PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[ShellHead]

This is like saying enemies in a WW2 shooter should always shout "TIMBER" and wave a flag before shooting at you, to prevent any surprises

It does have the problem of making the stun baton’s crowd control effect more of a drawback when things get hectic, which is when cc is supposed to be the most useful especially in group play. I think people would prefer surprises to be “were there always 4 demolishers there?” As opposed to “did my teammate actually kill that zed or just knock it over?”

 

[bdubyah]

It does have the problem of making the stun baton’s crowd control effect more of a drawback when things get hectic, which is when cc is supposed to be the most useful especially in group play. I think people would prefer surprises to be “were there always 4 demolishers there?” As opposed to “did my teammate actually kill that zed or just knock it over?”

I disagree completely with this. The XP popup is bad enough as it is. You want confetti and candy to pop out of them when they die just so you know? 

Kinda ruins the suspense if it's that obvious...

 

[bdubyah]

For those who forgotten, I think the wandering sleeper feature that was pushed to a21 was one of the things that may address the stealth issues at least partially.

Also, with the new feral sense feature, I have a feeling stealth perks will be more useful in a20.

Aww. It got pushed to a21? That was kind of a big one for me. 

 

[unholyjoe]

he basically is saying... if you dont want to follow the path of least resistance as the level designers designed the pois for, then it is totally up to the player to play off the beatin' path (if that is what they want to do). some prefer it and some dont. thats the beauty of the pois... you can go in and play any way or you can grab the quests and go in following a path or not.

if that still isnt explained, then i am sorry,

but it is clear what TFP design is about and players can go about it any way they want, you really are not forced to walk any lines... we just offer a simple objective...

be glad my personal pois dont make it into TFP line up.. mine are designed to kick butt and dont take names. and i make mine planning on how people will try to circumvent my design.... yeah, i am sneaky.

 

[unholyjoe]

yeah i agree, i prefer the surprise... many times i bash heads and move on thinking they are dead... (when you are fight a horde of 8 or so) you dont take the time to check for their pulses... and while i am busy bashing more heads... one gets up to clap my ears with the infamous seal clap... i turn around with a "WTF", then i bash again and head pops off... well he is definitely dead now.

 

[ShellHead]

I disagree completely with this. The XP popup is bad enough as it is. You want confetti and candy to pop out of them when they die just so you know? 

Kinda ruins the suspense if it's that obvious...

You do realize that makes the stun baton a liability in hordes, yes? Which means its use is going to be restricted to solo and most likely POIs exclusively. And I sincerely doubt suspense is the first thing on people’s minds in the middle of a late game blood moon horde.

 

[dcsobral]

You do realize that makes the stun baton a liability in hordes, yes? Which means its use is going to be restricted to solo and most likely POIs exclusively. And I sincerely doubt suspense is the first thing on people’s minds in the middle of a late game blood moon horde.

It is definitely not a liability on hordes. What best than throw the zombies on the ground again so it has to go up the stairs, through the blade traps, the dart traps, the electric fences and the robotic sledge again to get to you before you throw it down again? And if that's not how your horde base works then don't blame the weapon but the horde base.

 

[ShellHead]

It is definitely not a liability on hordes. What best than throw the zombies on the ground again so it has to go up the stairs, through the blade traps, the dart traps, the electric fences and the robotic sledge again to get to you before you throw it down again? And if that's not how your horde base works then don't blame the weapon but the horde base.

In multiplayer it is, you’re not going to be able to control the zeds that tightly and allies won’t know if a zed is dealt with. That’s my only point, the other players are not going to want you to take a weapon who’s major benefit is crowd control if it makes their job of killing zeds harder.

 

[dcsobral]

In multiplayer it is, you’re not going to be able to control the zeds that tightly and allies won’t know if a zed is dealt with. That’s my only point, the other players are not going to want you to take a weapon who’s major benefit is crowd control if it makes their job of killing zeds harder.

If the zombie is running upstairs again, it's not dead.

 

[Roland]

Whenever its time to chew bubblegum and kick ass, Joe is always out of bubblegum.

It does have the problem of making the stun baton’s crowd control effect more of a drawback when things get hectic, which is when cc is supposed to be the most useful especially in group play. I think people would prefer surprises to be “were there always 4 demolishers there?” As opposed to “did my teammate actually kill that zed or just knock it over?”

