Status Report - 15 Mar 2016

[SMoss 2101]

Afternoon Survivors,

Brian, Mirek, and Viktor will be giving us a bit of info this week in regards to subjects such as current blocker issues, work on spawn systems and network code, and the new animation system.

 

Contents This Week

• Dev Update/Hicks
• Dev Update/Mirek
• Dev Update/Viktor
• Community Spotlight: Tom's Story

 

Dev Update/Hicks

Greetings Survivors,

Hey guys, its that time again - Status Report day. I know you all wanted to hear some crazy hype tastic reveal like - FREE OCULUS RIFT HEADSETS UNDER EACH OF YOUR COMPUTER DESKS OMG YAY (but more specific to our upcoming .60 experimental push) but I'm afraid I don't have that for you today, and we don't do hype like that anyways. While we've made strides in client side performance functionality, we're still chipping away at blocking issues in the following areas:

• Inventory UI
  • With the move to Direct X 11, we'll no longer be able to support the legacy user interface. Thus, functional parity with the legacy UI -has- to be achieved on the new UI. The design team are currently working on resolving the last few bugs blocking us from having that parity.

 

• Reload mechanics
  • The move in .60 to involving manual bolt cycling, as well as misfire and jamming management via the charging handle on weapons such as the M4 has an impact on every firearm in the game. We're currently working to resolve some functional hiccups in the switching between magazines, and the need to chamber twice before firing from a new magazine.

 

• Character Loading/Saving
  • A very large volume of unneeded traffic was discovered when investigating issues with character loading - a rewrite of the methods used to save and load from the central hive. Once we restore proper functionality, this area will no longer be a blocker.

Tasks Completed:

- .60 Build Optimization Pass (Performance in cities increased by 50% from initial build - optimization is ONGOING however)
- Cleared Rendering Test Pass list of visual/rendering based bugs
- Renderer settings UI

Current Focus:

- MSAA Hardware Multisampling Support
- Alpha to Coverage GPU Feature (Which will increase quality of vegetation rendering)
- Finalization of In-Game UI Features

We've heard a lot of feedback wanting some changes to how we're communicating development information over the last year - and we started steps a few months back towards adjusting to try and meet some of these requests. We've expanded the community team and put processes in to ensure that regardless of development tasks, the Status Reports will come out on schedule (Tuesdays, BiWeekly). In addition, we've begun using our YouTube channel more - to show upcoming changes to DayZ as they are developed. (Status Reports talk about development progress, and what changes are planned in the future - where as the YouTube channel should show what is coming in the next build - when it is functional enough to demonstrate)

We'll also be trying a team Q&A type video where folks can ask questions about what its like to work on DayZ, work at Bohemia, and such - our first video on this from our Quality Assurance team should be coming shortly. Our Community Manager Smo55 is ramping up his presence on our subreddit and official forums, our new Brand Manager DHawkz is working with Bohemia Interactive publishing to expand the options for DayZ merchandise on the BI Store, and a redesign of DayZ.com, as well as working with our hardware partners to create opportunities for raising awareness of DayZ as it moves towards our Beta, and Release goals.

I'll be discussing some of the systems and pending changes tied to the new animation system and player controller over on the official forums later this week, and next up for the YouTube channel we're working on our next Dev Log video on .60 covering performance comparisons between Direct X 9, and Direct X 11 rendering.
Once .60 hits experimental branch, we'll start putting together our first "Whats new with .60" video - where DHawkz, Smo55, and I go over the changes in .60 and what to expect gameplay wise - for our YouTube channel. 

Lastly - as .60's time on experimental starts to draw to a close - we'll be bringing back the official DayZ survival gaming e-sport, The Survivor GameZ. The Survivor GameZ VII Qualifiers will be a fantastic way for us to stress test .60 before it hits stable, and to see how the new inventory, and reloading/chambering mechanics work in a high stress situation. Keep an eye on the official Survivor GameZ and DayZ twitter accounts for more info on this - twitter.com/survivor_gamez and twitter.com/dayzdevteam

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

Dev Update/Mirek

Last two weeks, we spent our time mostly on bug fixing of some critical issues like client/server crashing or issues with weapon reloading, because we want that first release of 0.60 experimental will be in the best state as possible.

