PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Bicycles were also in A17.

Yes but they were lost in the mud slides from the rivers of tears.

 

[Arma Rex]

@Madmole Is there a way we could increase the density of the forest trees? The pine forest is even more sparce than it was back in A17.

 

[rdunham3]

Bicycles were also in A17.

Distant terrain isn't new either. I was commenting on best features, ever, not just best features of a18.

 

[madmole]

I agree that there needs to be some type of "sink" for weapons and armor. Currently, once you get all the top level T6 weapons and armor... the looting game basically stops.
I haven't gotten close to that, but I can see it coming.

To counter degradation of weapons you need to use a part of that weapon type. The (looting) game will still be slower but maybe the steady increase of ammo needed (mining) will counter all that?

No it doesn't you still need 4 mods for all those items. ALL top tier T6 items = 100's of hours once we get it balanced. At that point, its time to start a new world anyway, unless you are still interested in more perks and what a very high GS horde looks like. Is there a need for more than 200 hours of game play in a single session? Not IMO. Its fine guys, a game has to have an end point. Degradation isn't needed or desired, just like food spoilage never truly was. I'm struggling for food at level 35. I actually bought one rank of living off the land because I'm tired of spending money on canned foods all the time.

 

[madmole]

You know, A18 got me addicted again. Like I was back at the start. 7 days CrAcK habit....and for me, i think its because of the intricate level development, loot chance of bps/books and the pois. Man, i was in some spooky hidden cult mortuary thing the other day. It bent my noodle a bit!

GOOD CRACK TFPS!!

God damn hooked again!!!

Awesome!

 

[Piratenking]

What are you saying? That you can't find any steel brown tools to break into parts to make into better quality steel tools? What game stage are you? I think part of the problem is 120 minute days you have too much time on your hands and no risk of a horde every 7 hours of real time. I spend a large amount of time fixing my base, grinding mats to fix my base, fighting off wandering hordes, preparing for the next horde (mining bullets and crafting spikes) which is less than 7 hours real time away. So I don't have a ton of time to loot and be bored that I don't have pink tools because I'm playing the game as intended. I get a lot of XP upgrading my base so maybe my GS gets raised more, and I find stuff I'm happy to get sooner? I raised 4 levels killing my horde.
Maybe if you fought more hordes you wouldn't have this problem which seems to be "too much time on my hands to steel parts and I'm not happy I can't craft the best stuff right now". I find a fair amount of crappy steel stuff later game, at which time you can craft your steel whatever. Day 14 120 minutes is day 28 in my time, so yeah you should barely sniff one t3 thing if you are lucky, not be crafting every guy a full set of sweet stuff. Its not A16, you should relish your scrap and iron crap a bit and embrace a 100 to 200 hour game before making any further comments on balance IMO.

I don't mean to sound like an ass either, I'm just trying to grasp the issue from over here. With all the settings its hard to say what we need to do based off of player input because some of the settings allow for some extremely different games.

dude just what the actual ♥♥♥♥ did you do to 7 days??, weeks ago i quoted you expressing my concerns about the game taking the looter shooter perspective, it was just a hunch nothing to worry about too much (or so i tought) and as i said before i never pre-hate on something just because i dont rly like the concept, so i waited until now to try the game, my experience so far has not been good:

Early game: the wooden club has always been weak wich made sense as its the first weapon you can craft so you would rely on its "crowd control" (stuns)to kill zeds it was ok-ish as a very 1st weapon. now It felt so impactless and weak (a napkin to the face would probably deal more damage) that 5 zombies deep in the game i scraped it (not a big lost but is content you spent time developing and implementing and is absolutely wortheless now, thats not very smart developing time management if you ask me) so i tought "ok, lets see if i can quick farm the metal needed for a iron reinforced club, guess what?? yes! locked behind a schematic (because you need to have a book telling you how to put a chunk of iron togheter lol) what was the idea of gating such an early game items behind schematics?? do you realise that by the time i find it i wont even need it anymore.. like at all?

so i was like..."mkay..how about the sledge hammer" wich is the weapon i am using now, it deals an ok-ish ammount of damage for an early game weapon, but the hits feel so impactless... the sound, the hit animation...ever heard about inertia?, also you are swinging a probably about 10 kgs rock, you hit a zed and he doeesnt even flinch!? some times i dont even know if i actually hit it!! i feel that i am hitting them with a plastic hammer, A17.4 felt much better in that regard.

ofc while playing i took some damage, so i was like "time for some healing factor + bandages" bandages require pieces of cloth, wanna guess it?? yes!! more locked up content!! where you rly so desperate to increase the average gameplay time that you needed to slice up the game into tiny lil pieces so much? you were talking a lot about "looting" as something fun, well guess what i have the day free and instead of playing i am writting this, that doesnt look like i am having lots fo fun, does it? looting is not a bad thing if implemented properly (as i said before) but right now you tried to paint the monalisa with a paint pistol.

so up to that point i tought "ok, lets deal with it and move on" then i realised that you had removed the barbed wire (not the fence the plain barbed wire) you maintained the barbed wire fence but eliminate the plain barbed wire...why? you could make a barbed wire wall and it would look nice, now you have to stack those fences on the top of eachother?? was there a reason for this?

now the positives:

the new textures are neat

the optimization is crazy, feels fluid and looks cool (some weird lag spikes after (alt+Tab)-ing but that might be a problem on my end)

how easy it is to spot mines now is wonderful

Ps: a kind reminder that this is feedback (and as all feedback it is biased) just to clarify its not hate/trolling or anything like that. i hope you can get anything out of it to improve the game.

