PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[vitamin]

Is it me or does it feel that clubs are useless now? There are no reasons to have one after you get a fire axe. It's faster, does more entity damage, has longer reach...

 

[faatal]

These POI's are awesome!

They really are. The POI designers did an awesome job. They are not a stroll in the park. For example, testers told me a while back that Dishong Tower has over 300 zombies. They take time and skill to clear.

 

[CplCritter]

Did your lighting change?

I can't say for sure, but next time I notice this I will pay more attention to the lighting around me. I did not turn on a light or switch to a torch. I was outside so cannot speak to shadows moving etc.

I have noticed even at night I could be between 2 and 35 standing still. For example, I am waiting out the night while typing this. I was standing still and just went to a crouch position (in crouch for at least 2 minutes irl) and I am sitting at 35 yet just earlier I was at 2 before I stood up and crouched again. Not sure if it is a bug or something environmental.

 

[madmole]

Madmole, will we get a better way to obtain glue? Because killing animals will not give us enough bones.

I have enough. Get the harvest perks so you get more bones per kill. There is duct tape and glue in loot now. There are a few rib cages in some POIs that can be harvested for bones. I was thinking of adding them to the roads with the decorator.

 

[faatal]

i lost about 30% of my fps since 16.4 but some of my friends lost way more dropping from stable 50-70 to allways bellow 15 wich is even weirder since it it looks like it affect players at random even with the same gpus

There are often thresholds in performance where one person looses 10% due to increased use of resources, but another 50% because they fell below a limit of main or GPU memory that caused thrashing of those resources. The trick is finding settings that get them below the threshold. The joys of PC gaming, where people have many different PC specs.

 

[madmole]

1 on 1 just be aggressive. Hitting them interrupts their attack I think. I saw streamers knocking them down and backing off, then complaining they get up too fast. But actually as long as you have stamina you can stand over them and finish them off pretty easy.

Yes as soon as you do enough damage they get knocked down then finish them off while they are getting up.

 

[lord_ahriman]

I have enough. Get the harvest perks so you get more bones per kill. There is duct tape and glue in loot now. There are a few rib cages in some POIs that can be harvested for bones. I was thinking of adding them to the roads with the decorator.

I hear ya, but I'm thinking mid ~ endgame. It might work early game, but then there are a lot of recipes that requires glue, not to mention shotgun shells and exploding bolts. It's almost safe to say glue will be a problem very fast. For example, in A16 day 100+ hordes I always needed 150 exploding bolts and 2 ~ 2.5K shotgun shells (64 zombies).

 

[Zarii]

Can you try single player and see if its any better? THen we know if its lag or your technique. I have no problem avoiding getting hit, but I use a fireaxe because of the awesome range it has. We nerfed back and strafe movement because it was basically Quake 1 and not like a modern game. You can't run sideways or backwards as fast. THis makes combat more of a challenge which was desperately needed.

Ok tested in SP, used wooden club in both sp and multi, tested on 3 types of zombies, cheerleader, fatman and crawler. Each time i was able to step in and hit them and when they take a swing i would be out of range with just walking backwards, had no issues. With mulitplayer and lag, if i try the same thing visually so same distance and stepping back, i get hit where in SP it would have missed.

-edit- I have tried to incorporate the lag and start hitting in multi when it looks like im out of range. Only works occasionally and i tend to still be hit when walking backwards.

 

[rhud1979]

Just my two cents... Long time forum lurker, and occasional poster here.

Yes, this update will definitely take some getting used to... but in a good way, imo. I am digging the early game challenge. I've already died a couple of times, first time that's happened in a minute. I'm having to re-learn the basics, but it is awesome.

Remember when A11 dropped and everyone was stunned by how much more difficult the game was? Now, if you were to go back to that version it'd likely be a cakewalk. Patience, grasshopper.

 

[Treeasaurus_Rex]

Yea Ive been seeing so many people complain about the melee but in the 8 hours Ive streamed I have yet to run into the melee desync. Now the hit boxes for zombies is a bit hokey, really far to small and oddly shaped in some places. I had to thank you madmole though this build is just flat out amazing!! Really appreciate all the hard work yinz put in.

 

[SHOPlanB]

Are there any delicious Easter eggs like an IHR ZA billboard? Or a fruit hat ala Carmen Miranda?

 

[CplCritter]

I have enough. Get the harvest perks so you get more bones per kill. There is duct tape and glue in loot now. There are a few rib cages in some POIs that can be harvested for bones. I was thinking of adding them to the roads with the decorator.

