PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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I love dinosaurs in a survival setting. I hate grinding when it serves little purpose vs the time and effort used . And I hate dingdong swinging to show off who has the better dingdong and the lack of REAL and meaningful experiences. I enjoy the landscapes of Ark, the few quasiadventures it has to offer and some interesting emergent gameplay spiced with cool graphics here and there. That should be 30 hours of gameplay by my standards and NEVER stop it /delay it with repetitive grind. So overall I don't like Ark as much as I love 7dtd just RIGHT NOW in its current nonbandit state. The one thing it overwhelms me but I find an adquired taste about Ark is the gameplay starting options though. Just like ATLAS (Pirate world with Ark graphics/dev touch).
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I'm surprised your potato can even run Ark unless maybe you have a console?

 
Hello Fun Pimps, I ask you this every year. Will the helicopter be available on A19 or A20? :courage:

<entity_class name="vehicleHelicopter">

 
To me, gaming is like going to the gym (for the majority of people); if someone goes to the gym to work out for several days for the first time in their life and then they take a several week break, it's unlikely they'll return, at least anytime soon afterward. Typically I can only play one save at a time (and often just one game at a time), otherwise I split my time between them and end up not putting as much dedication as I'd like to in between them, and this often leads to me abandoning worlds eventually. *Shrugs* Just the way I am, I guess. In other words, I hyperfocus.

Now concerning Ark, I've been wanting to play it for a while. I don't know if it's just not for me, or if I'm not in the mood to engage with it at this moment. If I get around to it again, cool. :) I got at least 30 hours into it a few months ago. But if not, well, it'll probably just gather dust until further notice. I take back the word "regret" though and replace it with "not cheap". Haha

Then again, I wasn't interested in The Forest at first and now I'm addicted; nearly 400 hours put into it in under three months. Maybe Ark will be next in line. *Shrugs*
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I haven't tried the forest yet, but most the guys play Ark and said the forest is a real short experience with no replay value.

Ark solo sucks. You need a few mods, the right game settings, and you need a dedi to play on, then it can be a blast. It's nearly impossible solo to beat a boss and get the end game gear. This way crops grow/dinos level when your offline and poo happens when you are offline, it feels more alive that way to me. You can see what your friends have built, etc. I don't know why but in 7 days I don't like playing with friends, maybe because there is no secrets to me and I don't like sharing the world so much, but in Ark it doesn't matter everything respawns constantly. Its more about taming that perfect high level dino for bragging rights, or teaming up to smash a cave (that is hard AF).

 
MMHow come we cant break down solar panels out in the world...why can we only get them from traders? Can you make it that you can find them out in the world as a rare find??

Coughs * Airport POI * Coughs
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I didn't design them. The general idea is to gate them heavily because they are kind of expensive on the cpu, and create some kind of end game money sink.

 
Hi MM,

I agree with both you and Snow. The reoccuring hordes is what makes 7d2d shine. That and the quest system, limited skill selection and the voxels just pulls everything together. My brother and a few of our friends stopped playing 7days right before the quest system was brought in and they recently came back in A18 and are enjoying the game so much more. (recently defended against multiple demo horde night successfully on a 400+ game stage / adventurer difficulty)

The only thing left is to finish off the remaining features and then add in some mod tools so the community can continue creating new worlds, POIs, quests and the game will continue to chug along ... at least until the next DLC (if you guys plan on it) ...

What probably would keep some going even longer if there was some type of built in iron man mode or stat tracker so you can keep playing to beat previously set records. Not sure how you guys would go about that given the plethora of game settings people can change at any given point though...

...For example, it doesnt say much to say you beat a horde night on Day 5000 on insane difficulty when you played up Day 4999 on easy difficulty on 120 minute days lol...
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We have recently been integrating gamesparks to the PC version so we can collect loads of data for balancing efforts and I was discussing how we could give some of that data back to the player or set up new achievements regarding it, have an online leader board etc. Lots of potential there. We could even distribute some of it to the load screens, we have load screen help tips now to get new players off the ground, and teach some later game tricks as well, so that same space could offer some stats too. "5,488,444 stags killed", etc.

 
Random world gen has been a placeholder since A17 really. They had a decent system in A16 and before, then rushed in the new system in 17 and again an alteration to it in 18. Would likely been better if they had just focused one alpha completely on it to get it ready and leave the working system in place. A well, at least we can make our own worlds more easily with this system like Damocles said.
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No, those were placeholders, the one that shipped in 18 is the closest to gold version we've ever had. The old system ate CPU like crazy and was completely different rendering system than static maps were, making a lot of headaches for everyone. At a high level all we want to add now is an improved placement system so that no duplicates spawn and all pois are pushed in and not skipped over, and some bug fixes.

 
No, those were placeholders, the one that shipped in 18 is the closest to gold version we've ever had. The old system ate CPU like crazy and was completely different rendering system than static maps were, making a lot of headaches for everyone. At a high level all we want to add now is an improved placement system so that no duplicates spawn and all pois are pushed in and not skipped over, and some bug fixes.
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Well the current version is also quite intensive to actually get a world out, but yeah once you have a world it runs smoother than before, at the cost of not being as interesting.

Ever considered separating the world generation completely from the game/engine? Considering what NitroGen can generate worlds faster and with more options when not being bound to the Unity game engine, I am sure you guys could come with a proper world gen and building tool as well. In the A16 and before versions it made total sense to have it in the game engine, since it only made a preview for us, but now that it actually creates the world, and is quite slow at it for the bigger sizes, it does not make sense to have it be dragged down by the game engine anymore.

