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 have no problem with games having hard areas or get hard late game, but difficulty learning and if your spending 80% of your time scrounging for oxygen/life support when your advanced enough to have flying ships and can craft laser mining guns... then surely basics of survival wouldn't be such a chore. I mean make the game hard where it matters. Its like they wanted to hide their shallow worlds by making you scrounge for oxygen constantly. I'd rather explore and kill enemies then kill plants.
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You must have been playing in survival mode, which is not intended for a first play through. It would be like asking a new 7DtD player to play on difficulty 5 with bloodmoon every 2 days lol.

 
If any dev is inclined I'm curious about Unity limits/issues with things that 'move'.

Not a coder here & not implying anything, just wondering if maybe newer versions of the engine may allow things like elevators or retractable ladders to be added without tons of bugs or custom coding?

Like the Drawbridge. If that took/takes 50 hours to custom design & code then it makes sense that the one we have may be it. Just kinda hoping/wondering if maybe down the line the engine might make adding other moving elements much easier...?

 
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Well i guess this is were im in the minority lol, when i started playing 7d in a8 i loved the fact i had no clue wtf i was supposed to do and loved it 😂 But i know most people aren’t like that. And i get what your saying, maybe madmole should learn to explain things better then having to get you to explain it all lol.
 
You must have been playing in survival mode, which is not intended for a first play through. It would be like asking a new 7DtD player to play on difficulty 5 with bloodmoon every 2 days lol.
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Interestingly enough, that was pretty much my experience with 7 Days to Die. I decided to play on a multiplayer server after trying out single player and lo and behold, the server that I'm on when I joined in A15, is in fact with that type of difficulty of 5. Except now our blood moon is random.

@madmole, I think the game is fine as it is. Heck even when I started on that multiplayer server, even though the difficulty of it is at 5. I don't think, I ever had a problem as a new player to game having started on that server or difficulty. I'd say the game is already intituative as it is.

 
If any dev is inclined I'm curious about Unity limits/issues with things that 'move'.
Not a coder here & not implying anything, just wondering if maybe newer versions of the engine may allow things like elevators or retractable ladders to be added without tons of bugs or custom coding?

Like the Drawbridge. If that took/takes 50 hours to custom design & code then it makes sense that the one we have may be it. Just kinda hoping/wondering if maybe down the line the engine might make adding other moving elements much easier...?
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Now that we have Faatal I can imagine maybe getting some more moving parts in.

 
Interestingly enough, that was pretty much my experience with 7 Days to Die. I decided to play on a multiplayer server after trying out single player and lo and behold, the server that I'm on when I joined in A15, is in fact with that type of difficulty of 5. Except now our blood moon is random.
@madmole, I think the game is fine as it is. Heck even when I started on that multiplayer server, even though the difficulty of it is at 5. I don't think, I ever had a problem as a new player to game having started on that server or difficulty. I'd say the game is already intituative as it is.
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Its not bad, we just want to polish everything. I trimmed up the tutorial so your not doing so many redundant things.

 
You must have been playing in survival mode, which is not intended for a first play through. It would be like asking a new 7DtD player to play on difficulty 5 with bloodmoon every 2 days lol.
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Yes, but it still seems pretty poorly balanced when by default you can't go for more than a few minutes without recharging your oxygen and env suit. 90% of my time was spent harvesting stuff for that making it hard to focus on repairing my ship. Its fine, its not so hard after you figure it out. I only died about 4 times.

 
I've made about 10 sewer POIs so far. I'm designing them to be modular, so you can connect them in a maze-like fashion, with larger arena type junction areas. I ran into the problem of deciding what loot should be down there. For now, just a ton of bodies to be looted for bones. Some of these are modern sewers and some are older. The older ones have some minerals stalagmites growing from the ceiling, so a good source of nitrate. One of the POIs have like little hobo shelters that have a little loot. So, there are ways... just need to use some imagination.
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Well, considering the amount of toilet pistols we see, I imagine ammo should be plentiful in sewers, lol.

 
Yes getting trapped in the dark is a great idea. I'd go to the mountains or plains where you can see everything coming for a mile.
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Well, except when they spawn 50 meters from your base. Amirite? :D

 
...My point is that a smaller polished experience is way better than a broad sandbox with no real goals or connection. At least 7 days has the horde coming, so there is that inevitable doom you need to prepare for which instills "purpose" for the player. Trader quests are adding more purpose and story. The new books add a tiny bit of lore and help tutor a little. Once we get a main quest in I think we'll be closer to the polished subnautica experience and further away from the unpolished no man's sky experience.

...
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Meaningful mechanics that are connected and gives the player a goal yes!

But I would be careful with introducing thing like "lore" ore a detailed backstory in a sandbox game.

It can easily overdefine the world, and replaces the free imagination each player personally has about what might have happened in this universe.

So I would not tell a specific reason of why the player-avatar is there, and what was the cause of the apocalypse. (there could be some diffuse hints, but not a long detailed narrative about characters and events that nobody cares about).

It should be up to the imagination of everyone what the story and the world is.

 
Fall apart in 5 seconds on horde night?
:)
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Kage had a video showing how to set them up and keep them repaired. Mine lasted all night on horde night 56 without any problem with only a couple repairs.

 
@faatal

Old buddy, old pal... Vehicles... Maybe add a few blank keyboard binds that turn children on and off like headlight does when you hit f?

...so we can mod in some more interesting animations?

Pretty please? :)

 
Its not bad, we just want to polish everything. I trimmed up the tutorial so your not doing so many redundant things.
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Ooh, goody, I have strong opinions on this. :D I'll limit it to three thoughts, though.

  • The bedroll shouldn't be first. Respawning in the same spot isn't good for much until you've been there long enough to do something: to have created something worth coming back to. Telling the player to put it down before they've 'started a base' discourages them from trying a different, potentially more suitable spawn point if the first one led to death.
     
     
  • Making clothes should be last. You have a buff against temperature extremes until you level up, and by then you'd expect to be done with the tutorial. Pragmatically, getting killed by a zombie is the most immediate threat, so the player should make weapons, then sedentary stuff, and worry about the elements last.
     
     
  • Lastly, I don't think players learn as much as they could from the tutorial, because they don't bother reading the journal. For ComSenMod, it's a little hacky but I changed the names of the quests to e.g. "Craft a Stone Axe (Press O for help)". I believe a little change like this, where instructions for how to get more help stay on screen during the tutorial, will help new players a lot.

 
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