Blake_
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Posts posted by Blake_
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@faatal I have a few questions:
1- Do you know if there are any major features in the works for a21 that have not been revealed yet?
2- Are wandering sleepers a thing in a21?
3- Is Zd dismemberment implemented in all the models for a21?
4- How are the bug fixes coming along? How many MF are getting on the team's nerves?
5- Are you guys in content lock for a21?
6- What are you working on at the moment?
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9 minutes ago, RipClaw said:
Not for A21. @Crater Creator has confirmed that MadMole meant A22 when he referred to the next Alpha.
I see. That is more realistic. Thanks for the info, I didn't read that.
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I am beginning to realize what's the hold up for a21. Character creator system and the first version of the clothing/armor system have just been somehow confirmed for this alpha on the official twitter page. That is a huge amount of work, and I instantly became excited for the upcoming release. Now let's see how much of the clothing system they can squeeze in before release.
For those who got distracted by the coolness of the animation shown, know that the hat, the gloves and the boots are a match for the farmer outfit designed by madmole. The underpants are of unknown origin, but taking a guess... Padded leg armor? Edit: Leather leg armour?, Zd-lover outfit? Idk, that dubious fabric can be just about anything.
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On 1/11/2023 at 7:05 PM, armidil0 said:
Thanks for the reply. 🙂
I'm glad you can still hit the doors. I like to help the zombies break them if they're taking too long with it. I wonder if a dog or crawler/jumping zombie can hit you back through it since they're at waist level too. And when bandits get added I hope they can also hit and shoot through it. Holes should go both ways. 😅
Also, yes. They go both ways. Zds can hit you through the holes because the new 3d assets (in this case doors, hatches) were designed to be hollow in those specific spots either upon taking damage or by design ( i.e. in some POIs with "already broken" doors).
There's a bunch of little things coming this alpha that will make us blush. Dew Collector, ew. Parking tickets (TBA). And Snowdog's favourite.... ah, yes: Spears through doors.
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2 hours ago, armidil0 said:
I just want to ask a clarifying question, there's no javelin type weapon to replace the current spear power attack? Like a thrown only weapon, under the spear perks.
I think it could fill a niche for silent non bow short/mid range attacks.
For the hitting a zombie through the hole in a door thing: does that work with clubs and sledgehammers too? Or just stabbing weapons and guns?
I did love the throwing mechanic, as annoying as losing a modded spear from time to time could be . I would like the feature back, or at least as a legendary effect, but with a twist: an autoretrieve mod, like a rope or a chain or something that prevents us from losing the weapon and places it in your inventory upon throwing it (if full, it tosses the spear into the ground next to you).
How awesome would that be?
As for your question, they did say yes, the holes are for every weapon, but don't expect 100% accuracy with weapons like a sledge, or rather you can expect it but due to the glancing blows it could also damage the hole/door itself.
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6 hours ago, faatal said:
Holidays were good. I did a lot of game playing of around half a dozen games.
I mostly worked on bugs and tweaks this week. Not the type of stuff that makes for interesting pictures.
Sorry, I have no time for feature requests in the near future.
Have you tried them? the vehicle changes I mean. Do they feel satisfying to you or are they a bit of a survival chore to the player?
I would say they sound ok, but it is a hard system to imagine vs "feeling" it as opposed to the water changes, hence the question.
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I am of the same mind as @retrogamingdev : If the graphic design was less of a "build on top" and more of a solid base of well performing assets from the get go, all with the same tunneable parameters like coherent LOD, reflections, post processing behaviour, organized shader database that doesn't take huge loads of time to tweak or change by the devs, then the game would perform better today even with the UNITY limitations. Sure, they are doing it now, and that is understandable, they were very few up until recently and they are not Gods, but all in all the result is coming along despite the problems I mentioned (some of them, like LOD or things like shader tunning have a pretty huge impact still).
