PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Xeen]

The 2 main things I am hoping for in A21 is:

- The ability to build a standard base with defenses and be able to withstand a late game horde. I don't want to monkey around with tricks to exploit AI. Problem is you are forced to do this because late game Z's will "demolish" your base rather quickly. Devs, build a steel based base with whatever defenses you want and with a late game horde it should have some damage but not so much that you are spending all week rebuilding. And you aren't being over run every time. That is the measure I am looking for. No pathfinding gimics. people can still do that if they want. But it shouldn't be required.

- Decor: I should be able to add medic equipment, sat, electronics, computers, fridges, toolboxes etc. to my base without needing a mod. Without hacking. I'm tired of building cool bases that are empty. You can have traders sell these items so they don't require crafting. In fact different traders can sell different types of decor items. Gives me something to spend my dukes on and makes my base cool. Being able to build a good looking base was a key to Valheims huge success and exposure on social media. Beautiful player bases is great for exposure and marketing.

You can make a thin concrete plate to go over the standard block and then upgrade it to steel or just make a steel plate and this gives you an added measure of toughness that in my experience gives you all the protection you need in late game defense.

 

[Roland]

My stance is just that the person with the most investment  towards a specific thing should have the best version of that specific thing, but that isn't how 7 Days works.

Where I disagree with your stance is that if the way you want things were true then the game would be 100% deterministic and every time you played it would always be the same result. 7 Days doesn't work like that and therefore you have variation across several playthroughs even if you choose the same progression path for your character because random factors may reward you with a purple tool perfectly fitted for you or it may not and you'll have to survive with what you've got. We can determine our success to a point but not everything and I think that part that is out of our control is great for replayability-- especially since you can be successful with a fully modified blue weapon in which you are fully perked. Nobody needs a purple anything even if they might want one.

If you are in a group / online server in general, every single second you spend in your base *not* looting is another second you are behind the people who are, which is pretty weird design for a game with as many non-looting related systems as 7 Days have.

Its only weird if you think that TFP is focusing on competitive PVP multiplayer gameplay and trying to balance the game to that. But that isn't the focus. The focus is on friends or family getting together and playing together. Who cares if your son finds a better weapon than you? Why do you have to keep up or get ahead of your friend? These concerns are only valid if you are playing the game to kill other players on the server or compete with them to see who can race fastest to top levels of everything. You can play that way but it isn't within the scope of the default game. The devs are building a game where it doesn't matter at all whether  you are behind or ahead of other people in the server. There are no bonus points for reaching the top first. If you get to level 50 by day 8 and I get to level 50 by day 22 that is okay.

Welp you are now 2+  t4 quests behind your friend who lives in a 5x4 wooden shed, and he found better stuff that furthers the gap and makes it ever harder to catch up

And we are trying to catch up because.....? This "problem" is unsolvable anyway. Even if TFP came up with the perfect system to make sure two friends stay close in level to each other, one of those friends might not be able to play for a week of rl and now suddenly the other one is 2+ t4 quests ahead and finding better stuff. There is no way to end such disparities and that's fine because in PvE it doesn't matter in the least if someone is ahead and someone else is behind.

It's a pretty feels bad man moment when games do that, and it happens a LOT if you play with friends in loot driven games like Diablo  / Path of Exile / Borderlands / Monster Hunter etc. Where you are like "GUYS PLEASE go eat lunch or something so I can actually enjoy the game and do the RP crap without getting left behind". It starts to feel like a chore trying to keep up, which is precisely why I'm against all the "Looting is the only thing that matters and only way to progress" changes

That feeling comes from within yourself and is not generated by a game. I play with people who I know and like and sometimes they are ahead and I don't feel any of the anxiety you are describing. The only thing that comes up in that regard is me telling them to not give me all their hand-me-downs which are better than my primary gear because I want to do it on my own. (Okay, I might take a pump action shotgun if it is offered, sue me). You tell them to go eat lunch so you can catch up. How can developers work into their balance negotiations between players to play more or less often to keep them from progressing faster or slower than each other? 

