PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[khzmusik]

@faatal For the next beta update in A19 could you fellas fix the misaligned mods on guns such as scopes, lasers, lights, silencers....

Alot of them are ether fused into the gun or just floating

I don't know if it's just me, but I also noticed that the compound bow sights seem to be broken in this update. You don't see any arrow being slotted, and when you zoom you just see the bow model without any arrow model. Then again I'm playing a save game from the previous build, so maybe that's just one of those things that breaks if you don't start a new save each build.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I'll just move cooking to whatever attribute I'm playing each month just to piss everyone off

lol, actually I'm ok with that. I don't mind moving around myself.

 

[madmole]

So with regards to weapons, are we also going to get tier 5 and 6 weapons?

As in we are getting pipe pistols for tier 0 weapons, we have up to i believe tier 4, are we going to round it out to 6 different types for each if possible or is it pretty much almost done?

LOL no. You get pipe guns and we're done. 4 tiers of firearms is insane IMO. We'll have legendary versions on top of it all yet at some point.

 

[kuratowakiru]

If you are not exxagerating here that would be a bug or a monumental streak of bad luck. I looted the small book-poi at the corner of the row of small shops and if I remember correctly the ~10 book shelves got me maybe 2 books. Less than the older book shelves for sure. To be sure someone would have to check the xmls (I can't at the moment).

Your result seem way more reasonable. I guess it just my bad luck then.

 

[FileMachete]

Honestly 10 loot gamestage at the start of the game has a far larger impact than 10 zombie gamestage, the difficulty increase is felt only sporadically when the number of dogs in a random dog horde is calculated .

Which is kind of the point. Like I explained in my follow on post, I'm finding the early game too slow for my tastes, so was considering how best to speed it up some. Bumping GS seemed like the best give and take. Also I figured why not, maybe there's something to the general concept that might offer an Option_not-Option (not a starting game Option like XP % dial, but an in-game small case 'option').

I'm by no means certain I'm even close to having the right numbers here but to compare;

Default XP 100%: say Day 7 you're Level 14, GS = 21

Bump XP Gain to 150%: Day 7 lvl 21, GS = 28

--100% XP, use one GS boost: Day 7 lvl 14, GS = 31

Compared to using the 150% XP Gain Option, using the GS boost you're 7 levels behind and GS is 3 higher. I personally think I'll like this better than upping XP %.

**I'm honestly glad that others are finding the longer primitive stage enjoyable.

I'm not trying to change it, I'm looking for a way to speed it up a bit that doesn't impact vanilla.

And artificial internal values like gamestage should normally not be pulled into the limelight if you want to keep some immersion alive and dissuade people from meta-gaming.

Fair point. Since referring to GS is so common in videos and the forums it's easy to forget that some new players, or even non YT watching forum going old timers, may not even be aware of what gamestage is.

Anyway, it's available via console so I'm good.

 

[Laz Man]

I'll just move cooking to whatever attribute I'm playing each month just to piss everyone off

Take a close look at the pathing of any 4 legged animal in the game inside houses. We can't compete with dogmeat, they mocapped dogs and spent probably 2 million just developing animal turning / mocap. We can do a drone though.

So basically we don't want to ship something that looks like crap and will take 2 years dev time and still might not pass.

You forgot to mention it would be challenging to animate a dog climbing a ladder... Didn't fallout get around that since they had instanced dungeons so climbing animations were never needed? 

 

[FileMachete]

For wandering hordes that would be fun I guess, but for the Blood Moon hordes it would be a disaster IMO.

Imagine having to plan a base that can virtually be attacked from every side! It'd be a builder's nightmare lol

heh heh, made me think of this bit from Steve Martins masterpiece Roxanne;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66kQ_osGfM

 

[Demandred1957]

You forgot to mention it would be challenging to animate a dog climbing a ladder... Didn't fallout get around that since they had instanced dungeons so climbing animations were never needed? 

I got a ton of hours into Fallout 4, but rarely used Dogmeat. But I am pretty sure he could easily climb stairs, dont know if there ARE any ladders in game though..Been a while since I played it.

 

[Vechs]

Any thoughts on the Huntsman skill?

I think it should be a 3 rank perk (33->66->100%) instead of the 5 ranks (20,40,60,80,100%). (The farming perk is 3 ranks and gives way more stuff.)

Or maybe be merged with the animal tracking skill?

The current iteration of what you get out of it for 5 skill points seems a little flaccid.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

I'll just move cooking to whatever attribute I'm playing each month just to piss everyone off

Lmao!

 

[Blake_]

Hi again @faatal. Seems like I spoke too soon. There are freezes. Quite a few of them. Music turned OFF improved things quite a bit in many cases, though not as much as I expected .  Most of the freezes happen before Warnings regarding blocks PLUS sleeper spawning of several entities in SEVERAL POIS at a time. Seems like it's not as cheap as you make it sound or there might be an issue in timing in the spawning of the volumes between more than 1 POI.

