PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[MechanicalLens]

So, you know that the seed IceFire has a trader in a town?

Spoiler

Well, on the same seed, I found another trader in another town.

Spoiler

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

nice, I forget which seed I'm using but there is a trader in almost every town...I love it!

 

[unholyjoe]

nice, I forget which seed I'm using but there is a trader in almost every town...I love it!

we cant have that.... next thing you know, you might start having fun in the game.

on the lighter side tho... actually seems to fit better if while located in city limits... the random patrols make it more meaningful to get to the trader.. hmmmm

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

we cant have that.... next thing you know, you might start having fun in the game.
on the lighter side tho... actually seems to fit better if while located in city limits... the random patrols make it more meaningful to get to the trader.. hmmmm

LOL nooo....don't kill my fun I agree traders within or right next to a city would compliment random patrols

 

[Damocles]

I wonder, do some people want the trader within the city?

 

[unholyjoe]

I wonder, do some people want the trader within the city?

no matter what the topic... there will always be those for it and those against. so that would be expected here as well. its probably best if it was just left as a random thing.

 

[agrastiOs]

No, not true as there is the over eating buff. You still need to go to your character stats to see how much you can eat/drink.

Well, if you overeat, you don't have to eat anyway. It's simple: see no black stamina bars? No need to eat.

And when there's less stamina, you can eat. The exact food level is shown on the UI then, so you can overfeed yourself even more if it won't be a waste.

Stamina pretty much IS the food bar otherwise, and adding a food bar would be like adding two health bars.

 

[alchemi2]

A18.2 All defaults except marked airdrops and 64 alive on hoard night. 3 of us playing co op and we are having a fun time.

Game playing well and balance is excellent, really enjoying the challenges.

Just did hoard night day 35 after getting base wrecked on day 28.

We rebuilt enhanced base and got reinforced concrete used. Night started off with cops, spiders and lots of military Zombies, then irradiated started flowing in and 4 or 5 demolishers, we were still battling away when the gong sounded at 4am and finally killed the last of them around 6 am.

Used all our ammo for every weapon, it was an absolute blast.

Well done TFP absolutely fantastic Alpha, loving it.

 

[Axe13]

Yes, there are many such mods. I make these mods myself.I saw in the code how it works in vanilla, but my problem is that i can not understand why it is done.

Why these unnecessary complications of simple things that do not cause anything but inconvenience.

yeah hopefully there will be at least a ui option for it in the future....along with a fov slider

 

[DemiurgeRedux]

Two Quality of Life requests/suggestions.
1. Allow option to turn off start screen music. I frequently want to queue up 7DTD before playing it, or want to take a break, etc. Unfortunately, the start screen music prevents me from doing other things that use sound so I have to completely exit the application. I would much rather leave it running in the background for quicker launch.

2. Start the game in paused mode (similar to what happens when I hit escape) thus allowing me to actually begin playing when I am ready. This would allow me to do other things while waiting for the game to load. Given the long time to create and load the environment in recent iterations this feature would be really handy, especially if combined with feature request #1.

You can turn off the start screen music under options.

 

[n2n1]

We can only speculate about some of the reasons, usually there are more than one. But at a guess:
1) It is simulating (and abstracting) the fact that you don't know exactly how full/fit/sated you are in reality. A real human doesn't have a fullness-meter where he can say exactly that he is at 120% fullness. Actually the display tells you two things, wether you feel healthy or it hutrts and whether you feel energized or tired, all the rest is somewhat diffuse, just like in reality.

2) Not knowing everything is part of some games, might even be usual in survival games (not sure, since I don't play many)

3) It also simulates (with a little abstracting) that the more you work the more tired you get and eventually need to eat again. More abstract is that it also heals you, but that is probably done for game balance instead of immersion. Water has a more subtle influence, just like in reality.

4) The UI shows everything you need to know and hides everything you should be able to guess. Forget to eat and you are punished later in the field. Prepare and be good. It allows for you to make mistakes and a good game should do that.

You don't seem to like that UI, I like it very much. I think it is much better than the grindy system of A16 that practically made everyone use tricks to eat as much as possible (to get the hit points up). In A16 many players should have been so obese to not even be able to leave the house. The disadvantage of the current UI is that it needs explaining because it is an unusual system. But I prefer something to have a learning curve instead of being banal.

1) Yes, i now, too, understood this view, but, ironically - this as times the that i perceived utterly otherwise, i as times thought that the right perception of this when these indicators are on the screen. And precisely for the reason that you described.

2) A strip of food and water is usually the standard for survival games ... this is the first time I've seen such a strange approach implemented in A13. And seen nowhere else.

3) This directly affects the stamina, and not the other state. To stamina more suited level of water. If was would so - i still would understood.

