PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Blake_ said:
Living off the Land 2 is crappy and just a stepping stone as seed recipes are plentiful
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Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT  balance team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle fuel saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop

 
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Khalagar said:
Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop
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I like that.

 
meganoth said:
Usually you can get shotgun parts from double-barrels to craft a good combat shotgun early. But I agree, half of the weapon drops should simply be replaced by 1-3 parts dropping.
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Honestly the rework of gun parts is one of the few, if not the only system that got reworked that I find significantly worse and less appealing than the original. It provided constant upgrading possibilities and every other gun that you found could have worse overall stats but still consist of a part that was an upgrade to yours. It also made your gun... "yours", an item with an history of progress. Right now the crafting part is simply not working, because the whole system isn't granular enough and because crafting now means wasting parts you won't get back, and thus you just almost always save them for a Quality 5 craft, but by the time that is a thing, you've probably moved up a Tier. Upgrading only ever translates through finding a higher level item and doesn't involve any tinkering, the previous version becoming trader food in almost every scenario, once you have unmodded it and moved over your mods to the new gun. Guns simply don't feel special at all, and the whole system seems a bit flawed, which is kind of a shame given how central guns are in the game.

 
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What is this gear icon buff  in the bottom left of my HUD? I thought it was the drone but my friend has it too even when he's not near it

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I've put 60 hours into a world in alpha 20 so far as an agility main build and focused heavily on bows because I like them and they were buffed so it sounded fun. My bow ended up getting outpaced by weapons I hadn't invested point into, but not for the reasons you might think - it was because I couldn't find a crucible. Steel was everywhere so I had no problem crafting a motorcycle, guns, mods, etc. But without a crucible I was hard locked out of steel arrowheads. 

Early to early-mid game they felt great, but I did notice the same problem as last alpha that some of the books feel particularly bad - namely the exploding arrows and flame arrows books. You have to find specific books to unlock these and then also have obtained a crucible to be able to craft the steel arrow heads for them. Even with the buff to their damage, exploding arrows only deal about half the damage of a pipe bomb, but they are considerably more expensive and locked behind crucible and a book. I've also noticed that I've found very few steel arrow heads in loot ~90 over 60 hours of game play and it's worth noting that you can't retrieve exploding arrows so that's only 90 potential shots for the entire game. It's certainly just variance that it took me 57 hours to get a crucible, but that's still 2 specific items you need to luck into and one of those items literally does nothing without the other. 

If this is an issue with a lot of other archers, it might be worth looking at possible solutions, such as upping the chance to find steel arrow heads in loot and starting at earlier game stages. Or, to rebalance both flaming and exploding arrows to need iron heads which are much more readably available since the recipes are already locked behind a book series that you have to randomly find. Personally I think iron heads would feel fair given their low damage compared to similar explosives and their otherwise high cost (an entire duct tape to do ~half a pipe bomb of damage). Perhaps even making two types of exploding and flame arrows, one for iron and one for steel with steel being the better of the two since it's more expensive. Alternatively, they could stay as a late game luxury, but maybe increase their damage to be same as a pipe bomb and similarly increase their gun powder to craft to 12. Finally, you could even consider two recipes for steel arrow heads, for example, without a crucible they cost 21 iron each, and a crucible reduces that cost to 7 (the current cost). They'd be 3x more expensive but still obtainable thus making the books you found actually feel impactful. There's likely many other ways you could go about changing this if anyone else even feels it's an issue, but those are the suggestions chat and I brainstormed together for whatever it's worth.  

Also, and more minorly, a lot of viewers and myself were confused as to whether exploding arrows specifically scale off of the archer perk, demolitions perk, both, or neither. So maybe a note on the arrow saying what perk affects it would help make things more clear to players? 

 
Will it be possible to change the way that the game store the RWG detail ?  So I can use the new RWG, create a nice map with the settings I want, and then after it is created, there is a .cfg file I can then upload to my hosted server, and the server will then generate a map according to those specifics ?

I really love the new RWG, but with ADSL it is simply not practically possible to upload a entire generated map to the server. 

 
Khalagar said:
Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT  balance team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle fuel saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop
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Giving stuff is what Traders do already. And It's plenty. More than plenty. I prefer small permanent bonuses, doesn't matter how small. 5% or 10% seed chance increase is good enough to make LoL great again.