FULL WIPE B178 NEW RWG MAP:

I always have a drop of 25 to 58 fps when 3 or more volumes are involved (from different POIS it seems), and it seems to me that their spawn is, in many cases, simultaneous or at least very close together. It affects several POIS spawning at the same time, like when walking through a road with houses at both sides and is  aggravated by the loading and unloading blocks (those that ALWAYS generate block warnings like in this screenshot): 

Spoiler

View attachment 13377

More feedback: FPS bumbs or freezes NEVER happen in this situation:

Walking through biomes with common assets (nests, trees, plants, burned stumps). Mountains drop fps, but is quite negligible.

FPS bumps happen in these situations:

1-Loading and unloading of elements generating warnings regarding blocks missing harcoded properties ("no chunk for position" warning)  or losing elements through the world or failing to spawn some elements due to unloading/reloading of the chunk also generates bumps. 

2-Sleeper spawning happening either simultaneously or very close in time and sometimes in ridiculously high numbers, resulting in bumbs that can even generate a big freeze of  a few seconds. Happens in places with many POIS. 

-On a sidenote, if there's only ONE POI the bumb is unlikely to happen, so that's a clue.  That means that sleeper spawning volumes of a city don't take into account the volumes as a whole, but per POI.

A nice fix would be to make the game perceive all the POIS in an area and activate the sleeper volume progressively and in order of approach without stepping on another POI spawning "sequence". I really don't know how spawning is supposed to work on multiple POIS but my guess is that this case is not supported and  it's causing the drops. It also happens when an Horde + sleeper spawn occur, as they can also be simultaneous. They shouldn't  be.

Spoiler

View attachment 13374

There are a few buildings next to those . 

-Block warnings: Something is happening in the Wasteland. The iron croses produce the "no chunk for position" warning and there's also cars, couches etc suffering from it.

(first screenshot is a repetition of the first one in this post)

Spoiler

View attachment 13381View attachment 13377View attachment 13376

FPS go to 2 for 3 seconds or so before the warnings and then recover just AFTER the notifications. 

Music is off, and yet sometimes I keep seeing things like " INF Stopped Suspense" like in that last screenshot. Weird. Maybe my fault in that one.

I hope that helps!! Have a nice day!

 

[Dethar]

Late to party already explained.

 

[BobbyLee298]

Not happening for A19. We are giving each weapon their own mod models built into the original mesh though, so eventually as we rework stuff they will not only align, but look custom built for each weapon.

Wow MM you guys are going all out. That sounds fantastic. Thanks for the reply

 

[Phoenixshade35]

LOL no. You get pipe guns and we're done. 4 tiers of firearms is insane IMO. We'll have legendary versions on top of it all yet at some point.

lol fair enough, i had to ask, i can't wait to see legendary armor, tools and weapons, though are they going to have sweet names, funny names, named after your development team so everyone has to pick an item to get named after, i hope for funny names that will make people at least smile

 

[Dethar]

Any thoughts on the Huntsman skill?

I think it should be a 3 rank perk (33->66->100%) instead of the 5 ranks (20,40,60,80,100%). (The farming perk is 3 ranks and gives way more stuff.)

Or maybe be merged with the animal tracking skill?

The current iteration of what you get out of it for 5 skill points seems a little flaccid.

Might want to have Trader Jen take a look. She could probably fix you right up, with your umm...huntsMAN skill.

Edit: or Snowdog, your choice.

 

[madmole]

You forgot to mention it would be challenging to animate a dog climbing a ladder... Didn't fallout get around that since they had instanced dungeons so climbing animations were never needed? 

They don't have ladders, just stairs and ramps, and teleport doors.

 

[P3rf3ctVZer0]

@madmole

Are invisible arrows already fixed for next release? If so I may just wait to play or play my static a19 b177. Side note "How the hell did invisible arrows make it through pre-testing?"

 

[madmole]

@madmole

Are invisible arrows already fixed for next release? If so I may just wait to play or play my static a19 b177.

Yes.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

@madmole

Are invisible arrows already fixed for next release? If so I may just wait to play or play my static a19 b177. Side note "How the hell did invisible arrows make it through pre-testing?"

id hazard a guess that when they fixed the invisible hands caused by the military gloves it somehow messed up the arrows, i was having loading issues with the crossbow in b177 so its possible

 

[Gazz]

Man I hope the can fix the quest system. Atm 3 out of 5 quests (tier 5) are not worth the efford. Most of time I cannot find the last missing zombies. I mean you waste 2 and half day on the skyscrapere and have to quit the clear quest because hordnight is comming. Just a waste of time.

I hope they reduce the number of t5 quests to 2 per trader and add more t4-t1 quests. Better to drive 2km for a t4 and can get it done in a day.

Is this on A19, though?