Shaders can do anything to a texture, but the can also break any game in terms of fps and stability if treated poorly. This game might actually need an engine of its own, because no matter how UNREAL they make games in the future, the only engines that can fully use crazy stuff like 128 cores to the fullest (limit of Windows OS) are those specifically created to do so, like for example the custom engine for Mount and Blade: Bannerlord (allows for a heavy CPU usage, close to 85% fully parallel task manager, which Unity cannot achieve). That is future proofing the game if done with a true voxel engine. It's ok they went with the less "headachy" way and chose Unity though, because it seems to be doing ok.
Let's just hope we get enough content in the end. It all comes down to the ridiculous "we are out of time" and how short the community can pressure the ETA of 7dtd to be. And let's not forget that a new mistak... console deal might happen AGAIN before gold release, or worse, might be forced to become gold before it's ready. That's what the official information led me to believe (that we are 1 year from gold, lol. Try 3 years).
To The Fun Pimps I say: Genres aside, Kenshi is a squad based rpg, fully 3d world with endless posibilities. It took 13-15 years to make. It's perfect now. It has flaws, but does not lack in the original vision, nor in variety of zds... I mean content? My apologies. Lol. I really mean to say that this game needs to go on. And be finished well. Not with 15 crappy zds and 4 thugs with the same face, but with a solid variety both in AI life and emergent gameplay. That is future proofing. And that is -I do know that- the original vision, not the "weeell if we do not have time then instead of increasing the price or start with bonus alpha dlcs, let's do crippling console deals with evil corporations so we can keep going on", or something crazy like that.
Money cannot flow indefinitely, but it will if you let us. The community is solid. Like a big piece of nutricious dun g.
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On 1/3/2023 at 3:45 AM, Guppycur said:
I personally feel the graphics have gotten in the way of the great potential of the game. Sacrifices have been made in the name of graphics, and I'd personally rather a better game than better graphics.
That's a tricky opinion if you think about it. Where would the "terror" part of the game be without graphics? Not quite up there I presume. Bear with me here and genres aside, would complexity of content like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress make the game better? No, I don't think so. Would you call Rimworld a better game than Dwarf Fortress?
Yes, because of the better Graphics. Would a compromise leaning towards the crappy graphics result in better content/gameplay for 7dtd? probably? but I do believe I wouldn't be playing a beefed up alpha 1-10 today vs the game we have now. And not only because of the graphics, but because of core engine limitations directly resulting from that first choice. I am thankful for the compromise, because even if we can whine about what could've been, graphics always delay the aging of a game that has a good enough gameplay, and that is a truth that extends to all genres. 7dtd's core gameplay mechanic is addicting already.
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33 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:
me personally i would prefer more game features over graphical overhauls for assets but at the end of the day this is their game and they chose what gets worked on and what doesnt, besides that if they work on graphics it will modernise it lets say we eventually egt something like combo moves not saying we will but wouldnt it feel out of place if we could do all these unique things but then it would look like play dough? imagine 7 days now with the graphics it had back in 2013 i dont mind graphics but i appreciate the work they do on them.
Well, I can tell you this: TFP wouldn't be at the level of Bethesda Game Studios in terms of depth of Lore, mainly because BGS is based on a wide knowledge of history from their writers (Dark elves: a bit of Mesopotamian and Japanese culture, Empire: Roman empire, Nords: Vikings, LOTR: Dwarves, magic, several sci fi and fantasy influences... and a wide etc). I know, I know, It's a zombie game, but it compares directly to Fallout, which has a huge lore and coherent world within its madness, like The Elder Scrolls have.
While Madmole has stated before, he didn't really thought about history growing up, and it's in his core believes that technical sciences are the way forward, both personally and in general, which is objectively half truth, as we need a written database of mistakes to keep going forward too.
What does that have to do with the game? Well, the core believes of the creators themselves will result in great gameplay, a great deal of emergent gameplay/quests, unbelievably amazing level design and a story that, while lacking vs BGS titles, can always improve as they study and achieve that long due knowledge for their own purposes. They are both young and strong still, lol.
Even if not at Gold, there is always the DLCs after.
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5 hours ago, Roland said:
No more playing drunk…
Officer, I swear she was already dead when I hitted her with my car.
