PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Genosis]

I love the "tri-state", makes it super easy to dig down to bedrock in the desert patch. Then you have a perfect mine with everything you need in 1 spot. But then again I am never thinking "My video game slightly differs from real life, this sucks"

I always scouted and plopped myself in the biome lines, between snow, desert, forest and plains so I can mine for everything in the comfort of my own base. I had little markers at the base of my mineshaft telling me what resource is N,S,E,W and 8 forges and mixers running all the time. In the "real world" RNG map, I acknowledged that wasn't going to happen any more, and I was OK with it, it felt "right". The patchiness of A16 RNG was ugly and weird, though it had its uses.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll roll with it, but I preferred north being cold, and south being hot. Now, to regenerate my map (again! Finally got over level 70 on my map, bye bye motorbike) and find a nice convenient biome convergence to camp out for all my mining needs whenever I can dump all the points into INT to get iron tools withing gimping too badly

 

[Sullen Skulls]

How is it more natural? If you go to Arizona and pull a random 8km piece of land, there will not be snow in the North, Desert in the south, ect. It would have to be country or world map for that to be actually natural.
Too predictable. When I start a new game on a "random" map, i prefer a random new experience, not the same thing every time..

If you're going to take a direct real world reference of an 8km x 8km piece of land, then every map would just consist of one biome and one biome only. Maybe 2 if you happen to find a border between biomes.

I don't think any of us would want that.

As for the north always being snow, and south always being desert, I completely agree, that each map should be different and unexpected, although I do understand the reasonable assumption that the game is supposed to be existing in a somewhat similar area of the world to the built-in Navezgane region, so even though you have no idea of what the map looks like, as a survivor, being able to follow the instincts of 'its too cold here, head south', or 'its too hot here, head north', would be normal and expected behaviour.

My point was that with the previous iteration of RWG always having each biome only occur once, and having clearly defined borders between them allowed the world to have a much more 'natural' feel to it, even if it was too predictable to truly call random gen.

The current iteration, with a world possibly having 10 different burnt biome areas, 15 different forest biomes, 12 different snow biomes, 9 different desert biomes, 11 different wasteland biomes, all thrown together like a Jackson Pollock painting feels significantly less 'natural'.

 

[Cork55]

Yep, I was liking the new biome placement system, it seemed more natural. Why on earth was that regressed?
It does seem that every time a major system gets close to working somebody has a bipolar episode and decides to rip it out and start again.

It has been said that TFP have a plan for the game they wish to produce, surprising, because a long term plan really doesn't seem apparent.

Brilliant Statement.

 

[Jedo]

Is it me or are the cities in the new RGW a lot emptier?

I've generated a few different seeds, and all of them have extensive "city road" layouts with no POIs. Also, most of the actual cities are generating in desert, snow, or wasteland biomes.

 

[SimAlastair]

I'm really starting to miss the plains bio-dome.

Q.F.T.

 

[DaVegaNL]

I've generated a few different seeds, and all of them have extensive "city road" layouts with no POIs. Also, most of the actual cities are generating in desert, snow, or wasteland biomes.

Yeah exactly. All the roads are in place, there's just no 'city feeling' like there was in the previous builds.

Road placement with regards to the terrain also feels a lot.. wonkier.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Yep, I was liking the new biome placement system, it seemed more natural. Why on earth was that regressed?.

Because random is supposed to be........wait for it........ wait for it........ Random!!!! ZING!

 

[Sundaysmile]

I'm really not digging this three second stamina recharge delay after completing a series of swings with your tools, it's making resource gathering much more tedious. Is there a perk or something tied to eliminating this delay? Just in case I've missed something here.

 

[mikemr2]

this is not really a bug report as such but when im playing I feel like I am constantly in the crouch position...like I am slightly too low even when stood up.. another issue I have is that the texture on the floor is very large, in the forest biome if you look down, the texture of leaves and clovers on the ground are massive and do not reflect at all what you see in real life... so big in fact they tie in with my previous comment and make you feel that you are low to the ground

 

[The Gronk]

Because random is supposed to be........wait for it........ wait for it........ Random!!!! ZING!

Reductio ad absurdum.

In a truly random system you wouldn't be able to move for lack of air pockets.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Because random is supposed to be........wait for it........ wait for it........ Random!!!! ZING!

Now it's too random man.

The cities themselves are not as good as in the previous builds.

So.. Mixed feelings.

Please don't hit me.

 

[omegarte]

Can we pretty please go back to 5 skill points instead of 4 with the starter quest. Especially if attributes cost more points now.

 

[Jedo]

Yeah exactly. All the roads are in place, there's just no 'city feeling' like there was in the previous builds.
Road placement with regards to the terrain also feels a lot.. wonkier.

Maybe the previewer is just borked. I went into the world editor for one of my seeds, and things looked better than they did on the previewer.

Anyway, clearly this all is WIP.

 

[wolffblood]

I'm really not digging this three second stamina recharge delay after completing a series of swings with your tools, it's making resource gathering much more tedious. Is there a perk or something tied to eliminating this delay? Just in case I've missed something here.

Only does that with Power Swings (RMB), at least for me. It won't do that with normal (LMB) swings. No reason to ever power swing tools while harvesting now.

 

[Maynard69]

Reductio ad absurdum.
In a truly random system you wouldn't be able to move for lack of air pockets.

Did you think your character was breathing real air to begin with? Wake up, you and your toon are in the matrix atm.

 

[Gnomaana]

Because random is supposed to be........wait for it........ wait for it........ Random!!!! ZING!

It's not random now. If it was truly random the vast majority of seeds would have biomes that were all 1 or 2 blocks each arranged in a "shotgun" pattern.

If you want to see what truly random would look like, buy 6 different colored bags of play sand. Put it all in a cement mixer and let it run for a few hours. Grab a bucket full of the mix and throw it on a flat piece of cardboard. The result would be truly random biome distribution.

 

[Mrjohn1337]

Nightvision fixed, praise the lord!

 

[The Gronk]

Maybe the previewer is just borked. I went into the world editor for one of my seeds, and things looked better than they did on the previewer.
Anyway, clearly this all is WIP.

A lot of that has to do with scale. Being on the street is different than looking at a map. You can make quite a simple system appear complicated as long as you don't show the player the big picture.

City generation is progressing as I expected it to given that there was a working system which is now being integrated into a new terrain engine. The problems being seen now are largely problems that were solved early in the previous system, it just takes time to integrate things.

 

[Guppycur]

A17 introduces the first iteration of a new random world generation system. People complain because it's not perfect the first time.

The devs explain they are working on it throughout experimental.

People complain.

The largest complaint was the biome placement (which for the record I liked).

The devs state they will return it to its former glory throughout experimental.

People complain.

Each build that comes out adds new random world changes.

People complain.

A new iteration of random world begins to bring back its "former glory".

People complain.

...if it was up to me I would either murder the lot of you, or ban you from playing experimental.

Clearly there is a large section of people that do not understand what work-in-progress means.

There is a huge difference between constructive feedback during experimental and complaining doing experimental.

Constructive feedback consist of stating what is changed, and why it does not play as well, and accepting an answer that states these features will be improved.

Complaining consist of stating what is not finished yet, and complaining that it is not finished yet, and expecting new systems to work straight out of the box.

 

[Jedo]

It's not random now. If it was truly random the vast majority of seeds would have biomes that were all 1 or 2 blocks each arranged in a "shotgun" pattern.

Sure. The problem is that "RANDOM within certain pre-fixed parameters WORLD GENERATION" just doesn't make for a very good acronym.