I just think you are too concerned about your progress compared to others. If it were a PvP server, I would understand it, but from your posts it seems like you are playing with friends you know and you aren't killing each other. So.....why the concern over relative progress?

 

[Jost Amman]

So now you want to NERF other people's enjoyment of one part of the game, only so that you can better enjoy YOUR preferred part of the game?

No? Where did any part of my post say that? The part you quoted was about them changing it from *the current* system which screws over one play style for no real reason

Someone has all the mining perks and can craft a sick pickaxe? I bet they have the best one you can get!!! Well actually no, their friend with 0 perks put into mining stuff does, because he just found one in a boss chest that's better than anything the mining dude can craft. The new system doesn't change that issue either, it only further punishes the people who *aren't* ADHD run and gun chain questing.

From this part, I thought you implied that you want TFP to NERF the looting rewards for the "looter guy", otherwise the "miner guy" would be "punished" for just mining.

Did I get it right?

P.S.: I won't reply to the other stuff because I don't want to "overload" you with too many replies (since you said you don't have much time to answer).

 

[meganoth]

@Roland can you tell us more about the perks that are filling the "crafting gap" that magazines opened? It would be quite exciting to be able try out new things brought up by those new additions. The best part of magazines is that there will be more of that "perky stuff" for us to play with.

I mean, I believe madmole is on that with the team at the moment, right?

Roland may be tight-lipped, but I have no such reservations and a secret inside source. So I can tell you about one new perk:

"Bookworm Level 1:" "Reading is second nature to you. Read books and magazines 30% faster."

Oh, and here is how they changed Living of the Land:

"Living of the Land 1:" "Double the harvest of wild or planted crops. Crouch down and use your 
keen eyesight to find the tracks of your own farm plots.\nFarm plots cost 30% less to craft."

 

[Diragor]

Crouch down and use your 
keen eyesight to find the tracks of your own farm plots

OMG FINALLY!! I'm always searching for them :noidea:

 

[RipClaw]

Roland may be tight-lipped, but I have no such reservations and a secret inside source. So I can tell you about one new perk:

"Bookworm Level 1:" "Reading is second nature to you. Read books and magazines 30% faster."

Well, if you read 20 magazines in a row, reading 30% faster is nothing to sneeze at.

Oh, and here is how they changed Living of the Land:

"Living of the Land 1:" "Double the harvest of wild or planted crops. Crouch down and use your 
keen eyesight to find the tracks of your own farm plots.\nFarm plots cost 30% less to craft."

Maybe I will finally find out where my garden has gone. I miss it dearly.

 

[Vedui]

A lot of people have posted dissenting opinions, so not everyone is happy. But everyone happy is NEVER the case anyway when a feature changes or has its balance changed.

In my opinion a seed that I get back should just stay in the plot so the replanting isn't so tedious. But mostly I don't like all the clicking necessary to recraft seeds and put them into the plots again, switching around all the different seed stacks into the toolbelt and out again. Just too many clicks for my taste. But this is critizising the UI, not the harvest returns, which I find quite ok.

I fully agree! Artificially making farming worse due to requiring all the extra UI effort to open inventory, count how many seeds I need, craft which I need, put them back on hotbar, re plant and figure out where to put them so it's organized, yada yada as you highlight is a major pain which is unnecessary and just made people hate farming, even though after some tweaks the yield wasn't really a problem.

You should work for The Fun Pimps! Your voice needs to be heard!!

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content. That way the system would simply be part of a progression where someone could after appropriate quests/progression/base building/whatever remove some tedium by higher level progression.

Raft did that pretty well, where for water you start with tedious 1 cup manual refill and continually adding wood to burn --> This progresses to where you can add multiple cups at once, and no fuel --> Which in turn progresses to where you automate with direct pumping and purifying (at cost of battery use) --> Which at the end can then be pumped into a water tank storage, using a higher tier battery and essentially free recharging through windmill.

And yet, water is a huge thing throughout the game. It's always there, it just becomes easier and easier to manage, never goes away (it is survival after all), but has a progression that entices and rewards the player as they tech up.

