Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Aldranon]

Madmole: Day 84...

 

Hoo-lee-sheet Batman! I was nervous just watching!

 

I have to say the the blade traps seem to be the new solid defensive item to have. That one on the right took down more zombies than I remember, are A18 blade traps lethality boosted?

 

With the expenditure of ammo, I'm sure you were just hamming it up a bit to make things exciting (it worked!). But if I had to spend a weeks worth of ammo for BM, then it would be time for other methods.

 

Other methods:

- Dart traps: Damage also seems boosted as well, I think your Gyro-copter can support me on that statement.

- Blade traps: If I can, eventually, make all the parts in A18, then they could be the go-to item.

 

The new "non-gimmicky" meta for BM defense? Maybe, but I'm not giving up big walls ether.

[Guppycur]

Oh we're doing this?

 

Blade traps should be hung from ceilings so they chop heads; they don't get destroyed as quickly.

 

Use turrets on the far perimeter of your base facing in. Especially shotty turrets because they will stun cops and prevent them from puking.

 

Build a frikkin' cage for the vultures.

[Blake_]

I survived, it was so much fun who cares. I'll be working on my base and grinding ammo for the next horde.

 

Edit: I'm talking about the current a18 stacks of 100 and 200 bullets and the inventory clutter and the boxes's usefulness regarding the subject.

 

Yeaah... about that... why the nerf on ammo stack? The big stack should be 5 boxes for example , with a total of 2500 bullets, that's 500 per small stack as it was. 1250 for shotties. That's cool.

 

The nerf is not, and you are starting to feel it. Let it be at what it was and gameplay will still be dangerous and fun. KIAIWL: Keep It As It Was Lol.

 

I appreciate your tendency to cripple gameplay by making the player endure and suffer to get to a normal level, because it gives you insight into the extremes and allows you to find the sweetspot in balance.

I'm telling you this might be one of those a17 situations with many detractors.

 

Even if bullet boxes stack at a lot, it still is an arguably annoying overthinked nerf.

 

Otherwise, the video was, in my opinion, a lot of fun to watch because of you and the wonder of a18.

[wolfbain5]

ok, fun video. good use of the blade traps and that is a tough character build you got.

1 the dart traps are used wrong, first you used the motion sensor, which starts them firing even if they cant hit anything. Would be nice if we could adjust the area on the sensor.

2, you placed the dart traps in your firing range. they shoulda been 1 down shooting through the ramps.

a trick I learned, aim an autoturret up, so it only hits the sky and will only target the buzzards.

[Aldranon]

Oh we're doing this?

 

Blade traps should be hung from ceilings so they chop heads; they don't get destroyed as quickly.

 

Use turrets on the far perimeter of your base facing in. Especially shotty turrets because they will stun cops and prevent them from puking.

 

Build a frikkin' cage for the vultures.

 

With the number of puke'n vultures, I'm not sure if a cage the good idea anymore. I would say solid roofs are the thing in A18.

 

Shotgun turret on one side of the door would have been the thing. Not sure if 1 or 2 (edit: Maybe 3-4 with the demo guys) meters away would be the best. Risk-Reward thing.

[Pille]

It’s a reason because:

 

A) you can play dungeon POIs like non dungeon POIs by breaking in through a window or door (like we used to) and loot a few rooms and move on. Fast, easy, old feeling.

 

B) you cannot play a non dungeon POI like it is a dungeon POI. Can’t be done.

 

Therefore

 

C) it’s better to have more A so that discerning players have more freedom to play as either A or B.

 

You cannot play dungeon POIs like non dungeon POIs or vice versa. Just because you can destroy obstacles doesn't make them similar to regular prefabs. They have significant differences in gameplay. For instance, the dungeons are full of traps and jump scare sleepers. You won't get a similar experience even if you use your imagination to ignore the elephant in the room called obviously intended path. I bet if you have two unknown prefabs, a dungeon and a non-dungeon POI, most players can still easily recognize their 'true' nature, even if they try to treat both prefabs as non-linear.

 

 

 

Not so. If it is day one and I really just need a cooking pot I can find and loot the kitchens of 3-4 dungeon style homes by going directly for the kitchen. In a real survival situation if I could see the kitchen through the kitchen window and had the means to bust out the window that’s what I would do even if there is an opening into a sketchy basement on the other side of the house. I know this because I do it all the time. I don’t treat the POIs as linear and so they don’t feel linear to me. I always take the path I want and once I have a sledgehammer I really could care less about the lighted path. Sometimes I follow that and sometimes I take down the barricades and go a different way. It is immensely fun.

