PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Azmodeth]

So an engine issue not a design one? Since I don't know anything about what is under the hood I can't argue.
But one last bit of your time think of this. I am not worried about the Nostalgia here this is purely gameplay.

Currently we have 7 biomes

Planes - medium

Forest - easy

Pine Forest - easy

Desert - hard

Snow - hard

Wasteland - very hard

Burnt - very hard

You are removing 2. That is going to leave us with:

Pine Forest - easy

Desert - hard

Snow - hard

Wasteland - very hard

Burnt - very hard

This leaves us with basically 1 easy biome. That means either this single biome will be very common cutting down on variety or the starts are going to be miserable.

Burnt is just ugly and hard to see anything and filled with fire crackling all the time. And is very hot all the time and very little wildlife.

Wasteland is ugly and has no trees with random land mines and very little wildlife no planting food or finding clay.

Desert is pretty, but no trees no clay and very few animals along being hot all the time no planting food or finding clay.

Snow is pretty but the temps and the snow zombies are murder for beginners there is no planting food or finding clay.

Basically we are left with a single biome that is "good" food clay trees animals and decent temperature. Having only 1 good biome sounds like a bad idea.

yeah being engine limited sounds odd, like is this on a free liscence or something? because unreal engine shouldn't have such a stupid limitation, in other games it does not.

 

[Sakurambo]

Don't forget about scrapping some leather from furniture to make a leather poncho and making a cowboy hot out of grass to keep you cool. Otherwise you will cook on the second day.
Finding cool cloths also helps.

Sand can make glass jars if you have a forge.

cowboy hat don't keep you cool anymore if i recall correctly

 

[Gamida]

cowboy hat don't keep you cool anymore if i recall correctly

unless someone modded it out it should be -6

 

[Merida]

I remember when the new UI was made getting rid of the hunger & thirst bar. Madmole said that they wanted a uncluttered interface with less distractions and a more immersive feel. Anyone else remembers this? Come on put your hands up!

So can you explain to me now why we have a big arse health bar to show hit points on zombies that is as big as the navigation compass. Are we playing street fighter? What's next, Rage combos and power ups! That really takes away the immersion and making it more distracting. I can imagine on horde night when a dozen+ zombies with a top health bar shifting HP constantly giving you seizures. Speaking of distraction... That stealth bar is incredibly annoying to see. Going from left to right and changing shades constantly was the first thing I noticed from the video and made it quite irritating. Surely something better can be done. Oh wait! the modding community can do that.

Don't you find it annoying when your game as to be modded from day 1 with people begging modders for fixes?

I know, I know. Work in progress. Perhaps in 6 months, when the game is ready for experimental, we will see how this as evolved. Caves and water included hopefully!

I'm sorry to be negative. I try to remain optimistic but sometimes too much nonsense goes to far and another drop in an already filled bowl that is already spilling.

 

[Doctor3D]

Just popping in to check on progress. Things are looking pretty good. I'm about 75\25 on like\dislike of all the changes. Still worried about immersion - the game dropped a lot of immersion for me when sleepers were introduced. Nearly every POI you go in to has sleepers and too many of them that don't fit the profile of the building they are in. With all these new dungeons you're adding (Which are nice, btw) I hope you don't also over-do that and make it to where virtually every other POI is a dungeon now as well.

Personally, I think these types of things are much better if they are scattered throughout in a balanced, realistic quantity. Less sleepers, more walkers, keep the POIs a healthy mix of vacant, swarmed and maybe with just a couple strays and please, please don't make every single one a gamey dungeon. As far as health bar, that's the biggest thing I don't like and what prompted me to post - I definitely agree with those that don't like the health bar. I would just stick in an option to turn it off. A GUI option screen where you could quickly customize various HUD options to disable\enable various bars would be fantastic.

Keep up the good work TFP and looking forward to getting my hands on it.

 

[ZombieHorde]

Maple forest is just forest... plains is just basically desert nobody is losing anything really other than these can be sub biomes now. Anyhow the new terrain shader can only handle so many textures so something had to give and this will help the game run better. Trust me the new art will make you quickly forget about the old stuff. One gorgeous forest is better than two ♥♥♥♥ty ones.

So what will happen with the way that natural resources are distributed now? Because A16 you have more of one resource in a biome than the others.

 

[Xeen]

ROFL!

 

[Demonoid74]

Or , do like I am in my Unity Project...and no health bars for standard enemies...they just show up on tough encounters...

either way they will probably just add a toggle and then it really doesn't matter...

 

[ZombieHorde]

Anytime something is removed, it does feel like a setback to the game, however the balance is, overall, getting better and better.

I know this is a bit of a pipe dream because balancing would be difficult and just overall time consuming, however I'd love the progression of recipes in the game to be very simple at the start. So bring back sticks and even add things like tinder in order to light a fire. Use a few different varieties of lighting fires, like matches, lighter or magnifying glass. But after you've learnt how to do those things, the game progresses to new and more intricate recipes and therefore sticks and tinder are no longer necessary.

But I'd accept that maybe this can be a skipable introduction to how to play the game.

