PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

MechanicalLens said:
Will a counter to the "hatch base" be finalized in Alpha 20? Much like pole walls of old, this newer concept has taken the 7D2D community by storm; basically everyone is using them to create melee only horde bases. (This is not to mention that triple upgraded vault hatches have almost double the max HP of steel blocks. Fun fact for you there.) TFP's vision for how the player should deal with the horde is pretty clear, and one that I agree with. The player should be expending bullets and the occasional explosive or molotov on horde night, not swinging a sledgehammer or a club all night. I hope a countermeasure can be put in place so that these melee only horde bases can be successfully thwarted.
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Are these really that OP? The steep slope meta worked because zombies could not climb up nor could they attack those blocks so they were an impeneterable defense. The fix for that was to simply allow zombies to interact with those blocks the same as they do all blocks. In other words-- fix a bug in the interaction between zombies and those specific blocks in that specific rotation. Zombies do attack the open hatch doors correct? The player has to maintain and repair them along with battling zombies. I'm not sure what bug would need to be fixed in this case.

If all you're asking for is a bonus attack multiplier when zombies are attacking a door or hatch, that might be a good solution IF they determine that there is a balance issue here. If vault hatches could be crafted and triple upgraded during the early or mid game I would agree that there would be an imbalance but you can't. The hatches that you can craft are susceptible to the zombies you get.

Finally, I'm not certain that TFP's vision is for you to use bullets on horde night so much as it is that the player is directly confronted by the threatening horde. A base design that allows for mostly melee and thrown explosives doesn't necessarily violate that vision.

Of course, I've only dabbled with using hatches and in my design I felt like I needed to do all three: melee, ranged, explosive as well as spend time repairing hatches. It was a pretty fun and crazy battle and I did not feel 100% safety inside the bunker. There were quite a few pounding on the walls around me instead of lining up in front of the open hatches.

Personally, this is a design that is probably in the gray area and not everyone is going to agree on whether it is an exploit or just a good strategy. IMO, it does not break with TFP's vision of horde night by any means.

MechanicalLens said:
Any idea on how it will adapt to obstacles, such as being trapped in a separate room from the player? Teleportation or wall clipping for example?
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Teleportation I believe. I haven't played with them yet but I think that is the plan. It is the simplest way and already a well established solution in other games with companions.

 
Roland said:
Are these really that OP? The steep slope meta worked because zombies could not climb up nor could they attack those blocks so they were an impeneterable defense. The fix for that was to simply allow zombies to interact with those blocks the same as they do all blocks. In other words-- fix a bug in the interaction between zombies and those specific blocks in that specific rotation. Zombies do attack the open hatch doors correct? The player has to maintain and repair them along with battling zombies. I'm not sure what bug would need to be fixed in this case.

If all you're asking for is a bonus attack multiplier when zombies are attacking a door or hatch, that might be a good solution IF they determine that there is a balance issue here. If vault hatches could be crafted and triple upgraded during the early or mid game I would agree that there would be an imbalance but you can't. The hatches that you can craft are susceptible to the zombies you get.
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An attack multiplier would probably be the ticket, yes. One of the cheapest horde bases to date involves a short stairway, a suspended single block wide corridor with a roof over its head, and lining the corridor are iron hatches which are very easy to maintain. You can add as many as you care to as long as the zombies continue to see it as a valid path to the player.

The real eyebrow raiser though lies in triple upgraded vault hatches. When fully upgraded, they have a combined total of 21,000 HP. A steel block that downgrades to r concrete has a total health pool of 12,000. Not sure if this is a wanted feature or not. Unless TFP make it so that zombies will actively try to climb through hatch walls where there is 1 block of space above them, people will continue to produce these essentially retractable super walls. There is no bug here, nor that much of a complain, just something I thought I'd point out. Since zombies don't seem to attack hatches when placed in a conventional manner (at least to my observations), I see no harm in adding a damage multiplier to hatches from zombie attacks. It's already been done with regular poles when placed horizontally, after all. This is essentially pole walls 2.0 *Shrug*

(Pole walls 3.0 is the use of a single row of blocks along the ground and on top of them a layer of plates placed upside down. You can support an entire base in this manner, with the blocks at head height being waver thin; basically a "floating base". Another little fyi.)