I like the idea of running into animal carcasses while out and about... Just makes sense. Just a thought but if the story is, zombies eat animals when they catch them, I could see carcuses scattered accross the landscape. Maybe at 1/4 or less the rate of nests to keep them from being too common. I could totally buy into that.

 

[Guppycur]

Zombies spawn 6m before you enter a sleeper volume. The POI designers have put them in all kinds of hiding places like ceilings, cabinets, behind TVs or crouching in corners where they are hard to see. It is easy to think you cleared a room, but have not.

6m isn't enough. When moving, the spawn ends up beside you. Hell, 15m is probably not enough.

 

[Thecolours]

MM, you should add a perk that allows us to disassemble landmines and use them again like in the original KOTOR.

 

[Mark88fan]

Fixed in the next patch

Stealth didn't seem broken to me. Zombie walked right by me while crouched last night....

 

[CplCritter]

So, I was fisting plants and enjoying an activity that did not drain my stamina instantly and looked down to see 500xp! I haven't tested stamina loss vs. xp gain with anything else, but this seems to be a good way to get xp while stocking up on resources when your stamina is not looking its best.

 

[Laz Man]

They really are. The POI designers did an awesome job. They are not a stroll in the park. For example, testers told me a while back that Dishong Tower has over 300 zombies. They take time and skill to clear.

Did Robert have a hand in that?

 

[Akira43]

Ok, so I am at day 8, at 90min days so I have put in a few hours into the game so far using both melee and ranged combat and it feels different but you get used to it after a couple of hours.

The one MAIN mechanism that I am finding absolutely frustrating (at least at this stage of the game) is this tying up food and drink together to influence max stamina/health value. You can drink a bucket of water but if you don't eat first to up the max stamina value it is essentially wasted water.

In the same way is the food/max health relation. You can eat a whole cow but if you don't apply multiple bandages to bring up the max heath first it is completely wasted food.

This new food/water/stamina/health system seems to be much more complicated than it should be and means you have to run around the whole day with the limited inventory space that you have and ALWAYS have bandages+drink+food on you. Does it really need to be such a puzzle? What was wrong with the A16 health system again??

And of course juggling all that stuff while trying to kill a bunch of dogs is practically impossible.

Which of course brings up the BLEED debuff!!

That debuff has to be seriously scaled down. Starting to bleed (Which seems to be 90% likely now with any zombie contact) is almost certain death in many situations (ie dog group). You bleed, switch immediately to bandage to stop it, get hit again, start bleed again... Goodbye!

If you ignore the bleed and still need to kill more than one dog (which is usually the case), that bleed sucks all your health in 5 seconds flat and it is the Grim Reaper again

And if by some miracle you survive all that? >> bandage... bandage ... bandage , eat... eat... eat, drink... drink... drink! Gets old really quick!

And having just survived the first horde night, I am sorry to say this but the zombies AI does not seem to be handling anything any differently from A16:

- Not one climbed my 1 block above ground ladders (In fact, the 1st thing they seem to destroy are the ladders).

- The spider zombie couldn't jump or even climb anything at all.

- Although the run in circles when player is above them routine is thankfully not happening anymore.

Sure they are going through the blocks like butter but they are still as dumb as ever.

Sorry, sounds like lots of criticism but in general I am really liking this version so far so thanks for all your hard work guys.

I owe you more than 3000 hours of fun playing this game (as of now!)

 

[saintones]

It's so you don't burn the water. =)[/quoteThat made me LOL..Pop through nose...

 

[Senkan]

Ah this explains why the zombies were so overly alert then and the suppressor not working. POIs should be much better once you have this up and running. Had a feeling that wasn't working as intended. Love all the new and updated POIs visually though.


I understand that, but I just feel like making extra damage being down to exclusively mods a bit odd and could use some more balancing. A perfect quality compound bow fully modded (could only find 3 compatible mods for it) is only a bit over twice as powerful as a level 1 wooden bow.

Tools get hit to a much harder degree though, as a perfect steel pickaxe fully modded (only seems to be 2 mods for them) isn't even twice as powerful as a level 1 stone axe. Perfect steel pickaxe = 36 block damage (fully modded), level 1 stone axe = 26 block damage.

The sense of progression just feels near non-existant there considering how much time and effort it would take to get between the 2 beginning and end points I mentioned. I feel like certain chores like mining tunnels or opening safes should become less tedious after a sufficient amount of time and perk points has been put into your progression. But as it stands now it seems like even the best of the best weapons, mods and perks don't really lead to being a whole lot more efficient. Weapon and tool tiers really need to be more distinct instead of just being more durable in my opinion.

Haven't gotten too deep into this but I thought I heard swing speed will be improved. So any block damage should involve a block per second total to be accurate.