PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[sillls]

Sometimes you just don't know what is behind a door or in my case, a tent flap. lol 

 

[Kazgrel]

Just some thoughts on my experience thus far; picked up the game right when A17 hit and just crossed the 2k hours played mark during my current run of A21.  Said run is on a server with 5-6 friends, insane difficulty, now on day 49.  I'm specced into Fortitude; others are specced into other stats, so we've spread the crafting out accordingly:

- Water changes made early days a bit of a pain due to no dew collector but once we got those up and running, not so bad...until mid game when glue becomes a necessity for seemingly everything.  We've managed to keep it going, but we're somewhere between 15-20 dew collectors now next to our base.

- Fortitude build, which I haven't done since A18 or whenever it got it's overhaul to be the beer-swilling fist fightin' farmer, has benefitted MASSIVELY in A21 now that it doesn't need to dip into 3 trees to reach max effectiveness (ie sex rex and flurry of blows from strength and agi respectively).  I still lament the nerf to 7.62 stacks being 150 instead of 300 (which they were in A17), but alas (and I know, there's certainly a mod for that somewhere).

- Crafting by reading:  We've had good luck with this system, I guess, since we've divvied up the crafts based on who took what stat line for perks.  By day 40 I already had knuckle weapon and machine gun crafting maxed out.  Worth noting:  We continued our playthrough from b307 to b313, but in all seriousness, whatever nerf was done to the books seemed to barely affect us aside from the book bundles being lowered.  It's actually been a nice change of pace crafting decent weapons from each tier, because the best machine gun we've seen so far is a g5 AK...which I had already crafted a good week prior and was already on a g5 TAC when said AK dropped.  We've mostly been in the forest, so that's probably a reason why.  Items not needing so many of the parts each (5 each for g5 vs. 15 in A20) has been a godsend.

- Trader quest rewards have been good...up until T5.  We've done a couple of T5s and aside from one person getting a g5 junk drone, the rewards from those have been abysmal.  A g2 pistol as an option for a T5 fetch and clear?  Absolute joke.  T2s having forged steel as an option has been fantastic, especially when you find schematics for nice mods early on but can't make them due to no steel...or a little later, when you can make motorcycles but don't have the crucible.

- Vending machines:  One of my crew thinks they're OP and going to be nerfed, but consider we're a group of folks playing together; we're pooling massive stacks of dukes quickly, so we're able to keep nice thinks like learning elixirs, moonshine, and mega crush stocked.  I'm digging the easier access to consumables, especially the Grandpa tier stuff because obtaining acid in our current playthrough has been a massive PITA.  No one's found the Wasteland Treasure book for acid yet, and it wasn't until day 35ish we had enough for a chem station.  I would think for solo play, the prices for vending machine items are about right.  Groups can abuse them a bit, but is it game breaking?  I don't think so.

- Infestation quests:  These are fun as heck to me and a simply way to re-use lower tier POIs.  Yet to do a T6 infestation but that's mainly been due to getting our ammo situation sorted.  We've had 1 or 2 of the infestation quests not spawn the bonus chest at the end; for one of those, I know for fact we didn't path thru the POI as developers intended, so I'm pretty certain it's tied to that.  Bit annoying, especially since those bonus chests help to restock ammo more often than not.

- Miscellaneous stuff:  Sex Rex being gone and the stam reduction for salvaging being tied to Salvage Op makes that perk near mandatory if you want to wrench stuff down efficiently and without having your character sucking wind not even halfway through.  Also the nerf to gas from wrenched vehicles is pretty damn harsh; we almost had to go back to bicycles due to not being able to get a chem station up quickly; personally think the gas should be bumped up a little bit from current, but not back to A20 levels where one almost didn't need to ever mine oil shale.  The bonus xp from bundling ore courtesy of Art of Mining v5 no longer seems to be a thing according to our strength player...booooo.  Also, who do I have to bonk over the noggin to get bulk ammo crafting for at least basic 7.62 via Automatic Handbook set bonus...it's rather bizzare that bulk ammo crafting goes to the book set for one of the most ammo efficient weapons in the game (rifles), but I digress.

Overall this update feels like an improvement over A20 in more or less every way possible, but I'm stating that from experience of one incomplete playthrough of A21 vs. the 2-3 complete playthroughs of vanilla A20 that we did over the past year and change.  We'll probably be doing a fresh one once A21 goes stable, then likely dabble in some of the overhauls once they're updated.  Personally I may go about a solo playthrough at some point because I'm very certain I'd allocate perk points quite differently compared to a group setting like I'm usually in.

