ShellHead

Go full kool-aid man and punch them down

I’m not really sure why you’re so bent out of shape about this and the hostility and condescension are completely unnecessary. The game is not going without for the sake of twitch streaming and it seems weird to think that.

Opening doors with HE rockets would definitely get a few views

Twitch integration is much simpler and much quicker to do than AI improvements and I personally wouldn’t assume that TI requires the same devs as AI coding. I doubt TFP would be making TI now if it actually took away from core development.

I think we might have to add a “mental trauma” damage type after this

Because that is effectively 1 giant skill tree, and it incentivizes taking the perks from each stat that enhance the sphere of the game you’re focusing on to the detriment of every other sphere. The concept you’re talking about isn’t hard to understand, i just simply don’t agree.

None of those are inherent to being a sniper and on top of that you can still get those as a sniper. Again, the stats are Archetypes, not Classes. Perception covers a lot more ground conceptually than Sniper. The skill system as it stands does not have the actual limitations you are saying it does, it’s not an omni-tree yes, but you can still have a flexible build without spending a long time with low rank perks. You can get noticeable perk benefits with the main stat at 5 (which is before any cost increase) and get most maxxed by 7 in the stat, both very attainable without power-leveling.

Seems like it’s so you can increase loot amounts for everything except POIs Edit: @BFT2020 is probably right

Because these aren’t Classes, they’re Archetypes. Archetypes are less defined and more malleable than Classes, as they represent larger concepts, so the perks within them are going to be associated with different ideas of what those archetypes do. For example Strength could be interpreted as the miner (strong back), the berserker (unrestrained strength), or the tank (strength of resolve). This approach is well-suited for a system that is focused on balancing mix and match with more defined playstyles, a Strength player mixing in Fortitude looks quite different than one mixing in Agility. Additionally these archetypes are designed so that they function in every aspect of the game: gathering, crafting, surviving, fighting, building. Some are better in some regards than others and so they take a “if all you have is a hammer” approach, Perception is going to mostly rely on looting and hunting to survive, whereas Fortitude is going to focus on farming and reducing their needs, so complete mix and match would just incentivize hyper-specialization to the point of neglecting the other aspects of the game. so yeah, Archetypes are bad at being Classes because they’re busy being Archetypes.

Game dev takes time 🤷‍♂️ for real though, 7D2D is a incredibly ambitious project and has a ****-ton of moving parts, that’s gonna take a long time, especially with this having been TFP’s inaugural game. this is exactly the reason i still want TFP to write a book about developing the game, there isn’t a dev out there that wouldn’t gain a lot from reading it.

The issue i have with LBD is it provides no flexibility for players who have difficulty with certain mechanics. “Learn by Killing” or in reality “Universal XP” allows for exp gained from one activity to subsidize other activities that the player may not prefer/has difficulty with or are harder to progress effectively in. If someone isn’t good at combat but is good at building and gathering, in a LBD system they’d be out of luck and would have to grind out combat skills, in a UX system they could use the exp from building and gathering to boost their combat abilities so their lack of skill doesn’t make fighting an unfun high-risk burden.

Yes, you do. But I’m referring to the characteristics of the trees themselves and the playstyles they represent. Those choices make it easy to pick a completely different way of play than other players in multiplayer or than your usual in singleplayer, which helps keep things fresher over time than one massive omni-tree or an LBD system. Also, you still have the freedom to build how you like regardless, the current system is not stopping you. it’s literally intended for players to get Every Skill by level cap, you’re just determining what order. And since the point costs only ratchet up with the later stat ranks, you can get whatever build you want fairly quickly without being meaningfully subjected to “predefined limitations”.

The issue with giving stats universal bonuses is it strips out most of the play style association with those stats, which removes a lot of the unique characteristics and just makes them numbers that go up. And honestly this isn’t really an actual limitation, you can get top level crafting for both spears and ARs by level 21 if you leave the core stats at 7 and rush the weapon perks. The design is intended for players to make hybrid builds anyway, the only way someone is penalized for it is that they hit max a bit slower than if they’d gone with 1 stat but it more than makes up for it with far wider access to other perks. Ultimately I don’t really see the benefits to this over the fairly substantial downsides other than making mix and match slightly easier.

