PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Adam the Waster]

I would say no, purely by intuition. But MM would say:

When

East

done.

hahaha

well uselessly with a stream they release a update! so hope today or tomorrow! 

 

[madmole]

But remember that with shared quests all players collect the reward items and dukes from the traders.  Multiply it out for a crew of five doing a few sets of quests each day... you are talking about some serious rewards and big stacks of dukes...

But here is another thought.  Maybe the best way to nerf this is to make it so that only the quest taker can collect the dukes and reward items?

I'm guessing the issue is, one guy has secret stash 5 and he's buying all the best gear, because no way can he loot the best gear in a week. And doing T5 quests probably. Once traders are just a touch better than what you can find in POIs (a20) this should be solved.

The problem with quests is that they need some prerequisites to work, but those premises are different depending on the type.

1. Clear quests need all spawns/sleepers to be reset for them to work
   
2. Fetch quests need to place a satchel in an hidden compartment or block that must be still there
   

So when someone destroys the POI or kills the zombies in there the starting conditions are not valid anymore.

The most logical and realistic solution would be to treat quests like we'd do in a real situation.

If a POI has already been cleared the game must check that and exclude that POI from the list of "Clear" type quests.

At the same time, the Fetch quests, could work anyway, since you'd just have to place the satchel somewhere upon quest activation.

Using this approach you don't need to magically rebuild POIs upon quest activation, they will stay the same for the rest of the game.

Now the problem becomes that in MP games all POIs would at some point become looted and cleared.

We have several possible solutions to this:

1. The normal zombie respawn rate for sleepers will take care of the Clear type quests automatically (placed will be filled again after some time)
   
2. The normal loot respawn rate for containers will take care of the scarcity of loot in MP games (it already works like this)
   
3. We need a new type of quest called (i.e.) "Rebuild/Refurbish" where you are sent to a POI to repair it and will succeed only after you have repaired a number of blocks and furniture to their original status.
   

This way the quest activation marker will become just a normal quest-start point while the POIs will always be in the state the player/s left them (unless you rebuild them with the appropriate new quest type that is).

There are way too many ways for things to go bad, like the zombie spawns could have blocks placed on them, the bag locations have been figured out and trolls surround them with steel, griefing everyone.

The design team wants players to experience the POI how we made it, not how Troller Joe left it.

 

 

[madmole]

Been thinking about the overall Food Mechanic in 7dtd, and contrasting it with Empyrions.

The main thing I kept coming back to as to why I preferred EGSs system was that RNG/pre-knowledge doesn't dictate progression.

To be fair EGSs system has alot more bits, so not having RNG be a big factor there might make sense while 7dtd can leverage RNG to up the difficulty. (not trying to make a 'designer' argument, just trying to provide a bit of info on EGS for those who don't know it).

So, just a thought but what if Corn, Potatoes and maybe Mushrooms were scarce but findable out in the wild?

Not as common as Aloe or Yukka, but more like the old Biome where there was occasionally a corn plant.

(and definately more common than Tree Stumps; I only found 6 TSs in a whole 90min day+ looking for them)

(maybe if the solo Snowberries had a 50% chance to be a Corn/Potato plant?)

This would provide an alternative for when RNG is being a pain.

Could also allow some loot/perk consolidation, if desired.

Could make 'Seed Crafting' just an inate skill, not a perk. Rationale being Canned food used to be basically low-mid tier, certainly good enough to use all game. That's really not the case anymore. Cooked foods are the new normal, not just a luxury, so Farming is also now a basic need (unless raw corn/potatos/etc get added to loot), and as such maybe the very basics shouldn't cost points.

Not saying the bonus harvests wouldn't still be 'farming' perks, and there's still gathering all the materials in order to make the farm plots, and gather the plants in the wild before you can make seeds and start a baby farm.

But could allow Seeds to be removed from loot tables, which might actually wind up making getting a farm going a bit harder.

Just seems a bit more in line with the extended Primative stage of things, and might feel a bit more natural progression wise.

Edit: Just to clarify, by 'wild' I mean out randomly in nature like the solo Snowberry bushes. Not dependent on a POI spawning.

Potatoes, corn and mushrooms already are in the wild. Any more abundance would make survival super trivial and free seeds? Buy the perk already if you think it is that important. We're not making stuff easier nor handing out perks you can buy for FREE with the starter quest. That is what those free points are for, for you to role play your own special innate knowledge. Stop wasting it on combat if you think you should know how to cook and farm from the start.

Really? Cool beans if so then.

huh, ok. Blueberries I recall looting, and Corn Meal. Guess I've just been blind to the others, heh.

And was aware of the small fields for Corn/Potatos/Blueberries, but those are POIs.

I'll edit my post to add-->Just to clarify, by 'wild' I mean out randomly in nature like the solo Snowberry bushes.

There are tons of POIs that have small gardens, and farms with enough food to last one player for weeks already. Adding more is just going to make the game too easy.

 

[unholyjoe]

The design team wants players to experience the POI how we made it, not how Troller Joe left it.

i swear i did not do it... i was all alone that night and i have witnesses.

