PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[meganoth]

It does make it feel as though you're paying for a perk twice though.

Not to me. Putting points into perception gives me an advantage using any ranged weapon (for people caring about "realism", this would be learning how to breath out correctly before aiming). I may deliberately up the attribute fast if I want or expect to use a lot of different ranged weapons.

Putting points into the bow perk on the other hand makes me a bow specialist (knows how to handle the bow better). But I still benefit from the perk point in perception.

It is similar to having a bow perk tree with 15 steps and the damage goes up more every third step. But here other ranged weapons profit too.

If I wanted to get better at shotguns I'd shoot something with a shotgun until I got better. I'm not really getting the "meta-gaming" argument, I would call it "common sense".

I'm not disregarding your "realism" argument, learning by doing is more realistic for most physical skills. I'm talking about a game-play disadvantage of learning-by-doing", that it pushes the player to act because of the XP reward and not to act like he is a person in a specific situation.

 

[fallenbox]

The game as it is now feels like a ♥♥♥♥ty fallout 3 reiteration without the good features, whatever you want to do is translated in "farm zombies and Level up". The skills sets itself are nothing special, just some numbers steroids, leading this to get bored within the first days, i personally found 0 involvement in doing stuff in the game. I started a17 at day 1 and now i'm on day 121 and everything in between felt static as hell talking about game design, it's a long time since my last time on a16 but i remember it was definitely more "free" under a lots of aspects.

 

[The Gronk]

I'm not disregarding your "realism" argument, learning by doing is more realistic for most physical skills. I'm talking about a game-play disadvantage of learning-by-doing", that it pushes the player to act because of the XP reward and not to act like he is a person in a specific situation.

That's not a disadvantage, that's a mechanic.

Replace the words "XP reward" with "training". If the zombie apocalypse hit you can be damn sure I'm going to try and pick off a few easy ones to get some training in with my preferred weapon before I run into trouble, this is _exactly_ what I would do.

 

[Aerial]

I'm not disregarding your "realism" argument, learning by doing is more realistic for most physical skills. I'm talking about a game-play disadvantage of learning-by-doing", that it pushes the player to act because of the XP reward and not to act like he is a person in a specific situation.

That's not really true, though, I don't think. Learning by doing pushes the player to do the activities that build the skills the player wants to use. Why spend time on melee skills if you don't use a melee playstyle (or vice versa for ranged)? But if the player wants to use a specific set of skills, they have to invest the time in doing those skills and not others.

I'd love to see the attribute trees all be based on learning by doing, with specific perk trees unlocked with points. Then those trees would need to be skilled up by doing as well. I'm okay with being able to buy perks as a way to add flavor to a specific tree of skills, but having it be the primary means of gaining skills is dull. (It's dull in MMOs and RPGs, too, but those are often saved by huge skill trees and class specialization that shifts the game toward skill "builds" and the variety thereof. 7DTD is nowhere near the complexity needed for that.)

 

[meganoth]

That's not a disadvantage, that's a mechanic.
Replace the words "XP reward" with "training". If the zombie apocalypse hit you can be damn sure I'm going to try and pick off a few easy ones to get some training in with my preferred weapon before I run into trouble, this is _exactly_ what I would do.

Well, we are back at the realism argument, which is not what I'm arguing about. If I were I would say most people train with dummies not in a real combat situation.

Yes, you could call it a mechanic. But is TFP interested in having a mechanic that lets the player look at a "xp" sign and act according to it or do they want the player look at a house, some trees, a dangerous enemy and think about ways to get rid of that enemy?

In other words is their goal to add immersion or is their goal to make a graphically advanced cookie clicker where poeple play the game as if optimizing a spreadsheet?

The latter is very successfull, sure. World of Warcraft made a fortune with this, but the designers (and even some of the players) probably would have prefered if the players role-play and really read quest texts and immersive themselves in the story of such a quest. Instead 90% of players in WoW saw quests just as xp and loot providers. And as a way to get some artifical numbers up.

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That's not really true, though, I don't think. Learning by doing pushes the player to do the activities that build the skills the player wants to use.

