Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Gnomaana]

I'll say it again: NO (or possibly very very few) PERK UNLOCKS SOMETHING YOU CANT FIND A SCHEMATIC FOR. so if its a must have, great buy the perk. If you are a casual cooking enthusiast, find the recipe for stew in loot.

 

The reason its under strength is that int nerds can make medicine to heal, fortitude tanks can regenerate health like crazy, so the strength guy needs access to healing because he governs very up close and action oriented weapons. The agility guy never gets hurt because he is stealthy, same with perception (sniper), so healing isn't a critical role for them.

 

Perks in the STR tree to get more healing out of the same food would make sense and serve the same purpose wouldn't it?

[madmole]

Madmole, what's the max number of Junk turrets you can have?

 

Also, what's your plan for loading them with ammo?

 

Is it possible to keep the junk turret ammo in your inventory, rather than loading them each individual?

 

We're going to just go with one turret to keep FPS sane, but have some meaty upgrades from perks and quality like every other traditional weapon. Reloading is done in your inventory, and optionally on the ground, but might just go with inventory only.

[Ayrton]

@Madmole

 

In the new A 18

* Will we have a Stir homemade gun? that we could make without a prescription? shoot only handcrafted ammunition?

 

-If we can throw spears

* Can we throw axes?

* Is it a possibility to add the javelin?

* Is it a possibility to add throwing knife (feel like ninjas)

 

It's a zombie game we need all this to live

[madmole]

There was food spoilage in the Starvation Mod. It seems quite possible to integrate that.

 

Food spoilage wouldn't be a problem for me. I would adapt to it.

What is a problem for me is that there is always a discussion about farming while hunting is completely ignored. And this even though many players apparently don't farm at all because they are well supplied by the hunting and the food they find in POIs.

I'm not against food spoilage, I'm against not balancing the game properly or adding features because it simply isn't balanced.

[Gazz]

The junk turret is not a fixed installation.

It's more comparable to Roland's turret in Borderlands.

[madmole]

So for balancing I would like to see canned food slowly disappear from the loot lists simulating that all the pre-apocalyptic canned food sources are getting found and eaten so that you can only count on canned food for the first week or two and then they become rare and then they are gone altogether. For farms I would like to see one more phase added to the cycle which is dead so that if the plant isn't harvested during the right window you miss out.

 

For one more 4 million dollar idea maybe instead of food spoilage that causes food to disappear there could be a daily 5% increase to the chance of food poisoning applied to all food already existing in inventories and containers that aren't working fridges and vending machines. So the food never disappears and can always be eaten but it will eventually be guaranteed to make the player sick.

This is a reality if you play MP. Good luck finding anything to loot on a busy server thats been running a while. Food spoiling in cans feels really weird. Lets get it balanced and then talk spoilage. Its not really on my radar, but can be for A19. I hope to do some nice balancing for 18's release though.

[madmole]

I like the sound of this the stack sizes are currently way to high and do not require thought or preparation just 1 empty slot in your inventory

 

Its fine for resources, like stone, wood etc... but for survival items it needs to be limited so that raiding, and doing quests you prepare for it and its not just an afterthought, Oh I'm not worried, I have 5000 cornbread, i'm invincible with enough heal over time.

[canadianbluebeer]

Its fine for resources, like stone, wood etc... but for survival items it needs to be limited so that raiding, and doing quests you prepare for it and its not just an afterthought, Oh I'm not worried, I have 5000 cornbread, i'm invincible with enough heal over time.

 

You must really, really like cornbread.

 

Now, if it was 5000 steaks.....

[madmole]

I'm against the base idea as well, but I could see a spear mod being a rope attached to it that would allow you to retrieve it by pressing E after it lands. Could make it so it limits its range in return or something.

 

No thats crazy. Rule # 1 with spears, don't throw your only weapon. Throwing will be more powerful as it is a power attack. But I'd save it for there is only one zombie on screen and he's running at me kind of thing.

[Perlin_Worm]

You get off your ass and go find it. Press E to take.

Hey, I’m down with that. Just expect the inevitable complaint ‘I threw my modded purple spear and it totally disappeared. Fix this crap!’

[madmole]

5000 cornbread.. um.. shudder.

 

Thought the bleeding was/is borked.

 

Just sayin, if the stack sizes are TOO small... of course, there will be threads and arguments over what is the "proper" size.

(just like bag slots, stash/box space, GUN DAMAGE (lol))

 

I don't mind preparation, I rather enjoy it. Gather raw mats. lvl 1 prep (cook foods, make cobblestones, etc).

Can foods, make the blocks/etc.

 

Taking 50 bowls of stew I agree is a tad much. Take 10 cans of stew? better. put 50 cans into storage in the vehicle? even better.

eat stew cold from can, or heat at campfire... hmm.

