PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

Roland said:
Items? What do they have to do with number of bandits that can spawn? What items are you talking about that were removed to accommodate what new stuff? Be specific because I think you are comparing apples and oranges here. Removing paint options because of texture limits has nothing to do with how many entities can be spawned at once. Removing the plains biome was due to unrelated limitations to number of entities. What exactly are you talking about here?
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Well, to be completely fair, things HAVE been removed to gain more performance to spawn zombies.

From the top of my mind I can remember:
  • Smell : yes, even if it's now being reintroduced, I remember it was removed because it was too heavy on the game
  • Concrete drying : having to handle all the steps of concrete drying could become taxing for big bases
  • Farming everywhere : same concept, but with very big farms, handling the growth steps of so many crops was taxing
  • Lootable corpses : not much the fact you could loot them, but more handling the transformation from dead zombie to corpse (I think)
So, while I agree with Grandpa that SOME things had to be removed to gain more performance for AI and zombie numbers, I also understand that later A LOT of optimization has been done, and now I think we're in a place with the game where @faatal has more leeway to introduce bandits or just simply more spawns.
 
Grandpa Minion said:
max zombie spawns effects the servers for everyone who is on once it reachs max count...
zombies will not spawn once max count hits 60
so to add 15 bandits would mean 60-15= 45
45 may seem like alot to some but on servers that is nothing when you consider players are questing..
biom spawns and sleeper spawns count towards that across all players combined.
so what im actually thinking zombie(entity) count needs to be raised to 75 to accomodate the extra 15 bandits?
Click to expand...

I don't think they need to do that. In all versions of 72d2 that I have played the spawn limits could be reached in certain situations if 8 players were online and questing separately. (AFAIK) in such a situation some zombies who would have spawned didn't spawn. If that were a game-breaking issue it would have already broken the game.

They can simply keep the limit at 60 and count every bandit as 2 zombies. Done. If a bandit were twice as dangerous as a zombie that wouldn't even change the difficulty from what it is now.
 
Jost Amman said:
Well, to be completely fair, things HAVE been removed to gain more performance to spawn zombies.

From the top of my mind I can remember:
  • Smell : yes, even if it's now being reintroduced, I remember it was removed because it was too heavy on the game
  • Concrete drying : having to handle all the steps of concrete drying could become taxing for big bases
  • Farming everywhere : same concept, but with very big farms, handling the growth steps of so many crops was taxing
  • Lootable corpses : not much the fact you could loot them, but more handling the transformation from dead zombie to corpse (I think)
So, while I agree with Grandpa that SOME things had to be removed to gain more performance for AI and zombie numbers, I also understand that later A LOT of optimization has been done, and now I think we're in a place with the game where @faatal has more leeway to introduce bandits or just simply more spawns.
Click to expand...
great examples by you of items that had to be removed, thanks.
For me i already did a top ten list on this forum previously of my fav items that where removed.
Grandpa Minion

Thread '🙀GRANDPA'S TOP TEN RANKED: Items that have been removed.'

1. calipers
2. combiner
3. zombies: cheerleader, stripper, miner, cowboy, farmer, football
4. deeper ground
5. smell
6. clothes
7. traps: log spikes and barb wire
8. raw iron
9. jars
10. blunderbuss

I ranked calipers as #1 for multiple reasons:
calipers to me was the first major removal that was taken away, mainly due to the effect it had on game play.
calipers where a rarity you had to travel around the map to get them.
Players litterally competed to gain them and planned their routes to do so.
calipers where not a "dime a dozen" so getting...
  • Like
  • Dislike

but yeah there is countless of examples of items that have been removed over the years.
 
Grandpa Minion said:
great examples by you of items that had to be removed, thanks.
For me i already did a top ten list on this forum previously of my fav items that where removed.
Grandpa Minion

Thread '🙀GRANDPA'S TOP TEN RANKED: Items that have been removed.'

1. calipers
2. combiner
3. zombies: cheerleader, stripper, miner, cowboy, farmer, football
4. deeper ground
5. smell
6. clothes
7. traps: log spikes and barb wire
8. raw iron
9. jars
10. blunderbuss

I ranked calipers as #1 for multiple reasons:
calipers to me was the first major removal that was taken away, mainly due to the effect it had on game play.
calipers where a rarity you had to travel around the map to get them.
Players litterally competed to gain them and planned their routes to do so.
calipers where not a "dime a dozen" so getting...
  • Like
  • Dislike

but yeah there is countless of examples of items that have been removed over the years.
Click to expand...
Honestly now I just miss a few things

  • More wildlife in the forest
  • More open combat skills
  • Plains and maple forest. Rip
  • The old shotgun ,hunting rifle, and hunting knife model
  • Increase zombie amounts
  • More dangerous zombies in towns
  • Spiders climbing....
  • Scrap armor..... ummm
Thats really it that I can think of. We are basicly getting the cowboy zombie back, and ether cheerleaders and football player really never fit in tbh. newer smell and jars and soon we are getting combining again. So tbh im pretty happy we're things are going rn.

