Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Blackgryphon]

Depends on your hardware but every game I've ever played since resolution could actually be changed since the 90's has always performed better at lower resolutions because the textures are mipped down quicker and lod's are using shorter distances and fill rate and a bunch of other stuff.

 

1: stick to the same like 16:9 so it looks right on your monitor.

2: Back in the day I think it ran better if it matched your desktop resolution but that is a thing of the past now AFAIK.

 

Actually, with video cards in the new millennium, lowering the resolution too much can actually make your performance worse. GamersNexus has a video about this on YouTube.

[Robbing Zombie]

I love the new buildings and surprises. Nice job everyone!

 

Pretty twisted ♥♥♥♥ here and there lol

[sillls]

I love the new boars POI. That was really needed for the game.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I love the new buildings and surprises. Nice job everyone!

 

Pretty twisted ♥♥♥♥ here and there lol

 

Yeah, I know what you mean! lol

[Mechanimal]

Quest are realy hard. 3 ppl doing tier II and usualy fail, die all. 8 from 10 zeds are feral... We spend two days in navezgame old west city. 4 ppl, standing on roofs, all city almost destroyed, nonstop ferals poping from ewerywhere, several deaths for everyone, unable to leave bcs all that runers. We are lvl from 20 to 40. Just arrows, no amo, perks for crafting amo not working. Also perk for tablesaw and probabli for chem station not working too. Melee is unusable, normal zed are rare, after lvl 30 jjst ferals ewerywhere. Heavy armor have big penality for moving and stamina and not so big protection for exchange. I have 27 deaths on lvl 40, almost nonstop with near death debuf, hate it. We all have around 1k hour played on this game but this patch is little insane :-D

 

For some reason I read your post as I would the final journal entry found in a diary being held by a corpse in the top room of a ruined building overlooking the city...

 

Probably the same reason I did, visual and all. Read like death note warnings of someone bleeding out, desperately trying to summarize all that they could before taking their last breath... all the misspellings made it more believable as such.

 

I've been having fun watching the extreme difficulty increase spank seasoned players, myself included. The death debuff does feel like insult to injury though, mainly because the game was VERY casual by comparison in A16. Also many players love building elaborate structures, myself included, having SO many blocks locked behind things like the table-saw induces much sadface, especially when the Z's have insane block damage while the players can barely break anything without severe exhaustion of stamina. I know you guys are rebalancing a lot, and no matter how it ends up we will adapt. It did go from too-easy to too-hard pretty severely, but it's by exploring those extremes, and exposing players to it, that you get the experienced feedback needed to create a final balance.

 

I had to turn off running, which I usually leave on at night, the new AI is just too good at both detecting and pathing straight to me. However I have been playing too much as I did in A16, so now I feel challenged to adapt my playstyle. The only reason I will not turn running back on though is because of the death penalty, it is too harsh and lasts too long, I end up just doing nothing for a day waiting for it to go away. But I am glad there is some form of consequence now, again however it ends up being in stable I will adapt, and look forward to it.

 

Also avoiding Tier 2 quests now, baby steps...

[Mechanimal]

Also, and this may be a future version idea because it would add detail to every Z and animal entity, it would make sense for the head to have 2 hitboxes instead of one. Basically a much smaller one in the center, representing the mid-brain. Almost any critter can survive damage to the cortex and more outer areas of the head, things are fine in that respect, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING would survive a single shot to the mid-brain. So, like a small secondary hitbox deep in the middle. Arrows are not likely to make it that far, but a bullet, even from a handgun, would. Making it hard to hit would be fine, but at least a rare and well placed shot would give players a chance, against any and all things, to save some ammo, and their ass. It would be instant death, again make it hard to hit, or introduce a rare percentage, akin to the % now of bag drops of only a few percent. Just an idea.

[wildaxeman1]

that's good idea. i would add crossbows too, they are powerful enough to hit brain

[FileMachete]

Easy way to clear the Death Penalty in SP: -Spoiler-

 

-Spoiler-

 

 

enable godmode, enter godmode for a second via Q key. debuff cleared, beware it also fills Food & Water.

 

Found this out after using godmode to take SSs after BM where I died a couple times.

 

 

[FileMachete]

Also, and this may be a future version idea because it would add detail to every Z and animal entity, it would make sense for the head to have 2 hitboxes instead of one. Basically a much smaller one in the center, representing the mid-brain. Almost any critter can survive damage to the cortex and more outer areas of the head, things are fine in that respect, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING would survive a single shot to the mid-brain. So, like a small secondary hitbox deep in the middle. Arrows are not likely to make it that far, but a bullet, even from a handgun, would. Making it hard to hit would be fine, but at least a rare and well placed shot would give players a chance, against any and all things, to save some ammo, and their ass. It would be instant death, again make it hard to hit, or introduce a rare percentage, akin to the % now of bag drops of only a few percent. Just an idea.