 

[Momonation]

Sorry if it's been brought up but are cooking pots rare in the wilderness POIs including cabins? My partner and I were separated by a few KMs and hit around a dozen POIs apart and together but no pots. Loved all the POIs along the long roads - really impressed by some and even the plain cabins look great inside now. So dunno if it was bad luck, cabins don' have pots, or what. [Brutal first game w/ my first "purposeful" dysentery but it was fun.]

i though so too. but they do come, i just have the feeleing not as much. and as allways  ... when you have one, you get a lot more of them too

 

[Zerginfestor]

As for the Robotic-Turret weapon... You currently have the sledge and the gun-turret. They could do scrap-turret/iron-turret/steet-turret, but I like them all having diffrent uses. Maybe... sledge, blade and gun? With the blade-turret slicing zombie limbs instead of knocking them down? Like a one-armed blade-trap that you carry in your arms?

I personally prefer the turrets sort of remain the same, but the upgraded variants become tracked/hover, making them as sort of psuedo pets that always stay in range of your radius unless they get stuck, increasing their HP as you go up their tech path as well as their damage. 

 

[NekoPawtato]

Am I crazy, or are there not several changes that weren't in the patch notes? So far I've noticed Junk turret ammo now uses lead for some reason, and the physician perk now allows a 10% chance instant death per hit with batons which is neat but I don't remember ever being on that perk. I don't remember either of those being in the patch notes lol

Not complaining, but I feel like I'm being gas lit when I read something and then fry my brain trying to remember if that was a thing before

It's in the original A21 release notes

https://7daystodie.com/a21-official-release-notes/

• Recipes for regular robotic turret ammo use lead instead of iron. AP uses half iron and half lead. 
  

and

• Physician perk has gained the ability to treat sprains and give more XP when using healing items. Dismemberment gets a boost with batons on level 4 while level 5 has a chance to instantly kill the target with a stun baton.
  

 

[sillls]

One thing that annoys me is that you can't walk/run over zombies that you knocked down. Turned out to be one of those soke-up damage types and my wonderful avatar chose that point to get tired. Bad when you got two other zombies trying to hit you from behind. So.. I had to shoot my way out. 

 

[mprojekt]

One thing that annoys me is that you can't walk/run over zombies that you knocked down. Turned out to be one of those soke-up damage types and my wonderful avatar chose that point to get tired. Bad when you got two other zombies trying to hit you from behind. So.. I had to shoot my way out. 

Shooting our way out is great fun and cathartic... as long as we don't run out of ammo. Then it goes back to being bad or an opportunity to go danger-close with any explosives or incendiaries.

 

[Khalagar]

It's in the original A21 release notes

Oh good catch, I didn't notice that when I read through I guess! The Stun Baton instant death is interesting. Weird since  it's hidden in a seemingly unrelated perk and the last 2/5 parts of the physician perk don't buff healing at all, but interesting.

The turret ammo change though is really weird and another direct nerf to Int which is kind of odd, since lead is better used for real bullets instead of burning through 9K worth of lead on a t4 PoI

Again there are other posters here on the forum already claiming INT to be the new meta

I don't know what forum you are seeing that on, but I'm seeing the exact opposite on every forum and the subreddit lol. Most are saying Int is outright the weakest by far, especially in A21 where quest rewards are hilariously trash to the point of daring adventurer being a waste

Here's a t6 reward from the frontpage of the subreddit atm

and a t5 one

You can get better rewards by just chain doing T1 or T2 quests rather than wasting time and resources on a t4 or higher, and there's usually not 2 quest rewards worth picking. Since you don't get crafting mags as an option nearly as much, you usually only have forged steel as an actually good reward

 

[meganoth]

I don't know what forum you are seeing that on, but I'm seeing the exact opposite on every forum and the subreddit lol. Most are saying Int is outright the weakest by far, especially in A21 where quest rewards are hilariously trash to the point of daring adventurer being a waste##

Here:

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/28129-alpha-21-dev-diary/page/314/#comment-523976

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/28129-alpha-21-dev-diary/page/315/#comment-524168

and here:

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/32184-why-lvl-6-gear-cannot-be-crafted/#comment-524360

Please take a second and actually play the game with DA before you make any conclusions. The money bonus can be safely ignored. DA gives you access to the new secret stash. And that may or may not be the way to catapult you out of the stone age (too) early.

I don't know myself, I haven't played far enough and have only seen a glimpse of its power when a q3 AK was offered with DA1 at a time when nobody of us has more than q1 or q2 stone tools and weapons.

 

[Khalagar]

I am playing with DA lol, it was literally the first thing I rushed on my current character actually along side the baton perk line to test out the changes to it with the speed +10% instant kill.  So far my rewards match what others are complaining about, where I pretty much just get 3 trash options + 25 steel and sometimes a crafting mag option

So far in A21 on my new character after the latest experimental update I've done around 40-50 quests I think?  and don't think I've had a single good item from a quest reward. The trader level up rewards are a bit better but even those mostly are meh. I've leveled several traders up to 2 and 3 and my current one up to level 4 quests while trying to find a good town, and mostly just ended up taking the farm plot bundle since they kept spamming things like cloth armor bundles or pipe pistol bundles.

