Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

I'll make you a deal. I'll read all of your posts if you read all of mine.

 

(I actually have read all of yours, but things change a lot and sometimes things said at one point don't apply later, and then those things don't apply even later... Remember when it was beta after a17?)

 

Point is, I get that you guys want to get to gold, it simply makes sense, but after having pushed out a VERY unpopular major alpha, is this really the right time?

 

Yeh yeh post gold dlc etc, but then that makes good arbitrary, so what's the point of pushing to gold?

 

Help me understand. (Not that you owe me, I'm not an entitled flake)

I can 99% confirm an A19, so I really don't see how going gold is related to A17. We have plenty of time to get the game playing great. A19 will probably be when its really playing sweet until then I can't see the point of beating the dead 16 horse further.

 

As a team we want to go gold. The process of going gold is good for everyone. Getting all the bugs fixed and performance good an d a polished experience needs to happen. We promised it. Why delay that infinitely? Post gold updates should continue for a while so its all good. We just want to raise the price to 129.99 asap, so you better act now before this amazing opportunity ends!

[madmole]

I hope you drop the 'Perception', 'Agility', etc tabs. Besides the fact they're too Fallout-ish, for me trying to get back into the game I find it frustrating to have to try and find the perk I want. IE..looking for something to boost my archery...is that under Perception or Intelligence, or what...so I have to go through each page reading each sub-heading. Eventually I may memorize them but maybe just make the tabs, 'Ranged Weapons', 'Melee', 'Looting' etc. To me it removes something that does nothing except muddy the already 'wall of text' skills page UI.

 

Just perspective from a 1000+ guy starting new after more than two years away and struggling to wrap my head around these new skill trees.

All you do is type arc in the search window and boom its right there. Adding a sea of perks and multi pages would enrage many.

 

Its a lot better to look at now, I'll post a screen soon. Each perk rank has a unique name and decent description in a space with a bigger font and easy to read.

[HungryZombie]

3 is the magic number most of the time from what we've found. And less is always more. I'd rather have one way to do things than 5. Five is just crazy. Like sure IRL maybe you could make vegetable stew with various combinations, but in the game we chose ONE way to do it because multiple recipes to craft the same thing stink. It might use a trinket you were saving. Like I think when we had coal torches I crafted a ton of torches and it used up all my coal instead of the lard I had. So then I couldn't craft any bullets.

 

Its always better to lean on the simple side. You can always clunk it up later

 

Everyone knows the number is 3 both for game design & holy hand grenades. Just ask the Rabbit of Caerbannong about it.

[josefdarks]

Less is in fact always less. Many times it seems people thats who say less is more are actually just incapable of more - such as a bad drummer or guitarist. "LESS IS MORE DUDE!" That being said, the real talent is to know when less is better, to let something else stand out for example.

 

Less could be fun, it could be easier, it could be better..... however less is always less. And yes, sometimes less sucks.

if less as the armors what's in the game more armor y gas mask more more I like the game its mechanics but not its low content if it were not for a mod I did not open mechanical weapons armor and vehicles except what the game offers use 132 mods and that's why I play to the game we are this community of consumers it has us what to listen Well, the client is always right you need more clothes and more doors and chimneys that throw smoke to create a factory since we use a foundry I have a factory but no an industrial fireplace I can only put pipe one had to decorate My English is not very good because I am from another nation which it's I put it to yes to define it What is lacking more content

[Ezed]

All you do is type arc in the search window and boom its right there. Adding a sea of perks and multi pages would enrage many.

 

Its a lot better to look at now, I'll post a screen soon. Each perk rank has a unique name and decent description in a space with a bigger font and easy to read.

 

Oh...I didn't know it was getting a new look. As mentioned, I'm out of the loop a bit. Glad to hear! Sorry to bother.

