PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[beerfly]

My survival would start with me kiting the evil chickens through a vat of marinara sauce and then into the BBQ pit... er the fire trap where I would climb to safety!

Go on. I`ll bring the beer ! 

 

[renacava]

This is because a newer engine or different engine does not automatically solve all problems.

Games with a lot of enemies always have a static map. In 7 Days to Die, however, we have a completely destructible world. This means that an enemy must constantly recalculate its path.

In A21, the more distant enemies will recalculate their path less frequently. This should improve performance.
 

i think the biggest problem is that the 7dtd project's been worked on for about a decade now. every coding project grows in complexity the longer you work on it, unless you're super strict and aggressive about keeping it clean.

the engine itself isn't really a bottleneck so much as the architecture of the game, i'm sure. when you're developing a game with an audience that expects featureful, frequent updates, then it's a lot harder to go slow and keep the code clean, to ensure the architecture's flexible, and when you go for a decade like this then the whole project can become extremely brittle.

they may have, ages ago, implemented inefficient or inflexible ways of doing a lot of features because they were on a deadline of sorts. now, after years of building upon that inflexible underlying code, changing things becomes very difficult without breaking the entire system.

and i doubt they have unit tests, i'm not sure unit tests were even supported in Unity when the foundations of 7dtd were layed down.

so now there's probably just this giant web of interconnected systems, making seemingly unrelated parts of the game break when you change/remove/add to other parts of the game, and the devs probably can't even tell when something breaks because there probably aren't unit tests. i can't imagine what a nightmare it must be for them to debug.

I think this is also a big reason why updates have been slowing down, and focusing more on content (textures, meshes, poi's, etc) than systems, and probably also why bandits are such a big mission to implement. i'm willing to bet its because it wasn't an anticipated feature when npc's for 7dtd were first setup, but then years of development upon that npc system meant they coded themselves into a corner when they realised they needed to change that system to allow for bandits.

also pathfinding in an open world isn't necessarily much more expensive than a static one, you'll only need to recalculate nav data when the terrain changes, and that's pretty rare in the grand scheme of the game.

but the zombies also use a breadcrumb system iirc, like old games figured out decades ago, to base npc movement in a map off of player movement in that map.

and since that system was used in games from decades ago, i'm sure it's cheap enough for 2023 hardware.

 

[Burrfly]

Hey does anyone know a mod that re-adds rebar frames and old materials? Yeah I know I mentioned "rebar frames" for the 7000th time now, I'm just pretty upset about it. Thnx 4 reading

Hey does anyone know a mod that re-adds rebar frames and old materials? Yeah I know I mentioned "rebar frames" for the 7000th time now, I'm just pretty upset about it. Thnx 4 reading

Btw I actually think I have some light form of autism (no joke), and I just cannot stand change in a way that REMOVES stuff that was just great to have and I "bonded" with

 

[meganoth]

i think the biggest problem is that the 7dtd project's been worked on for about a decade now. every coding project grows in complexity the longer you work on it, unless you're super strict and aggressive about keeping it clean.

the engine itself isn't really a bottleneck so much as the architecture of the game, i'm sure. when you're developing a game with an audience that expects featureful, frequent updates, then it's a lot harder to go slow and keep the code clean, to ensure the architecture's flexible, and when you go for a decade like this then the whole project can become extremely brittle.

they may have, ages ago, implemented inefficient or inflexible ways of doing a lot of features because they were on a deadline of sorts. now, after years of building upon that inflexible underlying code, changing things becomes very difficult without breaking the entire system.

and i doubt they have unit tests, i'm not sure unit tests were even supported in Unity when the foundations of 7dtd were layed down.

so now there's probably just this giant web of interconnected systems, making seemingly unrelated parts of the game break when you change/remove/add to other parts of the game, and the devs probably can't even tell when something breaks because there probably aren't unit tests. i can't imagine what a nightmare it must be for them to debug.