We need far more of this in 7DTD.

/Ved

 

[Matt115]

Zzzzz I'm waiting for the big update punch. In Alpha 20 It was pipe weapons and prefab stamps that made cities look like cities. I'm not here to dog but I know you guys are withholding a lot of what makes these updates huge game improvements. I'm just wondering what the first person animation team is working on. Are they working on the other game or are they still being used to improve 7 days? 

quest types?

clothing stats update?

New weapons? 

First person animation improvement?!? 

JOEL!!! Where are you Joel!!!! come back!! I miss you! lol 

I also miss when Joel did Q&A's on is youtube channel. Made some wild projections but was food for my imagination. Now the dev team has gotten chunky and Joel probably wants to slip into more of a management role and not be as hands on. Where is The Fun Pump! 

Well after what we saw/ read for now

1. Probably this turn off pipe stuff

2. depends

3. nope

4. IDK

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content. That way the system would simply be part of a progression where someone could after appropriate quests/progression/base building/whatever remove some tedium by higher level progression.

Raft did that pretty well, where for water you start with tedious 1 cup manual refill and continually adding wood to burn --> This progresses to where you can add multiple cups at once, and no fuel --> Which in turn progresses to where you automate with direct pumping and purifying (at cost of battery use) --> Which at the end can then be pumped into a water tank storage, using a higher tier battery and essentially free recharging through windmill.

And yet, water is a huge thing throughout the game. It's always there, it just becomes easier and easier to manage, never goes away (it is survival after all), but has a progression that entices and rewards the player as they tech up.

We need far more of this in 7DTD.

/Ved

Nope. 7DTD is prety simple sandbox. So small of role NPC like this works now suit here good.

Only need things in 7dtd is water rework, bandits, story and 7dtd can be finished

NPC etc. maybe in sequel but not here

 

[Vedui]

Nope. 7DTD is prety simple sandbox. So small of role NPC like this works now suit here good.

Only need things in 7dtd is water rework, bandits, story and 7dtd can be finished

NPC etc. maybe in sequel but not here

Yes, it's a simple sandbox.That's a huge part of the problem.

Over the last few years we've seen systems and mechanics changing over and over, lotsa graphic improvements, but core features have not been added to any significant degree post electricity in Alpha 16. Mods back many years ago had some rudimentary features like that with NPC's farming,guarding your base etc. A bunch of other games made by small teams have that in their games.

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

 

[Roland]

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

Why would 7 Days to Die be without those things? As you stated, it already includes those things thanks to the tools and hooks provided by the developers for exactly that purpose.

 

[RipClaw]

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content.

I think an NPC would be overkill here. A growth chamber, for example, would be an interesting concept that is probably not that difficult to implement. Of course it has to look a bit junky to fit the setting. A seed is placed in a slot and every two days the harvest ends up in the inventory of the chamber. The only downside I see is that bonuses from perks wouldn't work since you don't harvest yourself.

 

[Aldranon]

NPC's are already done in a mod.  The AI of them is not so good so far. (IMO)

I'm pretty sure NPC AI can be worked out into something more immersive. 

/dream on

A smart enough NPC AI could make 7D2D the "Game of the year" when it goes gold.  If it gives mod'ers a tools to use the AI, then there could be so many great mods for added replay!

/dream off

 

[NekoPawtato]

I think an NPC would be overkill here. A growth chamber, for example, would be an interesting concept that is probably not that difficult to implement. Of course it has to look a bit junky to fit the setting. A seed is placed in a slot and every two days the harvest ends up in the inventory of the chamber. The only downside I see is that bonuses from perks wouldn't work since you don't harvest yourself.

This sounds neat, almost like a plant-based workstation (kind of like the dew collector) -- maybe it could be locked behind a certain level of living off the land, or farming magazine

When I have large farms, I mainly try to harvest with auger, due to it's high attack rate. Usually works until I have short crops like cotton and end up hitting the farm plot. But it's way faster than fists.

