PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Of course I don't need that on day 7 but he wrote that he could build a concrete fortress with a few thousand concrete and cobblestone. A fortress for me is much bigger than what you could build with that amount of concrete and cobblestone.
I build my character on strength in the early game because I love mining and also fight a lot in close combat. In the later course of the game I go more on stealth and perception because I also like to do that. I don't limit myself to one build but I also don't max out all skills. For example, I don't put a single point in Gunslinger because I never use the pistol or the magnum.

But as far as the OCD topic is concerned, it drives me crazy that the drawbridge is 4 blocks wide and the garage door 3 blocks.

Yeah there was no design there. We'll make some headway on that in A19.

 

[madmole]

Staph right there . I'm an OCD min-maxer and I LOVE the balance of trader Concrete. They have just enough to get you going even on a 4 player server while you enjoy quests and adventure. You CANT just build from day 1 with concrete though... oh wait, YOU CAN. But IF you REALLY WANT an almighty base you gotta be patient and invest in time in it. You can finish a HUMONGOUS base of 500x500 voxels in just 140 hours. No problem . PLz people enjoy the game. Do not complain about pitiful stuff .Complain about the scarcity of beards in Great Corporation etiquette and the eyebrow customization bar not working for a Manly avatar in 7dtd, for example. :02.47-tranquillity:

I want to make some progress there A19.

 

[Socrastein]

I totally agree with this and your other post on this topic. 18 is so much more flexible than 17 these comments about forcing strength on someone are ridiculous. And the fact your pulling it off in 17 means it will be much nicer in 18. I want to see conversations about interesting builds and play styles, not "I'm level 300, now what" kind of comments. Just by slowing leveling down we're getting closer to that now.

Thanks mate! I also want to hear from people who are using the perks and freedom of A17 to try different ways of playing.

I’ve been playing survivalist with 120m days, horde night every 3rd night, everything always walks, 64 zombies, loot 150%, no supply drops, no horde base, no crafting perks, AGI/PER focus. I call it ‘The Walking Dead meets Doom’

First few days were tough cause every zombie took a lot to take down and I was in snow and kept getting lumberjack spawns. 3rd horde night was the hardest cause I got several cops, dogs, and spitting vultures which meant I was sprinting my little ass off trying to avoid acid and demon doggos. Last couple horde nights felt too easy cause there were less cops, no dogs, but a lot of slow wights and radiated. So I switched to ‘run’ on horde night and am about to see how that goes.

Instead of a base with traps I’m working on a battle arena that i want to have low walls, platforms, etc. so I can run around fighting and evading the horde a lot like the large battles in Doom. No tower defense, all FPS. Anywhere I can go they can go, I’ll just have to outmaneuver them.

I finally have enough equipment and ammo to make the fight work, and enough building materials to stage the area, so I’ll turn the horde to ‘sprint’ once I have the battle arena set up. I plan to use parkour to jump walls, leap gaps, and otherwise continue moving and evading while blasting and burning the horde for nonstop action until they’re all gone. It’s a very different horde night but thanks to the parkour and cardio perks I have the mobility to pull it off.

 

[madmole]

Not to thrilled about this, I always felt running zombies was a stupid concept (and still do), I mean maybe some special ones can run but every normal zed shouldn't be able to magically run once night hits. Their danger should be in their numbers, not their speed imo. I know performance issues, all this change is going to do really is force people to use ranged earlier on insted of melee, as early game you generally lack the supplies to stay healed up.

Its more of a random walk speed than what I would call running. Its enough to make it interesting and get more zombies around you, not turning guys into full on sprinting zombies. Its very rare to see a guy take off running.

We decide the lore not you. We're not selling "The walking dead" zombie game, where people would expect them to always walk, we're creating our own zombie game with our own lore. 28 days later and dawn of the dead are much better inspiration than the walking dead IMO, for horror and gaming purposes.

