PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole]

Speaking of trying something different, that is exactly what I have been doing these past couple days. I've purposely thrown a spanner into the works and gone out of my comfort zone in two unconventional ways: I've started a temporary world with BM Frequency 1 and BM Range 10 as my settings - a challenge I have been putting off for the past couple years, so I thought now is the perfect opportunity to get my feet wet - and on top of that I've taken a step back from my usual playstyle. Usually my plan consists of taking over a house and living in the attic/basement for the first week, meanwhile looting like a speed demon for the first several days before constructing a cobblestone tower or fortifying a POI for the first horde night. This time however I am really taking to smell the chrysanthemums - for instance, I spend the first couple days almost exclusively working on a quaint little shack that is pictured below in the spoilers. I've also been slowly creeping my way through POI's, treating each zombie encounter as a threat to my very survival rather than rushing forward and bashing their skulls in like a maniac. I haven't had this much immersion in this game, or any game, in ages. The new linear lighting certainly does it just as well.

7 Days To Die also decided to welcome me properly to this challenge by gifting me with a horde on night 1; only a few zombies showed up due to my low gamestage, but it completely caught me off guard as I have BM Warning disabled. I was in the middle of looting a small house right before dusk when I heard the first crack of thunder. I was planning on returning all of my goods back home that evening, but instead I was simply forced to leave a dump chest with all my trinkets inside right outside the back porch, and what followed was me almost sealing myself in before I came to realize I was lacking any cobblestone. (I was unsure if A19 made any changes to such low gamestage hordes.) I rushed to the nearest construction site just down the road, did battle with a few local utility workers guarding their booty, and I returned to the house and upgraded some of the blocks with only a couple minutes to spare, leaving some blocks destroyed for me to poke at the zombies through with my level 1 spear. Sure, it was nothing (the fight itself), but it caught me right out of left field, giving me a better sense of appreciation for this challenge. The game, through RNG, is in complete control in how well or poorly you do; several hordes right after the other mid-game could spell certain death, or the game might give you a lovely break of a maximum potential of 11 total days.

What can I say Fun Pimps? You've crafted an excellent game - I'm not even going to call it a game, because in my eyes it's much more than that. 7 Days To Die is an experience like no other with the widest pallet available on the gaming market today. Call me a fanboy if you wish; I'm just one fan among many.

Spoiler

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Spoiler

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Sounds like fun. You know there are half eaves in the CM if those 1 meter eaves drive you nuts Just pay for them with the wood, write an IOU sign on your wall keeping a tally of how much you borrowed from the Iron Bank Craft the frames and toss them on the ground and let them despawn. Hopefully we can get a lot more shapes in someday.

I have a new crenulation design on my base, it looks pretty spiffy. I'll post a screen when I finish it and tear the scaffolding down.

 

[Ralathar44]

There can not be a lot of progression on shovels because

- dirt does not have a lot of hit points and isn't supposed to

- stone tools must be decent

- progression must leave room for bonuses from both perks and quality level

There really isn't a lot of wiggle room there due to them having to be consistent with other tools.

OTOH, I'm happy to see that the value of stone shovels is one of the biggest issues with 7DTD by now.

I agree on all points, and I'm also happy that the biggest issues people are concerned about are stone shovels and "realism".  It's a good sign. 

That being said, my overwhelming feeling is that the shovel situation can be improved and that there is a solution to this issue my brain is just not producing right now.  Whether such a minor issue deserves the resources required to improve it is unlikely though.  Still, I gave my honest appraisal on the shovels . 

 

[MechanicalLens]

Sounds like fun. You know there are half eaves in the CM if those 1 meter eaves drive you nuts Just pay for them with the wood, write an IOU sign on your wall keeping a tally of how much you borrowed from the Iron Bank Craft the frames and toss them on the ground and let them despawn. Hopefully we can get a lot more shapes in someday.

I have a new crenulation design on my base, it looks pretty spiffy. I'll post a screen when I finish it and tear the scaffolding down.

