PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Ouch Quit It]

youre certainly entitled to your opinion.

No offense Joe...but i just dont see this direction of play as being positive for the game.....Play is too directional....forced direction by the level gates and perk system... Players are too handcuffed now...seems the game is making choices now ..not me...thats not sandbox imho. Their vision...their game..but the flow of the game was better in A16.

 

[Ouch Quit It]

Can we please get pipe bombs fixed. They should at least wake up the Zombies.

barrel explosions dont do anything either

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(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 


seems to be more of a sleeper issue as pipe bombs can do 30-70 hp damage to walking zombies.

 


repro'd and reported

 


thanks

 

[unholyjoe]

No offense Joe...but i just dont see this direction of play as being positive for the game.....Play is too directional....forced direction by the level gates and perk system... Players are too handcuffed now...seems the game is making choices now ..not me...thats not sandbox imho. Their vision...their game..but the flow of the game was better in A16.

this is why there is a forum to discuss these issues as you are doing now... everything going into a17 is.has been redone and thus WILL need tuning. when i get a chance to play (not test) i barely get to 21 day horde hell i even struggle with 14 day... and yes i have teeth grinding moments and yes there are things i dont like.... but with time and tuning this game will become what the fun pimps envisioned.

it may not be what i truly wanted but i do not own the game, nor did i code anything.... there is no game that is made 100% the way everybody wants it to be... give it time and calm down.

 

[Gmad03]

No offense Joe...but i just dont see this direction of play as being positive for the game.....Play is too directional....forced direction by the level gates and perk system... Players are too handcuffed now...seems the game is making choices now ..not me...thats not sandbox imho. Their vision...their game..but the flow of the game was better in A16.

You mentioned modders earlier. Well khaine the modder for darkness falls almost has his test build done so that might come out soon. He’s changed a lot of stuff and reverted some stuff back.

 

[FileMachete]

Curious if the new dungeon POI's reset if Respawn is set to Never? Anyone tested this or heard a dev comment?Besides when a trader quest would/could reset one.

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(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 


on my current test build we can not see a quest that involves npcs if turned off..

 


thanks

Appreciate the reply Joe, but I'm not quite following you..?

 

[wildaxeman1]

i am lvl 43 and got my favorite weapon just before 14 day horde. 120 min days, so i proceed and progress slowly and carefully. so far died only once. well, i cheated too. i got ironbars from creative menu for my fort before day 7. so... i'm cheater. still game looks hard enough and many things needs balancing. it will come in time, i'm patient:smile-new:

found cementmixer in trader, next horde night i have cobblestone upgraded to concrete. still need tier 3 or higher ak47 and marksman rifle. good guns are not so abundant.

got my farm running and food is good now. mining is still pain in hole.

 

[lesipher]

I have to say...even with all the shortcomings of A16 .......I had a lot more fun with it. A17 seems to be more of a grind... just not having as much fun with it. By level 30 you maybe have your bow with iron arrows, 50-100 9mm and an orange pistol that does nothing against the relentless ferals and greenies. I always prided myself on not dying "alot" in game.....well both games i started i have died at least 8 -10 times each one. Thats not the complaint i have...its almost impossible to survive and enter POIs now. I dont want to even go in them because i know i will be tearing ass right out the same door i just entered. Every one has 5 or 6 Zs with half being feral and greeenies.
The use of the 30 minute magazines is useless and a waste of time unless you want to craft something and you havent leveled up. Your hands are so tied with the flow of the game and everything being tied to leveling and perks. You either are spending perks on trying to stay alive or saying screw it and going for something you want like a bike.

Try making concrete...it takes 45 minutes in game per 3000 made. Thats 90 minutes for 6000 concrete mix. Meanwhile, the overpowered Zs are tearing your base apart and you cant fix it fast enough.

Weather is still a joke too.

The food and drink system is annoying waiting for the timers to catch up to whatever you just ate or drank.

