Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, vergilsparda said:

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

I can't answer all, but here are a couple of answers.

• Broken down vehicles are not drivable, though they appear to have the same inching along movement that a vehicle without gas does.  That doesn't make it drivable as it's far too slow but there is some movement.
• I believe he said that the twitch integrations can be used with buttons rather than typing the hashtags into chat.  But I don't know the details or if that works for channel points.

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

[Laz Man]

12 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

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?

 

"Alot" 😅

15 minutes ago, Riamus said:

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.

 

I don't think the change will prevent people from driving all over the place.  It will however, get them to drive more carefully in certain conditions.

 

As I mentioned earlier, lots of ways to reign in the damage if it's too much.  Give it a try before modding it out so we can hear your specific feedback.

 

 

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

[Aldranon]

The impact needed to damage key elements of a modern car (Engine and transmission system) would severely injure or kill a non-seat belted driver or passenger.  Little fender benders would do nothing.

 

So, ether TFP have an overarching plot that takes the growing number of "Hard to believe" elements of the game into account (Player is in a coma and will wake for Part 2) and/or they don't care because they believe it will ultimately add to the game they want to make.

 

I'm OK with ether one because I believe in TFP.

[Laz Man]

12 hours ago, Lostyouthkhat said:

I got some questions about navesgane in alpha 21:

 

- are some/most of the new pois added to the navesgane map?

 

- are the towns in navesgane in the same style (downtown area) with new streets and so on like the random gen ones or do the towns still look like they did some alphas ago?

 

Just curious since i liked the navesgane map a lot but the lack of pois and the cosmetic changes to the random gen world made navesgane look like an outdated map for me

 

Many of the new POIs have been added to Navezgane.

 

The town/city of Perishton is the only section of Navezgane to receive a major update in A21.  If you haven't watched the A21 dev stream #3, we showed alittle bit of what changed.

 

We have plans to update more of the Navezgane map as well.

 

 

 

 

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

[Roland]

41 minutes ago, Riamus said:

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.

The value is the same as before. All the reasons you went off the road remain the same reasons you will do it in A21. The only difference is that there is now a price where there was none before. You feel the price is too high after watching a video in which the point was to damage the vehicle as quickly as possible to show it off. You may still feel the price is too high after trying it and that’s fair. 
 

It’s a tough balance like food. Some players feel the game is already too tough where food is concerned. They feel their fun is limited by stamina constraints tied to hunger always being a concern. Other players feel that hunger is barely relevant for survival it is so easy to overcome and maintain.  We get feedback for easier food gameplay and feedback for tougher food gameplay. 
 

So do we make food even easier than it currently is because some feel limited by the current balance? I hope not. 
 

Normal driving—even off roading in the forest, desert, and snow biomes hardly damages your car unless you accidentally run into something. Then you’ll need to repair it. If you want to go rampaging on zombies you can but you should bring some repair kits to pay the price for that choice. Off roading in the wasteland is going to be more damaging and have more risk of collisions so bring extra repair kits. 
 

I’ve never had a vehicle even reach zero on me. I usually repair after it dips below 50% and that is not frequently having to be done. 

[bdubyah]

53 minutes ago, Riamus said:

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.

And for plenty of people, having to manage things and actually think about their actions is good gameplay. And TFP seems to agree in this case. I think you are overreacting a bit based on one small stream showing it. It could easily be tweaked before release, or it could simply not be as big of a deal as you think it is. But they added it, so may as well wait and see how it plays. I doubt they want to make their game worse, but it is a survival game after all. Brainlessly driving around hitting everything in sight without consequence doesn't make sense in a survival game. And you could, you know, just drive a little more carefully. If that just absolutely ruins the game for you...then I'm not sure what to say. Lol.

[Diragor]

13 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.

That's what I wanted to know. Thanks! you're my man

[khzmusik]

Just want to say, the "min/max" feature per POI is a major benefit to all modders.

 

For example, the random world generation for Darkness Falls worlds was imperfect (at best) because there are certain POIs that are required for the DF storyline, but could not be guaranteed to be generated in RWG.

 

It sounds like A21 will be able to solve that, and that's a major benefit (or requirement) with mods.

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

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

You feel the price is too high after watching a video in which the point was to damage the vehicle as quickly as possible to show it off.

Does this mean that the damage values have been increased for the stream? That the damage is too high is one of the criticisms I heard in pretty much all the summaries of the stream. It would be really nice to know what, for example, the damage looks like after driving through the Wasteland or the Desert without intentionally causing damage.

 

[NukemDed]

omg i am craving this alpha. the dismembering looks dreamy.

@lazman and or @roland, please give me a hint, which is the best weapon for my first playthru for the maximum splatter?

 

and i am not a complete sicko, i am still working on it

[Jost Amman]

23 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Does this mean that the damage values have been increased for the stream? That the damage is too high is one of the criticisms I heard in pretty much all the summaries of the stream.

No, it means that if you don't normally ram into obstacles while you drive, you will have to repair your vehicles much, much less.

[RipClaw]

11 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

omg i am craving this alpha. the dismembering looks dreamy.

@lazman and or @roland, please give me a hint, which is the best weapon for my first playthru for the maximum splatter?

