PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Locusta]

I think the encounter system will work fine. Pacing is what matters. We'll monitor a player's stats and roll dice and decide its time for him to get something. Pull from the grab bag of tricks and throw it out there and let the fun begin. But constantly dealing with thick mobs of undead isn't fun, its tedious. But showing up to do a simple fetch quest but there happens to be a random horde mulling around where you need to be could be a lot of fun... do you kill them? Lead them to the edge of town or off a cliff? Abort? Either way its a decision, and it cuts into your ever burning daylight. That kind of stuff is fun, not a wall of zeds everywhere (tedious and slow fps)
There is a huge list of improvement tasks for the dig quests.

As some others have mentioned, is it possible to utilize the heatmap tech to spawn more zombies in cities in general and more specifically around more desirable POIs like the gas stations, Crack a Book, Shotgun Messiahs, etc.? The heatmap could dissipate as the zombies were killed or die of old age to eliminate the grind of them being everywhere all the time and could respawn over time to give players that window of opportunity to loot.

Loc

 

[Doctor3D]

As some others have mentioned, is it possible to utilize the heatmap tech to spawn more zombies in cities in general and more specifically around more desirable POIs like the gas stations, Crack a Book, Shotgun Messiahs, etc.? The heatmap could dissipate as the zombies were killed or die of old age to eliminate the grind of them being everywhere all the time and could respawn over time to give players that window of opportunity to loot.
Loc

That would be somewhat better, but frankly - every house POI nowadays is essentially a shotgun messiah or pharmacy in its bonus room. That's why I want a return to region based zed spawning and having POIs and specific loot containers with the best loot only in certain, more dangerous locations like in the wasteland biome or a large city with LOTS of zeds around them and in them. Then you could have the more common areas with quite a bit less zombies, but these areas have more modest, normal POIs with less high tier loot containers but also less zombies around and in them.

An encounter system can't replicate that - it could just suddenly decide to randomly spawn a horde of zombies in front of a little 1-bedroom cabin out by itself in the wilderness - or on the flip-side you go in front of a factory in a city and the encounter system doesn't fire at all.

I don't see how that's going to solve the initial problem. If anything, it's like how the sleeper system is somewhat immersive breaking indoors - now being brought to the outdoors too.

 

[madmole]

Is it true that the first name of the game was "Block Defender"?

Nope, that is a game Chris was making with the tech that led us (Rick and I) to him.

 

[madmole]

I'm a looter/shooter by heart but I've been doing a lot more building than ever before just because they don't stop coming on blood moons (24 blood horde). Might be the arthritis kicking in but I got tired of running and gunning out in the open for horde night. Mining tons of resources for ammo is also not my idea of fun. So I've switched back to building melee bases and using traps.
There's different options to deal with different situations so I don't understand why some are saying 7dtd is only catering or heading in one play style.

I'm using advanced traps for the first time because the game is actually a challenge later game and if you play solo its nice to have some help. People might have built in the past out of boredom, but now build for function (hordes are a serious threat)

 

[madmole]

MM
For this, other than basic mod insert. Is it possible to use the procedure you have in place? The screamer scout,

Instead add the method of her calling a scout horde, to a few of the basic zombies. In entities, if you copy and

paste the generic zombies rename them by alpha or numeric, and add a line associating their growl with, her

heat bloom howl, then add them to the biome spawner. They would look the same unless you DM, F3. But

would sporadically produce mildly larger groups. best part is you would never know which one is the Snitch.

Just have to try to accurately kill all in area before the alarm is raised.

Unless something changed only heat map screamers actually can summon.

 

[madmole]

Having regional differences in terms of danger and reward (more zombies, more feral zombies, higher loot quality) would certainly be fun. The player could choose to avoid those areas, until he is better prepped.
That regional map could already defined at world generation time.

Somewhere along the line that centers of cities have a higher danger (and higher reward), and the outskirts are safer.

It would make the world have more structure than just a random distribution of POIs.

"lets run around the town, the center is too dangerous. Lets stick to the houses at the outskirts."

"now Im prepared to loot that POI in the citycenter"

"Huh, that area around the military base in the north is a deathtrap, dont go there"

Yes we would need some kind of mask setup to do that. We've talked about it for years and plan on the wasteland raising GS and having rads to deal with, but a higher reward.

 

[madmole]

What would be a cool event is if the plane delivering your air drop, instead crashed and you'd have to go rescue the survivors. After that they live at the trader and offer something akin to old world knowledge. This could be anything.

You could also have it where if you don't get there in time the bandits would; killing everyone and taking the loots.

The event would be rare though.

Just my thinking that there needs to be more "World" events. Game is so big that you could do so much in this regard; Nukes, plagues, weather events, take overs, SOS rescues, random survivor colonies springing up, battles between factions/zombies, etc.