You can barely move away from a basic base that you have built, because the higher level Zeds just destroy everything while I am shooting them with my bow. The game is just to hard at the start to survive.....The only balanced area you have is when you are exploring and you meet a small horde that is manageable.....but dont enter a poi that looks interesting, because you are sure to be kicked out by its occupants. There arent even bosses in game yet.

I am waiting to see what the next patch brings but I play with alot of seasoned players who are not enjoying the game since a17. They are waiting for a stable version , because FPS drops are ridiculous especially around bases and are hoping that the modders go to work and change alot of these new systems.

I really think that the testers spent most of their time in GOD mode or flying around bypassing alot of the Zs or just loaded up on the DEV tools in game to give them super powers.

Regards

Ouch

+1 this^^^^

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

i am lvl 43 and got my favorite weapon just before 14 day horde. 120 min days, so i proceed and progress slowly and carefully. so far died only once. well, i cheated too. i got ironbars from creative menu for my fort before day 7. so... i'm cheater. still game looks hard enough and many things needs balancing. it will come in time, i'm patient:smile-new: found cementmixer in trader, next horde night i have cobblestone upgraded to concrete. still need tier 3 or higher ak47 and marksman rifle. good guns are not so abundant.

got my farm running and food is good now. mining is still pain in hole.

There are wood bars in the game now. They upgrade to iron.

 

[unholyjoe]

Appreciate the reply Joe, but I'm not quite following you..?

we now have it that if someone did turn off the zombies, then that affects clear quests which zombies are needed. so when its off, you dont see a clear quest available.

- - - Updated - - -

There are wood bars in the game now. They upgrade to iron.

6 wood to make wooden bars and upgrade with 10 forged iron. wood bars are very nice on blood moons with out spitters and high enough they cant reach to destroy.

 

[Jugginator]

I am curious about the prefab exporter tool. Yesterday I was messing around in creative building random stuff and built a base I liked. I couldn't figure out how to properly export it, so I saved/quit and loaded the world in the world editor. Had the same character with all the tools and stuff I was using, but the base I built (and the other things around it) were gone. Loaded the game up normally, and all of that was gone from there too. Is it just a known delicate/buggy tool that'll be worked on, or am I just not using it correctly?

 

[PurgatoryWolf]

Being a Server Owner ( The Secrets Servers, Grandpa's, Grandma's, Mama's, Daddy's, Zombie's ) I was thinking that I was gonna be more disappointed with the weapons. Getting FULL Weapons I thought would make things too easy instead of finding weapon parts and building the weapons you needed.
Well now instead of that being the thing that was going to Disappoint me the most it ends up being the MAP SIZE for our servers. Also how the map is laid out is very disappointing, Snow being north, Forest in the center and Desert South instead of random areas in RANDOM MAP Seed. Also on our map it is ONLY TWO Main Roads Not even A Cross Road. One Road leading North and South and a road in center of Map leading off main road that is North and South this one goes East from it. Not even a road heading West from that one.

Then Off of those roads are the towns. Players are complaining there is no loot cause the towns get looted too fast and we have loot generated at every 3 days. We know how to enlarge the map, ours is at 10,000 size. BUT... with this size you can only go from 0,0 out to 5,000 on the map.

In A16 we had a 20,000 map size meaning you can go from 0,0 to 20,000 anywhere on the map. This is only 1/4 of our original map size in A16.

Sure we tried making it 12,000 which we did do but still that is only o,0 to 6,000 on the map.

BUT, we had players tell us they cannot join it because they get a message saying they have run out of memory when the map is downloading.

Also after the map downloads it takes a VERY long time to actually get into the map after the 100% has been reached and they see our message welcoming them to the server that they have to click on to get into the game.

Why does it take sooo long to get from 100% to getting into the game? There SHOULD BE SOMETHING after the 100% of downloading the map showing that the game is still doing something so players do not think that their game is locked up and to be patient and please wait to get into the game.

