PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Gatling96]

MM will you upload a video with the new gorgeous graphics ?

 

[Roland]

We’re starting to have more and more people agree with each other by more than 100% which is always a sign of being close. It’s only through feelings of hype that thousands and millions of percents of agreement (or disagreement) become possible....

 

[Tearstone]

Sea gulls could disable your car irl, you know ..sea gull..food..*oop..front window..while driving..wipers..mess.. Happened to me once and it was not adventure at all. I was afraid if the animal was okay after the splash.Personally I don`t use bike to escape, but some sort of slowin' down vehicles by hitting the driver and shock `em could work very well here.

Literally had a bird strike on the windshield at 90+ mph on the highway in an SUV before. Didn't do anything but leave a feather-dust outline on the windshield, and make me and my bro Coty go wtf, and laugh. Felt bad for the bird a little bit which was just ... a cloud of feathers behind us.

I'm not sure bird strikes are going to be the way to go. Nor do I think would it be a problem for one or two zombies at a time.

Then you have to start considering vehicle - entity collision logic. When does it start providing a cumulative effect vs speed/velocity? Is it aggregate, or per-collision? Per how many ticks? Or do we calculate it via an actual impact physics calculation - taking into account the mass and velocity of the vehicle and it's occupant(s) vs the mass and velocity of a given zombie, and the a delta-v affecting both with the collision. Multiply that by a crowd of twenty or thirty in rapid succession.

And of course, with each of those solved, as soon as they are you get into the ragdoll coding.

I'm sure you could make it streamlined, and it might be fun to play with. But with flying bodies, then the collision detection system might well go completely ape♥♥♥♥, and then you lag or crash. That could probably be streamlined too at some point.

Maybe code can be implemented that treats lone zombies as standard entities which doesn't slow down a vehicle much if at all. But a crowd/cluster/group/horde acts under crowd/cluster behaviors to cut back on the load? Based on the weight of numbers maybe. - Maybe model some of it off fluid or hydrodynamics, or particle interaction... Each zombie being a particle, rather than an individual entity?

Dunno, maybe there's something there for mass numbers of zombies being present in a chunk as well.

And don't mind me, I'm just kind of thinking out loud. It's probably all retarded anyway.

Carry on.

 

[chaosterone]

We’re starting to have more and more people agree with each other by more than 100% which is always a sign of being close. It’s only through feelings of hype that thousands and millions of percents of agreement (or disagreement) become possible....

Ah kin tel yu is a math teecher.

 

[Ouch Quit It]

We’re starting to have more and more people agree with each other by more than 100% which is always a sign of being close. It’s only through feelings of hype that thousands and millions of percents of agreement (or disagreement) become possible....

60% of the time we agree all the time!!

MTFGA

 

[uowaep]

Why all that effords to avoid the most fun part of the game :? Just curious

I guess I'm too use to playing on servers that have the difficulty set all the way up, and hordes just become annoying at that point.

 

[Swiftpaw]

Sounds like it's going to be more like late August or later at this point if the MM gameplay video still isn't out yet.

MM gameplay

Spider Meme

Stream Blitz

Release Candidate

A17-E

 

[Gamida]

don't streamers get it same time as MM gameplay? Sort of defeats them getting it if we have already seen MM play it.

 

[NBornkilla]

Sounds like it's going to be more like late August or later at this point if the MM gameplay video still isn't out yet.
MM gameplay

Spider Meme

Stream Blitz

Release Candidate

A17-E

july has not ended yet

plus the date on the forum has not change yet and if it keep that way expect a video from MM this week maybe mid or almost by the end of this week.

that's my guessing.

 

[DaVegaNL]

So, how about the absence of our health/stamina values on our HUD? Will there be a way to see how many health we have? Or will we be guessing all the time?

 

[Mikee]

T-Minus 25 days til TFPs disappoint - either with a terrible experimental build or more delays.

as a fanboy, i would say A17E will release on tomorrow. or september. its done when its done. you cannot inspire the workers with deadlines. they have to stay calm and relaxed. at the first couple months they relaxed, and a few month ago they realised they have to do something, so dont worry.

pity A16 bugfixes can be delayed too. we dont need those. stop panicing... geeez...

 

[Aldranon]

july has not ended yet
plus the date on the forum has not change yet and if it keep that way expect a video from MM this week maybe mid or almost by the end of this week.

that's my guessing.

Well, as much as Chuck Norris and I want to agree with you, I believe a weekend release to Streamers is to happen before we can get killed by zombies in amazing ways.

I doubt MM can get a play through done in a few days. It would be something close to a miracle. So this month is a no go.

Next weekend after this upcoming one is the 4th of August, so I can see that the 6th of August being a more realistic date for us to play.

 

[Roland]

So, how about the absence of our health/stamina values on our HUD? Will there be a way to see how many health we have? Or will we be guessing all the time?

I’m not sure that the recover rate showing on the bar is going to be the final presentation. Could be just for dev purposes.

