Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Old Crow]

4 hours ago, faatal said:

Oh, it will blow up, it just does not do it at 0 health. There is extra negative health and after that it becomes a random chance on each hit.

 

Nope, don't like this. Don't want to have to lose items and rebuild a vehicle due to bad luck. Vehicle damage is already going to be too high in A21, with no sign of vehicle armor mods to reduce that.

[hiemfire]

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Guys, FYI, I posted on Steam a short summary of the last Dev Stream.

If you notice anything that is not accurate (or even simply wrong!), please feel free to correct me, and I will fix it, thanks.  

 

"Dismembered limbs sometimes have "giggling" effects on the mutilated part."

 

🤔 Severed legs giggle like a kid that hid someone's shoes instead of jiggle like jello???

[Old Crow]

7 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

 

"Dismembered limbs sometimes have "giggling" effects on the mutilated part."

 

🤔 Severed legs giggle like a kid that hid someone's shoes instead of jiggle like jello???

 

Dude if severed limbs giggled I would be creeped the hell out.

[Jost Amman]

15 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

 

"Dismembered limbs sometimes have "giggling" effects on the mutilated part."

 

🤔 Severed legs giggle like a kid that hid someone's shoes instead of jiggle like jello???

Typo! Thanks for pointing that out, lol

[Doomofman]

I cant remember if I asked this previous but don't suppose @faatal or one of the other programmers managed to fix the issue with zombies lower-halves disappearing below the surface when they die?

[Blake_]

Hi @faatal ! loved the stream. Sick moves on the dance and song btw. I noticed that Lathan's fps didn't drop on the city, it was a demanding but very stable experience (crazy "exploding blocks" testing aside).

 

One of the things I wanted to ask.... now that you have AI throttling, will you increase the blood moon entity limit for a21? 64 is nice, I don't know if you guys talked about it. I believe CPUs can handle a bit more in the very close future though. Current top of the line rigs are doing 200+ screamer battles without much of a slideshow.

 

The not so good part (be aware, I know Robert did many other things in this alpha, but RWG.....): @Kinyajuu work on RWG was not a huge hit for me, due to most of the features (like preview quality options and biome sliders) already being in a20.6/.7 (except for better POI sorting and better road smoothing). 

More on the art side, RWG is also EXTREMELY lacking in stamps, like cracks, lakes, rivers, etc. The single river stamp is awful, without an organic point of origin/end and there is a huge lack of variety in terrain features governed by those options (always the same crater, canyon, lake, river...etc)

 

The terrain tool is just the best thing that happened to this game ever. Will we ever see randomly generated "cave stamps" aside from just "cave POIs" ,I wonder? 

All in all, the programmer stream is always a blast to see. A bit technical, but their features are solid and always make the game better.

[pyro557]

Now that its possbile to attack through the holes in doors i would love to see special doors that have openable slots on them that you can close or open as the door owner or ally to enhance defendability of doors(sorry if this is a thing already havent looks) but i think being able to have a door that you can defend from behind without windows would be awesome and for balancing you could make shots throw that open slot slightly less efffective or however you guys see fit or even limit what kind of weapons cant hit through it for example stabbing s pear through that small slot would work better than trying to swing an axe at something through it.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Old Crow said:

 

Nope, don't like this. Don't want to have to lose items and rebuild a vehicle due to bad luck. Vehicle damage is already going to be too high in A21, with no sign of vehicle armor mods to reduce that.

If it helps at all I’ve never been close to having any of the vehicles blow up. It’s just too easy to repair them long before the risk occurs. I guess if you forgot or never noticed it could happen but as soon as you started seeing smoke you could just quickly repair. It’s practically instantaneous to do. None of us are going to play like we saw them do in the stream and so the damage builds up quite a bit slower. 

[Old Crow]

2 minutes ago, Roland said:

If it helps at all I’ve never been close to having any of the vehicles blow up. It’s just too easy to repair them long before the risk occurs. I guess if you forgot or never noticed it could happen but as soon as you started seeing smoke you could just quickly repair. It’s practically instantaneous to do. None of us are going to play like we saw them do in the stream and so the damage builds up quite a bit slower. 

