PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[ieuri]

It was pretty realistic... and horrible gameplay.

I would have to disagree completely with your statement. I thought it was pretty realistic and FANTASTIC. It did everything you all claim to want. It slows down end game progression, it allows customization, and gives players the freedom to play the game how they want. Your new system locks players into doing one thing only. Killing Zombies. You have removed individuality from players, we all now do the exact same thing to progress and are forced to play that way even if we don't want to.

 

[canadianbluebeer]

Ranger Stations are still in, and still make great starter bases. Fill in the windows with flagstone, remove the inner stairs, but KEEP the outer ones to start.. by bloodmoon should be able to have it ready, and the entire first 3 blocks are already flagstone, just upgrd to cobble/cement.

(LOTS of free cement mix about, dig up those cement bags.)

But otherwise, yes, as many regular houses anymore. But that's ok really. More goodies in the new ones, so what if it takes longer to clear?

 

[Reddevil]

But otherwise, yes, as many regular houses anymore. But that's ok really. More goodies in the new ones, so what if it takes longer to clear?

for me its not that they take longer its that they feel more unnatural to be forced in a single direction at every building. I like looting houses that didn't seem like someone was building a fort in there house. Again they are awesome to do but shouldn't be too often, cause how many people had time to fill their houses with cement bags after the breakout started.

 

[gcomerfo]

...they feel more unnatural to be forced in a single direction at every building. ... but shouldn't be too often, cause how many people had time to fill their houses with cement bags after the breakout started.

I agree. I like the idea of dungeon buildings and some houses here or there - but there should still be a good amount of regular houses too.

I mean who has a giant basement filled with mutliple palette loads of bags of sand/fertilizer, 2 level attics, etc. I mean there are some towns in RL with huge old Victorian era homes like that, but not so much in modern Arizona...

Dungeons should be major POIs, like a Hospital, Police Station, etc- not every single regular house a dungeon. To be fair, I have found some small simple shanties out in random gen though too.

 

[The Gronk]

for me its not that they take longer its that they feel more unnatural to be forced in a single direction at every building. I like looting houses that didn't seem like someone was building a fort in there house. Again they are awesome to do but shouldn't be too often, cause how many people had time to fill their houses with cement bags after the breakout started.

They're reasonably well distributed in Nave but there's already a massive modpack of pretty mundane, and not so mundane, prefabs available.

Not a good solution unless the server uses it or you play SP but it's already possible.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?28057-Compo-Pack-for-Random-Gen

 

[Aurelius]

As a dev team, do you guys feel that the current system is what players want? How's it going, numbers wise? Sincere question; I'm personally ambivalent because I just mod it how I want to, but wanted your take on it.

If recent steam reviews/comments are any indication... then it's pretty bad.

Spoiler

-A

 

[SickPuppy]

Wat. You don't have to put any points into ranged perks, just buy up your Perception and buy the Lucky Looter perk. You get a little accuracy/dmg on ranged from having a higher perception, but that eagle-eyed eidetic memory is also what helps you find the best loot.

I mean Perception is upping our ranged skill. So a melee looting character will have to waste points on ranged just to improve loot and wrench? Alright I'll get Perception, hey I've now got all this great loot to sell, wait now I need more Intellect to get better prices. So now my melee looter not only needs to dump into Str, but also Perception and Intellect to progress my build. And this is without touching Agility or Fort yet.

Oh, so you want to be a totally melee looter who also can build vehicles. Well yeah you're going to have to spend points on building vehicles then.

I don't want to build that's the whole point but that doesn't mean I don't want to play with new added vehicles. But there's no other way to get vehicles so I have to dump points into Intellect. I'm not using ranged weapons but I have to dump points into Perception for better loot and wrench, I'm not building tools, forges, workstations, weapon mods, but I need to dump into Intellect just to get a vehicle.

Oh, so you want to be a passive engineer/builder who can also carry a bunch of stuff. Then yeah you're going to need some Strength. Or, since you're buying up Intellect, use vehicle storage instead of inventory storage.

Yes Strength does tie in with able to carry more that's understandable, I'll need better mining too. But for a passive builder I'll be investing in Intellect for this build so I'll have good bartering, but hey trader isn't selling the parts I need or not enough, I better do some wrenching for parts oh I need to dump points into ranged Perception for better wrenching. So that's Int Str and Per. Ok good my base is coming along, time to get my farm going oh I need living off the land that means points into Fort. So my specialized character is now investing in Int Str Per and Fort. And the cycle continues dumping into all attributes.

Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, maybe I'm just too greedy wanting one or two sub perks from each attribute tree.

