PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[DUST2DEATH]

My issue is 30 zombies from outside come in every time I do a POI. This is a result of me playing solo and the random horde comes for me or near a player (its just me) and they hear me killing stuff and come investigate. At a minimum 5+ guys seem to come from outside and afar when I'm doing a POI. If that didn't happen, I'd love to see lots more zombies outside in cities but when your doing a Tier 3+ and get sandwiched its not cool.

Im sure you and your excellent team will find a modern solution to the problem

 

[AtomicUs5000]

My issue is 30 zombies from outside come in every time I do a POI. This is a result of me playing solo and the random horde comes for me or near a player (its just me) and they hear me killing stuff and come investigate. At a minimum 5+ guys seem to come from outside and afar when I'm doing a POI. If that didn't happen, I'd love to see lots more zombies outside in cities but when your doing a Tier 3+ and get sandwiched its not cool.

Doesn't the junk turret help you through this?

 

[bdubyah]

My issue is 30 zombies from outside come in every time I do a POI. This is a result of me playing solo and the random horde comes for me or near a player (its just me) and they hear me killing stuff and come investigate. At a minimum 5+ guys seem to come from outside and afar when I'm doing a POI. If that didn't happen, I'd love to see lots more zombies outside in cities but when your doing a Tier 3+ and get sandwiched its not cool.

Guess that's a good reason for some sound and AI tweaking.

Crouching or not, I never understood how smacking a zed with a club alerted anything more than maybe 5 feet away.

 

[madmole]

Im sure you and your excellent team will find a modern solution to the problem

Its tolerable both ways IMO. Its easy to mod how many wild zeds there are. We do want to make a city bounds so we know you are in a city and have custom rules there.

 

[FileMachete]

There is nothing to bring back. It still works. At least on the x8 and I'm not going to check all of them.

Gazz, you're correct, and I wasn't clear :rapture:

I _think_ there used to be a Scope that was named something like, "3x-9x Scope" (I couldn't find it in current xmls & don't have old versions to check).

The current 4x & 8x Scope mods do have a zoom in/out range. The 2x is fixed; which makes sense of course.

The difference between the current and what I (maybe incorrectly) recall is the old variable, when at it's weakest power, was quite usable at close ranges. Seemed like a 2x or 3x. The current 8x looks like it's never less than a 4x (actually looks/feels like it may be more than that, to me). Which, at least for me, makes the 8x too powerful to use for POI clearing.

It's all good though, I found the values to mod and simply changing the 8x's "Zoom_max_out" from 20 to 40 results in a 2-8x variable. :smile-new:

From item_modifiers.xml ;

"modGunScopeSmall" <---- the 2x

<property name="Zoom_max_out" value="40"/>

<property name="Zoom_max_in" value="40"/>

"modGunScopeMedium" <---- the 4x

<property name="Zoom_max_out" value="30"/>

<property name="Zoom_max_in" value="20"/>

"modGunScopeLarge" <---- the 8x

<property name="Zoom_max_out" value="20"/>

<property name="Zoom_max_in" value="10"/>

 

[Slingblade2040]

any chance that zombie loot will be taken out completely? just makes more sense to go out and loot stuff instead of having the zombies drop magic goodie bags.

 

[madmole]

Not trying to hype here at all. My son is a big Rust, Ark, Day Z fan. He's played 7 days in the past but usually cheated stuff in and never took it too serious and doesn't have a ton of hours in it. I gave him access to A18 and he played a good 8 hour stretch and loves it! He liked doing quests and loved random stats and all the loot, and specializing. He built a big fort even though I told him not to and that its better to wait until you get better tools. He did 5 quests in a day, I was impressed, but the dig quests are easy, only 300 meters away at tier 1. I think the improved animations made combat feel better to him, he plays fortnite a lot, so having better firearm mechanics and animations is important to him.

Anyhow I thought it was great he liked it a lot and I could tell he was totally immersed because he kept wanting to show me his base and gear he found. He didn't really get into A17. Drove the new vehicles (cheated them in) but didn't really get sucked into it. So this is awesome.

You can't always put your finger on what is wrong or off on something. But playing it a LOT myself revealed what it needed bit by bit. Its been a mountain of work for me personally but I know it will pay off. I'm super proud of A18 and I can't wait to get it out.

 

[Haidrgna]

My issue is 30 zombies from outside come in every time I do a POI. This is a result of me playing solo and the random horde comes for me or near a player (its just me) and they hear me killing stuff and come investigate. At a minimum 5+ guys seem to come from outside and afar when I'm doing a POI. If that didn't happen, I'd love to see lots more zombies outside in cities but when your doing a Tier 3+ and get sandwiched its not cool.

