PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

I also as many of you know, MM {He Don't Like It} I play on 3 27" in WSF at 6048 X 1080 W/Bezel/Comp & I have no Lag decent FPS, oh & the glorious 7DTD Sunsets & Sunrises I have from me Parapet...

Thats different, If I'm not mistaken that doesn't stretch your image into a piece of distorted crap.

 

[Roland]

Its ok for early game helmet, I'm just saying its not a keeper for long.

That’s good because a dozen pages of “Dumbing down the game by removing the football helmet” rage is not what I want to see happen right now. Lol.

 

[SnowDog1942]

That’s good because a dozen pages of “Dumbing down the game by removing the football helmet” rage is not what I want to see happen right now. Lol.

If I want to wear a football helmet then I should be able to! Don't tell ME about how to PLAY.

 

[faatal]

I think, to avoid predicatable behaviour we actually need more than one AI Pathing logic. Like, so zombie follow the available path, going through tunnel etc, like they do now. But 20% of them just see you and come straight line to you, if any obstacle they hit it mindlessly and break it, and then start coming again. If you are on top then they hit near by pillars or dig ground. 5%-10% of zombie use both in a mix, that if they are 20 blocks away they go through available path, but when on 5 or less block away they rush straight line. This mix will make things more interesting and reduce load of AI path calculation on CPU as all are not finding complex path.

What it currently does is actually a bit more complicated than you make it out to be and straight lines are easily exploited or can look very bad.

An individual AI's path calculation is not expensive and runs on a separate thread. The path grid update is expensive, but is shared by all AI in an area, so if some AI didn't use it, you gain nothing. Each AI's Controller collision checking is expensive and the next area I hope to get good gains from, but animation root motion needs some changes first to not always be moving the entity position around (like idle or wall bashing).

 

[faatal]

I bet faatal does a pretty good mr. Burns impression after he watches your horde video lol....

I probably will.

Have yet to watch, but have it opened in a window to watch soon. Been a hectic day of bug fighting.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Believe it or not I am going to post something normal, not perverted. Sometimes

Me thinks that A17 is the peak of the this game. However,

I am starting to

have 2nd thoughts and I'm starting to think Alpha

18 might be the best. I mean.. its not an increase of

inches, its an increase by miles.

In Alpha 18 I think I will die more often, and

my play style might need adjustment. I will have to put on my big boy

pants!

 

[Gamida]

If I want to wear a football helmet then I should be able to! Don't tell ME about how to PLAY.

I think we would all prefer you wear latex gloves. Better yet a full body latex suit. I am sure you have a few of those laying around. Also some hand sanitizer might help too.

 

[Adam the Waster]

If I want to wear a football helmet then I should be able to! Don't tell ME about how to PLAY.

damn all i asked was will there be foot ball armor

joel says most likey no

and people are going ape ♥♥♥♥

just like real sports fans

 

[faatal]

Since zombies rage randomly only when you hit them and the point is whether the player is able to escape or not without hitting them, I don't see how raging is relevant. Shouldn't be there at least one setting in which the player can't escape from zombies in their base speed?
I won't go on babbling about how important it is to have at least one setting that allows zombies to be faster in their base speed, forcing you to fortify (rather than doing it "just for fun") and not having the ability to just run for the remainder of the night/whatever, but guys, please, give it some thought.

Nightmare move speed is now about as fast as a running player, but it depends on the zombie. Bikers for instance will still be right behind me when I run from them for 5 seconds and turn around, making it very difficult to shoot, turn and run without being hit. A fat zombie, not so fast. With the new run anim blends going up to 150% their current sprint speed, it is just a matter of tweaking nightmare to a nice level that is reasonable.

 

[Laz Man]

That’s good because a dozen pages of “Dumbing down the game by removing the football helmet” rage is not what I want to see happen right now. Lol.

