PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Guppycur]

It's my fault for saying they were going bye bye without having meetings with all the right people. I should have said we're going to look at them. I get the need to get out and find things you need, that is a core pillar of a game like this and we're getting that back in A18 and will continue in that direction for many builds.

Awesomesauce! Thanks!

 

[madmole]

Any chances to ads moods to vehicles in a18? Like visible armor or mounted guns..more room for more players? Is to dificult to add?

Depends how my time goes, I'm focused on finishing books and getting the perk trees rebalanced nice and general game play balance. We can add vehicle mods in an 18 patch or 19 for sure.

 

[Ouch Quit It]

The emphasis put ontraders in the game, is what killed A17 for me, among other things. All you did was setup camp next to a trader along with everyone else. There was no need to explore..maybe thats why the maps were smaller..except to see a few POIs. I NEVER used traders in the game before A17. Now you had no choice. The choice in the game was removed and the player was handcuffed by the skill system. It became a constant grind which got boring quick. A huge letdown after playing all these years. The gameplay went off a cliff and has yet to recover...if ever.

The game was great and fun. It just needed several existing systems to be finished, more content added and the Ai fixed.

Everything changed in A17...things that worked were removed and new systems were put in that took away choices and the ability to play your own game. It became too scripted and to me it became the same as all the others out there.

Maybe its time to move on..no other game has given me this amount of play time. More than Ultima Online and Everquest II combined.

But all good things do come to an end ...and to simplify a game to finish it and then call for the modders to fix it....even more of a reason to move on... the excitement isnt there anymore on both sides i guess.

- - - Updated - - -

 

[Grue]

I am saying that 10% of the time spent playing the game is mining, at most, on average. You can get by without large amounts of mining. I wouldn't call mining trees or surface rocks mining, I'm talking about full on making caves and digging deep being something you don't have to do. You can buy GP and bullets from traders, so its not an essential part any more.

While I don't really mind the repair kit changes in a nutshell, I think the bigger picture you have to see here is that this dumbing down, this simplification is becoming a trend that is affecting the soul, the uniqueness of 7DTD one bit at a time, but at a steady rate over the last iterations. I totally do not agree with the fact that the 1-600 levels was an "unnecessary number crunch" compared to a 1-6 system. Here's why :- the low granularity of the new system doesn't provide enough room for steady and constant progress. As I stated, as soon as I finish the starting quest, I can dump 4 points in Intelligence and all of a sudden I craft every tool/weapon in Q3. Does this make sense ? Does this feel rewarding ? How am I gonna find better tools in the loot if it's that easy to just craft better gear ?

- the low granularity doesn't allow you to have repair degradation (you lost quality with each repair) cost for obvious reasons. This was removed because apparently "it was a chore", all I see is that a justification was to be found for a system that is no longer supported by the new system

- the low granularity doesn't allow you to combine objects to gain a bit of quality. Again, nothing major anyways right ?

- progression is plateau'd very often. You reach Q3 ? Alright, you just know you'll be stuck here for a while because you need to spend the next 10 points in something else. There's a very slim chance you'll find a better tool by looting anyway at this gamestage, so basically you know this won't evolve anytime soon. Before, you'd find tools with +10 or +20 quality compared to what you had, it was a small change but hell, it was something !

What exactly did the new system provide that couldn't be done before ? Mod slots couldn't have been added with a 1-600 system, each slot being unlocked every 100 quality ?

I know quality is being worked on for A18, that each "category" of item will have a different crafting quality depending on its respective perk level etc. Wait and see I guess, but past iterations have shown me that I better not get my hopes up too high regarding how well-thought & well-implemented these ideas might end up being once released.

Where you see "simplifications of the process" I see "overcomplexity in the thinking". Most these things weren't troublesome to begin with, overthinking working stuff to try to make them better instead of focusing your attention on yet-to-be-implemented stuff feels reverse to me. What ain't broken doesn't need fixing, it's what ain't there yet that needs thinking.

As for mining and item quality.

In A17 I rarely mine any more.

Why?

