Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[ZombieSurvivor]

Sup Joel, been a long long time since I last spoke with you. I just wanted to tell you I love the direction your taking the game in. As I have said before, this is my favorite game of all time. I've been playing since around Alpha 8. Keep up the good work. P.S. I was checking out some Sat Images, I love the way your house you had built turned out, its dope. take care buddy

[ZombieSurvivor]

Hey Joel spotted the 7D2D T-shirt at an event that "Neebs Gaming" was attending.

Shirt being worn by Adahop from "Neebs Gaming" Adahop is the guy that edits their videos for their youtube channel.

Here is "Neebs Gaming" at the event.

[Ezed]

Exiles. Its kind of fun at first but I feel like you lose purpose once you get a sword and some food and a little shack. The upgrades seem weird like there are way too many building sets. Its not like Ark and 7 Days where you feel a more strong purpose to do things and get set up. I need to play it some more. The third person anims are nice, but it feels like Skyrim if you took away the quests, or Ark without dinos that want to kill you at ever turn. I think its important to place some urgency on the player. My first impressions are rarely good though, I often semi dislike a game the first 3-4 hours then get hooked. This one feels the opposite though, I was having a lot of fun the first 3-4 hours now I don't have much purpose to keep going.

 

Took me a while to get into it too but then, it took off. Have more hours in it than in 7D now, but 7D is catching up again. The more advanced building materials provide insulation...something you'll need in the North.

 

Love that auto-walk feature in Conan...

[Scyris]

Any previews of biomes.png in a18 we can look at? because the biome distribution in a17.3 is frigging terrible, its way to damned random, and makes no sense. Anyway you can show us a 8192 size generated maps biome layout? Just need the biomes.png file to see. So I have some hope a18 will be better in that aspect, as currently 17.3 is terrible for rwg in terms of biome placement, I do like that it is faster though. Options on the new game screen to generate a map to control chance of each biome would be nice, some sliders maybe that are linked since they can't get over 100%.

[dankaroni]

Hello, unarmed melee/spiked knuckle addict here. Can we add a jump attack/ kick animation? I think it will go well with parkour. Also, I know we have a dundee sized machette, but I would like the option to use a sword instead of a "knoife" as well.

 

Anyway, big fan and keep up the good work!

[Death2gnomes]

It was extremely gamey (sitting naked in a snow biome to get hungry faster) and it punished you in the mid range but practically not at all at the very high or low end.

That was... not good.

 

That "problem" was only half fixed, when you sit in the snow you still get hungry just as fast. You can then watch your fullness(food) drop from having max fullness(120-150) to 50ish in 180-200 seconds or less REAL time. IMO, Hot and Cold buffs are too harsh and even more so on food/drink. Whoever set the extreme debuff temps never saw snow or spent any time in the desert, guessing is not allowed.

[Kalex]

Exiles. Its kind of fun at first but I feel like you lose purpose once you get a sword and some food and a little shack. The upgrades seem weird like there are way too many building sets. Its not like Ark and 7 Days where you feel a more strong purpose to do things and get set up. I need to play it some more. The third person anims are nice, but it feels like Skyrim if you took away the quests, or Ark without dinos that want to kill you at ever turn. I think its important to place some urgency on the player. My first impressions are rarely good though, I often semi dislike a game the first 3-4 hours then get hooked. This one feels the opposite though, I was having a lot of fun the first 3-4 hours now I don't have much purpose to keep going.

 

Yeah, we play Exiles as well. One of the big problems we have with it is that if you do a peer-to-peer game you are tethered distance-wise to whomever is hosting the game. I love building, but I much prefer the building system in 7 Days.

[alchemi2]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that just the Wellness system we just got rid of, tied to limited levels and with a cap on loss? I don't think it's a good idea to go right back to something like that after it was overhauled in A17.

 

You are wrong or misunderstood. I was not suggesting the return of gamey Wellness.

 

Just +1 HP per level (min 100) Nothing else increases max hit points just leveling. Dying permanently removes some of that gain.

 

This would then mean fortitude could contain the buff perks for healing etc, but a stealth character would NOT have invest in to that attribute unless they so wished.

 

At present every character type has to invest in max heath as the game progress regardless of style, everything does more damage and gets faster/harder as GS advances with level. A vulture swoop can inflict a bleed and nearly kill a character so every character type needs those extra hit points and what ever Attribute it's linked too is a must have.

