Status Report - 27 February 2018

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

This week we, unfortunately, didn't give Brian much space to remember anything from the good old days of DayZ - and that's because we've got quite a lot of things that are happening in the present! We did our best to provide plenty of information about our progress and also detailed some design decisions regarding our damage system and ladders. Adam is also teasing some of the lighting updates he's working on, and to support all that, we've got a decent portion of visual materials this time - including videos! Let's get to it, Survivors!

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• Dev Update/Eugen
• Dev Update/Peter
• Dev Update/Adam
• Dev Update/Filip
• Community Spotlight

 

Dev Update/Eugen

Dear Players!

As the iteration speed on many of our features increases, we are seeing some good results coming in - both in terms of features and stability. In the last two weeks, we have been focusing on and finished the below-mentioned functionality, and as of now, we are closing more issues than are coming in, which is a good sign.

 

Ladders

Mentioned before a million times, but it's finally working and ladders are done on the player side. We're converting data for all buildings and working on sounds for ladders.

Swimming

Again, something that has been missing from the basic movements of the new character for a long time, and it's merged in and done now. As is the case with ladders, sounds are the last thing being added at the moment.

Unconscious state

We are currently at the beginning of the polishing phase of all the animations and data and looking into connecting the state with character representation and shock values.

Damage System (bleeding, penetration, ballistics)

After merging in our first working implementation of the new damage system, we're finally working on tweaking the damage values and states, penetration and ballistics. Looking to polish it for experimental release. Bleeding has been connected to the system as well and is working already. We are fighting issues with particles and blood and trying to find a good visual solution.

Jumping/Climbing/Bugfixing

Since swimming and ladders are working technology-wise, we have moved onto the proposed jump and climb mechanic. Jump is going to get in first, and climbing - as it is quite complex - is definitely going to require a lot more polish.

Stability

The QA team just got back to work on the build stability. Our stability has been pretty bad recently, with all the large features getting in, so most of our team is focusing on bug fixing and it has paid off already. We're definitely not done and there is still tons of crashes to fix, but the stability has increased by a factor of 30 in just the last two weeks. And I look forward to a normal play session on 0.63 Experimental RC (Release Candidate build).

User Actions

Because everything you do in-game is working through user actions, we are getting the proper animations in, making sure that the base survival mechanics work, and that there is a loop to follow when you get into the game. It makes the gameplay much smoother.

Weapons

Work on weapons has slowed down because some of our team members were traveling, and also because we wanted to get in more of the melee combat animations, with the last changes in heavy and light attacks. The guys from the animations team in are in general working on making sure both one handed and two-handed attacks are polished and ready for use.

Player turns/Prone

We're looking into what's next for all the amazing features that the new animation system has brought us and polishing them, trying to fix both functional and visual issues that arise from the fancy and cool prone combat.

4K UI and bug fixing

As we're working on expanding the usability of UI in different resolutions (including 4K), we have tons of bugfixes for inventory actions and visuals for icons, actions and a lot more. Making sure things work reliably with the UI is key now.

Refactor of Infected

Since a lot of the work on the player is getting done, our Lead Programmer Mirek is heavily focusing on a refactor of the infected, both in terms of stealth and combat. We don't want to promise anything, but we should hopefully be seeing the results soon, and build advanced features for the infected in quick succession after the basics of that work are merged in and working reliably.

Collision issues

Not much has changed here since the last Status Report. There is a huge pass on all objects in the game in terms of collisions for both gameplay reasons, camera, and much more. And since there are hundreds if not thousands of objects, depending on how you count some, this is definitely a long-term task.

I'm very happy with the progress we're seeing and can't wait to play with you sooner than you think (wink wink).

- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer

 

Dev Update/Peter

In the last Status Report of December, I was mentioning ladders. Now you can check them in all their glory in the presented video (thanks to Adam!). You can see the animations for climbing up and down with normal speed, as well as quick scale up and fast slide down. Also note that climbing the ladder is being shown on one long, continuous, seamless ladder, with the possibility to exit and re-enter the ladder on accessible levels in the middle of the tower.

Let’s jump to the ongoing work being done on the new damage system and ballistics. In the dark past, the old damage system used the so-called hit points (basically plain points positioned on a body, where the distance between them and the hit impact was compared in order to determine to which hit points the relative damage should be dealt). Now, in the new damage system, we are using hit zones, which are defined by meshes. That allows us to properly depict shapes of every desired component, leading to accurate hit detection and allowing us to incorporate terminal ballistics of projectiles to calculate the proper damage that should be applied.

