PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Morloc]

So, I was farming some sand/rocks from a POI and I realized that a pile of dirt/sand was working like if it was a bunch of rocks!

Is this intended or a possible glitch/bug?

That looks like the hard sandstone you encounter when you dig in the desert (just below the top layer of sand).

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 

 

[hotpoon]

General A20 Feedback

• RWG has come along way and cities look fab. A lot of attention to detail.
  
• Tier 5 towers absolutely wreck performance for every one on the server even if they aren't in the vicinity when someone starts a quest there.  
  
• Farming is not enjoyable, so its increased difficulty this alpha, has made me add an A19 farming mod. I prefer not to use mods because it makes me reliant on the modder to update it.
  
• Similarly, I use a mod to make the zombies lootable. This should be in the default game, as it used to be.
  
• Find it strange that you need a recipe for bacon and eggs, but seem to have innate knowledge of how to make pipe weapons.
  
• I've come to the conclusion that trader quests ruin the game. The ease of reepeating quests, together with small inventories and low stack sizes make people on our server less interested in exploring the map - instead they just do trader quests over and over again in the town closest to their base, and quickly become bored of the game and stop playing. I think it's getting the same feeling of pointless quest repetition that you find in a lot of MMOs.
  
• Still think specific weapons shouldn't be tied to specific skill trees.  It makes me feel cheated when I have to put points in 2 different trees because I want all the perks of one tree but don't like the weapon associated with it.  If you instead made weapon skill increase with some form of LBD, that feeling of frustration would disappear.
  
• Absolutely LOVE the way you can now scalp zombies, and how their heads sometimes pop off.
  
• Twitch integration is HILARIOUS, especially the big head zombies and silly sounds.
  

Looking forward to roaming sleepers, better player models, and water overhaul in A21. Pimps, thanks for your passion for this game, and that you are so communicative with your player base. Most other devs could learn a thing or two from you.

 

[Jost Amman]

That looks like the hard sandstone you encounter when you dig in the desert (just below the top layer of sand).

Actually, there's a mound of the same exact "material" in a different POI where you can use the shovel and get mostly sand (it's the one with the side scaffolding and a Cement mixer in the yard and lots of cement pallets). That's why this one sounded weird. But maybe things have changed in A20.

 

[Morloc]

Doesn't make sense just because? Is there a reason?Are you against the convenience of construction?

I'll speculate that it's a realism/immersion thing. Without complex re-rod railings made with concrete aren't going to have very much SI. They'd be fine for decoration if placed on sound surfaces. The difficult-to-make iron bars made more (realistic) sense despite being less convenient.

It's the usual thing....all about what you'd prefer to trade off for your particular playstyle.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 

 

[Morloc]

Similarly, I use a mod to make the zombies lootable. This should be in the default game, as it used to be.

It's not so bad...bags drop more often now. I'd think in "real life" you'd quickly determine if the lump of infected goo you just offed had anything useful, and wouldn't be rifling very much through its sticky pockets and crusty crevices. 

Find it strange that you need a recipe for bacon and eggs, but seem to have innate knowledge of how to make pipe weapons.

ROFL /salute Agree 100%...though game balance is balance.
 

Absolutely LOVE the way you can now scalp zombies, and how their heads sometimes pop off.

This is called Glennification.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 

 

[Quantum Blue]

Bacon/Eggs requiring a perk:

I mentioned a couple years back I used to be a chef.  It is not reality to think everyone can make bacon and eggs.  (especially multiple times).  It isn't even now (when we have all kinds of pots and pans and appliances and cooking shows and ...) let alone in some apocalyptical future where radiation/disease/dirt/etc. are rampant.  Putting a perk into cooking is an abstraction for knowing what to use to cook (water / no water - which does not have to be literally represented by the game) a certain kind of pan or pot, how long to cook, how to cut/slice the bacon, how much to stir, how much do I have a situational awareness for (crap - I burned 'em again...)  And the character could even be suffering from some kind of amnesia - so they would be starting from scratch.

I suspect that once TFP rolls up the game into what they want it to be they'll use very bright people with a LOT of imagination to help define the story and the world and why it works the way it does.  Maybe then 'reality' and 'immersion' will be more 'acceptable'.