Designers have started to use new damage system, so we have few requests on improvements, but they aren't blockers.

A lot of issues were fixed in loot distribution and some new features were added. For example random loot spawning in world containers. This new feature is now moved to designers, so they can set it properly. We have also prepared new Infected/Animal spawner, but this won't be ready in 0.60 as we need to do some work in AI simulation. We will talk about this new system in next status report.

Maybe the most interesting thing is that we've started to rewrite some core parts of network code, which should improve desync issues and server performance. I hope that we will be able to show these improvements in 0.60, but I don't want to give any promises, because it's possible, that first iteration will break the game even more.

- Mirek Mañena / Lead Gameplay Programmer

 

 

Dev Update/Viktor

The ongoing work on weapon animations is still far from finishing. As there are more ways in which state gun can be when player will initiate the reload the proper animation has to be created to provide a corresponding reload action. Some reloads are being replaced with more polished ones and many new animations are being created to support possibility to load a chamber with single ammo. The animation sets for each gun now have magazine reload animations, manipulation with weapon mechanism, chambering animations and more is still to come.

The main player graph now contains most of important functionalities but we are constantly going through existing animations and filling out some missing ones or replacing with more polished versions. Also the wounded character now has some sets implemented as a prototype (some walks and runs) but we will have to wait for all the animations until we fully introduce it.

The previously mentioned improvements to pulling out and hiding of weapons was slightly polished in past week. We have achieved what we were aiming for. While standing still you can start arming a gun, begin walking and meanwhile change stance to crouch - it will just work, oh and of course you can stop while doing that anytime. This of course means a lot to other player actions like for instance gestures or eating as can be seen in the video capture from our animation editor preview.

- Viktor Kostik / Lead Animator

 

 

Community Spotlight: Tom's Story.

Wow, a friendly user of our forums sent through a link to the following "real life" DayZ video:

While watching the video, I keep wondering where the film locations are at since it could be awesome getting to see places like that (probably just a matter of asking the guys who made the video). Aside from that of course, you can't help but be amazed at the effort the creators must have gone through in order to make a video like this come together. On top of that, it turns out that there are three more episodes in the series which is available through the following Youtube channel: Denny Onex, and according to their Facebook site it looks like there are even more episodes to come. Very well done!

As always, in case you also have a nice video containing DayZ related footage you'd like to share, or if you have an upcoming event of some sorts, don't be shy to post it on the DayZ Forums.

Header image credit: DOS_v1.05

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

[St. Jimmy 1631]

 

Quote

- Alpha to Coverage GPU Feature (Which will increase quality of vegetation rendering)

 

At least Arma 2 had a problem where people playing without the AtoC would get a great advantage because bushes and trees looks very thing (less "fluffy") without that. This was especially a case when you flew with helicopters. I hope you address this thing at some point if you haven't already.

Edited March 15, 2016 by St. Jimmy

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks devs/all!

I really like the idea of items in world containers.

Thank you to Hicks for detailing the blockers.

@Hicks_206 (DayZ) @SMoss

I would love to hear about how the dynamic infected spawn system has performed in house and maybe some details as to the mechanics involved with how far away they spawn, how many spawn, if how many spawning in is effected by how many players are approaching, and if there is a set number that can spawn in a period of time before the area is effectively "cleared" of infected until you leave or a specific period of time passes.

[odin_lowe 3686]

Very nice! Looking forward to all the changes we'll encounter in 0.60 and s on! Cheers fellas!

[Just Caused 423]

Looks awesome! Good job.

[emuthreat 2837]

I'm liking the format of the new and improved status reports.  Giving a bit of time to discussing blockers, completed tasks, and the current focus is just what people have been asking for.

[shinjuru 114]

I feel much better now that there's a more current Status Report.   Picked up a new graphics card to bring in .60!   Looking forward to it!

[Liven28 2]

Is the head ScreneShot a new renderer one?

[Ironhuge 69]

2 hours ago, Liven28 said:

Is the head ScreneShot a new renderer one?