 
Blake_ said:
Giving stuff is what Traders do already. And It's plenty. More than plenty. I prefer small permanent bonuses, doesn't matter how small. 5% or 10% seed chance increase is good enough to make LoL great again.
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LoTL 2 is awful. It needs something. Extra chance to make another farmplot? Double harvest exp? +5%chance to harvest seeds? Maybe even a 10% chance to get 2 seeds instead of 1. It doesn't need to be insane. But it needs to be something better than what Is there

 
MisutoM said:
I couldn't find a crucible.
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This is shocking to me, I have been finding DOZENS of crucibles for sale at traders, and found the schematic at least once or twice too. I did max out the trader perk, but just driving around to 2-3 traders I will find multiple crucibles.

Cigar was the one I absolutely could not find, so I checked all my local traders and found like 5 crucibles lol. I think a crucible costs me like 12k before cigar and sugar butts + the other discount stacking stuff, which isn't too bad. I though they buffed the spawn chance because they are so common for me. I  did have a run in A18 though where I was on like day 50 and still couldn't find the crucible or the schematic either one so I know your pain though

 
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Here's my opinion on A20 after playing for 5 days. Keep in mind, I didn't pay attention to the changes during development, or follow notes, comments, etc...I wanted to experience it myself without knowing anything. That's just me....I don't follow any game like that. Besides, to be frank, I don't have time for it either. Anyhow...

1) First impression means alot and this stood true with all of the terrain improvements that were made. When I first loaded A20 it looked like an entirely new game visually thanks to all of the small intricate changes. Everything just looked much smoother and even the simple things like grass looks much better.

2) I really like the improvements to the RWG! While I still might use a 3rd party program later on in the future just for the sake of flexibility, I don't feel nearly as compelled to do so like I did before in previous versions where it was almost a must. Between the changes to the terrain, the RWG overhaul as whole, and more options.....I feel alot more confident in being able to a create a map I like using the built-in system.

3) New zombie models. This is kind of hit and miss for me, but def more hit than miss IMO. I freaking love the new skateboard dude! That's no doubt my favorite. He scared the living hell out of me the first time he peaked around the corner at me. Please don't change him. The cop looks alot better with more detailed belt accessories and a new old traditional "cop-ish like" colors as if they were there years ago when the apocalypse actually took place.  I'm a bit indifferent on the new Z dog. Sometimes I like it better than before but other times I don't, so I don't know how I really feel about it. But maybe it'll grow on me in time. The new spider Z looks creepy as hell and MUCH better than Tom Clark on all fours. The new Wright doesn't do it for me.... I can't really point my finger on why but I actually liked the older one better. Creepier maybe? I don't know? The same with the new lumberjack. He's not as intimidating as before even though he can take the same amount of beating. Don't get me wrong, I like the new look but it's much shorter than before and it doesn't really fit with the theme of the character like the older one does. When you think of stereotypical "lumberjacks" you think of big, strong, burly woodsman men and the size of the older one represented it much better than the new one does. If it were up to me I would use the new model with the same height as the older model. The Bears seem like alot smaller too and I'm not a big fan of that either but I could be wrong on this one (maybe it's just me). The nurse looks alot better with scrubs. She actually looks closer to modern times than she did before when she looked like she jumped straight out of a 1950s movie.

4) Sticking to changes to zombies. I like how all zombies can now randomly crawl but the transition animations are not very smooth. It's almost as if they teleport from standing to crawling. But I really like the idea of it though since it adds another element of surprise to the game. The mechanics just needs some fine-tuning is all.

5) Feral sense is by far my favorite new feature added to the game! PLEASE continue building on this aspect! I love it! I had no idea this was being added but as soon as I saw it and read the brief description I was so psyched that I set it to ALL and have only ever played it like this ever since. I keep trying to do a 1 life agility run (and I have to max it out before putting points into any other perk) and this has killed me so many times. I put points into knife/archer but I have yet to make it to day 5 on warrior with a 5 day BM. The other day I was on a REALLY good run for day 2.....found a nice temp roof to live on (motel 7?), a forge schematic, an extremely rare crucible schematic, and the trader had a workbench for sale. I was short of money to buy to the bench so I took a "clear funeral home job" and I thought it would be easy to do because it was one of the old POIs that I was very familiar with and man was I WRONG!  Coincidentally I was instantly attacked by 3 ferals as soon I activated the quest and I only had a T2 knife, T1 club on me and I couldn't even run and leave the boundaries without failing the quest! Needless to say that was the end of that run. But I loved how it now keeps me on my toes.