I've had better loot from air drops and t1 PoI boss loot than from my T3 and T4 quest rewards

At the moment DA gives you access to the new secret stash.

What secret stash? Am I missing something? Secret stash was removed AFAIK so all I'm getting from DA is some extra dukes and getting to pick 2 of the trader level up rewards since those are the only decent ones. Dukes themselves aren't all that great imo as my traders at least don't sell much that's that impressive, I've just been buying food and crafting mags from them and basic stuff like cobblestone and not much else

 

[meganoth]

I am playing with DA lol, it was literally the first thing I rushed on my current character actually along side the baton perk line to test out the changes to it with the speed +10% instant kill.  So far my rewards match what others are complaining about, where I pretty much just get 3 trash options + 25 steel and sometimes a crafting mag option

So far in A21 on my new character after the latest experimental update I've done around 40-50 quests I think?  and don't think I've had a single good item from a quest reward. The trader level up rewards are a bit better but even those mostly are meh. I've leveled several traders up to 2 and 3 and my current one up to level 4 quests while trying to find a good town, and mostly just ended up taking the farm plot bundle since they kept spamming things like cloth armor bundles or pipe pistol bundles.

I've had better loot from air drops and t1 PoI boss loot than from my T3 and T4 quest rewards

What secret stash? Am I missing something? Secret stash was removed AFAIK so all I'm getting from DA is some extra dukes and getting to pick 2 of the trader level up rewards since those are the only decent ones. Dukes themselves aren't all that great imo as my traders at least don't sell much that's that impressive, I've just been buying food and crafting mags from them and basic stuff like cobblestone and not much else

Sorry, I edited my post later to clarify a bit. Yes, there is a "secret stash", just that the additional items are mixed in with the normal loot.

 

[manni44]

Sorry, I edited my post later to clarify a bit. Yes, there is a "secret stash", just that the additional items are mixed in with the normal loot.

DA Changes the Items in the Trader inverntory to higer tier Items. It does not add stuff. Just testet it in my test game.

with 0 DA i see a AK47 lvl 4 

with 4 points in DA the AK 47 is gone and i see a Machete lvl5 in the inventory. this is just 1 example of the changes.

 

[meganoth]

DA Changes the Items in the Trader inverntory to higer tier Items. It does not add stuff. Just testet it in my test game.

with 0 DA i see a AK47 lvl 4 

with 4 points in DA the AK 47 is gone and i see a Machete lvl5 in the inventory. this is just 1 example of the changes.

Thanks, that clarifies it some more. I will check with our game, the q3 AK must have replaced something. It will be interesting to see what quality was replaced in our case.

 

[Magnus33john]

Anyone else noticing zombies getting stuck underground or the odd invisible zombie?

 

[Zerginfestor]

Just encountered a bug with Trader Joel disappearing and having to debug/godmode to realize he fell through the floor and down into the bottom floor of his home. 

 

[Khalagar]

Devs have done a really good job on A21, it feels significantly harder (well on the second hardest difficulty) as well. I've actually died like 8 times within 14 days on my current character, which is crazy compared to most past alpha where I'd have like 0 to 1 deaths by this time. Loving the challenge

Is there anything written on what the devs decide players are allowed to build? There's a really cool rope that is climbable in Poi but the player can't build it which is weird to me, and there's so many sick new doors that I don't think I can build? Or am I missing something where the player can build sliding doors and the climbing rope etc?

Curious if it's a balance thing, or just a "more work that could be spent elsewhere" thing

 

[Kazgrel]

Oh good catch, I didn't notice that when I read through I guess! The Stun Baton instant death is interesting. Weird since  it's hidden in a seemingly unrelated perk and the last 2/5 parts of the physician perk don't buff healing at all, but interesting.

The turret ammo change though is really weird and another direct nerf to Int which is kind of odd, since lead is better used for real bullets instead of burning through 9K worth of lead on a t4 PoI

I don't know what forum you are seeing that on, but I'm seeing the exact opposite on every forum and the subreddit lol. Most are saying Int is outright the weakest by far, especially in A21 where quest rewards are hilariously trash to the point of daring adventurer being a waste

Here's a t6 reward from the frontpage of the subreddit atm



and a t5 one



You can get better rewards by just chain doing T1 or T2 quests rather than wasting time and resources on a t4 or higher, and there's usually not 2 quest rewards worth picking. Since you don't get crafting mags as an option nearly as much, you usually only have forged steel as an actually good reward

This is a known bug with quest rewards and will be addressed:  



I, too, have also run into the same sort of awful quest rewards.  Did a T2 and a T5 in the wasteland with a friend just now and we both got better stuff from the T2, lul (aside from the extra dukes + xp).