It's the old renderer with high gamma. Also, you clearly see the "darkness calibration issues" on textures.

[Private Evans 1303]

How many and what kind of world containers can we expect ? For me this has always been high on my personal wish list and I am really excited to see this finally happening ! Also how much loot items will be stored in world containers percentage-wise compared to total items ? I guess having maybe a third of loot spawning inside containers should give some nice client side performance bonus since these items would not be rendered ingame. Will 0.60 also bring all the map changes like the overhaul of Cherno and Elektro the radio station on Altar and the contaminated military area ?

 

cheers and keep it up :)

[S3V3N 1402]

1. Good to know the new-UI will be equal to the old one in functionality. I didn't mind not knowing my "energized" and "hydrated" status; played without knowing it for months. What I hope for is that we can drag items off dead bodies and onto the ground again. That was one of the main issues with the (old) -newui functionality. 

2. +50% frames in cities is impressive. Seems like we'll finally be able to see some more action there (with both: AI and player encounters)

3. What worries me is that all the work is done to ensure the best possible release of 0.60, yet Mirek states: "it's possible, that first iteration will break the game even more." This seems to only concern Desync though and as long as it will be improved over time it's not an issue.

It's nice to get some more bundled information, and I appreciate it! I'm still grumpy about the delays, but I want to be supportive. It's pretty obvious that setting up the new features is a total grind. This reverse-engineering an old engine and replacing its components must be damn hard. I know it hardly is connected, but the difficulty with Duke Nukem Forever was originally that they switched engines and added features more often than Duke says "Balls of steel". The whole process of adaptation and learning starts over and over when they change core systems and switch out engine components. And with each iteration there are potentially more unknown bugs. Tough! 

I wish the devs the best of luck, but I do hope they'll push this release like mad. Can't wait to finally see it happen! And then hopefully a gradual but steady flow of new features, or rather re-coded features. 

Edited March 17, 2016 by S3V3N

[Arduras 8]

I agree with 7 largely. They already stated no patch this week so earliest bet is next Wednesday.

[rafap 9]

Only want thing please remove all weapon in game! because now is action game not Survival! weapons everywhere! where is that what Bohemia says when game was Announced? the WEAPON will be very rare....

[rafap 9]

IF somebody say what stupid you say read that with Dean Hall

http://www.pcinvasion.com/dayz-standalones-dean-hall-answers-questionshttp://www.pcinvasion.com/dayz-standalones-dean-hall-answers-questions

Answer for one with all questions

On weapon spawning.

Once improvised weapons, bow and arrow, throwing items is in – we will dramatically turn down military style weapons spawn rate. They will be incredibly rare.

And what we have now??

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, rafap said:

I-snip-

Once improvised weapons, bow and arrow, throwing items is in – we will dramatically turn down military style weapons spawn rate. They will be incredibly rare.

And what we have now??

Placeholder barely functioning versions of those things AND Beta is for balancing which is what you are complaining about here.

PATIENCE.

[S3V3N 1402]

13 hours ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

Placeholder barely functioning versions of those things AND Beta is for balancing which is what you are complaining about here.

PATIENCE.

I'm not sure though, if we will actually see this kind of sparcity in Vanilla-Dayz. It's probably going to be left to modders (or hopefully to server-owners) to make that decision. Most players are upset, if they cannot get a proper weapon and ammo within an hour of playing. Either that's how it is now, because besides guns there isn't that much to do and find. Or this is just the established gameplay now and suspect to change. And the constant flow of new weapon models makes me think not much will change. I do however find it weird to have tents full of gear at the moment. With a car you basically just roam around for twenty minutes and find all the chopper crashes. Even going to the military zones isn't that much a hassle and much easier than going through every house in a city in hope of finding an inferior rifle. 