4) Yes .... but, in reality, it makes people who are diligent in this regard, constantly climb into the inventory to open the page of the character and find out exactly his statuses. I agree that for careless people it is not important. (translator! no offense)

About the UI.

for A16 has exactly the same interface as any alpha after A12. I hate this design since A13.

Although i must admit, the possibilities of modding this GUI cover all its shortcomings

 

[n2n1]

yeah hopefully there will be at least a ui option for it in the future....along with a fov slider

Yes, the lack of fov settings is an incomprehensible behavior of all developers.

Most likely, in our case - it is leveling the influence of settings to fps in the reports of players about performance.

 

[beerfly]

Yes, the lack of fov settings is an incomprehensible behavior of all developers.Most likely, in our case - it is leveling the influence of settings to fps in the reports of players about performance.

There is much more under the hood than you think buddy. Much more. Don`t speculate, game goes on.

 

[meganoth]

1) Yes, i now, too, understood this view, but, ironically - this as times the that i perceived utterly otherwise, i as times thought that the right perception of this when these indicators are on the screen. And precisely for the reason that you described.2) A strip of food and water is usually the standard for survival games ... this is the first time I've seen such a strange approach implemented in A13. And seen nowhere else.

3) This directly affects the stamina, and not the other state. To stamina more suited level of water. If was would so - i still would understood.

4) Yes .... but, in reality, it makes people who are diligent in this regard, constantly climb into the inventory to open the page of the character and find out exactly his statuses. I agree that for careless people it is not important. (translator! no offense)

About the UI.

for A16 has exactly the same interface as any alpha after A12. I hate this design since A13.

Although i must admit, the possibilities of modding this GUI cover all its shortcomings

2) I meant that in a general sense. A survival game might not tell you the effect some of the food has and leave that for you to find out through experimentation.

4) Going into the character screen isn't necessary. I always take a stack of tea with me and when the thirst indicator comes up (which is also the time when I would get detrimental effects from thirst) I drink. At that time the numerical display shows me exactly how many bottles of tea I can drink before wasting water.

I sometimes also drink something before going out of the base. Again, I can just drink one tea or bottled water and see exactly if I can drink another or would be wasting water.

Food can be handled somewhat similar, I don't even take food with me but fill myself up during the night/at the base.

Not sure if that would be considered a diligent or careless method, but it works well and doesn't waste time. I consider looking into the character screen inefficient and a beginners mistake until one learns how to handle his food/water needs.

 

[agrastiOs]

1) Yes, i now, too, understood this view, but, ironically - this as times the that i perceived utterly otherwise, i as times thought that the right perception of this when these indicators are on the screen. And precisely for the reason that you described.2) A strip of food and water is usually the standard for survival games ... this is the first time I've seen such a strange approach implemented in A13. And seen nowhere else.

3) This directly affects the stamina, and not the other state. To stamina more suited level of water. If was would so - i still would understood.

4) Yes .... but, in reality, it makes people who are diligent in this regard, constantly climb into the inventory to open the page of the character and find out exactly his statuses. I agree that for careless people it is not important. (translator! no offense)

About the UI.

for A16 has exactly the same interface as any alpha after A12. I hate this design since A13.

Although i must admit, the possibilities of modding this GUI cover all its shortcomings

There's no need to check the stats for food.

If you see, the stamina bar and the food bar shows the same number. Even for water, there are no stamina regen penalties until the teardrop icon appears on the UI, so the game shows you when it's time to drink.

I think the Integrated Survival System is quite perfect for this fewer UI bars approach. What TFP did is pretty innovative, we should keep this innovation for the game. After all, aren't some of the veterans here complaining that 7DTD is becoming too similar to other games?

 

[Axebeard]

After all, aren't some of the veterans here complaining that 7DTD is becoming too similar to other games?

Yes, and I think it's the differences that set it apart from the rest. They've already got a solid base unlike any other survival-type games, so I figure there's really not much they could to ruin it at this point lol. Even if they tried to go full looter-shooter and ape Borderlands, there's still enough good original stuff in 7d2d that other games aren't doing that will keep 7d2d standing out from the crowd.

 

[Seraphimus]

Personally, I'm not much enjoying the new version. I'm on day 9 of this new version and have had food poisoning 5 times now; I'm not eating anything strange and I've been cooking stuff. I find it ridiculous that I'm constantly starving. I'm about to give up on alpha 18 as a wash and move on from the game till the next version. Which is sad, because I think they've made some changes that are great and they're getting the graphics looking really good. But, spending all my time looking for food, when they spawned me in the middle of BFE with only two or three small POIs nearby and zero animals, is BS (random world). The food/stamina system is really broken. I've always enjoyed 7dtd up till now, even when it was tough, but now...

keep your eyes open for vitamins too. if you eat one before hand you will never get food poisoning or dysentery while it's in effect. Fortitude also has a skill that reduces food poison chance to 0 for most foods if you level it. and that's honestly just really bad luck Never seen food poisoning that many times in a short period.

