A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Khalagar said:

 

Good questions as both are issues imo. Stealth builds are just a bad meme because they can't de-aggro zombies

 

Wrong. zombies can be de-aggroed. I did test this when auto-aggro rooms were a huge discussion topic.

 

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and they are useless on the most important night of the week, and like you said, the way the encounter zones works makes them useless too.  I tested suppressors and I cannot find a single benefit to them. You can sit outside the room entrance and just crouch and use an unsilenced hunting rifle to shoot sleeping zombies, and it will only wake them up if you miss a shot and hit a wall or something.  Best I can tell, the suppressor only matters for wandering zombies out in a field, which are by far the least threatening zombies in the game so it's not worth the item slot imo

 

I could be wrong here, but suppressor matters when your distance to zombies is low. Distance is BY FAR the most important variable for waking up zombies, so once you are far enough away you can shoot with an elephant gun and not wake up any zombies. But try to shoot them from say 5 blocks away and you need a suppressor (or a bow)

 

What I often forget is to turn off my helmet light and that breaks stealth as well, even with a silenced pistol

 

 

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For traps, I agree completely too. Any meta build is just "Stand on a roof throwing molotovs and grenades". The only traps I really see used anymore are the shock wire ones to slow zombies to give yourself more time to deal with them. Turrets will blow your entire stockpile of ammo, and blade traps will just break 2 seconds in

 

A cat walk + Explosion Candy + Molotovs and contact grenades = barely any resource expenditure for a horde night

 

That's more an issue with grenades being insanely OP than anything though. I don't even bother perking into explosives, just the candy + base damage is more than enough

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, Khalagar said:

For traps, I agree completely too. Any meta build is just "Stand on a roof throwing molotovs and grenades". The only traps I really see used anymore are the shock wire ones to slow zombies to give yourself more time to deal with them. Turrets will blow your entire stockpile of ammo, and blade traps will just break 2 seconds in

 

A cat walk + Explosion Candy + Molotovs and contact grenades = barely any resource expenditure for a horde night

 

That's more an issue with grenades being insanely OP than anything though. I don't even bother perking into explosives, just the candy + base damage is more than enough

 

Right now I am approaching Day 56 with my current horde base (Survivor difficulty, 64 zombies).  Current setup is electric wire fences (5), dart traps (8), and shotgun turrets (2) defending my base while I am standing behind posts popping heads with a sniper rifle.  Thrown in are barbed wire traps and a sledge turret to slow down / knock down any that get past the shotgun turrets, dart traps, and electric wire fences.  I also got 4 auto turrets on the roof to handle any vultures.  I used molotovs on Day 7 but nothing since then as my base design is preventing the zombies from reaching me.  Usually the only ones that get past my defense are spiders and the occasional dog that I take out with my auto shottie / smg.  And yes, the zombies have a direct path to me, I am not using any designs to make them think they can reach me only to fall off.

 

I haven't figured out how to incorporate blade traps into my base design yet.

 

I do go through about 300 rounds of shotgun shells a BM night, but I haven't had any issues keeping up stock wise.  I got two forges to replace the iron darts between horde nights.  Right now I am seeing radiated zombies (along with all the other variants) but expect to see demolishers soon.  I am also sitting on a munitions crate full of 7.62 ammo.

[Roland]

It would be cool to have a horde night only enemy that was blind but could hear exceptionally well-- like the aliens in A Quiet Place. If you make noise they zero in on you but if you are stealthy then they are easily dispatched. That could give stealthy players an advantage on horde night without negating the entire horde with stealth.

[Maharin]

I'd like a big zombie that would grab other zombies in its way and throw them over your walls.

[Blake_]

12 hours ago, roughgalaxy said:

Got a pair of questions today,

 

1: Is Stealth going to get an update at some point?

• I know having poi triggers for ambushes are important for a good scare, but I also see people with really good stealth loadouts get totally boned by established abmush lines. I've also noticed these same people with a suppressed pistol wake up an entire POI taking one sneak shot. Is that a bug with suppressed pistols? I would think that good stealth skills/gear that you could roll through a POI with a suppressed pistol and wipe out everything Sam Fisher style.

 

2: Are traps going to be getting a rework/any plans for new traps?

• Blade traps take a lot resources to make and maintain, and currently break down really fast compared to the upkeep cost. I think a lot of people would like to see some addition trap options as well such as flamer traps or hammer traps (more to push zombies around than damage). I know many players who complain that they don't get xp from spikes (yes I know this is a problem with the ownership of the object because of its block type) but something like powered spike traps (think of the classic trap where the spikes jut out of the ground when walked on) could be a really fun higher tier to the spikes. Wood > Iron > powered could be an interesting track to follow.

