PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Neminsis]

Hey, I am sure this isn't on purpose, but you are strawmaning me here.

I'm not misrepresenting your opinion I'm emphasizing my own that perfectly ordinary players aren't incentivized to play cooperatively as has been argued previously.

 

It isn't even necessary for a "co-op looter" to bring back any magazines on the first day

And here you go on to reiterate my point.
 

Balancing changes may be coming after some playtesting.

Which is the entire point of bringing this up in the first place. You might've noticed that I rarely talk around here unless it's about some edge case that might've gotten overlooked in the rush. 

 

Roland reminded us that there is an option for PartySharedKillRange.

Yes, and every change that I've suggested could be modded in minutes, but not one bit of that matters to first time players who you want to have good first impressions. This is why the default settings are so easy and veteran players roll their eyes at them.

My example was restricted to the first 7 days where it's an issue. Moving the goal posts to level 35 would be considered a strawman.
 

My "easy route" comment was specifically about the tools progression.

It was also borderline ad hominem. Again, this only matters if you're doing a no quest start solo or if you're doing 2 players with a non quester or similar looter to stay at home ratio, and it's probably only critical over the first 7 days, but the initial tool progression is much slower even in the best case for the stay at home in either of those conditions and it ties directly to their experience gain and early character development. 

You can tell that some thought has been put into accomodating these playstyles by allowing things like bulk materials and stone arrows to be sold at the trader, it's just not quite there yet.
 

Remember that magazines are only determining what you craft. A builder doesn't care about what pickaxe he can craft when he can buy a better pickaxe at the trader. 

Except that you don't make enough dukes farming wood, stone, clay, picking tea and cotton to take advantage of the trader with level 1 stone tools. Overall, I'd agree that the traders are probably still OP but I think that's more related to better barter/daring adventurer strategies, and quest rewards in comparison to other strategies and quality levels in loot. 

If you want to level fast it's still the same route as in a20 just focus on questing and build the very bare minimum you need to survive the first couple of weeks. Rinse and repeat.

Also, just increasing the share exp range doesn't really solve the problem either because the quest reward exp and selling exp when the looter returns to the trader will still outpace the stay at homes exp gain. 

It just needs tested and some minor tweaks. That's all.

 

[Neminsis]

With so much loot being found in PoI - loot that you really need in the early game: Food, water, medical supplies, cooking pots, ect. it's going to be a very difficult playthrough, and yes, it is an extremist playstyle.

Right, but I was specifically talking about players that stay at home and don't quest and set up that extreme example for you to try so these issues would become immediately apparent to you. 

Did you even know that you could previously do the Pacifist Challenge on 7 days? Or a building only start? Or just no traders? There are a lot of these sorts of "extremist" playstyles and they don't affect the average player at all, but there is a lot of players that play them. 

Not everyone wants to play the pump out quests at the trader, put points into better barter and daring adventurer, and just buy everything you need from the trader game loop, but there is a big difference between being extra difficult and being a non starter.

 

[Orake3l]

Already way ahead of ya there
A21 genned map contains these
<property name="Generation.Seed" value="" />
  <property name="Generation.Towns" value="Default" />
  <property name="Generation.Wilderness" value="None" />
  <property name="Generation.Lakes" value="None" />
  <property name="Generation.Rivers" value="None" />
  <property name="Generation.Cracks" value="None" />
  <property name="Generation.Craters" value="None" />
  <property name="Generation.Plains" value="6" />
  <property name="Generation.Hills" value="0" />
  <property name="Generation.Mountains" value="0" />
  <property name="Generation.Snow" value="4" />
  <property name="Generation.Forest" value="7" />
  <property name="Generation.Desert" value="4" />
  <property name="Generation.Wasteland" value="3" />

I work with the 7d2d dedicated server tool from steam, i cant find the mapinfo.xml inside the dedi folders.

Can you help me please?

 

[Khissi]

Right, but I was specifically talking about players that stay at home and don't quest and set up that extreme example for you to try so these issues would become immediately apparent to you. 

Did you even know that you could previously do the Pacifist Challenge on 7 days? Or a building only start? Or just no traders? There are a lot of these sorts of "extremist" playstyles and they don't affect the average player at all, but there is a lot of players that play them. 

