PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Zaroff]

Higher stats, an extra mod slot and an extra effect is underwhelming?

Ummm all items have 1 less mod slot in A18. Yea we have a cosmetic slot but when it was revealed that we were getting a cosmetic slot. It was sold to us as an addition not as a cost. I feel it should be 1 slot per Quality tier starting at T2. 4 mods on quality 6 items seems a little underwhelming imo.

T1 0 slots

T2 1 slot

T3 2 slots

T4 3 slots

T5 4 slots

T6 5 slots

T7 the “legendary” items are unique and should not have any slots.

For example, A T7 steel picaxe is named “Grandpa’s golden tooth” it so strong it one hits metal and stone. But not Reinforced Concrete. And has a chance to yield gold nuggets on hit.

Obviously make the drop rate .01% chance to ensure the unique rarity. As you may or may not ever find a legendary item. This is just an example and I think it will be super easy and fun to implement. You could do similar things to all tools and weapons.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Ummm all items have 1 less mod slot in A18. Yea we have a cosmetic slot but when it was revealed that we were getting a cosmetic slot. It was sold to us as an addition not as a cost. I feel it should be 1 slot per Quality tier starting at T2. 4 mods on quality 6 items seems a little underwhelming imo.
T1 0 slots

T2 1 slot

T3 2 slots

T4 3 slots

T5 4 slots

T6 5 slots

T7 the “legendary” items are unique and should not have any slots.

For example, A T7 steel picaxe is named “Grandpa’s golden tooth” it so strong it one hits metal and stone. But not Reinforced Concrete. And has a chance to yield gold nuggets on hit.

Obviously make the drop rate .01% chance to ensure the unique rarity. As you may or may not ever find a legendary item. This is just an example and I think it will be super easy and fun to implement. You could do similar things to all tools and weapons.

that would be cool with the legendary weapons

but i like how the mods for weapon/armor is already

 

[madmole]

I wanted to reply to this specifically, because I think the problem is you've got 500 hours of single-player into this, and we're out here playing multi-player games getting stupid amounts of loot. I had a level 3 double-barrel shotgun before the end of the first day, just in loot from a tiny POI with two zombies in it. It was just past noon and I hit it on the way to the trader for finishing the starting quest.
I think at one point you said that loot is taking party gamestage into account, and most of the people involved seem to be playing co-op on private servers, where you and all your friends party up as soon as you log in. Here's the flipside to that though; if that's a bug and you fix it, then you really probably need to readjust how gamestage works for groups. We had a group of four players get SEVENTEEN demolishers on Day 28. You can't run out in the field and kite 17 demolishers around to keep them off the defenses, and there's no easy way of knowing who he spawned on.

Personally, I'd love to see you do a long game with MP co-op where you and your 4-6 buddies are playing 3-4 hours a night for a few weeks and see what it's like. Because I assure you, we're still over here getting tons of loot. We're not getting purples on Day 10 (where we're at now on this restart) but we're also not angling for it by doing lots of questing and perking into trader stuff, and we ARE getting greens and the rare blue.

Ah yes, MP is completely wrecked.

 

[pregnable]

Are explosive arrows affected by agility or perception for the explosive damage? What works on them?

 

[Adam the Waster]

Ah yes, MP is completely wrecked.

IMO i find 7DTD the best as a single player or co op game!

not like a big server game like rust.

back on Xbox me and my friends loved playing this game. and we made our own settlements and had our own jobs.

that's why i cant wait for bandits!

 

[Moleander]

Purples are ledendaries, so we don't want people crafting legendaries. We let the craft up to blue and enabled random stats on t2 and 3 crafting, so that is a LOT of love since 18's launch.

I like A18’s crafting I also get buying maxed out perks for weapon damage and not necessarily to “craft a purple”. This might be OP but what about crafting a extra mod slot blue. Or maybe an item that adds a mod slot to the perked weapon slot. I’m no programmer so the idea may be DOA for technical reasons.

I do agree the random crafting has been a good addition. I like trying to roll for a strong weapon if it is a bust I just sell it.

 

[FileMachete]

oh man, that was, Aww, wait for it, SOME!!

Edit: P.S., nice ones Roland, Snowdog :thumb:

 

[Roland]

Being that only moderators and TFP can create the polls, it is no wonder to me that just about everybody would assume this.
it would be like if madmole came in here asking, "Hey guys, what do you want added to the game, canned yams or canned coconut milk?"

Then a week later, a thousand posts later, came back and said, "Oh, I was just wondering... we're adding sardines."

Which is exactly why they stopped. Unless a poll is initiated by one of the developers for the purpose of officially getting some community feedback on an issue it isn't going to be happening any more. There was too much of an attitude of "Why did TFP do A when the poll said they should do B" and the developers don't want to give the impression that designing this game is determined by polls.

 

[Brian9824]

Ah yes, MP is completely wrecked.

Is loot based on party gamestage instead of individual because that might actually explain a LOT then and if it is, does it take distance from party members into account?

