Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Matt115]

6 hours ago, The Gronk said:

I'll let you into a secret.  Every AI you have played against has had its abilities crippled to make you feel better.  Players have an easier time losing to another player than an unfettered AI.  Some of the main advantages are listed below, allowing the AI to fully use any of these will instantly lead to screams of "unfair" and "implayable" by the players.

 

Perfect aim : An AI can work out exactly where to aim with a simple matrix rotation, in unity that even has a little helper-function.  Depending on the system the programmer may have to randomize the aiming point a little before the shot to give the player a chance.

 

Perfect radar : The AI does not perceive the game world as you do, it knows where everything is and its weaknesses.  If you think wall-hacks are cheating please be aware that to the AI the walls simply don't exist.

 

Perfect pathfinding : It takes time for a player to memorize the routes on a map, for the AI all routes are known and the default is to choose the shortest route regardless of how obvious it is or whether it can even be seen from where they are.

 

There are more but these should give an example of why we cripple AI for the players, programmers are only human and we like to win every now and again as well.

Yep this hard to  do good. 

I'm playing now in DL2 and a lot of zombies you can easy kill using just sittng on elevetor

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

@TFP: can you remove (or make optional) the unrealistic night "ambient sounds" please?

 

I'm talking about the one that sounds like someone flushed the water in the toilet and similar ones.

I'm asking this because currently they can't be disabled, and it's very difficult to hear the zombie steps and do stealth at night when those sounds play.

I think this is a reasonable request, and it's IMO something that has been long overdue. 

 

Thanks for listening! 

Jost... damn... but this is point of this in my opinon. Ofc this is not THIEF so it simpler but i will use L4D2 and DL2 as example what i mean. In both games zombie do stupid things - hitting doors, walking radomly etc. So this voices have perfect sense  for setting - one zombie just kick a random glass bottle, another one will go on glass etc. Well it would be too hard and.... a little bit pointless  to implement even in not voxel game. 

So make optional - ok.

Remove - bad.

Btw a lot of people complaing about footsteps in cod. How it could be solved? by adding bombs sounds etc so nobody would hear footsteps XD

 

[Jost Amman]

10 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Jost... damn... but this is point of this in my opinon. Ofc this is not THIEF so it simpler but i will use L4D2 and DL2 as example what i mean. In both games zombie do stupid things - hitting doors, walking radomly etc. So this voices have perfect sense  for setting - one zombie just kick a random glass bottle, another one will go on glass etc. Well it would be too hard and.... a little bit pointless  to implement even in not voxel game. 

So make optional - ok.

Remove - bad.

Btw a lot of people complaing about footsteps in cod. How it could be solved? by adding bombs sounds etc so nobody would hear footsteps XD

I'm not talking about that... read again.

The ones who got it know what I was talking about.  

[Matt115]

8 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I'm not talking about that... read again.

The ones who got it know what I was talking about.  

I read and i still think you mean randoms sounds in ambient right?

[The Gronk]

35 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Yep this hard to  do good. 

I'm playing now in DL2 and a lot of zombies you can easy kill using just sittng on elevetor

 

This _isn't_ hard to do well it's hard to make the AI do badly enough that it seems your expertise with a firearm and superior tactics are the deciding factor, they're not, that's my point. 

 

You found an exploit, well done, people have just as many exploitable behaviours.  If you gave the zombies a gun each with unfettered aiming I'm sure your lovely little hidey-hole would be of little use as a well aimed barrage of shots hit your head every time you popped up for a shot.  You have a distinct advantage with a gun and you've already decided your best chance of survival is to run away and hit them from where they cannot hit you back.

Edited February 14, 2022 by The Gronk (see edit history)

[Matt115]

Just now, The Gronk said:

This _isn't_ hard to do well it's hard to make the AI do badly enough that it seems your expertise with a firearm and superior tactics are the deciding factor, they're not, that's my point. 

 

You found an exploit, well done, people have just as many exploitable behaviours. 

Nope.  First random thing - granades. It is so hard to implement granades for npc - that can spam them or do it radomly on their own legs (stalker XD) . Or bots in L4D2 can't use melee weapons because... i don;t remember. i agree that npc can heave perfect accuracy but sometimes mean nothing - guy with rocket launcher can shot in wall and hurt his mens by accident  or he can use rocket laucher as shotgun etc so this is so hard to make good. 