The A17 system is a cousin to almost every RPG system out there. Earn XP, get skill points, spend them on attributes and perks. Wouldn't surprise me if the D&D Player's Handbook was sitting on a desk at TFP. It's tried and tested, though obviously it needs to be balanced (and I'm not arguing A17 is properly balanced yet - IMO it's not).

I think specializing in an SP game is necessarily more difficult than in a co-op (not free-for-all PvE, but true co-op) game. If you're all alone, you kinda have to be able to heal yourself a bit, and craft a few things, and cook food, and shoot/hit zombies. You can kinda be stronger at a few things, but it's probably going to be difficult to completely ignore more than one attribute...

Agree it's definitely not easy to balance, there's plenty to like in A17 but the attribute gates are not fun for me anyway. I thought the whole point was not to make us all powerful and get all attributes, but having these sub perks under attributes is making us go down all attributes.

 

[wolffblood]

If recent steam reviews/comments are any indication... then it's pretty bad.

Spoiler

View attachment 26672

-A

I was looking that over today too. Thing is, most all of that is just people thinking everything should be in place like the game is finished. Most of them don't even seem to follow TFP and realize that all the systems just were replaced. I also would put money that a good chunk of them were people that got on, realized it was changed, hated it, quit game, then made the review in under an hour of play time for A17. I agree that there are still lots of things that need to be worked on, but treating the game as a final product is a bit much, lol.

 

[Gazz]

It just sounds like you "need" to be perfect at everything and the RPG aspect of the game is finally starting to work.

Sure, in A16 you could grind your way to perfection within the first week or so, a bit more for things like weapon skills/perks.

That was the most broken feature of it.

 

[unlike them]

I have found some in lockers in the academy.

Thank you, that did it (at lvl 45)! How it never occured to me to look for nerdy glasses in the most nerdy place?

 

[wolffblood]

I mean Perception is upping our ranged skill. So a melee looting character will have to waste points on ranged just to improve loot and wrench? Alright I'll get Perception, hey I've now got all this great loot to sell, wait now I need more Intellect to get better prices. So now my melee looter not only needs to dump into Str, but also Perception and Intellect to progress my build. And this is without touching Agility or Fort yet.


I don't want to build that's the whole point but that doesn't mean I don't want to play with new added vehicles. But there's no other way to get vehicles so I have to dump points into Intellect. I'm not using ranged weapons but I have to dump points into Perception for better loot and wrench, I'm not building tools, forges, workstations, weapon mods, but I need to dump into Intellect just to get a vehicle.

Yes Strength does tie in with able to carry more that's understandable, I'll need better mining too. But for a passive builder I'll be investing in Intellect for this build so I'll have good bartering, but hey trader isn't selling the parts I need or not enough, I better do some wrenching for parts oh I need to dump points into ranged Perception for better wrenching. So that's Int Str and Per. Ok good my base is coming along, time to get my farm going oh I need living off the land that means points into Fort. So my specialized character is now investing in Int Str Per and Fort. And the cycle continues dumping into all attributes.

Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, maybe I'm just too greedy wanting one or two sub perks from each attribute tree.

Agree it's definitely not easy to balance, there's plenty to like in A17 but the attribute gates are not fun for me anyway. I thought the whole point was not to make us all powerful and get all attributes, but having these sub perks under attributes is making us go down all attributes.

Well, I think the better looting in perception is a good spot for it. Because without better perception, typically harder to recognize or find things. And usually better perception would in turn make aiming and all for ranged weapons better. So, to me, it feels looting best fits under perception since there isn't some perks outside of the attributes. Bartering under int makes sense though, better negotiation usually goes with a better mind or intelligence.

Though for vehicles, I would find it cool if you got one after some super long quest that requires going to a t5 or t6 POI in the process. That way it's not simple and cars are rare to find working now as is, but someone without int can get one.

So short of them making a "blank" attribute to put random perks under, people will need things across the board. And I don't think they'll do that and all perks will be under an attribute.

I do think there may be some perks that could change attributes, like "The Huntsman" being under fortitude doesn't make much sense to me. Since it's for getting more resources from animals, I would find that being under Perception or Agility due to needing to be able to be quiet to hunt and typically ranged weapons. It almost feels like then I'm having to take an attribute that doesn't seem to match with what I want to do. But I know it's a game, not realism, but since there seems to be some realism mixed in, that's a simple one that doesn't break game play.

--update--

If anything, I'll probably go through and make it go under Perception myself. I'll just mod things as I see fit, add some perks as I want, maybe a few other things. The perks actually interest me a lot and the possibility that it brings.

