Roland

Because it stands for checkpoint. Lathan said that you can even type #checkpoint instead of the abbreviation if it is of concern. Plus, I really don't think the connection between cp and child porn is as universally known as you think it is. Finally, there is intrinsically nothing wrong with typing out the full phrase: "child porn" so why would there be anything wrong with an abbreviation for it? Context is king. #cp stands for checkpoint in the context of the game period. Any other meanings are irrelevant. Its like when the Minister says the words "hell" or "ass" aloud when quoting scripture. Sure, some little kids will titter because of hearing those words out loud in church but most intelligent people understand the context and let it slide. It will be interesting to see if they change it though since, apparently, political correctness is the reverse of child porn....

Yeah, this is clearly problematic (cp) for my career plan (cp)

It is ridiculous given the context of its use. #cp does not always stand for child porn... I'd be more suspicious of people who get triggered by two letters that actually stand for checkpoint within the context of the game than by the abbreviation itself. However, I let Lathan know there is chatter about this and the powers that be will make their decision. I guess as a math teacher I should probably never use the numbers 69 or 666. Ooh I know! I'll just teach my kids to use the number 42 and then they'll have the answer to everything all the time... smh

This right here is most likely the problem rather than any lack of understanding. We just have different philosophies about game design. In my mind, restrictions ARE a feature related to player choice and balance. If you don’t want restrictions then give yourself skillpoint through the console, turn on god mode, and/or enable the creative menu. No more restrictions. it may seem counter intuitive but giving the player full freedom actually reduces tough choices and options to challenge themselves. Sorry that our perspectives are too different to be able to have this discussion.

It’s modded. So...? I doubt he knows about it but good thing it’s there for him if he decides to use it. Whew! Of course it is but Bach has to frame such things as either/or in order to strengthen his speculations about what will be in A20 and what will not. So what if Latham would have had nothing to do with AI changes and did the twitch integration on his own time. It helps fan the flames to say “We got twitch integration instead of AI changes”. Especially, since there are those who view streamers as natural punching bags anyway.

huh, what? Sorry, I was watching Shroud on Twitch. Just one of 20,000+ viewers...

Go record yourself harvesting a mine with your wrench. Meme city.

None taken. What exactly was it that you got that you wanted? What prize fish did you catch?

No way....one of the ten I suppose...

No, I left and then came back and added that part. Thanks for the cheer. Significance is subjective as is "good". The fact is that most of what was planned for A20 is still going to be delivered for A20 and the small portion that is currently showing as delayed is not cancelled but is just not going to make it in time. They will continue to be worked on and released when they are ready. The devs didn't want to significantly delay A20 beyond its current timeline. Because what that bullet point means is that the outfit changes will be a foundation for how bandits will appear. All work done on player characters is foundation for bandit work. Player animations, player models, player appearance-- all will be used as well for bandits so in working on these features to improve the players in the world they are also benefitting bandits being implemented into the game. Bandits as a category was never listed for A20 because the developers knew there was no chance of bandits making it in time for A20. "Foundation for bandits" as a subcategory of outfits is a descriptive informational piece to let people know one of the reasons for the outfit overhaul. They are important obviously but definitely not critical. The game is currently just fine without those. We have the legacy outfit feature that the game has had for years and trust me when I say that whenever a new AI behavior is introduced it is never received with 100% joy and thanks. These sorts of changes always polarize the community. I'm fine with delaying all the "Stealth is RUINED!" threads and "Bases are impossible now!!!" threads for another iteration when they can finish those AI changes. Water has never worked and expectations for some kind of miraculous flowing water with currents and waterfalls should seriously be curtailed. At this point they are going for basic water that doesn't leave holes or destroy performance. In my opinion, the best updates are the RWG changes including player made changes persisting and showing up in distant terrain, all of the new primitive weapons, all of the new exploration content, and the new shape menu and building changes as well as the optimizations and performance gains. I'm interested to see how the drone affects gameplay as well. And they won't be disappointed. There are features not mentioned in that list that are going in. They may reveal them or they may not but you can't include possible unrevealed and unknown changes not talked about as good things that have been cancelled. They can't be cancelled if you don't even know about them... It is. It shows as such in the OP post for the dev diary.

