PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

  • <img alt=":)" data-src="" src="___base_url___/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
Status
Not open for further replies.
Ah, those points make sense. What wouldn't make sense is that just because I'm the admin, I get to cheat and you don't. Now watch how superior I am to you as you die to my special gaming talents!
Yes, I had a 'friend' like this back in the day.
Click to expand...
Admin abuse like that is mostly rewarded with a completely empty server. Nature at its best ;)

Cheers

 
Ah, those points make sense. What wouldn't make sense is that just because I'm the admin, I get to cheat and you don't. Now watch how superior I am to you as you die to my special gaming talents!
Yes, I had a 'friend' like this back in the day.
Click to expand...
Yes, the admin is superior to the other players with their ability to create things out of thin air and summon an army of the undead at will. It's a bad admin who uses this power for personal pleasure or gain.

The admins role is very similar to the GM's role in a traditional RPG. The GM can kill any character at any time, it's even a trope "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies". A GM or admin worth playing with will never use that ability.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies

This is where I contradict the very first thing I said. A good GM has a streak of shadenfreude* a mile wide. They enjoy pushing the characters (and players) to their physical and emotional limits, a kind of trolling in a sense. The extra tools available to the admin can allow them to do this by altering the playing world in ways that a computer algorithm would not.

Not everybody is suitable for the role of admin, it takes a particular set of skills and a redefinition of what "winning" means.

*German: Taking pleasure at another's misfortune.

(no English translation available)

 
A tiny question about A18.

Has the FOV slider/setting come back? it's a pain to have to remember to re-enter the console command on every startup to be able to play :(

 
Exactly. There is no story to say "The End" to so you decide upon your own end conditions. Mostly though the true endgame is finally reaching a point where you decide to start over and that will be different for each person.
Click to expand...
I hate the idea of an end game.

You put in an ending. I reach it. The game ends. I go play something else. Sounds like a bad idea. Just for me though. I know some people love story and game ends. But not me. Story gets in the way and game ends end games. No thanks.

 
Each picnic table is worth roughly 100 dukes each, and after mining iron vein after iron vein for two in-game weeks almost non-stop, and had 60 forges going, you'd be surprised. (It's currently day 128 on my world, so there's that; been doing questing as well, selling everything I know I won't use.)
Click to expand...
I made a fortune on picnic tables too. Easy money. Thanks FUNPimps, am I right? 😂

 
Hmmm...a bit of a dead board tonight considering A18 was released a few hours ago. I thought you'd all be thanking TFP's. Too busy playing it already?

 
Hmmm...a bit of a dead board tonight considering A18 was released a few hours ago. I thought you'd all be thanking TFP's. Too busy playing it already?
Click to expand...
Nice try but if A18 is released to the public then this will happen on a Monday.

 
We are aggressively fixing bugs at this point, so hopefully it will be fixed before exp.
Click to expand...
Hi Faatal. Glad to hear your team is bug squashing. Assuming you are the programmer that deals with zombie AI, I have a question for you: Is it intended behaviour that zombies should know the layout of a building without having line of sight?

I will give you two examples:

Example 1:

I'm on top of a roof and a pack of zombie dogs spot me. Instead of trying to bight through the building I'm on, they break down the neighbour's door, run up stairs, breaking several other doors, make their way into the attic, break through the roof, walk across a plank from the neighbour's roof to me.

Example 2:

I'm in a simple block shaped based on horde night without windows, and all the zombies are focusing on the door. I place a barb wire block in front of the door, and they all move away from the door and choose the same wall block to start attacking. I place a barb wire block on that block (that they cannot see from the outside), and they all move to a different block and so on.

These were A17.2 scenarios. I would assume that this is not intended behaviour because traditionally, zombies don't have xray vision, and don't have the mental capacity to avoid traps.

I have seen it being mentioned (I think by Roland) that some sort of random behaviour will be (or already has been) introduced that should mean that not all zombies behave like they did in the given scenarios. Is that the intended fix? I hope not. I really don't think any zombie should behave that way.

 
Hi Faatal. Glad to hear your team is bug squashing. Assuming you are the programmer that deals with zombie AI, I have a question for you: Is it intended behaviour that zombies should know the layout of a building without having line of sight?
I will give you two examples:

Example 1:

I'm on top of a roof and a pack of zombie dogs spot me. Instead of trying to bight through the building I'm on, they break down the neighbour's door, run up stairs, breaking several other doors, make their way into the attic, break through the roof, walk across a plank from the neighbour's roof to me.

Example 2:

I'm in a simple block shaped based on horde night without windows, and all the zombies are focusing on the door. I place a barb wire block in front of the door, and they all move away from the door and choose the same wall block to start attacking. I place a barb wire block on that block (that they cannot see from the outside), and they all move to a different block and so on.

