Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[MechanicalLens]

I regret believing most of the ♥♥♥♥ that I was told while a child/teenager about how the world worked, and I despair of our ability to turn things around before that coming hard time you speak of really hits. I expect to live long enough to see the start of it, at least.

 

Truth be told, much of reality is down to our individual perception, whether it's accurate or not. The news is a great example. If you don't watch the news, you're uninformed. If you watch the news, you're misinformed. If you read history books, you're reading the history the victor wants you to believe, or the truth has been so distorted over time that it no longer resembles anything canon. All I can say is, "Believe what you want to believe."

[Mechanimal]

Burning shaft mod particle effects!

 

 

Very nice, looks great, smooth, and can see more of how the melee animations have improved as well.

 

So, whatcha got in the background there, maybe swing that burnin shaft back a bit so we can get a better look... is that what I thinks it is?

[Ouch Quit It]

If I could do it all over again I'd have thrown out the diggable terrain. Alpha 1 could have had static Unity terrain, a simple water plane, ran 30% better, used way less ram, console wouldn't have been so beat down, allowed faster vehicles, looked as good as 18's terrain does now, (Minus the Justin talent) and we wouldn't have wasted energy on mining, cave systems, multiple versions of trees, etc. Mining could have been mining POIs with respawning nuggets like rust/skyrim/subnautica with a nice model. We'd anger 10% and gain 200% new players that don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about deformable terrain and buggy water.

 

At some point we might release a static terrain option for 7 days just to see the performance gains. IMO most people would run it for the performance gains and better pvp, none of this wimpy underground base business, fight like a man like in TWD. You don't see those guys living in caves/mines.

 

What may have made us great has also slowed us down and kept us indy looking/performing. I think mining is ok but its not part of the secret sauce, we'd still have mining it just wouldn't be ugly 3d mining. At this point we'd kind of solved it mostly but it could have saved us a lot of time and headaches, allowing us to focus on cool stuff like we are able to now.

 

I would of rather had predetermined caves...no mining and a ♥♥♥♥ load more zombies and content...my 2 cents

 

Coughs * RtK* Coughs

[Odetta]

Burning shaft mod particle effects!

 

 

Looks fancy.

[Mechanimal]

I would of rather had predetermined caves...no mining and a ♥♥♥♥ load more zombies and content...my 2 cents

 

Coughs * RtK* Coughs

 

I've thought about it more... if the buildings remained as voxels with SI, and maybe parts of the terrain, etc. And it was an option, then I've grown more open to the idea just to see how much more could be added. Keeping the buildings and SI for all of that is not as extreme as a full on static environment. The right compromise/balance could work, I do see the possible advantages if so, the idea is growing on me.

[Ouch Quit It]

He was smashing DosAnjos 5 years ago, a guy who went on to be a title holder and is now doing well at welterweight. Tibau went on to win like 6 straight never getting any respect.

 

Masvidal's knee though, was some luck. I mean yes you could plan it, practice it for your whole life, but landing a flying knee perfect isn't easy, but to land it perfectly and get the KO in the first strike of the fight, will not happen again in probably 5-50 years

 

Gastalum has very good hands and he can wrestle, and the more you hit him, the more he turns it up. He's never been KO'd and he hasn't been TKO'd for a very long time. Till is in over his head and will get schooled. He couldn't even beat a gate keeper like the barbarian how's he going to handle a guy like Antonio Carlos Junior who gains about 80 pounds after the weigh ins lol.

 

Some of those middleweights are like 6'3 or 4 Till's fat ass needs to stay at 170 and work on his ground game and diet. He gets stupid and eats trash in the off season then can't make weight. He got arrested for trashing a hotel in south america. He's unprofessional and needs to grow up if he wants to succeed. He's not even a big welterweight, he's a bit above average, but he's going to be a tiny middleweight, too small of a frame. Theres beasts like Yoel and Costa lol, then rangy Adesanya, Till is just tired of cutting weight, he's not serious about fighting.