 

[Lord Morphleyes]

Bacon/Eggs requiring a perk:

I mentioned a couple years back I used to be a chef.  It is not reality to think everyone can make bacon and eggs.  (especially multiple times).  It isn't even now (when we have all kinds of pots and pans and appliances and cooking shows and ...) let alone in some apocalyptical future where radiation/disease/dirt/etc. are rampant.  Putting a perk into cooking is an abstraction for knowing what to use to cook (water / no water - which does not have to be literally represented by the game) a certain kind of pan or pot, how long to cook, how much to stir, how much do I have a situational awareness for (crap - I burned 'em again...)  And the character could even be suffering from some kind of amnesia - so they would be starting from scratch.

I suspect that once TFP rolls up the game into what they want it to be they'll use very bright people with a LOT of imagination to help define the story and the world and why it works the way it does.  Maybe then 'reality' and 'immersion' will be more 'acceptable'.

I wonder how many people know how to turn a random cut of meat into bacon. Bacon from a package still requires some know-how, but you don't have "bacon" in this game you have e meat and turning that to bacon is something  the average person doe not know.  

I'd be cool with the bacon and eggs recipe requiring fat though. 

 

[Quantum Blue]

I'd be cool with the bacon and eggs recipe requiring fat though. 

Me too.  (although they might need to increase the fat drop rate/amount.)  Or water.  I suspect I will find a way to imagine a justification for just about any way they decide to handle it.

(/sarcasm on...)

Know what I can't justify?  Egg Nests.  Everywhere.  In the forest.  In the desert.  In the snow.  In the wasteland.   And always having feathers.  My 'immersion' requires that my character have to climb every tree searching all branches to find one.  And it should take a couple hours in-game time and have all kinds of percentages to fall and break things and/or die.

Now if they could handle bird nests the way Donkey-Kong did, that would be great.

(hyperbolic reference to 'suspension of disbelief'.)

; - )

 

[SittingDuck]

Me too.  (although they might need to increase the fat drop rate/amount.)  Or water.  I suspect I will find a way to imagine a justification for just about any way they decide to handle it.

(/sarcasm on...)

Know what I can't justify?  Egg Nests.  Everywhere.  In the forest.  In the desert.  In the snow.  In the wasteland.   And always having feathers.  My 'immersion' requires that my character have to climb every tree searching all branches to find one.  And it should take a couple hours in-game time and have all kinds of percentages to fall and break things and/or die.

Now if they could handle bird nests the way Donkey-Kong did, that would be great.

(hyperbolic reference to 'suspension of disbelief'.)

; - )

All those nests awe from wild chicken

 

[Jost Amman]

It's not so bad...bags drop more often now. I'd think in "real life" you'd quickly determine if the lump of infected goo you just offed had anything useful, and wouldn't be rifling very much through its sticky pockets and crusty crevices. 

I thought a Necromancer like you would enjoy that!  :biggrin1:

 

[Jost Amman]

Know what I can't justify?  Egg Nests.  Everywhere.  In the forest.  In the desert.  In the snow.  In the wasteland.   And always having feathers.  My 'immersion' requires that my character have to climb every tree searching all branches to find one.  And it should take a couple hours in-game time and have all kinds of percentages to fall and break things and/or die.

A much simpler way would be to make trees "lootable" where you can directly find feather and eggs from them.

Also, when felled, they should give some feathers on top the harvested wood.

But I agree with the general idea that nests on the ground is kind of immersion breaking (though I'm so used to it right now that I don't even care anymore).

 

[JCrook1028]

Will we have any optimizations during the Alphas?

Optimization has been and is now always an ongoing process. If you read the forums you'll see faatal constantly posting about optimizations he has worked on.

 

[PoloPoPo]

Say hello to my GYROPORTER - teleporting whenever it wants to wherever it wants.

Completely filled with stuff so of course I cannot simply pick it up...

 

[JCrook1028]

Find it strange that you need a recipe for bacon and eggs

So you think everyone knows how to turn a living pig into bacon? And then to cook it over a campfire without burning it? have you ever cooked eggs over a fire? Trust me, it is NOT at all like cooking it on your stove at home. It is VERY easy to completely trash them.

 

[Mechanimal]

General A20 Feedback

•  
  
• I've come to the conclusion that trader quests ruin the game. The ease of reepeating quests, together with small inventories and low stack sizes make people on our server less interested in exploring the map - instead they just do trader quests over and over again in the town closest to their base, and quickly become bored of the game and stop playing. I think it's getting the same feeling of pointless quest repetition that you find in a lot of MMOs.
   