That's all I got for today. Looking forward to seeing some more info on A20.

About the first point I would like to update your question about the update on updating stealth: Can any dev ( @madmole , @Gazz, @faatal, madmole's cat ...etc ) clarify  if Stealth is going to get some perk tweaks/ balanced behaviour  eventually ? (more info below) 

 

I agree that a stealth character should have a proper ambush chance protection when sneaking , but when triggered  the player should be able to lose a Zd easily using just a couple of corners. OP mechanic is good if you have all the perks in stealth like the 100 skill gameplay in Skyrim. 

 

Stealth is a bit broken and in my opinion not shippable. A shippable version should have:

 

1- The same perk benefits per level + a percentage per level to avoid the triggering of an ambush. Top level perk should have like at least an 50% (idk?) chance to avoid ambushes . Maybe top notch lowest chance with gear/books.

 

2- Each perk point point should reduce the "seen therefore I chase you" behaviour of an entity by a certain amount, up to a point in which basically when you make noise and hell breaks lose you just have to hide for like 5 seconds and they stop chasing you. Animals have this by default, but Zombies and Npcs should disengage eventually and increasingly soon (Yeah, even Zds ; except Horde Night)  if the player is perked enough.

 

Right now, using a stealth character makes me cringe and sob and cry while eating nachos. And I tried it more than a couple of times. Inside big POIs the nightmare can be real. Once they see you they won't unsee you.

[pregnable]

Is there anyway we can extra time to loot meat off of animals, before they despawn?

 

I saw a mountain lion, and I could use some extra meat, so I decided to kill it at my melee base.  Start fighting it, np... then a wondering horde shows up.  This happened the last time I was trying to kill a mountain lion by my base as well. 

 

Does a single mountain lion summon a wondering horde?  heh

 

Anyway I kill it, then finish off the horde... and notice the mountain lion had despawned... super annoying.  Especially because I am playing on insane/nightmare/64/horde every night.

 

It did not even take that long for me to kill the zombies.  Not even going to bother with mountain lions again until I have gear to kill them instantly.  Huge waste of time, heh.

[Jost Amman]

No, that's perfect as it is IMO. You have to make a choice there... do you exclusively focus on the horde, or will you try to harvest the dead mountain lion while fighting them?

Choices, consequences. I often found myself in the same situation, and while fighting I "circle back" () often to harvest a bit each time.

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Once they see you they won't unsee you.

Wrong. It just doesn't work reliably. So if you ran and hid and some zombie still sees you you have to do it again. You can increase your chances greatly if you throw a small stone back into the general direction of the zombies after hiding.

 

[Blake_]

38 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Wrong. It just doesn't work reliably. So if you ran and hid and some zombie still sees you you have to do it again. You can increase your chances greatly if you throw a small stone back into the general direction of the zombies after hiding.

 

That is correct (both of your statements). They do disengage in a wonky way if you happen to be both skilled and lucky. Yet as you noted,  that behaviour needs to be well done, solid, balanced and reliable even in crazy situations. Right now is wonky (more so if they run, in that case I should call it useless ) and it just makes you feel like stealth is doing absolutely nothing VS your ability to run for your life without it. 

[meganoth]

12 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

That is correct (both of your statements). They do disengage in a wonky way if you happen to be both skilled and lucky. Yet as you noted,  that behaviour needs to be well done, solid, balanced and reliable even in crazy situations. Right now is wonky (more so if they run, in that case I should call it useless ) and it just makes you feel like stealth is doing absolutely nothing VS your ability to run for your life without it. 

I can't say anthing about the situation when they don't run as I did test it only with a high level character WITH running zombies.

In the weapon factory though, so lots of space to get a decent lead before you try to restealth. I can imagine it getting dicy if you are doing this in a labyrinth of small corridors and rooms.

 

 

 

 

[pregnable]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

No, that's perfect as it is IMO. You have to make a choice there... do you exclusively focus on the horde, or will you try to harvest the dead mountain lion while fighting them?

Choices, consequences. I often found myself in the same situation, and while fighting I "circle back" () often to harvest a bit each time.

 

I mean, not really much of an option... there were like 10 or more of them and it is set to insane/always nightmare run speed. 

 

They were dead within a few real life minutes, and I guess the corpse just despawned right before I got to it. 

 

I mean, if they are going to spawn a horde every time and despawn almost instantly, I will just ignore them for now.  Not worth the stamina drain. 

[Reckis]

22 hours ago, roughgalaxy said:

1: Is Stealth going to get an update at some point?

• I know having poi triggers for ambushes are important for a good scare, but I also see people with really good stealth loadouts get totally boned by established abmush lines. I've also noticed these same people with a suppressed pistol wake up an entire POI taking one sneak shot. Is that a bug with suppressed pistols? I would think that good stealth skills/gear that you could roll through a POI with a suppressed pistol and wipe out everything Sam Fisher style.

