PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Laz Man]

Maybe not increased but it's still too much.  You can see this just by being near a closed door with a zombie crawling on the other side.  They can hit you without really any chance of reaching you if you're close.  I mean, if I can barely hit a zombie with a spear, there's no reason they should be able to reach me while on their hands and knees at the same distance.  Hopefully this gets fixed eventually but as it's been a long-standing issue, I'm not too hopeful of it being soon.

Yeah I don't think that's an A21 exclusive issue.

 

[OgreSlayeR]

I hope bows get fixed a some point especially the primitive bow. I mean I don't expect it to be a laser beam, but it feels bad and I don't know how many times I've had arrows go right through the zombies head and do nothing.

I also hope (prob in A22 or so) they fix the misaligned sights when aiming down sights and get rid of the crosshair when ADS.

 

[outhous]

Pretty sure bows got some work this alpha, I find the Primitive Bow is much better this alpha than A20.  I have had the arrow thru the head thing happen some.

 

[zztong]

I use bows a lot and haven't noticed a difference with the primitive bow. That doesn't mean there wasn't a change. I can be pretty oblivious sometimes.

 

[Belgarion32]

I'd agree that the default quest sharing settings should be off.  I guess they put them on so people would find out about them.

We really haven't had issues with the magazines.  I have a handful I know I'm reading, they have a handful they know they're reading and there are a handful we are just storing because they really have no value to us.  Regarding your issue with looting, I think that's something that just needs worked out on your end.  I don't think the game needs to fix group dynamic problems for us.  If they won't work with you and play it so differently than you do, then maybe it's better to run your own quests and let them run theirs.  Not ideal since you're trying to work together but if they won't slow down then there isn't a lot that can be done.

I guess what I'm thinking is, they already try to force you to do the quests as they were meant to be played and not go straight to loot so why not improve it. Either support the playstyle or don't.

Also regarding loot itself, Minecraft has a mod that implements basically the feature that I think would be a good addition to the game called Lootr.

Snipped from their mod description:

What does it do? Each container that has a loot table (supporting chests, trapped chests, barrels, shulkers and minecarts) creates a unique inventory for each player who opens it! These containers also have a distinct appearance, and their colour changes from gold to blue if a player has already opened the container.

With the addition of the looted containers that was recently added I don't see how it would take much more to implement something like this. Just make the looted state only change for the end chest/box for the player that opened it, then when the second player opens the container check player id and if it doesn't match the prior player's id then generate new loot in the container. I know I'm asking features here when there's still bugs but I think it would nice to have to make shared quests not a detriment in the first few days.

I haven't touched clubs so I'm not sure.  Seems odd that clubs are underpowered so much compared to spears.  I know they improved spears but clubs were very good early game before so it just seems strange that they'd be that far off now.  Might be a bug.

Keep in mind that hitboxes have been adjusted to match the enemy and object more closely, so what you could hit before isn't necessarily a hit now.  It may be that you're missing more due to the expectation that it worked before and so it "should" work now?  I know I miss a lot more with spears than I did before.  With practice, I'm missing far less than I was initially and given a little more time I should be back to rarely missing again.  I'm sure it's the same with bows and other weapons.  For example, I could aim so I was just barely grazing a head with the spear in A20 and it would be a direct hit.  In A21, this would be either a miss or a graze (less damage than a real headshot).

I would think fire axes are on the tool line as they are an upgrade to stone axe and come before battle axe.  Since stone axes are considered a tool, that probably is as well.  I don't use it as a weapon and so never looked into it.

I'm thinking maybe I'm hitting their hands more than their heads if they're swinging? Not too sure. I'll keep an eye on it more and see if a timing issue for me or what.

I'll look into the tools tonight for the axe, thanks.

 

[Gamida]

I like your way of handling your friends....

I'd play alone too or do my own quests if my friends always gave me the leftovers after getting the enjoyment of opening everything...

Was watching a streamer and the way they handled shared trader quests was whoever shared the quest was the one who got to open the main stash of loot. It seemed to work for them.

 

[meganoth]

I hope bows get fixed a some point especially the primitive bow. I mean I don't expect it to be a laser beam, but it feels bad and I don't know how many times I've had arrows go right through the zombies head and do nothing.