I think this is also a big reason why updates have been slowing down, and focusing more on content (textures, meshes, poi's, etc) than systems, and probably also why bandits are such a big mission to implement. i'm willing to bet its because it wasn't an anticipated feature when npc's for 7dtd were first setup, but then years of development upon that npc system meant they coded themselves into a corner when they realised they needed to change that system to allow for bandits.

also pathfinding in an open world isn't necessarily much more expensive than a static one, you'll only need to recalculate nav data when the terrain changes, and that's pretty rare in the grand scheme of the game.

but the zombies also use a breadcrumb system iirc, like old games figured out decades ago, to base npc movement in a map off of player movement in that map.

and since that system was used in games from decades ago, i'm sure it's cheap enough for 2023 hardware.

I agree with your first half. But I don't think bandits were an afterthought, they were planned to be in the game from the start. But a lot of code (for example the first AI) was merely a placeholder because they needed one asap. Effectively (AFAIK) they started implementing the AI from the ground up at the start of A17 development, And when I say "they" I really mean one person that had a few other tasks to do in parallel.

Terrain change can be done by simply shooting with a shotgun. You can have 8 guys on a horde night, changing terrian 8 times a second . Plus up to 64 zombies doing some terrain changing as well

 

[OgreSlayeR]

It doesn't appear it will be fixed in A21, but I hope in A22 they polish the combat and gun play. The biggest issue I have is with the combat is how it feels with aiming with the crosshair and aiming down sights especially with misaligned sights. I also think the melee animations could be much better and it would be nice it had some different animations like 3 a hit combination for holding left click and a more visceral right click power attack. I would like if it feels like a game like Rust (at least with the guns) eventually and they remove the crosshair to make it more immersive.

 

[Burrfly]

No hate, but these are just parts of a lot of reviews I found of players who have the same concerns as me. I maybe will get hate due to this, heck, I may even get banned.



(Each seperate image is from a seperate review)

 

[RipClaw]

No hate, but these are just parts of a lot of reviews I found of players who have the same concerns as me. I maybe will get hate due to this, heck, I may even get banned.

In my experience, you will not be banned in this forum if you remain polite and factual.
 

Regarding the statements in the postings I must say that I can understand these points of view. There are changes that have had a negative impact on certain play styles. Mine was also affected and probably will be in A21. How much I can adapt my playstyle without losing the fun of the game remains to be seen.
 

 

[Laz Man]

No hate, but these are just parts of a lot of reviews I found of players who have the same concerns as me. I maybe will get hate due to this, heck, I may even get banned.

View attachment 27913

(Each seperate image is from a seperate review)

Alot of those comments sound like people who fell in love with a particular iteration in development that got upset when a particular mechanic / feature changed.  I can empathize with the disappointment given how long the game has been in development.  One guy was upset with how long it takes to generate a RWG map.  Hopefully he comes back in A21, since map generation time has been significantly improved.   Thankfully, most people think positively of the game and its development (at least based on steam reviews).

With that said, the team is super focused on adding the remaining promised features (e.g. bandits, story, etc.) and polishing and optimizing to gold.



Edit: I would like to add that anyone who has been on these forums long enough knows that the forum moderation team here is very fair.  The only time I would see a poster get moderated and/or banned is when they couldn't accept when other forum members not agreeing with their opinions and then would start to break forum rules left and right...

 

[Roland]

No hate, but these are just parts of a lot of reviews I found of players who have the same concerns as me. I maybe will get hate due to this, heck, I may even get banned.

You're fine. I'm just glad you were able to find your people.

 

[Burrfly]

Alot of those comments sound like people who fell in love with a particular iteration in development that got upset when a particular mechanic / feature changed.  I can empathize with the disappointment given how long the game has been in development.  One guy was upset with how long it takes to generate a RWG map.  Hopefully he comes back in A21, since map generation time has been significantly improved.   Thankfully, most people think positively of the game and its development (at least based on steam reviews).

With that said, the team is super focused on adding the remaining promised features (e.g. bandits, story, etc.) and polishing and optimizing to gold.

View attachment 27915

Edit: I would like to add that anyone who has been on these forums long enough knows that the forum moderation team here is very fair.  The only time I would see a poster get moderated and/or banned is when they couldn't accept when other forum members not agreeing with their opinions and then would start to break forum rules left and right...