 

Not sure what the essence of this statement is. To me it sound like 'prefabs don't need a believable design because bad design can be ignored due to the voxel technique of the game'. Btw. how often do we look for cooking pots? Once per game? Your play-style reminds me of an old thread where you suggested to fake LBD by distributing perk points according to the exercised activities. Isn't that a similar situation or at least related to it? Trying to invent your own fantasy rules to make the game fun.

 

It is immensely fun.

Thank for adding this at the end. I was wondering what this tedious egg and spoon race you described was for until I read that sentence.

[madmole]

What regular POI takes half a day to clear out?

 

A major issue in MP is many people nerdpole straight to where the good loot is, whether it's on the roof or in an attic space, so when you go through the POI you get to the end just to find out the good stuff is already gone. Any fixes on that? Maybe spread the loot out a bit more evenly throughout the POI?

 

The payoff at the end was a good idea, but people circumvented that right off the bat.

 

Any two story house is going to eat half your day with all the winding blocked off pathways, especially early game with stone axe and a crude melee weapon and limited ammo bare bones perks.

 

Any stealth player will spend much longer creeping through a POI.

 

We have no solution in A18 for nerdpolling loot grabs, we're talking about some solutions for 19.

[madmole]

Madmole: Day 84...

 

Hoo-lee-sheet Batman! I was nervous just watching!

 

I have to say the the blade traps seem to be the new solid defensive item to have. That one on the right took down more zombies than I remember, are A18 blade traps lethality boosted?

 

With the expenditure of ammo, I'm sure you were just hamming it up a bit to make things exciting (it worked!). But if I had to spend a weeks worth of ammo for BM, then it would be time for other methods.

 

Other methods:

- Dart traps: Damage also seems boosted as well, I think your Gyro-copter can support me on that statement.

- Blade traps: If I can, eventually, make all the parts in A18, then they could be the go-to item.

 

The new "non-gimmicky" meta for BM defense? Maybe, but I'm not giving up big walls ether.

 

Maybe, getting them to run into them is tricky, if you watch the day 77 video they didn't do as much. No I literally thought I had enough ammo, demolishers do about 500 damage a hit, buffed by friends 1000 or more, so I was scared as hell they would waste my base if I didn't unload everything I had right then and there into them.

 

Its possible, I didn't do it though, this is my first go at traps. I remember some discussion on the dart traps sucking so I approved whatever to make them un suck.

[madmole]

Oh we're doing this?

 

Blade traps should be hung from ceilings so they chop heads; they don't get destroyed as quickly.

 

Use turrets on the far perimeter of your base facing in. Especially shotty turrets because they will stun cops and prevent them from puking.

 

Build a frikkin' cage for the vultures.

 

I have about 2 hours of late game experience and they are on film, and I never watch youtubers or read the strategy guides. If I were anything but a fort build I would invest in such things, but as you can tell I did just fine.

[madmole]

Edit: I'm talking about the current a18 stacks of 100 and 200 bullets and the inventory clutter and the boxes's usefulness regarding the subject.

 

Yeaah... about that... why the nerf on ammo stack? The big stack should be 5 boxes for example , with a total of 2500 bullets, that's 500 per small stack as it was. 1250 for shotties. That's cool.

 

The nerf is not, and you are starting to feel it. Let it be at what it was and gameplay will still be dangerous and fun. KIAIWL: Keep It As It Was Lol.

 

I appreciate your tendency to cripple gameplay by making the player endure and suffer to get to a normal level, because it gives you insight into the extremes and allows you to find the sweetspot in balance.

I'm telling you this might be one of those a17 situations with many detractors.

 

Even if bullet boxes stack at a lot, it still is an arguably annoying overthinked nerf.

 

Otherwise, the video was, in my opinion, a lot of fun to watch because of you and the wonder of a18.

 

Sorry bro, the old stack sizes had 2 minutes of thought put into them and were not fitting for a survival game. Packing your bag now takes thought and care, and if you want endless ammo you sacrifice loot space. The game is better for it.

[madmole]

ok, fun video. good use of the blade traps and that is a tough character build you got.

1 the dart traps are used wrong, first you used the motion sensor, which starts them firing even if they cant hit anything. Would be nice if we could adjust the area on the sensor.

2, you placed the dart traps in your firing range. they shoulda been 1 down shooting through the ramps.

a trick I learned, aim an autoturret up, so it only hits the sky and will only target the buzzards.

