PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[beHypE]

The problem with this approach is that it makes gearing up feel inconsequential. It becomes a numbers game, just like Diablo 3, where your damage scales with the HP of the zombies so well that you would feel like you don't ever evolve at all.

I understand (and I very much agree) the difficulty doesn't scale properly. The problem coming mostly from a lack of zombie variety, mechanic-wise. Ferals aren't a thing fast enough, and there is just no new threat between Gamestage 1 and Gamestage X where ferals start spawning.

Special infected, hopefully, will fill that gap, if they can come up with cool designs, both for mid game and for late game (and not only for the latter).

 

[MechanicalLens]

This. They chose to bottleneck the guns instead of bottlenecking the bullets, which imo is a big part of the overall problem. It would be way better if you had a gun early but only half a clip of ammo. Each bullet counts, use it sparingly. 

Also yeah, a T1 quest should give you maybe 30 bullets, not 120 as it currently is. Regarding buying guns, my 3-man party decided not to, in order for our first finds to be meaningful. Traders sell green AK47's for around 4K dukes, it's way too cheap and basically turns the game into a breeze instantly, while also devaluing everything you'll find for quite some time.

I'm not trying to dictate how you play your game, but you don't HAVE to purchase the weapons they're selling. If you feel it's unbalanced (and it is), then ignore them. I've made it a rule for myself to never purchase weapons from traders, and thus jump way ahead in terms of progression. Same thing with the ammo rewards they offer you (although you'll find plenty of it out in the world anyway).

 

[JordanHameski]

its just my opinion, i agree, my variant is too OP for late game zombies

i have some ideas for zombies, what can be added as Special one

Zombie Digger

Digging under players, and attract 1-2 zombies to do the same with buffed block damage (e.g. 10% in 5 meters)

Zombie "Cannibal" (idk how to name zombie who eat zombies)

Eating dead body of other zombies (thx devs we got animation already), and getting stronger with each eaten body (e.g. 5% HP per body). When he eat 5 bodies, he scream and buff zombies in 5 meters for 25% HP from self HP but blow up himself (like ZombieCop).

P.S.

At least, zombie get mutated due game stage (e.g. get increased moving speed, HP, damage, auras, skills)

P.S.S.

For the OP trader shop in early game

What if traders sell only parts, not completed items?

Same with loot.

Wanna gun? Learn skill, get parts, craft it, done.

 

[beHypE]

I'm not trying to dictate how you play your game, but you don't HAVE to purchase the weapons they're selling. If you feel it's unbalanced (and it is), then ignore them. I've made it a rule for myself to never purchase weapons from traders, and thus jump way ahead in terms of progression. Same thing with the ammo rewards they offer you (although you'll find plenty of it out in the world anyway).

Yeah like I stated, we decided not to buy guns either. All the rest is fine, but buying guns feels way too "cheaty" for us.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah like I stated, we decided not to buy guns either. All the rest is fine, but buying guns feels way too "cheaty" for us.

Just to let you know, you can sometimes get duplicate ammo rewards. Recently I was offered 120 7.62, 120 7.62, or 120 7.62. It was a hard decision, there were so many choices and I didn't know which one was best... No, I just picked a stack and smelted them in my forge.

 

[meganoth]

It's the third time I start a new world after each patch and for the life of me I can't find ANY workstation blueprints inside the broken ones (which btw are 99%).

I've looted dozens of them but no luck... this begs a question : have the blueprints been removed inside broken workstations?  :mmph:

Edit: and the traders don't sell them anymore either apparently. So how is one supposed to craft stuff without heavily specializing into INT??

RNG: If most players should find a workstation recipe on say day 12 then there will be a few lucky who find it on day 5 and some unlucky only on day 18. Meanwhile other players complain about weapons being found too reliable on specific days and they miss the uncertainty of real random loot which still seems to exist with workstation recipes.

And to answer the question: One is supposed to combat bad luck with either patience or biting the INT-bullet.

Don't really know to be fair. I hope they will drastically reduce the amount of ammo you can find, because if you're supposed to carry a pipe gun from the very first days and ammo is still as abundant, playing with the melee weapons will just get another significant nerf.

Without looking at the numbers, I agree something needs to be done in regards to ramping up the difficulty over time. The "basic" zombies are way too easy for way too long (past the first few days), and once ferals start appearing in the world you're swimming in guns/ammo and can just empty the clip on them without much worries either. If the progression of the loot is such a strong concern, the difficulty needs to scale properly in time, and not have as many treshholds. Adding pipe guns will only make the early-mid game easier.

I agree on the ammo reduction in the stone age.

But I don't see pipe guns making the game easier. We already have a pipe gun in form of the blunderbuss available very early, further pipe gun variants of similar power wont make a dent in difficulty, just make early specialization available for all classes instead of only for STR.

Well from my experience maximal falloff damage means min damage, like 30% not 0 damage. Could at least mods like shotgun choke increase the range by 5?

