PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Gazz]

You can quickly put down some wood spikes that damage the zombies while you shoot them, does that make them OP ? By the way, you'd know that while the turrets can "stunlock" the zombies or keep them knocked on their backs, that also means you hitting headshots reliably became that much more difficult.

My point is, unless there are 8+ zombies coming at me and the setup is right, it takes more time to deploy two turrets, grab my gun, kill the zombies and pick up my turrets after the fight than simply shooting all of their heads with a gun. And guess what the most important resource in the game is ? Time. Let's also not forget all the situations where playing with turrets is a struggle.

...

It's easy thinking of things you have never tried extensively as an easy to solve equation, i.e.  2*turrets + 1*gun > 1*gun. Things aren't that simple in reality though.

With all the ahh... feedback... during A18 I have seen nothing to convince me that the balancing of gun turrets is way off.

Using them as a main weapon you are going to reload a lot and 2 of them are just bound to run out at the same time.

An individual turret is less powerful than a T3 gun and while turrets have some stopping power they are not as good at stopping a charging horde. At that point you have to use more tricks.

Will you be able to rule the world if you max out 2 attributes and get 2 turrets in addition to a fully decked out T3 weapon? On paper, yes, but you do spend a lot of time managing those turrets and that cuts into the time maneuvering and using the full potential of your main weapon. Time is a resource that many don't take into account.

 

[beHypE]

With all the ahh... feedback... during A18 I have seen nothing to convince me that the balancing of gun turrets is way off.

Using them as a main weapon you are going to reload a lot and 2 of them are just bound to run out at the same time.

An individual turret is less powerful than a T3 gun and while turrets have some stopping power they are not as good at stopping a charging horde. At that point you have to use more tricks.

Will you be able to rule the world if you max out 2 attributes and get 2 turrets in addition to a fully decked out T3 weapon? On paper, yes, but you do spend a lot of time managing those turrets and that cuts into the time maneuvering and using the full potential of your main weapon. Time is a resource that many don't take into account.

Yep totally, people think of raw numbers while in action, without considering the time needed to maneuver the turrets, before, after and in the middle of a fight.

Some things that, in my book, could be looked at in order to provide a smoother experience :

- fixing the bugs : zombies dying while standing (I believe faatal stated he's going to take a look tomorrow), turrets falling through blocks like railings, tables, the broken bridge in Navezgane...

- maybe reworking the cone... I believe it's something around 90-120°, if anything i'd rather have it have slightly less max range and a bigger detection radius

- reworking the way points in Int & in the turret skill affect the turrets (dismemberment chance while placed down - obviously not 50% given the crazy attack speed -, attack speed while wielding)

- adding mods, because a lot of them don't work for turrets and they have no dedicated ones

Maybe the issue isn't actually the turret itself but the stun baton. I believe the core of the design was to "lock zombies up" while turrets do their thing, but i've tried the stun batons with maxed out perks / mods, and they are just plain terrible. Reworking those would be a buff to the kit as a whole.

 

[falloutcloud]

Yep totally, people think of raw numbers while in action, without considering the time needed to maneuver the turrets, before, after and in the middle of a fight.

Some things that, in my book, could be looked at in order to provide a smoother experience :

- fixing the bugs : zombies dying while standing (I believe faatal stated he's going to take a look tomorrow), turrets falling through blocks like railings, tables, the broken bridge in Navezgane...

- maybe reworking the cone... I believe it's something around 90-120°, if anything i'd rather have it have slightly less max range and a bigger detection radius

- reworking the way points in Int & in the turret skill affect the turrets (dismemberment chance while placed down - obviously not 50% given the crazy attack speed -, attack speed while wielding)

- adding mods, because a lot of them don't work for turrets and they have no dedicated ones

Maybe the issue isn't actually the turret itself but the stun baton. I believe the core of the design was to "lock zombies up" while turrets do their thing, but i've tried the stun batons with maxed out perks / mods, and they are just plain terrible. Reworking those would be a buff to the kit as a whole.

I would like to see mods for the turret so you can customize it to either have longer range or cover a wider range.

 

[meganoth]

Nope. Players need to go loot if they want the best stuff.

It feels like a better accomplishment to have cleared a tier 5 POI and got that Q6 items to, than to just craft it.  You risked your life for it, not just toiled in the dirt for a while.

With the new candy rockbusters you can get 20% more resources for like TEN minutes... it's a really great buy for 100 dukes. My point is you don't need an auger to get a lot of resources.

Does the candy bonus stack with perk boni? If it does people will still feel the need to always invest into miner69 and motherlode and want an auger asap.

If it does not stack it could be seen as an alternative to those perks.