?. If the player wants to use that skill why should he need a further incentive? He already WANTS to use that skill. By your own words

 

[Aerial]

?. If the player wants to use that skill why should he need a further incentive? He already WANTS to use that skill. By your own words

Primarily because it incentivises the player to push through the inevitable difficult spots in their skill progression, which ultimately leads to more satisfying game achievements.

No skill or XP balancing will ever be perfect, so there will inevitably be times when it's just easier to use a different strategy or skill set to advance. If switching to the most efficient strategy is always free, then the game starts to feel hollow because the achievements are cheap. If the player must instead choose between becoming really, really good at one skill set or splitting time and effort to become pretty decent at several, they have different meaningful choices to make in how they approach those uncomfortably difficult spots in their progression.

 

[Venger7Days]

Hope the AI will be further improved so this tactic with slopes isn't possible anymore. Imagine if zombies jumped on metal railings and held on to them. Now that would be a nice surprise.
We need some new special infected .

I think trying to improve the AI endlessly isn't really feasible as people will always find ways to exploit it. It probably would also quickly start to feel un-zombielike if they became too smart.

I made a few suggestions for new infected >here<.

 

[jdizzy2010]

So am I playing a new build today or getting drunk or.... both???? Lol

 

[Thecolours]

I'm seeing people freak out about farming zombies as the only viable way to level up. Dont forget Madmole and Fataal told us they're readjusting all the xp gains to be more balanced. I'm positive once A17 goes stable zombie farming will not be viable.

 

[SickPuppy]

Ppl freak out over the smallest of things around here, don't even realize we're lucky to have a game like 7dtd. I paid $9 on sale few yrs ago, felt guilty ever since.

 

[Genosis]

I'm seeing people freak out about farming zombies as the only viable way to level up. Dont forget Madmole and Fataal told us they're readjusting all the xp gains to be more balanced. I'm positive once A17 goes stable zombie farming will not be viable.

Someone did say they were going to balance it a bit; I think the point is not to make it no longer viable, just not the only sensible way to level up.

I'd like to be able to balance my day out with looting POI's, settling in for the evening by doing some crafting/farming/building and keep a decent stream of exp going. As it is now, you gain much more of an advantage just slaying anything and everything to get the levels, leaving crafting/building for later which is unbalanced. I leveled up twice from a single wandering horde, but did not level up once in a day of fortifying and building.

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Ppl freak out over the smallest of things around here, don't even realize we're lucky to have a game like 7dtd. I paid $9 on sale few yrs ago, felt guilty ever since.

Agreed; I have nearly 1200 hours in, and we bought the 40$ (CDN) two-pack of 7 Days, off-sale, and I still consider it a massive value. We could have spent that 40$ going to a movie (splitting a popcorn, of course) and enjoyed only 2 hours. The value is off the scale, even when you compare many AAA titles that give you 30-50 hours of single player gameplay for 59.99 with marginal replay value.

 

[Boidster]

Ppl freak out over the smallest of things around here, don't even realize we're lucky to have a game like 7dtd. I paid $9 on sale few yrs ago, felt guilty ever since.

I paid full-price on console, full-price on Steam (5 days before a sale, idiot) and still I think I've gotten the better end of the bargain. I'd pay full-price again on console, if they bring it up to A17 (stable). Just 'cause comfy couch.

I don't see how "skill up by doing" doesn't devolve to "spam crafting" again. How do I level up enough to craft "good quality" items besides...making lower-quality items? Or making whatever other doodad will level up Intelligence? Maybe sitting and pondering a zombie from a distance slowly starts adding intelligence XP?

IMO the current skill tree mechanism is alright, but it could use a little balance, which they've already said they're doing. Don't forget you absolutely can level up your strength by chopping trees, it just takes longer (and it is immeasurably safer than taking on a zombie, or one would hope). Punch dead corn plants for the real easy XP...

So here's a random and flame-worthy thought: what if the game just gave you XP for surviving, on a logarithmic scale. Punch your grass, chop your trees, crack your rocks, forge your tools, build a base, kill some zombies, whatever. You earn a steady (and steadily increasing rate) of XP just for surviving. Maybe a little bonus for surviving blood moon. You die, your rate of XP gain gets reset to day 1 rates.

