PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[STyK_]

Agility:

Handguns were already very strong in A18, and in A19 are even better with the buffs to the Magnum, and the Desert Vulture being an even better Magnum that basically fixes all of it's problems. In A18 this was just the Pistol/SMG tree but now the Desert Vulture is probably even stronger (seriously this gun is crazy and might be the best gun in the whole game; high DPS, resource efficient ammo, penetrates targets, accurate on hip fire and almost instant reloads). However Knives/Bows were pretty weak in A18. With the change to make them deal way more stealth damage, they might be a bit better, but both are still quite bad at straight up combat (but you do get explosive arrows/bolts at least, if you don't want to side spec Perception). So weapon wise, this tree is a mixed bag, with arguably the best gun skill but a very weak melee option and bows basically being a stealth/explosives only weapon.

In terms of side spec potential, this tree is a bit weak but not terrible, more detail below:

Run and Gun is sort of a weird perk in Agi, since the only Agi weapons that actually meaningfully benefit from this perk are Crossbows and the Magnum (the other weapons generally have fast reloads), but it's obviously a great pickup for someone who is specced into automatics for example. Situational, but useful, which seems about right to me.

Parkour is super fun, although it's mostly quality of life, so therefore a 'late game' perk.

Flurry of Blows would probably benefit from my idea to add a crit resist perk for melee. It's the type of perk that is just there for pure melee builds, but those need a bit more help ATM.

Light Armour suffers from not having many advantages over Heavy Armour and being way less protective*, but it's hard to say what should be done (if anything, obviously it's not like Light Armour is unusable, but it doesn't really feel competitive with Heavy Armour atm). The most obvious change would be to nerf the fittings mods(by 1% each probably, so from 2/3% to 1/2%). This would mean that while unmodded Heavy Armour would stay the same, modded/perked Heavy Armour would still have noticeable mobility penalties unlike currently (atm if you wear a set of Heavy Armour with Custom Fittings and Heavy Armour 4/4, you have 92% mobility, so barely any penalty), and it would make Light Armour look a lot better in comparison as modded/perked Light Armour would basically have no penalties to compensate for the lower protection. At the very least it would make Light vs Heavy more distinct gameplay wise as you would actually be slow in Heavy armour and fast in Light armour.

Another change that could be made would be to buff Light Armour crit protection to be the same as Heavy Armour, so that the difference was only in damage reduction.

To be fair however, half the issue is the urban combat magazine that makes armour not encumber you in combat. If that was removed, that might already help make Light Armour a lot more attractive.

*For reference, although it heavily varies with the specific stat roll, a full set of Light Armour with Banded Plating Mods gives you between about 60-65 armour, and a full set of Heavy Armour between about 75-80, which means you take about 60-75% more damage when wearing Light vs Heavy armour. So there is plenty of room to buff Light/nerf Heavy armour without making Heavy armour useless as it would still be WAY more protective.

Somewhat unrelated, and also something that is from back in A18, but currently the way armour perks and fittings stack, perked + modded Light Armour displays a mobility of above 100% on the character sheet (although this doesn't appear to actually increase your movement speed above 100% from my limited testing). Also when you wear the College Jacket, that doesn't show on the character sheet. Basically the display of your mobility/movement speed should probably be changed to be more accurate and take into account the jacket.

As for Stealth, well the core issue is it's obviously situational. I think the best solution would be to compress the ranks of the stealth perks down to 4, or even 3 each so that you don't need to invest as many points for the benefits. This would make stealth less of an investment, which would help fix the problem of it being situational.

Just want to comment on this part of your talk cause agility is my jam despite having to go jack of all trades to get anything done.

I noticed you made no comment about bleed, in the later difficulties when zeds are tanks in comparison or even when you have them moving faster like sprint or nightmare this perk is a necessity for this build and honestly I wouldn't even bother going into melee without it. This perk above all for this class is needed for insane nightmare right in the beginning.

Now because at least in higher difficulties and higher speeds you don't want to stand toe to toe with the zeds running and being able to jump on something and get away when corned is more then quality of life thing, it will save it. TFP poi's are death traps especially if your trying to not nerd poll.

Sneaking, the bow is just the beginning. If you max sneak and cross class with perception and get a sniper rifle with a silencer and have your brass situation under control you can be unstoppable clearing buildings, doesn't matter the diff and there are perk books that would make it even better(unless this was changed in the last patch). There also is the reasoning for run and gun combined with penetrator, kite a bunch of zeds you know the story. Could probably horde night like that.