You need to pay closer attention. Not only does the xp payout pop up to let you know it is dead, the death animations as well as the death screams are different than the knockback animations and sounds. It doesn't take long for someone who is paying attention to always know exactly when the enemy is dead. I made a mod in which I replaced all death animations and sounds with the knockback and made the get up time variable so that you never were certain whether they were dead yet-- and it was much much better. Big no vote from me on adding any additional signs that enemies are dead dead.

 

[Darklegend222]

or just open the door, stand there and stealth shot em one by one. When then come to you in that little room kill them and go call forth the next contestant. I learned that after the 1st time I did that POI. Did you not learn? Well now you know.

When you say "everyone" you're almost always wrong.

If standing outside an invisible barrier is the only way, doesn't that also seem like it shouldn't be a thing? Might as well remove it entirely and just let every zombie wake up the moment one dies.

And i use the term everyone as it has been heavily debated as someone else posted. If using the term everyone is too sensitive, then I'll say the "people" who have debated it had reason to.

If your standing outside the barrier.. then nothing can hear you.

Look at the general support of zombies not hearing metal clanking next to them because it was outside the "area". It's a problem mate. Seriously, it doesn't take a lot to see a problem here with the system that can be fixed or revamped to be improved.

Edit: i also made a new game. What's the point of investing perks into the skill if zombies can wake up if you enter the barrier (still on the school topic). If you can 100% stealth through a POI (which should be difficult but not quite literally impossible), then it's because you've reached lvl 10 agility and invested your perks into that.

I don't get how this is an improvement to just making EVERY zombie follow hear/sight rules. And if that isn't enough, allow a zombie to have a % chance to wake up a zombie next to it, if you hit it and it doesn't die on that hit.

The new stealth system is in no way shape or form a good one. It should be the way it was in A15. Play any game, SCUM, the last of us, or skyrim. Do enemies instantly wake up after passing an invisible barrier? Or do they follow a set of functions for seeing the character.. it doesn't take a lot to see how this system is poor and needs to be worked on further, hell. They could even add more trash to areas, and create sensors that set off alarms.

I don't get why we're throwing logic away just to make stealth less and less viable, especially since all those stealth perks are USELESS on horde night. Since you know, your already instantly detected on bloodmoon.. I don't even use stealth and i see a lot of issues wrong with it.

 

[enragedcamel]

Can any dev comment on the QoL changes or changes in general for Stun Baton? Are any even on the table? As someone who started a new A19.5 run with the explicit intention to do a Stun Baton character . . . yeah . . .

IMO, you shouldn't need to have candy + a book only mod + an entire perk line + your junk turrets going all combined to basically just let the junk turrets do what they would already have done anyway. I couldn't even get a single stun baton for the entire first week, which made the build very sad as well, so I'm hoping it gets some drop rate changes to actually be usable as a starting weapon as I'm pretty sure damage wise it's out damaged by a stone axe rofl

INT builds in general are underpowered as hell IMO.

 

[Star69]

Whenever its time to chew bubblegum and kick ass, Joe is always out of bubblegum.

You need to pay closer attention. Not only does the xp payout pop up to let you know it is dead, the death animations as well as the death screams are different than the knockback animations and sounds. It doesn't take long for someone who is paying attention to always know exactly when the enemy is dead. I made a mod in which I replaced all death animations and sounds with the knockback and made the get up time variable so that you never were certain whether they were dead yet-- and it was much much better. Big no vote from me on adding any additional signs that enemies are dead dead.

Agree…. I never mistake whether a zombie is dead or stunned using the baton, neither are my team mates. Of course we all have over 6000 hours each so it’s plain as the nose on my face if one is dead or not. Stun baton ftw even on horde night!!

 

[ShellHead]

I knew that the xp popup told the player, i was more referring to the allies but if you all haven’t had problems with it then it’s probably not a serious issue.

I’m all for making the game as atmospheric as possible, i just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to cause problems that might keep some really cool ideas (e.g. the stun baton) out of play, especially the spheres of play it would be the most interesting and fun in. But it seems like that’s not the issue i thought it was.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Whenever its time to chew bubblegum and kick ass, Joe is always out of bubblegum.

You need to pay closer attention. Not only does the xp payout pop up to let you know it is dead, the death animations as well as the death screams are different than the knockback animations and sounds. It doesn't take long for someone who is paying attention to always know exactly when the enemy is dead. I made a mod in which I replaced all death animations and sounds with the knockback and made the get up time variable so that you never were certain whether they were dead yet-- and it was much much better. Big no vote from me on adding any additional signs that enemies are dead dead.

