PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[meganoth]

Hey all, 

I am setting up my A20 dedicated server and I have a bunch of questions. Where is the appropriate place in the forums for me to ask them? 

Best place would be "General Support".

@madmolehey man, I thought you said in the previous alpha that we were supposed to start in the forest. so far I have a start in the wasteland and one in the snow biome... Did you change your mind? also. Dire wolves during the day on day 1? is that an intended change? this was snow biome.

Dire Wolves in the snow biome on day 1 ? I think that is intended. Snow is second hardest biome.

View attachment 22200

this zombie is just staring at me here kinda odd but i guess she doesnt wanna fight 

I have seen a similar issue in another POI I think. The zombie seemed stuck in its corner, it wiggled like it wanted to move but couldn't

 

[Uncle Al]

Just out of interest, do we know if the apparently weird effects of changing the loot percentage are:

a) Just one of those things

b) A known bug but just not a priority to fix anytime soon

c) Actually working correctly and I'm just not understanding how it's meant to work

Just started a new 75% loot game and it's been hammered home to me how badly eggs are affected - I've looted 180 feathers, averaging about 4 feathers per nest, and one egg.  Dropping to 4 feathers per nest seems perfectly reasonable for 75% but the egg reduction appears to be vastly bigger.

 

[wolfbain5]

Dire Wolves in the snow biome on day 1 ? I think that is intended. Snow is second hardest biome.

i agree, it is, and well placed. but they were supposed to be night time only... this was day. so night 1 is when they were expected

 

[meganoth]

i agree, it is, and well placed. but they were supposed to be night time only... this was day. so night 1 is when they were expected

Night time only in the forest.

 

[faatal]

@madmolehey man, I thought you said in the previous alpha that we were supposed to start in the forest. so far I have a start in the wasteland and one in the snow biome... Did you change your mind? also. Dire wolves during the day on day 1? is that an intended change? this was snow biome.

You are supposed to start in the forest, but I think there is a bug with it finding or not having a nearby point.

 

[Laz Man]

@madmolehey man, I thought you said in the previous alpha that we were supposed to start in the forest. so far I have a start in the wasteland and one in the snow biome... Did you change your mind? also. Dire wolves during the day on day 1? is that an intended change? this was snow biome.

Seed and map size?  I recommend submitting a full bug report (banner above) so we can confirm.

 

[wolfbain5]

Seed and map size?  I recommend submitting a full bug report (banner above) so we can confirm.

default map size seed waifu

 

[Khalagar]

Anyone else having an issue with sledge turrets falling through the blocks they are sitting to the ground?  Solid concrete pillars (all the way to the ground) and the next thing I know they are inside the blocks sitting on the ground.  really sucks on horde night when that happens.

Yes, I assume it's probably related to all the shape changes causing the turret to no clip through the floor when it decides there's no floor there. Hopefully our on call after hours wizard Faatal works tirelessly over Christmas to fix this issue. Forget family, your fans are DYING here, alone and cold in a zombie horde!

It happens when there's enough stuff going on to make the game laggy, and then the turret just yeets itself away to a more important battle. I've not found a fix for it, besides just not using turrets at all if there's any chance of there being enough zombies to cause lag, which defeats the purpose of the turrets lol.  Intellect is not the tree to go into for A20 besides the trader reward perk, but it sounds like A21 might be kinder to it

 

[Krougal]

So I feel like I owe you guys an apology. I was just in a really bad mood I guess when I tried out A20 dev, not to mention after a long hiatus the game is briefly very difficult as I have to relearn all the things that are muscle memory after playing a few hours.

I have changed my Steam review. This is not to say that I don't feel my many criticisms are valid (although some things I was a bit over the top with), but all in all you guys continue to put in the effort and even with the things I dislike about the game, there are still many things to like about it.  I still liked the game better when it was more FPS and less RPG but I realize this isn't going to change and shouldn't keep me from otherwise liking the game that does continue to evolve.

A AAA game that I get maybe 80 hours out of I tend to be happy with because I play through it once or twice and pretty much shelve it, but a sandbox I spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours in it becomes easy to dwell on the bad instead of the good. Familiarity breeds contempt as the old saying goes. 

Yeah, that's kinda a lame apology I guess, I seldom apologize for anything so I'm not very good at it  

Anyway, enjoy the thumbs up on Steam from me, because I rarely give them out. Merry @%$#ing Xmas you buncha Ho ho hoes!

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

I still liked the game better when it was more FPS and less RPG...

This is an interesting take. The general consensus I've seen is that the game is trending more towards FPS/ action-oriented and away from survival/RPG. The game has definitely has been trending towards guns and heavy looting since I first started playing in A15.

 

[dcsobral]

BTW, I noticed that vehicles can hit an invisible wall (usually at top speed,  but happened with bicycle in a 10k map a few times too) and result in stuff like jumping several meters into the air, bouncing off the invisible wall, backflipping, etc. The physics of the invisible wall issue can vary between vehicles and where you hit it at the time.