 

That'd be pretty cool. Though I'd then be whining for a neck/animal-brain-stem hitbox

'adulah oblogava' (isck spelling ) thingy

Though just severing the spinal column could be more entertaining; head still lives, mouth and eyes move, doesn't despawn. Truly an ankle-biter

[Mechanimal]

that's good idea. i would add crossbows too, they are powerful enough to hit brain

 

Perhaps, it's more about the depth of the shot, and hitting center of head, any deviation up, left or right would still just damage cortex. Humans in particular have a double layer of cortex, which is unique, ours actually grows out from below and then folds back up and over the first layer, creating a significant extra layer of protection to the mid-brain and upper sections of the medula complex. Maybe for a cross bow the percentage chance would just be much lower than a firearm, but still present.

 

Lot of people also assume smaller calibers do less damage, but realistically(I've worked a few homicide cases irl) small calibers are not strong enough to exit the head after entry, but they end up bouncing around inside, ricocheting back inward of the interior of the skull, and causing even more damage to deeper areas, so...

[Mechanimal]

That'd be pretty cool. Though I'd then be whining for a neck/animal-brain-stem hitbox

'adulah oblogava' (isck spelling ) thingy

Though just severing the spinal column could be more entertaining; head still lives, mouth and eyes move, doesn't despawn. Truly an ankle-biter

 

Ah, yeah true, for animals anyway. But getting to that medula section in most humans would be harder from the front, you'd have to hit them either through the mouth or in the back of the head, low, and well, how often are they looking the other way, lol. Would be possible to save a party members ass with a one-shot from behind, but most people would aim too high. Still it would be cool, a way to balance the new higher difficulty, and still hard to land the shot just right, which is why maybe just introducing a very small percentage chance to existing headshots would suffice.

[Skykemn]

Hey folks, I'm curious to know which parameters are affected by the games difficulty setting in the main menu.

 

I've played a number of A17 games on a number of difficulty settings, and the most unfair and punishing horde action happened on the novice difficulty.

Sure, this might just come down to the curse of random generation, but I see no increased difficulty between these settings. In fact, it seems to work in reverse.

Are the settings nerfed, or am I missing something?

As far as i know the damage you do to zombies and the damage the zombies do to you is what changes .

 

So if 3 is 100 with 100 , insane(6) is something like you give 0.5 normal damage to zombies and they give 1.5 or 1.75 damage to you something lile that not sure on the actual numbers tho

[FileMachete]

Ah, yeah true, for animals anyway. But getting to that medula section in most humans would be harder from the front, you'd have to hit them either through the mouth or in the back of the head, low, and well, how often are they looking the other way, lol. Would be possible to save a party members ass with a one-shot from behind, but most people would aim too high. Still it would be cool, a way to balance the new higher difficulty, and still hard to land the shot just right, which is why maybe just introducing a very small percentage chance to existing headshots would suffice.

 

True, buggers are always staring at me like they want to eat... err, wait a dam minute!

Always kind of wondered about how straight on &/or distance a .22LR had to be within to pierce the human skull.

Worked on a remodel that was near a small slaughterhouse. First time I heard a shot I was ducking and looking; owner laughed at me said they were just slaughtering hogs using a .38. Anything smaller would just bounce off and piss off the pig apparently.

Weird the things we learn along the way huh?

[Gnomaana]

Actually, with video cards in the new millennium, lowering the resolution too much can actually make your performance worse. GamersNexus has a video about this on YouTube.

 

Pretty sure that is only true if you are moving from a setting that is not pushing your GPU at all. So there is no performance gain to be had and the work in down scaling will cause a little degradation in performance. Normally that overhead is buried in the performance gain but if your card is not being pushed at all then there is no where for it to be buried. (Note: I have not watched the video yet.)

[HerrKingsley]

Ah, yeah true, for animals anyway. But getting to that medula section in most humans would be harder from the front, you'd have to hit them either through the mouth or in the back of the head, low, and well, how often are they looking the other way, lol. Would be possible to save a party members ass with a one-shot from behind, but most people would aim too high. Still it would be cool, a way to balance the new higher difficulty, and still hard to land the shot just right, which is why maybe just introducing a very small percentage chance to existing headshots would suffice.

 

You knock the zombies down with the club an Finnish them with 1 arrow through the mouth!

[Lonestarcanuck]

Question(s):

 

1. If container like a dresser or cabinet is open it will always be open or will it close/reset to close when loot respawns?

 

2. Loot respawn mechanics. in A16 if you were within 30 blocks or a container it would reset the timer for the loot. is this still the same for A17? can anyone share the mechanics?

 

 

PS: I love how containers are stashed or hidden in false floor or wall panels and how Zs just pop out of areas. like the hidden guy in the hunted house - scary.