That's a really good tip, thanks.  I'm trying to not get too attached to this base since I'll be restarting whenever the next patch/build roles around, but nonetheless I'm putting at least a little bit of effort into it, so I'll keep that in mind.  I tend to throw away materials that would theoretically be used to craft certain items you cannot obtain in survival anyway.

This run has been pretty good so far. I found the bacon and eggs recipe on day 1 which was awesome, and my limiting factor for them has been eggs so far; I had another wolf horde pay me a visit on day 3, so that was nice, got over 100 meat after harvesting their corpses. Unfortunately they only started growling and barking when they in attack range of me, so they gave me a heart attack.

Neat-o, I'd be interested in seeing that sometime.  

Edit: What would also be nice would be some centered diamond trellises, hint hint, wink wink.

 

[pregnable]

Nah stone shovels are a huge problem and the only solution is to make stone shovels able to be thrown on power attack and then delete spears from the game. 

Pretty sure that perfectly solves the concerns of everyone involved. 

 

[MechanicalLens]

What's the point with power attacks for tools anyway, for mining purposes? Mining resources with power attacks is entirely fruitless, and I rarely use power attacks when opening up containers or doors anyway.

 

[pregnable]

I only use the power attacks of tools for killing, as god intended. 

 

[Ralathar44]

What's the point with power attacks for tools anyway, for mining purposes? Mining resources with power attacks is entirely fruitless, and I rarely use power attacks when opening up containers or doors anyway.

I think there was an update where the entity damage of tools was improved to no longer leave you so defenseless when mining/digging/etc and that's what the power attacks are for.  Axe was a viable weapon for an update .  I think they were nerfed later either directly or indirectly with the perk rework.  I can only speak for my experience but I've never found them useful vs zombies since after the nerf (direct or indirect).  If I get ambushed I still find it better to quickly change weapon and deal with them. 

So unless alot of other people have a differing experience then power attacks on tools are basically dead weight at this point.  Such things happen as design evolves.

 

[Gazz]

What's the point with power attacks for tools anyway, for mining purposes? Mining resources with power attacks is entirely fruitless, and I rarely use power attacks when opening up containers or doors anyway.

If you are fully specced into mining the stamina drain is irrelevant. With something like a coffee buff you can use power attacks to speed up mining even more and burn that extra stamina.

 

[FileMachete]

Question re a19; do any of the salvaging tools also Repair?

If I recall correctly, in earlier alphas (prior to a17?) the wrench could repair via R-click.

Would be ok by me if the salvaging tools didn't compete with the building tools when repairing/upgrading, say just the same as a stone axe does?

 

[MechanicalLens]

I think there was an update where the entity damage of tools was improved to no longer leave you so defenseless when mining/digging/etc and that's what the power attacks are for.  Axe was a viable weapon for an update .  I think they were nerfed later either directly or indirectly with the perk rework.  I can only speak for my experience but I've never found them useful vs zombies since after the nerf (direct or indirect).  If I get ambushed I still find it better to quickly change weapon and deal with them. 

So unless alot of other people have a differing experience then power attacks on tools are basically dead weight at this point.  Such things happen as design evolves.

You're not wrong when you said that this is what happens when the game updates or evolves. The claw hammer used to be a pretty viable weapon; now, not so much. Most players today wouldn't even mentally process it as a weapon. In another game called Terraria, many weapons that were introduced as updates came across became useless over time, overshadowed or even outclassed entirely by new gear. The recent 1.4 update fixed that issue for a lot of them, but that's most an exception to the rule.

This doesn't change my opinion that chainsaws should always be a devastating weapon against zombies.  In that one particular case, The Fun Pimps killed a bit of fun.

If you are fully specced into mining the stamina drain is irrelevant. With something like a coffee buff you can use power attacks to speed up mining even more and burn that extra stamina.

Doesn't your stamina cease regeneration for a few seconds after power attacking, and wouldn't that render any stamina regen buff effectively useless? I haven't tried this so I'm asking genuinely.

