PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Wulf]

Madmole,
While I haven’t be here nearly as long as some other people (only since A15), you’ve really grown as a person over the past couple years and I commend you for it.

I agree :0 THe old mole would've blasted me for me previous comment

 

[madmole]

Is a hotfix possibly going to come out soon to fix this FPS issue? If so, do you have an estimated date for it?

Today, tomorrow or Friday I would expect. Probably tomorrow at the soonest I doubt QA will has time to cook something not even coded yet and smoke test it.

 

[unholyjoe]

Sure, but there are other possible interpretations and nobody can know which is the right one from just looking at that icon. The green check mark is recognizable from the perk menue. Using the same icon for the same meaning (i.e. "learned this") in every case makes it just much easier to grok.

and then there will be some (dont say it wouldnt) but there will be some who will want to know if green means i need to go and find the book and red means stop. i know... its is a battle that will never be 100% for everyone. and just BSing with you. smile

 

[Wulf]

That sort of remake demonstrates you are not a grown up.
I have a 2080 (not TI) and everything is maxed except reflections and I get 35-70 fps so maybe its you.

Maybe get a bigger sample size and you'll see there's a real issue here which can not be attributed to user error/misconfiguration.

Btw, it's not my RTX2080. Go read the past 50pages and look at my posts about performance and benchmarks i posted using my own RX480. That analysis is sound.

Edit: also, you're getting 35-70 fps on a 2080? What's your setup like? You must be running 4k? Otherwise that seems very low to me.

 

[madmole]

Ok, it looks like you've forgotten my previous posts, which is understandable, there's lot of people posting now.
The whole point from this situation here, is if you guys were testing less on lower end hardware, and this problem slips by, and lower spec machines have problems, very few people would be batting an eye.

If however, some top end machines do suddenly see massive performance problems (which is not due to configuration, speaking for my friends RTX2080 here) that *is* something you will be judged for by the gaming community. (Sure a bunch of the problems will be due to misconfiguration or sheer user ignorance, but a lot of them won't be)

So, test more on higher end machines is the takeaway here, IMHO.

We have, and none of us have encountered any problems. The game runs great for us. Your situation is unfortunate. Have you tried disabling anistropic filtering? Some people have had some success with that.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Damn that is some luck. I found a gyro acc schematic and a crucible schematic in the same tier 1 house Super lucky the only two book cases in the entire house were stacked.

You bet. The trader also had The Automatic Weapons Handbook Volume 7, so I can craft M60 machine guns; I also found 2 more traders while doing quests for the first trader. If you couldn't tell already, I'm having a blast.

That's awesome. It seems both you and I will be crafting steel earlier than usual. (Since I also have the crucible unlocked via a schematic I found.)

Edit: The second trader I found is also selling 3 cement mixers. So if I can gather a bit of money together within the next day... I might be able to purchase one. Might.

 

[madmole]

Madmole,
While I haven’t be here nearly as long as some other people (only since A15), you’ve really grown as a person over the past couple years and I commend you for it.

Thanks, I try to keep my passion out of it and try to relate to other people's perspective as much as possible. I continue to study self help material and try to be a student in life. Every year I set a goal to smash old Joel in every way by showing more compassion, getting more fit, learning new things, getting better habits, and always try to get out of my comfort zone because that is where true growth is as a person.

 

[Wulf]

We have, and none of us have encountered any problems. The game runs great for us. Your situation is unfortunate. Have you tried disabling anistropic filtering? Some people have had some success with that.

*sigh*

I was the one who concluded by testing anisotropic settings, that the shaders are overloaded on my RX480.

So...yeah

Btw you can't disable Anistropic filtering on the latest AMD drivers, x2 is the lowest it will go. But now that you mention it, maybe try implementing a texture filtering option the the gfx options screen so that you can tweak it from within the game. Maybe when you guys go gold

And the fact that you guys didnt encounter it is exactly why i originally said you want to test on more systems (not low end systems, since you're more likely to be forgiven for that).

Anyway, i now feel like im talking in circles, and this is all water under the bridge now anyway.

I want to reiterate that besides the performance issues, this release (experimental even!) has been the most hassle free since.... A11?

So good job on that!

 

[madmole]

You bet. The trader also had The Automatic Weapons Handbook Volume 7, so I can craft M60 machine guns; I also found 2 more traders while doing quests for the first trader. If you couldn't tell already, I'm having a blast.
That's awesome. It seems both you and I will be crafting steel earlier than usual. (Since I also have the crucible unlocked via a schematic I found.)

Are you finding electrical schematics? It seems like they are super rare to me, I'd like to avoid 5 ranks of engineering and craft power doors / bridges without it.

 

[Hek Harris]

Are you finding electrical schematics? It seems like they are super rare to me, I'd like to avoid 5 ranks of engineering and craft power doors / bridges without it.

Get off your lazy ass and go explore some POI ! ©

 

[TopAce6]

@ the Dev Team.