@Roland So while it isn't balanced to be this way, my guess is that the Intellect class is supposed to be used as a support build and one could not solely rely on that attribute to survive and thrive like one could theoretically do with the other builds?

I would have assumed a perked turret used together with an unperked weapon are supposed to be somewhat similar in power to a perked weapon with an unperked turret.

Perkwise it would mean you could solely rely on INT.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I updated the A19 pics! so for those that if you want to just look at the new items, books , perks , and food

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/19344-a19-live-stream-arts/

just go to the bottom!

 

[DaVegaNL]

I had to leave the last night's stream halfway so I had to skip the Q&A.

What baffles me is that people could have asked tons of good questions but most in the chat were just fooling around and wasting this opportunity.

Nobody asked, for example, about legendary items... it was a big feature announced several times, why is it not in A19?? Will it be in A20?

Also Mini-Bosses were announced for POI loot rooms, but they're not in either, why? Will they be in A20 or have they been scrapped like the behemoth?

When the sledge turret was first announced I actually thought it would be a new type of fixed turret you could use in your base design.

Will there ever be more turret types for our base designs? There has been talk for some time of a Flame Turret, but I guess that's been scrapped too?

It would be great to also have a fixed version of the Sledge Turret that we could place as a block: the INT portable version will probably mostly be used by INT guys IMO.

I've got a simple answer to many of your questions: Postponed. 

 

[Jugom]

About the permanent degradaion of tools and weapons; I've always tought it should be included ingame. Mantainance is an important thing and here's my idea of how it should work.

If you wait until your weapon/tool/armor breaks to repair it, after the third break, it will be repaired to a lower quality. The mods will remain, but if you take it off, you can not put it back in.

But if you repair it before it breaks (mantainance), it will always remain the same quality.

so you always make sure to do mantainance to all your gear before horde night or hitting a big POI.

 

[Maxley]

I just woke up, had a vivid dream of mad mole showing off the new extreme weather survival. He was showing how you needed skis in the winter biome while traveling on snow, otherwise you would sink down waist deep into the snow and move like half speed. This concept likely is stupid, but I was definitely really hyped in my dream 

 

[Cotabucky]

I have not been in forums for a while but I play modded stuff with my altered XML and a friends Xmod stuff often. I just wanted to say thanks to all the team behind 7dtd! I am so happy to see so many past glitches gone ! I run my own dedicated server. I have played since A8 . It's so nice to see things work so reliably in A18.Many of the things I once modded have been added to the game so requires me to not have to do much anymore modding. It's nice to see so many improvements that make the game just work! Roland is a great Moderator! Madmole and others taking the time to respond is a lot different than the many years I got ripped off buying "AAA" titles and this Early Access game is evolving and improving more than I ever thought it would! No matter what anybody else says this is the best example of Early Access! I payed less than $20 for a game I have been playing for years!!! Keep up the great work!!! Can't wait for alpha 19! I do run a 16k map btw lmao. Takes over an hour to start it 1st time but I did more than once . The giant lake in the center sucks but it works.Most people without 16gigs of ram won't even be able to load it. It peaks over 7 gigs Ram just to start on client lol.   It will take a good 15 minutes+ to download a 16k map from client haha

 

[Cotabucky]

I put demo soldiers in every night spawn in xml(Random chance). Helps keeps down the Peter pan roof top cheat anybody can do during horde nights lol. I should open up my server(Un password it) . I just hate hackers so trying to avoid that. I bet most veteran players would be happy with it. 

 

[Laz Man]

I put demo soldiers in every night spawn in xml(Random chance). Helps keeps down the Peter pan roof top cheat anybody can do during horde nights lol. I should open up my server(Un password it) . I just hate hackers so trying to avoid that. I bet most veteran players would be happy with it. 

Wb cota glad to see you around here still.

 

[Jost Amman]

I've got a simple answer to many of your questions: Postponed. 

Well, I really hope so... but my rant wasn't much on TFP (which are doing a great job IMO), was more about how people who take the time to watch a 3 hours stream waste the opportunity for more spot-on questions. I also understand that some people asked intelligent/interesting questions that were missed in all the chaos... and that's even worse, because all those that were spamming the chat with "untimely" jokes were contributing to that mess. 

Oh well, I guess it will all be forgotten/forgiven once A19 starts downloading lol

 

[sillls]

Hey! Long time, no see. What did I miss?

I have been hearing about a stream. Anyone have a Link to this? 

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Well, I really hope so... but my rant wasn't much on TFP (which are doing a great job IMO), was more about how people who take the time to watch a 3 hours stream waste the opportunity for more spot-on questions. I also understand that some people asked intelligent/interesting questions that were missed in all the chaos... and that's even worse, because all those that were spamming the chat with "untimely" jokes were contributing to that mess. 