If that hasn't changed much from A20 then the combination of sledgehammer and shotgun should make for a game with a lot of dismemberment. 

[RipClaw]

4 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

No, it means that if you don't normally ram into obstacles while you drive, you will have to repair your vehicles much, much less.

I generally try to avoid hitting objects, but when driving through the desert or wasteland you will inevitably hit objects. I have no problem repairing my vehicle.

 

My question was whether the damage values you see in the stream are the final balancing for the Experimental or if they were raised to show what a badly damaged vehicle looks like in the stream without having to drive against walls for 5 minutes.

 

[Aldranon]

Is bedrock now less deep in the latest mod?

 

I created a new map to see the new traders but now I thought up of a one block wide, two-dimensional vertical labyrinth for the zombies during horde night (think doors).

I didn't remember bedrock being so shallow.  But if it is, I think I found one of the optimizations.

[Survager]

When something is created in the workbench and at this time the light of the lamp burns brighter, this is clearly visible and logical. 👍

In regards to the forge, wouldn't it make more sense for the bellows to be animated to compress and decompress when something is being created there? 😇

I understand that this is more difficult to do than changing the intensity of the glow, but if you guys decide to do this, do not forget about the concrete mixer, it would also like to spin when they mix the concrete 😉

 

And the campfire could just sound a little different when something is being cooked there. For example, it could be the sounds of frying or gurgling 🙂

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

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

[Aldranon]

3 hours 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.

 

 

 

Yes, good game play is the perfect "prime directive" in any game studio.

 

Because the problem with too much realism in a game is it could get pretty tedious.

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I generally try to avoid hitting objects, but when driving through the desert or wasteland you will inevitably hit objects. I have no problem repairing my vehicle.

 

My question was whether the damage values you see in the stream are the final balancing for the Experimental or if they were raised to show what a badly damaged vehicle looks like in the stream without having to drive against walls for 5 minutes.

They never mentioned changing those values for the Dev Stream, so I don't expect they did. Unless...

 

Note: when you drive in the desert, you can drive through smaller "obstacles" (like e.g. trash, small rocks, small plants and such...) without any consequence.

[RipClaw]

21 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Note: when you drive in the desert, you can drive through smaller "obstacles" (like e.g. trash, small rocks, small plants and such...) without any consequence.

That is correct but you can collide with the driftwood on the ground. 

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

[Survager]

On the last stream, we were shown that zombies will eat the corpses of animals. Do you have plan's that zombie-vulture/bears/wolves/coyotes also make it with deer's/rabbit's/chicken's corpse?

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

[Laran Mithras]

From the streams, it looks like the vehicle damage from hitting a zombie is believable. No vehicle, unless it is armored, can hit a standing person at 30mph and not take damage. And the blood spray is near believable. Look at any terrorist incident of plowing through crowds and witness the spray of blood all over the vehicle.

 

Might not be a very palatable thought to consider, but I do think TFP have modeled this well. Most vehicles available to the public are built with so much plastic to push fuel efficiency that hitting a wall or tree even once could incapacitate a vehicle.

 

I suppose this should add realism in driving to the consideration. How many trees would you drive your car into and then complain it's taking too much damage?

[beerfly]

26 minutes ago, Survager said:

On the last stream, we were shown that zombies will eat the corpses of animals. Do you have plan's that zombie-vulture/bears/wolves/coyotes also make it with deer's/rabbit's/chicken's corpse?

Apart from the thing that I`ve always wanted to witness a rabbit eating a wolf, I think this is not bad idea.

 

Wondering out there and hearing the sounds of animal eating another one could be a good source of meat, depending on the weapon or the color of underpants we wear. 

Though, the food balance would need a lot of work. Animal behaviour AI would need a poke also. I like that idea, if not in vanilla, to become a mod. 

[DocRussel]

Players can build working vehicles out of spare parts but think the A20 damage is fair?  This is a survival game, not Mario Kart.  😁  All vehicles are the equivalent of pipe weapons, not tier 6 level 3 weapons.  Perhaps that could be the compromise.  The 2 wheel vehicles SHOULD take a ton of damage, but give the 4 wheeler with that reinforced front end a significant reduction in damage taken.  The trade off is that it still uses a lot of fuel and could be more costly to build.

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

That is correct but you can collide with the driftwood on the ground. 

Try that in real life with your car, and then come back and tell me how much you spent on repairs...               

Those are like tree chunks for all intents and purposes. You should get collision damage!

[RipClaw]

5 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Try that in real life with your car, and then come back and tell me how much you spent on repairs...               

Those are like tree chunks for all intents and purposes. You should get collision damage!

My question is simply "How much damage?". That is the only thing that interests me.

 

It does not bother me that I have to repair the vehicle from time to time. I go through so many repair kits in every game, the few for the vehicle are not worth mentioning. The question for me is simply whether I should rather take 2 or 10 repair kits for a trip through the desert.
 

[Gamida]

7 hours ago, Laz Man said:

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.  

 

 

 

Wait. I never even noticed that. Do you mean we can kill zoms again by hitting with vehicle if we don't mind the trade off of it doing damage?

Don't mind that at all.