PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Crater Creator]

There should be melee and ranged bandits. Some may do both. Melee are the first ones I'm working on.

They will be hostile. Possibly later there could be neutral or friendly ones belonging to a faction. They will not loot stuff or destroy things unless they are in their way just like the AI currently does.

They are zombies with weapons, but with different behavior. Like they will hide in cover and wait to ambush you.

Hmm.  That's actually disappointing, to me.  Bandits that don't care about loot wouldn't be very bandit-like.

Perhaps the spawning of bandits could be affected by loot, even if their targeting/pathing isn't.  The game could (infrequently) add up the EconomicValues of the player-placed items in every container in the chunk, and ever so often this value could add to an 'economic activity' map.  When the economic activity reaches a threshold, the game spawns a scouting party of bandits.  In other words, it's a rinse and repeat version of the activity map that generates screamers.

That, and air drops, seem like two targets in which bandits should be dynamically interested.

 

[Vintorez]

Hope bandits can call out to alert other bandits to your position

 

[faatal]

Hope bandits can call out to alert other bandits to your position

Bandits of the same faction will have some type of coordination.

 

[bdubyah]

So what's the plan for bandit spawns in the world? People like to complain about ranged enemies ganking them early game, so wondering what you guys have in mind. Being able to gamestage biome spawns would be pretty sweet...

 

[Blake_]

I do recall devs stating that there will be not only bandit "minihordes", but also bandits covering POI and Air drop locations. In fact those will very likely be their first 3 situational appearances until we get more beefy events (npc road encounters, robberies, random battles, etc) in the form of a proper encounter/event system. The event system is a maybe, so it will happen 100%. That's TFP's motto for good stuff, lol.

 

[Callum123456789]

i have a question will there ever be some sort of bandit raid squad? where they have the means to scout out your base and attack lets say you kill lots of bandits and then this would cause a bandit hit squad to track you down and take you out this would be cool but im not sure how it would work fully yet anyways 

 

[meganoth]

i have a question will there ever be some sort of bandit raid squad? where they have the means to scout out your base and attack lets say you kill lots of bandits and then this would cause a bandit hit squad to track you down and take you out this would be cool but im not sure how it would work fully yet anyways 

It is even more simple. Since you are the center of the world any bandits spawned outside of POIs have only one objective: to hunt you down. And they don't even need a reason like revenge, they want to kill you just for the lulz

There should be melee and ranged bandits. Some may do both. Melee are the first ones I'm working on.

They will be hostile. Possibly later there could be neutral or friendly ones belonging to a faction. They will not loot stuff or destroy things unless they are in their way just like the AI currently does.

They are zombies with weapons, but with different behavior. Like they will hide in cover and wait to ambush you.

In other words, waiting is a sign of higher intelligence. Makes AI programming so much easier

 

[Matt115]

Will bandits droping loot after kiling them? If yes , then chances will be bigger to find loot that find loot kiling zombie? 

 

[beerfly]

I want arena where we can bet on fights between bandits and zombie hordes. 

The Duke would go nuts. 

 

[Demonoid74]

 

[Nevergrey]

Hi there!

Thanks for making 7 Days To Die.

Are there more extensive engine optimizations in progress, are the system specs for 7 Days To Die 'done' now or may increase in the future? I ask especially because of the performance issues with activated Dynamic Mesh and the high amount of memory usage while generating big maps.

Edit: sorry, I forgot to ask: Navezgane is a 6k map?

 

[Kalex]

Will we be able to loot the gear off the bandits?

 

[Seaside]

Be nice if we get some random survivor nps's with the bandits. Otherwise we will know every human is an enemy.

Even if the survivor npc's cannot be interacted with at all for now. Similar to wildlife.

Perhaps give us a status hit similar to if we get killed, if we kill a survivor by accident. (Or on purpose)

Further down the road perhaps have perhaps have a slider. If you talk with x number of survivors your stats go up each time you talk to one.  If you kill x number of survivors it swings the other way and you eventually get a bonus for killing them. ie: you're becoming a bad actor.

 

[Matt115]

Well 7dtd will get bandits and water overhaul in A21 so story will be added in A22 probably. So in next year or 2 we will get 1.0. 

