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%
  • Total voters
    3
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Sounds the same as Nerd glasses and other experience boost that your using in game.
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10% is not 100%. Grandpa's learn'n elixer only last 5 minutes and isn't easily crafted early game or something you can spam. Its fine I'm just saying the race to the finish is actually the race to boredom. Take your time so you can find the loot you need to use whatever you unlock with perks and leveling.

 
I play dead is dead so longest I ever made it was day 44 or so....In late game do vultures spew toxic greenish stuff like the cops?

If they don't maybe you can add this in-- or make a % of them do it..

(late game of course) wouldn't want anyones head to explode if they ran into em early.
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They do.

 
Check out the Youtube Channel of Run. He fights the Horde on the street on foot. And as far as I know he's not the only player that takes on the horde this way. Your suggestion would kill this kind of playstyle.
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Yep. I'm a street fighter too. I usually take on the first two or three hordes from the roof of a small diner, but after that fight them out on a relatively flat and straight stretch of road.

It's much more intense and fun for me that way. It also has the bonus of me not having to spend time and resources in maintaining a horde base.

 
My thoughts/opinion on Horde Nights 'scary' level.

Feeling "Scared" implies there's a threat you fear. More 'danger' usually = more fear/scary. Less 'control', more unknown = more fear.

So certainly familiarity breeds 'contemp', or less fear (old saying, not saying 7dtd is in any way contempable).

For me A16 allowed much more granular danger management.

How much you'd upgrade the blocks the zeds were trying to get through, what kind of slow-downs to use, granular control over various traps. Whether you just had a Claw Hammer or had a Nailgun influenced choices to a meaningful degree.

There was a 'pace' to the zeds damage that allowed just enough time to recognize that you were about to lose a wall/defensive position, and react to it.

My best guess, and personal opinion, is that the zombie group block damage change is the major cause of the dramatic shift in base defense between A16 & A17.

First few Horde Nights in A16 you could both put out enough melee damage, and repair enough, that compared to the zombie damage output you were still in the race. Not so much in A17, and certainly not, imo, later on.

This led to extremes. Either your base would survive in A17 or it wouldn't. Rather than large bases for later stages in A16, it seems like A17 really encourages smaller bases. And lots of traps to overcome the significant damage output the zeds have over the player (SP here).

And while A16's zed damage & AI allowed the player to somewhat manage the damage their base took; leading zeds to a different face and being able to repair blocks during lulls, A17s version of that is much smaller/harder.

I don't have any great suggestions to offer. For me, though A16s HNs were quite a bit more fun, it was certainly possible to make impregnegatable bases, and maybe that was the problem.

I know it's not fair to compare A16 with A17; they're so different after all. And I'm 'spoiled' by memories of A16s. A Spiked Club & a Nailgun accounted for &gt;90% of HN usage (until the body cleanup, heh). In A17 I don't even have a melee weapon on my toolbelt during horde nights.

Just my humble opinion, but I think the missing secret sauce is more granular control over the chaos of HNs. Put another way, the difference between surviving and failure is too small. And it's resulted in folks building very over powered bases, to insure survival.

I am hopeful for A18. That MadMole is getting first hand experiance with later HNs can only be a good thing. And I'm guessing he'll get some quality hands-on with Traps on HNs.

Though I'm certain I've added a few pavers on my road (to hell, heh), I hope this is taken as itended; one peeps opinion and hopefully useful thoughts on what is a very important, but highly difficult to balance part of a great game.

Peace :)

 
I know it's a bit early for discussion...but if I may be so bold:
What will the primary focus be on in moving toward A19?

Is it more bug fixing?

Is it building back story?

Is it bringing more items?

Is it graphical upgrades?

Something else?

Or just whatever you can get done?

Do you have a laid out plan for all future builds since your team has grown or do you just have a vision for the completed project and working to it however you can?

Sorry if these are too personal. I'm just curious as to how a game like this gets built and have been following your growth as a company a bit.
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We have various things on the roadmap we bump some to 19, push some to further out. Most likely 19 will be work on bandits, but not release them, a major graphics overhaul to the renderer (switch from gamma to linear color space, hdrp and shadergraph), more ai improvements, vehicle mods, door overhaul, more books, mod improvements, new quests and legendary items. This is subject to change, but what I have off the top of my head. We're always bug fixing and optimizing.