 

I certainly hope so. I just don't see the reason to set the amount of damage taken that high to begin with.

[bdubyah]

I'd imagine it's so vehicles dont make you feel as invincible as they do now. Yes you can take some damage but it usually isn't a lot and I've played for a while with the same vehicle and you never have to repair them unless you go out of your way to damage them. As it stands in a20 and before, vehicles may as well not have health as it never comes into play. That means some changes are needed. And they have talked about vehicle damage changing for a while now. Good to see it finally happening. 

[Old Crow]

44 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

I'd imagine it's so vehicles dont make you feel as invincible as they do now. Yes you can take some damage but it usually isn't a lot and I've played for a while with the same vehicle and you never have to repair them unless you go out of your way to damage them. As it stands in a20 and before, vehicles may as well not have health as it never comes into play. That means some changes are needed. And they have talked about vehicle damage changing for a while now. Good to see it finally happening. 

 

I don't know if I'd agree that it was "needed" per se. A happy medium would be okay though. At the very least I could do without the random chance of "guess what, your stuff's gone and you have to build a new minibike now" once it reaches 0. I guess we'll see how it feels once we get A21.

 

Question though - I do love your vehicle mod pack. Will you be changing the vehicle damage on yours? And if so, would it based on the vehicle type?

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, bdubyah said:

I'd imagine it's so vehicles dont make you feel as invincible as they do now. Yes you can take some damage but it usually isn't a lot and I've played for a while with the same vehicle and you never have to repair them unless you go out of your way to damage them. As it stands in a20 and before, vehicles may as well not have health as it never comes into play. That means some changes are needed. And they have talked about vehicle damage changing for a while now. Good to see it finally happening. 

I agree that damage was too low before.  You never had to repair unless you went crazy.  But now it seems like I'll repair every day or two.  I don't use roads except when necessary and I'll plow through the wasteland.  I'll break through wood fences that are in the way.  I'll mow down zombies for fun.  This doesn't even take into account running into stuff by accident like rocks hidden by trees and since I'm always at full speed, this means tons of damage.  Setting damage to around 5% per hit as maximum would work best, imo.  20% max per hit as it looks like it's rather excessive.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

29 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I agree that damage was too low before.  You never had to repair unless you went crazy.  But now it seems like I'll repair every day or two.  I don't use roads except when necessary and I'll plow through the wasteland.  I'll break through wood fences that are in the way.  I'll mow down zombies for fun.  This doesn't even take into account running into stuff by accident like rocks hidden by trees and since I'm always at full speed, this means tons of damage.  Setting damage to around 5% per hour as maximum would work best, imo.  20% max per hit as it looks like it's rather excessive.

And that is exactly what they are trying to stop. Lol. You don't see a problem with being able to do that? You brought up realism earlier, well, how many fences could your car run through before the radiator gets smashed and your engine overheats and kills itself? There needs to be consequences. And I'm sure they exaggerated it a bit for the stream. I'm sure they will make adjustments if they feel it is needed. 

 

1 hour ago, Old Crow said:

Question though - I do love your vehicle mod pack. Will you be changing the vehicle damage on yours? And if so, would it based on the vehicle type?

I'll just have to see how they do it. If it is adjustable I'll likely have the bigger vehicles be much more resistant to damage. 

[Riamus]

3 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

And that is exactly what they are trying to stop. Lol. You don't see a problem with being able to do that? You brought up realism earlier, well, how many fences could your car run through before the radiator gets smashed and your engine overheats and kills itself? There needs to be consequences. And I'm sure they exaggerated it a bit for the stream. I'm sure they will make adjustments if they feel it is needed. 

