PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole]

Why does the game need a 14000 tri coffee pot though?

To look good next to the 30,000 polygon soda machine.

Except it wasn’t a sudden addition. Digging zombies was in the game from the start. It was gone for a few alphas and then returned.  Digging zombies have been in more alphas since Kickstarter than they haven’t been. 
 

Google it!

Exactly. Be thankful they arne't swiss cheesing under your fort like before.

Doesn’t matter what the percentage is. It’s just a big group of people who have the wrong idea of what the game is and thought that the unfinished state was representative of the game.

Turn zombies off and now the game is a fun building game where your creations are safe. 

I wasn’t trying to invalidate any criticism. I was trying to correct your inaccurate representation of why zombies dig in the game today. I thought I was very straightforward about that. 
 

The other criticisms are valid in that they surely represent disappointments with the game. They also show a lack of understanding about what type of game this was going to be. 

I watch the kickstarter video and see Alpha 19+. The spirit of the game hasn't changed since its inception.

 

[FileMachete]

To look good next to the 30,000 polygon soda machine.

heh heh heh that's what happens when you render all those CO2 bubbles (jking!) :biggrin1:

And apologies if I misunderstood how "deco" was being used and then went ahead a requested one.

 

[Gazz]

Someone literally said they want to be in their bunker and sit out horde night and the beauty of that is: You absolutely can!

Turn off horde nights and you can even play the game during that time and feel all smug about having outsmarted all those zombie fools with your superior game option skills! =P

 

[madmole]

Lol. News flash...its still unfinished. And people have that idea because that's how the game was billed. And yeah - the percentage of users with that mindset does kind of matter.  

And I don't want to turn the zombies off. That skates around the entire point. Myself and a lot of other people enjoyed building bases to ride out hordes. Expanding those bases. Tunneling from those bases to other resources rich areas to avoid the onslaught. That's what was fun for us. Don't build the support structure correctly? Cave in and you lose all your hard work. 

There have been additions and removals from the game seemingly to counter specific gameplay styles. Styles that were valid.  That has the effect of alienating people with those gameplay styles. That's literally all I'm saying. And I'm not a 2% minority. 

Hey, at least on console it can't get better.. but it won't get any worse.

"ride out hordes"

What was to ride out? You were 100% safe. You can turn off hordes and get the same experience.

"Don't build the support structure correctly? Cave in and you lose all your hard work. "That hasn't changed at all.

"There have been additions and removals from the game seemingly to counter specific gameplay styles. Styles that were valid." No there hasn't been. We work to remove cheesy exploits so it is not possible to be safe without a lot of work. We're not sitting here scheming against certain player archtypes. We are players too and build, farm, and play the game probably more than 99% of you guys. What feels cheap to us, feels cheap so we try to address it in a way that seems fair and good for the spirit of a survival game. It needs to be hard to survive the hordes, not dig 3 meters and put a frame over your head and you are at end game.

Again mod it or turn off hordes. You don't have to disable zombies completely to get that old play style back, you simply turn off hordes.

Why are you seemingly trying to counter specific gameplay options?

 

[faatal]

@faatal: you've mentioned in the dev stream with lathan a performance problem on your side (huge frame drop, where may be a terrain texture wasn't loaded). I too suffer from this from time to time.

I've testet the new console commands and both times when it happends

Gfx st forceload


solved the issue for me

Just fyi (in case you need feedback).

Update: happend right now again - and this time forceload wasn't helping. Maybe it was just luck last time...

I'm already done with those performance changes.

gfx st x are streaming commands and forceload is a Unity debug option that just makes streaming textures load, which would not help if a texture was slow because it is in system RAM.

Friday I actually disabled streaming when texture quality is less than Full, since both features are doing a similar reduction in textures and due to what seems to be a Unity bug were not working correctly with each other leading to blurrier streamed textures.

Testers found that some FPS drops were actually biome particles, so today I fixed that:

Fixed Particles in snow and desert cause major FPS drops (balanced sand, smoke and snow particle rates to a reduced max count of 150).
Changed "Water Particles" video quality option to "Particles", which now also decreases world particle count.

 

[FileMachete]

Someone literally said they want to be in their bunker and sit out horde night and the beauty of that is: You absolutely can!

No idea if things have changed, 'range' wise since a17, but if you were something like 50+ blocks underground the zeds couldn't path to you. So wouldn't even need to turn off the horde.