 

[Socrastein]

I also want to try a ‘28 days later’ style rage zombies where I play a lower difficulty but all zombies are always on ‘nightmare’ speed and do insane block damage. I’ll go heavy into intelligence/fortitude and bring generators and traps to poi’s so I can set up offensive defenses. The junk turret sounds like it’ll make this style very viable! XP will probably be at 200% to compensate for their speed and how many will die to defenses with no XP gained. I’ll set things up, run into the poi to wake them all up, then with adrenaline coursing through my veins try to make it back to the kill zone before the zerglings overwhelm me.

 

[madmole]

Any plans to fix gamestage spawning? so at late game its not always always run radiated zombies with massivle pools of hp that spawn and thats it? I was kinda wishing it'd be more like loot gamestage, where higher gamestate is a chance of those zombies spawning but it never gets to the point its guarteed, maybe up to always ferals is fine.

When I determine its actually a problem we'll make some adjustments. I need to hit a high game stage on one of my play throughs first. I usually quit or save game corruption in development prevents me from getting there, but I should be starting to get some of that pretty soon.

 

[madmole]

@Madmole Any chance that we might eventually be able to run a torch in say left hand and still be able to use right hand for club or gun? Would be nice for early game when finding a mining helmet can sometimes be hard.

No plans for that. Why take away from the feeling of accomplishment getting your first helmet light?

 

[madmole]

Awesome! Then I guess all that's left to say is I agree. Getting a big 'payout' for destroying the block (regardless of the overall total) felt much more like I was achieving something. Steady harvesting throughout feels more like grazing aimlessly, with no obvious stopping point or reason not to drift from block to block.

Well it would be inefficient to stop mining one block and go mine another, even without the payout, the time spend not swinging is ore gains lost.

 

[madmole]

Its an impressive speed and accuracy, HOWEVER, the penetrative power in those shots might not be effective against a human opponent, especially when he wears armor.For that the bows need a lot higher draw-weight, and the arrows need to be thicker.

A heavy war-bow just cant be drawn that quickly.

Similar, a zombie would also be quite resistant to those (light) shots.

Here a video of Scholagladiatoria about that topic:

No problem he could shoot you in the eye slit.

 

[madmole]

@madmoleI wanted to ask, is headshot dmg perk going to be reworked? As I see it, its what forces me most into STR/PER builds. I feel it would be better baked into weapon perks itself. This as well as stamina usage. Otherwise the weapons in other tiers are pretty useless.

Its built into the attribute that governs its weapons so strength increases headshot damage with clubs, sledgehammers and shotguns.

 

[madmole]

I also want to try a ‘28 days later’ style rage zombies where I play a lower difficulty but all zombies are always on ‘nightmare’ speed and do insane block damage. I’ll go heavy into intelligence/fortitude and bring generators and traps to poi’s so I can set up offensive defenses. The junk turret sounds like it’ll make this style very viable! XP will probably be at 200% to compensate for their speed and how many will die to defenses with no XP gained. I’ll set things up, run into the poi to wake them all up, then with adrenaline coursing through my veins try to make it back to the kill zone before the zerglings overwhelm me.

Junk turrets grant XP.

 

[Socrastein]

Thoughts on throwing knives for agility?

I throw knives IRL and would love to be able to perk into being more of a ninja. They could be totally silent so long as you don't miss and hit the wall. Then the non-perception chars could have a quiet ranged weapon option they can excel in and you could pull them back out of the corpse. Big knife for melee, and a stack in the next slot for throwing knives.

No mods or quality, just stacks and perks to make them better (throw faster, faster to switch to, head shots have chance of instant kill, impede movement if you hit legs (knife stuck right in their quads/hamstrings hurting locomotion)

Throw in a grappling hook, some egg bombs (!), a short sword and ninja clothing. Maybe the ability to do short lateral wall runs or double jump off walls (it's called tic tac in parkour). Agility build would become my absolute favorite. In fact I would feel forced by the game to spec AGI because it's just too badass not to.

- - - Updated - - -

Junk turrets grant XP.

AWESOME!

