PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Roland said:
Interesting thought process Ranzera but it just isn't going to happen. The dye has been set and your "opposite day" scenario is not in the cards. :)  

I can see your reasoning but I can just as easily see the reasoning that TFP is actually going to go with. Can you not accept that stuff was left behind in haste and that tougher zombies that inhabit those biomes keep it from getting scavenged before you get a crack at it?

We don't know yet about the bandits. In the Navezgane map I believe that the casino is going to be deep in the wasteland biome or perhaps along the border of the desert and the wasteland. That could all change, of course, but if the Duke's seat of power is in the wasteland then it stands to reason that the density of bandits would radiate from there. Again, you can scratch your head and wonder why would they live in the wasteland or you can try and come up with an explanation of why they live there....since they do. If TFP gets a cohesive backstory together you might not even have to think of it yourself, you'll find out as you play.
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I recognize that. I was speaking more from a "It makes far more sense if it was modeled *this* way" perspective. Though you have to admit this would solve a few ongoing and future problems with the 7DtD play through cycle. It gives the players a goal to work towards at end game, to capture and hold bandit territory and have that territory be desirable to the player. If the bandits were threatening enough, it'd force the players to defend their base vs a bigger variety of targets. 

No one has a base in the wasteland today for any reason besides bragging rights. It's ugly, there's no resources there besides scrap and in multiplayer no one really goes there so you'll be alone to boot. Sure we can add logic defying mechanics to shore it up but it'll never feel like a desirable end game because there's nothing to keep a person there. Once they get what they want out of it, they'll never go back. And if your bandits are there, you may as well write them off as half wasted content too. They'll just be the last, last second obstacle for a player before they say to themselves "whelp, beat that one."

 
Ranzera said:
I recognize that. I was speaking more from a "It makes far more sense if it was modeled *this* way" perspective. Though you have to admit this would solve a few ongoing and future problems with the 7DtD play through cycle. It gives the players a goal to work towards at end game, to capture and hold bandit territory and have that territory be desirable to the player. If the bandits were threatening enough, it'd force the players to defend their base vs a bigger variety of targets. 

No one has a base in the wasteland today for any reason besides bragging rights. It's ugly, there's no resources there besides scrap and in multiplayer no one really goes there so you'll be alone to boot. Sure we can add logic defying mechanics to shore it up but it'll never feel like a desirable end game because there's nothing to keep a person there. Once they get what they want out of it, they'll never go back. And if your bandits are there, you may as well write them off as half wasted content too. They'll just be the last, last second obstacle for a player before they say to themselves "whelp, beat that one."
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There is actually nothing wrong with the "whelp, beat that one" mentality.  Accomplishments is a great thing in games.  End game doesnt have to be green pastures, gold pots and rainbows for the story to be great.

 
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Laz Man said:
There is actually nothing wrong with the "whelp, beat that one" mentality.  Accomplishments is a great thing in games.  End game doesnt have to be green pastures, gold pots and rainbows for the story to be great.
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I never said it did. I'm saying that struggling to capture and hold something you desire is a more compelling end game than we have.

 
Ranzera said:
I never said it did. I'm saying that struggling to capture and hold something you desire is a more compelling end game than we have.
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They may change the current end game, but MM has said the current end game will be quests or something similar from traders or the like.

We shall wait and see what they do.

I would love it if there was a storyline of how you annoyed The Duke and he has dumped you in the forest/wasteland/desert (depending on difficulty) and is toying with you and you can go get revenge or not / or make peace with him/her or build your rival bandit empire or capture his base hidden somewhere random from you on the current map you are on.

You have to fight off bandit attacks on your base, blood moon hoard and more.

This is a flight of fancy of mine, I am sure they want to get the game done and dusted now.

 
Ranzera said:
The buildings are all half wrecked or worse, but the narrative is that the bombs and fires somehow *didn't* destroy the loot inside, but instead means that loot is somehow *more* valuable? That sounds like an argument a Florida real estate agent might make in the apocalypse. I'm not buying it, not for .2 seconds. All the best loot is in the flooded hurricane areas right? Same concept here.

I get the feeling that anytime anyone thinks about "Bandits," what they are actually picturing are Psychos from Borderlands. Bandits are going to be your disaster refugees that banded together to survive by means of force. They are about as likely to stake out a living in a wasteland or a burned forest as you are going to seek a career in coal mining.

