PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

MechanicalLens said:
@madmole A bit early to ask about plans for RWG in A20, but what would you say about an option for single biome worlds? (Ex. All desert, all snow, etc.)
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Why would they do that when it would negate the entire biome specific system they are coding in? They already get plenty of bogus "bug" reports of no trader which were caused by not having a forest zone as required for initial starter quest.

 
Khalagar said:
I dunno what the streamer plans for A20 are, but you guys should consider reaching out and try to get the Hololive girls to play 7 Days again. The JP ones played it in the past, and I bet the EN ones would be open to playing. If you snagged EN, it would likely be nuts even if they only played it once. Gawr Gura alone gets 25K-70K+ live views on literally anything she streams, she had like 30K+ people listening to the audio of her making a cake in the background lol

Even if only the JP ones played again, they pull quite big numbers themselves even among international fans and you guys apparently gave them permission in the past to stream it. Coco was just streaming it like a month ago apparently
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The plan is the same for A20 as it has been as far as I have been informed.  Looks to me like Coco was streaming A19 and not A20. Nobody has been given permission to stream A20 other than FubarPrime as part of the Developer Series.

meilodasreh said:
Since the introduction of the new loot progress "stone tools bad quality to good quality, then iron tools bad to good, then steel...-") I have experienced that I always keep my fully modded stone axe (you rather quickly get a purple one, so 4 modslots) until i get an at least mid quality steel axe, and totally skip iron ones.

The iron pickaxe does just a little more damage, but drains a lot more stamina, and at first you get bad ones with less mod slots (intended, i know)

So after all it seems even slower...at least there is no "yeah finally" moment when you find them, but "meh...instant scrap".

And it's not only axes. Almost every weapon/tool you find of the higher tier is of bad quality, and due to the lesser modding slots its useless compared to the ones I have.

Tools is more the problem because of stamina drain, as already said, but same i feel for weapons.

I know the new system has advantages, but I really miss the former moments of for example: "YES finally the first pickaxe"

Now you know when you will start to find them, and that they will be definitely garbage at first.

Does anybody else feel the same?

Is that on the "still tweaked" list?

Could be adjusted by:

-making mods more efficient in higher tier stuff. For example an "iron breaker" mod in a stone axe gives 15% more damage to iron, while in a steel axe it gives 50% more.

-lower/adjust stamina drain for higher tier tools, so that its significantly faster to use them overall, even when you have to take some pauses to regain stamina.

-stamina drain not only connected to perks like "TRex" but to strength/endurance in general (well that is more or less already the case (1 Point more per character level)
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The entire system is WIP. There are plans in motion to address your concerns.

 
I still think it would be cool if you brought back crafting of quality 6 items, if you have 5 ranks in the required skill, but only for primitive tools and weapons. 

Then you would not need them as much in the loot pool, and you also do not have to worry about missing the game stage where they drop. 

Might become more relevant in A20, for people who want to rock pipe weapons late game. 

Also, is intelligence going to get a pipe weapon?  Nail gun?  Sledge turret that does not require robotic parts? 

 
pregnable said:
Also, is intelligence going to get a pipe weapon?  Nail gun?  Sledge turret that does not require robotic parts? 
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I've been harassing them about this for like 4 months without a reply lol. I think they've said there might be a pipe baton and nothing else so far. I would love a way to get Junk Sledge to work day one, as it's quickly become my favorite weapon in the game since Faatal fixed it after A19 dropped.

My suggestion is a blow pipe or something that uses junk ammo / iron darts so that ammo type and skill line has a use early game (which is a big part of why pipe weapons are being introduced). Simple and easy, could even use existing in game iron pipes or something

ATM, there's no int weapon pre-iron age, and there isn't one for tier 3 either since last I heard, the drone is not intended for offense and will take a Junk Turret spot (actually lowering your over all damage). I guess their concern is that you can scrap a junk sledge to get junk turret parts so they don't want them to be a pipe age weapon, but I've not really seen them address the whole "every class can use a drone, except they don't care about losing a junk turret slot like int builds do to use it" issue, so I guess they are probably still trying to figure it out internally how to make the Drone on par with other end game items and builds while balancing every build carrying a free drone vs int builds having to lose 50% of their damage to use their own item

Drones not counting against the turret limit would help a lot, but wouldn't really cover the "Two junk turrets are not on par with an m60 or auto shottie" problem if the int builds don't get an actual t3 weapon.  Dual junk turrets kind of feel worse in A19 than they did in A18 even with the new piercing ammo because they drain resources so insanely fast that you'll easily burn 10K+ iron clearing a single building with them compared to a shotgun using a handful of shells.  Shotgun turret ammo just needs a buff all around, it's ridiculously questionable to ever build that over real shotgun shells to the point that . . . yeah I don't know of any situation where I would say the shotgun turret ammo is usable over building shotgun shells and carrying an unperked auto shotgun or even a pump shotgun

 
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Khalagar said:
I've been harassing them about this for like 4 months without a reply lol. I think they've said there might be a pipe baton and nothing else so far. I would love a way to get Junk Sledge to work day one, as it's quickly become my favorite weapon in the game since Faatal fixed it after A19 dropped.

