PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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So far looking good, I don't do much for underwater but now it'll look more interesting when I have to dive down.

Oh i had an idea as something completely random, how hard would it be to make a working radio in the game where after its crafted, the player can move music to the radio folder in 7 days to die and have it play in the gyro, motorcycle, 4x4, and at home, of course coming with risk of luring zombies, can make for fun traps too.

 
Roland said:
I don't think it is a missed opportunity. I think it was a calculated prioritization. They were able to create more content that the greater part of the player base will experience instead of content that the smaller part will experience. Extended endgame content is great for post gold updates but for the gold release TFP is trying to flesh out and pack content into the first 30-50 hours of gameplay. I'm not saying they won't add some more T5 quests. With bandits they might even activate the currently dormant T6 level of questing. But their priority is getting the game to gold and having a fully fleshed out game for a solid playthrough --not counting going and redoing T5 quests twenty times. ;)
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I think even many new players will try to get at least one attribute to max before restarting the game (if they stay with the game at all). And they will do a lot of quests. And in that case they will reach the T5 loop long before restart. So even for beginners (but also for old hands) there needs to be some further balancing:

1) you get offered only one T5 quest at the trader even in late game. Maybe even exactly one quest of each level.

or

2)  2 T5 selected from T5s in a much wider area, one guaranteed T4, the rest random from 1-3

or

3) draw out the time until you get offered T5 quests

 
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faatal said:
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Added underwater fog (darkens with night, worldglobal xml has density, speed and color settings).

View attachment 8829
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May be me or im stupid or its the new book, but is that a boat i see?

Phoenixshade35 said:
So far looking good, I don't do much for underwater but now it'll look more interesting when I have to dive down.

Oh i had an idea as something completely random, how hard would it be to make a working radio in the game where after its crafted, the player can move music to the radio folder in 7 days to die and have it play in the gyro, motorcycle, 4x4, and at home, of course coming with risk of luring zombies, can make for fun traps too.
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a17 had a mod liek that, got broken cause of how sound files changed i think? I was thinkng the same thing, its not too bad to inplemant and then just have a folder with .ogg files for sound. Did this in minecraft. changed all the disks to "what does teh fox say" and made the range 10k block and its was a 10hr repeat. Best.Thing.Ever LOL

 
meganoth said:
I think even many new players will try to get at least one attribute to max before restarting the game (if they stay with the game at all). And they will do a lot of quests. And in that case they will reach the T5 loop long before restart. So even for beginners (but also for old hands) there needs to be some further balancing:

1) you get offered only one T5 quest at the trader even in late game. Maybe even exactly one quest of each level.

or

2)  2 T5 selected from T5s in a much wider area, one guaranteed T4, the rest random from 1-3

or

3) draw out the time until you get offered T5 quests
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Given how loot is rebalanced in the past, #3 would be the likely change would be my guess.

 
meganoth said:
I think even many new players will try to get at least one attribute to max before restarting the game (if they stay with the game at all). And they will do a lot of quests. And in that case they will reach the T5 loop long before restart. So even for beginners (but also for old hands) there needs to be some further balancing:

1) you get offered only one T5 quest at the trader even in late game. Maybe even exactly one quest of each level.

or

2)  2 T5 selected from T5s in a much wider area, one guaranteed T4, the rest random from 1-3

or

3) draw out the time until you get offered T5 quests
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I'm not sure why you think people even play T5 quests, I don't they aren't worth 2 hours and 500 rounds of ammo IMO and create player fatigue. I stick to the tier 4's they take long enough. I think t5's are for MP groups. We're able to collect data now and see how many people actually bother with T5's, my guess is a very small percentage and our development bucks are much better spent on more T2s and 3's. T5's are so big they take forever to make too, one designer could make 5 pois in the time it takes to make one of those.

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.

 
madmole said:
I'm not sure why you think people even play T5 quests, I don't they aren't worth 2 hours and 500 rounds of ammo IMO and create player fatigue. I stick to the tier 4's they take long enough. I think t5's are for MP groups. We're able to collect data now and see how many people actually bother with T5's, my guess is a very small percentage and our development bucks are much better spent on more T2s and 3's. T5's are so big they take forever to make too, one designer could make 5 pois in the time it takes to make one of those.

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.
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I see them as an endurance test and it is quiete rewarding having the whole place clean, especially coordinated with a group.

There i could imagine having the telemetrics helpful that you talked about quiet a while back, to see who actually plays them.

