Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[wolfbain5]

He didnt forget about us, he forgot what day it was. Thought it would be the weekend. wait til saturday

[Aldranon]

A hunger or Thirst bar I don't need them on all the time. Just pop up at 25% and stay on for anything below that. More times than not, I fill them both up that point any how. 25% is a good marker point imo, even if I'm cold. >.> Have the audio cues start at that point as well and then 1 more time at 10, no need for them to play that often. again imo.

 

That's closer to what I want as well. Dump the moaning and groaning and leave the indicators on below 25%.

 

Of course if it was realistic, you would have a fat% and fat would keep you from losing health for several days (might lose some muscle and bone mass). Eat more than you need and you have more fat%.

 

That would be cool.

[JaxTeller718]

That’s been said by Madmole before....it’s not exactly breaking news. It’s just been awhile since he said it.

 

But he has said a LOT and it has changed. I need concrete answers NOW.

 

Joking aside this is good enough for me. The buffs system has huge potential and we all know weather is borked in its current form. The fact it will be revisited is enough to keep me from complaining over it now.

 

Imagine a world where digging through a corpse for loot could get you infected or needing to wash off after a horde night. I mean it gets messy. Smell should be an issue in attracting unwanted nasties.

[DaVegaNL]

You still get to deal with mineralogy plus a whole bunch of chemistry. You're a useless geologist without that...

 

And with mineralogy I don't mean knowing which crystal is for happiness and which one for ED.

 

Hehe, true.. But that's easier than maths!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Does eating dirt make you better at geology?

 

Yep. Yes it does. But we usually only lick rocks and take dirt into our mouths. We usually don't eat it... usually..

[Roland]

That's closer to what I want as well. Dump the moaning and groaning and leave the indicators on below 25%.

 

I think some of you have been keeping your food bar topped off for so long it hasn’t been since the sound effect was implemented that you’ve actually listened to it. It’s not that bad and is in fact necessary for playing with invisible hud. It’s the only indicator at all for hunger and thirst.

 

So let’s leave it in.

[Aldranon]

I think some of you have been keeping your food bar topped off for so long it hasn’t been since the sound effect was implemented that you’ve actually listened to it. It’s not that bad and is in fact necessary for playing with invisible hud. It’s the only indicator at all for hunger and thirst.

 

So let’s leave it in.

 

I guess I'll live.

 

Just a couple thoughts to help reduce the OCD flare-ups in the forum:

-If you over eat, the overeaten amount is kept but not displayed. So food is not wasted. Is this already done?

 

-(new idea) Not being able to die until wellness or heath reach 0? Its realistic, have a penalty for neglecting your heath. With food, you lose 1 wellness every hour your hunger is 0, so a 150 (perfectly heathy) person being active could live without food for about 6 days before death. Without water for 3 days so 2 wellness loss per hour.

[Aldranon]

what if with every passing day infections increase across the board. Day 1 a very rare chance of encountering a feral zombie, and your chances increasing every day until on some day they are all running and radiated...unless you knock them back and stop the infection.

 

Maybe have the virus mutate over time, which causes the late game zombies AND if you get infected late game you start losing heath or wellness immediately.

 

Right now, after the first week or so, getting infected is a nothing.

[JaxTeller718]

I guess I'll live.

 

Just a couple thoughts to help reduce the OCD flare-ups in the forum:

-If you over eat, the overeaten amount is kept but not displayed. So food is not wasted. Is this already done?

 

-(new idea) Not being able to die until wellness or heath reach 0? Its realistic, have a penalty for neglecting your heath. With food, you lose 1 wellness every hour your hunger is 0, so a 150 (perfectly heathy) person being active could live without food for about 6 days before death. Without water for 3 days so 2 wellness loss per hour.

 

I love the wellness idea. It has been so long since wellness was able to drop below 70. I kind of miss the struggle to build it back up. Wellness is barely even an issue anymore since you can just buy the perk to safely stay above 120.

