PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[FA_Q2]

Honestly? I'm really not that bothered about the weapon systems, this is why I pretty much kept out of the discussion. I've played enough RPG's and shooters to play with just about any system, I have my preferences but I'm not that fussy about what's implemented. I'm one of those who like the game as a fort builder with a reasonably easy threat to tackle on a daily basis.
It's other details like rivers and lakes that disappoints me. The last I heard the entire mechanic was being pushed towards a completely flat system, bypassing the need for a water physics upgrade entirely. I know rivers and water physics are neither easy nor a priority but it would have been a wonderful addition that not many voxel engines have pulled off well.

Cant argue with that. A flat system with a water table would be a horrible direction to go to IMHO - I would prefer the water remain the buggy mess that it is now to that. Flat is easy though and without and real water game here I can understand the direction. Personally I would like to see water integrated into game play - a few underwater POIs and possibly a resource or 2 that is water specific. Barring that, it should be removed entirely, not 'fixed' into something that nether has a point or an impact in game play. If we are not going to get real water - leave the water as it currently is and regulate to pools and water towers.

Easy and not gimmicky.

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MM - any update on RWG being included in 17.3 or pushed to 18?

I remember that it was in question what update RWG would be ready in.

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What are you on about? We went from ugly photoshopped 16 to 256 pixel hack textures to proper 3d PBR textures that are 1024, and added many new ones. What was removed?

Paint textures MM. Paint textures. We pointed out pretty early in this thread that you guys gutted painting when expanding the available textures for development. Right now we have limited access to blocks - there are a ♥♥♥♥ ton of block shapes/types that we cannot create - and almost nothing in painting. These 2 things should be rather wide open - they are purely decorative. I think that many of us players are confused by the decision to limit (or more likely not open) the options the player has in accessing both decor and painting options.

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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. )

This is a different problem in 7 days though - the dev team has actively encouraged the journal entries to be ignored by not pausing the action in the background when you are trying to read them. No one is going to spend time reading when time is the most important resource in this game. Particularly if a zed walks up and eats your face when you try and read up on mining...

 

[Grue]

Why would you not just turn off horde nights if you just don't want them to find you at all?

Or change them to the maximum infrequency to lessen their impact in the game. A17 gave us this tool.

Eliminating them completely is not the point. At least not for me.

I want to have a constant environmental threat of "something nasty" that I need to either confront or run and hide from.

Do I really need wood bad enough to go chop it at night knowing there are running irradiated feral wights out there, or can it wait til morning?

If I can defend my base, I will, but alternatively, if my base gets overrun, I should be able to take the secret tunnel out to safety or hide til dawn in a bolthole without having them magically find me 50 blocks underground.

 

[Pille]

What are you on about? We went from ugly photoshopped 16 to 256 pixel hack textures to proper 3d PBR textures that are 1024, and added many new ones. What was removed?

Obviously he was not talking about the graphical quality of the new textures but about their style. The new concrete textures are designed to create old and dilapidated-looking prefabs. If you build a new base, it should look like freshly painted. Would be nice to have some additional concrete textures where the paint does not peel off.

Paint textures MM. Paint textures. We pointed out pretty early in this thread that you guys gutted painting when expanding the available textures for development. Right now we have limited access to blocks - there are a ♥♥♥♥ ton of block shapes/types that we cannot create - and almost nothing in painting.

We have (a few) more textures available in A17 than in A16 but a lot of them are unsuited for base building purposes.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Only one way to settle the texture complaints. We need screenshots from A16 and A17.

All I know about them is that there are some textures in the world that aren't available as paint, as I found when in dm. I can't provide a list of them, but an example of these are the very rusty ones. There are quite a few aging metal textures, but darker vibrant ones such as a rusty pipe are unavailable.

I'm really hoping someone will take the time to show a comparison of the paints. I could be wrong, but I thought there were more solid colors available at one time. In particular, I can't seem to find one that is black, or nearly black. There is one that is really dark, which could be the same one, but perhaps changes in other things makes it appear gray in the light.

 

[Gareee]

If you spend all of your time looting just to get items for traders, then you're not spending any time building and preparing for the larger horde nights. And yeh, whether you're mining above or below surface, if you're whacking something to get materials, you're mining. =)

Once you have a tunnel horde base, you don't need to do anything at all base wise. I beefed it up with reinforced concrete, and added electric fences and blade traps, but those were just for thee fun of watching them working more than need.

Turrets were a pipe dream in a17, and no one unlocked them at all because they were so far off progress wise.

Almost all the tower defense play seems stripped out now, and instead of scavenging materials and crafting, we ended up quest looting and shopping at traders.

I like that the traders are useful now, but hate everything else missing they replaced like mining for metals to make bullets instead of just buying them from traders now.

a17 brought some nice new things to the game like quests, but SO much has been simplified and stripped out.

I just hope a18 gets some of the old feel back, but I'm not that optimistic about it anymore.