 

[Laz Man]

Yeah, I agree with you there. If I do dungeon POIs it takes, on average, 1 to 2 days. If they are huge it can take up to 4. I love wrenching but I never wrench absolutely all the stuff to the bone.
My point is. More time please. To enjoy the Pois.

There is already a time and horde night setting. (60/90/120 minute days) What is needed is loot/reward balancing for the higher tier POIs.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not complaining about this, on the contrary I like rough play, but I find it very expensive to make cement right now, could that be regulated?

All yours snow...

- - - Updated - - -

Buffed dart traps are no joke. I wanted to make sure they were going to hit where I wanted, so I slowly got in range to see if it would hit me...and got 2 shot Cant wait for the next horde

Do darts do block damage? Will save me testing time if someone can answer this for me.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Is loot based on party gamestage instead of individual because that might actually explain a LOT then and if it is, does it take distance from party members into account?

is there a way to set up a higher Gamestage when solo?

 

[SnowDog1942]

Nevermind

 

[Laz Man]

Yeah, I told Joel exactly this a couple of months ago, no response though.
I'm sure that now that they are reworking zombie skins, they will notice that.

Good point. I think there is merit to make them stand out in the dark amongst other zeds but do agree it is currently alittle over the top for my tastes.

 

[SnowDog1942]

I like rough play

So do I, where ya from?

 

[Adam the Waster]

Good point. I think there is merit to make them stand out in the dark amongst other zeds but do agree it is currently alittle over the top for my tastes.

then you would hate my version

basically they would have the glow but there skin Shows there skeleton. much like a XRAY

so same looks but you can see skeleton lol

 

[madmole]

The issue with your new player focus, and you know this is coming from a fan of 18, is that your game is quickly becoming so simple that every other game is doing way more than you are.
At one point you were the leader in things like degradation, LBD, crafting, mining etc. A well rounded game experience that rewarded players for investing time.

Even though Im enjoying 18 I am not going to sugar coat the fact that you have competition that is up and coming, and also from already established games that are beginning or are already doing the things we USED to enjoy that you no longer do.

I understand the desire to lure in new players on a consistent basis, but what happens then. Youre not going to acquire new players forever. Your game is 5 years old. A major portion of the gaming community already owns your game. Unless you plan to Alpha update for the next 10 years and pick up players being born this decade i think focusing solely on new players is going to be a major mistake long term. Those little boys you are grooming into men? That process takes 20 in game hours tops. We always come back to the same old question. Then what?

Some of us didnt embrace your changes, we were forced to adapt to them, thats a key difference. Sure people are over LBD because they had no choice in it. Now they have no choice in Degradation on repair. Looting DOES become boring after a while. Im restarting my game so much because by day 20 its over for me, so i guess you DID accomplish your goal of making the first 20 hours action packed and exciting. But it still kind of falls apart after that. Horde night is the only reason to continue. You have taken away all my other reasons to continue on. Im not going to play JUST because I want a tier 6. I have no need for it when I can handle enemies with what i have now perked out.

Telling people to mod things is facetious. You are primarily against those types of discussions and I feel like its the new go to when people start discussing something they would like changed. Modders will handle it. ItIt effectively shuts down a conversation but at the same time its a sensitive topic here when used to demonstrate how popular or loved something is. It cant be both ways.

New players are fickle, and half of them will shelf your game after 50 hours because its what todays gamers do. Flavors of the month. You guys are better than that.

For every old player who liked x, there are 10 new ones that like y. We're growing as designers and don't like clunky systems. If someone else is following in our old footsteps, I can assure you they will come to the same conclusion as we are now 2 years from now and realize those systems are mindless clicking and offer nothing rewarding. Its all psychological. I'd rather have a game simple to learn but grows in challenge as you progress instead of just grow into a god and stomp on everything.

I don't know how you could be done on day 20 unless you have 5 hour days or played the broken MP where you get all purples (fixed in the next patch). I'm having a blast replaying the game again.

We're pretty much done with major changes as the game is what we want it to be now, so its just adding and improving content, optimizing further and adding more usability features.

 

[Laz Man]

Some of the quest rewards definitely need tweaking.
Complete Tier 6 and get 3 options

1. Steel Purple Sledgehammer

2. 28 shotgun shells

3. Orange Military Gloves

Gee wonder which one I picked...... lol

The orange mil gloves? Guess it depends what you already have. Not the shells though, especially since you can get that amount easily from random loot containers.

 

[Alpacko]

Am I the only one who hase unusual amount of crashes? like every hour or so now

I'll have several a day sometimes. Filed a bug report so hopefully it's being addressed. Restarting steam might help a bit.

and i thought its just my system overheating since it also happened in destiny2(way less, tho)

also filed a bug report, but the logfiles describe a path for crash logs that doesnt exist

 

[Adam the Waster]

The orange mil gloves? Guess it depends what you already have. Not the shells though, especially since you can get that amount easily from random loot containers.

every round counts!

 

[Laz Man]

Ah yes, MP is completely wrecked.

Seems like MP needs it's own default game settings based on number of player slots? Hopefully that is in the cards at some point. Maybe someone in the community can help get that started...