PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Roland]

So there will be an A18? /puts on perspective glasses.

*Flips a lever on the glasses*

There might be or there might not be. Madmole didn't promise anything.

 

[Scyris]

I'm pretty sure I could destroy you in any game, I used to smash whole teams of people against me alone in quake and counter strike and was offered to be sponsored years back to travel and compete but I was wanting to make games so I declined. I do stupid stuff deliberately to make the videos entertaining so think what you want to think. I already proved the game can't kill me in my dead is dead video series I posted an alpha or two ago, and look at my kill 20 dog challenge video. After we shipped Gore (a pvp shooter) the best guy who was hands down the top player in the whole community challenged me and I smoked him 20 to 3.
And your the one who is comical, the pvp player base is less than 1% of our customer base. Maybe its 40% of the vocal minority community, but its literally nothing, all our players are friends playing coop with friends or single player on private servers.

I mostly play 7dtd solo as I feel more players just makes the game too easy.

A17 is going to be a change for me, not sure how imma like having to be forced to deal with the 7 day horde before I am ready. I usually don't attempt to fight a horde till the day 14 or 21 hordes. Then again if their loot is improved with it supposedly having bosses now, I'll be much more tempted to fight them. in A16.4 I just don't see a reason to waste the resources. I also usually build my base underground as its alot less work, especally if in the desert, sand is easy to dig thru.

 

[Aldranon]

So there will be an A18? /puts on perspective glasses.

You can call the Beta release A18 and Gold A19, but it would not be as accurate.

 

[Gnomaana]

But, those zombies have to be respawned. They don't hang around while you leave and wander around for 10 minutes. Large POIs have many sleeper volumes, usually next to each other and dozens of zombies. If you come back in another direction, it may not be able to respawn in the same spots without being seen.

Why don't they hang around while I wander around for 10 minutes? Wouldn't it make most of these issues go away if they did stay spawned until some chosen amount of time? I assume it is for performance but are sleepers that have "spawned" but not awake and hunting a player that much of a performance hit? If they currently are too much of a performance hit, is this a place where the new job system could help when it gets fully implemented into 7 Days? Just seems like the spawn/respawn is what causes most of your headaches when dealing with the whole sleeper system and would be easier if you could leave them spawned for as long as possible once they are.

 

[Jimmy_James]

Yeh but what if you added a scope, or a laser sight (which is what I'm pretty sure was on MM's shotgun [the little white box in his reticule]), or um, pulley's to make it a compound crossbow... those would be mods to the crossbow.

That would be nice additions to the crossbow.

I am still hoping in higher tier primitive weapons.

 

[lazdeuce]

Oh you just made my day Roland! I would hug you if I could, but...can you record you asking him this? Or send a transcript. I would love to see his face when you call him the Joelercoaster! I mean, I think just about everyone disagrees on zombie loot it seems but a good compromise for peace is choice of panties....thats it. I am starting the Panties for Peace club on the forums, who is with me?

A choice of underwear would be good. We should at least be able to wear them back to front and inside out to get more mileage. I just want to feel civilized again!

Panties for the people!!!

(after reading pages and pages and pages of... stuff... this is what stood out)

 

[gorgofdoom]

I think the most irritating thing i saw was MM trying to pick the arrows out of the corpses. I have two ideas that could make this less annoying.

1- the arrows move to a loot bag when the corpse despawns; or

2- you simply click use on the corpse to retrieve all arrows, instead of having to fiddle around with each one and their tiny-ness.

Also i want spears. and a shield.

But that's all I can think of.

TFP, you guys are doing great!

 

[Exxodous]

HEY now!
Look at the server list and population count on MP servers. Out of all MP servers I would say at LEAST 20% if not 30% of active players are playing on PvPvE or even specifically PvP servers. Co-op is definitely the majority but I wouldn't say PvPers are "less than 1%," that's just not a fair statement.

Servers numbers does not account the thousands of single player games lowering your pvp percentage considerably I think.

 

[Genosis]

I think the most irritating thing i saw was MM trying to pick the arrows out of the corpses. I have two ideas that could make this less annoying.
1- the arrows move to a loot bag when the corpse despawns; or

2- you simply click use on the corpse to retrieve all arrows, instead of having to fiddle around with each one and their tiny-ness.

I believe Skyrim handled it this way as well; transferred the successfully recovered arrows into the loot pool, removed arrows from body. The only sticking point (pun not intended) would be that it would generate a lot more loot containers than intended, which arguably may be acceptable for the number of arrow-ridden corpses.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Theres millions of silent customers who just played the game solo 2-20 hours who never used the forum in their life.