[alchemi2]

It was extremely gamey (sitting naked in a snow biome to get hungry faster) and it punished you in the mid range but practically not at all at the very high or low end.

That was... not good.

 

Hence I did't suggest a return to wellness, just linking Hit Points to leveling, this way it can't be gamed, play to level 100 have 200 hps unless of course you died twice then you only have 180 hps and would need to be level 120 to reach the magic number of full heath.

[The Gronk]

It was extremely gamey (sitting naked in a snow biome to get hungry faster) and it punished you in the mid range but practically not at all at the very high or low end.

That was... not good.

 

If anything I find the current system to be far more "gamey" than the previous one.

 

We've gone from "I need <particular statistic> so I must do <related activity>" to "I need <any statistic> so I must do <any activity>"

 

Balancing aside, the latter is far more abstract. The new system can still be gamed, indeed, it cries out to be gamed. I needed some mining perks early on in 17.3 so I went farming zombie heads, I didn't even use a pickaxe to kill them but I still managed to raise a skill completely unrelated to the activity I was doing. If that's not gaming a system then the definition of gaming a system is wrong. I haven't even bothered putting xp into wellness despite several close calls with death and starvation.

[Hek Harris]

Is there a chance we got infection back before A18 ?

[Crater Creator]

We're starting on some bandit visual design and a system that can procedurally build their inventory and armor visuals based on GS rather than hand coding all of that and making specific prefabs.

 

Thank goodness! From there it should be a hop, skip, and a jump to what I've always wanted: procedurally building what the zombies look like, at least in terms of clothes and texturing. I really hope you'll try to use this upcoming tech on the zombies, since they're the most numerous characters in the game and you've said they'll always be the number one antagonists.

[spacepiggio]

Will C4 be used as a raiding tool? As in can we place it in someones land claim area?

 

I've spent the bulk of my hours playing 7D2D on PVP servers and I love everything about it except for the 8 hour long auger raids where you spend 10 minutes per steel block watching the HP go down :-D

 

What we really need to attack bases is a:

Low Yield Tactical Nuke, or what they wanted me to for. a Back Pack Nuke, I declined...

[spacepiggio]

Thank goodness! From there it should be a hop, skip, and a jump to what I've always wanted: procedurally building what the zombies look like, at least in terms of clothes and texturing. I really hope you'll try to use this upcoming tech on the zombies, since they're the most numerous characters in the game and you've said they'll always be the number one antagonists.

 

I have been using that Roman Block House Base like that but I use 3-4 deep & I stair step it downwards away from the Base. I also place the Doors where I want the Z's to draw them into the Trap...

 

It looks like we traded Radio Towers for Army Bases & Traders...

Using Zed Pudding Seed & I would rather have those than the Towers. I found 3 Traders on the same Road within walking distance & the Cities are filled with Army Bases, I hear mines going off a lot, adds a little Ambiance...

Think its Zed_Pudding or Zed Pudding, rare water but lots of Snow, I like rare water for MP as it makes Players fight for Resources...

[KingSlayerGM]

Thank goodness! From there it should be a hop, skip, and a jump to what I've always wanted: procedurally building what the zombies look like, at least in terms of clothes and texturing. I really hope you'll try to use this upcoming tech on the zombies, since they're the most numerous characters in the game and you've said they'll always be the number one antagonists.

 

Isn't this similar to the old UMA zombies, that were scrapped because of poor performance?

[Scyris]

Thank goodness! From there it should be a hop, skip, and a jump to what I've always wanted: procedurally building what the zombies look like, at least in terms of clothes and texturing. I really hope you'll try to use this upcoming tech on the zombies, since they're the most numerous characters in the game and you've said they'll always be the number one antagonists.

 

Thats why I feel bandits will ruin the game. Second you add pvp or other things that shoot, in a zombie game, the zombies become a minor threat at best, the real threat then becomes whatever can shoot at you. As for the zombies yeah I agree they should be randomly generated a bit for looks, insted of carbon copy clones of each other.

[leaderdog]

@Madmole

 

Will bandits be something we can turn off?

 

As others mentioned, bandits may not add enjoyment for some of us. I try to use guns as little as possible in game. And I don't enjoy pvp in any game I play. If someone just randomly starts shooting me from some where that doesn't up my enjoyment in the game. It's more annoying than anything of course.

