PC A20 Developer Diary Discussions

Fresh couple of thoughts after watching some youtube vids and playing. I'd like to preface all my questions and suggestions with this: 7dtd is TFP's baby, I wish only to offer ideas that may strike inspiration within the team.

Pathing:

  • We've all had experiences with zombies trying to run at you, but they seem to only be able to functionally move in north, south, east, and west directions smoothly. When moving outside of the cardinal directions they seems to zigzag unrealistically. Is path smoothing a priority for alpha, beta, later, or not at all?
Loot drops:

  • Let's get real, we LOVE loot. I have seen some issues with horde night loot bags having abysmal contents (not nearly worth the effort and cost that goes into building the horde base to fight them off), and I was wondering if there was going to be some time spent on the loot bag loot table. I'm not saying every bag should have a T6 auto shotty in it, but at the same time, going through a horde night and getting 4 pieces of cloth and some blunderbuss ammo feels a bit underwhelming. Good loot, in my opinion, encourages people to fight the horde, instead of using cheese bases. Some solutions could be, as I said earlier, adjusting the loot table for dropped loot bags over all; decreasing drop rate but increasing loot quality; Boosting drop bag quality for bags dropped during the horde; A special air drop the day following the horde with extra supplies.
Planning:

  • A white board/chalkboard where we could leave notes to ourselves/teammates in game for what we plan on doing I think would be a well received addition. Base builders and looters could use this equally. Leaving a grocery list of stuff needed for the base, or a plan for the next day. A small thing, but I think it could be really valuable.
  • A search function in our inventories. I'm sure we've all lost that critical item in a sea of other items. Being able to search for the one thing we need in our storage spaces would be really helpful.
  • Recipe plan. You see these in a lot of games these days. Basically, kinda like the starter quests, you select a recipe you want to create, and it puts all the materials on the side of your screen, as an easy to see reminder of what you need to grab. This leans into the previous point of the search function, however, there could be a button somewhere that just grabs items for the recipe from the container you're looking in (a handy option, but hardly needed if we have the plan).
That's all I got today Survivors. Cheers 🍻

 
roughgalaxy said:
A white board/chalkboard where we could leave notes to ourselves/teammates in game for what we plan on doing I think would be a well received addition. Base builders and looters could use this equally. Leaving a grocery list of stuff needed for the base, or a plan for the next day. A small thing, but I think it could be really valuable.
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This can already easily be done.

Craft some signs and put them on a wall: you and your mates can edit the text at will... enjoy!  :nerd:

 
madmole said:
Welcome to the Alpha 20 Dev Diary. Here we will discuss upcoming features for Alpha 20.

Alpha 20 Dev Stream Videos

1) Alpha 20 First Look with Prime and Madmole October 28th, 2020

2) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream November 25th, 2020

Alpha 20/21 Roadmap

1) Unity Update

  • TFP will be working with Unity devs directly 


2) Random Generation Update

  • New stamp tech that will allow artist created features such as mountains, hills, rivers, etc. to be placed in biomes. There will be a stable of different land features for the game to choose from.
  • Additional controls in the map generation interface to give players more options for terrain generation such sliders to determine mountainous vs flat (for example).
  • Biome selectors and city selectors to allow users to control the density of these map features.
  • 6k, 8k, and 10k map sizes planned


3) Vehicle Mods

  • Tinting mask will allow vehicles to have color details added to differentiate vehicle owners better


4) Shape Menu and Building Update

  • Details Coming


5) Dynamic Imposters

  • Changes to the world and player built forts will be represented in distant terrain


6) Micro Splat Improvements

  • Details Coming


7) Feral Sense Game Option

  • Set zombies to different states of awareness from dumb to feral


8.) Biome Difficulty

  • Snow and Desert will have gamestage boost creating tougher enemies and better loot
  • Wasteland will have a greater gamestage boost creating even tougher enemies and even better loot


9) Pipe Weapons for Primitive Tier

  • Pipe Rifle
  • Pipe Pistol
  • Pipe Baton
  • Pipe Shotgun


10) Trader to Trader progression

  • Details Coming


11) Water Overhaul

  • Details Coming


12) Loot Progression and Gamestaging Improvements

  • Details Coming


13) Character Overhaul - WIP will not ship in A20.

  • Replace UMA system with in-house custom system
  • Thematic outfits will work like books. Wear the complete outfit and get a completion perk
  • Current 10 armor/clothing slots reduced to 4 slots for outfits that will merge both clothing and armor values. No more clipping issues of wearing clothing under armor. Better balance on number of mod slots available to use with outfits.
  • Foundation for Bandits


14) New POI's and Environment Art

  • New Gas Station


15) AI and Sleeper Improvements Most likely not shipping in A20.

