Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[meilodasreh]

@Khyron thx for the effort. Not really what I meant though (or I just don't understand the new system at all)

Still unsure what type of ammo an explosive arrow is, or what is increasing its damage.

Is it a "bow-ammunition" and therefore damage will increase with perk/skill/book/whatever into bows,

or is it considered an explosive, and so damage increases with perk/skill/book/whatever into "demolitions" (insert correct name here)

Will I be able to craft higher tier explosive arrows when I find archery skill books, or explosives skill books?

Or is it even separated? Arrow damage for the direct hit, and explosive damage for the splash/arial damage.

Do I have to spec/skill/perk/whatever in both "professions" if I want to max that out, or is this specialized/bound to only one of them.

 

[Kenni]

Всем привет. Может кто-нибудь подскажет, есть ли у разработчиков планы сделать так, чтобы трупы зомби дольше лежали на земле и не исчезали так быстро? Раньше, если не ошибаюсь, из них даже можно было извлекать тухлое мясо и их тела действительно пригодились. Теперь они исчезают очень быстро и очень неприятно. Кто-нибудь может сказать мне, есть ли какой-нибудь мод для зомби, чтобы хотя бы полежать на земле несколько минут?

[Aldranon]

3 minutes ago, Kenni said:

Всем привет. Может кто-нибудь подскажет, есть ли у разработчиков планы сделать так, чтобы трупы зомби дольше лежали на земле и не исчезали так быстро? Раньше, если не ошибаюсь, из них даже можно было извлекать тухлое мясо и их тела действительно пригодились. Теперь они исчезают очень быстро и очень неприятно. Кто-нибудь может сказать мне, есть ли какой-нибудь мод для зомби, чтобы хотя бы полежать на земле несколько минут?

 

I think the rapid disappearing dead zombies are a part of "Game Optimization."  Also, you can't harvest rotten meat from them anymore.

My wife can read Russian so blame her if I misunderstood you. 

[Riamus]

40 minutes ago, DocRussel said:

I haven't heard any, partly because bandits and factions are the end game storyline, so I don't see a way around them for gold.

 

But maybe gold will include a different game mode that doesn't use the storyline and it could be played similar to how the game is now, completely open ended.

Yeah, but I also have a strong suspicion that the story will only be in pregen maps and not random maps because unless they are forcing certain things to appear in random maps to make the story progress, then you don't really know what will be there and where it will be located and so a story may not work well.  Besides, I'm sure that any story will not make any sense in an overhaul mod.  And any story will only really be interesting the first or second time through and afterwards will most likely be ignored by people, so having an option to not do "story mode" would be valuable, imo. 

[Khyron]

1 hour ago, meilodasreh said:

@Khyron thx for the effort. Not really what I meant though (or I just don't understand the new system at all)

Still unsure what type of ammo an explosive arrow is, or what is increasing its damage.

Is it a "bow-ammunition" and therefore damage will increase with perk/skill/book/whatever into bows,

or is it considered an explosive, and so damage increases with perk/skill/book/whatever into "demolitions" (insert correct name here)

Will I be able to craft higher tier explosive arrows when I find archery skill books, or explosives skill books?

Or is it even separated? Arrow damage for the direct hit, and explosive damage for the splash/arial damage.

Do I have to spec/skill/perk/whatever in both "professions" if I want to max that out, or is this specialized/bound to only one of them.

 

Exploding Arrows and Exploding Crossbow Bolts gain damage solely from the Archery perks, and NOT from Demolition Expert.

 

There are no 'tiers' to arrows, only bows. There are different materials arrows are crafted out (Stone, Iron Steel) and the two 'special' arrows Flaming and Explosive. The damage done by those arrows is dependent upon your currently equipped bow and archery skill. Reading skill books will let you craft higher tier bows but the arrows will always be the same. If you've read 100 archery skill books you'll still make the same stone arrows as if you've never read any; only the bows themselves improve by reading the archery books. If you want to do more damage you will never have to re-craft your arrows, just craft a stronger bow or put perk points into archery.

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Khyron (see edit history)

[mstdv inc]

55 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Yeah, but I also have a strong suspicion that the story will only be in pregen maps and not random maps because unless they are forcing certain things to appear in random maps to make the story progress, then you don't really know what will be there and where it will be located and so a story may not work well. Besides, I'm sure that any story will not make any sense in an overhaul mod. And any story will only really be interesting the first or second time through and afterwards will most likely be ignored by people, so having an option to not do "story mode" would be valuable, imo.

The story will only be on Navezgane.Pregen cards are ordinary RWG cards for those who for some reason cannot generate a card for themselves.Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Riamus]

8 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

The story will only be on Navezgane.Pregen cards are ordinary RWG cards for those who for some reason cannot generate a card for themselves.Correct me if I'm wrong.

That is my assumption, that they story is not for RWG and so allowing for no bandits in RWG should make sense as an option.  Just my opinion, of course.