For replanting I have a sign nearby so I don't have to math (ex: if my rows are 17 blocks each the sign might say 17, 34, 51, 68...etc)

 

[BFT2020]

I fully agree! Artificially making farming worse due to requiring all the extra UI effort to open inventory, count how many seeds I need, craft which I need, put them back on hotbar, re plant and figure out where to put them so it's organized, yada yada as you highlight is a major pain which is unnecessary and just made people hate farming, even though after some tweaks the yield wasn't really a problem.

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

 

[Matt115]

Yes, it's a simple sandbox.That's a huge part of the problem.

Over the last few years we've seen systems and mechanics changing over and over, lotsa graphic improvements, but core features have not been added to any significant degree post electricity in Alpha 16. Mods back many years ago had some rudimentary features like that with NPC's farming,guarding your base etc. A bunch of other games made by small teams have that in their games.

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

Every big series was simple on begining : biding of issac, fnaf, Mount and blade etc.  So simple gameplay is good but it's "learn how to play" when someone learn how to play good --> then use mods.

Ofc Game being something between Medieval dynasty and 7DTD would be interesting but this would be cost in non voxel world or graphic in A11 style . Why? well advance AI in voxel game need better CPU or worst graphic

 

[meganoth]

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

You forget that for the planting you also need to put every single type of plant into a belt slot. On top of crafting the new seeds, once for every type! And you have to do that every 3 days, while you can craft a huge amount of ammo in one session and be done with it for a week or two.

Just count how much clicks you would need to build 2000 9mm bullets. Usually you need only one type of ammo. I'd say that should be possible with about 50 mouse clicks (a bit more if stack sizes are low, didn't check that) and you are done for 2 weeks.

With a farm of (on average) 5 seeds per plant you need 20 clicks per plant type and there are 12 plants types (not counting cotton naturally), so we are talking about up to 240 clicks, every 3 days.

 

[zztong]

If you have not spent any points on Living off the land you should not be trying to build a huge farm. You should just plant whatever seeds you find and harvest the crops for food and live off of whatever you manage to get as a supplement to however else you are getting food--presumably hunting.

I disagree. I'd save the seed so that when I get to LOTL 3 I have it to start my farm. Growing a stray potato to bake isn't that critical. I won't even be making farm plots until I have LOTL 2.

 

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

Farming could have been altered instead of wrecked.

They could have kept in wild planting (which I will repeat was an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable nomadic system; with the hoe crafting and ability to fertilise the plots for better yield) and fixed the issues but they didn't.

Then it became plot only garbage. This farming method; although a sad shadow of the former; which could have been added alongside not instead of, could have been balanced by simply adding a chance for some crops to mature 'failed' - something perhaps governed by an rng.

Then perks could have reduced the chance of dead or unproductive crops. Just a thought.

 

[Aldranon]

Farming could have been altered instead of wrecked.

They could have kept in wild planting (which I will repeat was an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable nomadic system; with the hoe crafting and ability to fertilise the plots for better yield) and fixed the issues but they didn't.

Then it became plot only garbage. This farming method; although a sad shadow of the former; which could have been added alongside not instead of, could have been balanced by simply adding a chance for some crops to mature 'failed' - something perhaps governed by an rng.

Then perks could have reduced the chance of dead or unproductive crops. Just a thought.

I believe they were trying to make everything a block to optimize the game somehow.

Anyway, the farm blocks are great for me, as I put them on the roof of my horde base (yup, living on the edge). 

To keep the plots safer from vulture vomit, I now build my fighting locations at the corners of my base, this adds interest for me as I don't "game the system", its just me, 3 meters above the ground, with a shotgun...

 

[Blake_]

What if you could tell the drone to go harvest <select a field of crops> for you? Or have some kind of electric contraption that harvests for us in the late, LATE game.

Farming is nice. But it gets tedious later in the game if you plant, say , just a few dozen crops. Having a way to reduce that time would give us more of that precious time to do any other thing, like enjoying emergent gameplay or watching the sunset while holding hands with Snowdog.