Now that there is no combining in the workbench, I have no use for all these tools I find while out exploring in the mid/later game so I melt them all down. I have no need to make new tools because without repair decay they effectively last forever.

Sure saves a lot of space in my chests compared to A16, because I am not keeping them to combine/repair old tools.

Now I have a virtually unlimited supply of ore, so long as I keep melting down my loot and as a result I have never had to dig a mine for ore.

Simple is not always better.

Its not a bad idea, its just another thing that will delay us from shipping when many players just want alpha to be over with.

I would personally rather see the game be in alpha/beta for another 5 years than to see it rushed out the door half-baked.

Worse still, development seems to be regressing as mature features get stripped out and replaced with "easier to implement" in the name of "simplicity" to check boxes so that it can be rushed out the door.

By all means, balance and streamline the game, but do not piss on our feet and try to tell us it is raining.

I have worked as a Project Manager long enough to recognize last-minute feature/backlog pruning to meet a deadline when I see it.

None of the stakeholders end up happy with the results.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Not to single anyone out but why do people moan and moan for weeks and months and longer about not being interested and moving on, but never actually move on?

I moved on from world of warcraft years ago. I havent posted complaints or ideas in their forums in years, ever since I truly moved on. You just stop playing, stop posting, stop thinking about it, play a different game... its that easy.

 

[madmole]

This overhaul of the repair system sound like a solution in search of a problem to me. There is nothing wrong with how repairing works as it is now. Simplify the recipe if you must but leave the rest alone.
Frankly, the biggest problem with repairs right now is that it currently has no consequences. There should be a percentage chance of irreparably damaging your tool/weapon with each repair. The more faulty the item, the higher the chance for breaking it.

We're talking about possible perma degradation, and maybe a trader can undo it for some dukes, maybe a workstation and parts to restore, but field repair doesn't fix all the damage.

 

[Minandreas]

You have to understand the sheer amount of work to do that on a wide scale this late in the game would set us back a lot, all for a slight bit of immersion. You could maybe do a cheesy rust shader that increases opacity of the rust as the quality levels are lower, but it would compromise the visuals. Something like this has to be planned from the ground up. You should be talking about the half dozen new weapons your getting, not the rusty variants you aren't.

If you were going to put in work on the appearances of existing items, I'd rather you put that time towards making the dyes look a little better. More hand crafted, not just shading the entire object.

But ultimately, I'm WAY more hyped for new toys than how the existing ones look. I am so hyped to C4 some zombies. I'd rather new cool stuff than tweaking the looks of the old.

 

[Grue]

We're talking about possible perma degradation, and maybe a trader can undo it for some dukes, maybe a workstation and parts to restore, but field repair doesn't fix all the damage.

Dying light does something like that and it sucks. You have X number of repairs based on the quality of the item, then you have to either scrap it or do a mission to reset the repair number. You end up with piles of "broken, but too good to be scrapped" items cluttering your inventory waiting to be repaired.

How about this:

What exactly was wrong with the way we had it in A16?

Repair the item in your backpack and it damages the item quality a little.

Or

Combine items in the workbench to fix/avoid the quality damage, but it is more resource intensive because it uses a whole item instead of just a few bars of iron/steel.

That already did exactly what you are trying to do.

It makes the workbench special again instead of just being a extra crafting queue.

Combine items directly and you can skip the step of scrapping for parts and then using the parts to repair.

And there is no need to invent a whole new class of "parts" for each item to repair it with, less stuff cluttering up my chests.

It was already balanced and working just fine.

You sure are making things more complicated in the name of simplicity.

Seriously, why did you change it in the first place?

 

[beHypE]

Not to single anyone out but why do people moan and moan for weeks and months and longer about not being interested and moving on, but never actually move on?
I moved on from world of warcraft years ago. I havent posted complaints or ideas in their forums in years, ever since I truly moved on. You just stop playing, stop posting, stop thinking about it, play a different game... its that easy.

