PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Darthjake]

Probably been brought up before, but have you thought about letting us craft and grow snowberries, for players that want to farm early, and have no luck with seeds? 

Sure they are kinda crappy, but better than nothing if you have like 10+ farms and no food to grow in them, heh. 

Not a big deal, but if it were an option I would be using them in my current game.  Strange game where I am on day 21, and have found no corn yet. 

The trader has yet to even sell anything that I can turn into seeds.  Half my farms are straight up empty, heh. 

Are you getting out and looking?

I've normally swimming in corn before I can start growing it, and on low loot settings as well.  Be sure to check garbage bags and trash piles, those are my #1 source for seeds.

Potatoes and eggs are my stopping block normally, but whenever you can clear grass from the sides of the roads to look for the plants and nests.

And around residences, some of those have gardens, but most of the jerks liked Yucca and Blueberries.....

 

[pregnable]

Are you getting out and looking?

I've normally swimming in corn before I can start growing it, and on low loot settings as well.  Be sure to check garbage bags and trash piles, those are my #1 source for seeds.

Potatoes and eggs are my stopping block normally, but whenever you can clear grass from the sides of the roads to look for the plants and nests.

And around residences, some of those have gardens, but most of the jerks liked Yucca and Blueberries.....

Normally I have more than I do in my current game, probably just bad luck, although I usually never have a bunch of seeds early on. 

I now play on insane/always nightmare run/64 zombies/horde every night/permadeath... so I do not get around as much as I would like heh. 

I have not found any of the usual crops randomly in the main 2 towns I have been searching. 

This is not a food issue though, I have plenty to eat, but I have farm plots with cotton, goldenrod and aloe atm, because I have nothing else, heh. 

On day 21 and I do not even have a coffee seed.  I just left like 10+ farm plots empty because I dont really need that much cotton, and still making more aloe seeds. 

I doubt they would put snowberry seeds in if they did not put in recipes for them though. 

Since I posted this I will probably find a bunch of seeds in the next kitchen I search, heh.  Either that or I can go into the snow biome, since it is nearby, if they are still full of blueberries. 

 

[The Civillian]

Ok, I have a bunch of questions, I hope some can get answered, or maybe these are new I don't know

1 - Wandering sleepers

I assume this is for POI's, are these 'wandering sleepers' going to replace the horribly immersion breaking 'trigger traps' where no matter how quiet you are, you wake up several zeds from the other side of the room because you went over an imaginary line.

1b - Does this mean that POI's will be able to load ALL the zeds within the POI (sleeping ofc) rather than have them horribly pop into existance the second you walk into a room. I've had several rooms where I've opened the CLOSETS, nothing in them, walked into the room and poof, zombies just appear in them.

2 - Verchial mods

PLease let the first mod be to remove the spikes from the Truck and bike, those things are useless and get the verchail stuck soo much. (Also, a buildable army truck with a boatload of storage would be AWSOME XD)

3 - Electricity

Will this ever be getting an overhaul, The system drives me nuts for several reasons...

- The limit on the wire length, this seems REALLY arbitery and can actually be bypassed, it just makes wireing stuff in nicely a realpain

- Only being able to have one power producer feed a battery bank...WHY?
- Only being allowed to have ONE battey bank in a chain...again WHY

- Being able to turn off the solar generator (Via a timer relay) in order to get lights to power on before it gets too dark.

For instance

A normal day is 8am till 10pm, this is when a Solar generator will work.

HOWEVER, I might not want it to, I might ant it to work from 9am till 8pm, making the battery bank take over between 8pm and 9am.

The PROBLEM

If you have too many lights on that circuit, the game tries to get them to run off the solar generator's power creation, instead of the battery bank (Whitch can be far higher) causing half your lights to not work UNTIL the Solar generator turns itself off for the day.