[mikewuk]

Ha

 

Yes, to hell with the newbies. I remember back in the day we had to go through literal ♥♥♥♥ to get ♥♥♥♥ for fertilizer! Look at the weaklings now, all they have to do is get a hoe and till the land and spec into living off the land and now they can gather a lot of crops! /SARCASM

 

Though it does make me wonder. Were players really tired of doing the above? Having to find poop to make fertilizer... like for me it gave me a reason to head out. Same as having gone out to find schematics. In the end as long as I can build, I'll continue playing the game.

 

I forgot about the poop.

[iBane]

Dude chillax. There is no shift in focus, I'm trying to teach you guys some game design. I didn't say I was dumbing down farming, I said there is no reason to complicate it and alienate new players, something that SHOULD be a concern to you if you want an amazing sequel we need to finish 7 Days in a way that profits and has the most mass appeal. You always have to ask yourself, is this needlessly complicated? Do I need a wiki or youtube tutorial to understand it?

 

I love Ark, but is it perfect? Hell no its stupid as ♥♥♥♥ in a lot of ways but with a few mods and some good friends to play with it can be pretty fun. Having to run pipes with their crappy building system and feed the dino stuff to make him ♥♥♥♥ is just too much. You can't even plant in the dirt, so whatever. Its not farming its a greenhouse simulator. Then the 12 hours it takes to tame? Ridiculous small stack counts? Very few things from Ark have inspired our design choices, that is for sure.

 

Then they sold scorched earth as a dlc before releasing a season pass. Literally screwed customers. Then the flier nerf. I could go on and on about a lot of klunky systems it has. None of this stopped me from enjoying it for the systems that were fun. Well it did initially, but some friends told me with mods and and options its fun so I came back and got over the learning curve and got a lot of hours in it then.

 

Our game will always be hard and a challenge, but it should be accessible and not impossible to learn. We totally care about all the fans, but a lot of you are so bored you are here instead of enjoying the game, and idle hands are the devils workshop.

 

Skyrim is an amazing game but I have 2000 hours so the only thing keeping it remotely interesting is mods, roleplay and weird builds. You sir are at that point where you want the game to scratch that itch, but it just can't. It can't. All you can do is shelf it and come back later and hope to feel a bit of that magic one more time. Its just the normal process. Games aren't intended to last 10000 hours. Its interesting when they do but at a certain point people need new stimulus, like a sequel. Skyrim was the only thing that fixed why I was bored with Oblivion, despite having some great mods. Once you log so many hours it gets harder and harder to find the magic. People aren't meant to do the same crap over and over again, we're meant to learn new things and expand and grow.

 

Definitive post.

[chikorina]

I am rewording perks at the moment as we have more space for long descriptions. While doing it I'm improving some perks. If there are some farm related perk ideas I'm game. I don't want to change how you plant or harvest though in this conversation.

 

It would be nice to have a perk that lets me have an underground farm. By buying the perk, you'd be able to either craft seeds that can be grown without sunlight, or be able to craft lights that act as sunlight. Faster hoes would be nice too. Just a thought.

[Dimpy]

Hey, I've mentioned this before, but not sure if any devs have seen my request, so I figured I'd ask again.

 

Can you make items useable in the inventory by holding shift and right clicking?

 

Pretty please?

 

I think there's a "use" button in the inventory screen.

[ParaSyt]

Hey, I've mentioned this before, but not sure if any devs have seen my request, so I figured I'd ask again.

 

Can you make items useable in the inventory by holding shift and right clicking?

 

Pretty please?

 

By default it is "A". I believe you can remap it now tho.

[Dimpy]

@faatal How feasible would it be to allow entities to sometimes 'lead' the player in 7dtd? When I say lead, I mean that if one entity is chasing another entity, and the chased entity is going in a straight line, then the chasing entity will also travel in a straight line, as opposed to the pursuit curve we have currently.

 

I can implement it in open areas with a few lines of code, but I can imagine it would be harder to integrate it with the A*-based pathing system.

 

I've heard fourm members say that it's too easy to outmanuever zombies outside, and, well, leading enemies are a lot harder to outmaneuver.

