Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

A few thoughts from last night's session:

 

Vultures happily attack people at 100% health now. I miss the old (and wrong, btw) theory that they only attack the injured.

 

The new small piles of canned food on tabletops in POI's are great, they're keeping me going in our 3-player game, and I think it's absolutely hilarious my kids walk right past them all the time. Since they're usually ahead of me that means I get the free food without having to fight every zombie for every can. Win!

 

The metallic clunk when that pack of wolves jumped me last night (I was wearing metal armor) threw me off for a couple seconds but after the fight was over I thought it was rather cool. Too metal-door sounding though, need one that's more muffled since the armor is on a fleshy thing. Shouldn't ring like scrap if the body is dampening the vibration.

 

Whoever was saying anvils are hard to get a few pages back, we had two on/by day 2. Working Stiff boxes in so many POI's really changes the balance of things like that. Loot more craft less. We also found the bellows and a forge book, right AFTER I took that skill point, I might add...RNG has a wicked sense of humor that way.

 

No they don't attack 100% health players. Maybe the poi ones don't care, but the wild ones I know won't attack you.

 

Anvils: random is random. One game you might swim in them, the next you won't.

[madmole]

oooooooooo idea: Make m60s be mountable on blocks etc.

 

This way, in big multilayer settings or something you can just make a but load and set them up wherever and have bunkers!

 

I'd appreciate it if you didn't use any part of my avatar for your avatar.

[AtomicUs5000]

A lot of people said "POIS aren't worth the ammo". Kage was one if I recall. So we added more ammo to POIs, and we improved the loot at the end. Here is the thing, with the massive hordes late game and ability to mine all you want, people could still have all the ammo they wanted by mining, but we don't want to force everyone into mining to get ammo. Now some people are saying its too much ammo blah blah blah, well I say you aren't using the right settings. Lower your loot and raise your difficulty, problem will be solved on day 100 I assure you. So all that ammo people are talking about will dry up faster than piss in the desert once people put in 100 hours and find out what Alpha 18 really is.

 

Yep he was, among many people though. I thought so too, though my concerns about it were always more tied to the horde nights where it wasn't so much that the POIs were not being worth it, but that you had to loot everything in sight to keep up with late game horde.

The way it is now is a huge improvement for me. I do like the idea of somehow slowing down the progression from primitives to firearms, but if I had to choose between having that progression early game and having no ammo late game, I choose late game ammo.

[MechanicalLens]

That is what one tester with a large group of guys said.

 

Here's my late game experience:

 

12am to 4am 3 days a week: Mine coal, nitrate and lead.

 

Prior to crafting gas I'll spend a few full evenings from 12 am to dawn salvaging cars for fuel and parts, or I will deliberately take some long quests and harvest every vehicle on the roads there. Take a different way home and expose new map space.

 

4am to 8pm 6 days a week: Loot and visit traders on restock day.

 

Get home at 8 to 9 (next door to trader) and sell everything I don't want. Take a new quest if I turn one in so I can get cracking at 4am or go car harvesting all the way there from 12 am to 4 am.

 

10 to midnight: Unload vehicle and backpack into storage crates, restock forges, cook if needed, harvest crops if they are ready, make a few base upgrades and get spikes crafting etc.

 

I basically focus around one trader until I get a vehicle, then I start doing gas runs 3-4 nights a week while exploring for new traders at night. This way I don't waste daylight looking for new traders. I want all the traders exposed so I can get all the books and not miss any great deals, buy up all the ammo (of my specialized weapon) concrete, etc. I can never get enough concrete but I build my own bases as you've seen and rarely stay at a POI because IMO its more work than building a base and I like a few setups.

 

Ohhh. Today, for 24 in-game hours, I mined up 36,000 coal. Maybe that was a bit excessive, no? (I tend to spend entire days mining. As in, the whole day, night included.)

 

Also, on a side note, you know the air conditioners? (Pictured below.) You mentioned how they are supposed to drop brass radiators. Well, I can confirm that after wrenching over a dozen of them... I got no radiators. Loot table bug?

 

[Pico]

Well, I honestly think the latest update is giving me worse performance.

It's very stuttery, and is making me feel ill.

 

I've used gfx dt, gfx af, and I've set textures to their minimum size (smaller than I was using before the update), and it's still quite nasty.

 

Grass and tree details set low, LOD lowered, all shadows and other BS like blur and sun shafts effects off.

 

FRs range from 40's to single digits.

[madmole]

Well, if there wasn't too much ammo in the loot - I would need to be crafting it, or I would have to use a bow or melee. I don't have to craft ammo, and I don't have to use a bow or melee - I can continue to shoot a gun - thus there's too much ammo in the loot. Again, I'm talking about early in the game, the first month in the game. I don't know or care about late game, yet. We seem to be talking about two completely different points. I don't want to be able to shoot a gun without worrying about ammo in the first week of the game -but currently I can do just that. I'd much rather be forced to use more primitive weapons.

