PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Mechanimal]

dammit, now it's official: release date announced to be not before Nov/Dec :distrust:

Ah, right about when my project should kick in and I will no longer have time to play. Ha, same thing happened last year, months and months of free time spent reading the forum, then swamped with work when A17 finally released. Oh well, that's just my bad luck, I'll find or make some time. Still valuable, and worth the wait.

 

[Mechanimal]

No, 17.4 with a mod (Dead Rising).

Ah, ok, was curious, it seemed like maybe you were testing too, wouldn't be a bad idea on their part, I don't think.

I did try a few mods this time, but not as many as last alpha. I like them, but prefer vanilla, and prefer Nav over RWG.

Wonder how many people actually come to the forums, on average, if they did ever want to try giving out temp passwords to us here to do some intermittent testing from time to time, especially when releases drag on. We do spend a ton of time here straightening out assumptions from people being told wusup second-hand. But, even though it could be throttled, some ass would probably screw it up by streaming or posting to youtube... so, ugh, nvm. I think I just predicted the answer, lol. Fun to think about, for a minute.

 

[RipClaw]

My current game has high biome spawns and I gotta say, the constant harassment is preventing me from looting pois and it's a real struggle to get prepared for blood moons... 4 deaths, only three pois looted, bears and wolves (thank God for the meat!) but no forge, or any other workstation except a campfire... Found ONE pot, still no grill so living off of wasted meat (charred).
And it's a blast. Had my day 7 and it was easy, but the rest has been a challenge.

This may be fun at first, but if you're planning to do bigger construction projects then it's just annoying.

I recently saw a stream where the length of the day was set to 10 minutes. The players had 4 forges running and about every 30 seconds a screamer spawned. The players could even hardly repair their horde base because they had to fight against the screamer hordes all the time.

The construction of my new horde base took several weeks. With constant harassment from zombies it would have taken more than twice as long for sure.

 

[Mechanimal]

This may be fun at first, but if you're planning to do bigger construction projects then it's just annoying.
I recently saw a stream where the length of the day was set to 10 minutes. The players had 4 forges running and about every 30 seconds a screamer spawned. The players could even hardly repair their horde base because they had to fight against the screamer hordes all the time.

The construction of my new horde base took several weeks. With constant harassment from zombies it would have taken more than twice as long for sure.

10 minute days?!? Sounds like they made their own problem, that is ridiculous. Though I can see how it could make for an entertaining video.

I can barely tolerate 1 hour days, even though it's the default. I always crank mine up to 2 hour days so it actually feels more like an actual day has passed. I find it far more immersive and can actually get some things accomplished, instead of travelling somewhere, clearing like one POI for a quest, and then having to rush home as it gets dark. That's too short for me. So glad we can adjust that setting.

 

[Gazz]

Show me one XML-Only change you can make to add new game functionality...

Looking at A18... I could imagine a disease. You get bitten by a certain creature and eventually you get the ability to heal yourself with a part of the damage that you do to others in melee but you take damage when outside during the day.

That's all XML. Not even complicated.

 

[Zombie_Jam]

Looking at A18... I could imagine a disease. You get bitten by a certain creature and eventually you get the ability to heal yourself with a part of the damage that you do to others in melee but you take damage when outside during the day.That's all XML. Not even complicated.

You mean like the 'disease' Logan 'Vlad' Parker ended up with after his visit to the Transylvanian adamantium science exhibit where he was bitten on the neck by a radioactive wolverine?

 

[Gazz]

Okay, that got weirdly specific...

 

[Zombie_Jam]

Okay, that got weirdly specific...

Yes. Yes it did

 

[Xtrakicking]

...I really have no idea, but I'm trying to use reverse psychology and MM's disdain to get him to prove me wrong, because the mechanic in itself was quite nice and will be missed.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure most long-term players would miss that feature and the fun situations it brought.

 

[RipClaw]

10 minute days?!? Sounds like they made their own problem, that is ridiculous. Though I can see how it could make for an entertaining video.
I can barely tolerate 1 hour days, even though it's the default. I always crank mine up to 2 hour days so it actually feels more like an actual day has passed. I find it far more immersive and can actually get some things accomplished, instead of travelling somewhere, clearing like one POI for a quest, and then having to rush home as it gets dark. That's too short for me. So glad we can adjust that setting.

I have also set my days to 120 minutes.

The 10 minute days are a challenge similar to No Crafting challenge or Horde every night challenge.

I took it as an example because it illustrates how it would be in extreme cases if you increase the biome spawn to an insane amount. Some people seem to want something like that. For a mod or a special challenge this is ok but not for the normal game.

 

[sillls]

Okay, that got weirdly specific...