 

It was my first go at using them ever, so it is what it is. I literally started on it this morning should have been grinding more ammo, but I learned some stuff. I thought I would move the camera back to a shaft so it can only pick up someone right in front of the box next time, or make a stair case of trigger pads they can walk on instead, but again, all I could do in one game day and zero experience using them.

 

2, not sure what you mean. How do they shoot vultures? What triggers it to shoot?

[Aldranon]

You cannot play dungeon POIs like non dungeon POIs or vice versa. Just because you can destroy obstacles doesn't make them similar to regular prefabs. They have significant differences in the gameplay. For instance, the dungeons are full of traps and jump scare sleepers. You won't get a similar experience even if you use your imagination to ignore the elephant in the room called obviously intended path. I bet if you have two unknown prefabs, a dungeon and a non-dungeon POI, most players can still recognize their 'true' nature, even if they try to treat both prefabs as non-linear.

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure what the essence of this statement is. To me it sound like 'prefabs don't need a believable design because bad design can be ignored due to the voxel technique of the game'. Btw. how often do we look for cooking pots? Once per game? Your play-style reminds me of an old thread where you suggested to fake LBD by distributing perk points according to the exercised activities. Isn't that a similar situation? Trying to invent your own fantasy rules to make the game fun.

 

I feel your pain, but are you being willfully obtuse?

 

In a perfect game world with a perfect computer and a perfect graphics engine. I'm almost positive TFP would chose large numbers of zombies creating the threat over having to resort to "jump scare" tactics all the time.

 

Its, of course the less than perfect method, but having a few sleeping zombies to head-shoot and quickly loot the place is even less of an exciting prospect.

 

I'm hoping TFP dump the current graphics engine for something much better, but for 7D2D part2, they will.

[madmole]

With the number of puke'n vultures, I'm not sure if a cage the good idea anymore. I would say solid roofs are the thing in A18.

 

Shotgun turret on one side of the door would have been the thing. Not sure if 1 or 2 (edit: Maybe 3-4 with the demo guys) meters away would be the best. Risk-Reward thing.

 

I can't craft shotgun turrets. Leveling is slow and its unlikely I will ever get that. I found the smg recipe but only one smg 80 hours in, so I have one of those

[wolfbain5]

It was my first go at using them ever, so it is what it is. I literally started on it this morning should have been grinding more ammo, but I learned some stuff. I thought I would move the camera back to a shaft so it can only pick up someone right in front of the box next time, or make a stair case of trigger pads they can walk on instead, but again, all I could do in one game day and zero experience using them.

 

2, not sure what you mean. How do they shoot vultures? What triggers it to shoot?

 

autoturrets just shoot at what they see. so limit what they see by using the camera section to direct it upwards into the sky. that way all the turrets camera sees is the vultures. doesnt waste ammo that way, and keeps the buzzards off your back

 

for dart traps, pressure plates is the way to go, but some have complained that too many pressure plates can cause lag. in SP I have not experienced this.

 

edit: for future use, can we get a zoom in and zoom out for the camera on the turrets and motion sensor?

[Mylo]

Joel, can i ask you a question.

While watching your videos, i noticed, that nail gun has grey durability line and no quality tier. So it means that in A18 nailgun will be a default repairing item with no quality, tier and also unmoddable or it is like for testing?

Thanks in advance.

[Pille]

I feel your pain, but are you being willfully obtuse?

 

In a perfect game world with a perfect computer and a perfect graphics engine. I'm almost positive TFP would chose large numbers of zombies creating the threat over having to resort to "jump scare" tactics all the time.

 

Its, of course the less than perfect method, but having a few sleeping zombies to head-shoot and quickly loot the place is even less of an exciting prospect.

 

I'm hoping TFP dump the current graphics engine for something much better, but for 7D2D part2, they will.

 

Spamming jump scares and spamming zombies are not the only ways to kill looting players. So it looks a bit lazy to me or they're waiting for better gameplay mechanics to make prefabs more existing. Having more control over the sleeper spawns could be enough to make them better.

 

Its, of course the less than perfect method, but having a few sleeping zombies to head-shoot and quickly loot the place is even less of an exciting prospect.

That would be less tedious and identically exciting.^^ The jump scares are highly predictable, so I don't see their value...

[MechanicalLens]

I'm just curious, has anything to do with treasure maps/treasures changed in A18?

