PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[meganoth]

Stealth is a bow game. A compound crossbow has damage close to a sniper rifle (50 base damage on 7.62 ammo +14 of sniper rifle vs 45 base damage on steel bolt) but has 200% extra damage on sneak attacks on top of everything else. If I recall correctly, on headshot that's 400%, or 180 extra damage.  7.62mm HP has base 65 which goes a long way, but I don't think it closes the gap.

The sniper headshot perk has lower effectiveness against irradiated, on top of that.

Here's the thing about damage and modifiers. Things have a base damage, let's call it B. For ranged weapons, it's the ammo that has the base damage, and for all other things it's the thing itself. Then you have absolute and percentage modifiers, like the sniper rilfe adding +14 damage or purple quality adding 50%. Sneak attacks, mods, attributes and perks can all contribute modifiers. The final damage (before headshot) is like this: B + B * (sum of all percentage modifers) + (sum of all absolute modifiers). So a purple sniper rifle loaded with normal 7.62 and no random stats does 50 + 50 * (0.5) + 14. If you get 20% sneak damage, it's going to be 50 + 50 * (0.7) + 14.  Every one of these percentage multipliers will apply only to the base damage so you might see 89 damage on that purple sniper rifle and think 20% sneak will be based on that number, but no.

Headshots, though, apply over the total (again, iirc).

As for difficulty, the default difficulty is really low. There's only one difficulty below that, but the default difficulty is the default difficulty. So you must be playing on really high difficulty instead.

Sure, but when you compare crossbow to any gun you have to include firing speed as well. As long as you can get 7.62 ammo in heaps and waste 5 bullets per zombie without caring much a gun is still ahead in damage.

My expectation always was that the balance between the different weapons in 7D2D only works if ammo is somewhat scarce. Not too scarce, we don't really want to spend all nights in mines, but enough so that saving ammo is a part of your daily survivors life

 

[Blake_]

Higher tier bow and xbow damage has been increased for A20. FYI.

Is it a lot? Did the rest of the weapons also increase a bit on the top tiers due to their primitive version squeezing?

 

[dcsobral]

I personally enjoy the hell out of playing as a stealth character. I'll only wear the padded armor, get the military stealth boots, max out my bow and assassination skills, throw a scope on a compound crossbow and steel bolts and it is freaking deadly. Reload is reasonably fast. The biggest thing is stealth is not fast going through a POI.

I had one play through that I concentrated on building up hand to hand. Steel knuckles maxed out and I threw stealth out the window. I just ran through the POI killing things with no worries. Completely different experience to stealth play and that is kind of the point.

Ultimately the game should be played the way you have fun. If you like maxed out XP earning and the easiest zombies then go ahead and play that way if you are having fun. Someone playing on 25% loot and insane mode only using the knife is not a better player. They are playing a different game and having fun doing it. 

The military stealth boots are a big disappointment for me. You can't get them to quality 6 and the padded boots make no noise to begin with.

 

[Roland]

Is it a lot? Did the rest of the weapons also increase a bit on the top tiers due to their primitive version squeezing?

IDK...I just remember Madmole ordering it be done and a ticket made up for it. It was just for the higher tier bows and xbows. No other weapon was discussed.

 

[dcsobral]

What the... guys you rly set up ammo loot so high?  Do you guys added ammo factory or what? in post apo (expectialy zombie post apo) ammo should be rare - 8 pieces of 7,62 could be sign of good luck that you find so much. Damnn.... fine l4d2 have a lot of ammo everywhere but it happens in short period after Day 0. 7dtd looks like 10-15 after day 0

I'm guessing he rarely ever spends ammo (other than bolts). That's the case for me.

 

[meilodasreh]

Higher tier bow and xbow damage has been increased for A20. FYI.

Nice, thx for the info.

Making the arrows/bolts able to pierce the limbs, so we can nail Zeds to the wall at least for a few seconds would add to the fun too.

 

[Matt115]

I'm guessing he rarely ever spends ammo (other than bolts). That's the case for me.