Edit: In summary, either a damage multiplier could be considered, or reducing the total health of vault hatches (maybe iron hatches as well), or TFP can just leave it be, but with the knowledge that people will abuse this new meta.

 
MechanicalLens said:
(Pole walls 3.0 is the use of a single row of blocks along the ground and on top of them a layer of plates placed upside down. You can support an entire base in this manner, with the blocks at head height being waver thin; basically a "floating base". Another little fyi.)
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This type of base will always be possible, unless you can make blocks to stop supporting other blocks when they are placed in specific rotations.

The AI though has already been fixed to attack blocks above their head, though this only happens randomly (not too often).

 
MechanicalLens said:
The player should be expending bullets and the occasional explosive or molotov on horde night, not swinging a sledgehammer or a club all night.
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Melee-only bases are possible, up to a point, independently of the hatch exploit.

I'd also like to point out that there's people (not me) that can do BM nights out in the open on nightmare/insane exactly going berserk all night.  :boxing2:

 
Promethean Winchester said:
If I clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 character and no skill investment whatsoever, on Insane Nightmare mode, will you guys put in a toggle option for old school skill progression and chaotic loot? Can I earn it? I'll livestream every attempt until I earn it lmmfao. I will do ANYTHING. I will clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 wooden club and my good intentions beginning to end no editing on the most difficult settings possible to literally earn this, and you gotta understand, that's probably like months of suffering to achieve it. Worth it, I would commit.
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Problem is, they're "upstaging" POIs by tier in A20 (IIRC), so if you do that in A20 you'll immediately find radiated cops and such...  :fear:

 
Tahaan said:
@Devs is there any news about "dynamic prefabs" and about the water rework that is mentioned in A20... What does those things bring us and what do they do?

Other questions: 
1. Will you ever offload S.I to the GPU (it is the perfect problem space match) and will you ever use all CPU cores for A.I ?  

2. I only have a #1.  Sorry.  
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Faatal already answered both questions in the past.

From what I recall water it's not getting any major update: in A20 it'll be less buggy and look more fluid, that's all.

As for the use of multiple cores that ain't happening. It's an engine (Unity) limitation, not a game's.

 
Roland said:
Are these really that OP? The steep slope meta worked because zombies could not climb up nor could they attack those blocks so they were an impeneterable defense. The fix for that was to simply allow zombies to interact with those blocks the same as they do all blocks. In other words-- fix a bug in the interaction between zombies and those specific blocks in that specific rotation. Zombies do attack the open hatch doors correct? The player has to maintain and repair them along with battling zombies. I'm not sure what bug would need to be fixed in this case.

If all you're asking for is a bonus attack multiplier when zombies are attacking a door or hatch, that might be a good solution IF they determine that there is a balance issue here. If vault hatches could be crafted and triple upgraded during the early or mid game I would agree that there would be an imbalance but you can't. The hatches that you can craft are susceptible to the zombies you get.

Finally, I'm not certain that TFP's vision is for you to use bullets on horde night so much as it is that the player is directly confronted by the threatening horde. A base design that allows for mostly melee and thrown explosives doesn't necessarily violate that vision.

