PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
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    3
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Back on pg 841 MM mentioned possible random stats for mods, post a18(?). Then SnowDog1942 asked how that might work for say the 8x Scope.

Couple really realistic variables could be Clarity & Accuracy.

Glass varies quite a bit between a $125 & a $1500 scope. So poor Clarity could be shown as slightly darker, or 'slightly fuzzy', or even possibly scratches/cracks. (thinking the 'overlay' that pops up when zoomed in could have a few different quality lvls)

Accuracy could have a large variance: poor mounts so every shot results in a shift, or just a banged up scope where it's internals are loose so again a shift after every shot.

$$$$ Please bring back the variable power scope! ... please?

 
Now that there are no level gates, Being level 20 by day 7 is not really that great. There needs to be ample resources and time passed to "be" level 20 and for it to feel right. 1 hour per level is the meta we're shooting for, give or take about 50% depending on the player, luck, RNG, etc.
The requirements get steeper to level but in order for it not to scale off the planet it can't be too much. Our power curve is pretty strong, so you end up getting faster at leveling, at least for a while. We'll see, I'm about level 26 now on day 22. It feels fantastic. I only have a T3 T2 fireaxe so far, a brown AK (found on day 1) and a blue pistol. My armor I crafted most of it, Q3 iron, Q4 iron legs. You need time to find parts and stuff to make what you can craft so leveling too fast = ok now what syndrome. Like I could craft a blue AK, but I only have 3 ak parts, and I need 25. So the player needs to have time to acquire stuff to service the perks he bought.

It just generally feels so much more rewarding stretching out the leveling process. Remember you can go straight to 10 on any attribute nothing stopping you now. I'm man handling regular zombies with my melee right now, but ferals are starting to spawn. We'll see how it goes. Armor rating is about 49% so taking half damage helps.

So far the testers and devs are all loving A18, and the devs. The balance has done some amazing things to it. New content is nice, but having good balance and nice progression is huge, not to mention performance and bugs.
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Ok. Fair enough. I'll have to play it for myself when its out to see. I think balance will become alot easier once you get a much larger play group putting alpha 18 through its paces.

I must say not seeing a feral till day 20+ will make the lack of levels, and i assume strong gear/skills more tolerable.

Sounds like in general your just stretching out early game. Can be a good or bad thing. Bad if it's the same early game we have already been playing. Good if the early game is a brand new experience, and I'm happy to say it sounds like it's going to be.

What about that armor though. 50% armor is grand but what does that do for bleeding? I have almost 60% armor in my alpha 17 game and bleeding happens too much and does, what seems like, full bleed damage.

Does armor help with bleed? In a17 or 18?

 
Just a thought... it can be problematic not knowing where the outer border of a "Stay Within" quest exists, for two reasons - you sometimes want to back away from a stream of Z's, but without terminating the quest by stepping out of the quest zone (yes, I'm aware of the changing colour indicator wrt this).Additionally, I've lost gear that I've stashed 'outside' of the quest building, but evidently within the border of a quest zone. A storage box I'd placed and partly filled with loot got wiped when I activated a quest without knowing the range of ground this quest covered.
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From my experience I can say that the quest area never reaches across the street. If you put the box on the other side of the street it should be safe there. You can get about 25 blocks away from the quest area without the quest failing. This is enough to get to the other side of the street.

 
Why do people need heavy armor anyway? Just go in light on armor, heavy on weapons and tell those zombies to come and get some!
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You know, I would try to get some from the trader but he forgot it. :)

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Seriously?

If I knew the answer I wouldn't have asked.

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Now your talking! ;)

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That would be awesome!
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Then it means you don't read all of Madmole's replies. He wasked too many times about the NPCs and bandits, and the answer is :"They will come when they are done! They won't make it to A18."

 
yeah... because TFPs have never implemented a feature only to remove it again a few alphas later.#nohate #justfacts
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Yeah, lets ask for every single feature on the first page if they decided to remove it again. At least once a week to be sure we didn't miss anything. Especially for stuff that was proudly shown in a video just days before! #candosarcastichyperboletoo :cocksure:

It's great that Callum tries to coax information out of MM, but this question was seriously lacking in potential to really get any sensible info.

