PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17
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HerrKingsley
New member
Do you remember the Hub city with endless hoards. Those where the days!
darksaint0523
New member
To put in my two cents worth on underground threats, split the zombies into 3 groups based on block damaging:
1. Human zombies: The bulk of the zombie "army". They are the most common, and most likely to give diseases to the player. They're good at breaking man-made structures, poor at digging horizontally, or vertically, in any terrain type
2. Zombie dogs: The scouts, essentially: fast, and cause bleeding on the player ( I feel their damage should be nerfed a little because of these). Fewer of them around than human zombies, but more than others, like bears, and vultures, or special zombie types. They are good at digging the dirt, vertically, less so in rocks, and generally don't try to dig horizontally, weaker than human Zombies at breaking man-made structures: They pick a spot and dig straight down from there to particular depth before deciding on a new path.
3. Zombie Bears: The Tanks: slow hard hitting, rather rare to see. They tend to dig horizontally through an obstacle when they hit one, and can dig well through soil and rock well, but they usually won't dig vertical shafts, or if they do, its a very short distance. Damage to structures is equal or greater than human zombies, but they attack slower, and are fewer in number.
A random pack of zombie bears, could have a chance to spawn underground, digging their way across the map. Packs of dogs could travel to a random point and just start digging down from there. And then the human zombies, as usual, just shuffle on through at various speeds, breaking anything that's too much hassle to go around.
This would create threats underground because the bears and dogs would create tunnels cris-crossing the area, that the human zombies would then flow into as they chase you down. These tunnels could bypass defenses the player set up, or allow the horde to attack from a different angle, or create weakness in your defenses that you aren't aware of, because they're underground and thus out of sight.
1. Human zombies: The bulk of the zombie "army". They are the most common, and most likely to give diseases to the player. They're good at breaking man-made structures, poor at digging horizontally, or vertically, in any terrain type
2. Zombie dogs: The scouts, essentially: fast, and cause bleeding on the player ( I feel their damage should be nerfed a little because of these). Fewer of them around than human zombies, but more than others, like bears, and vultures, or special zombie types. They are good at digging the dirt, vertically, less so in rocks, and generally don't try to dig horizontally, weaker than human Zombies at breaking man-made structures: They pick a spot and dig straight down from there to particular depth before deciding on a new path.
3. Zombie Bears: The Tanks: slow hard hitting, rather rare to see. They tend to dig horizontally through an obstacle when they hit one, and can dig well through soil and rock well, but they usually won't dig vertical shafts, or if they do, its a very short distance. Damage to structures is equal or greater than human zombies, but they attack slower, and are fewer in number.
A random pack of zombie bears, could have a chance to spawn underground, digging their way across the map. Packs of dogs could travel to a random point and just start digging down from there. And then the human zombies, as usual, just shuffle on through at various speeds, breaking anything that's too much hassle to go around.
This would create threats underground because the bears and dogs would create tunnels cris-crossing the area, that the human zombies would then flow into as they chase you down. These tunnels could bypass defenses the player set up, or allow the horde to attack from a different angle, or create weakness in your defenses that you aren't aware of, because they're underground and thus out of sight.
69WithAzombie
New member
Am I the only one who plays this game and feel they can do so much more? I've been playing the last few alpha's not really feeling like there is much meat on the bone. I hate playing mods and thinking like 'how the heck doesn't the main game have something like this". I hope this next update doesn't leave us disappointed. So many things get redone constantly it loses that hype and freshness. I'm excited for this update to be worth the wait!
I just hope we start getting some meat on the bones with more threats, zombies and working bandits! And shorter length between cycles! Also slowly they are adding more devs!! After seeing many comments about that I'm glad they got a bigger team! I hope the few guys can share all that funding! They went well above their goal!
I just hope we start getting some meat on the bones with more threats, zombies and working bandits! And shorter length between cycles! Also slowly they are adding more devs!! After seeing many comments about that I'm glad they got a bigger team! I hope the few guys can share all that funding! They went well above their goal!
Blake_
Captain Obvious
Yo, true and all that. AI is great and cool.
