PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[unholyjoe]

Unholy Joe Playing as a scavenger what is your personal impresssion?

i did answer that a good while back but as time has passed... the old nomad style i like is getting refined... i will not go into long winded explanation but i now look forward to looting as now we can find amazing stuff and the gear i currently have is from looting (just dont forget to spec a point or more into looting enhancements), finding mods like special glasses and goggles is fun... or pair of boots that decrease fall damage.. sneakers that make you quieter or faster.

but a serious note is... i tend to put points in whatever gives me the thing i want (i just like a tad of everything... i dont have to be rambo or arnold... i just have to enjoy the game and i do).

oh hell... i'll stop there or it will end up long winded... hang in there for the exp... you will be pleased.

 

[sillls]

ok peeps.. i decided to go ahead and jump back a build or so and show you a tad bit about the farm plot..
i hope it shows you what you are asking about, i thought i covered what was needed... one thing i forgot to show you was.. you can paint the plots too.. i did do a screen shot. enjoy

the plot is a 1 m block.



video:

I finally had a chance to see the cool video that unholyjoe took the time to make, thanks joe.

I wanted to know Madmole, have you considered planting the boxes into the ground?

You select the area that you want to place your farming plot.

Execute the placement.

The ground voxel changes into the farm plot.

1. This removes the need to gig up ground.

2. Also removes that ugly looking lip that forms between ground voxels and blocks.

Also this could work on a static ground as well.

 

[ieuri]

How is improving farming bad for the survival experience? Sorry but we don't want players to crawl over broken glass to do things in the game. Now its easy to understand, how does that make it bad? Try explaining to someone new how to farm. Just do it. Please respond to me and lets watch how ridiculously long the conversation is going to be.
We've been through this before. Its a sharp stick. Now its usable by anyone, without a wiki and a 50 step process. FFS its farming, not rocket science. Why should I need a forge to start a farm? WHy would I need a cement mixer to make fertilizer. That ♥♥♥♥ was lame, now its fun, simple and easy to learn and use. Some people are just married to clunkly old crap and like crawling over broken glass I guess. If that one thing is a deal breaker to play this game you need your head examined or to download a mod that restores legacy farming.

So what you're telling me is that I cannot plant crops in the ground, I can only plant into a box that I craft. Peoples complaints about simplification are valid. Why have different tier weapons? It's all about progression. Planting in soil was Tier 1, watering the soil, Tier 2, fertilizing the soil, Tier 3 to get better harvests. Yes, I know harvest is by perk points now, but you keep removing things that players like. No one is complaining about the farm plot blocks. Like most, it is an attractive addition for internal base farms, but I had fields and fields of farms with every type of plant.

It seems you are making an Action RPG. The Survival, Horde, Crafting game is losing those characteristics. RPGs are about choice, different builds play differently. Now your choice is less about play styles and more about which weapons to choose. Crafters, and survivalists, even miners are getting less and less each alpha until everyone is just a shooter. This is all my opinion of course, but I also find the reduction in complexity saddening.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Unholy Joe

I like that. That is the basis of a scavenger, Adapt and overcome, or in this case adapt to survive.

Thanks for the answer

 

[Tin]

delete

 

[unholyjoe]

I finally had a chance to see the cool video that unholyjoe took the time to make, thanks joe.
I wanted to know Madmole, have you considered planting the boxes into the ground?

You select the area that you want to place your farming plot.

Execute the placement.

The ground voxel changes into the farm plot.

1. This removes the need to gig up ground.

2. Also removes that ugly looking lip that forms between ground voxels and blocks.

this is good idea but.... i prefer to dig because there are quite a few reasons to dig up the clay yourself like.. to put in the forge, to make cobblestones and shotgun slugs, mushrooms and more that i just dont remember atm.

 

[Zombie_Jam]

It seems people aren't taking to this new 'farming' gig which sounds more like a potted plant fetish than anything else.

You know, MadMole seems like a decent man, but sometimes his hypocrisy is just too much to quantify.

