Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Exxodous]

Any suggestions on how to generate random world?  3 tries in a row just stops responding on 8k world at smoothing street tiles somewhere in the 90% range.

 

[LostBoy]

8 minutes ago, Exxodous said:

Any suggestions on how to generate random world?  3 tries in a row just stops responding on 8k world at smoothing street tiles somewhere in the 90% range.

 

 

It's been reported by many players that it will hang around 8x% for smoothing, but it will eventually finish.

 

Had the same thing happen to me, sat at 84% for a few minutes but did complete (10k map).

 

[mprojekt]

I love the new models and textures, and water is not super-weird anymore. As for swimming... thaaaank you! The new POI models and overhauls of old POIs are niiice. The trading posts are smexier than ever before. The zombies seem less robotic.

 

I hope that the models and animations related to eating, drinking, self-administered healing, of healing others, and 3rd-party views of survivors walking/running/turning will get some love before the game reaches Version 1.0.

 

A question as to why Dr. Jen seemingly had a blood-bag on an IV stand, feeding one of her hydroponic towers. Is Dr. Jen a former researcher for Higashi Pharma? HmMMmm?

 

The learn-by-looting system as implemented is not my favorite, but I can live with it and it isn't a horror-show. Performance feels smoother and control more responsive than A20.

 

I look forward to all the new secrets and surprises as I explore the updated Navezgane. 🥰

[meilodasreh]

Didn‘t faatal himself recently confirm that issue here? That it seems to be hung up, but you just have to give it more time?

[Riamus]

56 minutes ago, betam4x said:

The absolute best feature of the game is the fun pimps logo at startup.

 

Fight me.

 

 

The game runs great for me, but admittedly I have very high end hardware (RTX 4090, Ryzen 7950X, 64 gb RAM, 4 TB PCIE Gen4 SSD) It appears to have far fewer freezes overall vs. Alpha 20.

 

Have you tried using Vulkan to see if your issues go away?

I may be wrong but I thought Vulkan was a Mac thing?

 

54 minutes ago, faatal said:

The problem with a fixed 60hz vsync is if you can't stay above 60, you will drop to 30, which can lead to it oscillating if half the time you are just below 60.

What hardware to you have (CPU/GPU/RAM) and what game video settings are you using?

AMD Ryzen 5 2400G

Radeon RX 580

32GB RAM

Samsung Evo 870 SSD

 

Not a great system but it was playing the game really well after I upgraded to 32GB and faster SSD in A20.  Still not bad now but that slight stuttering most likely caused by the fluctuating fps is the one minor issue.

 

I've tried a variety of different settings and am currently below what I used in A20 without issue.  Here are my current settings.

 

 

Note that if a setting I adjusted didn't have any effect, I put it back.  I haven't yet tried without SSAO or lowering AA but those are next in line to test.  If looking at the ground still shows this effect, then water quality shouldn't really have any impact.  I tried lower UMA, Texture Filter, View Distance, Terrain Quality, Grass Distance, Object Quality.  No effect.  Keeping in mind that I had these and higher settings (right around the default High level though without motion blur or depth of field since I'm not a fan of those) in A20 while usually staying at 58-60 fps and if I did drop when in certain areas, it would usually be a steady drop and not alternating up and down.

 

Thanks for the info on vsync as I didn't realize it would alternate like that if not maintaining 60fps.  It is off now, so that's not affecting anything.

18 minutes ago, Exxodous said:

Any suggestions on how to generate random world?  3 tries in a row just stops responding on 8k world at smoothing street tiles somewhere in the 90% range.

 

I've also had it hang there at 83% but it finished eventually.  Just wait for it.

