PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Mechanimal]

Tower Defense talk... and I do not expect any of this to be crammed in last minute for A18, though one can hope, I do however hope what IS in there simply works properly this time.

That said, most TD games I have played start with some kind of Arrow Tower, in 7DTD that could be essentially a crossbow on a turret base. Fill it with arrows, maybe require upgrade to take better arrow types. Anyway those usually upgrade in 2 ways arrow type and firing speed.

The "auto turret", the 9mm Turret. Same, start with basic ammo, upgrade to better ammo type and firing speed.

Thankfully vultures are the only flying mob so an exclusively anit-air turret is uneccesary. I never did like that part of most TD games, needing air specific turrets that do not attack ground targets. Usually arrow and guns did both anway, and it would in 7dtd, so can you can efffectively skip this one. Yay.

Mortar Tower. Ok maybe this one is OP in this case, plus it would be messy, I can see a lot of regret the morning after a BM using one of these.

Tesla Tower. Well you have electric fence, good enough? Yeah sure, the only dif could be a tower that reaches out, like an actual tesla tower, and delivers a jolt when Z's are within range. They also usually jump to multiple enemies at a time, usually upgrading extends that number. Although one of these could be fun, I don't know how you'd prevent it from shocking players too.

Mage Tower. Meh, skip it, wrong lore.

Shotgun Tower. Yeah we have a shotty turret, good enough. Usually these have shorter range but pack more punch(and only attack ground targets). They also tend to upgrade into flame turrets for some reason. I'd jsut make that it's own tower, if/when you ever finish that one(know it was in the works)

Rocket Tower. This onee varies amongst games, a lot of them just add rockets to high end bullet turrets. In the context of 7DTD I'd make it it's own thing, if you ever make one, and also predict a ton of regret after use if not used properly.

Slowing Tower. Well I think spikes and barbed wire have this covered.

Not sure how many actual Tower Defense games you have played, but I have played with dozens and dozens over the decades, one of my fav time killing mini games. I was, and still am, super excited it is an "official" intention of the game. Just some input on how to make it more so.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Tower Defense talk... and I do not expect any of this to be crammed in last minute for A18, though one can hope, I do however hope what IS in there simply works properly this time.
That said, most TD games I have played start with some kind of Arrow Tower, in 7DTD that could be essentially a crossbow on a turret base. Fill it with arrows, maybe require upgrade to take better arrow types. Anyway those usually upgrade in 2 ways arrow type and firing speed.

The "auto turret", the 9mm Turret. Same, start with basic ammo, upgrade to better ammo type and firing speed.

Thankfully vultures are the only flying mob so an exclusively anit-air turret is uneccesary. I never did like that part of most TD games, needing air specific turrets that do not attack ground targets. Usually arrow and guns did both anway, and it would in 7dtd, so can you can efffectively skip this one. Yay.

Mortar Tower. Ok maybe this one is OP in this case, plus it would be messy, I can see a lot of regret the morning after a BM using one of these.

Tesla Tower. Well you have electric fence, good enough? Yeah sure, the only dif could be a tower that reaches out, like an actual tesla tower, and delivers a jolt when Z's are within range. They also usually jump to multiple enemies at a time, usually upgrading extends that number. Although one of these could be fun, I don't know how you'd prevent it from shocking players too.

Mage Tower. Meh, skip it, wrong lore.

Shotgun Tower. Yeah we have a shotty turret, good enough. Usually these have shorter range but pack more punch(and only attack ground targets). They also tend to upgrade into flame turrets for some reason. I'd jsut make that it's own tower, if/when you ever finish that one(know it was in the works)

Rocket Tower. This onee varies amongst games, a lot of them just add rockets to high end bullet turrets. In the context of 7DTD I'd make it it's own thing, if you ever make one, and also predict a ton of regret after use if not used properly.

Slowing Tower. Well I think spikes and barbed wire have this covered.

Not sure how many actual Tower Defense games you have played, but I have played with dozens and dozens over the decades, one of my fav time killing mini games. I was, and still am, super excited it is an "official" intention of the game. Just some input on how to make it more so.

Id take a mortor tower as long as it damages the terrain and blocks equally so you cant just spam it.

That would make you have to consider the hole it dug and then zombies digging through the terrain under your base undermining the buildings SI.

Defense grid is one of my all time fav's.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Mortar Tower. Ok maybe this one is OP in this case, plus it would be messy, I can see a lot of regret the morning after a BM using one of these.

Not so much these days, I don't think. Explosions from rockets don't damage the terrain much. Perhaps not at all... not sure. The Demolisher will explode and supposedly won't do much to terrain either.