 

[Dreyseth]

Scaling enemies with player levels works great for ARPGs where it is all about monster slaying and advancing to greater challenges. But tying it completely to the player level never really works. Oblivion and Fallout are obvious examples were certain enemies completely disappear from the world because the player levels up. Areas and zones should have levels of their own and the player level only adding a bit to that at most.

 

It is crazy that a player is getting stronger but enemies get stronger just as much fully negating the advancements the player made. Borderlands is a great example of when all zones start to scale with the player after finishing the story on normal mode. You level up and suddenly your weapon is crap and does not work anymore on the enemies you were killing easily before. It kind of works for that game but 7dtd is a survival game where you become stronger and at some point overcome threats. At some stage certain enemies should no longer pose a danger. But there should be zones or buildings you previously could not do because they were to strong and now can do.

 

But instead currently you can walz into a t5 building on day one and get only low level zombies because it scales to your level.

 

Exactly. An endless treadmill of progression, just to basically end up where you started is ultimately disappointing.

True progression where hard work unlocks previously insurmountable obstacles to reveal more content and more choice is the ultimate goal.

 

It sounds like A18 goes much farther in driving progression than in previous builds, resulting in a longer lasting game. Yet, as you describe, for a sense of real accomplishment in late game there should be tougher enemies revealed and areas that previously could not be overcome. I personally would like to see towns become more dangerous with increased size, but currently there seems to be a limit to the number of different zombie types we can have in the game.

[MechanicalLens]

Exactly. An endless treadmill of progression, just to basically end up where you started is ultimately disappointing.

True progression where hard work unlocks previously insurmountable obstacles to reveal more content and more choice is the ultimate goal.

 

It sounds like A18 goes much farther in driving progression than in previous builds, resulting in a longer lasting game. Yet, as you describe, for a sense of real accomplishment in late game there should be tougher enemies revealed and areas that previously could not be overcome. I personally would like to see towns become more dangerous with increased size, but currently there seems to be a limit to the number of different zombie types we can have in the game.

 

Precisely. While mowing down enemies can be fun in some ARPG's, going through the cycle of, "Challenging enemy becomes absolute cannon fodder before evolving again into something challenging before you can beat it" would get old in 7D2D imo. (Either that happens, or you become overpowered, the mobs become overpowered, and eventually you're shooting fifty lasers, dropping bombs and arrow volleys from the sky, and only dealing the equivalent amount of damage of a level 1 character to a level 1 enemy. Enemies scaling with the player can have its downsides.)

[Star69]

Truth be told, much of reality is down to our individual perception, whether it's accurate or not. The news is a great example. If you don't watch the news, you're uninformed. If you watch the news, you're misinformed. If you read history books, you're reading the history the victor wants you to believe, or the truth has been so distorted over time that it no longer resembles anything canon. All I can say is, "Believe what you want to believe."

I think it was sometime during my masters degree program that I truly realized that textbooks, you know the books they used to give us knowledge in school, are just someone’s opinion. It is up to us to determine if the authors were right or not. We need to use our brains, not just believe what we are spoon-fed.

[MechanicalLens]

I think it was sometime during my masters degree program that I truly realized that textbooks, you know the books they used to give us knowledge in school, are just someone’s opinion. It is up to us to determine if the authors were right or not.

 

All I learned was that school is nothing but a talent show and college/university is a massive life-long debt waiting to happen. No thank you.

 

A lot of textbooks are outdated anyway. As an example, I saw part of my sister's school textbook from a couple years back, made in 2017, and it showed an image of a dinosaur that was drawn up back in the 50's.

 

Besides, what's more important to teach kids these days? Money management or Shakespeare? Hmm...

[Tok]

I think a building system like Rust/Fallout 4 could work (not for 7 days, but just commenting on the topic), if there were loads of different shapes and sizes of building blocks. Combined with the painting mechanic I think some awesome looking bases could be built using it. Voxel is great, but it is very limited by the size of the blocks, meaning floors and walls have to be a meter thick.

 

I also think that the mining could be done without in a new game. The idea of having to find the perfect spot to build around the landscape appeals to me, rather than just being able to build anywhere. It would be cool to come across a perfect spot that has a few craters that could be used within your base design to make traps etc.