About exploits : this is another reason how hard is to make this good. Well in DL1 it was much less exploits and some of them weren't even exploit - you could kill goon zombie just throwing knifes at him. In DL2  you can tons of them - i know they wanted to do balance  volatines to avoid to be too much agresive but they make them just... dogs on a leash

[The Gronk]

57 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Nope.  First random thing - granades. It is so hard to implement granades for npc - that can spam them or do it radomly on their own legs (stalker XD) . Or bots in L4D2 can't use melee weapons because... i don;t remember. i agree that npc can heave perfect accuracy but sometimes mean nothing - guy with rocket launcher can shot in wall and hurt his mens by accident  or he can use rocket laucher as shotgun etc so this is so hard to make good. 

About exploits : this is another reason how hard is to make this good. Well in DL1 it was much less exploits and some of them weren't even exploit - you could kill goon zombie just throwing knifes at him. In DL2  you can tons of them - i know they wanted to do balance  volatines to avoid to be too much agresive but they make them just... dogs on a leash

Grenades are a parabola until they come into contact with a surface, from there it's pretty simple newtonian physics to determine where they land.  There are plenty of examples where games give you an indication of grenade trajectory before you release it and that calculation is the basis for the AI to aim.

 

The bad guys are often intentionally bad at aiming grenades because nothing annoys players more than when they think they're in cover and a grenade bounces off the wall behind them and lands at their feet.

 

The fact that you seem to think the AI is unintenionally missing indicates that the programmers have got the AI right to make it enjoyable instead of the player being killed in seconds by ricochet's and splash damage.

 

Many people here will have a cold shiver down their spine when I remind them of the horror that was the sniper jackals in halo 2.

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by The Gronk (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

6 hours ago, Matt115 said:

I read and i still think you mean randoms sounds in ambient right?

Quote

I'm talking about the one that sounds like someone flushed the water in the toilet and similar ones.

 

[Matt115]

11 hours ago, The Gronk said:

Grenades are a parabola until they come into contact with a surface, from there it's pretty simple newtonian physics to determine where they land.  There are plenty of examples where games give you an indication of grenade trajectory before you release it and that calculation is the basis for the AI to aim.

 

The bad guys are often intentionally bad at aiming grenades because nothing annoys players more than when they think they're in cover and a grenade bounces off the wall behind them and lands at their feet.

 

The fact that you seem to think the AI is unintenionally missing indicates that the programmers have got the AI right to make it enjoyable instead of the player being killed in seconds by ricochet's and splash damage.

 

Many people here will have a cold shiver down their spine when I remind them of the horror that was the sniper jackals in halo 2.

 

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Yeah , but in stalker something is still something bad because ... offten can npc throw in walls or use granade when enemy is 1 m far from them XD.

 

Well idk about halo 2- it is not popular in poland but in sniper elite in the hightest difficulty soldiers with bolt action rifle could be sometimes pain XD or crusader knights in painkiller ( guy who shot to you and is protected with shield in same time)

5 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

 

Yep so i what i mean - this is good because this sounds like something happens nearby. it is not perfect but still better that random screams etc

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

Yep so i what i mean - this is good because this sounds like something happens nearby. it is not perfect but still better that random screams etc

I don't know how you can say it's good... I mean, it's night, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you hear some kind of water flushing noise from a toilet! 

That's so immersion breaking... and on top of that, is very loud, so if you're sneaking around at night you won't hear @%$# while that sound is playing.

 

Anyway, problem solved by using the Ms.

I won't be able to report bugs anymore, but hey, you can't have everything, I guess. 

[Matt115]

42 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I don't know how you can say it's good... I mean, it's night, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you hear some kind of water flushing noise from a toilet! 

That's so immersion breaking... and on top of that, is very loud, so if you're sneaking around at night you won't hear @%$# while that sound is playing.

 

Anyway, problem solved by using the Ms.

I won't be able to report bugs anymore, but hey, you can't have everything, I guess. 

Well if it is city - well let say water pipe is broken somewhere but in forest well i can agree with you XD

@ TFP could you guys show us A21 roadmap in this week please? 

[Irushian]

I also absolutely detest (not a strong enough word but will do..) that ambient sound/music crap and wish there was a way outside of a mod to get rid of them.

