PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Forgotten Memes]

Normally I don't put points in From The Shadows, since Hidden Strike with a bow is fine, but Hated was wondering if knifes could ever be used for stealth kills, so last night I put 2 point in Hidden Strike and cleared a POI with stealth knife kills. Only a few hit me, since at certain angles you can't get a head shot for the instant kill.

You're exaggerating.   A significant percentage of zombies in any given POI are in closets, ceilings or otherwise impossible to stealth kill.

The reason this play style is eschewed by nearly all players is because it offers no benefit to the actual challenges of the game.   A nurse sleeping in the middle of a living room isn't a threat.  It's the trap room where the floor collapses and you're surrounded by 6 big mommas, the wandering dog packs and the horde nights that kill people.  Stealth are wasted points in these situations.

Stealth kills are satisfying and we all use them on occasion, but it's not a legitimate primary play style for a horde defense game.

 

[Khalagar]

we just don't think in terms of spreadsheets

Error, this does not compute

I admit, I may have a problem being too much of a "try hard", but hey, if you are going to lose anyway, you might as well lose after putting your all in it and spending 12.4 times longer theory crafting than actually playing!

I dunno if any of you have ever played Rimworld, but it's basically Spreadsheets The Game™ for a lot of it, and  usually the first thing I do when I land is immediately pause and spend like 3+ hours planning out my entire base, setting work schedules with a day and night work crew etc. Then die half the time before I even get to use any of it T_T

Spoiler

Stealth kills are satisfying and we all use them on occasion, but it's not a legitimate primary play style for a horde defense game.

Another big issue with stealth is that it doesn't work lol

I never invest a single point in stealth, and you can still just crouch down and use an unsilenced weapon and pick off all the sleeping zombies so long as you are out of their little trigger bubble thing. They will only aggro most of the time if you either miss a shot and your bullet damages a block inside the aggro radius, or if you step into their radius and shoot

Silencers are the ultimate noob trap. They lower damage and as best I can tell, do absolutely nothing. I don't even turn my mining helmet off or use a silencer, as long as you are outside the room the sleepers are in, you are golden.

A19 seems to have slightly changed the way their aggro works, they sometimes do wake up when I shoot their buddy next to them, but only if I'm really close. As long as I'm well outside their ambush, they just stand there and don't care that I shot their BFF standing shoulder to shoulder with them

 

[Aldranon]

Sexy Trex combos with Skull Crusher and the Strength passive buffs to make the most broken interaction in the game. Sledges don't work without Sexy Trex.

I would say any melee weapon becomes mostly obsolete when the fast zombies rush you in POI's.

But the shotgun is perfect for that exact situation (killing two or three zombies in one shot, or knocking down the rads) and has cheap and the only firearm line with truly infinite ammo.  With the Auto-shotgun... there are no problems. 

 

[Roland]

nearly all players

You just didn't want to say ALL players because of the last guy....lol

There are players who see the horde night as only 1 night out of 7 gameplay but exploring POIs as 7 days out of 7 gameplay. Sure...there are some instances where the sleepers are triggered to awake or fall from the ceiling and you won't be able to stealth kill but those times break things up a bit and add some excitement. Your mistake is that for you the horde night is the primary gameplay event of the game and it is what really matters and you are operating under the assumption that nearly all players feel the same way that you do.

There are some players who disable blood moon hordes and play for 100s of hours in their world never experiencing that part of the game and for them stealth works for pretty much the whole game they still have enabled.

Stealth players are going to be somewhat weaker on horde night. I bet they are still adequate to the challenge. I bet they could sneak into a large building and knock out the stairs and ride out most horde nights hiding on the top floor and never engaging the zombies-- ie being stealthy. Could anyone do that without spending the points? Sure, but then the cool kids who did spend the points get the benefits which work for most situations during the next full six days and nights.

 

[Aldranon]

You just didn't want to say ALL players because of the last guy....lol

There are players who see the horde night as only 1 night out of 7 gameplay but exploring POIs as 7 days out of 7 gameplay. Sure...there are some instances where the sleepers are triggered to awake or fall from the ceiling and you won't be able to stealth kill but those times break things up a bit and add some excitement. Your mistake is that for you the horde night is the primary gameplay event of the game and it is what really matters and you are operating under the assumption that nearly all players feel the same way that you do.