Not everyone wants to play the pump out quests at the trader, put points into better barter and daring adventurer, and just buy everything you need from the trader game loop, but there is a big difference between being extra difficult and being a non starter.

Give it time.  Players who enjoy these types of challenges will find ways to challenge themselves including and/or despite the new changes.  Humans are nothing if not innovative.  These same types of arguments were entered when traders were first implemented, when the changes to perks were made so 'learn by doing' was ended.  There have always been people who feel very strongly about they way they choose to play and that's a good thing!  These are the people who will go out and create things like Darkness Falls and Apocalypse Now. All they needed was a strong, stable base game they could work with and, yeah I know, we're not exactly perfect in that regard, but it's sure getting better. There will always be ways to overcome and still enjoy the game.

Give it time.

 

[NekoPawtato]

Is it normal when interacting with new work stations that the sound effects are louder/softer depending on how far away you are from the block?

It's just a bit jarring for me as it's very loud when I'm right next to it compared to say opening and closing a chest from the same distance, but that might just be me. And I can't really turn it down without making everything else too quiet 

Also not sure if this was mentioned, I like the fact you can track recipes now, I just wish it would untrack once you craft it. For me I don't see a reason to keep tracking after crafting it. If I wanted to craft multiple I would still craft them all at once once I got all the ingredients 

 

[Aldranon]

As I started way out in the wilderness, I tried to give that a go as I found a cooking pot on the only POI in the area on day one!

But I quickly realized that was a non-starter as you need to loot dirty water to make clean water (nothing to loot).

I traveled a kilometer to the nearest trader (which was also in the wilderness!) and realized it was bad luck and restarted.

I'm on my third restart, trying to start near a trader that is also near a town.  Bad luck or is this inexplicably intended?

 

[SyKo]

Give it time.  Players who enjoy these types of challenges will find ways to challenge themselves including and/or despite the new changes.  Humans are nothing if not innovative.  These same types of arguments were entered when traders were first implemented, when the changes to perks were made so 'learn by doing' was ended.  There have always been people who feel very strongly about they way they choose to play and that's a good thing!  These are the people who will go out and create things like Darkness Falls and Apocalypse Now. All they needed was a strong, stable base game they could work with and, yeah I know, we're not exactly perfect in that regard, but it's sure getting better. There will always be ways to overcome and still enjoy the game.

Give it time.

I'm afraid you're incorrect. Players like myself, who've put in literally thousands of hours playing 7DTD will not 'come around'. We're locking our servers at A20. We've been through this too many times at this point. TFPs keep flipping from RNG to skill tree, from skill tree, to RNG, and back and forth, and back and forth. There's very, very little, if anything worth mentioning being added with this update, (You think we care about the outside perimeter of the trader's fence no longer warping players away? Or is it the handful of wonderfully redone sprites, textures, and POIs we're supposed to be impressed with? Just curious...). A21 is another one of Joel's 'Gotta beat the players!' moments. He's done this so many times now, we're just locking our servers on A20. Not just myself, but many players I've spoken with that have similar time invested. We're not participating in Joel's RNG festival, anymore than we're participating in crafting 10,000 shovels to level up tools anymore. We've been through this too many times now. A21 isn't an update. It's a 'gotta beat the players!' overhaul to the game, once again. Nothing more, and TFP can give 1,000,000 copies out to every youtuber and streamer between here and China with at least 500 subs, and we'll still ignore this update.

It's a shame. Some of us have played for close to a decade now. We're done being trifled with. We'll lock the game and wait. If it doesn't revert back to sanity at some point, A20 will be our 'gold'. Not a single one of us have a problem with that. There's no animosity anymore, just disappointment in a dev team that can't pick a lane and stay there. There will always be ways to sidestep anything the game throws at us as far as the way we build, zombies behavior, the POIs, hordes, etc., so constantly reworking the game to try to 'defeat' any and all player's play styles Joel doesn't happen to like, in a sandbox game, with constantly forced RNG *isn't the answer*. It never was, and it never will be. Didn't work with forge books. Doesn't work with crucibles. Won't work with skill points. The only thing TFPs are doing at this point is RNGing their customer base over to other games. So give away a billion copies. It still won't bring the old players back. We'll go play our locked servers and wait for the next revamp, then the next.. and the next.. and the next... and so on, until Joel finally settles on something: Is it a Run n' Gun? Is it a builder? Is it even a Sandbox game at all? When Joel figures this out for himself, THEN, and only then, will many old school players servers be updated, and only if it's not a broken RNG mess. I wish them all the luck in the world. We all really love this game, but trying to make every little thing tedious and an RNG hell isn't the solution. We only hope they eventually listen to reason. And no, it's not 'getting better.' It's steadily getting worse by not focusing on bugs and content, and trying to always 'beat the players'. TFPs need to finish their game and listen to their player base when they don't like what's being done, instead of ignoring them and hiding being the white knights that, I'm sure, will flame this post to hell and back, which is just fine with me. I'd expect nothing less from this forum. =]

