PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

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Blake_ said:
@madmole , any plans for eliminating the choice of clearing a quest location twice and getting twice the loot ?

I do it all the time and it gets old, boring and cheap pretty fast. It brings a dull predictable order in a game that shines due to passerby mayhem, also called "emergent gameplay".
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Blake? Any plans for you to gain some self control? Does the min maxer in you compel you to go in and clear it/loot it before hitting the exclamation? I stopped doing it, so can you!

I keep telling them all you need to do is reset it when you are close to the chunk. Then they give me these edge cases about what if they don't go there? I say "mission fail" if somehow a voxel gets changed or another player not in the party dirties the chunk before you hit the exclamation mark. So we go round and round about this. At the end of the day it is only the 5000 hour SP guys with no self control that it affects so it is low priority. Because in MP there is possibility it was already looted.

 
madmole said:
Junk drone might become a remote control building tool, so you can fly and build like in creative mode. Then we could remove or limit nerd poling. Like only so many frames high before it collapses. I don't see nerd poling as a cheat though, we just need it so zombies can climb up a nerd pole just like a ladder or knock it down with one hit successfully, easily, etc.
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its definitely a step in the right direction!

 
katarynna said:
If i understand correctly, what you are proposing is that once you accept a quest from the trader, the quest poi is reset at that moment so that you can't go to the poi, loot it, start the quest, and reloot it. 

While that would work fine for solo play and coop play, how would you make it work on multiplayer?

You don't always immediately do the quest after accepting it. Suppose i accepted a quest for the shotgun messiah factory on a mp server, and then logged off. Before i log back on and go to do the quest, someone else loots that factory and kills all the zombies. When i log back on and go activate the quest, do i get an immediate quest complete since all zombies are dead? Do i fail it because i am unable to kill anything since everything is already dead? 
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Yes. Could be solved with an Event system. Spawn new Zds, change quest parameters on the go, respawn an npc with a new satchel if one gets destroyed, etc. There are ways to do it. Development Time is the problem. I think it's worth it though.

 
Krows said:
Loving these new super foods; I can focus on feeding my character for most of the day with one meal. Keeping my eyes open for the components is well worth it for these items. However, 3 out of 4 of these meals require a Can of Peas. Whether this was an intentional bottle neck or not, I'm finding in the current A19 playthrough the contributing factor to crafting any of these is if I've found any Peas; I'm stocked on all the other components for Gumbo Stew, Shepard's Pie and Tuna Fish Gravy on Toast.

If this was meant to be the case, carry on; but, if you're looking for input, maybe increasing the chance for Peas at Vending Stations / Food Drops for higher-level GS would put more super foods on the table.
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or give us a way to construct a Can of Peas.

 
madmole said:
Junk drone might become a remote control building tool, so you can fly and build like in creative mode. Then we could remove or limit nerd poling. Like only so many frames high before it collapses. I don't see nerd poling as a cheat though, we just need it so zombies can climb up a nerd pole just like a ladder or knock it down with one hit successfully, easily, etc.
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I'm waiting for zombies to be able to climb ledges (some jump and grab onto the ledge even higher).

 
Biscoitoso said:
WOW! Great move man. And here is more for you: Every POI has it own maze, how about put some locked doors to let players with lock pick and stealth skills have more path options? To be honest, I think lockpick is very easy, it should be more difficulty to players without the proper skill. So, the players who have invested in lock pick will have more advantage when raiding than players without that because they will can unlock doors and get easy paths to explore the POI.

But great idea:
barricaded = doors what were never meant to be opened.

locked doors = doors what can be unlocked through lockpick
player made doors = never can be opened.

Anyway, I support your suggestion. 👍
 
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Well the level guys probably don't want to reinvent over 500 POIs so at best it might be like those side bathrooms with the partially broken wooden door where there is a bit of loot in there, and potentially the loot rooms will be lined with steel and require a key that drops from a random boss zombie in the POI somewhere, to discourage nerd poling/chopping a short cut to the end. We haven't finalized what if anything will be done yet.

 
madmole said:
Blake? Any plans for you to gain some self control? Does the min maxer in you compel you to go in and clear it/loot it before hitting the exclamation? I stopped doing it, so can you!

I keep telling them all you need to do is reset it when you are close to the chunk. Then they give me these edge cases about what if they don't go there? I say "mission fail" if somehow a voxel gets changed or another player not in the party dirties the chunk before you hit the exclamation mark. So we go round and round about this. At the end of the day it is only the 5000 hour SP guys with no self control that it affects so it is low priority. Because in MP there is possibility it was already looted.
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Yeah. I know all the edge cases and also the " self control speech". It's worth to do it as a lowest priority thing because the benefits are neat. The event system can respawn anything that is lost in a gamey way, satchel courrier, new entities for an empty place, even detect a looted quest POI and restock just the boss loot. Endless stuff.

Seems to be a delicate subject, so I'd prefer to ask again in a few months.

 
I'm curious... Regarding the new bookshelves, is the plan to replace all the old A18 ones with these new models, or will they be reserved for specific POI's only?

 
BobbyLee298 said:
@madmole if upgrading to Unreal Engine means the removal of the destructible ground/world. I wouldnt risk making that change for the 7 Days to Die title. The destructible world/1 meter building blocks and random world generation is what makes this game so enjoyable.

And the 1 meter block IMO is so much better then how rust and fallout does their bace building, it gives the player freedom to add more details with out the eyesore of a repetitive wall or shapes (you can quite literally make a house look like a house)

And last RWG this is why i have so many hours on this game, you can have unlimited amount of different worlds to explore. Repeatability of this game is endless. Every world is different and unique

If you get rid of one of these (destructible worlds/1 meter blocks or RWG). Please make it a different title as that strays too far from 7 days to die unique gameplay that people know and love. Im sure you know this but some AAA developers dont and when they release a sequel it fails, all because they got rid of the few things that made that game unique

can you please reply to this even with the simplest answer, id just wana get a clue to the future

Back to A19 talk
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My reply does not dictate the future.

