PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Lord Morphleyes]

Not sure what the thought process is for steel armor parts being so rare.  I have Heavy Armor maxed and have some level 5 scrap armor pieces. I didn't make level 5 iron because thread so too precious to waste on something g that may not give an increase. Then I got the steel armor schematic but can't make steel armor because I only have 5 steel armor parts. Now I just found a tier 6 steel boot in a tier 1 snow POI. It sure would have been fun yo have crafted my own armor until I could find something better.   

Looking at the xml I see that military armor parts appears acouple of places where steel armor parts does not.  We currently have 59 military armor parts.  Almost enough for a full set. Shod have been that way for steel armor parts.  I added lines into the code to have steel armor drop at. Frequency closer to military armor parts but it may be too late for me. I will never have a good reason to craft steel armor

 

[Neminsis]

The text you quoted was in reply to your own reply (quoted on top) that I had read as contempt... but maybe I was wrong, since you're telling me that wasn't your attitude.

As you have said, it's difficult to completely understand one's tone and attitude just by reading some text.

Now that I read it again, with your explanation, I see you were genuinely having fun at the discussion and, in that case, my reaction was out of place and I apologize.

Since you've been so kind to give advice to me, I'll give some to you too. This reply, for example, could be read as passive-aggressive, since you're apologizing to me for thinking that I was a "friendly" / "adult". That means that you're either implying that I'm hostile (which is not the case until I thought you were treating me with contempt) or you're just saying that I'm a kid, which to a mature man will come as an insult. So, my suggestion is to not play around with words too much and just get right to the point.  

____

As for the general discussion we were having... I don't see much difference between making the Vultures superfast on horde night if you jump on a vehicle to flee, and having the zombies spawn around you, if the game detects that you're on a platform in the sky and the AI can't find you by the "normal means". That's what I meant by thinking out of the box, the devs can apply any punitive measure they like (like with the vultures) when the exploit is so evident.

Accepted gratefully.

No, you read it right, that line in my post most definitely was passive aggressive, and the implied insult was indeed intended, but not so much as an insult as to illicit just the response that you've given here. It was a roll of the dice, but I was betting that your better nature would prevail none the less.  

I tend to be wordy, can't help it. Sorry for this and any future confusion.

The difference in that case is twofold at minimum, jumping on a vehicle and riding off also allows you to get back off, kill some Zs and profit before getting back on and riding off again, the platform does not, and how do you detect whether that platform 'is' a platform and not someone's base or a refurbished level in one of the tower pois and do it without a significant performance hit? 

Well, let's assume for a moment that it can be done. Now we have the situation where the player soon discovers that if he builds that platform, he can get the Zs to spawn right there, only now he can profit from it by setting up a killbox for them to spawn into while standing on top of a one block pillar in the vicinity. 

I previously offered the solution of spawning super vultures, and then pointed out that they too would become farmable. Which brings up a couple other scenarios to consider. If you build a long tunnel and just ride back and forth, or around in a large loop, neither the normal Zs nor the super vultures can do anything about it. Build that tunnel under the water out of BP glass and you also get a show for your troubles. Also, if you build a large enough roof, or large enough roof, with turrets on top of it the Super vultures also become farmable, and/or vehicle farm normal Zs at the same time respectively. 

The overall theme to all of these "ridiculous" scenarios is that if you put the 'time' and effort in you will be allowed to profit in many strange ways, but if you're not going to put that 'time' in then you will not be allowed to profit from it, and if your actions don't gain you a profit then your actions are likely to be ignored. Every single "exploit" that they've addressed has been one that both allowed profit and took very little time, because after they've already taken a player's money for the game the only thing that they need is for the players to put in the time playing. The more time players put in the more likely it becomes that they talk about it, the more likely they are to recommend the game to others and buy extra copies, the higher the number of active players will be at any given time.  

 

[faatal]

Make no mistake. faatal can do it. Yes, it will take a while, but another fun fact, when faatal starts a feature, he finishes for the same alpha. The only bottleneck here is 3d models and animations, really. Now, I hope for healing, covering, surrounding, retreating, swearing, grenade throwing and miscellaneous loitering/eating, but we might not get the last 2. It depends on how many keyboards per finger he gets.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am planning on doing bandits in two phases that will span two alphas as we are hoping for shorter alphas in the future by moving away from giant monolithic changes.