Give it all the time you like.

 

[meilodasreh]

Loot Stage IS separate from Game State.  Especially in A20.  And, while there is some correctness about having less time, there is also the opposite, a character with 200% is going to have more perks, more health, more stamina, etc.  They won't need as much time as those without XP bonuses.  Not to mention more bonuses for killing faster, or crafting transportation sooner, etc.  I have tested this myself, and I am easily more prepared for horde nights with XP bonuses versus when I do not.

all your math is correct, but ignores the fact that a player has a certain common behavior which he's "stuck" to, meaning a certain ratio between "how many zombies did I kill, and how many loot containers did I open in the meantime".

During the first week, it especially applies that : kill zombies = gain XP, open containers = get gear.

If you boost up xp you level up fast but still have the same poor gear you would have with 100% xp.

Of course this will eventually "equalize" over time with all the other things within further player progression kick in, workbenches and stuff.

But first hordenight D7 is harder to be prepared for.

 

[Laz Man]

If you feel you can’t find enough magazines for everyone even though you admit there are gobs of magazines being found then you have too many in your group reading the same magazines. I did warn you about that even before A21 released but I guess your group decided to go with everyone just reading the same magazines as each other so that you could have several people who could cook grilled meat instead of one person who could cook meat stew. 
 

You can still play the way you’ve chosen but the progression will be slower which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Specializing and coordinating isn’t hard. Nobody has to memorize what everyone else does. All you need is a central place to drop off books so that the ones who are specializing can read their own books. 
 

As far as whether it is fun to work as a coordinated team of specialists, that depends on the players involved. I find it incredibly rewarding and this change has really improved the fun of team play for us. 
 

I already told you that this conspiracy theory was wrong but you also are ignoring me on this point as well. It seems like your group has done a lot of speculating and have engineered what you believe the truth to be and aren’t open to being corrected. The magazine change as well as the drinking water change were shocking news to the forum community. The biggest question that was asked by fans with 3k hours on the forum was “Why did you make these changes that nobody asked for?”. The most positive reactions from the dedicated fans here on the forum was a grudging acceptance to reserve judgement until it could be playtested….
 

I’ll tell you again that TFP is very independently minded when it comes to introducing new features into their game. They are not puppets of a small vociferous minority on their forum when it comes to design issues. They will listen to feedback when making balancing adjustments but most of that will be in later A21.x updates once all the knee-jerk reactions calm down and they have plenty of data to make decisions. No, your group’s collective analysis about why this change was made is inaccurate. It was made because the developers came up with the idea and after discussion and planning decided to integrate it as the next iteration of player progression. 
 

Also, I'd like to reiterate crafting progression was broken and needed to be fixed.  A good example was weapon quality unlocks. (E.g. perks unlocking the same crafting quality levels for all tiers of weapons governed by said perk)

The new crafting magazine system smooths out that progression while giving players even more reason to explore the POI filled world which is a large part of the gameplay loop of the game.

Although its definitely slower then unlocking a recipe by buying perk levels.  For me, it feels more immersive and rewarding to scavenge the world for knowledge of the past to improve my crafting skill.

Additionally, as someone who loves crafting, I now have the potential to craft everything if I play long enough instead of being locked out of high quality crafts because I don't have enough perk points to spend.

 

[kattenijin]

One of each skyscraper per map is a joke right? Especially on a 10k map.

Why are we back to staring 2km away from a trader again? I passed 3 others on the way to the one the game selected.

"We made all these awesome new doors and windows!" Yeah. AND WE CAN'T CRAFT THEM!

I used to love this game. The decisions being made lately, those I don't love.

