PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Menace312]

This is the eternal debate of realism vs fantasy. Some people prefer their fantasy with more realism than others. This is why I suggest a range of backpack sizes. The minimum and maximum limits can then be chosen by the player when creating the world as opposed to being dictated by what has been perceived as the majority choice.
There's also the following rule from traditional RPG's to consider...

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Hmm, this is not a bad idea... Giving the server setup a choice of backpack size... It surely would silence a lot of criticism...

I also like the idea of craftable backpacks.

So you would start with no backpack at all, and you would then craft progressively larger packs, as you increase in level and skill.

Nice mechanic me thinks

 

[Henrique]

Only toolbelt? That's an interesting concept and one I might try later.
From a game mechanics perspective the only real difference, as Roland quickly realized, is to use a chest as a static backpack. It would only serve to make the game harder for n00b players but as an option in a hardcore-mode it would be good.

I like the idea of a backpack being a separate, craftable, item. Give players on a normal start a reasonably small backpack and require rarer materials such as military fiber to craft the larger ones. By the time you're having to travel quite far to get fresh loot you have the inventory space available to carry it all back home.

Ya i thought it sounded interesting myself that's why i brought it over here to the forum to see what people thought!!

For me as soon as would spawn i would make a small base with chest and get me self settled and then go out and look for a house to live in!

i also like the idea of the carftable backpack and as you gain Exp you can make bigger backpacks or even find them!!

I just installed the bigger backpack mod from sirillion (want to check it out) and it makes it to easy (my opinion)!

You can just keep everything and not have to make the critical decision of what to take or not to take!

 

[spacepiggio]

Can we get rid of the shadows underground, everything looked fine until you get to a certain level. Its weird seeing the grass & Zeds walking around from the bottom of the shaft, heh, heh, he sais shaft.

Turn off shadows while mining & they go away, just turn back on if you want them above ground.

 

[spud42]

hmmm. not an idea i would enjoy but in the interest of adding to the idea.

start with toolbelt only and as part of the initial quest of crafting clothing, instead of crafting the useless grass hood, make it a grass fibre backpack that has only 1 line of slots. after looting and scrapping cloth make a backpack with 2 rows. kill some animals the get leather or loot it from sofas and craft a backpack with 3 rows. find or trade for military fibre and now get the full 4 rows.

might have to stop being able to craft cloth from cotton somehow or it would be too easy to bypass the grass level and craft a cloth backpack too early.

devils advocate but i still like it the way it is. leave the larger backpacks for mods when the game goes gold.

 

[spacepiggio]

Only toolbelt? That's an interesting concept and one I might try later.
From a game mechanics perspective the only real difference, as Roland quickly realized, is to use a chest as a static backpack. It would only serve to make the game harder for n00b players but as an option in a hardcore-mode it would be good.

I like the idea of a backpack being a separate, craftable, item. Give players on a normal start a reasonably small backpack and require rarer materials such as military fiber to craft the larger ones. By the time you're having to travel quite far to get fresh loot you have the inventory space available to carry it all back home.

I always felt they could integrate BP's with the Story Line as you start out in your under wear. The Bandit that was supposed to kill you leaves you some supplies. The supplies should be given as your first stash, the Tool Belt. Your first quest should be to collect fibers to make a small ruck sack to scavenge with. As you play & level up you can find or craft bigger BP's & I think you should keep smaller packs in a bigger pack.

Lets use the purse for example that you loot, craft this & it has 6 slots to carry cash, coin etc & you can put that in a BP slot.

 

[Menace312]

hmmm. not an idea i would enjoy but in the interest of adding to the idea.
start with toolbelt only and as part of the initial quest of crafting clothing, instead of crafting the useless grass hood, make it a grass fibre backpack that has only 1 line of slots. after looting and scrapping cloth make a backpack with 2 rows. kill some animals the get leather or loot it from sofas and craft a backpack with 3 rows. find or trade for military fibre and now get the full 4 rows.

might have to stop being able to craft cloth from cotton somehow or it would be too easy to bypass the grass level and craft a cloth backpack too early.

devils advocate but i still like it the way it is. leave the larger backpacks for mods when the game goes gold.