There are some players who disable blood moon hordes and play for 100s of hours in their world never experiencing that part of the game and for them stealth works for pretty much the whole game they still have enabled.

Stealth players are going to be somewhat weaker on horde night. I bet they are still adequate to the challenge. I bet they could sneak into a large building and knock out the stairs and ride out most horde nights hiding on the top floor and never engaging the zombies-- ie being stealthy. Could anyone do that without spending the points? Sure, but then the cool kids who did spend the points get the benefits which work for most situations during the next full six days and nights.

As all the Tier-4 POI's are Clearing, you want to wake them zombies up fast,

hose them down with fiery death (re-death?),

move quickly to the next room firing rounds into the ceiling while yelling "Here's Johnny!" 

 

[beHypE]

Ranzera and Khalagar you should consider opening a pro players only discord server. You both seem to have solved the game so well I wonder why you keep wasting your time spilling your knowledge all over us noobs. 

That being said you need to get together and discuss Run n Gun, because one of you thinks the game can't be played without it and the other one thinks it's a waste. Who's boss? 

Serious question : does power attacking zeds in the grills with knuckles avoid being affected by the new critical debuffs like it does for infection? 

 

[Forgotten Memes]

Basically no matter what build you go with, you are going to find it hard for those not to be a pretty core part of your build if you play long enough. You can make it to day 21 or something without gardening or without barter or daring adventurer etc, but you are playing the game on hard mode. If you aren't purposely gimping yourself, all of those perks are 100 times better than any random other perk you think you need imo

I've never put a point in gardening.  Why not just build 4x as many farm plots?  Traders make food a non-issue.  A meat stew might be 250 dukes, but wrenching down a single car and selling all the parts can get you 1k+

I also disagree that you better barter and daring adventurer are must have skills.   Questing is certainly a viable strategy, but until you have a vehicle you'll spend most of your day running to and from the trader.   Throwing down drop chests and spending the day clearing every single poi in a commercial/residential area is going to give you far better loot, more money and more xp.

I don't need to know what all the players are doing to see a meta coalescing. Too many game problems are solved in the Strength Tree right now.

I agree with most of your points here, however regardless of the nerfs to lucky looter its absolutely a must have skill for the increased search speed alone.

Salvage operations is one I tend to max out eventually.  Salvage is an absolute cash cow.  Salvage all the cars in town, pop a sugar butts and grandpa's awesome sauce and  you can outright buy a 4x4 or gyrocopter in week 2.

Sex rex isn't the bees knees. 2 points will get you through the early/mid game after that you really only need it if you want to do lots of melee or like to mine without an auger.

Master Chef is a noob trap, I always find enough recipies that it's irrelevant.

Gardening is similarly silly, I have 8 plots of potatoes and corn, no shortage of food.  Farm plots also make great base decorations.

Run and Gun is a must have, at least 1 point, now that you can put bandoleers in your pants additional points are probably not necessary.

The entire intellect tree would make me angry if you couldn't reset your stats.   It's full of must-have-if-you-don't-have-the-book skills.  Later when you have the books it's a big pile of wasted points.

The meta is controlled by the fact that shotguns and auto weapons are vastly overpowered compared to other options and that so many skills are rendered pointless by the correct books and mods.  Pack mule, penetration for rifles, cooking, the entire intellect tree, you can mod away the penalties to heavy armor making light armor moot, etc.

 

[Marinxar]

You're exaggerating.   A significant percentage of zombies in any given POI are in closets, ceilings or otherwise impossible to stealth kill.

The reason this play style is eschewed by nearly all players is because it offers no benefit to the actual challenges of the game.   A nurse sleeping in the middle of a living room isn't a threat.  It's the trap room where the floor collapses and you're surrounded by 6 big mommas, the wandering dog packs and the horde nights that kill people.  Stealth are wasted points in these situations.

Stealth kills are satisfying and we all use them on occasion, but it's not a legitimate primary play style for a horde defense game.

You do know that you can break open closets etc without them waking up, right ? I play Stealth, and it really feels good in Alpha 19. 

- Sneaking while breaking open closet, will not not necessarily wake them up. It is all based on your noise level.

- Investing the right points, will allow you to move over traps/fake floors/land mines, with more than enough time to get out the way.
- If you have the right gear and mods, you drop in in between those zombies and take them out like a ninja, with out getting hit once.

