PC A19 Diary Discussions

[Roland]

Sorry for the dumb question, but would anyone mind expounding on exactly what Distant Terrain Instancing does? Would that setting help a friend who has lag problems playing on my server?

Are you both on a dedicated server or are you hosting him on the same computer that you are also playing the game on? If the answer is the second one, then that is probably the biggest culprit of the lag your buddy is experiencing. Video settings like Distant Terrain Instancing are designed to improve your own framerate by adjusting them down or turning them off but that is different than network lag.

 

[Jost Amman]

Gosh I hope they do modular clothing and/or body parts.  And it's not even as important for human NPCs as it is for zombies.  Zombies are and will be the primary antagonists of the game, we're told.  So we expect to encounter more zombies than bandits, even when the game is finished.

They've put so much work into having random worlds populated with a plethora of different POIs.  But consider that we encounter hundreds of zombies for every POI over the course of gameplay: not just the sleepers inside the POI, but wandering/screamer/challenge/Blood Moon hordes.  In other words, we'll see ten identical Zombie Steves, easy, before we see our second identical house_modern_04.  In that light, it becomes clear that individual variation among zombies is where the real bang-for-your-buck is.

That would be the UMA technology introduced a few years ago in Unity... they tried using it both for players and zombies, but it was under-performant during BM nights, so they had to tear it down and change back to hand-modeled zombies (now in HD!).

So unless Unity has HEAVILY optimized that engine part I don't think they'll risk using modular anything anymore...  :nono:

 

[Sigil_Thane]

Looks like I'll be dual wielding early on.

View attachment 15879

That IS a fancy toilet, indeed!

 

[Blake_]

Gosh I hope they do modular clothing and/or body parts.  And it's not even as important for human NPCs as it is for zombies.  Zombies are and will be the primary antagonists of the game, we're told.  So we expect to encounter more zombies than bandits, even when the game is finished.

They've put so much work into having random worlds populated with a plethora of different POIs.  But consider that we encounter hundreds of zombies for every POI over the course of gameplay: not just the sleepers inside the POI, but wandering/screamer/challenge/Blood Moon hordes.  In other words, we'll see ten identical Zombie Steves, easy, before we see our second identical house_modern_04.  In that light, it becomes clear that individual variation among zombies is where the real bang-for-your-buck is.

I hope so too. We see too many of the same faces every playthrough. The exploding and ragdolling are amazing and it never gets old, but the same clothing and faces... well.... let's just say variety of feelings and scenery in a procedural world is better than repetition (even high quality repetition is BAD for immersion) . And that stands for ALL systems. A19 is a step forward. They only do steps forward lately. The graphics bar is also SO high lately that we are entitled to demand the real deal. 

Special infected are a whole other issue. At the very least, entities of any size should change colour of clothing or even skin tone to different decay levels. See the ghouls in FALLOUT. They are very easily reused to different forms with just a little time put into clothing and extra detail variety.

That said, THE BEST is always an entity creation tool made from scratch. It takes A LOT of time to create properly with all modular options, but the performance in game and the speed at which you create new entities (Zds, npcs) afterwards is so fast that it is worth it. Worth it for 7dtd, for 7dtd2, 3 or 4. For TESVIII or any title created or in design in any timeline in the past, present or future.

 

[MechanicalLens]

For some reason this screenshot gives me vertigo BAD when I look at it. Wierd...

You've been drinking too much toilet water lately, Roland. Lay off of it for a while.

 

[hiemfire]

For some reason this screenshot gives me vertigo BAD when I look at it. Wierd...

Aspect ratio + FOV I think. The image is slightly distorted on my screen.

 

[Roland]

Stun Baton is also less off a meme

Does this phrase basically mean that it is less worthy of being mocked as in being made the subject of a jeering meme?

Just want to make sure I use it correctly in public to make my teenage daughter dies of embarrassment without sounding completely witless to the Millenials and Alphas.  Nothing sus....

 

[Khalagar]

Yep, basically just means it's less of a joke, but with my f key sticking on the word of.

Stun Baton actually seems okayish even though it's definitely not min max efficient, but it's fun. If the candy was a perk instead I think it would be in a pretty decent place assuming you can find the fabled stun repulsor mod, but atm it requires an RNG chance mod / book + a time limited candy to compete with the other options.

It requires a lot more work than a club, for less pay off, but it's better than Spear and Machete imo and I attribute most of the min max problem to club just being way stronger than everything else. If the candy was built into the perk and especially if it had 3 variants like everything else, it would be pretty appealing.

One more thing that should be fixed while talking about it, is it's not worth anything. Like it's not even worth picking up a level 6 stun baton to sell and stun baton parts are worth basically nothing too. Not sure why it's valued so much lower than other stuff, I assume because it's priced as a T1 weapon? I just checked and a baseball bat and Junk Sledge are both worth more, so I think the Stun Baton is maybe priced against stone age stuff?  Just a point that's worth investigating if it gets some balancing TLC and if there won't be a higher tier version of the stun baton in A20+

 

[MechanicalLens]

Just want to say thanks to the devs for being so active and responding to forum comments. It's so nice compared to many other early access devs that basically ignore all feedback and don't interact with their player base at all.

