PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Thanks to everyone who supported me with the links, I'm back to installing the game. Haha.

TFP, seriously, take this advice wisely. You have a fantastic game coupled with an amazing community. Most game developers are either greedy scumbags, or they're good, honest people who couldn't ever dream of having something that 7D2D / TFP has. Let players have options. Give people choices when building. Handicaps, no matter how realistic, are never fun.

 
Roland said:
I'm a pretty basic builder. I don't even know how I would use most of the new shapes for aesthetically pleasing results. I guess a good example could really help me. Can you describe one of the shapes that has been reduced in HP and exactly how that would compromise the security of your base? Are these smaller blocks the ones that are typically even going to be within reach of the horde? For example, some of the archway pieces probably won't ever get hit if you use them would they? What's the usecase for these pieces in zombie defense where their hp actually comes into play?

I mean if MechanicalLens is saying goodbye until this is fixed these must be pretty integral defensive blocks and maybe I need to learn about them better.

I have the same question.
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I think the combo of -75% HP while still at 100% mat cost in the current iteration is the extreme problem. If that were at least balanced, so -75% HP at -75% mat cost, there would be a dif debate about this change.

Like, I would still be ugh on it and consider it an unhealthy blow to base building, but I would adapt and deal, probably end up liking it eventually. But as is, in this patch, nope. Started a new game, stopping the one where I was super into base building, and am just gonna focus more on exploring the new POIs, with minimal base building, until next patch. I imagine this will not stay as it is in this patch for long.

 
Mechanimal said:
I think the combo of -75% HP while still at 100% mat cost in the current iteration is the extreme problem. If that were at least balanced, so -75% HP at -75% mat cost, there would be a dif debate about this change.

Like, I would still be ugh on it and consider it an unhealthy blow to base building, but I would adapt and deal, probably end up liking it eventually. But as is, in this patch, nope. Started a new game, stopping the one where I was super into base building, and am just gonna focus more on exploring the new POIs, with minimal base building, until next patch. I imagine this will not stay as it is in this patch for long.
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although realistically and thematically, -75% and -50% make sense..it is a little bit...extreme? I think -50% and -25% would be more reasonable

I was also looking forward to building a tower,7 meter in A20 for my hordebase, but if the round tower pieces have scuffed HP than there is no point using them and it will be back to square blocks.

I think why alot of people are upset about this is because you gave us a whole new shape menu to play with now, and now you are telling us alot of these shapes are just useless in hordebases.

regardless of these small block changes, people will still make bases that can cheese hordenights. they will just use older/uglier ones with full blocks.

so this change does nothing but restrict what people will build hordebases with

 
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On Grand Spartan's stream tonight (around the 2:46 min mark), he had a base collapse and in addition to the elevated platform blocks breaking the support pillars broke as well. I've never seen support pillars collapse before. Has something changed about SI in A20?

Here's a link to right before the collapse:



 
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POCKET951 said:
although realistically and thematically, -75% and -50% make sense..it is a little bit...extreme? I think -50% and -25% would be more reasonable

I was also looking forward to building a tower,7 meter in A20 for my hordebase, but if the round tower pieces have scuffed HP than there is no point using them and it will be back to square blocks.

I think why alot of people are upset about this is because you gave us a whole new shape menu to play with now, and no you are telling us alot of these shapes are just useless in hordebases.

regardless of these small block changes, people will still make bases that can cheese hordenights. they will just use older/uglier ones with full blocks.

so this change does nothing but restrict what people will build hordebases with
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It's new players as well. Let's assume all the pillar variants are next on the chopping block. A new player uses pillars to elevate a walkway that they fire down on the zombies from. This new player realized the pillars have 50% less HP than normal blocks. What do they do? Well, from then on they build with cubes, like everything else.

Anyway, enough ranting from me. 😛 Just wanted to say I was considering "the little people" (or new players; "little" as in hours wise) as well.

