PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[meganoth]

In every movie the zs become a non threat so to speak. Human race always wins.

Not all zombie movies try to have that undercurrent of "the humans are always the bigger threat". I'll just cite "Dead Snow" as counter example. And "World War Z" too I think

Why. Not because tfp failed. But because the gamer smarted the game. Countered and neutralised all threats.

Again it don't matter if TFP add in the most challenging z ever.

Oh yes, it matters. Players overcome the threads only because the game designers want them to be able to do that. If TFP really wanted to make an invincible zombie, they could do that.

 

[sillls]

The purpose of that image was to show that if we had dig-and-backfill zombies, then they could spawn closer to the player than previously thought without affecting gameplay.
Putting your stuff at risk by placing it up against your outer wall is not unique to underground bases. This is also a consideration/challenge for surface bases.

True... but not the case here.

The green blocks lining the side wall is the way a build by base. Not because it can stop zombies but because it works better that way to store stuff.

 

[sillls]

I am really hoping that Madmole of another Rep from TFP's comes and gives us the sit-rep on this new zombie spawning underground thing.

Maybe rather than just through it in the game, give us several scenarios and let us vote on the best one. That would be best imho.

 

[graphite]

I am really hoping that Madmole of another Rep from TFP's comes and gives us the sit-rep on this new zombie spawning underground thing.
Maybe rather than just through it in the game, give us several scenarios and let us vote on the best one. That would be best imho.

I hope they can give us some insight into the development to but IMHO the final descision making should be made by TFP as they have the 360 degrees ground penetrating radar that we dont have.

So voting is another thing that can lead to disapointment for those who dont understand it is just one of many tools for feedback amongst many different tools like diagnostics and performance and finally gameplay.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

I am really hoping that Madmole of another Rep from TFP's comes and gives us the sit-rep on this new zombie spawning underground thing. Maybe rather than just through it in the game, give us several scenarios and let us vote on the best one. That would be best imho.

First give the players some options..0---7---14---21---28 Days for Horde

Randomize inside the given days []

0%---25%--50%---75%-100%---150%---200% Zombie Blockdamage

Digger zombies on/off []

Teleporter zombies on/off []

Ghosting zombies on/off []

Ninjaspawn zombies on/off []

Invisible zombies on/off []

Invincible zombies on/off []

Random Base Collapse on/off []

Kill all players all 5 Seconds on/off []

and then do what you want about that topic because we can remove the whole anoying part of the game.

Sorry that i contribute so much at this topic, but i really fear that my beloved game get screwed beyond playability.

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

just give us these to harass the underground dwellers:

View attachment 23071

 

[graphite]

First give the players some options..0---7---14---21---28 Days for Horde

Randomize inside the given days []

Digger zombies on/off []

0%---25%--50%---75%-100%---150%---200% Zombie Blockdamage

and then do what you want about that topic because we can remove the whole anoying part of the game.

Problem being is that people will turn it off the feature wont get developed fully because the audience is a unknown quanity.

If players dislike or like something they can join the community and add to the feedback so anything that reduces that is not a good idea in my opinion.

Even if they hate something and join to display that then fine as long as it is not some rage rant there might be something of use and other players will describe there counters which to me is all useful feedback.

Worse thing that happens is change of a feature by developers where it was either at a deadend or heading that way for gameplay exhaustion issues or performance related issues these are the hardest for playerbase to overcome i think.

 

[Royal Deluxe]

The basegame is allready nearly unplayable without mods

But, i hope that this are all temporary issues because of EA

But sure, you can have feedback

* As soon as you start to play you need a Wrench and a minibike, as soon as you have them you can start playing sensefull, but the same moment game is over, you reached all you need.

* Glowing Zombiecops all 5 meters after a few Gamestages = There is no sense to use any other wepons as an AK/Sniper

* Ninjaspawn in your neck

* Steelblock ripping zombies that destroy a Defense you build in 50 Hours within minutes

* Endless Hordenights that make no sense to fight

* Weather Survival is only anoying Clothing on/off all feeled 2 minutes

* ...

do i need to proceed ?

Finally A16 is for me Vanilla not playable, except for testplays i dont care about this issues.

 

[graphite]

The basegame is allready nearly unplayable without mods
But, i hope that this are all temporary issues because of EA

But you moved over to the darkside and started modding you know it is not easy to stop.

Even if they did add a lot of options there would be still something you might feel like you can mod.

Sorry one way ticket once you read the xml configs there is no turning back

 

[Royal Deluxe]

I know

My Deko Prefabs

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?75346-MOD-Prefab-Set-Royals-deko-prefab-set

My Poi Prefabs i work on (this moment)

My mod is on break until 16.4 and my Poi prefabs are done.