You say sneak is situational but I use it for all but horde night. Three agility perks to pick in the beginning, bow, bleed, hidden strike. Use the bow to pull an unsuspecting victim with a hidden strike, if its sprint diff you mite get one more arrow in then wait for them to get close and when they do power attack with the bone knife to proc bleed and slow them then sprint away and start again with the bow or just keep widdling away with the knife. Take down whole hordes like that cause you can't take them on straight up, again in the higher difficulties. The only way this doesn't work is if they see you first and if you know what to listen for Zeds will never get the jump on you. With that play style once you get the machete its basically GG, only worry is zombie dogs, dire wolves and bears.

 

[MrsDevimon]

Hey everybody,

I'm playing 7DTD with my husband (started on xbox and last year bought Pcs to play the newer Alphas), and while he is killing and looting most of the time to bring us nice shiny things, I am the one harvesting, cultivating and building.

I wanted to suggest to add the feature to breed little animals, like bunnys and chickens. Would be a lot of fun. 

We are really excited heraing about that bandit/raider thing. We always said, that there should be some kind of AI using range weapons.

Thanks for that amazing game!

 

[Troxism]

Just want to comment on this part of your talk cause agility is my jam despite having to go jack of all trades to get anything done.

I noticed you made no comment about bleed, in the later difficulties when zeds are tanks in comparison or even when you have them moving faster like sprint or nightmare this perk is a necessity for this build and honestly I wouldn't even bother going into melee without it. This perk above all for this class is needed for insane nightmare right in the beginning.

Now because at least in higher difficulties and higher speeds you don't want to stand toe to toe with the zeds running and being able to jump on something and get away when corned is more then quality of life thing, it will save it. TFP poi's are death traps especially if your trying to not nerd poll.

Sneaking, the bow is just the beginning. If you max sneak and cross class with perception and get a sniper rifle with a silencer and have your brass situation under control you can be unstoppable clearing buildings, doesn't matter the diff and there are perk books that would make it even better(unless this was changed in the last patch). There also is the reasoning for run and gun combined with penetrator, kite a bunch of zeds you know the story. Could probably horde night like that.

You say sneak is situational but I use it for all but horde night. Three agility perks to pick in the beginning, bow, bleed, hidden strike. Use the bow to pull an unsuspecting victim with a hidden strike, if its sprint diff you mite get one more arrow in then wait for them to get close and when they do power attack with the bone knife to proc bleed and slow them then sprint away and start again with the bow or just keep widdling away with the knife. Take down whole hordes like that cause you can't take them on straight up, again in the higher difficulties. The only way this doesn't work is if they see you first and if you know what to listen for Zeds will never get the jump on you. With that play style once you get the machete its basically GG, only worry is zombie dogs, dire wolves and bears.

I do play on higher difficulties (Survivalist, sometimes Insane). I could see the value in the snare part of the bleed on Nightmare speed, but on any speed below that you can outrun the zombies anyways (and if you have running zombies, you wouldn't fight multiples at once in the early game anyways). Ultimately the issue I have with knives is they just deal awful damage (even 7 stack bleed deals damage very slowly, and the base damage of knives isn't great). Even if you argue the snare is useful, the overall damage really needs to go up, there isn't any reason knives should deal like half the DPS of clubs or fists. Even the sneak bonus is sort of meh for knives, since bows/crossbows usually deal more damage on the sneak attack and have range to boot. Honestly on Insane + Nightmare, the best tool early on is the Blunderbuss (as it snares enemies much more effectively then the 10% of the rank 1 knife perk, and you can carry multiples to help with the reloading issue).

My comment on stealth wasn't that it wasn't useful, it was that it's situational/not needed and therefore shouldn't be as expensive as it currently is to make it more attractive to spec into. Even on Insane + Nightmare, early POI looting can be accomplished by using the Blunderbuss or placing blocks in doors and upgrading them so the zombies can't rush you while you attack over the block. It's a bit slow/tedious, but so is stealth, and on those settings it's always going to be slow in the early game, and this approach doesn't require spending a bunch of points (hence why I think stealth shouldn't be so expensive to make it more competitive).  By the time you have a good rifle + silencer, stealth will be purely a bonus anyways, it's mainly relevant in the early game when you are weak. The moment you have even a basic pistol you can just blow every zombie away if you really want to even on Insane (okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it's not that far off).

