PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Ricowan]

Do you guys just poke fun to avoid balancing your sandbox?

There's absolutely no such thing as a balanced sandbox game.  Period.

 

[n2n1]

We have talked about perma degradation but I'm not sure it would be fun replacing your gear constantly (which means swapping all your mods, dye), and when you finally got a legendary purple when those come out, to see it degrade away and become useless over time might suck. Imagine spending 90k dukes on a gyro and then you have to buy another one because it cannot be repaired any more times.

Thanks for the answer, MM.

Oh, yes - i know what You mean ... you're talking about a fast and superficial gameplay which is now common.

But there is another side - some people still think when they get a purple things (that will never break) - that they have got the end result and they have nothing to do and nothing to strive for and everything becomes meaningless.

Previously, it was possible to avoid this and prolong the interest.

But, maybe.... introduce this - only for some selected things that it will be useful/adequately for?

 

[Darthjake]

My only gripe is the nerf to eggs in nests, and stealth not being nearly as good at low levels.  Seems like every POI I go into even watching my meter like a hawk and stopping to let it go down the Z's are coming at me in groups of 3, it's almost enough to say screw it and just go with 2 or 3 blunders on the bar and Leroy Jenkins on them.

 

[STyK_]

There's absolutely no such thing as a balanced sandbox game.  Period.

You know Arma 3 is considered a military sandbox. How do you think that game would have played out without balance? Oh is that different? Its a sandbox now are you going to tell be 7 days to die is different, or an exception? Seems to me a sandbox is a sandbox. Every game needs balance and rules.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/107410/Arma_3/
Experience true combat gameplay in a massive military sandbox.

 

[madmole]

Not gonna lie this sounds underwhelming to say the least. A19 is already mostly an eye candy release and provides less replayability value than the previous alphas due to the linear progression, I really hope those special infected will improve the gameplay.

Of course it does. Its 2 months, probably less dev time though. So unless we push A20 to next summer, it cannot be anything substantial. And that was a minimum list, there could be junk drones finally added, half a dozen reskinned guns, pipe weapons, etc. A proper random gen with quest destinations laid out nice distances and no visual glitches would be great IMO.

Repainted the whole thing based on your recommendations and did a short video.  It is much brighter and closer to the reference photo.  Ill post it later once its done uploading.  Here are some comparison photos for now.

View attachment 13269

View attachment 13270

Very cool! I like the arched windows with the wood supports. The door way design is cool too with the wedges on the sides.

Agreed. We've defended our castle builds before, it can be done. But we do the same as you, and many others and build 2 bases. A home and a battleground base. It just makes more sense to protect your stuff just in case. But I'd do that whether I build a castle or live above shamways. I always want to protect my stuff lol

Yeah I like having a horde base so my vanity base where I craft/live is separate so my time there is enjoyable because it looks cool. I spend a fair amount of time there crafting/smelting/cooking/storing so it might as well look nice

Can we just once thank the guy who had the idea to let zombies fight against animals? I could watch frozen lumberjacks fighting against mountain lions or bears for hours

That would be me, originally at least. I put that in once we got the AI priorities, but we disabled it for many alphas because cpu was too much having animals fight zombies. Fortunately Faatal was able to add it back in after some optimizations.

 

[Onarr]

@madmole one question though, i remember back when we had placeable tnt, it was fun to use when knocking stuff down, i know we wont get tnt back, but alongside the timed charge are we able to have demo charges that can blow holes through walls?  it can use the same model as the timed charge just orange instead of yellow, or black even, could make for some fun times, just curious

@madmole I second this. The dynamite is awesome, but does not work well whan trying to mine horizontaly. You mine two deep hole and in perfect scenario you throw it far enough to create hole 3x3x3 (it works well vertically, as gravity pulls it to the bottom). But currently 80% of time it does not reach the end and it will instead explode doing damage in front of it. If it could work same as the charge it would be awesome, because it would be reliable. Or perhaps placing it and using remote to detonate.

 

[madmole]

If you're going to the trouble of redoing the art, might I suggest a change to a zombie wolf?

It's come up on the Steam forum recently that dire wolves don't fit well with the other entities.  You've established a consistent visual language where glowing eyes indicate a 'feral' zombie throughout the rest of the game... except for dire wolves, which have glowing eyes BUT give meat instead of rotten flesh.  Plus, dire wolves are the only extinct animal in the game.  Arizona doesn't have polar bears, but no place on Earth has dire wolves, and it's been that way for about 10,000 years.  I assumed dire wolves were added not because they're a logical choice for this zombie game, but because you wanted another animal and could get away with coloring and scaling the existing wolf instead of making a separate model.

