PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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DanLW said:
Initial thoughts on Trader music, and A19 music in general (I know, a little late to the party)

While I like having new music, the style doesn't feel right.  Mainly the electric guitar sound used in a lot of the clips.  I think the reason I feel this way is because somewhere in my brain, it isn't making sense that electric instruments would be common in the apocalypse.

My feedback (for A20) is to try some iterations using a fully acoustic set.  Traditional guitars, cigar box guitars, banjoes, harmonicas, pianos, flutes/whistles stuff like that.  A severely de-tuned honky-tonk piano would be great to use in suspense music.  Basically, instruments that would be common in a bluegrass/country setting.  Not a country style of music, but those kinds of instruments with a modern post-apocalyptic flair.  Kinda like how people are playing modern heavy metal music using only orchestral instruments.  Do modern post-apocalyptic music, but try doing it with a strictly acoustic set of instruments that one might imagine they could craft in the apocalypse.  Maybe even keep the electric guitar, but record it without an amplifier - put a mic by it and record the sound of the strings without plugging the guitar into anything.

In A18, the music did work for me...  With A19, some (but not all) of the music just feels out of place.
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You've pretty much just described "Hayseed Dixie's" entire act.




 


 
DanLW said:
Initial thoughts on Trader music, and A19 music in general (I know, a little late to the party)

While I like having new music, the style doesn't feel right.  Mainly the electric guitar sound used in a lot of the clips.  I think the reason I feel this way is because somewhere in my brain, it isn't making sense that electric instruments would be common in the apocalypse.

My feedback (for A20) is to try some iterations using a fully acoustic set.  Traditional guitars, cigar box guitars, banjoes, harmonicas, pianos, flutes/whistles stuff like that.  A severely de-tuned honky-tonk piano would be great to use in suspense music.  Basically, instruments that would be common in a bluegrass/country setting.  Not a country style of music, but those kinds of instruments with a modern post-apocalyptic flair.  Kinda like how people are playing modern heavy metal music using only orchestral instruments.  Do modern post-apocalyptic music, but try doing it with a strictly acoustic set of instruments that one might imagine they could craft in the apocalypse.  Maybe even keep the electric guitar, but record it without an amplifier - put a mic by it and record the sound of the strings without plugging the guitar into anything.

In A18, the music did work for me...  With A19, some (but not all) of the music just feels out of place.
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the Guitar only plays at trader joels. not when you're roaming around!

personally i love it, Granted i kinda wish that you could turn off Combat music and keep the dynamic music but that sounds a bit much!

i hope soon they will add more! one i would LOVE to hear is something like what you hear in the wasteland! the Banjo or whatever it is! that always gives me a tingling and one of the reasons i love the wasteland!

And maybe some night music that sounds a bit. "scary" hearing screams of zombies, Wild animals, bugs, and other scary stuff!

 
Would raising the loot percentage setting also lower the gamestage required to start finding certain items, or would it simply affect the quantity of it?

 
madmole said:
They [traders] spawn in cities now, so its easier to ensure 1 per biome.
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This is an interesting change. I might read a bit too much into it but is it simply for convenience regarding technical issues, or is this part of a bigger plan of moving the mid game towards cities ? I'm really hyped, as many are, for the new and slower early game; but while I haven't yet played A19 I can only assume the most optimal way to play will still be to set up shop between a trader and the closest big city. As such, this seems to be a pretty substantial life changer early game and I wonder if you have plans to make cities more dangerous to compensate.

Also, pretty happy about the way food/water works now, I remember we had a discussion about that in A18 and i'm glad this is becoming way more... "logical", especially for newer players.

 
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2 minutes ago, DanLW said:

Apparently, nighttime in A1 was like that.  I think something like the A1 night sounds would be good, albeit dialed back quite a bit... unless in the wasteland!

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thats sounds cool but yeah i agree. needs to be toned down! i never played A1 but i liked SOME of the zombies and i though 1 like the nude walker would be nice as a "generic" zombie for 7DTD now!

but back to the sound. i don't think stuff like the baby and the music box should be in. more natural stuff

stuff like!

Twigs breaking, shuffling of bushes and Trees, Wind (gets stronger in wasteland and Snow), Owls, yells of a zombies (they sound far though), Crickets, yells! Animals sounds like Coyotes screaming, wolf howls, The Sounds of the zombie dogs, spider and maybe feral wight!, Unidentified sounds of bugs and animals, footsteps. 

And MAYBE! some odd stuff like a screamer crying, Growls, moans, Whisperers and sounds of small animals moving around!.