Well you are shooting guns in a city full of zombies, what do you expect to happen? Maybe clear them out first or not shoot your gun all the time. I loved how the cities in A15 had their own biome mask so you could tailor zombies within them differently than the biome. Keeping the normal biomes cool and low on zombies and the cities have a lot more and more nasty ones. Just also need to make sure the starting play can come by looting and growing in strength outside of the city (wilderness POIs, scavenging trash and bags). This way the city becomes mid-game, not something you rush to right away. You always keep referring to the Walking Dead for inspiration. Well what happened when Rick went there with a Horse? It sure was not pretty.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Not trying to hype here at all.

Why not? I think A18 needs it, and from what I've seen and read, deserves it.

Hype only sucks when things don't meet up to it.

 

[PO_Man_3849]

Yes it should. Landmines have a slight delay now so you can jump when you hear the tick sound and I managed to only take 80 points damage or so. I was thankful to be alive, that had never happened before.

Alright, I waited 24 hours and no one chimed in on this one.

If TFP wants a boost in steam ratings, this should be an official press release!

#LandmineHatersRejoice?

 

[spud42]

I think you are confused. I got really lucky and found the best spiked knuckles in the game, a T3 Q6 pair. I have 3 ranks of brawler so I am pretty damned formidable with my wolverine claws. Compared to a brown pistol, yes its better. Now if I had a pink pistol and 3 ranks of gunslinger, perhaps the pistol might be more effective. That said, there are always some randoms involved, like a chance to gib a head, etc making the spec'd into weapon feel better.
Take a trained MMA killer with wolverine claws and stick him in a phone booth with a noob with a pistol. My money goes on the MMA killer.

So no, guns are not always better than Melee, its a matter of perks, mods, quality of the weapons. I would hope the best perks up specialized melee is better than an unranked brown pistol. Again, when the stamina runs out I'm dead in the water, the pistol guy can keep going, repload or change to another pistol.

https://tenor.com/ooZF.gif :smile-new:

 

[bitmapman]

Not trying to hype here at all. My son is a big Rust, Ark, Day Z fan. He's played 7 days in the past but usually cheated stuff in and never took it too serious and doesn't have a ton of hours in it. I gave him access to A18 and he played a good 8 hour stretch and loves it! He liked doing quests and loved random stats and all the loot, and specializing. He built a big fort even though I told him not to and that its better to wait until you get better tools. He did 5 quests in a day, I was impressed, but the dig quests are easy, only 300 meters away at tier 1. I think the improved animations made combat feel better to him, he plays fortnite a lot, so having better firearm mechanics and animations is important to him.
Anyhow I thought it was great he liked it a lot and I could tell he was totally immersed because he kept wanting to show me his base and gear he found. He didn't really get into A17. Drove the new vehicles (cheated them in) but didn't really get sucked into it. So this is awesome.

You can't always put your finger on what is wrong or off on something. But playing it a LOT myself revealed what it needed bit by bit. Its been a mountain of work for me personally but I know it will pay off. I'm super proud of A18 and I can't wait to get it out.

If it's good enough for your son, surely it's good enough for your loyal fans too! :smile-new:

 

[Tin]

Its tolerable both ways IMO. Its easy to mod how many wild zeds there are. We do want to make a city bounds so we know you are in a city and have custom rules there.

Not really. Hubs often have multiple biomes running throughout them, so you would have to increase all the biomes spawns across the board, and that (imo) would end up being monotonous. Now if you did end up getting those city bounds in that would be great. Maybe another way of doing it, is assigning each city/town hub a biome based on the biome id mapper. That way you could just use the noise portion to just assign the biome size and it's boarder to the other biomes. and maybe if 2 hubs were close enough, it could get assigned the same biome id as it's neighbor.

Not trying to hype here at all. My son is a big Rust, Ark, Day Z fan. He's played 7 days in the past but usually cheated stuff in and never took it too serious and doesn't have a ton of hours in it. I gave him access to A18 and he played a good 8 hour stretch and loves it! He liked doing quests and loved random stats and all the loot, and specializing. He built a big fort even though I told him not to and that its better to wait until you get better tools. He did 5 quests in a day, I was impressed, but the dig quests are easy, only 300 meters away at tier 1. I think the improved animations made combat feel better to him, he plays fortnite a lot, so having better firearm mechanics and animations is important to him.
Anyhow I thought it was great he liked it a lot and I could tell he was totally immersed because he kept wanting to show me his base and gear he found. He didn't really get into A17. Drove the new vehicles (cheated them in) but didn't really get sucked into it. So this is awesome.