 
Books have zero requirements to read and learn their perks. The completion bonus only requires you read all 7 books in the series to unlock it.
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So there are no books to learn skills, but only bookseries that give boni?

I was certain you guys said that you didn't have to spend perkpoints if you find the books for it...

But that sounds like there are no books that give you +1 master chef for example. Or +1 Barter and so on...

*sad noises*

 
Its not taxing at all, but making colored lights isn't a survival priority, its playing house.
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Maybe...maybe not?

When I'm mining with my Auger, I can't hear squat but if my motion sensor or trip plate triggers the light to go red, I know a zombie has broken my perimeter. Yes, I can do this with white lights, but doing double duty as building lighting and then switching to red due to a motion trigger, letting me know where zombies are in my land claim would be very helpful for survival.

 
It should not be possible surviving BM by foot or on a vehicle at high gamestage. Vultures should attack aggressively.
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So you want to make it impossible for me to be a street fighter? And vultures already attack me aggressively on horde night already. They're not much more than an annoyance though since my hordes consist of probably 30% radiateds at my gamestage.

 
We have various things on the roadmap we bump some to 19, push some to further out. Most likely 19 will be work on bandits, but not release them, a major graphics overhaul to the renderer (switch from gamma to linear color space, hdrp and shadergraph), more ai improvements, vehicle mods, door overhaul, more books, mod improvements, new quests and legendary items. This is subject to change, but what I have off the top of my head. We're always bug fixing and optimizing.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond in such detail. It's really educational for us to get to read about how things tick. I know it's not necessary for your staff to explain stuff to us and answer our questions. I equate it to getting to do a ride-along with the police. Every question I get an answer to then leads to more questions, but I'm going to do some personal research before asking more questions...for now. Thank you again.

 
So there are no books to learn skills, but only bookseries that give boni? I was certain you guys said that you didn't have to spend perkpoints if you find the books for it...

But that sounds like there are no books that give you +1 master chef for example. Or +1 Barter and so on...

*sad noises*
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They said there will be recipes books in A18 that give you the ability to craft what a perk would give you.

 
For discussion comprehension purposes I called it a forge. You input stuff and it smelts eggs and feathers, like ore into metal.
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I see what your saying. But if people are having that much trouble comprehending, they really should get out more. ;)

 
Things have changed some since then, so we can consider it more now but I wouldn't expect it to happen, there is no solid reason to add it and enabling it means fixing clipping issues and engineering work, for something people have been getting by with just fine for a while now.
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MM, maybe you could give me the opportunity to set up a 1-block pass in XML until you decide if this is necessary in the game?

 
Someone talked about making the horde night more scary, my ideas for that:

-Fog: limiting vision on later GS hordes would be scary. It might allow better frame rates as a bonus.

-Make Spider Zombies great again: Even if there is only one or two that can climb, it would be a bit scarier.

-Late game Super Boss's: A18 might already have one in the Demolition Zombie. We shall see.

-NPC Assault: An initial volley of 3-8 Rockets before they attack! Players who only use vehicles will probable not make it. Late Game.

 
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A week to hit god tier status? Fair trade. If you want to be the best in the world you need to invest a lot of time.
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Yes, but you need to increase 5 lvls without spending any points. It feels like you are stuck for a long time until you see some progress in you character.

If every lvl of attribute cost 1 point, that feeling disappear, but maybe need some adjustment or another solution, I don't know if this is the best way.

 
For discussion comprehension purposes I called it a forge. You input stuff and it smelts eggs and feathers, like ore into metal.
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Wait. Are you trying to say that there are people here that don't know the difference between a forge and a chicken coop???

ROFL!

 
What? I have been seeing ambient lighting in the game for a good while now. Alpha 15 (I think). I can build a blockhouse without windows and it is dark inside in the daytime. Plus go into A in-closed POI without lights and again it's really dark in the daytime. Never mind the night.

So what is different about occlusion of Alpha-18?
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For somebody who posts in this thread daily, you should know this...

 
For discussion comprehension purposes I called it a forge. You input stuff and it smelts eggs and feathers, like ore into metal.
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I know you don't look at mods for ideas, but I can tell you that's exactly how one of the major farming mods implements it, and it works really well in practise.

 
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