Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Damocles]

Using the "mem" console command seemed to help me freeing up memory.

At any rate, the framerate went up after in ran.

[Proof_89]

Playing on Warrior difficulty is a heck of a challenge for a solo player now...in A17 warrior diff was like a walk in the park.

Night time is more dangerous than the horde night...unless you have a ranged weapon, you'll be dead in seconds.

I will try the Nomad difficulty tonight, hopefully i can take my breath time to time.

 

@faatal

i am running a 1080 gtx and i do have huge frame drops in snow biom. I know from your recent posts you are looking into it, hopefully you will find a resolution too asap.

 

Oh, and i still didn't see any rivers yet. Are they not part of the RGW anymore?

[beHypE]

Let's just all breathe in for a while and remember this is experimental day 3. I'm pretty sure they are working OT to fix those issues asap.

 

The only point I agree on is that doing a huge streamer week-end, even delaying the date on the sole purpose of not doing it during the Twitchcon, is probably a big mistake for an "experimental build". But then again, there wouldn't be any hype to have it only for the stable release so...

 

@Roland just swing the banhammer stronger tbh. Whiny frustrated guys with 5 posts total coming with the "my favourite game is dead" because the launch has technical issues just don't belong here and don't add anything meaningful or positive to the community.

 

And keep your heads up, the Alpha is amazing, it will shine in no time.

[MechanicalLens]

My first feral

 

 

This is Fred the Feral. Fred is my friend. Fred watches my back at night, every night.

 

(Note: He's in the center of my crosshairs.)

[Kage848]

I haven't had a chance to read the forums much, been hopelessly addicted to alpha 18.

 

I gatta admit in a little surprised at alot of the issues here. Whenever theres fps issues I always get them. The fact my framerate had been good, actually its been great since I can now play with shadows for the first time ever, is strange to me. I hope they get it ironed out.

 

The bugs have been few and far between for me too. This has without a doubt been the smoothest alpha launch and the best alpha update so far, at least for me.

 

Hope other people issues get fixed and fixed soon. I'm just surprised there are any is all.

[RusMan3]

I like this alpha. Melee is now a real challenge. I got infected on the second day, and there are no antibiotics and honey, the merchant also (I play with 25% loot)

In alpha 17, I just walked on a relaxed, zombies were not dangerous.

Thanks for playing.

And yes, 25 fps outside the city, fix it please

[Odetta]

I haven't had a chance to read the forums much, been hopelessly addicted to alpha 18.

 

I gatta admit in a little surprised at alot of the issues here. Whenever theres fps issues I always get them. The fact my framerate had been good, actually its been great since I can now play with shadows for the first time ever, is strange to me. I hope they get it ironed out.

 

The bugs have been few and far between for me too. This has without a doubt been the smoothest alpha launch and the best alpha update so far, at least for me.

 

Hope other people issues get fixed and fixed soon. I'm just surprised there are any is all.

 

Well I had super good performance until I went quite aways from my base. That's when things got sluggish. When I came back to base my FPS started to slowly increase again until it was at previous "good" levels. Lot's of strangeness about. Too close to Halloween I reckon'

[Hek Harris]

I gatta admit in a little surprised at alot of the issues here. Whenever theres fps issues I always get them. The fact my framerate had been good, actually its been great since I can now play with shadows for the first time ever, is strange to me. I hope they get it ironed out.

Don't forget that satisfied players don't come on the forum to lay 20 posts to express their joy : they're busy trying to survive in the best alpha ever.

[Tetrameth]

Edit: Found the quick way to get Buried/hidden chest:

 

For level ground:

 

Head to the treasure marker exactly facing north, once the marker starts blinking, stop and its two squares in front of you

 

 

And on tricky sloops:

 

do the same north facing, and if the marker doesn't blink but becomes behind you, dig straight down.

 

I just plop down 4 frames at each cardinal point on the place the flashing start/stops if I need help locating it. Usually digging 2 blocks down (and occasionally a few around the base of the hole) is sufficient to reveal its location.

[Thecolours]

I haven't had a chance to read the forums much, been hopelessly addicted to alpha 18.

 

I gatta admit in a little surprised at alot of the issues here. Whenever theres fps issues I always get them. The fact my framerate had been good, actually its been great since I can now play with shadows for the first time ever, is strange to me. I hope they get it ironed out.

 

The bugs have been few and far between for me too. This has without a doubt been the smoothest alpha launch and the best alpha update so far, at least for me.

 

Hope other people issues get fixed and fixed soon. I'm just surprised there are any is all.

 

Same here Kage. Aside from small FPS issues, this Alpha has been super smooth.

[MechanicalLens]

The trader is selling a purple AK for 8,000 dukes. I have 6,500. Time to do a quest or two and get myself a purple AK on day 4/5.

 

Edit: Really dirty glasses. I thought I had more dukes than I had. Classic.

