PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Guppycur said:
So player characters... and this may be more of a faatal question... Will there just be like 8 models to choose from and then add clothing to or will be still be able to change the looks?

If the former, please allow for modability so we can include our own character and clothing assets. 

If the latter, carry on, and about time. :)
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I don't know as that is not stuff I have worked on. Don't think there have been any code changes yet for it.

 
my 2 cents: 
 I just can not stomach another stock NPC mission in any game: Search And destroy target (area) X  , Escort Y, Retrieve Z. 

They kind of work in non-persistent world games that you pick up and play Match style. Like Left4Dead, Siege, Cod, Pubg. Buy on persistent and long games they are really hacky, thing the devs add to game when they can not think of anything original. Do not get me wrong Pimps have doe ground brraking work on Voxel and many other area, but you chickened out, you removed those magnificient features and relaced them stock RAD crap. Like skill the levelling and perks, uh ! has that not been done and re-done enough ?  I make this make 7d2d great again !
I would pay monthly subscription for this game. Be brave and innovative I know you can be and try some new and fair payment models. Something that rewards the makers for making the game sustainable and players to stay in the game for years. I Trust you and have stuck with this game even since after A12 when you changed direction and changed the game completely. I do not know if this path has been financially good but I think it sacrifices long term gains for short term gains. ( know the sw realities all too well, if there are no short term gains the project is not sustainable) 

This game has game has become ADHD, it tries to be Fallout, COD, GTA, WoW all at one. If you just focused on thing, like zombie survival, this game woulds be unique and  amazing like it used to be.  

Low hanging fruits : 

* Paint skins to continue suply,ammo,weapons crate line: armor/clothing, ore (even one for each type) maybe mods. 
* make doors and hatches paintable. (after crates this is next most important paint target, as Rust proves)
* Camo paint that actually matched the colors of the biomes. 

And for love of god make the game theme music loop finate or configurable.  How many of us have logged out to make dinner  or to watch TV only to have theme music echo other room but you are too tired or lazy to go turn it off so you end up listening to it hours at end,  

Other things I would love to have are : 
1. make (top tier) vehicles better able to dive 45 deg uphill 
2. 45 degree uphill draw bridges 
3. have turret placement rotate to all 6 faces just like all other blocks and stick to wall and ceiling. 
   * so you can place it into a alcove without every time breaking the wall behind it to reload it. 

 
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Since you're adding all these primitive weapons I just want to point out that both the lead pipe and candlestick are lethal weapons. Just watch the movie Clue.

 
A player character overhaul was something I was definitely hoping to see, which makes me excited for A20!  The player models were beginning to look very dated in comparison to some of the new zombie models that came out in A19.  Definitely looking forward to seeing some newer, nicer-looking player characters.  The equipment system rework also looks very interesting too, I definitely agree 10 slots is too many, though, without clothing slots aren't heat/cold resist going to become a bigger issue? 

The original armor sets (padded/leather/military & scrap/iron/steel) will still be in the game right?  Are clothing options going to be in as well?   We're going to have to choose between wearing clothes and wearing armor?  There's still a few questions I have about all that.  I do like parts of the clothing system, though it could be scaled back a bit. 

Also, will there be a set bonus armor set for stealthy players? 

Another thing I wanted to do was echo some opinions mentioned earlier in the thread; the lack of weapon variety, especially at tier 3, is definitely something that holds the game back in my opinion.  Not majorly, but there are plenty of options, at least for firearms.  I agree with the devs on character models and animations as well, but I also agree with others here about weapon variety too. 

There's only really one endgame option for each weapon category, very few sidegrades, if any.  We only have one endgame sniper rile, why not a .44 lever-action?  A tier 3 pistol that uses 9mm?  There's plenty of options for high tier weapons that'd make for more choice in your build rather than just direct upgrades.  

I know it's easy to say "just add more things!!1!" but there are so many options in build in terms of mods, armor types, perk builds, but for weapons it feels like it's just "best in slot" for each category.  Meaningful options for at least tier 3 would be great I think.  The pipe weapons are definitely a good idea though - the A19 early game was rough until you got that first gun!

 
I hope that the more detailed player + animations won't have an impact on performance.

I play SP only, so I don't care at all about how detailed and good-looking my character is!

The only way I see them useful is IF they add (e.g.) kill moves (like in Skyrim).