I also hope (prob in A22 or so) they fix the misaligned sights when aiming down sights and get rid of the crosshair when ADS.

Not sure if you are aware that hitting in this game is also governed by RPG rules. 

I.e. in a pure shooter game only player skill comes into play. If your mouse points correctly at the head you hit the head, always. In a pure RPG hit or no hit is determined by the roll of a dice, the player only can influence the likelyhood of hitting by getting better weapons or skills.

7D2D is a mix. You really have to point your arrow or gun at an enemy or you won't have any luck at all. But then the game randomly determines where in a circle around the location you are pointing to the arrow really hits.

The primitive bow at quality 0 is an absolute atrocity and you have to be fairly close to the target to have a chance. But that will make it only sweeter when you find or craft better quality bows or higher tier bows.

I am saying this in case it wasn't a bug you are experiencing.

 

[Phoenixshade35]

I am noticing a small bug with the double barrel shotgun, not sure if its been mentioned or not, its a graphical one, when you reload you get smoke from the chambers, which is cool, the bug is when you switch away and back, fire and smoke come from it for no reason, nothing big but worth noting

 

[jorbascrumps]

Was watching a streamer and the way they handled shared trader quests was whoever shared the quest was the one who got to open the main stash of loot. It seemed to work for them.

This works for my group as well to keep eager beavers from sniping all the loot.

You really have to point your arrow or gun at an enemy or you won't have any luck at all. But then the game randomly determines where in a circle around the location you are pointing to the arrow really hits.

I've been playing this game for years and did not know this. I don't think the game communicates this mechanic well (if at all).

 

[meganoth]

I've been playing this game for years and did not know this. I don't think the game communicates this mechanic well (if at all).

The shrinking circle you see when you aim is the actual circle of possible hit locations (though in the case of bows the ballistic flight path comes into play as well) . This is similar to shooters who have accuracy as a weapon stat.

 

[doughphunghus]

8 hours ago, Strengthinside said:

I just noticed that some textures are flickering in the game, has anyone noticed it? I mostly see it on roads, crosswalk lines, but also noticed some wall texture flickering.

I don't know if this is something all people are affected by or just Linux, which I do use to play the game (Ubuntu) I am also on AMD card (rx 6650xt), everything set to high, except shadows turned off.

I managed to catch a case where it does that:
 

https://player.vimeo.com/video/836458286?app_id=122963

Im on linux with an old nvidia 1030 single slot, graphics turned down very low but not all the way down. I haven't seen flickering yet.

 

[Robbing Zombie]

Probably been said, but I'll say it anyway. The dew collector could speed thing up a bit, or several, when it rains, no?

Also, a superchaged reward from the trader (and a new steam  achievement) when you do a night time generator mission during horde night, would be fun.

 

[vergilsparda]

FOR REAL?? Finally that was long needed. Now add them into the Horde Night xD true insanity

Yes!! It was in a POI I was doing a quest for and both times she popped out of her spot!! I won't say what POI tho for fun's sake but it was definitely jarring  

I have the same problem. Here is what I did.

I changed these numbers to 11 from what they were, 8's.

You mod so probably can find the file easy enough. It is under Data\Config\XUi

The windows.xml file. You can also see the lines numbers to left if you use Notepad++

View attachment 28056

it gave me this...

View attachment 28057

similarly, if I were to change the positioning from negative to positive, would it put the bars above the level bar again? I really do miss that and while I do use a HUD mod already I actually prefer the vanilla, I just can't see the bars when they're that low (I tend not to look/look over it as if they aren't there)
 

From what I've seen in vids so far it doesn't look like poi spawn screamers summon hordes. They do make for one heck of a jump scare and "Oh @%$#" moment though.

that's a relief if it's true, I'm sitting there scrambling over my weapons in my hot bar trying to pick a certain one trying to kill her before she screams. Not a lot of things terrify me but man she is definitely up there as one of them it's bad enough that wights spawn when performing a certain new game action if you aren't careful  
 

as for A21 I do like that now higher tiered POI have appropriately difficult zombies, it really makes it a challenge to clear tier 3'a and above lol

and the new blocks making non-modeled things like mobile homes and decoration sculptures is so freaking cool. The trailer park actually feels like a trailer park now (and it's crazy how small the footprint of some POI are now that they've been given an update pass over)

 

[Riamus]

I am noticing a small bug with the double barrel shotgun, not sure if its been mentioned or not, its a graphical one, when you reload you get smoke from the chambers, which is cool, the bug is when you switch away and back, fire and smoke come from it for no reason, nothing big but worth noting

I've seen this effect on a pipe pistol as well when switching to it.  Minor and I ignored it but yeah, it should be fixed.