 

But to say that pregen is only for those who can't make their own RWG map.... People play the pregen maps to experience Navesgane and the custom crafted maps that are made to look more realistic than RWG will make them.  I certainly don't mind the pregen maps that are included with the game but I need more variety than the same three (?) maps over and over again.

[mstdv inc]

24 minutes ago, Riamus said:

That is my assumption, that they story is not for RWG and so allowing for no bandits in RWG should make sense as an option. Just my opinion, of course.

 

But to say that pregen is only for those who can't make their own RWG map.... People play the pregen maps to experience Navesgane and the custom crafted maps that are made to look more realistic than RWG will make them. I certainly don't mind the pregen maps that are included with the game but I need more variety than the same three (?) maps over and over again.

Navezgane is a manually created map,Pregen is a map created using RWG.I don't understand why you put them in the same row.
How can I get the Navezgane experience by playing on the RWG map?These are different things.If you play Pregen, you play RWG.
Only Navezgane is similar to the real terrain because it is made by hand.That's why I asked one day if we would get more manually created maps like Navezgane.Because Pregen = RWG.Pregen not custom crafted maps

[unholyjoe]

as stated by mstdv... Navezgane is a manually created map by the design team and all cities and pois are placed in selected areas and made to try to make some variety. no rwg genning or codes are used for Navezgane.

 

the landscapes (hills mtns, streams, lakes and roads are all placed in selected areas).

 

PreGens are created by the QA team as many as possible and at 6,8 and 10k and then they are scoured for bad areas, missing towers bad roads and anything else that is deemed as missing or not right.

 

the best single 6,8 and 10k map is chosen and placed into the game for stable play.

 

Navezgane is for story play later. PreGens are for those who want something different from Navezgane or for those who cant or dont want to gen their own maps.

 

so Nav is all created and pregen follows RWG rules using the mixer.

[faatal]

18 hours ago, beerfly said:

Will @Kinyajuu be in the stream tonight, btw ? Love his work on Random World Generation and can`t wait if he could share more about what and how he is doing 🍿

Dev Stream 4 will be Robert, Steve, Me and Lathan in that order.

 

Robert plans on showing a lot of RWG.

3 hours ago, Riamus said:

I know we're still looking towards A21 and bandits are not in there but I was wondering if there is any talk of having bandits optional as a setting when creating a new game or when creating a new map?  I am very interested in seeing the bandits in the game but the game, for me, is a zombie game and I enjoy the game because of that being the focus.  Once you are fighting regular people, then it starts to become too much like other games.  I have a feeling I'll want to play the game without bandits at least once in a while and would rather not have to install an older version to do so.  I'm not saying adding bandits is bad; I'm only saying that I think I'll enjoy playing without them in the game sometimes.

Maybe, but we are a ways off from making that determination. In any case, mods could remove them from spawning.

2 hours ago, Riamus said:

Yeah, but I also have a strong suspicion that the story will only be in pregen maps and not random maps because unless they are forcing certain things to appear in random maps to make the story progress, then you don't really know what will be there and where it will be located and so a story may not work well.  Besides, I'm sure that any story will not make any sense in an overhaul mod.  And any story will only really be interesting the first or second time through and afterwards will most likely be ignored by people, so having an option to not do "story mode" would be valuable, imo. 

We could make the story work in RWG by simply spawning what we need at various places.

[Jost Amman]

@faatal : good luck for tonight's dev stream, I know it's hard from programmers to stand out! 

 

Spoiler

 

[mstdv inc]

5 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

@faatal : good luck for tonight's dev stream, I know it's hard from programmers to stand out!

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

programmers be like

Spoiler

 

 

[sillls]

I wanted to ask, did TFP's take out some of the music in the game?

If so, do they plan to put it back in?

Some songs like the area around the players sleeping bag and some other songs seem to be missing. 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

Navezgane is a manually created map,Pregen is a map created using RWG.I don't understand why you put them in the same row.
How can I get the Navezgane experience by playing on the RWG map?These are different things.If you play Pregen, you play RWG.
Only Navezgane is similar to the real terrain because it is made by hand.That's why I asked one day if we would get more manually created maps like Navezgane.Because Pregen = RWG.Pregen not custom crafted maps

Ok, I had thought Navesgane was placed on a pregen map.  If that isn't the case, then that was an error on my part.  I know pregen are RWG, but that doesn't mean you cannot manually add towns and POI to it while leaving the rest generated.  I had thought all of the pregen maps had manually added content.  I'm sorry if I was wrong about Navesgane and other content being placed by hand on a pregen map.

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

@faatal : good luck for tonight's dev stream, I know it's hard from programmers to stand out! 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Once those typing fingers get going watch out!!! 😎

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Space4Ace]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

@faatal : good luck for tonight's dev stream, I know it's hard from programmers to stand out! 

 

  Hide contents

 

Are you kidding? The Programmers are at the heart of the game, pumping blood in all areas. They are the unsung heroes! Praise the progs!!!

