Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Tearstone]

Loot

 

So regarding Loot from Zombies.

 

I observed a few things during my first watch of the vid, but didn't really dawn on me until this morning when I went to watch it again.

 

Zombie loot drops might not even need to be something we worry about. And the answer is pretty evident the moment Joel starts the game up.

 

He spawns in very close to a car. And at that car is trash, a cooler, and a backpack and maybe something else besides the zombie. He immediately gets a decent set of loot. He was tripping over a decent amount of loot, even without the zombies dropping any.

 

So zombie loot might be completely moot (as far as brass, paper, etc goes.) Which, if that's the case, I'm fine with it. The rotten flesh might be more common in fridges now, and of course there's zombie dogs, zombie bears, vultures. Who knows what else? Maybe you can make rotting flesh from other things now like raw meat?

 

I had one other thing I wanted to bring up, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was now... *shambles off to another part of the house for now*

[Gnomaana]

I truly believe in my heart of hearts that the intention was originally to add health bars to all zombies, but that the backlash caused the current iteration of reasoning.

 

In short, I don't always believe MM.

 

Yeah, I don't make up stuff in my own mind and then assume it is fact and anyone saying different is obviously lying. That's just me.

 

I do believe it was possible they were considering it, especially for bosses, but that doesn't mean they ever decided one way or the other that early on in this Alpha stage. Plus, it IS really handy for a dev trying to debug, or even just balance, damage so I could see the work being done just for that purpose.

[meganoth]

You are talking about a custom setting.

Important for a game is first of all to balance it for a "default" setting.

 

Besides: Arrows are craftable items. And even if you have a low number of them (cost of crafting), retrieving them 100% would still lead to an inflation in their numbers. So there needs to be a mechanic that wastes a portion of them. (Its not practical too have a separate durability for each arrow).

 

That can be a dedicated mechanic (% of arrows that can be plugged out), or an emergent mechanic (missing arrows fly off, and it is too cumbersome to find them again).

 

When plugging them out of a zombie, there should be some "break" or "success" notification. That could be a sound effect or visual hint.

 

There is another possibility: Bow could be designed as the basic ranged weapon (like a pistol is in shooters, where it often has infinite ammo but the lowest damage). Later in the game your bow has practically infinite ammo, but because of the rather low damage you don't use it anymore.

 

I don't think they'll go that way. Still, the A16 bow would be too powerful it stealth were working correctly

[Guppycur]

I do believe it was possible they were considering it, especially for bosses, but that doesn't mean they ever decided one way or the other that early on in this Alpha stage. Plus, it IS really handy for a dev trying to debug, or even just balance, damage so I could see the work being done just for that purpose.

 

 

So, even in your own scenario, you recognize the importance of people complaining before it's set in stone.

 

Glad we agree.

[Roland]

I truly believe in my heart...

 

You lost me here.

[Gnomaana]

So, even in your own scenario, you recognize the importance of people complaining before it's set in stone.

 

Glad we agree.

 

Oh yeah, i was never really disagreeing with your premise. I have just never let me agreeing with the premise stop me from arguing. Especially on the internet.

[faatal]

The main incentive to kill zombies should be survival. You do not want your base wrecked, and you do not want to die. Zombies are now seen only as loot pinatas to be hunted down and rounded up anyway possible to gather loot, not to disperse a threat or to save your life.

 

Well said.

 

I can get behind the idea that on a rare occasion there could be a backpack dropped from a killed zombie with some goodies in it (I imagine a situation in this case as someone allready mentioned, that after the outbreak survivors gathered loot in their backpacks and ran from the zombies, eventually got bitten and turned, with their backpack full of loot still on them), but to have every zombie drop something, as is the case now, makes the game quickly easy and dull.

 

There needs to be a way for the game to stay engaging in the long run, and I'm sure TFPs decisions for E17 that are currently disliked by some will eventually bring it closer to that goal as the development goes on.

 

I thought about it last night and real zombies would not be carrying a bunch of junk. If we all turned to zombies right now, what would we find in our pockets? Not much. Some people may have a backpack on with supplies they were carrying to bug out and then died and became a zombie, but not many.

 

The POIs contain the loot. Zombies block access. Kill/evade zombies to get at the loot. Yes, on your 100 dude server you would need to increase loot respawn or a bigger map, so you can drive farther to find stuff.

 

Bones from zombie corpses? Maybe corpses could stay around longer, it would look better, but on bloodmoons we remove oldest ones, so FPS does not tank? Would I really want to hack up zombies ever? Good way to get infected. I think more animals would be nice, to get bones and fat, with zombies killing them, so you need to thin out the zombie population to encourage more animals to survive, but if a zombie kills a boar, could you not just kill the zombie to loot the boar corpse? Lots of ways you can go with this.

