PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Roland]

...all the nutters that think you shouldn't be able to tell how much damage you have inflicted a zombie...

Wait, we've all been nutters for five years now? I knew Guppy has been nutters since 1971 but I thought the rest of us were mostly in the clear (Gamida also excepted). How have we been able to withstand the insanity of the last five years of no HP bars...

Can we have a raise of hands of anyone who had long discussions about the need for HP bars before Madmole revealed them in that infamous A17 preview video? I've been moderating A LOT of threads over the last few years and I don't remember a single thread--even a pimp dream thread where anyone said, "You know what this game really needs? Enemy HP bars" which was then followed by

+1

This.

+1000

Yeah man!

Maybe in Pimp Dream? No?

Now I do recall discussions on how cool it would be to have zombies show damage as they were wounded getting torn up and bloodier so there was a visual clue about damage progression but in none of THESE threads do I recall anyone saying, "Yeah, visual cues on the zombies themselves is alright but what we REALLY need are big red HP bars going across the top of the screen!"

Actually, I do recall some threads on HP bars prior to the A17 preview video. They were threads calling for the removal of the block HP bars....

 

[dhlmaster]

Excuse me, you can turn Gamma up to 200% and remove any kind of Darkness. Your point & logic - Completely invalid and quite wrong. There's already a setting for this.
And I know of no players that don't crank it up to at least 150% so that they can see in the "Dark" (which isn't dark regardless of Gamma setting).

If you can't scan an area and spot a moving figure in the "Dark" even at 100% or less Gamma with or without an HP bar.. You legit need to:

A) Get a pair of glasses.

B) Have your eyes checked because something is seriously wrong in that case.

I can spot a Zombie miles away as low as 50% Gamma. So.. Pah-lease. Less excuses. I know change is scary but.. you will probably survive as humans have ever since... the dawn of our species.

That has a lot to do with the signal being output by your GPU and the brightness on your monitor too. I have played this game on a few different machines with different monitors, and I can tell you that on some setups, the game is extremely dark and on some it is extremely bright. That's why these settings exist.

 

[Gecko]

Still blocks

Guess my little idea went a bit under with all these postings. Would really like to hear if there is anything planned or might be thought about.

Still love that game and hope that A17 comes out very soon.
I'm amned impressed what you guys made out of this game in the last few years.

Just a question that comes up to my mind:

Are there any plans to add some new shapes of blocks too?

For my way of base building an inner and outer corner shape for the arch block would be a perfect addition (would make it possible to build underground tunnelsystems that goes arround the corner).

Bulletproof glass in the shape of the two straight wedge blocks would come in handy too.

And some angled iron bars to fit with ramp and/or wedge shape would make it perfect.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Your very first post has taught me.
Thank you good sir and welcome to the forum!

Come on Roland, everyone knows you need to use pain pills, golden rod tea, and meat stew while standing on barb wire in a snow biome and simultaneously drilling stone with an auger. What an amateur!

 

[Menace312]

Come on Roland, everyone knows you need to use pain pills, golden rod tea, and meat stew while standing on barb wire in a snow biome and simultaneously drilling stone with an auger. What an amateur!

But at least he knows how to phrase his reference of past posts, so that it supports his own wishes...

That is a skill of sorts

 

[Roland]

Guess my little idea went a bit under with all these postings. Would really like to hear if there is anything planned or might be thought about.

The developers are always adding block shapes. There are a lot of new block shapes in A17 because as the level designers created all the new POI's they would often request shapes not currently available in A16.

Madmole has a project in the works that is supposed to revamp and vastly improve quality of life for selecting shapes and block types and will be a huge boon to builders. It is also supposed to make all the shapes universally available for every building block so that our current variety will become just a fraction of what will be possible.

Both Joel and Rick Huenink are avid builders and greatly enjoy that aspect of the game so you can be sure that they will pimp this part of the game as far as it can go before they consider it shippable.

 

[Roland]

Come on Roland, everyone knows you need to use pain pills, golden rod tea, and meat stew while standing on barb wire in a snow biome and simultaneously drilling stone with an auger. What an amateur!

Well, of course.

