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SnowDog1942

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Posts posted by SnowDog1942

    (Rant) This game has never been as anti-multiplayer as it is now.

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    14 hours ago, Howlune said:

     To elaborate on the title: I mean multiplayer as in any server with a player count above 8 people.

    (Skip this if you don't care about backstory, I tend to over-explain.)

    Before I get into the details why, I want to preface this by mentioning that I ran a fairly big server for 9 months starting at the beginning of this year (2021) named Sleepless. It was a PvP server I made in protest of a PvP server I had played previously, but left due to admin incompetence/corruption. I quickly taught myself .XML and learned a lot, and made it into one of the most successful servers according to battle metrics earlier this year without even trying to advertise it. People played it because of how much of a labor of love it was for me. Almost every 7 days PvP youtuber came and set up shop on Sleepless at some point. The sad thing is... I lost my love for running it for many reasons; Toxic players, cheaters, DDoS attacks, etc... of course these are things that any admin faces, but the biggest reason was because of the game itself. The constance of the game breaking itself, the memory leaks, the player profile corruptions, the ease of hacking the game, the absolutely massive resource costs (mainly CPU) to run a server effectively... but more than anything, the developer's overall direction.

    I have played this game since A16, but with large breaks. I can't consider myself a hardened vet, but I've learned so much so quickly that I feel I've completely de-mystified every facet of the game and find more enjoyment out of modding it than playing it. The more I learned however, the more upset I became. I very much realize this game is engineered for single player and 8 player co-op, and it's a damn shame... probably one of my biggest gripes. Why? Because this game is a hidden gem. When everything works right, large scale multiplayer in this game gives an experience like no other. It was always an experience best shared with as many people as possible... and this is beside the fact that this game would bring in 10x the $$$ if there was more respect given to the community of larger servers. The PVP would be on par, if not better than the likes of Day-Z or even Rust if servers could handle more people without crashing and the netcode was fixed. This game already brings more to the table than those two, but the horrible performance holds it back.

         

    REASONS FOR THE TITLE OF THIS THREAD:

    The game was not always so big-server unfriendly, even if the development direction has always favored singleplayer/coop. Before around A19.3, servers could handle up to 50 players online while still being at least decently playable. A19.3 was released to combat the new wave of nearly unstoppable hackers, but it was also at around this time that servers became unstable with only around 35 people maximum, if not less. While I may have run a PVP server, this affects all servers... PVE and PVP. To make matters worse, the hacking hasn't completely gone away due to the fact this game is biased towards client-side rather than server side. All these hackers have the same thing in common, and that's being able to execute creative mode and debug mode on servers. EAC does nothing against this because it's built in the game itself.

         

    XRAY:

    While the above is a more recent subject, There are also the huge factors that have existed forever and been mentioned numerous times; Netcode and Xray. For Xray, we have always been able to easily clip our cameras into the terrain and not only see through the world, but shoot everything from bullets to rockets through it. It's as simple as getting on a vehicle and pushing the camera against the terrain (Primarily when underground) or standing on top of a hatch and opening it so your head gets pushed into terrain above. While modders have helped combat this with black screen (turns your view to black when head is detected inside terrain), this is a bandaid on a broken leg. Something as simple as making a heavy fog appear underground (or when detected underground, like using the "_sheltered" cvar or something similar.) could be a huge ease on this burden. This is not a pvp centric issue. You can absolutely trivialize zombies and horde nights doing this as well.

         

    NETCODE:

    Netcode. This has always been issue #1. The netcode for this game is atrocious. even on populations of around 20-25 players, people will seem to "teleport" if they are moving around too fast. Many are even accused of hacking, when they have done no such thing.. the game makes them look like they are. A lot of this has to do with the games optimization and how clientside biased it is. A good friend of mine explained it better than I can:

    "Block Changes are sent out to every player on the server such that the world is up to date for all clients playing. So if player A places a block at +4000 +4000, player B at -4000 -4000 will know. One of the parts where I wanted some change, as the netcode is also so poorly done because there's a lot of redundant and a lot of unneeded information exchanged between all players."

         

    A20: A NEW HOPE? ...nah.

    Now as of A20, things have gotten even worse. I was for a while considering booting back up my server, but after fixing mods for a while and really field testing all the changes the developers have made to the game, I'm done. This update is great for the average player of this game. New zombie models! New guns! New realistic cities! But how is this update for those who host servers? The worst it's ever been.

         

    GRAPHICS:

    The game is prettier, sure.... outside of cities. For reference, I have a 3090 RTX (up to date drivers), i7-7700k, 32gb RAM. Going into the new RWG cities with all settings as LOW as possible, dynamic mesh turned off, etc.... 50 fps. No, I had not generated a RWG prior to jumping in the game. God forbid you come across the new skyscrapers, especially the new dishong tower. The game vomits just looking at it.