We have a large amount of players that come on our servers. We need a way of making the map larger where players do not have to wait forever to get on the game like in A16.

We have players complaining on our 10,000 sized map that they are running into players base areas, not enough loot due to not enough towns to find, Not enough space to travel and explore, and so on....

Map exploration is a huge deal in Random Gen Maps. It makes things interesting, It makes things more fun,

Map size makes it so players do not have to build so close to other players, A 10,000 size map is TINY....

You are making even your map 1/2 the size it used to be. You had 10,000 set in your RWGMixer.xml file which would be from 0,0 to 10,000 on the map. But now with that same setting it is only 1/2 that.

Please, Please, Please do something to make enlarging the map better and less painful. Your Dedicated Server Owners are not gonna be happy and I feel in the long run you are going to end up having us leave because player count on servers will be a issue with this new set up.

I hope you take this into consideration, We have been server owners for your game now for 2 1/2 years and do want to continue to host our servers for your game.

Keeping players happy is one thing we strive for. Please help us in keeping the peace...

Thank You,

SeabeeMan.

Everyone on All Night Gamers agree with you as well. We have to play on a 7k map (0,0 to 3500), otherwise we get people who get booted for the same reasons you listed, or get EAC kicked for taking too long to load. RWG maps are so flat.

No more rivers and lakes, and mountains or caves.

We can't even practically create seeds offline to check out prior to loading a fresh map on a server because it takes over half an hour to spin up a map.

We also noticed Bedrock is now +4? That really stinks.

I feel like they are trying to force MP servers to be restricted to only 8 players. (even tho the game is way more fun with 15+)

 

[PurgatoryWolf]

I am curious about the prefab exporter tool. Yesterday I was messing around in creative building random stuff and built a base I liked. I couldn't figure out how to properly export it, so I saved/quit and loaded the world in the world editor. Had the same character with all the tools and stuff I was using, but the base I built (and the other things around it) were gone. Loaded the game up normally, and all of that was gone from there too. Is it just a known delicate/buggy tool that'll be worked on, or am I just not using it correctly?

Using the In-Game Export Prefab feature:

- Be in Debug Mode -

*Stand at one corner and press the Z key to place your first marker. (Pressing Backspace will remove markers)

*Move to the opposite corner and press the Z key again to place your second marker. (you can also hold the key and drag it around to change sizing)

*Use the "drop" key (which is whatever key you have assigned to drop items, G by default), to adjust your positioning

*Shift + Drop Key will allow you to extend your placement

*Press Esc then Tap Export Prefab, name it, and save.

then you can load it into the prefab editor and work on it some more, and just click SAVE when you want to save it.

To import into a live game: -- Note this only seems to work in SP, Dedicated MP servers don't seem to have the option.

Make sure you have all 5 files in the proper places. Test this out on a solo game till you get the hang of it.

When you make a prefab in the editor it will go to this folder (at least for me): C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\7 Days To Die\Data\Prefabs

You will need to copy all 5 files to the server files. (NIM file, INS file, JPG file, XML file, and TTS file)

Load into your game:

-Be in Debug Mode (DM)-

*Locate where you would like to place your prefab.

*Press Z to place a selector block, this block will be the Southwest corner of your prefab

*Press K to open Dynamic Menu

*Select Dynamic Prefab

*Select your Prefab from the list

*Select Load into Prefab (This will create an empty yellow box the size of your prefab, this will show you the area it will consume on placement, so you can make sure that you want to place it there. If you do not like the placement of the box, select Delete Prefab, and try again. Backspace will remove the blue selector block)

*Once you have a location you like, select Apply BB Position - WARNING: this will permanently displace the terrain. Even if you don't place it after all.

*If there is decorations (trees and such) that are still there after you place your prefab, select Repl. Active Prefab. (This will erase your prefab and any decor in the way) then use Apply BB Position again.