This will be Positive.

On Mobile so forgive Formatting please.

At over 4k Hours, since the early early alphas. This is the Best this game has Ever Felt.

It seems like this was a Quality of Life, Fun and Balance Patch.

I'm the guy who plays on Insane and doesn't die. I never even cheese the Ai either.

Now in 18, the game is Fun in all the category's, from the simple enrage the Zeds get when you shoot them, making you think about every Unnecessary kill, to things like Auto Zooming out of Scope when you try to sprint away. Looting is Now Useful and fun again. Multiple options to Spec out your character depending on what early loot you get.

food is relevant again, no more massive stockpiles making it a useless mechanic. Canned food is Useful again

Gas is relevant again, no more mine one night and never have to worry again.

Even Feathers are now relevant, in the past you'd be swimming in them to the point where you never had to worry about it at all.

Removing the need to craft 50 different shapes of blocks to build... great quality of life improvement.

all the little things and aspects of the game that were intended to add up to a unique experience were trivial in the past, and quickly pointless to even exist.

But now they are useful and interesting and combining to a overall unique survival experience. where you have numerous options on how you want to approach it.

Keep on going the direction you are going. i always felt this was a game made by y'all reading my mind of what i want.

on the one negative so i'm not a shill.... I get the frame-rate loss (down to 40) when looking at distant vistas otherwise im at 90-120. Tried many conventional things, and some unconventional ones, i don't think there's a fix i can do on my end. so i await the Inevitable fix that i know is coming. Settings are high, Minus motion blur, Depth of field, reflected shadows, and SS Reflections.

EAC is off, as its blacklisted on my network, cant have a program messing with my Kernel stacks.

For now the best fix for me is Half Res Textures, Windowed Mode for some reason, and Running a Dedicated Server on the same Machine to connect to even playing single player.

My system is built and maintained by me, a Former Senior Systems Engineer and Admin. (large scale networks 10k+nodes) the PC is highly tuned in hardware and Software (highly customized and trimmed windows x64pro)

overclocked Intel Skylake system, Overclocked Nvidia Evga 1060SC 6gb, Overclocked 16gb DDR4, 2 SSD's, 1 for OS, one for Games is a samsung 960pro NVME. Temperatures are optimal even under Max load, System stability is perfect.

Thanks and good luck, cant wait to see what the future holds in store for us.

 

[meganoth]

and then there will be some (dont say it wouldnt) but there will be some who will want to know if green means i need to go and find the book and red means stop. i know... its is a battle that will never be 100% for everyone. and just BSing with you. smile

I'm sure Roland will critizise this as needless information overload, "a true survivor will have to remember which books he has read, death to GUI" :cocksure:

 

[MechanicalLens]

Are you finding electrical schematics? It seems like they are super rare to me, I'd like to avoid 5 ranks of engineering and craft power doors / bridges without it.

Ehh, I've found the electric timer relay schematic and... That's it. Just looked through the CM menu just to be sure. Yeah, electric timer relay schematic. (Day 8 currently; spent days 1-5 looting, and today as well.)

 

[gamerchriss]

6th Day, finished Shotgun Mesayah POI.

Nice POI... ironically, i did not find any shotgun )

But i got ~5 levels or so from all the zombies inside & wasted ~200 arrows!

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1wlHYWjtdGPlFXzEtOupk-vvH17l3kdEa

 

[madmole]

@ the Dev Team.

This will be Positive.

On Mobile so forgive Formatting please.

At over 4k Hours, since the early early alphas. This is the Best this game has Ever Felt.

It seems like this was a Quality of Life, Fun and Balance Patch.

I'm the guy who plays on Insane and doesn't die. I never even cheese the Ai either.

Now in 18, the game is Fun in all the category's, from the simple enrage the Zeds get when you shoot them, making you think about every Unnecessary kill, to things like Auto Zooming out of Scope when you try to sprint away. Looting is Now Useful and fun again. Multiple options to Spec out your character depending on what early loot you get.

food is relevant again, no more massive stockpiles making it a useless mechanic. Canned food is Useful again

Gas is relevant again, no more mine one night and never have to worry again.

Even Feathers are now relevant, in the past you'd be swimming in them to the point where you never had to worry about it at all.

Removing the need to craft 50 different shapes of blocks to build... great quality of life improvement.

all the little things and aspects of the game that were intended to add up to a unique experience were trivial in the past, and quickly pointless to even exist.

But now they are useful and interesting and combining to a overall unique survival experience. where you have numerous options on how you want to approach it.

Keep on going the direction you are going. i always felt this was a game made by y'all reading my mind of what i want.

on the one negative so i'm not a shill.... I get the frame-rate loss (down to 40) when looking at distant vistas otherwise im at 90-120. Tried many conventional things, and some unconventional ones, i don't think there's a fix i can do on my end. so i await the Inevitable fix that i know is coming. Settings are high, Minus motion blur, Depth of field, reflected shadows, and SS Reflections.