As for fighting horde night on foot, unless your playing on Nightmare speed, you can easily do that even without a single point in Run and Gun (zombies are slow, esp if you can get them temporarily caught on something), at least with the faster reloading weapons. I've done it with the Desert Vulture or Pistol, or even the SMG, or with Shotguns (Automatics kind of want at least 1 point in Run and Gun to do that due to long reloads, and Rifles just aren't well designed for that sort of combat). The main reason I don't usually fight hordes on foot is it's hard to use explosives to their full effect which makes the horde night take all night and wastes a lot of time as your spending a lot of time running, but it is pretty fun to do. Again, I did say Run and Gun has it's place, but I don't think it's as mandatory as some people claim, even for mobile combat (depending on the weapon used). Parkour can also be used very effectively if you setup some 2 or 3 high pillars in your combat arena when fighting the horde on foot too, to give you breathing room to use healing items if you got hit, or regain some stamina/use more drinks.

Anyways, I don't mean any of this in a dismissive way, there obviously are multiple ways to do things in this game. My goal was to point out things that were IMHO a little weak to bring them more into line with other options, not to say that those options are entirely useless currently.

 

[STyK_]

 Honestly on Insane + Nightmare, the best tool early on is the Blunderbuss (as it snares enemies much more effectively then the 10% of the rank 1 knife perk, and you can carry multiples to help with the reloading issue).

I'll pick it up if I find it but it makes too much noise and brings too much attention so you pretty much have to stack the belt with blunderbuss to deal with the others it brings. I'd use it if things got out of control. I was procing bleed and then lighting them on fire with the torch but that even though effective just brings too much attention. Different play styles. Tacticalfriedrice used that blunderbuss tactic on his run, don't know if he started on insane though, seems like they all escalated the diff after they were geared.

 

[beerfly]

Hey everybody,

I'm playing 7DTD with my husband (started on xbox and last year bought Pcs to play the newer Alphas), and while he is killing and looting most of the time to bring us nice shiny things, I am the one harvesting, cultivating and building.

I wanted to suggest to add the feature to breed little animals, like bunnys and chickens. Would be a lot of fun. 

We are really excited heraing about that bandit/raider thing. We always said, that there should be some kind of AI using range weapons.

Thanks for that amazing game!

Welcome,

there have been discussion I remember, it was that breeding animals all over a big server would slow the performance, so it never been implemented or talked further.

Some little snowdogs could be added, too.

 

[sillls]

It still takes 7 days to die from the infection right?

I got infected on day two. I tried talking to trader Jenny but all she had were some bandages.  Every once in awhile, I would find some honey but never enough.  So I get it to 4% and I got nothing else. So it rises back up. Dern it. 

I'm thinking that I might have to become a Dr. to get a cure. 

 

[Adam the Waster]

your.......your....

mot you are...... you are......

sigh, kids these days

er'uoy

 

[rubens9311]

Good day! I just go to thank whoever belongs, the increase of eggs in the nests! Thank you very much really. Those of us who like to cook in variety, we appreciate it. This was very difficult in alpha 18 haha

Excellent alpha 19 and thanks for the patch.


 

 

[Jost Amman]

Good day! I just go to thank whoever belongs, the increase of eggs in the nests! Thank you very much really. Those of us who like to cook in variety, we appreciate it. This was very difficult in alpha 18 haha

Excellent alpha 19 and thanks for the patch.


 

That would probably be Gazz to thank...

Hey Gazz, would you have ever imagined that of ALL the changes this one was THE ONE? 

 

[rubens9311]

I want to know who agrees with me. Could this be the alpha where the least people complained about graphics performance? I've always been quiet about this because I never chose this game because of the graphics. But I always start the new alphas with all the graphics at full (1080x1920 / 72hz) and then go down gradually to reach stable FPS. In this alpha I did not go down in any way. Just disable V-sync. I think they have done an excellent job.

My pc specs:

* Mother: Asus Tuf x470

* Processor: Ryzen 5 2400g 3.9 (minimum OC / Mod turbo)

* RAM 16gb 2x8 at 3200Mhz

* GPU: Nitro Sapphire Radeon RX 570 8gb OC

* Monitor: Samsung CF390 24 '' 72hz

 

[beHypE]

I've noticed I lose a tremendous amount of FPS when I crank up Terrain Quality. I have pretty much everything at max/ultra, but terrain quality on low, and have a beautiful game with a steady 60 FPS. If I set terrain quality to medium, I instantly drop to around 30 FPS. The difference is like night and day and quite frankly I don't even see a huge difference in quality, if any. 