The zombie is on its back. It looks up at you with pleading eyes full of despair, trying to grab you one last time with one of its arms. And then, it dies; its arm falls onto its chest and its head turns to the side.

Seriously though, that mod you mentioned... Is it updated for 19.4?

 

[dcsobral]

INT builds in general are underpowered as hell IMO.

Personally, I think it is are the most OP build there is. Bicycle or minibike on day 2, motorcycle by day 7, steel by day 14, fastest book completion, experience from electrical traps, cheaper crafting costs, faster crafting, no searching for working stations or stations schematics, plenty of ammo and molotovs through quest completion, and higher tier guns at higher quality faster than anyone else. Since putting points into weapon perks is fun but totally unnecessary, I usually don't spend any points outside Int before I have everything maxed for Int 7 (except Physician, the stun baton perk and the charisma thingy). At that point the gamestage is high enough that putting points into Lucky Looter is worthwhile, and Salvage Operations can be helpful as well. If I still don't have an auger and a chainsaw I might put points into Sex T and Miner, and the stealth perks are also pretty good since I use padded armor.

The Perception tree is decent as well. A bit of Strength is a nice-to-have so you can dig, open those crates and get cobblestone/cement faster, or if you are really unlucky getting that auger from the trader, but definitely nothing worth going above Str 3 (2 + cigar). Fortitude has nothing useful, and Agility is pretty much devoid of anything unrelated to combat except for Parkour, and Parkour is another fun-but-unnecessary perk.

Then, by the time irradiated start to show up, you are already maxed out on everything that makes progression faster and can start spending points on any combat perks that takes your fancy.

 

[ShellHead]

INT’s progression perks are genuinely fantastic but its associated weapons are too reliant on the perks to be consistently useful. You’re best served by trying to get a high quality weapon from another perk line via the traders, which is something no other stat has to do.

The issue isn’t that INT doesn’t have access to good weapons, since anyone can use any weapon they obviously do, the issue is that if the INT player wants to focus on their associated weapons over other perk’s weapons, they will be putting themselves at a disadvantage in comparison.

The power allocation for the turrets and the stun baton should be shifted back towards the base weapons and away from the perks so that INT players can use them more effectively earlier and so that non-INT players have a reason to pay attention to them.

INT is clearly designed to be centered on progression at the cost of combat capabilities and self-sufficiency, which is a really interesting playstyle but i think the weapons are still undertuned even with the reduced focus on fighting taken into account.

Additionally remember that with the further refinement of the gamestage mechanics, the traders are going to be less powerful and as a result INT will have substantially reduced ability to get powerful gear quickly. So while INT maybe overpowered now, that may completely change with A20 and as such should be rebalanced with the understanding that it is benefiting from a temporary situation.

 

[meganoth]

I knew that the xp popup told the player, i was more referring to the allies but if you all haven’t had problems with it then it’s probably not a serious issue.

I always group with my co-players so I get the XP popup too. Not that I want it. Now with lots of zombies attributing it to which zombie died actually might be difficult.

I’m all for making the game as atmospheric as possible, i just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to cause problems that might keep some really cool ideas (e.g. the stun baton) out of play, especially the spheres of play it would be the most interesting and fun in. But it seems like that’s not the issue i thought it was.

If we ignore the popup then I don't see why that problem would be limited to stun baton. Other weapons have knockdown too. And there still is the effect that zombies can go down when at low health but not dead (or am I imagining things?). Death through stun baton is sometimes even more obvious because dead zombies stop flashing immediately.

 

[meganoth]

If standing outside an invisible barrier is the only way, doesn't that also seem like it shouldn't be a thing? Might as well remove it entirely and just let every zombie wake up the moment one dies.

The activation barriers sure feel artifical sometimes, but we are dealing here with compromises. The system TFP uses for its POIs needs few CPU cycles and that is surely why TFP uses it. I hope they will eventually use optimization wins for more zombies instead of more natural senses of zombies, but your mileage may vary.

And i use the term everyone as it has been heavily debated as someone else posted. If using the term everyone is too sensitive, then I'll say the "people" who have debated it had reason to.

If your standing outside the barrier.. then nothing can hear you.

Look at the general support of zombies not hearing metal clanking next to them because it was outside the "area". It's a problem mate. Seriously, it doesn't take a lot to see a problem here with the system that can be fixed or revamped to be improved.