I didn't know about timing a jump to get above the striking level of the dog's attack. This is what I'm excited to try out and see if I can perfect. I really enjoy melee combat and if I can work this into melee combat with dogs I think it would be pretty fun.

 

[WiiTee]

Dude, you are spending an awful lot of effort to "win" an argument no one is having. =) Breathe, it'll be alright. We're not 4chan, you don't have to prove yourself or anything.
You're articulate and verbose, you'll be fine here w/o all of the posturing.

Unless you're someone who has been banned in the past, then I say carry on.

And you're still just grasping at strawman arguments without providing solid evidence or similar. I don't mind discussing things. I don't mind giving people a proper lecture on how ♥♥♥♥ works - especially if they're too lazy to do a 1min search on google as most people are.

If you don't want to listen to reason, sooo be it. Your loss - not mine . However, I'm very much entitled to spend my time how I see fit in fact - I'm having a hilarious time with all your excuses, inaccurate as well as strawman arguments because you (people, not you specifically) have nothing solid to base it on.. It's like a bloody field day for me. Sorry, never took the internet seriously.

Meh.. I was an avid 4chan'er before the newfaqs took over with their jokes that more or less just run on repeat and gets necro'ed after a week... No one ever felt like they had to prove anything there, in fact, it had nothing to do with proving yourself - it had everything to do with provoking a reaction from people something it did exceptionally well if you had no clue what 4chan was especially /r/.

Feel free to try and make fun of me, ridicule me and whatnot if you like - hopefully I've made it clear by now how little that affects me ^_^.

I do hope you enjoy the amazing weather (if it is amazing at you).. I'll leave you for now and grab a liter of milk because I'm about to have a heatstroke from being inside (and I live in Scandinavia.. It's NOT supposed to be 30 degrees.. I swear).

 

[Roland]

But at least he knows how to phrase his reference of past posts, so that it supports his own wishes...
That is a skill of sorts

I eagerly await Sillls to once again prove me wrong by dredging up a thread or post that shows my memory is faulty.

 

[SittingDuck]

Wait, we've all been nutters for five years now? I knew Guppy has been nutters since 1971 but I thought the rest of us were mostly in the clear (Gamida also excepted). How have we been able to withstand the insanity of the last five years of no HP bars...
Can we have a raise of hands of anyone who had long discussions about the need for HP bars before Madmole revealed them in that infamous A17 preview video? I've been moderating A LOT of threads over the last few years and I don't remember a single thread--even a pimp dream thread where anyone said, "You know what this game really needs? Enemy HP bars" which was then followed by

+1

This.

+1000

Yeah man!

Maybe in Pimp Dream? No?

Now I do recall discussions on how cool it would be to have zombies show damage as they were wounded getting torn up and bloodier so there was a visual clue about damage progression but in none of THESE threads do I recall anyone saying, "Yeah, visual cues on the zombies themselves is alright but what we REALLY need are big red HP bars going across the top of the screen!"

Actually, I do recall some threads on HP bars prior to the A17 preview video. They were threads calling for the removal of the block HP bars....

HP bars should be optional

- - - Updated - - -

also... start to polish the hype Train... got a lot of blingbling in A17 to carry..

 

[Roland]

Since it's the topic of the day...
I don't "cheat" with gamma and other settings and having a HP bar pop up when aiming at the enemy would ruin the surprise for me as well.

The only thing wrong with your post was that you put cheat in quotation marks....

If you're using the gamma settings to make it so your monitor works well with the game then you are using it as intended. If you are using it for advantage in a multiplayer game then you are a cheater. If you are using it for advantage in a single player game then you are pathetic but that's nobody's business but your own.

I think everyone knows the line between using gamma to tune the monitor image and using gamma for advantage.

 

[Roland]

HP bars should be optional

100% agreed

(Disabled by default, enabled by option)

couldn't resist sorry... XD

 

[SittingDuck]

100% agreed
(Disabled by default, enabled by option)

couldn't resist sorry... XD

enabled with a skill ^^ even better ^^

 

[Dimpy]

How would you feel if the hp bar was only visible when the zombie was injured?

