PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Ouch Quit It]

On a snarky note: Have you ever died and popped back to life in your bed miles away? Maybe that is what would happen. Lol
Non snarky note: Death has to have SOME downside or there is no point. With no penalty at all to death the fastest strategy for some buildings would be to place a bedroll near and just kamikaze the building over and over until you clear it.

Maybe not actually died...but i have gone out drinking and poof....Im home in my bed..Is it magic? Or time travel?

I understand dieing should have some downside...but after respawning on your bed and running back to get your backpack, like an asthmatic running through a field full of flowers and pollen is a bit much and now, if and when you reach your backpack you cant even carry your stuff anymore because you are encumbered and end up dying again because a crawler just caught up to you and broke your leg ....is a bit much.

How many spaces will you lose now....you are starting with 3 rows now instead of 2....

Ouch

ahem..........we shall see....ahem

 

[RestInPieces]

That is how City of Heroes did it and it worked...you died you had to slowly "pay back" your "medical costs" and would respawn in front of a hospital . Not to many people complained about that system...it did build up if you died multiple times , but would cap off at 5x

Whatever the penalty is, it stacking up to a point is essential imo.

 

[ReDelicious]

Torches will not be changed at all in Alpha 18, possibly never, we are just talking about what if.

This could easily turn into a micro management nightmare once you have a large base with literally dozens of torches.

 

[Jay_ombie]

I know it's really trivial but can you show boat our death scene a bit more.

ATM it's the case of we simply stand there frozen and everyone chews on us and that's it.

It be more Hollywood like if we rag dolled and the camera rotated up and around circling our dead corps etc.

 

[Ricowan]

[food] should be hard to get at some stage, in principle, or else this would be a survival game in name only.

Why do you feel that food/hunger is the only possible thing needed for surviving in a game? We're surviving weather (extreme heat and cold), we're surviving injuries, we're surviving the friggin zombie apocalypse!!! A survival game is not just about hunger, ya know?

 

[madmole]

Madmole, your video showed a few hills.
Will RWG feature mountains like the one Nevazgane has? Because those are the things that really add flavor to game maps in general imo. Actual mountains was my favorite thing about Skyrim. Climbing one really gave a sense of remoteness.

They might look like mountains in the distance, but are actually what I would call hills even in Skyrim. The scale of an actual mountain is gigantic and a game engine cannot view it properly because of view distance and world size limitations. You can see the Rocky mountains about 100 miles away. Our engine is limited to say 256 meters of total height, 768 feet, where Pikes peak is about 14,000 feet.

 

[madmole]

What if after death you only earned 50% xp for a certain amount of xp. It would stay this way until you "payed" in xp, after that it's back to normal. Say 50% for 3/4 of a bar. Then it goes back to 100%. While we are at it make every item that has degradation "break" (not disappear) so there is a high resource cost to repair all said items.

People might cry about being gimped and have no incentive to proceed with that. I played a Fallout death alternative mod that was kind of interesting, it took your attributes away like we do, but you earned them back with xp. So the sooner you got off your ass and got some action in, you restored your attributes, kind of simulating getting better from an illness once you get out of bed and start acting normal, you start feeling normal. So rather than wait it out, you got rid of it by doing stuff, which is probably better than a timer.

The thing is, if we keep spinning circles redesigning everything constantly, we'll never make any real headway on bandits and lots of people probably think the death penalty is just fine. Its old to you and me, so changing it sounds enticing but often you can get into a loop of tweaking things constantly and not make any real progress and the solution is to just step away. I burn out on Skyrim and no mod can fix it, only time spent away.

 

[madmole]

Oh snap, I never done this before.
Normally I get around 75-90 FPS.

But when I start the battery/Solarpanel/Light thing, it goes down to about 20-40 FPS

I always try to use all 6 Panels, since they don't generate that much electricity. Same goes for the Batteries.

After I dissassembled the Setup, the FPS was back to normal.

I am going to do a Serverwipe after A18 hits. I will build the setup and see if it lags. If it does, I will make a full proper Bugreport and give you guys access to my Server, where you can see first hand.

So, place 6 panels and observe fps? Remove and see if FPS improves?