DayZ is an authentic game, and I’m convinced that range combat should definitely underline this direction. Hit zones obviously correspond with basic individual parts of character's body such feet, legs, hands, arms, torso, and head. There are also additional hit zones for vital organs - brain, heart, spine, lungs, and liver to deepen the representation of the character body.

In real life, damage dealt by projectiles to the human body is very complicated and it’s fairly impossible to simulate it in game, so some necessary simplification is in place. Each hit zone has its own health which may or may not affect the global health of the character, as well as optional vital attributes.

A player character cannot directly die just by shooting its limbs - our goal here is to avoid unreliable situations like shooting the character 10 times to its feet in order for it to get killed. However, as projectiles' penetration leads to bleeding wounds, the character will die indirectly by bleeding out without a treatment. Also, limbs can be fractured if their health falls down to zero, leading to restriction in character movement unless treated by attaching a splint to the fractured limb, which will heal it over time.

On the other hand, damage the torso and head can lead to direct death (global health at zero), as well as indirect death by bleeding out. Vital organs have relatively low health, and destroying them leads basically to instant direct death, which opens a way to encouraging shot placement in combination with ammunition used, depending on current situation.

 

For determining terminal ballistics, we have a complex set of parameters in place. Projectile speed and energy now depend on barrel length, which allows us to differentiate between different firearms using the same type of ammunition. Of course, speed and energy decrease over time with the distance traveled. Penetration also depends on the caliber of a given projectile, and obviously on the type and thickness of the material used. There will be a coefficient that takes into account how projectiles behave while penetrating materials, which will help us mimic such behaviors as tumbling, or expansion, of different projectile types. From all these parameters, impact depth and damage applied is calculated to be as close as possible.

Now, to emphasize, I fully understand, that all of this can seemingly be perceived as somewhat mysterious behaviour, and could look like random or even buggy to observers, especially those who are accustomed to primitive damage systems where X hits from Y gun definitely leads to character's death. However, even with that risk, I want to give it a spin. Sure, it will be hard to balance and get it as right as possible, but hopefully, you will bear with us and at the end, you will appreciate the possibilities it opens. In worst case scenario, we will be forced, for the good of the game experience, to change it to a more streamlined approach, which will be more cleaner and understandable by yielding more predictable results.

No mercy for what we are doing... see you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

 

Dev Update/Adam

This time, my contribution will be rather short. With the 0.62 update, we have introduced many changes to the world lighting configuration. With the upcoming 0.63 update, we have made additional changes to address:

• overall brightness during daytime
• dawn and dusk transition brightness issues
• improve nighttime and star read-ability

Please note that following comparison pictures (0.62 vs 0.63 light config) are work-in-progress and do not represent the final state. It should also be noted that both pictures were taken on 0.63, which, compared to 0.63, also contains a number of colour improvements to environment assets (grass, vegetation, artificial objects).

Before

After

 

 

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Before

Afte r

 

-  Adam Franců /  Map Designer

 

Dev Update/Filip

Hi all!

For the last couple of weeks, we have been busy with ambient sounds. Though we're not finished yet, we've made some progress. Ambient sounds are more dynamic now and react to weather changes and location changes. We've also made progress with positional environmental sounds. Now you can hear birds and insect coming from trees and bushes, rustle of tree leaves in the wind above your head, metal squeaks and creaks coming from old building's roofs and much more. Here's a small teaser (please be aware that everything is very work in progress):

- Filip Čenžák / Sound Designer

 

Community Spotlight

Hello everyone, let's start with answers to some of your frequently asked questions:

Q: Will the cost of DayZ servers be reduced with the BETA release?
A: Yes. In future, anyone will be able to host their own servers on their own terms, as we want to release the DayZ Server Files with BETA. Maybe not right with the first BETA build, but definitely during BETA.

Additionally, we want to provide a Linux version of the DayZ Server Files, and that should further cut the costs of running a DayZ server. While we don't have direct control over the pricing offered by our selected server providers at the moment, the Linux Server Files should also lead to noticeable cost reductions with these providers. 

Q: Will the performance of the game be better in BETA or in the future?
A:  Optimizations of performance in DayZ are a continuous process, but we can definitely say that the game performance in BETA will be better than the current performance in 0.62 Stable. How much better depends on specific hardware. Besides optimizations of the rendering pipeline, we have rewritten multiple systems to utilize more CPU cores, we've implemented double buffering for rendering and changed some of the synchronous operations to asynchronous (which allowed further parallelization of those operations). All of these changes have a positive impact on the framerate in the game, especially client-side framerate.