Yes, anything that lowers immersion is a potential problem. 7D2D will be released with lots of problems still in the game because compromises have to be made. The only question is which problems TFP will fix and which it will keep because they just don't have the CPU budget to fix them.

Edit: i also made a new game. What's the point of investing perks into the skill if zombies can wake up if you enter the barrier (still on the school topic). If you can 100% stealth through a POI (which should be difficult but not quite literally impossible), then it's because you've reached lvl 10 agility and invested your perks into that.

I don't get how this is an improvement to just making EVERY zombie follow hear/sight rules. And if that isn't enough, allow a zombie to have a % chance to wake up a zombie next to it, if you hit it and it doesn't die on that hit.

The new stealth system is in no way shape or form a good one. It should be the way it was in A15. Play any game, SCUM, the last of us, or skyrim. Do enemies instantly wake up after passing an invisible barrier? Or do they follow a set of functions for seeing the character.. it doesn't take a lot to see how this system is poor and needs to be worked on further, hell. They could even add more trash to areas, and create sensors that set off alarms.

Someone checked the xmls and found that the automatic activation happens in much less than 10% of rooms, I think it was even below 5% but I'm not sure. There was just one building which overdid it with almost every room having automatic activation and I made a bug report about it.

That is why I think the issue gets overblown, because if it happens in every 20th room then it means stealth works in all the other 19 of 20 rooms as expected and the 20th room is an interesting variety stealthers have to be prepared for.

And it is possible to restealth and there are other ways to prepare yourself for such situations. It makes stealth a lot more interesting for me because everyone can play stealth, but there is a way to improve your stealth play further and master it.

I don't get why we're throwing logic away just to make stealth less and less viable, especially since all those stealth perks are USELESS on horde night. Since you know, your already instantly detected on bloodmoon.. I don't even use stealth and i see a lot of issues wrong with it.

So you don't use stealth but have a strong opinion about it? Well, I do use stealth and like stealth play. Maybe that is the difference . I also like the occasional surprise and other players may not like surprises.

As long as stealth isn't 100% effective I'm good, so a change like the one hiemfire talked about would be fine. But I'm ok with it as it is as well.

 

[Matt115]

I always group with my co-players so I get the XP popup too. Not that I want it. Now with lots of zombies attributing it to which zombie died actually might be difficult.

If we ignore the popup then I don't see why that problem would be limited to stun baton. Other weapons have knockdown too. And there still is the effect that zombies can go down when at low health but not dead (or am I imagining things?). Death through stun baton is sometimes even more obvious because dead zombies stop flashing immediately.

I remember good old return of the dead when zombie could be only killed by electricity or burned them XD

The activation barriers sure feel artifical sometimes, but we are dealing here with compromises. The system TFP uses for its POIs needs few CPU cycles and that is surely why TFP uses it. I hope they will eventually use optimization wins for more zombies instead of more natural senses of zombies, but your mileage may vary.

Yes, anything that lowers immersion is a potential problem. 7D2D will be released with lots of problems still in the game because compromises have to be made. The only question is which problems TFP will fix and which it will keep because they just don't have the CPU budget to fix them.

Someone checked the xmls and found that the automatic activation happens in much less than 10% of rooms, I think it was even below 5% but I'm not sure. There was just one building which overdid it with almost every room having automatic activation and I made a bug report about it.

That is why I think the issue gets overblown, because if it happens in every 20th room then it means stealth works in all the other 19 of 20 rooms as expected and the 20th room is an interesting variety stealthers have to be prepared for.

And it is possible to restealth and there are other ways to prepare yourself for such situations. It makes stealth a lot more interesting for me because everyone can play stealth, but there is a way to improve your stealth play further and master it.

So you don't use stealth but have a strong opinion about it? Well, I do use stealth and like stealth play. Maybe that is the difference . I also like the occasional surprise and other players may not like surprises.

As long as stealth isn't 100% effective I'm good, so a change like the one hiemfire talked about would be fine. But I'm ok with it as it is as well.

Well someone can have opinion about something and don't doing this - i think machete is useless   so i don't use  (logical) , someone thing stealth is bad so he is not using it because it his opinion is bad. Well it was quiet stupid to use or do something what is not working . I think  7dtd have some "core" problems with stealth that cannot be fixed - well it needed to change zombie AI , Poi , armor system , weapons balance but it can be done in 7dtd 2