Makes the world feel dynamic and alive. Maybe the sequel?

I'm hoping the random encounter system can do this.

 

[Laz Man]

I think the encounter system will work fine. Pacing is what matters. We'll monitor a player's stats and roll dice and decide its time for him to get something. Pull from the grab bag of tricks and throw it out there and let the fun begin. But constantly dealing with thick mobs of undead isn't fun, its tedious. But showing up to do a simple fetch quest but there happens to be a random horde mulling around where you need to be could be a lot of fun... do you kill them? Lead them to the edge of town or off a cliff? Abort? Either way its a decision, and it cuts into your ever burning daylight. That kind of stuff is fun, not a wall of zeds everywhere (tedious and slow fps)
There is a huge list of improvement tasks for the dig quests.

Preach it!

 

[Locusta]

That would be somewhat better, but frankly - every house POI nowadays is essentially a shotgun messiah or pharmacy in its bonus room. That's why I want a return to region based zed spawning and having POIs and specific loot containers with the best loot only in certain, more dangerous locations like in the wasteland biome or a large city in any biome with LOTS of zeds around them and in them. Then have more common areas with quite a bit less zombies, but have more modest, normal POIs with less high tier loot containers but also less zombies around and in them.
An encounter system can't replicate that - it could just suddenly decide to randomly spawn a horde of zombies in front of a little 1-bedroom cabin out by itself in the wilderness - or another on the flip-side you go in front of a factory in a city and the encounter system doesn't fire at all.

I don't see how that's going to solve the initial problem. If anything, it's like how the sleeper system is somewhat immersive breaking indoors - now being brought to the outdoors too.

I agree with most everything you’re saying. I do however think even right now there are some POIs that contain some loot that is better than others (although you are still correct overall), so my thinking is to maybe try the heatmap idea to get the zombie count up and in spots that make sense, then the distribution of loot change could come after that if it works. My thinking was that cities would utilize this heatmap spawn tech, not wilderness POIs to kind of line up with what you are suggesting. The encounter system could be layered on top somehow to give those random events.

Loc

 

[madmole]

What if you moved some of the sleeper zombies outside the PoI and increased wake up radius somewhat? Not so large as that gunshot wakes up whole block, but enough that you get 3-10 zombies at start of PoI (based on difficulty). Streets would not be so empty and it still would not be a hassle. You also dont need to kill more zombies, because they are part of PoI. This would also increase value of scoped rifles and stealth. Just imagine getting to high vantage point (for example one of those water towers) and just going to town with headshots. I think it could be worth experimenting with it a little bit.

I think there would be too many technical challenges to that. Sleepers are invisible until triggered, sleepers return to a valid resting point if you get out of range, etc. I'd rather use the encounter system to flesh out a POI's outside when you arrive.

 

[Laz Man]

I'm using advanced traps for the first time because the game is actually a challenge later game and if you play solo its nice to have some help. People might have built in the past out of boredom, but now build for function (hordes are a serious threat)

100% agreed. I just added a shotgun turret to my horde base (no crucible yet so steel has all been bought or scavenged ) and I thought I would steam roll the 28 day horde. Boy did they come and bring it. The difficulty feels like it is escalating at a good pace. Video later today hopefully.

 

[madmole]

Sounds awesome, but will it work well with vehicles in game? Especially gyrocopter? I feel that will be huge roadblock

Who cares? The guy in the sky is self aware he isn't running into any action in the sky. It still affects him the rest of the time. Random buzzard horde that wrecks your blade?

 

[Gazz]

It sounds to me like this encounter system is just going to spawn things on you no matter where you are or what you're doing. If I carefully scout a town and see that it's clear to move in, but then the game randomly decides to start spawning crap on me while i'm trying to break in a a POI - that's not even close to the same as how it was before.

Oh, what you describe would be exactly how it was before.

Zombies in the hub city respawned literally the instant their corpse decayed.

 

[madmole]

You guys are talking about populating cities like it has to be totally black or white. I didn't imply it should go back to being 20 cops/dogs/vultures on instant respawn like in A11, making looting anything almost impossible. But there's quite some margin between having impossible to clear cities and having the abandoned village syndrom we have now.
Having 2-3 days respawn times for POIs in cities would give you both a challenge the first time you visit the neighborhood AND more than enough time to loot the POIs once the streets are cleared. Yes you'd have to work a bit more than now to be able to access the loot, but hey, that's actually balancing out the fact that 10m from there there's just another POI ready to be looted, as opposed to an isolated POI in the wild after which you have to get running again to find something else. And one might argue you could raise the gamestage of a POI depending on its surroundings, thus yielding better loot if it's flagged as a "dense area".

Decisions, risk/reward, consequences. Right now there ain't no decisions to be made, cities are the place to be from Day 1 if you want to optimize your time.