I know the devs usually take a break at some point after an alpha release but what about you? Lol

 

[Adam the Waster]

I'm on board with certain zombies having different behaviors, but changing base zombies behavior mid game wouldn't be cool.

dont get me started on behavior cuz i have a WHOLE LIST OF IDEAS!!!

 

[Laz Man]

Believe it or not I am going to post something normal, not perverted. SometimesMe thinks that A17 is the peak of the this game. However,

I am starting to

have 2nd thoughts and I'm starting to think Alpha

18 might be the best. I mean.. its not an increase of

inches, its an increase by miles.

In Alpha 18 I think I will die more often, and

my play style might need adjustment. I will have to put on my big boy

pants!

You wearing pants? That definitely would be a first...lol

 

[Adam the Waster]

@faatal

do you think that one day there will be zombies with different "AI"

Like a zombie borrowing in sand , dirt etc and rise out of the ground

some that dough and weave

able to go from 2 to 4 legs

ETC????

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Like a zombie borrowing in sand , dirt etc and rise out of the ground

I saw a video where a zombie was stuck in the snow. It would be cool if that happened occasionally but on purpose:

 

[faatal]

Okay. You’re being needlessly reactionary. Faatal said they are working on it and he will continue to refine it. I know for a fact he wants nightmare mode to be the setting where zeds are faster than players but not all the animations and movement types look good when sped up that fast.
They just solved the problem that prevented them from increasing the speed and now they will be working on making it work with animations so it doesn’t look stupid.

It is happening but it isn’t finished.

/chimed

Animations look fine to me. It really is more of an issue of I don't slap in changes. x2 zombie move speeds sound great, but are those high speed collisions going to cause a ton of bugs. MP could have even worse problems. Fast moving and network latency are not a good mix. The sane approach is to push it up a bit and see if anything explodes. Repeat.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I saw a video where a zombie was stuck in the snow. It would be cool if that happened occasionally but on purpose:

yeah but like this special zombie that "sleeps: in thoses areas as well as caves and when your mining some may barrow out of the ground

kinda like in metro exodus

 

[MechanicalLens]

Animations look fine to me. It really is more of an issue of I don't slap in changes. x2 zombie move speeds sound great, but are those high speed collisions going to cause a ton of bugs. MP could have even worse problems. Fast moving and network latency are not a good mix. The sane approach is to push it up a bit and see if anything explodes. Repeat.

If you can get Nightmare speed to work as you intend it to, do you plan on the zombies being faster than the player outright, or will they catch up to the player over a set distance?

 

[faatal]

@faatal
do you think one day zombies would have random walk/run animations?

That would not be hard to do, but I don't know that we want to do it. There is something to be said for some consistency with enemy types. Should a demolition model be able to have spider behavior and jump around or be a crawler? I don't think so. Arlene's walk is a recognizable aspect of who she is. Maybe she can start as a crawler? Every run type? Don't care for it, but possibly more variety.

Short answer: yes and no.

 

[Jczombie]

Did I miss the Hitler video or does no one care about tradition?

 

[Adam the Waster]

That would not be hard to do, but I don't know that we want to do it. There is something to be said for some consistency with enemy types. Should a demolition model be able to have spider behavior and jump around or be a crawler? I don't think so. Arlene's walk is a recognizable aspect of who she is. Maybe she can start as a crawler? Every run type? Don't care for it, but possibly more variety.
Short answer: yes and no.

only for like the normal zombies. and its walking animations not crawlers or spiders just the way they walk.

like hazmat , mother , cheerleader , survivor etc

fat zombies still have there wattle

heavy zombies like the demolishes , feral , army stay the same

spiders stay the same

i say this cuz (it may just be me but) its kinda odd to see the same zombie do the same walk ( I understand the zombie part cuz resources)

but when you see 4 zombie joes walking the same way like if there marching it kinda bugs me lol

but i understand why you dont want it (plus idk how hard that could be)

side note (do you think that any old zombies will return from way back then? like the hawaii zombie)

(aside form the feral walker)