And the question is... why?  What is wrong with driving where you want instead of staying on roads?  Does it in any way whatsoever hurt anyone if someone does that?  In what way does preventing it help anyone?  Does it have to be realistic?  No.  Should it be realistic?  No.  This isn't a sim.  It isn't a racing game where damage is an important part of the game.  This is a game where the focus isn't on driving but on killing things, questing, building, etc.  As such, forcing people to drive a certain way isn't of any value.  I'd be very interested in seeing an explanation of how this is actually valuable.  And that doesn't mean saying that it prevents you from driving all over the place or that it's more realistic because neither of those things actually offer any value.  They don't improve the game in a way that increases playability or enjoyment.  Is anyone complaining that they can drive wherever they want?  Or that they are upset that they don't have to repair their vehicle constantly?  Yes, as I said, the damage was too low.  You rarely had to do any repairs.  That needed to change and I supported that when it was first announced.  I still think it should be higher than A20 levels.  But at 20% per max speed hit (I saw about 18% in the stream, so I'm guessing 20% is the max value and they just weren't at max speed or the right angle or whatever), it is far too high.  I would have considered just adjusting the values if it was just damage but with the destruction element also added, I'll just end up removing it altogether.

[Space4Ace]

10 hours ago, JamesKirk said:

Damn....you're right. But some people fell for it.

Sorry Lathan, shame on me.

No big deal. I'm so used to it, I also call him Nathan by mistake in chat. Fun times!

9 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

but feel free to test it when a21 experimental drops for yourself... and then come back with your findings.

 

oh and make sure your doctor is on alert status.

But with Doctor Jen, no worries! 😍

[Old Crow]

21 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

 

I'll just have to see how they do it. If it is adjustable I'll likely have the bigger vehicles be much more resistant to damage. 

 

If it helps, the dune buggy's probably already in a good place. I love driving that thing but golly, it is fragile. Which makes sense, as I don't think real-world dune buggies are paragons of durability either.

[Roland]

58 minutes ago, Riamus said:

And the question is... why?  What is wrong with driving where you want instead of staying on roads?  Does it in any way whatsoever hurt anyone if someone does that?  In what way does preventing it help anyone?  Does it have to be realistic?  No.  Should it be realistic?  No.  This isn't a sim.  It isn't a racing game where damage is an important part of the game.  This is a game where the focus isn't on driving but on killing things, questing, building, etc.  As such, forcing people to drive a certain way isn't of any value.  I'd be very interested in seeing an explanation of how this is actually valuable.  And that doesn't mean saying that it prevents you from driving all over the place or that it's more realistic because neither of those things actually offer any value.  They don't improve the game in a way that increases playability or enjoyment.  Is anyone complaining that they can drive wherever they want?  Or that they are upset that they don't have to repair their vehicle constantly?  Yes, as I said, the damage was too low.  You rarely had to do any repairs.  That needed to change and I supported that when it was first announced.  I still think it should be higher than A20 levels.  But at 20% per max speed hit (I saw about 18% in the stream, so I'm guessing 20% is the max value and they just weren't at max speed or the right angle or whatever), it is far too high.  I would have considered just adjusting the values if it was just damage but with the destruction element also added, I'll just end up removing it altogether.

 

All this boils down to is just annoyance at having to pay for something that used to be free...

 

Its a good change. If it had been this way from the start you wouldn't even bat an eyelash. Everyone always ends up with stacks of repair kits. Adding new risks to this type of game is always a win.

 

 

[bdubyah]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

And the question is... why?  What is wrong with driving where you want instead of staying on roads?  Does it in any way whatsoever hurt anyone if someone does that?  In what way does preventing it help anyone?  Does it have to be realistic?  No.  Should it be realistic?  No.  This isn't a sim.  It isn't a racing game where damage is an important part of the game.  This is a game where the focus isn't on driving but on killing things, questing, building, etc.  As such, forcing people to drive a certain way isn't of any value.  I'd be very interested in seeing an explanation of how this is actually valuable.  And that doesn't mean saying that it prevents you from driving all over the place or that it's more realistic because neither of those things actually offer any value.  They don't improve the game in a way that increases playability or enjoyment.  Is anyone complaining that they can drive wherever they want?  Or that they are upset that they don't have to repair their vehicle constantly?  Yes, as I said, the damage was too low.  You rarely had to do any repairs.  That needed to change and I supported that when it was first announced.  I still think it should be higher than A20 levels.  But at 20% per max speed hit (I saw about 18% in the stream, so I'm guessing 20% is the max value and they just weren't at max speed or the right angle or whatever), it is far too high.  I would have considered just adjusting the values if it was just damage but with the destruction element also added, I'll just end up removing it altogether.

