PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Sirillion]

In regards to player spawn state (naked) and airdrops, you guys are looking way too deeply into things. Spawning naked is a simple mechanic that gives the player a sense of progression as far as getting some gear together. Plant fiber should have more downsides though, like an itchy buff that makes you stop and scratch every now and again to encourage the player to either take some anti-histamines or to find some dead guy's Wranglers.
Airdrops are an event that makes the player stop what they are doing to go after a sudden goal. Airdrops in my opinion, should be randomly based as far as time of day goes (Imagine having an airdrop spawn in the middle of the night, suddenly you have to weigh risk vs reward. That's good) and the gear inside should be a lot more varied.

I like this idea, +1 to a random airdrop choice in the game options. And by random I mean random by both day and time. No planning for a airdrop hunt when the clock close in on mid day. #freetheairdrop

I also like the waking up in the middle of nowhere, GO! deal. It will kind of depend on the storyline for the game but I do like it. I would however like to see a change to the current encumbrance system and have the perk for that removed and replaced by a system that adds slots based on the type of clothes you wear and clothing mods you add. I wouldn't mind starting the player off with just 10ish inventory slots off the get go and then as you craft and wear clothing the inventory slots would add on. Say you get 4 for the plant fiber pants and 6 for the shirt. Then you find a coat that adds 10 and you have 30 slots. That way the current encumbrance system makes a bit of sense as it can be described as you being encumbered because you have to carry things in your hands and not having a "proper" slot for it will bog you down.

A system like this balanced well would eventually unlock all the encumbrance slots.

 

[Damocles]

The airdrop could be a quest by itself, also making it more plausible for the setting:

You find some kind of military terminal that can launch a supply drone. Once triggered, it will state that in a random time (like 5 to 48 hours) the drone will drop a supply crate.

So the player needs to first raid a POI to gain access to the supply drone terminal.

It elegantly gets around the question why there would be other people (that have access to aviation) but never show up in person, but magically know that you are running around there. An automated drone is a plausible alternative.

.. And its using the same mechanics as implemented already, just needs that terminal and a message.

 

[TSBX]

The airdrop could be a quest by itself, also making it more plausible for the setting:
You find some kind of military terminal that can launch a supply drone. Once triggered, it will state that in a random time (like 5 to 48 hours) the drone will drop a supply crate.

So the player needs to first raid a POI to gain access to the supply drone terminal.

It elegantly gets around the question why there would be other people (that have access to aviation) but never show up in person, but magically know that you are running around there. An automated drone is a plausible alternative.

.. And its using the same mechanics as implemented already, just needs that terminal and a message.

It's already a quest... You have an objective, a destination, and a reward. There should also be enemies attracted to the airdrop commotion.

 

[Tin]

imo, the 'naked' thing doesn't really need to be a concern up front, just start the player of with (1) durability clothing.

In the intro quest chain, just have it say: "You will probably need some new clothing rather soon, as the stuff you have on, is ready to fall off at any moment. So at the least, weave yourself some plant fiber clothing, since its better then what you got on now."

 

[FileMachete]

Have you seen the elevator in Ravenhearst? Pretty darn cool.

I have, and it works for characters but was buggy for minibikes last time I used it in a16 something. Definately nice.

I first noticed the elevator way back when, in the creative menu. Between that & playing Empyrion, and starting both 7dtd & EGS after Space Engineers, I really wondered why there weren't more moving blocks. While Space Engineers had lots of issues back then, there were a number of things that did work well, and the lack of similar things in Unity games was pretty glaring. Certainly more so in EGS than 7dtd.

Still, in 7dtd there a few fairly obvious moving bits that I've been wondering why they haven't made an appearance, so the question.

From faatals reply it doesn't seem like the large spiked swinging trap from Skyrim is easily done. Yet things like roll down steel shutters that stores use at night wouldn't be as time consuming.

Understanding the costs/limits was what I was looking for. So a retractable ladder is likely a real pita, but maybe an angled ramp is doable down the road. Though I expect, and understand, that if there are any spare cycles, well, different size/s drawbridges have been requested pretty much from the drawbridges release, heh

Here's hoping that in the future Unity will have whatever it needs to allow game makers to easily add fun moving things like grappel lines, swinging traps, falling traps.. heck, ziplines and excavators! :biggrin1:

 

[khzmusik]

No, you're not going to get experience just from walking from point A to point B ... but if you loot containers and chop down trees or rocks while you're walking from point A to point B you'll get much needed resources AND experience.

