I'm super happy the video dropped. I feel somewhat sated.
I have some concerns, like others in regards to farming resources (brass, bones, etc.)
I'd like to point out to MadMole that this game doesn't have such a thing as 'useless junk." Virtually *everything* has a use, or can break down into useful materials and components. Some of us quite often get said resources not only from raiding locations but from wiping out zombies. . It's a main source of 'income.' So it's not useless at all.
As for zombie drops and gore blocks. Some people complain about cleanup after a horde night, or even a wandering horde. I don't. And it never takes 20 minutes. It takes very little time if you're fast and economical at it. And for me, it's always like Christmas. I never know what I will get, Sometimes it's nothing, sometimes it's something useful, or food. Other times I find something really good. I like playing the 'lottery' with it.
I don't mind cleanup either. If I need bones and such, I use an axe. Destroys corpses fast, gives me a moderate amount of bones, fat, and meat. I don't waste time with a knife or machete. If I'm in dire need I will use one of those. If I have no need or desire, I'll use a hammer and just pulverize the block. no meat, bones, or fat. After a certain point two hits, and then one hit will do the job. Bam, next, bam, next, bam, next. So I think this is an issue that people are being nitpicky over. However, the duping problem, I understand why it was changed. (I've never even seen a duping issue in this game.)
Regarding the bow: The only issue I've had with the bow is the aim drift. I'm not sure if that's the glitch they're referring to or not. I saw the glitch in the vid, but I've never had that happen to me in any version.
I'm loving the improved animation and AI. Originally it was said that sticky arrows would only be in for zombies, which I suppose made sense. The environment is a different animal than zombie models. But I didn't see a reason why it should stay zombies-only. It's nice to see that the devs have environmental impacts for arrows in place. Super happy about that. It's a great visual feedback. I believe that while it wasn't covered in a vid there was silence on recoverable arrows. It's super great that they are in and working. Not flawlessly but working.
I will say that this is not only a visual/graphical improvement, but is a major quality of life improvement early game. One thing about A16 vanilla is when you scavenge for feathers from nests, and you only get like 2 or 3 feathers, you run out of arrows nearly instantly. Being able to recover arrows is both realistic, and means that you aren't immediately screwed if you start off being a bad shot. - This also means you can practice.
Melee combat looks interesting, however... I feel like the range for melee weapons was shortened to such a range it makes my lungs hurt from laughter. (Not actually laughing.) You nearly have to make out with a zombie to hit them with a power attack, it seems. Or that's just MadMole being super rusty. I seriously hope the ranges weren't shortened.
I'm loving the lighting, and the new PoI's, textures, shaders. I know it's not all fixed yet, but it already looks SO MUCH BETTER than A16. I wish MadMole didn't have Depth of Field on so we could look at some of the stuff in the distance with better detail. I love how aged and worn the vehicles look. They looked just like the paint was a few years old. Now they look like they've been sitting in rainforest for about a decade and a half with no TLC. I love the interior wall textures. It doesn't look like just slightly old wallpaper, but.. lik eit's really decaying and going to crap without human upkeep. You see stuff like that in Chernobyl.
Weapon dyes - Hell yes! Though I agree with an earlier post, you need to be able to dye portions. Like with a shotgun, dye the stock and forend, as well as etch the receiver and barrel. Put grip tape on clubs, and spraypaint/dye them different stuff. (thats probably a ways off(. It's a great idea though, especially for creating a signature weapon... like Lucille.
One thing I noticed with the house with the pig on it, were solar panels already out in the world. I font know if that's a thing in A16 Navezgane. i haven't seen everywhere there, and I didn't really plan to. I play primarily RWG. If you can wrench that to scrounge that it would be great!
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Now, despite my gushing, and my concerns, I have a question for the devs and/or those in the know. This is regarding performance, especialy at night and on horde nights.
Texture streaming, texture space, and processing.
MadMole mentioned that texture streaming is in, and means that a distant zombie has only a 28k texture vs being in your face with a full sized one now, rather than the entire texture loading when they load up. That's great, and I know that gives a lot more headroom and performance.
I gathered from that, that the closer a zombie or other object gets the higher the resolution on the textures become.
So my question is this:
As they get closer, do they dump the previous texture out of memory and load the next highest resolution, OR does the texture simply get updated with more resolution, becoming more sharp and distinct as it comes?
And regardless of either answer, I have a further question.
Say a zombie at three hundred meters is 3 pixels high, does that mean they are only a few colors as there s NO way to tell distance but as they load in they take up more space. (Yes, of course.) - How does that play out when I have five zombies around me, one in my face, the others spread out over 15 meters distant, and then thirty more come RUSHING at me. Will the variation in calls for texture loading cause performance stutters as each different zombie calls on different textures as they are dumping in and out of memory.. or does it simply update as they go, creating a sort of smooth incline so there's no noticeable performance hits.
I ask because the changing ranges, and thus changing the level of detail on textures and high speed database calls and load times might be a problem. It's fine if they're all distant, or spread out even.. but if they're coming in so it takes more and more for the various textures might be a problem.
Long story short, how is texture streaming handled, and what kind of performance hits can we expect when being rushed by large nubmers of zombies spread out over a large distance?
Sorry for all the rambling. My head is still spinning hours later after watching the vid.
Not sure if possible in this build