 

[Locusta]

Bear traps should be a thing. Could be an early trap as it could only cost scrap or forged iron but would have to be reset, so single use. Their purpose could be to immobilize, not kill. This could add a different method of play. I can picture walking around with a couple of these to catch a couple of zeds and melee them after. Would be a slow way to kill zombies, but that’s the trade off. Slow but effective.

 

[Roland]

I can see a lot of regret the morning after a BM using one of these.

Laxatives: The Ins and Outs....

 

[Guppycur]

Back to what? What are you trying to find? The OP was talking about N S E W, not quest markers or map markers. Those are what make it easy, the actual N S E W and having a compass are useless IMO.

I guess we play different... I wander around and explore.

 

[Mechanimal]

I'm also not sure how many players really make use of the Tower Defense elements. I loved it in A16, even with the stupid Z's, because the turrets worked right. Then the new pathing in A17 made it almost too easy, for I knew I'd finally get them to go where I wanted to, even with stupid turrets(it's like they traded AI with the Z, lol). I deal with the turret bug now by just making them point in extreme directions to minimize wall blasting.

One of my first bases was a small house on the lake near the trader in Navezgane. I actually routed the Z's through the house, right where all my main stuff was, without a single failure. They'd eventually just go upstairs, fall, repeat, and if did make it farther there were a few shotty turrets watchin my back. Got to the point where I'd just hang out by my fireplace full of forges and organize, craft, and other casual stuff DURING a blood moon. They had quite a gauntlet of barbed wire and electric fences before even reaching my door. But man was it satisfying to just hang out, open the front door shoot a few Z, close it and go back to what I was doing. The turrets, even as-is, if used right along with the rest of the goodies, are kind of OP if you do it right. Also never have to worry about screamers, unless I want to, for the XP, then it's a damn competition with my turrets to get her to scream before she dies.

I am very much looking forward to getting XP from turret kills btw.

 

[Dreyseth]

about BloodMoon

Maybe even something simple like just adding a counter that counts kills on horde night kills and if players hit specific percents of the total horde kills, then they get an experience point or a good loot drop, or the thanks from the closest trader for thinning the herds of the undead.

Simple is good and I also like the idea of a reward after the BloodMoon is over.

It sounds like one part of a solution that people from all camps should be able to get behind would be to utilize the existing perk system to simply grant a balanced "participation reward" based on the percentage of the player's horde that is dispatched during the event.

This reward would be in the form of a temporary stats buff. Maybe it's an XP% bonus similar to the use of the Nerdy Glasses, but ends after 30 minutes of playtime.

Getting through 100% of the horde would grant 100% of the bonus, while 30% of the horde killed would only yield 30% of the bonus, etc.

As it's a perk it can easily be balanced or valued without complex considerations of how the rest of the game normally functions.

 

[Mechanimal]

Id take a mortor tower as long as it damages the terrain and blocks equally so you cant just spam it.That would make you have to consider the hole it dug and then zombies digging through the terrain under your base undermining the buildings SI.

Defense grid is one of my all time fav's.

Yeah terrain and block damage was my main concern with such a tower, if it only effected enemies? Hell yeah. But I see other complications, like blast radius and it having clearance on launch. I can just imagine many situations where it could backfire, and that is fine. However they do it, if they do it, like a turret that throws grenades, or C4, or molotovs, pipe bombs, whatever. Just have one that tosses them, ha, molotovs via turret would be a horrible idea(but I would make some, RIP)

Yeah I have Defense Grid in my library, TD games are prob the most abundant thing in my library actually. I have even played a few Zombie themed ones.

I did forget the Poison Tower. Not sure if this one fits. Heck the ones they have are good already, would just like to see more, but is optional, jsut thought it would be a fun topic to bring up here in the forum to see how peeps and devs feel about where it's at so far and where it could go, etc.

 

[THARN]

No, its good to get builds out. Leaving it in the oven too long and it might burn.

exactly.... And on a side note... I'm on vacation next week and the wife is going through menopause....

 

[Roland]

I guess we play different... I wander around and explore.

I've played without a compass and it does force you to use the sun and landmarks more which is cool. Sometimes the way the terrain bends can get you turned around so that if you don't have a heading always in front of your eyes you can easily get off course.

I think it would be fun to have to wait to see the compass until we could find/craft one and equip it. I think that it is also a pretty common way to do it in other games. If not an item, a perception perk that enables it.

It is very easy to test for anyone interested. Just press F7 and start exploring.

