Status Report - 26 Nov 2015

[entspeak 374]

Here's a crazy idea, have a large number of zeds spawn inside buildings. This way, you can have a small number of zeds spawned in all the time, ambling through the town and then, when players arrive, more spawn inside the buildings who begin to move when aggro'd in some way. This way, you won't be able to say with certainty that a town or village is free of players, you will get the added bonus of having the tension of clearing houses before you can loot them, and there won't have to be huge areas where there is no threat of the infected at all.

Edited November 28, 2015 by entspeak

[entspeak 374]

And since they are working on zeds again, it might be a good time to bring up the notion of dynamic aggro again. They made huge leaps with this in the vanilla mod and it makes quite a difference to gameplay. This is an idea to provide an interesting dynamic with zed encounters, allow for stealth, and have serious consequences for recklessness - aspects of survival.

I originally brought this idea up a while ago with the mod and there were serious limitations with this because of the limitations of the Arma engine to which the mod was bound. Not long before SA was released, however, the devs for the mod made huge leaps in Zed AI that were very similar to these ideas (see Zed behavior in 1.8.1).

So, this idea hinges upon a fundamental premise (to which there is one exception): Zeds react differently to sound than they do to sight and they don't aggro unless they see a target. With that in mind, here are ideas for the various ways zeds interact with their environment.

Sight:

• Zeds should have fairly poor vision compared to players - maybe 100m with a 40 degree FOV. Now, these zeds are different from the ones in the mod in that they no longer simply see straight ahead... if they turn their head, they may see you (at least, that's what I've been told, perhaps a dev can confirm this). So, that if they look around, they will see more around them. In reality sight works like a cone: narrower closer to the face, wider as it spreads outward from the face up to the limit of vision. Most humans have good peripheral vision, so our FoV is roughly 190 degrees (95 degrees to the sides out of each eye). With a FoV of 40 degrees, however, zeds will basically have tunnel vision. The conical nature of it however, means you will be spotted if you are 10m off to the right of a zed at a distance, but you will not be seen if you are 10m off to the right of a zed close up.
• If a player is in the Line of Sight of a zed, the zed should target him... even if the zed was aggro'd by something else.
• If a zed loses Line of Sight, it will continue to aggro toward the location at which it lost LoS and begin a slow search for a minute. If it doesn't see a player... any player, it forgets what it was going after and resuming it's unalerted status.
• At night, the distance a zed can see should be drastically reduced (if possible, based on the amount of light available). It would be awesome if shining flashlights, flares, fires, etc... would increase the distance a zed could see.

Sound:

Going with the premise that zeds only aggro based on what they can see, how they react to sound will add an incredible amount of dynamics to zed interaction and give players lots of ways of dealing with them.

• The exception to the premise: only very loud sounds should immediately aggro zeds. What the devs in the mod were able to do is to create ranges at which weapons would aggro zeds and ranges at which it would simply get them to walk toward the sound slowly. I think the SA can build upon this idea. and this can be different for different kinds of weapons. So, each kind of ammo (since, I understand audible range is based on ammo type and not weapon type) will have three zed related sound distances: the distance at which a zed will definitely aggro, the distance at which it will only become aware and walk slowly toward the sound, and the distance at which it hears nothing.
• Zeds aggroing based on sound should run toward the sound for a minute (or until they reach the point at which the sound occurred). If no players come into their Line of Sight during that time, they do the short search and then forget what they were doing and return to their unalerted status.
• Going with the premise and its exception, the same sort of idea can be applied to other sounds a player makes: footfalls, direct chat and wounded/sick noises. I think it would be obvious that in order to instantly aggro a zed with footfalls and voice, you'd have to be pretty much right next to it... so, what should happen more often than not is that loud running and talking should, at most, only cause a zed to become interested and walk toward the location it hears the sound... of course following all the rules for sight mentioned above. Of course, the distance at which zeds are alerted can be based on movement speed and material that's being run over (cement, grass, carpet, wood floor). What this means is that you can get into trouble pretty quickly if you run right by a zed... running at a distance, may not cause a problem unless you're sprinting on tarmac... and even then, you're going to get a bit of a head start as they slowly turn toward you... and if you duck around a corner, they might not get that chance.
• Perhaps, at night, as vision is reduced, zed hearing gets slightly better and the distances at which zeds react gets higher.

The limitation on sight and its interaction with sound will make for an incredibly dynamic gameplay experience, I think. Edited November 28, 2015 by entspeak

[PongoZ 127]

good report keep up the pressure Devs.

[GDZ_saiboT 14]

Once again... thanks for taking the time and answering our questions.. :thumbsup:

Some more questions from the german community :)

 

1) You mentioned some bigger changes for the infecteds with 0.60 - its probably a topic for one of the next SRs but..just a short teaser please... did you mean the new models or/and the AI?

 

2) ATM there are crashsites and now you talked about large amouts of infecteds... any other dynamic events planned?

 

3) Could you imagine to add some suitable music/sounds to special situation as fog or something like that?