 

[HB_H4wk]

Sorry for the noobish question. If I were to start creating a Custom Map in A21 Experimental will it work with updated A21 versions?

**note. This is my first time using an experimental version of this game. I have always waited for the Stable Release.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Sorry for the noobish question. If I were to start creating a Custom Map in A21 Experimental will it work with updated A21 versions?

**note. This is my first time using an experimental version of this game. I have always waited for the Stable Release.

Most likely but it's not guaranteed.  Bottom line, don't play experimental if you will be upset by a forced restart.

 

[madmole]

Quick question about glue (maybe it was already answered elsewhere):

Why is glue requiring clean water instead of murky water now? (I don't want to eat my duct tape )

At the moment we have a separate "glue camp fire" due to cooking times and we have to decide if we use our rare water for food or glue on the first days. That's a nice survival aspect!

It seems glue is the new acid

If anything we had it backwards all those years using murky water for anything other than brewing a poison just seems wrong. Now, you use your clean water to craft with, it makes more sense and it's impossible to boil too much and be screwed. Like wtf can't I make glue with this perfectly good drinking water?

Sorry for the noobish question. If I were to start creating a Custom Map in A21 Experimental will it work with updated A21 versions?

**note. This is my first time using an experimental version of this game. I have always waited for the Stable Release.

Yeah but you won't get any bug fixes that RNG might get in between versions.

This works for my group as well to keep eager beavers from sniping all the loot.

I've been playing this game for years and did not know this. I don't think the game communicates this mechanic well (if at all).

Didn't think we needed to? Every game with a shrinking crosshair over the years does it this way, I thought it was common shooter knowledge.  Did you never notice the crosshair shrink as you aimed? You didn't think anything of it? You can aim at a wall and see impacts and tell the rays do not hit dead center but somewhere inside the crosshair.

Probably been said, but I'll say it anyway. The dew collector could speed thing up a bit, or several, when it rains, no?

Also, a superchaged reward from the trader (and a new steam  achievement) when you do a night time generator mission during horde night, would be fun.

It's a dew collector not a rain collector. Still though, we didn't want to rely on weather since it's so random. Also we don't really track chunks that are unloaded and doing that would be really expensive and we knew people would have 50 dew collectors so we didn't want the whole server slowing down over a minor bit of realism that would also make it harder to balance.

 

[Archer]

My group is still playing - still not liking this magazine thing. 
We've halted work on the base for now as the highest tier item I can craft at this point is the damn workbench and literally none of us are reading any magazines at all, there's a whole 8 human beings out scouring for them and there's just *not* enough to go around for everybody. The ratios are off, loot tables, whatever you want to call it but to sustain a group of more than just 2 or 3 people and make the rate of progression not be a complete snoozefest of just digging through trash piles all day pretty much every thing we loot would need to give us 2 or 3 magazines or more. It's tedious as hell.

 

[hiloboys]

Just a quick question, with every update to the experimental build. Is it typical to have to download the entire game size again? (11gb) Just wondering for reference sake. I launched steam with phone tethered and just used up 11 gigs of hotspot data. (my fault of course i forgot to uncheck auto update and left to go do some things) I was just wondering if this is typical. Thanks!

 

[jorbascrumps]

Didn't think we needed to? Every game with a shrinking crosshair over the years does it this way, I thought it was common shooter knowledge.  Did you never notice the crosshair shrink as you aimed? You didn't think anything of it? You can aim at a wall and see impacts and tell the rays do not hit dead center but somewhere inside the crosshair.

No, I don't make a habit of shooting at walls  I'm aware of the shrinking crosshair but the explanation provided made it sound like even if the projectile visually hits a target there is still a skill check as to whether it actually hits and does damage. Perhaps I misunderstood.