PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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@Madmole

Welcome back and Happy New Year.

Can someone look at xp sharing for groups? Currently only the person who places traps gets horde night xp from them. I don't think even group shared xp goes to other group members.

Ideally, since the group is working together to gather resources for traps, I would think the xp would be evenly split between them. (Or possibly weighted in favor towards the trap placer.)

But on later gamestage horde nights, the xp is really valuable to level up.

(Maybe this would be another good game setting option?)

(I'm usually the horde base designer, but it benefits the group to all level up consistently, and seems unfair to my group members who collected or bought resources used for the traps I made.)

 
They rather remind me of the "chems" from the Fallout.
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Fallout has a lot of inspiration for 7dtd, it also helps that Joel's a big fan of Fallout and Skyrim. I think he's made mods for it in the past too... Not sure on that last statement though.
 
Fallout has a lot of inspiration for 7dtd, it also helps that Joel's a big fan of Fallout and Skyrim. I think he's made mods for it in the past too... Not sure on that last statement though.
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Cant wait till we have a deathclaw like animal then

 
Hi...
I was just wondering why when upgrading frames to wood blocks, then to reinforced wood blocks, they then go to cobblestone???

How come they do not go to reinforced wood with the steel bars then the cobblestone? We are missing a step in the upgrading I sure hope you do fix this

Thanks You , Game is Awesome I've only got aroung 13,200 or so hours in the game lol

SeabeeMan....
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Having that extra granularity took away from wood being useful because it had too many stages JUST to get to basic cobblestone. It was busy work upgrading for little to no value. Might as well just build with cobblestone to start with tbh.

 
Hot bandits? New mutated things (is it a zombie or what?) for late game stages instead of simple green glowing reskins. I'm kind of thinking the radiated are not even zombies, but humans that survived and mutated. Their flesh is so disgusting even a zombie won't eat it so they walk among the dead. Perhaps they are no longer human, noone knows but they seem to be more intelligent as they wield crude melee weapons and are very hard to kill.
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after i few ideas i had for this and drawings i came to a few ideas for this.

1: they could be a faction (named ideas like The Scar, Reavers and other names). they form groups around the most desolate areas AKA the wasteland, and they live in groups like bandits While they do mostly uses melee weapons, some uses Bows , crossbows and simple guns (No M60s or Junkers) and sense they can live among the dead, they have been known to Put crude Armored and weapons like Wrist Blades and Gauntlets on Zombies to help Kill people.

2: Classes. Unlike bandits (or maybe idk) the Scar have special classes in there ranks that makes there line a bit more different.

(Prowler: base ones that Uses melee weapons like Clubs, Bone shives and spears)

(revenant: These guys are armed with light armor and uses Old makeshift weapons like picks , axes , clubs , hammers , knives and other melee weapons. but can uses Primitive bows , Wooden bows and crossbows. and Super rarely Pistol)

(Wairths: The last and most deadly, they have a fast healing speed, they can be armed with Tier 1 guns, and up to tier 3 tools or melee weapons too try to beat your head in, they can have tier 2 armor and they have more HP.

3: Look. could ether have a Very Dark Green skin with Cracks around them showing Bright Green glow, have a Look similar to a feral wight but more Human looking and also have those cracks. (this one i had the most problems coming up with)

just a thought

 
Having that extra granularity took away from wood being useful because it had too many stages JUST to get to basic cobblestone. It was busy work upgrading for little to no value. Might as well just build with cobblestone to start with tbh.
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maybe something like this

say you Have a Wooden frame and you want to reinforce it to steel and you do. with all those resources that you put into reinforcing that, you get a bonse Hp on that wall so it could stand longer.

i would ask to bring back scrap but it does kinda make sense to uses rock more IMO (plus i got paint if i want to do that lol)

 
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@MM
just a quick thought:

If you introduce candies, I would really appreciate them having a longer effectiveness.

I have never used anything that has boosted combat values if it was <3min.

It feels like I'm wasting it. If I can see the Z's, its too late to take them, if I don't see them then it probably runs out before i can fight them.

5-10 minute duration should be the minimum you aim for.

Seriously. If I don't have statboosters in the quickbar, it nearly takes as long going into the inventory, looking for it, clicking it pressing W to use and waiting for the animation as the effect duration. Especially with how much medical stuff costs.

So maybe make candies 2-5 minute quickboosters, but make them cheap (like 150 each), while medical stuff like fortbites are expensive to buy or make but last a whole hordenight.

So candies are for pois or the last bossroom, while medical stuff is for stuff like hordenights or T5 towers
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I have recognized what you are talking about, but we'll start at 2 minute and see how it goes. The longer the duration the more useless we have to make the buffs, or more expensive, etc. Depends if we want a massive powerup for a bit, or just a mild boost for a long time. That is more of what I'm planning for foods, candy will be fairly short but meaty drug boosts.

 
The candy reminds me of the books from A17 that added temporarily buffs. Cant say I'm a fan of it. But, I understand the need for thinning out canned foods at vending machines.
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We can still do a hard boost on the ones that work like a perk, but have to be careful about % being too good and using a rank limits it without any brain work or new balance issues.

 
@MadmoleWelcome back and Happy New Year.

Can someone look at xp sharing for groups? Currently only the person who places traps gets horde night xp from them. I don't think even group shared xp goes to other group members.

Ideally, since the group is working together to gather resources for traps, I would think the xp would be evenly split between them. (Or possibly weighted in favor towards the trap placer.)

But on later gamestage horde nights, the xp is really valuable to level up.

(Maybe this would be another good game setting option?)

