PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Erik Louden]

Okay, I read the edited version.
Since farming is already a mechanic it would also take time and effort to remove it. There will then be a lot of people complaining about the removal of a core mechanic. Given that a lot of work as already been put into farming it would be a waste to just delete it.

Having a self-sufficient farm is part of my endgame as it would be in a true survival situation. You can't scavenge tinned food forever and farming could easily be described as very efficient foraging. Instead of wandering all day in the hope of finding a potato it makes much more sense to make an area where your potatoes can roam around in relative safety.

The edited version was just correcting typos.

Who's talking about removing what is already there?

 

[CplCritter]

I love the idea of using a scythe/sickle to harvest, and being able to glean more crops than simply punching. I'd advocate for the hoe, since it's already in-game, but it has historically "dug up" plants for seeds when used on crops themselves, so we'd probably want a separate tool for harvesting.

I definitely agree with you here. Harvesting is a different task like mining and killing. I would accept using the wrong tool would still produce crops, but not nearly as efficient as the right tool. You can pick corn by hand, but not as efficient as a scythe so you should get less yield.

I would like the game to make it adventagious to come home from scavenging/killing and have to switch gear to perform a different task efficiently... Not because it is more realistic, but because it forces the player to use active thinking and attention to detail or you pay a price in the yield of your crop. It is no different than trying to mine with a hoe... You have to equip different gear if you want to be effective.

As ridiculous as it might seem, this is why I am stoked about different glsses giving you different abilities (per Ninja's video of the elusive MM). The devil is in the details.

 

[pcrowe22]

Since game companies like this one want to basically say puss on console versions of the game. Rockstar games just ♥♥♥♥ on the pc with Red Dead Redemption 2 not coming to pc at all so good gaming .

 

[Gnomaana]

Then don't eat anything.
Seriously though, to make this a farm simulator you'd have to remove animals and edible plants that grow in the wild (which screws the hunting/foraging aspect of this game). Then add a bunch of mechanics to make a farming simulator.

Sorry but this is a zombie game first (according to MM) and its not going to revolve around farming.

I have a feeling you are going to have to wait for mods that require you to be a farmer to survive.

Third time you have insinuated people are asking for a "farm simulator". Who has asked for that? What we don't want is that food becomes a non-concern by day 5. If food is going to be a complete non-issue that early in the game, just remove it entirely. It's just clutter at that point.

 

[astainless]

I think someone just doesn't know how to farm effectively. It's also good for medical supplies as well. You just want a survival simulator to be easier. Just mod it. Everyone else likes the farming. It should be more detailed with plant disease random plagues that take out crops so you have to have food stored up.

 

[Gnomaana]

Since game companies like this one want to basically say puss on console versions of the game. Rockstar games just ♥♥♥♥ on the pc with Red Dead Redemption 2 not coming to pc at all so good gaming .

Huh? You do know that there are differences in developing for PC vs Console and companies choose the one they want to concentrate on don't you? Obviously not I guess. Rockstar concentrates on console. Sometimes they port. Sometimes not. Neither one is ♥♥♥♥ on the other. THey are just doing what they have decided to concentrate on. Smart move on both company's part.

 

[Aurelius]

What about console versions when do we see a update . This is why most of the people that paid for the game for console don't want to play it any more cause we don't get any info

*points to the console section*

-A

 

[CplCritter]

looks like some people want this game to become nutrition survival game instead of zombie survival

It's not that some people want it. As MM has made clear, it is a major consideration in the game. Did you see him try to ride his bicycle home (on Ninja's video) before it got dark on day 27 and how low his stamina bar was. The struggle is real. Finding good nutrition in A17 seems to be a big part of this zombie *survival* game. I think that is why they are concentrating more on the nutrition side of things. I know that is why it has caught my attention.

 

[CplCritter]

This is the sort of balance that's needed, an erosion of the resource producing mechanics.
Even with the new system farming is essentially additive, if you're not using any of the crop for food it's quite easy to get a reasonably large farm up and running with little danger of failure. At that point there is nothing to endanger the system, it will keep producing crops ad infinitum.

Having boars and rabbits destroy plants at the edge of your field unless it's fenced off would erode the ability of the farm to produce a constant supply of food.

This! The only thing I would add is boars having the ability to break the fence because once your fence is up, you are good for the entire game and what kind of challenge is that? Maybe rabbits have a 1:1000 chance of jumping the fence too so crops untended become mulch eventually.

 

[Aurelius]

Maybe rabbits have a 1:1000 chance of jumping the fence too so crops untended become mulch eventually.

I remember when those little fskrs would spawn on my fenced in, elevated, garden.

Elmer Fudd had NOTHING on me and my shotgun...

-A

 

[Requiemfang]

I like the fact that these changes are being made, it is going to make the player think more critically and more intelligently in how they are going to do things in game. Basically you need to plan stuff out.

 

[CplCritter]

There are those of us who would prefer they spend their time making this different from both survival games and zombie shooters. There are plenty of zombie shooters on the market if you don't want the survival aspects at all.
Think what is best for the game, not what is best for you. You have your personal play style just like everyone else. If you don't want to use the farming mechanic then fine but there are plenty of people who like the idea of defending their farm from the zombie hordes.

