Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Yes you are, I saw the legs and biceps in the team stream interview:boxing2: Glad to hear A18's coming along:applause:

 

Oh no, that was no muscle fat Joel. I'm working hard to change that now, so I can look like this again:

 

[madmole]

Oh, I can agree with that ten fold. It bugs me when I see useless whinning about the lack of something or LBD or whatever. I played Empyrion and OMG the sheer amount of complexity killed all my friends and some of them are still in the Hospital. Sometimes the better gameplay lays in simplicity mixed with some well thought of and rewarding systems. But the whinning must go on. It is like the prayer of the Kraken religion.

 

Lol so true. Simple and deep is our motto.

[DUST2DEATH]

There are a number of possible problems. Collision and stability? Can you spam free instant bullet defenses with these? I imagine collision is set to melee so it can be upgraded? I would like to unify the shape icons and the blueprint blocks solve that.

 

I'd want a contextual upgrade material for the hammer.

 

All I see are solutions that arent thought of yet

[The Gronk]

There are 60 zombies and one player.

 

Ah! Gotcha!

 

You're spawning more zombies if the player uses half-blocks, that's where the balance is :-)

[madmole]

In his defense, even though he is having a tantrum about it, I believe his main issue was the availability of brass in multiplayer games. Not to take his side, but scavenging for brass in a single player game is much lower risk than say a PvP game. I know you already discussed potentially looking at PvP balance in the future so maybe that should be shelved for that eventual discussion. Doubt he saw that much earlier discussion.

 

So at worst leaving your base in a single player game means a run to your backpack. In something like PvP it could mean the end of your base all together that you have been working on for weeks. What is the point of a secure base if not for safety? Sometimes you need to hide from other players. You get a gang of veterans dropping 200 sticks of dynamite on you and it gets tough to loot at times.

 

This just doesn't make any sense. If you are squatting in your base, you don't need ammo. If there are guys camping outside, create mine shafts with multiple exits so you can get out and do your looting that you need to, and give the guys camping outside the slip. As I've said, there is loads of brass. We'll probably allow duke smelting to brass again too, I don't see a problem with it.

[Blake_]

This just doesn't make any sense. If you are squatting in your base, you don't need ammo. If there are guys camping outside, create mine shafts with multiple exits so you can get out and do your looting that you need to, and give the guys camping outside the slip. As I've said, there is loads of brass. We'll probably allow duke smelting to brass again too, I don't see a problem with it.

 

Having duke smelting back will be awesome! Back in the day it was kind of ok. But with the current balance of traders that feature would certainly add a layer of choice to the player: "should I smelt these 5000 dukes or should I save them for that gyro?"

 

BTW. In one of the a18 streams we saw Armor Piercing rounds and Hollow Point ones as well as common ammo.

 

I gather AP will be effective against future armored human npcs and HP would wreck all Zs because of them having no armor.

 

Or are there any armored zombies weak against AP rounds? (military Zs? Demolisher?)

 

How will they work? Does AP do more damage to armor or does it ignore armor altogether?

[DanLW]

Why in Navezgane would you want to lower your game stage?

 

I remember mentioning this a while back. The idea is to make it possible for the game stage to ramp up to the point where the game is impossibly difficult. To mitigate this, players complete quests that would lower the game stage. (Secure a toxic waste dump / kill a local boss zombie / disable some machine that is making the zombies mad, that sort of thing)

 

But since loot is also tied to gamestage, this may not work. Perhaps make completing such quests create a negative modifier to game stage that is used in calculations involving zeds spawns.

[Slingblade2040]

sometimes I wonder why some of you people who complain about loot or difficulty don't just increase or decrease the settings? if you run a server just adjust the files as to how much brass is output by forges or how much ammo is crafted. if you play on a server and complain about those things as to not enough bullets or whatever take it up with the folks who run the server otherwise play solo or get your own MP world setup with your own rules and settings.

 

seriously some of the issues you folks have can be fixed if you do it yourself with the in game settings or simple edits to the xml.

[Crater Creator]

Also i heard something in the video the lads did last week about a weekend experimental ?!?

 

No, you did not.