[toores]

Ok, so i read all of the Rolands "rant" and 'm still not agreeing one bit. Not that i just disagree with him but rather they seem like bad arguments.

 

Some examples:

 

1. Screen cluttering - Small bars clutter screen, so remove health bar. Except there is no way to feel how hurt you are without a bar. Same goes to hunger. I would actually say that notifications at certain points (25,50,27%) are more clutter then hunger/thirst bar. Distracting popup at the time you didn't want it.

 

2. and 3. Just eat something to know and no damage until 0% - IRL i don't eat something to know whether i'm hungry. And what if i don't have anything to eat and i'm sick and all bunch of stuff (survival situation) it is vital for me t know what task is more urgent. Having hunger at 11% sometimes makes it more urgent then infection. So i HAVE TO look in the menu to know my priorities. (btw numbers are not important, seeing a hunger bar gives a rough estimation enough, no need to ridicule that someone needs to know exactly 78 or 79%)

 

4. missing the notification at 75% 50% 25% simulates ignoring signs of hunger - more likely simulates that i'm only able to perceive my stomach emptiness at certain fullness levels - every quarter. This is not true at all. IRL i know my fullness roughly every time i think about it, which inside a game would be the time i would look at the hunger bar.

 

5. Anxiety, excitement distracting from hunger - When i'm in a fight with a zombie horde i don't notice the hunger bar even when it's visual. Most of the time i don't notice it even when doing unexciting stuff. It's actually not "in my face" all the time.

And the personal example of not eating 3 days rather proves the need for the bar. You can do that in real life but not in a game, even after eating a full stag worth of meat.

 

6. Is the game better or worse for not having /an artificial extended info/? - this does not compare to basic intuitively known first hand info.

 

 

 

The current design allows for missed information due to not paying attention which is a completely consistent simulation of a survivor in a stressful and intense environment.

 

The current design gives "signs of hunger" rather than to the percentage knowledge of 74% vs 73% vs 72% fullness

 

Adding the food bar would virtually remove any player mistakes in regards to hunger. It would be almost impossible to accidentally face the survival situation of starvation due to player error.

 

The food bar with its percentages encourages and facilitates gamey behavior for things like getting your wellness up which is unnatural behavior that has nothing to do with how you feel hunger or fullness in real life.

 

So beyond clutter there are some valid design reasons to do periodic notifications and sound effects rather than always on percentage point by percentage point perfect knowledge.

 

I get that lots of other games include a food bar. I'm glad TFP made a different choice and I hope they continue to do things that will allow players to make mistakes and have to live with the consequences of those mistakes.

 

 

7. Again, artificial vs intuitive way of perceiving hunger. Mistakes will more likely be made because of bad design. Because believe me, even with visual bars you can forget to eat up before a long trip.

And "worrying" about a tiny minority who would get wellness up few minutes faster (eating at 99% rather then 50%) is just random... No difference in the long run.

 

Some things are even more prevalent with "feels like" temperature, because it can kill you even faster.

 

Every time i use "IRL" i know it's not simulator, i'm just saying some ways of doing things are more intuitive - less artificial.

 

Ok, i just got tired. And just by thinking about it and without any menus i know that i'm a little hungry. I'm gonna get a snack.

 

Cheers

[Darkfoxx117]

 

-(new idea) Not being able to die until wellness or heath reach 0? Its realistic, have a penalty for neglecting your heath. With food, you lose 1 wellness every hour your hunger is 0, so a 150 (perfectly heathy) person being active could live without food for about 6 days before death. Without water for 3 days so 2 wellness loss per hour.

 

This is a really good idea and one i can get behind.

[Luzifer]

Can we please stop that Topic?

 

In the end its up to the decision of TFP what the Base Game will look like and all WE can, and in future will be able to do, is to make a mod Request for our desired Design of the Game and be Happy With that.