[Aldranon]

Spamming jump scares and spamming zombies are not the only ways to kill looting players. So it looks a bit lazy to me or they're waiting for better gameplay mechanics to make prefabs more existing. Having more control over the sleeper spawns could be enough to make them better.

 

 

That would be less tedious and identically exciting.^^

 

 

Who? TFP with some code or the player having more control of sleeper behavior in some game setting?

-How "deep" are the zombies sleeping.

-Do "Reinforcement" zombies come from outside the POI. What are the chances of reinforcements and is/are there various triggers (gunshot, zombie scream, ect)

 

Something like that? I think TFP have the skills to do that easy enough.

[Blake_]

Sorry bro, the old stack sizes had 2 minutes of thought put into them and were not fitting for a survival game. Packing your bag now takes thought and care, and if you want endless ammo you sacrifice loot space. The game is better for it.

Thought and care. And boxes to go. A little more complexity and no inventory saving because now you have boxes + bullet stack going into a T5 POI making that 2 slots. And added time to unpack a stack every 10 zds because of the decreased size.

 

I still don't feel the fun. You say It works and there you were with almost a full inventory when you always work towards a lighter one.

 

May I suggest a similar design ? Reducing gas stack to 120 and allow gas boxes/barrels to be a thing to pack gas. 😁 Good stuff -_-.

 

I will leave this at that. Maybe it plays better.

I can clearly perceive the only thing that this design creates is possibly? Probably? Maybe? A little more depth in the tough survival aspect of the game resulting in annoyance when you achieve late game.

 

But then again late game is always a fight for bullets so it wouldn't really be much of a problem.

 

There's a game on Steam called "Subsistence". It's a survival game that does some mechanics like this one among other questionable ones. It's a chore, but somehow generates a brief and mild acomplishment .

[Guppycur]

I have about 2 hours of late game experience and they are on film, and I never watch youtubers or read the strategy guides. If I were anything but a fort build I would invest in such things, but as you can tell I did just fine.

 

Yeh and that actually concerns me... are late game players with thousands of late game hours going to have a challenge? I know for game design/business purposes you have to cater difficulty to a certain demographic, but day 84 is no joke, should be past the days any "casual" plays, and you took it like it was cake. You were getting beat on pretty hard and were going through bandages yes, but it wasn't always necessary.

 

Yes you had some "oh poop" moments but overall it was a pretty successful night for you.

 

/asking for a friend, I suck at this game.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

2, not sure what you mean. How do they shoot vultures? What triggers it to shoot?

 

If they're aimed upward, pretty much only vultures will be up there TO shoot. You can pre-aim the turrets after placing and powering them.

[DaVegaNL]

A fellow brother in hatred for mobile devices... Nice.

 

Are you at your stage in life yet where you're yelling at kids to get of your lawn?

[Hek Harris]

Enjoy!!!!

 

Check out madmole defend his base on day 84 for some super crazy action, and get a first look at the demolisher zombie!

 

 

#7DaysToDie

 

Love it ! "Oh ♥♥♥♥ Oh my God !!" should be the new name of the game

[DaVegaNL]

I don't think this game needs a higher percentage of dungeon-style POI's. They feel quite alike as it, with the same mechanics employed (zombie on planks overhead, zombies in thin-shelled closets, walking into a building and having the floor give way underneath you.. It's all the same. It can grow pretty old pretty fast. So we don't need more of the same, in my opinion.

[Zombiepoptard]

I want to do a fortified build because I like to grow food and get health regen but I would like to craft shotguns too as my main weapon. Is it worth it to spec into strength just to get or lvl up my preferred weapon? If not I would change how leveling up a weapon perk works. If it's a perk tied to a weapon make it so that you don't have to lvl an attribute but use more skill points to level up said weapon perk.

 

If your weapon perks are going to change the way you craft and do combat with that weapon then I suggest having the player have more flexibility for such a huge decision. Locking weapons behind classes is an unnecessary player restriction.

[Roland]

You cannot play dungeon POIs like non dungeon POIs or vice versa. Just because you can destroy obstacles doesn't make them similar to regular prefabs. They have significant differences in gameplay. For instance, the dungeons are full of traps and jump scare sleepers. You won't get a similar experience even if you use your imagination to ignore the elephant in the room called obviously intended path. I bet if you have two unknown prefabs, a dungeon and a non-dungeon POI, most players can still easily recognize their 'true' nature, even if they try to treat both prefabs as non-linear.