As for knowing exactly down to the percentage of how hungry or well we are does it really matter if we have the visual representation of it? When the stamina bar gets less than 3/4 full you’ll want to eat to get full stamina power again. Playing with even half a stamina bar is bad enough that dying by hunger won’t even be an issue. Very few will let that bar get down to where they’re worried about whether it is at 10% or 20% but can’t tell. In fact if there is one criticism that I have of the new system it is going to give even stronger incentives to constantly keeping yourself full. I’m certain there will be complaints from people that they “must” constantly be eating in A17.

As for health, it really should be healed any time it drops below the halfway mark if possible. Not doing so is just bad survival game strategy...

 

[cowboyjones]

We’re starting to have more and more people agree with each other by more than 100% which is always a sign of being close. It’s only through feelings of hype that thousands and millions of percents of agreement (or disagreement) become possible....

I know for a fact that we can all agree 100% on the fact that we will never fully agree on any one thing.

 

[Aldranon]

I’m not sure that the recover rate showing on the bar is going to be the final presentation. Could be just for dev purposes.
As for knowing exactly down to the percentage of how hungry or well we are does it really matter if we have the visual representation of it? When the stamina bar gets less than 3/4 full you’ll want to eat to get full stamina power again. Playing with even half a stamina bar is bad enough that dying by hunger won’t even be an issue. Very few will let that bar get down to where they’re worried about whether it is at 10% or 20% but can’t tell. In fact if there is one criticism that I have of the new system it is going to give even stronger incentives to constantly keeping yourself full. I’m certain there will be complaints from people that they “must” constantly be eating in A17.

As for health, it really should be healed any time it drops below the halfway mark if possible. Not doing so is just bad survival game strategy...

Looking at how hard I work my character and looking at some streamers, 5000 calories is not off the table.

A farm raised chicken has about 1000 calories so you would need to eat:

5 (farm raised) chickens

-or-

48 potatoes

-or-

50 ears of corn.

So its not outrageous how much a player needs to eat considering the amount of effort.

 

[DaVegaNL]

I’m not sure that the recover rate showing on the bar is going to be the final presentation. Could be just for dev purposes.
As for knowing exactly down to the percentage of how hungry or well we are does it really matter if we have the visual representation of it? When the stamina bar gets less than 3/4 full you’ll want to eat to get full stamina power again. Playing with even half a stamina bar is bad enough that dying by hunger won’t even be an issue. Very few will let that bar get down to where they’re worried about whether it is at 10% or 20% but can’t tell. In fact if there is one criticism that I have of the new system it is going to give even stronger incentives to constantly keeping yourself full. I’m certain there will be complaints from people that they “must” constantly be eating in A17.

As for health, it really should be healed any time it drops below the halfway mark if possible. Not doing so is just bad survival game strategy...

Thanks for the answer!

Indeed, absolute quantities will not matter that much, as opposed to the relative percentages (i.e. half-full), but the OCD-side of me does definitely want to know the absolute quantities ^-^ For example, when eating, I don't want to 'waste' good food, when I'm only partially hungry.

 

[Zadwanaa]

I know for a fact that we can all agree 100% on the fact that we will never fully agree on any one thing.

i completely disagree with that

 

[Roland]

Food doesn’t get wasted in this game in regards to hunger. It actually goes to 105% or 110% (for example) even though it doesn’t show past 100%

So if you eat a stew at 99% you still get the full benefit of that stew and visually in the game it appears as though you stay at 100% for a longer time.

Now if you are at 99% health and you eat you will only gain 1%.

 

[meganoth]

I do agree to a point. Tower defense is a part of the game if you make it part of the game and seems to be your mode of playstyle. The natural human reaction is fight or flight and both are possible in the game - especially if you have a vehicle. And flight doesn't mean for good... It could be used to regroup and fight on "your" ground, not theirs. They want the element of surprise and as a nomad player, the best way to take away that element is it find the best suitable ground to fight according to your play style. That is why I love this game. If you use wit, you can fight on your terms no matter what that means.
Edit-

My point being, this is only a tower defense game if you want it to be. There are many different play styles that could make it non-tower defense. This is why this game should be ranked better than most games out there. Every play style you can think of would be effective in this game if implementend correctly.

Sure, but wouldn't you agree that irrespective of the actual play style there should be effort, danger and game play involved?

So for example if you don't play tower defense play style but hiding play style, hiding should be an activity that you have to put effort in, like stealthly avoiding to get near any zombies. Like in a stealth shooter. And there must be a chance to fail and a chance to succeed, like in any game. At the moment this doesn't work, either you hide underground that there is no game or you hide above ground and every zombie sees you.

And the minibike play style? Well, it also doesn't work at the moment. No effort needed, no chance to fail (if you thought of putting gasoline in your bike). No game => no play style worth the name.

If you just want don't like the horde nights, it would be better simply using a mod that turns off horde night than to cruise on the minibike senslessly around the landscape for a whole night

 

[KingSlayerGM]

Now if you are at 99% health and you eat you will only gain 1%.

Do you mean 99% full?

If so, that would help a lot to increase your wellness by eating, because it would be much faster. But was wellness removed? I can't remember..