 

As for annoying, I was talking about just the bandages, not the foods. 10 for bandages is not an unreasonable amt. (the non-first aid ones that is. FA ones, even 5 would be ok. FA kits now... umm.. I'd go with stack of 1 if they were really, really good. (think trauma kit here. bring you back from almost dead)

 

Can't make things TOO difficult too early, ppl do ragequit. Again, what is TOO difficult? umf. dunno. I know I died a buncha times first time I played, and had a blast. (probably why I'm closing in on 1700hrs)

 

Fortunately stack size adjustments are easy enough to fiddle with/patch/mod very very easily to try and get a 'workable' number.

(yes, some will go all over stupid and make ginormous stack sizes. kinda like me generating 100 traders on a map. oops!)

 

I don't think we're too far off. Take your numbers in half maybe on the stew, and 10 bandages is fine, 5 medicated (nerfed in half already) and maybe 2 large med kits (also nerfed in half). These are rough numbers, I need to think about it more and try some things.

[madmole]

Perks in the STR tree to get more healing out of the same food would make sense and serve the same purpose wouldn't it?

 

And probably will. Like physician your healing is much more effective. So for strength it could be the same way. There are schematics for all advanced food recipes so normies can ignore strength.

[Krizzen]

Hey, I’m down with that. Just expect the inevitable complaint ‘I threw my modded purple spear and it totally disappeared. Fix this crap!’

 

This could be cool:

 

"GPS Mod"

 

Shows the location of this item on your map/compass

 

Of course, the only use would be the spear. Losing your gun isn't a thing AFAIK.

[canadianbluebeer]

I don't think we're too far off. Take your numbers in half maybe on the stew, and 10 bandages is fine, 5 medicated (nerfed in half already) and maybe 2 large med kits (also nerfed in half). These are rough numbers, I need to think about it more and try some things.

 

Those kind of numbers work for me. Workable, and diminished sizes but for more gain and/or practicality/rp whatever.

 

Honestly I only mod up things that are just too low (weap damage, but that had hilarious unintended side effects, so I keep it).

 

We do need some drinks that give more hydration/stamina. I don't think anything is currently over 34 (yucca juice), I'd have to check.

So if I need to drink severa jars of water, yeah, I'll want a decent sized stack. Or gimme a recipe to make something better so I only need one or two to get back to max (from a reasonable point. If I let it drop to 50 and am trying to get to 200, well, DUH! I'm gonna need to drink a lake.)

 

ps: I just may make steaks to stacks of 5000 just in your honor. Getting 25,000 meat though, and the time to cook it all...

ok, gonna need a lot of beer for that bbq!

[Odetta]

Lets get it balanced and then talk spoilage. Its not really on my radar, but can be for A19.

 

A hope, a chance.

[Odetta]

The junk turret is not a fixed installation.

It's more comparable to Roland's turret in Borderlands.

 

So you can toss it like a poke'ball?

[Odetta]

Is it a lot of work to be able to change the order in our crafting queues? So instead of having to cancel and then re-crafting we can just push a button to move it to the front of the queue.

 

Example: I'm currently crafting 200 stone arrows but need to repair my stone axe to continue cutting down a tree. I press "repair" to add it to the queue then hover over it to get an option to move it to the front or up one space.

 

Just a QoL thing.

[RestInPieces]

I've often heard from players that they don't farm at all because they have no problems getting meat and eggs and only feed on bacon and eggs. So how is it that farming is responsible that there is an oversupply of food in the game?

 

If farming is targeted but hunting is completely ignored then restrictions in farming are a punishment. I have a box full of meat and I'm not even actively hunting. And every 3 days a box comes sailing from the sky with lots of cans. As you yourself have already noticed, the probability of getting food poisoning is very low.

 

On that I definitely agree - that's why spoilage is needed on top of everything. Farming still just needs an additional small cost to it, but without spoilage nothing is solved. I don't see another way to balance supply VS demand like one could do in a currency-driven economy, because in the case of food supply must always be greater than demand. And if supply is greater than demand the player's food surplus will always keep getting bigger.

 

I think you're confusing 7 Days to die with another game. Hunger has never been relevant longer than 2 days. The main part has always been the horde that shows up every 7 days.

 

I know, and all this content related to food is criminally underused. Farming, hunting, a large part of the loot when scavenging - all of that go to waste when food stops being relevant. And that is also one of the reasons for the popular "zombie grind" complaint, if many other activities become obsolete that early in the game.

[Zaroff]

No thats crazy. Rule # 1 with spears, don't throw your only weapon. Throwing will be more powerful as it is a power attack. But I'd save it for there is only one zombie on screen and he's running at me kind of thing.

 

and when you go to pick it up there should be a 1 second "cast timer" not just instantly pick up. this is to demonstrating the fact you have to rip it out of the flesh and or dislodging it from the ground or environment.

 

Thanks my opinion for making it realistic.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

This could be cool:

 

"GPS Mod"

 

Shows the location of this item on your map/compass

 

Of course, the only use would be the spear. Losing your gun isn't a thing AFAIK.

 

no..... talk about immersion breaking. please don't let that be.

