PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[falloutcloud]

Man, I am so torn between Strength and Intelligence.
-Strength for the shotgun and mining (although POI clearing might be the thing in A18).

-Intelligence because the play-style would be so different!

I'll might go by the first good weapon I find too. Listening to the "Wind of Change" as it were.

I might go for strength or intelligence with perception. A nice melee to clear POIs and save some bullets. Cause when it comes to zeds I like Perception to build that long distance relationship

 

[Haidrgna]

Tying the biomespawns to the gamestage can be a bit tricky because in multiplayer players with extremely different gamestages can be in the same chunk. Imagine a level 200 player and a level 1 player in the same chunk and the level 1 player has to cope with what was actually meant for the level 200 player.

Hence I said the actual amount of variation should not be that great, such a system would be there to prevent low level people from actually seeing treats over their level all the time. Now it is flat, which means they will always encounter things that could be to strong, then they might only encounter if they are close to a level 200, which can kill it for him, he can run, sneak. MP is always going to have these kind of things, happens on horde nights too, wandering hordes, POI spawns.

In this scenario what I would use would have the level 1 guy have about 1/100 chance to meet a wolf and the level 200 would be maybe 1/50, difference would not be to spectacular, but will give the new spawn just that more chance not to run into as much hostile animals all the time.

Not to mention on such MP servers animals would quickly go extinct for a few days because of the frequency of players passing the chunks (that is how the current system works).

 

[Haidrgna]

I was just thinking that same thing, it would be tricky to handle in MP worlds. Imagine spawning n a server as a noob a few blocks from a player with a super high game stage and being greeted by a pack of dire wolves and rads. Ha, hmm, how to solve?

Biome spawns do not make packs of direwolves or rads, they make a few zombies and some animals. You are confusing it with Wandering Hordes, which are already gamestaged, although locked in cycle of repeating up to 50 stages.

 

[falloutcloud]

Since we've been talking about history and yesterday was 9/11 I think it's good to discuss these significant events so newer generations understand why things are the way they are. Maybe it's not the most engaging subject when we're young and a lot of it can be saved for post high school. There are definitely topics that should be covered and a lot of them are tragic. Unfortunately, history is very political and as a culture, at least in the US, we try and avoid topics about politics and religion to be politically correct. So instead of learning how to have opposing views and have a civil discussion we resort to trash talking and verbal noise.

 

[Mechanimal]

Biome spawns do not make packs of direwolves or rads, they make a few zombies and some animals. You are confusing it with Wandering Hordes, which are already gamestaged, although locked in cycle of repeating up to 50 stages.

Good point... except that I was not thinking about it within the context of how it is currently done. I was applying the new idea that animal and zed encounters would be changed, that entities would spawn differently than they do now, in a way that was based on a players game stage. In that case they could make it pretty crazy for high GS characters, thus things like packs of dire wolves and rads could spawn that way within such a new system. There are some variations in hordes as it is, even more so in some of the mods. So I was applying that idea to this new way of doing it that we've been discussing, I know that is not how it works now.

 

[sillls]

Well instead of learning about the holocaust, I'd cover it, but spend more time teaching about famous inspirational speakers, inventors, how someone started a business and created 1000's of jobs and transformed a poverty stricken area into a robust community, etc. Inspirational positive history, not tragedy and "what not to do".

So are you planning of opening your own school?

 

[Haidrgna]

Good point... except that I was not thinking about it within the context of how it is currently done. I was applying the new idea that animal and zed encounters would be changed, that entities would spawn differently than they do now, in a way that was based on a players game stage. In that case they could make it pretty crazy for high GS characters, thus things like packs of dire wolves and rads could spawn that way within such a new system. There are some variations in hordes as it is, even more so in some of the mods. So I was applying that idea to this new way of doing it that we've been discussing, I know that is not how it works now.

If they remove the loop in WanderingHordes and increase the frequency of them (maybe more smaller hordes) then that system could do such things. But for Biomes it would become to much quickly, since players run away from stuff they cannot handle and will just generate more when they do.

 

[Kage848]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

I love these ideas. Sound like quality progression to me.

 

[Ladarian]

and your scrounging for it.

Is there any reason not to make different casings? Steel casings? Metal dukes worth 1 duke, brass dukes worth 5 dukes? Is there a "police your brass" perk book? maybe every 1 in 20 chance to keep your casing? There's really no reason to ever lose your casings using a Magnum is there outside of panic loading.

You folks are clever so give me another thing to look for or craft and i'll be just as happy.

in pimps we trust!

-Lad

 

[MechanicalLens]

@madmole: In A17, chugging an antibiotics, herbal antibiotics, and/or honey only had a chance to cure infection. Is this feature returning in A18, or will antibiotics/herbal antibiotics/honey have a 100% chance to cure infection in A18?

 

[MikeRavo]

Hey Mr Mole, you mentioned that there's no POIs repeated in cities, happy days. Does that also mean though that there's only going to be one Shotgun Messiah, Working Stiffs etc per map or do they repeat in cities?

 

[JaxTeller718]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

Removing biome spawning seems to be completely against what everyone seems to want. Chief complaint is how empty the world is with all the encounters being sleeper based. An event only system is just going to be boring.

At the risk of drawing your ire Im going to bounce some advice off you that you have given to countless other players. Get Good. We have been dealing with these animals for a few alphas now, and as a strict melee build who uses NO guns I have never had any extreme difficulty in handling them. Remember your game is also stealth based and strategy is important.