[Jost Amman]

6 hours ago, Space4Ace said:

Are you kidding? The Programmers are at the heart of the game, pumping blood in all areas. They are the unsung heroes! Praise the progs!!!

I know, I wasn't saying that... I'm saying that you can't have beautiful pictures and videos to show how you optimized the game to get +3.5 FPS on the main thread... 

[Riamus]

After watching dev stream #4, is it possible to disable the blood mist when running over the zombies?  It just doesn't look at all like a blood mist and honestly looks really bad, so I would prefer to disable that.  I think it is the shade of red that makes it look bad but either way, it isn't something I'd like to have on.  I don't mind any of the other blood stuff that I saw, but that one when running over zombies isn't good.

 

Blood shades in general could use some work.  The blood puddle that was shown in that same part of the stream looked far closer to a puddle of ketchup than blood.  But I can live with that.  I'd just really like not to have the mist effect.

 

One other thing that was disappointing to me when running over zombies is that they lost all their fun ragdoll effects.  The only part that was actually fun to see was driving through the group of 25.  But everything else was just kind of boring compared to what we have now.  Now, I can end up knocking a zombie up and over my vehicle or it can end up riding on the hood for a while or I can get knocked up onto 2 wheels with the 4x4 and so on.  I can basically send them flying in all kinds of fun ways.  But now, they were all basically falling to the ground when hit.  Not much fun anymore.  Unless that was just bad luck with the randomness of the hits as you can have zombies fall and get run over now as well.  Hopefully that is all it was and there will still be fun ragdoll stuff with zombies sent flying and riding the hood or bumper like we have now.  Any confirmation of that would be great.

 

As far as everything else in the stream, it is looking really good.  I'm kind of disappointed there wasn't any update on when we'll get experimental, though.  But I am not too surprised either.  Dismemberment looks really good and fun.  Tearing down buildings looks much better as well as the explosions of blocks.  Swimming improvements are really great, though I'm not sure I like sinking if out of stamina as it's just really frustrating to be in water if you can't stay at the surface.  Besides, it isn't like you need stamina to float on your back IRL and even though there isn't an option to float on your back, just being able to stay at the surface would really be preferred.  Even so, it's much improved and I'm happy about that.  The zombie eating dead animal thing might be interesting at times, though I'm not sure I really care much about that as it feels a bit gimmicky.

 

One thought that came up regarding the RWG previewer is whether or not there might be an option at some point to have that preview saved to disk so that when you are creating a new game and select a world that has already been generated you can have the option of seeing the preview.  It can be a pain figuring out which world you want if you don't remember the names and have many worlds generated.  Even with existing saves, it would be useful.  Though for existing saves, it might be better if such a preview required clicking a button or something so you have to choose to see the entire map during an existing game rather than seeing it automatically in case you don't want to see where everything is.  Not a big deal but was just something I thought of because of it being shown on the stream.

[beerfly]

Thanks guys for another dose of hype.

 

RWG looks greater, the new preview tool is really cool.

Disassemble mechanics are really cool, can't wait to try them with a melee build. 

 

Take your time for what's needed for release, looks fantastic. 

 

[Doomofman]

Was that the final dev stream? The end of the stream made it sound like we're still a good few weeks away from exp

[Zombiepoptard]

In the gore dismemberment section of the stream I noticed a lot of emersion breaking with what weapon was chopping of limbs. Hammers and shotguns were severing  heads clean off. I don’t want the head to fly off the neck. I want it to be blow up when I shoot my shotgun point blank. Same with hammers.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Zombiepoptard (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

Still feeling like vehicles take way too much damage from nearly everything. Hoping this gets tuned better, or we at least get some vehicle armor plating mods to increase durability. Terrain tool improvements look nice, as do the swimming improvements. Zombies eating animal corpses, also a neat little flavour addition. Wondering if animals might also eat animal corpses?

 

All in all though, this dev stream felt kinda.. meh. Too much time spent playing with the dismemberment changes and collapsing buildings.

 

Still, looking forward to playing A21 when it eventually comes out later this year.

35 minutes ago, Zombiepoptard said:

In the gore dismemberment section of the stream I noticed a lot of immersion breaking with what weapon was chopping of limbs. Hammers and shotguns were severing  heads clean off. I don’t want the head to fly off the neck. I want it to be blow up when I shoot my shotgun point blank. Same with hammers.

 

Arrows/bolts currently do this as well. I just find it entertaining.

[Diragor]

I got a Question to the Vehicle damage. When it's broken (on 0%) what happens when I or a zombie hit it. Would it explode because of low health? Because damn it takes a lot of damage compared to earlier alphas so protecting them becomes important

[Aldranon]

I'm thinking just skip the 4WD vehicle and wait for a MRAP type of vehicle that should cost a lot of stuff but would be more robust if you hit something.

I'm sure it's coming... still waiting on the airship, however.  

[Jost Amman]

Very good job done to the programmers there! 

It would have been cool if you also talked a bit about what optimizations you have done... like, stuff you can't "see" by showing it in the game.