 

Much testing and tweaking to go.

[eidobunny]

So regarding Loot from Zombies.

 

I observed a few things during my first watch of the vid, but didn't really dawn on me until this morning when I went to watch it again.

 

Zombie loot drops might not even need to be something we worry about. And the answer is pretty evident the moment Joel starts the game up.

 

He spawns in very close to a car. And at that car is trash, a cooler, and a backpack and maybe something else besides the zombie. He immediately gets a decent set of loot. He was tripping over a decent amount of loot, even without the zombies dropping any.

 

So zombie loot might be completely moot (as far as brass, paper, etc goes.) Which, if that's the case, I'm fine with it. The rotten flesh might be more common in fridges now, and of course there's zombie dogs, zombie bears, vultures. Who knows what else? Maybe you can make rotting flesh from other things now like raw meat?

 

I had one other thing I wanted to bring up, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was now... *shambles off to another part of the house for now*

 

Right,

 

So now you log in to a multiplayer server and all of those containers are empty.

 

It's the 7th night.

 

You harvest some wood and other resources to mock up a makeshift horde defense base. It gets completely destroyed. You die. None of the zombies you killed had any loot. You've gained nothing.

 

Well, I guess it will be "harder"

[DaVegaNL]

So, even in your own scenario, you recognize the importance of people complaining before it's set in stone.

 

Glad we agree.

 

[Brian9824]

One other thing.

 

MM and the devs have repeatedly, for a very long time now....refused to add in extra weapons, armour and legendary items. No reason has been given.

 

In the latest video MM mentions that now that they have texture streaming this free up memory for additional textures such as new guns as if this is the problem all along. Well I have to call total BS on that, if we had 3 types of pistols all with the same graphic but different stats (Glock, colt 45 etc) then the ONLY thing that needs adding is the item stats in the relevant database/xml entry, just like modders have been doing for years. You dont need new graphics, they can be added some other time, to add new weapons, armour and legendary items to the game so enough with the untruths on why we didnt get em yet.

 

We didnt get em yet because you did not want to give them to us, god only knows why but its as simple as that so dont pretend otherwise.

 

??? They have REPEATEDLY said why. Limited texture memory, inventory spam, general lack of use, etc. Having 5 guns with identical models is just bizarre and if they couldn't get the memory for them later that would be a huge issue.

 

There is no reason to add 10 pistols that use 8 ammo types and all do the same thing. As for legendary items they always said it's coming but tied to the mods.

 

Now we can get legendary mods that make an item legendary. This can now be done without needing an entirely new item, but integrated into the mod system.

[meganoth]

You're the first person I've seen on the entire forums that wanted that change, if indeed you're being honest.

 

Roland, Jedo, Jimmy_James, Crator Creator, A nice cup of tea, danielspoa, all the other people saying they are fine with the changes (yes, that probably means loot as well). Reading ability?

 

Note that critics have more reason to post than people who are fine with the changes. Make a poll if you really want to get a crude idea of forum opinion.

 

PS: I like the change too. Which is feedback about my opinion that I really want to try that out and expect that I might like it, NOT a usefull feedback that TFP should act upon. Only playing the game will produce game play feedback that comes from experience, not projection or habit. (Disclaimer: Forgot to exclude visual changes that can be seen before playing and logical problems, yes feedback about that might be useful even before playing)

[Viktoriusiii]

Bones from zombie corpses? I think more animals would be nice, to get bones and fat,

 

Zombies should not really have all that much flesh/fat on them anyways... and their bones should be splintered and not very much usable.

 

If we get more animals, I wouldnt mind not getting bones fat and flesh from zombies.

[Brian9824]

Roland, Jedo, Jimmy_James, Crator Creator, A nice cup of tea, danielspoa, all the other people saying they are fine with the changes (yes, that probably means loot as well). Reading ability?

 

Note that critics have more reason to post than people who are fine with the changes. Make a poll if you really want to get a crude idea of forum opinion.

 

PS: I like the change too. Which is feedback about my opinion that I really want to try that out and expect that I might like it, NOT a usefull feedback that TFP should act upon. Only playing the game will produce feedback that comes from experience, not projection or habit.

 

Add myself as well. I wish inventory was even more restricted at start too

[The Gronk]

Maybe corpses could stay around longer, it would look better, but on bloodmoons we remove oldest ones, so FPS does not tank?

 

+1 to this for immersion alone, it seemed more than a little odd that the corpse suddenly vanishes while you're looking at it.

[Genosis]

Zombies should not really have all that much flesh/fat on them anyways... and their bones should be splintered and not very much usable.

 

If we get more animals, I wouldnt mind not getting bones fat and flesh from zombies.

