PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

You make a good point. I would probably still be playing and creating custom POIs even minus the static terrain. On the flip side you would probably lose some players who love the mining aspect. Perhaps it would have been better to save deep mining and underground threats as an expansion pack to the main game so it gets proper love and attention where right now it seems like an afterthought or hinderance.

Tower defense, crafting, looting and questing are the bread and butter to this game. Digging is not a core pillar and mining could easily be done without it as well. You could still use foundation blocks to level out a nice place to live or even flatten vertices of static terrain some and have 95% of the game, without 95% of the trouble.

Anyhow we might add it as an option at some point, and use telemetry to see how many people run that version and base our decisions on facts not emotional responses.

IMO a year after its release, 80% would be playing static terrain version because of better visuals, better FPS and they don't give a crap about mining. We could still plop down "earth blocks" to fill in spots etc and make trenches your just building it up instead of digging down its the same net base, just elevated higher. There could be craters from nukes you fill in and have a "basement" or "bunker".

Again we might not even bother we've solved everything except water already. A18 uses UNity's static terrain in the distance, with just voxels where you are in loaded chunks. So there aren't as much gains to make now as there would have been some years ago.

 

[madmole]

Those are som really terrible choices to make. 1.) leave your base and get rewarded for surviving a 7 day horde 2.) play like a normal base defense and lose 80% of the rewards. (either by despawn or destroying the loot).
You sure you cant have a mechanic so that the land claim block just loots the bags in its area or something? (of course i know easier said than done)

They last all night unless destroyed, so I don't see a problem. Risk and reward are good. Auto bag harvest? Sorry get off your ass and loot them yourselves, there isn't a scientist in the world that could create that economically in an apocalypse.

 

[Thecolours]

Tower defense, crafting, looting and questing are the bread and butter to this game. Digging is not a core pillar and mining could easily be done without it as well. You could still use foundation blocks to level out a nice place to live or even flatten vertices of static terrain some and have 95% of the game, without 95% of the trouble.
Anyhow we might add it as an option at some point, and use telemetry to see how many people run that version and base our decisions on facts not emotional responses.

IMO a year after its release, 80% would be playing static terrain version because of better visuals, better FPS and they don't give a crap about mining. We could still plop down "earth blocks" to fill in spots etc and make trenches your just building it up instead of digging down its the same net base, just elevated higher. There could be craters from nukes you fill in and have a "basement" or "bunker".

Again we might not even bother we've solved everything except water already. A18 uses UNity's static terrain in the distance, with just voxels where you are in loaded chunks. So there aren't as much gains to make now as there would have been some years ago.

How much FPS would you save if you could only go down 10-20 blocks?

 

[Odetta]

A18 uses UNity's static terrain in the distance, with just voxels where you are in loaded chunks. So there aren't as much gains to make now as there would have been some years ago.

So the idea I suggested some pages back wasn't crazy at all. That's awesome, I wonder how much performance you got out of that change alone?

 

[madmole]

True, I'm doing that already. But I think there's a certain point of compromise where adding two extra weeks of dev time for just a few MFs seems like a waste of time. Also no one's considering that no matter how polished your baby is there will be bugs at launch. There are too many PC/Mac/Linux (is it on linux? not sure) setups to take into account, it's inevitable that a chunk of people are going to have problems at release. Less MFs help, yes, but it's important to keep in mind that a true bug free launch is kind of impossible. I think even the most unreasonable, demanding consumers understand that. Especially when they have to activate the alpha in the beta tab.

Sorry but you have no idea what the MF's are and we're trying to improve our reputation, not make it worse. We want testers to find new bugs not regurgitate or choke on old ones.