(I'm usually the horde base designer, but it benefits the group to all level up consistently, and seems unfair to my group members who collected or bought resources used for the traps I made.)
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I think we talked about sharing trap xp.

 
Fallout has a lot of inspiration for 7dtd, it also helps that Joel's a big fan of Fallout and Skyrim. I think he's made mods for it in the past too... Not sure on that last statement though.
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I'm a big fan of power ups. We had health and stamina to manipulate prior to A17, now we can do a lot more so its been something I've wanted to do for a long time that is pretty easy to do. I don't want to clutter loot so they will only be in vending machines so its a choice to use them.

 
The man, the myth, the legend, ladies and gents Madmole is back! I hope you had a great holiday MM.
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he's back from destroying Billions of zombies with a rock.

Defeating duke and his men in a Arm wrestling Match.

Killing a zombie bear with his "BARE" hands.

Buying out Trader Joel's

Making a quarry with just his fist

Eating said bear.

Using a feral Wight as a weight

making A Gatling Junk turret that able to fire 100 scrap shots Per sec.

making the first Robot with some grass and a light

Beating a Lumberjack to death with a snowball

Using a zombie vulture as a hang glider

Rebuilding Distong tower with Dirt

Adding the Tactical Assault Rifle (thx BTW)

Ripping a Demolishers C4 off and throwing it like a Frag grenade

and he rid a Bear that had steel armor with two M60s mounted on it.

 
he's back from destroying Billions of zombies with a rock.Defeating duke and his men in a Arm wrestling Match.

Killing a zombie bear with his "BARE" hands.

Buying out Trader Joel's

Making a quarry with just his fist

Eating said bear.

Using a feral Wight as a weight

making A Gatling Junk turret that able to fire 100 scrap shots Per sec.

making the first Robot with some grass and a light

Beating a Lumberjack to death with a snowball

Using a zombie vulture as a hang glider

Rebuilding Distong tower with Dirt

Adding the Tactical Assault Rifle (thx BTW)

Ripping a Demolishers C4 off and throwing it like a Frag grenade

and he rid a Bear that had steel armor with two M60s mounted on it.
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And then.....MM walked in to his own spike traps dieing before freeing himself. :-P

all that ass kicking just to die by spikes....... in the end... sad... very very sad but it happens ha ha lol.

 
And then.....MM walked in to his own spike traps dieing before freeing himself. :-P
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no he Didn't feel it and he broke it

Then he died after coming back from the gave and destroyed all of the spikes with one Plant fiber

 
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Is that event system something that is coming g in A19 or later on.
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Down the road probably. We're putting in content like books, candy, top tier firearms, redoing old models (new wood and iron clubs on the way), zombie redo, etc. New traders, new vo.

 
I have recognized what you are talking about, but we'll start at 2 minute and see how it goes. The longer the duration the more useless we have to make the buffs, or more expensive, etc. Depends if we want a massive powerup for a bit, or just a mild boost for a long time. That is more of what I'm planning for foods, candy will be fairly short but meaty drug boosts.
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I know what you are saying. BUT and please give this a thought:

Lets say a zombie has 120HP. If you give us 10% extra damage on our 100 damage weapon, the boost was absolutely useless.

If he has 500hp on our 100 damage weapon, it is still absolutely useless.

In general a % boost on dmg is pretty useless if it is lower then 30%

I get that you don't want to make it overpowered. BUT you often say that it is not balanced for multiplayer, yet you fear overpowered things. Why can't you give the player +300% damage for 10 minutes? Sure increase the cost a little, but lets take the recog:

It costs insanely much to craft and those ressources are limited + you need to find the rare recipe or buy the perks

You lose water

You have sideeffects, so it is more or less useless for hordenight, since it punishes you.

It only lasts for seconds.

Why would I ever want that? I play on insane and i never ever EVER felt worth to drink it without these drawbacks.

Please try and OVERbuff medical buffs. Because they would be a great addition. For example fortbites make you invulnerable if you have full steelarmor. That is a great buff and the effect was what? 3-5 min without major drawbacks.

I'm not a balancer... but I think this should be close to what you want:

Candies:

2-4 min duration, static buffs (so they are more usefull early game), no drawbacks

Long term buffs (like good food):

30-60 minute, small static and small % buffs so they are always relevant and you always want to have them

Late game buffs (like recog and fort bites):

~10 minute buffs (enough for half to one hordenight), good % buff (200% dmg, 10% damage reduction, 10% faster fire/reload)

Small rant, feel free to ignore:

The game isn't hard once you really get into it, simply because the player has so many options. He can build spikes and electric fences to slow them, he can do terrain modification like trenches or pitfall base, he can make small corridors and so on. So once a player has figured out a way (until bandits arrive) to effectively fight Z's no amount of "challenge" will make this game hard for those players.

So if you make new mechanics (like buffs) useless because you want to keep it harder, all that ou do is take away the players enjoyment of that feature and he will treat it like its nonexistent.

Remember the deathpenalty?

Less staminareg, loss of food, slower movement, loss of stats... and ALL THAT for 60 minutes.

And that is only for dying once.

What I want to say is: You like to overpunish the player. But beeing punishing is not the same as beeing challenging.

Throwing more zombies at the player is not challenging. Punishing the player for eating good food isnt challenging. Coding a different A.I. for demolishers so that they wouldnt path like other Z's and actually try to blow up other parts of the base would be challenging. Because suddenly they blow up stilt bases from below. Suddenly they can jump over the 3m trench.

The demolisher is a good beginning (Even if he still needs work like propper weaknesses and not destroying every trap in one explosion) but you need to follow up on this. Then you can actually give players better buffs that actually feel worth it.
 
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