 

[Gazz]

I was looking that over today too. Thing is, most all of that is just people thinking everything should be in place like the game is finished. Most of them don't even seem to follow TFP and realize that all the systems just were replaced. I also would put money that a good chunk of them were people that got on, realized it was changed, hated it, quit game, then made the review in under an hour of play time for A17. I agree that there are still lots of things that need to be worked on, but treating the game as a final product is a bit much, lol.

The exact same thing happened with the A17 experimental release but that was like years ago so probably no one remembers.

First couple of days there were lots of negative reviews.

"The devs changed something! HOW DARE THEY?"

As players started to read descriptions (and sometimes even journals) they did less b... I mean the game became far less broken and the "recent reviews" changed to "mostly positive".

The good news: People are still being people.

 

[unlike them]

Yeah, I remember when experimental dropped, I had to lower the difficulty, because all my 4000 hours experience worked against me. But quickly we learned the new tricks, how things work now, also the devs made the nessessary changes and the game feels good again (but with balancing edits to xml, to fit personal playstyle).

 

[SickPuppy]

If you put any effort - not skill points - into hunting you end up with way more meat than you can use.You can unlock 15 backpack slots with mods so you don't need a lot of strength.

Besides, having 3 or 4 points in "other" attributes is far from being a Jack of all trades.

Tbh I've never had a problem with meat, I got a load from the trader and vending machines, but if that's the case it kinda breaks that perk making it redundant. Guess it needs more balancing.

15 backpack slot mods that's for armor right? But what if I'm not using armor?

But why stop at only 3 or 4 points in other attributes, aren't sub perks tied all the way up to level 10 attributes, with more points needed for higher attributes? That's a lot of points in total for the 'other' attributes.

It just sounds like you "need" to be perfect at everything and the RPG aspect of the game is finally starting to work.
Sure, in A16 you could grind your way to perfection within the first week or so, a bit more for things like weapon skills/perks.

That was the most broken feature of it.

Well that's the funny thing I'm really not trying to be perfect asap. Having sub perks locked under attributes is forcing us to dump in all attributes.

For a melee looting character I've just said I'm not using ranged weapons, not building any other perks in Intellect tree apart from vehicles, not using armor, day 21 still on starting 100 stamina, no sneak, no farm, just 1 pack mule upgrade, etc.

All these sacrifices because I need to waste points on Per and Int attributes just for loot, wrench and vehicles. That's only 3 sub perks I want in this character build, hardly a perfect character.

 

[beerfly]

The exact same thing happened with the A17 experimental release but that was like years ago so probably no one remembers.

Check in history books, indeed time flies fast and vast.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, I remember when experimental dropped, I had to lower the difficulty, because all my 4000 hours experience worked against me. But quickly we learned the new tricks, how things work now, also the devs made the nessessary changes and the game feels good again (but with balancing edits to xml, to fit personal playstyle).

Having my 12th savegame (since first experimental) where I finally have time to see mid-game and I agree, not bad at all. Much better and this is gonna be improved for sure. So, bright times in apocalypce are coming.

 

[wolffblood]

Yeah, I remember when experimental dropped, I had to lower the difficulty, because all my 4000 hours experience worked against me. But quickly we learned the new tricks, how things work now, also the devs made the nessessary changes and the game feels good again (but with balancing edits to xml, to fit personal playstyle).

That's actually something I LOVE about this game. It is so simple to be able to change things to fit my playstyle. Yeah, you have to mess with XMLs, and very few know how to, but there are tutorials, on their website, telling you how to do it, and plenty of people that will help out. You can take this game, change it to how you want. There are very very VERY few games that allow that, you buy the game, it doesn't suit you, well too bad, you wasted money. With this game, if there are things you don't like, you can change it to how you do like it, and there, no wasted money or time. It's something that I feel 80% of the people that buy this on steam never know about. Shoot, I never did until I decided to get on here to look up when A17 was going to come out about a year ago and saw the mods section. And that was because i didn't like a few aspects of A16.4, but was just enough to frustrate me. Saw the mods, and boom, kept me playing instead of forgetting about the game.

 

[SickPuppy]

Well, I think the better looting in perception is a good spot for it. Because without better perception, typically harder to recognize or find things. And usually better perception would in turn make aiming and all for ranged weapons better. So, to me, it feels looting best fits under perception since there isn't some perks outside of the attributes. Bartering under int makes sense though, better negotiation usually goes with a better mind or intelligence.
Though for vehicles, I would find it cool if you got one after some super long quest that requires going to a t5 or t6 POI in the process. That way it's not simple and cars are rare to find working now as is, but someone without int can get one.