That's great but then it brings in another problem that the economy was handling and that is rushing up the perk tiers on Day 1. It is way OP to be able to spend all four points in one perk on Day 1 like you described. There still needs to be a balancing cost associated with moving deep within perks so that the best rewards can't be accessed so early and then there is no challenge. I finally got to tier 4 on my blade perk on Day 30 and with a machete right now on Day 41 I am OP compared to the zombies. I tear them apart without effort. Now on Day 1 there would be no machete but I'm betting with the bleeds and the dismemberment probability even a bone shiv is going to be amazing-- which feels good at first and then quickly renders the game boring.

You act like watchers only watch and players only play. It wouldn't matter to me whether Lathan was the ONLY one who ever streamed the game and used the twitch integration. He is the dev who created it for himself and then pitched it to share with others. Your logic is all based on either/or scenarios that don't exist. People don't either watch or play. Twitch Integration doesn't either get added or changes to balance that you want get implemented. What resources? It was done in spare time, for free, as a side project by one of the developers. I suppose NOW that they are spending time on bug fixing it is using resources but very very cheap resources-- kinda like the cost of a cheap drive-in movie and the recreation with your date-- which is free (for me at least). Your analogy uses very expensive upgrades to that clunker that add lights and sound but not a lot of interaction whereas my analogy adds interpersonal interaction (for me at least). I bet people would agree that my analogy is the better fit. Mostly the second one I'm betting.... Can you show what direct or indirect source you used for this assertion? Since only three of the 20 items listed have been pushed to A21, was it Water, Outfits, or Wandering Sleepers you were most interested in? And since 3 out of 20 is not of itself significant, it means whichever of those three features you were hanging A20's success upon is probably not all that significant either. As for good, I agree that all of those changes will be good although the Outfit change is pretty controversial so there really is no consensus on whether that one is actually one of the good changes.

There are no plans for random visual differences between same zombie types-- at least in A20. Beyond that just depends on how much overhead something like that would cost and what other fish there is to be fried. Might need to add something for the youtubers like we did for the twitchers... A20 will be out sometime in 2021 guaranteed. That's as specific as I am willing to get.

Let's go check again over the weekend... or would that ruin your wet fantasies....? In all seriousness, though, it isn't about how many are streaming concurrently at one given moment it is about how many streamers there are who have played 7 Days to Die and might want to play it again to try out the new feature. There are over 100 streamers on our list approved for the streaming event and there are many more (like about 20,000 prolly) who are not on that list and any of them could return to our game after hearing about the update and start playing it again. Given the fact that you bring it up 300 times each day (pay no attention to that number) I think you have a problem with it. Twitch integration is a form of audience participation and has nothing in common with the analogy you just gave. Rather than new lights and audio on an old clunker it is like taking that old clunker to a drive-in movie with a date and having a different kind of fun with it than simply driving it around. 99.9% of the player base agrees that the game is 3000% better for it. (real figures. Go research them if you aren't banned from doing so) In your mind. We've all read your problems with balance and they are peculiar to your own narrow extreme playstyle and pet peeves that most players aren't going to care about. Same with the mechanics you've brought up. Bugs are always going to be an ongoing work in progress and when the game is done there will still be nitpickers who find some bug that allegedly ruins the entire game for them but 99.999999% of the player base doesn't even register as a problem. You have 5 fps but I have 5,000fps which averages out to "we" having well over 2,000 fps so there really is no problem. Now please say nothing about any of the numbers I've given you nor any of my uses of the word "most" whenever I referred to the player base being on my side. Thank you.