I vote for this as well. To add some, dare I say, reality to the game some danger to farming should be a thing. There should all be a threat to your supply to survive and keep your stamina up. Make seeds rare and make you fist the plants instead of spamming "E"... I'm all for it. Rabbits knawing, boars trampling and eating, zombie goop... Project Zombiod wasn't afraid to taint your food with nastiness... Why should 7DTD be any different?

 

[CplCritter]

This is harsh? Are you a millennial?
I merely explained why putting more effort to make this more farmer friendly than improvements to zombies as the main threat is the wrong approach (IMHO).

Should hunting and foraging not be a viable option to survive? Those are simplistic too, why should farming be special?

Honestly I haven't seen anything that makes me think most people care about a more complex farming system.

I'm not saying that it would be a bad thing but that time and resources are limited and they should focus on the main part of the game, zombies.

Let the modders take care of the food/farming details.

I agree with you that hunting and foraging should be the biggest part of survival in the early game, but farming should always be an option so attention should also be geared towards farming to keep it balanced. This game should not be more farmer, foreging, or hunter friendly because they are all difficult things in real life unless you have experience in one, the other, or both/several. This game is still in Alpha so balancing is part of the deal.

I don't see this as a win for the farmers in early game though. 5 heads of corn to make 1 seed now? An upgraded needed to produce more than 1 at harvest now? Seeds are now more scarce? Sucks to be a farmer after A16, lol. So they replaced replanting with regeneration... planting was glitchy in the first place due to the placement-box-thingy (I'm not a dev) glitching if you were close to other plants. The regeneration fixes that annoying clitch.

I agree with you in the fact it should all be a struggle. The struggle is why I have more hours in 7DTD and the retro-style graphics, Project Zombiod than any other game on steam. No other game can produce the kind of struggle it takes to survivie. Honestly Project Zombiod took more effort that 7DTD A16 so I'm glad to see more struggle added to A17 7DTD in the food/stamina catagory.

 

[Gmad03]

They could make it so plants cause buzzards to spawn and make them attack crops from time to time

 

[Aldranon]

Yes but honestly I'd rather them put the effort into the zombies being the threat and not make this a farm simulator.

Games ARE simulations, I assume you mean you don't want a detailed simulation of farming.

*** I would like slider bars for each aspect of the game so everyone has a choice of how they want the game to play (like it's done in Factorio).

 

[wolffblood]

I really feel like a lot of this also could just wait till A17E is released then stable. That way all the systems are in place. Then have a basic idea of farming, but not go so in depth as nutrition. See where TFP goes with it all. Thing is, they have even said they want the game to be heavily moddable to make all kinds of play styles. When there's pretty much hundreds of play styles of this game alone, it's impossible that they will make a game where everyone is happy. There's plenty of other games where stuff is more indepth, but when I hear how much the game alone starts using so much resources, some of these indepth things would just make a lot of players frustrated since they would end up not being able to play it. There's some mods out there now, that I like the idea or have played it a little and enjoy it, I just can't play it because it really starts making things stutter (though I believe MM said they fixed that, so would help a lot). I would hate for TFP to do that to their normal game and force me to not be able to play because it just has too many resources that I can handle. So until it gets out and I can see how it runs, I'd rather it be simpler and easier on resources.

And I don't remember where I saw the post, but as for the gas and all, food brings up hunger, drinks bring up thirst, gas runs vehicles/tools. It's all one step to make something work, start adding in more steps later, get the general stuff done now. They still have a ways to go, but with the new systems in place, it shouldn't take that much longer with this great team they have.

As for working on zombies before survival, I feel like they need to. Later on, it's either zombies become zero threat because of how dumb they are currently, or if they destroy everything on a blood moon night for whatever reason (materials, boxes, chest, it all), you don't have much time to get things back up and going for such a high gamestage, so becomes a repeat death and need to start over. Once that gets balanced out, then focus on other things to start making it all tie into survival from multiple areas. As they said before, with how the system works now, you could alter the game stage based on events. So if it does get wiped out, say it drops game stage for so long so you can rebuild, or if you end up beating a blood moon night with zero damage to player, can increase more than usual.

 

[TSBX]

I'm the perk you need to make chili dogs.

 

[faatal]

so Joel got RTX powered rig? I hope he will not forget about us potato-hardware owners and we will be able to play a17 too :/

Uh, there are over a dozen people working on the game and many testers. Most of us don't have $500+ plus video cards, so we would be the first to complain if the game didn't run well for us.

 

[OomJack]

Waiting what feels like a year now for alpha 17 to be released. I feel like they totally @#$%^& up this game now so much that they spend the last MONTHS to "fix ALL the bugs". But in the mean time they add some more @#$%^& (and have time for this) to the game to add more bugs to fix. EVERY single video posted including the last one is posted with NEW bugs in the *new content added* that "needs to be fixed". I mean really WTF.... Why not just fix the current "bugs" that is in the game for the past MONTHS now. Plenty talk NO ACTION. 2496 pages of it.

 

[Hockallz]

Waiting what feels like a year now for alpha 17 to be released.

Technically longer, the last alpha was released June 2017. Personally all I'd like to see them do is fix the melee, originally it was supposed to be like Skyrim. I've seen the power attack they've added and whilst I'll wait til I play it to decide I'm underwhelmed.