My suggestion is a blow pipe or something that uses junk ammo / iron darts so that ammo type and skill line has a use early game (which is a big part of why pipe weapons are being introduced). Simple and easy, could even use existing in game iron pipes or something

ATM, there's no int weapon pre-iron age, and there isn't one for tier 3 either since last I heard, the drone is not intended for offense and will take a Junk Turret spot (actually lowering your over all damage). I guess their concern is that you can scrap a junk sledge to get junk turret parts so they don't want them to be a pipe age weapon, but I've not really seen them address the whole "every class can use a drone, except they don't care about losing a junk turret slot like int builds do to use it" issue, so I guess they are probably still trying to figure it out internally how to make the Drone on par with other end game items and builds while balancing every build carrying a free drone vs int builds having to lose 50% of their damage to use their own item

Drones not counting against the turret limit would help a lot, but wouldn't really cover the "Two junk turrets are not on par with an m60 or auto shottie" problem if the int builds don't get an actual t3 weapon.  Dual junk turrets kind of feel worse in A19 than they did in A18 even with the new piercing ammo because they drain resources so insanely fast that you'll easily burn 10K+ iron clearing a single building with them compared to a shotgun using a handful of shells.  Shotgun turret ammo just needs a buff all around, it's ridiculously questionable to ever build that over real shotgun shells to the point that . . . yeah I don't know of any situation where I would say the shotgun turret ammo is usable over building shotgun shells and carrying an unperked auto shotgun or even a pump shotgun
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The nail gun seemed to make a lot of sense as the intelligence pipe weapon.  It already used to shoot nails, maybe still does, heh.  The repair ability would need to be nerfed though. 

Either way it would be cool if it became a viable weapon linked to intelligence, especially with the "nail some chicks" quest still in the game. 

Robotic sledges are like my favorite thing in the game... even more since I discovered I CAN actually use my str/intel build when playing insane/nightmare run/64 zombies/horde every night. 

I can easily keep up with the horde until I need fortitude.  Actively fighting off the horde in a melee base and repairing with a hammer constantly is a lot of fun. 

 
If one were to wire up lights to a generator bank and then activate the power source, the player placed lights would then proceed to emit light, as expected. I haven't played around with lights yet in Alpha 19 but the last I checked there was an option to individually deactivate lights by pressing "E" on each individual bulb. However, even disabled they would still be drawing in watts as if they were powered. Will this be addressed in Alpha 20 or is this a code limitation?

 
MechanicalLens said:
@madmole A bit early to ask about plans for RWG in A20, but what would you say about an option for single biome worlds? (Ex. All desert, all snow, etc.)
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Or choosing which ones we can get, as part of trying hardest in Wasteland and Snow only for example. Could be fun, we`ll see. 

 
MechanicalLens said:
If one were to wire up lights to a generator bank and then activate the power source, the player placed lights would then proceed to emit light, as expected. I haven't played around with lights yet in Alpha 19 but the last I checked there was an option to individually deactivate lights by pressing "E" on each individual bulb. However, even disabled they would still be drawing in watts as if they were powered. Will this be addressed in Alpha 20 or is this a code limitation?
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i tested and confirmed and reported this.





thanks
:)

QA Tester-unholyjoe

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roughgalaxy said:
Got a pair of questions today,
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Good questions as both are issues imo. Stealth builds are just a bad meme because they can't de-aggro zombies and they are useless on the most important night of the week, and like you said, the way the encounter zones works makes them useless too.  I tested suppressors and I cannot find a single benefit to them. You can sit outside the room entrance and just crouch and use an unsilenced hunting rifle to shoot sleeping zombies, and it will only wake them up if you miss a shot and hit a wall or something.  Best I can tell, the suppressor only matters for wandering zombies out in a field, which are by far the least threatening zombies in the game so it's not worth the item slot imo

For traps, I agree completely too. Any meta build is just "Stand on a roof throwing molotovs and grenades". The only traps I really see used anymore are the shock wire ones to slow zombies to give yourself more time to deal with them. Turrets will blow your entire stockpile of ammo, and blade traps will just break 2 seconds in

A cat walk + Explosion Candy + Molotovs and contact grenades = barely any resource expenditure for a horde night

That's more an issue with grenades being insanely OP than anything though. I don't even bother perking into explosives, just the candy + base damage is more than enough

 
Khalagar said:
Good questions as both are issues imo. Stealth builds are just a bad meme because they can't de-aggro zombies
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Wrong. zombies can be de-aggroed. I did test this when auto-aggro rooms were a huge discussion topic.

and they are useless on the most important night of the week, and like you said, the way the encounter zones works makes them useless too.  I tested suppressors and I cannot find a single benefit to them. You can sit outside the room entrance and just crouch and use an unsilenced hunting rifle to shoot sleeping zombies, and it will only wake them up if you miss a shot and hit a wall or something.  Best I can tell, the suppressor only matters for wandering zombies out in a field, which are by far the least threatening zombies in the game so it's not worth the item slot imo
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I could be wrong here, but suppressor matters when your distance to zombies is low. Distance is BY FAR the most important variable for waking up zombies, so once you are far enough away you can shoot with an elephant gun and not wake up any zombies. But try to shoot them from say 5 blocks away and you need a suppressor (or a bow)