Q: Do you have any plans for new buildings?
A: Yes, we already have some new buildings on the Northwest Airfield in 0.63 and more buildings are planned.

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I would like to tell you an interesting thing that happened already a few months ago, but some members of the community still ask about it today. We've got in touch with the creators of a Norwegian political thriller TV series named Okkupert (Occupied) based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø in 2016. A lot of you already saw the episode September (second series) which had DayZ in it. In the episode, the Norwegian Police Security Service is using DayZ to infiltrate a resistance group and to gather some information. You can see them playing on PlayStation 4, however, it wasn't for real. At that time, it was still not possible and a lot of you were confused. Let's check out some screenshots I've made:

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We know how hard can the current situation be for server admins and how hard can it be to keep your communities active. A lot of good servers died and we can't do anything for them now, but we believe (and hope!) they will be back after the BETA update. As I wrote earlier, with Linux servers, the rent should be cheaper, although we don't control pricing of the servers directly (that's up to server providers of course). I just want to thank all admins for being so passionate and for caring about the communities of their servers. Better times are coming!

Artwork by Eightarmedpet. 

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I found out some of you don't trust us about the Xbox version build. But yes, we are really working on the console version, on both of them  -  Xbox One and PlayStation 4 too. Here's a small teaser - hopefully, we'll be able to show them in action soon, as both versions actually run pretty smooth!

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I have not seen such a well-done video for a long time. Uncuepa is talking about his vision of humanity in DayZ. He has a lot of interesting thoughts. What do you think about this system, do you like it? 

 

 

This video has improved my day. I don't know if the participants were forced to sing, but this is kind of a "Chernarus got talent" episode. I love it, thank you for your work DuckyFTW!

 

Creator of regular DayZ Spotlights Boydy interviewed our map designer Adam "Sumrak" Franců. You can find a small video sneak-peak of Namalsk inside and some info about modding and map changes. Enjoy!

No cinematic video this week. 

 

Plonker made this cute Cartoony DayZ Turntable and showed it to us on Steam. And I am showing it now to you. :)

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And as the last thing, we have the riddle again.
Who won last time?

• Jake
• Bryce
• Johny K
• $€i¥ablitz
• OriginalChaostica
• Vetovote
• CanisDirus
   

This time is it a location from Adam again. So, do you know where is this house located?

Tweet it to us on our official Twitter account.

My part is so long again, but I am not sorry for it because it is from you and I love your work so much!

- Baty / Community Manager

 

Header image by Krush.

Also: did we just win or what?

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

@Baty Alquawen Another amazing Status Report.  Tell everyone to keep their head up, you guys are doing the Lord's work.  Seriously, great report.

[Gobbokirk 546]

Good read. Love the complexity of the damage system, hope it works out as planned :D

[Blafirelli 39]

49 minutes ago, Baty Alquawen said:

...we will be forced, for the good of the game experience, to change it to a more streamlined approach...

[ClaireOpen 116]

1 hour ago, Baty Alquawen said:

I'm very happy with the progress we're seeing and can't wait to play with you sooner than you think (wink wink)

In Beta We Trust. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks devs and all involved!

Sooner than you think, couldn't be sooner enough for my liking, but I'm keeping a torch lit for my favorite brutal time suck.

The audio teaser was nice and I really liked those before and after pics of lighting update.

Infected improvements will certainly bring a tear to my eye and hopefully a challenge to my mind.

P.S.: try to avoid saying things l like, "whoa so many questions to answer", and then ghosting the thread. That's poor customer relations....

Cheers!!

[Espa 711]

Wow, wow, wow!

This Status Report is Perfect.

So much good information, great positive vibes, awesome screenies, videos. . The whole shabang haha.

One thing that I don't know how to feel about is JUST HOW CLOSE IS BETA!? This SR has got me wondering just how much more there could be to do. . 

Especially happy to hear that your New Engine is much easier to assemble on and it's taking much less time :D 

Also! The new hitpoints look and sound pretty awesome. Been waiting a long time for it to be addressed in specialized places = specific damages and effects. Can't wait to play with that! 

Last Note!: For the Infected, super excited to see what you guys can muster up for them. Something I would really love to see is this Stealth that has been mentioned for 2 years or so. Like, would it mean that they would be quiet and be on the 'hunt' for players instead of lazily droning about? That would be very interesting. - Also, still not sure just how Undead these Infected 'Zombies' are. Is it possible that we see more gestures of them, depicting their natures? Sick = Coughing and sounding raving mad?