Some stuff unfortunately we will never get back like the biomes That is the biggest tragedy of all imo

And some stuff we just gotta expect we aren't getting. I loved learn by doing but we aren't getting it back. I would love if they threw in prebuilds mod but that's not up to me. Once I get a pc tho all bets are on. Maybe I'll dable in modding myself. Like I could (probably) easily add bears, cougars and cyotoes and wolves into the forest. Or increase zombie spawns or types
 
Grandpa Minion said:
great examples by you of items that had to be removed, thanks.
For me i already did a top ten list on this forum previously of my fav items that where removed.
Grandpa Minion

Thread '🙀GRANDPA'S TOP TEN RANKED: Items that have been removed.'

1. calipers
2. combiner
3. zombies: cheerleader, stripper, miner, cowboy, farmer, football
4. deeper ground
5. smell
6. clothes
7. traps: log spikes and barb wire
8. raw iron
9. jars
10. blunderbuss

I ranked calipers as #1 for multiple reasons:
calipers to me was the first major removal that was taken away, mainly due to the effect it had on game play.
calipers where a rarity you had to travel around the map to get them.
Players litterally competed to gain them and planned their routes to do so.
calipers where not a "dime a dozen" so getting...
  • Like
  • Dislike

but yeah there is countless of examples of items that have been removed over the years.
Click to expand...

Weren't you talking before about items removed for performance reasons? Now only smell (and maybe deeper ground) fit that, the rest has nothing to do with the topic
 
meganoth said:
Is it possible you are thinking of a fixed ratio? I.e. if they allow max 15 bandits to spawn at the same time it would mean they could never spawn more than 60 - 2*15 = 30 zombies at any time? Even if no bandits were actually spawned the limit would be 30. Is that what you think?

But what if they make it dynamically? I.e. only if bandits are actually spawned do they reduce the limit. That means if no bandits are spawned you could have 60 zombies on the map. And when say 5 bandits are on the map, now the limit for zombies would be 50, with 10 bandits 40, with 15 bandits 30.

That would be easy to do. Just have a zombie counter and let each bandit deduct 2 from the allowable 60 instead of 1.

And we got hints that bandits (at least the strongest ones) would be more dangerous than the strongest zombies, so if a bandit spawns on horde night it would also (because of its ranged damage) be twice as dangerous as the two zombies it would replace.
Click to expand...
Basically yes.

AI entities spawn on demand. There are certainly not 15 bandits hiding in the bushes near you at all times. Bandits will not be running around on blood moons, but if you run into a bandit POI during a BM, then they would spawn and zombies would be still coming from outside, so good luck!

I fully expect the server/client loads to be the same. Player group A enters normal POI and gets the same x amount of zombies as before. Group B enters a bandit POI and gets y amount of zombies, but a lesser amount than group A's zombies, so performance is the same for either group. Group C enters a POI and has bandits and zombies in a balanced ratio with similar performance as group A or B.

We also have some new async entity loading code that was just committed this morning that will reduce frame spikes spawning not loaded entities and eventually lead to us unloading entity resources, so we can add even more content over time and load parts of it as needed.
 
faatal said:
Basically yes.

AI entities spawn on demand. There are certainly not 15 bandits hiding in the bushes near you at all times. Bandits will not be running around on blood moons, but if you run into a bandit POI during a BM, then they would spawn and zombies would be still coming from outside, so good luck!

I fully expect the server/client loads to be the same. Player group A enters normal POI and gets the same x amount of zombies as before. Group B enters a bandit POI and gets y amount of zombies, but a lesser amount than group A's zombies, so performance is the same for either group. Group C enters a POI and has bandits and zombies in a balanced ratio with similar performance as group A or B.

We also have some new async entity loading code that was just committed this morning that will reduce frame spikes spawning not loaded entities and eventually lead to us unloading entity resources, so we can add even more content over time and load parts of it as needed.
Click to expand...
Kinda sad this makes me wanna have more zombies around the world to watch bandits and then fight each other unless they are going to be random spawn groups like wandering hordes vs bandit group
 
faatal said:
AI entities spawn on demand. There are certainly not 15 bandits hiding in the bushes near you at all times. Bandits will not be running around on blood moons, but if you run into a bandit POI during a BM, then they would spawn and zombies would be still coming from outside, so good luck!
Click to expand...
Thank you for addressing that. Follow up question, can the BloodMoon horde
be associated with the biome spawners? What I am asking is if you can add
a CVAR to allow spawning, from multiple spawner types, on Horde night.
An on/off switch will do.