A18 would be the time to add a Legendary Radiated Feral flying Guppy Zombie. He would puke papers and paper quests until player death (closest thing to a forum post ingame
) . He would also be on fire, have screaming abilities and do normal vomit. On reduced Hp he would explode like 5 cars and if killed he would drop a bone and a piece of rotting flesh.The underground mole version ( Legendary Radiated Feral Guppymole) would do 500% damage against blocks in an area of 10 square meters in all directions and all of the above but no flying.
Lava, radiated underground blocks and College final tests would also be a good addition to underground gameplay.
Crater Creator
Community Moderator
Sure, brainstorming is fun for most people. But special cases are more involved to implement. Using zombies is smart, because it synergies with all the previous and ongoing work done on zombie gameplay. It’s hard to even define ‘the underground’ in a way that’s not exploitable (low altitude wouldn’t cut it, for instance), so it’s just as well that zombies’ domain be expanded to include all places. I’m not opposed to alternatives like ventilation and whatnot, but I still think of them as substitutes or supplements to zombies, which have long had ‘star billing’ as the game’s main antagonists.
No! We’ve got to be clear about this. The goal is not to discourage or make anything less appealing. That’s down the path of “this play style is wrong and you should be punished for doing it.” The goal as I see it is to bring the game into balance when it comes to effort versus reward. The game is supposed to present challenges that are fun to overcome. I don’t want to prod people back above ground. I hope playing underground is a blast in A17.
100% safety may not be the best label. What’s problematic to me is achieving infinite safety for a finite amount of effort. Your example isn’t that, because the turrets will run out of ammo, the blade traps will run out of power and/or break, the zombies will chew through the walls, and then they’ll get you if all you do is hide. Now, theoretically given infinite time in Alpha 16, random cop spit and errant melee swings may do enough damage to the ground to break through into your bedrock base, so maybe bedrock bases aren’t 100% safe, either. But instead of getting hung up on 100% safe versus 99% safe, it would be better to focus on effort versus reward. Does the player’s success at surviving the blood moon correspond to the effort they’ve expended? That’s a good question to ask whether that effort is based on the player’s shooting skills, building ingenuity, mastery of defensive perks, meticulous maintenance, stealthiness if that’s someday an option, some combination of the above, or any other potential solution to their weekly problem.
As for players eventually figuring out how to’beat’ the game, 7DtD is at its most fun for me in a place between total success and total failure. Endless death loops are no fun, and neither are nights with no challenge because you’ve found some way to ‘fix’ the zombie problem for good and hence no further gameplay is required. And remember, we may be crafty humans, but so are the developers, and while we have the numbers, they are the ‘gods’ of this universe they have created, able to come up with whatever rules they want.
khzmusik
Well-known member
Perhaps "less appealing" was a bad way to phrase it. "Less safe" or "less of a crutch" might be better.
I've spent about 900 or so hours in the game, including playing a few different mods, and the end game always ends up being the same for me: build a base at bedrock and sit in it. Even restarting a new game, ends up just being a playthrough in order to level up your skills enough to reach bedrock.
It's really one of the few things I dislike about the game: as soon as you can build a bedrock base, it stops being a survival game. Sure you can leave to clear out some POIs if you want, but you don't need to do that to survive. It makes the late game sort of uninteresting.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't build underground bunkers - I'm sure I will no matter what - just that it shouldn't be entirely safe down there.
All IMHO of course.
I think having gas being an issue for any/all sorts of bases would be great. Having a concrete fortress? Awesome! no air in/out? ded. Massive underground lair with 1k forges going at once? fantastic! No venting? ded.
I like the idea of it because it can give incentives for building above ground until you've gathered enough resources to go underground.
I agree with not wanting to punish or discourage a certain playstyle because its a sandbox game... but everyone wants something different. There are underground people who want underground threats, and above ground people who used to be underground people that want underground threats to punish them. There are underground people who have above ground horde bases but stay underground for the peace and quiet.
Personally, i think gas can be a pretty helpful tool in all that, all the while adding in the requirement for O2 in sealed bases, ventilation for forges and such
Demonoid74
New member
There is a virus infected strain of underground fungus that will slowly poison , kill you and turn you into a zombie...unless you have proper air filtration systems running! it would require a few things to be built and a gas supply for your generator running them...
