PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Crater Creator]

The group must then decide what to do if something goes wrong and stick to it. You have to trust each other not to let each other down when things don't go as planned.
If someone is afraid, then he has the possibility to log out anyway. That hasn't changed. So the change mainly affects single players.

Group dynamics are a poor substitute for functionality and balance.

Consider if the game had an egregious bug where, say, if you stand on a landclaim block, all the zombies get confused and can't attack anything. Now, would you want your group to agree and trust each other not to use this landclaim exploit? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't mean this hypothetical bug is dismissable, not worth complaining about, or not worth fixing.

Likewise, you might have a house rule like 'no vehicles on horde night,' but that doesn't mean there isn't an imbalance. As always, the 'if you don't like it don't do it' attitude doesn't allow for trying to make the game better.

 

[beerfly]

RELEASE DATE BEGGING IS AGAINST THE RULES OF THIS THREAD.
Let's not test Madmole's patience please.

Teach them.

#alwaysreadmore

 

[Crater Creator]

We need to switch to linear space lighting instead of gamma, and re-do the probes, and A19 task. That paves the way to use HDRP and shader graph, which I'm told will let us have better lighting and dark caves/houses that are sealed up.
EDIT: Minecraft uses vertex lighting which doesn't support modern art pipelines.

I'm glad you're still thinking about features in the context of making caves look better. That means there's still hope that they could return.

I guess you could say this post makes me... see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

We need to switch to linear space lighting instead of gamma, and re-do the probes, and A19 task. That paves the way to use HDRP and shader graph, which I'm told will let us have better lighting and dark caves/houses that are sealed up.
EDIT: Minecraft uses vertex lighting which doesn't support modern art pipelines.

19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19! 19!

18 Looks fantastic but 19 is going to stomp it into the ground with those changes alone.

 

[Crater Creator]

That said, it seems like a weird design that stuff uses more power when operating, it should be the same, so running a turret in "scan" mode is the same as if its shooting, and same with a blade trap.

I don’t think it’s a weird design at all. Any obstruction puts waaaay more resistance on spinning blades than when they're just churning the air. Maybe you were never left unsupervised with a fan as a kid?

But beyond it making intuitive sense, I think it's better for gameplay that the more use you actually get out of your traps, the greater the cost.

 

[Guppycur]

We're moving away from craft everything under the sun to find in loot and grab it, but this will probably go on for a few alphas.

I'm on board with this movement.

 

[Crater Creator]

Also, I would expect to see the zombies target defense measures like the turrets/traps. From what I've seen, they pretty much ignore that which is causing them harm. The damage that does occur to these items are merely a matter of circumstance/coincidence.

No thanks. They’re zombies! It's important that they not have a sense of self preservation, or else they're just aggressive ugly people with no weapons. Even as it is now, players complain all the time about zombies avoiding traps (my avatar illustrates why A17 zombies seem to self-persevere).

 

[madmole]

Madmole, really got a simple question for you, maybe it's already possible with modding the xml...can the effects of the feral hordes be removed from xml? I mean, no more red sky/fog, no more lightning sounds, etc...
Or maybe make an option for it? I kinda want those feral hordes to feel like they are just roaming hordes that somehow detected me and come for me.

Idk, or have an option for roaming hordes size and frequency, that would be better I guess, don't know if this was requested or not.

No its hard coded. You would have to edit the bloodmoon spectrums somehow.

 

[madmole]

@madmole: Is there any reason in your lore that needs for there to be a horde-night? How about a Horde-day (as in a 24hr event)?Plus you could have sets of waves to come at varying times throughout a wider time range, instead of what it is now.

Basically, as it relates to the driving away from hordes.. how long could people really drive if the horde was a 24 hr event, instead of a few hours?

*Not saying there needs to be waves every hour for every hour of the day or anything (although later high gamestage people ), but you could have a few waves here, then a couple hours later another few waves sets, and so on..*

I mean sure, some people could get enough fuel stockpiled to last for part of 24hrs but a whole day? Plus all the wear and tear that the vehicle would build up

(Just thoughts)

Sounds like a mod. You might like horde mode though.

 

[madmole]

Well, I did think the pistol drop rate was too high, to the point that searching all toilets became obligatory instead of funny. But like I said, you're going to lose some of the game's flavor of finding certain things in certain places.
I still shake my head that all loot bags are either 'generic good loot' or 'generic better loot' now, whereas before you would prioritize nurses if you needed medicine, cops had pistols and shotguns while old timers preferred hunting rifles, and so on. Strippers with exactly 2 units of plastic... flowers in a coffin... You may say "nightmare to maintain"; I say "using the loot table to tell a story."

The same thing can be done finding a hospital though. There was some merit to that design, and we might sprinkle bits of it back in at some point with your example being one of the good ones.

 

[madmole]

Well, there are options to edit in spawning.xml (or Idk how the file it's called), in which you got options to edit hordes, including the night hordes...but...a menu option would be simpler, and yes, I am really good at modding xml, I do this for years, still, I wish I can have a menu option to set roaming/wandering horde frequency and size.
Maybe I don't want to modify the file, maybe I want to leave it original and have a menu option, but then again, I'll wait for Madmole's response.

I thought you referred to blood moons.

Wandering horde size it tricky on servers, only 64 zeds are allowed at once for performance reasons, so if wandering hordes were too big POIs would be free to loot with no zombies.

 

[madmole]

I always called them pisstols

EWE, but funny lol.

 

[lord_ahriman]

Keeping your vehicle gassed up should be more involved than grabbing 2 red barrels a week.

Now I know what you were talking about Madmole: I have no problems nerfing gas barrels even cars (as a matter fact, I think we get too much without a single point in Bad Mec). I was really worried about oil shale, because my game is 80% mining and defense relies entirely on electric fences and blade traps.

 

[Tin]

Sounds like a mod. You might like horde mode though.

Oh I did, but then you removed it. So you bringing it back?

 

[madmole]

It would be pretty neat if different zombies could drop different loot again. Nurses lots of good medicine, cops a shotgun with some mods and etc.

Lets save a role for bandits. Its not really fair for zombies to drop firearms who can't use them.

 

[Hamburglar]

There will be bandits? Like AI bandits? Whaaaa?

 

[madmole]

Now I know what you were talking about Madmole: I have no problems nerfing gas barrels even cars (as a matter fact, I think we get too much without a single point in Bad Mec). I was really worried about oil shale, because my game is 80% mining and defense relies entirely on electric fences and blade traps.

No plans to nerf shale, but I need to mine some (once I can't find gas) and make sure its not too OP. IMO you should be able to mine for one night and have gas for a week.

 

[Jacoviz]

I thought you referred to blood moons.
Wandering horde size it tricky on servers, only 64 zeds are allowed at once for performance reasons, so if wandering hordes were too big POIs would be free to loot with no zombies.

No plans to increase zombie count?

 

[SnowDog1942]

I thought you referred to blood moons.
Wandering horde size it tricky on servers, only 64 zeds are allowed at once for performance reasons, so if wandering hordes were too big POIs would be free to loot with no zombies.

Then maybe a seperate option for servers and for SP/ direct connect MP. I thought u said most people play in this fashion (SP and small coop group direct connect) anyway.

 

[Thecolours]

There will be bandits? Like AI bandits? Whaaaa?

Yes, but only if you stop eating Madmoles hamburgers.