The vehicle dipped into the ground, or so the game thinks. The "wall" thing is the game trying to get you unstuck. It used to be WAY worse, but it's been a problem since at least alpha 18 (it happened to me while I was flying in a gyrocopter in alpha 18, so it stuck to my mind).

 

[dcsobral]

Anyone else having an issue with sledge turrets falling through the blocks they are sitting to the ground?  Solid concrete pillars (all the way to the ground) and the next thing I know they are inside the blocks sitting on the ground.  really sucks on horde night when that happens.

Yes. I was about to post -- after I caught up on this thread -- if QA wants a reproduction. I have a solid reproduction for it with a save game backup. Just start horde night, and the sledge falls through a full block.

@madmolehey man, I thought you said in the previous alpha that we were supposed to start in the forest. so far I have a start in the wasteland and one in the snow biome... Did you change your mind? also. Dire wolves during the day on day 1? is that an intended change? this was snow biome.

What seeds did you use? Also, with what parameters (size, towns, hills, etc)?  Edit: nevermind, I saw "waifu" in a later reply. That's East Yarase Territory, right? I see one spawn point right on the border between forest and snow, but none inside or close to the wasteland. 

 

[khzmusik]

A request: Can you bring back the A18 smoke plumes for the supply crates? Not only did it make them easier to find (if airdrops aren't marked on the map), but they also looked friggin' cool.

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more, but I guess the writing was on the wall for them anyway.

EDIT: I don't want to sound ungrateful, so I also want to point out some stuff that really adds to the game that I don't think gets enough love.

Obviously RWG. It's so much better, and everyone has said as much, that I don't feel I need to add anything.

One of the small things I really like is how the new weather system interacts with the environment. When it rains/storms, the grass and other vegetation sways in the wind. That's very cool, adds a lot to immersion.

I also like how you can get the previous tier's quests from a trader, so you don't have to do things like decline the "opening trade routes" quest if you don't want to move to the next quest level.

I'm sure I'll come up with more things to like, but those are off the top of my head.

 

[dcsobral]

A request: Can you bring back the A18 smoke plumes for the supply crates? Not only did it make them easier to find (if airdrops aren't marked on the map), but they also looked friggin' cool.

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more, but I guess the writing was on the wall for them anyway.

They are still there. They disappear once the airdrop hits the ground but re-appear once you get close enough. It does disappear again shortly afterwards, but will re-appear if you move away and then move closer again. I do wish they wouldn't disappear, but I guess it is too much of a performance hit when people don't pick up the airdrops.

 

[khzmusik]

They are still there. They disappear once the airdrop hits the ground but re-appear once you get close enough. It does disappear again shortly afterwards, but will re-appear if you move away and then move closer again. I do wish they wouldn't disappear, but I guess it is too much of a performance hit when people don't pick up the airdrops.

I haven't seen that. Maybe it's because I have "mark airdrops" turned on? What I see is just the box itself. I've watched other folks' streams with airdrops turned off (mainly Jawoodle's), and it seems like the "re-appearing" is actually a bug where the smoke plume is active when the chunk loads but is immediately turned off when the code "catches up."

Given how few of the airdrops are in the world, I'd be surprised if they caused a performance issue, but I always try to hunt down airdrops, so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered.

 

[doughphunghus]

I'm also a bit sad that snowberries aren't in the game any more,

! didn't know that

 

[dcsobral]

I haven't seen that. Maybe it's because I have "mark airdrops" turned on? What I see is just the box itself. I've watched other folks' streams with airdrops turned off (mainly Jawoodle's), and it seems like the "re-appearing" is actually a bug where the smoke plume is active when the chunk loads but is immediately turned off when the code "catches up."

Given how few of the airdrops are in the world, I'd be surprised if they caused a performance issue, but I always try to hunt down airdrops, so maybe it's just something I haven't encountered.

I'm assuming it is a MP issue. I can easily see it happen on servers that go on for hundreds of days if the players aren't interested in picking them up.

 

[Blake_]

You are supposed to start in the forest, but I think there is a bug with it finding or not having a nearby point.

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

Edit: I've only tested this issue in Single Player.

 

[MechanicalLens]

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

I can confirm. One of my spawn points in A20 has been 3 meters away from the wasteland, and I got mauled by two zombie dogs within a few moments of spawning in. Haha

 

[katarynna]

To be perfectly clear, I've tested more than 10 generated maps, and you ALWAYS spawn in the forest. The problem is that you can spawn just 1 block away from wasteland, snow or desert, making the player face the unfair perils of those biomes right at the start, specially the wasteland. 

Player should spawn way into the forest, not close to the end game biome borders, lol.

In a game played with my son, where he hosted and generated the map, we definitely spawned in the desert with the forest quite a hike away. That map did not have a forest town or trader though.

I didn't do a bug report because when i asked, he had not cleaned all a19 files from his game. He cleaned, we restarted on a new map, and everything was normal. Every map i have generated in a20 has also been normal.

I wonder if the people having these spawning issues are not doing a thorough clean of a19? or maybe just coincidence.