PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[RipClaw]

Suggestion: Drive around the 5 scrap iron blocks instead of over them.

Yeah, try that in the wasteland with a 4x4. Good luck.

People are letting their worries overcome their good sense. Why shouldn't you be punished for driving willy nilly over and on top of and through every obstacle you come across?

First, sometimes you have no choice but to deviate from the road because it means a massive detour following the road. And secondly, you don't necessarily notice every object on the ground. Unless you drive so slowly that you could also walk.

I must say quite honestly that here probably some people interpret much into questions that was never said. The questions from the beginning could have been answered quite simply.

Question: Does this mean that the damage values have been increased for the stream?"

Answer: No, the values have not been increased for the stream.

Question: It would be really nice to know what, for example, the damage looks like after driving through the Wasteland or the Desert without intentionally causing damage.

Answer: In my experience, you have to repair the vehicle only slightly more often. The damage caused by driftwood or other minor obstacles is much less than that caused by zombies or animals, for example.

I would have been completely satisfied with that.

 

[Roland]

Yeah, try that in the wasteland with a 4x4. Good luck.

First, sometimes you have no choice but to deviate from the road because it means a massive detour following the road. And secondly, you don't necessarily notice every object on the ground. Unless you drive so slowly that you could also walk.

I must say quite honestly that here probably some people interpret much into questions that was never said. The questions from the beginning could have been answered quite simply.

Question: Does this mean that the damage values have been increased for the stream?"

Answer: No, the values have not been increased for the stream.

Question: It would be really nice to know what, for example, the damage looks like after driving through the Wasteland or the Desert without intentionally causing damage.

Answer: In my experience, you have to repair the vehicle only slightly more often. The damage caused by driftwood or other minor obstacles is much less than that caused by zombies or animals, for example.

I would have been completely satisfied with that.

Sorry RipClaw. I've been calmly answering the worried speculation for days now since the stream. Even people (not necessarily you) who have read my posts assuring them that it really isn't as bad as they are fearing come back in a new thread and voice the same fears again as if they never had the conversation with me.

That's why I'm mostly convinced that the more part of the negativity about this change is simply that we are going to have to pay for something that used to be free. No one wants to admit that openly so they keep bringing up fears that the damage is too much and the car will explode and destroy all their loot over and over again despite being assured that when they play it they will see that it isn't bad at all.

You can drive off-road in the wasteland all you want and plow into zombies all you want just like you can fire your machine gun all you want but your ammo for using your vehicle in that manner is repair kits.

Too bad your machine gun can't ever explode....

 

[doughphunghus]

@faatal I assume speed is a factor but Is vehicle damage amount/percentage determined by the "material" of the block the vehicle hits (glass/steel/wood/organic/etc.)?

 

[hiemfire]

On the last stream, we were shown that zombies will eat the corpses of animals. Do you have plan's that zombie-vulture/bears/wolves/coyotes also make it with deer's/rabbit's/chicken's corpse?

Should add chickens to the first list. They aren't herbivores and don't turn their nose up to an easy meal from a dead body in their vicinity.

Suggestion: Take a full stack

Suggestion: Drive around the 5 scrap iron blocks instead of over them.

Supplemental Suggestion: Unglue pinky from the sprint key so you have time to react to those 5 scrap iron blocks.

 

[Roland]

Supplemental Suggestion: Unglue pinky from the sprint key so you have time to react to those 5 scrap iron blocks.

You also won't get as hungry while driving! 

 

[MichaelL.]

It's my understanding that there has been a lot of optimization of the lighting in-game - which helps a lot with FPS.  I'm curious if we will still be able to light obects/blocks "internally " (from the inside-out) by turning off the light's shadow setting in order to create special effects?  

 

[RhinoW]

Question: The dismemberment we saw in the latest dev stream is still in early testing right?

 

[POCKET951]

Yes you would. But people are acting like there is a chance for the vehicle to explode at any bit of damage. You have to let your vehicle get into negative numbers and then the chance for exploding starts and it is only a chance. Why would someone let it go that far?  Like ever?

this happened to me one time with one of the vehicles in a darknells falls playtrhough. I was so sad. I also blew up a minibike that day too

 

[mstdv inc]

radiated zombie regeneration is too high

I will have time to make myself lunch, eat, drink tea, take a walk, and only during this time he will restore some of his health.It's too slow now and looks useless.

@Roland

just think... when we get to alpha 22 and some more new stuff and changes.... there will be new complaints and all of the a21 complaints will be forgotten. or at least won t be the main focus.

what they are not completely seeing is... maybe the airways are safer and not as costly.... for now.

And when we get to the gold, we will be sad, because out of habit we will continue to wait for a new update.

 

[mstdv inc]

Will tracers (to see where are bullets coming from) be added at some point in the game? With the addition of bandits in A22 I think they would be necessary

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan", that is, if there is a body part in the crosshair at the time of the shot, then the game will count the hit.No bullets flying out.Without a ballistic examination.
The bow and crossbow use the mechanics of "projectile".Arrows and bolts fly physically and have ballistic characteristics.
To add a shot trail, you need to change the mechanics of firearms in the game to "projectile".