Reason, I self regulate to stay in a sedentary position, during Horde night
because early on I found that a ground battle, hinged on entity sight unless
they were using feral sense. The one hole was If I ran around using multiple pois
for intermittent cover, the surrounding POIs had no internal spawn until close to
4am game time, even if the others lost track of me. I ask if it is possible because
of your mentioning one thing the event manager, and Meganoth mentioning
Dynamic spawning.

So my choice has always been you are here, fight now.

PC - V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

It's merely a "concept" picture. Final version will be different. How much of what's being seen in the concept pic is intended to be used for the final model? I'd assume that since this is being shown publicly that it will look mostly like the picture. The clothing/rags don't bother me. I feel...
community.thefunpimps.com community.thefunpimps.com
 
@faatal
Another question, in regard to horde night spawning, mainly because that is the one night
that many don't mind zombies spawning. If fog is used, can the pois, and trees and other
objects be reduced, to a more decimated poly count, unless within range of sight or light
is on the object or POI? What can't be seen clearly can't be discerned clearly, could that not
help with poly count during the nights, just like when the storms obscure vision. At that point
most people would be concentrating on the immediate and localized threat.
 
4sheetzngeegles said:
@faatal
Another question, in regard to horde night spawning, mainly because that is the one night
that many don't mind zombies spawning. If fog is used, can the pois, and trees and other
objects be reduced, to a more decimated poly count, unless within range of sight or light
is on the object or POI? What can't be seen clearly can't be discerned clearly, could that not
help with poly count during the nights, just like when the storms obscure vision. At that point
most people would be concentrating on the immediate and localized threat.
Click to expand...
So, you mean a dynamic LOD setting based on the Fog effect? :unsure:
 
Exactly, mainly because fog could be the cheapest occluder, all it is, a screen tint
and an intensity. I get to see it often when I play because I just type in different
tints, mainly black for my nights, and sometimes deep dark bluish for horror movie setting.

With the black and a higher intensity, my sight distance is very limited, you don't need to
dm to use it.
 
4sheetzngeegles said:
Thank you for addressing that. Follow up question, can the BloodMoon horde
be associated with the biome spawners? What I am asking is if you can add
a CVAR to allow spawning, from multiple spawner types, on Horde night.
An on/off switch will do.

Reason, I self regulate to stay in a sedentary position, during Horde night
because early on I found that a ground battle, hinged on entity sight unless
they were using feral sense. The one hole was If I ran around using multiple pois
for intermittent cover, the surrounding POIs had no internal spawn until close to
4am game time, even if the others lost track of me. I ask if it is possible because
of your mentioning one thing the event manager, and Meganoth mentioning
Dynamic spawning.

So my choice has always been you are here, fight now.

PC - V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

It's merely a "concept" picture. Final version will be different. How much of what's being seen in the concept pic is intended to be used for the final model? I'd assume that since this is being shown publicly that it will look mostly like the picture. The clothing/rags don't bother me. I feel...
community.thefunpimps.com community.thefunpimps.com
Click to expand...
No. I don't want to be making changes with BM spawning.
Post automatically merged:

4sheetzngeegles said:
@faatal
Another question, in regard to horde night spawning, mainly because that is the one night
that many don't mind zombies spawning. If fog is used, can the pois, and trees and other
objects be reduced, to a more decimated poly count, unless within range of sight or light
is on the object or POI? What can't be seen clearly can't be discerned clearly, could that not
help with poly count during the nights, just like when the storms obscure vision. At that point
most people would be concentrating on the immediate and localized threat.
Click to expand...
It already does that with camera far clipping plane to not render distant pixels based on fog strength. That covers most rendered 3d objects.
 
As always, thank you.

So if I manually increase my fog intensity, would it lower pc load, and if fog intensity
is turned up on consoles would they benefit also? Is there a range or a high low numeric
that I can use?
 
@Roland
Roland said:
On the topic of empty jars I have to say that I feel they are getting the balance right.
Click to expand...

Roland said:
Currently I actually hope to find a jar when I’m scavenging and am happy when I do. I can’t imagine throwing any away. I’m also very glad now to get a dew collector built. Madmole has done a great job redesigning how empty jars and dew collectors fit into early game water survival.
Click to expand...
From what you are describing. Do you mean water has been reduced, and the dew collector
will only function if you put an empty jar in it. Melding their purpose and giving them more value?
 
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