Random: I keep meaning to try this late game, and keep forgetting to; pretend those 6 engines in the genie are all 350ci small blocks and -reallllly- up the juice to the electric fencing. Grab a chair and some sweet tea and enjoy the night air while all the zeds go zzzzAP!

 

[Khalagar]

In Minecraft you can't have everything without ever leaving your house and the attached mine.

I have to admit, I felt like a dinosaur when I tried playing modern Minecraft so I'm pretty out of date on it. Back in my day it was just a game where you dug and built stuff, now it's got magic and villages and villagers and apparently dragons?!

You can craft everything in the game without looting. Sell your ingots and crafted things, ores to the trader for parts or guns, then scrap them and build top end stuff.

Have I mentioned I basically do not have RNG, I believe I was cursed from birth. I have to max all the trader perks to have any chance at seeing anything I actually need, and even then it's a crap shoot. Freaking junk parts just don't exist for me, every run I've done in A19 I get a full Junk Turret as a reward before I've ever even seen a Junk Sledge or gotten enough parts to craft one. Junk parts scarcity (for me at least) are like 90% of the reason I loathe the "parts" system honestly

Unrelated but while talking about crafting, there's one thing I saw someone mention once on the forum that's really stuck with me and I think raised a good point. Armor crafting could really use a re-work, because of the way your perk scales with it. By the time you can craft level 5 leather or cloth armor, you can just craft level 5 Military armor instead.

It would make a lot more sense if the perk unlocked higher level lower tier armor faster. For example, 2 points in your armor perk would let you craft level 5 Cloth Armor, level 2 Leather armor, and level 0 or level 1 max Military armor. The actual numbers would have to be thought about, to decide if level 5 cloth armor is equal to level 2 leather and level 1 military armor etc, but you get the point.

Not sure how hard that would be to  code, but it would make armor crafting . . .actually a thing. Currently, I've not crafted a single piece of armor since like A16 or when ever the perk overhaul was, there's just no reason to craft armor yourself when you can find it easier and when you are punished for crafting lower tier armor instead of crafting a higher tier item that's the same quality. Like why would you craft level 3 Cloth armor when you unlock level 3 Leather Armor at almost the same time, and can find the materials for it just as easily?   The perks differentiating armor tiers to grant higher quality options for lower tier armors earlier would actually make the armor perks appealing early game, or appealing at all tbh.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

When it comes to zombies digging down to me, I welcome it to be honest, keeps me on my toes, what I do after they dig down to me, which has yet to happen for some reason is I simply fill the hole with concrete, easy fix, they will dig more dirt, i fill the holes, eventually I will be safe underground unless all i get are demolishers.

Looting has been kind to me so far, all i did was put lucky looter to 3 and have goggles on with +4, never needed to perk farther in, and i have found almost everything, all i have left to find and get a taste of is the auto shotgun haha.

I can't wait to see what next game you guys have in mind to make, is it going to follow the survival ways of 7 days to die, except maybe be scifi or space bound, or will it be a different kind of zombie game.

The only thing i look forward to in the future is more stuff to rip apart haha.

 

[madmole]

I have to admit, I felt like a dinosaur when I tried playing modern Minecraft so I'm pretty out of date on it. Back in my day it was just a game where you dug and built stuff, now it's got magic and villages and villagers and apparently dragons?!

Have I mentioned I basically do not have RNG, I believe I was cursed from birth. I have to max all the trader perks to have any chance at seeing anything I actually need, and even then it's a crap shoot. Freaking junk parts just don't exist for me, every run I've done in A19 I get a full Junk Turret as a reward before I've ever even seen a Junk Sledge or gotten enough parts to craft one.

Unrelated but while talking about crafting, there's one thing I saw someone mention once on the forum that's really stuck with me and I think raised a good point. Armor crafting could really use a re-work, because of the way your perk scales with it. By the time you can craft level 5 leather or cloth armor, you can just craft level 5 Military armor instead.

It would make a lot more sense if the perk unlocked higher level lower tier armor faster. For example, 2 points in your armor perk would let you craft level 5 Cloth Armor, level 2 Leather armor, and level 0 or level 1 max Military armor. The actual numbers would have to be thought about, to decide if level 5 cloth armor is equal to level 2 leather and level 1 military armor etc, but you get the point.