I'm just picturing what reasoning people would do in an apocalypse when they had a near monopoly of force. They'd keep the best stuff for themselves and leave the rest to starve. The Forest is the prime real estate in this game and you can bet your @%$*#! if this were a real world simulation, they'd be there and they'd round up everyone else and force them into the undesirable places.
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You are over-thinking it and making the logical error that most people see it the way you do. In my years on this forum I've never seen anyone even bring this issue up.

One of a million ways to explain it using my imagination is: Over the years people have picked the "nice" areas clean. The apocalypse did not just happen yesterday. The only good loot left is in the dangerous areas filled with nasty burnt and irradiated creatures that people avoided.

 
Hey there, stoked about A19. Some questions, not all are directly linked with A19 however :

- is the new lighting going to fix the weird "lightning distance", and the lightning performance ? We have a base that is fully lit up with those industrial bulbs (about 20 of them I'd say) and performance tanks a bit when those are all on. Besides, we have a garage maybe 30 blocks away and it's "too far" to render the lightning there, so you see the light sources veryyyyy dimmed, and the lights progressively get brighter as you get closer.

- any news regarding performance gains ? I'm still having some stuttering / freezes on a dedi, it's pretty random and inconsistent, but when it starts getting messed up it's really annoying and nothing short of a restart of the game really helps. 

- I've come across this post : https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/g0n8gm/huge_performance_increase_in_7_days_to_die_unity/
and I just wanted to make sure it got the visibility it deserved. Haven't tested anything of it myself (yet), but I reckon faatal stated he never checks the reddit and this seemed like a very interesting read.

Cheers !

EDIT: Oh yeah regarding the lackluster quests. Would it be possible to make the "fetch" quests a bit more... organic ? Basically instead of having to find the same old satchel in a perfectly pinpointed location, would it be possible for the trader to make his demand more believable ? Some ideas to get my point across : 

- "Hey there survivor, I forgot my beloved flask in my house, it's in the fridge, could you get it for me ?"

- "What's up dawg, I didn't take my wrench with me when I moved here, it should be in my garage, mind looking for it ?"

I reckon you could "scan" POI's blocks and spawn adequate items in adequate containers. Would make the whole a lot more believable AND be way better for gameplay. I'd love having to find the kitchen in a house, or the bedroom, instead of following my compass until i'm 0.6m away from the marker.

 
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beHypE said:
Hey there, stoked about A19. Some questions, not all are directly linked with A19 however :

- is the new lighting going to fix the weird "lightning distance", and the lightning performance ? We have a base that is fully lit up with those industrial bulbs (about 20 of them I'd say) and performance tanks a bit when those are all on. Besides, we have a garage maybe 30 blocks away and it's "too far" to render the lightning there, so you see the light sources veryyyyy dimmed, and the lights progressively get brighter as you get closer.

- any news regarding performance gains ? I'm still having some stuttering / freezes on a dedi, it's pretty random and inconsistent, but when it starts getting messed up it's really annoying and nothing short of a restart of the game really helps. 

- I've come across this post : https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/g0n8gm/huge_performance_increase_in_7_days_to_die_unity/
and I just wanted to make sure it got the visibility it deserved. Haven't tested anything of it myself (yet), but I reckon faatal stated he never checks the reddit and this seemed like a very interesting read.

Cheers !
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I cant speak for the team but there is a whole new linear lighting engine plus fog tech plus horizon tech going in.

Maybe one of the team will give us a tidbit :)

 
E

From madmoles twitter

EZJ8vjYUYAAAtka


 
Linear/gamma lighting is basically just a toggle in Unity. But changing from gamma to linear will require more or less extensive adjustments to textures and lights to have a similar scene.

The screenshots look more colorful ... question is, is this how the game should look like in the end, or do you plan to desaturate the world using post processing?

 
HungryZombie said:
You are over-thinking it and making the logical error that most people see it the way you do. In my years on this forum I've never seen anyone even bring this issue up.

One of a million ways to explain it using my imagination is: Over the years people have picked the "nice" areas clean. The apocalypse did not just happen yesterday. The only good loot left is in the dangerous areas filled with nasty burnt and irradiated creatures that people avoided.
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You've failed to demonstrate how that's a logical error. Making an argument isn't a logical error. I'm not pretending anyone here sees it any way in particular. If I thought everyone saw it the way I do, I wouldn't be here presenting my view point, would I?