What everyone loves about it is the fact you arent locked into one build. You can melee, have a bow as backup and a gun for emergencies. If I am reading correctly either you're playing JUST to be a run and gunner or you have crippled variety. Its as if you must make a decision day one what character you will roll. If thats the case lets just add professions at the character select screen. It will save people the trouble of believing they have any type of choice in how they handle in game events.

The funny thing is I fully believe if you were not the developer of this game I think you would be in here raging at devs for spawning near a wolf or not getting a gun on day 3. And then some dev can tell you to adapt or get good. At least the old Mad Mole would have told that complainer that.

 

[Aldranon]

I might go for strength or intelligence with perception. A nice melee to clear POIs and save some bullets. Cause when it comes to zeds I like Perception to build that long distance relationship

I (like everyone who's thinking about their own DAY 1) am not positive what will be good for my own play-style. An INT build is calling to me however, because the fighting is asymmetrical. Something new.

Could I clear an early game POI by filling it with cheap spikes as I go, for example? Does INT even get exp for spikes? Turrets only?

If MM's Day 98 is "Finished Dart Traps", then they appear to completely suck. UNLESS the INT guy gets a huge buff in traps. There are buffs, I just haven't added them all up yet.

Or do I go with what I know and max strength? Yes I'll take damaged, but can I mitigate that with 3 belt slots full of healing items and the heavy armor AND can I even build healing items?

 

[Gareee]

I rage quit and started a new character on the same map. Not sure why the 2nd one went just as bad lol, although I did spawn in the forest instead of the desert. So I died 3 times on day 1, then quit, restarted a new character and died 3x by day 3. I've got an AK and pistol now, doing fine, but getting attacked by wolves is just nasty early game. I want to remove all nasty things from biome spawing in a future alpha, and then do random encounters, which are leveled. Of course nasty biomes would have a raised game stage on these encounters but we could spare new players any hostile animals the first 5 levels or so and slowly add in nasty stuff, and increase the challenge as you level.

That reminds me of our playthrough where I spawned next to wasteland, and my trader quest was right through it, a full day's walk.

That turned into three days, and I kept getting killed repeatedly by wasteland nastiness.

I'd hope a new change would be to have spawns reasonably close to their starting quest trader to avoid startup game crap like that.

 

[Zombie_Jam]

Ha, just realized, I bet you watched the most recent Rogan podcast with Neil D, he did a good job of breaking down how asking why can cause problems. So I shoulda known better, though again I'm agnostic, so I can't actually rule out many things I wish I could. Like, who's running this simulation, if that happens to be the case. The fun part about this forum is that we can actually talk to those who run this one and occasionally get a response
What's neat about Simulation Theory is that, if hypothetically that is the case, then the voxels of our reality are actually really simple to identify: the atom. That one subatomic construct happens to make up everything, and that in itself has only 3 ingredients. Thinking of the elements as different things is actually really distorting of this fact, they are all the same thing that merely act differently, mainly with each other, depending on the number of protons/neutrons(and resulting electron count). But knock out or add a few of those in any atom and you can turn any element into any other, like lead into gold, etc. Totally possible, just far from practical, for now

I didn't know about the Rogan and Tyson interview, although saying that Rogan is an Anerican phenomenon. I'm aware of him but not really into his content.

We could have some great chats, but I'm afraid it would overtake this forum

 

[Gareee]

I think two but maybe we need to up it, and maybe up the ammo it holds no way would the small magazine keep up for long unless we do some alternate ammo or something more powerful.

That might be a good new book set.... Turrets for Dummies. Books could increase ammo storage, increase # deployed, increase number deployed, add rad remover, and set completion could add bonus turret damage, bonus xp, or add an additional bonus deployable turret.

Book sets just write themselves!

 

[Gareee]

Its actually opposite, early game you are swimming in brass because your collecting it long before you can use it so it stockpiles up, and then once you get bullet crafting it still kind of increases because your getting better tools, harvesting and looting more, then eventually the hordes get so big your supply runs out and your scrounging for it.

Maybe a later game perk that either uses less brass for crafting ammo then, or gives brass back as smeltable spent cartridges when using ammo?

(The later might be more immersive, but would add another game item needing an inv art asset.)

 

[Gareee]

MM, I read a lot of posts about the indestructible landscape and I have 3 questions (I want to tell my viewers the right information).
Garden boxes, ore blocks, the presence of these blocks fits very well in a world with an indestructible landscape. MM, do you smoothly prepare the game so that players can’t change the landscape?

MM, you said that indestructible terrain would be optional at some point. Is it planned after gold?

MM, is there any chance that on gold, 7 Days To Die will have only an indestructible landscape, and it will not be possible to choose the old (current at the moment) option?

He already answered all those questions.. he said he was just spitballing ideas out loud, and that it MIGHT be an option after gold to see how many players actually use it vs vanilla.

 

[Aurelius]

Maybe a later game perk that either uses less brass for crafting ammo then, or gives brass back as smeltable spent cartridges when using ammo?
(The later might be more immersive, but would add another game item needing an inv art asset.)

Like a brass catcher mod to attach to your weapon?

-A

 

[MechanicalLens]

Like a brass catcher mod to attach to your weapon?
-A

I believe that madmole has already declined the implementation of this feature.