PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[outhous]

(if the metal on metal sound isn't changed, I'll find a way to take the silly sound and use it.

Better to listen to a chew toy squeak than the current one)

+1 The new sound is damn near unbearable! Please change it again or just go back to old sound. 

 

[retrogamingdev]

Just fired up my SP game that I started the other day. 

Has anyone seen this occur? There is literally a clear line in the sky where half is blue cloudy sky, other half is like gloomy weather. 

Looking at my debug menu and I see this: 


The lighting is all messed up too. 

My guess is I need to start a new game, but thought I would point it out.

 

[dcsobral]

There's has to be more than one solution to acid than just having the book. Take hunger for example. Many ways to solve it. Hunting,cooking, questing.

In a20 you need 1 book(rng) and exact knowledge of what to hit. And wrenching medical cabinets for acid is just unintutivve.

That, and buying, and chemical piles, and sinks and a few other places you can loot. It's rare, but it's there. 

 

[LostBoy]

Really liking the new Roads / Terrain from what I've seen so far.

Zombie spawning on the other hand has taken several steps backwards.

I had climbed into the Ceiling of a Working Stiff, looked around, all clear, took a step towards a Chest and suddenly three Zombies spawned right on me.

This is really bad, they were not hiding, there was nowhere to hide, they just popped in.

There other examples, but the above was the worst.

 

[suto2200]

i have 2 questions. 1st when will alpha20 be out of experimental? 2nd) how come it seems like me (and a couple others i talked to) have broken rwg no matter what names we put in the 6k, 8k, and 10k maps stay the same (6k is juvupe valley, 8k is west Xuyofu territory) 

 

[dcsobral]

Regarding the new sounds: it's a hit & miss. Some are improvements, some feel like they are about the same but unfamiliar, but some are absolutely awful, unsatisfying and unsuited to the action. I think the importance of being "satisfying" cannot be understated. Repetitive actions such as mining are satisfying in 7 Days to Die in no small part because the sound effect is satisfying, and it would be a terrible shame to lose that.

 

[meilodasreh]

• Suppressors attached to pipe pistols now suppress 
  
• Suppressors attached to .44 magnums now suppress, a little
  

I love the hidden humor in those patchnotes.

Especially because it's listed under "changed" and not under "fixed".

Whether suppressors should actually suppress or not is a debatable feature, not a bug

 

[GRITTY]

Regarding the new sounds: it's a hit & miss. Some are improvements

the wrenching sound, to me, fits but when that same sound is heard when mining, it just doesn't make sense because it's so "off".  i would love to go back to the old sounds or have something more...metallic.

 

[faatal]

Zombie spawning on the other hand has taken several steps backwards.

I had climbed into the Ceiling of a Working Stiff, looked around, all clear, took a step towards a Chest and suddenly three Zombies spawned right on me.

This is really bad, they were not hiding, there was nowhere to hide, they just popped in.

There other examples, but the above was the worst.

There have been no changes to spawn in distances. Sleeper volume positions/sizes and sleeper locations do vary by POI and are up to each designer to place. Vertical separation is strict to keep performance up, so climbing into a ceiling combined with nowhere to hide the spawn may be what you saw in that case.

 

[Maxi-King]

Hi, i dont know if this is  something new, but zombies not targeting small "pillars" and doors.


if they would have destroyed them:

 

[faatal]

Has anyone seen this occur? There is literally a clear line in the sky where half is blue cloudy sky, other half is like gloomy weather. 

Never seen. Does it happen again on game restart?

 

[schwanz9000]

i have 2 questions. 1st when will alpha20 be out of experimental? 2nd) how come it seems like me (and a couple others i talked to) have broken rwg no matter what names we put in the 6k, 8k, and 10k maps stay the same (6k is juvupe valley, 8k is west Xuyofu territory) 

You have to put a seed name in the text box.

 

[faatal]

I know random world gen is and should be random, however since b231/b233 came out I have generated a high number of worlds and it "FEELS" like a change has been made to the forest city spawning in what I would consider a negative way.     I am using non default settings in an attempt to get larger/more cities using the logic that mountains and hills will interrupt to spread cities out.  To limit my expectations, I know that there can't be a "whole map city", that is NOT what I am expecting, hoping, or looking for.  Base on my results, 13 is the most cities that can be generated on a single map and those by necessity must be spread out somewhat.

It may be a bug, but I actually like it. A reason to get out of the forest and go some place. I'd probably also like it if the forest burned down on day 21 and you had to leave or die.

 

[doughphunghus]

There's has to be more than one solution to acid than just having the book. Take hunger for example. Many ways to solve it. Hunting,cooking, questing.

In a19 there were a handful of reliable ways to get acid.

In a20 you need 1 book(rng) and exact knowledge of what to hit. And wrenching medical cabinets for acid is just unintutivve.

Loot got tweaked and rebalanced. And I hope that acid being super rare  is just an unintentional consequence of all the changes and that it is something worth looking into and adjusting  before stable.  It takes acid to make chem benches for example, so shouldn't wrenching destroyed benches atleast yield acid? Or have a chance to have acid on then

Could acid also be a 50% chance thing at the trader like antibiotics except with a bit more variance in quantity?

A20 just lacks a variety of concrete solutions for acid atm compared to a19. 