 

TFP has no reason to Change the games structure, only because people Have a hard time to multitask (keeping half an eye on the downleadt corner) or press 2 buttons (inventory).

 

So let it be as it is, be either happy with it or not.

Until the game goes gold, everything is subject to change anyways.

 

So chill people,

Please

[JaxTeller718]

 

Ok, i just got tired. And just by thinking about it and without any menus i know that i'm a little hungry. I'm gonna get a snack.

 

Cheers

 

I didn't quote you but bravo. Everything you said makes absolute sense.

 

But I DO have an experiment for you. Can you please, after you eat your snack, tell us how long it take you to die from hunger? I suspect it will take way more than one day.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Can we please stop that Topic?

 

In the end its up to the decision of TFP what the Base Game will look like and all WE can, and in future will be able to do, is to make a mod Request for our desired Design of the Game and be Happy With that.

 

TFP has no reason to Change the games structure, only because people Have a hard time to multitask (keeping half an eye on the downleadt corner) or press 2 buttons (inventory).

 

So let it be as it is, be either happy with it or not.

Until the game goes gold, everything is subject to change anyways.

 

So chill people,

Please

 

So you want people to stop giving their opinions in an EA game? That is still in development? Yes SIR!

[Gnomaana]

You still get to deal with mineralogy plus a whole bunch of chemistry. You're a useless geologist without that...

 

And with mineralogy I don't mean knowing which crystal is for happiness and which one for ED.

 

Which one is for ED? Asking for a friend.

[Gazz]

You seem fixated on the straw man percentage argument, when all I'm seeing is a bunch of people who don't want to have to look at another screen to see if they're hungry or not. It's not rocket science, or even rock science.

 

Video games have limitations, huds are necessary to combat some of those limitations.

To me it isn't about the exact % at all.

It's about having an always-on display and always in the same place. Not something that may or may not pop up whenever it decides to.

 

 

All I'm seeing are a bunch of people who think they have to look at another screen to see if they are hungry or not when in reality they don't.

You're trying to explain to lefties that scissors work fine and they are simply using the wrong hand.

 

Technically the player doesn't NEED any bars on the main HUD. Just look at the character screen if you have a red screen overlay or are running slow... because likely you're almost dead or out of stamina.

Those damn gamers only want to beat the system by healing themselves before they are under 25% HP!

 

IMO, the XP bar is 100% useless on the main HUD. Using that space for a stat display without numbers or icons is apparently okay so instead use the same space for hunger / thirst bars in the same fashion. =)

 

 

I think Madmole forgot about us.

Oh? Who are you again? =)

[owl79]

Different topic, but I'd really like to know if the devs have taken note of the mods zombie transmogrifier and crafting lag fixes. IIRC they said before that randomizing zombies just wasn't easily possible, but the transmogrifier proves otherwise. And I know the lag isn't as bad in vanilla, but implementing a little more mod-friendliness wouldn't go amiss.

[Gazz]

Which one is for ED? Asking for a friend.

You can find that stuff on "Lifestyle" vendors like Covetton House.

[JaxTeller718]

Different topic, but I'd really like to know if the devs have taken note of the mods zombie transmogrifier and crafting lag fixes. IIRC they said before that randomizing zombies just wasn't easily possible, but the transmogrifier proves otherwise. And I know the lag isn't as bad in vanilla, but implementing a little more mod-friendliness wouldn't go amiss.

 

Very good question. The transmogrifier adds an amazing amount of variety. We love it, and crafting lag fixes is a life saver. All developed by our resident mad genius sphereii, also responsible for the Launcher!

[Maharin]

I died to hunger on a horde night while messing with experimental. Why? Because I was KILLING ZOMBIES and didn't have time to pay attention to my belly trying to give birth to a grown man. So dead I was, amidst trying to shoot cops and ferals. If I had the bar I'd have been able to look over and say "♥♥♥♥ time to eat" and hit the stew on my bar. Without the info I would have had to stop looking at my current life or death situation. Being that it was a Burnt biome I dehydrated even quicker.

