PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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I just want to say, I kinda hope this doesn't happen or at the very least if it ever is added, it gets removed in like a week lol. I hate everything about the idea of your vehicle randomly just failing for no reason. Like, at that point I'd prolly just give up on all vehicles other than the bicycle.
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What makes you think the regular bicycle would never break down? :)

I think it's a good idea for emergent gameplay actually.

 
I just want to say, I kinda hope this doesn't happen or at the very least if it ever is added, it gets removed in like a week lol. I hate everything about the idea of your vehicle randomly just failing for no reason. Like, at that point I'd prolly just give up on all vehicles other than the bicycle.
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Chains can break....

Don't worry about it too much, I doubt "Vehicle Spoilage" will make it in especially if it involves a minigame ;)

This is future talk and future talk smells like tea when you're talking about it now but often tastes like ■■■■ when it comes time to actually implementing it.

 
For every old player who liked x, there are 10 new ones that like y. We're growing as designers and don't like clunky systems. If someone else is following in our old footsteps, I can assure you they will come to the same conclusion as we are now 2 years from now and realize those systems are mindless clicking and offer nothing rewarding. Its all psychological. I'd rather have a game simple to learn but grows in challenge as you progress instead of just grow into a god and stomp on everything.
I don't know how you could be done on day 20 unless you have 5 hour days or played the broken MP where you get all purples (fixed in the next patch). I'm having a blast replaying the game again.

We're pretty much done with major changes as the game is what we want it to be now, so its just adding and improving content, optimizing further and adding more usability features.
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I have to agree with this. Well said.

 
I'm getting real tired of this misconception of what I said.For the last time, we want to make the first twenty hours polished and amazing so they actually get addicted and see many many 100+ hour characters. How can they get to 50 hours if they quit before 20 because of bugs, poor performance or lack of balance?
We are not targeting casuals or skipping late game. FFS, Alpha 18 is evidence enough, its 100+ hours now to play a decent build and you still don't have all purple gear and every book unlocked. Any casual would rage quit this game. The game is harder than ever with food poisoning, rage zombies, night mare run speeds, etc. The game is longer than ever with a very slow long game of looting and a nasty challenge of zeds.

(please excuse the broken MP purple bug that is fixed in the next update and traders will no longer sell top gear)
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Wouldn't that make you The Fun Pushers not The Fun Pimps... :D

"Here man, the first 20 hours are polished and amazing"

 
Tell you what, I'll spawn some in during the next recording. ;) The horde will never make it in there anyway. :p
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Ah, so all that is essentially an elaborate backup system. I too thought we'd see some Z up in the halls o' blending, but no they never got close to making it that far in.

I only have 2 blades so far, well also one under my drawbridge at my base, but on my BM tower only 2. They do make it to them, not often though, just the ones I or my turrets miss. Of course this increases with each BM, so we'll see how it holds up for later hordes.

I am going with a BM tower design I have used many times and evolved over many games. I've got it into a nice predictable state, ala Tower Defense style. The key isn't keeping them out, but giving them a clear way in, and meeting them there with all your firepower. Sure some still try to mow spikes and make another way in, but at this point in my design I can safely ignore those, for the most part. I can just flip a switch here or there and turn on perimeter turrets who take care of them if I'm busy. Getting some XP for trap kills now is so nice, even though it's lesser, it's so much better than nothing. I still only use them if A: I get overwhelmed or B: Get distracted(reload, repair, need to check other areas, etc.),

The tricky bit I found with turrets and such is placing the switches and other electric components in a safe spot where you can both reach them and keep them from getting spit on/destroyed. My first shotty turret was above my head, it was taken out early by a spitter aiming for me from below, now they're kept off to the side, little things like that I've tweaked over time.

One thing about your video though, in hindsight... where were the vultures? I don't remember you dealing with any, and if so not many, no where near as many as I tend to get, even in lighter hordes.

I casually play tons of TD games like most peeps play solitaire, this is the first FPS that has filled that niche/desire, which is neat. Last major one I played was They Are Billions... omg could you imagine that. Is pretty similar in ways, obviously horde size in that game is a bit bigger. Plus all the units, buildings, etc. I hope at some point they expand upon and add more to the Tower Defense aspect of 7DTD. Seen some neat ideas in here so far.

 
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If you cannot see the goal post nothing i say will get you to see it. I'm not hating if thats your impression. I love this game and have always supported it since i started playing which is around A8, through word of mouth, my wallet, time spent testing and reporting bugs all the way to helping as many people within the community as possible when they have issues. :)
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"The" goalpost? Maybe I'm really not one of the chosen so I can't see it. *jk* TBH, this game has changed many times back and forth. Game mechanics had been implemented or swept aside (e.g. LBD, replaced by perks, reason: placeholder mechanic). I'm OK with those changes, at least I have to but the development of this game has shown that the roadmap is hard if not impossible to predict. Yea, they want to implement bandits and a story and 7D seems to be a training ground for a sequel. The point is: we simply don't know what's coming in A19, 20,...or 1.0.

