PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[khzmusik]

OK, I'll play. (All of this, obviously, is IMHO.)

Player vs hunger

Too quickly resolved. Food should be resolvable so that you aren’t fighting it the entire game but there should be some progression to successful food preservation.

I agree with this, but since food spoilage is not happening in vanilla (for reasons I won't argue against), another system would have to be considered. Plus, in general, it would be good if you had a reason to cook more than just the "best" food available. (Right now that's bacon and eggs early game, meat stew late game.)

I think the best ideas put forth so far are:

• per-biome crop diversity - certain crops need to grow in specific biomes (the way they do "naturally" now)
  
• temperature-based crop failure
  
• a timer on (non-canned) food that raises the chance of food poisoning
  

I expect all of these would be mods, but hopefully TFP can make it possible to do this without .dll changes.

Player vs thirst

Way too quickly resolved. We should be drinking murky and radiated water at first and dealing with the consequences. 100% pure water should take some progression to achieve. Simply boiling water or snow in a can or pot shouldn’t give us 100% pure water.

One solution: change "bottled water" to "boiled water," and make a new item called "purified water." Give boiled water a percent chance of giving you food poisoning. It should be better than murky water (which should be close to 100%) but not insignificant.

You'd have to make some other item to craft purified water, like a water filter or water purification tablets, and it would require boiled water.

This should all be possible using XML. You could use one of the existing icons for the tablets, and there's that new lootable "mini chem station" (I forget its name) that you could use for the craftable water filter.

Player vs wildlife

Good. I’d like to see the aggressive non-zombie animals flee after being wounded to a certain point so it’s not just meals on wheels. Go hunt that wounded bear down.

I don't think "fleeing after damage" is in any AI yet, is it? If not, we'd have to wait until TFP put in that AI option. They've only mentioned this when talking about bandits, so I don't know if it would be soon.

On the other hand, if it is implemented in the AI now, then we'd just need a way to hook up the animal behavior to that AI. And if we can do that... then we can mod in bandits too, so it would be good news.

Death Penalty

Really just needs a death is death option. In a survival game dying should be that you lost that game. Having it be player choice is not as thrilling as knowing the save will be deleted if you die no matter what.

When you die, do you lose your character, or the world?

There would be a lot of problems if you mean the latter. First, obviously, it wouldn't work for multiplayer. Second, it would be miserable even in single player. I don't want to wait for an entire new RWG world to generate every time I die. Especially since dying happens most often in early game, when you haven't even had a chance to explore this new world that was just made.

If it's only the character, then there are other problems. On MP servers, it would reset your level but not the gamestage, meaning you'd be facing irradiated cops and wights with no perks, buffs, or abilities to craft advanced weapons. (Not to mention other players in PvP.)

Resetting the gamestage might work for SP games, but TFP have been moving away from the SP/MP distinction, and I doubt they'd be interested in putting in any major SP-only features. This doesn't seem like something that could be easily modded either.

Plus, whether SP or MP, you'd also leave behind all your old stuff - your base, your farm, your stores of food and weapons, etc. So you wouldn't really be starting over anyway.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea. The reason I'm bringing up all these problems, is because I'd like something like that myself. I just haven't figured out any solutions to these problems.

 

[Roland]

Dead is dead would only delete the save and it just needs to be an option with the default being off. People would probably mostly use it when playing solo but could attempt it in MP games despite the awkwardness of it.

Another option would be to just respawn you in the same saved game but as a fresh level 1 character. Your changes to the world would remain. This already happens at times as a bug if the game crashes at the wrong time—so they just need to formalize it and make it a feature

 

[FA_Q2]

It really doesn't matter how much you praise PvP, I'm happy that it exists for you but I will never do it. Too many cheaters AND too many young people around with too good reflexes, a better resolution on their $500 GPU and eagle eyes, that I would just be cannon fodder. There is no way to play on equal footing. I get it that you need more easy victims around, but no thanks :cocksure:

I want to but have not found a good server to actually play PvP on. Tried a few times and found it underwhelming. I want to like the MP aspect but without already knowing someone that plays this game makes it rather difficult.

 

[FA_Q2]

There would be a lot of problems if you mean the latter. First, obviously, it wouldn't work for multiplayer. Second, it would be miserable even in single player. I don't want to wait for an entire new RWG world to generate every time I die. Especially since dying happens most often in early game, when you haven't even had a chance to explore this new world that was just made.

.

Then do not play dead is dead. There are a lot of players that play this way already - they are just looking for an option to tick off to make it enforceable.