Well this it is too much- in my opinion ammo should be rare like 2-10 bullets per day max to find by first 2 weeks. Why? to make it's looks like late zombie outbreake not 1 days- you know 99% places was scavenged before you came there so you just talking what was left. Bullets became rare thing using mostly during blood moon only. for rest of time using melee / bow would be neccesary to avoid waisting bullets. So -  how to survive blood moon after this change? garthering resources - iron and wood to make tons of spikes and barber wire in WW1 style

 

[Khalagar]

I have a suggestion for a later update especially with bandits coming in A21, any way that we could make some kind of shield out of a car hood or something? 

Shields are one of those "That'd be nice but that's a whole lot of work" things, while they are trying to content lock the game and push the full release out. Adding in an entire blocking system along with all of the animations and hit detection etc is a lot of things to add in, and shields would likely be pretty OP because of how easy it would be to block zombies attacks and club them down

Higher tier bow and xbow damage has been increased for A20. FYI.

Pretty much shuts any debate about whether the bow was under powered or not in A19 lol. I'd love for it to be viable again, but imo, they are fairly pointless as is. I wish they would make the crappy bow less crappy. The primitive bow is . . . . no. I used to always use the bow a ton in the first week, but after wooden bow was moved to t1, the t0 bow is pretty painful to use even compared to just using melee

 

[dcsobral]

i hope so- well i my opinion ammo in so much connected with setting - world is destroyed so everything should be rare and expensive 

That's a common trope on apocalypse fiction that just doesn't stand to scrutiny. People usually think of gas or toilet paper scarcity in times of panic, but there are two key differences. First, the people doing panicking and buying stuff are all alive to do it. Second, the scarcity is happening on the point of sale -- basically, there's people with stocks large enough to last for months or years which is why others have nothing.

On the traditional zombie apocalypse, though, we are talking about 99% fatality rate within days, and then up from there. People had little time to buy stuff, and no time to use it. Supplies that would last one week for ten thousand people will last 25 years for one.

An 8-players server on an 8k map has 21% the population density of Wyoming, less than 3% of Arizona. And 8k maps are really rather urban compared to a whole state. If we are going to go with what the setting calls for instead of what gameplay balance calls for, loot is way too scarce.

 

[dcsobral]

Wait, you saw something about being able to do this? cause...they have always said that they are going to stay with the wires exposed model.

I hate how wiring works in 7d2d. Night of the Dead is a clear visual improvement (imho) with a similar model, in that the wires only show up when yielding the wiring tool, but what I'd really would have liked in 7d2d is to actually have those electrical pipe blocks actually work. To have blocks that carry electricity to adjacent blocks, "wall" blocks that carry electricity from outside to inside (or vice versa), etc. Electrical wires are just unlike everything else in the game. They aren't shapes, they aren't blocks, they aren't items, they aren't entities. They are an ugly aberration.

But what I have heard even all the way back to alpha 19 is that there won't be any further changes to electricity, on any alpha. I cheer myself up at night by recalling they also wanted a20 out on Halloween.

(*) NotD is a clear improvement on almost all regards when it comes to electricity. The power sources are more interesting, the visual signals are cool and helpful, it has blocks that take multiple inputs, and, of course, it has a Not gate (technically, an X-or). 7d2d is far better on sensors, but that is somewhat blunted by the Trap Controller.

I have tried for hours with no success, even my son tried to help.

Have you used a machete and maximized Agility/Deep Cuts? Actually, maximizing Deep Cuts might well get the zombie killed before you can do it. Another good tool is the fireaxe, without points in Miner 69r so as to avoid increasing the damage.

 

[dcsobral]

Sure, but when you compare crossbow to any gun you have to include firing speed as well. As long as you can get 7.62 ammo in heaps and waste 5 bullets per zombie without caring much a gun is still ahead in damage.

Well, no, you don't. First, if you one shot a zombie, you one shot a zombie. There's no need to keep firing at that point. Second, the zombies are sleeping so you can take as much time as possible. Third, if you woke up the other zombies firing these 5 bullets then you are not doing stealth.

 

[Aldranon]

My take on why Arizona has a lot of ammo is two fold:

1) Arizona has a lot of guns!  I'm not sure how many guns they have and I don't think anyone does!  The gun laws are "Wild west" there.

2) There are several Army bases there, one major one if memory serves.

SO, with that in mind, if the zombies attack, they will most likely have martial law in most states.  The military would be out in force with lots of ammo.  The solders got infected and didn't use all the ammo.

