PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Dark_Corvid]

Can we get an option to change the size of roaming hordes? As of now they are only scary in the beginning of the game. Later on they pose no threat because they are super small and are not affected by game stage (I think). I know we have a ton of options already and I appreciate it a lot because I can make each play through radically different.
On another note, we have random bloodmoons now, which is awesome. The ideal implementation in my opinion is to have them not only on random days (like we have now) but to also make them happen at random *times* within a day and without warning. Say you're on day 11 and it's 7 in the morning and bam! Bloodmoon out of nowhere. Scary factor X1000.

We've been having 'fun' with variable bloodmoons on our server. Rachets up the tension quite a bit. What do you have your variance set to? I set ours to within 3 days.

Random times would be pretty cool. especially if an hour before the sky did the whole lightning thing, then, bloodmoon eclipse and horde. Players would need to be constantly prepared.

 

[RipClaw]

Can we get an option to change the size of roaming hordes? As of now they are only scary in the beginning of the game. Later on they pose no threat because they are super small and are not affected by game stage (I think).

I agree that the roaming hordes later in the game are no longer scary with one exception. The dogs and zombie bear horde is still scary even with a high level and good equipment. The wolves are said to be much more deadly in A18. A wolf horde might then also be more of a threat than a meat delivery.

With a small modlet you can increase the size of the wandering hordes. This of course also increases the cpu load if a wandering horde appears.

 

[RipClaw]

Random times would be pretty cool. especially if an hour before the sky did the whole lightning thing, then, bloodmoon eclipse and horde. Players would need to be constantly prepared.

You could achieve a similar effect by turning off the blood moon warning. The setting already exists.

Otherwise there would be the possibility to hide the time with a HUD modlet. So the player would not know what time it is.

 

[DaVegaNL]

I can't believe nobody touched this. SnowDog?

Don't let SnowDog touch anything. It might get itchy!

 

[DaVegaNL]

We're planning to update localization after 18 is stable and add 4 new languages as well.

Nice.. Klingon gonna be one of them?

 

[Aldranon]

Updated OP

My dream of "six shooter" blunderbuss's is real!

Oddly perhaps, that could be my fav A18 feature!

 

[Odetta]

We've been having 'fun' with variable bloodmoons on our server. Rachets up the tension quite a bit. What do you have your variance set to? I set ours to within 3 days.
Random times would be pretty cool. especially if an hour before the sky did the whole lightning thing, then, bloodmoon eclipse and horde. Players would need to be constantly prepared.

Right now on my server I have them set to every day. As for a warning I'd want none other then a single lighting strike followed immediately by the horde. This would scare the ♥♥♥♥ out me for sure and then the mad scramble would be on. Idk, I feel like hordes used to be a lot scarier in the early alphas, maybe it was just my noobieness :indecisiveness:

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I agree that the roaming hordes later in the game are no longer scary with one exception. The dogs and zombie bear horde is still scary even with a high level and good equipment. The wolves are said to be much more deadly in A18. A wolf horde might then also be more of a threat than a meat delivery.
With a small modlet you can increase the size of the wandering hordes. This of course also increases the cpu load if a wandering horde appears.

I love the dog and bear hordes. It's one of only times I say "OH ♥♥♥♥!" in the game lol. Wolf hordes too.

 

[Weazelsun]

Yeah, I currently go out of my way to not kill zombies because of the unnatural GS.
Yes, loot quality is tied to GS but not the all important ammo or basic mods and weapons. So I always head for my best guess where the loot boxes are.

I'm too old to deliberately inflict more trouble on myself than is absolutely necessary.

I did not know that the loot was affected by gamestage. @madmole could you explain more this. How does gamestage affect loot? Does that mean if in A18, I'm at a super low gamestage, the loot I get will in general be crappy?

 

[Dark_Corvid]

You could achieve a similar effect by turning off the blood moon warning. The setting already exists.Otherwise there would be the possibility to hide the time with a HUD modlet. So the player would not know what time it is.

Good suggestions for the cirrent state. We have the warning turned off. Players know roughly what time of day it is just by looking around.

The ability to have a blood moon occurs during the morning or after would just be interesting. Not necessary bit a neat option for more tense gameplay.

 

[DrDark]

I do not see any problems with brass or ammo. And this despite the fact that I do not play in a single game, I play on pvp servers. Sometimes just throwing stacks of ammo, no place to put.

Much more annoying bleeding from zombies and animals. It will be with you the whole game, regardless of your level, perks or quality armor. Sometimes in one minute I get and cure 2-3 bleedings, it is annoying. Can we expect new modifiers for armor to reduce the chance of bleeding?

 

[Dark_Corvid]

Right now on my server I have them set to every day. As for a warning I'd want none other then a single lighting strike followed immediately by the horde. This would scare the ♥♥♥♥ out me for sure and then the mad scramble would be on. Idk, I feel like hordes used to be a lot scarier in the early alphas, maybe it was just my noobieness :indecisiveness:

Wow, that's pretty intense!

We've found that it's pretty easy to forget a bloodmoon could occur. A couple hours isn't much time to make sure one is geared up for the horde depending on where one is at.

I think there is something to be said for having adapted to the game. I agree it used to seem harder, but I've been playing for a long time now and can't really get back in the earlier headspace.