 

We can get into a realism argument. Hows this for realism. The game makes you eat so friggin much that no way in hell if I woke up and ate at 3pm would I drop dead at 2am while fighting zombies in "real life". If you want us to play realistically when it comes to stats maybe I shouldn't have to eat the whole damn cow to live through the night. Then MAYBE I wouldn't need the bar on my screen to begin with.

 

This is exactly the point I want to make. The HUD and associated data behind it is all I have to know the state of my character in game. Removing information that is critical to my survival is NOT realism. When I'm hungry I KNOW I'm hungry, no doubt, no evading it. If I'm too busy to eat I can delay eating for a while but I don't stop being hungry. When I reach the next "stage" of hunger it usually means I'm having to stop what I'm doing and eat anyway, regardless of the situation. In the real world I can take a bit of something and keep moving, in this game all I can do is consume something in its entirety. Point is that my hunger in the real world doesn't disappear behind a wall of "stop everything and check my vitals". And thirst is MUCH more noticeable.

 

So until this game has some way of linking me to my character directly, forcing me to stop everything to check the basics is very much bad design.

 

And to Roland's point earlier, good design is not the same as good engineering. A thing is well engineered when it does what it is supposed to do with little to no waste. Design is personal. A well designed house for one person may not work at all for someone else, which doesn't make the other person less intelligent. What seems to be well designed controls to me may confuse someone else or get in their way. A HUD isn't just aesthetics, it isn't just convenience, and it sure as hell isn't science.

[Luzifer]

I didn't quote you but bravo. Everything you said makes absolute sense.

 

But I DO have an experiment for you. Can you please, after you eat your snack, tell us how long it take you to die from hunger? I suspect it will take way more than one day.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

So you want people to stop giving their opinions in an EA game? That is still in development? Yes SIR!

 

O M G

No

 

But people ended up barking at each other what system would be the best one amd its Giving this thread dark Vibes.

 

Your sarkasm too is not helpful to keep things positive :/

[xyth]

Very good question. The transmogrifier adds an amazing amount of variety. We love it, and crafting lag fixes is a life saver. All developed by our resident mad genius sphereii, also responsible for the Launcher!

 

Maybe they should also other stuff too, like climbable vines:

 

Maybe they will......

[Jedo]

This is #HUDgate, right? Shouldn't the thread about "all the gates" be updated to mark down this stretch of history (in the making)?

[JaxTeller718]

Maybe they should also other stuff too, like climbable vines:

 

Maybe they will......

 

How did i MISS this! Nice work!!

[petruherro]

Where is the video that he promised?

[crazywildfire]

Where is the video that he promised?

 

I don't recall him promising but maybe something came up and he wasn't able to make a video. It will come soon just hang in there. 😉

[Red Eagle LXIX]

I was asked why not have the bar since apparently clutter isn't the real issue. My answer is that the bar is too much information that removes player error in regards to eating and drinking from the game. Without it you have to play with awareness to the signs and you can more easily find yourself in an actual life or death situation which is why we play survival games in the first place. The food and water bars keep us well away from playing to survive. They keep us well within playing keep-the-bar-topped-off.

If the intent to cause player error about something they should have innate unerring knowledge with just a simple thought (no menu looking in a backpack) then that is indeed trolling and being purposefully a bad design. End game, no point even talking discussing it if the goal is to punish the player for not having the innate knowledge that should be provided by the their body.

 

Even in real life when you get distracted (and when you are distracted you are often not looking at the GUI) you can miss queues. Correct, but it only takes an instant or even passing thought to remind you. You don't have to make a conscious effort to look in a backpack, looking down at an out of the way GUI element is the equivalent of said passing thought.

 

You've made quite clear your intention is to punish the player for not knowing something they would innately know if the body was their own. This is an encouragement of bad design.