One other main difference that stopped temperature from being functional, is the new terrain configuration,
temperature was a vertical calculation, based on height. The new terrain is a 2d horizontal layout that's flat.
= Temperature and position, + storms and time.
So altitude would have to be converted to time in biome, like "ambientInsideSpeed" does and then combined with
"Isindoors" but cloned and retrofitted for temperature increase/decrease. Clipping and model deformation seem
to be the main roadblock for the clothing progress. But that's just a guess.
The thing I don't see returning is the altitude layout, I think that goes against TFP's optimization goal.
One other main difference that stopped temperature from being functional, is the new terrain configuration,
temperature was a vertical calculation, based on height. The new terrain is a 2d horizontal layout that's flat.
= Temperature and position, + storms and time.
So altitude would have to be converted to time in biome, like "ambientInsideSpeed" does and then combined with
"Isindoors" but cloned and retrofitted for temperature increase/decrease.
I don't think it needs to be quite so complicated. There would be easier ways to tie temperature ranges based on biome at the very least. Not sure whether they could code it for indoors vs outdoors, etc.
They made armor work with variable pieces. I don't see why they couldn't do the same for clothing, but again they hinted at it being invisible which I will take function over form any day.
I wish current armor was cosmetic like the DLC and they just reworked clothing to look better like the armor meshes, but I don't see that changing. I am not much of a fan of some of the magical armor bonuses given personally, but the styles look nice I suppose.
Not exactly true. We had a fully functioning clothing system that was changed to a different kind of fully functioning clothing system. There are pros and cons of both systems and people will differ on which one they like better. The badges were not in any way shape or form a replacement for clothes or temperature. They were a brand new feature having to do with the biome hazardous environments.
Temperature was removed about two years before the storms and the biome hazards were added and has yet to be reimplemented. Whether it comes back or not it won't have anything to do with the biome hazards. One is not a replacement for the other.
They are currently working on implementing community feedback to improve the storms and the biome hazards. But even once these features are improved they won't be viewed by TFP as replacement features for the old clothing system or the old temperature settings.
So I think my disconnect here is what I would consider the 'armour', is really an amalgamation of both the 'armour' and 'clothing' under the new outfit tags. I do hope to see a return of the temperature /wetness systems and even a return of some of the old clothing options.
Any thoughts into not locking biome gear progression behind the challenges?
I struggle to understand how the challenges themselves have any relevance to unlocking the gear. The only exception being the challenges involving the collection of resources, with of course relate to the recipes.
I would think the biome gear could just exists as a recipe we can craft at any point without the need to do these challenges. Restricting progression behind these challenges feels like its detracting from the sandbox experience. The current challenges could instead of granting us a recipe, provide some other reward much like the other rewards (maybe the reward could be something do with the storms?). This way you are rewarded for doing them, but they are in no way mandatory.
Disabling biome pression in the settings doesn't feel terribly satisfying either, because it feels like there should be a barrier of entry to enter a new biome.
They stated temperature would return. I am not confusing anything. When they removed clothing they said they were removing temperature until the new armor system came and during the town hall they talked about it as well.
Clothing was a feature of temperature, not the other way around. Again they stated it would return.
Storms were not added while temperature was removed. Temperature was removed more than two years ago. Storms were added earlier this year and never added to be the new temperature system. If anything I’d say that the biome hazards would be closer to a replacement especially with heat and cold if the desert and snow biomes.
I’d like to see a return of global temperatures but I still want storms.
Any thoughts into not locking biome gear progression behind the challenges?
I struggle to understand how the challenges themselves have any relevance to unlocking the gear. The only exception being the challenges involving the collection of resources, with of course relate to the recipes.
For the default game that is not likely going to happen. If you are on console you will probably have to always deal with it. If you are on PC you could put in a request in the mod discussion forum to have the recipes always available. That would be a pretty easy modlet I would think.
The challenge system is something they are likely to continue to use and very likely add to in the future.
I went back to look at my old notes, one thing that they may be staying away from is Poly count. Second is
something that Faatal posted recently, not very recently, but since the change has started, that is in regard to the
code, and how it was originally written and organized. A lot was considered generic and hacks. So he started
supervising the reorganization, streamlining, and simplifying where possible and rewriting the code.