It's also something you can't craft  or grow and farm.

Also acid seemed to be in a pretty good spot in A19, so it's odd that a nerf to its drop rate has never been mentioned or conveyed, and never has anyone from TFP said acid is too common or OP. So I suspect that this isn't intended unless a Dev says so.

One thing to also note is that the new loot system is a work in progress.i feel  TFP have got 95% of the new system nailed down pretty well. There however seems to be a few hits and misses that need observation,data and feedback so that it can be fine tuned.

Acid and beakers seem much more rare. 

In general  equipment for forges and campfires is far more rare.

Ammo and first aid bandaids/first aid kits are more common now than in A19.

I am sure the new loot system will get there by A20 stable though.

“Acid” is a pretty generic term, but likely its strong/concentrated acid. It’s not something you normally come across in a house but maybe in a hardware store or “business” , sure.

I feel if TFP really wants acid to be rare, then finding it should be rare… buuuut I think the “journey for crafting it” should be there just complex. I think it would feel good to have rare items gated (like they are today with rarity in loot, or trader purchase) but also with crafting. They’re kinda using these rare items to gate crafting anyway (as you need them for crafting some stuff) so why not make crafting a beaker or acid just “difficult and a lot of steps?”. Most of the crafting in the game is really basic (1-2 steps to make anything, even a 4x4) and that’s likely to make it “fun” but it wouldn’t hurt to make n item like acid take a lot of materials to craft something, that’s then used to craft something else, etc. and finally acid. It might even feel good to have to use multiple workstations to do it: render a large amount something on the campfire to extract a liquid (like flowers, whatever), then use the forge to craft a special apparatus (like a heavy glass container), and some electrodes. Build a containment tank and then add all this as a recipe with a battery to the chem station to do “electrolysis” on something to crank out 2-10 acid. Just a made up example but the beaker could be similar.   Just add a lot of effort when you can’t find it anywhere.

 

[spacepiggio]

Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...Tandom Bicycle...

& Zip-----------Lining

 

[dcsobral]

Vertical separation is strict to keep performance up, so climbing into a ceiling combined with nowhere to hide the spawn may be what you saw in that case.

TIL! But that doesn't prevent spawning if the sleeper region actually extends further down (or further up), does it? Or if there's a linked region on the place you are coming from to activate the region you are going to?

It may be a bug, but I actually like it. A reason to get out of the forest and go some place. I'd probably also like it if the forest burned down on day 21 and you had to leave or die.

That would actually be a pretty cool mechanic. I find it so sad that wood doesn't catch fire in 7 Days to Die... But you probably doesn't even have to make it so you'd die if you remained -- I know a lot of people who hate the burnt forest biome above all others, with that constant smoke fog and dreary looks.

 

[faatal]

TIL! But that doesn't prevent spawning if the sleeper region actually extends further down (or further up), does it? Or if there's a linked region on the place you are coming from to activate the region you are going to?

They spawn as you get near the volume. Size does not matter. Distance to an edge is what it uses. Vertical is much closer than horizontal. Grouped volumes should spawn them together and trigger together.

Edit:
And network latency is important. You move, server receives, server spawns, server tells you, you spawn, then it gets rendered. That is 2x your latency plus the instantiate and rendering delays.

 

[Geoarrge]

“Acid” is a pretty generic term, but likely its strong/concentrated acid. It’s not something you normally come across in a house but maybe in a hardware store or “business” , sure.

I tend to think it shouldn't be too rare to find 1 bottle under sinks, since several drain cleaners are acidic. Alkaline products are probably more common, to be fair.

 

[faatal]

Just checking in, loving A20 so far. I saw a big performance jump when I disabled Dynamic Mesh all together. Until then, it was really bumming me out how bad the game was running. My CPU is older (AMD FX-6300), I suspect that is why it was hurting me so bad. 

And since I am coming in after a full line of complaints and suggestions, I have a couple small ones. Does anyone find it weird that you walk around with one hand in view when you aren't carrying anything? Like imagine a regular person walking around with one hand up? And on the same note, could you add a little movement to whatever you are holding? It feels very stiff, like if I was walking with an axe up, it would be swaying a little bit. 

I changed the default to land claim only. Full seems to be a noticeable drain on some computers.

Performance demands vary greatly in the game from in a forest looking up at the sky (a good best case test) to in a dense city surrounded by buildings and zombies (a good worse case test), blood moons even more extreme. Since we spawn you in a forest, people may think that is the typical FPS they will be getting for the options they chose, which is not the average or worse cases.

 

[hiemfire]

Build a containment tank and then add all this as a recipe with a battery to the chem station to do “electrolysis” on something to crank out 2-10 acid. Just a made up example but the beaker could be similar.

Tatos, corn, water, a kettle, a bit of time covered on low heat, and a bit more time open but lightly cooled a bit. I'm not joking. I've had oldish soup eat teflon...

Edit: Just to be clear, it isn't the starch from those "veggies" that is acidic. It is the waste product produced by the bacteria who are having a feast on the carbs in the mix that is. We have in game 3 of the starchiest "vegetables" in existence, being corn, potatoes and mushrooms, which means with a bit of a bacterial seeder, some rotten flesh might work as an in game simile, a "mash" of the 3 heated then left to sit and filtered a bit afterwards could net some acid.