Of course, I've only dabbled with using hatches and in my design I felt like I needed to do all three: melee, ranged, explosive as well as spend time repairing hatches. It was a pretty fun and crazy battle and I did not feel 100% safety inside the bunker. There were quite a few pounding on the walls around me instead of lining up in front of the open hatches.
Click to expand...
Like you said it's a far cry from exploitation as the ramps used to be. Just yesterday the zombies broke through my melee killing corridor on day 14 BM, on Insane Nightmare perma, and I had to retreat to phase 2 of my base, where I climb atop twin towers with Iron Bar walkways and lob explosives down below as they pile up. Hatches do hold off zombies and you can do a lot of damage to the horde before it breaks through, but that was day 14... When demolishers and cops and irradiated zeds start showing up, it won't be so easy as eating a Skull Crusher and a Coffee and going to town with power attacks. Dreading those days when one demolisher triggered will just obliterate the entrance to my base and kiss my killing corridor goodbye. At that point... I don't know, more towers I suppose. This picture is a "Hunter's Blind" that I made, it's good for roaming Direwolves and Bears but it definitely can't withstand a strong horde. I tried upgrading the hatches to steel and the blind to concrete, but since it's not a corridor you have to worry about multiple hatches at once and it gets to be a bit much to focus on repairing them between everything else. 

I was wondering, I heard explosive weapons don't trigger Demolishers to explode. Is it intended for the future, for demolishers to be triggered by explosive weaponry? I'm dreading it, but honestly it would be one of those "It sucks but it belongs" updates. 

Base 1.png

Jost Amman said:
Problem is, they're "upstaging" POIs by tier in A20 (IIRC), so if you do that in A20 you'll immediately find radiated cops and such...  :fear:
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"As I equip my club and stare into the abyss, it stares back into me, and I whisper under my breath; Mama didn't raise no coward. I ran into the factory, and emerged to tell this story, battered and broken, covered in blood with 7 critical injuries and 2 hp, some hours later." 

Never give up lol

 
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ltbrunt said:
I'm not expecting anything this early on but would like to get any info about bandits. When they make it into the game it will be like Christmas come early. I love the game and this is the thing daydream about most. 
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In case you don't know already, the bandits are not coming to Alpha 20. That will be in a later Alpha.

 
MechanicalLens said:
Will a counter to the "hatch base" be finalized in Alpha 20? Much like pole walls of old, this newer concept has taken the 7D2D community by storm; basically everyone is using them to create melee only horde bases. (This is not to mention that triple upgraded vault hatches have almost double the max HP of steel blocks. Fun fact for you there.) TFP's vision for how the player should deal with the horde is pretty clear, and one that I agree with. The player should be expending bullets and the occasional explosive or molotov on horde night, not swinging a sledgehammer or a club all night. I hope a countermeasure can be put in place so that these melee only horde bases can be successfully thwarted.
Click to expand...
I use a hatch based design for melee style bases but eventually I have to fall back to traps and guns (even on the first bm night) when the zombies overwhelm  me - playing on 2nd highest difficulty and max zombies.

The thing I love about this game is there are so many options on how you approach the bm horde.  Since you have to spend resources and constantly repair, eventually resort to bullets, explosives to fight off the bm horde implies that using hatches for a melee base is not an exploit.  This is not a case where we build a base and just sit there all night doing nothing during the horde night, we have to get in there and actually fight the bm zombies (i.e. the whole point of being a melee themed base).

Typcially by the 5th to 7th bm, my melee themed base has electric fences, blade traps, turrets (both junk and electrical), shooting areas, ways I can utilize explosives and molotovs without catching myself in the blast radius/setting myself on fire.  So I am using all aspects of base design to fight off the hordes.

 
Promethean Winchester said:
Like you said it's a far cry from exploitation as the ramps used to be. Just yesterday the zombies broke through my melee killing corridor on day 14 BM, on Insane Nightmare perma, and I had to retreat to phase 2 of my base, where I climb atop twin towers with Iron Bar walkways and lob explosives down below as they pile up. Hatches do hold off zombies and you can do a lot of damage to the horde before it breaks through, but that was day 14... When demolishers and cops and irradiated zeds start showing up, it won't be so easy as eating a Skull Crusher and a Coffee and going to town with power attacks. Dreading those days when one demolisher triggered will just obliterate the entrance to my base and kiss my killing corridor goodbye. At that point... I don't know, more towers I suppose. This picture is a "Hunter's Blind" that I made, it's good for roaming Direwolves and Bears but it definitely can't withstand a strong horde. I tried upgrading the hatches to steel and the blind to concrete, but since it's not a corridor you have to worry about multiple hatches at once and it gets to be a bit much to focus on repairing them between everything else. 