 

 

[faatal]

I’ll tell you again that TFP is very independently minded when it comes to introducing new features into their game. They are not puppets of a small vociferous minority on their forum when it comes to design issues. They will listen to feedback when making balancing adjustments but most of that will be in later A21.x updates once all the knee-jerk reactions calm down and they have plenty of data to make decisions. No, your group’s collective analysis about why this change was made is inaccurate. It was made because the developers came up with the idea and after discussion and planning decided to integrate it as the next iteration of player progression.

100%.

We play our own game. We see things we like or don't like and adjust accordingly based on a general group consensus and priority/difficulty/time. My daughter and I played last night and I experienced a few things that annoyed me and I bailed, so today I ranted and we had some discussions, changes were started, I'm tweaking AI attack range stuff and we are planning a few more things. That is how it works. People on the team have ideas and we figure it out.

Additionally, if we see half the players having a bad time with something, we try to improve it, but in a way that makes sense to us and is fun to us. We can tell what percent of people like or dislike something regardless of how loud a percent is yelling. Some people should just wait for stable, as it seems the stress of us dialing it in is just too much anxiety and not fun for them.

 

[Riamus]

It can - especially depending on difficulty settings.  Although I do believe TFP does try to maintain a 'balance' at default settings.  And I was only referring to XP settings.  Did you modify any other settings?  'Typically' for a default game, Game Stage on 7th Horde night could be about 79.  (30th Lvl + 49 days) * 1 difficulty.

That would imply you experienced 72nd character level horde on day 7.

I don't remember my level at the time and didn't check the game stage, so can't give any details on that.  And I am saying it felt like the 7th horde night.  That's an estimation of what it was like and not necessarily the exact level.  It could have been 5th or 6th or even 8th or 9th.  Not under 5th, though.  It is a hard comparison as by that time I have good defenses, good walls, and good ammo, so it is actually far easier by those days.  But the level of zombies coming in on the first horde night was insane compared to normal.  And, yes, there were other setting changes but not related to actual difficulty.  Things like no loot drop on death or no killing each other.  The only different setting in that game versus my normal games was the XP increase.  And the main issue wasn't even that there were tons of high level zombies attacking.  It was that day 7 doesn't give you enough time to get a good amount of ammo or good defenses up for that level of horde attack.

I will say that I haven't tested this again and maybe it was some fluke that it turned out that way.  I just know it wasn't remotely what I was expecting just from changing XP.  I lowered XP to 100% after that first horde night and we even moved from forest to desert for the second, which should have been more difficult but by day 14 we had enough resources to upgrade the base defenses and to have enough ammo to last the night that it wasn't a big deal in comparison.  We went from a base that I'm amazed was still standing with how much of the walls were gone on day 7 to a base that took very little damage on day 14.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

100%.

We play our own game. We see things we like or don't like and adjust accordingly based on a general group consensus and priority/difficulty/time. My daughter and I played last night and I experienced a few things that annoyed me and I bailed, so today I ranted and we had some discussions, changes were started, I'm tweaking AI attack range stuff and we are planning a few more things. That is how it works. People on the team have ideas and we figure it out.

Additionally, if we see half the players having a bad time with something, we try to improve it, but in a way that makes sense to us and is fun to us. We can tell what percent of people like or dislike something regardless of how loud a percent is yelling. Some people should just wait for stable, as it seems the stress of us dialing it in is just too much anxiety and not fun for them.

Plus if good ideas are found you guys have tossed them in, i remember bringing up the horde sense idea and you guys made it your own and added it, which is amazing, i have no issues so far and welcome the challenges that are in this.

Honestly aside from more tools and weapons (which will always be something we all want lol) I wouldnt mind more decorations to be added to crafting, heck i wouldnt mind a trader who specifically sold like store shelves, ammo displays and stuff like that, simply for fun, it would diversify the traders more and give decorators some fun, but other than that, im loving it and can't wait to die again.....and again.....and again

 

[Quantum Blue]

all your math is correct, but ignores the fact that a player has a certain common behavior which he's "stuck" to, meaning a certain ratio between "how many zombies did I kill, and how many loot containers did I open in the meantime".

During the first week, it especially applies that : kill zombies = gain XP, open containers = get gear.

