PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Guppycur]

@mm

Slightly off topic (ok fine, entirely, but this is your area of expertise):

What would it take to be able to use the paint system on custom imported blocks?

Feel free to be technical.

 

[The Gronk]

So you made the claim that "you can exploit that system in some scenarios" before you had any examples, just based on a hunch. I think your claim was unfairly premature, then.
And again, this difference you're making between HP affecting pathing and HP being the basis of pathing is too subtle for me. Other than some special cases like doors, what would the basis of path weighting be, if not block HP?

I've written A* from scratch before. I'm currently using a layered variation to path over an utterly ridiculous amount of kilometres. I know its strengths and weaknesses intimately. With a general understanding of how the algorithm works it shouldn't be too hard to work out that there _will_ be issues under the current system.

In pure A* the weight is just a single floating point variable which indicates the difficulty of traversing between block A and block B. Why anyone would change the fundamental principle of how the algorithm works to something as esoteric as block health is beyond me. By all means adjust the basic system with whatever variables and modifiers you want but changing how the algorithm works on a fundamental level and expecting it to "just work" is somewhat optimistic.

Why anyone would use a 2D pathing algorithm in a dynamic 3D voxel world also causes me much discombobulation.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

@mm
Slightly off topic (ok fine, entirely, but this is your area of expertise):

What would it take to be able to use the paint system on custom imported blocks?

Feel free to be technical.

Texture Array access at a minimum.....

do want.

 

[madmole]

Point isn't "sometimes not getting big reward". The rewards are +- the same compared to difficulty. But big POIs are just.. Not worth going trough. As was said before, T5 quests lead you there. And as you said before, MM, you want to encourage exploration. It is not much of encourage to walk around the big POI and be like "Meh, too much ammo for so little, i guess i will skip this / jump to top"


That is kinda cool.

Level design realizes this and have been making some adjustments. We have ammo piles now that help compensate for ammo loss during the mission.

 

[madmole]

MM, don't know if it has been discussed recently but what is your point of view about current state of BM hordes? As I see it being able to just simply drive away from a horde without any implications moots the point for any TD elements or fortifications, as there is no real/practical reason for them to be utilized.
From what I remember you wish to add alternative ways to avoid them, which will include cost/risk, like more limited gas availability or paid trader night accommodation, which would be great as long as they are balanced to not the "obvious" choice one would take to deal with the horde.

What sayest thou mr. MM?

Its an ongoing effort to remove loopholes. Gas has been nerfed significantly but I need to get a vehicle on a long term save and see how it feels.

 

[madmole]

Wait, you let him boss you around? Couldn't you eat him?
Cage match!

I also agree with kage... But it's more than that, it's that it's the /same/ loot, just more of it.

Special unique to poi loot items would be fantastic.

He's 6'5" and 270 and a state level wrestler and was benching 375 at 20 years old so I wouldn't want any part of that lol. I've sparred with black belts and beat them but I wouldn't want to mess with Rick, maybe its from him farting on my head growing up lol. Remember this was back in the 70's when farting, swirlies, wedgies, hurtz donuts, charlie horses, wet willies, dunking and kill the man were politically correct behavior.

Its more about the best designs getting traction and aligning with supportive features. I had the shape idea at least 5 years before Emperion was created, but some internal function Chris wrote made a framework to make it easy to add. So timing and other features coming online pave the way for stuff we've had to say no for, for a long time. As the engine matures its getting easier and easier to add things that eluded us for years.

 

[madmole]

You can still make a formula that will make the GS be in part dependent on global time and cap the GS for new players ;oA small global time factor to the GS will create some delicious urgency.

How long you are alive is considered, so what you are asking for is already implemented.

 

[madmole]

It may be this way with the other weapons as well, but with the spear it seems especially bad, since you expect a long reach out of it, which it has, but it's being held like a knife.

We'll have a look at it. Its hard for me to nitpick when there's at least 15 or more new weapons to test and 200+ books/schematics and new perks, etc.

 

[madmole]

Some players I know wish they had more zombies outside on the streets and in front of the buildings. Would that be possible?

We need a way to define zone spawns, so a township can have a mask and have more zombies than in the entire biome. Currently its just the same as out in the wild. The problem is magnified by cities having dense geometry.

 

[madmole]

How would you define micro loot?

Loads of new small loot staches that despawn after looted. Like small, med, and large food piles, pill bottles, suitcases, tool boxes, etc etc. There are LOADS of new loot containers added to the game.

 

[madmole]

Where could I send a message about me wanting to translate 7DTD to polish?

You can't. We hire a professional team to do it.

 

[madmole]

Well I think you missjudge the player base. I dont see warframe players hanging around on earth just because it's safe.

I haven't seen any one playing skyrim hanging around safetly in riverwood.

Back in the days when I played Wow no one stayed in the starter area for long.

And that had nothing to do with being exposed to nastier enimies but all to do with wanting to explore and evolve.

Sure some builders might like to be left in peace while they build. But hey if it rocks their boat.

I dont think the majority of 7dtds playerbase will stay in the pineforest with stone age technologies just because it's safe.

Its like Fallout and Skyrim now, or will be. Certain biomes/areas will elevate game stage and be more difficult, AND it has leveled enemies.