Reflecting on and contemplating farming, and other posts on here, I recall MadMole implying that farming isn't intuitive in that you need a crap load of stuff like clay, iron, wood and leather, a forge and whatnot to make a hoe.

And all that jabber after he puts it to the playerbase, quite forthrightly might I add, that if you want something, you have to get off your arse and work for it. Lol.

The obvious option here is why not have a small farming tutorial when you unlock farming (having the hoe as an unlock) as a little bit of an immersive introduction to the perk?

Could code something in like a sound effect with 'Farming: Unlocked' superimposed on the screen, and a little popup text reading something like:

'Scavenged supplies won't last forever. Take the hunger out of surviving the zombie apocalypse by learning how to work the land. To get started, craft a hoe.'

Followed by a quest maybe, which instructs the player on how to craft the hoe - rewarding some exp or giving coffee seeds as a reward for completion.

What would be super cool in the future is if items that required multiple parts had actual paper schematics with a hand drawing of the item scribbled down and lines showing different required parts and how to get them - i.e. the axe with a line from the head and the shaft stating: forged iron with clay and iron beneath it, and wood for the shaft.

It would really add something to the game as a lot of if is menu text.

(I know we have something similar already but pah - maybe for certain items tied to certain builds. Just sharing some ideas anyway.)

 

[falloutcloud]

3 suggestions I could make:

First, reduce the size of the planter box by half. Then it looks more natural when sitting on flat ground or make both sizes available.

Second, you could make both versions of farming applicable. Return the need to fertilize using the same ingredients for the planter minus the wood but requires the hoe. The planter would not need the hoe.

Third, giving the hoe the ability to shape the land for aesthetic reasons gives it another use without being required for survival.

Apologize if these suggestions have been made already but there's many pages of comments about this topic.

 

[Tin]

Get your prefab makers to start building:

Wolf dens pois <- sometimes the entities spawn in/around them, and sometimes they don't.

Bear dens pois <- etc,.

Mountain lion poi locations and so on..

(Sometimes have zeds populate these dens)

Cheap Hostile animal deaths fixed.

Relegate "wilderness" Zombie spawns, to only spawn in "sub biomes". So that way, they are not always equally spread out throughout the whole biome.

Wilderness zombie population fixed so it has an "ebb -n- flow", instead of always being constantly present.

:/

So, what would be the point of even thinking about static terrain and having more entities capable of being on screen, if you are looking for ways to get rid of their presence because of the performance issue then?

Glad you all are thinking about establishing an "ebb n flow" to your game. Hope it works out.

Time will tell I guess.. I just don't know if making your world seem even more deserted, by cutting the biome spawns even more, is going to work like you hope.

 

[beHypE]

Damn what a ride in this thread for such a small change. I've always felt the old system was pretty gimmicky and I'm looking forward to using the new plant boxes. I've been a fierce advocate of not dumbing down every system in the past (A17) but this ♥♥♥♥storm is really out of place for such a small rework of a 0.1% gametime feature.

Regarding the reduction of zombies in the wilderness... If 5 less zombies per chunk supposedly improve performance that much I doubt "static terrain" will allow for hundreds of entities, since that was an argument... Anyways I wouldn't even mind thinning the field "in the wild" that much if that was coupled with a (drastic) increase of zombies in the streets / cities. But right now I kinda fear the world will seem even more empty, aside from when you wake up sleepers in POIs.

 

[falloutcloud]

Damn what a ride in this thread for such a small change. I've always felt the old system was pretty gimmicky and I'm looking forward to using the new plant boxes. I've been a fierce advocate of not dumbing down every system in the past (A17) but this ♥♥♥♥storm is really out of place for such a small rework of a 0.1% gametime feature.
Regarding the reduction of zombies in the wilderness... If 5 less zombies per chunk supposedly improve performance that much I doubt "static terrain" will allow for hundreds of entities, since that was an argument... Anyways I wouldn't even mind thinning the field "in the wild" that much if that was coupled with a (drastic) increase of zombies in the streets / cities. But right now I kinda fear the world will seem even more empty, aside from when you wake up sleepers in POIs.

