PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[deathless]

Just finished watching the Unity episode from Rick and Morty

Feels like rick an morty season 4 is gonna come out before A17 am I right.

 

[DaVegaNL]

I still don't accept the implementation of the term 'clay soil', based on geological grounds (ha!). ^^

 

[Laz Man]

I suppose is vehicle passengers. Thanks anyway man!

They flying repository....I mean blimp will make it in!!!!!

 

[lesipher]

It isnt the singular issue of clay patches being removed. Of course on its own its a non issue of sorts, but my chief concern is when you look at the big picture in conjunction with ALL the removals and changes.
Now youre looking at a stripped down system. A less complicated system and a system that promotes LESS activity, even if it is opening a map and moving 30 feet.

Most mods, heck ALL mods are adding complicated systems and gameplay mechanics. Starvation, Walkers, Valmod, Darkness Falls, UL, name it and it adds so much. Yeah Im going to work my magic as will all of these others. That does not change the fact I love this game for the game itself. I can sit back and have the attitude of "haha its ok ill just make it better". I want to love vanilla first and foremost. It is what I fell in love with first. NOT a mod.

Every time more news comes out about some changes or some tweaks it just feels like another door being shut on a mechanic or a feature that didnt really need to be removed. I mean, did someone at a meeting actually sit there and say "You know what, those clay patches they really need to go to take us to the next level". Its change for the sake of simplicity. Gore Blocks gone, zombie loot all but gone, plants no longer need replanted, plains gone, gun parts and statistics on them gone, vehicle parts gone, lockpicking dropped . I mean the list of what is still in the game is getting smaller and smaller.

Now Roland, you say all soil is just soil. No more burnt forest ground, plains ground etc. Does this mean ALL ground looks like the foresty one now except desert and snow?

Why are you guys so intent on taking away the uniqueness of what you took YEARS to build. Out of spite? WHY remove plains at all? So now most ground will also have simple looks to them? Where is the variety? Why strip away the games identity to become a plain jane survival clone?

You guys had this on lockdown. Sky was the limit. A13 seemed like the moment someone decided it was not a survival type game anymore. Its a sandbox game. Yet someone is removing a lot of the sandbox. Sure we will have the tools to make our OWN sand, but that sandbox is only so fun to play in if the box gets smaller and the park next door is building one twice the size.

I couldn't agree more. I have been a long time fanboy and have long since gotten my monies worth from this game but from all I have heard about what is to come I fear that this streamlining/simplifying is going to kill my interest in continuing play.

 

[Survager]

Roland or Joel, is it still topical???

 

[meganoth]

Every time more news comes out about some changes or some tweaks it just feels like another door being shut on a mechanic or a feature that didnt really need to be removed. I mean, did someone at a meeting actually sit there and say "You know what, those clay patches they really need to go to take us to the next level". Its change for the sake of simplicity. Gore Blocks gone, zombie loot all but gone, plants no longer need replanted, plains gone, gun parts and statistics on them gone, vehicle parts gone, lockpicking dropped . I mean the list of what is still in the game is getting smaller and smaller.

Are you really serious when you say "gun parts gone" when they really are replaced by some other system we don't have any experience with yet and then argue the game is getting smaller or easier because of this?

Essentially the game changes alot between alphas. Some things are added, some removed. Now you are only listing the things that got removed and ignore all that were added and declare the game is getting smaller and easier. Is that an argument or a rant?

(Were lockpicks ever implemented in vanilla, I thought they were only an idea at one time? If the former, how can they have been dropped or making the game smaller?)

 

[victorious]

Exactly, who remembers when you had to make molds and could craft as many gun parts as you wanted? I miss those days, basically having to make a blueprint of the first item you find in order to make many. The game in a16 is quite different than it used to me.

I don't remember where I was going with this... must be getting old.

 

[PiercedFromWithin]

If they spread the change timer to two minutes instead if two seconds... That'd be great.

That would help so much when traveling near the edge of a biome. Also in those little "pocket valleys" along the mountain tops, when you think "oh hey I'd like to harvest a little of that stuff(or just walk through it)" and it changes from winter to summer back to winter then back to summer and finally back to winter again all in the span of 30 seconds. Yeah, removing that would be nice.

