PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

Jost Amman said:
Track what exactly? Damage resistance? ... It doesn't sound very "taxing" to me.
It wouldn't be much different from the game tracking zombies' armor.
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If zombies were to take damage from exposure to storms that would mean doing checks for indoor/outdoor (a geometry calculation) on every enemy instance continuously, including all the current spawns that the player has not yet encountered (the game doesn't know which ones you have seen or heard).

Honestly, I have no idea how costly such calculations are, but in a game where so many of it's fans complain about optimizations it doesn't seem like a worthwhile area to divert additional resources to.

In contrast, zombie armor is just a stored number that is referenced on the rare occasion where damage has been determined to have taken place.

Of course an optimization might be to have a simple timer on each entity so that it just dies after a given interval after spawning, but in any case not a very compelling feature as it would make storms that much easier to weather.
 
I think half the issue with the current browser is half the time players can not even find the server they play on...
players shouldn't have to rely on direct connect,fav, or join through friends list to connect.
With console joining dedicated soon it would be really nice if some love was given to the server browser.
 
I know nothing about programming, but I"m curious. When a script like that (player shelter checking) works non-stop, does it affect performance or is it lightweight?
 
trogs said:
I know nothing about programming, but I"m curious. When a script like that (player shelter checking) works non-stop, does it affect performance or is it lightweight?
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Something like that would be pretty lightweight. It would be checking either non-stop or at least very frequently, but it's only checking the player(s). That's a very minimal performance thing compared to something that checks all enemies, for example. They could probably disable it and not notice even 1 FPS improvement, though that's just a guess on my part.
 
Dreyseth said:
If zombies were to take damage from exposure to storms that would mean doing checks for indoor/outdoor (a geometry calculation) on every enemy instance continuously, including all the current spawns that the player has not yet encountered (the game doesn't know which ones you have seen or heard).

Honestly, I have no idea how costly such calculations are, but in a game where so many of it's fans complain about optimizations it doesn't seem like a worthwhile area to divert additional resources to.

In contrast, zombie armor is just a stored number that is referenced on the rare occasion where damage has been determined to have taken place.

Of course an optimization might be to have a simple timer on each entity so that it just dies after a given interval after spawning, but in any case not a very compelling feature as it would make storms that much easier to weather.
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Faatal basically already explained how that could work.
Check for damage would be associated to the "particle collider", which is already used for storms and their effects.

Of course it could be much more complicated than that, but my idea stands as viable in my opinion.
 
Personally, I like zombies not taking damage from storms. It makes exploring / questing POIs more dynamic with the added threat. For example, I was doing a T2 quest in the burnt biome last night when a storm hit. I was safe inside the building but eventually I progressed to a part of the POI that was outdoors.

Although I could of just sat there and did some skill/inventory management, I chose to run outside for brief moments to lure zombies into my sheltered position so I could still make progress in completing the POI. It is Day 7 and every minute counts when the bloodmoon is near.

If the zombies were to take damage, that choice would of not been possible since the zombies would of just died from taking damage.
 
Laz Man said:
Personally, I like zombies not taking damage from storms. It makes exploring / questing POIs more dynamic with the added threat. For example, I was doing a T2 quest in the burnt biome last night when a storm hit. I was safe inside the building but eventually I progressed to a part of the POI that was outdoors.

Although I could of just sat there and did some skill/inventory management, I chose to run outside for brief moments to lure zombies into my sheltered position so I could still make progress in completing the POI. It is Day 7 and every minute counts when the bloodmoon is near.

If the zombies were to take damage, that choice would of not been possible since the zombies would of just died from taking damage.
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I don't think storms should male them stronger but perhaps other effects

Like maybe fog spawns more zombies around. And storms lures more ferals
 
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