Because we don't want to move on, we're trying to have an impact so that the game we love gets better instead of worse. You're comparing apples to oranges, I wouldn't ever have these kind of debates on a AAA forum because I'd feel it's a lost cause anyways. TFP have a history of listening to the community to some extent so we're trying to make a difference here.

 

[canadianbluebeer]

Repair Kits: ingredients simple, easy to find enough early on. You find a few while scavenging, and the traders also have a few.

The 2 biggest things to find are the oil and duct tape.

Oil you get a fair bit from wrenching cars. More than enough until you can do mining for shale, so it's a non-issue.

Duct tape. That gets used for so many things (duh, like dude, it's DUCT TAPE! Of course it has a million uses!!)

Cloth and glue. Glue being the PITA item, because it needs BONES.

Making the glue with a campfire, well, if you DON'T have a campfire and cooking pot, yer screwed anyway.

The lack of bones has already been flogged, and yeah, we do need more, that's been covered.

An alternate way to make glue would be nice, and solve the problem. (um, corn? you can grow a buncha that,

and would provide an incentive to grow crops. Put a few pts into that perk, hrmm?)

Biggest issue I had (16.4) was getting enough paper later on to make shotgun shells for the turrets.

(750 shells per turret, 4 turrets. do. the. math.)

Papermill was a great idea, and it's a quest POI, 3k (ish) paper. Sweet.

Oh, MM, the traders do NOT sell enough bullets to keep things going for later in the game. Ya gotta make yer own, which means

mining of some kind for lead, coal, nitrate. BRASS OTOH, we gotta find. (so yeah, smelting dukes for brass would be nifty.

"hrmm, keep this to buy stuff, like another solar panel, or smelt to make bullets to stay alive... decisions, decisions.."



Quality levels: While I would like better quality levels to do more damage (weaps), I also understand it would add more complexity to the underlying part of the game (xml stuffs). Mods for the items do add more damage (sometimes), so that does work out.

Would like to see even MORE mods avail for weapons so that you have to make some choices. Perhaps enough so you'd have 2 weapons but loaded with different mods. (silenced, easy to carry weapon for POI sneaking, and full up 'who wants some' blastyblastyboomstick type)

Repairing not degrading the durability: good. Was pointless, and used to be fixed by merging parts later on to bring it back up. (hence chests full of weapon parts. Fer crying out loud, I had a chest that was full of 600 level stuff that I just had no use for)

Good riddance to that!

Traps need to slow more, and for the love of.. do more damage. Watching a zed standing on top of a set of spikes beating a hole through a reinforced door and NOT DYING, is just stupid. (or broken) Yes, they do this on quest POI all the bloody time. (make a crapton of noise, which is bloody annoying. (and yes, that's the point of the noise. go kill the stupid bugger)

Weapon (gun) damage is already being looked at, (good), so hopefully no more bb guns masquerading as military weapons. (ok, the M16 is a bb gun, aka barbie gun, but that's for a whole 'nuther thread <chuckle&gt

longish post, first cup of coffee now empty. must. get. moar.

 

[Grue]

Repair Kits: ingredients simple, easy to find enough early on. You find a few while scavenging, and the traders also have a few.
The 2 biggest things to find are the oil and duct tape.

Oil you get a fair bit from wrenching cars. More than enough until you can do mining for shale, so it's a non-issue.

Duct tape. That gets used for so many things (duh, like dude, it's DUCT TAPE! Of course it has a million uses!!)

Cloth and glue. Glue being the PITA item, because it needs BONES.

Making the glue with a campfire, well, if you DON'T have a campfire and cooking pot, yer screwed anyway.

The lack of bones has already been flogged, and yeah, we do need more, that's been covered.

An alternate way to make glue would be nice, and solve the problem. (um, corn? you can grow a buncha that,

and would provide an incentive to grow crops. Put a few pts into that perk, hrmm?)

Biggest issue I had (16.4) was getting enough paper later on to make shotgun shells for the turrets.

(750 shells per turret, 4 turrets. do. the. math.)

Papermill was a great idea, and it's a quest POI, 3k (ish) paper. Sweet.