I don't care who brought it up in the first place. It was you I was quoting and whether Mega brought it up in some misunderstanding of your point, you still responded to him as you did and it was your response that I quoted and spoke to. Why ask the rhetorical question of why can't a sniper be good at farming or why can a sniper be better at finding loot if your point wasn't that such things are ridiculous and shouldn't be? I was answering THAT point which YOU made and maybe you made it in response to someone else but it was definitely you that posted it and you who ended up in my quote box. How can you not understand that this is exactly what I answered and even gave a couple of modding solutions {that I have no idea are possible or not)? What you are saying when you say you want to cross skill with no wasted points is that you want all combinations of selectable perks to be equal in cost. You don't want it to be more expensive to put sniper together with farming than it is to put sniper together with looting if that is what you want to be able to do. I get it. Everyone is getting it. You just don't like how we are answering I guess and you want to snarl that nobody is understanding what you want. Its just an economic gate for certain combos and that's it. You can do anything you want but some perk combos are going to be cheaper and others more expensive. That's how I look at it. I decide what I want to do and then I pay the cost. Back in the 90's if I wanted to throw down a card that cost more mana I tapped more land and didn't complain (much) that that card was more expensive to cast than some other one. The way games work is that once you understand the costs for the abilities you want you work at paying those costs and go with it. As I see it the fact that some of that extra cost gives some residual benefit that if I happened to pick up a weapon I wasn't focusing on I might get some little extra boost to that too-- that's a good thing. They are gates pure and simple. They aren't arbitrary as many of the perks really would be governed by the attribute those gates are named for but some obviously don't fit and needed a home somewhere and I do agree that it can be jarring to the immersion senses. But each gate has a group of perks that if you stick to that gate you will be able to specialize in those particular areas earlier in the game. If you cross over into another gate the cost for mastering your custom group of perks is going to be higher and it will take longer.

blech....I couldn't handle the alpha to alpha upkeep necessary for modding. I hope everyone appreciates you guys who keep things updated for every iteration. It is a major PITA- probably only slightly less than the PITA of having to read the angry rants of players who demand for your mod to work for the most recent alpha, amirite?

Even if this absurd number you pulled out of nowhere was correct, it ignores all the viewers who are also participating and having fun. Just this past week there was a Chinese streamer who had over 4000 viewers on his stream using the twitch integration. Now, since the actual number of streamers is much much higher and you multiply that number by the viewers you get a much more significant number of players who are benefiting and having fun with a brand new feature of the game. BTW, feedback so far is that those who are using it either as streamers or viewers are having a blast and isn't THAT what it's all about anyway? If TFP was able to provide a huge increase of fun factor for their game for literally everyone who chooses to participate in one way or another, who could be against that? What argument could be made that it shouldn't have been done? When you add in the fact that this feature was created by one of the devs on his own time purely out of his own love of streaming and for what he wanted to do with his own audience, then there really can be no objection at all other than a purely selfish and petty anger that it isn't something you personally are interested in. Well, not all additions to the game are going to cater to you. Same goes for the drone. There will be plenty of people who enjoy crafting and utilizing the drone even if you don't count yourself among their number. I never utilize the insane setting for difficulty. But I also don't go around griping that any time at all was spent including that setting. I'm glad there are those who are having fun with a feature I'm not going to use.

The "It's Alpha" trump card is one we aren't going to give up easily. Maybe next year...

Well, you're not exactly being consistent with what you are saying. You started by saying that what you want is for an increase in agility to have an agility themed boost to ALL weapons and a strength themed boost to be given to ALL weapons whenever strength is increased-- instead of the handful of weapons that rest beneath those particular perk list headers. But then you go on to say things like a Sniper can't be good at cooking which really really makes it sound more like you want to be able to mix and match any and all perks equally. Your first suggestion of having the attribute bonuses affecting all weapons instead the few that are assigned to them would not solve the problem you later bring up about a sniper specialist not being able to cook very well. So excuse us for not exactly getting what you mean. Another solution would be to remove the attribute gates from the perks so that any perk could be advanced irrespective of the attribute level. You could spend to move attributes up for those bonuses and/or you could spend to move perks up but the perks would not be dependent upon any particular level of attribute. That way you could mix and match any perk from anywhere that you would want to focus on. Removing the attribute requirements for perks would be a much easier mod to accomplish I think. You could probably change the value associated with the perks all to 1 so that once you put at least 1 point into an attribute all the perks under it would be available to advance all the way. So for two points you could advance blades and snipers or farming and snipers. That would solve the economic problem you hate but the attribute bonuses you dislike would still remain.