So my questions are: 

1. Are there plans to release paid/free dlc after gold? This things are decided before finish game so... please guys give us info about that

2. IF 1 = Yes then  2 = ( hahha code joke i'm so funny.... yeah... ) it will be big dlc like new maps with story, guns tons of poi or smaller like few new enemies , legendary weapons and few POI?  :angel2:

 

[Nevergrey]

Regarding bandits: As far as I understand they are Zombies with weapons, so they won't attack other Zombies. But what is the real difference between them and Zombies (aside from the weapons)? Can they drive cars? Will they enter your area and occupy it, so you need to recapture your base? If bandits are just Zombies with guns, what make them special?  

 

[Roland]

Regarding bandits: As far as I understand they are Zombies with weapons, so they won't attack other Zombies. But what is the real difference between them and Zombies (aside from the weapons)? Can they drive cars? Will they enter your area and occupy it, so you need to recapture your base? If bandits are just Zombies with guns, what make them special?  

"zombies with weapons" is just a phrase faatal used to mean that initially bandits will path and behave very similarly to the zombies except they will have weapons. Eventually they will have more sophisticated actions but the starting point will be pretty basic. He was not saying that they would be zombies and so not attack other zombies. Just as current zombies and hostile animals can and do attack each other, we can expect that zombies and bandits will attack each other.

We do not know yet exactly how ambitious the developers will get with bandit behaviors, tactics, goals, and coordination. All we know right now is where faatal shared with us that they will start out at.

Modders have already gotten pretty ambitious with the bandits that we already had from earlier versions so I am confident that at whatever point TFP decides to stop and say "good enough" where bandits are concerned, the community will be sure to take it farther. That is exactly the allure of mods-- that you can play a game that is beyond the scope of what the developers chose the default game to be.

So there is no reason to worry about bandits simply being zombies with guns forever and amen. The devs are going to start with that and then expand to a certain point and then others will certainly expand even more.

 

[faatal]

i have a question will there ever be some sort of bandit raid squad? where they have the means to scout out your base and attack lets say you kill lots of bandits and then this would cause a bandit hit squad to track you down and take you out this would be cool but im not sure how it would work fully yet anyways 

Bandits kill squads could be as simple as a blood moon, but instead with a set group of bandits at whatever time it decided to spawn.

In other words, waiting is a sign of higher intelligence. Makes AI programming so much easier

We will have to wait and see.

Will bandits droping loot after kiling them? If yes , then chances will be bigger to find loot that find loot kiling zombie? 

Probably. Should be higher as bandits will be more rare.

 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

Since we have bandits in the works, I was just thinking - maybe we could have friendly wandering npcs.

They could just appear randomly in cities and see them chased and downed by zombies, or the chance to intervene for small rewards, for charitable purposes, or just for the wickedness of being able to do them in yourself.

Not often, rare but there. What does everyone think? 

Not having anyone else but you and other players in the world is a bit weird, and bandits would be nice but some indifferents or friendlys (in my opinion) would be amazing, and could trigger like those bandit events people keep mentioning.

Those npcs could even be White River guys ambushed by the Dukes muscle

 

[faatal]

Hi there!

Thanks for making 7 Days To Die.

Are there more extensive engine optimizations in progress, are the system specs for 7 Days To Die 'done' now or may increase in the future? I ask especially because of the performance issues with activated Dynamic Mesh and the high amount of memory usage while generating big maps.

Edit: sorry, I forgot to ask: Navezgane is a 6k map?

Optimizations are not really in progress. They just happen occasionally as I or someone else sees something to optimize. It happens throughout the development process.

Min specs should not be changing from what they are now, but we just recently increased the CPU core/frequency specs. Min spec means you can run the game, but not necessarily every feature or mod well or at all. Dynamic mesh is a good example. I would not be using it at min spec, but it is not something we enforce.

Nav is 6k.

Thanks for playing.

Will we be able to loot the gear off the bandits?

Not decided. Will depend on how it impacts game play.

 

[II Blittz II]

Bandits sound so cool, I can't wait to see how they're implemented into the game. Also, I think this is going to add a whole different approach to the game depending on how they're used. It would be awesome if a groups of them set up camp at random POIs, which will make approaching buildings to loot with more caution. Not only do you need to look out for sleepers, but you could be walking into a POI that's been taken over by Bandits. Either way, you guys are doing a phenomenal job with this game, I love everything you guys been doing. Thanks!