Now, you could tweak the art, the lore, and possibly the name to make the dire wolf belong more.  But I think it'd be a better use of time to just follow the same path as the bear, and make an obviously zombified wolf with nasty gory chunks torn out of its hide.

I have to say the meat from all the dire wolves has been nice, though.

It looks pretty undead to me now. Sad thing is undead do not drop good meat to eat, so this just cost you a large sustainable meat source.

What happened to the event-driven encounter system? It seems to have been forgotten about... but that's supposed to be our replacement for the lessened outdoor zombies in the past few alphas. A21?

So many great ideas, no time to put them in. Possibly A20-21 we haven't had our big roadmap conversation yet.

 

[Onarr]

Yeah I like having a horde base so my vanity base where I craft/live is separate so my time there is enjoyable because it looks cool. I spend a fair amount of time there crafting/smelting/cooking/storing so it might as well look nice

It however is an interesting challenge to make the base both well defensible, effective and beautifull. The constraint forces me to be much more creative.

 

[madmole]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

@madmole getting closer...

We are big on consistency. So we'd be all in on it, or not in at all.

There is a euphoria to finding that nice item, to see it degrade and break might suck. But to me I don't like the micro maintenance of loading 4 mods into my replacement item. For a full set of armor it is quite tedious, and being forced into this every game week or two would cut into exploration time, looting time, mining time, etc. I don't think it would really extend the game much except for those guys who like to play the same server for 6 months straight. By the time I find purple top tier items I usually start over, the eventual grind for ammo to keep up with the hordes isn't very fun to me, and adding end game burden of item degradation would probably just annoy people more than it would make them feel engaged, because by the time your purple gear is degraded, you might be ready to start over anyway.

I say this because there is that inevitable growth curve where you have already unlocked all the schematics, you have all the perks you really need, leveling is slow, and the thrill of a new survivor sounds more fun than forging ahead. I get this same feeling in all RPGs I play, Skyrim, Fallout, etc. I rarely get too late game because you become a god.

You can achieve the same thing with delete all on death. Then you actually have to rebuild all your items you lost on death. Or play pvp and when you get wrecked and they take your stuff, same thing, you are faced with restoring it all. That feels more exciting to me than a constant breaking of stuff I worked hard for, and is a good light dead is dead option IMO for people who want serious consequences for dying, but aren't quite ready for hardcore dead is dead where they delete their save.

 

[madmole]

It however is an interesting challenge to make the base both well defensible, effective and beautifull. The constraint forces me to be much more creative.

I have done this with a lot of bases.

 

[Laz Man]

That is very nice. The big thing that bothers me is large flat walls, like 57 in you have that one wall that is angled with nothing on it. I know it probably matches the original and it is hard to put stuff on angles. Maybe even just a trim block, or extrude it out one row half way up the wall might look cool, or use catwalks to break up that big flat wall. Or extend out to a guard tower would be cool.

I liked how all the traders were hanging out, I hope we can get that feeling when we do Noah and the Dukes compound with NPCs doing stuff making it feel alive.

I agree 100%, I hate plain surfaces.  The angles definitely make it more challenging.  I was actually thinking of adding some type of back structure like a rear docks to break up the plain areas some more.

I want to add some rocks at base where the castle meets the water but I think the Microsplat is converting the stone terrain to dirt.

Regarding traders, yeah I had alittle fun with it.  Tried to make it feel like they traveled to Noah's castle together....

The head tracking from the traders made it feel like they were waiting for the player to arrive.

 

[Toban]

It however is an interesting challenge to make the base both well defensible, effective and beautifull. The constraint forces me to be much more creative.

I do agree it can be fun, but now I just prefer to have the 2 bases. Each having their own uses works better for me I feel.

I agree 100%, I hate plain surfaces.  The angles definitely make it more challenging.  I was actually thinking of adding some type of back structure like a rear docks to break up the plain areas some more.

I want to add some rocks at base where the castle meets the water but I think the Microsplat is converting the stone terrain to dirt.

Regarding traders, yeah I had alittle fun with it.  Tried to make it feel like they traveled to Noah's castle together....

All the traders stood like that made it feel like a little market area in the castle. It looked great. 

 

[Morloc]

We are big on consistency. So we'd be all in on it, or not in at all.

I agree that having the "coolest thing ever" withering away is no fun. I find myself keeping such things as trophies in games that do this rather than ever using them.

What might work however is to have the item degrade as a result of field repairs (the skills of a survivor using a workbench), BUT have the Traders offer a more comprehensive "overhaul" repair which would bring it back up to full specs (at a prohibitive cost of course). The master artisans could even offer a service which could improve an items stats, at the risk of lowering them instead. This would also be an expensive service.