 

 

One other thing I've noticed in A21 is related to the magazines.  There are so many different ones and you get so many of them that it really feels like a chore trying to figure out who is going to read which ones.  It isn't like you have one that covers all melee, one for all firearms, etc.  You have such a variety that looking at them is a bit overwhelming.  So far we've basically had one person take 5 or so that they'll do and then the other takes everything else just so it's less trouble figuring it out.  Not ideal but it'll work.  I'm not against the magazines at all.  I like them.  I just don't know if there's some way to reduce this issue or not.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Yopo]

So there I was playing the A21 experimental, when all of a sudden, my power when out. Rain storm blew a transformer near my house. So few hours later, powers back, I tried to go back to my game and it’s not showing up in the continue game list, however when I go into new game, the game name I used is still there, in red, mousing over it, tells me that there is already a game file with that name. 
so any idea how to get my original game to show back up in the continue game list? 

[betam4x]

19 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I may be wrong but I thought Vulkan was a Mac thing?

 

AMD Ryzen 5 2400G

Radeon RX 580

32GB RAM

Samsung Evo 870 SSD

 

Not a great system but it was playing the game really well after I upgraded to 32GB and faster SSD in A20.  Still not bad now but that slight stuttering most likely caused by the fluctuating fps is the one minor issue.

 

I've tried a variety of different settings and am currently below what I used in A20 without issue.  Here are my current settings.

 

 

Note that if a setting I adjusted didn't have any effect, I put it back.  I haven't yet tried without SSAO or lowering AA but those are next in line to test.  If looking at the ground still shows this effect, then water quality shouldn't really have any impact.  I tried lower UMA, Texture Filter, View Distance, Terrain Quality, Grass Distance, Object Quality.  No effect.  Keeping in mind that I had these and higher settings (right around the default High level though without motion blur or depth of field since I'm not a fan of those) in A20 while usually staying at 58-60 fps and if I did drop when in certain areas, it would usually be a steady drop and not alternating up and down.

 

Thanks for the info on vsync as I didn't realize it would alternate like that if not maintaining 60fps.  It is off now, so that's not affecting anything.

I've also had it hang there at 83% but it finished eventually.  Just wait for it.

 

 

One other thing I've noticed in A21 is related to the magazines.  There are so many different ones and you get so many of them that it really feels like a chore trying to figure out who is going to read which ones.  It isn't like you have one that covers all melee, one for all firearms, etc.  You have such a variety that looking at them is a bit overwhelming.  So far we've basically had one person take 5 or so that they'll do and then the other takes everything else just so it's less trouble figuring it out.  Not ideal but it'll work.  I'm not against the magazines at all.  I like them.  I just don't know if there's some way to reduce this issue or not.

You can select vulkan in the launcher. For older AMD cards it may help.

 

Your machine is rather dated at this point. GPU was launched 6 years ago and the CPU was launched 5 years ago. I am not surprised you are having performance issues. This game tends to chase the latest hardware. Consider upgrading your system when you have the cash. I would start by disabling anti aliasing and enabling dynamic resolution, then turn things down from there. I get 110-250fps on my system at max details at 3440x1440 resolution FWIW.

 

Regarding the magazines, read the descriptions. Most can be repeatedly read to level up. This is the progression system that is unliked by many (including me). To upgrade a stone pickaxe from 0-5 you have to find like 10x mags that upgrade crafting tools. TFP would have a gem on their hands if they combined the Diablo 3 loot system with a combination of their game and Day-Z.

[Riamus]

Just now, betam4x said:

You can select vulkan in the launcher. For older AMD cards it may help.

 

Your machine is rather dated at this point. GPU was launched 6 years ago and the CPU was launched 5 years ago. I am not surprised you are having performance issues. This game tends to chase the latest hardware. Consider upgrading your system when you have the cash. I would start by disabling anti aliasing and enabling dynamic resolution, then turn things down from there. I get 110-250fps on my system at max details at 3440x1440 resolution FWIW.

 

Regarding the magazines, read the descriptions. Most can be repeatedly read to level up. This is the progression system that is unliked by many (including me). To upgrade a stone pickaxe from 0-5 you have to find like 10x mags that upgrade crafting tools. TFP would have a gem on their hands if they combined the Diablo 3 loot system with a combination of their game and Day-Z.