So do you want realism or not? You can't seem to make up your mind. You used realism to argue for your points earlier, now you're saying it doesn't need to be realistic. I think you mean to say it needs to be realistic, but only where you want it to be.

 

Vehicles are fairly fragile. You can't just go barreling through things. You especially wouldn't do that in an apocalyptic situation like the game presents. Even if there are tons of vehicles around, I'd bet you'd take better care of it than what you describe that you do in the game. And besides, I'm sure you can mod it out if you dont like it. But as Roland said, it's a good change. 

[Old Crow]

11 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

So do you want realism or not? You can't seem to make up your mind. You used realism to argue for your points earlier, now you're saying it doesn't need to be realistic. I think you mean to say it needs to be realistic, but only where you want it to be.

 

 

 

The problem is, The Fun Pimps will argue against realism in some cases and for it in others - and the "for" cases tend to be when it negatively affects the players in some way. So a better question would be "Do the Fun Pimps want realism or not?"

[vergilsparda]

Watching the stream from last night back now, and I'm only so far through it (hazmat dismemberment shenanigans), so I figured I'd ask about something that may or may not have been answered, and I'll post them all here in one question and anybody can answer them as they see fit, or not at all! I'm just curious about everything lol:

 

1. Mr. Robert Dishong was talking about the way that POIs now have not only a world-wide grid system for placement (making wilderness POIs more spread out and cities and towns far more cohesive, which @%$#ing incredible job that's so cool!), but also there is now a scoring system built into the code that will allow a POI's spawn rate to be dynamically lowered or raised depending on [insert factors here, I do not know if the factors were talked about]. What I was wondering, at least for right now, is that is this the system that was talked about way back when that will cause less repeated POIs in cities and towns? As in, house_modular_04 won't spawn in again once an instance of it has been placed until the game goes through the list of available POIs and is absolutely certain there is no other unique POI that could be placed down in what would be its second place?
2. With the new vehicle damage system, has anything been changed or put into place to prevent vehicles from taking damage when going up and over overpasses in towns and cities (or in general). I find that often when going up that ramp bit, because it's not smooth, the vehicle hit noise plays—mostly everything but the 4x4 (as in the stream the 4x4 went over the bridge/small overpass very easily) does this. And judging by the fact that any hit seems to cause vehicle damage, doing that would cause damage; unless it doesn't anymore. I've explained that poorly but I hope I explained it somewhat well enough that I made sense here lol
3. It was a little unclear in the stream as Lathan was still somewhat driving, but when vehicles are completely broken, will they be unable to be driven? Steve's explanation of certain visual items disappearing (the bike chain on the bike) and others creating sparks (the crank shaft) made it seem like when a vehicle hits 0% it will just stop working entirely.
4. And third, will armor plating mods, or perhaps a new type of plating mod, be added to vehicle mods in order to lower the amount of damage any given vehicle takes (perhaps a new mod, a vehicle armor plating mod of some kind, or some sort of actual plow mod that will take no damage from zombies lol)?
5. Are you going to allow streamers to change the command that shows their channel points... it's bad enough I have to spell out Compo Pack, and Combat Points in Resident Evil... but man, using the hash tag command for channel points like on Lathan's twitch is freaky lol. It's a very unfortunate combination of letters and I'm not the only one uncomfortable with using those two specific letters together given what else it can stand for (obviously a non-issue to most people but it is still unfortunate, it was very weird seeing everyone in chat replay checking their Channel Points 😅)
6. And last: any chance, once the dev streams are done (I think this newest one is the last?) we can get a full image of all the new art assets and design assets, either on Twitter or in a spoiler here?