Yes, the user reviews are still very positive, but the newer reviews do include players that have not known this game as it was earlier. So, if I were to play 7 days to die knowing only 4 building materials, I wouldn't notice and I would give a positive review. It is however a difference if people were used to the 11 building materials (including different levels) which now have been reduced to 4. And again, not to hate, but comparitively speaking, jan2022-jan2023 has more negative reviews than jan2020-dec2021 (somewhere ~jan2022 alpha 20 released).

 

[Jost Amman]

Yes, the user reviews are still very positive, but the newer reviews do include players that have not known this game as it was earlier. So, if I were to play 7 days to die knowing only 4 building materials, I wouldn't notice and I would give a positive review. It is however a difference if people were used to the 11 building materials (including different levels) which now have been reduced to 4. And again, not to hate, but comparitively speaking, jan2022-jan2023 has more negative reviews than jan2020-dec2021 (somewhere ~jan2022 alpha 20 released).

Most of those complaints can be resolved with mods, which TFP have fully supported from day 1.

So, what's the prob?  :noidea:

 

[Laz Man]

Yes, the user reviews are still very positive, but the newer reviews do include players that have not known this game as it was earlier. So, if I were to play 7 days to die knowing only 4 building materials, I wouldn't notice and I would give a positive review. It is however a difference if people were used to the 11 building materials (including different levels) which now have been reduced to 4. And again, not to hate, but comparitively speaking, jan2022-jan2023 has more negative reviews than jan2020-dec2021 (somewhere ~jan2022 alpha 20 released).

I would argue building is the best it has ever been.  I'd take 2000+ shapes to build with versus 11 building materials in a heartbeat...

 

[Doomofman]

The extra blocks are the only change to building in A21, right?

 

[Thaledwyn]

Could we get an option in the extended map generation menu to NOT show the preview? (maybe Preview: None, Lowest, Low, etc....)

So we could just create a new world with special biome settings etc. without knowing what's coming / how the map is looking?

At the moment I place an Explorer window in front of the map preview until it is generated so I will not get spoilered

 

[unholyjoe]

Could we get an option in the extended map generation menu to NOT show the preview? (maybe Preview: None, Lowest, Low, etc....)

So we could just create a new world with special biome settings etc. without knowing what's coming / how the map is looking?

At the moment I place an Explorer window in front of the map preview until it is generated so I will not get spoilered

you mean like this?

 

[Fanatical_Meat]

Gotta admit I miss the rebar frames, the super old school frames that required the cement to dry and required manually adding cement.

 

[Pichun1]

No hate, but these are just parts of a lot of reviews I found of players who have the same concerns as me. I maybe will get hate due to this, heck, I may even get banned.

View attachment 27913

(Each seperate image is from a seperate review)

I have been playing the game since A04. I love each alpha and played them for several hours. I always respect and appreciate the changes made because I know only The Fun Pimps see the whole picture. I understand that some people see each alpha as the final version and make comments and critiques about it (this is one of the reasons they take their time polishing each version), but we have to wait until the final product is complete.

We can give feedback (as requested) and trust TFP. If the Gold version has issues, I trust they will listen to the community and fix them (as they always do IMO).

I know I'm not saying much but I wanted to leave a positive comment here

 

[zzzzzz1002003]

Gotta admit I miss the rebar frames, the super old school frames that required the cement to dry and required manually adding cement.

i as well made me feel like a builder and added a idk time crunch when doing a base/repairing one.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Edit: I would like to add that anyone who has been on these forums long enough knows that the forum moderation team here is very fair.  The only time I would see a poster get moderated and/or banned is when they couldn't accept when other forum members not agreeing with their opinions and then would start to break forum rules left and right...

Not true.  Roland yelled at me one time for saying there should be naked bandits that look like Burt Reynolds, with lots of chest hair.   Long long time ago, but I remember  .   Maybe back in A16 days.

 

[HB_H4wk]

@Laz Man We just finished our 1st Wasteland Weekend event on the server and I must say the debris /zombie infested streets were loved by all. I would like to know why the Tree Plains Tree never seems to be used? I broke up sections of the asphalt on the roadways and replaced them with Burn Forest Ground and placed them here and there to hide things. I think it improved the challenge of getting anywhere on the map inside city limits or on the way to a quest location.