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Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!


madmole

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!  

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  1. 1. Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

    • A18 Stable is Out!
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I kind of stopped reading a bit after the "death had serious consequences". Hard to take that seriously. Wellness as a concept had merit - however, no, its implementation didn't make death consequential in no way - in fact, death was beneficial.

 

Minimum was not 50/50, it was 70/70 and 120/120 with perks which were easily acquired. 120 health was more than enough in the highest difficulties and 120 stamina didn't hinder you in the least in your activities.

 

So:

-Being killed was more of a positive thing than it was negative, as it did reset status that might actually hinder you and you being teleported was more convenient than inconvenient for the majority of the situations.

-The point of wellness was to make you harder to kill - that was all it offered. In my mind however, you could not increase your lowest wellness under 100.

-Since being killed was not really something negative and wellness made you harder to kill, wellness was rather meaningless.

 

Which is why it was scrapped. If low wellness was connected with a death penalty and status didn't reset, only then would we be able to talk about consequences. And adding more kinds of caps won't make any difference.

 

 

Please make sure that zombies are faster than player sprint in the nightmare speed setting! It will be a great option for players who want zombies to be unavoidable in certain situations!

 

I do agree, that i some cases, like when you are in base and have for example broken leg, killing yourself when you were on bottom of wellness made sense. However, I dont really focus in my ideas on the death penalty. Maybe you should actually read what I write before jumping to conclusions.

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Some of our testers have had difficulty finding enough food or a cooking pot, and Rick who's not so fluent in the game got in the death loop on our MP game. He had no food or stamina to try and get any. It's a fine line between easy and frustrating depending on the sheer random factors this game has. Food is no problem if you are an adventurous type. Spend a few hours mining and building and your reserves dry up very fast.

 

The base gamelevel should have potential new players in mind, so I agree on these thoughts. We have game difficulty settings to accomodate the long term players. Good point, mole

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I do agree, that i some cases, like when you are in base and have for example broken leg, killing yourself when you were on bottom of wellness made sense. However, I dont really focus in my ideas on the death penalty. Maybe you should actually read what I write before jumping to conclusions.

 

Maybe you should try pointing out which conclusion I jumped to, that didn't do justice to what you wrote.

 

Or was the following a product of my imagination?

I feel, that the wellnes system that was implemented before perks - you would increase it by eating high quality food, lose on death - was pretty good. Death had serious consequences. However, biggest problem was, that you could end up with 50hp 50stam, which for people that died a lot was big deterrence.
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SURVIVAL: PVP

 

if you want true survival join a pvp server. There is no better feel for the game knowing at any giving moment you can take someone's stuff or have yours taken. It really doesn't matter what they do in a18 they are not taking away the pvp aspect side of the game that is all that matters, as long as players have the ability to kill each other "true survival" well always be there.

 

 

While PvE players are trying to contend with just killing zombies | PvP players are doing the same plus dealing with other players. Makes a huge difference in survival.

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Some of our testers have had difficulty finding enough food or a cooking pot, and Rick who's not so fluent in the game got in the death loop on our MP game. He had no food or stamina to try and get any. It's a fine line between easy and frustrating depending on the sheer random factors this game has. Food is no problem if you are an adventurous type. Spend a few hours mining and building and your reserves dry up very fast.

 

How about giving a method out of the death spiral that just takes A LOT OF time?

 

For example:

Resting on your own bedroll doing absolutely nothing (not even crafting) gives back stamina and max health, but that regeneration either starts only after 8 hours of this or starts from zero and increases very slowly.

 

You would get the buff immediately when on your bedroll (and the description of the buff would explain what happens). The journal also could give a hint that if you get into this situation that you could do this for the price of wasting a lot of time.

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SURVIVAL: PVP

 

if you want true survival join a pvp server. There is no better feel for the game knowing at any giving moment you can take someone's stuff or have yours taken. It really doesn't matter what they do in a18 they are not taking away the pvp aspect side of the game that is all that matters, as long as players have the ability to kill each other "true survival" well always be there.

 

 

While PvE players are trying to contend with just killing zombies | PvP players are doing the same plus dealing with other players. Makes a huge difference in survival.