If all the Bandits are supposedly in the wasteland, don't you think they would have "picked that clean" over the years? Hmmm? Speaking of logical errors, Cherry picking where your logic applies...

 
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DaVegaNL said:
Any news on the performance of A19? Given the new lightning system, I'm expecting it to be worse than A18.

Wondering at the FPS he gets there.
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Same here, eye candy is always nice but the game still runs pretty average in a lot of situations no matter what your settings are, so i'd be much more interested in knowing how the new lightning affects performance.

 
DaVegaNL said:
Any news on the performance of A19? Given the new lightning system, I'm expecting it to be worse than A18.

Wondering at the FPS he gets there.
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Im not a programmer and I dont know how it correlates but for me the graphics in A18 are great, good enough such that id rather focus on adding more zombies and entities on screen rather than further improved graphics/lighting, assuming both would hurt frame rates and require general optimizations across the game.  

Better lighting vs a few on screen zeds?  Id take the zeds.  Better zombie textures vs a few more on screen?  Again id take higher numbers.  
 

Even as a first impression of the game, i think zed numbers could bring feeling of aww to the player more so than improved lighting. 
 

Again this is all assuming Improved graphics/textures/lighting directly reduce ability to add zeds and vice versa

 
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Ranzera said:
Continuing that line of logic, it should probably be the easier biomes with the ferals anyway. It makes more sense fresh zeds would be the runners and you'll be seeing the fresh zeds where there's people dying (IE the bandits).

Things that aren't destroyed are going to at least be damaged and therefore of lower quality. I'd expect to see Faulty quality items where everything got destroyed. That is if I saw any loot at all.
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Sure a lot is destroyed because of the fire, that is why you won't find as much loot boxes in a destroyed building as in a complete one. But the cellar or safes in less burned down parts of the building will be unharmed. And while 80% of the good stuff was already found in forest buildings (and you have to be lucky to find the good loot under well-hidden floor tiles), it will be relatively easy to find in the wasteland, just go down to the cellar and voila. 

What really can't be well explained, neither in your nor TFP's scenario is the fact that valuable loot is found in big boxes all over the place (instead of hidden in false floors or behind walls) and refilled after some time. But once you accept that as neccessary simplification, then both scenarios can be explained by the circumstances

PS: I'm talking about A18/A19 here, without Bandits in the picture

 
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This isn't rocket science.  The best loot is in the toughest biomes because people fled and it's harder to loot there.  The easier biomes to survive in have already been picked clean.

...we already know the wasteland and burnt have buildings that survived, because we've played the game for 7 years.

 
Random question: Is snow accumulation back in?

I don't know when it disappeared (A15?), but I hope it makes it back in.  Was it removed because it was too taxing on the system? 

Was one of those little things that was just awesome, loved how it muffled your footsteps and covered everything.

If not for A19, are there plans to put it back in for later release iterations?

 
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Ranzera said:
The buildings are all half wrecked or worse, but the narrative is that the bombs and fires somehow *didn't* destroy the loot inside, but instead means that loot is somehow *more* valuable? That sounds like an argument a Florida real estate agent might make in the apocalypse. I'm not buying it, not for .2 seconds. All the best loot is in the flooded hurricane areas right? Same concept here.

I get the feeling that anytime anyone thinks about "Bandits," what they are actually picturing are Psychos from Borderlands. Bandits are going to be your disaster refugees that banded together to survive by means of force. They are about as likely to stake out a living in a wasteland or a burned forest as you are going to seek a career in coal mining.