You're getting a bit crazy with this Liesel. A sniper won't track animals better than a..."shotgunnist?" who spends the points on Shotguns and animal tracking. It will cost more than someone who only hones their perception but the possibility is there. There is no forcing. There is only the economy of the points and what you are willing to spend. I'm sorry that you hate that it is cheaper for a sniper to be better at animal tracking than it is for a blademaster but it can be done. Even if the game forces players into only five archetypes that they can play, that should not be considered a weakness. That is five distinct playstyles to experience at least 30 hours of gameplay a pop. Add in a 6th if you want to go broad and just do a bit from each branch (It's pretty fun actually). But the truth is that these five (or six) obvious progression paths are just the easy ones. You really can go the more expensive route with your points and mix and match for a more challenging experience. This is the thing I appreciate most about this game. There are ways to make it more challenging than simply clicking on a setting in the top menu. So go ahead and try being a Sniper that has a rock solid iron gut. Despite your assertion it definitely is possible and the game allows you to make that choice. But if you progress those two things evenly your progress will be slower and more expensive and the game may become more challenging. I'm not against a change to somehow make the expense of any combination of perks the player might want to choose completely equal across the board. I just doubt that Joel is going to tinker with the perks any more at this point. It would have to be a mod. Maybe a good mod would be that when you spend a point on an attribute it raises all five attributes together. That would make it so all combinations of perks would be equal in cost. <shrug> Bots are normally easy to spot because their posts almost never are relevant to the forum. So a bot that goes to an old post and copies and posts it as a new thread is going to have a greater likelihood of not being spotted. Once they have a couple posts and are "accepted" then they have better likelihood of being able to embed a link and not get caught.

If it doesn't turn out to be Mrs. Dog's vibrator, I'll be disappointed.

Screwdriver

Yes in A19 but good luck in A20

Well, it technically isn't something that any of us should be thinking about. It is simply the engine by which the world progresses. Primitive weaponry is common and everywhere at first and zombies are run of the mill common infected. As time goes on you become better at scavenging and recognizing what is salvageable so something you would have ignored when you were inexperienced you now take and get it working. At the same time the zombie plague continues to mutate and worse enemies start appearing. Even before gamestage was a thing it was the same sort of progression but more based on the day of the save game. For Joe regular player who does not come to the forums and who does not look into the coding, they aren't going to have a clue about gamestage. All they will know is that as time goes on the things they find are getting better and the enemies are getting tougher and the blood moon horde is lasting longer. And what adventure/RPG game doesn't have some sort of progression in difficulty/rewards/new content as time in the game advances? Gamestage is simply the engine the devs have chosen to run that progression instead of straight day of the game. You've got to stop taking photos of me. I WILL enforce that restraining order...

They are taking the place of the Blunderbus so that instead of finding only a blunderbus, club, wooden spear, or stone hammer in containers you will also find pipe pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and batons (minus blunderbusses). There is a huge variety of early game weapons that will key into the perks you are taking. You won’t be able to find weapons to obsolete those in the beginning. The traders are being adjusted to match your gamestage in what they sell and their prices are going up. Eventually, the only way to get an early T1 or higher weapon during the first few days will be to walk into the wasteland and try to survive long enough to scavenge a weapons box there. So there will definitely be a place for them and after a year of having the blundie, it is a breath of fresh air to have such a variety of new weapons. It’s exciting to get one and use it. The hype is justified.