 

[hiemfire]

as we are hoping for shorter alphas in the future by moving away from giant monolithic changes.

Hey, I remember this song! 

 

[Roland]

Hey, I remember this song! 

He meant shorter by a couple of weeks.

 

[lil_joha]

So just a random person with a random question.

Will the next wipe be with next update or.. a few updates from now.  Trying to guage when to cry when we have to wipe my best game level yet.

timid player finally reaches some goals in game

 

[Neminsis]

So just a random person with a random question.

Will the next wipe be with next update or.. a few updates from now.  Trying to guage when to cry when we have to wipe my best game level yet.

timid player finally reaches some goals in game

Generally, all saves on a particular alpha are compatible with one another e.g. all of A19.x was compatible but not with A20.x. So, you're probably good until A21.X which is probably a year out at minimum give or take "a couple of weeks"

 

[Blake_]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am planning on doing bandits in two phases that will span two alphas as we are hoping for shorter alphas in the future by moving away from giant monolithic changes.

Reading between the lines here: I'm glad we get 2 more years of development. It is very much needed for quests, npcs, and RWG and systems' depth and polish.

50 guys shouldn't do shorter, because patches, backports, alternative builds and backport overlooks/issues can be detrimental vs a big monolithic alpha. And you guys are semi-long distance with a buch of time zones.

The people argument goes like this in broad strokes:

Spoiler

Some changes needn't people but time, like AI.

Some systems, like quests, wouldn't need that much time if there was a good dev tool to allow designers to fill the world with them, both scripted and non-scripted (trigger system is a step in the right direction). Same with npc/player models: a UMA replacement for character creation is needed, and can be used for both character creation and all npcs, a face-swapping system is the minimum amount of work required. Face features and a few body types would be the ideal (plus 3d models should be designed in a modular way to avoid clipping from the get go, which the art team doesn't like vs a full-body model) . Just 10 months of dev time tops with your resources , no biggie because it's worth it. Or you guys can just use UMA 2, but it will be less performant and has loads of redundancy and 3rd party stuff.

Art and Design (including system design) do need people, and that's 66% of any game. 80-100 trained devs should allow TFP to do noticeably shorter cycles, and we are not there yet.

 

[BFT2020]

He meant shorter by a couple of weeks.

I thought it meant released on a Friday so people would stop complaining about streamers getting it first to show off the features that weekend 

 

[Matt115]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am planning on doing bandits in two phases that will span two alphas as we are hoping for shorter alphas in the future by moving away from giant monolithic changes.

Faatal please do this as simple as possible in minecraft pillager style .

Reading between the lines here: I'm glad we get 2 more years of development. It is very much needed for quests, npcs, and RWG and systems' depth and polish.

50 guys shouldn't do shorter, because patches, backports, alternative builds and backport overlooks/issues can be detrimental vs a big monolithic alpha. And you guys are semi-long distance with a buch of time zones.

The people argument goes like this in broad strokes:

Spoiler

Some changes needn't people but time, like AI.

Some systems, like quests, wouldn't need that much time if there was a good dev tool to allow designers to fill the world with them, both scripted and non-scripted (trigger system is a step in the right direction). Same with npc/player models: a UMA replacement for character creation is needed, and can be used for both character creation and all npcs, a face-swapping system is the minimum amount of work required. Face features and a few body types would be the ideal (plus 3d models should be designed in a modular way to avoid clipping from the get go, which the art team doesn't like vs a full-body model) . Just 10 months of dev time tops with your resources , no biggie because it's worth it. Or you guys can just use UMA 2, but it will be less performant and has loads of redundancy and 3rd party stuff.

Art and Design (including system design) do need people, and that's 66% of any game. 80-100 trained devs should allow TFP to do noticeably shorter cycles, and we are not there yet.

Well about time:  this sometimes can be true - 1 not so controversial 2. controversial.