And when we are on topic of shotguns, I do not really think they are in good place right now. Especially with their block damage. I have to be really pressed into corner to be willing to use them, because they just make every PoI into swiss cheese. You always risk destroying loot containers. 

I dont know, can anyone honestly say they like using shotguns how they are now? I got lucky last game and found schematic for combat shotgun. I was like: "Bingo!" I crafted Q2 on day 7. I used it like 10 times and soon completely stopped using it.

That you and I didn't notice that the shotgun has falloff damage proves my previous point that falloff damage makes it hard to notice you might be using a weapon from too afar.

There are so many loot boxes, if your life is less worth to you than getting every loot bag in a POI then that is fine. It shows the game gives you interesting trade-offs, like whether your greed/completophobia or your survival instinct gets the upper hand. (This obviously only works though if you play on an appropriate difficulty level for your skills).

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Yeah but try to use this argument when you want to kill a bear. Oh it will come to you, no problem. Well thats the thing I would like to avoid you know? And as Str guy I do not have much ranged options.

You need to expand your horizons. There's nothing stopping you from equipping a long gun or machine gun even if you don't spec into it. 

It's the third time I start a new world after each patch and for the life of me I can't find ANY workstation blueprints inside the broken ones (which btw are 99%).

I've looted dozens of them but no luck... this begs a question : have the blueprints been removed inside broken workstations?  :mmph:

Edit: and the traders don't sell them anymore either apparently. So how is one supposed to craft stuff without heavily specializing into INT??

Be patient. You will eventually find the BP in damaged stations, at a trader, or a trader will have the full workstation  for purchase. I am on Day 60+ in my game and have had a bunch of BPs drop over the course of the game.  If you want to guarantee that you have all of them ASAP you will need to spend points in Int.  

And when we are on topic of shotguns, I do not really think they are in good place right now. Especially with their block damage. I have to be really pressed into corner to be willing to use them, because they just make every PoI into swiss cheese. You always risk destroying loot containers. 

I dont know, can anyone honestly say they like using shotguns how they are now? I got lucky last game and found schematic for combat shotgun. I was like: "Bingo!" I crafted Q2 on day 7. I used it like 10 times and soon completely stopped using it.

I've spent most of my 60+ day game using shotguns as my primary weapon for POI clearing and horde night. I like them just fine. The block destruction can be annoying at times but I'll happily take that trade off for the raw power they offer. 

 

[madmole]

Can we at least know if 7 days 2 will take place in Navezgane or a new location?

No there won't be any news given for quite some time.

 

[SnowDog1942]

No there won't be any news given for quite some time.

sooo… September maybe?

 

[madmole]

Don't give Madmole ideas... 

We've talked about that anyway. Our idea was faulty quality guns would have a chance to misfire, causing the player damage and need a repair on the spot.

There not increasing tiers, just fleshing out t0.  I feel that the blunderbuss made a huge comeback in A19.  The only problem is it's the players only ranged option in that tier aside from the prim bow.

They are also going to improve the t0 experience with more ranged variety and unifying ammo.

Its alot better then leaving it alone the way it is or removing it entirely....

Yes the idea is the pipe shotgun will perform just like the blunderbuss does but it will use shotgun ammo. Then we'll add pipe rifle, pipe machinegun, pipe pistol so everyone can start specializing on day 1 not just shotgun guys and archers.

Do "special infected" include the spider, cop, demolisher and screamer zds ?

Will they be the only type of zd to  drop legendary stuff like the "star" enemies in Fallout 4? 

I like the "pipe" stuff idea. I am not concerned about balance if you are the one doing it. 

I doubt any enemy will drop legendary, you'll have to do a quest to get it. Nothing final there, just a hunch since special infected are so common.

From the pipe gun list MM put out 

.44 ammo pipe weapon was missing. 

Currently only two weapons use it. 

Magnum and vulture. 

Thinking a single shot pipe cannon 

that uses .44 could have potential 

as I imagine the pipe pistol could be 

a 1-5 shot or 1-3 shot. Something like that. It’s 9mm so wouldn’t be as deadly as one shot from a .44 mag round. 

Btw. Just gonna put this out there. 

The magnum revolver is personally my favorite weapon in game. Still favoring it over the vulture.  Glad to see it got a sweet update to it reload animate. Really sick looking (a good thing) should only be done in a game. You should never do that IRL 

No because perk wise there is no distinction between the .44 and the .9mm, both are governed by the same perk and .44 ammo doesn't drop right away in the loot lists. The same goes for rockets, it is a mid to late game weapon.

 

[madmole]

You still thinking about getting rid of the destructible ground?

Sounded like a good idea for the second game cause few people would honestly miss it and it would make it more pvp friendly along with the other gains. 

It really depends if we stick to the Unity engine, but I would say it is unlikely we will get rid of destructible ground.

Don't really know to be fair. I hope they will drastically reduce the amount of ammo you can find, because if you're supposed to carry a pipe gun from the very first days and ammo is still as abundant, playing with the melee weapons will just get another significant nerf.