  • Zombies can crawl through 1-meter holes
  • Wandering Sleepers


16) Dynamic Music and Ambient Audio Improvements

  • Details Coming


17) Animation Improvements

  • Details Coming


18) Digging Quest Improvements

  • Details Coming


19) Restore Power Quest

  • Lights go out when rally marker is activated
  • Find the generators and repair them


20) New Zombies/ Entities

  • Nurse
  • Drone
  • Screamer
  • Fat Cop
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Hello, 7dtd is an amazing game with a lot of in-game content and things to do. especially after so many updates. As I see it games try to be more realistic regarding survival (Even thought your character never sleeps lol) 

Nontheless I've found few things which make game a bit boring for example in order to craft you require only about 5 mechanism: campfire, workbench, smelter, labstation and concrete mixer. Why not to make more mechanisms and recipes associated with them? In the midgame when you've already made all of those mechanisms you have nothing to create exept maybe transport and some weapon and ammo. Wtf it is possible to build just a cube house with a few levels and on each of them  put either camp fires, or workbenches, or concrete mixers, or smelters and be okay  with utilizing your base this way and you can survive because you can produce a lot of items like bullets, food, arrows. So it would be better if different furniture and mechanisms were usefull, for example ovens could be used to cook pies, bread, pastry etc (Even if you cook like grandma it is impossible to bake a cake on campfire). If you introduce a mechanic to the game that food can get spoiled then fridges could be utilize as well. It is also possible to return a carpenter in the game etc. I think a lot of players would agree that it is better to decorate your base with usfull furniture so that the base looks nice and you can utilize it. 

And the last point is that in each house there is one place with very good loot  but common! it looks like former occupiers of those buildings left this stuff just for you. In reality loot would be scatterd around the house most of the time with some exeptions when people managed to survive and save some suplies in a storage room.

 
Jost Amman said:
This can already easily be done.

Craft some signs and put them on a wall: you and your mates can edit the text at will... enjoy!  :nerd:
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I know people can do this, but it's messy if you need to use multiple signs to keep a list of personal objectives. A chalk board also has a certain... doomsday planner vibe to it.

 
Jost Amman said:
Then I suggest, if you can make this happen again, to open the console and check there.

I think there should be a log of why/how the spawns happen (but that's @Blake_ expertise TBH).
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I tested it and it looks like the bear, chicken and mountain lion all despawn after about 2 default game hours. 

It is possible I wasted that much time, so I am not going to worry about it.  Not like I was exactly timing it, heh. 

Still kinda short, I would probably do 4 or 6 hours. 

Maybe it was shortened in one of the updates, because I know I killed a wolf on horde night, then forgot about it after and started mining... remember and was like "oh crap it is probably gone", and it was still there after a long time. 

Good to know anyway. 

 
roughgalaxy said:
I know people can do this, but it's messy if you need to use multiple signs to keep a list of personal objectives. A chalk board also has a certain... doomsday planner vibe to it.
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We just talk about it, or look around the base.  I tend to be the looter, so I've got 3 dedicated dump boxes that I'll sort through every other day.   The exception to what goes in the gun box ofc, is what is "critical"  Food, Ammo and any books or needed crafting supplies.

 
Hi, this sounds very interesting, cant wait to play the new patch. I have some suggestions I collected over the past few months that I came up by myself and also some friends I showed this game that has barely knowledge of the game but could give some first impression that they realized.

1. The current movement feels slow and sluggish. I think it would be a great improvement to the game to do something about the general player movement and running animation and also speed. Running feels not like running, more like walking faster. Also maybe add a smaller climb mechanic where you can heave yourself on a 3 block wall. That could open up some new cool ways to traverse povs.

2. Visual damage on Zombies. Now it looks very unsatisfiying hitting a zombie with a gun or club, the movement of getting hit is fine but there is no visual sign of actually damaging the zombie. There should be more gore for example holes in the body or limbs they lose more frequently. Maybe also beeing able to shoot the jaw off. Shooting off the helmet or some other armor parts. The holes in the body doesn't has to be precise, a example of black ops zombie mode, you can shoot a part of the stomache area away. This will help to let the fight feel more responsive and dynamic, also making it abit easier of saperating which zombie you already shot and which not.

3. Inventory response. Clicking and navigating in the inventory or inside any other windows like inside the forge for example is very uncomfortable and seems overly complicated. For example you always have to click a second time to interact with items, if you want to craft something you have to make unnecessary extra clicks and that could be way easier. I know the wording is weird so I make a example: Imagine you are in a fight with some zombies, you need to heal yourself with bandages so you have to go onto the bandages inside your inventory, click on them and then press again with your button to actually heal. This small extra time for the click is just unnecassary. 

4. Trailers: Maybe do a small gameplay trailers for the big patches to showcase the changes. This would help to build up hype and also give new ppl intel of what is coming to the game. Increasing the interest of players outside of the game and also keeping the interest fresh for older players.

The third point was a concern of my new starting friends. When you get used to it like me after 700 hours then it doesnt seem a problem but I get where they get that from. I hope these points can give you some ideas or help you somehow for further improvements, I still really enjoy the game and I am looking forward to see the game growing even further!

 
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Blake_ said:
 I still remember A16 with all the pain it gave to my PC. 

Hell no to the 1 fps hordes. +1 for the future. 
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Huh? For me A16 ran like a champ, 17 was horrid, A18 was was almost on par with A16, but A19 took a step backwards.

