PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Guppys Fur]

Got another Question for you guys

Do you consider adding Notes/Paper Clues to Prefabs?

The Flashlight Blocks in Prefabs were a huge step forwards in telling a narrative, followed by making many Prefabs Dungeon-Like with a Pathway.

I think Notes with Text, like Skyrim (and Fallout with the Computer Entrys)did it and many other Games would greatly benefit the atmosphere and Immersion.

Tiny Storys could be told that way, or clues of hidden treasures inside a Prefab given.

 

[Sidney]

Characters and animations are the biggest thing holding us back from becoming a massive success.

I'm curious why you believe that.  Do you guys want to be like EA?  Release games that are visually pretty, but fundamentally garbage?  If so please reconsider because almost nothing that AAA publishers @%$# out is worth the time, let alone money, to play.

This is just like, my opinion man, but the things that are holding you back are:

• The lack of variety as well as the hard tiering of weapons and armor.  For example the sniper rifle is strictly better than the marksman rifle, and there are only 3 rifles total.
  
• Bugs, especially the gamebreaking ones like vehicle duping, item loss in vehicles, vehicle loss, crippling FPS hitching during weapon fire, zombies' attacks clipping through walls, jerky zombie movement (the micro rubberbanding not the pathing that attempts to juke the player, that's cool), the game deciding that you don't have a bedroll or that your bedroll is actually someone else's, etc.
  
• Things that perhaps aren't bugs, but are super irritating like the almost random autosort order, inconsistent reload and draw with bows, camera position not staying the same when exiting a vehicle so you are always disoriented, inability to consistently pick up a thrown spear, respawning "near your bed" can place you on the roof of a nearby POI (like a Shamway), the cancerous amount of I-beam debris in the wasteland making the 4x4 unusable there, gaining zero exp from cooking food or from zombies dying to traps/bleeding/fire.
  
• Lack of special zombies.  Only the demo, and to a lesser extent the vultures, present a threat.  Everything else is a bullet sponge to one degree or another.
  
• Game progression, especially loot not being better in harder POIs and harder biomes.  I understand you're working on this one, so this may not be valid for long.
  
• Low worth/Worthless game content like stealth, gillie suits, knives, spears, batons, buried treasure perks, etc.
  
• Terrible FPS, especially during BMs, even with the graphics turned way down.  My PC isn't a potato, but I never saw my frames break 30 on a BM after night 14.
  
• Lack of features common in other FPS games such as different mouse sensitivity settings for different zoom levels, autorun, configs stored in a universal and portable .ini/.cfg file instead of the damn windows registry (really guys?), and changeable crosshairs.
  
• Not enough "knobs and dials" to customize the game without mods.  For example you can't turn off the death penalty, nor can you remove the noobie weather protection.  There are a LOT of settings that should be configurable when creating a new world that aren't there.
  

These are the things keeping you from greatness, not how pretty your models are.

 

[madmole]

Well yeah, reading the official list of planned changes completely changed my mind on what I wrote on page 2. Alpha 20 looks amazing, moreso than A19 for my taste since A19 brought more eye candy and the loot progression was a fun killer. Hope the changes to that will be good. 

Damn I'm hyped! I know no dates, ready when it's ready etc... But earlier this year there were talks of A20 being a late 2020 update, is that still a possibility or is the A20 update way more ambitious than initially planned? 

We're looking at spring which always leads to more like summer. We'll see though, we're making good progress.

 

[madmole]

With the  armour sets, are you guys thinking about tools or weapons that could go with each set for an added bonus?  Like for the farmer it could be the iron shovel as a special one to find and depending on how many pieces of the outfit you have could determine how many boosts the tool gives?

So for the miner as an example we could have a legendary Iron Pickax then say you only have the helmet it gives like a 10% extra block damage, gloves gives an extra 5% swing speed and stuff like that

Oh and not going to lie I would love to have a policeman outfit in the game, simply because it would be awesome haha

No the armor will provide standalone perks and not interact with other objects, other than itself for a full set bonus.

For future versions of the game would you consider the possibility of re-adding cosmetic mods. Like the current hat mods for helmets to make them look like a cowboy hat, baseball hat, etc but for all 4 gear slots. In order to allow us to swap out the look of our gear to further diversify our characters appearance beyond the dye system. As one of the main complaints about the new gear perk system is that everyone will end up looking identical when doing a specific role.

I don't think so, but we might add alternate versions of specific sets at a store you can buy. Like if you found a miner outfit and purchased miner outfit variant, you could set the skin to the variant. I believe Rust does this too. I'm not saying we won't but it kind of doesn't make sense and in PVP might be misleading as to what you are up against seeing a soft ball cap on a guy actually wearing a steel helmet.

 

[Gobarg]

I get goosebumps thinking about how good this game is going to be at the end of the run to Gold.

Let's face it, the game is already awesome (imo anyway)

Been getting right back into building again, which is always a good sign we are enjoying ourselves tbh and have been wondering if more textures is something being contemplated for the future?

Below is a comprehensive list of all my complaints about the game...