In that case it would be awesome to watch a slow motion kill of some zombie during a battle!  :nod:

 
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You guys should add a warning growl for wolf and direwolf attacks. The direwolf at least, its attacks are too powerful to warrant complete and utter silence until it's upon you. Dogs growl when they start running at you, and they're micky mouse to kill, barely a threat. It was day 4, early morning, still night time technically, and I had armor on 4 different slots, I was harvesting cobblestone and cement blocks at a construction site, while crouched, so my noise was super quiet. I still couldn't hear the direwolf who attacked me while I was digging the blocks. I got out my level 1 AK immediately, turned toward it and shot it 4 times in the head, but by then it had attacked me the 3 times required to kill me... Which is kind of absurd when you're wearing 4 pieces of armor. But keep that, hell, double the direwolf's damage, as long as you add a growl so I can kill it or reach a safe spot before it has a chance to harm me at all. I'm a death is death player and for the most part the game's pretty balanced, look out for landmines, hope for the landmine immunity book, if you step on one and die, it's because of your own lack of focus. But that's where the direwolf seems like it needs the change of an audio queue, you simply cannot prepare for it until it's already attacking you, unless you saw it first, which is hard to do at night even with the glowing eyes, when you're busy doing stuff and interacting with blocks. A precious whole single second after it growls to at least do something would turn an impossible situation into a possible one. If I heard it growl I would have jumped over the nearby obstacles to gain some distance and switched to my AK, and I could have handled it. When I died, my bullets didn't even stop it from attacking me. I was auto-firing it in the face but it still bit me two more times in rapid succession. The direwolf should be OP, I get it, but at least give it a growl. Dogs have always had warning growls because they're damn dogs, and damn dangerous, at least they were before bleed wounds became less common. You always knew the players deserved that warning growl to even the score because in the history of 7 days dogs were a prominent threat. I've never seen a more equal candidate for such a warning growl than the direwolf, because it's the new alpha predator in the game. Give it a growl please =( If you tell me there already is a warning growl for the direwolf, then you guys definitely need to double the volume of it because like I said, shoveling cobblestone while crouched. Nothing should have been louder than the incoming direwolf.

 
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Well, was off last two days on a trip to Michigan.

Been working on event system optimizations.

19.3 exp is getting close.

 
faatal said:
Well, was off last two days on a trip to Michigan.

Been working on event system optimizations.

19.3 exp is getting close.
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What he h3ll man, im a paying customer and your taking vacation!  The nerve..

Hope you had fun!

 
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faatal said:
Well, was off last two days on a trip to Michigan.

Been working on event system optimizations.

19.3 exp is getting close.
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I truly hope you had fun in this troubled times. As for the 19.3 tweaks.... I didn't think you would pull off one of the lengthiest of CPU optimizations so soon. I was also thinking that maybe you had people helping you to do that part.

Imma see myself out now.  Thanks for giving me hope to finally begin to enjoy a19. Have a great week.

 
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SnowDog1942 said:
What exactly is an event system?
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Specifically, I've been profiling the game and our MinEvent system, which has to do with processing all the rules in our xml files, like progression.xml, continues to take a good amount of CPU.

A good example is every 2 seconds an action tries to remove fire particles off the player, which was slow and made some garbage because it checked all the player transforms (200+). Now entities have a list of active particle effects, so basically takes zero time. The transform find function is also faster now and makes no garbage.

A19.3 has some optimizations, but these changes are for a20.

 
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faatal said:
Specifically, I've been profiling the game and our MinEvent system, which has to do with processing all the rules in our xml files, like progression.xml, continues to take a good amount of CPU.

A good example is every 2 seconds an action tries to remove fire particles off the player, which was slow and made some garbage because it checked all the player transforms (200+). Now entities have a list of active particle effects, so basically takes zero time. The transform find function is also faster now and makes no garbage.

A19.3 has some optimizations, but these changes are for a20.
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I see. That's why madmole called it a feature while technically optimizations are not. Handling transforms through an event system is IMO the best possible thing for potato PCs of the 2nd millenium. It makes sense if you are to introduce a good workshop environment in the future. 

 
Any new hook-ups in the MinEvent system? Not sure how up to date the bottom of buffs.xml is, but there are quite a few goodies commented as not hooked up.

 
Regarding bow balance, I still find bows to be somewhat underwhelming, especially early game compared to other ranged weapons. Would the dev team consider a slightly faster draw rate across the board for bows? That one tweak would go a long way.

Curious, what do your new analytics tell you about players choosing the Agility line?

 
Speaking of weapons, will SMG's and Hunting Rifles be made more common in A20? They barely seem to exist in this current update, at least with my experience. Anyone else?

 
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