 

It really doesn't matter how much you praise PvP, I'm happy that it exists for you but I will never do it. Too many cheaters AND too many young people around with too good reflexes, a better resolution on their $500 GPU and eagle eyes, that I would just be cannon fodder. There is no way to play on equal footing. I get it that you need more easy victims around, but no thanks :cocksure:

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It really doesn't matter how much you praise PvP, I'm happy that it exists for you but I will never do it. Too many cheaters AND too many young people around with too good reflexes, a better resolution on their $500 GPU and eagle eyes, that I would just be cannon fodder. There is no way to play on equal footing. I get it that you need more easy victims around, but no thanks :cocksure:

 

I think Pimps will take care of people like us by keep improving balance, adding more weapons and stuff.

 

..by taking care I mean improving our experience, not evaporation. :)

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I think Pimps will take care of people like us by keep improving balance, adding more weapons and stuff.

 

..by taking care I mean improving our experience, not evaporation. :)

 

yup... good things getter better with age... i just wished i was one of them :(

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The matter of diseases & debuffs

 

Nothing else to do on the forums besides wait for another video and come up with Ideas so...:fat:

 

Diseases/Debuffs can be group by category:

- Combat

- Food

- Weather

- Environmental

 

Each will have a way to cure besides waiting it out, that way you can be proactive about getting better instead of passive. Some you can wait it out if you have no choice, cause choice = good gameplay.

 

1. Combat - Broken legs, infection, broken arms, concussions, bleed, ragdoll dizzy effect, internal hemorrhage, broken ribs stamina debuff, gut punch nausea effect; vomit food loss of max stamina, poisoning, rabies, gunshot wound, burns.

 

2. Food - Tapeworm; less effective food debuff, food poisoning, vomiting, dysentery to cholera, listeria; slow attack/mining/reloading debuff, hepatitis A; slashes your max stamina and health by half, alcohol poisoning.

 

3. Weather - cold to flu to pneumonia, hypothermia, heat cramp, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, hyperthermia, heat rash, sunburn, frost bite.

 

4. Environmental - broken legs from fall, knockout/concussion from stuff falling on your head, bleed; shrapnel from explosions, typoid fever from swimming while in a weakened state, chemical flu from toxic fumes/chemicals, burns, shocks, radiation.

 

Just spit balling here, these effects should all be preventable and balanced so as not to become annoying (bleed right now, stun lock A16). Most importantly is that you can cure yourself with items/activities/environments. Some diseases will get worse overtime and some will cure themselves but take along time, so it'd be in the players best interest to be proactive.

 

Also I'm not saying we need all these, these just some ideas on the subject.

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7 Days to Die as a Survival Game

 

Player vs zombies

Mostly good.

 

Player vs hunger

Too quickly resolved. Food should be resolvable so that you aren’t fighting it the entire game but there should be some progression to successful food preservation.

 

Player vs thirst

Way too quickly resolved. We should be drinking murky and radiated water at first and dealing with the consequences. 100% pure water should take some progression to achieve. Simply boiling water or snow in a can or pot shouldn’t give us 100% pure water.

 

Player vs exhaustion.

There is some stamina management but it was much better from a survival game perspective in 17.0. Now it is more on the arcade end of the spectrum which is probably more fun for those not looking for a survival simulator.

 

Player vs illness

Broken currently.

 

Player vs bandits

Not implemented yet

 

Player vs wildlife

Good. I’d like to see the aggressive non-zombie animals flee after being wounded to a certain point so it’s not just meals on wheels. Go hunt that wounded bear down.

 

Player vs elements

Partially functioning. I’d like to see a more dramatic buff from standing next to a burning campfire.

 

Player vs sleep deprivation

No intention of implementing as far as I know.

 

Player vs mental health

No intention of implementing as far as I know.

 

Player vs other players

Online experience may vary....

 

Death Penalty

Really just needs a death is death option. In a survival game dying should be that you lost that game. Having it be player choice is not as thrilling as knowing the save will be deleted if you die no matter what.

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7 Days to Die as a Survival Game ,,,

 

Excellent summary Roland. Couldn't list these aspects in a more concise way.

 

I think that improvements in the survival side of the game would inherently improve the others. Building and tower defense aspects become more fulfilling knowing that not only have you survived, you did so while building your safety and while defending it.