Thing is, stealth is specialized. You can't half-@%$*#! it. If you want to make a stealth build, you need to commit points, gear, and mod slots to it...., but it is rewarding and fun.

 

[Forgotten Memes]

You just didn't want to say ALL players because of the last guy....lol

There are players who see the horde night as only 1 night out of 7 gameplay but exploring POIs as 7 days out of 7 gameplay. Sure...there are some instances where the sleepers are triggered to awake or fall from the ceiling and you won't be able to stealth kill but those times break things up a bit and add some excitement. Your mistake is that for you the horde night is the primary gameplay event of the game and it is what really matters and you are operating under the assumption that nearly all players feel the same way that you do.

I don't say all because I've studied how intellectually dishonest people such as yourself work.  We ALL know there are exceptions to every rule, but you'll pretend you've won an argument by identifying an exception where everyone else merely assumed it and focused on the larger trend.

The problem that you're having is that you're emotionally attached to convincing people that stealth is working as intended instead of looking for ways to improve it.   You're projecting your dishonesty onto me.   I want stealth to be a compelling part of the game, but at this point it's not.  I'd much prefer to discuss how things can be improved, but here you are sabotaging that conversation.  I don't assume everyone shares my view, but I've observed the views of the greater community and I'm relaying them to you.   I can't think of a single streamer or youtuber who regularly plays a stealth build.  I've seen dozens of comments here, reddit, steam that have said stealth is not a viable strategy. 

Sure there is always that one guy who gives anecdotal evidence of how much he loves it, and there's always that guy who turns off hordes, plays on the lowest difficutly and still dies 4x a day, but the consensus is that the 7 day horde is such an integral part of the game loop that it's literally in the title of the game.   Likewise the consensus is that the most compelling skills are ones that help you overcome the most difficult aspects of the game.   Sleepers in plain sight with their backs turned are just not in that category.

 

[Forgotten Memes]

You do know that you can break open closets etc without them waking up, right ?

Yes, I'm aware of how stealth works.   Is it fun? Sure.  Is it rewarding?  No.   And that's the problem.  As you said it requires a massive commitment.   Human psy@%$*#!gy dictates that most people will gravitate towards the easiest path to rewards.   People will use cheats and exploits knowing they're just making the game less fun for themselves.    It's the task of a good game developer to make the fun parts compelling and rewarding.

If I could half-donkey it then it might become more rewarding.   If it yielded more loot or more xp then it might be compelling.  If most POIs were designed to reward the play style rather than punish it and it had value on horde night then it I might be convinced to make the investment.   None of these things are true.

I'm glad that this way of making the game more difficult brings you joy.   I enjoy playing on insane/permadeath, the nice thing about my way of bringing additional challenge is that it works flawlessly within the existing paradigm.  It's both fun and rewarding.

 

[Marinxar]

Yes, I'm aware of how stealth works.   Is it fun? Sure.  Is it rewarding?  No.   And that's the problem.  As you said it requires a massive commitment.   Human psy@%$*#!gy dictates that most people will gravitate towards the easiest path to rewards.   People will use cheats and exploits knowing they're just making the game less fun for themselves.    It's the task of a good game developer to make the fun parts compelling and rewarding.

If I could half-donkey it then it might become more rewarding.   If it yielded more loot or more xp then it might be compelling.  If most POIs were designed to reward the play style rather than punish it and it had value on horde night then it I might be convinced to make the investment.   None of these things are true.

I'm glad that this way of making the game more difficult brings you joy.   I enjoy playing on insane/permadeath, the nice thing about my way of bringing additional challenge is that it works flawlessly within the existing paradigm.  It's both fun and rewarding.

Yes... I am a sucker for punishment in that regard. Absolutely avoid exploits and cheats. Lower brightness, so that it is required to use Nightvision goggles at night and in unlit POI areas. 

As for reward, I do T5 quests.. So I dont have to fuss about making ammo. I make enough by not having to use a lot during missions, and I make enough dukes to cover the rest. With all the damage bonuses associated with stealth play, you kill everything but scripted event zombies (That wake up when you enter a certain zone regardless) while they sleep with a single headshot. 