 

[faatal]

Love vehicle passenger being fixed! Yaay! Major thing there!
Vehicle could be taken while it had a driver? We can pick up vehicles? Or you mean the vehicle parts and dismantling it?

That sounds funny. Someone drives by and you quicky "access" and dismantle it before the game puts it out of reach, dropping the player into your inventory! Capture success!

You can pickup vehicles, which places them as an item in your inventory, just like they were when you first created one. You can also drop them like a bag or put in a container for others. In the future, there may be a restriction on the larger vehicles being taken.

Vehicles and guns no longer have a part list UI. You make then from parts and get a single item. The item now has mod slots shown in a UI similar to the old part UI.

 

[Jiles111]

Things that I can remember that are gone

Running in buildings during the day.

Smells.

Hearing

Drag and drop crafting system.

Gore blocks

All z’s attack at night like it was 7th day everynight.

King of the Hill

Jumping 2 blocks high

Needing water in the gardens

Craft spamming to level up

Huge cave systems

Spider web traps

Spider webs in empty containers

Big loot load at the completion of cutting tree or mining rock

Flickering candle/torch light

Old feral bullet sponges

Radiation in game besides navesgame (one poi had it)

Block terrain

Z detection night or day from a mile away.

GUI map

GUI Z location and direction

Usefulness of throwing rocks

Punji style spike traps

Zip lines

Lock picking

Big boss z’s (cannot remember what they were called)

Bandits

Framerates (lol)

And the main one is

The theme song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are many more than this.

Some were good reasons and some were not so good reason that they were removed. Some were puzzling as to why they were removed.

 

[Red Eagle LXIX]

Once a volume spawns, it saves the count and zombie types. As killed, it updates. When it reloads it still has that state until it resets.

Nope, because it respawns the same zombies.

5 days from when it was cleared.

So based on description, a potential new way to game the system is to visit as many POIs as possible when low level even if you just run through fast and not kill anything. Then come back later when tougher but still face a lower gamestaged Sleeper spawn set.

Are there any plans to add a reset if left uncleared for X amount of days and not visited (thus making it so player would at least have to revisit to keep the same spawn set)?

This week everyone has been doing the usual finishing and fixing.
What I hinted about yesterday was...

Spoiler

vehicle passengers is working.

My more exciting changes:

Fixed SDTD-8907 Zombie Screamers can see through walls (added sight to woodBlock Collide).

Added AI scout grace period (2 secs) before it will scream and can't scream when stunned.

Changed AI scout scream again delay (-2), spawn distance (80m) and spawn scout (+2%).

Added AI ApproachSpot adds a path location if a scout.

Increased path location duration to 4.

Changed wandering hordes to start and end on a line 30-45m to the side of the targeted players.

Added wandering hordes have 30% chance to skip for 12 hours if targeting a single player.

Refactored vehicle save/net data to use common code and have multiple data categories.

Refactored attachments so detach is separate and slot value is sent over network.

Fixed vehicle passengers jittered in and out of seat and had old pos, so chunks did not load.

Fixed vehicles moving to inaccurate positions for observers.

Fixed remote vehicles could enable physics and passenger camera would only work then.

Fixed SDTD-8495 Vehicles can be duped by placing and taking.

Fixed vehicle could be taken while it had a driver.

Replaced minibike horn part with vehicle hornSound property and added to all vehicles.

w00t for the spoiler even though I'm mostly an SP guy.

Nice on changing the start/end line for Wandering Hordes. Now it won't feel quite as much like those randoms are psychic or blood moonish.

Nice on the 30% SP Wandering Horde change. I've been saying SP the number of Wandering Hordes that target a player is disproportionate to MP (where on the few times I played I sometimes went a 2 or 3 in-game days without seeing one depending on the activity level of the server tested). Question: adjustable via XML or game setting?

and with that finally caught up on this thread again.

 

[Wolf959]

You can pickup vehicles, which places them as an item in your inventory, just like they were when you first created one. You can also drop them like a bag or put in a container for others. In the future, there may be a restriction on the larger vehicles being taken.
Vehicles and guns no longer have a part list UI. You make then from parts and get a single item. The item now has mod slots shown in a UI similar to the old part UI.