*Log out, when you log back in, your prefab will be placed, permanently. (I do not know how to turn off the yellow/green box without logging out)

 

[Kam R.]

(...)

6 wood to make wooden bars and upgrade with 10 forged iron. wood bars are very nice on blood moons with out spitters and high enough they cant reach to destroy.

Oh, that's cool! Did not know about those yet. Now all we need is for them iron bars to be upgrade-able to steel! :]

 

[Jugginator]

Purgatory Wolf, thank you! Still weird how my builds just vanished, but thanks for that intel! Now I can export them before they vanish lol.

 

[FileMachete]

we now have it that if someone did turn off the zombies, then that affects clear quests which zombies are needed. so when its off, you dont see a clear quest available.

Ah, ok, that makes sense.

And apologies as I wasn't at all clear. What I intended to ask about was if _Loot_ Respawn was set to Never will POIs still 'refresh' after whatever their timer is or do they become 'static'; so if you cleared a POI it would stay in that 'no-zombies/sleepers' state forever.

---

Comment on the Wood Bars: I hope their upgrade path to 'Iron Bars' remains as is, no going through the three scrap metal stages, heh. Yet also hoping that they will later on be upgradeable to Steel

 

[Jugginator]

Comment on the Wood Bars: I hope their upgrade path to 'Iron Bars' remains as is, no going through the three scrap metal stages, heh. Yet also hoping that they will later on be upgradeable to Steel

Yup, one tap goes to forged iron. I think, however, it cost slightly more than crating one out of the forge. Although the slightly more cost is definitely worth the absurd amount of time it takes to craft them lol.

 

[Kam R.]

Already asked in the "how do you like A17e?"-thread, but maybe a dev spots this here:

Alpha 17 – The alpha of everything being slowed down in some way...even in creative mode?

What's up with the super slow fly speed and also that weird jittering and wobbling of the vision when strafing in fly mode?

Assume this is on the low end of priorities, but what are the chances to get a more comfortable god/fly mode?

 

[FileMachete]

Yup, one tap goes to forged iron. I think, however, it cost slightly more than crating one out of the forge. Although the slightly more cost is definitely worth the absurd amount of time it takes to craft them lol.

hmm... I thought the 'iron' cost was the same either way? but either way, man I love those things!

I've got three more on my Christmas Wishlist

1) Murder Holes: ideally both a 'Bars' kind and a Flagstone half-height or plate. Something to drop Molotovs through but you couldn't fall through.

2) Retractable Stairs/Ladder: like the flimsy attic stairs or a fire escape ladder. Useful to retreat higher up in your base if there's a breach. Edit: and pull it up behind you

3) Roll-down Security Shutters: rolled up they'd be basically like the Poles, then close or un-roll and fully cover the block/s. Orignally was thinking of them as a last line of defense for spots you might build to melee through, so when it's get outa dodge time you'd slam em down and have a few seconds before z's broke through them.

I know, asking a lot but 'tis the Season right? & a man can dream

 

[Jugginator]

Agreed on them - especially murder holes. Even hatches are dangerous to try to throw a moly down through (if it even works, I tried like twice and burned myself both times). We have arrow slits and bars, but nothing to drop grenades down into lol. Like I said, I'm not sure if they cost differently but I think they do.

 

[meganoth]

I feel like they are trying to force MP servers to be restricted to only 8 players. (even tho the game is way more fun with 15+)

Sure, they deliberately made their game slow because it is super important to make you suffer. That you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you, right? :cocksure:

If you do not clear the entire building then as soon as you are more than 30m away for more than 60 seconds they will respawn. You have to clear it ALL for the days long respawn timer to be a thing, otherwise it's almost instant..

Fataal told it differently. If you go more than 30 meters away, any awakened zombies will despawn and if you come back a minute later the sleepers might be at different locations than the first time. But the number of zombies will not increase again.

So if 10 zombies are in the house and you shoot 4, when you return there will only be 6, but possible even in locations you already cleared.