[Survager]

Some idea for repair items!

 

OK MM,

Briefly: I propose to add to the game limited number of repairs for items and two types of repairs "Quick repair" and "Overhaul". "Quick repair" is done in the backpack, and "Overhaul" only at the workbench or at the trader.

 

Details below. Thanks.

------------------

 

I liked the weapon repair system in Dying Light, or rather a limited number of repairs. This system could be partially introduced into your game, but with changes.

 

So, I have excellent idea for 7 days To Die =)

1. Add the "number of repairs" parameter to the items.

2. Add two types of repair “simple repair” and “overhaul”.

3. Simple repair - repair weapons with repair kits, repair tools with metal, repair armor with tape. After each simple repair, you need to reduce the "number of repairs" parameter by one.

4. When the value “number of repairs” drops to zero, the item cannot be repaired with a “simple repair”.

5. To restore the value of “number of repairs”, you need to perform “Overhaul”.

6. "Overhaul" must be done on a workbench or at a trader (or other special NPC's).

7. For "Overhaul" will already need more different resources:

- for weapons: repair kit, parts for this weapon, oil, etc.

- for tools: metal, parts of this tool, etc.

- for armor: fabric, threads, adhesive tape, leather, details of the armor and more ...

8. "Overhaul" will be available only after purchasing a certain level perk from the corresponding attribute.

9. And the last one. Some particularly strong legendary items may have a very large “number of repairs” parameter, but we cannot do “Overhauls”, or “legendary details” may be needed for repairs (for balance in the game).

 

Sorry for the text wall.

What do you think of it?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Erik Louden]

Pre orders were doing fine before Kickstarter. We were reluctant to do a kickstarter because we were already extremely successful in pre orders. Kickstarter might have actually hurt sales because we had a key distribution problem and disabled sales for over a week when sales were booming, so we maybe have lost more revenue than gained. We greenlit on Steam, KS was just a tiny fraction of revenue and it had a bunch of ambitious features we were forced into, honestly we might have been done and by now and done better without it.

 

Damn, I feel kind of bad.

 

Didn't mean to mess up your sales =(

[MechanicalLens]

Damn, I feel like of bad.

 

Didn't mean to mess up your sales =(

 

Just send them a million dollar check and you should be good.

 

 

/jk

[SnowDog1942]

Some of those middleweights are like 6'3 or 4 Till's fat ass needs to stay at 170 and work on his ground game and diet. He gets stupid and eats trash in the off season then can't make weight. He got arrested for trashing a hotel in south america. He's unprofessional and needs to grow up if he wants to succeed.

 

Complaining about Till's fat ass/not making weight then praising Fatstalum in the next paragraph -- Really?

 

Fatstalum missed weight by 10 pounds for Tyron Woodley (10 pounds!!!!) AND lost the fight!

 

On another occasion on the day of weigh ins, Fatstalum didn't make an attempt to formally make the weight limit and his bout with Cerrone was scrapped completely.

 

These aren't the only 2 occasions and THIS is exactly why I have no respect for Fatstalum.

[Guppycur]

Since MM doesn't want to read hints and tactics I'm going to put the most important thing I think he needs to do in spoilers:

 

 

Get Gud

 

 

[Dreyseth]

Precisely. While mowing down enemies can be fun in some ARPG's, going through the cycle of, "Challenging enemy becomes absolute cannon fodder before evolving again into something challenging before you can beat it" would get old in 7D2D imo. (Either that happens, or you become overpowered, the mobs become overpowered, and eventually you're shooting fifty lasers, dropping bombs and arrow volleys from the sky, and only dealing the equivalent amount of damage of a level 1 character to a level 1 enemy. Enemies scaling with the player can have its downsides.)

 

True, that's where an entirely different game/ system could maintain the relative power relationship between player and enemy, but instead work with the environment or situation of the narrative of the game to mark progress. Building a story.

 

Watching hours of zombie conflict on the show The Walking Dead doesn't depict a continuous progression of combat superiority over the Z's, but rather the ups and downs in strength within a changing situational environment. They achieve definite goals which unlock new features for them, but they don't individually become more powerful over the Z's. I wonder how that could work in a sandbox style game. 7Days generates some good narrative moments, but it's not infinite.

