PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[madmole]

Welcome to the Alpha 20 Dev Diary. Here we will discuss upcoming features for Alpha 20.

Official Release Date: Monday December 6, 2021

Alpha 20 Dev Stream Videos

1) Alpha 20 First Look with Prime and Madmole October 28th, 2020

2) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream November 25th, 2020

3) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream September 8, 2021 

4) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream September 15, 2021 

5) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream September 22, 2021

6) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream September 29, 2021

7) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream October 6, 2021

Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream October 13, 2021

Alpha 20/21 Roadmap

1) Unity Update

• TFP will be working with Unity devs directly 
  

2) Random Generation Update

• New stamp tech that will allow artist created features such as mountains, hills, rivers, etc. to be placed in biomes. There will be a stable of different land features for the game to choose from.
  
• Additional controls in the map generation interface to give players more options for terrain generation such sliders to determine mountainous vs flat (for example).
  
• Biome selectors and city selectors to allow users to control the density of these map features.
  
• 6k, 8k, and 10k map sizes implemented
  
• City tile system randomly places city buildings into tiles so that they are aligned well with each other and city streets. Multilayered for sewer systems below groundlevel buildings and the ability for ends of one tile to match up with those of an adjacent tile so that everything generates looking consistent and aligned.
  

3) Vehicle Mods

• Tinting mask will allow vehicles to have color details added to differentiate vehicle owners better
  
• Fuel Saver
  
• [SIZE=14.6px]Off Road Headlights [/SIZE]
  
• Super Charger
  
• Expanded Seat allows 1 passenger on Minibike and Motorcycle and 2 extra passengers for 4x4
  
• Reserve Fuel Tank
  

4) Shape Menu and Building Update

• Shapes are shown as shaded drawings of blocks
  
• Blocks from the shape menu are placed as particle board blocks that function the same as frame blocks
  
• Simplified upgrade path: Frame/Particle Board -> Wood -> Stone -> Concrete -> Steel
  
• Blocks destroy to air. They do not downgrade.
  
• 14 categories and over 1000 shapes
  

5) Dynamic Imposters

• Changes to the world and player built forts are represented in distant terrain
  

6) Terrain Improvements

• Better terrain blending
  
• Quality setting effects basemap distance and mesh density
  
• Basemap renders faster and terrain size is in smaller chunks for quicker updates
  

7) Feral Sense Game Option

• When turned on Zombies can sense the player from much farther away and stay focused on the optimal path to where the player is
  
• Stealth still works but zombie senses are heightened so stealth play is much more challenging
  
• Settings are: Off, Day, Night, All
  

8.) Biome Difficulty

• Snow and Desert will have gamestage boost creating tougher enemies and better loot
  
• Wasteland will have a greater gamestage boost creating even tougher enemies and even better loot
  

9) Weapons

• Pipe Rifle
  
• Pipe Pistol
  
• Pipe Baton
  
• Pipe Shotgun
  
• Pipe Machine Gun
  
• Pipe weapons craftable from backpack without need for schematic
  
• Lever Action Rifle Tier between Bolt and Sniper
  
• Many weapons reskinned to apocalyptic art style
  

10) Trader Progression

• Trader goods offered tweaked to better match gamestage progression
  
• Trader prices re-balanced
  
• Improvements made to quest progression. Lower tier quests will remain available
  
• Improvements to quest tier completion reward and trader to trader quest
  

11) Loot Progression and Gamestaging Improvements

• Biome gamestage modifiers added for loot and enemies
  

12) New POI's

• New Gas Station (shown to reveal Restore Power Quest
  
• Over 145 new POI's and many new props and environmental decorations
  
• New Tier 3, Tier 4, and Tier 5 locations
  
• Many legacy POIs updated
  

13) Dynamic Music and Ambient Audio Improvements

• More tracks and better segment mixing for wider variety
  
• New bloodmoon track
  

14) Environment

• Weather changes more often and has more variety
  
• Wind dynamically affects leaves and plants and wind will gust
  
• Improved textures for environment art
  
• Temporal Anti Aliasing option with a separate sharpening option
  
• New mesh generation, shaders and lighting for plants and grass and optimized colliders
  
• Bedrolls can be recolored during placement
  
• Fuse Boxes updated and made into triggers
  

15) Quest Improvements

• Digging Quest improvements
  
• Tier 3 Digging Quest added
  
• Tutorial Quest uses the beacons to point out nests and rocks
  

16) Restore Power Quest

• Lights go out when rally marker is activated
  
• Find the generators and repair them
  
• A block trigger system added with multiple triggers, like switches, and can be on a layer. Blocks, like doors, can respond to them by doing something such as opening or closing.
  