So short of them making a "blank" attribute to put random perks under, people will need things across the board. And I don't think they'll do that and all perks will be under an attribute.

I do think there may be some perks that could change attributes, like "The Huntsman" being under fortitude doesn't make much sense to me. Since it's for getting more resources from animals, I would find that being under Perception or Agility due to needing to be able to be quiet to hunt and typically ranged weapons. It almost feels like then I'm having to take an attribute that doesn't seem to match with what I want to do. But I know it's a game, not realism, but since there seems to be some realism mixed in, that's a simple one that doesn't break game play.

--update--

If anything, I'll probably go through and make it go under Perception myself. I'll just mod things as I see fit, add some perks as I want, maybe a few other things. The perks actually interest me a lot and the possibility that it brings.

I think I might be fixated on the base bonus of attributes. Perception increases ranged damage, which has no significance if you're melee focused wanting better looting and wrench.

Strength increases melee damage, which has no significance if you're playing ranged nomad wanting a bigger backpack.

Current play through I'm not building anything from the Int tree apart from vehicles, but Int makes higher quality tools.

I'm just saying I'm forced to go down attributes just for one or two perks. I mean be honest, I'm curious to know how many has specialized in 1 or 2 attributes in sp since A17 dropped and instead find themselves dumping points in all 5 attributes.

 

[wolffblood]

I think I might be fixated on the base bonus of attributes. Perception increases ranged damage, which has no significance if you're melee focused wanting better looting and wrench.
Strength increases melee damage, which has no significance if you're playing ranged nomad wanting a bigger backpack.

Current play through I'm not building anything from the Int tree apart from vehicles, but Int makes higher quality tools.

I'm just saying I'm forced to go down attributes just for one or two perks. I mean be honest, I'm curious to know how many has specialized in 1 or 2 attributes in sp since A17 dropped and instead find themselves dumping points in all 5 attributes.

Ah, yeah, I can see that being a thing if you don't look at them without the bonuses. In Sp, I go a bit into all. I start as Archer/ninja so I can loot POIs quickly. But then need to get Master Chef for better food. I get Fort for the natural healing ability, and Str just for harvesting so I can make at least basic defenses for my base. It does seem in SP it becomes annoying since 1 person has to do it all. It's hard to balance since at any point I can make my SP game a MP game and inv friends, so there's that.

For my dedi server for my friends, I am typically strictly Perception/Agility (Archer/ninja/looter), one friend goes Intellect/Strength (harvester/builder/crafter), another Strength/Fortitude (melee tank more or less). Then of course the dabbling in other things for like natural healing, more health or more agility, or the slow metabolism. But don't nearly have to use as many points in lots of things.

 

[gpcstargate]

A17 B240 Stable .. Question about *Traders*

IS it JUST ME or Does everyone else HAVE Only 1 Trader on the whole 8192 size Map ???

I have tried 6 - 8 different maps and Finally got tired of Looking for a good map .. Finally found one that I could at least Play on that wasn't 80% wastelands ...

But the Only thing is ..

There is Only 1 Trader and to Do his quest Lines .. I'm traveling any where from maybe 1.5 Km - OK with that .... Up 8+ Km away from him and they are taking forever.

I did a 16384 size map .. Over the weekend .. Took over 48 minutes to load and IT ONLY Had 1 Trader .. from my spawn spot .. HE was 14.7 Km away just to get to him.

IS 1 Trader Normally Now ?? ... Hope NOT and it gets fix.

 

[wolffblood]

A17 B240 Stable .. Question about *Traders*
IS it JUST ME or Does everyone else HAVE Only 1 Trader on the whole 8192 size Map ???

I have tried 6 - 8 different maps and Finally got tired of Looking for a good map .. Finally found one that I could at least Play on that wasn't 80% wastelands ...

But the Only thing is ..

There is Only 1 Trader and to Do his quest Lines .. I'm traveling any where from maybe 1.5 Km - OK with that .... Up 8+ Km away from him and they are taking forever.

I did a 16384 size map .. Over the weekend .. Took over 48 minutes to load and IT ONLY Had 1 Trader .. from my spawn spot .. HE was 14.7 Km away just to get to him.

IS 1 Trader Normally Now ?? ... Hope NOT and it gets fix.

It's a WIP. Far from done. The main guy that leads it has other things that are taking priority right now, but he hasn't forgotten about it and has a plan for RWG, it's just in a hold for the moment.

**That's me paraphrasing it** For all I know, he could be back working on it currently, but I'm thinking he still has some things he's finishing up that is taking priority atm cause of the stable just being released and having to fix bugs a bit more game breaking.