PoloPoPo said:

"Surprise spawns" right nearby the player only inside closets or above the ceiling, therefore those spawns don't magically appear in front of the player's eyes but are rather hidden and one would not know whether the zombies have been waiting there forever or just spawned.

  

In A19 it was possible to clear an entire room with a sneaky approach. You could have killed a zombie with a bow / crossbow and another zombie standing right next to it would not wake up. Now the first bow / crossbow kill always wakes up the remaining zombies of that same group.

Not in my testing. If I was in stealth and quiet enough, nearby zombies did not wake. Distance from zed being a big factor.

[dcsobral]

4 hours ago, Dahay said:

This shouldn't work  but  it does .   

Why not? You realize the blocks below also provide support for the blocks above, right?

[Demonoid74]

Just have to say , I always play 1 game since I started in Alpha 7...play it for certain amount of time and then stop till the next alpha...to keep from burning out before release...

The time I spend in the game has steadily been increasing as the alphas advance...first I used to play up till day 38-42 or so , then by Alpha 16 was up to playing till day 92...

 

Now with Alpha 20...I am playing 2 different games with different builds...one at home and one on my computer at my gf's house...

 

Always playing the Fortitude , Punching everything to death as my main game of course! up to day 62(still no crucible but I have 3 beakers now! lol)

 

Just started playing an Agility build at her house this week and up to day 21...using knives , the stealth and parkour perks...definitely interesting and plays different then punching everything and breaking out the M60 in emergencies

Aside from minor hitching occasionally while looting etc , haven't had any serious issues and the only problem I came across was in my main game traveling the snow , was a POI path that was crossing thru a river and it was like Moses Parting the Red Sea and water was on both sides of the path , with the path dipping down and continuing right thru it...(don't have the screenshot on this PC)

Edited January 7, 2022 by Demonoid74 (see edit history)