Khyron

Thank you very much for testing this, it's wonderful to know how things work!

The basis would be a vendor or machine that can be purchased by a player and then stocked with dukes. The player can request up to three items up for 'bounty' and other players can bring the requested items to the vendor to be paid for delivering it. Bounties would have a non-adjustable cost, and would always require 25% more than a NPC trader's base sell price. IE : If you place a bounty for an item the trader would sell you for 1000 dukes without any discounts, then players who fulfill the bounty would be paid 1250 dukes out of the requesting player's bounty vendor (Which would ALWAYS put it well ahead of the amount you'd get by selling an item to a vendor directly). Items worth 0 dukes to a trader (Plant fiber, Rocks, Soil, etc) would default to 1 duke. You can specify how many items you are willing to pay for but you can only specify up to the amount of dukes stocked in the machine (IE : If you want to buy 5 items that would cost 1250 you must have 6000 dukes in the machine for it to become a valid bounty). If someone visits a bounty vendor then the game will auto-tag items requested for bounty with a little $ icon. If the player later on find that item in a loot pile, box, vendor, or whatever they'll see that little $ icon on the item and if they pick it up or buy it a "return bounty" quest appears directing them back to the bounty vendor. The goal is to make it easier for higher-level players looking for specific items that may be rare to request them from other players, in a way that rewards the one who finds it. It could be used to give low-level players a source of income by requesting items they come across frequently that higher level players require in larger numbers (IE : Raw resources like iron, rocks, sand, whatever) - the lower level players would get dukes to spend, the higher level players wouldn't have to mine for hours, win/win right? It could also be used to get rare recipes that you don't have to complete a collection, or a specific weapon/armor/vehicle mod that has eluded you. All sorts of options. Pricing it above the NPC traders is both a bonus to encourage others to find items for you, as well as a penalty for not finding the items yourself by making them more expensive.

If it starts reducing armor #'s at 50% then it seems like there should be a HUD paper doll element showing yellow at that point with red being full breakage. IMO that's standard for games and works fine even for survival - after all if you're wearing armor you're gonna notice when it starts to degrade or breaks entirely. Indicating to the player what their in-game avatar would notice seems important to me...

So that'd indicate a multiplicative application. 100 damage, with 50 armor and 25% pain tolerance. If it's additive then that'd give me 100 * ( (50 + 25)/100) or 25 damage taken. If it's multiplicative then that's 100 damage * 50% * 25% or 37.5 damage taken. Anyway, it's not a huge deal but it's super helpful in deciding which perks to prioritize. I just got my hands on a Steel Armor Bonus box which gave me 3 6-quality steel armor pieces and 2 5-quality pieces, and I'm playing a melee-heavy build so I'm trying to max out my survivability.

I've got a few questions regarding armor. First, when armor degrades, does it stop protecting? I never get any notices that my armor's durability is low or anything, it doesn't auto-unequip, just occasionally I look at my character sheet with 'B' and notice the durability is 0. But I didn't see it lowering in my stats; I'm just not sure if it was completely 0 or had a little bit of durability I didn't see? Perhaps there should be a HUD paper doll warning for low durability armor (very common in many other games). Second, light armor and heavy armor seem to have different stats and I'm curious why that is. Does having 15 points of 'light' armor protect less than 15 points of 'heavy' armor? If so why are the two stats separate? Or is it just there to help players identify whether or not a piece of armor is governed by the Light/Heavy armor perks? And last, how does armor stack with Pain Tolerance? I know the maximum armor you can get is 90 (90% damage reduction) if the Wiki is accurate, and that you can get that by having a perfect set of Steel armor (16 armor per piece) with banded armor mods boosting each piece's armor by 2. But then what happens if I add pain tolerance into the mix? Is the extra Damage Resistance wasted? Do they apply additively or multiply?

Here's a thing I've noticed as well (Also not a complaint, just something I saw and took note of). Trees, grass, and other foliage sways in the wind. Crops do not. They're always perfectly static and motionless no matter how windy everything else is.

Does anyone else find themselves often startled by the "trader open" alert? I don't know if it's the volume or what but when I stand outside a trader at 5:50am and wait for them to open something about the noise always seems to catch me off guard and make me jump a bit.

I joined in A20 and perhaps that was for the best because I feel like everything's a blast and I'm enjoying my playtime tremendously. I look forward to seeing how A21 plays.

Joel. Jole. Jewel. Jowell. Johl. Joe-ell. Fred. I like all names patterned except 1, that makes people superstitious about that one trader being somehow unique or different even though the code puts him exactly the same

Basic zombies, your slow shamblers during the day, give 400xp. Advanced zombies are 750xp. Yes, they take more damage and are more dangerous - this is to make the game a bit harder. It's also meant to encourage HEADSHOTS HEADSHOTS HEADSHOTS as well as to encourage investment into perk trees which up dismemberment chance, headshot damage, base damage, etc. Some zombies will have a lot more HP for not much more XP. Others are cake and give XP like crazy considering how easy they are to kill. It's going to vary. Bears and other animals shouldn't be killed for XP anyway. The real treat they give is the meat and fat they give you, which turns into nummy stew or steaks. Besides, once you start getting involved with high-end weapons and guns you won't notice a huge difference, you'll just be moving through them like a lawnmower through a weedy field.