 

[madmole]

Quick question - what is the backstory on 7DTD and location?
I like to believe it is Texas and some folks say Arizona. is there a back story location?

Its in AZ.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah it sounds pretty fun. No blood moon warning would be rough, but also more realistic. Once you have a vehicle it wouldn't be life ending at least. Well I play with nightmare run speed bm and ferals so it would for me if I didn't have a vehicle or mega crush.

It's pretty interesting so far. Planning can only go so far. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst" is the motto of this playthrough style. I only have two cans of sham, a can of chicken soup, and a can of pears to my name, food wise. No animals so far; day 2 is on the horizon though. I'm loving the reemphasized survival aspect in A18.

Considering what happened during your second last blood moon (heads back to Twitter for reference), you got any plans for the next upcoming blood moon? Saw you day 21 design; looking great.

Also, shhh...

https://i.imgur.com/gqQOCDJ.png

 

[madmole]

I'm looking forward to this more than any upcoming feature. Hopefully it will be opened up for modding out of the box.

Should be.

 

[madmole]

Can you give us an insight about this? I saw lots of people mentioning it and it sounds interesting but I don't know what it is. Or you don't wanna spoil any surprise? :smile-new:

No I've said enough of my own thoughts. How it gets implemented will evolve as other TFP give their input.

 

[madmole]

Don’t beat on the door, beat on the concrete blocks next to the door.....way fewer hit points to bash through. I never ever break steel vault doors.

Sometimes. I always sample a few blocks to find the path of least resistance.

 

[madmole]

I've been testing early game (days 1-30) and in the 3 games I've played so far, other than primitive, I haven't had to craft any tool or weapon. I've always found better than what I could craft at the time. Obviously a small sample size, but I was hoping that Q5 and Q6 would be a little rarer.

Since the stable rebalance?

 

[madmole]

Thats not what I meant. I think tier 6 should only start dropping in the midgame and not on day 17.But thats ony my opinion.

It's a very rare chance to find a Q6 item early game. If it were forced OFF, I think that a lot of min maxers would start feeling frustrated, and want to power level or feel forced into min maxing to level as fast as possible to open that door. I think its fine now, its very rare, and never common even at very high GS. We will continue to tweak it until the majority feels it is good. Having one Q6 at day 17 is fine, 4+ every game would feel like a huge problem.

 

[madmole]

Mr. Mole,I really love the new variety. Not to see 5 of the same Prefab in one City. I mostly do T3 and T4 Quests. Once in a while T5.

Especially Late game they do provide some challenge ( if you roleplay a bit and do them at one Piece )

Yes, they take a long time, but its even more motivating fighting your way all through it and rest your eyes on the Lootroom.

With my group, we go tactical: One "scouts" or lures the Zombies nearby. 2 have their Weapons ready and: Fire at will.

My point being: Its good to have the freedom of choice, especially in a Sandbox Game.

We dont need many T5. Lets face it you do them rarely and only Players late in progression do it.

My wish would be to have a unique T5 for every city of a Random World. Not more as 1 of the same per map.

We dont need 20 or 30, just enough to serve some variety.

Maybe you can add two or three more over time. If not i will still be happy.

With the Books and the hunt for the "best" Gear thanks to ranged items Stats i have enough to do.

Right now we have lots of

I'm sure there will be more, but we're moving to a "polish this up to shippable status, THEN you can do new content" kind of mentality so we can ship when we want to, and not have a grueling 12 month beta period.

 

[madmole]

Is there any solution to 'slow down' an RWG world? To generate an 8k map it takes about 8-10 minutes and I have a feeling that I have different worlds then many other players. Much elevation, paths are not that polished, traders have mostly fetch or clear zombie quests at 1km+ buildings, far removed from towns etc.
EDIT: fresh generated world:

View attachment 30261

View attachment 30262

View attachment 30263

Roads are still pretty buggy, they need improved. World gen (terrain) looks fine to me 99% of the time.

 

[Kattla]

Sand are rocks too!

Indeed. Question: How small would a piece of quartz, SiO2, have to be before we no longer call it rock/sand?

 

[madmole]

@Madmole Is there a way we could increase the density of the forest trees? The pine forest is even more sparce than it was back in A17.

There is, but it requires modding. No it isn't, its identical. The ability for large deco to spawn on cliffs was reduced though.