 

Optimize and add a crap tonne of zombies, I'm happy. Add someone shooting at me, not so happy.

[hotpoon]

Exiles. Its kind of fun at first but I feel like you lose purpose once you get a sword and some food and a little shack. The upgrades seem weird like there are way too many building sets. Its not like Ark and 7 Days where you feel a more strong purpose to do things and get set up. I need to play it some more. The third person anims are nice, but it feels like Skyrim if you took away the quests, or Ark without dinos that want to kill you at ever turn. I think its important to place some urgency on the player. My first impressions are rarely good though, I often semi dislike a game the first 3-4 hours then get hooked. This one feels the opposite though, I was having a lot of fun the first 3-4 hours now I don't have much purpose to keep going.

 

Conan Exiles gets better and better as you go along actually. There is so much end game content, and it's achievable (not like Ark) but it's difficult. Have you experienced a 'purge' yet? It's the games tower defense aspect.

[Telly G]

I havent been playing 7dtd much. lots of LET IT DIE, Warframe, and Fortnite STW with some of the BR to catch up on cosmetic rewards. more br than pve lately but thats more to do with let it die and warframe.

 

Either way, when I was playing 7dtd about a month ago I had to get it to 800x600 resolution to even get marginally acceptable frame rate after A17 when prior to that I could get away with 1280x720 with 30fps. Have recent patches made the supposed performance increases promised with a17 a reality since its been pretty widely accepted that performance has taken a big ♥♥♥♥ since it dropped.

[Noctoras]

What we really need to attack bases is a:

Low Yield Tactical Nuke, or what they wanted me to for. a Back Pack Nuke, I declined...

 

Actually, I think for PvP teamplay, a suicide vest packed with TNT is an interesting idea as a base breacher.

[spacepiggio]

Actually, I think for PvP teamplay, a suicide vest packed with TNT is an interesting idea as a base breacher.

 

Yea, it was a joke but that's a good idea for PVP, like W@W where you drop your Bouncing Betty on an attacker, it could also destroy your BP so they don't get any Spoils...

[madmole]

Looking forward to the perk changes and reorganization of attributes in A18, looks/ sounds good.

 

@MM one thing that does stop specialization or only going down one attribute is Hit Points, realistically you have to invest in Fortitude not for the healing but to increase your max points. A simple solution to that would be Hit Points linked to level.

 

IE you start as now with 100 and gain +1 hit point every level gain, then rather that the annoying temporary death de-buff on death, you lose say 10 hit points, which you can only regain by going back up 10 levels. Minimum would never go below the start 100.

 

This would address several issues and IMO increase long term play and encourage death avoidance.

 

Did you hack my skype?

[Haidrgna]

Thank goodness! From there it should be a hop, skip, and a jump to what I've always wanted: procedurally building what the zombies look like, at least in terms of clothes and texturing. I really hope you'll try to use this upcoming tech on the zombies, since they're the most numerous characters in the game and you've said they'll always be the number one antagonists.

 

I agree, just a few tints on the zombie skins already do wonders.

 

This includes some skins made by Mumpfy and some tinted by myself, but it is al the same (Arlene) zombie.

[madmole]

Was the wellness system where we could eat food/ drink and use that to raise our hp and stamina? If that is what I'm thinking, I'm not opposed to it coming back but refinements would have to be done.

 

MaxHealth and Maxstamina tied to surviving horde nights and surviving a full day is what we're talking about now. Survive a full day and gain 1, survive a horde night from 10 to 4 and gain 2. Death removes 1. We could go with larger values too, just depends on how it plays out. Probably wouldn't go below 100, as there will still be many ways to go below 100 with debuffs so you need a little headroom.

[madmole]

I think that the reason wellness was removed is the same reason LBD was removed: it didn't fit with the vision MM had for the game.

To me, the idea behind the new perk system is to force you to choose a play style over another.

And investing points in you max health/stamina is a path as well.

Do you want to have max health and take damage like a tank or max stamina so you can run when in a pinch?

Is this more important to you than crafting advanced recipes?

Or maybe you prefer to be a gardener and self-sustain?

I guess this is to stress the importance of the choice you make regarding your points.

 

Its fine that fortitude can help you with health with regen, survival, etc but having hit points tied to it is going to make it a must have, and we're trying really hard not to have must haves. That was the problem with the first version.