 
POCKET951 said:
although realistically and thematically, -75% and -50% make sense..it is a little bit...extreme? I think -50% and -25% would be more reasonable

I was also looking forward to building a tower,7 meter in A20 for my hordebase, but if the round tower pieces have scuffed HP than there is no point using them and it will be back to square blocks.

I think why alot of people are upset about this is because you gave us a whole new shape menu to play with now, and no you are telling us alot of these shapes are just useless in hordebases.

regardless of these small block changes, people will still make bases that can cheese hordenights. they will just use older/uglier ones with full blocks.

so this change does nothing but restrict what people will build hordebases with
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I think this will require more playing with to determine which blocks are affected. I know that the full length quarter blocks or "cubes" didn't have their HP reduced. And so, at least for now, it's not all less than full-sized blocks that had their HP reduced.

 
I just wanted to apologize for my rash reaction earlier. Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic - uninstalling the game and all that - but I still would have left until a mod came around that reverted this change. 😛 Many people are praising it, some saying it should have happened years ago, and while I am certainly not one of those people, that doesn't make the change objectively wrong. It's all subjective at the end of the day. And hopefully my worries about new players being discouraged from building with blocks with less HP is grossly exaggerated.

But thank goodness mods exist. I've installed it, I'm happy, anyone who chooses to do the same will be happy, and anyone who is happy with the change, all the more power to them. Everything is well.

 
The overall costs of upgrading seem so much cheaper to me now that its hard for me to feel any outrage over this. Especially if it is smaller specialty shapes and not the regular shapes you would use for the direct defenses vs zombies pounding. To me everything still costs the same that they did yesterday so no big deal. I guess if I end up using something as a defensive structure and it gets ripped apart in no time I'll be screwed because I can't really see myself checking every block for HP. 

I just wonder how big an impact this will have in actual practice on horde nights or is it just the principle of the thing that offends?

 
With forts:

I'm not sure why they cant group blocks into 2 or 3 categories with different damage and costs. (EDIT: wait... they would have to change the entire system, so 3 generic block types (full, half and quarter))

I mean right now, only counting blocks up to 4 high, just the outside layer of my BM base would take about 1.5 million damage to destroy.  Lets not talk about my 17x16 inner core that is solid up to 5 meters high! 

I lost only 7 blocks for the entire BM day 28 horde!  

I can welcome some changes.  It would be nice if they made sense too.  (Edit: That's not a requirement to make sense!  My theory is the player is in a Coma and what is happening is their fight to regain conscious is causing what is seen (the "mindless" zombie vs the mindful player!)  7D2D Part 2 will be when the player regains consciousness!  Maybe the player will have 7 days to [SIZE=14.6px]prepare[/SIZE] for a "real" [SIZE=14.6px]apocalypse[/SIZE]!

 
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I don't even get why this change was done, 75% nerf to certain blocks seems too much, it seems like another one of those "oh players have figured out a tactic that works let's get rid of it so they have nothing that really works" moves.  I just don't get why, people still had to defend, use traps, use guns, had the horde coming up to them mostly in a tower style in a tower defence game.  Next, it'll be "oh traps work, let's get rid of traps, perhaps guns need to just give them a tickle instead of actually shooting them"

 
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icehot said:
I don't even get why this change was done, 75% nerf to certain blocks seems too much, it seems like another one of those "oh players have figured out a tactic that works let's get rid of it so they have nothing that really works" moves.  I just don't get why, people still had to defend, use traps, use guns, had the horde coming up to them mostly in a tower style in a tower defence game.  Next, it'll be "oh traps work, let's get rid of traps, perhaps guns need to just give them a tickle instead of actually shooting them"
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75% nerf to 5000 is still a lot of strength (1250).

Edit: Also we ARE talking about just 10 concrete mix, right?  How easy and fast can a mid level player make that?  aaaand If you are being honest?  Thats right, its a nothing!

 
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Roland said:
I just wonder how big an impact this will have in actual practice on horde nights or is it just the principle of the thing that offends?
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I have been using three 1/4 columns around the corners of my horde base tower.  It allowed me to build wider at the top, while still having a somewhat sleeker design.  The lower health is making me rethink that design now.