 
DanLW said:
Initial thoughts on Trader music, and A19 music in general (I know, a little late to the party)

While I like having new music, the style doesn't feel right.  Mainly the electric guitar sound used in a lot of the clips.  I think the reason I feel this way is because somewhere in my brain, it isn't making sense that electric instruments would be common in the apocalypse.

My feedback (for A20) is to try some iterations using a fully acoustic set.  Traditional guitars, cigar box guitars, banjoes, harmonicas, pianos, flutes/whistles stuff like that.  A severely de-tuned honky-tonk piano would be great to use in suspense music.  Basically, instruments that would be common in a bluegrass/country setting.  Not a country style of music, but those kinds of instruments with a modern post-apocalyptic flair.  Kinda like how people are playing modern heavy metal music using only orchestral instruments.  Do modern post-apocalyptic music, but try doing it with a strictly acoustic set of instruments that one might imagine they could craft in the apocalypse.  Maybe even keep the electric guitar, but record it without an amplifier - put a mic by it and record the sound of the strings without plugging the guitar into anything.

In A18, the music did work for me...  With A19, some (but not all) of the music just feels out of place.
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Why would there by any music. Except at trade, or why in middle of nowhere. To me this is whats going thru your head at certain times.

 
Aldranon said:
It seems to work better on a flat open area from what I saw.
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It seems to have one  block range based on that video, and only on the block directly in front of it. Which would explain why it struggles so hard to even hit anything, even in that video it was going nuts trying to deal with a single slow moving basic zombie even while the player was keeping the turret between themselves and the zombie.

It worked though at least! In all the real world uses it seems to get about 1-2 hits max before the zombies out of it's field of view, and if the zombie is running it doesn't even get that off. I think the issue is a mix of it's super short range + tracking + extremely low stagger

meganoth said:
So we are talking about him having (very very roughly) 14+20=34 damage if he were using sledge plus wooden club. Which is supposed to be what an INTelligent player should be doing.
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The range is so short on it that you can't really use it like that. It only hits the block directly in front of it, so if you are standing in that block directly in front of it, it can't even hit the enemies. You can try and stand to the side of it and kite a zombie into it's attack range but it's only viable against a lone zed that doesn't run. Overall turns into one of those "Why not just one shot the zombie with a stone sledge?" situations where you spend 45 seconds dancing around trying to make your turret actually do something and lose 80% of your health bar in the process, when you could have just attacked with a real melee weapon and dispatched the threat

Aldranon said:
So, if you put a sledge turret on a flat, open area and use the turret like a block for cover. 

Then move around the turret as the zombie moves around it, will the zombie eventually jump on top of it, or will that be a new OP meta?

Edit: Also putting the sledge turret on the opposite side of a door and off to one side, will that be OP?  Just repair the door as the turret kills all zombies on the other side.
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If you use it as cover the zombie will just path around it. They probably won't bother jumping on top of it, and if they did, it wouldn't be able to hit them judging by it's cone of fire. As for the door strategy, it does 14 damage. The stronger zombies have 250-500+ health. That means it would take 35 attacks for it to kill a single 500 hp Wight, which is at least 10-15 seconds of it firing nonstop judging by the attack speeds I've seen on it. You can maybe lower that with mods but you get the point

So against a horde of 5-15 zombies trying to get into your base, absolutely definitely not OP to put it outside your door lol. A single pipe bomb would do more damage to a cluster of enemies than the junk sledge could output in like 2 minutes of firing

My un-asked for advice on the Junk Sledge based on what little testing I've seen as most people aren't even willing to try it so I don't have any real hard numbers besides attack damage -

  • Needs at least 180 degree cone of fire so it can hit the blocks in front of it, and a full 360 swivel would make it far more useful
  • Needs to scale off Int and the Junk skill, because ATM a level 1 player using one is the exact same as a max int max junk skill build using it
  • Needs more damage and attack speed and knockback etc. Which could directly come from perk investment so it starts off bad but eventually becomes an endgame viable melee weapon
  • Shouldn't count against turret limit. It has a single block range, even if you had two of them out front attacking while your main turrets provided long range support, and you fired on from the backline too or were out in front in melee  with a third Junk Sledge being held in hand, that's still directly competing against builds using a fully spec'd Auto Shotgun or M60 which will mow down an entire horde in seconds and not have to deal with janky mechanics like trying to bait the zeds into a certain spot so the turrets can even attack

 
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I’m wondering if you put a block in a doorway, place junk sledge on the block. Then you could use your club while the sledge does its thing for zombies trying to come through the door. If you get a group of zombies, that setup just might be ideal. It’s going to be fun trying to discover the best ways to use it.