 

[n2n1]

If I could do it all over again I'd have thrown out the diggable terrain. Alpha 1 could have had static Unity terrain, a simple water plane, ran 30% better, used way less ram, console wouldn't have been so beat down, allowed faster vehicles, looked as good as 18's terrain does now, (Minus the Justin talent) and we wouldn't have wasted energy on mining, cave systems, multiple versions of trees, etc. Mining could have been mining POIs with respawning nuggets like rust/skyrim/subnautica with a nice model. We'd anger 10% and gain 200% new players that don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about deformable terrain and buggy water.
At some point we might release a static terrain option for 7 days just to see the performance gains. IMO most people would run it for the performance gains and better pvp, none of this wimpy underground base business, fight like a man like in TWD. You don't see those guys living in caves/mines.

What may have made us great has also slowed us down and kept us indy looking/performing. I think mining is ok but its not part of the secret sauce, we'd still have mining it just wouldn't be ugly 3d mining. At this point we'd kind of solved it mostly but it could have saved us a lot of time and headaches, allowing us to focus on cool stuff like we are able to now.

:crazy:

You're good guys, a lot of people really like you.

But, i think, your game can only be really meaningful as long as 7dtd has at its core what Alpha 1 had in mind.

You caught your wave with the initial 7dtd.

Without it - you and your game is worth little in the modern gaming industry among other projects.

I'm afraid that's a harsh truth for you, and you must understand that.

:loco:God save them mind...

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I wouldn’t have purchased if not voxel.

What this offers is ground-breaking.

Here’s a problem going static though. Most static games with building, even if they don’t specify limitations, have limitations on how much can be built.

In 7D2D the build limit is the world itself.

All those people who fill up a world with a dozen mega structures, and base their videos on it, would never be able to do what they do if not voxels.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I don't care about advanced electricity. There is enough to do what I want to do now.
People please stop giving me advice on how to perfect my fort, self discovery through trial and error is the best. I don't mind wasting resources learning, its fun to me and strategy guide BS is annoying, let me fail and I will learn from my own mistakes.

I can't just ♥♥♥♥ turrets out of thin air. The parts are elusive for smgs in A18, its a t3 gun.

Finally, someone else who gets it first-hand. There is little to no fun in taking advice from everyone, copying this from x build and that from x build and building THE most efficient base possible. Sure, you might be guaranteed to be safe, but there's no freedom in that. No tinkering, experimentation, trial and error... And in A18, unlike previous alphas, I'll be completely winging my base.

 

[Mechanimal]

I too must confess that without this being a voxel game I would have little to no interest in playing it. Sure to have the other aspects of the game make it a worthwhile experience in and of themselves is also a great achievement, but I can find that in many other games. Without the voxel aspect this would be little more than just another zombie shooter, and if that were the case I know I would never have bought the game in the first place. So, it's not a dig on how valuable the other parts of the game are, of course you should continue to improve and focus on those things, it's more about realizing how unique and special the voxel world element is all on it's own. Removing it would be a grave error, imho.

 

[Gamida]

I don't care about advanced electricity. There is enough to do what I want to do now.
People please stop giving me advice on how to perfect my fort, self discovery through trial and error is the best. I don't mind wasting resources learning, its fun to me and strategy guide BS is annoying, let me fail and I will learn from my own mistakes.

I can't just ♥♥♥♥ turrets out of thin air. The parts are elusive for smgs in A18, its a t3 gun.

Won't all this learning make your head 'splode...

 

[meganoth]

Madmole's concern was the multiplayer scenario where a high level player spawns a high level enemy which then targets a low level player.

If the enemy hit points and attack damage dynamically scale down, the higher level player would still maintain their advantage over the lower level player.

Because this worked so "well" in Oblivion? Right now, everyone knows that Darlene is easy and glowy Darlene not for playing around with. Scale the enemies and the level 1 character can shoot glowies just like the the level100 and the level 100 will rightly ask why he did all the work to get better. Game would be improved in one rare circumstance and worse the rest of the time.

Also I'd again like to reiterate that 7DTD (as we know it at least) would not have been possible without backers (or buyers), just like how a company can't get anywhere if they can't get the money of investors.