17) New Zombies/ Entities

• Trader Hugh
  
• Nurse
  
• Drone
  
• Screamer
  
• Fat Cop
  
• Burnt Zombie (cold, hot, flaming)
  
• Hoodie Dude
  
• Lumberjack
  
• Radiated Zombie with AOE acid bursts
  
• All legacy zombies have been converted to new HD standard
  
• All traders have been converted to new HD standard
  
• Bandit models have been started for A21
  

18) Twitch Integration

• Streamers and Audience can interact through the game
  
• Chat commands to help or harm streamer
  

19) AI and Sleeper Improvements

• Zombies can duck and crawl through areas that are less than 2-meters but more than 1-meter
  
• Zombies include 1-meter holes in their paths and can crawl through them - pushed to A21
  
• Wandering Sleepers - pushed to A21
  

20) Character Overhaul - Pushed to A21

• Replace UMA system with in-house custom system
  
• Thematic outfits will work like books. Wear the complete outfit and get a completion perk
  
• Current 10 armor/clothing slots reduced to 4 slots for outfits that will merge both clothing and armor values. No more clipping issues of wearing clothing under armor. Better balance on number of mod slots available to use with outfits.
  
• Outfits are another feature that will help build the foundation for the future implementation of bandits
  
• Alot of this has been started already by those who have finished work for A20 and have moved on to A21 work
  

21) Water Overhaul - Pushed to A21

• Details Coming
  

 

[madmole]

Alpha 20 Art Gallery

 

[hiemfire]

Feral Sense game option.   Lets you set how easily zombies see/hear you.  From dumber than now up to Horde Night GPS all the time

Nice. Another knob to tune to adjust difficulty to taste. 

Some "sleepers" will be walking around instead of just sitting/standing

I wonder if this is going to be in place of something that is there currently or is in addition to what is there currently.

 

[TPrice321]

MadMole, can you share any rough percentages you are seeing from A19 gamesparks telemetry on single player, vs hosted Co-op vs Dedicated Server multiplayer?

Can you tell PvE vs PvP?

 

[TSBX]

Walking sleepers sounds great. POIs need some unpredictability.

 

[Blake_]

The Robotic Drone should be in A20. Some code work may start on bandits, but they won't be in a20.

@faatal , are you doing the walking sleepers ? They seem ok, as long as they have the "attack block" behaviour disabled until player detection, of course.

 

[Noctoras]

Are there also more "basic" zombies to come or will new zombie models only be special ones? 

 

[BobbyLee298]

And so it starts!!

Is TFP planing on more 6-8 month updates instead of 1.2-1.8 year updates? 

Because this thread started pretty quick compared to other alphas MIO

 

[hotpoon]

Hello devs. Have you looked at what mods people are using (assuming telemetry data shows this)? And if, so would you consider making changes based on that? For example, if a lot of people are using bigger backpack / bigger stack size mods, is that something you would consider tweaking?

 

[Jost Amman]

Just finished viewing the recorded Dev stream, there's so much great stuff coming!

Congrats TFP, you're going leaps and bounds to make this game better!  :first:

 

[Adam the Waster]

Just finished viewing the recorded Dev stream, there's so much great stuff coming!

Congrats TFP, you're going leaps and bounds to make this game better!  :first:

even though i was late to online class today,  But its worth it!

heres the pics if you want, 



You're welcome....
I got so many ideas for Armor NOW! Thank you TFP for fueling my fire!  

 

[beHypE]

Haven't been able to watch the stream yet but from the list above (thank you by the way) , I don't see any big changes regarding gameplay ? Vehicle mods are a nice addition and the 3 pipe guns will make early days more convenient for everyone, but there seems to be nothing drastically gamechanging or adding/renewing the challenge.

Has there been more detailed information regarding the very linear progression system of A19 that A20 was supposed to improve ?

Scratch that, the official list looks amazing.

 

[JasonX]

If bandits are proving so hard, why not let the community help out with the modelling, animations and coding? Surely there is some assets or source code that can be released, or some problem statement that we can help brainstorm around.  