         

    BALANCE:

    Like PVP? All the guns were buffed, including the M60 which was already obscenely overpowered. AP ammo has gone from reducing armor by 25% to 50%... yes, 50%. It's all one shot now and basically impossible without modding. The new pipe guns are imbalanced even for PVE. The pipe machine gun is only marginally worse than an AK and costs two pipes, two glue and 6 wood to make. what.

         

    LOOT:

    At the same time, maybe we need the pipe machine gun to be easy to craft... because loot has been so drastically changed and is completely unfriendly to having more than 10 people on a server. You get scraps now. It's so heavily reliant on this new biome lootstage feature, that you almost HAVE to go to the more "difficult" biomes to get worthwhile loot. This also causes a major snowball effect on larger servers, as a few people can farm the only cities in the high lootstage biomes and have the best gear on the map. For most, this just means you're forced to do quests as looting barely gets you much anymore. Also on that note, trader progress now only applies to specific traders and is no longer map-wide. Big lame.

         

    DRONE:

    Just get rid of it. The dev's said on a stream that one of them added it as a pet project, so think about that for a second. It falls through the ground constantly. It's barely useful except for storage and maybe the healing. It's just... fluff. Maybe it'll be cool in the future, but for now... have fun retrieving lost ones for your players if you're an admin (I wouldn't bother).

    Now for the biggest problems of all.

         

    MAP CORRUPTIONS FROM NEW RWG:

    Not long into experimental, multiple servers have been encountering map corruptions on RWG generated maps. Sometimes it would be fine at first, then multiple chunks would corrupt over time. Makes it nearly unplayable. This only really affects higher population servers of around 20+. The developers are aware of the issue, and even started hosting a public multiplayer server to replicate and isolate the issue. So what happened? The server is completely unmodded and unmoderated. Chinese hackers get on the server and destroy a trader. All manner of shenanigans happen, and they can't find the issue. You'd figure this would be a big enough issue to hold off releasing A20 stable right? Nope. Stable is here despite the issue persisting. While it was nice at first to know it was getting looked into, the fact stable is already out is salt on the wound. Perhaps the game really is meant to be single player or coop at most, and that becomes even more true with the next issue:

         

    ANY PLAYER CAN SEE VEHICLE AND BEDROLL POSITIONS.

    And that means people can easily find landclaims. Sure, pvp isn't important in this game, but ne'er-do-wells exist on every server outside of maybe the private ones. The same clientside hacker can join a PVE server and proceed to ruin everyone's day, and now he barely has to look around. Read more here:

     

    CLOSING THOUGHTS:

    There are parts of my post that can come off as rude or out of touch to the devs, and I want to apologize for it ahead of time. Of course, I don't know everything that happens under the hood of this game, but from a more than observational standpoint... It's heartbreaking to watch. I mean no ill-will towards the developers, but I know I'm not the only one with these gripes. It's only been my wish to see the game get better, but what it needs right now isn't new models or graphics updates. I'm not saying I know better, but the game could be a masterpiece if the current "I only sell the things I like" mindset was put aside.

    I salute the large server admins who have chosen to muscle through despite an increasingly exhaustive environment. It’s abrasive just how many things need to be accounted for compared to hosting other games. I started my server with a lot of energy, but took me a year to realize it was an increasingly uphill battle that I just don’t have the stamina for any longer. I may likely provide modding support for some of these servers who's admins have earned my respect, and release a few of them to the public. I'm sad, sure. I'll continue to wish for the future, and theres always that chance that when the game is finished, the niche that is big servers will get the attention they deserve. One can only hope.

    Thanks for reading.

     


    Great post.  Ive done some research on my own about a similar situation.  It seems the Witcher 3 will never be Designed to handle 50 players at the same time.  
     

    Let me know if you want all the details Ive uncovered.

    3

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    8 hours ago, faatal said:

     Size does not matter. 


    Thats what she tells you but then behind your back she complains to her best friends and when they meet you they give you funny looks and you feel embarased and it makes me want to cry and never come outside and meet chicks again. /cry  

     

    So ive heard

    5

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    5 hours ago, faatal said:

    Already changed that today. Upgrade, repair and harvesting all scale.

     

    We are still testing and thinking about these changes like many parts of the game. I'm currently leaning towards two buckets. 25% (or 33%) and 100%. The 25 being the obviously flimsy/weak/small blocks that should not be stopping anything from breaking through and anyone should be able to look at and say that is not going to protect me.

     

    Bars were intentionally excluded because they are primary window and elevated defenses. Plates would probably move back into the 100%, but we are still discussing. Changing stuff to see what happens is what game development is about and some major changes can and do happen during experimental.


    This should be welcome news for everyone.  My only remaining question is,  will there be a way to identify these HP values easily, maybe inside the shape selector? some kind of indicator on each shape? 

    1

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    39 minutes ago, Roland said:

     

    I think we should experiment a bit before declaring bases impossible.

     

    Im not a big builder type guy here so not much skin in the game.   That being said it is pretty stupid to nerf some blocks HP without making them take less mats to build/upgrade or even know how much HP they have before you build it.  My blocky bases will be just as happy as ever but that doesn't make this any less dumb.