The problem is that you are right that "mod it if you dont like it" should not be the answer.

But the last 2 weeks i get the feeling that there is a witch hunt against bedrock dwellers.

If i dwell on baserock because

Surface has no needs for me and

the 7th day Horde is only anoying me,

Digging Zombies should be the last we need to talk about.

 

[Crater Creator]

I just dont think a digging z or magical digging z is that answer. Besides MM not liking holes everywhere due to a digging z also in which he stated in one of his videos. There are lots of other ideas that are better.

Madmole has also said the zombies are and always will be the main antagonists. So I think it's the most sensible choice for zombies to be part of the answer. You don't want them to dig and leave tunnels, dig and not leave tunnels, or spawn up close to your base, which would seem to be the only options to get zombies to your underground base. So we're at an impasse - we simply want different things.

In every movie the zs become a non threat so to speak. Human race always wins.

While movies can inspire gameplay, there are also differences. Movies have an ending, and this game does not, at least for now. The survivor(s) winning the game in a few hours like in a movie would be one play style, but not the only one. Consider Royal Deluxe's play style: he mentioned he plays 'dead is dead'. I'm sure he finds it every bit as thrilling and compelling as someone role playing that they're the main character in a zombie movie.

The game needs challenges for sure but digging z isn't it. You might get 2 min of enjoyment challenge but after that hmmm back to not being challenged again.
Why. Not because tfp failed. But because the gamer smarted the game. Countered and neutralised all threats.

Again it don't matter if TFP add in the most challenging z ever. It will always be other players (PvP which I hate) That you can never counter for because that is the difference between alive and dead.

The players will come up with a way to counter everything the game can throw at them! Well, no, that's not the case for every game. It's possible to design a game where the player can't counter everything, and you don't have to brutalize the player with ridiculous rules to do it, either: I refer you again to rock-paper-scissors. Too simple? Okay then, chess against Deep Blue.

Me, I derive more satisfaction from winning through sheer effort than by finding a way around the challenge the designer intended for me. Sure, I feel clever coming up with the latter the first time, but after that the victory feels hollow. I've discovered how the game is broken, and now I can't put that genie back in the bottle. That's my "back to not being challenged again" moment: I can only have a balanced, challenging game after that by hamstringing myself, pretending the game isn't the way it is.

 

[graphite]

Thinking about Creators non colliding digging zombie idea, i know i mentioned about no overall peformance gain which i still think is true but it does have a good point of accuarcy on getting to the wall without hitting gravel and without having to have some constant elevation pathfinding to static point.

So what if a ray was cast from the player picked in a random direction at a set distance that must be in terrain ?

I can think of some problems but i wanted to share the idea of moving the origin of raycasting to the player.

 

[Crater Creator]

This wouldn't work (see picture below). You have to consider a squillion possibilities to achieve a decent spawn behavior (e.g. trap damage from traps at the bottom of the pit, electricity (I don't think that you can handle this reliably)):
Imo it's not a 'robust' solution since you have to consider a lot of scenarios. To me, the underground spawns still look like a guaranty for more bugs and highly counter-intuitive zombie spawns.

Because after the fall of 100 Meters in the Pit and slicing by Blades and Spikes, there would be no Zombie

I understood Pille diagram as a player had just dug a shaft and hollowed out a cavern and then placed a forge.
Dependent on N S E W the ray originated from could cause issue with player placed block being passed the player.

Having no player place block in the path is problematic and you want to trace the least amount of rays possible i understand.

Okay. You guys found a genuine flaw in the proposed design. This is good. Progress!

New proposal: the ray coming from the edge of the world terminates when it first reaches a player placed block or an air block.

1. If the ray hits a player placed block first, the zombie spawns one block farther away than that, as previously described.
   
2. If the ray hits an air block first, the zombie spawns two blocks farther away than the air block.
   

This should fix both the 'zombie should've fallen and died' problem and the 'ray reached all the way to the player' problem. I feel like someone may have proposed that the ray stop at air blocks earlier, but shoot, that must be 10 pages ago by now.

 

[graphite]

Okay. You guys found a genuine flaw in the proposed design. This is good. Progress!
New proposal: the ray coming from the edge of the world terminates when it first reaches a player placed block or an air block.

1. If the ray hits a player placed block first, the zombie spawns one block farther away than that, as previously described.
   
2. If the ray hits an air block first, the zombie spawns two blocks farther away than the air block.
   

This should fix both the 'zombie should've fallen and died' problem and the 'ray reached all the way to the player' problem. I feel like someone may have proposed that the ray stop at air blocks earlier, but shoot, that must be 10 pages ago by now.

You could be in side of a mountain and the ray has loads of airblocks to shoot though and the player is still technically underground.