That sounds like a vampire Gazz.

Don't worry, I don't think it's original. lol

 

[Gazz]

It's not a new idea but the argument was that "mere XML changes" could not alter the gameplay much.

This may have been true in A10...

The conditions, the interaction with specific entities, blocks, the environment, time of day... all this has come a very long way.

A18 adds another whole shopping list of those.

 

[sillls]

So, were you planning to add this to the game or were you just giving a reference?

 

[Survager]

Can we waiting in 7 Days To Die a multi-charged crossbow like the Chinese Cho Ko Nu?

 

[MechanicalLens]

I have also set my days to 120 minutes.
The 10 minute days are a challenge similar to No Crafting challenge or Horde every night challenge.

I took it as an example because it illustrates how it would be in extreme cases if you increase the biome spawn to an insane amount. Some people seem to want something like that. For a mod or a special challenge this is ok but not for the normal game.

I always set my days to be 90 minutes long. Regarding time, sure, the more the merrier, but when it comes to reaching horde night, or if I just want daytime/nighttime to pass, it can feel like an absolute chore with the extra thirty minutes. But to each their own.

 

[Aldranon]

The way I understand heat is that it's an abstraction of general activity, sounds, smells, changes, in an area. Too much and a horde comes.
Breadcrumbs sound like a more granular system that tracks moment-to-moment evidence of activity for a brief duration. This evidence could attract local attention at a smaller scale leading to the discovery of a player by nearby entities.

If the zombies had some kind of group consciousness and were parts of a greater whole, so to speak, then the player could be the infection that causes an "immune response".

Agent Smith was right!

 

[meganoth]

I don't know why getting "sandwhiched" in POIs or having to constantly watch your back is perceived as a bad thing. It's one of the few exciting moments in the game. Looting at your leisure is, well... more boring. General difficulty has nothing to do with it, so it can't make up for it. Besides it doesn't always happen. Hopefully that doesn't go away with the decreased roaming spawns.
Still don't understand this change from a gameplay perspective - it is my impression that the vast majority of feedback asked for the exact opposite. Anyway, time will show.

I assume it's seen as a bad mechanic because the countermeasure is easy but tedious: Clearing out the area of wandering zombies before you go into any poi.

So, have another question for you other players: Did you also spend the vast majority of your time in the forest biome due to temperature adaptation being such a pain in the ass in A17?

I went to the snow biome and desert a TON more often in A16, hated going in A17. All we had to do in A16 was find and wear the right thing. In A17 I would dress for it, AND add hot/cold mods, AND spec into it, then I'd go up north or to the desert and still get a ♥♥♥♥ing temperature debuff, it drove me nuts, so I jsut never went, and have spent far far more time in the forums this year than in the actual game.

Just wondering what your experiences were like.

Since the lesser temperature debuff just results in higher food consumption I just ignored it after the food problem was solved.

Oi! You redhead! You reversed carrot! You lighthouse!
..

At least those were the things thrown at me ^^

How could they be so wrong? Oi, you redrock. You rubin.

 

[KhaineGB]

Looking at A18... I could imagine a disease. You get bitten by a certain creature and eventually you get the ability to heal yourself with a part of the damage that you do to others in melee but you take damage when outside during the day.That's all XML. Not even complicated.

In fairness, I could do that in A17 right now with cvars.

Also that wouldn't be new game functionality since it's using already existing systems in a different way.

The day/night bit would be SLIGHTLY more difficult due to the fact onGameDayStart and onGameNightStart currently don't work. So I'm guessing you guys finally finished off some of the things marked as // Hook Up in the buffs file.

 

[Ti2xGr]

Interesting - We set our servers to 120 minutes also. Same thoughts as well - Feels more like a "real" day, enough time to clear out a few POI's. Just recently, me and another guy cleared out 5 level 5 POI's in one day. It was an absolute blast.

I'm really curious about the new POI's. It sounds like there is going to be a significant variety in A18.

 

[JoeCavallo]

10 minute days?!? Sounds like they made their own problem, that is ridiculous. Though I can see how it could make for an entertaining video.
I can barely tolerate 1 hour days, even though it's the default. I always crank mine up to 2 hour days so it actually feels more like an actual day has passed. I find it far more immersive and can actually get some things accomplished, instead of traveling somewhere, clearing like one POI for a quest, and then having to rush home as it gets dark. That's too short for me. So glad we can adjust that setting.

Well let me tell you this, a streamer and me played vanilla A17.4 with 10 min per day setting, and horde night every night, it was insane, we spawned gathered few items, made few arrows and a bow, BOOM hordenight, 2 sec later dead. But when we stopped playing we were at 8th day with 5-6 deaths each, so I would say it was interesting.