Sadly we are finding minecraft deeper and more fun than 7 days right now. 8(

 

[FA_Q2]

Obviously he was not talking about the graphical quality of the new textures but about their style. The new concrete textures are designed to create old and dilapidated-looking prefabs. If you build a new base, it should look like freshly painted. Would be nice to have some additional concrete textures where the paint does not peel off.
[snipped for space]

We have (a few) more textures available in A17 than in A16 but a lot of them are unsuited for base building purposes.

We have less as far as I can tell. There are a few that I used to use that are no longer there.

No matter what though, we have FAR to few.

 

[Survager]

Q about electricity in A18

Joel, have a small question: are new electricity awaited in Alpha 18?

- remote control of doors, hatches and bridges

- remote start generator

- degradation of a generator, bank of batteries or solar panels with time or from bad weather

- random stop of the generator (if it has a small margin of safety)

- remote explosion of dynamite

- parallel connection of generators to increase power

- switch of the direction of current movement between two, three or more directions

- fuel sensors in the generator

- dependence of the power level of solar cells on the weather

- tasks related to the repair of generators or battery banks

- the effect of weather on the electrical network (lightning can disable the generator or solar panel, a strong wind can break the wires outside ...)

- may be something else... )))

Thank you)

 

[Pille]

We have less as far as I can tell. There are a few that I used to use that are no longer there.
No matter what though, we have FAR to few.

There are 171 available textures in A17 and only 166 in A16. I agree with you though. Afaik the maximal number of textures is limited to 255 (raising this number would probably require far reaching changes), so there still room for some new textures.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Obviously he was not talking about the graphical quality of the new textures but about their style. The new concrete textures are designed to create old and dilapidated-looking prefabs. If you build a new base, it should look like freshly painted. Would be nice to have some additional concrete textures where the paint does not peel off.

The world is full of lead-based paint chips. No wonder everything is sick and in a bad mood.

 

[khzmusik]

Or change them to the maximum infrequency to lessen their impact in the game. A17 gave us this tool.

I do love that option, but "lessen their impact" is not a phrase I'd use to describe it.

AFAICT the blood moons still level with gamestage, not frequency, so it's more like "at some random day every month your entire base is guaranteed to get destroyed and you will almost certainly die no matter what."

 

[Dimpy]

Eliminating them completely is not the point. At least not for me.
I want to have a constant environmental threat of "something nasty" that I need to either confront or run and hide from.

Do I really need wood bad enough to go chop it at night knowing there are running irradiated feral wights out there, or can it wait til morning?

If I can defend my base, I will, but alternatively, if my base gets overrun, I should be able to take the secret tunnel out to safety or hide til dawn in a bolthole without having them magically find me 50 blocks underground.

Royal Deluxe made a mod a while ago that adds a completely zombie-proof block. Maybe that would help?

 

[Roland]

I do love that option, but "lessen their impact" is not a phrase I'd use to describe it.
AFAICT the blood moons still level with gamestage, not frequency, so it's more like "at some random day every month your entire base is guaranteed to get destroyed and you will almost certainly die no matter what."

I just meant lessen their impact on your whole game and not lessen their intensity when they do happen. If you set them to 30 day frequency with a 20 day range then you will have a random blood moon every 30 - 50 days. If you were to play for 100 days that would be 2-3 bloodmoons for that game as opposed to 14 guaranteed bloodmoons.

Much less whole game impact.

 

[mr.natural]

Only the 2000+ hour crowd. Simple and deep has always been our motto but we have strayed a few times. Things should be easy to learn, but difficult to master and have a lot of deep game play to it.

That's not true for me, I watched A14 on YouTube and was so fascinated by the mechanics that when A15 came out I bought the game. It was BECAUSE of the mining, crafting and building. The zombies are just a side event to add a challenge.

A17 is too much of killing and shooting. I got to level 40 and was as good as invulnerable and bored, nothing left to do, too much dukes I didn't need anymore, nothing to loot as it is not relevant what you find. I also loved the gunparts and so on. If I want a shooting game I look for a FPS game, that's not why I bought 7d2d.

Just my experience and opinion.

edit: And yes the graphics have improved, the mod slots, improved vultures and quests are a nice addition. Hope to see game mechanics back in future updates.

 

[DaVegaNL]

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.

I can only talk from a personal perspective; I am still interested in the game, just not interested enough to actually play it. I keep checking the forum daily, sometimes posting, but I haven't actually played the game since early January.

It's like a zombie; not completely dead, but not really alive either..

 

[Roland]

That's not true for me, I watched A14 on YouTube and was so fascinated by the mechanics that when A15 came out I bought the game. It was BECAUSE of the mining, crafting and building. The zombies are just a side event to add a challenge.
A17 is too much of killing and shooting. I got to level 40 and was as good as invulnerable and bored, nothing left to do, too much dukes I didn't need anymore, nothing to loot as it is not relevant what you find. I also loved the gunparts and so on. If I want a shooting game I look for a FPS game, that's not why I bought 7d2d.

Just my experience and opinion.

edit: And yes the graphics have improved, the mod slots, improved vultures and quests are a nice addition. Hope to see game mechanics back in future updates.

