Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Guppycur]

The game is way harder than its ever been,

 

Can you name some of the ways it's harder?

 

I'm talking about harder, not grindier. In which ways is a18 *harder*.

[Gnomaana]

Well your sadness is 500 people's joy. Farming sucked, now its finally great. Press e to collect and its gold.

 

It's not farming. It's just crafting with a delay before you get your item. May as well just craft straight to the finished product.

[Guppycur]

Dude, chill your horses.

A18 is not even out.

Dont mix up simplicity and lack of Challenge. Not the same.

 

Lay down your toxicity and lay your hand on it.

 

Remember, this is still Alpha. What they bring in they can change over time.

 

You do realize that as we get closer to gold that is less and less likely, right?

[madmole]

Jesus, the way you just make up statistics... You sure you're not running for office? I mean have you ever considered that the reason for your success WAS the challenge?

 

The farm plot is the beginning of a static terrain coming to ruin the game! Your conspiracy theory must be true!

 

You are confusing over designed clunky mechanics for a challenge. Finally players have a nice even surface to plant crops on with perfect plot boxes all nicely aligned, not a ♥♥♥♥ show of uneven terrain and that one weird voxel on the end at moves up and makes a giant blob of an ugly tilled soil. Often the hoe would target the wrong block because it was impossible to know which block you were actually targeting unless you put down frames to mark the voxel. There was one version where you could place your seed in the untilled spot and it would die. None of this was fun or intuitive.

 

Now farming is built upon every other system we already taught, craft a block and place it. You still need rotten flesh for fertilizer. Harvesting is a breeze and I have never once punched out my seed. The testers love it. LOVE it. The hoe is still in the assets you can mod the old garbage back in, so what is it to you?

 

Challenge is finding what you want, staying alive, not fighting an ugly UI or bad game mechanics, or bugs.

[madmole]

All I can say is I hope TFP don't break the framework too much, because it sounds like the modders are going to have a lot of work to do to undo all this madness.

 

All I can say is premature kneejerkulation.

[Guppycur]

Again your some little kid looking in the window. You have no idea what is inside. Why would the wilderness be full of zombies? We're paving the way for better FPS and I promise you 80% of the wild zombies were never seen, interacted with, yet sit there and waste cpu and bring down performance. We're planning random encounters so it will be more dangerous than ever, but right now when the entire team is getting rekt in death loops on day 1 its an issue. Too many chefs in the kitchen here. 18 is a whole new animal. Have fun when the coyotes eat your balls, I didn't thin the animals.

 

"Why would the wilderness be full of zombies".

 

Well the easy answer is because it's fun to have zombies in a zombie game. Fun > realism, right?

 

The better answers are that there are a lot of buildings with holes in it, a lot of cars on the roads and a lot of open pois, so where did all of THOSE people go to die? They all crawled into that same cupboard or on top of those rafters and acoustic ceilings?

 

The best answer though is that's where they are in every zombie game, tv show and movie ever. By the thousands.

 

And I run (ran, recently upgraded to a 2080) on an i5 with a 980ti, and *never* had a fps hitch outside of multiplayer horde nights...

 

Removing/cutting back wilderness counts will not even be noticed from a performance perspective.

 

...it's like you and I don't even play the same game...

[Aurelius]

We like one way to do things. Cans of water are gone too. Why leave in a clunky old way?

 

Uhhhh.... wow. Just... wow.

 

I can't count the number of games where the (early game) survival challenge was getting enough water to drink. Not being able to find a cooking pot, building after building, and being forced to rely on cans of boiled water. Sometimes there was only one can available, which came from my starter can of chili.

 

The challenge was REAL, and when I finally found the pot and a couple of jars, the feeling of accomplishment and relief was REAL. Just as real as surviving a horde of zombies with a bow and a club for the first time.

 

-A

[dregonazure]

did people find the reg farming of a17 and prior as challenging?? i always felt it was super easy to abuse to get tons of food super fast

[madmole]

I would take that bet in a heartbeat, and i would win. Remember this post.

 

No one has a hard time punching plants, not even sure where that came from. It feels like pandering to 12 year olds.

 

No one wants Conan or Ark farming, farming you yourself said sucked many months ago. I dont get this desire to take something unique and make it as boring as everything else out there.

 

Your stripping your game of its identity. And turning it into Rust without the PVP. Sorry if i sound bleak but Im extremely sad over this, and i seriously doubt im the only one despite what the testers may think.

 

You and your 3 buddies using a "legacy farm mod" proves nothing. Feel free to start a poll a month after 18 drops.

[SnowDog1942]

18 is a whole new animal. Have fun when the coyotes eat your balls, I didn't thin the animals.

 

Is it possible to lather my balls in peanut butter to attract more coyotes?