I somewhat agree with you on this.

The grass to cloth issue though, is only that when your in the right biome. Start in the desert and there's no cotton.

I still like this idea, but I'd be just fine with the pack as is if TFP decide to keep it this way.

Also, there are much much more important things that needs attention, so I hope that gets fixed first.

But as an idea, to increase game variety and immersion, it's solid

Edit:

It would also help with forcing you to go back to your corps to get your backpack, even if it was empty. Cuz military fibers are not exactly abundant

 

[spud42]

yes i agree. the backpack is fine as it is. i tend to carry too much as my default loadout. having to carry a mining helmet and a cowboy hat as well as a duster takes up a few slots but until they get the weather under control its what you have to do to stop your character whinging every few minutes! i carry pills honey , golden rod , beer as well as health bandages and health packs. for ammo i have 9mm for the SMG, 7.62 for the hunting/sniper rifle. as well as crossbow bolts. and always some wood in slot 1 of the backpack . so there are 12 slots taken up already!! tool belt is always full of std load out of from left to right , fire axe, crossbow,pick axe,SMG,rifle,wrench,wood frames,hunting knife.

you deal with what you have. scrap everything and take the loss. loot runs are fun.

 

[Janna3921]

Rather than try to give my responses to each post I will lump them together.

Making your backpack when you spawn I think is a good idea, but I would go with two rows. We could have where we can make a larger backpack made of leather, 30 pieces, that would hold four rows and you need military fabric to make it five, or six. You could even make a small purse type to hold two or three things, dukes, cash, bandages, antibiotics, honey, beer, arrows or ammo, It could be that you have to make a choice of what type or it be set for what it will hold.

One row isn't much, but it can make the difference in saving your life. You have a backpack full of great loot, you fall and break your leg an no splint. You have tape on you, you see a wandering horde coming and you can't outrun them, grab some cotton, make a splint and you have a better chance of survival.

We don't have a weight limit and I'm not really for that, but we do need to learn management. I make lots of chests, use cabinets and even cars to drop off loot I will want later but not real important at that time.

The realism aspect is that you can find in houses all sizes of backpack. From a weekender bag, small backpack, larger one, a duffale bag to what a a soldier would carry. We could find a toolbelt or a holster for a handgun where you could put your pistol and ammo in, or quiver for arrows.

Stacking the books, the boiled water, cans of water, increasing the amount in some of the items, these can free up the four slots we lost to a15 and the one in a16.

I don't want unlimited, or 50 slots, one row, or stackable items, or a purse that we have to make, find or buy that will hold more items and we can only have a set number of them. We need to have limits in the game, learn to manage, but some do need the extra when looting. Multiplayers have friends to help with loot, some find a bike early game, some are three weeks and still haven't found a bike. One town I was in didn't have a business that had a basket, none.

Just my two cents worth.

 

[stallionsden]

Hey everyone check out Roland's video!!!

That is the most retarded idea ever. No more bases. No more prefabs. 7 dtd literally dies. And really nothing wrong with the backpack atm you can mod it to be bigger or smaller why kill the joy for everyone cause of a few. This would be the worst concept ever.

 

[meganoth]

Well a good trick is to create a storage chest in town, and unload the loot there. Then when your done looting, many items will stack, so it means less trips back and forth...

One chest in a town? I tend to have one chest per floor of a skyscraper alone just to minimize backtrack distance. And still, with scraping or dropping 80-90% of what I find I'm still always filled to the brim.

 

[Janna3921]

That is the most retarded idea ever. No more bases. No more prefabs. 7 dtd literally dies. And really nothing wrong with the backpack atm you can mod it to be bigger or smaller why kill the joy for everyone cause of a few. This would be the worst concept ever.

