PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Xafius]

Hey MM, Loving the addition of lockpicks, been hoping for this for longer than I'd care to count. I have found them to be a little too easy though, especially from a fresh new unskilled player perspective.
As someone who is able to pick a lock, I wince each time my day 1 unskilled player picks a gunsafe lock only consuming a few lockpicks. These are endgame lockers, and should be treated as such in ALL respects especially from an accessibility perspective.

I feel that lockpicks play a great part in many stages of gameplay, but being able to bust a pick inside a lock and just keep tapping your stack until you eventually get in is a bit cheesy. We need critical fails.

A more realistic option would be rather than having stacks of lockpicks that are consumed, make a lockpick an item that has degradation and quality similar to any tool we currently get (eg: brown>purple)

The lower the quality (and condition of the pick) the less chance you have to pick the lock. A skill fail could mean another attempt is needed, and a critical fail will render the lock completely unpickable (due to somehow binding up a tumbler or breaking the pick etc) forcing a player to resort to brute force (which should be relatively impossible on anything short of a wooden crate). Each time an attempt is made with a lockpick, condition should be removed from the lockpick, and also perhaps increase the chance of a critical fail upon a repeated attempt.

A set of nice lockpicks is both a personal and treasured item, and could carry across in-game really well if implemented properly.

It'd also open up possibilities for a snap gun item (for a quick and dirty method of relatively unskilled lockpicking).

I love this idea. +1 from me. Have the crafting quality tied to the lock picking skill like other tool trees. I too can pick locks and wish it were more in depth haha.

 

[TSBX]

Vending machines in the wild should be lock-pickable and be able to be up/downgraded to a regular loot container using Old Cash.

- - - Updated - - -

People often ask me if I can pick a lock. I say, "Yes, that one."

 

[Trankitas]

Nice! I usually just give money to my wife. Or flowers. Or rocks. I have the strange feeling she doesnt really appreciate those though.

I think she doesn't. You can give her a 7dtd key, maybe that could work.

 

[viprisgx7]

Not sure if i missed this somewhere on here but for rangers guide to archery 4 it says it lets you craft AP arrows but when we found and used the book we could not find the arrows to craft, sorry if it was mentioned been trying to keep up but the thread has been really active, loving the game even with low frames, don't think i would say that about any other game

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(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 


already fixed for future build (dont ask)

 


thanks

 


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[Laz Man]

Hey MM, Loving the addition of lockpicks, been hoping for this for longer than I'd care to count. I have found them to be a little too easy though, especially from a fresh new unskilled player perspective.
As someone who is able to pick a lock, I wince each time my day 1 unskilled player picks a gunsafe lock only consuming a few lockpicks. These are endgame lockers, and should be treated as such in ALL respects especially from an accessibility perspective.

I feel that lockpicks play a great part in many stages of gameplay, but being able to bust a pick inside a lock and just keep tapping your stack until you eventually get in is a bit cheesy. We need critical fails.

A more realistic option would be rather than having stacks of lockpicks that are consumed, make a lockpick an item that has degradation and quality similar to any tool we currently get (eg: brown>purple)

The lower the quality (and condition of the pick) the less chance you have to pick the lock. A skill fail could mean another attempt is needed, and a critical fail will render the lock completely unpickable (due to somehow binding up a tumbler or breaking the pick etc) forcing a player to resort to brute force (which should be relatively impossible on anything short of a wooden crate). Each time an attempt is made with a lockpick, condition should be removed from the lockpick, and also perhaps increase the chance of a critical fail upon a repeated attempt.

A set of nice lockpicks is both a personal and treasured item, and could carry across in-game really well if implemented properly.

It'd also open up possibilities for a snap gun item (for a quick and dirty method of relatively unskilled lockpicking).

I wonder if any of the numbers for lock picks are in the xmls. Probably can be tweaked if so.

- - - Updated - - -

Not an issue. We are seeing the results of occlusion being added to the game. The fact FPS shoots up while inside tells me that occlusion is working as intended. unless I'm not understanding what occlusion does... *shruggs*

Yes the occlusion is great for indoors. Fps through the roof for days indoors.

 

[lug]

@Faatal, just installed some more system ram and did some FPS tests. I did see some improvements but noticed the snow biome still has some issues compared to other biomes. Going to play with some more of the settings to see if I can isolate it. See my post below with performance stats.
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC ACX 2.0+ (2GB)

24GB system ram

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?127980-Recommended-Video-Card-for-A18e&p=1034800&viewfull=1#post1034800

Laz Man, did you see the note to use gfx st budget <value> it defaults to 4096 now and since i have 2Gb vram like you, i used it with value of 2048 and saw great improvement

 

[Laz Man]

Laz Man, did you see the note to use gfx st budget <value> it defaults to 4096 now and since i have 2Gb vram like you, i used it with value of 2048 and saw great improvement

Will try that, thanks for the reminder.

 

[Kage848]

Nope.

My trees grow instantly if I restart the game.

 

[lord_ahriman]

I underestimated A18: my save is 24 alive and day 7 horde was kind of meh, lost just 1 cobblestone block, 100 wood spikes and 100 7.62mm rounds; day 14 was huge, 300 spikes (~60 iron spikes), 300 7.62mm rounds and my cage (full reinforced concrete, but 3 floors) invaded. It could be a little bit easier (no molotovs, grenades, etc), but that was intense and a much better experience than that bs A17 pathing exploit.

I play Navezgane and 30 days respawn because I like reduced number of POI's therefore less loot, but I'll definetely change it to 7 days respawn otherwise I won't get enough ammo.

 

[rdunham3]

I'm probably just missing something here, but here goes anyway...

Heavy armor is under one attribute, light armor under another, but if you want the extra storage from storage pockets and you aren't spec'ed for one of those two attributes you're at a serious disadvantage it seems.