 

[Crater Creator]

You can make game staging be based on the day for that specific player by basing it on something that advances daily. In A18 that would be player max health and stamina since those advance by one each day automatically. So gamestage could be easily recalculated to be:
(max health + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

instead of the way it is now:

(level + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

This makes the gamestage progress daily independent of what the player does so that all the player wants to do is keep getting stronger without worrying about directly making the gamestage higher as well. Plus, the gamestage would still be low for a new player joining the game on day 100.

In my mod I changed it so the player levels up daily because I can't change the gamestage formula. But it doesn't really matter what you tie it to as long as it progresses daily. It should also be noted that I've had to increase the difficulty multiplier for all difficulty levels because most players do level up at a faster rate than once per day. Add gear and mods and perks from leveling and it will take some balancing to come up with fair but challenging pacing of the gamestage curve to keep things interesting. BUT...I have to say that disconnecting the gamestage from player achievement does make a difference in how the game feels-- for the better, IMO.

I can't +rep you again yet, so I'll say it in a post: not a bad idea.

 

[madmole]

Can we get an option to change the size of roaming hordes? As of now they are only scary in the beginning of the game. Later on they pose no threat because they are super small and are not affected by game stage (I think). I know we have a ton of options already and I appreciate it a lot because I can make each play through radically different.
On another note, we have random bloodmoons now, which is awesome. The ideal implementation in my opinion is to have them not only on random days (like we have now) but to also make them happen at random *times* within a day and without warning. Say you're on day 11 and it's 7 in the morning and bam! Bloodmoon out of nowhere. Scary factor X1000.

That would be insanely scary.

 

[Roland]

You can't. We hire a professional team to do it.

It’s how they keep lines like “Joel has man boobs instead of pecs” from sneaking into the Polish translation…

(Let someone like guppycur volunteer to do translation and oh the humanity)

 

[madmole]

If all you play is single player or coop, then yes it does not make any sense. If you are playing PvP then if you abandon your base through your escape tunnels then be prepared to come back to an empty crater where your multiple forges/workstations/crates you have spent weeks scavenging for gone. That is what makes PvP the ultimate long game for me. It is absolutely brutal. You are not hiding in your base because you are scared to loot. You must protect the base from total annihilation when raided by other players. Something you will never experience in a single player game so the concept is not obvious. This is not a defense of his desire for "mining" brass, but an attempt to put it in the correct context. Under single player I totally agree with you. In PvP I think the balance for ammo may need to be tweaked somehow.
I don't want to get this aspect of the discussion off the rails though, because this is yet another one of those PvP context type discussions that I think will take place down the road when some other PvP tweaks are made.

I've played a lot of rust, and zero 7 days pvp. Can you even break into somones base? I tried one time for fun and it seemed impossible, I'm not interested in grinding for 2 hours real time to breach one block.

 

[SnowDog1942]

You can make game staging be based on the day for that specific player by basing it on something that advances daily. In A18 that would be player max health and stamina since those advance by one each day automatically. So gamestage could be easily recalculated to be:
(max health + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

instead of the way it is now:

(level + days alive) x difficulty multiplier

This makes the gamestage progress daily independent of what the player does so that all the player wants to do is keep getting stronger without worrying about directly making the gamestage higher as well. Plus, the gamestage would still be low for a new player joining the game on day 100.

In my mod I changed it so the player levels up daily because I can't change the gamestage formula. But it doesn't really matter what you tie it to as long as it progresses daily. It should also be noted that I've had to increase the difficulty multiplier for all difficulty levels because most players do level up at a faster rate than once per day. Add gear and mods and perks from leveling and it will take some balancing to come up with fair but challenging pacing of the gamestage curve to keep things interesting. BUT...I have to say that disconnecting the gamestage from player achievement does make a difference in how the game feels-- for the better, IMO.

This is exactly what I meant - but more eloquently written than a Neanderthal like me could write it.

 

[madmole]

Micro loot is already in A17. It is the ammo caches, medicine caches, food caches etc that are sitting on table tops or on the floor or behind a panel and destroy when you loot them.

I thought that was 18. I know we've added a lot of new props.

 

[Crater Creator]

So mod it it, we removed it for reasons I'm not interested in debating further.

A good idea. It’s been on my list for a long time, but, as I’ve said all along, I acknowledge it’s a lot of work. Since it’s too late in my view to start an A17 mod now, I'd have to make it work for A18. And players would not like it if weaker shapes take the same amount of material to produce as stronger shapes, so I'll have to keep thinking about how it could work now that there's a shape selector that makes all shapes take equal resources.

 

[madmole]

I manage a server where our clients were complaining about cars and such. Easy fix - I fly around the world and restock parking garages and parking lots regularly. I also adjusted the XMLs for ammo specifically. I adjusted the level of ammo specifically that can be looted. Example Instead of 3-8 for count, it has been tweaked to allow upwards of 50 bullets. We technically don't do PVP on our servers but there is no reason I can see that this wouldn't work for you. Admin mode with jet pack with a supply of cars. On a side note, I also hide loot chests in random places with larger loot caches of extra ammo/mods/etc.

Again quests respawn everything, cars included, so its a non issue if you do quests. Sure not everyone wants to do quests, but most of us really enjoy them.