 

I turn off music because I don't want it playing, that includes that immersive breaking intrusive track that plays. It doesn't add tension or anything positive so for the love of all that is holy, allow us to turn it off, please..

[Red Eagle LXIX]

I'll pile on the ambient sound bandwagon again.

I've said it for years the ambient tracks have too many sounds that are not ambience in a post apocalyptic world.  Many "ambient sounds" are music bits or sounds that would only occur in a world with other living and breathing to which those sounds should lead or be removed.  Many of the sounds should only be playing if they have an actual source. 

Those sounds and music in the ambient sound track have been a long-standing complaint from many.  Ambient sounds should only be the generic noises you would normally hear at night in the environment.  It is truly a shame those NON-ambient sounds and tunes are mixed in because it means the whole of the ambient sounds is damaged by them.  Further as mentioned many times music even short little tunes should not be in the ambient track at all unless the ambient track was for a concert hall and the concert equipment was still running.

It is truly a shame that the environmental ambient sounds which I would like to be able to hear  have to be disabled because of the sounds that also play which should not be occurring as part of an ambient track.

I try each version to put the ambient track on, but by day 3 I have had it with noises that do not belong and it ends up disabled.

It is the reason I have played with Music and Ambient sounds disabled for years with this game. 

 

There have even been suggestions in the past to make the ambient sounds that do not belong part of a madness track and make that start to play more often as you fail to interact with people or maintain proper health (such as a madness or loneliness buff).  This would be nice and better than the always occurring ambient sounds that should not exist without a traceable source.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Red Eagle LXIX (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

5 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I don't know how you can say it's good... I mean, it's night, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you hear some kind of water flushing noise from a toilet! 

That's so immersion breaking... and on top of that, is very loud, so if you're sneaking around at night you won't hear @%$# while that sound is playing.

 

Well we do have construction workers in the game.  Are you sure they haven't setup a porta potty somewhere close by to you?  😉

[Matt115]

3 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Well we do have construction workers in the game.  Are you sure they haven't setup a porta potty somewhere close by to you?  😉

Damn i think it can be trader! you know i think they use toilet before going to sleep😅

[Demonoid74]

If anyone remember the Gamecube Game Eternal Darkness...that had THE BEST insanity side effects out of any game EVER...the higher your insanity got the more weird things and strange situations would start happening...strange noises , parts of the UI changing or moving around on you...even things like you controlling your character , walking thru a doorway(old Resident Evil style) moving to a new hallway or room still controlling your character to suddenly having a huge monster decapitate you...then suddenly....you were back in that room before the door , seemingly fine but panicked and out of breath...

 

But , yeah as much as something like that would be awesome here....I just don't see it coming to this game!

 

 

[Matt115]

4 minutes ago, Demonoid74 said:

If anyone remember the Gamecube Game Eternal Darkness...that had THE BEST insanity side effects out of any game EVER...the higher your insanity got the more weird things and strange situations would start happening...strange noises , parts of the UI changing or moving around on you...even things like you controlling your character , walking thru a doorway(old Resident Evil style) moving to a new hallway or room still controlling your character to suddenly having a huge monster decapitate you...then suddenly....you were back in that room before the door , seemingly fine but panicked and out of breath...

 

But , yeah as much as something like that would be awesome here....I just don't see it coming to this game!

 

 

Honestly i don't see this came to any modern game- too much of work to make this efect and...  i think a lot of people will be annoyed so it will not sell well. Rly good games just.. don't manage to sold good enough but were unique - citizen kabuto , cryostasis,  rayman 3 ( if leaks about that are true) - so a lot of rly good games are just forgotten. I think eternal champions could be even better that MK 

[II Blittz II]

Just wanted to say that, A20 looks absolutely beautiful. TFP are killing it.

[Demonoid74]

6 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Honestly i don't see this came to any modern game- too much of work to make this efect and...  i think a lot of people will be annoyed so it will not sell well. Rly good games just.. don't manage to sold good enough but were unique - citizen kabuto , cryostasis,  rayman 3 ( if leaks about that are true) - so a lot of rly good games are just forgotten. I think eternal champions could be even better that MK 

 

Hey someone else that agrees with me there...Eternal Champions , especially the Sega CD version...was WAY better then Mortal Kombat...Hell I still fire that Game up and play it occasionally...so many ways to die in that game lol

[NukemDed]

whats with all the moaning about ambient sounds? i turned it off so long ago i forget how to do it. surely you can figure that out 

[Matt115]

4 hours ago, Demonoid74 said:

 

Hey someone else that agrees with me there...Eternal Champions , especially the Sega CD version...was WAY better then Mortal Kombat...Hell I still fire that Game up and play it occasionally...so many ways to die in that game lol

Yep, well i  hear someone was trying to make remake but sega blocked this project

[Jost Amman]

Can't file a bug report since I'm using a sound mod... but I just wanted to let you know that A20.2 has some serious "disappearing trees" issue right now...