- - - Updated - - -

Two Quality of Life requests/suggestions.
1. Allow option to turn off start screen music. I frequently want to queue up 7DTD before playing it, or want to take a break, etc. Unfortunately, the start screen music prevents me from doing other things that use sound so I have to completely exit the application. I would much rather leave it running in the background for quicker launch.

2. Start the game in paused mode (similar to what happens when I hit escape) thus allowing me to actually begin playing when I am ready. This would allow me to do other things while waiting for the game to load. Given the long time to create and load the environment in recent iterations this feature would be really handy, especially if combined with feature request #1.

In the sound options menu there is a slider specifically for menu music, you can set it to 0 to turn it off

 

[n2n1]

There is much more under the hood than you think buddy. Much more. Don`t speculate, game goes on.

Yes, of course, i understand... But, until you voice it - it's just empty words with a clever look...

I would listen even to your guesses

.... I always take a stack of tea with me and when the thirst indicator comes up (which is also the time when I would get detrimental effects from thirst) I drink. At that time the numerical display shows me exactly how many bottles of tea I can drink before wasting water.
I sometimes also drink something before going out of the base. Again, I can just drink one tea or bottled water and see exactly if I can drink another or would be wasting water.

Food can be handled somewhat similar, I don't even take food with me but fill myself up during the night/at the base.....

That's it! ...difficult...

Yeah, but i'd just like to take a look at the food strip...

There's no need to check the stats for food.////

If you see, the stamina bar and the food bar shows the same number. Even for water, there are no stamina regen penalties until the teardrop icon appears on the UI, so the game shows you when it's time to drink.

....

Do you know how many people install such UI? It can not be that they all do not understand that there are gray stripes and some numbers that are equal...

No no, friend - you don't understand, you don't need to explain it to me. I'm pretty good at the technical side. I can't understand why they did it.

Very strange, but all that you say about the convenience of this - it seems completely different works for me and not only for me (this is confirmed in many other games).

..... After all, aren't some of the veterans here complaining that 7DTD is becoming too similar to other games?

noo...of course we complain about something else ...come on...

that's not what we mean.

Modern 7dtd is good only in comparison with itself, but not in isolation from the earlier versions. You can not understand this if you are familiar with this game later A12

 

[casperinmd]

Personally, I'm not much enjoying the new version. I'm on day 9 of this new version and have had food poisoning 5 times now; I'm not eating anything strange and I've been cooking stuff. I find it ridiculous that I'm constantly starving. I'm about to give up on alpha 18 as a wash and move on from the game till the next version. Which is sad, because I think they've made some changes that are great and they're getting the graphics looking really good. But, spending all my time looking for food, when they spawned me in the middle of BFE with only two or three small POIs nearby and zero animals, is BS (random world). The food/stamina system is really broken. I've always enjoyed 7dtd up till now, even when it was tough, but now...

Me and my 3 man crew struggled hard too, but survival is teh name of the game. We eventually over came that hurdle, but for up to day 20ish I think, it was always looting to eat, not just looting for gear and books.

Stick to it, I too think that a18 is a great step forward. The farming tree is still very important IMO, but lucky I had someone do taht tree and freed me up to do my own skill tree. If solo, I'd still start with farming then move to other trees.

 

[rdunham3]

Me and my 3 man crew struggled hard too, but survival is teh name of the game. We eventually over came that hurdle, but for up to day 20ish I think, it was always looting to eat, not just looting for gear and books.
Stick to it, I too think that a18 is a great step forward. The farming tree is still very important IMO, but lucky I had someone do taht tree and freed me up to do my own skill tree. If solo, I'd still start with farming then move to other trees.

I've been putting my early points in Str for clubs (for stun/knockback) and better tools early on, and then 1 Int and bike making not long after because that's such a QoL boost. Farming, meh, I can find enough PoI plots if I make a point of looking that I can plant every seed I find easily enough. By the time I'm ready to harvest and cook my own grub I've got the points to make harvesting plants worth doing and I'll spend several at once.

After that it depends on what I want to do or what RNG has offered in the way of weapons, but I'm leaning toward a club, shotgun and later AK/M60 fighting skill set. Covers melee, short range and distance in two attributes I'd be putting points in for non-combat reasons anyway. Early game I usually keep the first pistol I find for birds and dogs and that would eventually be swapped for the AK.