 

4) There is so much to eat, but no ******* bread? Why? :D What about adding wheat to give us the possibility to bake bread in combination with water? :P

 

5) Currently the mijority is playing much PVP, any plans for increasing the interaction? (except infecteds and walkie-talkies as start gear)

 

[xtali700 17]

1. To what extent is the small object interaction going to be used? Are moved object going to be persistant and or used for barricading? How will it affect loot (as in moved loot respawns?) and if so will it damage it?

 

2. Would you consider scraping real world objects for items (I.E. a fence hatcheted down for wood).

 

3. This ties in to 2. Would you use the Static Randomizer described in this Squad monthly report .

 

We have also introduced a new system for randomizing buildings and other static meshes when starting a new map, greatly increasing round variety and encouraging players to adapt to the always changing tactical situation. One round it could be an open alley, the next it could be a blocked off section of wall. In the future we want to continue to add to this system and include modules like doors, windows and other elements to make the player constantly aware of their surroundings.

Could this be used on par with object scraping to give the world a new layer. This would stop abuse on the level of hopping for wood or what not. Or to have a part of the woods on one server but not on the other and so on.

 

4. Are any of the Advanced Social Mechanics from the 2014 roadmap still planned?

 

Advanced Social Mechanics (working in progress):

• Faction identification methods
• Spawn systems tied to controlled locations
• Better UI support for trading.

 

5. Can you reconfirm that you will be able to completly clear out a town-village of zeds like described early on in the project.

 

6. And my last and final question. How was the sound guys funeral. I mean we havent heard from him since his first post, so I assumed he died. R.I.P.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

thanks as always :)
 

- ) aren't the additional physics applied on these small objects straining the server-performance more in some way?
 
- ) also an important question: will this affect loot as well?

- ) physical door support + small object interaction = barricading?

 

- ) has adding banknotes/money ever crossed your collective mind just to see what we, the community, would end up doing with it?

 

- ) all enterable rooms have currently broken windows: are these placeholders? if not, what's the reasoning behind their broken state?

 

- ) you recently said the tenment buildings around cherno are here to stay. will they receive then the proper love with actual functional doors - at least at their entrances?

 

bonus question)

5th of Dec. is Krampusnacht will or will you not confirm krampus costumes utilizing hides and horns of chernarus' wildlife?

Edited November 29, 2015 by joe_mcentire

[St. Jimmy 1631]

bonus question)

5th of Dec. is Krampusnacht will or will you not confirm krampus costumes utilizing hides and horns of chernarus' wildlife?

Ah good old pagan folklore. Children should suffer!

Edited November 29, 2015 by St. Jimmy

[PaniXx 34]

i have only one question regarding the current state of renderer (Post Processes): 

 

- do you already have some progress/improvement regarding the 'light (f.e. from flashlight) going through walls'-issue (which is avaible since the release of the alpha)? 

 

 

Thank you very much, Hicks! Have a nice week! :)

Edited November 29, 2015 by PaniXx

[Thumper1999 48]

In addition to this - regional loot control is being prepared for internal testing. CLE functionality is present, and the designers are now working with a fairly versatile new tool allowing them to set location types, regional areas, and even more - with rapid flexability. In addition to allowing us even more precise control over the in-game economy, this should also be a huge tool for mod authors.

 

 

 

this must mean that server admins will be allowed to control loot spawns ;)

[Coheed_IV 381]

What are the infected goals to reach beta?

[tomtrustworthy 35]

@hicks!

For me the animation of bleeding has always been immersion breaking. What part of the game controls this? And when are we to expect some changes in that area?

 

Also what do you think about the way it is currently handled and/or how it will be handled?

[lucasbr1213 0]

Hicks, I wonder if the stealth of zombies will equal the gun II, you play flare, empty cans and glass jars to attract zombies. 

[barnabus 1708]

Now that the weekend is over any love for the 1PP player on experimental?

 

During this current iteration of .59 I haven't  seen a helicrash anywhere, is that just bad luck or are they not spawning?

 

One request, please don't make the day night cycle on experimental the default for stable.  Since servers are supposed to reset every 12 hours now how about a default of 1 hour in the real world = 2 hours in the game world?  This way one 12 hour session is one day.  Of course options for server owners should be a bit looser.

[sobieski12 835]

1) Will we have a trench coat in the future? - Really liking the drifter set in Fallout 4, has that apocalyptic feel. 

 

2) Have you beaten Fallout 4 yet?

 

3) Will the secret underground military base in cords 078.006 return?   http://dayzdb.com/map#7.078.007

 

4) Will we ever be able to power certain power plants on the map? - For example the small power plant North of Elektro city. 

 

5) Could we expect to see more heli crashes in the far northern part of the map, near Severograd and Novaya Petrovka?

 

6) Could we expect to see more options for players taking others hostage? - For example - If I can get a player to hold his hands up, can I get the option to take the gun off his shoulder / pack while pointing the gun at him. Atm, we need to make them hold their hands and then let them drop their hands in order for them to be able to drop weapons & gear... Not the best method, since it's really easy to switch to your gun and counter attack at that stage.