 

To tell you where I am at - when I first get a gun in the game my first expression is to say 'awwwww' out loud in disappointment, because that early game fun was just soo short-lived.

 

It's still fun going through POIs with firearms and explosives and setting up traps or whatever. It's still fun. But, it's a different kind of fun. I just want the early game to last longer. I have too much ammo for early game. I do not care if I won't have enough for late game, yet. We will see.

 

Going to play a lot this weekend, and I'll probably well-surpass a couple-months playtime and i'll see what happens at the later stages.

Loot abundance maybe? I don't use ammo except on horde night so I just don't see how you are getting all this ammo, unless you mean you are using all the ammo? Do you use shotguns, 9mm and 762s? I only use what I specialize in because the difference is crazy, and I save 9mm for turrets down the road, unless I'm an agility player.

[madmole]

true, my comment is to be taken with a grain of salt, a few of my ideas over the years as wells as Ideas from other players have made it into the game.

 

on the farm plot. I know that just before it hit for the streamers, you added 100 clay into the recipe cause for some reason it was taken out. That is all well and good, but time to revisit.

 

I have been crunching the numbers a bit. usually I can get 25 clay from a block +/- 5 from perks. that farm plot is to equate 1 block if I am not mistaken. but somehow my head doesnt wrap around fitting back into that 1 plot that I can take at max currectly 25 pieces out, and fit 100 pieces of clay back in? plus flesh and wood and nitrate.

 

Suggest nerfing that to maybe 50 clay?

 

edit: not to make it easier, just the reasoning side of my brain and possibly other peoples as well, says wtf?

 

Probably could.

[unholyjoe]

Ohhh. Today, for 24 in-game hours, I mined up 36,000 coal. Maybe that was a bit excessive, no? (I tend to spend entire days mining. As in, the whole day, night included.)

 

Also, on a side note, you know the air conditioners? (Pictured below.) You mentioned how they are supposed to drop brass radiators. Well, I can confirm that after wrenching over a dozen of them... I got no radiators. Loot table bug?

 

 

 

 

 

i just did 5 ac units and got 5 brass radiators and other items from wrenching them.

 

you need to be nicer to RNGebus

 

i did a video if you care to see it.

[JamesKirk]

Question for TFP: were barbed wire sheets removed? I must have missed that in the forum discussions. They're still in the creative menu, and used in POIs, but don't seem to be craftable. Only the free-standing barbed wire fences are craftable. I suspect they were too OP and went the way of log spikes?

 

I miss them desperately

[madmole]

This right here might be part of the disconnect between us; to me it makes no sense to build your own base until you already have all of the mats. There are plenty of heavily fortified pois with nice big roofs to take over until that point.

 

This allows me a lot more loot time which allows me to level up more quickly which gets me stronger faster.

 

I get lots of xp for building my base in flagstone and plenty more upgrading it to bricks, concrete and finally r concrete. I build next door to trader, so I sell all my things right on the way home, grab another quest, etc etc. I don't have to "move" later game. While you are moving and setting up a fort I've already got my farm up and I'm power leveling at that point. There is no right or wrong, its just a preference. I do dig quests and all that clay I use for flagstone and eventually fill my forges with it because you will be crafting 1000's of bullets. So I build my base mostly at night, early game its too risky to loot at night, you need good armor and good weapons and ample ammo to loot at night.

 

Something about hearing the trader horn saying "Trader Joel's is now open" makes me feel less alone too

[madmole]

Yeah, you did in your later posts until it became clear this is what you really are looking for. It wasn't mentioned at all in your first post on the subject.

I chimed in then because I know what harm a global drop in ammo loot will do for the late game. This is the first time in a long time that late game has gotten some love, and I personally don't want to see it go away because people are arguing with a blanket statement that there is too much of it, without getting to late game to make such a claim.

 

This is why I usually take it with a grain of salt what is said because a, you guys are pros, and b you haven't logged enough hours to know for sure, and C, it is a new build so maybe you just need to play with the options a bit more.

 

About the only thing I'm thinking hard about is pushing out the level requirements to find better guns.

[madmole]

I had some work come up this week but I imagine by now we have crates of the stuff... when I last logged on we were already starting the factory.

 

Because mining has zero challenge.

 

I know you always think I'm arguing with you, but I like what I like, and don't what I don't.

 

For the record, I've offered just as much praise for a18 as negatives.

 

Mining does provide a challenge. You just haven't realized it yet. Its called time management. For every second your getting coal, iron etc you aren't gathering brass, you aren't making your walls 3 meters thick, you aren't finding that gun that does 20% more damage than the one you have, you don't have AP ammo unlocked yet, etc.