Yeah, you can’t build around Every insane “meta” strategy the players come up with, the best you can do is make the optimal strategy a marginal improvement over just playing however. i say this as a World of Warcraft veteran.

Not necessarily, while randomness makes fighting out in the world more interesting it makes base building and trap setting a lot harder. This is where the tower defense elements and survival fps elements can clash if not dealt with carefully.

I think the system is built with multiplayer in mind, each of the grand stats are centered around a particular playstyle with its own strengths and weaknesses, giving the players opportunities to specialize without becoming omni-capable, but it does make solo play a bit less flexible as a result. I’d be hesitant to reshuffle the perks or add a feature to let players do that, especially since hybrid builds are incredibly viable albeit with a bit more planning than a mono-stat build (a lot of the cost of multi-classing can be reduced if you don’t rush to cap the core stat), because it would make the stats less defined and and homogenize playstyles through reducing the meaning of skill choices.

Twitch integration lets the viewers affect what’s happening in game, so they can mess with the streamer.

I really doubt TFP are going to drastically diverge from how the stats are now, so i designed the taser so it lines up with their current conception of the perks. Especially since INT is one of 2 stats that has only 2 weapons associated with them. The other being Fortitude which has the best survival perks in the game, so it’d make sense that it would have fewer preferred weapons.

Well, i wanted to keep it a bit narrower to keep it clean in its aesthetic and purpose. Fire is integrated via the perk bonus and thermite (or whatever it gets replaced with) handles armored zeds. While i was considering making a chemical-based weapon, i decided against it due to the difficulty in making the weapon having a unique function while not making it a must-have for everyone and a sprayer or a small-radius grenade launcher would be incredibly useful for any build. I didn’t want this to get too broad in scope and potentially dilute the INT stat’s aesthetic or become a larger endeavor to solve a (in my view) narrow set of issues, namely that INT doesn’t have a ranged weapon that they have full control over and that we don’t have a dedicated crowd control tool. I could see the heavy weapons as new traps but they don’t really make sense as additional mainline weapons, they wouldn’t work super well with the existing perks and there are only so many new perk lines you can add. yeah, this was the result of the conversation between you, me, and @Adam the Waster which was really inspiring! I had a lot of fun hammering out ideas with you 2. the INT perk that gives you the traps and tables also gives you a % of trap kills as xp, so that’s already handled in the game currently

There are a couple things that i think could be improved but am not 100% sure how to go about it. I’m not completely sold on the thermite rounds, as they’re not as appropriate for a taser without a bit of explanation and work only with the “burn” half of the “electrical burn” theme. But the gun needs an AP equivalent and most of its damage ignores armor inherently, so it has to interact with armor in a way that’s actually useful to other damage sources, ergo the armor reduction in the vein of the spikes club mod. I made it weaker than the spikes mod because it was ranged as opposed to melee so the player isn’t putting themselves at nearly as much risk as they would with the club. I’m also not 100% sure about the stat bonuses from the perk and definitely not sure about the specific numbers: damage was a baseline necessity given that every weapon perk boosts damage; i picked handling because i felt that rapid re-acquisition of targets was important to how this gun is supposed to work at high-end play, which is as a targeted disabler at mid-ish range; and reload speed was something i thought would be useful given a somewhat high rate of ammo consumption and the need to keep the shock effect rolling on hordes and high-priority zeds. But other choices may suit its functions better, i was even considering making range one of the boosted stats and having the base gun have even shorter range but thought it might cripple it too much in the hands of non-INT players.

I’m not sure how much you’d need to tweak for hordes, seems like it would use normal spawn ratios just more spawns and faster. as for gamestage, you just shift the weaker zeds into ferals/irradiated, maybe bumping up the % of specials vs regular zeds. Don’t forget, a lot of the specific numbers are based on balance and internal data that we as players don’t have access to, so what you should be focusing on is making sure that the concepts behind your new zeds and what you want fighting them to feel like are really clear. Ultimately you want your idea as easy to bring in as possible while being easily tweaked once the idea is picked up, so the numbers are only important insofar as they help you get your concept across.