You are still going to need some complexity to descision making on where to spawn with this so i am not sure if it is better to use player as origin for ray.

I want to keep this idea alive for as many ideas as possible to be considered is a good thing but it isnt looking good at its current state.

 

[Crater Creator]

Inside the rocks ?

As they come in.

When a block is damaged, the cracked decal is drawn on all sides of the block. So you can see which block they're breaking.

1. You can get in close where they're attacking, and melee them as soon as they break through the first block.
   
2. You can lie in wait from a safer distance, and shoot them with ranged weapons when they break through.
   
3. You can set up active defenses like turrets to engage as soon as the zombie shows its face.
   
4. You can keep repairing the block(s) they're damaging faster than they can damage it.
   
5. You can build a smaller inner sanctum/keep within your base from which to mount your counterattack.
   
6. You can redirect the zombies away from your base by going topside or otherwise escaping.
   

I consider some items on this list more fun than others, but the thing is these are all reactions you can have to a surface base attack, too. Your favorite tactic may be more difficult because you are underground, but you are not defenseless.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

I don't know what you guys are doing but since this is now 3 years of this, I will give you some code. Here is the code you can use to fix the zombie spawn...

Add an internal number to the POI on generation and all zombies spawned by that poi get a timer on their initial trigger attached to the poi.

public int TimeBetweenSpawns = 15;

System.Timers.Timer t = new System.Timers.Timer();

int d = (TimeBetweenSpawns * 60000);

t.Interval = d;

t.Start();

t.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(RespawnOpen);

Setup RespawnOpen to be triggered by a player entering the space. Simple Vertex triangulation you are doing anyways...I am sure your base code is a little different in its composure but this isn't a hard thing to fix guys. NO EXCUSE for this to be in the experimental build for weeks. What is it you are doing?

Your fix in the first place was insane, you just upped the distance. Is that really the logic guys are using for coding purposes?

 

[Royal Deluxe]

As they come in.
When a block is damaged, the cracked decal is drawn on all sides of the block. So you can see which block they're breaking.

1. You can get in close where they're attacking, and melee them as soon as they break through the first block.
   
2. You can lie in wait from a safer distance, and shoot them with ranged weapons when they break through.
   
3. You can set up active defenses like turrets to engage as soon as the zombie shows its face.
   
4. You can keep repairing the block(s) they're damaging faster than they can damage it.
   
5. You can build a smaller inner sanctum/keep within your base from which to mount your counterattack.
   
6. You can redirect the zombies away from your base by going topside or otherwise escaping.
   

I consider some items on this list more fun than others, but the thing is these are all reactions you can have to a surface base attack, too. Your favorite tactic may be more difficult because you are underground, but you are not defenseless.

Means i can wait until they broke my Forges/Crates or i can Leave my Bunker and run around during the Horde night.

Sounds not very funny

 

[Doombringer101]

Move your crates and stations off the exterior walls, pretty simple.

 

[Ouch Quit It]

I don't know what you guys are doing but since this is now 3 years of this, I will give you some code. Here is the code you can use to fix the zombie spawn...
Add an internal number to the POI on generation and all zombies spawned by that poi get a timer on their initial trigger attached to the poi.

public int TimeBetweenSpawns = 15;

System.Timers.Timer t = new System.Timers.Timer();

int d = (TimeBetweenSpawns * 60000);

t.Interval = d;

t.Start();

t.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(RespawnOpen);

Setup RespawnOpen to be triggered by a player entering the space. Simple Vertex triangulation you are doing anyways...I am sure your base code is a little different in its composure but this isn't a hard thing to fix guys. NO EXCUSE for this to be in the experimental build for weeks. What is it you are doing?

Your fix in the first place was insane, you just upped the distance. Is that really the logic guys are using for coding purposes?

I was just saying to myself---Simple vertex triangulation is the key!! Thanks for backing me up!!!

Ouch

Coughs* VIDEO * Coughs

 

[Crater Creator]

Why should caves not have to account for stability? A big cave should need a stone ceiling, and really big caves need pillars, just like now. Remember, neither granite nor Rolands foundation blocks do anything different to what is below them. If a cave is unstable now it will be unstable with granite somewhere above. If it is stable now it will be stable with granite somewhere above
The difference between jackelmeyrs and my proposal is just that jackelmeyrs granite can be used as ceiling directly while my granite needs layers of normal stuff between it and the cave. But the cave ceiling just follows and must respect normal rules for the cave to be stable.

Oh, I'm not disputing any of that. I just thought Roland's claim that "Players could create underground lairs and tunnels without messing up or worrying about what they did above ground" could be interpreted in a way that overstated the actual effect.