I'm hoping with the random encounter generator it will make the world feel more alive without eating up performance. I believe that was the goal.

 

[beHypE]

I'm hoping with the random encounter generator it will make the world feel more alive without eating up performance. I believe that was the goal.

Sure but unless I've misread what madmole said, it is an A19+ feature, thus leaving a huge void for A18. And we all know the length of an alpha release by now...

 

[Zombie_Jam]

Damn what a ride in this thread for such a small change. I've always felt the old system was pretty gimmicky and I'm looking forward to using the new plant boxes. I've been a fierce advocate of not dumbing down every system in the past (A17) but this ♥♥♥♥storm is really out of place for such a small rework of a 0.1% gametime feature.

Be considerate of other players who don't hold such contempt for what you regard as a triviality.

There are more than just you playing the game and so long as your playstyle isn't compromised then have the courtesy to allow others who actually enjoy farming to fight for a feature they would rather see expanded on and refined, rather than simplified into a sorry excuse.

 

[beHypE]

Be considerate of other players who don't hold such contempt for what you regard as a triviality.
There are more than just you playing the game and so long as your playstyle isn't compromised then have the courtesy to allow others who actually enjoy farming to fight for a feature they would rather see expanded on and refined, rather than simplified into a sorry excuse.

All I'm saying is the doom and gloom is real for such a small rework. You may not like the change & criticize it, and that's ok, but I've read several posts where it was the good ol' "i'll probably just skip A18", "your veteran players will not keep on recommending the game if you cater to beginners only", yada yada. The general reaction was over the top is all i'm saying.

 

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

ok peeps.. i decided to go ahead and jump back a build or so and show you a tad bit about the farm plot..
i hope it shows you what you are asking about, i thought i covered what was needed... one thing i forgot to show you was.. you can paint the plots too.. i did do a screen shot. enjoy

the plot is a 1 m block.



video:

I notice that you planted trees in your farm plots as well as crops.

Are you still able to plant trees on normal ground in A18 and have them grow, or are they limited to farm plots only like crops are?

 

[MechanicalLens]

delete

 

[unholyjoe]

I notice that you planted trees in your farm plots as well as crops.
Are you still able to plant trees on normal ground in A18 and have them grow, or are they limited to farm plots only like crops are?

trees can still be planted as normal.. i merely showed i can plant a tree in the plot.

 

[SilverWolf]

Ehm, sorry if this has been mentioned/answered already(have been lurking on this thread but really can't remember): are any new electrics such as advanced circuits(OR/AND/OR/XOR etc)/breakers/sensors planned for the future alphas, as I pressume A19 is already content-locked?

I know this maybe isn't the right place or time to ask that, but with addition of so much content in a18, one can only hope for some new electric stuff, as that would be awesome for some playstyles. Thank you in advance.

 

[Prisma501]

I strongly disagree. Having the streets and the wilderness completely void of zombies would make the world feel indescribably empty, and not in a good way. Not an an apocalypse way, but in a, "Seriously, why are all the zombies inside structures?" sort of manner. Having at least some zombies wandering around adds a dynamic feeling, it adds a bit of life to being outside, and not from a realistic perspective. While I'm not a fan of the streets being completely flooded with zeds, the odd one here and there just breathes life to the outside world, irony not intended.
An empty world would feel... empty, you know? Imagine The Walking Dead but where all the zombies are confined to houses. Challenge isn't part of the picture, but making the world feel "alive" is. Having every single roaming zombie removed would make the outside world seem "lifeless". (Yes, I know there are undead.)

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?111778-Alpha-18-Dev-Diary!!&p=1014703&viewfull=1#post1014703

Cheers

 

[toores]

Na, I got attacked from behind while fighting zombies and instant bleed with no bandages. At a minimum they need to howl before they go agro and bark or something. Its completely unfair for day 1 survivors unless we changed them like pigs but they aggro if you get too close. Right now they just rush up silently and cheaply kill players who aren't armored yet, that isn't fun for noobs or veterans. Had I been in the wasteland and it was a rad dog, sure, cool eat me I deserved that, but it wasn't.

Make wolves scared of torches.