 

Not everything in the game should kill players. Anyhow keep going and let me know how it goes. Turn up the difficulty if you want

[MechanicalLens]

Mining does provide a challenge. You just haven't realized it yet. Its called time management. For every second your getting coal, iron etc you aren't gathering brass, you aren't making your walls 3 meters thick, you aren't finding that gun that does 20% more damage than the one you have, you don't have AP ammo unlocked yet, etc.

 

Not everything in the game should kill players. Anyhow keep going and let me know how it goes. Turn up the difficulty if you want

 

Time is indeed a resource. And like you just said, in 7D2D, you're always lacking somewhere(s).

[madmole]

I honestly don't think a drop in loot is the answer, or even a drop in loot at all. I think bringing back degradation is in order. Sure, fix your weapon, but it drops a quality level.

 

...don't think that would pair well with the random stats though.

 

I think we need more things to shoot at. Things that would make sure we don't have 5 days to mine.

 

As I said we intentionally buff players so they get some success under their belt, then we challenge them. That is a better design than scrounge scrounge die, scrounge some more, rage quit and not see the glorious late game we made. Anyhow, the horde length option will fix up most of your concerns IMO. I know I'd probably use it. 2x length for sure for me.

[BeardedMonkey]

The customization ability and xml. modding really allows you to play exactly the way that is most fun for you.

 

Personally I don't often 'attend' horde nights as there seems little point to it. XP is nice and all but easily gained elsewhere. If you just want to burn through ammo and kill stuff, sure its a good time. However zombie loot drops are rare and just more stuff you could get from scavenging.

 

I find it much more relaxing to putter around on whatever vehicle during bloodmoon. No base damage, no ammo use. Just some gas and the open road.

 

Live your best apocalypse I say.

[madmole]

RIP Gun parts!

Why does the SMG use pistol parts now? doesn't make sense to me, tho id like to know why you fellas did this

 

So all those handgun parts can be useful later game to make magnums and smgs. Trust me smgs are rare AF and you will want to craft turrets to keep up later game.

[madmole]

Looks like they went with two parts now, handgun and rifle. I guess it makes things simpler.

 

Inventory space and late game usefulness too.

[BayouMac]

@MM

 

Curious, what length of day do you usually play?

[madmole]

Any chance of getting attached storage for crafting stations? maybe as an upgrade or just plain QoL. It makes sense to have to gather stuff up, but after the millionth time it's just tedious.

What do you want again? I have no idea what you just said.

[madmole]

New patch b143 improved what otherwise was already a smooth game for me...

Rocking between 60 - 80 fps now with all options maxed with exception of,

 

DOF : OFF

RES : Window 1768x992

Vsync : OFF

Motion Blur : OFF

 

Windows 10

GPU 1080ti

Ram 8gb

 

 

Continue to test and kill zombies..

 

More to come, I committed a boatload more of non streaming texture. Faatal said his mem went from 6 to 3 gigs.

[TSRViper]

I’ve missed the last 50 pages or so as I’ve been playing this awesome alpha!

 

So if this has been mentioned previously, please ignore - to open the shape menu quickly, double tap R

[madmole]

"gfx af 0" is the only one right right now that will improve FPS dramatically at the cost of texture sharpness. (mostly noticable at certain angles).

 

P.S. I don't think this latest experimental patch was aimed at fixing performance problems. That is still coming.

 

I fixed a ton of new textures that did not have streaming enabled, so this helps reduce vram which if you run out of your fps tanks to single digits usually. So it does, but it doesn't solve the terrain being slow yet, or the random issue of getting very slow fps for no reason.

[Jarod_Silverstar]

Just a quick review of b143 and FPS

With b183 I had framerates of between 30-50 both indoors and outdoors. But when I was outdoors the system was working hard and the cooling fans would kick into high gear. Inside things would relax and the fans would kick back to low power.

 

With b143 I am getting between 20-30 FPS but there seems to be little difference in CPU/GPU effort so that part is an improvement for sure.

 

I started a new RWG with b143 but all the video settings are the same, custom high+

 

My machine is Intel 2.6GHz with 16GB Ram, Nivedia GTX 1080 with 8GB VRam.

 

Hopefully for the folks that were having problems it is an improvement, but for me the results are mixed.

[madmole]

Ugh WHY? Youre trying to fix something that is not broken. What streamer suggested this dumb change?

 

Dont do this to me MM, we were doing SO good.

 

Inventory space and late game usefulness. Face it you were never going to find 15 m60 parts, but now all those ak's can be used later game if you find an m60 schematic you might actually craft one.

[madmole]

@Madmole

Ben "A18 is like they went from A16 to A18 skipping A17. Its like they took all the good stuff from A17 and junked the bull♥♥♥♥. Dude you were right, A18 plays and feels like A16 again, I;m so ♥♥♥♥ing happy"

 

My brother just said this on the phone when i asked him what he thinks.

 

I'm glad he likes it.