6) Food/meds are now a REAL threat. I love this! I haven't experimented with farming enough to pass judgement yet but food seems like a real threat in early game whereas it wasn't before. I was in the middle of a separate agility run on day 2 or 3 (I don't remember) and my food was down to ~10% when nighttime was approaching and I had no more food. I was for sure going to start to die from starvation very soon and I was holed up in a FARM town at that! I did however notice earlier in the day that there were 2 boars in a field about 200M away in another POI and so I tried to take a chance to get meat and that was a bad idea to try with only a bow and knife 😟.

Anyhow, these are just my initial thoughts. Keep up the good work guys. I can't wait to see what's next.

 
MisutoM said:
If this is an issue with a lot of other archers, it might be worth looking at possible solutions, such as upping the chance to find steel arrow heads in loot and starting at earlier game stages. Or, to rebalance both flaming and exploding arrows to need iron heads which are much more readably available since the recipes are already locked behind a book series that you have to randomly find. Personally I think iron heads would feel fair given their low damage compared to similar explosives and their otherwise high cost (an entire duct tape to do ~half a pipe bomb of damage). Perhaps even making two types of exploding and flame arrows, one for iron and one for steel with steel being the better of the two since it's more expensive. Alternatively, they could stay as a late game luxury, but maybe increase their damage to be same as a pipe bomb and similarly increase their gun powder to craft to 12. Finally, you could even consider two recipes for steel arrow heads, for example, without a crucible they cost 21 iron each, and a crucible reduces that cost to 7 (the current cost). They'd be 3x more expensive but still obtainable thus making the books you found actually feel impactful. There's likely many other ways you could go about changing this if anyone else even feels it's an issue, but those are the suggestions chat and I brainstormed together for whatever it's worth.  
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I like those ideas! Indeed the cost seems high for the damage output compared to other, lower tier explosives. And the double gate is usually a bad thing. An alternative recipe that is more expensive seems like a fairly good compromise. 

 
SP is much harder than MP in A20 but it doesn't really matter if you don't play dead-is-dead.

For me, I finally got to my second BM without dying as SP!  There are some killer POI's (literally!) where MP could lock up a door when you get the "Super zombie rush".

I thought of blocking the door with an instant wooden block, but that would start breaking any believability I have.

I also am ignoring farming as hunting was something I never did and is turning into a fun sub-game!  (Cornbread forever is boring) 

Zombie Cops are tough when in close combat (you GOT to kill it or die!)

I love bear!  Bear meat that is, delivered fresh!  If I fail to see them I could have a problem!

Edit: So I forgot the point... :)

TFP don't change anything drastically.  You have a real winner here!

 
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Khalagar said:
This is shocking to me, I have been finding DOZENS of crucibles for sale at traders, and found the schematic at least once or twice too. I did max out the trader perk, but just driving around to 2-3 traders I will find multiple crucibles.

Cigar was the one I absolutely could not find, so I checked all my local traders and found like 5 crucibles lol. I think a crucible costs me like 12k before cigar and sugar butts + the other discount stacking stuff, which isn't too bad. I though they buffed the spawn chance because they are so common for me. I  did have a run in A18 though where I was on like day 50 and still couldn't find the crucible or the schematic either one so I know your pain though
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I've been told it's a better barter thing. I have 0 points in the skill and I had 9 traders unlocked that I checked every single reset. I think I had all 9 found by day 30 or so too. That's a looooooot of tier 0 basic secret stashes I saw and not a single crucible or schematic until day 57 (specifically the schematic for me). That is just variance though, anyone who plays long enough will likely end up in a world like this but also a world with a crucible on day 1-4 lol. Double gating exploding arrows still feels pretty rough though. Just a little bad luck leaves you with a non-functional book that should be a super exciting find for an archer build. 

 
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