Oh, MM, the traders do NOT sell enough bullets to keep things going for later in the game. Ya gotta make yer own, which means

mining of some kind for lead, coal, nitrate. BRASS OTOH, we gotta find. (so yeah, smelting dukes for brass would be nifty.

"hrmm, keep this to buy stuff, like another solar panel, or smelt to make bullets to stay alive... decisions, decisions.."



Quality levels: While I would like better quality levels to do more damage (weaps), I also understand it would add more complexity to the underlying part of the game (xml stuffs). Mods for the items do add more damage (sometimes), so that does work out.

Would like to see even MORE mods avail for weapons so that you have to make some choices. Perhaps enough so you'd have 2 weapons but loaded with different mods. (silenced, easy to carry weapon for POI sneaking, and full up 'who wants some' blastyblastyboomstick type)

Repairing not degrading the durability: good. Was pointless, and used to be fixed by merging parts later on to bring it back up. (hence chests full of weapon parts. Fer crying out loud, I had a chest that was full of 600 level stuff that I just had no use for)

Good riddance to that!

Traps need to slow more, and for the love of.. do more damage. Watching a zed standing on top of a set of spikes beating a hole through a reinforced door and NOT DYING, is just stupid. (or broken) Yes, they do this on quest POI all the bloody time. (make a crapton of noise, which is bloody annoying. (and yes, that's the point of the noise. go kill the stupid bugger)

Weapon (gun) damage is already being looked at, (good), so hopefully no more bb guns masquerading as military weapons. (ok, the M16 is a bb gun, aka barbie gun, but that's for a whole 'nuther thread <chuckle&gt

longish post, first cup of coffee now empty. must. get. moar.

One of the mods I use adds "pine tar" from chopping down full sized pine trees as an alternative recipe to make glue. The same thing could be done just as easily with a glue based recipe and it gives you alternatives based on what you have on hand.

Glue problem solved.

I agree with you on Quality level based damage, it makes having a high quality item more meaningful so upgrading and maintaining is worthwhile.

I liked combining items in the workbench because it gave me a use for low quality items I found-- I used it to repair my tools and maintain their quality level. Higher level items I just sold to the trader.

More resource intensive than just using a forged steel to repair, but worth it to maintain quality level, because going back to your earlier point, quality mattered.

Now, I just melt everything I find because I have level 6 items that will never wear out because they never degrade.

Consequently, no need to go mining for ore.

 

[Survager]

Its not a bad idea, its just another thing that will delay us from shipping when many players just want alpha to be over with.

Joel, said: "May be later"? :smile-new:

Roland, I'm calm) I threw your dice :02.47-tranquillity:

 

[Grue]

Its not a bad idea, its just another thing that will delay us from shipping when many players just want alpha to be over with.

Please don't confuse, "want the game to be finished" with "want the alpha to be other with", those are two very different things.

 

[Odetta]

Because we don't want to move on, we're trying to have an impact so that the game we love gets better instead of worse. You're comparing apples to oranges, I wouldn't ever have these kind of debates on a AAA forum because I'd feel it's a lost cause anyways. TFP have a history of listening to the community to some extent so we're trying to make a difference here.

Well I did suggest some things that actually made it into Diablo 3 so I wouldn't say lost cause. I hear what your saying though. If you care about something your gonna try to help it out, even if it comes across harsh. Although D3 ultimately didn't live up to it's potential, I still believe it's a far superior game then it was the first half of its life.

I believe madmole wants to make the best game possible, which is why I still frequent these forums. It's got to be hard though because he's hearing all these different voices that all want different things. From the casuals, hardcores, early quitters, modders, reviews, confusions, frustrations, hobbyists, realism vs gameplay people. All of which have a bone to pick.

 

[canadianbluebeer]

One of the mods I use adds "pine tar" from chopping down full sized pine trees as an alternative recipe to make glue. The same thing could be done just as easily with a glue based recipe and it gives you alternatives based on what you have on hand.Glue problem solved.

I agree with you on Quality level based damage, it makes having a high quality item more meaningful so upgrading and maintaining is worthwhile.