 

[Blake_]

I'm sure there will be more, but we're moving to a "polish this up to shippable status, THEN you can do new content" kind of mentality so we can ship when we want to, and not have a grueling 12 month beta period.

I feel the feels. But I'm sure you meant "Awesome 12 month beta period in which TFP will change the very core meaning of BETA and still add lots of content to the title". Followed very closely by an "Awesome Master Gold Candidate with 10 dlcs and a puppy".

Sorry, that's all I heard.

 

[Brian9824]

It's a very rare chance to find a Q6 item early game. If it were forced OFF, I think that a lot of min maxers would start feeling frustrated, and want to power level or feel forced into min maxing to level as fast as possible to open that door. I think its fine now, its very rare, and never common even at very high GS. We will continue to tweak it until the majority feels it is good. Having one Q6 at day 17 is fine, 4+ every game would feel like a huge problem.

I think you and the rest of the team did VERY good with the last patch. Definitely seeing a big difference in loot and while its still a bit easier in MP we aren't swimming in gear. Where as before we had almost all blue/purple gear now we might have 1-2 pieces of blue/green mixed with quality 1 and 2 pieces or yellows.

I might have a blue AK and a green baseball bat (thank you trader) but 4/5 pieces of my armor are Quality 1 or Quality 2.

 

[madmole]

dude just what the actual ♥♥♥♥ did you do to 7 days??, weeks ago i quoted you expressing my concerns about the game taking the looter shooter perspective, it was just a hunch nothing to worry about too much (or so i tought) and as i said before i never pre-hate on something just because i dont rly like the concept, so i waited until now to try the game, my experience so far has not been good:
Early game: the wooden club has always been weak wich made sense as its the first weapon you can craft so you would rely on its "crowd control" (stuns)to kill zeds it was ok-ish as a very 1st weapon. now It felt so impactless and weak (a napkin to the face would probably deal more damage) that 5 zombies deep in the game i scraped it (not a big lost but is content you spent time developing and implementing and is absolutely wortheless now, thats not very smart developing time management if you ask me) so i tought "ok, lets see if i can quick farm the metal needed for a iron reinforced club, guess what?? yes! locked behind a schematic (because you need to have a book telling you how to put a chunk of iron togheter lol) what was the idea of gating such an early game items behind schematics?? do you realise that by the time i find it i wont even need it anymore.. like at all?

so i was like..."mkay..how about the sledge hammer" wich is the weapon i am using now, it deals an ok-ish ammount of damage for an early game weapon, but the hits feel so impactless... the sound, the hit animation...ever heard about inertia?, also you are swinging a probably about 10 kgs rock, you hit a zed and he doeesnt even flinch!? some times i dont even know if i actually hit it!! i feel that i am hitting them with a plastic hammer, A17.4 felt much better in that regard.

ofc while playing i took some damage, so i was like "time for some healing factor + bandages" bandages require pieces of cloth, wanna guess it?? yes!! more locked up content!! where you rly so desperate to increase the average gameplay time that you needed to slice up the game into tiny lil pieces so much? you were talking a lot about "looting" as something fun, well guess what i have the day free and instead of playing i am writting this, that doesnt look like i am having lots fo fun, does it? looting is not a bad thing if implemented properly (as i said before) but right now you tried to paint the monalisa with a paint pistol.

so up to that point i tought "ok, lets deal with it and move on" then i realised that you had removed the barbed wire (not the fence the plain barbed wire) you maintained the barbed wire fence but eliminate the plain barbed wire...why? you could make a barbed wire wall and it would look nice, now you have to stack those fences on the top of eachother?? was there a reason for this?

now the positives:

the new textures are neat

the optimization is crazy, feels fluid and looks cool (some weird lag spikes after (alt+Tab)-ing but that might be a problem on my end)

how easy it is to spot mines now is wonderful

Ps: a kind reminder that this is feedback (and as all feedback it is biased) just to clarify its not hate/trolling or anything like that. i hope you can get anything out of it to improve the game.

Iron club is not gated if you perk into clubs. Should a noob who know jack ♥♥♥♥ about clubs be able to craft the "mid tier" club? Nope. Buy the perk and craft it, or find the schematic, but why on earth use a weapon you aren't perked into? The animations are a work in progress, most people love what Brian has done, and there are amazing new hit sounds, I don't know what you are talking about with sounds. The club is intentionally underwhelming so there is feeling of progression when you get the better weapons and buy the perks. The baseball bat has a nice whiff sound and amazing impact thuds.

Of course medicine is gated. You can heal with food, rest and regular bandages just fine. Sorry you aren't OP 2 seconds into the game with unlimited hit points. Remember those old painkillers that were basically useless? Now they are great. If you want some basic healing you can "use" aloe cream for some limited healing like the "old bandages".

IMO you need to just relax a bit and play it a good 50 hours+. Forget the past and treat it like a new game. Its the best alpha ever so I'm told so I think its a matter of not understanding it fully and compared to what you thought you knew.