 

[Joey9Baka]

I proudly support either making sledge turrets craftable without a workbench or making a pipe tier variant.

Int builds are just kinda boring gameplay wise for too long while every other build has variety in weapons even in pipe tier/stone tier

Also I feel like the magazine system ends up making every character feel like more of a generalist build rather than specialized builds which I'm pretty 50/50 on if I like that or not. 

Also dew collectors feel out of place as free infinite magic water generation in an update that allegedly wanted to make the survival elements harder.

I don't understand how you'd die of thirst or hunger in alpha 21 unless you got an awful map with no towns for like 2 kms away.

I do think zombies feel more threatening with their scaling and additional injury chance,  It's really fun early game peaking into even just snow biome and seeing ferals as you just start.

 

[meganoth]

I proudly support either making sledge turrets craftable without a workbench or making a pipe tier variant.

Int builds are just kinda boring gameplay wise for too long while every other build has variety in weapons even in pipe tier/stone tier

Because nobody has lots of points in their own weapon perk in early game it really doesn't matter much which pipe weapon you use. Most players will probably craft a pipe machine gun or at max a pipe shotgun, or whatever ammo they have found. Sadly the pipe machine gun is so much better than any other pipe weapon there is no question what to take

By the way, the INT "class" is supposed to be more of a support class and a subpar fighter. Even later when you have turrets they use so much ammo you won't be happy if you just use turrets and nothing else.

In my opinion the best way to play INT is to use the turrets only for slowing down enemies and otherwise have (even unperked) guns of other attributes (where you have surplus ammo lying around) in your hand for damage. Or use the baton for the bread-and-butter combat with low level zombies.

Also I feel like the magazine system ends up making every character feel like more of a generalist build rather than specialized builds which I'm pretty 50/50 on if I like that or not. 

How so? The magazines only allow you to craft stuff. The perks are still the way to make your character better.

Also dew collectors feel out of place as free infinite magic water generation in an update that allegedly wanted to make the survival elements harder.

Survival is harder. I am sure novice players will come to the forum in masses complaining about an unplayable game. Just compare it to A20, did you ever think about water at all in A20?

I don't understand how you'd die of thirst or hunger in alpha 21 unless you got an awful map with no towns for like 2 kms away.

It isn't about making you die for sure. This is not a souls-like. But if you don't know to save your money for a filter asap you will often have not enough water, especially if you use some for glue.

Sure, everyone here knows already what he has to do now: Do 2-3 quests, get the money for the water filter, done. But all new players (who don't just watch youtube to find out the optimal path) will have to find that route the hard way. Also co-op groups have it harder as well since they have to share their supply of water. They don't need one filter, they need 3 or more, and that fast.

I do think zombies feel more threatening with their scaling and additional injury chance,  It's really fun early game peaking into even just snow biome and seeing ferals as you just start.

 

[zapf]

Remaining in early access and spending money for ongoing development and hiring specialized talent is not milking. You may not be able to see all the labor-intensive work that has been done on this game over the past 18 months but I can assure you that the amount of development put into this game has been epic. You want extra content because you're bored of the current content and so are dismissive of the type of work that has been done but that doesn't change the fact that TFP has been busy.

Nobody on the 7 Days to Die team is ignoring this game to work on some future project. They have an entirely different team working on their next project and nothing that team does steals any talent or resources or time from this game. There really is no more to say about non-7 Days to Die projects though since that is off-topic for this thread. The 7 Days to Die team is 100% focused on getting this game finished which is why they are not spending time doing extra content that expands the base game even though there are those that only want those kinds of updates.

The change to vehicle damage was not simply increasing vehicle damage. It was balancing vehicle damage with environmental damage and damage to zombies. It was adding graphical indicators of the damage that vehicles are taking and when that damage is getting close to complete vehicle failure. It was also adding graphical indicators to zombies for their damage from vehicles. It also included changes to the Grease Monkey perk and the balance of how much damage repair kits fix. It also involved play testing to dial in the right amount of damage and fixing to make the feature balanced.  It was a bit more than one line of code.

I was willing to take the additional damage to vehicles in stride as testing went about, but is the intention for Player vehicles durability reaching 0 to shortly after explode so quickly?

I've had two explode so fast I was left jaw dropped..

I've played this game quite a bit and maybe it's the multiple changes at once, but I've NEVER had a vehicle explode - let alone 2 in 24 hours!

Edit: Meant to say that it is not so much as the vehicle exploding, but mostly frustrating that I lost all the inventory in it.