There can be several in game reasons to make underground harder...as it should be...In all my play throughs every alpha since 7...I have never , ever built an underground base because it was to easy and boring...I just hope they add some difficulty other then just zombies occasionally finding/following and digging down to you...
There can be several in game reasons to make underground harder...as it should be...In all my play throughs every alpha since 7...I have never , ever built an underground base because it was to easy and boring...I just hope they add some difficulty other then just zombies occasionally finding/following and digging down to you...
wildaxeman1
New member
exatly Zadwanaa, let people have choice to play as they want, but make sure, there is threat. lack of O2 or moles and vultures, what ever fantasy can bring out.
we are smart to find a way beat z-s. but reward and effort as stated before, must be balanced.
we are smart to find a way beat z-s. but reward and effort as stated before, must be balanced.
Guppycur
Well-known member
...and this is the issue imo... We have been in this early access for so long, a lot of people are getting exhausted and just want it over with...
5 alphas ago, no one would have complained about the difficulty in implementation. Hopes and wishlists were still strong and appeared viable.
wildaxeman1
New member
i built underground horde base. with blade traps, turrets and escape routes. believe me, it is very hard work and time consuming. nothing boring there.
since air vents and gases are hard to implement according to Faatal. would be easier create new zombie, specialised for digging. like zombie badger or pack of zombie meercats.
Armstrrong
New member
Bandits are smart enough to find undeground base.
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Blake_
Captain Obvious
Whether time will be a real issue in any tweak or feature we can't know for sure. I mean:
Timelines in the dev process of this game come from the wishes of the heart , not from a strictly meticulously crafted nailed down agenda. Videogames are like that. And that modus operandi has its ups and downs.
Ups: Flexible and tweakable fun with more and more fun attached by the minute.
Downs: Some of that fun gets changed and/or not implemented in a way that someone really really likes and so that person doesn't really deeply enjoy that kind of fun (no one said Guppycur, just me).
The solution to that conundrum is in your heart, young-ish padawan. And mods, your mods are cooler than the 7dtd fridge... oh,wait.
This conversation is interesting. I'll go and get some popcorn.
I would imagine gas & ventilation would be difficult to implement without another overhaul.. but then again, i dont know squat about programming :upset: But it would be a very neat feature.
Fungus growing underground once there's room for it would be a neat. Zombie badgers would be the worst. Screw radiated cops, the badgers would be VICIOUS!
the problem with moles and stuff, is that they dont dig through rocks, just dirt.
Maybe some graboids! That would change horde night!
I hope the devs read this
I want to thank you devs for taking your time fixing up A17 so theres as few bugs as possible upon release.
Now the other part... To appease some of the complainers, instead of releasing new stuff from A17, why not release a patch for some of the known bugs in A16? It might really help calm down some of these complainers. This way when A17 is released it's simply adding in the new content instead of patching and fixing everything all at once which will cause some plpayers with slower internet connections to have a slow download and installation process. Not everyone is on big powerful machines like us crazy people who built our own. (I am pricing new graphics cards when tax season comes around and MAYBE a new motherboard).
It's just something to consider since your team is fairy small and I'm sure there's a lot on your plates in real life too.
I want to thank you devs for taking your time fixing up A17 so theres as few bugs as possible upon release.
Now the other part... To appease some of the complainers, instead of releasing new stuff from A17, why not release a patch for some of the known bugs in A16? It might really help calm down some of these complainers. This way when A17 is released it's simply adding in the new content instead of patching and fixing everything all at once which will cause some plpayers with slower internet connections to have a slow download and installation process. Not everyone is on big powerful machines like us crazy people who built our own. (I am pricing new graphics cards when tax season comes around and MAYBE a new motherboard).
It's just something to consider since your team is fairy small and I'm sure there's a lot on your plates in real life too.
SnowDog1942
Navezgane's Perv
But if they are above ground to.. wouldn't you just complain that's its the same thing over and over
Armstrrong
New member
They can just gps you, and find entrance to your undeground base, and blow it up. :smile-new:
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