 

[Blake_]

I think you will like it. We're modeling really nice surface ore models which make it easy to find the underground ore mines. Underneath it is voxel ore (marching cubes). So even if someone mines the surface ore boulder the terrain voxel ore is visible (just harder to see). The in ground ore gives more than the fancy surface rock, so hopefully most players will dig it down and not just cob all the surface ore.
The old generic stones will probably just drop stone and a bit of iron. There will be ample deposits to find now. I'll show it once its ready, we just pulled the trigger on getting the surface ore today, the ore piles were still too hard to find. This will solve it once and for all.

A trail of whole ore voxels straight from the surface? I'm already liking it.On the same topic, the amount of bullets is not very huge, and steel bullets were a life saver back in ancient a17.

I might be talking ahead of miself (about a18), but I really think brass might not be enough to enjoy the full extent of, for example an AK player. Even with doorknobs, ammo find boost and a couple of other brass rich items it might still not be enough, after all,from the gameplay perspective, brass IS an ore and it is used as much as lead.

Man, I really wouldn't mind small patchs of rare metal debris ore that gives brass. That, or npcs with ammo?. Actually.... well, a man can dream.

thx for the info about mining!

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Guys? GUYS!!!

I can't believe I say this but... lay off it

Yes saying "I don't want them to sit inside" is... not the most well formed argument.

But if it is technicially impossible to get xp from spikes, than this should end the debate.

In general traps now DO give you xp. So see spikes more like those 1 off items you can use (in bloons its like glue, spikes and pineapple). They are ressource intensive and are just a last resort. Your main defense should be thick walls and traps like bladetraps and electric fences. As a medium damage source take some darts in there and as a last resort, put some gun turrets at the end. All that gives you xp.

Spikes should be an early game survival tool, not a lategame "I'm just going to plaaster my whole base with this" block.

So lets drop his statement and just look at the future and what IS possible.

 

[madmole]

I guess we play different... I wander around and explore.

I don't use the compass to explore. I see a POI and go there.

RUST was hardcore about it for years. All it did was alienate people with a poor sense of direction. They even made you craft a map and if you lost it, people could take it and have your map which had whatever you drew on it. like typically your base or a place you wanted to raid, whatever you drew.

5 years later they gave in and did what we have done from the beginning. Accessibility is more important than hardcore realism. The sense of being lost is interesting for 2 minutes after that its a pain. So why put players through that when there are enough frustrating things we throw at them?

 

[madmole]

Bear traps should be a thing. Could be an early trap as it could only cost scrap or forged iron but would have to be reset, so single use. Their purpose could be to immobilize, not kill. This could add a different method of play. I can picture walking around with a couple of these to catch a couple of zeds and melee them after. Would be a slow way to kill zombies, but that’s the trade off. Slow but effective.

That is called a barbed wire fence, you should try it sometime.

 

[Roland]

I don't use the compass to explore. I see a POI and go there.
RUST was hardcore about it for years. All it did was alienate people with a poor sense of direction. They even made you craft a map and if you lost it, people could take it and have your map which had whatever you drew on it. like typically your base or a place you wanted to raid, whatever you drew.

5 years later they gave in and did what we have done from the beginning. Accessibility is more important than hardcore realism. The sense of being lost is interesting for 2 minutes after that its a pain. So why put players through that when there are enough frustrating things we throw at them?

If the player could interact with loot containers etc. while F7 was enabled then that would solve all problems. People who wanted to play without on screen aids could just press F7 and play and be able to fully function in the game until they were sick of it and then press F7 again to have it all back. Think about it for the future. The world looks awesome with F7 enabled but you can't do everything unfortunately.

 

[Roland]

That is called a barbed wire fence, you should try it sometime.

That IS a really nice spell. I cast those often.

 

[Locusta]

That is called a barbed wire fence, you should try it sometime.

I have. What I meant was more or less a trap that could double as a weapon. Something I could take with me.

Loc

 

[Aurelius]

I've played without a compass and it does force you to use the sun and landmarks more which is cool. Sometimes the way the terrain bends can get you turned around so that if you don't have a heading always in front of your eyes you can easily get off course.
I think it would be fun to have to wait to see the compass until we could find/craft one and equip it. I think that it is also a pretty common way to do it in other games. If not an item, a perception perk that enables it.

It is very easy to test for anyone interested. Just press F7 and start exploring.

This.

-A

 

[Roland]

I have. What I meant was more or less a trap that could double as a weapon. Something I could take with me.
Loc

You will want to spec into intelligence and say hello to your new friend, Junk Turret. Happy Days are coming, Fonzie!!!