4 - Security cameras seeing through bullet proof glass

5 - Upgrading blade traps with mods (sarrated blades, temperad blades, burning shaft mod, rad remover)

6 - Whats with the wildlife being so dangerous, I mean, I get it they need to hit pretty hard, but they are also damage sponges. I've seen BEARS take on wandering hordes and kill everything, and then take several shotgun rounds to the face before they drop.

Ok, bear I can get behind I guess, perticually zombie bears.

But Cougars, wolves. taking entire clips to put them down,

The wildlife COMPLETELY ignoring zombies, (and same vice versa) to make a be line for the player the second you make yourself known.

I remember zombies used to chase deer, rabbits, chickens, now they just ignore them, and their are FAR FAR too many carnivous animals compared to the herbivours. WHAT are the carnivours eating, it aint the zombies, they ignore them unless they stand on their heads XD

Thats all I can think of right now, sorry for the animal rant, I just get killed far more by animals than I do zombies in this game its kinda weird XD

keep up the good work,

chow

 

[Blake_]

Spoiler

Ok, I have a bunch of questions, I hope some can get answered, or maybe these are new I don't know

1 - Wandering sleepers

I assume this is for POI's, are these 'wandering sleepers' going to replace the horribly immersion breaking 'trigger traps' where no matter how quiet you are, you wake up several zeds from the other side of the room because you went over an imaginary line.

1b - Does this mean that POI's will be able to load ALL the zeds within the POI (sleeping ofc) rather than have them horribly pop into existance the second you walk into a room. I've had several rooms where I've opened the CLOSETS, nothing in them, walked into the room and poof, zombies just appear in them.

2 - Verchial mods

PLease let the first mod be to remove the spikes from the Truck and bike, those things are useless and get the verchail stuck soo much. (Also, a buildable army truck with a boatload of storage would be AWSOME XD)

3 - Electricity

Will this ever be getting an overhaul, The system drives me nuts for several reasons...

- The limit on the wire length, this seems REALLY arbitery and can actually be bypassed, it just makes wireing stuff in nicely a realpain

- Only being able to have one power producer feed a battery bank...WHY?
- Only being allowed to have ONE battey bank in a chain...again WHY

- Being able to turn off the solar generator (Via a timer relay) in order to get lights to power on before it gets too dark.

For instance

A normal day is 8am till 10pm, this is when a Solar generator will work.

HOWEVER, I might not want it to, I might ant it to work from 9am till 8pm, making the battery bank take over between 8pm and 9am.

The PROBLEM

If you have too many lights on that circuit, the game tries to get them to run off the solar generator's power creation, instead of the battery bank (Whitch can be far higher) causing half your lights to not work UNTIL the Solar generator turns itself off for the day.

4 - Security cameras seeing through bullet proof glass

5 - Upgrading blade traps with mods (sarrated blades, temperad blades, burning shaft mod, rad remover)

6 - Whats with the wildlife being so dangerous, I mean, I get it they need to hit pretty hard, but they are also damage sponges. I've seen BEARS take on wandering hordes and kill everything, and then take several shotgun rounds to the face before they drop.

Ok, bear I can get behind I guess, perticually zombie bears.

But Cougars, wolves. taking entire clips to put them down,

The wildlife COMPLETELY ignoring zombies, (and same vice versa) to make a be line for the player the second you make yourself known.

I remember zombies used to chase deer, rabbits, chickens, now they just ignore them, and their are FAR FAR too many carnivous animals compared to the herbivours. WHAT are the carnivours eating, it aint the zombies, they ignore them unless they stand on their heads XD

Thats all I can think of right now, sorry for the animal rant, I just get killed far more by animals than I do zombies in this game its kinda weird XD

keep up the good work,

chow

I can answer those with a fair share of certainty based on The Spider Zd Creed of the last days.

1- No, I don't think so. Unavoidable spots will still be there. There might be ways to avoid them in the future and/or trigger them less within the perk /armour capabilities . Wandering sleepers will likely wander in spots they can wander, not in spooky enclosed 1 block closets.