[DanLW]

I love the mining also...

 

...but I do agree it doesn't need to be as deep.

 

My 2 Dukes.

[sillls]

Burning shaft mod particle effects!

 

 

I like it.

[PO_Man_3849]

Very nice, looks great, smooth, and can see more of how the melee animations have improved as well.

 

So, whatcha got in the background there, maybe swing that burnin shaft back a bit so we can get a better look... is that what I thinks it is?

 

Kinda looks like a train, no?

[Mechanimal]

Kinda looks like a train, no?

 

Bingo, however upon looking closer I think they made this demo vid in the editor because if those are train cars, which they do look like, they are missing a few important features, like wheels and a track. Hard to see because it is so dark, and again I think this vid was made in the editor, hence why the train-car looking whatever they are structures in the background are floating like that.

[falloutcloud]

If I could do it all over again I'd have thrown out the diggable terrain. Alpha 1 could have had static Unity terrain, a simple water plane, ran 30% better, used way less ram, console wouldn't have been so beat down, allowed faster vehicles, looked as good as 18's terrain does now, (Minus the Justin talent) and we wouldn't have wasted energy on mining, cave systems, multiple versions of trees, etc. Mining could have been mining POIs with respawning nuggets like rust/skyrim/subnautica with a nice model. We'd anger 10% and gain 200% new players that don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about deformable terrain and buggy water.

 

At some point we might release a static terrain option for 7 days just to see the performance gains. IMO most people would run it for the performance gains and better pvp, none of this wimpy underground base business, fight like a man like in TWD. You don't see those guys living in caves/mines.

 

What may have made us great has also slowed us down and kept us indy looking/performing. I think mining is ok but its not part of the secret sauce, we'd still have mining it just wouldn't be ugly 3d mining. At this point we'd kind of solved it mostly but it could have saved us a lot of time and headaches, allowing us to focus on cool stuff like we are able to now.

 

@MM, this is a bit of a long shot but when you start a new project after 7DtD I have an idea that includes several elements from this game, with the static terrain and mining nodes, and a fleshed out backstory set in the old west.

 

There was a kickstarter back in 2013 for a board game that I love. It has this really awesome background that would be perfect for a video game. You can see the intro here

 

You are an adventurer in the old west. There's a mysterious new substance, "dark stone" that has the ability to change people and open portals. You would fight against mutant bandits, creatures, demons, and other oddities. The longer you spend in the mines the stronger the darkness becomes. If the darkness escapes it ravages the countryside.

 

There's tons of loot and artifacts to find and other worlds to explore. You could end up on a derelict space ship, a world where it's in an ice age and the only remnants are artificial guardians, a jungle world with giant insects, and the list goes on.

 

[Guppycur]

Nope. Not a train.

 

 

...or is it.

[FA_Q2]

I'm just saying they don't hide in mines.

 

That said, the writers are so stupid I cringe any more when there are obviously easy ways to survive. Like oh there's 100 walkers... big deal they are on the other side of the fence. Stand there and poke holes in their heads through the fence for 15 minutes, problem solved.

 

On fear they used ladders on trucks to walk a tight rope to a fence to exit... when in some shots there was clearly like 10' of clear space with walkers only every few meters... it would have been easy to just jump down and run past them and leave unless you were crippled.

 

Its like they create these problems that aren't even problems at all. Now if there were 10000 zeds or wall to wall zeds behind the fence or in the truck scene, sure, but there simply wasn't. Like what happened to the zombie guts trick? Put some on and walk out of there, but really anyone who could jog would have easily escaped, let alone sprint with a loaded gun.

 

^ decker puts it really well.

 

The traditional zombies are one of the absolute worst antagonists ever. A boom box surrounded by some wooden spikes and you never have to worry about them again - they kill themselves. Newer incantations that include very fast, aggressive zeds are far better antagonists.

[Mechanimal]

Nope. Not a train.

 

 

...or is it.

 

Well maybe, eventually, a WIP perhaps.