I think that's all the questions I have from this stream that weren't answered/glossed over so yeah!! sorry for the length of the post I'm just very excited about A21 and I can't get enough information about it fast enough

[Aldranon]

46 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

The problem is, The Fun Pimps will argue against realism in some cases and for it in others - and the "for" cases tend to be when it negatively affects the players in some way. So a better question would be "Do the Fun Pimps want realism or not?"

 

"Never let realism get in the way of a good story".   (Paraphrased Mark Twain)

 

[Laz Man]

49 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

 

"Never let realism get in the way of a good story".   (Paraphrased Mark Twain)

 

 

I like to think we strive for "Believability" rather than "Realism" as long as it doesn't get in the way of good gameplay.

 

 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, bdubyah said:

So do you want realism or not? You can't seem to make up your mind. You used realism to argue for your points earlier, now you're saying it doesn't need to be realistic. I think you mean to say it needs to be realistic, but only where you want it to be.

 

Vehicles are fairly fragile. You can't just go barreling through things. You especially wouldn't do that in an apocalyptic situation like the game presents. Even if there are tons of vehicles around, I'd bet you'd take better care of it than what you describe that you do in the game. And besides, I'm sure you can mod it out if you dont like it. But as Roland said, it's a good change. 

I didn't say I wanted realism.  I said that it wasn't realistic, meaning that you can't even use that as an excuse.  If it was realistic, then at least there's an excuse to have that even if I wouldn't like it.  That doesn't mean that I'm advocating for more realism.

 

I still disagree that so much additional damage is a good thing.  Everyone can have their own opinions on it and I'll keep mine as well.  As I said, I would mod it out.  I was interested in higher damage but this is too much.  If a game causes frustration or annoyance or anger at how it does things, then that's not a good thing.  Losing your stuff isn't challenging and isn't enjoyable.  Sure, I can hit repair whenever I hit something and never have to worry about it but that's not exactly enjoyable either.  As I had said, I don't believe there is any actual value in making your vehicle be completely destroyed due to zombies hitting it.  Does it make you create tons of repair kits?  Sure, but so what?  That's not challenging and doesn't improve the game.  You already require extra repair kits to fully repair a vehicle, so that's covered without destroying the vehicle.  Is there value in preventing people from driving all over?  No.  Is it more realistic?  Sure.  Is that necessary for a game that isn't realistic in the first place?  No.  Very little in this game is even remotely realistic and that is not a negative.

 

Anyhow, I clearly am not going to change anyone's mind and no one will change mine, so there's not any reason to continue debating it.  I've stated what I thought of it and others have stated theirs, so I'll just leave it at that.

5 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

I like to think we strive for "Believability" rather than "Realism" as long as it doesn't get in the way of good gameplay.

Is "fun" gameplay "good"?  I'd say it is.  And fun is driving all over the place for me and I think many others.  Limiting that option without some value to offset it isn't good for a game.

[Blake_]

4 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

I like to think we strive for "Believability" rather than "Realism" as long as it doesn't get in the way of good gameplay.

 

 

Speaking of gameplay, I have a question about POI design limits for Level designers:

 

Tier 1 POI Clear quests have around 9 zds, Infestation around 15-18 zds, sooo

How many Zds is your design limit for Tier 5 Infestation quests?

[Laz Man]

I like the change to vehicle damage.  It's a great compromise that adds gameplay and decision making and is potentially scalable.

 

In A20, It sucked so much that you could run over a zombie a million times and not kill them, nor would you ever really have to repair your vehicle.

 

In A21, your vehicle can be used as a weapon again but at a cost a player can plan around (e.g. repair kits, perk, etc.)  Also encourages the use of roads which is a great tie in for the new roadside content that was added.  😉

 

If the damage is too harsh, I'm sure it can be balanced multiple different ways, just needs feedback.  

 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Laz Man (see edit history)