 

I think this may be the way; increase animal engagement somehow, by increasing amount of animals (finding a herd of deer, or a den of boars), and possibly some kind of animal trapping/breeding mechanism.

 

That would take the farm aspect a bit further, come to think of it. Have a crop, use some of the crop to make animal feed, and breeding animals will attract additional zombie attacks to get at them. Make fertilizer from animal droppings, butcher excess animals for hide/meat/bones.

[Survager]

Roland, how are things with the dismemberment of the zombies ??? In Joel's video, there are no cases when zombies lose their hands, legs or head ...

 

The dismemberment was removed in 17 Alpha ?????

[meganoth]

Let me see if I understand this. It is okay to run from zombies, as it is a survival game and the goal should be to live, not go and hunt zombies to kill them for their loot.

Isn't that what those who have underground bases do? They have a place to go and be safe, to not place themselves in danger and be killed as they go out to fight on horde night, or any nighttime when the zombies are running?

 

Running is powerful, but occasionally there are dogs that are faster than you or you run straight into another enemy or you run out of stamina.

 

Underground is powerful too. But occasionally zombies can sense you even underground.

 

See, it looks well balanced.

[eidobunny]

Roland, how are things with the dismemberment of the zombies ??? In Joel's video, there are no cases when zombies lose their hands, legs or head ...

 

The dismemberment was removed in 17 Alpha ?????

 

Decent question but also he just had a wooden club and a crappy shotgun/bow so I doubt he was going to be dismembering anyone at that level

[Jedo]

Your location describes you, enough said.

 

Unfortunately, your location provides no explanation for your lack of reasoning skills. Exhibit B:

One other thing.

 

MM and the devs have repeatedly, for a very long time now....refused to add in extra weapons, armour and legendary items. No reason has been given.

 

In the latest video MM mentions that now that they have texture streaming this free up memory for additional textures such as new guns as if this is the problem all along. Well I have to call total BS on that, if we had 3 types of pistols all with the same graphic but different stats (Glock, colt 45 etc) then the ONLY thing that needs adding is the item stats in the relevant database/xml entry, just like modders have been doing for years. You dont need new graphics, they can be added some other time, to add new weapons, armour and legendary items to the game so enough with the untruths on why we didnt get em yet.

 

We didnt get em yet because you did not want to give them to us, god only knows why but its as simple as that so dont pretend otherwise.

[Anabella]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25002[/ATTACH]

 

That was too easy

 

PS: Sorry for poor MS-Paint skills

 

I am out of rep or I would have gave you some cause that was awesome.

[SnowDog1942]

If we all turned to zombies right now, what would we find in our pockets? Not much. Some people may have a backpack on with supplies they were carrying to bug out and then died and became a zombie, but not many.

.

 

People dont carry supplies on them "right now" because we are not living in a zombie apocolypse. Id bet you a sham sandwich you would be carrying some supplies if zombies were over running the population

[Tin]

I am out of rep or I would have gave you some cause that was awesome.

 

Got ya covered

I missed it with my first go through..

[Roland]

Roland, how are things with the dismemberment of the zombies ??? In Joel's video, there are no cases when zombies lose their hands, legs or head ...

 

The dismemberment was removed in 17 Alpha ?????

 

Not removed. Lol. In other news Vehicles have also not been removed even though Joel traveled everywhere on foot... I know it seemed that Joel’s video was comprehensive but it was not. There is still a secret or two you guys don’t know and not seeing something is not evidence of it’s removal.

 

Heads to pink mist are still a thing.

[Survager]

Thanks Roland ) This is good news... or it is not news... ))

[bloom_meister]

Yeah, I don't make up stuff in my own mind and then assume it is fact and anyone saying different is obviously lying. That's just me.

 

I do believe it was possible they were considering it, especially for bosses, but that doesn't mean they ever decided one way or the other that early on in this Alpha stage. Plus, it IS really handy for a dev trying to debug, or even just balance, damage so I could see the work being done just for that purpose.

 

You must enjoy the 'fake news'

 

He didnt make anything up, the devs and MM showed it and clearly said they were considering it, not possibly, they said they were, so nice attempt at spin. I can quote the exact part of the MM video if you like.

 

So you just made something up and quoted it as fact, but maybe thats just you...

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Not removed. Lol. In other news Vehicles have also not been removed even though Joel traveled everywhere on foot... I know it seemed that Joel’s video was comprehensive but it was not. There is still a secret or two you guys don’t know and not seeing something is not evidence of it’s removal.

 

Heads to pink mist are still a thing.

 

My god I am hoping there were 50-100 secretes we didnt see because if thats a years work for this supposedly enlarged team all i can say is they must be REALLY up to date on the news with all that browsing they have been doing.