  
• Still think specific weapons shouldn't be tied to specific skill trees.  It makes me feel cheated when I have to put points in 2 different trees because I want all the perks of one tree but don't like the weapon associated with it.  If you instead made weapon skill increase with some form of LBD, that feeling of frustration would disappear.
   
  
•  
  

- I think a good compromise would be to have quest missions NOT repeat, at all, per player/trader. Or at least label each quest with an unique title of some kind, something easily recognizable, not just a generic quest-type and distance, so we can at least decide at that moment instead of 500m later when we pull up to it, roll our eyes, and cancel the quest. Not sure how that'll work on an MP server, I tend to play more SP. Would be great for SP play(my style anyway), I would def go further per playthrough, but for now I get bored way too early, repeating quests is a huge part of why that happens. I want what I do in the world to matter, be permanent. POIs poofing back to life ruins that feel.

- Same. I too wish weapon types were not married to attribute categories. Since this change I mostly ignore the weapon aspect of each category and just use weapons I'm barely or not at all spec'd into regardless. What I use is typically determined by RNG'd loot, I rarely if ever craft weapons because I have to spec too far into it to make a decent one, and tend to find/be rewarded something better in the meantime. For example I always use a bow early/mid game, but rarely if ever spec into it. Often happens with tools too. Spending points to craft better versions, of anything, feels like an unnecessary waste of skill points more often than not. 

Just little tweak suggestions, still feel A20 is a major step forward overall. Plus who knows how A21 will shake things up, yet again. Still get tons more replayability than the vast majority of games, and that's saying a lot from an EA effort. Too many game alpha's out there that aren't anywhere near as polished/playable along the way(SC, omg I love/hate that one.), or even in release state. No other game in my library, of nearly 200 games, has anywhere near the playtime as my 3,550 hours in 7DTD. 

 

[hiemfire]

So nothing player craftable?

Nope. Hopefully that changes.

 

[Noctoras]

General A20 Feedback

• Find it strange that you need a recipe for bacon and eggs, but seem to have innate knowledge of how to make pipe weapons.
  
• I've come to the conclusion that trader quests ruin the game.
  

Good call on these two points, defiitely worth pondering

 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

It's not option material because for zombies to be any threat at all they need to be capable of getting to the player - both out in the wild and in POI.

Digging down 3 blocks and putting a frame above your head can not provide 100% safety. That only makes the game look bad.

If you do not want any threat in the game then turn off enemies. That's exactly what the option is for.

Yet again an appeal to the alternative extreme.

Now answer how zombies digging from significant elevation, to bedrock, through 10 steel blocks to find a player hiding makes the game look.

I can tell you. Ridiculous. And why don't you also try answering the horde avoidance on either: 

1. Death and respawn away from the horde.

2. The ability to use POI's and elevated player constructs to avoid the same horde, in the other direction, without the need to disable them.

It's rather telling that what Faatal claimed was; and I take liberty in paraphrasing - seemingly trivial work to him; implementing digging, and that you flat refuse to entertain disabling this even as a mod option.

There was another alternative, the ability to render zombie damage against dirt blocks as 0 (which other modders couldn't quite reach, 1 being the minimum damage) but I have a feeling this also will be rejected even as an option for modding.

I would be pleasantly surprised to hear something to the contrary, but I'm not holding my breath. 

I really can't understand why anyone would dislike my posts, since what I have always advocated for is choice, player choice, and this is at the very heart of the modding ideal - the freedom and flexibility for a community (way more skilled than I am) to offer the rest of us a varied and alternate way of playing.

That being said, I have nothing more to discuss on this topic.

 

[GoldsharkROU]

Good call on these two points, defiitely worth pondering

Yes, two very good points! What frustrates me is having the knowledge to make a drone with AI (unnecessary in my humble understanding), but not being able to build a simple forklift with pulleys ... no longer an elevator!

- Creo que un buen compromiso sería que las misiones de búsqueda NO se repitan , en absoluto, por jugador/comerciante. O al menos etiquetar cada misión con un título único de algún tipo , algo fácilmente reconocible, no solo un tipo de misión y distancia genéricos, para que al menos podamos decidir en ese momento en lugar de 500 m más tarde cuando nos detengamos, hagamos rodar nuestro ojos, y cancelar la búsqueda. No estoy seguro de cómo funcionará eso en un servidor MP, tiendo a jugar más SP. Sería genial para el juego SP (mi estilo de todos modos), definitivamente iría más lejos por juego, pero por ahora me aburro demasiado pronto, repetir misiones es una gran parte de por qué sucede eso. Quiero que lo que hago en el mundo importe, sea permanente. Los puntos de interés que vuelven a la vida arruinan esa sensación.