Maybe it wouldn't be as painful if the health reduction was halved?  75% health for 1/2 blocks and 50% for 1/4th blocks?  It does make sense for them to be weaker, but with the same upgrade costs it does encourage blockier, less interesting builds.  

 
ok, just had a weird one

started the game while modem was off but rebooting. usual 'start game offline' from steam launcher and 7dtd itself.

loaded up and got the hand wiping and moaning like when you start a new game. i was in the middle of nowhere and had the starting stuff in inventory- at day 18ish and 3:48 in the morning.

which is where i was at in the play thru, but i had been spawned in like a noob.

quit and reloaded - same thing.

ok, restart pc. windows had an update of course. (i do shut down every night so this is anew one)

all settled after the win update, start 7dtd. steam had an update - dont think it was 7dtd as i had taken the new build first thing this morning.

voila! back in my base surrounded by all my stuff.

alls well that ends well, but sommat wasnt right...

i doubt i could replicate that one...

 
overgoat said:
I have been using three 1/4 columns around the corners of my horde base tower.  It allowed me to build wider at the top, while still having a somewhat sleeker design.  The lower health is making me rethink that design now.

Maybe it wouldn't be as painful if the health reduction was halved?  75% health for 1/2 blocks and 50% for 1/4th blocks?  It does make sense for them to be weaker, but with the same upgrade costs it does encourage blockier, less interesting builds.  
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So those 1/4 columns are in addition to the block corners right? So an extra layer of a bit of HP.

Would the zombies even go for that or would they bash at a different section of your wall that wasn't a block and a quarter in width?

Eighmy_Lupin said:
This just seems like the classic Madmole response to finding out some players play differently than him "How dare they! I'll show them by either completely removing the feature or nerfing so bad no one will want to use it!".  I mean literally every bad decision in this Alpha seems to be based on this silly logic.
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haha...except that Madmole loves to build using all the new shapes so you are totally off that he wouldn't want people building with them for the reason that he doesn't like playing that way himself.

 
icehot said:
I don't even get why this change was done, 75% nerf to certain blocks seems too much, it seems like another one of those "oh players have figured out a tactic that works let's get rid of it so they have nothing that really works" moves.  I just don't get why, people still had to defend, use traps, use guns, had the horde coming up to them mostly in a tower style in a tower defence game.  Next, it'll be "oh traps work, let's get rid of traps, perhaps guns need to just give them a tickle instead of actually shooting them"

 
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except if thats what this change was designed to do, it totally fails because people will still use ugly square block cheese style hoard bases. all they did was take a few tools out of the hoard base building tool belt, which sucks from a creative perspective

 
hey guys i don't know if this is everyone's game but in skyscraper_01 on floor 2 these set of chairs and computers aren't breakable for some odd reasonimage.png

image.pngthis looks pretty strange now lol they are just indestructible

image.png

 
Eighmy_Lupin said:
I just don't get the point of adding all these new shapes, just to turn around and say "no no don't use them" by nerfing them out of usefulness, especially since there is 0 indication of which blocks now suck in game before building them and building a @%$#ty piece cost the same as good one.

This just seems like the classic Madmole response to finding out some players play differently than him "How dare they! I'll show them by either completely removing the feature or nerfing so bad no one will want to use it!".  I mean literally every bad decision in this Alpha seems to be based on this silly logic.
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The point is you can make something PRETTY with the new shapes, but when has PRETTY meant best stability? Never.

If you want some strong ugly cube base, which I always build then it is ugly. IF you want to make it pretty at the cost of stability then it is up to you. No way should some tiny piece of metal be as strong as a full block of it.

*BUT* if you do want some unrealistic, creative, pretty thing that is somehow as strong as the gates of heaven then maybe just mod the game. It is pretty easy.

I prefer the looks of something pretty so I will probably amber my way to that eventually. Which is why I left this lamp in my cube scene since it is so pretty.

Image1.jpg

 
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