 

[madmole]

What is the revenant? I visited the forums everyday and that is new to me. 

A theoretical special infected zombie possibly coming or hitting the cutting room floor for A20. People love him so far though.

 

[Kattla]

Any plans for pipe-wheels?

 

[Toban]

Awesome, be sure to share the link here. I'm building a pretty large castle in my current play through but it nowhere near done yet, but I finally have 4 walls and all the outer towers built. Hopefully I can move in soon

Hey Madmole, here is the link to the castle. I built it just for fun while waiting for the game to come out of experimental.

Just a FYI to anyone else that watches, the comments said in the video are just for fun. 

 

[madmole]

Balance. I think most people are discussing balance of the game because it is an interesting exercise and the final balance hasn’t been determined yet. I really doubt anyone is giving actual thought to how others play the game. When they say “people can double dip” they aren’t intending to stop “people” from having fun. They are calling into question the balance of the game. 
 

I think that allowing double dipping of a POI is out of balance for SP but probably not so very much for MP. Others disagree with me and voiced that double dipping along with quest sharing completely ruins the balance of the game for MP as well. 
 

Why have the discussion at all? Because, by all that his holy, the name of the freaking thread is “Developer’s Diary” and it is the exact place that is appropriate for players to call into question the balance of the game design and possibly hear an explanation from the developer. 
 

Why should a developer care whether the game can be played in an unbalanced way even if some find it fun to do?  That all depends on the goals of the creators of the game. They have to measure their desire to have an airtight ruleset for their game that is balanced towards giving the player a good challenge against what they feel is the most fun. 
 

But this IS the place to talk about it and it is not because anyone wants to ruin the game for anyone else. We want to question and debate and discuss alternatives and hopefully learn a thing or two from some very successful developers in the field. 

Double dipping completely ruins the balance? How so? You are digging up the sand outside. You are harvesting the cement mixer. You are going inside, looting and fighting off zombies. You could walk next door and, down the street to the next place, so on and so forth doing the exact same thing. The only advantage to double dipping is you don't to walk 10 meters to the next house, which could have all the same stuff. I don't see it as ruining any balance. It simply feels cheesy is all.

I'd like to solve it, but nobody can come up with something better than what we have. It isn't an easy problem. Your solution of a timer has way less freedom and what if someone is inside? Your timer of failing doom is counting down, and someone is in your POI, and you fail, after walking 2 hours to the POI and nothing you can do about it.

 

[Adam the Waster]

A theoretical special infected zombie possibly coming or hitting the cutting room floor for A20. People love him so far though.

WELL WHAT DOES HE DO Mole of Mad?

and what other ideas of special zombies? COUGH Feral Crawler! COUGH

 

[madmole]

What some developers lose sight of is that they can, in many cases, provide both options to the player.  Examples are Loot Balance, the scaling of Game Stage, and the difficultly of obtaining loot.  You can easily add Advanced options that allow the player to modify the game so that is is more casual or hardcore.  Maybe some people prefer Stone tools, Iron Tools, and steel tools being based on Game stage; While others prefer to have a completely random loot experience.  This could be done with a 3 step slider for Graded Loot, Semi Graded Loot, Random Loot.  It gives both types of players what they want.

Loot difficulty?  Maybe there is a slider that dictates that too.  Option 1 End Loot only spawns in Safes with 20k HP; Option 2 Guns and Ammo only spawn in safes; Option 3 All Loot Spawns in related crates, random locations, and standard safes.

With the type of game this is, it has drawn a set of people with broadly different ideas of what makes the game enjoyable to them.  As a developer, I would hope that The Fun Pimps can see that the more ways that they can support to play the game, the broader the audience they will reach.

Adding options is a slippery slope that sends a message that we don't know what we want the game to be. We do. The problem is you 5000 hour guys want this or that. Average consumers don't care, they just want to hop in and have some fun. Too many options allows new people to really screw the game up and then they think it sucks and quit forever. We are for options that allow the game to be played in a whole new way, but not 20 flavors of ice cream on every topic. That is what mods are for.

One final thought on double looting poi's...

Is the real issue people have with it just grabbing the final loot, then starting the quest? or is it the looting the entire poi?

I personally don't see an issue with the people who clear and loot the whole poi before starting the quest. Honestly usually you would be better off just doing the quest and spending the extra time target looting a poi without a quest that has a high chance of having things you actually really need (eg a paper mill if you are using a blunderbuss or shotgun). If in mp there are few buildings left close by to loot, then let them get double from quests imo.

If the issue is with people nerdpoling to the roof to grab the final loot only and then starting the quest, madmole has talked about changes in the works to make this either much more difficult or impossible. Until those changes are in, talking about spending time reworking game mechanics to fix something that might not be "broken" seems premature.

How many hours did you have in before you nerd poled to the roof to cheese the loot though? At that point you already got your moneys worth in the game. Why should we fix something it takes 100 hours to figure out that some self control solves? It is no different than any game, once you played it you figure out easy ways to do stuff then can choose the easy way or play it legit. I'm not saying we won't address this, but when there are QOL features that everyone could enjoy or bandits not in yet, I feel like working on loot a holics anonymous programming is a waste of time.