- Mismo. Yo también desearía que los tipos de armas no estuvieran casados con categorías de atributos. Desde este cambio, en su mayoría ignoro el aspecto de las armas de cada categoría y solo uso armas en las que apenas estoy o nada especificado. Lo que uso generalmente está determinado por el botín de RNG, rara vez creo armas porque tengo que especificar demasiado para hacer una decente, y tiendo a encontrar / ser recompensado con algo mejor mientras tanto. Por ejemplo, siempre uso un arco al principio o en la mitad del juego, pero rara vez lo uso. A menudo sucede con las herramientas también. Gastar puntos para crear mejores versiones, de cualquier cosa, se siente como una pérdida innecesaria de puntos de habilidad la mayoría de las veces. 

Solo pequeñas sugerencias de ajustes, todavía siento que A20 es un gran paso adelante en general. Además, quién sabe cómo A21 sacudirá las cosas, una vez más. Todavía obtienes mucha más capacidad de reproducción que la gran mayoría de los juegos, y eso dice mucho del esfuerzo de EA. Demasiados juegos alfa por ahí que no están tan pulidos/jugables en el camino (SC, Dios mío, me encanta/odio ese), o incluso en el estado de lanzamiento. Ningún otro juego en mi biblioteca, de casi 200 juegos, tiene un tiempo de juego tan cercano como mis 3550 horas en 7DTD. 

Missions suck! In every new vendor you can and MUST repeat all over again !, from lvl1 !!, it's boring, it's dumb, and makes players spend hours repeating mindless mechanics to win a few xp and mostly of the cases material that you do not need. There is a lack of depth, a HISTORY is missing that extends the game beyond a few hours of play !. Ok the visual aspect was won a 10 !, now to improve what is not seen !. I want to play another 8 or 9000 hours!

 

[Reckis]

So, now that I have played a bit (two or three games, restarted for various reasons) I feel justified in putting in my two cents worth.

First the positives:

1. Overall? I truly feel that TFP hit it out of the park with this release.

2. City and world gen are better than they have ever been. Cities actually feel like cities and I feel like even outside the cities has improved. The advanced options are a fantastic step towards being able to customize your 7DTD experience.

3. Pipe weapons are awesome, even if they need a bit of balancing/tweaking. As much as I hate to admit it (for fear of them being nerfed into uselessness), I agree with a lot of the other posters on this forum that the pipe machine gun either needs to get nerfed or be more difficult to obtain.

4. Loving the new zombie models! Didn't think it would be possible for me to hate the spider z more than I already do, and the new mutated Z is truly hideous!

5. Tons of new POI's to explore! and the ones I have done have all been a new and exciting experience. Every time I walkup to one of the new POI's I get that familiar old 7DTD tingle of exploration and discovery. I barely feel the need to add the CompoPack at the moment . . . that might change later, LOL.

6. I have been wanting the ability to color vehicles for as long as they have been in the game, and the new vehicle mods are a good start. I would like to see those expanded a bit at some point, but it isn't a game breaker.

I am not going to cover ALL of my negatives because it seems the forums have been buzzing with them and The Fun Pimps are aware of the issues, but here are a couple:

1. Feral zombies don't seem to know when to stop walking at the player and have pushed me INTO walls on more than one occasion. I mean LITERALLY into the wall, as in, I have to enable debug mode and then god mode to get unstuck. 

2. Stealth is overall pretty good this alpha, with one significant exception. Zombies OUTSIDE a structure are still able to hear every little noise you make while inside said structure. I can be sneaking through the third floor of a CONCRETE building and search a small white trash bin with no lid (and btw, why does that make as much noise as a LARGE metal trashcan with a lid?) and zombies outside the building will start beating on the walls to get to me. The same goes for being a story or more underground . . . unless the magic or virus or whatever it is that has animated these human (are they human? they look like former humans) corpses has enhanced their hearing to the level of Superman, they should not be able to "detect" me through several feet of stone and/or dirt.