 

[MechanicalLens]

While conventional clothing (dusters, boots, bandanas, shirts, pants, etc.) will be removed and the current armor sets we know will be gone, I'm nonetheless interested to see where these outfits will take us. I just hope there's enough variety among them so that we don't find entire sets, even if some are of poor quality levels, relatively early on. (Also, I assume that clothing mods will be removed, such as the skullcap mod and the cowboy hat mod? Just curious.)

Edit: Unless I misunderstood what Joel meant, in which case, feel free to correct me.

 

[madmole]

MadMole, can you share any rough percentages you are seeing from A19 gamesparks telemetry on single player, vs hosted Co-op vs Dedicated Server multiplayer?

Can you tell PvE vs PvP?

I'm not working on balance so I'm not looking at that data.

 

[madmole]

Are there also more "basic" zombies to come or will new zombie models only be special ones? 

The first step is to replace everything, and get new HD player outfits working, which also opens the door to bandit models. If everything is running good yet there may be room for additional basic zombies.

 

[RhinoW]

@madmole Considering the new generator quest, wouldn't it also be a good time to revise and improve the existing quests? Visuals and lore-wise giving them descriptions that you would find in those random readable quests, as if people left bounties on the traders. Game design-wise make them more intricate and have an even heavier RNG influence. 

- Clear Zombies ---> Infestation

- Fetch -----> (Person) needs (amount) (item)   [RNG]

They would have specific PoI's and items to collect in normal containers (for example, collecting grades of beer, gas, ammo, break into a safe)

It's rather boring finding the same "Riverwood supplies" hidden in the same place

- Fetch/Clear ---> Recovery

Clear an area, and if possible, have an open area mini event spawn (like a spawned camp/vehicle), and recover what a courier had failed to deliver, because he got swarmed. 

- Buried Treasure ---> Same

Nothing to add.

- [NEW] Heist 

Pretty self explanatory, break into a safe, steal, would be a cool addition once bandit structures/houses are added.

And as for the new generator quest, it seems like a really nice addition, and I hope different tiers add different electrical puzzles that the player needs to solve (activate a button, connect wires, interact with fuse boxes similar to far cry towers)

The PoI reworks and new gen quests are giving me Dead Island nostalgia, especially the gas stations and garages. I would love to see environmental traps in the future, like electrified water/fences, gas leaks and other puzzles.

Any thoughts people?

PS: 

 

[Jay_ombie]

They have been around forever. Screamer, fat cop, spider are all special. We have some new ones planned but are not sure when they will arrive. Tourist zombie will become a special infected once the code is in for him.

The first step is to replace everything, and get new HD player outfits working, which also opens the door to bandit models. If everything is running good yet there may be room for additional basic zombies.

I think most players like myself have been subjected to these 'special zombies' so much during game play they become the 'native zombie' and we are now so used to them they lost there 'special' title. I know ones like the demolisher do not show up till later on (would like to see these just wondering around as I rarely see them myself) but the majority of the zombies are there from day one and get old fast.

We need more native/generic zombies with different hair and clothes to fill up the world more, then these 'special' zombies will yet again regain there title as special.  

 

[Survager]

@madmole 

Will these new armor sets replace the old rags, leather, scrap and steel armor sets, or will the new armor sets be additional armor sets to what is already in the game?

 

[madmole]

Hello devs. Have you looked at what mods people are using (assuming telemetry data shows this)? And if, so would you consider making changes based on that? For example, if a lot of people are using bigger backpack / bigger stack size mods, is that something you would consider tweaking?

No we don't really look at mods, we have a huge list of stuff we want to do and don't need ideas nor care what 1% of the player base might be doing to their game. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but reflects the fact that we have a clear roadmap and list of features we need to focus on. A larger inventory is something we would like to see though. The distant POI tech is coming from a modder though. So if something brilliant comes up usually we hear about it even though we aren't looking for things if that makes sense.

Haven't been able to watch the stream yet but from the list above (thank you by the way) , I don't see any big changes regarding gameplay ? Vehicle mods are a nice addition and the 3 pipe guns will make early days more convenient for everyone, but there seems to be nothing drastically gamechanging or adding/renewing the challenge.

Has there been more detailed information regarding the very linear progression system of A19 that A20 was supposed to improve ?

I did mention new AI like zeds crawling through 1 meter egress and windows, which will make horde nights a lot more challenging. Feral sense options. Game play is constantly evolving but will always be similar to A18. Progression is getting a complete rewrite from scratch.

If bandits are proving so hard, why not let the community help out with the modelling, animations and coding? Surely there is some assets or source code that can be released, or some problem statement that we can help brainstorm around.  

OMG LOL.