I'm just picturing what reasoning people would do in an apocalypse when they had a near monopoly of force. They'd keep the best stuff for themselves and leave the rest to starve. The Forest is the prime real estate in this game and you can bet your @%$*#! if this were a real world simulation, they'd be there and they'd round up everyone else and force them into the undesirable places.
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We decided ages ago that the wasteland would and should have the best loot because it is the most dangerous. Bombs dropped killing most instantly. The wasteland you see is "outskirts" where there was still physical destruction but not complete rubble. The radiation is what mostly killed everyone in these areas that is why the loot is good, the survivors there didn't live long enough to use up the supplies, most died instantly the remaining died of radiation poisoning or were killed by zombies. Seeing that it was ripe for the picking, bandits seize the opportunity and set up camps there and shoot on sight anyone caught looting their claim.

beHypE said:
Hey there, stoked about A19. Some questions, not all are directly linked with A19 however :

- is the new lighting going to fix the weird "lightning distance", and the lightning performance ? We have a base that is fully lit up with those industrial bulbs (about 20 of them I'd say) and performance tanks a bit when those are all on. Besides, we have a garage maybe 30 blocks away and it's "too far" to render the lightning there, so you see the light sources veryyyyy dimmed, and the lights progressively get brighter as you get closer.

- any news regarding performance gains ? I'm still having some stuttering / freezes on a dedi, it's pretty random and inconsistent, but when it starts getting messed up it's really annoying and nothing short of a restart of the game really helps. 

- I've come across this post : https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/g0n8gm/huge_performance_increase_in_7_days_to_die_unity/
and I just wanted to make sure it got the visibility it deserved. Haven't tested anything of it myself (yet), but I reckon faatal stated he never checks the reddit and this seemed like a very interesting read.

Cheers !

EDIT: Oh yeah regarding the lackluster quests. Would it be possible to make the "fetch" quests a bit more... organic ? Basically instead of having to find the same old satchel in a perfectly pinpointed location, would it be possible for the trader to make his demand more believable ? Some ideas to get my point across : 

- "Hey there survivor, I forgot my beloved flask in my house, it's in the fridge, could you get it for me ?"

- "What's up dawg, I didn't take my wrench with me when I moved here, it should be in my garage, mind looking for it ?"

I reckon you could "scan" POI's blocks and spawn adequate items in adequate containers. Would make the whole a lot more believable AND be way better for gameplay. I'd love having to find the kitchen in a house, or the bedroom, instead of following my compass until i'm 0.6m away from the marker.
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Those sound like small side quests a random survivor would give you not something from a trading organization. Sorry I think those are much less believable than a courier got overwhelmed and stashed his shipment for safe keeping. Get your flask? What? Get off your @%$*#! and get your own flask or while your at it give me your dukes and food because I have a gun and just lost respect for someone asking me to fetch your booze for you. Get your wrench? Ummm dude if you are so lame you can't remember to bring your wrench you probably don't have any dukes set aside to pay me either. Sorry no offense, but I feel like working for an organization that feels organized makes a lot more sense.

I don't know about the lighting I doubt its any different other than looks. I haven't built any yet but I'm about to. Performance can be better or worse, depending on a lot of factors. I was getting stuttering until I cleaned out a lot of space on my hard drive then it ran much smoother.

 

 
Damocles said:
Linear/gamma lighting is basically just a toggle in Unity. But changing from gamma to linear will require more or less extensive adjustments to textures and lights to have a similar scene.

The screenshots look more colorful ... question is, is this how the game should look like in the end, or do you plan to desaturate the world using post processing?
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I think more vibrant is the direction we're heading. Of course it can all be tuned via post processing very easily.

meganoth said:
Sure a lot is destroyed because of the fire, that is why you won't find as much loot boxes in a destroyed building as in a complete one. But the cellar or safes in less burned down parts of the building will be unharmed. And while 80% of the good stuff was already found in forest buildings (and you have to be lucky to find the good loot under well-hidden floor tiles), it will be relatively easy to find in the wasteland, just go down to the cellar and voila. 

What really can't be well explained, neither in your nor TFP's scenario is the fact that valuable loot is found in big boxes all over the place (instead of hidden in false floors or behind walls) and refilled after some time. But once you accept that as neccessary simplification, then both scenarios can be explained by the circumstances

PS: I'm talking about A18/A19 here, without Bandits in the picture
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Don't people have big boxes of toilet paper stacked up right now in our current pseudo apocalypse? If you were looting and had a truck you would just grab the whole shamway crate and be on your way, not unload 500 cans 1 at a time.

Guppycur said:
This isn't rocket science.  The best loot is in the toughest biomes because people fled and it's harder to loot there.  The easier biomes to survive in have already been picked clean.

...we already know the wasteland and burnt have buildings that survived, because we've played the game for 7 years.
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Yep.

 
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