I liked combining items in the workbench because it gave me a use for low quality items I found-- I used it to repair my tools and maintain their quality level. Higher level items I just sold to the trader.

More resource intensive than just using a forged steel to repair, but worth it to maintain quality level, because going back to your earlier point, quality mattered.

Now, I just melt everything I find because I have level 6 items that will never wear out because they never degrade.

Consequently, no need to go mining for ore.

600 lvl didn't really either. Just combined a few of the lower ones back into it, but gods was it tedious, and STILL had too many leftovers.

(mind you combing the car batteries and engines, well, never did have enough of those at lvl 6 for the generators/batter banks etc, so wouldn't mind being able to combine those again. We can't craft them, so learning to repair (aka combine) the crappy ones into better ones could be nice, except engines are all just lvl 1, yet batteries are not. hrmm. same for flashlights)

Gotta mine for stone/sand/clay to make cement, steel. Not enough loot drops to just smelt that, not to mention bullets.

Ok, if you melee, then bullets don't matter so much, but I don't do that. I was artillery. we don't do the crunchy thing.

that was for infantry/tanker types.

 

[meganoth]

We're talking about possible perma degradation, and maybe a trader can undo it for some dukes, maybe a workstation and parts to restore, but field repair doesn't fix all the damage.

No matter where you land on it probably would be nice if all modification slots of a weapon were accessible independent of quality, but inactive slots being ignored and having a red background color (plus tooltip saying "Not working").

It would allow quality changes to a weapon (temporary or perm. degradation or upgrade) to occur and solve the problem of filled slots in a degraded weapon.

Even if not used in vanilla then at least a lot of different systems could be implemented by modders simply in xml.

 

[Thecolours]

We're talking about possible perma degradation, and maybe a trader can undo it for some dukes, maybe a workstation and parts to restore, but field repair doesn't fix all the damage.

I like this solution much better than getting rid of repair kits altogether.

 

[canadianbluebeer]

No matter where you land on it probably would be nice if all modification slots of a weapon were accessible independent of quality, but inactive slots being ignored and having a red background color (plus tooltip saying "Not working").
It would allow quality changes to a weapon (temporary or perm. degradation or upgrade) to occur and solve the problem of filled slots in a degraded weapon.

Even if not used in vanilla then at least a lot of different systems could be implemented by modders simply in xml.

Hmm, having the slots showing but X'd out in red or something might give a hit to newbies that better quality would open those up.

Without a tutorial though, to hand hold walk them through, many won't read the journals tips. (people don't read. bane of tech support since forever. )

 

[Grue]

600 lvl didn't really either. Just combined a few of the lower ones back into it, but gods was it tedious, and STILL had too many leftovers.
(mind you combing the car batteries and engines, well, never did have enough of those at lvl 6 for the generators/batter banks etc, so wouldn't mind being able to combine those again. We can't craft them, so learning to repair (aka combine) the crappy ones into better ones could be nice, except engines are all just lvl 1, yet batteries are not. hrmm. same for flashlights)

Gotta mine for stone/sand/clay to make cement, steel. Not enough loot drops to just smelt that, not to mention bullets.

Ok, if you melee, then bullets don't matter so much, but I don't do that. I was artillery. we don't do the crunchy thing.

that was for infantry/tanker types.

If you have leftover equipment, just keep the best and smelt the rest. You cannot combine them now, and they made it worthless to take to the traders.

I like having the engines be "no quality" items, especially since they are moving that direction with vehicles.

I think maybe flashlights should go the same direction, just remove quality from them completely since it makes no difference on their performance.

Perhaps batteries too, but they actually do change how much charge they hold with quality level, so it would be more iffy.

 

[meganoth]

Hmm, having the slots showing but X'd out in red or something might give a hit to newbies that better quality would open those up.
Without a tutorial though, to hand hold walk them through, many won't read the journals tips. (people don't read. bane of tech support since forever. )

Good idea with the X.

I'm not even sure tutorials would help that much. At the moment the best any game can do is having tooltips (either showing up only once or after a delay) for absolutely everything in your UI.