Yes, I know it's not a great system but it is what I have.  The game is supposedly better in optimization than A20 so should play better not worse.  And no, I won't be using dynamic resolution.  That has always been more trouble than its worth in my experience.

 

And yes, I know there are descriptions.  I know what they magazines do.  But trying to keep track of who is reading what isn't a simple thing.  It'll come eventually as you memorize stuff with your group but it's still a pain.  And yes, I know you can read all of the ones you find if you want to.  The magazines are fine.  It's just the number and how they are handled in terms of which magazines do what that gets to be a pain to work with.

 

...

 

Other things I've noticed-

• I died without a bedroll down and drop everything on death.  I did not get an option to spawn at my bag.  It seems like it might be tied to having a bedroll in order to have this option when that should not be necessary.
• Ferals on day 1 night with normal settings and everyone under level 5 and no feral sense?  Not to mention the big fat guys day 1 night.  Seems a big exaggerated in difficulty from A20.

[gpcstargate]

I was wondering if any knew what this is supposed to mean .. I keep getting it every game in A21 ... Never saw it in A20. Thank You, The OldGamer

[schwanz9000]

2 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

I was wondering if any knew what this is supposed to mean .. I keep getting it every game in A21 ... Never saw it in A20. Thank You, The OldGamer

You can ignore that. Just an EOS message.

Also, please follow the bug reporting instructions found in the red banner at the top of each page.

 

[Neminsis]

5 hours ago, Mister Forgash said:

I don't want to say your concern isn't invalid, but I don't think it'll be as bad as you're making it out to be.

Just like I overdramatized the problem of not being able to make enough glue to support the "extremist style" of doing horde night entirely with exploding bolts and now everything has extra bones because someone realized that very late game requires a lot more glue than initially accounted for?  I mean I could've just 'adapted' and stopped playing that 'extremists playstyle'...🙄

Two player teams are a whole lot more common a playstyle than that. 

 

5 hours ago, Mister Forgash said:

I imagine your looters wont be too terribly far from base,

You've got some surprises in store then if you play Navezgane in particular. Because the trader now tries not to send you on duplicate missions those missions spiral out to more than a kilometer away before tier 1 is even complete.

How about you get back to me when you've tested it? Here's the challenge: 2 players on Navezgane, Survivalist, 1 player does not quest only gathers, builds and sells bulk craftables to the trader, and see where you are by day 7.

[faatal]

3 hours ago, LostBoy said:

 

I believe I saw elsewhere that 10k worlds are about 11 GB, so you may be having space issues on your Drive.

 

The last 10k world I generated was 214 MB.

[Snowydeath]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

• I died without a bedroll down and drop everything on death.  I did not get an option to spawn at my bag.  It seems like it might be tied to having a bedroll in order to have this option when that should not be necessary.
• Ferals on day 1 night with normal settings and everyone under level 5 and no feral sense?  Not to mention the big fat guys day 1 night.  Seems a big exaggerated in difficulty from A20.

1) I believe they specifically stated it was tied to having a bedroll, or at least that's what it sounded like when reading the notes (I may be wrong, they need to clarify)
2) Ferals always spawned at night in A20 even on day 1 in my experience and the fat guys aren't hard, they just have a little more health, idk what the problem seems to be. I also had them on night 1 as well as spider zombies and had no issue dispatching them on default settings with my level 1 club. Difficulty overall seems to be the same but maybe a little more balanced in terms of damage and debuffs.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Snowydeath
spelling (see edit history)

[Snowydeath]

15 minutes ago, faatal said:

The last 10k world I generated was 214 MB.

After playing on mine it's about 400MB so they're not massive for sure. Dunno who said 10GB lol

[Belgarion32]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

Yes, I know it's not a great system but it is what I have.  The game is supposedly better in optimization than A20 so should play better not worse.  And no, I won't be using dynamic resolution.  That has always been more trouble than its worth in my experience.