[Crater Creator]

If you got rid of the predetermined animations and moved the zombies with ragdoll arms (head etc) that alone would make them look radical and varied.

 

That is a pretty radical solution. I suspect you couldn't dial in the arms to look good. They’d either all hang lifelessly, which doesn’t give you variation, or they’d swing wildly from errantly brushing against blocks, other zombies, or the zombie’s own body. And heads are hard enough to hit without them flopping around even more.

 

However, I think parts of the body going ragdoll would be a great way to react to a melee strike. Not just in 7DtD, but in games in general, I’m so tired of seeing my melee weapon arc straight through an enemy's torso without even slowing down, and while the enemy may play an animation like they got smacked, their body somehow wasn't severed in two. If parts of their body were forcefully flung away from the impact for a second, it would go a long way to making the hit feel weighty.

[Roland]

sometimes I wonder why some of you people who complain about loot or difficulty don't just increase or decrease the settings? if you run a server just adjust the files as to how much brass is output by forges or how much ammo is crafted. if you play on a server and complain about those things as to not enough bullets or whatever take it up with the folks who run the server otherwise play solo or get your own MP world setup with your own rules and settings.

 

seriously some of the issues you folks have can be fixed if you do it yourself with the in game settings or simple edits to the xml.

 

When speaking in madmolish it goes like this:

 

“Get off your ass and do it!”

[Crater Creator]

...What is left in the game you consider a "survival" aspect of game play? Food/water? Non issues currently. Heat/cold? Non issues currently. I understand at least some things may change still but the trend is to "simplify" game play.

 

Survival ≠ complexity. I absolutely want to remember that this is a survival game, and hang onto and enhance the survival elements we have. But I just don’t view "Oops, I made too many corner blocks" as being a survival mechanic in the first place.

[Crater Creator]

I wonder if the functionality for RWG caves has been left in and could be manipulated with modding.

 

I'd also like to ask the programmers what state the cave code is in currently. On a technical level, what will it take to bring caves back, on a scale from 'uncomment a block of code' to 'rewrite the whole thing from scratch'?

[OzHawkeye]

I'd also like to ask the programmers what state the cave code is in currently. On a technical level, what will it take to bring caves back, on a scale from 'uncomment a block of code' to 'rewrite the whole thing from scratch'?

 

Ditto. Caves are my #1 most-missed-mechanic-from-yesteryear, and one of the main reasons I keep an old A11 game going every now and then.

 

I'd love to see their return, and isolate ores to them.

[Gnomaana]

Survival ≠ complexity. I absolutely want to remember that this is a survival game, and hang onto and enhance the survival elements we have. But I just don’t view "Oops, I made too many corner blocks" as being a survival mechanic in the first place.

 

I didn't say building was a survival aspect. I was comparing this change to building to the changes made to the survival aspects.

No, Survival doesn't equal complexity. But too simple gets boring quick. I just think the survival, and now the building, aspects are taking a back seat to the FPS portion of the game. Like I said. I've gotten my money's worth from the game already so I'm not overly upset. But I do wish the rush to simplicity would at least slow down.

[chikorina]

Oh no, that was no muscle fat Joel. I'm working hard to change that now, so I can look like this again:

 

 

I wouldn't want to come face to face with a giant madmole like that while mining:cower:

[Gazz]

In his defense, even though he is having a tantrum about it, I believe his main issue was the availability of brass in multiplayer games. Not to take his side, but scavenging for brass in a single player game is much lower risk than say a PvP game. I know you already discussed potentially looking at PvP balance in the future so maybe that should be shelved for that eventual discussion.

PVP players want higher risk, no? =P

 

 

Oh, I can agree with that ten fold. It bugs me when I see useless whining about the lack of something or LBD or whatever. I played Empyrion and OMG the sheer amount of complexity killed all my friends and some of them are still in the Hospital.

Now I like Empyrion but I have never seen it as a very complex game.

There is all the vehicle and space ship building but it's 98% vanity because a blob with engines perfectly does the job.

The ailments/cures system is super complicated indeed. In most cases I can't be arsed to even figure out how to craft the special medicine that I need out of the 20 or so that there are. Just keep a spawn point nearby.