Really curious if these things will change. Personally I think you should feel underpowered and overwhelmded (by infected) for most of the time. When you find the means to defend yourself, you should be really happy. I think pistols should be fairly common, but full-auto-rifles should not. I don't want to feel like having to count every bullet - I still wanna have fun shooting infected. Balancing this will be really difficult. Imagine a few pistol-wielders going to the airfield and a guy with an SVD is waiting in hiding. They wouldn't even come close with their pistols. So this future weapon-spawning policy would be an interesting thing to discuss by the devs. Are things going to change? What happened to the 0,1% (or close to that) chance of finding rare loot in a random location? I would dig finding that stuff occasionally out of the military zones. If you scavenge entire cities there should be more rewards, even though more sparcely than in military installations.

I think the northern airfield isn't attractive enough as a PvP-area. Hoping for mapchanges there, too (lots of wrecks on the runway and green-strip, barricades, fuel/oil puddles, bodybags). It just seems that beyond balancing there are also a lot of things pending that make thís a more attractive and believable world to play in. 

  

Edited March 18, 2016 by S3V3N

[IMT 3190]

22 hours ago, S3V3N said:

1. Good to know the new-UI will be equal to the old one in functionality. I didn't mind not knowing my "energized" and "hydrated" status; played without knowing it for months. What I hope for is that we can drag items off dead bodies and onto the ground again. That was one of the main issues with the (old) -newui functionality. 

2. +50% frames in cities is impressive. Seems like we'll finally be able to see some more action there (with both: AI and player encounters)

3. What worries me is that all the work is done to ensure the best possible release of 0.60, yet Mirek states: "it's possible, that first iteration will break the game even more." This seems to only concern Desync though and as long as it will be improved over time it's not an issue.

It's nice to get some more bundled information, and I appreciate it! I'm still grumpy about the delays, but I want to be supportive. It's pretty obvious that setting up the new features is a total grind. This reverse-engineering an old engine and replacing its components must be damn hard. I know it hardly is connected, but the difficulty with Duke Nukem Forever was originally that they switched engines and added features more often than Duke says "Balls of steel". The whole process of adaptation and learning starts over and over when they change core systems and switch out engine components. And with each iteration there are potentially more unknown bugs. Tough! 

I wish the devs the best of luck, but I do hope they'll push this release like mad. Can't wait to finally see it happen! And then hopefully a gradual but steady flow of new features, or rather re-coded features. 

I switched back to the old UI because of point 1. But because my FPS got worse I switched back and also thought it's much more realistic now. In real life there is no indicator which says how full, thirsty, etc. you are. Your body only shows symptoms which can be compared to the status messages. It makes the game more interesting in my opinion, specially for my "survivor" character which lives on hunting, horticulture, water from ponds, etc.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

3 hours ago, S3V3N said:

I'm not sure though, if we will actually see this kind of sparcity in Vanilla-Dayz. It's probably going to be left to modders (or hopefully to server-owners) to make that decision. Most players are upset, if they cannot get a proper weapon and ammo within an hour of playing. Either that's how it is now, because besides guns there isn't that much to do and find. Or this is just the established gameplay now and suspect to change. And the constant flow of new weapon models makes me think not much will change. I do however find it weird to have tents full of gear at the moment. With a car you basically just roam around for twenty minutes and find all the chopper crashes. Even going to the military zones isn't that much a hassle and much easier than going through every house in a city in hope of finding an inferior rifle. 

Really curious if these things will change. Personally I think you should feel underpowered and overwhelmded (by infected) for most of the time. When you find the means to defend yourself, you should be really happy. I think pistols should be fairly common, but full-auto-rifles should not. I don't want to feel like having to count every bullet - I still wanna have fun shooting infected. Balancing this will be really difficult. Imagine a few pistol-wielders going to the airfield and a guy with an SVD is waiting in hiding. They wouldn't even come close with their pistols. So this future weapon-spawning policy would be an interesting thing to discuss by the devs. Are things going to change? What happened to the 0,1% (or close to that) chance of finding rare loot in a random location? I would dig finding that stuff occasionally out of the military zones. If you scavenge entire cities there should be more rewards, even though more sparcely than in military installations.

I think the northern airfield isn't attractive enough as a PvP-area. Hoping for mapchanges there, too (lots of wrecks on the runway and green-strip, barricades, fuel/oil puddles, bodybags). It just seems that beyond balancing there are also a lot of things pending that make thís a more attractive and believable world to play in. 