I kind of understand some of what has happened. Repeated request: Game load as quickly as possible:
2 minute now vs 10 or more as was before. Effect remove some preload processes.
Repeated request: More detailed entities and closer to PBR lighting:
The beautiful world now rendered jiggle effect, decapitations, and closer to realistic lighting and effects, The Zombies
are super detailed like the majority wanted. Effect less overall entities in the world because of single thread processing
and pushing the GPU at a higher percentage because of it being voxel based.
Repeated request: reduce and remove memory leak stutter and rubberbanding:
Smoother gameplay overall, negligible stutter when going from chunk to chunk: Effect slower vehicle speed objects load a bit
more noticeably.
Needed: Lower data size for console market limitations:
Passed regulations on console: Effect Lower player terrain height meaning more air per world less data storage per cube.
removing excess water generation for data and processing.
In the background File distribution and structure has been reorganized from a single somewhat convoluted
archive to a distributed structure. There are more files but they are a lot smaller I would guess to help
different asset loads.
The original weather survival system, which I used avidly, used 23 constant calculations for temperature regulation: They are
Yeah, It may have been ok then because there was less overhead and processes, but now it would need to be really simplified
to not break something else and to blend in. To cover all markets now included in the playerbase.
My interpretation of some of his posts is that they are at the point now that for many things that are added either processing
of graphically something else has to be reduced or re-arranged to keep at this level or it will regress.
Personally looking at the way storms and the acclimation features for players dealing with storms function, from a
modding view point. It seems like a potential foundation to later incorporate temperature and wetness.
I don't think time is particularly important in this instance as removing temperature while instead of adding it back in you substitute it with something else was my point.
Storms were added earlier this year and never added to be the new temperature system. If anything I’d say that the biome hazards would be closer to a replacement especially with heat and cold if the desert and snow biomes.
I’d like to see a return of global temperatures but I still want storms.
Fair enough. I think you could say biome hazards for the bill more. Hopefully we can see some form of temperature returning as I think that is more important than clothing, for me anyway.
Yeah, It may have been ok then because there was less overhead and processes, but now it would need to be really simplified
to not break something else and to blend in. To cover all markets now included in the playerbase.
My interpretation of some of his posts is that they are at the point now that for many things that are added either processing
of graphically something else has to be reduced or re-arranged to keep at this level or it will regress.
Personally looking at the way storms and the acclimation features for players dealing with storms function, from a
modding view point. It seems like a potential foundation to later incorporate temperature and wetness.
My interpretation of some of his posts is that they are at the point now that for many things that are added either processing
of graphically something else has to be reduced or re-arranged to keep at this level or it will regress.
For the default game that is not likely going to happen. If you are on console you will probably have to always deal with it. If you are on PC you could put in a request in the mod discussion forum to have the recipes always available. That would be a pretty easy modlet I would think.
The challenge system is something they are likely to continue to use and very likely add to in the future.
Appreciate the honesty, but I think their needs to be divide between the story mode the devs seem to working towards and the traditional sandbox experience. The challenges being mandatory to progress seem out of place in a open world, especially when most of the challenges themselves don't relate to what they are unlocking.
Appreciate the honesty, but I think their needs to be divide between the story mode the devs seem to working towards and the traditional sandbox experience. The challenges being mandatory to progress seem out of place in an open world, especially when most of the challenges themselves don't relate to what they are unlocking.
I agree with you that the challenges as a feature are on the more arcade-like end of the spectrum for design choices. I would prefer them to be a quest chain given by a wandering NPC or requests posted on a bulletin board. Then it wouldn’t matter if they were connected or not. You’d just be fulfilling some dude’s requests and then receiving payment. It helps me to just think of them that way.
I disagree that an open world game shouldn’t have mandatory progression and don’t see it as out of place at all. Of course, I love progression systems and so am biased in that regard. Sorry they’re not your cup of tea.
On the upside the devs are exploring a way to split the game into a classic survival mode and the current game which is moving towards the story mode.
I agree with you that the challenges as a feature are on the more arcade-like end of the spectrum for design choices. I would prefer them to be a quest chain given by a wandering NPC or requests posted on a bulletin board. Then it wouldn’t matter if they were connected or not. You’d just be fulfilling some dude’s requests and then receiving payment. It helps me to just think of them that way.