 

[spud42]

It’s far from trick shooting. He works with a 30 lb bow, enough to penetrate chain mail armor as demonstrated. Stronger you are the more pound pull you can handle.

https://www.lykopis.com/lars-andersen-fact-or-fiction/

there is no way that a 30 bow at full draw would penetrate chainmail. he is holding the bow in front of him and only pulling to his chest. 10 to 15 pounds draw weight is generous.

http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131

it took a 70 pound bow at 15 feet to pierce the chain mail.

 

[Rassilon]

Yeah there was no design there. We'll make some headway on that in A19.

Madmole, maybe a suggestion for that.

How about a official Thread for A19 after A18, where players can submit Ideas of new/enhanced Blocks and Objects and your Moderators filter that out and bring the 10 best /most do-able thing up to you and Staff?

Players can do a good amount in Mods and thats fine, but i am 100% Sure some clever People have ideas that will benefit lots of Players and enrich the Gameexpierience too.

 

[Kinyajuu]

Are you mean it?

That's the one. I even built a visualizer similar to that to test with.

 

[alchemi2]

I was always a more classic Zombie person for film preference but realized that from a computer game point of view, without huge spawn numbers that could be boring, generally play with Zombies on Jog for day time,sprint at night.

I always thought of 7D2D Zombies as more Z Nation style rather than the Walking Dead.

 

[kuratowakiru]

Just a quick check up on 7d2d. While I'm not happy with A17.2, 17.4 brought back the fps for me, my 40 fps base with 1/4 texture is now 80 fps with 1/2 texture. Good job FP optimization staffs. Will make a new world and check it out fully when I have the time.

And A18 dev diary got me really excited. Some of the A17 issue for me is being addressed, such as quality now influence damage output again. Finding gun part/ schematic instead of finding a gun flat out or just buy perk point and craft a gun, max crafting quality < loot quality, this make me a happy scavenger. And it seem like the progression tree is getting rework and book is reintroduce again, making the game play less dull and more reason to scavenge stuff.

still reading the thread for MM replies (pg 340 of 586, rip) but if someone (or @madmole ) would be so kind to let me know if these issues have been address?

- Zombie AI, I read somewhere that it will be revert back to the old dumb straight-path-to-you kind of zombie, and the current seeking weak block AI will be given to raider. Is this true? One of the main reason I got burn out so quick in A17 was zombie seek the weak block, if a block get damage, they all flock to it and base design was mostly maze.

- Will Zombie drop more loots like A16 and older. Another reason A17 was so dull for me was there is no incense to kill a horde, it a waste of resource. A16 and older when you kill a zombie horde, you at least get something back for the resource spent killing the horde. A17 I just hop on a bike whenever there a horde and kite them away from the base. And the loot bag doesn't even last long enough for you to get it.

- Haven't got around to play A17.4 yet, but does it (or A18) address the issue of POI become a clown car with sleeper zombie? IMO POI should just spawn awake zombie like what ever the amount of sleeper there were in A17.2 and have 1-3 sleeper to jump scare you.

- Will there be more zombie wondering on the city/town street?

 

[Crater Creator]

Arrows actually don't have much stopping power. They dont expand like bullets in the flesh. They would make really poor weapons against zombies compared to blunt weapons and bullets.

I don’t even know what you’re arguing for at this point. You want bows to suck in A18 for the sake of realism? If not, it seems this has no relevance to the game.

 

[NoisyCricket]

I'm really upset*. I just died on day 50 of my 17.4 map and now I want A18 to be out so I start my new map on that version! (We play death = delete the game).

*Not actually upset. I fully love this game and every addition/subtraction that happens resets my love for it. I'm so incredibly excited for A18!

Edit: oops, forgot my question! Will car mods (whenever they come out) allow for increased speed? I'm sad that the 4x4 is (or at least feels) significantly slower than the motorcycle. It makes sense mechanically, but I'm wondering if we'll be able to change that type of stuff

 

[Damocles]

I don’t even know what you’re arguing for at this point. You want bows to suck in A18 for the sake of realism? If not, it seems this has no relevance to the game.

My points is, that even if there are those speed shooters, they would not generate the power to actually stop an opponent.

(be that armored combatants or zombies).

There is a limit on the speed you can draw a bow powerful enough to do harm in that combat-context.