Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Diragor]

18 minutes ago, Philipp said:

What do you think of this idea: Cars have a certain percentage chance of triggering the car alarm when searched or dismantled, causing zombies to appear.  Don't know if it's hard to program, but is it just "when mining or searching, then as an example = 6% chance that XY sound will be played, which can attract zombies. Sure, the cars are older, and not everything would  be "logical" but it's a game and would (IMO) bring immersion into play with a small change probably programmed in a day.

 

 

You got that idea from Night of the Dead, don't you well it doesn't really work there, barely attracts zombies so would be nice to have it here, where it will actually work^^

[Philipp]

An idea for a quest: the trader says that he got the information that a huge flock of birds is flying towards the city.  For example, the activation point for the quest is this small tower POI that can be found downtown.  (I can't think of the name, but I don't mean the skyscrapers, but really a small tower).  When activated, many birds will spawn in the air at a distance, maybe up to 100 depending on the difficulty?  It also has to work with the performance.  Wouldn't it be great?  The flock of birds must therefore be warded off.

[Aldranon]

Infestations as a story line would be places where a group of survivors made a last stand against the earlier stages of the zombie outbreak, where number of zombies were much higher.

The gunfire attracted ever more zombies in the area until they died to the last.

[Jost Amman]

12 minutes ago, Philipp said:

An idea for a quest: the trader says that he got the information that a huge flock of birds is flying towards the city.  For example, the activation point for the quest is this small tower POI that can be found downtown.  (I can't think of the name, but I don't mean the skyscrapers, but really a small tower).  When activated, many birds will spawn in the air at a distance, maybe up to 100 depending on the difficulty?  It also has to work with the performance.  Wouldn't it be great?  The flock of birds must therefore be warded off.

"Wandering Flocks" would actually be a cool alternative to wandering hordes!     

[Philipp]

53 minutes ago, Diragor said:

You got that idea from Night of the Dead, don't you well it doesn't really work there, barely attracts zombies so would be nice to have it here, where it will actually work^^

 

Nah, I dont play any mods since im a vanilla player. So Yeah, imagine, I truly got this idea by myself haha.👆🏼😉 But nice to hear, that theres a mod out there, supporting this idea. (still would love to have it in vanilla though) 

[Old Crow]

12 hours ago, Diragor said:

Well I am very happy about the investation quests. it sounds so awesome that the POI is filled with more zombies than normally. I always wanted something like this. I'm thankful for this Quest type and wll probably grind the hell out of them

Based on the logic that they are too similar, they should remove every House POI and only leave one of them because they are all Houses and that's a similarity. Or remove all but one zombie because they are similar. what a logic.

 

You came up with that on your own. And quite frankly, it sounds pretty stupid.

11 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

"Wandering Flocks" would actually be a cool alternative to wandering hordes!     

 

Zombie chickens!

12 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Um, no? They showed a few bandit models, but that doesn't mean their animations, AI, or other things like loot have been finalized or is even in a good enough state to be released. But nice try!

 

Pretty sure they said they had animations and AI done, but not how they wanted them, hence why they got pushed back. Almost there though!

FYI, being  hostile  to people with differing opinions? Not a good look dude. Might consider growing up a bit.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Roland
removed insult (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

2 hours ago, Philipp said:

What do you think of this idea: Cars have a certain percentage chance of triggering the car alarm when searched or dismantled, causing zombies to appear.  Don't know if it's hard to program, but is it just "when mining or searching, then as an example = 6% chance that XY sound will be played, which can attract zombies. Sure, the cars are older, and not everything would  be "logical" but it's a game and would (IMO) bring immersion into play with a small change probably programmed in a day.

 

 

 

I have a theory that something similar might be coming. In the dev stream they mentioned almost spoiling something with the police cars. I can't say for sure, but maybe something with the lights and sirens? I'm only guessing though.

[Diragor]

1 hour ago, Philipp said:

 

Nah, I dont play any mods since im a vanilla player. So Yeah, imagine, I truly got this idea by myself haha.👆🏼😉 But nice to hear, that theres a mod out there, supporting this idea. (still would love to have it in vanilla though) 

it's not a mod. Night of the Dead is a survival game kinda similar to 7dtd but without voxel world

[saltychipmunk]

Anyone else wish  the infestation quest wasn't  just a harder version of clear quests?