1. If LBD wasn't cutted exploits connected with this system could be find out after tfp get  more opinions etc

2. If 7dtd was annouced not in 2013  but for example in 2020 zombie teens would be not problem to added because now it is more accetable and if this was added in let say A9 no one could lose access to get because law because.... this game would be banned anyway in this countries.

Well i know people sometime say that something can be done easy etc. And often this is not true - well a lot of things need a lot of time changes money etc. BUT 50 guys can do shorter- let say. 10 guys can make 10 zombie models per week so if there is enough number of space etc 10 more guys can make 10 more zombie models. Ofc things like AI don't work in this way but : making pois, or writing lore yes - 1 person writing main story 2 person writing notes 3 person making dialogs etc

Well idk who is doing now actually in TFP but some things can be done by more people- not everything but still could make proccess shorter

 

[Callum123456789]

hey i have something to say whenever i had a pc power outage  in a19 or below i was able to copy and paste the files that i backed up into the corrupted save game but then with this alpha my pc had a power problem then when the game crashed if the save file was corrupted faire enough i can fix that but then it seems to have completely removed my save game entirely so i cannot restore the save at all i know this is my problem but i just dont see what happened for things to change with the way the game handles things and leads me onto the question will we ever have some sort of save system? i feel like that would fix this issue forever 

as always thanks for the things you do guys!

on second thought i dont know if that is possible with voxel games but i thought id ask 

 

[faatal]

He meant shorter by a couple of weeks.

Any amount would be better...

So just a random person with a random question.

Will the next wipe be with next update or.. a few updates from now.  Trying to guage when to cry when we have to wipe my best game level yet.

timid player finally reaches some goals in game

The next required wipe should be a21, which is many months away.

 

[Blake_]

Any amount would be better...

As long as it fulfills the roadmap, we can wait those 3 years. Each alpha is like a new game, but it's very clear that you need hands in some aspects. 3d modeling doesn't need much training if the modeler has some background. Nor does animation.

 

[Matt115]

As long as it fulfills the roadmap, we can wait those 3 years. Each alpha is like a new game, but it's very clear that you need hands in some aspects. 3d modeling doesn't need much training if the modeler has some background. Nor does animation.

This depends- props like bin,  crate is quiet easy but things like cars, corpses can be problems sometimes 

 

[musclecar937]

Can anyone explain to me why every time there is a update all save files start to be corrupted and i have to completely restart a new game help please.

 

[Lord Morphleyes]

Can anyone explain to me why every time there is a update all save files start to be corrupted and i have to completely restart a new game help please.

Did you do a complete wipe of all A19 data, saves, maps, and everything when A20 came out?

Also you may want to try the FAQ and the other forum tab on problems.  I have  recieved great help over there with technical issues.

 

[MichaelL.]

We all know that Bandits on Blimps is at the top of faatal's list...lol

Did somebody mention bandits on blimps?    (sorry - it dosen't actually fly....   )

 

[dcsobral]

Can anyone explain to me why every time there is a update all save files start to be corrupted and i have to completely restart a new game help please.

It is not every time. It used to be so but since alpha 18 (iirc) there has been no need to restart from a point release to another, such as 18.0 to 18.1 for example. Between major alphas, such as 19 to 20, that has happened because on each one they completely redid the way something was done making existing world and/or save files incompatible.

For example, alpha 20 introduced a new way of generating random gen worlds that required a major revision of all POIs. Many POIs were renamed or removed as a result of that revision and than renders save games which reference those POIs broken since they no longer exist under their alpha 19 names (or at all).

And why do they choose to make such save game-breaking changes instead of keeping backward compatibility with previous alphas? Because these are alphas. They are development versions of a game that is still incomplete and maintaining backwards compatibility would be expensive and slow down or limit development.

 

[Darklegend222]

@RolandThis is your chance to request bandit camps, and to have bandits riding ziplines to get to you

 

[Demonoid74]

Bandits riding bears into your base

Bandits riding bears jumping out of Blimps into your base

Bandits ziplining from Blimps into your base

You know , that way bandits aren't to much like Mad Max then

All jokes aside...IF they were very much Road Warrior style(talking Mad Max or Road Warrior , other 2 parts where pure garbage) , that would be awesome