So, more on picking up vehicles and Restrictions: I suppose you guys have yet to discuss this extensively? I'm having a hard time imagining picking up any of these vehicles, putting them in my backpack, and feeling normal about it.

Could they somehow take up more slots in a backpack?

Be required to be on the action bar?

automatically apply "encumbered" to your character? -> this seems like it wouldn't be terribly difficult to add.

Also, do the vehicles keep their inventory when they're picked up?

what stops us from making a bunch of bikes and carrying them around for an infinite bag size?

And more on passengers:

What can they do exactly?

look around?

get out independent of whether the car is moving?

shoot?

 

[Drithyl]

There is, though: the fact that the plains and maple forest biomes were removed precisely for the sake of reducing terrain texture blending, which is apparently a big problem. Now Gazz confirms (while I was rushing to catch up and point this out) that was the impetus for changing clay.

Except they already confirmed that the different biome soils will still retain their unique appearance, which is what Jax was doubting. Obviously clay patches are gone, that's not at all what I was saying.

 

[Omega-Factor]

Things that I can remember that are gone
Running in buildings during the day.

Smells.

Hearing

Drag and drop crafting system.

Gore blocks

All z’s attack at night like it was 7th day everynight.

King of the Hill

Jumping 2 blocks high

Needing water in the gardens

Craft spamming to level up

Huge cave systems

Spider web traps

Spider webs in empty containers

Big loot load at the completion of cutting tree or mining rock

Flickering candle/torch light

Old feral bullet sponges

Radiation in game besides navesgame (one poi had it)

Block terrain

Z detection night or day from a mile away.

GUI map

GUI Z location and direction

Usefulness of throwing rocks

Punji style spike traps

Zip lines

Lock picking

Big boss z’s (cannot remember what they were called)

Bandits

Framerates (lol)

And the main one is

The theme song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are many more than this.

Some were good reasons and some were not so good reason that they were removed. Some were puzzling as to why they were removed.

You forgot about 1 block ingress... :smile-new:

 

[Bubo]

Things that I can remember that are gone... Big loot load at the completion of cutting tree or mining rock

I enjoyed this and liked the reward for sticking around and finishing the job. To this day, I forget I'm not going to get the jackpot on that last hit. I guess it left a strong impression :tongue:

 

[Laz Man]

You forgot about 1 block ingress... :smile-new:

They will change it to 3 block ingress. 2 blocks will not be large enough to walk through now.

 

[faatal]

Well done faatal, Im very pleased about this good news. I think that the community would have been pretty disappointed if this wasn't added.
Again, well done

BTW how many passengers can we expect to be able to carry? Will they eventually be able to shoot while seated? (like pubg, fortnite..)

4x4 carries 1 passenger. In A17+, I hope to use mods to add more. Shooting maybe. First person driving maybe.

 

[PiercedFromWithin]

I enjoyed this and liked the reward for sticking around and finishing the job. To this day, I forget I'm not going to get the jackpot on that last hit. I guess it left a strong impression :tongue:

Partly because it's the only sensible way to represent it. They might as well make the tree drop down a few inches with each swing the way it is now. It's just silly to watch a whole tree fall over and you get... epic drumroll... the same wood you got from the first chop. Okay you get the seed too. Maybe it's a really big seed.

For rocks I guess it could be argued either way, but for trees... yeah. I think there might have been some issues with balancing the various changes to harvesting skills with the way trees delivered resources, but it just felt so right that way.

 

[Gmad03]

I wonder if we will get to see like a 7 day walkthrough of alpha 17 before it comes out

 

[faatal]

With that said, this change is firmly in second place. I've lost track of how many people have complained about "GPS hordes" that always go straight to the player's position, and how many times myself and others have explained why this is the sensible, performant way to simulate a world where zombies roam everywhere, and all it would take is an offset to remove the perception that they're always coming for you. A lot of people will be very happy about this change.

Testers complained too. I didn't like it either.

The 30-45m range can be deceiving, since due to the spread of zombies, obstacles and path diagonals, some of them can end up closer. Those closer ones may or may not see/hear you and your reaction to them may or may not attract the rest. Makes it more interesting.