 

[Jost Amman]

I mean, you're free to ask any number of details if you so like, but my suggestion is to try it yourself when A21 is out, so that you can experience at least a bit of the thrill that you had when you first started playing 7D2D and you knew nothing.  

Actually, knowing nothing was extremely frustrating. It was building that brought me to the game. Not killing zombies or looting.

I do it anyway because it's part of the game but actually I enjoy working on bases the most and then being able to test them on horde night.

I never said that "discovering the game by yourself" was about fighting zombies. You can still learn the ropes by yourself on building, if that's your cup of tea.

But I understand now, if you like metagaming, it's your choice. My approach is the exact opposite... I don't want anyone to explain to me anything about a computer game if I can learn that by myself in-game. That's why it's hard for me to understand where you're coming from.

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan"

I think he's talking about Tracer Rounds, maybe?  :confused2:

 

[jorbascrumps]

I think he's talking about Tracer Rounds, maybe?  :confused2:

Fairly certain their asking for bullet trails. Helpful to see where you're being shot at from.

As per @mstdv inc's comments, I doubt they will reimplement shooting mechanics when bandits are introduced. A possible solution could be directional hit effects around the screen to show you where enemies are.

 

[falloutcloud]

Suggestion: Take a full stack

Suggestion: Drive around the 5 scrap iron blocks instead of over them.

People are letting their worries overcome their good sense. Why shouldn't you be punished for driving willy nilly over and on top of and through every obstacle you come across? Why shouldn't you be rewarded for driving well and effectively by avoiding such things? Going off-road and avoiding damage in the forest, snow, and desert biomes will be relatively easy. Going off-road in the wasteland and avoiding damage is going to be harder and you are going to pay for the choice to do so in repair kits. How MANY repair kits will depend on your skill as a driver-- as it should. If you aren't very skilled as a driver and don't want to have to repair a lot then stick to the roads and paths with your vehicle.  This is classic risk/reward gameplay with player skill factoring into the costs. This is game design 101.  Nerfing the damage down to where it is negligible and players don't have to use skills and good decisions and good planning and it doesn't matter because at most you'll just take a bit of damage that you can always repair when you get back to base isn't a good feature. There needs to be actual risk and an actual cost for how and where you choose to drive.

I would really like to see the shopping carts get some kind of physics so when you ram it it goes flying instead of disappearing. Will the damage keep me from ramming them though? No, because I hate those damn things.

 

[Laran Mithras]

Too bad your machine gun can't ever explode....

Confirmed A22: exploding machine guns.

 

[mstdv inc]

@faatal please confirm or deny that the game uses hitscan for firearms and projectile for bow and crossbow?

 

[Roland]

Question: The dismemberment we saw in the latest dev stream is still in early testing right?

Yes. It is all a work in progress. What they showed will be released with A21 but there will be more work done in the future. I'm sure they plan to bring dismemberment to additional zombies. 

 

[Wilkas]

Hello, guys. Tell me, please, do the developers have any plans at all to introduce a horse into the game as a transport? I'm not talking exactly about the release, bat, for example, after the release, is such an innovation even possible? It would also be great if he could use a weapon on a horse to shoot back from the dead

 

[Jost Amman]

I'm not talking exactly about the release, bat, for example, after the release, is such an innovation even possible?

I don't know about bats... but there were hornets in an old alpha.

They were removed, though, and we now have vultures.

As for horses, they already said multiple times that it's a hard pass.

 

[RhinoW]

Yes. It is all a work in progress. What they showed will be released with A21 but there will be more work done in the future. I'm sure they plan to bring dismemberment to additional zombies. 

I was referring to the current state of dismemberment itself, visually. There hasn't been talk about VFX updates on the blood effects and those showcases feel like they're just testing out the limbs falling and not the overall visual feedback. It was also shown that guns and sledgehammers decapitate heads instead of blowing them off like originally? Is this an oversight done on the stream or an actual feature? Same thing for hammers cutting an arm off?

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan", that is, if there is a body part in the crosshair at the time of the shot, then the game will count the hit.No bullets flying out.Without a ballistic examination.
The bow and crossbow use the mechanics of "projectile".Arrows and bolts fly physically and have ballistic characteristics.
To add a shot trail, you need to change the mechanics of firearms in the game to "projectile".

Hitscan games have bullet tracers as well, you don't need physics based projectiles to get them. Fallout 4 and counterstrike are examples of that. They're usually faint and their usage mostly comes in dark environments, which 7 days would benefit off considering night time is a major part of the game.

 

[LittleMonstersTV]

I was referring to the current state of dismemberment itself, visually. There hasn't been talk about VFX updates on the blood effects and those showcases feel like they're just testing out the limbs falling and not the overall visual feedback. It was also shown that guns and sledgehammers decapitate heads instead of blowing them off like originally? Is this an oversight done on the stream or an actual feature? Same thing for hammers cutting an arm off?

The dismemberment we have in A20 was already the same - you could shoot Steve in the head and his head would just pop off.  Would be nice in the end, when they're done working on the system, that the dismemberment matched the type of damage inflicted and I'm sure they're working their way to that.