If you boost up xp you level up fast but still have the same poor gear you would have with 100% xp.

Of course this will eventually "equalize" over time with all the other things within further player progression kick in, workbenches and stuff.

But first hordenight D7 is harder to be prepared for.

That would make sense, especially if the player is all but ignoring crafting.  Alpha 16 I first did 3 runs to level 30 at defaults (default is better for bug reporting), 3 Bonus XP test runs, and 3 runs at extended day lengths.  (and then a few more at various settings.)  I have done the same thing again with Alpha 20.  ALL bonus XP runs (and extended game day runs) were easier.  I had forges going much sooner, and not even crafting related - I had Parkour level 2 way sooner.  Not to mention much higher Hidden Strike (ALL weapons).  I KNOW I chewed through wandering hordes a LOT faster when I had bonus XP.  And, you're right, I wasn't looting as much.  I didn't need to.  (A21 isn't going to be the same, though...)

 

[Riamus]

Also not sure if this was mentioned, I like the fact you can track recipes now, I just wish it would untrack once you craft it. For me I don't see a reason to keep tracking after crafting it. If I wanted to craft multiple I would still craft them all at once once I got all the ingredients 

When I tracked a recipe and crafted it, the tracking went away.  Were you crafting in a workstation or in your inventory.  In my case, it was in inventory.  I wonder if it just needs to be set up to work when crafting in a workstation?

As I started way out in the wilderness, I tried to give that a go as I found a cooking pot on the only POI in the area on day one!

But I quickly realized that was a non-starter as you need to loot dirty water to make clean water (nothing to loot).

I traveled a kilometer to the nearest trader (which was also in the wilderness!) and realized it was bad luck and restarted.

I'm on my third restart, trying to start near a trader that is also near a town.  Bad luck or is this inexplicably intended?

If you're having bad luck with starting locations, you might consider editing your spawnpoints.xml file.  Take a look at the map you create in RWG and get an idea of the coordinates near a trader you want to spawn near and then update the spawn points to only have that one location.  I know that's not what we want in the long term but it gives you something to work with until they make improvements to how spawn points are placed.  I'd suggest giving them some examples - seed and settings as well as the coordinates where you started so they can see the issues and try and adjust spawn points for RWG.

I'm afraid you're incorrect. Players like myself, who've put in literally thousands of hours playing 7DTD will not 'come around'. We're locking our servers at A20.

And there are many who still are on A16 or other versions.  People like a certain version and will keep playing that version.  That isn't unexpected.  Most people will choose to play the current version because most current players are either new players who don't know other versions or who want to play the game with the new features and changes even if they don't like some of them but there will always be those who won't choose to update.  I doubt TFP is concerned about that.  They are specifically making it possible to play old versions for those who want to.  Everyone is able to play whichever version they want (mostly) as well as to use mods that they like and there's nothing wrong with that.  It is a good thing.

One of each skyscraper per map is a joke right? Especially on a 10k map.

Why are we back to staring 2km away from a trader again? I passed 3 others on the way to the one the game selected.

"We made all these awesome new doors and windows!" Yeah. AND WE CAN'T CRAFT THEM!

I used to love this game. The decisions being made lately, those I don't love.

Even in A20, you often only had about 3-5 tier 5 POI on an 8k map and little better on 10k.  It varied by seed, though.  So not really any change there.  I'm not saying that's a good thing and shouldn't be improved, just that it isn't really anything new.  One of the reasons I use random maps created with a third party tool is because I have more control over things like this than what RWG offers.

What traders were you passing?  Were they in the forest?  The starter quest will only take you to a forest trader, so you might pass closer ones that aren't in the forest.  Still, it sounds like spawn points need improved in the new RWG and so that should get resolved in time.

I do agree that the new doors/windows should all be available when building your base and not just in POI design.  I have repeatedly said that all decorations and appliances and now doors/windows should be available in the game itself without needing to use the creative menu.  Let people have fun creating interesting bases.

 

[Strengthinside]

After playing I have one complaint and annoyance - why spear has to be so damn large on my screen?! it literally blocks so much view that it's annoying, it's not a sledgehammer! I would much prefer it being slimmer, occupying less space, or a character could hold it lower thus changing a perspective and reducing the amount of space it takes. That thing doesn't feel like a spear, more like a shovel! Thicc as hell!