Somebody enlighten me?

 

[meganoth]

I'm probably just missing something here, but here goes anyway...
Heavy armor is under one attribute, light armor under another, but if you want the extra storage from storage pockets and you aren't spec'ed for one of those two attributes you're at a serious disadvantage it seems.

Somebody enlighten me?

You can (and should usually) use armor without speccing into those perks. The perks only give you some better movement and let you craft better armor.

 

[sillls]

My feedback on Alpha 18X

I just had a chance to try out the latest Alpha and wanted to share. I played SP in Navezgane.

It took me awhile to get used to the controls again since I haven't played in months.

I spawned in the burned forest. The graphics are great but things like the stone ax swings seem off somehow. The swings don't seem natural. Got a note from the Duke. Apparently pissed him off, lol.

Found Trader Rex, (nice as ever, lol), I used his base to kill a bear but turns out it was a zombie so it wasn't worth it.

I raided some houses and was getting overwhelmed. The sleepers seemed to come out of nowhere. I got a ways in a house and got jumped by two zombies and tried to get outside but was surprised by another fire zed right in the doorway.

I threw my spear but not used to using it. I dropped it right in front of it. I start punching but was hitting like a girl. I was hardly damaging it, but was getting stunned every time I got hit. Meanwhile, the other two zombies came up from behind and were trying to get me. I managed to get away and kill them but now without losing a lot of health.

I want north and had better luck in the town in the pine forest. Spend the rest of the day gathering crap and see what I could use if for.

I haven't had any problems with the frame rate despite the reports posed here in the forum.

Zombies on fire don't give off light. I can see them on fire but they don't give off any light.

Got to level to, Got a lot of stuff and had fun.

I also like the new icons for items in the game.

The first day was great. I am looking forward to day two.

 

[bobross]

Nope. Maybe in the future we can allow more blocks to have that function, I think its hard coded to the workstations.

Yeah... about that. Is that something that would require a new RWG? Because I came across some today and being the nosy bastard I am, I dug them up. And they came up as farm blocks. Also getting lots of really odd, dupe-like bugs (so far I've had helmet light mod show up in a stack of animal fat, a stack of 7.62 ammo, and a hat that definitely did not have it before).

Beginning to think that keeping the same save with the update might've broken something.

 

[madmole]

We are not even at 2020 and your already into the future and saying they will still have potatoes in 2030 lol....
Michael j fox wants his delorian back lol

Na, I'm saying my awesome pc I have now will be a potato by 2030. Hopefully before then, I'd like for them to make more progress these next 10 years than the last.

 

[Hawk-X51]

Beginning to think that keeping the same save with the update might've broken something.

Mine is bugged out as well. I'm seeing entire cities of ghost LODs that vanish when you get close, floating/missing POIs where a city used to be, and a tree that mysteriously sprouted inside my base and punched a hole in the roof. I generated a preview map with the same seed after the update (which turned out entirely different) so I don't know if that overwrote some files or if the terrain doesn't like the new build, but either way it seems a restart is in order. The joys of experimental alpha!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1888097683

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1888097760

 

[MechanicalLens]

Night 21. (Note: I play 90 minute days, so this would have been day 30-something on default time settings.) Even this early, that horde night was intense. Spiders, ferals, and cops were everywhere; no signs of dogs though, and few vultures. The horde lasted until well-past 1:00 AM... They just kept coming and coming. There I was, on top of my base, armed with my Level 6 AK, Level 6 M60, and some trusty contact grenades and molotovs, raining hell down upon my foes. I underestimated the size and ferocity of this horde, to say the least. With every wave, I became even more apprehensive at my dwindling ammo supply. I must have expended over 800 7.62 rounds that night, about half of my current ammo supply. I haven't even seen any radiateds yet in my world. I sense dark nights ahead...

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

Beginning to think that keeping the same save with the update might've broken something.

It is always highly recommended to start a new game with every update during experimental. This will help minimize potential bugs caused by updating, IMO.

Note: I do not know if this statemeent is supported by TFP but in my own personal experience I find this to be accurate. I take it one step further, for the purpose of bug hunting/reporting, I do a clean uninstall and fresh install every single update lol. It might just be in my head but, I never see half the bugs that get reported and every bug I have ever reported is verified as a bug and confirmed reproduced by one of the QA testers......

Every one of my friends/strangers that contacts me about a potential bug, 9/10 times when I cannot reproduce it. having them do a clean uninstall and fresh install fixes the bug. so kinda why I fully believe one should start a new save every update and do fresh install.....

 

[madmole]

My trees grow instantly if I restart the game.

Ones you planted or ones you cut down re-appear?

 

[madmole]

I underestimated A18: my save is 24 alive and day 7 horde was kind of meh, lost just 1 cobblestone block, 100 wood spikes and 100 7.62mm rounds; day 14 was huge, 300 spikes (~60 iron spikes), 300 7.62mm rounds and my cage (full reinforced concrete, but 3 floors) invaded. It could be a little bit easier (no molotovs, grenades, etc), but that was intense and a much better experience than that bs A17 pathing exploit.
I play Navezgane and 30 days respawn because I like reduced number of POI's therefore less loot, but I'll definetely change it to 7 days respawn otherwise I won't get enough ammo.

I never loot the same POI twice, and I craft most of my ammo.

 

[madmole]

I'm probably just missing something here, but here goes anyway...
Heavy armor is under one attribute, light armor under another, but if you want the extra storage from storage pockets and you aren't spec'ed for one of those two attributes you're at a serious disadvantage it seems.

Somebody enlighten me?

Storage pocket mods are in loot or you can craft them once you find a schematic. All they do is reduce encumbrance, perks don't have anything to do with them.