 

[Aldranon]

Yes, I'm aware of how stealth works.   Is it fun? Sure.  Is it rewarding?  No.   And that's the problem.  As you said it requires a massive commitment.   Human psy@%$*#!gy dictates that most people will gravitate towards the easiest path to rewards.   People will use cheats and exploits knowing they're just making the game less fun for themselves.    It's the task of a good game developer to make the fun parts compelling and rewarding.

If I could half-donkey it then it might become more rewarding.   If it yielded more loot or more xp then it might be compelling.  If most POIs were designed to reward the play style rather than punish it and it had value on horde night then it I might be convinced to make the investment.   None of these things are true.

I'm glad that this way of making the game more difficult brings you joy.   I enjoy playing on insane/permadeath, the nice thing about my way of bringing additional challenge is that it works flawlessly within the existing paradigm.  It's both fun and rewarding.

And this is probably why TFP will not chose voxel in Part-2 for 7D2D or whatever their next game is.

Voxels make it too easy to work around a Dungeon Crawl.  Without Voxels, there could be POI's designed where a stealth player would completely dominate.  But not in this game.

THEN... there are people who enjoy role-play as it has it's own, indescribable, rewards that can't be put on a ledger. 

 

[FileMachete]

Last few pages about perks has been interesting.

Hard to argue against tagging a few perks as 'noob traps'. Would be interesting to see what the analytics show about their use.

Also fair to describe some perks as, 'must haves', with the caveat about a player not intentionally gimping themselves, and dependent on what the player chooses to do in that game.

Miner69er/Motherlode as example. Of course those are must haves for a miner, unless they're choosing to gimp their mining. With the assumption that they are aware of the benefits they provide. I'm sure there are some players who don't really read the descriptions, don't buy them and are either fine or wind up wondering why mining is so hard.

Yet I haven't defined what I mean by "miner". If someones definition of miner is collectiing the surface ore blocks as they explore then they might well disagree with the above about 'must haves'.

Spoiler

rant --not directed at you guys Khala, Ranz, Memes, etc. this morphed as I was writing. too much of the below in rw news. --

Point being that any 'fair' discussion requires agreed upon parameters & facts. Example being discrediting anothers point by switching the counter arguments proviso from "new players" to "experianced players". It's the "cheese" of debating.

... sorry, pent up frustration & yelling at the tv is so unsatisfying..

 

[Aldranon]

Last few pages about perks has been interesting.

Hard to argue against tagging a few perks as 'noob traps'. Would be interesting to see what the analytics show about their use.

Also fair to describe some perks as, 'must haves', with the caveat about a player not intentionally gimping themselves, and dependent on what the player chooses to do in that game.

Miner69er/Motherlode as example. Of course those are must haves for a miner, unless they're choosing to gimp their mining. With the assumption that they are aware of the benefits they provide. I'm sure there are some players who don't really read the descriptions, don't buy them and are either fine or wind up wondering why mining is so hard.

Yet I haven't defined what I mean by "miner". If someones definition of miner is collectiing the surface ore blocks as they explore then they might well disagree with the above about 'must haves'.

Spoiler

rant --not directed at you guys Khala, Ranz, Memes, etc. this morphed as I was writing. too much of the below in rw news. --

Point being that any 'fair' discussion requires agreed upon parameters & facts. Example being discrediting anothers point by switching the counter arguments proviso from "new players" to "experianced players". It's the "cheese" of debating.

... sorry, pent up frustration & yelling at the tv is so unsatisfying..

I beginning to wonder if the mining perks are even needed in A19.  

Making steel is so late game its not even funny and iron usage is low for me.

Stone to make concrete to strengthen a POI for BM is not too much...  

But once you want to make your own, large POI, I would say its required.

I'm also avoiding staying underground as I feel the need to get used to a non-voxel game. 

I just get the ore I need and head top, anyway the large boulders give a LOT of rock!

 

[Jost Amman]

The problem I see with some detailed feedback on perks balancing and whatnot is that it's often provided by the same type of players, those who love spreadsheets and analysing the heck out of the game. Casual players and role-players are much less committed into writing essays on how they like to play, so the field is unbalanced IMO and the message that gets through on the forums is almost always the one of the min-maxers.

On that subject, I agree that some balancing is needed but I also think that people often forget that real life itself is "unbalanced". There are exploits and "shortcuts" even in real life... though they probably often tend to land on the unlawful/immoral side of things. But anyways my point is that some degree of unbalance makes things fun and makes sense even when compared to real life.