Would have been cool if we had to go through pois  to destroy corpse piles or something that spawned zombies. And the big challenge is going through and destroying the spawners before you get overwhelmed 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by saltychipmunk (see edit history)

[mstdv inc]

4 hours ago, Skullfracture said:

In A17 or 18 there was a mod that I really liked that added a type of quest.

 

You'd get a quest to go to a PoI and (either activate some kind of transmitter or the rally marker I don't recall), which would spawn waves of hard enemies to rush you (while also respawning the PoI and it's zombies). Leave the PoI bounds, fail. Die, you fail. Wipe em out and survive, turn it in. 3. Profit.

 

To make up for the increased spawns (which were harder than normal zeds) I think they may have had a higher than normal loot bag drop; random crap mostly, but something.

 

Was a lot of fun. Something like that could be neat to have officially. Was sad when the mod was abandoned.

I did something similar based on the burried supplies quest for A20.But it's boring more than 1 time.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by mstdv inc (see edit history)

[Diragor]

16 minutes ago, saltychipmunk said:

Anyone else wish  the infestation quest wasn't  just a harder version of clear quests?

Would have been cool if we had to go through pois  to destroy corpse piles or something that spawned zombies. And the big challenge is going through and destroying the spawners before you get overwhelmed 

 

 

 

Could do a Quest type of a POI filled with screamer zombies only xD that would be a hell lot of pain

[Neminsis]

2 hours ago, saltychipmunk said:

Anyone else wish  the infestation quest wasn't  just a harder version of clear quests?

Would have been cool if we had to go through pois  to destroy corpse piles or something that spawned zombies. And the big challenge is going through and destroying the spawners before you get overwhelmed 

Not really and here's why, adding extra Z's to a small space isn't just a linear increase in difficulty, it's multiplicative e.g. 6 Zs in a small space is a lot more difficult than 3. If you screw up you can juggle 3 easily but 6 in a small space is more than you have stamina for early game and if you go loud then who knows how many you're going to call in. If they've done like I suspect that they have, and just allowed sleeper volumes to fully populate, that's a lot more potential Zs than you might think.

I like it, a lot. It'll be absolute chaos in some circumstances. There are a lot of people that actually play on the higher difficulties and with groups where not everyone is even able to contribute to a clear. This is exactly what was needed.

Besides, the destroy spawners idea can be thought of as a reskinned restore power quest, functionally.

[vergilsparda]

18 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Do you remember which POI it was?  You should be able to progress through a POI even if not on a restore power quest.

[snip!]

 

First of thanks for the quick reply and I'm so excited that they'll have more placements!!! I'm all for aesthetic builds and this will be incredible. And it's sad that the original prison is gone, but I'm excited for the new one; the big towers were pretty iconic. As for the POI, it was not this one, for me:

 

18 hours ago, Riamus said:

The ambulance one that was mentioned is the crack a book tier 5 (skyscraper_02 I believe). [snip]

(Sorry Riamus). I booted up the game; it's listed as countrytown_business_05 (sign on the front says Butcher Pete's). Every time I've ever tried looting it, the button for the rolling door behind the ambulance wasn't active, even though I think? it should have been to progress through the other half of the POI.

 

The other POI I mentioned was countrytown_business_02 (the post office/appliance store combo). The button for the front door of the appliance store wasn't active either. Both times generators were also in the POIs (as if I had done, or the trader had chosen them for, a restore power quest; neither time I had ever previously done an RP quest there, so maybe it was because the trader chose them that day for restore power quests? I don't know if the trader choosing it causes the generators to show up, or if taking on the restore power quest is what updates it, so I'm doing some very stupid speculation here, but that was my experience).

 

Sorry for doing half-baked bug reporting in the a21 discussion thread, I'll stop now or if this ends up getting moved it's okay, but yeah, that's been my experience. Don't know if I can replicate it at all at any point but maybe my game's just messed up.