The End.  (Well, the end if the player's character dies, YOU are the last hope!) 

 

[dcsobral]

Shields are one of those "That'd be nice but that's a whole lot of work" things, while they are trying to content lock the game and push the full release out. Adding in an entire blocking system along with all of the animations and hit detection etc is a lot of things to add in, and shields would likely be pretty OP because of how easy it would be to block zombies attacks and club them down

Pretty much shuts any debate about whether the bow was under powered or not in A19 lol. I'd love for it to be viable again, but imo, they are fairly pointless as is. I wish they would make the crappy bow less crappy. The primitive bow is . . . . no. I used to always use the bow a ton in the first week, but after wooden bow was moved to t1, the t0 bow is pretty painful to use even compared to just using melee

I don't feel the bow is underpowered. It is very effective when you are hiding, and crappy when you are not. It is also silent. I can kill feral zombies at night on day 2 or 3 on Survivor difficulty (which I did this week) not because I do a lot of damage in a very short time, but because I shoot, move, then shoot again once the zombie is standing still near my previous location.

The fact that the wooden bow takes parts to craft, on the other hand, is what really screwed up the bow. The primitive bow is too weak and you just can't craft a wooden bow because the parts are too hard to find. Bows progression seams to be Tier 0, Tier 2, Tier 3, with the missing tier 1 because you can't find or craft a wooden bow, then you find a wooden bow but the blue/purple primitive bow is way better even before mods.

Will the bow kill the dog running in my direction? No. That's what pistols are for.

 

[Blake_]

@faatal how is life? Do you feel like talking about those MF? I wanted to ask, do you know if the Animal tracker sprites have already been fixed for a20 ?

It strikes me as a possible low priority that it really is everything but that for us players. I mean the code works, but we could only see map/compass sprites for chickens, rabbits and deers. Bear with me here. Snakey question right there. Down onto the rabbit hole. Let's not chicken out and answer me plz.

 

[Perlin_Worm]

I tend to look at balance by ability trees, not specific weapons. Agility seems to be in a good place but could use some fleshing out. Bows have good synergy with stealth but would like to see some bleed broadheads to compliment melee blade bleeds. Bows should not try competing with guns, so a bleed arrow would give a light armor stealther the ability to kite and inflict damage over time, then go in with the melee finisher. 

 

[IronClaw68]

bout ready to kick 63 out the door so how young are you?

Pardon the interruption. I'll be 78 on Xmas Eve

 

[meilodasreh]

Will the bow kill the dog running in my direction? No.

Dude, you're doing it wrong.

Not the bow of course...but the exploding arrow? Oh YES!

...just mind the distance. safety first

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

My take on why Arizona has a lot of ammo is two fold:

1) Arizona has a lot of guns!  I'm not sure how many guns they have and I don't think anyone does!  The gun laws are "Wild west" there.

2) There are several Army bases there, one major one if memory serves.

SO, with that in mind, if the zombies attack, they will most likely have martial law in most states.  The military would be out in force with lots of ammo.  The solders got infected and didn't use all the ammo.

The End.  (Well, the end if the player's character dies, YOU are the last hope!) 

It depends on how the outbreak happens. Lets consider the virus in game. if everyone was infected, and it was a slow incubation, then you would have just insane pandemonium where one day everything is nice then BLAMO zombie apocalypse. That would explain why we have the survivors, a destroyed society, but also a cure. 

It does not explain the bloodmoon. Why is the moon a weekly thing? don't know. Is it science or magic? don't know. 

 

[Mistwraith]

Wait, you saw something about being able to do this? cause...they have always said that they are going to stay with the wires exposed model.

I am actually able to do this right now. Normal A19 with no mods. The wires just hang into the blocks if you do it right. I can also build blocks onto wires to hide them. If you put your generator in a generator room on top of your building, you can lay cables that go directly through the ceiling to the lamps and nobody will see them. I also use double walls with an empty space within to hide the electrical distributors. This also gives Zombies an additional wall to punch trough during blood moons.

 

[meilodasreh]

 ...btw, can't wait for the added levels of differently colored lootbags in A20.

Morning after hordenight will look as if a herd of giant unicorns took a dump against my fort.