Or how about the the fact that no matter what your stealth ability, if you make more than the tiniest bit of noise (i.e, clearing the floor trash that seems to be in front of EVERY door and at the top of EVERY stair landing) every zombie in 5 block radius zeroes in on the building you are in?

[Jost Amman]

3 hours ago, pregnable said:

I mean, not really much of an option... there were like 10 or more of them and it is set to insane/always nightmare run speed. 

I'll be blunt: the game is not balanced on that difficulty level... so that's still your choice and if you can't find a way to skin the animal before it despawns at that level, well, too bad, not the game's problem. 

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Reckis said:

Or how about the the fact that no matter what your stealth ability, if you make more than the tiniest bit of noise (i.e, clearing the floor trash that seems to be in front of EVERY door and at the top of EVERY stair landing) every zombie in 5 block radius zeroes in on the building you are in?

 

Are you "clearing" the trash by walking through it or something? What you describe has not been my experience. When I am crouched and I destroy a trash pile it does not attract anything. If I walk through it then I get what you are describing.

[hiemfire]

48 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Are you "clearing" the trash by walking through it or something? What you describe has not been my experience. When I am crouched and I destroy a trash pile it does not attract anything. If I walk through it then I get what you are describing.

It isn't something that consistently happens, but I have breaking trash while sneaking wake up an entire room (breaking them from an adjacent room helps reduce this for now till/if they alter the sound origination mechanic to have it come from what it broken/hit instead of the player). I've also had it wake up someone 3 rooms away while the ones in the room I'm in didn't flinch. Then there is the occasional wanderer on the other side of the building next door that has super hearing... Not a big deal during the day, but at night it is a little more than annoying.

Edited February 26, 2021 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Roland]

56 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

hen there is the occasional wanderer on the other side of the building next door that has super hearing... Not a big deal during the day, but at night it is a little more than annoying.

This I definitely experience. It's like the ones outside know you are inside, are offended by that, and come exactly to where you are. lol

[Khalagar]

On 2/25/2021 at 12:36 PM, meganoth said:

 

Wrong. zombies can be de-aggroed. I did test this when auto-aggro rooms were a huge discussion topic.

 

They can de-aggro, kind of. But it's WAY more based on distance than it is your stealth skills. If you just put 900 blocks between you and the zombie, yeah they will finally stop chasing you, but it's not reliable or even usable really. It's easier to just get them stuck on a janky piece of furniture than to escape via stealth (without just sprinting away)

 

  

40 minutes ago, Roland said:

This I definitely experience. It's like the ones outside know you are inside, are offended by that, and come exactly to where you are. lol

 

 

It's ALWAYS the lumberjack zombie that hears me and will tear through 400 concrete walls to find me in the middle of the shotgun messiah

Edited February 26, 2021 by Khalagar (see edit history)

[Roland]

8 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

They can de-aggro, kind of. But it's WAY more based on distance than it is your stealth skills. If you just put 900 blocks between you and the zombie, yeah they will finally stop chasing you, but it's not reliable or even usable really. It's easier to just get them stuck on a janky piece of furniture than to escape via stealth (without just sprinting away)

 

I tested this a lot during the huge Stealth Gate thread and it is completely about stealth-- but you do have to have the perks. One of the stealth perks causes them to forget about you faster. Even when not fully perked out I was able to move 2-3 rooms away and wait 2-3 minutes and then could return in stealth. Even if some of the zombies were still aggroed and pounding on walls, I could throw a rock and they would go to it. THAT is the litmus test because if they remember you and are focused on you then they won't go for the thrown rock.  I never had to run even 19 blocks away let alone 900...

 

On Day 1 you will likely not lose the zombies by running to another room and hiding. Their memory is too long and you are probably doing T1 and T2 POIs so there isn't anywhere to go. But you COULD perch up high and surround yourself with blocks so you could remain out of their sight long enough for the default forget timer to run down. Then throw a rock. Crouch and shoot arrows and you will get the stealth bonus because you will be back in stealth again.

[wolfbain5]

I am actually hoping they just fix the trees in stealth. in a party with my wife, I am in the attic, she is 2 km away, she chops down a baby pine tree, and my stealth meter goes to 100? that is just wrong

[hiemfire]

2 hours ago, wolfbain5 said:

I am actually hoping they just fix the trees in stealth. in a party with my wife, I am in the attic, she is 2 km away, she chops down a baby pine tree, and my stealth meter goes to 100? that is just wrong

Knee jerk first suspicion is the game is having any player generated noise emit from all players in the group or maybe from the game host (I've run into similar, not just with trees either, and I usually host our games).