[Sirillion]

I am rewording perks at the moment as we have more space for long descriptions. While doing it I'm improving some perks. If there are some farm related perk ideas I'm game. I don't want to change how you plant or harvest though in this conversation.

 

Sure, I'll bite...kinda stupid of me since I really don't know the full extent of the mechanics but hey-ho

 

 

Tier 1: You've really gotten better at this tilling business and can prepare the soils to become the perfect home for your seeds. (+50% yield from crops planted in tilled dirt.)

 

Tier 2: Your knowledge of seeds and planting of crops are next to none and as such you can stretch your resources even further. (Double the yield when receiving seeds.)

 

Tier 3: One harvest what one sows, you on the other hand seem to harvest more than you sow. (Add an extra harvest cycle with half the yield of the first one, rounded down ... if possible with the current mechanics)

 

Tier 4: Water is the source of all life, you discovered a way to make your plants thrive even further by building an irrigation system. (A new model of a barrel with some feet on it, two blocks tall, with a piece of pipe with a valve sticking out of it and angles 90 degrees and into the ground. Fill with bucket of water and use the same system as refilling vehicles with fuel. Consumption depends on connected tilled earth slots. This irrigates connected tilled earth slots and decreases growth time by 50% and yield by 50%)

 

Tier 5: You've discovered that fertilizers will really put some sprout into your...well...sprouts. (New recipes opens up in the Chemical Station adding a way to create some liquid fertilizer that can then be mixed with the water bucket and create fertilized water to put into the irrigation barrel. Increases yield by 100%)

 

 

...just of the top of my head here ... I am sure I am swinging a miss but hey, at least I am swinging

[Odetta]

I am rewording perks at the moment as we have more space for long descriptions. While doing it I'm improving some perks. If there are some farm related perk ideas I'm game. I don't want to change how you plant or harvest though in this conversation.

 

*cracks knuckles*

 

Chance on pickup to harvest mutated crop. These crops would be used in high level recipes like "Grandpa's Scr-o-tum Sweat". Very low chance to harvest. Could be tied to your drug system nicley and would add more incentive to farm.

 

Could aslo be tied to other systems easliy like high tier ammos, dyes, foods, and medical trees. This is mad scientist type stuff I'm talking about.

[n2n1]

MM

Just want to remind You, that You got a LOT of fans when You didn't have "20-hour gameplay".

And very few people had problems with it.

[Roland]

It would be nice to have a perk that lets me have an underground farm. By buying the perk, you'd be able to either craft seeds that can be grown without sunlight, or be able to craft lights that act as sunlight. Faster hoes would be nice too. Just a thought.

 

I like this idea for underground farming. But I’d like to see a speed increase on ALL the zombies and not just the strippers...

[Roland]

Tier 5 Farming Perk: Harvest crops by pressing “e” instead of punching.

 

[canadianbluebeer]

I like this idea for underground farming. But I’d like to see a speed increase on ALL the zombies and not just the strippers...

 

What have you got against the strippers?

 

Wait, nevermind. I don't wanna know.

 

[Frisky Minx]

I am rewording perks at the moment as we have more space for long descriptions. While doing it I'm improving some perks. If there are some farm related perk ideas I'm game. I don't want to change how you plant or harvest though in this conversation.

 

Hey!

 

Besides adding new Plants and recipies, I am very happy with the farming as it is. I love, that you don't have to replant everything.

 

I don't know what kind of outbreak there was lore wise in the game, but I could imagine that some plants might also be infected. This could result in some special plants actually being alive and flinging their tentacle like branches at the player. This attack could cause the player to get stunned and go ultra slow for a few seconds, or make the aim go wonky as if the player had a beer. Those plants could also get the "puke gun" that the zombiecops use. But this makes you go blind for some seconds.

 

As for farming those infected plants - that would be more complicated, becuase you need to combine those seeds with something else to make it plantable. The fruits of those plants could be used as venoms for special crossbow ammo. -> stunning, blinding... etc

 

Warning: Dont go into the forest, its very old and full of memory and anger!