What I often forget is to turn off my helmet light and that breaks stealth as well, even with a silenced pistol

For traps, I agree completely too. Any meta build is just "Stand on a roof throwing molotovs and grenades". The only traps I really see used anymore are the shock wire ones to slow zombies to give yourself more time to deal with them. Turrets will blow your entire stockpile of ammo, and blade traps will just break 2 seconds in

A cat walk + Explosion Candy + Molotovs and contact grenades = barely any resource expenditure for a horde night

That's more an issue with grenades being insanely OP than anything though. I don't even bother perking into explosives, just the candy + base damage is more than enough
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Khalagar said:
For traps, I agree completely too. Any meta build is just "Stand on a roof throwing molotovs and grenades". The only traps I really see used anymore are the shock wire ones to slow zombies to give yourself more time to deal with them. Turrets will blow your entire stockpile of ammo, and blade traps will just break 2 seconds in

A cat walk + Explosion Candy + Molotovs and contact grenades = barely any resource expenditure for a horde night

That's more an issue with grenades being insanely OP than anything though. I don't even bother perking into explosives, just the candy + base damage is more than enough
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Right now I am approaching Day 56 with my current horde base (Survivor difficulty, 64 zombies).  Current setup is electric wire fences (5), dart traps (8), and shotgun turrets (2) defending my base while I am standing behind posts popping heads with a sniper rifle.  Thrown in are barbed wire traps and a sledge turret to slow down / knock down any that get past the shotgun turrets, dart traps, and electric wire fences.  I also got 4 auto turrets on the roof to handle any vultures.  I used molotovs on Day 7 but nothing since then as my base design is preventing the zombies from reaching me.  Usually the only ones that get past my defense are spiders and the occasional dog that I take out with my auto shottie / smg.  And yes, the zombies have a direct path to me, I am not using any designs to make them think they can reach me only to fall off.

I haven't figured out how to incorporate blade traps into my base design yet.

I do go through about 300 rounds of shotgun shells a BM night, but I haven't had any issues keeping up stock wise.  I got two forges to replace the iron darts between horde nights.  Right now I am seeing radiated zombies (along with all the other variants) but expect to see demolishers soon.  I am also sitting on a munitions crate full of 7.62 ammo.

 
It would be cool to have a horde night only enemy that was blind but could hear exceptionally well-- like the aliens in A Quiet Place. If you make noise they zero in on you but if you are stealthy then they are easily dispatched. That could give stealthy players an advantage on horde night without negating the entire horde with stealth.

 
roughgalaxy said:
Got a pair of questions today,

1: Is Stealth going to get an update at some point?

  • I know having poi triggers for ambushes are important for a good scare, but I also see people with really good stealth loadouts get totally boned by established abmush lines. I've also noticed these same people with a suppressed pistol wake up an entire POI taking one sneak shot. Is that a bug with suppressed pistols? I would think that good stealth skills/gear that you could roll through a POI with a suppressed pistol and wipe out everything Sam Fisher style.


2: Are traps going to be getting a rework/any plans for new traps?

  • Blade traps take a lot resources to make and maintain, and currently break down really fast compared to the upkeep cost. I think a lot of people would like to see some addition trap options as well such as flamer traps or hammer traps (more to push zombies around than damage). I know many players who complain that they don't get xp from spikes (yes I know this is a problem with the ownership of the object because of its block type) but something like powered spike traps (think of the classic trap where the spikes jut out of the ground when walked on) could be a really fun higher tier to the spikes. Wood > Iron > powered could be an interesting track to follow.
That's all I got for today. Looking forward to seeing some more info on A20.
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About the first point I would like to update your question about the update on updating stealth: Can any dev ( @madmole , @Gazz, @faatal, madmole's cat ...etc ) clarify  if Stealth is going to get some perk tweaks/ balanced behaviour  eventually ? (more info below) 

I agree that a stealth character should have a proper ambush chance protection when sneaking , but when triggered  the player should be able to lose a Zd easily using just a couple of corners. OP mechanic is good if you have all the perks in stealth like the 100 skill gameplay in Skyrim. 

Stealth is a bit broken and in my opinion not shippable. A shippable version should have:

1- The same perk benefits per level + a percentage per level to avoid the triggering of an ambush. Top level perk should have like at least an 50% (idk?) chance to avoid ambushes . Maybe top notch lowest chance with gear/books.

2- Each perk point point should reduce the "seen therefore I chase you" behaviour of an entity by a certain amount, up to a point in which basically when you make noise and hell breaks lose you just have to hide for like 5 seconds and they stop chasing you. Animals have this by default, but Zombies and Npcs should disengage eventually and increasingly soon (Yeah, even Zds ; except Horde Night)  if the player is perked enough.

Right now, using a stealth character makes me cringe and sob and cry while eating nachos. And I tried it more than a couple of times. Inside big POIs the nightmare can be real. Once they see you they won't unsee you.

 
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