I am not really sure that is necessary though as we can already accomplish this as well as get around bugged deaths. I play this way currently but do not really want to - I am hoping that the DP has a severe enough consequence to properly incentive survival. That really is the only thing that has driven me to play did.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Dead is dead would only delete the save and it just needs to be an option with the default being off. People would probably mostly use it when playing solo but could attempt it in MP games despite the awkwardness of it.

The dead is dead option might be useful for a high-intensity servers set up for last-man/woman standing tournaments.

 

[Roland]

The core issue as I see it is simulation vs arcade. There are many who do not have a tolerance for either end of the spectrum. Those who like it more arcadey will say that simulation style survival has too much grind, micromanagement, and takes too long to advance beyond the primitive stage. Those who like it more simulationy will say that arcade style survival is too shallow, too dumbed down, and breaks immersion.

Currently, I think that 7 Days to Die is somewhere in the middle on most aspects with a definite resistance to going to strongly over to the simulation side. Whenever the game takes a step towards the sim side the next few patches dial it back away.

 

[Odetta]

I play dead is dead ultra hardcore. When I die in game I shut it down, uninstall it, delete it from my Steam library, then I buy another copy.

Hope you're liking your new trucks I'm funding Madmole:fat:

 

[AtomicUs5000]

The core issue as I see it is simulation vs arcade. There are many who do not have a tolerance for either end of the spectrum. Those who like it more arcadey will say that simulation style survival has too much grind, micromanagement, and takes too long to advance beyond the primitive stage. Those who like it more simulationy will say that arcade style survival is too shallow, too dumbed down, and breaks immersion.
Currently, I think that 7 Days to Die is somewhere in the middle on most aspects with a definite resistance to going to strongly over to the simulation side. Whenever the game takes a step towards the sim side the next few patches dial it back away.

Seems true as I see it as well. I've played both and I like both, but they suit the style of the game... well, for most games. Some games try to force something that doesn't fit and the game suffers. One game that comes to mind is Scum. It seems like they wanted simulation and then when they started working on combat, it just didn't mesh well. I think 7D2D would suffer in the same way if it leaned too much toward the simulation side of the spectrum. Green Hell I think does a pretty good job of adding more simulation into a pretty active game, but it isn't nearly as active as 7D2D can be.

In general, at this moment in A17, I feel that 7D2D has started becoming too shallow on the survival end. However, this doesn't mean that we need things that require micromanagement on a simulation level. What we're really missing right now is the infection. I never really thought of it as being that important, but I can see now how important it really is. It can throw a wrench in your glorious survival. Anybody got a wrench to repair our wrench? We could use more wrenches like that in general. I know I will love all of the A18 additions and improvements... but it sounds like if you know what you're doing or have just blind luck, you will have the benefit of putting a stop to our only major threat of zombies even more easily. The lack of other threats and an even more lessened survival aspect will be screaming for attention.

 

[Aldranon]

I play dead is dead ultra hardcore. When I die in game I shut it down, uninstall it, delete it from my Steam library, then I buy another copy.
Hope you're liking your new trucks I'm funding Madmole:fat:

Sure, beginner dead is dead is great for the noobs, but have you played: "Go shopping with your wife" dead is dead?

Motivation to not die is the name of the game!

 

[NukemDed]

id rather eat glass and be done

 

[Grandpa Minion]

DeaD is Dead mode

Very challenging and adds an element to survival : We actually have a few players on our PVP server who enjoy playing this mode. Not easy to do knowing at any moment someone can kill you. Reguardless, though i commend anyone who pushs their limits, I mean lets face it anyone can play PVE but to risk it all on the line by dieing and having to start over at any given moment is a whole different level of survival. Once again this is why PVP is where its at : not only do you get the benefit and get to do everything PVE players do but you get so much more risk and survival play on PVP servers. I think this is why for the last couple of years most of your biggest servers around have been PVP servers=players looking for that extra thrill.

 

[beerfly]

Very well said, Roland.

Really want on/off option for this mode.

 

[toores]

That's actually a pretty good suggestion, but the reason we put it there was to give the strength guy access to healing. THe perception guy rarely gets hit because he snipes and uses explosives, he doesn't need a lot of healing. The fortitude guy has access to the regeneration perks for health, agility guy again doesn't need much because he's working from the shadows, and the intellect guy has all the doctor perks so he has healing covered as well.

@madmole

Master chef 5 ranks - add +20% extra healing from food items per rank.