These were A17.2 scenarios. I would assume that this is not intended behaviour because traditionally, zombies don't have xray vision, and don't have the mental capacity to avoid traps.

I have seen it being mentioned (I think by Roland) that some sort of random behaviour will be (or already has been) introduced that should mean that not all zombies behave like they did in the given scenarios. Is that the intended fix? I hope not. I really don't think any zombie should behave that way.
Click to expand...
Hi Hotpoon. Just to explain to you my knowledge about how pathing AI works, as it can answer example 2. Imagine a grid across the distance between you and the zombies, and each grid square has a difficulty level attached to it. So a hill might be difficulty 5, a jumpable stone block might be 7, a tall block they can't jump over could be a 10. The pathfinding is done by calculating the least amount of resistance between you and them. If you have a wall between you and the zombies and you place something else between you (even if they can't see it), they can choose a different path to get to you.

Pathfinding is already relatively CPU intensive, as it has to calculate this several times a second. Now add that 7 days is a 3d world, so it has to calculate height patterns into the grid. Basically, to include sight and non-sight differences would make it even more intensive to calculate.

Example 1 is more likely that they follow your scent. The reason the zombies chose the door to bang on first in your second example, even though it might be just as strong as the walls, is because it favours your 'scent' (known as breadcrumbs in pathfinding).

So both behaviours are intended for the purpose that anything more will eat up more CPU usage.

 
I love that miracle that happens soon after that.
Click to expand...
I do as well brother! :)

I'm just asking for an OPTION that would have more of a concrete presence of rules where it would be hard to put in CM and do these things like changing the time for convenience sake. One reason why I don't like fast traveling in MMOs is that it breaks emersion but if that's an option I'd be an idiot not to use it. I'm not telling you to remove console command as your beer analogy implies.
Click to expand...
I understand what you're saying. When I was an admin for a server for a couple of years I can honestly say I never once abused the rights because, well I like a challenge. There will always be admins that abuse those powers and thats just life.

They pay for the servers or hire others to do the admin work but again the server owner paid for the server so if said admin wants to cheat they basically pay for that power. Now having said that, I have been on servers where they have rules listed and I have caught admins abusing there own rules via admin rights.

What does one do, never play on that server again. Over time that server numbers will drop and that server will die. Admins need that power in order to run a server, believe me you.

I would turn on God mode and fly mode whenever I was doing inspections and or stalking someone to catch them cheating. The best advice I can give is look for a reputable server so that you will have peace of mind. ;)

If you are honestly talking about your self, I would have to agree with Madmole. You gotta learn self control my friend.

Honestly, I don't see what this "feature" has brought to the game except zombies digging through stairs and zombies bothering me when I'm mining resources.
Click to expand...
It makes the game more challenging and if I'm being honest, gives me peace of mind knowing other players cannot hide underground anymore as I never go underground. Now I'm not saying my peace of mind matters at all, for it does not. Lots of players do not like that change and I completely understand that and I'm sure TFP do as well, maybe that is why Madmole hinted at....I honestly do not know but we shall find out when A18 drops. Cross you're fingers that maybe TFP have created an option, perk, book or something that eliminates or helps mitigate this machanic. Personally I hope not but many do and its understandable why. :)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Hotpoon. Just to explain to you my knowledge about how pathing AI works, as it can answer example 2. Imagine a grid across the distance between you and the zombies, and each grid square has a difficulty level attached to it. So a hill might be difficulty 5, a jumpable stone block might be 7, a tall block they can't jump over could be a 10. The pathfinding is done by calculating the least amount of resistance between you and them. If you have a wall between you and the zombies and you place something else between you (even if they can't see it), they can choose a different path to get to you.Pathfinding is already relatively CPU intensive, as it has to calculate this several times a second. Now add that 7 days is a 3d world, so it has to calculate height patterns into the grid. Basically, to include sight and non-sight differences would make it even more intensive to calculate.

Example 1 is more likely that they follow your scent. The reason the zombies chose the door to bang on first in your second example, even though it might be just as strong as the walls, is because it favours your 'scent' (known as breadcrumbs in pathfinding).

So both behaviours are intended for the purpose that anything more will eat up more CPU usage.
Click to expand...
Hi ZombieHorde

Interesting what you say about about example 2. If that is the case, they might not be actively avoiding the barb wire simply because it is barb wire, but even so, it's not great that the AI knows the block difficulty level without line of sight.

In Example 1, I never went into the neighbour's house - I nerd poled up to the roof, so they weren't following scent. The neighbour's house was a sealed, untouched POI.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top