Keep up the AMAZING work. We cannot wait to play with your new work! 

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

Are those "before after" pictures the wrong way round? Because the before ones look so much better.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Espa my good man, you need to reread a little. You sometimes ask questions that have either been answered or obviously won't be answered (like release dates).

When I get a chance I think I'll bring over your questions from 2 weeks ago along with these and answer most of them from memory.

[philbur 476]

3 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Projectile speed and energy now depend on barrel length

I honestly would not worry about this.

Being a bit of a fan of high-power ballistic cartridges and long range shooting it is my experience that barrel length is not as big a factor as you would think on ultimate velocity and to a lesser extent projectile energy.

I know this is a good thing to pursue to add authenticity to the experience...but why bother now, when there are so many "major" tasks to tick off the list first?

Add to that...the ballistic coefficiency (BC) of the bullet is going to be the biggest factor in determining the trajectories and retained energy upon impact at different distances, so it would mean you would be adding a bunch of different ammunition options into the loot economy and seeing as Chenarus has two basic states (pre-infection civilian life and post-infection military occupation) it seems there would only really be two types of bullet design for each caliber. (Hollow\Soft point hunting bullets and Fully jacketed military "ball" ammunition).

Good to see a nice batch of updates from all of you, though...but I just hope you don't get sidetracked by details like this.

Manage your limited cycles! We will be more than happy to complain about stuff like ballistics when the time comes! hehee. :-)

BTW...

Tested 22-250, 6.5 Creedmore, 7mm Mag, 300 Win Mag, 308 Win, and 375 H&H Mag. Many bullet designs, weights, powders, and loads...with various barrels from 18 to 26 inches.

I lose about 30 F/Sec when I shorten the barrel by an inch....so based on 2500 F/Sec you can see that "velocity" is less worrisome. Accuracy does indeed suffer with shorter barrel length but remember that the rifling and type of barrel design play a big role in this.

Edited February 28, 2018 by philbur

[DannyDog 532]

1 hour ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

Are those "before after" pictures the wrong way round? Because the before ones look so much better.

I think this is the case. The before image of night has a much clearer night sky which was what they were aiming for.

[philbur 476]

11 minutes ago, DannyDog said:

I think this is the case. The before image of night has a much clearer night sky which was what they were aiming for.

Or....are they trying to give the night sky a bit of diffusion? It is nice to see a crystal clear night sky, but wouldn't it be more common to see a bit of "haze" across a large portion?

I don't mean light pollution...just general diffusion....

As long as the primary stars that are the ones we use for navigation (and planets of course) are visible we should be able to get around.

[DannyDog 532]

9 minutes ago, philbur said:

Or....are they trying to give the night sky a bit of diffusion? It is nice to see a crystal clear night sky, but wouldn't it be more common to see a bit of "haze" across a large portion?

I don't mean light pollution...just general diffusion....

As long as the primary stars that are the ones we use for navigation (and planets of course) are visible we should be able to get around.

Huh, I dunno then. I'm just not overly fond of the brightness of the shadows in the daytime images. The game has lacked some serious shadows in dark areas and GI and it would probably amp up the game's visual quality if they were added.

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

29 minutes ago, philbur said:

Or....are they trying to give the night sky a bit of diffusion? It is nice to see a crystal clear night sky, but wouldn't it be more common to see a bit of "haze" across a large portion?

I don't mean light pollution...just general diffusion....

As long as the primary stars that are the ones we use for navigation (and planets of course) are visible we should be able to get around.

Night time has to be right..... our mod depends on night light being damn near perfect.

[-Gews- 7443]

1 hour ago, philbur said:

I honestly would not worry about this.

Being a bit of a fan of high-power ballistic cartridges and long range shooting it is my experience that barrel length is not as big a factor as you would think on ultimate velocity and to a lesser extent projectile energy.

[-Gews- 7443]

The new damage system looks great, I didn't expect characters to receive hitboxes for organs. Will be nice for even a .22 to be able to kill someone with a lucky or skilful shot, eg, double-lung, heart, etc . Will be interested to see how damages are set, if they are changed—mentions 'energy' in the update?

 

Still wondering about the situation with eye zoom that was missing at Gamescom 2017.

[DannyDog 532]

Wait a sec, it's raining on a clear day?! What is this black magic?

Heh besides that, i noticed some of the equalization of rain is not so great. In the part where the character walks under the big metal cover you should hear the rain on the roof more predominantly correct? Cause I can't hear it very well.