I disagree, Fallout's building system can make super awesome bases that are 500x better looking than what we have. 1 meter thick walls are pretty horrible to look at and the restriction of 1 model per meter kills immersion.

No Voxels doesn't mean no random gen.

Switching to Unreal doesn't mean no voxels. You can get voxel farm for unreal or we could port our code.

We can probably fix the limit of only one block per meter, then we could make thin walls and more realistic looking POis, bases, clutter, etc.

Anyhow at our current pace, (one game in 8 years) 7 days 2 is at least 18 years away. We're committed to two other games first, 8 years per game plus two year of dev for 7d2d2 alpha 1 puts that 18 years away. SO whatever we say now isn't reliable :)

BTW, It won't take that long I don't think, but 7 days 2 isn't even a design document yet. We have 1 to finish, and 2 other games that at least need to be in alpha and one done probably before any movement on a sequel can happen.

I know some people think 7 days has "must have" features. What those are, is very subjective. I know that my vote would probably be RWG with fully destroyable world and tower defense, and RPG. Those are my must haves. That doesn't mean voxels though. It could just be models with physics by then. The need for voxels is diminishing as draw calls get cheaper and hardware improves. At the end of the day a voxel is just a mesh on a grid sharing a texture atlas. We area already only a partial voxel game anyway. Remove the limits and have all the fun part I say.
 

DaVegaNL said:
Where's Roland btw? Is he on vacation? Or on math-camp?
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He probably has forum PTSD.

 
Blake_ said:
The event system can respawn anything that is lost in a gamey way, satchel courrier, new entities for an empty place, even detect a looted quest POI and restock just the boss loot. Endless stuff.
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wait! so you propose that the shotgun messiah factory would be repopulated with zombies by the event system AND restock just the boss loot.

so you spend all the time to clear the shotgun messiah factory for your quest and only get the end loot??????

that sounds like a waaaaayyyy worse "fix" than the "problem" of some min-maxxers double looting.

 
madmole said:
My reply does not dictate the future.

I disagree, Fallout's building system can make super awesome bases that are 500x better looking than what we have. 1 meter thick walls are pretty horrible to look at and the restriction of 1 model per meter kills immersion.

No Voxels doesn't mean no random gen.

Switching to Unreal doesn't mean no voxels. You can get voxel farm for unreal or we could port our code.

We can probably fix the limit of only one block per meter, then we could make thin walls and more realistic looking POis, bases, clutter, etc.

Anyhow at our current pace, (one game in 8 years) 7 days 2 is at least 18 years away. We're committed to two other games first, 8 years per game plus two year of dev for 7d2d2 alpha 1 puts that 18 years away. SO whatever we say now isn't reliable :)

BTW, It won't take that long I don't think, but 7 days 2 isn't even a design document yet. We have 1 to finish, and 2 other games that at least need to be in alpha and one done probably before any movement on a sequel can happen.

I know some people think 7 days has "must have" features. What those are, is very subjective. I know that my vote would probably be RWG with fully destroyable world and tower defense, and RPG. Those are my must haves. That doesn't mean voxels though. It could just be models with physics by then. The need for voxels is diminishing as draw calls get cheaper and hardware improves. At the end of the day a voxel is just a mesh on a grid sharing a texture atlas. We area already only a partial voxel game anyway. Remove the limits and have all the fun part I say.
 

He probably has forum PTSD.
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I look forward to 7d2d2 as my early retirement present.  Thank you Madmole! :)

 
katarynna said:
wait! so you propose that the shotgun messiah factory would be repopulated with zombies by the event system AND restock just the boss loot.

so you spend all the time to clear the shotgun messiah factory for your quest and only get the end loot??????

that sounds like a waaaaayyyy worse "fix" than the "problem" of some min-maxxers double looting.
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Or not. Restock it all, what does it matter as long as we don't get double rainbows ? 

Imma run away now that I've opened a can of worms. Tasty beefy ones by the looks of it.

 
meganoth said:
Another important reason is that it doesn't matter much whether you double-loot or not. Mostly quests are in towns and instead of double-looting you could just as well loot the neighboring house.

In MP towns are often completely looted but then double-looting is not possible anyway because the quest house is looted already. New pristine houses can always be generated by accepting quests.

So the problem is insubstantial, the solution not easy --> move on, there are bigger fishes tor fry
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Pretty much. Only OCD min maxers would bother. It isn't about "winning" it is about the quality of the experience and adapting to what happens. When you are so fixated on looting that super chest twice in 20 minutes and not concerned about building a toilet for RPG purposes, or pretending your morale is down and fixing it with a coat of paint and planting some flowers just to look at, then you are lost to the numbers and are no longer a free being with free will just enjoying the game, but a slave to the loot rolls.

 
Blake_ said:
Or not. Restock it all, what does it matter as long as we don't get double rainbows ? 

Imma run away now that I've opened a can of worms. Tasty beefy ones by the looks of it.
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lol not trying to chase you away.

when someone proposes an idea i find interesting, i just naturally think about whether it would really work and what would it break. like i said, i think your idea would work fine for single player and coop. but i think it would break the quest system on multiplayer.

anything that breaks of course has possible fixes. i just don't think there would be a simple fix for your idea for multiplayer, and i'm not sure tfp want to "reinvent the wheel" to fix something that is really only a small issue affecting a small number of people.

 
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