It used to be that iconic "Saigon Execution" image. Google it if you want to know more, but be warned it's not a pleasant image with a pleasant history.

I had an odd death last night that feels... relevant. I was in one of the garages with the stairs leading down to an open area under the cars. I'm fighting a couple Utility Workers down there, and while I'm running around in circles to kill 'em while regaining stamina (It was a new character on a server so I didn't have sexrex yet), somehow a car popped into existence in the lower area. I thought I must have hit a support or something and it 'fell'. Problem is, it popped into existence while I was attacking the zombies, and shortly after swinging the sledgehammer......... Kaboom. Big 'ol explosion that instagibbed me. A good reminder that this game's still in alpha

I'm fairly sure you can boil water without a cooking pot, so you can still manage water without issue just so long as you have 5 rocks to put in a circle When I play single player I too like to play 'permadeath', I delete the save when I die. In multiplayer I can get lagged out or I can DC or I can join a server shortly after it reboots and get jumped before I can react. In single player there's no lag, if I don't plan and don't build a bunker or base that can withstand a horde night it's on me, not on a poorly timed reconnection or anything. If I log in and there's a bear in front of me, it's because there was a bear when I logged out. So I'm more OK with permadeath on single player than multi. DPS is secondary to me for PvE, primary is control. When I'm fighting against a single zombie DPS is fine but when there's more than 1, I need to be able to control the situation. Funnel the enemies through a doorway to eliminate being mobbed from all sides, or knock an enemy down while I focus on his buddy. Things like that. For me, clubs are the most effective weapon in this regard. The knives lack a stuck or knockdown, the sledge hits too slow, fist range is too short, spear is nice but the throw is unwieldy compared to other power attacks and the normal attacks are very low damage, so to me club is king. For melee at least. In a bigger pack, when dealing with stronger zombies like irradiated and ferals I turn to bullets.

The only thing I'd mention here is that something like 1/2 to 1/3rd of the crafting in the game is gated behind Forges and Workbenches. So if you don't plan to put a couple points into Advanced Engineering you're gonna be reliant on RNG for a HUGE amount of items in the game. Even if you have the recipes for so very many of them, without a workbench or forge you may not be ABLE to make some items because they cannot be assembled without a bench. Of course you can get a workbench/forge without perking into Adv Eng. You can buy a forge/bench from a trader, or buy the plans directly... if you can find a trader selling them or the plans themselves. Either of which is not guaranteed and you could go a LONG time without seeing them. Or you might find them day 1 in a wooden crate. RNG is RNG.

Here's a decent beginner plan (Just my opinion) : 1) Put two of your initial points into Master Chef 1 and Advanced Engineering 1. A point into archery and/or a melee skill is a good idea too. 2) Find some rotten corpses in the world. Already-dead zombies that you don't have to kill. Smack 'em with your axe and get some bones, and fashion 5 bones into a knife. 3) Beeline towards making a forge. The hardest part starting out will be leather, the best source of Leather I've found early on is leather couches/chairs from homes (Harvest couches with an Axe). You can also take on animals, but you're far more likely to get hurt since they're faster and don't stay stunned as long as zombies. If you want to take on animals do so from a couple blocks up so you can smack/plink 'em safely. Or if you can find snakes, they'll give a couple pieces of leather. Rabbits too, but they're hard to hit. ALWAYS USE YOUR BONE KNIFE TO HARVEST CORPSES. You get more leather! 4) Once you have a forge up, make yourself a pot and grill from it. They don't use much iron but they're vital for decent food. 5) Go out and search for chickens, snakes, and rabbits. Chickens can be run down on foot and smacked, but it's better to hit 'em with stone arrows. They die in 1 hit. Same with the snake. The Rabbits are faster and easier to spook, but yield the same amount of meat. Other various beginner tips I wish I knew when I started out : Always always always harvest dead animals with your bone knife. Eventually you can upgrade to a hunter's knife, but you'll get more meat from any knife than from stone axes. It takes longer to harvest with a bone knife but the extra resources you get are worth it! Machetes are the best knife, Hunting knife is second best, and Bone Knife is worst. For clothing find a Savage Country store. They've got TONS of clothing inside, and you can very quickly and easily loot BDU top and BDU bottom clothes from the shelves. They generally have good heat/cold resistances. You can also find sewing kits which are useful when crafting better gear later on. Some of the clothes sell very well to vendors (Especially shoes!) and clothing scraps to cloth which is handy for many, many things. For early game armor, you can craft 'scrap' armor from iron but it's noisy and will slow you down and incur a stamina recharge penalty. Alternatively you can craft 'Padded' armor from cloth which has no extra noise or penalties but it doesn't protect very well. Eventually you'll want to work towards Advanced Engineering 2 early on. The workbench is necessary for many items, including ammo - forge and workbench are your two most important crafting items! You'll also unlock the cement mixer to let you make stronger bases, and the chemistry station to craft medicine and fuel. But the workbench is the impotant think at first. I also like to work towards Fortitude 5 and Living off the Land after getting set up. Mid-tier food is amazing, stews will refill Hunger, Thirst, and HP and often give you a stamina boost. As you explore more and more you will find more and more plants you'll want to break down into seeds and farm. It takes a lot of work to set up a farm but it's worth it. If you need rotten meat, the corpses you find in the world always give a little. Zombie animal corpses (Zombie dog, zombie bear, etc) give rotten meat but human zombie corpses don't - only already-dead people you find in the world. Quests from traders is a huge, huge help. Good XP, good loot, and if you do 7 of them you'll get a bicycle for free. The bike is a huge deal; it's much faster than walking, no encumbrance penalties while using it, has a bit of storage of its own, it can outrun zombies even on blood moon nights, etc etc etc. You can craft one if you want but there's no beating free! Read every single book/recipe you find. Keep every single book/recipe you come across. If you already know it, you can still sell the recipe to traders. Every coin you earn selling an item to traders is another point of XP you get. Pack mule is a waste of perk points. As you adventure you'll learn to craft pockets on your gear which gives you plenty of carrying capacity without any perk investment.