[Kage848]

Don't forget that satisfied players don't come on the forum to lay 20 posts to express their joy : they're busy trying to survive in the best alpha ever.

 

So true lol

[Katitof]

Melee seems to be horrible.

 

Sledge seems to have a half of a block range and its impossible to hit a zombie when its going up the stairs if you are above it, power attacks for whatever reason miss 3 out of 5 times, extended Zs range is good, but melee just feels so bad now, the glancing blows give no feedback and don't seem to work at all.

 

I've also suddenly got FPS drops from stable 60 to ~20 out of nowhere.

[MechanicalLens]

Hey guys (and gals). Say hello to my little friend. Wow, I love A18, and it loves me too apparently.

 

How did I get this money in time? Well, I did buried supplies after buried supplies after buried supplies. I also sold some quality level 3 items. Note to everyone: You want money fast? Buried supplies are the way to go early on.

 

[AngryGamer]

Oh my, the level of ignorance and stupidity in steam reviews is rage inducing. Steam needs to allow comments on all reviews and not leave it in the hands of the individual. Most of these rage reviews probably wouldn´t exist if their authors couldn´t block discussion. It´s impossible for devs alone to counterargue all the false claims, since they are the only ones able to comment on locked reviews.

[Gareee]

And they do. Don't believe everything you read.

 

Wonder why mine doesn't have the mod in it? There is no gear, and I spawned in one from cm as well to see if that one worked, but it also had no mod in it or gear over it.

 

I'll see if I can find a second, and report here if it has the mod in it.

 

It might be just an oddball quirk.

 

Also, I noticed the pocket mod can't go into the mining helmet anymore. There was also some leg armor it could no longer go into.

 

Does the pocket mod only go into chest armor now?

[Adam the Waster]

I still dont know who this new breaded man is. he scares me

[Adam the Waster]

Well I had super good performance until I went quite aways from my base. That's when things got sluggish. When I came back to base my FPS started to slowly increase again until it was at previous "good" levels. Lot's of strangeness about. Too close to Halloween I reckon'

 

i have to run the game like this to play like this until the performance is fixed!

 

 

 

 

but is worth it!

[dhlmaster]

Wonder why mine doesn't have the mod in it? There is no gear, and I spawned in one from cm as well to see if that one worked, but it also had no mod in it or gear over it.

 

I'll see if I can find a second, and report here if it has the mod in it.

 

It might be just an oddball quirk.

 

Also, I noticed the pocket mod can't go into the mining helmet anymore. There was also some leg armor it could no longer go into.

 

Does the pocket mod only go into chest armor now?

 

Pocket mod goes into clothing. Pants, shirt, and coat.

[Mechanimal]

I haven't had a chance to read the forums much, been hopelessly addicted to alpha 18.

 

I gatta admit in a little surprised at alot of the issues here. Whenever theres fps issues I always get them. The fact my framerate had been good, actually its been great since I can now play with shadows for the first time ever, is strange to me. I hope they get it ironed out.

 

The bugs have been few and far between for me too. This has without a doubt been the smoothest alpha launch and the best alpha update so far, at least for me.

 

Hope other people issues get fixed and fixed soon. I'm just surprised there are any is all.

 

Same, and I built my rig in 2010, albeit a monster at the time, it still rolls strong, somehow. Had some frame lag at first when I spawned in snow biome, but wasn't all that bad. I just refreshed my install and have been fine ever since, even turned a few things up, like shadows, which are nice, adds a lot of depth. I am at half texture, but it still looks great. Tried goin full texture once, the game said NO and vanished. No biggie.

 

But nothing unfixable, these sound like isolated issues on certain machines/setups. This is experimental afterall, and as disappointing as it may be to those who are having issues they need to keep that in perspective when forming harsh opinions. TFP is on it. Agree this has been an all around awesome update, so many things improved. Overall gameplay is massively improved and smoother now, and I love all the new remnant POIs.

 

My criticisms are small to non-existent, all shrug-offable. The rare "buried treasure" thing I consider a happy accident, still only had it happen once, ever, and I kinda hope they leave it, but fine if not. Barely notice the awkward meat-count thing, whatevs, the only one that persistently makes my eyes hurt from rolling so much is the pre-bloodied spikes. Never letting that one go, unless/until it gets fixed, but will keep having a ton of fun regardless.

[Nietoper]

Processor Intel® Core i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

Name NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB

getting 15 -20 FPS

I will wait I guess

 

I have i7-4710HQ CPU, GTX 860m (4GB vram), 16GB ram and ssd and everything works at 30-50 fps (sometimes drop to 26) outside. Inside 70fps. So you have better rig than me. You have to check your settings, lower the resolution (I think I have 1376xsomething resolution or something like this) and lower your distance view. I have medium. Plus full texture, sun shafts on, occlusion on, antialiasing on (i can't remember more. I will check after work).