 
Star69 said:
I’m wondering if you put a block in a doorway, place junk sledge on the block. Then you could use your club while the sledge does its thing for zombies trying to come through the door. If you get a group of zombies, that setup just might be ideal. It’s going to be fun trying to discover the best ways to use it.
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Glock already tried that and it's not very effective sadly.

 
Star69 said:
I’m wondering if you put a block in a doorway, place junk sledge on the block. Then you could use your club while the sledge does its thing for zombies trying to come through the door.
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Zombies treat turrets like an impassible block as best I can tell. They path around them. So if  you put your junk turret directly in front of / behind your door, the zombies will just tear out the wall instead because they will consider the door inaccessible.

Now, that raises the question of what would happen if you built your entire base out of junk turrets or lined the walls with a row of junk turrets, but they'd probably find the support holding the whole thing up or dig down or something

 
The combat music gets old relatively quickly. Our brain doesn't process the tiny details of variance in it and instead sticks with the sci fi techno electro tune that rules that particular track,  eventually resulting in annoyance. The same happens with ambient music, but that doesn't stress the player and I found myself longing for it even at 80% .

My point being : 7 days to die needs more battle tracks with different lead tunes. Also, 1 ambient track per biome mixed with the actual tracks would be awesome too. Tracks for city, country side and so on wouldn't hurt either.

Edit: And a couple of beers and a pimp hat if you don't mind.

 
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Blake_ said:
The combat music gets old relatively quickly. Our brain doesn't process the tiny details of variance in it and instead sticks with the sci fi techno electro tune that rules that particular track,  eventually resulting in annoyance. The same happens with ambient music, but that doesn't stress the player and I found myself longing for it even at 80% .

My point being : 7 days to die needs more battle tracks with different lead tunes. Also, 1 ambient track per biome mixed with the actual tracks would be awesome too. Tracks for city, country side and so on wouldn't hurt either.

Edit: And a couple of beers and a pimp hat if you don't mind.
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I'm probably just going to turn off music when raiding POI's (I'm listening for the zombies anyway) and during horde nights, when the combat music will be playing the most. I enjoy the rest of the music however.

 
Blake_ said:
The combat music gets old relatively quickly. Our brain doesn't process the tiny details of variance in it and instead sticks with the sci fi techno electro tune that rules that particular track,  eventually resulting in annoyance. The same happens with ambient music, but that doesn't stress the player and I found myself longing for it even at 80% .

My point being : 7 days to die needs more battle tracks with different lead tunes. Also, 1 ambient track per biome mixed with the actual tracks would be awesome too. Tracks for city, country side and so on wouldn't hurt either.

Edit: And a couple of beers and a pimp hat if you don't mind.
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or a Combat music setting!

ON OR OFF

you want to have music for the background but don't want Combat music? Sure

Want No background music but want combat music? Sure!

WANT NO MUSIC? SURE!!!!!

but maybe that will be a thing for A.19.1 2 or 6

 
bloodmoth13 said:
are there 3 tiers of stun batons now? or is it still the only melee weapon with no t3 option?
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Nope, 1 tier only which is why I don't like the "Junk Sledge is only a T1!!!" defense. Stun Baton and Junk Sledge are basically outside the tier types as they are only melee weapons Int even has and both fill unrelated niches from the other weapons in the tree and from each other.

I think a lot of confusion comes even on the dev side from the different terminology and  fact that there aren't three tiers, there are four, but a lot of weapons are missing their 4th tier.

So some are saying "Junk Sledge is only a Stone Sledge" when it's not, it's a Iron Sledge equivalent and doesn't spawn until Iron Sledges and iron weapons do. So it's being balanced against Tier 0 weapons like the Wooden Club and Stone Sledge when it's not a tier 0 weapon

 
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I've always been pretty critical of this game and haven't played since A17. I finally gave A18 a whirl, and damn, what an improvement. It really brings back the feeling of being able to play the way you want to play, but also balances it with some firm but fair level gating. I don't know what's in store for A19, but I'm pretty optimistic after seeing the massive improvement A18 brought. I never thought this game would come as far as it has, but this is pretty amazing. Much respect to the devs for sticking with this project for so long. I think I can see myself as one of those fanboys now. At this point I would be happy if 7D never left alpha and continued improving until I'm dead. Thank you!

 
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