 

[Xrt]

Cool video, MadMole

Thanks for the update

 

[Karma]

Thanks again for taking the time to update us!

I've never said anything negative before, and I almost feel shame for this, but I very much dislike the HP and Stealth bars.

However, this opinion is balanced with the knowledge that it is not entirely fleshed out, it will likely be a setting or easily edited via xml and there will also likely be mods made shortly after A17 release.

My few cents, and as always, in TFP I trust.

 

[Survager]

At 17 Alfa, the map will become bigger?

One question:

At the end of the video Joel gets into the jeep and leaves Perishton to the north !!!

But there is nothing in the north. There's an end of map.

At 17 Alpha, the map will become bigger ?????

 

[dhlmaster]

It would be also cool to hear some news on lockpicking. When was the last time this feature was mentioned? Alpha 16 when it was being developed, I believe?
While dungeon crawling is cool and all, I still like to break through stuff, so lockpicks would be pretty cool to have already as an alternative.

I remember MM giving us a lockpick demo in one of the a15 videos

 

[Guppycur]

One question:At the end of the video Joel gets into the jeep and leaves Perishton to the north !!!

But there is nothing in the north. There's an end of map.

At 17 Alfa, the map will become bigger ?????

He said it would in the video, but my guess is that they just found a cool way to end the roads... you'll notice that the road became more and more impassible.

 

[dhlmaster]

I remember when the new UI was made getting rid of the hunger & thirst bar. Madmole said that they wanted a uncluttered interface with less distractions and a more immersive feel. Anyone else remembers this? Come on put your hands up!
So can you explain to me now why we have a big arse health bar to show hit points on zombies that is as big as the navigation compass. Are we playing street fighter? What's next, Rage combos and power ups! That really takes away the immersion and making it more distracting. I can imagine on horde night when a dozen+ zombies with a top health bar shifting HP constantly giving you seizures. Speaking of distraction... That stealth bar is incredibly annoying to see. Going from left to right and changing shades constantly was the first thing I noticed from the video and made it quite irritating. Surely something better can be done. Oh wait! the modding community can do that.

Don't you find it annoying when your game as to be modded from day 1 with people begging modders for fixes?

I know, I know. Work in progress. Perhaps in 6 months, when the game is ready for experimental, we will see how this as evolved. Caves and water included hopefully!

I'm sorry to be negative. I try to remain optimistic but sometimes too much nonsense goes to far and another drop in an already filled bowl that is already spilling.

I thought they were using the HP bar in testing, so that when the devs are trying out different mods and weapons, they can see how much damage is being done. In that context, it actually makes sense to hav eit be a big ugly thing that you couldn't possibly ignore. I don't think they had made a decision on whether or not to include it in the game. At one point there was talk of a perk that enables it. I'm sure the daily negative feedback they get on the subject will motivate them to either take it out or make it an option.

 

[emarat]

He said it would in the video, but my guess is that they just found a cool way to end the roads... you'll notice that the road became more and more impassible.

From what i understood that area was still under construction. So that is why it was impassible.

 

[knivez1]

So yea.... new Perishton looks AWESOME! Not only do the buildings look better inside and out, but theres is now a town in the snow biome (everything was so far apart b4). the landscape itself also looks great (jeep ride at the end especially). The snow biome has always been my favorite, and this is DEFINITELY a huge come-up. im pretty sure the exclamation quest markers are gonna be subbed out for NPC's (non-trader survivors ftw!), signs, or notes (bulletin boards at traders would work well for this) and i couldnt be happier-- ive always wanted there to be actual quests besides the treasure hunts and the "Kill X creatures Y many times in Z amount of time" missions. Clearing out buildings, rescuing survivors, and of course the retrieval missions will add so much to the game.

i do have 2 small complaints tho-

1. the enemy HP bars are a lil too big and too opaque for my personal liking i just feel like they take up too much space in its current form

2. The jeep's suspension. i know its gonna be hard to make the jeep roll over things more smoothly, given that the blocks are all about the size of its tire, but it looks awkward as it was driving over offroad terrain.

---yes, i know its all WIP, just adding my 2cents.

what im most interested in though? THE ZOMBIE PATHING! nothing more annoying than being swarmed by a horde of zombies running in circles, running away from you, deciding to attack the building 20 ft away from you cuz it cant figure out where u r lol. id take an AI update over evvvvverything else in this update if i had to chose between em. Keep up the good work pimps!

 

[Ripper270]

Hi,

Please make the HP bars optional - that should not be too hard in my opinion and would give people a choice.

 

[dhlmaster]

From what i understood that area was still under construction. So that is why it was impassible.

Yes, I think he even said it would be paved later on

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

OK, so of course the health bars came up on the Steam side again with the latest video.

One thought, any possibility the bars could be hidden for any zed/animal at full health?

The reason being that it was and is noticed that hidden zeds in the darkness can easily be found by pointing in their general direction.

While the bars fill the need to know which zed you've smacked a few times (until something cool like blood and guts and visually healing are possible{if ever}), the immediacy even prior to engagement can be some-what exploity.