Dog and zombie bear packs though... that will do it, lol.

 

[Dark_Corvid]

I do not see any problems with brass or ammo. And this despite the fact that I do not play in a single game, I play on pvp servers. Sometimes just throwing stacks of ammo, no place to put.Much more annoying bleeding from zombies and animals. It will be with you the whole game, regardless of your level, perks or quality armor. Sometimes in one minute I get and cure 2-3 bleedings, it is annoying. Can we expect new modifiers for armor to reduce the chance of bleeding?

I don't remember how far back, but I seem to remember Madmole saying that bleeding with armour has been addressed.

Also, the front page has some notes about gear and armour changes

 

[forger]

Can we get an option to change the size of roaming hordes? As of now they are only scary in the beginning of the game. Later on they pose no threat because they are super small and are not affected by game stage (I think). I know we have a ton of options already and I appreciate it a lot because I can make each play through radically different.

With few xml changes you can get any size of roaming horde you want - in my last playthrough I had 200 zombie hordes and to make things worse it is easy to make wondering hordes composed only from zombie dogs or zombie bears or radiated cops or wrights, it is so funny when 150-200 zombie dogs run past you...also this will make traders unsafe as zombies can jump on top of each other and they easily get behind traders walls, scary and a lot of fun on a similar note you can always edit zombie spawns in biomes, just add one 0 to the end of each number and you will have nice zombie infested land

 

[RipClaw]

Right now on my server I have them set to every day. As for a warning I'd want none other then a single lighting strike followed immediately by the horde. This would scare the ♥♥♥♥ out me for sure and then the mad scramble would be on.

I'm just imagining how you are looting in a big building like the Crack a Book tower or the Dishong tower, a lightning flashes across the sky and the horde starts. Would be too intense for me but if you like something like that you would surely have a lot of fun with it. But here it would be more about escaping the horde instead of fighting it.

Idk, I feel like hordes used to be a lot scarier in the early alphas, maybe it was just my noobieness :indecisiveness:

I think it was more like the latter. I started with Alpha 15 when there were no ferals or radioactive zombies. Nevertheless, at the beginning the hordes were much more fearsome than they are now. When I learned in Alpha 15 how to protect myself and how to build a defense, the horde lost much of its horror.

In Alpha 16 and Alpha 17, however, there were moments when the horde scared me. That's when things aren't going according to plan and you have to realize that the defense doesn't hold. But I don't want to experience that with every horde.

 

[Kage848]

Yes expect at least a 20% reduction in zeds in POIs and loot rewritten from scratch. There is a lot of new micro loot too so hopefully its worth it.
I want to add previous quests page to traders so you can go back and do easier ones if you don't have time/ammo for T5, scroll back to T3 or so and be able to do those. Rick said shut up and take my money so we can count on this for 19.

That is great news. The idea of being able to go back and do earlier quest tiers is genius. I cant wait for alpha 18 and beyond.

 

[meganoth]

I'm saying that basing the path weight on block HP _is_ the problem.

One could also say it is first of all a solution to a destroyable voxel world. All games with indestructible terrain (i.e. 99% of all games) don't need to include anything but empty space in their calculation.

The rest is an implementation detail. Same HP for any block shape has the advantage that players can freely experiment with the shapes and it makes melee cages possible on horde night. It has the disadvantage that it gives an unfair advantage to knowledgeable players against the zombies and is less intuitive. I like the creative opportunities it gives me in building, so I can live with that quite nicely.

 

[Kage848]

Wait, you let him boss you around? Couldn't you eat him?
Cage match!

I also agree with kage... But it's more than that, it's that it's the /same/ loot, just more of it.

Special unique to poi loot items would be fantastic.

Yea. Wheres our "special" loot? Legendary? Named loot? That what I'm waiting for.

Just look at what the borderlands mod is doing.

 

[Kage848]

Level design realizes this and have been making some adjustments. We have ammo piles now that help compensate for ammo loss during the mission.

I have what might be a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway.

If I take a quest for a t5 building does that raise the difficulty of the zombies that spawn there? Do t5 buildin naturally have high gamestage spawns?

I ask because I have since gone back to t2 and t3 buildings without quests and the zombies are MUCH easier there.

 

[meganoth]

Yes, but it is capped on player level and reduced quite a lot by deaths. The current formula always keeps the player within a safe threshold, no matter what, and for that reason there is not much of a sense of urgency/time as a resource.

I agree, to me it feels like player death has too much influence on game stage. At least for warrior up a less drastic influence on gamestage might be in order.

A small anecdote: In my last game I died two times by stepping backwards into my own spike traps (getting damage from two at the same time gave me practically no time to react). I don't think that should give me easy-mode zombies.

 

[Kage848]

Its like Fallout and Skyrim now, or will be. Certain biomes/areas will elevate game stage and be more difficult, AND it has leveled enemies.

I would stay in the forest biome because the others look like crap. And I dont mean that as a dig on the game. They look like crap because they are are run down or burned down. I have the same issue with empyrion. That game game difficulties on other planets I would like to try but they look like crap.

Please keep the challenge in the forest biome. At least for horde nights. I could see harder pois in the other biomes though.