 

Has she experienced the reverse, a noise generated by you causing a observability spike for her?

[pregnable]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I'll be blunt: the game is not balanced on that difficulty level... so that's still your choice and if you can't find a way to skin the animal before it despawns at that level, well, too bad, not the game's problem. 

 

I do not disagree.  The game should not be balanced around the mode I am playing, heh. 

 

The despawn time on the mountain lions corpse seemed very short though, and both times a horde was summoned while I was fighting it. 

 

In this same version of the game, I am pretty sure I have seen a wolf corpse laying around for over half a day without despawning. 

 

In this case, I was fighting a mountain lion, then a horde was summoned.  I actually did not even kill the mountain lion until half of the horde was killed, and somehow it despawned before I could get to its body.  I doubt it was any more than an in game default hour. 

 

Something just does not seem right about how fast it despawned, and it died far away enough that none of the zombies should have destroyed the body.  Pretty sure it was still there when I was killing the last zombie. 

 

I am just not going to bother with mountain lions until I can 1 shot them or have better gear to kill them.  They are a massive waste of time and stamina atm for me.  Plus they only give like 25 meat.  Garbage. 

[hiemfire]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

(A) I tested this a lot during the huge Stealth Gate thread and it is completely about stealth-- but you do have to have the perks.) (B) One of the stealth perks causes them to forget about you faster. (C) Even when not fully perked out I was able to move 2-3 rooms away and wait 2-3 minutes and then could return in stealth. Even if some of the zombies were still aggroed and pounding on walls, I could throw a rock and they would go to it. THAT is the litmus test because if they remember you and are focused on you then they won't go for the thrown rock.  I never had to run even 19 blocks away let alone 900...

 

A. They still need to find a better way to handle attack volumes than they have. It makes any investment in stealth really pointless (oh hey I get a base 350% bonus to my bow and crossbow sneak damage, even more if I've invested multiple levels into it, that does absolutely @%$#ing nothing with no @%$#ing warning😠 ). No I've not changed my mind on this, I am not going to, and the "bring an "x" for back up" crowd needs to realize that this game's rng is worse than a super grind MMO (and it doesn't have a non-rng dependent crafting option currently for most of it unlike most of those MMOs, the Traders are also rng dependent so no they aren't a workaround) that seems to get even worse per item as you spend points into perk that boost what you want to play. 

 

B. From the Shadows.

 

C. At night, when observability is at its lowest baseline, in a smaller Tier 3 or 4 poi? Meganoth's and Jugginator's tests were in the Shamway Factory and the Shotgun Messiah Factory which have a huge amount of space available to fall back into away from the larger spawn clusters (no attack volumes that I've found though other than possibly the final room in the Shamway where the courier keeps stashing the damn satchel by the vault door to the loot tower for some reason. How the @%$# are they able to get up there, stash it, and get out without clearing the place or dying?). Not as much space available in the smaller pois unless you want to risk quest failing by bailing out of the building...

[Roland]

15 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

 

A. They still need to find a better way to handle attack volumes than they have. It makes any investment in stealth really pointless

2020 is over. I’m not going to rehash this.  I respect your passion even if I don’t fully agree with your stance. But no more arguments from me. 😀

[Jost Amman]

4 hours ago, pregnable said:

The despawn time on the mountain lions corpse seemed very short though, and both times a horde was summoned while I was fighting it

Then I suggest, if you can make this happen again, to open the console and check there.

I think there should be a log of why/how the spawns happen (but that's @Blake_ expertise TBH).

[meganoth]

13 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

They can de-aggro, kind of. But it's WAY more based on distance than it is your stealth skills. If you just put 900 blocks between you and the zombie, yeah they will finally stop chasing you, but it's not reliable or even usable really. It's easier to just get them stuck on a janky piece of furniture than to escape via stealth (without just sprinting away)

 

  

 

 

It's ALWAYS the lumberjack zombie that hears me and will tear through 400 concrete walls to find me in the middle of the shotgun messiah

 

If you run for 900 blocks, then yes, it is because of distance, and yes, that is practically unusable. But then you are obviously not using stealth at all.

 

That does not invalidate that others simply run a much smaller distance and disengage with stealth. (Sorry, yes, this is a get gud comment, from someone who shouldn't because he died 4 times on day 1 in a newly started game because he couldn't adjust to reliably fight with a lvl1 club. Don't ask).

 

12 hours ago, wolfbain5 said:

I am actually hoping they just fix the trees in stealth. in a party with my wife, I am in the attic, she is 2 km away, she chops down a baby pine tree, and my stealth meter goes to 100? that is just wrong

 

The game seems to have a lot of strange failure modes. I never have observed this in my MP games. Do you use mods? If not you might create a bug report

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)