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29 minutes ago, faatal said:
We make builds almost every weekday evening. Our internal and external testers play those every day. They are no different than what we would release to the public. It is just a matter of, are the features working the way we want and the nasty bugs fixed for release to the public?
Content lock has not happened as there are things we are adding that are still in progress. We don't really do a 100% content lock anyway. Something could be added a month or week before experimental if it fit in with our plans.
It's cool to see you guys having so much freedom and flexibility in your pipeline. Sure, it has its flaws, but it adapts to almost any unexpected drawback and keeps a steady pace of development.
It doesn't bother me that we are getting a21 later, on the contrary. But a screenshot every once in a while (per week for example), wouldn't hurt a single bit. I'm beggining to believe that you guys think we are asking you for 'Ticpicks'.
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@faatal, I invoke thee. Lately, I've seen an experimental version being tossed around internally. Does that mean that content lock has finally been achieved for all teams?
I already asked for a divorce, dumped my lovers and quitted my job and twelve illegal gigs for this alpha. The moment you fire the starting shot I sell my house and buy a top Pc and a garage. Everything is designed already: toilet gaming chair, robotic arm nacho feeder, NASA-grade toilet water recycler, and several other trinkets from a 8L beberage headset to an electronic system that forces you into the minimum 21 minutes of sleep a day that you need to maintain basic bodily functions (who needs cognitive functions to play, 'amirite'?)
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5 hours ago, Roland said:
I'm a Math Teacher Jim!
So the same happened to the "Flurry of Blows" perk and its benefits got integrated into the melee weapon/tool perks. Understandable and I agree.
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@Roland, can I ask you something vague? How do you feel the trader progression has become from a20 to a21?
We know of many changes, loot progression overhaul, price rebalance for water and food, workstations and many other items, deleted secret stash with better balance for leveled weapon rewards an rewards in general, etc,
but a bit of sexy feedback would give us a bit of glue to stick those changes into a hype notion.
Thanks in advance.
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11 hours ago, Roland said:
Its simply an answer to Blake's query about whether an "others" tree would be created to put miscellaneous perks into so you don't have to spend into a specific attribute.
The answer should be apparent. This was just a joke riddle for Blake. A real one is coming.
Lol, you wasted time in photoshop just for me? I'm honored. I do see why another extra window would add trouble to the current design, even if it's not that bad of an idea. That's what books are for.
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The new Sex Rex change is a great improvement. In all honesty, I was a bit @%$#ed to have to set points into that one with every single build.
There are still a few perks that might entice the player to choose them outside their build, the current worst being Miner69er which ties builders and crafters, miners and even casual hoarders to a forceful strenght build or else they are twice slower at playing, building and surviving (100% less resources is 100% less chance to do things, it should be a choice). For others, like Parkour, Flurry of blows, Lucky Looter, Daring adventurer, etc, the compulsion to choose is lesser than those two, but Cardio can arguably be a problem for light builds that do not want strength but to travel swiftly .
Personally, to partially remove problematic dependencies I would create something like an "Others" attribute and fill it with all the perks that can be considered standalone and not compel a player into spending points in them, because that compulsion is already in, in the form of weapon of choice and armour of choice (armour which also compels the player to spend points between their respective attributes). It would also make space for new rare and crazy perks, and that's a bonus because then the design freedom would be greater. Or just make more books. Though they are less significant overall.
Edit: I love the riddles, specially when Mordoc slaps Roland with a perfect answer in no time.
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I love the XP notification, because I find it 'gamey' and rewarding. XP is another resource and that feedback is very appreciated by me and my team, and it's easier to see than the xp bar while fighting (which doesn't really matter). That said, I do see why it would be a problem to fully experience the survival-horror part of the game, as knowing when a death happens is a bit lame for the immersion aspect.
I suggest putting several elements of the HUD as optional, specially that one.
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20 hours ago, faatal said:
Random World Generation is about 4 times faster. Meaning it generates faster. I thought what I said was pretty obvious.