Not sure how hard that would be to  code, but it would make armor crafting . . .actually a thing. Currently, I've not crafted a single piece of armor since like A16 or when ever the perk overhaul was, there's just no reason to craft armor yourself when you can find it easier and when you are punished for crafting lower tier armor instead of crafting a higher tier item that's the same quality. Like why would you craft level 3 Cloth armor when you unlock level 3 Leather Armor at almost the same time, and can find the materials for it just as easily?   The perks differentiating armor tiers to grant higher quality options for lower tier armors earlier would actually make the armor perks appealing early game, or appealing at all tbh.

Leather armor requires a lot more resources, sewing kits, leather, and a workbench. Cloth armor is made with just cloth and duct tape, no work bench. I make it the first night with once I find a cooking pot.
 

When it comes to zombies digging down to me, I welcome it to be honest, keeps me on my toes, what I do after they dig down to me, which has yet to happen for some reason is I simply fill the hole with concrete, easy fix, they will dig more dirt, i fill the holes, eventually I will be safe underground unless all i get are demolishers.

Looting has been kind to me so far, all i did was put lucky looter to 3 and have goggles on with +4, never needed to perk farther in, and i have found almost everything, all i have left to find and get a taste of is the auto shotgun haha.

I can't wait to see what next game you guys have in mind to make, is it going to follow the survival ways of 7 days to die, except maybe be scifi or space bound, or will it be a different kind of zombie game.

The only thing i look forward to in the future is more stuff to rip apart haha.

Yeah and I hate to admit it, but pathing only goes so far. You can STILL be 100% safe under ground if you bunker under a tall mountain. You can also nerd pole to the skybox and be 100% safe, they can't path that far unless you nerd pole up the tallest mountain.

 

[Aldranon]

My horde base and my loot/heat base are the same thing.  I haven't done that in a long time and it turns out that hoard nights are more fun for me now, as I have to do something to protect my loot!

Defending a base that covers the entire limits of a claim block in SP required some thought but I would say its the strongest fortress I've ever built.  Building it, however, was almost too much effort for one player, but its amazing what one can do when he's a stubborn son-of-a-gun!  Isn't that right, MM?  

Edit: Also, there is no cheese or exploits, unless using the tendancy of zombies trying to get closer to the player is one.  But no zombie ramps, pits, or even spikes!

 

[Dethar]

Lol. I don't think that means what you think it means.

A zombie shouldn't walk through a corn maze  to attack a piece of wall with 2% less HP then the wall directly in front of them. Which the player is standing directly behind. 

A zombie also shouldn't be able to dig 50 feet below the ground with the speed of a formula 1 race car and crash through a double thick brick wall like it was made of drywall.. but hey, if we're giving them the ability to deduce structural integrity to a degree that would make a Civil Engineer jealous.. why not?

And yes. The fact that I paid for this game, just as you have, gives me every right to criticize core gameplay changes. It's easy to say you have no right to complain because a game is in alpha when it's been in alpha for 7 years. I mean how many alpha releases can you have before the baseball mercy rule kicks in and they just force you to move to beta?

Complaining about not being able to have bedrock base because of digging zombies is just hogwash. When A19 first dropped I had bedrock base with 5 forges going nonstop for 6 days and no issues. Would have been more, but I got chunk error and proof my base was gone.

By then first overhaul was available, so quit that game. Which is what I usually do, as vanilla is boring as hell for me.

 

[faatal]

Never knew that was a thing.  I wonder how challenging that be to program...sounds like a wonderful feature for not just players but the level designers as well.

Not easy. Chunks are many pieces of data distributed across different arrays in a type of compression and it is not simple. Then you have tons of code that says give me the block at xyz or set the block and now it is multiple blocks? Some hybrid? To be sane, it would need to remain a primary block at a location, but possibly a secondary block could be added for visuals, but I would not be doing separate heath and collision resolving for it or it just gets more complicated and slower.

 

[faatal]

Faatal, I will send you cookies if you will fix the hatches and windows not letting in the rain and snow any more.  And you tell me where you are so I can send them. 

Or a bottle of rum.  Or both.

Inside vs outside is a very vague concept in a voxel world made out of all kinds of odd shapes. Not easy to determine and not fast.

 

[faatal]

Someone literally said they want to be in their bunker and sit out horde night and the beauty of that is: You absolutely can!

