PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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MisutoM said:
Lever Action Rifle is the new tier 2 rifle. Pipe machine gun is a tier 0 gun. It'd be more fair to compare the pipe rifle to the pipe machine gun since the LAR needs a much high loot stage to find. At which point, you're looking at 66 damage vs 45 damage, so around a 50% increase. But you have a single shot loaded and over a 3 second reload animation, compared to pipe machine gun having 20 rounds loaded and a slightly faster reload animation. Given how common ammo still is (like getting 60 .762 per trader quest), it's unlikely you'd rather have 50% more per shot vs having 19 more shots loaded. 
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Yes I could see that (T0 pipe rifle vs T0 machine gun) rather than saying it is better than the T2 Lever action rifle.

I found the Lever Action rifle fun to play with in my test world so I wouldn't pick the T0 machine gun over it.

 
I feel like getting rid of the reinforced concrete in drying times is kind of counterintuitive being panicked that your concrete wasn’t going to dry in time was part of seven days and now there’s even less building block tiers.  I know they increase the health on the box but there should be just a more variety such as reinforced stone or something 

 
Wow… just wow!!! This alpha was so worth the wait!!! Could write a book of the fun things in my few hour play session tonight. 
 

one highlight was finishing a downtown filler quest right when the time hit 22:00… we were stuck for a few in game hours as there were so many spawned zombies trying to get to us (we have feral sense turned to all). After we killed a bunch of Zeds we finally jumped out a window to get to our bike and made a run for it!

PS… also having so much fun with the new POi’s. Don’t want to give spoilers so I’ll keep it vague. Had a small POI on edge of town that I though would be an easy tier 1, and thought I could handle at night on day 2… ended up being bigger than expected and got wrecked lol… 

Thank you Fun Pimps for all the hard work!!!!

 
Does steamcmd not pull the correct version yet? I am trying to install a dedicated server but it keeps pulling alpha 19.
running:
app_update 294420 -beta latest_experimental
it runs and pulls everything, but its alpha 19.

 
hiemfire said:
Could you check something when you get a chance. The wooden club is single target but, based on what I've seen on stream, I think the pipe baton can hit multiple enemies in a single strike for full or near full effect and also seems to have a decent chance to stagger or knockdown each of the ones hit.
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Pipe Baton sometimes hits two targets, I have noticed that, so you might be right. Bigger issue though is that the Pipe Baton just doesn't really fit the electrocute perk line that well.  From intellect it gets 300% headshot damage and then electrocute gives it only 50% flat damage because it doesn't get any of the stun buffs from the perk line like the stun baton does. It also can't use the stun baton mods as best I can tell. Compare that to Club and the pummel Pete for example, where it gets 50% damage and like 4 other extra modifiers, it would be nice if pipe baton benefited from more of the perk

It's a shame, I actually love the Pipe Baton because it's animations are so fun and want to keep using it past early game.

Dunno, will need more testing to see if the pipe baton stays relevant late game, it might just flat out out scale the stun baton lol, it already feels MUCH better than any Stun Baton build I've done even with a fully kitted out stun baton compared to my 4 intellect 0 perk Pipe Baton

This is one of those "The Fun Pimps already did all the work to make the animations, model, rigging etc, so why not just make it more usable" things to me. I feel like you could easily just go Pipe Baton -> Stun Baton -> Steel Baton and let the final steel baton have an electric charge on it and use the pipe baton animations and get the stun batons shock effects.

lord_ahriman said:


What video resolution? I'm going to buy a new card (3080 Ti or 6900XT) so that's an important feed.
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1440p on my my main monitor, 4K on my two side ones. Game runs at 1440p, and framerate is pretty good outside of the game stopping hitches that happen periodically

 
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Khalagar said:
Pipe Baton sometimes hits two targets, I have noticed that, so you might be right. Bigger issue though is that the Pipe Baton just doesn't really fit the electrocute perk line that well.  From intellect it gets 300% headshot damage and then electrocute gives it only 50% flat damage because it doesn't get any of the stun buffs from the perk line like the stun baton does. It also can't use the stun baton mods as best I can tell.
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If it is causing stagger against multiple targets with decent regularity then the pipe baton is working as a crowd control trainer for using the stun baton later.

I agree that a 3rd baton type being added above the stun baton combining the pipe baton's animation & multi target (if that is actually what I've been seeing) and the stun baton's shock effect would be nice. They could even keep the per target physical damage a bit lower than the steel club and a slower attack rate with the addition of the shock effect on a hypothetical Tier 3 and I'd be happy with it.

Now if only they'd give Int a tier 0 robot to practice the play style with. Could even be a slow firing, narrow cone (20 deg to either side of the center facing), automated sling shot or onager that uses the robotic turret ammo. :)

 
It kind of hits two targets, but I don't think it sweeps as much as a sledge or anything. I would compare it's AoE to a club, which can also sometimes stagger two targets I'm 99% sure. The only times I've had the pipe baton do it, is when I use the power attack and they are lined up to both get poked by the thrust, so its' not exactly reliable AoE and I don't feel like the pipe baton is staggering any more than a club does, so it's not really carving out any kind of niche besides just "It at least scales with your perk stat and has cool animations"

 
Man this Alpha rocks, worth the wait. I died on day F'ing one, mid day at that, in that stupid post office/supply store or whatever it is connected to it. 

Decided to raid it on my way to a quest & in the main room met like 8 zombies. Good times!! 

I did notice I got a few multiple hit shots with my tier 1 wooden club on power attacks. (Earlier posts people were getting this with the pipe baton as well). I don't remember this being a thing in A19 but I could be wrong. 

 
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Yep, already on 2 deaths at the end of day 1.

Husband is on about 6, but that's because I end up using him as a meat shield and running away while the Zs chew on his corpse.