 

It sounds like A18 will be mostly about improving combat with the weapons, the perks, the books, the glancing blows. Nothing wrong with that, but with all these goodies, I suspect the survival aspect of the game will be weakened.

 

Maybe after seeing A18 in play, A19 will be more focused on survival. I think what I would do is turn off all of the offensive threats and see if the game as any playability as pure survival.

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The matter of diseases & debuffs

 

Nothing else to do on the forums besides wait for another video and come up with Ideas so...:fat:

 

Diseases/Debuffs can be group by category:

- Combat

- Food

- Weather

- Environmental

 

Each will have a way to cure besides waiting it out, that way you can be proactive about getting better instead of passive. Some you can wait it out if you have no choice, cause choice = good gameplay.

 

1. Combat - Broken legs, infection, broken arms, concussions, bleed, ragdoll dizzy effect, internal hemorrhage, broken ribs stamina debuff, gut punch nausea effect; vomit food loss of max stamina, poisoning, rabies, gunshot wound, burns.

 

2. Food - Tapeworm; less effective food debuff, food poisoning, vomiting, dysentery to cholera, listeria; slow attack/mining/reloading debuff, hepatitis A; slashes your max stamina and health by half, alcohol poisoning.

 

3. Weather - cold to flu to pneumonia, hypothermia, heat cramp, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, hyperthermia, heat rash, sunburn, frost bite.

 

4. Environmental - broken legs from fall, knockout/concussion from stuff falling on your head, bleed; shrapnel from explosions, typoid fever from swimming while in a weakened state, chemical flu from toxic fumes/chemicals, burns, shocks, radiation.

 

Just spit balling here, these effects should all be preventable and balanced so as not to become annoying (bleed right now, stun lock A16). Most importantly is that you can cure yourself with items/activities/environments. Some diseases will get worse overtime and some will cure themselves but take along time, so it'd be in the players best interest to be proactive.

 

Also I'm not saying we need all these, these just some ideas on the subject.

 

These are good suggestions, I think most of these could be easily added in with mods and thus also by the Fun Pimps if they wanted to. But probably all of them will go to far for them for sure, still I hope the base game will get some of this, especially more environmental ones. Just getting overheat and then getting a drink to fix will not do, if you keep out in the sun you should feel it, but also should be able to take measures.

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As we all know its not yet. Once the tech allows that I could see a hl2 style shotty reload working. We've taken a lot of the steps needed for this to happen but we need to resolve ability to abort a reload yet on all weapons.

 

If the SPAS-12 gets to become the legendary shotgun, then we will really have some HL2 style gameplay. :p

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If the SPAS-12 gets to become the legendary shotgun, then we will really have some HL2 style gameplay. :p

 

I thought that the Street sweeper was cool due to the drum. Until I saw a video on it and changed my mind.

 

After seeing a video on the SPAS-12, I can see why you like it.

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I haven't read all 500+ pages, so I suspect I won't be saying anything new, but I wanted to respond to one new feature in particular and the rest came along for the ride:

 

I'll get the key feature I react to over with first - Dynamic music. As long as I can turn volume to down to "0" I won't complain. I really really like the ambiance of the game now with it's natural sounds. I don't even mind the brief morning and night sound cues. However, I find the natural sounds way more immersive than any musical score could be. Way more.

 

Looking at info on the re-re-do of the perk system, I'm personally disappointed. I liked the current version just fine. It made more sense. Additionally, I'm not sure why you guys want to keep reinventing one game mechanic rather than expanding the game and it's features.

 

But there are things I'm looking forward to like the books and new environmental art.

 

The jury is out on the demolisher zombie, since I foresee getting demolished by them many times. Yeah, I may come to loath them even!

 

I know you all are working hard. Some of it I'll appreciate more than other parts, but people's priorities vary.

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7 Days to Die as a Survival Game

 

Death Penalty

Really just needs a death is death option. In a survival game dying should be that you lost that game. Having it be player choice is not as thrilling as knowing the save will be deleted if you die no matter what.

 

I like what the Darkness Falls mod did with death, both HP & Stamina are maxed at 50 until the debuff runs out (like 30 minutes real time). Makes death an actual pain in the....

The death is death is only a matter for multiplayer servers because single player all you have to do is restart, maybe once they get into addressing pvp ect..they'll look at something like that? lol

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