19.2 has been great so far IMO, only issue I have run into is still the stamina drain on mining being so high it makes it pretty hard to really do. I think if Blackstrap coffee / the recipe for it wasn't so rare there might actually be a way to mine pre-Auger but atm on all my A19 runs I have basically stopped mining until late game when I've got an auger.

In my current run I've found like 2 total blackstrap coffee, no recipe for how to make it, and eggs  for bacon and eggs / decent food are too rare to really make mining feasible. Instead off spending a night in a mine, I'm way better  off just spending that time wrenching cars or looting houses and scrapping everything metal I find, even with Rock busters.  Gunpowder mining takes way longer than just finding / buying bullets and buying the gunpowder outright, same with cement and cobblestone etc. Currently in A19, you can essentially never touch a mine and probably be further along than someone who actually mines

I'm loving the Junk Sledges now, I honestly use them more than the Junk Turret most of the time to conserve resources. Stun Baton is also less off a meme thanks to junk sledges. Dual Junk Sledge + Stun Baton can work pretty well, although I think Stun Baton requiring a unique candy just for it is kind of weird since all the other weapons just get buffed from their perks + skulll crushers. The Stun baton candy being a max rank perk reward  instead would make the baton a bit more appealing than clubs

Just a small nitpick, only thing I've been running into is basically just mining being a bit more work than it's really worth / needed.

If you can't find the basic coffee recipe early on, invest a point into Master Chef, maybe a point or two into Living off the Land, and grow your own coffee. Much better than sitting around for weeks hoping that elusive recipe will show up. Also, check vending machines daily; mark them on your map as well.

I've restarted about two dozen times since A19 stable (a me problem, not a game problem), but in my next "stable" world I plan on buying zero ammo components from the traders. Perhaps you could try the same?

With that being said however, I rarely craft ammo in A19. I find the vast majority of it in loot.

Does this phrase basically mean that it is less worthy of being mocked as in being made the subject of a jeering meme?

Just want to make sure I use it correctly in public to make my teenage daughter dies of embarrassment without sounding completely witless to the Millenials and Alphas.  Nothing sus....

The correct term is Gen Z (or iGen) actually; they're anything but alphas. The way the world is going, it'll collapse from within due to their lack of skill and ambition. The older generations (even some early to mid Millenials) are the last decent generations, prove me wrong.

But anyway, when @madmole ran out of 7.62 ammo during some of his A18 horde night videos and had to resort to using a shotgun, I don't know how he did it. I'm not calling him a poor player or anything, but I've tried 90 minute days horde every 4-5 days (BM range is a factor), so it's close enough to 60 minute days, and I always have thousands of ammunition in reserve at the end of every horde night, even when I'm not even crafting or buying any from the traders. Maybe I'm missing something? I've never felt the pressure of running out of ammunition. Perhaps the man of the hour himself could provide some answers?

 

[Khalagar]

If you can't find the basic coffee recipe early on, invest a point into Master Chef, maybe a point or two into Living off the Land, and grow your own coffee. Much better than sitting around for weeks hoping that elusive recipe will show up. Also, check vending machines daily; mark them on your map as well.

Yeah, I do invest a point in master chef for coffee, I'm talking about blackstrap not just normal coffee. Normal Coffee isn't really enough for mining. Basically to mine early and mid game, you need fairly high to maxed out sex rex, good food, and black strap. Which is quite an investment for something that really isn't even important or very strong atm, as like you said, you basically never have to actually craft bullets.

The only thing I even mine is shale and iron, and even that is only because I eat iron like mad for Junk Turrets and because you have to mine shale basically 1 time per playthrough to have infinite gas. Honestly though this time, I've not even gone shale mining, just wrenching cars has kept me at well over 10K gas without ever boiling down shale a single time and with me using a motorcycle + Auger

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah, I do invest a point in master chef for coffee, I'm talking about blackstrap not just normal coffee. Normal Coffee isn't really enough for mining. Basically to mine early and mid game, you need fairly high to maxed out sex rex, good food, and black strap. Which is quite an investment for something that really isn't even important or very strong atm, as like you said, you basically never have to actually craft bullets.

The only thing I even mine is shale and iron, and even that is only because I eat iron like mad for Junk Turrets and because you have to mine shale basically 1 time per playthrough to have infinite gas. Honestly though this time, I've not even gone shale mining, just wrenching cars has kept me at well over 10K gas without ever boiling down shale a single time and with me using a motorcycle + Auger

That's fair, not everyone is a hardcore miner from the get-go. I always go deep into the mining perks as soon as possible, if not maxing them outright, almost treating them like a Band-Aid by ripping it off and getting it over and done with, i.e. spending my points on nothing but Sex Rex, Miner 69er, and Mother Lode until they are nearly maxed out. After that I cherry pick my points elsewhere.