 

7) Will the game have layered clothing in the future? I've always find it strange to find green sweaters in the military bases, since I generally always have something better to store items with. But then thought, if it's very cold. Why not have multiple layers of clothing, maybe mitigate some same in melee attack from zombies / players. 

Edited November 30, 2015 by Sobieski12

[jakerawls 4]

Are there plans for an improved and more complicated wound treatment system? Or will it be tied to the development of soft skills or something like that?

[blacktwin0 98]

Will objects that are moved/destroyed remain so? For how long? Will the picnic tables and light pole reset after server restart? Will we be able to haul these objects to our base? Once in base will these objects have their reset locations set to inside the base? Once moved back out of base will the reset locations be reset to original location?  Will small structures like the wooden barn next the light pole be destructible/movable by a larger object (car/truck/bus)?

 

I noticed in the newest exp update that the physics was running a little smoother. I threw a bag of rice to another player, when it eventually hit the ground I noticed that the bag was rolling. I haven't seen any item roll on the ground before. They usually just stop. Will the physics of items mirror the physics of the objects from the video? Meaning will items move if touched by players or vehicles? Something similar to Demon/Dark Souls, with less silliness?

 

Can you speak to the Physics "Up next" feature "Manipulating bodies"? How much manipulating do you foresee possible? Dragging players (dead/alive)? Rolling players/bodies? Positioning players/bodies?

 

Pitchfork suicide was cool looking, will we see suicide animations for other weapons/items? Stick? Box of nails? Wire? Nooses (rope + tree)? 

 

The two video clips really opened up new possibilities for what can be done in this game. Can't wait for more.

[Zurvivalist 300]

What work / progress is exactly being done toward resolving the continuing dual core and low end system issues? 

 

What type of time frame are we looking at before we start to see work being done on stamina, stealth and other emersion aspects ? 
 

Would Slow zombies ( The walking dead style ) not be more practical in regards for development and server performance ? 

[ZomboCZ 9]

Hi Brian,

 

1) Could you tell us something about the mushroom picking mechanic? Is it similar to the one with sticks, or are the mushrooms going to spawn randomly?

 

2) "Take All" option while looting or swapping backpacks/clothes?

 

Thank you.

[rafaeldbr 9]

Ok. let me be much more clear this time. We don't have any server in South America (Exp or Stable)...yes we don't have..  This game requires a server to play,  right ??...  

 

Is It possible to give us at least one server in Brazil to play ?

[Surviv0r1969 151]

hey ho mr hicks......

 

1 - is dayz gonna be in beta still as planned for February time?

 

2- is your internal build alot further developed than your letting on?

 

if 2 is no then surely 1 is not possible

 

cheers m8

[xtali700 17]

Hi Brian,

 

1) Could you tell us something about the mushroom picking mechanic? Is it similar to the one with sticks, or are the mushrooms going to spawn randomly?

 

2) "Take All" option while looting or swapping backpacks/clothes?

 

Thank you.

To add to this. Is the fruit picking mechanic going to be changed. Someone suggested having the fruit spawn as a dynamic event on the trees themselfs ect.

[djek6k 0]

will it be possible to conduct a bound man with his own?Thank you.

[cs_wolf 30]

You mentioned a few days ago that the servers were monitoring this weekend to allow you to track down some serious issues, my questions are:

 

What procedures are taken on the servers to pin down the issues causing "desync" and bad server performance?

 

I was on a exp server yesterday that had no server messages or status updates, is turning these off a example to try to pin down issues?

 

I understand having 5 servers insted of 100 for example to pin down issues, but  does not having 1PP servers help to pin down too? If so, please explain how it helps as I am curious.

 

Any luck so far on tracking the serious issues down?

 

Thank you Brian and Dev team, can't wait until 1.0 ! Much love!

Edited November 30, 2015 by cs_wolf

[en1mal 12]

Hi Brian,

 

thx for doing this - first question is mby for Eugen.

sorry for double questions.

 

1) I only see one 1st and about 7 3rd person EXP Servers from CEU. Any plans to double server numbers and turn them 1st?

 

2) Legacy systems and -newui / the performance boost is amazing but items in vicinity are so

small. Overall, usability and design is "weird" even for a placeholder, regarding -oldui is a placeholder too. Changes to this are WIP?

 

2.1) -oldui feels much worse now you know the boost from new. Is it correct to assume that as soon as the blockers

are resolved the complete transition to newui with finished basics will occur?

 

3) 0.59 is all about vehicle desync - does this also mean multiple crashing vehicles, like a derby, with physics?

 

4) Also if yes, vehicle desync works before stable push, does that mean player desync works even better? Correlation?

 

5) Renderer. A treat for the community would be a screenshot of the improved nighttime in a SR in the future. Or is it all about implementation first?

 

6) Physics and ragdoll, regarding we'll soon have alot of different vehicles and alot of zombies for the first time, will weird(deadly) physics behavior 

be addressed during 0.59 or is in one of these ongoing battles?

 

thx again

[Zurvivalist 300]

When can we expect the non lethal weapons ( dart & stun gun ) to be released ? Many of us are waiting for more less lethal defence options. 

Same question with Bows and other civilian items ?