 
This is a great example of why I refer to mods a lot. People need to set aside their weird tastes and understand their cup of tea is a gallon of ■■■■ to most people. I like challenging combat, challenges solving the horde in a way that to me is fun, but don't want to micromanage crops. A gun jam sounds fun because its an oh ♥♥♥♥ situation where you suddenly have a big problem to deal with if you didn't bring a backup weapon, but a complex repair degradation system would just be frustrating to most.
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This is a pretty neat idea with the gun jam thing. Can't fire it again until you repair it? Maybe make the gun jam fixing kit different from a repair kit. Make it rare to find, expensive to buy and cheap to craft. Crafting gets more useful now. :)

 
I found something interesting last night that may/may not help those suffering from fps drops in snow. In a previous post I stated I had no fps drop in snow. I’m running gtx 980m 4 gig card on 1080p resolution, af off, textures full, uma lowest, occlusion & texture streaming on, vsync on and getting steady 60 fps. Last night I turned vsync off and while in general my fps went up to 70-80, going into snow biome the fps dropped to 15.

So if you’re having snow biome fps issues, maybe try turning vsync on?? Anyway, works for my rig.

 
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Waitaminute... hey Roland. You're in charge of our avatar labels, right?

I am now "Ranger"... how did you know that is my in-game name. Well, close, it's RangerRedd, but still. Is that just a wild guess/fluke or did you know that somehow?

 
Ah, so all that is essentially an elaborate backup system. I too thought we'd see some Z up in the halls o' blending, but no they never got close to making it that far in.
I only have 2 blades so far, well also one under my drawbridge at my base, but on my BM tower only 2. They do make it to them, not often though, just the ones I or my turrets miss. Of course this increases with each BM, so we'll see how it holds up for later hordes.

I am going with a BM tower design I have used many times and evolved over many games. I've got it into a nice predictable state, ala Tower Defense style. The key isn't keeping them out, but giving them a clear way in, and meeting them there with all your firepower. Sure some still try to mow spikes and make another way in, but at this point in my design I can safely ignore those, for the most part. I can just flip a switch here or there and turn on perimeter turrets who take care of them if I'm busy. Getting some XP for trap kills now is so nice, even though it's lesser, it's so much better than nothing. I still only use them if A: I get overwhelmed or B: Get distracted(reload, repair, need to check other areas, etc.),

The tricky bit I found with turrets and such is placing the switches and other electric components in a safe spot where you can both reach them and keep them from getting spit on/destroyed. My first shotty turret was above my head, it was taken out early by a spitter aiming for me from below, now they're kept off to the side, little things like that I've tweaked over time.

One thing about your video though, in hindsight... where were the vultures? I don't remember you dealing with any, and if so not many, no where near as many as I tend to get, even in lighter hordes.

I casually play tons of TD games like most peeps play solitaire, this is the first FPS that has filled that niche/desire, which is neat. Last major one I played was They Are Billions... omg could you imagine that. Is pretty similar in ways, obviously horde size in that game is a bit bigger. Plus all the units, buildings, etc. I hope at some point they expand upon and add more to the Tower Defense aspect of 7DTD. Seen some neat ideas in here so far.
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Unfortunately, in order to give them a chance of breaching the defenses, I'd have to turn the difficulty up to the point where the blade traps would be useless - paper mesh, basically. I could refuse to administer repairs, but I'm not going to do that. Instead I'll just make a separate video sometime of me spawning in 100 irradiated zombies (25 down each corridor) and let the blade traps work their magic. I'd rather that than let them sit there to gather dust. Lol

You know, I might have to try that type of design sometime! This is my first real time delving into the complicated world of electricity, and so far, I'm quite enjoying it.

Vultures? During the last horde (day 49), I couldn't get a break from them. During the most recent horde though? None. Nadda. Zip. It's semi-random, same with dogs and demolishers. The next horde I might get 10 demolishers, or 20, or none. I might get vultures during the next horde, or not. During each wave the game, as far as I understand it, the game tallies up each spawning entity (or groups of entities) based on some factors, such as, "Irradiated cop? 8%", and then the game may or may not spawn a/many irradiated cop(s) during that wave, for example.

All I can say is, be careful with turrets! Specifically with demolishers. Turrets have no bias in where they shoot.

Likewise. This is the first game, heck, the first world in this game, that I feel very much attached to and have that urge to keep on playing, which is incredible, to say the least. Normally I hop on a world and leave after day 20 or something, but now, even though I'm approaching end-game, I have no desire to hit the restart button. The Fun Pimps truly have crafted a gem here.

 
Oh yeah ? So why did you register "7 more days to die?"
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7 Days to Die: The 7 Year War

"On July 7th, 1977, 7 explorers went on a mission. This mission was supposed to last 7 weeks, it ended up lasting 7 months. During their...."

 
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