So you were attracted to the game because of mining, crafting, and building but are now bored that you feel invulnerable? Seems to me that you are at the level now where you can mine with ease, craft the interesting recipes, and build with plenty of resources at your fingertips. If those three things are what you like to do then what’s stopping you? Not zombies. If one wanders down into your mine or your building area you can dispatch them with your invulnerability. There is nothing to stop you from doing what you say attracted you to the game.

 

[mr.natural]

So you were attracted to the game because of mining, crafting, and building but are now bored that you feel invulnerable? Seems to me that you are at the level now where you can mine with ease, craft the interesting recipes, and build with plenty of resources at your fingertips. If those three things are what you like to do then what’s stopping you? Not zombies. If one wanders down into your mine or your building area you can dispatch them with your invulnerability. There is nothing to stop you from doing what you say attracted you to the game.

It is the danger that zombies give that adds the thrill and give purpose to the building. No thrill, no kick

It's that combination that made 7d2d stand out.

But I understand that there is a lot of rebalancing coming up so I'm hopefull.

 

[Oort]

I'm also one that would like to see the paint textures fixed up. I've seen someone post on this at least one other time and MM misunderstood them to be talking about game textures instead of the paint brush textures. I'd like to see the book cases and refrigerator textures back in the paint brush menu. Also a few other textures like a wheel texture, or the control panel textures. While there are several brick textures, one of them is labeled 'deleted' and is non usable. There used to be a mirror texture, and I'm sure there were more that I'm not recalling.

I'd like to see a wide variety of more textures to help with decorating bases or player made POIs. I don't know what limits are imposed on how many textures can be added, but if possible I'd really like to see a lot more. Especially 'clean' versions of textures that are done up to look like they are faded, peeling, burnt, chipped, scratched, etc.

Also, the single click (as mentioned) is a bit of a chore. Being able to hold the button and paint is badly missed. I would also suggest no longer using the left button to wipe the paint - just add a "wipe" texture that can be selected to clean up paint because more often than not wiping isn't required with a mispaint - just repaint the block. Then the left mouse button could instead be used as a 'Select Area' feature in which you click once to start a selection and then click/drag an area that will be filled by the current paint selected. One could paint out long lines or specific areas much more easily.

Even if said features were admin/creative mode only they would be invaluable to those of us making things.

Rotating the texture would also be a welcome addition.

 

[Menace312]

That's not true for me, I watched A14 on YouTube and was so fascinated by the mechanics that when A15 came out I bought the game. It was BECAUSE of the mining, crafting and building. The zombies are just a side event to add a challenge.
A17 is too much of killing and shooting. I got to level 40 and was as good as invulnerable and bored, nothing left to do, too much dukes I didn't need anymore, nothing to loot as it is not relevant what you find. I also loved the gunparts and so on. If I want a shooting game I look for a FPS game, that's not why I bought 7d2d.

Just my experience and opinion.

edit: And yes the graphics have improved, the mod slots, improved vultures and quests are a nice addition. Hope to see game mechanics back in future updates.

So you were attracted to the game because of mining, crafting, and building but are now bored that you feel invulnerable? Seems to me that you are at the level now where you can mine with ease, craft the interesting recipes, and build with plenty of resources at your fingertips. If those three things are what you like to do then what’s stopping you? Not zombies. If one wanders down into your mine or your building area you can dispatch them with your invulnerability. There is nothing to stop you from doing what you say attracted you to the game.

Well... It's not the same anymore...

I have to agree with mr.natural here.

Mining, crafting, building and character progression, are what attracted me to the game initially.

Only the character prograssion has improved in this regard. The rest have suffered in my opinion (the game has been dumbed down some).

It's not easy to explain, since it's a "feeling" really.

When you sit down and start a new game. The way the early game makes you feel now, is way different than before.

Perhaps I just need to give it time... A18 may help me to see TFP's new vision.

But removing things like the repair kit... How does that make any sense? Unless you are dumbing down the game...

 

[spacepiggio]

Eliminating The Repair Kits Makes Sense

Lets use the Freakin Work Bench to Clean & Repair Weapons & Tools,

it's a WORKBENCH, that's what they are for,

Let Tools Handles Break & Weapons misfire after so many rounds fired, very simple fix...

We don't need them when we have all these Work Stations...

The Mod's we add to Weapons could Break also & need replaced or fixed...

 

[Inmyh3ad]

Well... It's not the same anymore...I have to agree with mr.natural here.

Mining, crafting, building and character progression, are what attracted me to the game initially.

Only the character prograssion has improved in this regard. The rest have suffered in my opinion (the game has been dumbed down some).

It's not easy to explain, since it's a "feeling" really.

When you sit down and start a new game. The way the early game makes you feel now, is way different than before.

Perhaps I just need to give it time... A18 may help me to see TFP's new vision.

But removing things like the repair kit... How does that make any sense? Unless you are dumbing down the game...

That's the reason why I play A16 right now. Don't get me wrong, A17 is better at many many fronts but not in the way I like to play 7D2D.