[Laz Man]

10 minutes ago, Neminsis said:

Not really and here's why, adding extra Z's to a small space isn't just a linear increase in difficulty, it's multiplicative e.g. 6 Zs in a small space is a lot more difficult than 3. If you screw up you can juggle 3 easily but 6 in a small space is more than you have stamina for early game and if you go loud then who knows how many you're going to call in. If they've done like I suspect that they have, and just allowed sleeper volumes to fully populate, that's a lot more potential Zs than you might think.

I like it, a lot. It'll be absolute chaos in some circumstances. There are a lot of people that actually play on the higher difficulties and with groups where not everyone is even able to contribute to a clear. This is exactly what was needed.

Besides, the destroy spawners idea can be thought of as a reskinned restore power quest, functionally.

 

Great point.  Some people may not notice it, but in level design we intentionally control the pace at which how many zombies the player is engaged with at the same time.  A normal T1 POI with 9 zombies now with 18 sounds trivial at first but when you consider how many you need to deal with at a time, it suddenly is alot more challenging.  I am sure there will be alot of fun to be had.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

Great point.  Some people may not notice it, but in level design we intentionally control the pace at which how many zombies the player is engaged with at the same time. 

This can be seen quite well in the T4 Shotgun Messiah with the Tactical Village. There are some obstacles in the way of the zombies so that they don't all attack the player at the same time.

Edited April 28, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

10 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Pretty sure they said they had animations and AI done, but not how they wanted them, hence why they got pushed back. Almost there though!

FYI, being hostile to people with differing opinions? Not a good look dude. Might consider growing up a bit.

Sigh, you are obviously just trolling at this point. What you just said would mean all of them would get pushed back, meaning what you said earlier about just releasing one or two that they showed makes 0 sense.

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Roland
nicefying (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

10 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Zombie chickens!

Actually, that would be even better... if we had a dozen of small and fast zombie chickens or rabbits, that could attack you doing 1/2 HP at a time, but are hard to hit, that would be crazy and scary! 

[RipClaw]

5 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Actually, that would be even better... if we had a dozen of small and fast zombie chickens or rabbits, that could attack you doing 1/2 HP at a time, but are hard to hit, that would be crazy and scary! 

In the Apocalypse Now mod there are killer bunnies and killer chickens. Have fun with it.

[HB_H4wk]

What about a Scavenger Hunt Quest, with specific items only for a trader and they are involving multiple POI's to be completed? Just an Idea

[Javabean867]

11 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

"Wandering Flocks" would actually be a cool alternative to wandering hordes!     

I was in an alpha 16 game that was modded for more spawns in the wild.  My buddy and i was mini biking around, and then boom, 30+ vultures took off from the ground.  We high-tailed it out of there instead of trying to take them out.

 

[Old Crow]

2 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Sigh, you are obviously just trolling at this point. What you just said would mean all of them would get pushed back, meaning what you said earlier about just releasing one or two that they showed makes 0 sense.

 

 

Nope, not trolling.

[Adam the Waster]

16 hours ago, Roland said:

 

 

Before he got hired by TFP @Laz Man,,,

Omg sense when? god i missed so much

late congrats @Laz Man

[Roland]

1 minute ago, Adam the Waster said:

Omg sense when? god i missed so much

late congrats @Laz Man

 

Earl in the stream earlier this week is.....Laz Man

 

[Riamus]

4 hours ago, HB_H4wk said:

What about a Scavenger Hunt Quest, with specific items only for a trader and they are involving multiple POI's to be completed? Just an Idea

If done well, I think that could be an interesting quest, especially if it could pick X number of random POI each time so you can get variety.  And especially if it could grab POI that are further away.  Having a large city and only doing low level quests close to the trader and ignoring all the rest because they are further away is a pain.

[Matt115]

5 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Actually, that would be even better... if we had a dozen of small and fast zombie chickens or rabbits, that could attack you doing 1/2 HP at a time, but are hard to hit, that would be crazy and scary! 

Sounds cringy as hell xd

i hate silly enemies xd