  

 

On 3/16/2016 at 11:16 AM, SMoss said:

I wouldn't exactly say there's a narrow focus on guns:

New user actions framework in Enforce Script has been completed and while all actions are being rewritten into it they rely on a connection to the new player and new animation system, we have also looked at crafting processes currently used in game and usage of activities available in DayZ such as preparing fireplace and cooking, creating electricity system, construction of non portable structures, vehicle maintenance, growing crops, placement of objects, weapons handling, interacting with objects in world, doors barricading and others.

With such wide spectrum of different activities which were continuously implemented through the development and honestly most of them ended in prototype, unfinished or experimental state is easy that their usage can become inconsistent especially when we were trying different approaches to it over time. Now during general rewrite of scripted game systems and mechanics to Enforce script and overall heading towards Beta release it's a great time to overhaul everything which makes sense to overhaul and can be reasonable achieved in tight timeframe. Our aim is to bring as much consistency as we can into very different behaviors to unify and simplify them thus they become much more clear and understandable to players. I'm very proud that vision of physicality, tangibility and strong visual feedback through the whole game and it's actions and activities is becoming the reality which is, to be honest, quite unique in games nowadays. For example you can look forward to reinforcing the rule of hands even in crafting which become really close to user actions, or stretching the functionality of quick slots beyond their usual behavior seen in games.

For greatestest experiences it's immersion that matters... See you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

That there's a system in place which allows for a small risk involved in introducing a new gun in DayZ does not mean that focus has shifted towards that. As has been mentioned before; first priorities are not always first deliverables. Is DayZ in it's current state optimal for fans, me included, of ingame (pve) survival? No, we won't disagree on that, but I can guarantee you that pve survival elements have not been dropped on the floor.

This quote from SMoss should answer many of your above concerns in that post.

I have found rare loot in random locations fairly recently.

Scarcity will be controlled by server owners but VANILLA will likely have general parameters that effect loot amounts tied to settings like Easy/Normal/Hardcore and maybe different difficulties would even have different hives.

The CLE also JUST had a major fix AND balance is for Beta, as you know.

[Laurentiu 0]

Will there be a wipe once 0.60 hits stable ?

[Zurvivalist 300]

9 minutes ago, Laurentiu said:

Will there be a wipe once 0.60 hits stable ?

yes.. always with new updates 

[S3V3N 1402]

6 hours ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

 

I have found rare loot in random locations fairly recently.

The strange thing is - I haven't. And I'm playing 3-4 times a week often for several hours and due to the car I'm all around the place; without it mostly in the north. I've been to the remotest villages or those that are usually on nobodies routes (like Dobroe), and yet the rarest thing I've found was a CR527 mag. I find Blazes all over the place, but never once in the past months have I seen an automatic rifle anywhere outside the military zones. Of course - rare loot -may mean: really rare! So I was either unlucky or simply in the wrong place to have found that AKM in a shed. I can't believe that really happens, but if it would happen just a couple of times on each server - imagine the joy ^^

And the best thing is - finding rare military loot even just very occasionally would give you a new objective. You'd want to have ammo or attachments and go search for them. With the new way weapons will spawn with attachments, such a rare find will even be more precious. OF course, it shouldn't happen very often. It's like that heli-crash you find that has three pristine scopes and two mags or rifles. The jackpot!

I'd also sorta want to vote for better access to the UMP. It's seriously my favorite weapon in the game, but I'm either always running around with the magazines or the empty gun. As soon as I get them together, I feel like the UMP is to precious to take it to battle and often fall back on AK-74. It's nuts really, but when weapons are that rare, they are kind of too valuable to take on risky trips. 

---

Also: about the information. Why is it that either we get too little information from the devs, or we get so much that it borders on being confusing? It's sometimes a bit random, but I guess it just appears this way, because everyone on the team has their own field ot specialization. I know I've read that Quote from you (Biohaze) somewhere before, but I can't remember why or when. Somehow I would prefer shorter news, but more often. It's also nice that they get excited or emotional about their work, but I'm not sure it belongs in these reports. It's nice though, just maybe keep thoughts and information separated. 