Up to 2 times the healing from food items. So even when you are not that hungry, you still can get some decent healing from eating.

It makes sense because strength guy moves a lot if he is a melee guy and uses up energy quite a bit so he consumes food more often. (if it's too much, make it 10% per rank, up to 1,5 times)

- - - -

rank 5 - "Being a master chef you know a tip or two about eating healthy!"

 

[toores]

@madmole

Please change how the stats comparison numbers show FROM:

Brass Knuckles (selected) - Steel Knuckles (on mouse over)

Melee Damage - 14 (+10)

Power Attack Damage - 26 (+16)

Block Damage - 4 (+5)

TO:

Melee Damage - 14 (24)

Power Attack Damage - 26 (42)

Block Damage - 4 (9)

IMHO it's way better.

 

[Shineblossom]

I'm curious. How can you simulate mental health / illness ?

Let's say your character has paranoia. Sound effects playing at random from time to time, maybe some little graphic glitches in the night between trees.

 

[Kanaima]

Some questions regarding explosive bolts and the crossbow in A18: does Archery boost the damage of the crossbow while Demolitions Expert boosts the damage of the bolt? Does the Demolitions Expert perk have any effect on the bolts at all? I'm assuming it's all purely governed by Archery, but I got curious and figured I'd ask and see if anyone with access knows. To be honest I don't have any idea how it works in 17 either.

A18 looks great, looking forward to trying an agility main with some secondary perception. Not going heavy into INT and missing out on the trader perks is gonna be rough though, I love the trader and quest system.

 

[toores]

Let's say your character has paranoia. Sound effects playing at random from time to time, maybe some little graphic glitches in the night between trees.

Haha, 50% opacity zombie sprinting at you and vanishing at point blank... That would would be very effective. I would develop a paranoia of my own from playing that kind of paranoid character...

 

[RipClaw]

Let's say your character has paranoia. Sound effects playing at random from time to time, maybe some little graphic glitches in the night between trees.

Wouldn't really make much of a difference to now.

I sometimes it happens to me that I think I hear a zombie or see something but then there is nothing.

- - - Updated - - -

Haha, 50% opacity zombie sprinting at you and vanishing at point blank... That would would be very effective. I would develop a paranoia of my own from playing that kind of paranoid character...

I've heard from some players that they are already becoming paranoid from the game and get hallucinations. With such effects it wouldn't be far to the asylum.

 

[Crater Creator]

Let's ask a different question. How would you envision the ideal 7 Days for survivalists? What challenges would the player face and how would you make sure he doesn't lose interest too quickly?

Roland summed up the current state pretty well, but as for the ideal? Perhaps something like this.

Day 12 - Evening

 


Today's radiation storm didn't let up before nightfall. I decided to stay up in the mountains in the hope that it will pass by morning.

 


It's freezing up here. The strong wind defeated my first attempt at making a fire to stay warm. Thank goodness I brought extra matches. I repositioned on the leeward side, and dug out a small alcove for myself in the dirt and snow. It's a meager shelter, but it blocks the wind and snow, and I have enough firewood that it will be bearable, at least for a night.

 


My thirst is sated after boiling plenty of snow, but food is becoming an issue now. There are definitely fish in the river nearby, but alas, I haven't found a hook anywhere. I had to risk harvesting some roadkill on the bridge instead (which I think was fresh enough to eat), even though a horde of zombies was wandering in.

 


I probably could have kept the meat and jumped in the river. But I can't risk re-injuring my leg, and I definitely can't stand the thought of getting pneumonia again. Just my luck none of these zombies would wear something waterproof. So I dropped the meat before the scent attracted their attention, and snuck away.

 


Now, even if I can't rest fully, I'll have to get up early and revisit that potato farm I noticed earlier. It's been a few days since I was there, so hopefully I can make it before the rabbits have picked it clean. Since I've got a lot of mining to do still before horde night, some protein would really be better. But at this point, I just want something in my belly.


It'd be cool if the game played like this when it goes gold. It's a little concentrated for the sake of illustration. You may not face this many survival challenges all at once, and some days the survival game is going to take a back seat to the horde game and the crafting game. But the driving idea is that at any given time, some problems are well managed while other problems are unresolved and worsening, based on a combination of your previous preparations and circumstances beyond your control. You meet the challenge by effectively triaging it all, dealing with both the short and long term threats thrown at you before any one overwhelms your efforts to survive. That would be my vision for the ideal 'true survival' experience.

 

[Moldy Bread]

Will RWG be fixed?