[q123]

Haven't tried this myself, but looks like the game is using Antisotropic Filtering - if you want to lessen that tiling effect you could try forcing the AF to say 4X or so in the Nvidia Control Panel and then the edges beyond that will blur out in the distance.

 

@faatal: !THIS!

 

Reducing Anisotropic Filtering in Nvidia Control Panel from a manual setting of 16 to 4 gives me a huge framerate increase in the desert.

Having now stable 60 frames when watching distant desert terrain, before it was about 30 and less.

Yeah

 

Looks like, the game itself has 8 as internal setting? (compared "Application Controlled").

 

Thx for the idea!

 

 

My system:

I5 6400, 16GB, Nvidia 1060 6GB (exclusive fullscreen @1680x1050 + Nvidia adaptive VSYNC on)

[DaMfS]

@madmole

 

My feedback on the Alpha 18 exp. after approx. 5-6 hours playing time:

 

- The beginning of the game is a lot of fun again - you get ahead, can mess with a few zombies and manage to collect a sufficient amount of resources. The feeling of having to improve your equipment is permanent, but not so strong that you feel completely useless.

 

- The close combat is fantastic - you get a good feeling when you've killed a few zombies. Only the hitbox when using the knife is already very small - here it can get frustrating if you don't hit anything even when trying the 3rd or 4th time. But the suddenly running zombies? The absolute madness! I can't even count how many "Oh ♥♥♥♥, ♥♥♥♥, ♥♥♥♥ I have to go" moments I already had. One of the best innovations!

 

- Finally, the inner conflict is back again, whether you go for looting or prefer to collect resources. Looting is a lot of fun and the amount of loot is well balanced. Especially the joy to find a bookshelf is awesome.

 

- I can't complain about the performance. I would have hoped for an increase of the FPS, but the very annoying micro-stuttering is finally gone. On average I get about 70-100 FPS at high to ultra settings. (i7 6700k @4,2Ghz - 16GB RAM - 2070 Super - 1440p 144hz monitor - game is installed on an SSD) My colleague runs it in FullHD with about 60-70FPS at medium to high settings. (i7 720 @2,6Ghz - 12GB RAM - 1070 GTX - SSD)

 

Which I don't like so much:

- The animals generally have a lot of HP. I used 5 arrows and about 7 hits with the spear to kill a wild boar. A Lama (?) needed 2 arrows in the head and 3 in the body to die.

 

- I would like to start with an extended tutorial (can be turned off in the menu). A friend has tested the game after 2 years break again and didn't get along at all. "Where's the construction menu?" "How do I make forged iron?" "How do I change my type of ammunition?"

In the end it's all very banal things for us regular players, but when I look at the Steam ratings there are some who hang up the game after a few hours. I could well imagine that this is partly because the players don't really get into the game. Of course you can't explain the whole game, that would also reduce the fun of discovering. However, I think that a tutorial up to the Forge would make it much easier for beginners to understand the basic mechanics. Also a small guide for modding the weapons etc. would be nice.

 

To summarize: Since Alpha 15 I haven't had as much fun with 7DTD as in the first few hours with Alpha 18. Thanks for the great work and the hundreds of hours of fun to come. For me it's like I'm directly involved in the development of a skyrim or fall out. An outstanding game just needs its time in development and that completely without lootboxes, in-game purchases or similar new-fangled nonsense. Polish the game, remove the nasty bugs (which I'm fortunate to be spared) and you've got one of the best, if not the best version of 7DTD I've ever played.

Now I'll keep playing and watch the first Horde Nights. After that I'll be happy to give you an updated feedback. Until then: Keep it up TFP!

 

A request at the end: Please allow us to connect generators in series :-)

[Mechanimal]

I am running mine just fine at 2560x1080, I do lose frames if I try to go up another level to 3440x1040. I could handle full res but have to cut down other things I really enjoy like long view distance, nice trees, shadows, and reflections. Prefer to have all that at slightly lower res, and it's rly not "low" resolution in the first place.

 

Again it helped a ton to refresh my install, then move up setting by setting from default, testing each change as I go. I even turn on depth-of-field, I rly like that effect for some reason, but not motion blur, I turn that ♥♥♥♥ off all they way.

 

I also left texture streaming on this time and it's fine, not noticing any huge drops in texture quality like I did in A17.

[Mechanimal]

- The animals generally have a lot of HP. I used 5 arrows and about 7 hits with the spear to kill a wild boar. A Lama (?) needed 2 arrows in the head and 3 in the body to die.

)

 

Uh, llama? Lolol, the new deer are kind of weird looking, I actually like the old ones more, from A16. Maybe it's the textures more than anything, these are much lighter in color, the old ones were darker, had better shading/coloration imho. But a llama? Funny.