 

"Intended path" is only relevant if you are planning to clear the whole POI as in you follow the path through the POI. In earlier alphas there was no path. Just a kitchen connected to a family room with a hall to a couple of bedrooms and then an upstairs which were also rooms off of a hall or main room. Sleepers were all in plain sight in corners and in the middle of the floor and before sleepers they were just walking around in the open.

 

You would usually go into the house through a door or a window by chopping in (or as you like to put it 'voxel technique'). Then you would loot and kill whatever zombies were right in front of you in the house.

 

For a dungeon house you could find the opening that starts the "intended path" or you could do as you did in early alphas and chop through a door or window to enter the house at a different point. I'm not sure what you have against this as being able to chop through doors, windows, and walls has been a staple of the game for going on 6 years now. So you chop in and you will see most likely a cluttered living room and a kitchen and maybe a hall and stairway up to the second floor and probably a stairway down to the basement which would have been the roundabout gauntlet-ish way to get to the main level where you are now. Yes, it is different because there will be sleepers hidden behind clutter, in cabinets, and possibly at higher levels that might drop down on you. But you kill these zombies and loot the living room and kitchen and maybe a room off the hall and you get out. Voila, an experience more similar to previous POI's. You did not follow a path, you did not wander through the entire POI clearing everything. True, the zombies weren't all completely in plain sight to be killed while standing in the doorway but we can't have everything I suppose.

 

Really, it takes little imagination. All it takes, tbh, is a willingness to leave most of the POI unexplored and move on.

 

 

Not sure what the essence of this statement is. To me it sound like 'prefabs don't need a believable design because bad design can be ignored due to the voxel technique of the game'.

 

Here is the essence: We are not playing a Super Mario level that forces you to follow the designed pathway. You can follow the path but you have the freedom to make your own path. Bad design ignored due to voxel technique? Do you really think the level designers had no idea that destructible voxels existed? Do you think they ignored the player ability to make their own path or tried to stop it from happening? Do you think it is an accident or mistake that dungeon POI's aren't landclaimed to force the player to take the pathway? No.

 

The houses are just cluttered with lots of blind corners and you can choose to follow the path or you can make your own by bashing through a barricade or placing some ladders on a wall and destroying the ceiling to move up to the floor above you on your own terms. You think it the dungeons are poorly designed and I think they are amazing. To each their own.

 

Btw. how often do we look for cooking pots? Once per game? Your play-style reminds me of an old thread where you suggested to fake LBD by distributing perk points according to the exercised activities. Isn't that a similar situation or at least related to it? Trying to invent your own fantasy rules to make the game fun.

 

Whatever. That was one example. You can also find a functioning workstation in many POIs without venturing too far in. You can also find other useful materials and books by going into commercial and manufacturing type pois and simply hitting the main front rooms without going deep into the storerooms or up into the rafters etc. I said cooking pot for the start of the game because that is when most people would have a hard time with the dungeon POIs and would want to get in and out quickly for those beginning game items. But you knew that and are just trolling me at this point I think or at least I can't believe that you actually think I go looking for cooking pots over and over again...

 

Going into a POI and looting 1-3 easy rooms without trying to follow and clear the whole thing by following the gauntlet pathway is actually a viable and smart tactic especially during the early game. Roleplaying spending points by first doing activities in the area that the points you want to spend as a way to get that LBD feeling was a way of showing that people would SAY they liked LBD for the feeling of learning by doing but were really just interested in speed leveling through repetitive actions. And it bore out as most replies were that it would slow leveling up immensely if they had to do some repetitive action that held no other game benefit every time they wanted to spend points. It showed the hypocrisy of the LBD argument that chopping down 20 trees making their chopping skill better was fun. If it was so fun why not still chop down 20 trees and then spend one of your points in Miner69er for that oh so fun feeling? See? Nobody wants to do it if it doesn't add to the speed of leveling.

 

This idea of chopping through a ground floor doorway and looting just a few rooms rather than clearing the entire POI is not the same thing at all. But if you can't see the difference I don't think I can explain it to you any clearer.

 

 

Thank for adding this at the end. I was wondering what this tedious egg and spoon race you described was for until I read that sentence.

 

I could tell you needed the extra hint. But I also can see now that anything more than barren empty rooms and hallways in a simple cardboard boxish configuration with zombies in plain sight and well lit to boot is going to enter the tedious egg and spoon race zone for you. Luckily for your fun, as Madmole has stated there are more super basic remnants and ruins. And luckily for my fun, the level designers continue to work and we WILL see more of their fun creativity in the future with more new POI's and more conversions of older POI's