You can't always put your finger on what is wrong or off on something. But playing it a LOT myself revealed what it needed bit by bit. Its been a mountain of work for me personally but I know it will pay off. I'm super proud of A18 and I can't wait to get it out.

That's cool man. Must make you proud to see your Son get immersed in your work like that. :encouragement:

 

[FileMachete]

MM's son playing MM's game...

(the mind boggles a bit)

Wife, "Honey, why is Son mad at you?"

MM, "err.. he doesn't think bears should be able to break through walls..."

Wife, "what?"

MM, "I know right?" "Of course a huge bear could break through a wall, sheesh!"

Wife, "...."

21st Century Parenting. :loco: :spit:

 

[TargetPractice]

Not trying to hype here at all. My son is a big Rust, Ark, Day Z fan. He's played 7 days in the past but usually cheated stuff in and never took it too serious and doesn't have a ton of hours in it. I gave him access to A18 and he played a good 8 hour stretch and loves it! He liked doing quests and loved random stats and all the loot, and specializing. He built a big fort even though I told him not to and that its better to wait until you get better tools. He did 5 quests in a day, I was impressed, but the dig quests are easy, only 300 meters away at tier 1. I think the improved animations made combat feel better to him, he plays fortnite a lot, so having better firearm mechanics and animations is important to him.
Anyhow I thought it was great he liked it a lot and I could tell he was totally immersed because he kept wanting to show me his base and gear he found. He didn't really get into A17. Drove the new vehicles (cheated them in) but didn't really get sucked into it. So this is awesome.

You can't always put your finger on what is wrong or off on something. But playing it a LOT myself revealed what it needed bit by bit. Its been a mountain of work for me personally but I know it will pay off. I'm super proud of A18 and I can't wait to get it out.

MM, I am so _!STOKED!_ to try it out! My S.O. is going to lose me for a few days when you guys release it. Can't wait to try out all the new features, items, quests, random stat weapon loot, and rack up some new and interesting deaths!

 

[spud42]

Ah thats good, I wasn't sure.

in my 17.4 playthrough the 2x and 4x scopes are fixed but the 8x is zoomable with the scroll wheel.

since found the 4x does zoom...

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

Maybe I'm just an optimizer, though. I like to be able to avoid penalties from things like hunger/thirst/temperature as much as possible, so I'd really like to have an easy way to know about it before it becomes a problem. It's not like the game doesn't provide this information to you already, I just wish it were easier to see instead of requiring you to stop what you're doing and look at a menu.

When I first started playing A17.0 I felt the same way. After getting a feel as to how fast my hunger drops and thirst I came up with a system to avoide ever having to really worry about thirst or hunger. I always carry some type of food on me so that i can eat soon as i see max stamina drop. far as thrist, I always carry, red tea i believe its called, on me and drink 1 every few hours.

I always fill up my hunger and thirst right before dawn as I try and be at my base at night to do all my crafting, base upgrading etc. By over eating and drinking at night, I usually am good until the following night, besides a couple of red teas through out the day.

With a little attention to detail I learned to drink and eat by habbit without ever looking at my hunger/thirst stats.

I hope this helps you.

FYI you can over eat and over drink thus giving you more time between eating and drinking before incuring penalties. Being able to over eat and drink also helps with not wasting food and liquids

 

[bitmapman]

When I first started playing A17.0 I felt the same way. After getting a feel as to how fast my hunger drops and thirst I came up with a system to avoide ever having to really worry about thirst or hunger. I always carry some type of food on me so that i can eat soon as i see max stamina drop. far as thrist, I always carry, red tea i believe its called, on me and drink 1 every few hours. I always fill up my hunger and thirst right before dawn as I try and be at my base at night to do all my crafting, base upgrading etc. By over eating and drinking at night, I usually am good until the following night, besides a couple of red teas through out the day.

With a little attention to detail I learned to drink and eat by habbit without ever looking at my hunger/thirst stats.

I hope this helps you.

FYI you can over eat and over drink thus giving you more time between eating and drinking before incuring penalties. Being able to over eat and drink also helps with not wasting food and liquids

I'm aware that it's possible to manage this stuff without the info being present on the HUD, I just don't think the extremely minor gain in decluttering the HUD is worth the loss of information availability and the extra steps of pressing a button and clicking a tab before you can check hunger/thirst/temperature. It's alright, I'll live, this mod is working just fine. Thanks for the help, though!

 

[madmole]

Doesn't the junk turret help you through this?

I'm not doing an intellect build. They are kind of crappy until you perk into them.

 

[madmole]

any chance that zombie loot will be taken out completely? just makes more sense to go out and loot stuff instead of having the zombies drop magic goodie bags.

Its a nice surprise IMO. You can remove it in XML easily enough.