Edited March 18, 2016 by S3V3N

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

5 hours ago, S3V3N said:

The strange thing is - I haven't. And I'm playing 3-4 times a week often for several hours and due to the car I'm all around the place; without it mostly in the north. I've been to the remotest villages or those that are usually on nobodies routes (like Dobroe), and yet the rarest thing I've found was a CR527 mag. I find Blazes all over the place, but never once in the past months have I seen an automatic rifle anywhere outside the military zones. Of course - rare loot -may mean: really rare! So I was either unlucky or simply in the wrong place to have found that AKM in a shed. I can't believe that really happens, but if it would happen just a couple of times on each server - imagine the joy ^^

And the best thing is - finding rare military loot even just very occasionally would give you a new objective. You'd want to have ammo or attachments and go search for them. With the new way weapons will spawn with attachments, such a rare find will even be more precious. OF course, it shouldn't happen very often. It's like that heli-crash you find that has three pristine scopes and two mags or rifles. The jackpot!

I'd also sorta want to vote for better access to the UMP. It's seriously my favorite weapon in the game, but I'm either always running around with the magazines or the empty gun. As soon as I get them together, I feel like the UMP is to precious to take it to battle and often fall back on AK-74. It's nuts really, but when weapons are that rare, they are kind of too valuable to take on risky trips. 

---

Also: about the information. Why is it that either we get too little information from the devs, or we get so much that it borders on being confusing? It's sometimes a bit random, but I guess it just appears this way, because everyone on the team has their own field ot specialization. I know I've read that Quote from you (Biohaze) somewhere before, but I can't remember why or when. Somehow I would prefer shorter news, but more often. It's also nice that they get excited or emotional about their work, but I'm not sure it belongs in these reports. It's nice though, just maybe keep thoughts and information separated. 

Yeah, the first iterations of the CLE saw more random rares and this too will be fine tuned in Beta.

I think the future has many of those jackpot moments in store.

These days there are some rare military clothes found in grey barns or military magazines in utility sheds mostly.

As far as info going from vague to convoluted, I would say it depends on who is reading it and in what context.

Basically what was said there is that adding something that's almost essentially another art asset with some varied maths and a few placeholder animations (new gun) with little impact on mechanics is not an indication of a less survival oriented game.

The potentially brutal difficulty of DayZ will not be realized until so many more features come into play so much so that all of the arguing about the direction of the game seems very very silly from my perspective.

[VVarhead 185]

Thanks for the great work!!!

 

Please include proper (loud) thunder and weather sounds in 0.60

[Kohlbar 270]

49 minutes ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

The potentially brutal difficulty of DayZ will not be realized until so many more features come into play so much so that all of the arguing about the direction of the game seems very very silly from my perspective.

Uuugh I can't wait though, I can't wait for when the survival aspect of DayZ will be genuinely challenging. I want to be starving so bad that I'll consider killing my fellow freshie that I just met just to eat his meat! Oh God!

 

[S3V3N 1402]

5 hours ago, Kohlbar said:

Uuugh I can't wait though, I can't wait for when the survival aspect of DayZ will be genuinely challenging. I want to be starving so bad that I'll consider killing my fellow freshie that I just met just to eat his meat! Oh God!

 

It'll also mean that sharing a meal with others is more than a friendly gesture; you might be saving somebody's life by it! Yet, I don't really see why we have to eat and drink so often. Okay - I get it, it's so nobody can kriss-kross around in the north, looking for camps. But the devs could use weather zones and temperature (in the future) to get the same effect. I'd want some more realistic eating + drinking and then we also wouldn't need all that food.

We should be able to stay alive on water alone, let's say for the game's sake - for just three days  ingame (sunsets/sunrise). Our character should perhaps gradually become slower and start shutting his eyes/blinking, needing more rest over time. And when we eat, our energy is up high, less rest required and we can run full speed. Right now eating and drinking doesn't at all affect our physical and tired state, the only thing it affects is the amount of blood you have. I would add more states than "energized" and "hydrated", but balance and mix them differently alltogether.    

Edited March 19, 2016 by S3V3N