[Endy Gainer]

...you kinda did. It's okay, cats out of the bag, no biggie. =)

 

"""" (( We will improve them in the sequel, )) we can't constantly redo everything, we aren't a AAA studio. Programming is always making movement and behavior improvements and blending could be improved yet though """"

 

Wanting to make a sequel does not equal that their next game IS the sequel. Both of your arguments are invalid.

[madmole]

Having duke smelting back will be awesome! Back in the day it was kind of ok. But with the current balance of traders that feature would certainly add a layer of choice to the player: "should I smelt these 5000 dukes or should I save them for that gyro?"

 

BTW. In one of the a18 streams we saw Armor Piercing rounds and Hollow Point ones as well as common ammo.

 

I gather AP will be effective against future armored human npcs and HP would wreck all Zs because of them having no armor.

 

Or are there any armored zombies weak against AP rounds? (military Zs? Demolisher?)

 

How will they work? Does AP do more damage to armor or does it ignore armor altogether?

 

There are some armored zeds now, bikers, military zeds, etc. It reduces how effective their armor is.

[Crater Creator]

Its a bunch of work for no return, so no. I see the base as a binary on or off position. A block is there its 1, if not its 0. Adding some .1's for railings and .5's for half blocks doesn't make the game any better and makes balancing a nightmare. Zombies target weaker blocks so suddenly they go for railings instead of walls and it would look dumb.

 

It would??

 

You and The Gronk act like the problem with them going for weaker shapes is obvious, but I don't know to what you're referring.

 

So this screenshot shows things working as intended. This is what you wanted. This is what you hired an AI programmer to give you.

 

And this screenshot shows things working as intended. This is what you wanted. This is what you hired an AI programmer to give you.

 

But this would be a weird exploit that looks dumb?!

 

To reiterate, I get the argument that it would be a lot of work (though less work now that you can make a change to all blocks of a certain shape using xpath syntax). I don't get the argument that the game would be worse for having the feature.

[Crater Creator]

And that slim bar still take up the space of a full block when building. The reason all block shape have same hp is that this is a game. As gamer, we will use every advantage we can get to win the game. So what does that mean? Cube steel bases everywhere. Why would I build a nice looking base that only have 50% hp of a steel cube base? So then why bother having any other shape?

 

There are plenty of reasons to use other shapes besides wanting a pretty house.

• Because having to jump up cube blocks is more awkward than stairs, ramps, or ladders.
  
• Because cube blocks suck for making good sight lines to shoot out from your windows.
  
• Because you want to stand/crouch at the perfect height for your preferred weapon.
  
• Because sometimes you want to smooth over transitions with terrain so zombies don’t get hung up on things.
  
• Because you haven't progressed enough to do your whole base in the very best material/shape before horde night comes around.
  
• Because you need to reserve some material for other uses, like traps and ammo.
  

[Crater Creator]

Dying lowers the game stage already so this pressure you talk of is relieved upon death.

 

That's certainly true. However, that's an adjustment following failure. I can see how it would feel more proactive, more like an accomplishment if you got off your ass and did a really hard quest to 'deplete the local zombie population' for a while.

[Odetta]

I'd also like to ask the programmers what state the cave code is in currently. On a technical level, what will it take to bring caves back, on a scale from 'uncomment a block of code' to 'rewrite the whole thing from scratch'?

 

I know funk all about modding but could you at least make a gigantic POI cave or caves? I know it's not procedural but at least it would be something, like diet Coke.

 

When I say gigantic I mean spanning a whole city with multiple entrances and such. Like I said I know nothing

[Odetta]

 

2:05:40 mark in Prime's video.

 

You can thank me later

 

I believe he means the "Streamer Preview Weekend" before public release. Where streamers get to play 2 days early before the rest of us can.

 

Or they are talking about the pimps playing an experimental weekend(s).

[Crater Creator]

I think we can [award XP for landmine kills], its not fair to the demolition guy.

 

It would be cool if you can. But I thought tracking the owner for an arbitrarily large number of landmine blocks was a problem.