    5

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

    It doesn't look like it. On kage848 stream's on Saturday he had lootstage 14 outside POIs, lootstage 19 during the quest, and lootstage 21 on a POI he had visited just before.

    You are covered in gore from your fights with zombies, so of course any cut can get you zombie-infected. Besides, the bear might be incubating but not yet transformed, and wolves might be just vectors.


    Anything can be explained away if u are creative enough.  It doesnt change the fact that its a stupid game mechanic.  At least make it so i get infected from walking into an iron spike for consistency sake, lol

     

    Let me put it in a way TFP may agree.  The poor new players will rage quit when a non infected bear infects them,  i mean u gotta make it new player friendly right?  Being infected by a non infected boar on Day 1 and dying is not a good first impression.  Please, make the experience for new customers a good one :)

    1

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    7 hours ago, Morloc said:

     

    Boars as well now. I'm fairly sure this wasn't the case previously.

     

     

    -Arch Necromancer Morloc


    As much as I like added difficulty in this game — and I can probably list hundreds of ways Id like to increase it.  This would not make it on my list by a longshot.  
     

    This seems like the proverbial, “Its not a bug, its a feature”.   Please TFP, just sit back think of how weird this seems for any of the non infected animals.

     

    If you like that it adds diffuculty, I get it, just pick a way to add difficulty that isnt as sloppy as this.

    1

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Roland said:

     

    Wellness was a spam eating minigame which incentivized unnatural eating habits to crank up the wellness as fast as possible. It is much better now that it increases with player level over time. Wellness was also used a suicide currency that people were more than willing to spend in order to gain the benefits of dying.

     

    I'd be happy to have wellness back if they didn't make it so that it was directly increased by eating and if they removed the benefits of dying so that there was no need to spend wellness to die. I guess no bedroll spawning would solve the benefit of using death to teleport....hmmmm

     

     

    Permadeath - be a man

    1

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted · Edited by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

    I had my doubts on this stamp stuff but I gotta say -- awesome job with the new Random Gen --- it is Very nice.     A16 previously had the best random gen but A20 easily surpasses it.  Once stable hits this will be the first Alpha in several that I play with a random gen map created by the game instead of a 3rd party utility.

     

    Looking forward to having more stamp variety in both Vanilla and with mods --  I hope vanilla gets a bunch more city type stamps for variety.

     

    Performance seems on par with A19 for me -- maybe a bit smoother - VSYNC on seems to help believe it or not.. usually I play all games with it off -- even other versions of 7 days.   I have a new PC downstairs with an RTX3080 on a large TV for Flight Sim / Racing Games & VR PRON, even platformer type games.   That PC acts as my "console" with a control pad and steering wheels etc -- but this PC is rocking a vintage GTX1080 and I7 6700k.  Real men play First Person Games with keyboard/mouse and ultra-wide monitor, of course.  

     

    I do want to try to run a server downstairs on the better PC and just use the weaker one to connect to it  --  would that increase performance?  anyone have an easy to follow quick guide? lol

    2

    STILL can't release A20 or even give an ETA?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 11/17/2021 at 4:47 PM, EzunaAranna said:

    Seriously?

     

    We're waiting on ALPHA 20? Still?

     

    Is there any other developer on Steam or indeed the history of PC gaming that has 19 "Alphas" and yet has sold so many copies? Pray do tell - I'd love to know. 

     

    I love this game - I have over 3000 hours on Steam but c'mon this is a total joke.

     

    At this point - "Beta" will be 2025 and "Gold" will be 2029.

     

    This was called "taking the @%$#" 5 years ago....what's it called now? In the time you guys are farting around Grounded is fully released, Conan Exiles is great, No Man's Sky is stellar and even Fallout 76 is a winner.

     

    And don't give me all this nonsense about a "small development team" - Valheim was made with FIVE people. 

     

    The sarcasm is good here,  read the roadmap. If YOU are that good start your own company -- they are a small team.  Honestly the joke is your post so stop whining in a new thread.

     

     

     

    4

    Alpha 20 Dev Diary

    in News & Announcements

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Roland said:

     

    Let me help you out:

     

    They are watching someone play AND they ALSO play it themselves. Two different types of entertainment that deliver enjoyment to those who like it. In fact, some might even do both at the same time: Play 7 Days to Die on their PC WHILE they watch on their phone. No need to try and categorize people as either player or viewers.

     

    But I get what you are feeling. My wife and daughter like to knit and I have never understood their fascination with it and frankly if they need to validate themselves by making things out of yarn they probably need to re-evaluate their lives.

     

    Of course there are also people out there who think that people like you and me who play video games and communicate on internet bulletin boards need to re-evaluate our lives because we are wasting a whole bunch of time on worthless activities. 

     

    The worth of any particular activity seems to be relative...

     

    I do understand now.  

     

    I like to watch certain things and I also like to do those certain things.  and I definitely enjoy watching and doing those things at the same time.

    9
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