A keyboard shortcut for 'auto-run'. Which is to say, just the same as holding down 'W' only you don't have to hold down the key. Press the key to start running, press it again (Or forward/back) to stop.

I completely forgot about holding down R to change ammo. But adding repair to the radial menu wouldn't be a bad idea.

Personally I think the frantic search to find a cure adds tension and that's fun to me. Admittedly grinding out tree stumps in a quest for honey isn't that exciting, the joy you get when you do get some honey really gives a burst of enthusiasm and that's a nice little rush

Alternatively have the reload key function like the 'Use' key does when you're facing a vehicle. Tap reload to reload your currently equipped weapon/tool. HOLD DOWN reload for a second or two to repair it. That way if your weapon is low on durability but not completely zero, but there's a brief lull in the fighting, you can repair while it's safe to do so.

That is very good information to know, thank you for that! I was exploring and found one of those grain silo POIs with like, 8 silos total. I bet those could be a very useful place to wait out a horde.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean 'gigantic' in that manner. I was mostly referring to the larger zombies - the Demolisher, the cop, the lumberjack, etc. I guess Gigantic was the wrong word to use - I just meant that zombies bashing steel vault doors or hatches or blocks with their bare hands and eventually making their way through isn't "realistic" but it is good from a gameplay standpoint.

I think it's pretty hilarious that in a game where the player can craft a motorcycle out of 4 lbs of nails worth of iron and can use a NAILGUN to somehow... nail concrete to cobblestone? Or somehow smashing a plywood block with an axe manages to turn it into reinforced wood complete with nails, despite no nails actually being consumed? The physics behind all basebuilding is mind-boggling to the nth degree. Anyway, in a game with all that magical stuff, a gigantic mutated evil zombie attacking and breaking a steel door seems comically minor in comparison. So maybe we should just leave it at "It's just a game and it's there to be more fun " rather than try to dissect it all down into the nitty gritty. Not trying to be confrontational here, just pointing out that when the subject of realism comes up the game's basically as fantastic as Harry Potter if you start looking at it from the right angles 😛

I've always been hesitant about building in a POI since they get reset when a quest is there, and I don't know which POIs are unable to be targets of quests since I'm relatively new. For horde nights I build myself a nice big 7x7 square concrete bunker with a single entrance. I dig-out a 4-block-deep dry "moat" with stairs out of it to funnel zombies to the single entrance, which is 2 blocks high. Around the rear is a ladder the zombies can't reach but I can that lets me get in, which is important because I have iron bars blocking the zombies from advancing to where I hide. Zombies funnel into the base, get stuck up against the bars, and I just mow them down with my 9mm Hipower pistol rounds. Sometimes they crawl over the bars but they go slow enough while doing so that I can put a stop to that with my pistol. Recently I started experimenting with traps, and I set up my bunker with a generator on top leading down to a pressure plate. The plate powers an electric fence and dart trap. I only set that up last night though so I don't know how well it'll work just yet. Hopefully I can test it out tonight!

Another suggestion : If possible, before you have Daring Adventurer 4, please have a code check to see if the rewards from a quest are duplicates and if so reroll one of them. I completed 3 quests in a row last night with duplicate rewards (Shotgun shells, 7.62mm ammo, and two wrenches 1 quality level different from one another). At level 4 when you can pick 2 rewards the duplicate choices aren't a bad idea, but before then it's just a waste since you can't pick 2.

The single biggest immersion breaking thing about 7DTD is how much it rains in a map that's supposedly in Arizona.