Upside: play however you want, you will make progress as long as you survive

Downside: at the same game settings, everybody will pretty much be at the same level (assuming no deaths) at Day 7, 14, etc.

The many, many other downsides to this idea I leave as homework for the reader.

 

[Dagoberis]

Any word on when that balance and performance update will hit? Was hoping before the weekend. Great work guys.

 

[TomBodet]

So here's a random and flame-worthy thought: what if the game just gave you XP for surviving, on a logarithmic scale. Punch your grass, chop your trees, crack your rocks, forge your tools, build a base, kill some zombies, whatever. You earn a steady (and steadily increasing rate) of XP just for surviving. Maybe a little bonus for surviving blood moon. You die, your rate of XP gain gets reset to day 1 rates.

Props for thinking of another way but no. At least the way things feel right now, I always feel like I'm behind on everything. Can't gather enough to both build a base and something to survive BM, always behind on finding something to make life easier whether it's hunting for food, a good find on a tool, a trader in the area, etc... A setback that starts your progression ability back to 1 when the rest of the game is at 14 would just turn into hating IMO.

I'd like to see what they come up with to balance out the XP gains for doing other than Z hunting. The random horde pathing that seems to send it right through my living room every damn time will take care of that.

 

[tuxre]

Any word on when that balance and performance update will hit? Was hoping before the weekend. Great work guys.

bump

 

[Devrix]

New build today? :-D

 

[jdizzy2010]

New build today? :-D

Crosses fingers and toes

 

[trielkee]

actually I don't want it to improve, Zed are difficult on Horde night, only if you have guts to make that base work than only it benefits you. Saw Kage's video and his base didn't work like this.

Well, I've seen a few videos using the same mechanic that makes the zombies go in a loop using the ramps/slopes, like some kind of idea from the movie Inception, and I always expect they would just start to demolish the main tower the player is standing on but they always go back to the ramp after the jump and basically just move in circles. It just looks odd and unatural.

Don't get me wrong, the new AI is absolutely fantastic, zombies behave so much better compared to A16, and I feel this ramp loop "exploit" is the last rock in the shoe on a road to a simply brilliant AI. I'm sure faatal could "fix" this behaviour if he tried, there's no doubt about it. That is, if TFP want this to be fixed, I know they don't want super smart zombies but for me this just looks odd.

In my opinion, there should never be a safe pasive base where you survive a horde night with little to no effort. These ramp bases just feel like undergound bases in A16, and I feel people would appreciate the game more if that was not possible.

 

[Jay_ombie]

The more you program AI into an NPC the more patterns will start to emerge.

I liked the simplicity of A16 zombies and those random circle movements, that always flipped the player with there bow aiming -- haha loved that.

Now they all just line up single file and fall into a military march of lemmings to the slaughter....

I have to ask which is better and more fun ?.. A16 or A17 zombie movement patterns ?

 

[trielkee]

I think trying to improve the AI endlessly isn't really feasible as people will always find ways to exploit it. It probably would also quickly start to feel un-zombielike if they became too smart.
I made a few suggestions for new infected >here<.

I like the Blighter and Hivemind ideas alot, was thinking of something similar myself, like if the cops exploded in a radiation cloud that buffed the zombies in the vicinity, giving them a damage and health buff of sorts.

Was always against special infected zombies like the radiated ones and puking cops, always felt that the real danger should come from a large amount of zombies, but due to voxel world limitations, special zombies are a creative way of bringing danger to the player.

For me nighttime lacks something at the moment. It does create a really spooky atmosphere, and it does that damn well, but it needs something to keep you on the edge when exploring. Like a new type of zombie/special infected, a zombie much faster than the player, even when the player is sprinting, not vulnerable to bullets that much but to melee damage, that requires a special tactic and skill to run away from. It should only spawn in the world at nighttime, maybe even in some dark POIs as a surprise, after day 30 or so to keep the game fresh like you described. As it only spawns at nighttime, it would be very sensitive to light. You could keep it at a distance using the flashlight/torch, and it would always try to evade and pounce on you with a chance of destroying your torch/damaging the flashlight. This would be a high HP special infected, slightly bigger than the zombies and would walk and climb like the spider zombie.

Just wishful thinking.