I disagree that an open world game shouldn’t have mandatory progression and don’t see it as out of place at all. Of course, I love progression systems and so am biased in that regard. Sorry they’re not your cup of tea.
On the upside the devs are exploring a way to split the game into a classic survival mode and the current game which is moving towards the story mode.
That is some very exciting news. I didn't notice the devs comment on this yet so I'm withholding peek enthusiasm, but I think amping up the survival elements of the game another 30% or so would be fantastic. More and more arcadeyness has been seeping in, but when I bought this game it was marketed as the "survival, horde, crafting" game and these days it feels a lot more like a loot 'n shoot survival game. I understand that making it approachable to the most of the potential player base of the is in the financial best interest of TFP, as well as I knew going in it was in EA and it was promised to change- it was inevitable the sum of the changes have really led to a new and different overall vibe in the game.. and in some ways, it's a bit of that over-sweet, rots your teeth sensation.
I like progression systems, to me it only makes sense that setting up home in a hostile environment is gated behind acquiring the proper/logical tools, (Survival gear good, badges kinda lame) but I also want the means of getting those tools to feel organic.
The current biome survival challenge set is a little goofy, I personally think it would make sense if the only challenge that mattered was 'Survive 1 consecutive day in ____ Biome' and then "Oh wow, surviving here the last day sure taught me a lot- I just had this great idea to take some metal, plastic, cloth, tape and --"
.. You can keep the other challenges to push players into seeing what the biome has to offer and make sure they know how to craft the local temporary safety item.. But I don't see what how mining the local nodes would inspire you to craft X piece of gear .. On the other hand, I think it would be kinda cool if you told the local trader you harvested a pile of ore, and they're like "That's great. Have a rockbusters."
..Bulletin boards at the trader would be way more immersive.
The challenge system replaced the tutorial and journal so in many ways it is designed as a tutorial. That’s where I think it mainly fails for veterans of the game. We don’t need/want a guide to getting to know each biome. A quest or task chain to find/craft the gear needed for quality of life living in each biome is fine but with it being integrated into their tutorial system it rubs the wrong way.
Unfortunately, devs like to (often need to) min/max as well as players and the challenge system gets the job done with minimal scope and they have a lot of other things to do. I’m fine with it since I view it as a kind of job board. But for sure I’d appreciate a more thematic presentation like a series of notes, or a job board at the trader, or an NPC dialogue. Those things would likely take months to do while their challenge system asset already exists.
The challenge system replaced the tutorial and journal so in many ways it is designed as a tutorial. That’s where I think it mainly fails for veterans of the game. We don’t need/want a guide to getting to know each biome. A quest or task chain to find/craft the gear needed for quality of life living in each biome is fine but with it being integrated into their tutorial system it rubs the wrong way.
Unfortunately, devs like to (often need to) min/max as well as players and the challenge system gets the job done with minimal scope and they have a lot of other things to do. I’m fine with it since I view it as a kind of job board. But for sure I’d appreciate a more thematic presentation like a series of notes, or a job board at the trader, or an NPC dialogue. Those things would likely take months to do while their challenge system asset already exists.
Thanks for your input on the topic. I do look forward to some sort of a split between the classic sandbox experience & the newer arcade direction the game is taking.
Regarding the challenges, I agree that a more thematic approach to these challenges would certainly be preferable over the current system. I would hope through, that they remain optional if the challenges will remain similar to the ones we have today.
Personally, I would love to see the current missions scraped and replaced with a quest that thematically ties to the gear itself. For example, to get the gas mask (and recipe), you are sent to an overrun military surplus store. A heated liner(and recipe) can be found in a supermarket storage facility. The hazmat suit (and recipe) can be found deep within a hospital basement. Each mission is harder than the last, but can be done in any order. This allows to player to progress in a way that feels organic.
Every time I look at the current challenges tab, it just fails to keep me immersed in the game. I feel like I'm being forced to follow a path I don't want to go down. Nothing else in the game so blatantly forces you to do a certain list of tasks to progress. Can you please pass this feedback on to the dev team? I respect that its not a priority, but I really want to see improvement in this area as do many others.
= Temperature and position, 
+ storms and time.
.