....

...

.

Yep... that about covers it I reckon.  Let me know when you have addressed all my complaints guys  

 

[madmole]

To the entire Staff.

I dont say it for the first time, i wont say it for the last time:
Thank you. Thanks for 4068 Hours of Joy, Thrill, Anger and Fear (of Big Momma breaking through the ceiling of my Base)

I had low expectations on A20 for some reason, but what i saw in the youtube recording of the Stream today left me in awe of whats to come.

Power Generator Quest, Biome Progression, Lootprogression, Quest Menu and your Intention to make someday Decoration available for Players too... If i were a Dog i would wag my tail... nevermind im wagging something else.

Another thing im really excited for is the Outfit System.

And for that i got a question.

Will we be able to alter their appearance, either by tinting, or Transmog?

For example in the current system we are able to let Steel Helmets appear like Cowboy Hats. It would give the Player more freedom and not be "forced" to look exactly like the Set he is using.

I do believe we will support tinting and it will be better then ever, i.e. using a tint mask. I doubt we will support cosmetic swapping, but we might. It hasn't been discussed and there is so much to do it feels like a can we will kick down the road at the moment.

 

[madmole]

Is the vehicle collision system that was mentioned for A19 still a thing?

Not happening for A20. Vehicle mods are but the whole vehicle crit system has to wait because Faatal is swamped with other features.

@madmole is there a chance that road flares will come in at some point?

It would be sick to use at night with the No Power Quest

We have flashlights and gun lights and helmet lights. Do we really need more lights?

Since there will be more loot containers that will be locked and require lockpicking to get into them, will there be or have you thought about adding a lockpicking minigame with progressively harder locks to pick depending on the loot container?

No, lockpicking is shippable as is. Sure a minigame might be better but we're a small team and we can do more quest types or redo features that are shippable already.

Make sure to allow dyeing vehicles when you get to vehicle mods, it's really hard to tell who's bycicle is who's sometimes. That and I would loooove a purple bike.

That is already done.

 

[Adam the Waster]

 Faatal is swamped with other features.

Give Him my wished

 

[madmole]

Question:
Did/do you consider a "Engineer" Outfit set?

Handy for Basebuilders.

Faster Block-place rate, higher Jump height ( yes i know, there is a perk too for it) less Costs when repairing Blocks and such things.

Not yet.

Ok, I see.

Then, is there any way to make the inside of a building that is darker also appear darker form outside? (...so it wouldn't change when stepping in)

That would require some kind of concept of what is inside and what is out. Hard to do in a fully destroyable game.

Read the A20 roadmap and I'm very impressed. As always, he game is getting more awesome with each alpha.

But the clothes changes are not very clear to me. Are we still gonna have armor besides clothes? Or only chest piece? Also all the listed outfits were combined of helmet+outfit+gloves+boots, except for the nerd outfit, that didn't have a helmet but had goggles. Can we equip the nerd goggles with let's say the complete lumberjack outfit? Or the goggles go to the helmet slot? Or is it an early stage prototype and it is too early to ask these kind of questions?

Goggles occupy the entire head slot.

I have quite a few take aways from the stream, but this is bar-none my biggest one. You guys clearly want to have some kind of class system. Why not just stop beating around the @%$#ing bush and implement one and leave the gear out of it. You would have so much more freedom with it and much less stupid "LeT mE pUt On My CoRn PiCkInG hAt."

ETA: Also, 10 (I think that's the right number) equipment slots down to 4 is a travesty. What a loss. I used to argue with the guys in the older alphas who said that removing complexity was becoming a problem.

I was wrong.

You are always wrong bro.

 

[Roland]

We have flashlights and gun lights and helmet lights. Do we really need more lights?

How about make flashlights throwable? That's probably what he was wanting to do with the flare. Toss it ahead into a dark room...

 

[madmole]

How about make flashlights throwable? That's probably what he was wanting to do with the flare. Toss it ahead into a dark room...

Why not use what you have instead of asking for things you don't need. We have lanterns and torches you can place. Generators you can hook up and place spot lights. The drone has a headlight mod. Flares can be modded in IMO, it is a waste of vanilla resources and dev time when there are 50 things that do the same thing. It seems about as valuable as adding pinto beans, black beans, northern beans, red beans etc... who cares we have corn.

 

[Maxley]

Why not use what you have instead of asking for things you don't need. We have lanterns and torches you can place. Generators you can hook up and place spot lights. The drone has a headlight mod. Flares can be modded in IMO, it is a waste of vanilla resources and dev time when there are 50 things that do the same thing. It seems about as valuable as adding pinto beans, black beans, northern beans, red beans etc... who cares we have corn.

Excuuuuuuuuse ME! they aren't called "northern beans" they are called GREAT NORTHERN BEANS!

 

[Phoenixshade35]

No the armor will provide standalone perks and not interact with other objects, other than itself for a full set bonus.

Fair enough, it was worth asking lol

 

[khzmusik]

A new tinting shader is already done and all vehicles now have a tint mask, which allows the dye color in the cosmetic slot to tint specific areas of the vehicles.