 

[Guppys Fur]

If you are fully specced into mining the stamina drain is irrelevant. With something like a coffee buff you can use power attacks to speed up mining even more and burn that extra stamina.

By the time one is fully specced into mining, he has normally an Auger wich makes this obsolete^^.

 

[Gazz]

If you want to hold off on mining until you have an auger then that's fine by me.

 

[MechanicalLens]

If you want to hold off on mining until you have an auger then that's fine by me.

No, I wasn't saying that at all.  But once I get an auger, I never look back.

 

[Ralathar44]

If you want to hold off on mining until you have an auger then that's fine by me.

It does mean the limited time of application of the power attack for mining is between the time you are fully skilled into mining and the time you get a decent augur.  That's a fairly narrow window unless you rush full miner at the expense of all else.  I personally don't think it's important for tools to have a useful secondary attack, but it's definitely one of those minor things that could be better.  Development resources, much like the shovel thing, are prolly better spent pretty much anywhere elsewhere though .

 

[FileMachete]

Is that the reason behind the Repair ability getting removed from the Wrench? So it could power attack?

Can kinda see that for something like a heavy wrench... but the impact driver (assuming it also can't repair/upgrade), sure I guess, but it doesn't really fit as a 'weapon', to my eyes at least. (yes I know, even a rolled up newspaper can be an effective 'weapon'. just seems like 'tools' that commonly both take apart and put things together would make sense if they did in game as well)

 

[Gazz]

Augers are good because you can mine effectively even with minimal mining perks.

Not everyone uses them, though.

They aren't as good for a relaxed mining session and are very noisy which is not always desired.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Augers are good because you can mine effectively even with minimal mining perks.

Not everyone uses them, though.

They aren't as good for a relaxed mining session and are very noisy which is not always desired.

1. I agree utterly and completely.

2. I also disagree. Changeable sound options exist for a reason.  No, not everyone has to use the auger, but one could always turn the game volume down to 0 and listen to a podcast or what have you. The main benefit of the auger for me anyway is without it I would have to mine every night - 5 stacks of stone? 4 stacks into 2 forges and the final stack as an ingredient for concrete mix, or I'll have to turn all of it into sand - and instead I can just mine for an entire night and have enough stone for a few days. But again, to each their own.

 

[Jost Amman]

There can not be a lot of progression on shovels because

- dirt does not have a lot of hit points and isn't supposed to

- stone tools must be decent

- progression must leave room for bonuses from both perks and quality level

There really isn't a lot of wiggle room there due to them having to be consistent with other tools.

OTOH, I'm happy to see that the value of stone shovels is one of the biggest issues with 7DTD by now.

As Ranzera said, it's not much a problem with progression (which is there and it's fine), it's more of a problem of making the higher tier worth the hassle over the lower tier, which apparently, in the case of the stone shovel, has some issues you'll probably want to look into.

Anyway thanks for the great work you've been doing BTW! 

 

[Lorca]

We know.

Like I've said several time: Not happening in A19.

Given that I understandably haven't read 500+ pages of this thread, I wouldn't know what you've said several times, and honestly, I don't know what you're saying this time.  Are you saying that loot is not tied to game stage?  If not, then how is I am only getting low tier loot regardless of the POI, and i'm hearing from others that are further along that they are only getting high tier stuff.  I hope you haven't tied it to game days - that would be even weirder. In multiplayer, people join a server at different times...

 

[Khalagar]

Axe was a viable weapon for an update

Dude the Fire Axe is a beast, I'm kind of scared to harp on it here and get it nerfed, but . . .yeah. Do some testing with it after perking into Miner 69 and then quietly start using it without telling others that it can 1 shot zombies extremely consistently on the second hardest difficulty. It's honestly the best melee weapon IMO, and I say that as someone who is fully perked into Skull Crusher and Sex Rex and has been using a level 6 steel sledge for ages

Stamina cost, damage, range, it's A tier in all stats and S tier in block damage. Oops, I mean, it's trash, only dumbotron would use it for melee