2. You mean "vehicle" mods. I guess you are a french speaker. I don't know about those, but they can be a thing in the future. Not in A20 .

3. The current limits are mainly for performance reasons. I guess those limitations could change in the future, but I doubt it.

4. Sounds like a bug ? This is not the place to report those. You need to use the bug report section of this forum and fill the correct form. 100% guaranteed that you will be heard and that it will be fixed if it is a flaw/bug (which certainly looks like it )

5. Interesting. That is an interesting idea. Having an upgrade model for blade traps would be cheaper though.

6. Bears are the absolute strongest animal in the game because they give tons of meat (rotten stuff if in Zd version). They are quite killable in the default setting with the correct gear. I tend to forget I always play on Warrior difficulty and/or Insane sometimes. 

The rest of the animals are extremely killable with a gun , even a couple of blunderbuss headshots at close range will do the job in default (adventurer) setting (except with papa bear ). A blunderbuss can do 150+ damage in a close range headshot burst . Sniper rifles of any quality are also good for hunting. A bathroom pistol probably not, so you might need to buy some time with those.

Predators are extremely dangerous though. They have more attack damage than many Zds, so I understand why you are ranting. Remember to rant at Gazz when these things happen. He is always there for you.

I believe animals are correctly balanced to keep us on our toes.

 

[Gazz]

Predators are extremely dangerous though. They have more attack damage than many Zds, so I understand why you are ranting. Remember to rant at Gazz when these things happen. He is always there for you.

Well, I appreciate hearing about those because then I can put another mark on the chalk board.

Bears or mountain lions are no joke - neither IRL nor in the game.

 

[BFT2020]

Well, I appreciate hearing about those because then I can put another mark on the chalk board.

Bears or mountain lions are no joke - neither IRL nor in the game.

One of my lifetime goals is not to get eaten by a bear.  So far so good

 

[Blake_]

One of my lifetime goals is not to get eaten by a bear.  So far so good

I've mistaken a bear for a boulder in certain light conditions quite a few times over the years . Said mistake has a variety of outcomes depending on my luck. It's generally bad in an open field.

 

[The Civillian]

snip

Not French, just was REALLY late when I wrote that.

Oh dont get me wrong about the zombies in POI's, I understand WHY the popping into existance happens, I just dont understand why its happening in such small spaces, like across a room, you can load in a whole bunch of ACTIVE zombies on a horde night, but you cant have a zombie in a closet at the top of a flight of stairs loaded in because...the POI creator decided they want to screw you over with a trigger trap. (not rubbish/glass, i mena the UNAVOIDABLE kind)

Was hoping wandering sleepers would be an end to those...BS trigger traps, the ones you can not ever avoid because its a litteral trigger.

The blade trap is a dream of mine XD

I get the bears and stuff being tough, but their behaviour and frequency contradict eachother.

Theres TOO many of them compared to deer/rabbits/chickens

So what are they eating...zombies ?, But they ignore the zombies unless the zombie stands on its toe's. Yet can see you and attack you from 20 meters away ?.

In the green biome, Deer should be probably the most comon thing you see, same in the snow biome. Basic eco balance, if you have too many preditors, everything dies out.

 

[Morloc]

One of my lifetime goals is not to get eaten by a bear.

I couldn't agree more. I think what's so rotten about them is that they (purportedly) don't always have the decency to kill-THEN-eat like most carnivorous mammals.

-Morloc

 

[JCrook1028]

Theres TOO many of them compared to deer/rabbits/chickens

Idk what you're seeing but in all my games the rabbits and chickens are EVERYWHERE! Deer are rare yes, intentionally so. Balance issue and done well imo. Yes snow biome has lots of vicious kitty kats , again intentionally so. It meant to be a harsh environment and again I say they accomplished their goal well.

 

[Blake_]

 Hi @faatal, It's me again with a few random daring questions:

Robert talked about rivers and water bodies and stuff in the last video.