This sounds really nice. I asked about something similar a long while back, but thought nothing came of it.

I'm guessing the new tinting shader will also be applied to weapons and tools? That was the big improvement I was hoping for.

 

[khzmusik]

We have flashlights and gun lights and helmet lights. Do we really need more lights?

Playing Devil's advocate here... The one thing that those lights don't do, is go out. Flares do. If they're commonplace (like, cheaper to make or loot than torches) it would add light management mechanics, which could be cool.

Also things look spookier in a red flickering lights, so it would add to the fear factor.

...Having said all that, I'm not married to the idea, and I'm sure you guys have a lot more to work on.

EDIT: Sorry for the two posts, I thought the forum software would "auto-edit" my previous post.

 

[faatal]

This sounds really nice. I asked about something similar a long while back, but thought nothing came of it.

I'm guessing the new tinting shader will also be applied to weapons and tools? That was the big improvement I was hoping for.

It could be used for it, but masks have to be made and hooked up, which takes time.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Spoiler

When I watched Dev Talk one I saw the quest light repair system used in the Gas Station.

Since you have the primer already, does that mean that you may add that as a basic option
to the POIs.  I ask this because it could add to the general gameplay flow, promote Nomadic
POI takeovers, open up more active night play scenarios with out being exclusive to questing.

Examples: Single POIs, energy stations, Flickering street lamps.

Limiters
If limiters are needed to stop the over taxing of processing power, then have a governor level
limiter to how many additional energy resources can be used at a time.  Have working grids thet
governern an area, that can be associated with the city zones, or the Cells for poi placement.
A slmple but potentially trippy one is after repair, attempting to turn on too many grids at once,
causes blown systems in random locations, or catastrophic failures.

Example: Using a Downtown Zone, to repair a main power source, first it needs resources and tools,
including the wiring tool. Second you would need to repair localized connections to the grid. Third
it needs and uses limited fuel capacity Game tanks that can be repaired but not made to be infinite.
Any overreach of connections or flicking the wrong switch and "See limiters section above".

For $#!tzNGiggles you can add an RNG failure factor.

Madmole

The above is just a curiosity, As of 19 it has prompted me to use more systems in longer gameplay days.
I still play Nomadic, and turn lighting to 0, but the actual gameplay gives me more choices between
horde attacks. A new midrange pc plus your optimizations and my terrain tweaks allow me to play a 7 day
120min session and ignore the time on my day off.  

Thanks

 

[Scyris]

So I watched the dev talk for A20, and I can't help but feel the outfit system is sort of a step backwards and not really forward. Your removing char slots for equipping stuff it seems. Not to mention the amount of inventory clutter this is going to cause when its already super cluttered as it is. You could have added these sets, and kept the current system as well, I don't get why you scrapped it. I mean it won't fix the inventory clutter either way but. It feels the whole thing is a case of: "The current equipment system was not broken and did not need to be "fixed"."

RWG stuff, I just hope the terrain is like a19.2 and not that horrorfest a19.1 was where even on seemingly flat ground there was mass variation in actual height of terrain which killed vehicle speed to the point it was often faster to walk on foot.

I'm all for new quest types.

The loot, the changes in A20 will help, but I still prefer the randomness of a18 loot, where you can get lucky and find something nice early. I've not played much of a19 because I play dead is dead, and the linear loot has completly ruined the game for me. Its made every game I start feel like the exact same thing as the loot is generally always the same.

Will Vehicle mods include one that increases speed? A mod I play Darkness Falls, has a mod that doubles vehicle speed when installed, makes a minibike go from 10 m/s to 20 m/s. Motorcycle goes from 14 m/s to 28 m/s. Its a game changer.

For the junk drone, how is its AI, if yoru trying to be stealthy I am going to assume having a drone out is a bad idea since I imagine its flying around would make a ton of noise.

 

[Blake_]

We're looking at spring which always leads to more like summer. We'll see though, we're making good progress.

According to my calculations A20 will reach b180 in the week of June 7 2021 if there are no real life accidents. You are doing 0.67/ 0.68 builds per day since 2 years ago. A build can be anything from a texture clipping fix to a WIP system change, so while that's no real variable to calculate dates,  it is a consistent and healthy speed indicator.

 

[Sal]

Why not use what you have instead of asking for things you don't need. We have lanterns and torches you can place. Generators you can hook up and place spot lights. The drone has a headlight mod. Flares can be modded in IMO, it is a waste of vanilla resources and dev time when there are 50 things that do the same thing. It seems about as valuable as adding pinto beans, black beans, northern beans, red beans etc... who cares we have corn.

This is very true IMO. To be honest, I don't see any reason to use any anymore resources on light as soon as I find a helmet light mod, which is usually within the first week.  In fact, I don't think I've ever once used a flashlight for light or use the resources to build light bulbs and hooking them up to a generator.  It just seems like a waste of time.

Helmet light mods and/or mining helmets(which usually come with a mod) are pretty easy to find.