Does anyone that play's MP have a problem that the non host doesn't seem to get infections/abrasions etc? My husband hosts not on a server, and i have not once been infected etc but he get's them quite often when getting hit. I have been hit heaps of times and gotten nothing?

Known issue, I believe it is now fixed in the next exp.

 

[madmole]

Thats a nerdpoling issue then isnt it.

Heres a very simple solution: you cannot place a frame while jumping outside your land claim zone.

You can still build and make a ramp to your destination, but it will be a lot more difficult.

Alternatively, you could have a loot stage modifier that temporarily increases depending on recent zombie kills. Say, each zombie killed within the last 5 min or so increases your loot stage by a certain amount up to a cap. Killing another zombie refreshes it, this way you have to kill a minimum number of zombies to get the best loot and nerdpolling will give you @%$*#! loot.

Essentially this ties the challenge to the reward, if you cant do the challenge and go straight to the reward, you WILL be disappointed.

I'm not a fan of inconsistencies. So at my base I can magically place a frame under my feet, but lose this ability elsewhere? Most people don't even use a claim so it would become a hidden feature.

 

[STyK_]

Hey Madmole, here is the link to the castle. I built it just for fun while waiting for the game to come out of experimental.

Just a FYI to anyone else that watches, the comments said in the video are just for fun. 

makes me wonder if any good time period mods exist, only melee and primitive weapons, you'd be doomed but it would be fun. Looks good!

 

[madmole]

you missed 'while jumping'.

that would only affect nerd polling, meanwhile building a catwalk over a dicey trap would still be perfectly fine (so long as your not jumping!)

I like the idea of finding a special key, in fact that key could be unique per character so that as long as a player loots that key they can get the chest, regardless of who else has been through, which would be nice in multiplayer.

Nothing worse than clearing a shotgun messiah and getting to the loot at the top only to realize a nerdpole sitting next to an empty chest.

Jumping, not jumping? Doesn't matter at all. I can build a nice marble circular staircase to the roof if I want to. Or make stairs by breaking blocks to stand on.

 

[Toban]

makes me wonder if any good time period mods exist, only melee and primitive weapons, you'd be doomed but it would be fun. Looks good!

Thanks, and yeah, I love the new slower progression in 7. If they do manage to get in slower gating, I'll be using it haha. I like the idea that after 2 weeks of playing I find my first gun haha.  

 

[Callum123456789]

28 minutes ago, Toban said:

Hey Madmole, here is the link to the castle. I built it just for fun while waiting for the game to come out of experimental.

Just a FYI to anyone else that watches, the comments said in the video are just for fun. 

nice!

 

[madmole]

Agree completely.  This isn’t really about the loot.  In fact, the amount of extra loot that is harvested is pretty negligible. The real issue is that the developer has invested time and effort to provide a unique and exciting experience and double looting only serves to cheapen or spoil that experience.  We get it that players are choosing to do it but it is now so common as to almost have become a meme.  My thought is that the developer would want to do what they could to preserve these game experiences in the spirit that they were intended.

If you want a corridor shooter, sure we can do that, zero bugs, great performance, no exploits. But making big open world, do what you want how you want kind of games like we do, like Bethesda does leads to a lot of bugs or exploits. I'll take free style open world with bugs/exploits any day over perfect corridor shooters with only one way to win. This isn't an excuse not to fix things, but more of a general it is how it is because of x statement.

 

[SnowDog1942]

If you want a corridor shooter, sure we can do that, zero bugs, great performance, no exploits. But making big open world, do what you want how you want kind of games like we do, like Bethesda does leads to a lot of bugs or exploits. I'll take free style open world with bugs/exploits any day over perfect corridor shooters with only one way to win. This isn't an excuse not to fix things, but more of a general it is how it is because of x statement.

I would think you guys have a much harder challenge than Bethesda due to the destroyable and buildable world. 
 

Now, For game 2, please make a skyrim style game with RWG and building/destruction.  

 

[Blake_]

@madmole would you talk a bit about what you are working on at the moment? 

 

[madmole]

I hear that selling stacks of gun safes makes you uber dukes......still........should maybe look into that. Sounds game breaking.

If you think parting with
    <ingredient name="resourceForgedSteel" count="40"/>
    <ingredient name="resourceSpring" count="5"/>
    <ingredient name="resourceMechanicalParts" count="5"/>

for 200-300 dukes or so depending on your barter skill is game breaking, then the whole game is much more game breaking. I can find a gun worth 600 much faster and easier than I can gathering those resources and craft that item.

 

[madmole]

1 hour ago, Toban said:

Hey Madmole, here is the link to the castle. I built it just for fun while waiting for the game to come out of experimental.

Just a FYI to anyone else that watches, the comments said in the video are just for fun. 

Very nice! How did you make those 1/4 crenulations at the very top? Is it just an L shape over and over?

I see you used creative mode for some of it, was it all built using creative menu? Day 20 would and your low level would suggest so. Not that it matters, I was just curious