SPEAR SLIM!

While my spear:

 

[Neminsis]

Give it time.

So the answer is just wait for someone to mod it, or just find another way to play? You wouldn't believe how often that was said about things that TFP have ended up rebalancing in this alpha alone.

I'm really not understanding the motivation behind these types of responses, "You're just doing it wrong.", "Your teammates are terrible people and they're doing it wrong.", "You're just trying to take shortcuts." I mean I can understand to some extent the knee jerk defense of that thing that we all love and have been waiting for, for so long, but these responses always come from people who wouldn't be affected by it one way or another. 

 

[Riamus]

After playing I have one complaint and annoyance - why spear has to be so damn large on my screen?! it literally blocks so much view that it's annoying, it's not a sledgehammer! I would much prefer it being slimmer, occupying less space, or a character could hold it lower thus changing a perspective and reducing the amount of space it takes. That thing doesn't feel like a spear, more like a shovel! Thicc as hell!



SPEAR SLIM!

Lol!  It is kind of big.  For the stone one, I'd just assume the person making it took a strong piece of wood (i.e. a thicker piece) to make a simple spear and didn't have enough skill to make something thinner that would still hold up to repeated use.  I know that if I were to go out and make a spear right now because there were zombie attacks, I'd probably be grabbing a branch or tree that is somewhere close to that diameter as well.  For iron and steel, I could see them having more skill and therefore making a thinner spear.  But I don't really mind it and don't even really notice it blocking anything.

 

[Strengthinside]

Lol!  It is kind of big.  For the stone one, I'd just assume the person making it took a strong piece of wood (i.e. a thicker piece) to make a simple spear and didn't have enough skill to make something thinner that would still hold up to repeated use.  I know that if I were to go out and make a spear right now because there were zombie attacks, I'd probably be grabbing a branch or tree that is somewhere close to that diameter as well.  For iron and steel, I could see them having more skill and therefore making a thinner spear.  But I don't really mind it and don't even really notice it blocking anything.

Well, I haven't reached better spears so maybe that is the case, I am naked, afraid and inexperienced, so just crafted whatever looks like a spear

 

[Riamus]

So the answer is just wait for someone to mod it, or just find another way to play? You wouldn't believe how often that was said about things that TFP have ended up rebalancing in this alpha alone.

I'm really not understanding the motivation behind these types of responses, "You're just doing it wrong.", "Your teammates are terrible people and they're doing it wrong.", "You're just trying to take shortcuts." I mean I can understand to some extent the knee jerk defense of that thing that we all love and have been waiting for, for so long, but these responses always come from people who wouldn't be affected by it one way or another. 

I think it's more along the lines of, this is how it has been changed and they aren't going to change it back, so you have the option of sticking to an older version, modding it, or adjusting how you play to compensate.  It isn't really that you can't state your opinions about it or that you'd like it to be different.  Those comments are welcome, I think.  I think it's more a matter that many people are so strongly against these changes that they aren't willing to really give them a fair try and see if they can make them work with how they play and expect TFP to change it to match what they want even if it works well for most others.  I think if complaints were less along the lines of "change it back or I won't update or will stop playing the game" (see a post not far before this) and more along the lines of, "I know this is the direction we are going but it's causing me issues because of XYZ and can we maybe adjust things a little to help make XYZ still a viable way to play the game?", then there'd be a more positive response from people.  And if possible examples of tweaks to make it work better were included, that would be even better.  The fact is that the game is going in this direction and isn't going to revert to what it was in A20.  We're closing on gold and unless something is an abyssal failure, it's unlikely to change but could be tweaked to help smooth things out for some people.  I'd personally focus on that than on how a new feature is bad and should be removed.  I know there are things I'm not a fan of and I've posted about those.  But I don't post about how they should cater to my playstyle or that they should remove changes that they made, which are what many of these complaints end up being.  I'm not sure which way your posts were focused as I wasn't going to read the long back and forth between you and others but the little I saw at the beginning seemed to be that you wanted the game to be adjusted specifically to work with your playstyle even if it isn't a playstyle that is used by most players.  I'm just not sure you'll get very far with that kind of focus in your posts here.  As I said, better to look at ways in which you can suggest tweaks to make it work better without it becoming worse for the majority of players or requesting that new features be removed.