Without looking at the numbers, I agree something needs to be done in regards to ramping up the difficulty over time. The "basic" zombies are way too easy for way too long (past the first few days), and once ferals start appearing in the world you're swimming in guns/ammo and can just empty the clip on them without much worries either. If the progression of the loot is such a strong concern, the difficulty needs to scale properly in time, and not have as many treshholds. Adding pipe guns will only make the early-mid game easier.

We can game stage the ammo quantity so you get more later game. The way I see it working is very limited ammo early game and mostly melee and as you  progress and can craft more we can drop more in loot or have more in the higher tier POIs. Honestly it doesn't need much change at all, the way the shotgun and archer play right now feels fine to me early game. Maybe too much ammo is all, but I save my ammo for horde night and melee my entire game. I don't care to have to mine 2 days to get enough ammo for hordes too much, so I conserve it as much as I can.

 

[madmole]

I incredibly strongly disagree with this and believe it would even be game ruining. If both loot and all zombies scale in health and damage, you'll end up with a very samey feeling game and it would ruin the fun of seeing yourself get stronger. More special zombie variants as game stage goes up are welcome but scaling all zombies and loot at the same time would be very damaging to fun.

Yeah that isn't happening. While there will be some tanky zombies coming, you will always be able to shred the early game zombies late game. That is why I don't care for radiated, it just looks cheesy, so we will develop special infected that provide interesting combat behaviors to make them challenging.

 

[Big Red Zombie]

No there won't be any news given for quite some time.

7 Days 2 will take place in the Madmole backyard and you have to avoid Rick and his knuckle rubs.

 

[madmole]

sooo… September maybe?

When it's printed.

7 Days 2 will take place in the Madmole backyard and you have to avoid Rick and his knuckle rubs.

I wish. All the corona lockdown I miss having people over.

 

[Laz Man]

It really depends if we stick to the Unity engine, but I would say it is unlikely we will get rid of destructible ground.

We can game stage the ammo quantity so you get more later game. The way I see it working is very limited ammo early game and mostly melee and as you  progress and can craft more we can drop more in loot or have more in the higher tier POIs. Honestly it doesn't need much change at all, the way the shotgun and archer play right now feels fine to me early game. Maybe too much ammo is all, but I save my ammo for horde night and melee my entire game. I don't care to have to mine 2 days to get enough ammo for hordes too much, so I conserve it as much as I can.

Yeah, you guys have the best destructible survival game on the market hands down.  I feel that and the fact that AI is an actual threat (not just players) is what separates you guys from all of the other survival games (e.g. Ark, Rust, Scum, Tarkov, The Forest, etc.).  Be cool to see what you guys can do with it even further in a different title.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I wish. All the corona lockdown I miss having people over.

I'm a hermit so I wouldn't know, but for the rest of y'all I hope that things get back to normal (or something resembling it) sometime by next year hopefully. After that we can all pretend that 2020 never happened.

 

[Darthjake]

Yeah, you guys have the best destructible survival game on the market hands down.  I feel that and the fact that AI is an actual threat (not just players) is what separates you guys from all of the other survival games (e.g. Ark, Rust, Scum, Tarkov, The Forest, etc.).  Be cool to see what you guys can do with it even further in a different title.

I enjoyed Ark to some extent, Conan as well, Rust was still buggy when I tried it, with animals clipping through floors/walls.  I've not tried Scum, or Tarkov, what about Mist, you tried that?  It's in EA so I was looking at it for only $11.

But yeah destructible world is the best, that's one of the things that irritated me in Conan and Ark was not being able to place my base where I wanted but rather having to fit it to the location.

 

[hiemfire]

in late game you have Stainless Steel block with 17000 durability

Guess what can no longer be acquired by players outside of the creative menu since A18 at the closest (I'm forgetting if it was A18 or A17 that TFP yoinked Stainless steel as a player building material).

 

[MechanicalLens]

Guess what can no longer be acquired by players outside of the creative menu since A18 at the closest (I'm forgetting if it was A18 or A17 that TFP yoinked Stainless steel as a player building material).

That would be A17.

One feature I would love is if the forge timer showed the exact duration it would take for more than one item to smelt. (ie it would be helpful to see exactly how long it would take for 4378 clay to smelt in each slot, as an example, rather than doing the math for it yourself. Or maybe I'm just lazy.) Just wishful thinking here though, especially for something so trivial. Still, it would be nice.

 

[Toban]

A quick comment on too much ammo early days. IMO, I can imagine with the new pipe weapons coming and using shotgun shells ect, the abundant ammo will sort itself out. If an inferior weapon uses the same ammo as an higher tier weapon, you will use more ammo up. Hence you will have the choice, use ammo in your day to day life, or save it. (I always save ammo for day 7's) I think what the game gives now, will be fine going forward.

Still loving alpha 19. Huge thumbs up  Wife is on her 6th death haha... she hates tfp now in a good way though!