Oh well, I guess it will all be forgotten/forgiven once A19 starts downloading lol

Everyone's question is great/important to themselves. It's not always great or important to other people. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[Jost Amman]

Everyone's question is great/important to themselves. It's not always great or important to other people. Different strokes for different folks.

No, I'm sorry, that's not what I'm talking about AT ALL.

I'm talking about people asking questions about A20/21/B1 on a A19 stream (and that's in the best case) or just simply spamming the chat with small talk between themselves during the Q&A part. I know it's difficult for people to behave because we're all hyped but I'm a bit disappointed we may have wasted the opportunity to get more info or even to point out blatant bugs that came out during the stream game play part.

Anyway, as I said, this will all be over soon and in the long run doesn't matter much. *shrugs*

 

[Tin]

No, I'm sorry, that's not what I'm talking about AT ALL.

I'm talking about people asking questions about A20/21/B1 on a A19 stream (and that's in the best case) or just simply spamming the chat with chit-chat during the Q&A part.

I know it's difficult for people to behave because we're all hyped but I'm a bit disappointed we may have wasted the opportunity to get more info or even to point out blatant bugs that came out during the stream gameplay part.

Anyway, as I said, this will all be over soon and in the long run doesn't matter much. *shrugs*

My observation watching the last 3 streams so far:

Its more about generating hype, and showcasing some of the behind the scenes team members, and what they have done so far (good things in themselves). 

The questions themselves, 'seem' nothing more than filler at best. Unless, they plan to dedicate a stream, or just post answers to some of them down the road later.

The live stream questions? ummm, yeah. Obviously, not working out all that well, so far. 

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

No, I'm sorry, that's not what I'm talking about AT ALL.

I'm talking about people asking questions about A20/21/B1 on a A19 stream (and that's in the best case) or just simply spamming the chat with small talk between themselves during the Q&A part. I know it's difficult for people to behave because we're all hyped but I'm a bit disappointed we may have wasted the opportunity to get more info or even to point out blatant bugs that came out during the stream game play part.

If you say so.

What baffles me is that people could have asked tons of good questions but most in the chat were just fooling around and wasting this opportunity.

Nobody asked, for example, about legendary items... it was a big feature announced several times, why is it not in A19?? Will it be in A20?

Also Mini-Bosses were announced for POI loot rooms, but they're not in either, why? Will they be in A20 or have they been scrapped like the behemoth?

For the record, there were questions about legendary weapons in the chat. I am sorry that the Devs did not provide answers to all of the questions you wanted answers to. But I take objection to you attacking people who were in the chat while the Q & A was going on because you are unhappy about what the Devs chose to answer. The Devs answered the questions they wanted to. Most unanswered questions were repeated over and over and over again. Obviously I don't know what Joel and Lathan saw in the chat but there were plenty of questions asked multiple times that the Devs didn't address. 

 

[Roland]

Is there a list of all A19 updates somewhere? The one at the beginning of this topic clearly does not include everything that is known by now.

Yes. The patch notes which should be released in about a week if things stay on track which is why I have no desire to duplicate all that work right now. 
 

Watch the streams to see everything that is known so far. 

Roland is a great Moderator!

Thanks but I have zero power on Prime’s server. Stabby is his moderator. In fact, I got a couple of comments deleted, myself.  D’oh!

What can you do against power tripping moderators?
 

Welp....off to go change my Steam review....

 

[Roland]

I'm a bit disappointed we may have wasted the opportunity to get more info

Ask your questions here!

 

[FileMachete]

@Jost Amman & @Kosmic Kerman, you both make valid points about the dev streams, imo of course.

Even though I know streams are generally fairly casual things; chatting on various topics, interacting with the randomness that the viewers post, etc.

I had to remind myself that they're not really "interviews" like we might see on a news program, or the results of one that we read in the paper.

I noticed that when they decided to start answering questions near the end of the stream, MM appeared like he was kind of expecting a complied list of questions. He even mentioned looking at the dev stream thread here in the forums for posted questions.

Which made me think of how he used to handle Q&A about upcoming Alphas. The forum thread that someone would parse through and complie a list of questions, then MM would make a vid of him reading and answering a lot of them.

Maybe adding a bit of that kind of thing into the streams could be useful?

Start off the stream w brief general intros, maybe a few minutes of teaser play/pics/what-not, then hit the first group of questions that were posted in the thread. Then go casual, let Prime & the devs have some fun & show stuff we may not have a clue about. Be 'streamy' I guess Then to close out the stream address the remaining thread questions or have an open Q&A.

-- just my .005 cent