1. your frequent use of hyperboly makes your statements less credible, since it sounds like you only pull numbers out of your behind

2. and there are countless players who play multiplayer(PVP and PVE) that never register on the forums, beit because of the language barrier or because they see no need for it or dislike forums...

that is not an argument. And I feel like your vision for this game has warped your view on things a bit...

as I've said I dont have much data... but from all I've seen there are TONS of PvP players... unmodded dedicated servers have (in the first 2 months) up to 300 regular players online. If you account for undedicated, changed settings (which makes them go under modded) and modded pvp servers, you have a pretty decent chunk of your community playing pvp.

Lets go with the absolute highest number of 32.000 players ever at A16 release.

The unmodded, unchanged dedicated pvp servers in europe (since somehow other continent servers dont show up for me...) are >300 players

so those are 1%. America+1% rest of the world+2%, modded settings+1%+modded servers&non dedicated+1%.

And this is the absolute lowest number. 6%. I think its WAY closer to ~20%.

 

[faatal]

Then spawn the same zombies in the same spots. And don't spawn the ones that caould not be there...

Those same spots may be seen. Windows, doors, holes in wall. It can change. You can bust a hole in a wall, see the zombie, leave, come back, it fails to respawn in that spot, because it can be seen.

What is weird is, sleeper volumes don't despawn until you are 30 meters away from the cube and then 30 seconds after that. Sounds like a bug, since 30m is a long distance.

 

[Deceiver101]

*Flips a lever on the glasses*
There might be or there might not be. Madmole didn't promise anything.

Well after A17, all I can think of feature wise are the bandits and the water/boat thing if that hasn't been scrapped. Otherwise for beta, just bug fixes, balancing, and more zombie types would be nice(but idk if they are adding new ones in A17)

 

[faatal]

Here is one issue with that system.Why can I not just attract the zombies and lead them out of the house?

I know the explanation was to prevent Pied Piper clearing of POIs.

However, previously the justification of forcing the kill to be in the sleeper volume was rationalized by at least you get loot to offset the risk and expense of resources in doing such.

Now we still can't do as any sane person would do and lead the zombies away because they won't count as kills to the volume, but we also don't gain the reward.

Just another thought on the change on loot factors and how it impacts Sleep Volume balance issues.

You can lead them out. That is what I will be doing. Almost all POIs have 5+ volumes, so you can't even tell what volume you are in. Obviously if you walk up some attic stairs into a different volume, kite back down into lower volume, back and forth, we don't need or want each volume despawning and respawning. You have to be 30 meters away from the volume edge for 30 seconds to despawn. Anything else is a bug.

 

[Blake_]

I think the most irritating thing i saw was MM trying to pick the arrows out of the corpses. I have two ideas that could make this less annoying.
1- the arrows move to a loot bag when the corpse despawns; or

2- you simply click use on the corpse to retrieve all arrows, instead of having to fiddle around with each one and their tiny-ness.

Also i want spears. and a shield.

But that's all I can think of.

TFP, you guys are doing great!

Well.... I think that would be how things work in The walking Dead. Having to retrieve those cuties from a corpse can be painfully difficult if you are surrounded. And yet it might be ugly and, paraphrasing MM: unsexy for some. Doing point 1 would revert back those duplicating issues. Doing second one would bring back the "that Zed is indeed dead as I see the letter to pick all the arrows". So I say leave it as is as we cant hope to have 5 reusable stone arrows for the duration of the game. What I hope to see is arrows on terrain dissapearing after a while. Skyrim maintains then on terrain forever and it's ugly and affects performance bit by bit.

 

[faatal]

I dont know how your ui works so this is why im asking this question. Do you enable the zombie map icon when you are testing patterns?

No. I can watch anything I want in the editor scene view. I have tons of multicolored debugging lines that I can see grid updates, paths, obstacles hits, movement. Good tools are your friend.

 

[faatal]

The problem with the system is that zombies can respawn in an area that's not only been cleared, but also blocked off from an uncleared area due to a barricade, and that's just weird.
If volumes didn't have to be rectangles, poi makers could more intelligently design them and you could limit the respawns per volume, not poi.

Respawns are per volume. Each volume spawns and tracks its own zombies. Clear a volume and it is cleared.

 

[cicadian]

Looks great

Hey TFP, A17 update looks great and I've been playing for about a year now.

I like all the changes with loot & zombies because it re-frames the player to be a survivor rather than a conqueror. I think the more immersive type players will continue to aggressively engage with zombies regardless of reward just as part of player fantasy. And I think the more "gamer" type players will be interested only in incentives and reward.