Highly advise you guys to set max quality everywhere, terrain quality on low and then reduce stuff as needed. I kept tinkering with medium settings everywhere and it was just not making much of a difference at all, until I figured out the bottleneck. 

I'm running a Sapphire Radeon 5600XT on a Ryzen 5 1600 and 16gb of RAM fwiw. 

 

[meganoth]

Yeah, that would be good. I'm not against the new system, I just wish it were less artificial. Eventually, even new players might think something's off when they realise they're only finding stone tools in loot crates, crappy spears in locked gun safes and nothing else, especially considering new players will probably take longer to level up than others and thus spend more days only finding stone loot.

No, new players will probably accept the situation simply because they didn't get used to finding AKs in the chests on day 1. They don't have any preconceived notions about the boxes yet and will either not think about it or make up their own theory what those boxes might be. 

Do you still think it strange that cupboards get new loot every 30 days? Most players have accepted that just as a fact of life and play a fun game, just like new players who mostly take the game as is. I don't see new forum users commenting on this regularily. Do you think about the impossibility of 30 ton concrete in your backpack? I bet 99% of new players will just accept this, they have other things to think about.

 

[Alpacko]

Do you still think it strange that cupboards get new loot every 30 days? 

yes

Spoiler

its an option for MP servers and should be disabled by default on SP/coop games, imo.

 

[Thaledwyn]

Hi all,

thank you for the A19.

I had the following issues so far:

- Lost my bag pack after death 2 days ago (blue symbol was shown on compass but no back pack anywhere, also used fly/ghost up/down / relog but nothing....)

- Extreme FPS decrease / lag when standing next to a friend while he's firing his shotgun! (but this was also in A18)

- Scraped a robotic junk sledge hammer, got 3 parts, but still had the item in my bag pack. When trying to scrap it again, there is a red error mesage in console "Object referenced to NIL value...." but I still can hold it / set it on the ground.

- Bears and wolves are pretty tough with stone weapons / bows only but that's ok!

- Getting too much meat for the amount of wild animals spawning. Maybe just reduce this number.

- Plesae have a look at German translation for e.g. empty barrels (one/multiple barrels). If you need help with this, just let me know.

 

[Xtrakicking]

No, new players will probably accept the situation simply because they didn't get used to finding AKs in the chests on day 1. They don't have any preconceived notions about the boxes yet and will either not think about it or make up their own theory what those boxes might be. 

Do you still think it strange that cupboards get new loot every 30 days? Most players have accepted that just as a fact of life and play a fun game, just like new players who mostly take the game as is. I don't see new forum users commenting on this regularily. Do you think about the impossibility of 30 ton concrete in your backpack? I bet 99% of new players will just accept this, they have other things to think about.

Well, obviously neither you nor I know what new players will think and can only speculate, but simply enough I can tell you that's how I see it and how it feels to me very clearly. I think it sucks to only get stone shovels and crappy spears in every stash for days, because it's really absurd and affects the player's interest in looting early on.

It would also be very nice of the devs and players like you alike to stop assuming other "old time" players such as me "got used to getting AKs" in loot and disregard our opinions based on that. I never even got to play A18 much, so no, I'm not used to the way it was, and I never said we should get blue AKs early on again either, I'm only saying there should be other possibilities of items mixed in during this "stone age" thing so players don't have to scrap 80% of the loot they find and get stones out of it, cause that's how it is right now.

Also, this whole thing of using the concrete stack sizes in backpack or other stuff like that as an argument to somehow validate mechanics that don't make sense is mind boggling to me. Yes, we carry 100 tons of concrete in our backpacks for the sake of building. Yes, if you have the option active, loot respawns every 30 days. How in God's name does any of that tie in to a loot balance issue in any way?? It's not relevant.

 

[Onarr]

Well, obviously neither you nor I know what new players will think and can only speculate, but simply enough I can tell you that's how I see it and how it feels to me very clearly. I think it sucks to only get stone shovels and crappy spears in every stash for days, because it's really absurd and affects the player's interest in looting early on.