EAC is off, as its blacklisted on my network, cant have a program messing with my Kernel stacks.

For now the best fix for me is Half Res Textures, Windowed Mode for some reason, and Running a Dedicated Server on the same Machine to connect to even playing single player.

My system is built and maintained by me, a Former Senior Systems Engineer and Admin. (large scale networks 10k+nodes) the PC is highly tuned in hardware and Software (highly customized and trimmed windows x64pro)

overclocked Intel Skylake system, Overclocked Nvidia Evga 1060SC 6gb, Overclocked 16gb DDR4, 2 SSD's, 1 for OS, one for Games is a samsung 960pro NVME. Temperatures are optimal even under Max load, System stability is perfect.

Thanks and good luck, cant wait to see what the future holds in store for us.

Sitting here reading this gave me chills and I noticed I was doing a most muscular pose for some reason as a result of reading it, or like Jet LI in the one assimilating ones powers. Well said

 

[Tetrameth]

Roland, for the love of God, please bring in the ban hammer. This fps 'rant' is getting out of hand.

Dead horse is dead, ain't no amount of flogging gonna get it up any faster.

 

[Trankitas]

Roland, for the love of God, please bring in the ban hammer. This fps 'rant' is getting out of hand.
Dead horse is dead, ain't no amount of flogging gonna get it up any faster.

As Jax said a few posts ago, some people don't know the Experimental-to-Stable process, so they get nervous and freak the hell out. We need to be patient with them.

Nevertheless, some people need to learn some manners. Lol

Edit: If Joel can be patient with them, we can too lol.

 

[Odetta]

Boars are challenging on day 1, but I found an iron sledgehammer and power attacked one point blank and took his head clean off. Might have been a lucky decapitation though.
Food poisoning is fine, it rarely happens and just puts a small dent in your supply. It is random and you could have been extremely unlucky. Eat canned foods, or take vitamins to prevent it all in the first place, or buy iron gut perk.

I actually love the new farming and food poisoning. Makes both something to worry/think about. Higher tier foods are sought after and each seed you find is special. I found two golden rod seeds and I was happy as a clam. It's not food spoilage but it's still a food sink so that's pretty good.

 

[sinkler]

@MM

You didn't respond to my long feedback so ill try to keep it shorter this time.

- The digging quest: insta spawn of zeds out of nowhere when picking up the stash.

always happens the same way, predictable and immersion breaking. will u consider removing that spawn entirly, or having some random 0-#number of sleeping zeds be buried next to the stash that rise if u dig them up while looking for the stash, or having the zombies already be in the area when u reach it so u need to clear it before u start digging?

- Resource Nodes: resource nodes on the surface are literally everywhere.

nodes can be abundant underground where its not visible and u have to dig search for it, that`s great. but for exploration`s sake, i would like finding a new surface ore to feel special. can we make them more rare with higher harvest for balance? (at least in SP?)

Original post:

Spoiler

I really enjoy a18 so far!
a few observations:

- New improved infection:

Im playing Agility. saw a single zed, was thinking "ill practice some melee, save few arrows" , got close and boop him on the head with a club. he raged, and punched me in the face. i killed him with my trusty bow thinking that was the end of it. but now a damn vulture smelled my bloody face and gave me zombie AIDS. lol. I rushed to the trader and sold everything of value i had to buy honey in time before it get to a point i can no longer easily cure. that was a great experience.

- The digging quest:

its fun, not too far on foot, and the rewards are worth the effort.

the only down side for me is the insta spawning of zeds out of no where when i pick up the stash.

it always happens the same way, and is immersion breaking.

i would rather see a random 0-#number of sleeping zeds be buried with the stash and then rise if u dig them up like the zombies in graves we know and love, or whatever other method, just as long as it is not watching zed spawn from thin air in the most predictable way possible.

- Resource Nodes:

I love the way those each have it`s unique look and is identifiable from afar. great job.

I feel like there are too many resource nodes on the surface. playing pregen02, i spawned in the desert and was trying getting used to placing a marker on my map where i find them for later. was excited seeing them at first but once you realize they are so abundant they become less special. i see them literally everywhere in groups of 2-3 even, so after 10 min i stopped adding them to my already cluttered map, and the exploration element was gone.

it might be fine for MP but for just 1 dude it is way too much it seems. xD

even if value-wise it is balanced for single player, i rather have a reason to explore and find them.

so i prefer few rare nodes in each biome with 100K harvest, rather than having 100s of nodes everywhere with 1K harvest each. nodes can be abundant underground where its not visible and u have to dig search for it, thats great. but i want finding a new surface ore to feel special, at least in SP.

 

[Odetta]

We're experimenting with full swings, but it might be OP af with glancing blows allowing you to bowl over 3+ guys with a sloppy attack.

Leave the damage the same on glancing blows and just add ragdoll to them. Heavy weapons should at least be able to knock them over, even if it doesn't hurt.