[Aurelius]

did people find the reg farming of a17 and prior as challenging?? i always felt it was super easy to abuse to get tons of food super fast

 

Back when you needed water blocks next to the farm plots, and animals and zombies could destroy the growing plants - yes, it was a challenge.

 

Since those days, the mechanics have gotten steadily simpler, and the food production has ramped up more significantly.

 

-A

[Tazio]

The farm plot is the beginning of a static terrain coming to ruin the game! Your conspiracy theory must be true!

 

You are confusing over designed clunky mechanics for a challenge. Finally players have a nice even surface to plant crops on with perfect plot boxes all nicely aligned, not a ♥♥♥♥ show of uneven terrain and that one weird voxel on the end at moves up and makes a giant blob of an ugly tilled soil. Often the hoe would target the wrong block because it was impossible to know which block you were actually targeting unless you put down frames to mark the voxel. There was one version where you could place your seed in the untilled spot and it would die. None of this was fun or intuitive.

 

Now farming is built upon every other system we already taught, craft a block and place it. You still need rotten flesh for fertilizer. Harvesting is a breeze and I have never once punched out my seed. The testers love it. LOVE it. The hoe is still in the assets you can mod the old garbage back in, so what is it to you?

 

Challenge is finding what you want, staying alive, not fighting an ugly UI or bad game mechanics, or bugs.

 

So rather than fix the problems with uneven terrain and picking up seeds you just throw out the whole system? Real smart. Here's some better ideas: 1) make planting a seed auto-level the ground just like placing a frame. 2) require a hoe to pick up a seed. See? That wasn't so hard? And I didn't even have to turn the game into Conan Exiles.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

You craft "farm plots" and place them where you want crops to grow. No more hoe, no more fertilizer. No more wondering where your crop grows or where to hit it to harvest, its way better, the testers are raving about it. Some people are actually farming now that never farmed before because it was too clunky.

 

Do you craft generic empty "farm plots" and then plant seeds in them afterwards, or are the seeds part of the recipe so you craft a "potato plot" or "yucca plot" or whatever that has the seedling already in it when you place it?

[The Gronk]

We like one way to do things. Cans of water are gone too. Why leave in a clunky old way? Once someone feels the power of the new farm plots they would never in their right mind want to do it the old way. When a new player asks "How do you farm" there is a 14 paragraph complicated explanation. OR you can just make a farm plot. "Oh wtf didn't you just say so?" Now its simple and they get it. They can get on with playing the game instead of spending hours on the internet figuring out some over complicated janky system. So we deleted the legacy method because it felt so clunky compared to the new way that everyone agreed it was hurting us more than anything.

 

Sorry some of you guys were attached to it, but we like one way to do things, and it needs to be simple. Its kind of stupid saying you need a hoe anyway, I can dig a hole with my hands and plant a seed with no tools.

 

Literally the only clunky thing about the old system was the hit-boxes.

[madmole]

Pretty sure it was said. Unless youre removing seeds too? Was he wrong about the seeds? Pop a magic UI that shows all the plants and use fiber and clay to make the box of magic vegetation?

 

No you plant seeds in the farm plots.

[Guppycur]

The farm plot is the beginning of a static terrain coming to ruin the game! Your conspiracy theory must be true!

 

You are confusing over designed clunky mechanics for a challenge. Finally players have a nice even surface to plant crops on with perfect plot boxes all nicely aligned, not a ♥♥♥♥ show of uneven terrain and that one weird voxel on the end at moves up and makes a giant blob of an ugly tilled soil. Often the hoe would target the wrong block because it was impossible to know which block you were actually targeting unless you put down frames to mark the voxel. There was one version where you could place your seed in the untilled spot and it would die. None of this was fun or intuitive.

 

Now farming is built upon every other system we already taught, craft a block and place it. You still need rotten flesh for fertilizer. Harvesting is a breeze and I have never once punched out my seed. The testers love it. LOVE it. The hoe is still in the assets you can mod the old garbage back in, so what is it to you?

 

Challenge is finding what you want, staying alive, not fighting an ugly UI or bad game mechanics, or bugs.

 

What is it to me? It's more removal of complexity for the sake of... I dunno, based on your post I'd guess someone's OCD.

 

I don't get why you don't enjoy the complexity. This game's entire fanbase was built on it.

 

Will you get a larger fan base from the casuals? Probably. So it's a viable business decision to dumb down the game. But to me, since you asked, it's missing out on the fun.

[Devrix]

You craft "farm plots" and place them where you want crops to grow. No more hoe, no more fertilizer. No more wondering where your crop grows or where to hit it to harvest, its way better, the testers are raving about it. Some people are actually farming now that never farmed before because it was too clunky.