 

[Roland]

In all seriousness for farming perks I would like to see a return to the game’s roots and make it so that crops will only grow if adjacent to a water block. It was like that in Alpha 6.

 

THEN there could be a perk called Irrigation that would allow you to plant without the need for an adjacent water block. Also, the growing lights recipe for interior farms would be great as Chikorina pointed out.

 

Any noob coming from Minecraft would EXPECT crops having to be planted near water blocks so it would be intuitive as well for new players.

[madmole]

I think there's a "use" button in the inventory screen.

 

He can just press A.

[Roland]

What have you got against the strippers?

 

Wait, nevermind. I don't wanna know.

 

 

You have to carefully read the second to last line of the post I quoted to get the joke...

[Sirillion]

People really need to stop focusing on Madmoles comments on the "20-hour gameplay". It doesn't mean that they made a magic line in the sand and stopped focusing on other aspects of the game and ONLY focus on the first 20 hours. I simply means they want to focus on polishing up the first 20 hours of gameplay so that they can get the game out of EA and hopefully attract more poeple into their game which will enjoy it and as such increase sales which in turn means more stuff added for the +1000 hours guys in future updates.

 

It is called a sound business model. Have anyone stopped to think what would happen if they do not polish up the first 20 hours of gameplay? I would like to ask everyone here, if you were not involved in modding, if you did not know of mods, if you picked the game up today knowing nothing of it...would you stick around? Would you refund?

 

The logic is simple, no funds = no game. If the game doesn't sell well the pimps would have to move along to new projects or worst case scenario, go out of business. The team has grown since the start and no one of sound mind works for free, the cost of developing the game would also have increased with the team.

[The-Walking-Dad]

I paid £15 for my copy. I've played 1,200 hours.

 

No game has ever given me such value for money. I don't play much anymore but I'll always be thankful for the fun I've had. And who knows? I keep trying the new alphas. I may yet be re-rengaged.

[madmole]

Sure, I'll bite...kinda stupid of me since I really don't know the full extent of the mechanics but hey-ho

 

 

Tier 1: You've really gotten better at this tilling business and can prepare the soils to become the perfect home for your seeds. (+50% yield from crops planted in tilled dirt.)

 

Tier 2: Your knowledge of seeds and planting of crops are next to none and as such you can stretch your resources even further. (Double the yield when receiving seeds.)

 

Tier 3: One harvest what one sows, you on the other hand seem to harvest more than you sow. (Add an extra harvest cycle with half the yield of the first one, rounded down ... if possible with the current mechanics)

 

Tier 4: Water is the source of all life, you discovered a way to make your plants thrive even further by building an irrigation system. (A new model of a barrel with some feet on it, two blocks tall, with a piece of pipe with a valve sticking out of it and angles 90 degrees and into the ground. Fill with bucket of water and use the same system as refilling vehicles with fuel. Consumption depends on connected tilled earth slots. This irrigates connected tilled earth slots and decreases growth time by 50% and yield by 50%)

 

Tier 5: You've discovered that fertilizers will really put some sprout into your...well...sprouts. (New recipes opens up in the Chemical Station adding a way to create some liquid fertilizer that can then be mixed with the water bucket and create fertilized water to put into the irrigation barrel. Increases yield by 100%)

 

 

...just of the top of my head here ... I am sure I am swinging a miss but hey, at least I am swinging

Thats not bad, but its just a more complicated version of what we have already. You can already get more yield with each perk without doing extra steps. I was thinking more along the lines of having some stuff you can't get seeds out of that is powerful until the higher ranks.

[khzmusik]

I was thinking more along the lines of having some stuff you can't get seeds out of that is powerful until the higher ranks.

 

I like this idea quite a bit.

 

While we're back on the subject of farming - I know there are currently no plans to make certain crops grow only in certain biomes. Fair enough.

 

Instead - can we request that TFP make this easy to mod in?

 

(When I say "easy" w.r.t. modding, I pretty much mean "XML only, no SDX required")