I was wondering, I heard explosive weapons don't trigger Demolishers to explode. Is it intended for the future, for demolishers to be triggered by explosive weaponry? I'm dreading it, but honestly it would be one of those "It sucks but it belongs" updates. 

View attachment 18588

"As I equip my club and stare into the abyss, it stares back into me, and I whisper under my breath; Mama didn't raise no coward. I ran into the factory, and emerged to tell this story, battered and broken, covered in blood with 7 critical injuries and 2 hp, some hours later." 

Never give up lol
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Demolishers are triggered by explosives. Observe @Promethean Winchester



 
Hello everyone.

Is it true that they will eliminate the blunderbuss in alpha 20? If it is true then do not do it, we are very fond of that weapon. Many good times.

 
Miguel94 said:
Hello everyone.

Is it true that they will eliminate the blunderbuss in alpha 20? If it is true then do not do it, we are very fond of that weapon. Many good times.
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That decision is not up to you. Also, yes, it is being eliminated. It will be replaced with the pipe shotgun; there will also be a pipe pistol, pipe rifle, etc.

 
Miguel94 said:
Hello everyone.

Is it true that they will eliminate the blunderbuss in alpha 20? If it is true then do not do it, we are very fond of that weapon. Many good times.
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I have 3 pipe shotguns on my tool belt that say “Blunderbuss Who?”

Loudly. 

 
Miguel94 said:
Hi Roland, I'm Miguel and I'm spanish from Spain.
I would like some translations of the game to be correctly corrected from Spanish.

Here the following:

"Revolver" is "pistola".

"Metralleta AK-47" is "fusil de asalto AK-47" or "rifle de asalto AK-47".

"Metralleta M60" is "ametralladora M60".

Where the configuration options of a new game, the option: "marcar las gotas de aire" could be "suministros aéreos".

where the map in the game, "se siente como" could be "temperatura ambiental".

In the skills, where perception, "El penetrador" sounds fatal in spanish. Could be "el acechador".

Looking for loot in safes, the one called "caja fuerte empotrable" could be "caja fuerte", "empotrable" sounds fatal in spanish.

Greetings Roland, Madmole and everyone.
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There are plans to fix spanish translation and every other translation. All of those you can report with the proper form in the Bug Reports section, because here they will get ignored. Nevertheless, I myself will make sure to report every single translation mistake of the spanish language once the game has more text to go on (campaign, npcs). 

 
MechanicalLens said:
Will a counter to the "hatch base" be finalized in Alpha 20? Much like pole walls of old, this newer concept has taken the 7D2D community by storm; basically everyone is using them to create melee only horde bases. (This is not to mention that triple upgraded vault hatches have almost double the max HP of steel blocks. Fun fact for you there.) TFP's vision for how the player should deal with the horde is pretty clear, and one that I agree with. The player should be expending bullets and the occasional explosive or molotov on horde night, not swinging a sledgehammer or a club all night. I hope a countermeasure can be put in place so that these melee only horde bases can be successfully thwarted.
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Interesting stat with the hatch. Zombies being able to go in between 1 block holes might fix this. 
 

Also I’ve never built a hatch base as I like to just build 4 walls and defend on top. 

 
Space4Ace said:
Nice job and all but, doesn't it look too much like the Resident Evil dogs?

Just saying because TFP had a zombie early on that looked too much like a zombie from another game and were forced to remove it, right?

Does it have to be a Doberman? Any zombie dog would be scary.
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No not any dog...A zombie dachshund , chihuahua , poodle , pug or pomeranian would just never be scary...funny yes , scary...no

 
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