-Morloc

 

[n2n1]

We are big on consistency. So we'd be all in on it, or not in at all.

There is a euphoria to finding that nice item, to see it degrade and break might suck. But to me I don't like the micro maintenance of loading 4 mods into my replacement item. For a full set of armor it is quite tedious, and being forced into this every game week or two would cut into exploration time, looting time, mining time, etc. I don't think it would really extend the game much except for those guys who like to play the same server for 6 months straight. By the time I find purple top tier items I usually start over, the eventual grind for ammo to keep up with the hordes isn't very fun to me, and adding end game burden of item degradation would probably just annoy people more than it would make them feel engaged, because by the time your purple gear is degraded, you might be ready to start over anyway.

I say this because there is that inevitable growth curve where you have already unlocked all the schematics, you have all the perks you really need, leveling is slow, and the thrill of a new survivor sounds more fun than forging ahead. I get this same feeling in all RPGs I play, Skyrim, Fallout, etc. I rarely get too late game because you become a god.

You can achieve the same thing with delete all on death. Then you actually have to rebuild all your items you lost on death. Or play pvp and when you get wrecked and they take your stuff, same thing, you are faced with restoring it all. That feels more exciting to me than a constant breaking of stuff I worked hard for, and is a good light dead is dead option IMO for people who want serious consequences for dying, but aren't quite ready for hardcore dead is dead where they delete their save.

The more i get involved in the process of creating the gameplay (my mod), the more often i begin to understand what you are saying, despite the fact that my views are radically opposite . Thanks You for the clarification!

 

[Adam the Waster]

2 hours ago, Laz Man said:

@madmole getting closer...

Nice job laz! All you need is a Dragon and skeletons Guarding it and it would be perfect! 

 

[BumbaCLot]

Mainly because i don't care about the blood moon horde... That is the least of my worries since i use a glock9 style base... The only time it's a issue is when i am up in the high hundreds days and i fall through a door/hole in the base right into the mob.

It's the rest of the time i have a issue with.

And the stupid op bears, mountain lions, and dire wolves..

I would like to, but a lot of the mods just make me feel like I'm "cheating" (not to crap on others gameplay).

But then again, I just play on default, so toning things down via settings just doesn't sit right either.

I am not Rambo, or JoJo, but I don't want to have to turn things down from default (which is what anybody should be able to play on hence the name) to get a fun experience.

kinda conflicted I know, but that's just the way it is.

Yeah, F explosives, except for the frag grenade.. And even then I have almost killed myself with those on more than a few times.

So you know bears are hard to kill, and no, they aren't going to make them easier.

You can play on an older version, which you don't want to do.

Everyone has told you how to mod the bears, how to switch to an older game, and if you are using a controller instead of a kb/m that's on you as well.

But not looting a bookstore until your gamestage gets higher, I have to say is silly.

As MM said (and I did 2 days ago) all schematics are useful if you don't have any.

There are bookshelves in tons of POIs, and there is no guarantee you are going to get whatever in the world you call 'good loot' when you hit a particular gamestage.

I've seen people loot book stores at gamestage 80 and get 90% paper with loot goggles, lucky looter, and eye kandy.

I have no idea how the loot table works with bookshelves / piles of books, but if you have a pump shotgun schematic on day 15, there isn't much better to be found until you hit level 85.

As other said, lucky looter 10% bonus is not going to help you period if you have to unlock at gamestage 10 / 35 / 85 as 5% of 100 is 5 10%of 100 is 10, all it can do is either get you to level 1 of the next tier a little early, or level 5/6 of your current tier. Adding looting goggles / eye kandy / LL all combined makes you punch a bit above your weight.

And there are books you are depriving yourself of that give you more of each general item.

 

[Roland]

There is a euphoria to finding that nice item, to see it degrade and break might suck. But to me I don't like the micro maintenance of loading 4 mods into my replacement item. For a full set of armor it is quite tedious, and being forced into this every game week or two would cut into exploration time, looting time, mining time, etc. I don't think it would really extend the game much except for those guys who like to play the same server for 6 months straight.

I feel the item degradation would give to both looting and crafting is worth it. The number of uses or repairs before total degradation can be extended so that it isn’t happening all the time and lessens the blow somewhat but think of the increase in joy when finding a duplicate if this mechanic is added. 
 

I think it could add a lot more excitement than the angst it might cause. And the micromanagement aspect is completely controllable by lengthening duration. 

 

[Trekkan]

The sense of entitlement around here is amazing.

 

[Adam the Waster]

The sense of entitlement around here is amazing.

then i am the king of Entitlement!

All bow down to me!

 

[SnowDog1942]

The sense of entitlement around here is amazing.

Just here? Lol