A19 is not bad, just not as good as A16 or A18 as far as performance goes, for my PC anyway.

 
Firecat said:
@Devs,

Are there any plans to add a game option to control sleeper respawns? For instance similar to the loot respawn where it could be something like every 3 days, 7 days, 15 days, or never.

Many people find the rate at which POIs refill with zombies to be immersion breaking, plus it would add another way of playing the game to be able to set the goal of "clearing" a town... or even the entire map. 

In addition, it makes sense as a companion setting to loot respawn. If you are worried about folks exploiting the setting so the can have the loot respawn and go reboot thing without having to fight again, you could probably make it so that loot respawn is locked to "never" if zombie respawn is set to the same. Maybe make it so the loot respawn time just cant be set to a shorter period than the zombie respawn.

In any case, I feel it's a setting that has been needed for awhile, and it isn't such a niche thing it should just be left to the modders.

Thanks for all your hard work, btw, and looking forward to everything going forward! A20 looks pretty cool.
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You know, I actually like this. It could give you a sense of reclaiming the area from the zombies ala state of decay. It does kind of break immersion seeing poi's refill with zombies, especially if you're on an island because... where do the fresh zombies come from?

 
roughgalaxy said:
You know, I actually like this. It could give you a sense of reclaiming the area from the zombies ala state of decay. It does kind of break immersion seeing poi's refill with zombies, especially if you're on an island because... where do the fresh zombies come from?
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Optionally, having the sleepers respawn gradually over X days... one at a time, in random places, would be cool too. Keep you on your toes.

 
2 Items today (I knew I forgot some yesterday)

1: Quallity

  • This may be more of a revamp suggestion but possibly not too difficult. I would like to see quality of items balanced a bit more... static. I feel like a T6 stone shovel should NOT be better than a T1 iron shovel. It can be disappointing to finally find an iron shovel* (insert any tool or weapon here really) only for it to be worse than the lower tier item you would want to replace. I would like to advocate a more linear quality curve in this regard.
2: Air drops

  • Not an original idea of mine. Heard it from Capp00 who got it from a viewer. It would be neat to be able to craft some kind of radio beacon that would draw the plane to drop the supplies within an upgradeable (1k/500m/250m) range of the beacon instead of a random distance from your current position.
 
luki12163 said:
Are there any mods (for vehicles) that are already ready or in development? I would really love to know what mods are planned and how will they work?
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Probably all kinds of cool stuff.  For example.

Nerf the already slow default speed and make a mod to get it back to normal again.

Nerf the armor and make a mod to get it back to normal

Nerf the headlights and make a mod to get them back to normal.

:)

 
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SnowDog1942 said:
Probably all kinds of cool stuff.  For example.

Nerf the already slow default speed and make a mod to get it back to normal again.

Nerf the armor and make a mod to get it back to normal

Nerf the headlights and make a mod to get them back to normal.

:)
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That statement is like saying you love kids. It can be interpreted however we like, but we as human beings will be annoyed and ban Blake before hearing that you are a father and a great man. The same goes for a dev trying to explain that vehicles are OP in armour, free lights and balance/torque and should be balanced with a proper mod system. We should ban Blake nevertheless. To hell with Blake. 

 
Blake_ said:
That statement is like saying you love kids. It can be interpreted however we like, but we as human beings will be annoyed and ban Blake before hearing that you are a father and a great man. The same goes for a dev trying to explain that vehicles are OP in armour, free lights and balance/torque and should be balanced with a proper mod system. We should ban Blake nevertheless. To hell with Blake. 
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Roland, can I ban Blake now? Please, Roland, He said to ban him. Its only fair to ban him now. Please Roland, please. If not, can I ban someone else? I want to ban someone today. It's my turn now!

😁

 
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SnowDog1942 said:
Huh? For me A16 ran like a champ, 17 was horrid, A18 was was almost on par with A16, but A19 took a step backwards.

A19 is not bad, just not as good as A16 or A18 as far as performance goes, for my PC anyway.
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A19 ran A HELL alot better for me. it ran about 50 FPS much better then A18 that ran for me about 30 FPS. sense im mostly a console player and the game was fun so i didn't mind it. but for some who only plays PC. i can see how that would ruffle some feathers

Weazelsun said:
@madmole @faatal Will the animals particularly the bear and mountain lion animation become more smoother? Right now they're a bit janky when attacking and jumping.
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they all need better movement in general


Zombies move fine. but the animals not so much. Mosty pigs, bears, mountain lions and maybe wolfs. zombie dogs are ok tho

 
Weazelsun said:
@madmole @faatal Will the animals particularly the bear and mountain lion animation become more smoother? Right now they're a bit janky when attacking and jumping.
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If they are made smoother, they might become slippery when attacking. Or they might embed their conversation with subtle and cunning insinuations to achieve their goal.

Can't wait for a "smooth talking rabbit".

 
Just how long will it be until the zombies learn how to pick up and use guns? 😜 They're basically architects at this point. Hopefully the zombie intelligence slider will allow us to go all the way down to nearly perfectly replicated A16 AI; it would allow for more replayability.

 
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