 

[madmole]

Having torches degrade only when placed (like crops but backwards) would open the door to somekind of food spoilage.
And the super LED eternal torch made with a battery would be super cool to have more viable options and stuff.

Just saying.... I wish for those someday in some form.

Well you could do it like you described now, have the torch grow into an air block over time like crops grow into a new block. I'm talking about item degradation, so a helmet light wears out x% every game hour or whatever.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Bandits.

That’s better.

Unless we eat them too.

Queuing some more morality in video games replies.

 

[OzHawkeye]

Zeds don't target it, but if they get in its view cone it will target them. If the player gets too far away it shuts down. Zombies can't eat turrets, I don't think they have ever targeted any turrets we added to the game. You could put it in a doorway while you loot a room or crack a safe so it could watch your back.

Ok, my hype level just increase by 1. I often place rebar frames in a doorway for exactly this purpose. Bring on A18! ;-)

 

[madmole]

With all due respect, forgive us for the disbelieving

I don't even know anything about the bug, but was told it was fixed. I just hopped in, and broke stone with a stone axe and got 110 stone. I then left click with a pickaxe and got 110. Then I power attacked with a pickaxe and got 110. I believe its fixed. This was with all ranks of miner 69r and mother lode maxed out.

 

[Melthe]

Thanks for the Video MM!!

I can't wait to start playing A18

 

[Lanadon Conners]

I often place rebar frames in a doorway for exactly this purpose. Bring on A18! ;-)

I do exactly the same thing Drop rebar, search room, Loot, pick up rebar, exit..

 

[Blake_]

I don't even know anything about the bug, but was told it was fixed. I just hopped in, and broke stone with a stone axe and got 110 stone. I then left click with a pickaxe and got 110. Then I power attacked with a pickaxe and got 110. I believe its fixed. This was with all ranks of miner 69r and mother lode maxed out.

I see. That answers nothing though as it is only a superficial test.

What about 5 mother lode and no miner 69r vs all maxed out? That is the basic problem about yield. The yield was always consistent at the same level, but if the bug IS NOT fixed then with miner at 0 points and mother lode at 5 you would get better yield than with both maxed.

Deeper bug than it is thought. It affects gameplay on a huge level specially at middle to late game when you begin to pile up a little something.

I apologize if I opened yet another can of worms. My passion for this product sometimes shows. From time to time I choose to completely ignore your (madmole) life advice and think "screw that, Instead of gym I also do protein and 10 hours a day of 7dtd until I fall asslep and get up to work next day running from an imaginary dog no coffee involved lol". Based on a true story from last sunday.

 

[Tin]

I don’t like the idea of animals coming at you after stockpiling meat. It just equals more meat.

Just make it, its own mechanic. Like: 'foodHeatMap'.

That way, they can isolate it to only happen once every week or so, and not affect the 'heatMap' that calls in the screamers.

Also add in a chance for zombie bears and the zombie dogs as well.

 

[Yournympho]

@Madmole

Well you could do it like you described now, have the torch grow into an air block over time like crops grow into a new block. I'm talking about item degradation, so a helmet light wears out x% every game hour or whatever.

This might be a good use for those flashlights that have a limited purpose. Headlight runs out and needs a flashlight (battery from it) to "refuel" it. If that makes sense.

 

[madmole]

I see. That answers nothing though as it is only a superficial test.
What about 5 mother lode and no miner 69r vs all maxed out? That is the basic problem about yield. The yield was always consistent at the same level, but if the bug IS NOT fixed then with miner at 0 points and mother lode at 5 you would get better yield than with both maxed.

Deeper bug than it is thought. It affects gameplay on a huge level specially at middle to late game when you begin to pile up a little something.

I apologize if I opened yet another can of worms. My passion for this product sometimes shows. From time to time I choose to completely ignore your (madmole) life advice and think "screw that, Instead of gym I also do protein and 10 hours a day of 7dtd until I fall asslep and get up to work next day running from an imaginary dog no coffee involved lol". Based on a true story from last sunday.

So you want me to give you the numbers with no perks and the same 3 tests?

 

[Odetta]

@madmole

Is there anything that you've hidden like previous alphas? Not to be revealed until we get our hands on experimental?

 

[madmole]

I do exactly the same thing Drop rebar, search room, Loot, pick up rebar, exit..

That is just being smart or taking precautions.