 
I haven't tried the forest yet, but most the guys play Ark and said the forest is a real short experience with no replay value.

Ark solo sucks. You need a few mods, the right game settings, and you need a dedi to play on, then it can be a blast. It's nearly impossible solo to beat a boss and get the end game gear. This way crops grow/dinos level when your offline and ♥♥♥♥ happens when you are offline, it feels more alive that way to me. You can see what your friends have built, etc. I don't know why but in 7 days I don't like playing with friends, maybe because there is no secrets to me and I don't like sharing the world so much, but in Ark it doesn't matter everything respawns constantly. Its more about taming that perfect high level dino for bragging rights, or teaming up to smash a cave (that is hard AF).
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Yes this is pretty much it with The Forrest. I liked it a lot, but once you're done with following the main quest there really isn't much at all to do. I tried setting up a dedi and playing around with that, but you just get new people doing the same thing and then leaving.

The only thing I think Ark is really missing is an initial purpose other than survival. You start out and you really have no goals other than not starving to death and building shelter. It's missing that constantly impeding danger that 7 Days brings with the horde. As you stated though, it is only a couple of mods and setting changes away from being a boring grind, to a really interesting game.

 
Added an increased loot feature today that I've been wanting to make fighting through blood moons more worthwhile:

Added blood moon zombies have an increased loot drop rate after every x have spawned (controlled by lootBonusEvery, lootBonusMaxCount, lootBonusScale in gamestages.xml).

 
Hello Fun Pimps, I ask you this every year. Will the helicopter be available on A19 or A20? :courage:
<entity_class name="vehicleHelicopter">
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Its looking like the big vehicle update will be a20.

 
I haven't tried the forest yet, but most the guys play Ark and said the forest is a real short experience with no replay value.

Ark solo sucks. You need a few mods, the right game settings, and you need a dedi to play on, then it can be a blast. It's nearly impossible solo to beat a boss and get the end game gear. This way crops grow/dinos level when your offline and ♥♥♥♥ happens when you are offline, it feels more alive that way to me. You can see what your friends have built, etc. I don't know why but in 7 days I don't like playing with friends, maybe because there is no secrets to me and I don't like sharing the world so much, but in Ark it doesn't matter everything respawns constantly. Its more about taming that perfect high level dino for bragging rights, or teaming up to smash a cave (that is hard AF).
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Will Legendary Weapons hopefully give the same "bragging rights" feel for 7d2d? I hope so. :)

 
Well the current version is also quite intensive to actually get a world out, but yeah once you have a world it runs smoother than before, at the cost of not being as interesting.

Ever considered separating the world generation completely from the game/engine? Considering what NitroGen can generate worlds faster and with more options when not being bound to the Unity game engine, I am sure you guys could come with a proper world gen and building tool as well. In the A16 and before versions it made total sense to have it in the game engine, since it only made a preview for us, but now that it actually creates the world, and is quite slow at it for the bigger sizes, it does not make sense to have it be dragged down by the game engine anymore.
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We have a proper world building tool already. I don't really get this vibe that RWG is not in a good spot right now.

 
We have recently been integrating gamesparks to the PC version so we can collect loads of data for balancing efforts and I was discussing how we could give some of that data back to the player or set up new achievements regarding it, have an online leader board etc. Lots of potential there. We could even distribute some of it to the load screens, we have load screen help tips now to get new players off the ground, and teach some later game tricks as well, so that same space could offer some stats too. "5,488,444 stags killed", etc.
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That would be f'ing awesome. I love stats. Any implementation of that would probably have me doing more playthroughs, especially if there is some type of leaderboard. Steam achievements are nice but not as competitive IMO...

 
MM, can you explain a little more about the super filling foods? I see that there is 0% food poisoning, but does it just give many food points or does it slow down the rate of loss food during activity? I hope I’m saying this right.

 
Added an increased loot feature today that I've been wanting to make fighting through blood moons more worthwhile:
Added blood moon zombies have an increased loot drop rate after every x have spawned (controlled by lootBonusEvery, lootBonusMaxCount, lootBonusScale in gamestages.xml).
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This sounds promising! Does this mean higher quality of loot drops or just more lootbags?

 
I'm surprised your potato can even run Ark unless maybe you have a console?
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I can run it just ok in lower res. I usually play it on 720p to be able to not put it all on low. For screenshots though, I use full res and highest resulting in 5-10 fps lol.

Also, the hickups are not as bad as 7 days in lowest 1080p but I prefer solid 30fps in 720. Might be due to the voxel nature and it (7days) not being the best it can be yet.

Ark doesn't look like trash on lowest. Just.... a little bit lacking on the normal maps haha.

 
This sounds promising! Does this mean higher quality of loot drops or just more lootbags?
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Just more loot bags. The quality would be determined by what the zombie would normally drop.

 
I can run it just ok in lower res. I usually play it on 720p to be able to not put it all on low. For screenshots though, I use full res and highest resulting in 5-10 fps lol.

Also, the hickups are not as bad as 7 days in lowest 1080p but I prefer solid 30fps in 720. Might be due to the voxel nature and it (7days) not being the best it can be yet.

Ark doesn't look like trash on lowest. Just.... a little bit lacking on the normal maps haha.
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To be fair, Ark isn't really a Voxel game either.

 
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