 

This one was taken looking in one direction:

Spoiler

 

And this one was taken by just looking a few degrees to the left (same spot, all trees on the right have disappeared):

Spoiler

 

Second example, this is the first screenshot:

Spoiler

 

This is the second screenshot, just a few steps forward (notice how the two trees left and right disappear):

Spoiler

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[faatal]

On 2/13/2022 at 7:51 AM, Naz said:

@faatal I noticed in my a20.0 tests that the 4 core affinity trick no longer has the same huge gain seen in previous alphas and that without it applied the results are where i'd expect with it applied. I also took a look at the list threads command and see the game now only spawns up to 6 threads instead of all cpu threads available. This is a god send for users with many core cpu's that don't want to mess around with applying affinity themselves. I had a couple questions regarding it out of curiosity.

1.Why 6 threads instead of 4? my initial tests using a extremely high vert and tris prefab to stress the cpu as much as possible showed a huge loss bellow 4 and every new thread above 4 showed a small but constant loss in performance, that got worse the more threads were available. The difference in performance between 4 and 6 threads is very insignificant so it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but i'm curious if there was a specific reason to go with 6.

 

2. Will any of those threads be run on a virtual core or does it somehow only utilise physical cores? I've found that hyperthreading/amd's smt doesn't help and pretty much always results in a loss in performance when used by the game. I know as an example Cyperpunk 2077 scans your hardware to determine how to handle it and if you have 12 or more physical cores it won't use virtual cores at all, but will use them on cpu's with fewer. Cyberpunk may always be considered a bit of a train wreck but i was very impressed with how well the game scales in performance in cpu's it will happily use all 16 cores on my cpu and performance does scale. Obviously i'm not expecting the same feat from 7dtd they're 2 completely different kind of games and developers with very different resources.

Appling 4 core affinity in a20.0 does yield some gain, but it's worth noting that i've targeted those 4 physical cores to the fastest cores on the cpu which will be the majority of the gain.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

There was nothing changed that I am aware of. We are using a newer version of Unity in a20 than a19, so beyond that, I don't know.

[Matt115]

45 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Can't file a bug report since I'm using a sound mod... but I just wanted to let you know that A20.2 has some serious "disappearing trees" issue right now...

 

This one was taken looking in one direction:

  Hide contents

 

And this one was taken by just looking a few degrees to the left (same spot, all trees on the right have disappeared):

  Hide contents

 

Second example, this is the first screenshot:

  Hide contents

 

This is the second screenshot, just a few steps forward (notice how the two trees left and right disappear):

  Hide contents

 

I have this same bugs too

[Adam the Waster]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:34 AM, Aldranon said:

So the story now is:

-Players cheesed the game with the zombie drop hallways. 

-TFP counter cheesed the cheesy bases with rage mode.

-Now players are mad that they've been out cheesed.

 

The new super cheesy solution (beside just turning BM off, because that would be too easy??) is to make your base a zombie drop floater (using sheets).

 

Yup, sounds fun to me!

that is why when i Played

i just survived in my base. No side base, no trap...

just me, my base, my Pew pew or bow, and Lots of meth 

[Callum123456789]

5 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Can't file a bug report since I'm using a sound mod... but I just wanted to let you know that A20.2 has some serious "disappearing trees" issue right now...

 

This one was taken looking in one direction:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

And this one was taken by just looking a few degrees to the left (same spot, all trees on the right have disappeared):

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Second example, this is the first screenshot:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

This is the second screenshot, just a few steps forward (notice how the two trees left and right disappear):

  Reveal hidden contents

 

same here im more than sure its a bug with occlusion that was never fully fixed but compared to a19 from 20 its definitely less common for me at least  and i got a gtx 1050ti not that i dont think that matters but i could be wrong