[wolffblood]

That is how terrain blocks work. They slope into adjacent terrain.

 

Ah, okay. Is there a good way to do it so it's flat, completely, for vehicles? Even with the plates, I still damage them and my vehicle since they are higher than ground and blocks, lol. At least I don't get wheels stuck on the slope, heh.

[Laz Man]

Hey folks, I'm curious to know which parameters are affected by the games difficulty setting in the main menu.

 

I've played a number of A17 games on a number of difficulty settings, and the most unfair and punishing horde action happened on the novice difficulty.

Sure, this might just come down to the curse of random generation, but I see no increased difficulty between these settings. In fact, it seems to work in reverse.

Are the settings nerfed, or am I missing something?

 

Maybe the fun pimps are trolling us. To the XML cave Robin!!! 😅

[Sam_Neill]

Hey folks, I'm curious to know which parameters are affected by the games difficulty setting in the main menu.

 

I've played a number of A17 games on a number of difficulty settings, and the most unfair and punishing horde action happened on the novice difficulty.

Sure, this might just come down to the curse of random generation, but I see no increased difficulty between these settings. In fact, it seems to work in reverse.

Are the settings nerfed, or am I missing something?

 

Easier settings:

You die less (staying alive longer with less deaths)+ you level up easier and faster= higher gamestage

I guess the lower setting does not cancel or negate the lower gameDifficultyMultiplier.

 

Look into the gamestages.xml for a more detailed description.

gameStage = ( playerLevel + daysSurvived ) * gameDifficultyMultiplier


daysAliveChangeWhenKilled="2"
scavengerGameDifficultyBonus="1.0"
adventurerGameDifficultyBonus="1.2"
nomadGameDifficultyBonus="1.5"
warriorGameDifficultyBonus="1.7"
survivalistGameDifficultyBonus="2.0"
insaneGameDifficultyBonus="2.5"

startingWeight ="1"
diminishingReturns ="0.2"

[GrumpyGringo]

Just listing some fun observations of Alpha 17.

 

I'm running a local game with 200% loot and cheat mode. (I only used cheats to give myself a motorcycle, some crappy clothes, a handgun, maybe 20 rounds and a knife. I didn't even give myself a cooking pot. My wife won't play without cheats, she gets too scared. 😉)

 

- Steroids are fun. I fill my inventory with junk and kill zeds with my knife.

 

- There seems to be a delay with the zed animations and hitting them. Not sure if this is intentional or not. Can't say that I hate it. When they're moving around alot or reacting to a strike, they become much harder to hit. I've figured out the timing where I can drop one or two with a knife no problem. If theres more, you will become a worm feast pretty easy if you try and mele.

 

- The silencer schematic doesn't work. Not too worried about it. I haven't figured out how to mod stuff yet anyway.

 

- I like the new "jumpscare," direction the game is going. I get sweaty palms playing in the dark by myself. Yes. This sounds exactly as bad as it should. You thought it, not me.

 

- I see saw from clearing buildings by myself with a knife to getting killed by a stray I didn't see behind me. Its scary good.

 

- If you die during a quest, you fail the quest. I think this is awesome. It gives the quests real consequences.

 

I'm sure I have more but I have to clock in at work. Alpha 17 is alot of fun so far!

[Warisuponyou]

Haha.... totally agree! Best post I've read on here in days (and it wasn't even in all caps with huge yellow font, LOL)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

For some reason I read your post as I would the final journal entry found in a diary being held by a corpse in the top room of a ruined building overlooking the city...

 

this post, that is..

[lord_ahriman]

@Faatal @Gazz @Madmole @Roland, "no sell price" for concrete blocks, is this intentional or a bug?

 

***************************************

 

(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 

WIP and is sellable once again in current test build

[Fren]

I disagree, 2 story poi's with the staircase knocked out are still stupid easy to survive in, and much easier to prepare. Even with complete lack of reinforcement these things will last quite a few horde nights before they finally collapse (even more if you don't move around upstairs which forces the horde to destroy the supports beneath you)

 

It'd be great if there was some sort of fuzzy logic that caused large portions of these prefabs to randomly collapse regardless of the integrity programmed for the relative material. Something like this would really strike fear into the bravest of POI sitters each horde night.

 

That would be awesome indeed. This is the easiest way to survive all nights, including horde nights. But when u know that enough damage to ur structure, walls or floors could make parts of the building collapse u have to to decide whether to take the fight to them or prepare ur house better with defenses or just ride it out with the risk of losing it all...

[Odetta]

Are wood log spikes gone?

[lord_ahriman]

@unholyjoe, sorry my ignorance, but what is "WIP"?

[wolfbain5]

@unholyjoe, sorry my ignorance, but what is "WIP"?

 

Work In Progress