I always assumed the point of zombies turning into blocks on death was in order to raise the heatmap levels for your position. So after horde passes through you need to clean up all the remains in order to prevent the zombies from finding you again soon. Sometimes when I've finished killing all the zombies in a large POI I will get a wandering horde while I'm looting all the containers. I love this sort of idea that making a mess of things may be good for you now, but could end badly if you don't hurry.

With the removal of the corpse blocks will we be seeing less "horde chaining" as an emergent feature of game mechanics? I always liked the frantic rush to clean your base up, so much so I would often NOT loot corpses and just let the containers go away because I had better things to be doing, like shoring up my defenses or getting back into the field. There was a choice to loot and I often chose against it in some situations (like the night before a horde, or when clearing out a POI).

That's my only concern, you guys are doing a fantastic job and I'm looking forward to the update very much!

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Faatal

isn't 30 meters the default distance for sight. in entityclasses.xml

 

[Deceiver101]

@Faatal isn't 30 meters the default distance for sight. in entityclasses.xml

I think they increased that with something madmole called pixel streaming or something like that so the entities are smaller in the distance but hog less resources? but im not 100% sure.

 

[GrifterMan]

7DTD: Direction and Meta concerns with Alpha 17+

Obviously it is still early to be critiquing the latest build, but some general trends are making me uneasy about the direction that 7DTD is headed. Below are some concerns I personally have about the game's direction based on the changes in the last couple Alpha releases and A17 development.

1. POIs: So, are the majority of buildings going to require a massive effort (time/health/supplies) and close quarters (now highly lethal) combat just to hopefully find some halfway useful loot? Or is it only going to be Houses? I sure hope the old style POIs are not eradicated or the game is going to get really frustrating. I preferred the original "potluck" method to the locations.

The jury is still out, but I am leery of this trend as it looks like a niche feature (skyscraper puzzle trap building) has now become the developer-preferred norm. Tell me I am wrong please Pimps.

Oh, and don't get me started on the frequency of floor "fall trap" blocks. As an occasional way to keep you honest or scare you in-game they are great; overuse is just plain annoying based on watching Joel's videos. I am not interested in playing "Zombie Apocalype Funhouse". Make it random with just enough "GOTCHA!" stuff and moments to keep me on edge, not so much I am frustrated with the experience.

2. COMBAT: Sure, it's undergoing changes as we speak, but melee is man... so... slow. Getting smacked easily by a thing that can infect me on any given hit is just crazy given the latest pathing AI improvements. Either the Pimps intend to severely reduce the % of infection or - I envision lots of restarts.

I am not sure why the whole meta changed to less dodge, more risk. Aren't we as survivors supposed to be more dexterous? If the melee gets tweaked then maybe it will be OK, but I am having my doubts for now. Ranged combat looks fine so far. But the combination of the POI meta above and the way fatigue and melee with limited dodge is working (don't forget fatigue/health) seems like a sticking point. Guess we will find out, but I am not enthused at this point.

3. MOST EVERYTHING ELSE: I am liking or fine with the vast majority of upcoming changes, so don't come down on me too hard. The game is improving in many, many ways, some rather un-measurable. Lots of technical, back office type improvements that can only help 7DTD in the long run.

CONCLUSIONS?

So, where does that leave me? Well... considering that interaction with a) the world and b) the zeds amount to how one spends the majority of game-time, POIs and Combat are crucial to the game experience.

I am worried that the combination and interworkings of the following will unbalance the game:

1. Puzzle POIs - increased time and effort to clear/loot

2. Melee - Difficulty increase through dodge reduction, swing mechanics and all linked directly to fatigue

3. Fatigue/Hunger/Thirst/Health - Focused changes to how they work and links to the game combat/experience

There are still only X amount of hours of daylight to achieve your short-term goals. Perhaps this will all pan out just fine, but I can't help but think that 7DTD is going to be a LOT more difficult to survive more than a few hours or days. Maybe that is the Pimps plan, they think it is too easy, too many exploits that need to be closed off.

Maybe the outdoor loot containers will be tweaked to balance the POI time and difficulty increase. Continued modification of Melee combat could lessen or alleviate the feeling of inevitability of infection/death. The whole condition meter sub-game may get tweaked to end up much more fluid and balanced. Only time will tell, but I hope I am proved wrong in my concerns.

Look, I have been here a long time and rarely make posts like these.

I have always been content to watch, wait and trust that TFP will come through in the end despite the issues and difficulties. I still am to a large degree. I have gotten way more out of 7DTD than I paid way back when. Still, I feel that sincere and honest feedback is why we are on the forums so I put this together.