Never got into farming before and looking forward to this change. As someone who likes complexity, never pulled myself to farm the old way. Confident there's other/better ways to enhance it later.

[JaxTeller718]

You and your 3 buddies using a "legacy farm mod" proves nothing. Feel free to start a poll a month after 18 drops.

 

My 3 buddies? My 3000 plus member Discord for my mod would disagree.

 

For a mechanic that everyone hated, I dont see many people who love this change raving over it here?

[Lonestarcanuck]

Can we get more Pain options?

 

it seems some are no long there. more options for floors you would find in factories line lines so you can follow them or hazard type markings.

[madmole]

wait can? So AKA the bucket? or no, cause i like the bucket for making a well....i mean the RWG i HOPE is nice with rivers like you have shown and stated and i do not need it

 

If this starts a ♥♥♥♥ storm I'm going to ban everyone or close the forums down.

 

You can no longer boil water in a can. You can simply boil water from a jar of murky water now without a cooking pot, but it takes 4x as long as with a cooking pot.

 

Why? More sharp sticks. Only veterans knew about the canned water trick and it was only useful on a really bad day where you couldn't find a cooking pot. So we removed cans of water and you can just boil jars of water now. One way to do things is best.

[madmole]

Mod request: farming that need irrigation, fertilizing, pest control, zombie and animal protection, quests/skills/percs to progress and bad weather ruins harvest.

 

Why? Even with zero farming I acquire a giant stockpile of food. Do you just want to be unsuccessful at farming? You want to waste time and see your crops fail, then laugh your way to the fridge and feast on whatever you want in your food box?

[Star69]

Nevermind

[Tazio]

If this starts a ♥♥♥♥ storm I'm going to ban everyone or close the forums down.

 

You can no longer boil water in a can. You can simply boil water from a jar of murky water now without a cooking pot, but it takes 4x as long as with a cooking pot.

 

Why? More sharp sticks. Only veterans knew about the canned water trick and it was only useful on a really bad day where you couldn't find a cooking pot. So we removed cans of water and you can just boil jars of water now. One way to do things is best.

 

Yep. This confirms it. 7DTD is no longer a survival game.

[TSBX]

Ok mr back seat game designer. TFP unanimously loves the new farming system, and that is a first. Farming is .000001% of the game, who cares? The game is way harder than its ever been, so us lowering the biome zombie count is taken out of content. Since when are a few guys in the biomes a threat? All they do is lower performance and nag at you when you are trying to clear a poi you get sandwiched by 20 guys that followed you for 5 miles. Now its only 10 guys sandwiching you. The game is harder now for undisclosed reasons, so you'll probably thank us for these changes when your getting 60fps and having fun for the first time in 5 years.

 

You know what I used to do if I wanted a nice box around my garden rows? I got off my ass and built them myself.

 

As far as the biome spawns go, MM it seems like as far as you are concerned the main focus of the game is going from POI to POI for loot and horde night. You're treating everything else like an afterthought. Those "nuisance" biome zombies can add a lot of emergent gameplay in quite a few scenarios that invoke the player to make strategic risk vs. reward decisions.

 

• Shot and followed a deer, now there are zombies where it fell. It's getting dark. Do I burn daylight trying fight my way through to butcher it or cut my losses and head home?

• If I keep going through these guys, I'm going to be leading a mini-horde toward my base and I don't want that. Should I fight them or work on losing them?

• I could take a shortcut through the burning forest but I'm hurt and have no healing supplies. I'm worried about vultures. Do I take the long way around for safety or do I take the chance?

 

Those are just a couple off of the top of my head, but little situations like that are really the heart and soul of a game like this, and what really drive replay-ability.

 

Same thing with farming.

Or getting water.

Or crafting complex items that need rarer materials.

 

They all gave you a reason to GOYA to do stuff in order to complete the open world goals. You set them because you want to get them done, not because text pops up in a corner that says YOU MUST DO X and here is a checklist. (Getting your rudimentary farm up and eventually making it look good, filling a cistern at your base so you have water handy, finding that damned engine that you need.)

 

Those are all details that I feel like you personally are not concerned with because they don't interest you personally. But for a good portion of your playerbase, those small details and the emergent situations that are derived from them are what keeps them, myself included, playing.

[Tazio]

Why? Even with zero farming I acquire a giant stockpile of food. Do you just want to be unsuccessful at farming? You want to waste time and see your crops fail, then laugh your way to the fridge and feast on whatever you want in your food box?

 

Sweet jesus! Are you even listening to yourself? Yes! We all want food to be an issue. Maybe you should be reducing the drop rate on canned food if you're so food rich without having to do any work for it. Or better yet, make all that canned food you're looting worthless with a threat of botulism and death.