That's true, but I've rarely encountered the problem where I run out of coffee. Drinking 3 or 4 of them is more than enough for a night's session of mining stone or iron.

Anywho, when I finally get around to convincing myself to play beyond day 2 or day 4, I plan on my next long-term world to have the following restrictions: Survivalist difficulty from the start, no crafting ammo (or at least until I need to, if that time ever comes), no buying ammo or ammo components from traders or receiving ammo quest rewards, and trying not to spend 99% of my free time looting. The only thing holding me back is 9 times out of 10 I am in the mood for roleplaying as a Terminator-esque action hero, and 1 times out of 10 I can settle down, get immersed, and enjoy the game more. Perhaps I should work on getting more into the latter habit.

The only reason I mine iron is because I prefer having several thousand crafted at any given time, and I use the rest for steel upgrades. That and I don't like having my forges being idle.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Is this a bug or a new feature in the game?

 

[meganoth]

Yeah, I do invest a point in master chef for coffee, I'm talking about blackstrap not just normal coffee. Normal Coffee isn't really enough for mining. Basically to mine early and mid game, you need fairly high to maxed out sex rex, good food, and black strap. Which is quite an investment for something that really isn't even important or very strong atm, as like you said, you basically never have to actually craft bullets.

The only thing I even mine is shale and iron, and even that is only because I eat iron like mad for Junk Turrets and because you have to mine shale basically 1 time per playthrough to have infinite gas. Honestly though this time, I've not even gone shale mining, just wrenching cars has kept me at well over 10K gas without ever boiling down shale a single time and with me using a motorcycle + Auger

Current balance is for early game to not have any iron or steel tools. Why would you need blackstrap if you only have a stone axe?

In mid game you just need sexrex 2 and normal coffee (which is nicely doable for everyone without specializing in strength) to hack away for minutes before your stamina runs out. If you absolutely can't have that (some people think their inflexibility is OCD), go a little deeper and get sexrex 3.

Unless you are really specializing in strength, don't use steel tools.

 

[Danidas]

Current balance is for early game to not have any iron or steel tools. Why would you need blackstrap if you only have a stone axe?

In mid game you just need sexrex 2 and normal coffee (which is nicely doable for everyone without specializing in strength) to hack away for minutes before your stamina runs out. If you absolutely can't have that (some people think their inflexibility is OCD), go a little deeper and get sexrex 3.

Unless you are really specializing in strength, don't use steel tools.

Unfortunately a large amount of players believe that if they cannot just hold the mouse button down while looking at rock and endless mine its simply unplayable. Hence all the players moaning about every second they aren't mining as if it's the end of the world. Aka how dare the game interrupt my quest for perfect efficiency as every second must be life or death.

Which is why we get so many people complaining about stamina use and going crazy for getting the Auger ASAP.

 

[MechanicalLens]

 Game-changing question here. Do zombie vultures in 7D2D lay eggs?  Are those eggs found in the birds nests on the ground?  Are we cooking up their children?  Poaching, scrambling, boiling, and spreading them on toast perhaps? 

Are we eating rotten zombified eggs?  Bluh! 

 

[MechanicalLens]

Unfortunately a large amount of players believe that if they cannot just hold the mouse button down while looking at rock and endless mine its simply unplayable. Hence all the players moaning about every second they aren't mining as if it's the end of the world. Aka how dare the game interrupt my quest for perfect efficiency as every second must be life or death.

Which is why we get so many people complaining about stamina use and going crazy for getting the Auger ASAP.

Not that I agree with this side of the argument, but you could say that for every moment you're waiting for stamina to return, you're not exactly playing the game.

Or at least that's the flip argument I hear with every waking moment.

 

[Danidas]

Not that I agree with this side of the argument, but you could say that for every moment you're waiting for stamina to return, you're not exactly playing the game.

Or at least that's the flip argument I hear with every waking moment.

I admit that I over dramatized it but that is the general gist of it. As every second your not doing something you might as well not be playing.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I admit that I over dramatized it but that is the general gist of it. As every second your not doing something you might as well not be playing.

Very true. Again, was just playing Devil's Advocate, even though the counterargument itself is ridiculous.

 

[Kalen]

Very true. Again, was just playing Devil's Advocate, even though the counterargument itself is ridiculous.

I don't think it is ridiculous.   I think of it as what does having to sit around waiting for stamina to fill add to the game?   Not much, IMO.   I would much rather they lower the amount of resources you get per block but allow you to constantly (or near constantly) mine.   So that the end result is that you get the same amount of resources without having the constant pauses.

 

[Danidas]

 Game-changing question here. Do zombie vultures in 7D2D lay eggs?  Are those eggs found in the birds nests on the ground?  Are we cooking up their children?  Poaching, scrambling, boiling, and spreading them on toast perhaps? 

Are we eating rotten zombified eggs?  Bluh! 

The chickens wondering around everywhere want a word with you......