I for once would allrady be happy with more big Prefabs, not actual T5 quests. There could be several Tier 3 or Tier 4 quests be inside.

Its your teams skill to build them so immersive and thought-through that i love the most about the big Buildings. The love to detail

 
Might be a nice mix-up for high lvl quests to have like a 'swarm' thing happen.

Like if the Stadium, when reset for high lvl quest, had 20 zeds in a locker room.

Something were single players might well consider building a little bunker to survive the rush.

Would potentially be fairly fast to run, need'nt rely on super complicated POI builds.

... dang it... did i do it again @Roland ... ??

You're fine :)   The only problem with the last time was that it went off the rails into full blown discussion about Empyrion so I backtracked to the best starting place I could to move it all to pimp dreams. Not really your fault-- just the way it happened. Gazz didn't help... ;)  

               -- Roland

Edit: oops. hadn't read MMs reply yet.

 
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Orsey said:
The flag on the location of the trader is a block, but has animation.
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We also can't craft it so it is limited and won't hurt performance. One concrete mixer that spins probably wouldn't hurt performance either.

If only players would build only one....

 
unholyjoe said:
?? maybe multi-block with an attached entity ?? :) sometimes some things are unnoticed
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Lol, like a zombie with his head stuck in the cement mixer while it's running? Sorry, sometimes my imagination goes wild, can't help it... :classic_blush:

madmole said:
a lot of cement mixers are gas powered IRL. A lot of job sites don't have electricity yet when they need to pour concrete.
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Also, typing "gas powered cement mixer" into google yields some good results for those who would like to check if this is actually true and what does the thing look like in real life. :violin:

 
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madmole said:
I'm not sure why you think people even play T5 quests, I don't they aren't worth 2 hours and 500 rounds of ammo IMO and create player fatigue. I stick to the tier 4's they take long enough. I think t5's are for MP groups. We're able to collect data now and see how many people actually bother with T5's, my guess is a very small percentage and our development bucks are much better spent on more T2s and 3's. T5's are so big they take forever to make too, one designer could make 5 pois in the time it takes to make one of those.

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.
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Two reasons:

1) At my trader in A18 there usually are no T3s or T4s on offer but just 3 T5s, 1 T1 and 1 T2. Is it only me that sees this all the time?

2) People do T5s when they still haven't found their weapons and tools in quality 6. T5s are the reliable way to get offered such stuff.

 
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meganoth said:
Two reasons:

1) At my trader in A18 there usually are no T3s or T4s on offer but just 3 T5s, 1 T1 and 1 T2. Is it only me that sees this all the time?

2) People do T5s when they still haven't found their weapons and tools in quality 6. T5s are the reliable way to get offered such stuff.
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I think it would be good if there is always one of each quest tier below the current tier you have reached. I hadn't considered the quality 6 reward you get for T5. That certainly is a strong incentive to do them multiple times under the current loot system.

 
meganoth said:
Two reasons:

1) At my trader in A18 there usually are no T3s or T4s on offer but just 3 T5s, 1 T1 and 1 T2. Is it only me that sees this all the time?

2) People do T5s when they still haven't found their weapons and tools in quality 6. T5s are the reliable way to get offered such stuff.
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Also, what are the data worth if there are many players who spend most of their time in game testing (and restarting the world often) rather than playing?

 
madmole said:
I'm not sure why you think people even play T5 quests, I don't they aren't worth 2 hours and 500 rounds of ammo IMO and create player fatigue. I stick to the tier 4's they take long enough. I think t5's are for MP groups. We're able to collect data now and see how many people actually bother with T5's, my guess is a very small percentage and our development bucks are much better spent on more T2s and 3's. T5's are so big they take forever to make too, one designer could make 5 pois in the time it takes to make one of those.

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.
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Madmole, T5 is really annoying, but it's the best chance to get T6 tools. I started a thread talking about "how to get an Auger T6" and after 258 days still on the hunt, but at least I got some good T6 tools. Weapons are way easier looting all kind of quests, but tools, specially auger/chainsaw (even though I was still able to get only T5) your best chance is from T5 quest reward.

 
Starting with A19 they will have the means to see what regular players are doing with the stable build and not just internal testers and ultra-fans are doing with the experimental build. So they will be able to track gameplay of those who play to Day 1000ish if they want. I suspect they will be much more interested in those who play to Day 100ish though. :)  

For Alpha 20 and onwards Joel will be able to give actual percentages and we will find out whether our preferences are held by the majority or just the fringe. Do we really want to know....?

 
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