 
So far still only one death to the day 1 feral that spawned outside my crappy starting shack (with feral sense on, at night), but I'm about to do a generator mission at night so I have low expectations of survival. My friend is on like 6 deaths I'm pretty sure lol

A20 definitely seems harder despite the better starting weapons, or maybe because of it. Nothing quite like the "Pfft, oh no, one zombie, what ever will I do?" cocky pride followed by "WHY IS MY PIPE SHOTGUN NOT LOADED?!!!!!" as you get ripped to shreds

 
Thoughts on alpha 20 after having played for several hours now...

New world generation and graphics upgrades? Fabulous. The game looks completely different in a good way. Road systems actually look good and work now, the jeep may get more use now that driving on the roads is both easier and more practical! New POIs and reworks I've seen so far are all really well done. I popped my head in the new factory and a few others in the POI editor (not too much, don't wanna spoil all the fun!), and most of them look totally sweet design-wise.

New loot system? I still want to see the actual numbers of what got changed how, but so far looting finally FEELS rewarding again. I like the rebalancing they've done of what loot shows up in what container, and the ability to run across more than a stone axe if you get super lucky really adds a lot of the fun factor back (I got a level 1 pistol on day 1! And equally important, I haven't found another yet, meaning they aren't lying around everywhere, either). I really approve of the addition of small amounts of resources, like sand, stones, cobblestone, in the trash piles and such. It does feel like there is some balancing yet to do with regards to how much or what spawns and how often certain things spawn, since I feel like I'm getting more of certain things than I should, but the new system itself? So far so good. As far as food is concerned, I haven't tested the new farming system yet, but what feels promising is I have run across a few various seeds in loot, they seem to show up a bit more often than before. As far as food is concerned without having farming involved, it feels just about right to me. I'm not dying of hunger to the point I can't do anything but desperately search for food, but keeping myself fed doesn't feel effortless either. Speaking of, the single inventory slot food pack that the airdrop now gives is neat. I like that, and the fact there are now tier rewards from the trader. Dude gave me a bike! Now I can spend my dukes on food and early essentials instead of having to try to hoard them in case he stocks a vehicle and I can't find the parts elsewhere. I bought some crops from him instead, to help get what I need to try that new farming system. :)

Gameplay? Pretty smooth 90% of the time. Every now and then there is like this little stutter or lag spike when a zombie gets knocked down, or you open a container, it can happen with lots of things, not sure what's up with it, but that said.. Bugs? Not really much of anything so far. Certainly nothing game breaking! This feels very finished for an experimental build, so well done, Fun Pimps! I did stumble across a block where an edge was unpainted and it caught my eye both times I went through that POI, but that's just an aesthetic polish sort of thing, doesn't affect gameplay at all (attached a screenshot of it). The bug where it doesn't show the decreasing durability if you power harvest an animal and then switch to normal harvesting still exists, but that was in alpha 19, too. One thing I did find that is annoying, is that when you knock a zombie down in grass, you can swing directly at its head an it will just break the grass instead of hitting the zombie! Honestly, though, that's my biggest complaint so far.

This is probably my favorite alpha so far since I started back in alpha 16.

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First impressions on my potato PC (GTX 780M, intel 4800MQ 4/8 2.7-3.6Ghz boost and 4x8 gigs DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz and 1tb SSD) . To the players: Don't install 7dtd on a HDD. It stutters often in heavy graphical areas.

-Generation time on 10k map is 14 minutes 53 seconds on minimum requirements. 16 minutes 30 seconds if we count the loading screen until player movement.

-For comparison, 8k map generation time  in a19.6 b8 was around 28 minutes .

-Performance: Equal to an 8k map . I would say that it's better, equal in Cities, but you have to turn off Vsync.

-I used 4 potato sticks of ddr3 ram and I now have 32 gigs of potato ram. No matter the potatoness of the RAM, if you have it you can do it with good enough stability. Dual channel is a must.

-City is.... I find it way better than I thought, good stability and drops don't go too far and stutters are non existent if you remember to disable CPU-intensive options like Vsync. Distant mesh is default and I turned to low graphics preset, but without AA and view distance Medium.

Don't play on an HDD. I installed it in one and the fps stutters are noticeable every once in a while.

Suggestions:

There are new CPU intensive tasks that should be tweaked:

 VSync should be NO by default in high, medium and low presets, I wouldn't necessarily turn it off for Ultra though, to each their own .  Screen tearing is minimal due to the game being designed to go exactly at 60 fps most of the time and "Yes" just results in a big drop in average fps , due to the high CPU comsumption in Downtown , also resulting in  heavy stutter. I'm talking up to 3.6ghz Cpus which is not a laughing matter. Disabling it relaxed the situation and the sudden drops (+ the AA off).

-AA should be off in lower end computers. Same as above. Detecting CPU could be a nice thing.

I suggest creating at least a LOWEST preset that disables VSync and AA AND reflections. Postprocessing and CPU-heavy tasks should not be included in the lower settings. Near shadows should take priority if need be so does the occluder, as they directly affect gameplay experience.

-Zds in "Feral Sense : On" lack sufficient audio cues, resulting in more silent hits from behind. The audio sound frequency of entities should be increased a bit.

What I tested: I turned ALL to Ultra and Ultra++++ with custom for highest settings with Vsync off and the result was 20-30 fps in ALL the 10k map running in god mode and teleporting and doing whatever the heck I wanted. The lowest drop was a second in Downtown with 10 fps. I didn't test exploding stuff, but my guess is it might be ok to explode POIs if the environment isn't too crowded.

I'd say that if my potato can handle 30fps on 1080p highest, the game is very optimized. It needs that Vsync and AA off to bring fps up on low end rigs.

Edit: This post should be of some help to you, @faatal. Good job!

 
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