Sounds great. Can I add that it should also only show up when you do a melee attack? It could be explained that you can "feel" the zombie's health when your club contacts the zombie's skull.

 

[Marinxar]

The BIG RED ZOMBIE HP BAR IN THE MIDDLE OF MY SCREEN is a absolut nogo!I want you to deliver the mechanics and this is what i love you for and cant wait to pay for! There will be modders who change this big fat red bar into a stylish skull or zombieshilouette to the bottom right max 200 pixel sized. So no problem and thx for the new ingamemechanic to work with!

THE BIG RED FAT FLYING EXCLAMATION MARK in my world is a nogo too! The game has nearly nothing at this point what destroys immersion and pls leave it this way. Keep the world immersive and clean! Dont bring NPC with exclamation marks over their head, PLEASE, really please!

There are tons of alternatives. A phone/callbox, a flag, a walkietalkie on the ground, a simple sign, a guy with a "I love Quests" T-shirt, some papernotes on the ground, some glowing stuff, walkietalkies have LED lights, good to see at night. You got the point.

Its ok for Star Trek, modern hyperfightsiutes where a VR vision helmet is usually in most modern games but 7 days look so medieval actually, so nice tileset, so nice ambient colored. Pls take care of this setting or at least give the modders a workaround to redo it and dont hardcode such stuff. Make it itembased, available by html.

Last comment:

pls dont try to compete vs the moddingcommunity with deep content. You can nearly ignore that part and you cant win this fight anyways. When you bring DLC i want to pay you for coding, bring new mechanics, brandnew possibillitys. Thats your job and then its "shut up and take my money"!

I think i payed 26€ for 2keys in Steamsale for one of the best games i ever played with 1250hours on it and waiting for another thousand hours. Just dont break it! You have the advantage of the automatic moddingcommunity, use this pls and dont waste ressources.

thx!

MM makes the videos in dev mode. So the big red exclamation mark is the actual quest marker on the backend. A17 is still about 2 months from experimental. That placeholder will be a person or something in the game.

 

[Xeen]

100% agreed
(Disabled by default, enabled by option)

couldn't resist sorry... XD

This +1

 

[Ajbass]

HP bars should be optional

Agreed!

Also, one thing that I noticed (or didn't as the case may be) is that when Madmole walked in to the church and there were 2 (visible) sleepers, I actually missed one, but thanks to the HP Bar popping up when the mouse quickly went past it, I knew there was something there - kinda ruined the jump scare I would have had.

Solution? Obviously preference is to remove the HP Bar, but if not, then only have the HP bar come up once the enemy has taken some damage? Or maybe when they're agro'd in combat? Just a thought.

Edit: Just caught up on a few pages and realised this has been mentioned before by a few others, and the same solution was also provided by dwallorde! Great minds.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Well, of course.
I didn't know about timing a jump to get above the striking level of the dog's attack. This is what I'm excited to try out and see if I can perfect. I really enjoy melee combat and if I can work this into melee combat with dogs I think it would be pretty fun.

Jumping as a first response when swarmed by dogs or zombies usually works pretty well. Jumping to avoid dog or wolf attacks is a little hit or miss. I definitely do it when I allow them to get too close, it just doesn’t always work.

 

[Survager]

I have a small question.

Indicators of the speed of recovery and the fall of stamina and health, is what will be in 17 Alpha, or is it an auxiliary element for developers?

Thank you.

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

How would you feel if the hp bar was only visible when the zombie was injured?
That way it doesn't spoil the atmosphere by giving away the presence of a zed you weren't previously aware of, but it does do its job of showing you how injured the zombie you're hitting is - because "realistically" you'd be able to see the effect of your strikes, but because the changing the model/textures to represent detailed damage is too expensive you can't.

Absolutely. If TFP decides they want HP bars to be part of their game design and they don't want to offer a toggle option for them or make them a perk you must purchase-- then this would be the best compromise. Even if they do make them optional or perk-based it really makes sense to not have them appear until after the enemy is damaged-- just like blocks.

I asked about this very idea quite a while ago (of them needing to be damaged before displaying the bar).

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