It would also be very nice of the devs and players like you alike to stop assuming other "old time" players such as me "got used to getting AKs" in loot and disregard our opinions based on that. I never even got to play A18 much, so no, I'm not used to the way it was, and I never said we should get blue AKs early on again either, I'm only saying there should be other possibilities of items mixed in during this "stone age" thing so players don't have to scrap 80% of the loot they find and get stones out of it, cause that's how it is right now.

Also, this whole thing of using the concrete stack sizes in backpack or other stuff like that as an argument to somehow validate mechanics that don't make sense is mind boggling to me. Yes, we carry 100 tons of concrete in our backpacks for the sake of building. Yes, if you have the option active, loot respawns every 30 days. How in God's name does any of that tie in to a loot balance issue in any way?? It's not relevant.

I second this. Main problem is stone age loot is boring and has low value. It needs balancing - end of story.

 

[Nef]

With corona and strict stay inside orders in just a few days animals took over many areas. Like hundreds of wild monkeys in one city I saw a video on. Its not even an apocalypse and I've seen up to 20 stag walking through my yard, boatloads of geese, fox, wild turkeys, and obviously cats, dogs, rabbits, etc. I hear coyotes at night. I live on the edge of town is all.

Off topic but the coolest thing I saw was a fawn (baby deer) in my front yard, I was able to get about 8' from it, so cute. Wasn't much bigger than a small dog.

Exactly this. With no one around, the bears are wondering right down mainstreet of my town and raiding the bar's dumpster in broad daylight, lol.

I second this. Main problem is stone age loot is boring and has low value. It needs balancing - end of story.

What I will say on this topic, is it does make the early game tedious, and un-rewarding feeling. Safes, used to be that big "oh wow what an amazing find!" moment, that'd you happily wack away at for 6 in-game hours with tier 1 stone hatchets as there was likely a reward to be found. Now after you go through 4 stone hatches, you open the safe to find....... a stone hatchet! : D Playing it, I've completely lost interest in safes and other such things, and have wondered off, returning on like day 50 when I'm already buried in self-crafted gear, just scrapping the contents for repair parts.

Well, obviously neither you nor I know what new players will think and can only speculate, but simply enough I can tell you that's how I see it and how it feels to me very clearly. I think it sucks to only get stone shovels and crappy spears in every stash for days, because it's really absurd and affects the player's interest in looting early on.

It would also be very nice of the devs and players like you alike to stop assuming other "old time" players such as me "got used to getting AKs" in loot and disregard our opinions based on that. I never even got to play A18 much, so no, I'm not used to the way it was, and I never said we should get blue AKs early on again either, I'm only saying there should be other possibilities of items mixed in during this "stone age" thing so players don't have to scrap 80% of the loot they find and get stones out of it, cause that's how it is right now.

Also, this whole thing of using the concrete stack sizes in backpack or other stuff like that as an argument to somehow validate mechanics that don't make sense is mind boggling to me. Yes, we carry 100 tons of concrete in our backpacks for the sake of building. Yes, if you have the option active, loot respawns every 30 days. How in God's name does any of that tie in to a loot balance issue in any way?? It's not relevant.

I would like to back this up in one regard, as well. While players can "accept" that this is "just how games like this be" a lot will complain and find it hard to suspend their disbelief. (I can hear my father @%$*#!ing already, lol, a 57 year old man) It's pretty nonsensical, even in a zombie situation, to think that someone stored a self-made stone hatchet and some sticks in a gun safe, and then locked the thing, lol. Like who's gonna steal your flint rod when there's tools strewn about every house?

 

[Nef]

Do you still think it strange that cupboards get new loot every 30 days? 

yes

Spoiler

its an option for MP servers and should be disabled by default on SP/coop games, imo.

I always disable that setting, as well. No magic loot fairy here, lol. Now if I could just find the one wedging all these stones into gun safes in spite... xD

 

[Gazz]

That would probably be Gazz to thank...

Hey Gazz, would you have ever imagined that of ALL the changes this one was THE ONE? 

I'll take it.

 

[Perlin_Worm]

It still takes 7 days to die from the infection right?

I got infected on day two. I tried talking to trader Jenny but all she had were some bandages.  Every once in awhile, I would find some honey but never enough.  So I get it to 4% and I got nothing else. So it rises back up. Dern it. 

I'm thinking that I might have to become a Dr. to get a cure. 

I was excited about the new infection system described before experimental release but then a19 dropped and it's the same infection as a18. Still never a threat after day 5 and still a ton of honey and antibiotics sitting in inventory after day 14.