I mean, the random encounter might just solve the problem if done right, I don't know. But that's probably not coming anytime soon if you want to implement a variety of encounters. I thought modifying spawning rules around POIs would be much easier in the meantime.

We're tired of band aids, we have moved more towards doing it right once so we don't have to yank it out later and upset a small group of people who got used to "what was easy to do at the time".

 

[Doctor3D]

Oh, what you describe would be exactly how it was before.Zombies in the hub city respawned literally the instant their corpse decayed.

Yeah that was fine though. I liked that - to me that's where the factories should be. The wasteland should have the legendary loot that you can't find anywhere else and large factory POIs and skyscrapers containing tons of zombies both inside and out - and if you have to have no-respawn delay to simulate that like before - that's still no problem with me.

But, I was talking about towns and cities like in the wilderness. Those used to have a lot of zeds in them and we would have to clear them out before entering the POIs and before getting to freely strip down all the cars and everything outside of loot. While you couldn't clear the wasteland, you could clear the wilderness cities. But, Now - you can run into a wilderness town with hardly any zeds in it and just start stripping the whole place down - looting all the cars, all the containers outside - dismantling all the things outside - don't even have to go in the POI to get a good start. There's lots of loot there just given to you for the taking without any threat whatsoever.

 

[Damocles]

Yes we would need some kind of mask setup to do that. We've talked about it for years and plan on the wasteland raising GS and having rads to deal with, but a higher reward.

Could be a low res 1-byte map (1/16 th) of the world.

Areas like the center of a larger town raise the thread level, also certain POIs with are considered "harder" like military bases and skyscrapers. (biomes also.)

Visualizing that to the player could be a triangle with an exclamation mark when entering a more dangerous area (grey, yellow, red)

Players can then - depending on the situation - try to avoid it (safety), or look for it (better loot).

(I could generate a prototype for a random gen world relatively quickly .. but would still need an implementation in the games code to apply it then)

 

[Gnomaana]

So you're saying that because I rarely scrapped iron ore into scrap iron I'm taking a different side? How's that? I am taking one side. I prefer to have to smelt the ore. I prefer incurring a LOSS to do it any other way with the ore. That loss is WHY I never scrapped ore except for D1. That's consistent, not taking "every side" of the argument. I'm not looking for TFP to "take away my dilemma's". That's the point. I WANT there to be dilemma's. I want there to be choices that have negative consequences.

I hi-lighted where your idea becomes a no go. A negative consequence? Can't have that in our "survival" game now can we?

 

[madmole]

I think we are getting closer to the same page. I agree with the too many all the time sentiment, so some kind of mashup of clusters, wanderers and random events could be the ticket. It could create a similar effect but be more dynamic.

Loc

It's all about pacing, a challenge, something interesting etc. Action movies with no stop violence are meh without the build up of character and story. A world full of zombies is boring, but having silence is creepy and then then suddenly a near blood moon like challenge shows up it can be a ton of fun. The system would monitor the player and give him something appropriate, and hopefully a meaningful decision. Its near dark, do I save this woman's family from a zed attack down the road or kill her and take her one can of chili? A world full of mindless zeds cannot do that, the encounter system could.

 

[madmole]

I don't know if I like the sound of the encounter system compared to actual region-based spawning. It sounds to me like this encounter system is just going to spawn things on you no matter where you are or what you're doing. If I carefully scout a town and see that it's clear to move in, but then the game randomly decides to start spawning crap on me while i'm trying to break in a a POI - that's not even close to the same as how it was before.
Or if you're out in the wilderness away from any POIs and in a place you've cleared completely of zombies just hours before, it would make no sense to have the encounter system suddenly decide to spawn something on top of you. Again, it would be nothing like before where the respawn delay was 4 or 5 days or whatever it was in wilderness.

The encounter system sounds like it could just end up like the sleeper system is now - which is highly predictable and gamey.

Its more of a predicted movement setup. I'm traveling down this road, lets spawn a wandering merchant or damsel in distress. I'm going to a POI in the wasteland, lets spawn a group of guys outside his POI before he gets there so he has to deal with that. Oh an air drop, lets make some bandits go there too. If the player doesn't go there, it despawns, no big deal.

However you don't get to clear anything, ever. Its a zombie apocalypse. Maybe a naked guy will come to your front door begging to be let in who led a horde right to your base. Its not even meant to replace biome spawners, its meant to make you forget about them because they were so lame.

 

[madmole]

100% agreed. I just added a shotgun turret to my horde base (no crucible yet so steel has all been bought or scavenged ) and I thought I would steam roll the 28 day horde. Boy did they come and bring it. The difficulty feels like it is escalating at a good pace. Video later today hopefully.

I'm level 50 with no crucible. It is what it is, I just have to scrounge/buy more steel or do without.