Don't go the extreme and be melodramatic, I and several others want a SMALL addition, either in a extra row or stacking of some items. Not one to hold everything that is looted in the towers. Sheesh

 

[Jedo]

yes i agree. the backpack is fine as it is. i tend to carry too much as my default loadout...so there are 12 slots taken up already!! tool belt is always full of std load out of from left to right , fire axe, crossbow,pick axe,SMG,rifle,wrench,wood frames,hunting knife.

It seems to me that those wanting a bigger backpack are carrying to much as their "default loadout." In total (backpack and toolbelt), I carry ~10 things for my default loadout. *shrug*

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

@Roland your video (

) playing with just toolbelt was interesting. being an avid hiker/camper and outdoors person (3 boys in scouts) I was thinking what would I do if I woke up in a The Walking Dead scenario with just my basic clothing on. I would not have a backpack, I might have my pocket knife, money, cellphone, car keys but that is probably it.
So what if the game started with a random set of basic items you would start with and no backpack, first aid kit, etc. Honestly that would be a cool way to start from a list of random items one might have. you can than add the crafting of several sacks/bags like fiber, cloth, hide, leather, mill cloth sacks/bags/packs with various sizes.

I could see making a fiber sack that is 6 slots and eventually having a Military 80L pack like I carry (USMC Gen II) that has the same slots we start with today. I could put my 6 slot fiber sack in that pack but like it real life it would take of 6 slots of the main pack. this allows me to group items like I do for hiking like keeping personal stuff together and my "smellies" those items like food in a separate bag that I can drop to avoid detection or hang in a tree like I would when camping for the night.

like weapons level, this system would allow you room to provide expanded pack size down the road and maybe introduce stamina issues with large packs like you need T-Rex 3+ and Athletic 40+ in order to use the bigger packs. IRL we have the same issues when we do 10 day hikes, is keeping packs at 30-45lbs including 3 to 6 liters of water and 3 days of rations.

 

[Menace312]

One chest in a town? I tend to have one chest per floor of a skyscraper alone just to minimize backtrack distance. And still, with scraping or dropping 80-90% of what I find I'm still always filled to the brim.

Of cause... I was merely implying the principal... You'd quickly come to the conclusion, that more is necessary. And to place them in an inconspicuous place, if on a PvP server

Don't go the extreme and be melodramatic, I and several others want a SMALL addition, either in a extra row or stacking of some items. Not one to hold everything that is looted in the towers. Sheesh

I still hold, that the best way to achieve this, is to add an option for Max backpack size in the server setup.

Then everyone is happy

 

[spacepiggio]

That is why I suggested a rucksack in the beginning, like you laundry bag or W/W bag in the army, just a bag with a hemp string.

 

[sillls]

Hey everyone check out Roland's video!!!

Hey Roland. Nice video on working w/o your backpack.

Watched you and wanted to point out a few things.

1.Torches: You can craft more.

2.Was surprised that you did not chop up zombies for resources like fat that is needed for making torches.

3.Snowberry's can go a long way to keeping you fed and alive and all around you. Just don't eat too many of them at once.

4.About snakes: Either go in with a close combat weapon or run away. While they are not fast, they are hard to hit with arrows.

5.Don't forget about making a bone shiv. Like a knife, it can feed you, cloth you, keep you warm and dry. Makes a good weapon to. It is also the best way to gathering meat and fat from dead body's.

6. Turn off your forge when your not using it. Saves a lot of fuel and reduces your heat footprint.

7. If your going to stay close to home. Dump out anything that you don't need so you don't waist stuff by dropping it on the ground.

8. About the forge. Did you know that you can split the stack and put it in both slots to get it possessed twice as fast?

9. Best way to move stashes is to literally drop everything (including clothing) and run. That way you get the most out of each run and are not distracted by zombies other than the need to hurry. Taking a stimulant helps.

10. Arrows. Your using them way to much. Suggest you switch to your ax to finish, like you said you would do earlier in your video.