Don't ask engineers to design a game I say, ask them to code it!

I've played perfectly functioning games with all kind of balanced features that killed me into boredom. 

It's very rare to find good coders that are also good at designing fun games.

In 7DTD there's also the problem of players thinking that they need to be THIS or THAT and if they commit to an attribute it's like they signed a contract.

They want to see their character be great at X in the shortest time possible and if they can't they give negative feedback.

Personally I like to spread points here and there as I see fit on the moment and most of the perks give you an immediate advantage in some area with even just one point.

The perks system is still a work in progress and it can get better, but it needs to be the design of ONE person who will chose ONE type of approach. Any game can have its own approach to skills and attributes and many are different from each other, that doesn't mean they're bad or good, but a good skill/perks system needs to be coherent in itself and that's where I'd draw the line when asking for changes. The current design pairs attributes with skills/perks and IMO that's the line that shouldn't be crossed when balancing it.

The last thing we need to consider is that the perks/attributes system needs to be split between Single Player and Multiplayer.

Trying to balance the needs of one vs. the other is like trying to reason with someone with bipolar disorder.

 

[Thecolours]

Bleeding is coming back with a vengeance.

 

I hope this means we can invest in a blade and bow bleed build soon. 

 

[beHypE]

And this is probably why TFP will not chose voxel in Part-2 for 7D2D or whatever their next game is.

Voxels make it too easy to work around a Dungeon Crawl.  Without Voxels, there could be POI's designed where a stealth player would completely dominate.  But not in this game.

The voxel excuse can only go so far. I get it, it's way more difficult to code than in a static world. But if line of sight / noise levels can't be done properly enough to ensure a proper stealth system, I wouldn't hold my breath for the upcoming bandits. 

About making stealth rewarding, I think it needs to be gamified. Maybe add a perk that gives +1/+2/+3% more experience for each successive stealth skill, stacking up to 5 times or something along those lines. Maybe a bigger chance of getting loot bags, basically reward slow/tactical gameplay to compensate for the fact that you don't just run around all guns blazing, thus taking more time. 

And obviously stealth needs to work properly. 

 

[FileMachete]

I beginning to wonder if the mining perks are even needed in A19.  

Making steel is so late game its not even funny and iron usage is low for me.

Stone to make concrete to strengthen a POI for BM is not too much...  

But once you want to make your own, large POI, I would say its required.

I'm also avoiding staying underground as I feel the need to get used to a non-voxel game. 

I just get the ore I need and head top, anyway the large boulders give a LOT of rock!

Yes indeed. That's pretty much one of the points I was trying to make. :classic_smile: Without defining "miner" it leaves things very open to interpretation.

If I'd written something like, "to me a miner is someone who spents most nights, and sometimes entire days, just mining non-stop." then my saying Miner69er/Motherlode are must haves would've better defined. Certainly doesn't mean anyone has to agree, but it would set the definition so a reply like, "no they're not, you can just buy mats from traders" is clearly not addressing the claim in a fair manner. The stated definition makes no mention of mats, just that a player mines quite a bit. They could be tossing the mats because all they want to do is build a cave system.

And hopefully the above doesn't come across as 'coming at you', that isn't my intention at all. Your post is very fair and you're clearly stating a number of limiters that clarify areas of uncertainty. Which gracefully opens the door for responsive clarifications and further discussion.

 

[Ranzera]

I think a lot of people misunderstand my point. I think other trees should be more compelling. Strength being a super stat isn't good for the game.

I would say any melee weapon becomes mostly obsolete when the fast zombies rush you in POI's.

But the shotgun is perfect for that exact situation (killing two or three zombies in one shot, or knocking down the rads) and has cheap and the only firearm line with truly infinite ammo.  With the Auto-shotgun... there are no problems. 

You can believe the Sledgehammer falls off, I like it so much I don't really want it to get nerfed anyway.

 

[rubens9311]

Me he encontrado con esto muchas veces también con barras de madera, marcos de madera, etc. 

Parece que si miro hacia otro lado y luego vuelvo a donde quiero colocar el bloque, de repente aparece. 

Hello! This already happened from alpha 18. 
And I don't remember if alpha 17 also.
 Minimal problem so I think it was not reviewed