This is also helpful to the developers and testers as we can test RWG changes more quickly.
Yes, there are changes to how RWG generates. One change that I know of is road generation is different. Robert is currently working on that.
Thanks for the clarification, the wording (running 4x faster) got me for a moment and I was already sharpening my torches and lighting up the pitchforks, lol.
A question, what can you tell us about your work in a21 lately? Nothing that you can reveal is boring stuff.
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16 minutes ago, SnowDog1942 said:
Hate to burst your bubble but im fairly certain he meant map generation times.
Oh, I see. That might still be bragging though. I generate a 10k in 15-17 minutes in a20.6 with my min spec potato. that means that it should do it in about 4-6 minutes now. Awaiting a beer. And confirmation.
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10 hours ago, faatal said:
Bonus Info: I've been helping out on RWG, doing optimizations, and it is running about 4x faster.
1.When you say 4x you mean that there are about four times less bumping and "lagging" in the game in general as seen in the Unity performance tool as a result of your optimizations or are you bragging of a pure 4x across the board, like "I got 60 fps in the City in a20 and now I get 240fps"?
2.Aside from the reduced window draw calls, what optimizations can you reveal in terms of CPU?
3. Is it possible to effectively make 7dtd use all the GPU and all the CPU (90%+ usage for both)?
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Hi @faatal . I have two questions:
1. Is there any radiation survival stuff implemented in a21?
2. Is the trader imventory tailored to each player and specific to each player ( that restocks only for each individual player to see )or is it a X number of items that restock, can be seen by everyone and can be depleted in detriment of other players? (like in current alphas).
Thanks in advance.
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23 minutes ago, Laz Man said:
Your description sounds more accurate for Hernan "The Machine." That guy sheds POIs in his sleep....😅
Indeed. He is also a beast. Most POI are very creatively made, others are just functional POIs, but the level design in some works you guys did is so good that I find myself admiring them from inside out and from afar and above, lol. I believe some of them are superior to Half Life 2 in quality, and that fact, coming from a game that dips in many a genre, is saying quite a lot.
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1 hour ago, Laz Man said:
I wouldnt say the power plant is my favorite POI, but it is. It's certainly one I enjoyed making and learned a lot from. There are a lot of distinct areas / beats throughout the level. I'm also the best POI designer in the face of this Earth and part of Jupiter. Every other POI designer is just a cake that has no filling. Bland, gushy smelly rotting cakes. I'm so good that they upgraded my Tier 5 POIs to TIER 7 . Robert stopped working on RWG just to pregen my face on a 10k map and fill it with wilderness POIs. That's how wild I am. I just focus on a task and take it down like a champ. Currently finishing up my 933rd POI. As I said, savage.
I see. I understand completely. Thanks for the clarification.
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9 hours ago, Laz Man said:
I could be off, but I think one of the main purposes of the pregen maps is so players don't have to generate their own maps if they don't want to.
It also gives us the opportunity to add any POIs that may have not been included by the random generation.
Pregen maps can be even cooler now with the new generation options: all plains, all wasteland, etc.
How are POIs by the way? Did you guys managed to integrate the ridiculously huge new asset list into your POI or is it still in flux? It would be pretty nice if you tell us something about your works too, like how many, how cool, how awesome they are, etc. Not that I'm asking for a screenshot mind you. Only the tip of one will suffice, lol.
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Alpha 21 Dev Diary
in News & Announcements
Posted · Edited by Blake_ (see edit history)
Fishing could actually be fun with a single good enough animation and the player getting deadly zombie fish out of the water most of the time (that only give say 1 rotten meat when killed) but sometimes we could pull out things like a can of dog food, a duke, a piece of wood, one stone, iron, a gold nugget, etc. That would be a very engaging minigame that I would definitely try out !. And also, the player would be in big trouble if he/she is approached by a crowd of bandits, Zds or predators while fishing .... love the idea.
Edit: Given that the full world is radiated, I wouldn't expect viable food from the water, but all of the above could be tons of fun. @Roland , do you know if there have been any talks about this for a21 or any other point in the future?