11. Glad that you finally ate and drank. I was wondering when you were going to look at those stats.

12. TS 33:54 when making choices drop the ax and the bow. You can always recraft them and they were worn out anyway.

13.Lose the grass. You can get grass anywhere. So unless your making stuff out of it. Stow it or drop it. Don't smoke it either.

14. Try scraping stuff whenever you can to save space. Scraping also works like a temporary inventory slot. You can keep it in there till you get back. Things like crappy gun parts, nails and other junk.

Anyways I learned a lot from your video like making more stashes. I like to leave them next to things that are easy to find.

Thanks Roland.

 

[Darkfoxx117]

Interesting concept there Roland thanks for taking the time out to show us

 

[stallionsden]

Don't go the extreme and be melodramatic, I and several others want a SMALL addition, either in a extra row or stacking of some items. Not one to hold everything that is looted in the towers. Sheesh

I can voice my views if it don't agree with you i dont really care. Melodramatic lol its stupid idea plain and simple and i believe your name wasnt mentioned in my reply. It was aimed at Roland's no backpack as well as the idea of crafting backpacks to get bigger. I rather the way it is. And mod it bigger to my style of play.

 

[Death2gnomes]

Hey everyone check out Roland's video!!!

The tool belt only concept here is only good for a few days, long enough to get a few perks to expand the backpack. The huge, huge, boring drawback is that there will a lot of back and forth to a central base. Until the sleeper zombies are fixed, where the whole building will re-spawn, in some rare cases spawn on top of each other, as soon as you re-enter after drawing a zombie out to kill it, scavenging anything but zombies would be, not just more difficult, but slooooww, dropping a chest every time you try to looting a house and running in and out 10-20 times to store stuff is not my idea of fun.

Truly not the type of progression I would want, hardcore players can have at it.

Also, Roland, you forgot about the 4 crafting slots, remember crafting is halted once there are no more inventory/toolbelt slots open, for the hardcore mode this should be changed to dropping the crafted items (and change the decay time to a lot longer).

If it were me with limited slot, you will be able to find me just by following the string of chests I would be leaving behind, like breadcrumbs. Good thing zombies are stupid.

Also if this were a thing, I would be arguing for a 10 slot toolbelt with the 2 extra slots just for ammo. Afterall, who doesnt know how to store a few arrows for hunting?

 

[Subquake]

Hey everyone check out Roland's video!!!

In my opinion (remember it's just my opinion), this is totally the opposite of having fun in an open world sandbox game. Slots are very limiting by themselves in their nature for gathering small independent things. There are many mods out there, that add a lot more items to the game and the default slot number is not enough.

I think, that slots are more readable and gameplay wise more practical in terms of inventory management, but if I would have to choose between very limiting slot count or something like The Elder Scrolls games or Fallout 3, Fallout 4 has, then I would choose the later, because they limit yourself based on carry weight and not slot count.

However, I would be fine if you would start the game JUST with the toolbelt, BUT you could upgrade your inventory space by having the ability to find and equip backpacks and carry 2 bags in each hand, without the ability to do combat if your both hands are occupied with the backpacks - they could be dropped and picked back up if you want to engage in combat. On top of that you could have the ability to expand more in inventory space by getting cargo pants, clothing with more pockets and a construction worker toolbelt, that would have hanging pockets around it (batman belt).

All those things could have varying slot count - bigger backpacks would have more slots, bigger bags, like trash bags, shopping backs etc, though larger slot count would hinder your movement speed based on how many slots are populated with stuff.

And lets consider this - if you would try to survive, if you would have a minibike or any other kind of transporation vehicle, then you would attach to it as much bags, backpacks and other storage solutions as it can possibly carry, IF you would have the need to move things from point A to point B. Here's an example:

If you don't want to drastically alter the UI and add more slots, put a scroll bar on the right side of the backpack slots or paging buttons like you have with crafting recipe list and make it expand based on what backpack you have equipped if any - problem solved. Then modding community could go crazy with that and make all sorts of backpacks with varying sizes etc.