Numbers seem reasonable, looks like it would get a good mix of types in a horde. Seems solid.

The reason i am suggesting adding an entire weapon line for the INT grand stat is because while the turrets are an excellent addition and make for a really interesting playstyle for INT, the player doesn’t have a lot to do while their turrets are blazing away. This weapon type would give the INT player a way to aid their turrets while not raising their damage to low earth orbit as well as giving players a tool to increase the effectiveness of traps and allies during horde nights, further playing into the INT tree’s role as team leader and its trap-focused horde night strategy. Taser: flexible low damage mid-range weapon focused on slowing enemies down and applying debuffs. Primary Ammo is a taser dart with an inherent electrocution effect (same as electric fence), single projectile with low damage. Secondary Ammo 1 is buckshot with the same electrocution effect and standard 5m range, standard spray of buckshot with even lower damage per pellet vs primary. Secondary Ammo 2 are thermite shells with armor damaging capabilities (-10% stacking) but no electrocution effect, single projectile with slightly higher damage than primary. Associated Perk (tentatively named shock and awe) boosts: Damage (10% per rank, max 50%) Handling (10% per rank, max 50%) Reload speed (10% first rank, 5% every other rank, max 30%) Chance to apply/reapply ignite on hit (starts at rank 3, 33% per rank, max 100%) Weapon Tiers (aiming more for the feeling of what they should act like so no hard numbers): Tier 0 Taser: Pipe Taser very low damage loads after every shot short-mid range slightly slow reload. Tier 1 Taser: Pressurized Taser small damage improvement over T0 holds a few rounds before reloading average rate of fire (1.5 shots a second what I’m considering) mid-range same reload as T0 Tier 2 Taser: Assault Taser further damage improvement but still quite weak vs other T2 ranged weapons holds more rounds than T1 but probably not more than 10 Slightly faster rate of fire than T1 on the longer side of mid-range but still mid reloads slightly faster than T1. Tier 3 Taser: Riot Taser Equivalent damage to other grand stat T2 weapons Doubled magazine compared to T2 Same rate of fire as T2 Mid to long-range Same reload as T2 I’m aiming for something that isn’t particularly powerful by itself but pairs well with other sources of damage such as INT’s turrets, electric traps, or teammates in multiplayer. I focused on slows to maximize the amounts of time zeds would remain in range of traps as well as giving allies more time to deal damage while staying out of reach. The choice to use electrocution as opposed to the cripple effect was to keep in line with the engineering themes of the INT tree as well as adding a damage over time effect that dovetailed into the ignition effect, causing more damage and pulling in an electrical burn concept. I put more of the Taser’s damage into DoTs because i felt that 1, both the ignition and electrocution DoTs should see more use and 2, it would keep the Taser’s direct damage low which would keep it more in the range of utility. any input would be greatly appreciated!

They might not really care if your idea has support, just if it’s well thought out. i do think people want more variety and so i think you are in the ballpark. You might want to look at it from how l4d2 did their zeds, 90% of them were a single type with different clothes so they looked a bit different but had no gameplay changing characteristics, uncommons had 1 unique trait but either the trait was weak/situational (hazmats were immune to grenade effects) or they were rarer (riot cops were bulletproof from the front), and there were even fewer special infected which was where most of the designing and player skill went towards. Loot is also game changing, so unique loot tables for particular zeds have to be focused on gameplay as opposed to realism (a simple example would be making tougher zeds drop better loot) so like giving the tourist zed a higher chance to drop old world money would be flavorful but would require making it a less common unique type, not just a reskin of another.

Yeah, blowing stuff up in voxel is super fun! i’m just thinking about it from a minmax perspective because i play too many rpgs. Was concerned that gleefully blowing things up would burn out resources, but it doesn’t really seem like that is too much of a problem.