(Hint hint: After I said above, NOW would be the right time for MM to reveal a new feature in an answer to Callums post :fat: )

 
I know you are baiting me, not stating when since it is probably already a planned feature... but just to show you that I REALLY want advanced electronics... and because you really did try to salvage A17 and A18 looks this promising... there ya go :D
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It's a deal.

The feature is working, just needs some final touches like recipes, wire attachment points... fiddly bits.

A17 had an enormous degree of change, and simply needed a bit more work to make those changes great.
It changed from being a game where you had to be petrified of the night to a game where the night was of little consequence to your survival. I've even survived a horde night outdoors, with an injured leg, without any real stress (admittedly, I'd dropped some Z speeds for my Dead is Dead playstyle).
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Do keep in mind that new players are still very much scared at night, especially if they play vanilla without nerfing zombie speeds. =)

 
Back on pg 841 MM mentioned possible random stats for mods, post a18(?). Then SnowDog1942 asked how that might work for say the 8x Scope.Couple really realistic variables could be Clarity & Accuracy.
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Yes, but not every mod is equally suited for random stats.

$$$$ Please bring back the variable power scope! ... please?
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There is nothing to bring back. It still works. At least on the x8 and I'm not going to check all of them.

 
It's a deal.The feature is working, just needs some final touches like recipes, wire attachment points... fiddly bits.
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I... thanks :D You know what?

*jumps on the hypetrain* A18 here I come!!! :D

Most important are vault hatch/door, garage door and drawbridge.

If I am allowed to say that :D

Everything else is optional in my opinion.

Thank you!

 
I'll change mine to a negative review right now, then I can trade you a positive review for new features :D Profit
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Yep just changed to negative. Holding MadMole hostage until we get bandits that look like Burt Reynolds and/or milkable cows. :)

 
Yep just changed to negative. Holding MadMole hostage until we get bandits that look like Burt Reynolds.and/or milkable cows
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LOL!! I want New UI!! Are we douchebags for this?

Kidding aside, 7 days to die have got my family closer together, distracted me from my personal problems and made me be a better person, when you see the struggle that it could take to simply survive, you realize some things you worry about are not so important, ex: fights with the wife :)

I'm never changing my review.

 
by the way joel are you planning on keeping the books in? because if you are that would be wonderful they sound so great
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According to Roland, the books are now an official feature of the game. It is therefore unlikely that they will disappear after A18.

 
Why would they spend all that time working on them not to put them in? You should look at the first post in this thread before your next question...
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According to Roland, books were at first only intended as placeholders for the perks and should actually be removed from the game after A17:

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?121980-So-eager-for-A18e!-No-more-juice-for-A17-knowing-what-s-coming/page3&p=997347#post997347

Nevertheless, in the past they created whole POIs for the books although they only regarded them as placeholders.

Therefore, it is a legitimate question whether the books will stay in the game in the long run or not. The answer to this question is that the Fun Pimps have changed their mind and keep the books in the game to complement the perks.

 
According to Roland, books were at first only intended as placeholders for the perks and should actually be removed from the game after A17:
https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?121980-So-eager-for-A18e!-No-more-juice-for-A17-knowing-what-s-coming/page3&p=997347#post997347

Nevertheless, in the past they created whole POIs for the books although they only regarded them as placeholders.

Therefore, it is a legitimate question whether the books will stay in the game in the long run or not. The answer to this question is that the Fun Pimps have changed their mind and keep the books in the game to complement the perks.
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Books (as they were originally put in) started diminishing in A15 when perks and skills started getting focused on more and fleshed out until finally they were almost completely gone in A17 where they became part of the recipe or were temporary effects on a timer. There hasn’t been books in the game like we will see in A18 for over 2 years.

For older players it will be a return to learning recipes and gaining new permanent abilities by finding and reading books much like we used to do. For newer players it will be like a fantastic new addition to the game.

It’s not just my claim that books were on the way out in favor of perks. That’s history. But TFP realized that books weren’t just a way to learn knew things, they were also a major reason to explore and loot and that’s why A18 will see books AND perks fully integrated with each other for the first time and with more books and schematics than ever before seen.

 
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@Madmole Anything new/interesting about the debuffs/diseases for A18?
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No we haven't focused on them at all because we knew we need cvars displayed on buffs. Hopefully we can get infection at least massaged in there before release, nothing new until what we have is shippable.

 
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