1. Have you guys talked about water threats  (piranhas, sharks, submarine Rolands, swimming WereJoels, etc) for  7dtd  ?

2. Is there any vehicle (or mod) planned for traversing/navigating water bodies ?

3. Could you mention any new awesome feature that has been implemented lately to the test build?

My regards.

 

[faatal]

 Hi @faatal, It's me again with a few random daring questions:

Robert talked about rivers and water bodies and stuff in the last video.

1. Have you guys talked about water threats  (piranhas, sharks, submarine Rolands, swimming WereJoels, etc) for  7dtd  ?

2. Is there any vehicle (or mod) planned for traversing/navigating water bodies ?

3. Could you mention any new awesome feature that has been implemented lately to the test build?

My regards.

1 We have talked about it. We have a shark model/anims, but don't know that it will ever get used. Maybe some bored day in the future looking for fun....

2 Mod, no, but we have a raft model and someday it would be nice to added it as a vehicle. I'd like to see a heavy water map eventually.

3 Can't think of any awesome, but my bar is high.

 

[faatal]

Ok, I have a bunch of questions, I hope some can get answered, or maybe these are new I don't know

1 - Wandering sleepers

I assume this is for POI's, are these 'wandering sleepers' going to replace the horribly immersion breaking 'trigger traps' where no matter how quiet you are, you wake up several zeds from the other side of the room because you went over an imaginary line.

1b - Does this mean that POI's will be able to load ALL the zeds within the POI (sleeping ofc) rather than have them horribly pop into existance the second you walk into a room. I've had several rooms where I've opened the CLOSETS, nothing in them, walked into the room and poof, zombies just appear in them.

2 - Verchial mods

PLease let the first mod be to remove the spikes from the Truck and bike, those things are useless and get the verchail stuck soo much. (Also, a buildable army truck with a boatload of storage would be AWSOME XD)

1 How they will work has not been determined. Trigger traps will probably be the same, but at some point stealth may add a chance they don't trigger.

1b Sleepers work how they do for performance reasons. They don't spawn until you are near the sleeper volume. That has not changed in a20, but as the game gets more optimized, some of those rules may be relaxed.

2 Those spikes have no colliders, they are just cosmetic, so removing them won't change collisions,

 

[Roland]

3 Can't think of any awesome, but my bar is high.

What?! You are too humble. What about the 47 millisecond optimization you mentioned earlier today?! 
 

You should show a video of that...oh wait...maybe you already did. I must have blinked!!

 

[Moldy Bread]

Will we ever see the return of the terrifying hub cities? I miss the scary and oppressive atmosphere. I feel like these could be like end-zones.

 

[wolfbain5]

can I have an official response to how far away from a volume you can be before triggering spawns? not just them showing up, but also them being calculated in?

 

[faatal]

can I have an official response to how far away from a volume you can be before triggering spawns? not just them showing up, but also them being calculated in?

It is 8m in XZ for them to start spawning. Don't know what you mean by calculated in.

 

[wolfbain5]

It is 8m in XZ for them to start spawning. Don't know what you mean by calculated in.

thanks. uhm, calculated in, bad wording, but didnt have a better way to phrase. as you drive by buildings, you get near volumes, I didnt know if the game calculates them as you approach to get them ready to render or not. basically hold in memory before you get close enough to render.

 

[wolfbain5]

Another question for @faatal with the drop quests, I can share them with party, and no matter who kills the zed. bear, animal, female, any. they count for anyone on the quest, except dogs. Is this intentional, or something not hooked in like the vultures? are the quest kills meant to be individual the way dogs are, or party kills as all others are?

edit: another correction

snake is counted as zombie kill instead of an animal kill

 

[NinjaMoa]

It is 8m in XZ for them to start spawning. Don't know what you mean by calculated in.

What is done for the Y aspect then?

The main problem I have found with this is dropping / climbing into another room and having them appear as i do so.