Turn off horde nights and you can even play the game during that time and feel all smug about having outsmarted all those zombie fools with your superior game option skills! =P

And then the screen fades to black as they suffocate....aha, oxygen tank to the rescue....land shark then swallows them whole.

 

[Matt 1977]

May RNGesus be with you!

Well waiting for stable lol. Day 12 , winter biome, heading to trader and ran into Dire wolf. Started running ...... right into cougar. What happened next is not fit for the internet lol. 1st time ived died in ages, not sure if early A18 or A17. 

 

[Laz Man]

To look good next to the 30,000 polygon soda machine.

Exactly. Be thankful they arne't swiss cheesing under your fort like before.

I watch the kickstarter video and see Alpha 19+. The spirit of the game hasn't changed since its inception.

Great point MM, the Kickstarter video is a great example to the vision you guys started out with.  I had to direct someone to it not too long ago when they couldn't believe 7d2d was supposed to have tower defense elements.

Its like some people see the words building/crafting/zombie and it automatically means one specific type of game play (e.g. no digging zombies) and can't be anything else.

If you ask me its part of the curse of Early Access.  X number of people fall in love with a specific version and now all of a sudden your digging your own grave if you don't immediately back pedal.

You guys keep doing you as like you said, the game is doing better then ever.  I am glad you guys have telemetry now so you guys can make  decisions based on objective data.

 

[bloodmoth13]

You're forgetting about multiplayer servers ... which can have more than one land claim, and allied land claims can overlap.

You presented a possible solution to an issue that doesn't exist. They are not adding the deco items into the game as recipes at this point. 

You may or may not remember the crafting menu lag from before they simplified the crafting menus, but I do ... and I don't see them willingly going back to that because the public outcry over the game crashes caused by too many recipes was waaaaay worse than this little discussion.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion ... and I can even understand it.  (which is why i play on a modded server, so I can have my pretty stuff).  You, too, can play on a modded server and have your pretties.

But it's not going to happen in the vanilla game right now ... so why keep arguing about who is more right?

Girls, you're all pretty.  Can't we just move on now?

I feel like im getting scolded here for thinking of a solution to someones problem?

A certain amount in an area is fine, land claim sized should be big enough to make it fine, even with 4 corners overlapping and players trying their best to create lag its probably not going to be a big deal. Tie the vanity items to the player who placed it, if their land claim goes then their vanity item goes. I wasnt forgetting multiplayer, i had that in mind specifically, land claim zones should be big enough so that clusters wont be a problem, and thats really stretching to create a problem here.

'at this point' i never said they are adding them now and this is how they have to add them, its 'if they want to add them then this could be a solution', its not a problem so long as they NEVER intend to add them. fine, idc, but if they do, and it is a problem, then heres a solution! not sure why anyone feels the need to say the problem doesnt exist, its utterly pointless to say, its a possible problem to overcome at some potential point in the future, if not having a solution is why they dont bother then coming up with one might be a good idea.

 

[DaVegaNL]

You lost me at mining stone. Who the @%$*#! mines stone? Why?

Some people just really, really, really love stone!
Don't know who, though.

 

[Toban]

Lol. I don't think that means what you think it means.

A zombie shouldn't walk through a corn maze  to attack a piece of wall with 2% less HP then the wall directly in front of them. Which the player is standing directly behind. 

A zombie also shouldn't be able to dig 50 feet below the ground with the speed of a formula 1 race car and crash through a double thick brick wall like it was made of drywall.. but hey, if we're giving them the ability to deduce structural integrity to a degree that would make a Civil Engineer jealous.. why not?

And yes. The fact that I paid for this game, just as you have, gives me every right to criticize core gameplay changes. It's easy to say you have no right to complain because a game is in alpha when it's been in alpha for 7 years. I mean how many alpha releases can you have before the baseball mercy rule kicks in and they just force you to move to beta?

Can I just say that Zombies can do whatever TFP want. Check out many zombie films and many of them mix it up, so why can't TFP?

I watched a film last week where the zombies talked to each other. Does that mean they aren't zombies? No. It just means that the film creator wanted to do something different. 

Alpha 16 zombies just ran in circles and the game was so easy it became boring. Shooting down on zombies that where easily manipulated wasn't fun. I like the new challenge and I've had the game for 6 years and don't miss any of the old alphas. The game today is far superior to any previous alphas in my opinion. Buy hey, that's just my opinion.

 

[MechanicalLens]

@madmole Can confirm that player-crafted items have random stats.