Shameful self plug:

 

[The Ghost of Hoik 92]

Hat's off, great status report! The first community video is the best argument for a 'humanity system' I have seen - I would definitely like to see something like this implemented (love the additional stats such as comfort, entertainment and addiction). Are there any plans to try something along the lines of the video??

[BeefBacon 1185]

4 hours ago, DannyDog said:

Huh, I dunno then. I'm just not overly fond of the brightness of the shadows in the daytime images. The game has lacked some serious shadows in dark areas and GI and it would probably amp up the game's visual quality if they were added.

I prefer the brighter images. High contrast works fine for film, but it's not so great in videogames. I often tweak brightness and gamma settings in DayZ to try and get a flatter image

5 hours ago, philbur said:

why bother now, when there are so many "major" tasks to tick off the list first?this.

I suspect that it's to expedite future development. rather than having to do a bunch of new calculations for similar weapons, they can simply change a few values like barrel length and it'll do the work for them. Plus DayZ was built on a military simulator, so it's nice to see the standalone sticking to its roots in this manner.

[cirkular 178]

Great status report with some more in-depth view in the works @Baty Alquawen! So, looking at the ladders clip, can we look/aim up and down properly now? :D

4 hours ago, philbur said:

Or....are they trying to give the night sky a bit of diffusion? It is nice to see a crystal clear night sky, but wouldn't it be more common to see a bit of "haze" across a large portion?

I don't mean light pollution...just general diffusion....

As long as the primary stars that are the ones we use for navigation (and planets of course) are visible we should be able to get around.

Hmm, I think skies should be clear like in that 'before' pic. I really don't think there should be any pollution like haze visible in an area without any city lights to go against it, that was the first thing that amazed me when going out camping.

 

2 hours ago, The Ghost of Hoik said:

Hat's off, great status report! The first community video is the best argument for a 'humanity system' I have seen - I would definitely like to see something like this implemented (love the additional stats such as comfort, entertainment and addiction). Are there any plans to try something along the lines of the video??

I hope not. I would not hate it, but I wouldn't like it much either. Maybe a really lite system.

[LordBlackwolf 656]

3 hours ago, DannyDog said:

Wait a sec, it's raining on a clear day?! What is this black magic?

Heh besides that, i noticed some of the equalization of rain is not so great. In the part where the character walks under the big metal cover you should hear the rain on the roof more predominantly correct? Cause I can't hear it very well.

Shameful self plug:

 

I've actually seen it rain on a clear day in Florida more than once as well as while the sun was still shining in the sky so seeing rain on a clear day in-game isn't an immersion breaker as it does happen. I agree about the before and after pictures, specially of the night sky as it should appear darker depending on where you are (city, middle of nowhere, etc.) and I definitely can't wait to test the new damage system as it will make battles even better as long as it works as intended. Sooner than we think???? Hopefully it's before April, otherwise I might be playing battletech! 

Edited February 28, 2018 by LordBlackwolf

[DannyDog 532]

48 minutes ago, LordBlackwolf said:

I've actually seen it rain on a clear day in Florida more than once as well as while the sun was still shining in the sky so seeing rain on a clear day in-game isn't an immersion breaker as it does happen.

Having no visible cloud cover with rain as heavy as the video is either impossible or highly unlikely. Seeing how there's barely any information on this "phenomenon" I would assume it's just people mistaking it for rain from distant clouds. Unless you meant that you made it seem like rain falling from a completely clear sky is normal with no clouds is normal. Sun showers however, are completely normal and are probably what you're talking about.

Edited February 28, 2018 by DannyDog

[The Ghost of Hoik 92]

14 hours ago, cirkular said:

I hope not. I would not hate it, but I wouldn't like it much either. Maybe a really lite system.

If it was implemented subtly (as I think it was in the video) I don't think I would have too much of a problem with it. Much like the new damage model/system, this would bring added complexity and strategy to the game. At the least it could be tried out to see if it brings value to the game (also I don't mind this more 'gamey' approach to shaping players behaviour). 

Gotta say this status report has really got me excited :P

Edited February 28, 2018 by The Ghost of Hoik

[Tatanko 5591]

So very excited for what is to come in the near future! :)

#InBetaWeTrust

[GaryWalnuts 1680]

15 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Swimming

Again, something that has been missing from the basic movements of the new character for a long time, and it's merged in and done now.

Do you know what this means Gilligan?  According to my calculations, we may be able to reach Debug Island!