That has not been my experience, at all. It is still much faster to level up by killing zombies than it is to do anything else, especially looting and harvesting. In my experience, roughly 3-4 days harvesting and looting is equivalent in XP to one day of killing zombies (in-game).

This was far worse in earlier A17 versions, and has definitely been improved in A17.2, but it's still unbalanced in favor of zed-killin'.

Having said that - killing zombies puts you at a far greater risk of death than looting or harvesting, so maybe that's appropriate. No risk, no reward. So if TFP don't rebalance this again, I'm not going to be too upset.

 

[Roland]

Killing zombies is riskier but should the reward be greater xp? Isn’t the reward a cleared and safe area or loot that was guarded but is now available? If you are just out hunting zombies to farm xp that seems counter intuitive to survival unless it was a job assigned to you by the trader for a valuable reward. IMO, no xp reward simply for killing zombies is best. Xp for completing a mission to clear them yes. Otherwise the reward is removing them as an obstacle to your objective. Nerfing zombie loot was a good step. Now xp needs to follow.

 

[Gmad03]

Mad mole/faatal any insight on how the zombie pathing/hordenights will be changing soonish? Is the zombie ai gaining more randomness and less direct pathing?

 

[Roland]

Mad mole/faatal any insight on how the zombie pathing/hordenights will be changing soonish? Is the zombie ai gaining more randomness and less direct pathing?

Faatal has been spending most of his time on optimizations, code cleanup, and bug fixing. It’s also why he hasn’t been showing up reporting here as often as he did in the past. What he’s doing now is hugely important but time consuming and it doesn’t make for sexy posts.

 

[Drithyl]

Killing zombies is riskier but should the reward be greater xp? Isn’t the reward a cleared and safe area or loot that was guarded but is now available? If you are just out hunting zombies to farm xp that seems counter intuitive to survival unless it was a job assigned to you by the trader for a valuable reward. IMO, no xp reward simply for killing zombies is best. Xp for completing a mission to clear them yes. Otherwise the reward is removing them as an obstacle to your objective. Nerfing zombie loot was a good step. Now xp needs to follow.

That's a pretty extreme view. Next thing you can argue is to remove XP from mining or building, because isn't the reward for that activity the materials themselves or the shelter you get? That XP for killing zombies needs to be balanced in line with the other activities is something I definitely agree on, but removing XP from that activity altogether is... best left for a mod? ;D

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Interesting idea, the underlying project, but wouldnt be surveillance drones much better than random airdrops? Do you need a rocket launcher to show ure worth it?

Yes, indeed.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Killing zombies is riskier but should the reward be greater xp? Isn’t the reward a cleared and safe area or loot that was guarded but is now available?

Not really. But this mechanic would be interesting. I had suggested before that something could be implemented like a negated heat map... so that certain areas, or paths, say to a trader, are "cleared" and results in less zombie spawns. In reality, the way the game is now, there is no such thing as "cleared area." Not to say that a "cleared area" should not be infested with zombies at some point at a later date, but there should be at least some time period perhaps maintained per chunk, where zombies cannot respawn because it has been "cleared". That in itself can be an incentive to imagine and deploy a wide range of gameplay strategies.

Because of the lack of said mechanic, there is never a sense of fulfillment for clearing an area. You do not benefit from clearing a city, for example. Maybe temporarily, to freely loot at the time, but the next day, the city is magically infested with zombies again. There is no conquer and control feeling.

 

[Odetta]

Killing zombies is riskier but should the reward be greater xp? Isn’t the reward a cleared and safe area or loot that was guarded but is now available? If you are just out hunting zombies to farm xp that seems counter intuitive to survival unless it was a job assigned to you by the trader for a valuable reward. IMO, no xp reward simply for killing zombies is best. Xp for completing a mission to clear them yes. Otherwise the reward is removing them as an obstacle to your objective. Nerfing zombie loot was a good step. Now xp needs to follow.