[mr.natural]

I'm not sure food should be hard to find, it punishes new players who don't know what they are doing, and later game its kind of just an annoyance, players move on and want higher level challenges. Like I feel that scrounging for food early game has its place, but as you progress it shouldn't be an issue, but bigger newer challenges, such as bandits.

 

What about tying the availability/quantity of food to game difficulty settings?

[Survager]

This is a reality if you play MP. Good luck finding anything to loot on a busy server thats been running a while. Food spoiling in cans feels really weird. Lets get it balanced and then talk spoilage. Its not really on my radar, but can be for A19. I hope to do some nice balancing for 18's release though.

 

Joel, if you say that you are not against food spoilage, and the whole question is in balance, here are some of my ideas))

 

Raw meat could be stored for 1 day without a refrigerator, 3 days in a refrigerator box, or 5 days in an electric refrigerator.

 

Roasted and boiled meat could be stored for 2 days without a refrigerator, 5 days in a refrigerator box, or 7 days in an electric box.

 

You can add a salty meat recipe that can be stored for a very long time, but using it would add a strong thirst debuff for a few hours, and the character would have to drink water very often.

 

The eggs that we find in the nests could be fresh or spoiled 50/50 and so on.

 

Canned food could be stored indefinitely, and they could be found on any server with any term of life.

 

Canned food could always be bought from a traider, in a vending machine or other player in his vending machine.

 

The price of canned food could be very high due to the long shelf life and complexity of production. Canned food could completely saturate the character.

 

Making canned food can be very difficult and expensive, but it would allow to make stocks in the later stages of the game.

[Zaroff]

I don't think we're too far off. Take your numbers in half maybe on the stew, and 10 bandages is fine, 5 medicated (nerfed in half already) and maybe 2 large med kits (also nerfed in half). These are rough numbers, I need to think about it more and try some things.

 

I like how we're finally talking about properly balancing stack sizes. balance all depends on how much MM wants his game to be realistic or just fun. Because if you were to go full realistic mode then we would be only able to carry 20-50 small stones and 10-25 raw iron chunks before you could not carry anymore let alone carry a 4x4 jeep in your pocket. I myself fully understand that I can't in real life that is carry 20 stacks of 6000 small rocks lol. 7D2D is a survival game that tries to have alot of common sense elements to challenge your character to survive. from my experience of the game it is not an inventory management game, its a game where you are suppose to loot, build, fight, defend and above all survive. If you die your char should lose something permanently that you have to then redo or reattain (another topic but Death needs to be punishing)

 

If you go the full realistic mode for loot stack sizes then you severely diminish the core function of the game and would have to change subtitle to the game. from "The Survival Horde Crafting Game" to "The Survival Inventory Management Game"

 

For example all building materials like rocks, iron, cement, wet cement, gas, lead, brass, and any other raw materials the stack size should all be set at 3k IMO this is to make it uniform while at the same time reduce the amount of material a person could carry as it would demonstrate a "sense of realism" without killing the crafting theme of the game. Also maybe have it to where when you put those items into a storage container the stack size is doubled or tripled? IDK? some other games do this like Empryion and to me that makes perfect sense.

 

this is just an example of just the raw materials. have them at 3k on the person but 6k or 12k even when put in a container

 

hope this is somewhat helpful or insightful. Overall 17.3 is amazing great work TFP!!!

[Roland]

I am for spoilage as much as anyone but Madmole has confirmed that it is not going to happen in Alpha 18. Please continue to discuss it in General Discussions if you wish.

 

 

This is a reality if you play MP. Good luck finding anything to loot on a busy server thats been running a while. Food spoiling in cans feels really weird. Lets get it balanced and then talk spoilage. Its not really on my radar, but can be for A19. I hope to do some nice balancing for 18's release though.

[faatal]

That's true, but we have a lot of items, like cowboy hats, for players to wear. Are those separate meshes? If we ignore for a moment that the artists may say they don't look good together, would it be easy to stick the player cowboy hat on a zombie that doesn't wear a hat?

 

There is a separate cowboy hat model, but that is not what the old timer uses. AFAIK all zombies are a single skinned mesh. The oldtimer definitely is.

 

Players are really going to appreciate an increased range on their lights! My understanding has been that, for a given volume to achieve a given level of illumination, a low number of long-range dynamic lights are more performant than a high number of short-range dynamic lights, because calculating multiple lights per vertex or face is intensive. In other words - and correct me if I'm wrong - players won't need to use as many lights, which is more convenient and better for frame rates.

 

Sorry, that is not a change to light range, but to the distance the player can see the light. Past that distance the light is disabled. That probably broke in A17 due to the addition of light types (flicker, pulse), so distant player lights are adding overhead to the game.

 

In deferred rendering, each light does render into a shadow map. Less lights, but of a longer range does make sense, but they will be even more intense close up, which design may not like.

[faatal]

gfx pp enable 0 works only in 17.3? I was trying that in 17.2 and the command was unknown.

 

Yes, I added in 17.3.