 

And yes, I know there are descriptions.  I know what they magazines do.  But trying to keep track of who is reading what isn't a simple thing.  It'll come eventually as you memorize stuff with your group but it's still a pain.  And yes, I know you can read all of the ones you find if you want to.  The magazines are fine.  It's just the number and how they are handled in terms of which magazines do what that gets to be a pain to work with.

 

...

 

Other things I've noticed-

• I died without a bedroll down and drop everything on death.  I did not get an option to spawn at my bag.  It seems like it might be tied to having a bedroll in order to have this option when that should not be necessary.
• Ferals on day 1 night with normal settings and everyone under level 5 and no feral sense?  Not to mention the big fat guys day 1 night.  Seems a big exaggerated in difficulty from A20.

I have a nearly identical system to yours and it seems to be running the new alpha fine for me, fps is a solid 60 with my overlay, though radeon reports it averages 120fps. Ryzen 2800, 16GB 2400mhz ram, 570 (8gb version), wd nvme 512gb ssd. I run custom quality preset. I'll just list it here: AA: Temporal, AA Sharping:5%, texture qual: half, texture filter:high, uma: high, reflections: medium, shadows: off, water qual: high, particles: 75%, LOD Distance: 75%, Terrain qual: high, grass dist: high, object qual: high, bloom: on, Depth of Field: on, blur: off, SSAO: on, SS reflections: medium, sun shafts: on. On Display I have VSync: on. I think turning your Depth of Field setting on may help. 

 

Side note for others, I did a new random gen world and somehow my trader spawned without any town in ~1.5km? I thought with A20 it was changed to always spawn on the edge of towns? Is that something worth reporting or a waste of time to report? Thanks y'all.

[GoofMcGee]

Starving, finally killed a deer just after nightfall.  Lois jambly sprinted over and ate most of it before I could bounce her.  Nice change.  Dangit.  

 

[Riamus]

44 minutes ago, Belgarion32 said:

I have a nearly identical system to yours and it seems to be running the new alpha fine for me, fps is a solid 60 with my overlay, though radeon reports it averages 120fps. Ryzen 2800, 16GB 2400mhz ram, 570 (8gb version), wd nvme 512gb ssd. I run custom quality preset. I'll just list it here: AA: Temporal, AA Sharping:5%, texture qual: half, texture filter:high, uma: high, reflections: medium, shadows: off, water qual: high, particles: 75%, LOD Distance: 75%, Terrain qual: high, grass dist: high, object qual: high, bloom: on, Depth of Field: on, blur: off, SSAO: on, SS reflections: medium, sun shafts: on. On Display I have VSync: on. I think turning your Depth of Field setting on may help. 

 

Side note for others, I did a new random gen world and somehow my trader spawned without any town in ~1.5km? I thought with A20 it was changed to always spawn on the edge of towns? Is that something worth reporting or a waste of time to report? Thanks y'all.

They made traders spawn in wilderness as well as edge of town as well as in districts in A21.

[Neminsis]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

What you seem to propose is balancing it so you can be as effective as a selfish person in a team

Look, these perfect players that you keep going on about, I'm not sure they even exist outside of vague rumors in chatrooms and message boards. I'm saying that perfectly normal average players are going to be incentivized to read all the books by the sheer volume of books, the longer distances between quests now, and the initial scarcity of food and water, and that it's likely possible to allow stay at home players to be effective without changing game mechanics, without affecting the balance for everyone else, or relying on everyone to suddenly become those legendary perfect teammates.

If for example the exp gain on gathering tasks were bumped up a little, the prices to sell bulk materials were a little better, if the trader carried cheap low tier tools, if tool crafting books in particular were more readily available at the trader specifically. None of that changes game mechanics. or affects the game balance for anyone else, or requires new code and could probably be done in minutes with a few xml tweaks. Ideally you should be able to make it through the first 7 days without having to quest at all as a solo player. You could do it in a20 but then tool upgrades were way too easy to come by in the previous system. They don't need to be that easy for this to be viable.

 

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

And since you don't get the tool any earlier when the looter brings back the magazines instead of the ability to craft the better tool, that point is not about magazines at all.

