First round of professional Play testing has been completed!
Thank you for all of the valuable feedback on the first round of public play testing.
There were some absolute golden suggestions which I have since implemented. I will contact a few of you who made the suggestions to see whether or not I was successful in their execution:
I have been very busy over the last 10 days.....
1: UI Overhaul
This was the most requested change.
All UI font has been dramatically increased
All Tooltip fonts have been increased
Inventory and equipment slots have been increased
Icon size much larger when dragging an item to quickbar/inventory/equipment/storage
Drop from inventory/unequip buttons are now bigger and rotated to visually help the player identify their purpose
2: Info Panel Consolidation
This was the most rewarding of all of the changes: The character sheets, equipment, inventory, level up screen, skill experience, have now all been consolidated into a single sheet.
Currently the game does not pause while this is open, but will close if the player takes damage. I am keen to know you opinion on that.
3: Highlight all interactable items
Players can now hold down the Alt key and highlight all interactable items. As an added bonus, while holding Alt, if you press "X", you collect all items in their interaction range!
4: Updated Controls
Players can now hold the Right Mouse Button (RMB) down to continue running to the cursor location
Holding the RMB while the cursor is over the hostile will either move the player to their location and attack them, or continue to attack if they are in the player's attack box.
Holding the middle mouse button now now rotates the camera in the same way as the Q and E keys. This is also inverted in the pause menu
5: Updated Movement Logic
A great deal of time was spent updating how a player moves to an interactable object. The standard Unity Nav agent would often rather walk all the way around a house to open the door from the other side due to the interaction point not being on the navmesh.
The interaction point is now calculated from the closet point to the interactable from the player that is on the navmesh.
Additionally, the players can no longer click through a non-hidden wall of a building they are in to move to that point, which was a common way of accidentally running outside of a building and generally made inside navigation a bit awkward.
The waypoint marker has been updated to better show where the player is going (still requires refinement)
Overall the new movement logic with updated controls makes the game feel much more smoother and enjoyable to play.
6: Game Balance
There has been an overhaul of the damage system.
Damage Bonus is now factored by attack speed, which makes it essentially + to DPS. This stopped weapons the knives with a 2 attacks per second from being too overpowered
This makes the game a lot harder when you begin and will force the players to attack one zombie at a time until they find/craft some gear and level.
I have reduced the hostiles HP, and the amount of hostiles that spawn in a hunter group (which has a chance to occur on a timer, as well as when you complete a Clear Building task)
The players have also been slowed down slightly, so that running will always have to be weighed up against stamina drain. You can still outrun the Runner hostiles, but not for long
Other Quality of Life Issues
Placing your cursor anywhere over the bus un the tutorial will highlight and interact with the door
Added nav blockers to the beds to avoid the players sleeping through walls. Sleeping animations are on the list (far down)
Updated the flame effects on the torches, barrels and camp fires
Added large navmesh obstacles to the edges of each map to avoid non-intended spelunking
Available skills on the level up screen are now greyed-out when not available to purchase
Holding LMB will cancel your attack to block.
Added a text box to the mission select which explains the lack of narrative missions in the Demo
If there are no characters to choose from at the start of the game, it will say "New Character" instead
Loot now drops instantly, instead of waiting the 3 seconds for the dead hostile to be removed
Bug Fixes
Several running animations were not working. All 5 weapon sets should now be active.
Critical hits now correctly apply the normal attack damage + the crit damage
Added new hitbox refresh logic to fix attacking through newly opened doorways
The screamers now stand/taunt correctly
Health bars now show correctly and are much more performant (still may be issues while players are attacking through a doorway)
Eggs should not drop through the ground.... as much
Fixed the black square graphical glitch on Lanterns and camp fires
Added a check for items equipped when the player starts a task to collect a certain item
Added logic to stop the player from moving when they are at their destination (twitchy leg glitch)
Fixed animations and logic with running out of stamina while running to a point
Some kitchens had on overlapped cabinet with the sink
Changed some interior materials to non-metallic and therefore not shiny
Fixed the Jump-scare noise at the start of the first map
Players will now correctly spawn at the starting location if they have not set a new spawn point
Known Issues (next on the list to fix)
Hordes of hostiles can bug the navmesh and pop through a door.
New rag torch still causes a square glitching effect.
Road overlap glitch
Thank you all again!
-Joel