That's your opinion, here's mine:

I think zombie exp is fine and here to stay and I also think there should be more zombie loot. Back when this game was more survival horror I would have agreed with you but that changed when this game became more RPG. This game is now closer to Skyrim/Diablo than Resident Evil/Project Zomboid and all this exp shelling is the bed The Fun Pimps made when they went in their current direction. Now people want to level up and unlock cool perks, and have gotten accustomed to being rewarded towards that endeavor by doing almost everything in the game.

This game has had a mini identity crisis for a while and seems like it didn't really know what it wanted to be until recently. So I say go full tilt and give us more ways to get exp, a lot more zombie loot, better looting game, scarier dungeons, more diverse biomes and etc. Expand on what we got now instead of trying to change the game again, especially this late in it's development.

 

[Odetta]

Meh, I don't really care that I cant take the traders farm. I really do not like the punch mechanic though because it is far too easy to target seeds rather than the plant you want to take. It just creates random annoyance without any gains.
I would be happy if seeds had to be picked up like crafting stations though. Hold e to 'dig' your plant back up.

- - - Updated - - -

Racist

I kid I kid. Made me do a double take.

Oh god, well no point in editing now! You just threw me under the bus lol

 

[khzmusik]

Killing zombies is riskier but should the reward be greater xp? Isn’t the reward a cleared and safe area or loot that was guarded but is now available? If you are just out hunting zombies to farm xp that seems counter intuitive to survival unless it was a job assigned to you by the trader for a valuable reward. IMO, no xp reward simply for killing zombies is best. Xp for completing a mission to clear them yes. Otherwise the reward is removing them as an obstacle to your objective. Nerfing zombie loot was a good step. Now xp needs to follow.

In principle, maybe - and I'm definitely going to try out your mod that removes XP entirely when it's done.

In reality - consider that most looting and harvesting can be done without ever entering a POI, so maybe those rewards aren't enough to make players face the risk of zombies.

Personally, though I do like your idea of leveling solely by surviving, I think that we're probably in the minority. Others in the forums have given their input, and I don't disagree with them for the most part.

Also:

What he’s doing now is hugely important but time consuming and it doesn’t make for sexy posts.

So, basically, programming.

(Edit for wrong use of "principal"/"principle".)

 

[Roland]

That's a pretty extreme view. Next thing you can argue is to remove XP from mining or building, because isn't the reward for that activity the materials themselves or the shelter you get? That XP for killing zombies needs to be balanced in line with the other activities is something I definitely agree on, but removing XP from that activity altogether is... best left for a mod? ;D

Probably...

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Couldn't you just make the melee skill only go up if you hit a moving entity? The game can tell the difference between a zombie and grass cant it?

Quoting this because every time this is brought up, there is never an answer, only crickets.

I have always felt that the bad parts of LBD were the results of how they were implemented in the past in this game, and not inherent of the concept itself.

 

[khzmusik]

Quoting this because every time this is brought up, there is never an answer, only crickets.

That's probably because a) the question itself isn't exactly specific (does punching a moving bike count? What about animals?) and b) it depends entirely upon how TFP have architected their code - and they have said explicitly that they are not going to put LBD back in the game, so no point in even answering.

 

[TSBX]

Grass is a block and a zombie is an entity. There's the difference.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

That's probably because a) the question itself isn't exactly specific (does punching a moving bike count? What about animals?) and b) it depends entirely upon how TFP have architected their code - and they have said explicitly that they are not going to put LBD back in the game, so no point in even answering.

Yes, but they only said that recently. The argument against it was always something regarding the grind of doing pointless things. However, it was pointless and grindy because it was coded as pointless and grindy.

Recently they have been more up front about it... which I appreciate greatly. They have stated that they will not be putting it back in, end of story. However, I still feel let down in that in the past, these arguments against it were presented as if LBD is a horrible idea. Players will comment that they hated LBD because they hated having to spam-craft or do repetitive things. The devs focused on that and used that as the reason for abandoning it, instead of just saying that it is too difficult for them to work out all of the cheaty ways around it. This comment I quoted for this reason. The argument is that it is too grindy to hit things with some tool to improve your skills with that tool, but it is never stated that their coding cannot differentiate what has been hit. Armor leveling was bad because you could stand on cactus. No. It was bad because the system wasn't made to understand that you are being damaged from cactus. Just a couple examples of very many.

Maybe I just want to hear that it is too hard for them. Maybe I just want to hear a little humility instead of just ripping out features and pushing the blame somewhere else.