Thanks for repeating my argument for why looters aren't incentivized to not read all of the books themselves and consequently why your legendary perfect teammate doesn't actually solve the problem. The problem for the stay at home player is ultimately exp gain. Yes, shared exp offsets this somewhat, but because the trader now avoids sending you on duplicate missions and there has been a focus on more wilderness quests, the looter is going to be out of range a lot sooner than you might expect, and even so the exp gain from quest rewards and selling to the trader is still the favor the looter.

 

7 hours ago, meganoth said:

Ah, so what you really want to say is that you are missing the progression shortcut

Not at all, it really doesn't need to be as mind numbingly easy as it was in previous versions and I'm not seeking any shortcuts. If you think it's taking the easy route try putting a point into better barter, miner 69er, motherload, salvage operations and then see how well you can lvl without questing at all. That's pretty much the optimal build for it. If it helps you get into the right mindset, pump it up to Insane so that you're incentivized to avoid the majority of fights until you've crafted better equipment, and are limited to grabbing what you can off the streets. 

This is essentially what it's like for a lot of players and why many opt to stay at the base soaking up shared exp until they've leveled high enough, and are equipped enough to survive tier 1 quests without dying. I'm not suggesting any shortcuts to progression at all, just giving a certain subset of players more options and agency without having to rely entirely on handouts. It really doesn't serve team building to have some players advance faster than others, does it?

[Forgotten Memes]

Are there any modlets yet that eliminate this terrible magazine change?

[mprojekt]

1 hour ago, GoofMcGee said:

Starving, finally killed a deer just after nightfall.  Lois jambly sprinted over and ate most of it before I could bounce her.  Nice change.  Dangit.  

 

I love this behavior!

 

I was hunting a group of rabbits who were chilling on the road, when a Moe silently tumbled down the steep slope from above me. He landed at my feet, but instead of attacking my surprised face, Moe immediately got down on all fours and ate the rest of the bunny I was skinning.

 

THEN he stood up, said, "Bleaarrh!" and punched me.

Edited June 13, 2023 by mprojekt (see edit history)

[Thaledwyn]

Some questions about magazine / container looting in multiplayer:

 

Does it depend who opens which container in a POI? What I mean:

- Is the chance of getting cooking magazines higher if a player who spent points in cooking loots the kitchen of a house instead of other players?

- Or can anybody loot the kitchen and still finds the cooking books (due to the cooking skill in the party) to give them to the "cooking" player?

Edited June 13, 2023 by Thaledwyn (see edit history)

[Forgotten Memes]

2 minutes ago, Thaledwyn said:

Some questions about magazine / container looting in multiplayer:

 

Does it depend who opens which container in a POI? What I mean:

- Is the chance of getting cooking magazines higher if a player who spent points in cooking loots the kitchen of a house instead of other players?

- Or can anybody loot the kitchen and still finds the cooking books (due to the cooking skill in the party) to give them to the "cooking" player?

-yes

-no

[LostBoy]

3 hours ago, faatal said:

The last 10k world I generated was 214 MB.

Wow, my bad.

 

Must have been Memory they were talking about, must have misread that.

 

 

 

[Phoenixshade35]

So messing around on A21 and its feeling great, though i have not found how to craft 1 thing for decoration, those signs everywhere, like the violators will be shot and prosecuted after and such, can we craft those?

 

When generating a world i found my game froze doing the old way, the advanced generation allowed me to create an 8k map in no time flat, worth giving a shot

[Mechanimal]

Loving all the new assets, but the permanently open and therefor unusable containers, like fridges, stoves, etc... hate it. Like why not just reclose the door if we put stuff in it instead of turning everything into an un-interactable prop? I'd always setup in kitchens for example, putting food in the empty fridge, campfire on stovetop with storage in stove... ugh, as much as I want to play A21 it has already ruined my motivation to continue at all. Noticed the Neebs crew are also not big fans of the change in their video. Guess I'll wait and see if anyone fixes it with mods before I play again.