If you order an expensive tailor-made furniture from a carpenter you will have to pay in advance because the carpenter needs the money to buy the mahagony wood. Without your order the furniture would never be made. You advance money that is used to build the furniture. You still are not an investor, you are a buyer.

 

[JCrook1028]

fight like a man like in TWD. You don't see those guys living in caves/mines.

TWD zombies a glass door will keep you safe for a long time. Stand at a chain link fence and kill 20 z's. A steel wall? Game over. If zombies there did the damage they do here you'd see much different housing on TWD.

 

[madmole]

My journey would come to an end without the mine craft aspect. 3250 hours for what it is worth. it simply isn't comething I could play the game without.

Its nothing we'd do to 7 days except as an option.

 

[JCrook1028]

People claim "rights" to 7DTD for investing because they did invest. It's pretty insulting to be told that your status as a customer is null because the package you bought had "Early Access" on it while also being told that putting money into an unfinished product isn't investing either. So which is it? Yeah, you accept the risks, but that doesn't make it okay to just forgo their investment. It's the reason why you see so many people upset about the streamer access--streamers didn't cause this game to exist and thrive, investors and customers did. Streamers didn't put funding into the Kickstarter that started it all, kickstarter backers did.

While you "may" have a point with the Kickstarter backers you sure do not with "customers" and "streamers". "Streamers" are "customers". Period. End of story. They bought the game same as the rest of us. Difference is, they provide advertising. Frankly I laugh at people getting upset about a few days difference in access time.

 

[madmole]

People claim "rights" to 7DTD for investing because they did invest. It's pretty insulting to be told that your status as a customer is null because the package you bought had "Early Access" on it while also being told that putting money into an unfinished product isn't investing either. So which is it? Yeah, you accept the risks, but that doesn't make it okay to just forgo their investment. It's the reason why you see so many people upset about the streamer access--streamers didn't cause this game to exist and thrive, investors and customers did. Streamers didn't put funding into the Kickstarter that started it all, kickstarter backers did.
Honestly I think a decent chunk of any complaints out of this next alpha will be because of the time between A17 and A18. We're coming up to a year for a second time in a row, most people find that pretty detestable for an update schedule. I think the passcode solution will at least help in mitigating unreasonable critics, it's a decent compromise for releasing with 10 or less MFs. It's more reasonable than delaying for a whole 2 weeks over 10 or less MFs, anyway.

We patched 17 on 5.30.19. You've been a whole 3 months and a week without an update not a year.

 

[SittingDuck]

You're a bad man....a VERY bad man!

-Morloc

yeah they said the same when he took away the crafting matrix and the sticks

 

[MechanicalLens]

Why are people so obsessed with mining and caving in 7D2D? Could it be that they're revealing their true colors, as the milksop that they are? Only cowards choose to dwell in trenches or with Earth and rock over their heads. Just know there are honorable and dishonorable ways to live, and more importantly, honorable and dishonorable ways to die.

 

[madmole]

Hey MM,
What are your favorite RPGs?

Diablo 1 and 2, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and 4, New Vegas. GTA San Andreas was great, kind of a "light RPG" I'd say though.

 

[MechanicalLens]

While you "may" have a point with the Kickstarter backers you sure do not with "customers" and "streamers". "Streamers" are "customers". Period. End of story. They bought the game same as the rest of us. Difference is, they provide advertising. Frankly I laugh at people getting upset about a few days difference in access time.

I'd gladly take a few extra days of streamers weeding out extra, previously unseen bugs and any re-balances that are deem necessary. If A18 took forever to release (I know it won't), so be it; that fate would be much better than an update that would forever be remembered in a negative light.

 

[Odetta]

Why are people so obsessed with mining and caving in 7D2D? Could it be that they're revealing their true colors, as the milksop that they are? Only cowards choose to dwell in trenches or with Earth and rock over their heads. Just know there are honorable and dishonorable ways to live, and more importantly, honorable and dishonorable ways to die.

I don't think it's so much that as it's more about the unbridled creativity you get.