Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Jarod_Silverstar]

I actually think he addressed this before and said that it would? But I can't quote the post on it right now, i just swear I remember reading it or seeing it.

 

I believe the answer was that they had been trying things for a while now (several years even) and not come up with a workable solution. It bugs them too, so it is not like they are going to ignore it, but the solution is avoiding them rather effectively.

[falloutcloud]

New Dynamic Music System (DMS)

Its been in the works for a long time and the first version is finally here. We now have a dynamic music system that plays a variety of tracks and can combine them so you never hear the same song twice. Right now they only play during exploration or a non combat moments. Future updates will detect your threat level and introduce combat music. Users can disable the system entirely or define what percentage of the day music can play for and adjust the music volume.

 

I feel once the Dynamic Music System includes combat music a lot of those annoyances about sneaky wolves, dogs, and zombies will be put to rest.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I believe the answer was that they had been trying things for a while now (several years even) and not come up with a workable solution. It bugs them too, so it is not like they are going to ignore it, but the solution is avoiding them rather effectively.

 

It's not just a visual disturbance either. Bike tires really really hate them too.

[PurgatoryWolf]

This isn't about teleporting, its about a user died and the only options are pretty crappy if your base is overrun. Near my bedroll is as bad as my overrun bedroll, but at my backup secret base? That sounds good to me.

 

Maybe do like Conan Exiles did? Have a BED at your base for permanent spawn point, but also allow a temporary spawn point via bedroll?

[falloutcloud]

well if you ask me so let's start (my english is meh)

- now you can find clay in the ground which if i'm right you needed to go on specifics spot to get it, so 1 less reason to go around and do something.

- less zombie in general, this has been discussed a lot and actually it is one of the major drawback for me to play again, biome now feels empty my first 4 hours in A17 untill i completely dropped the game were basically: play like minecraft chopping wood around and wait for something to happen. BORING

- Wellness system was cool, i can't remember if it is like the old now, but gathering food was really satisfying, knowing that even if full you could benefit from it was a good reason to explore around.

- XP system learn by doing have been loved and missed by a lot of people for a reason, it was original and functional, it had problems that could have been tweaked instead of totally reworking and making it a ♥♥♥♥ty reiteration of fallout system

-Zombie loot was a good reason to actually fight them, most of the things were junk but still, you could get some usefull stuff,devs said that it has been removed for some reasons that i can't remember, something on the line " getting rewarded for killing zombies have not to be the main reason the fight them, you have to survive instead!" so now the main reason is not loot but XP i mean WTF ( performance is not an excuse since a lot of players had and still having heavy performance issues on A17 )

- Map size and biomes have been reduced for performance ( false: see upside )

- New POIS are cool but the sleepers are boring AF, cities are empty but houses are full of people who have got infected by this virus that turn them on human eating and narcoleptic monsters, it would have been cool if there was both zombies wandering around and sleepers maybe by balancing the numbers.

-Mutaded bees

-Items quality system reworked to make it the worst i ever seen, not even spitting a word about it, such a shame ( i'm happy they are fixing it in A18 even tho i think that randomazing only the damage is a bit meh, it would be cool to have also others stats that way, leading to a more immersive way to approach the game.

-Books removed ( returning in A18, hyped about it )

-Some traps removed, can't remember which one, i think it was the wood giant spikes or something similar

-Smell system

-i've read that farming system is gonna be touched some how, i don't have that much hope honestly

and probably something more i can't remember for now

What they could have done was simply adding some features for A17 like veichle weapons and items, without removing cool features A16 offered, sometimes they looks like a mad barber who make some one bald because of some asymmetrical cuts.

A18 btw seems like a good return to the glory of the game even if not at 100%. I do hope they'll keep that way.

I have to say also that the mentality madmole showed is a shame for a developer " we want the wasteland to be like this".

Yeah then you know what complete the game and play it by yourself. Players are the main focus of a game life, without players games means nothing so i would think it twice about making something like i personally prefer but disappointhing customers of my commercial product.

Edit: - Zombies AI because they were too dumb, so let's make them all exceptional masons knowing exactly the weak points of a house.

-Caves if i remember correct

 

If I wanted all that I'd go play on the Xbox

[Guest Rassilon]

Textwall about cutted Stuff

 

I start to understand Madmole with his refusal to do Textwalls.

Most of this stuff was allready answered in this or previous Dev-Diarys wich you apparently did not take the time to read.

But lets try it anyway:

 

Clay: You need plenty of it and 1 spot hardly covers your needs. You still need to find new Spots to dig. If Clay was your only reason to go exploring Minecraft seems to be the better game. There its only on Seabeds.

 

Less Zombies: There are actually more. Types at least. The Game is called 7 Days to Die: Its central elements are the Bloodmoons and those get a lot of care these days as you can see in Madmoles Bloodmoon Videos. Anyway its true: They reduced Zombies in POIs slightly ( to make it less cheesy) and will remove strayrs in wilderness because they simply add no value to gameplay. I recommend reading some pages ago where the Discussion was. There are still screamer induced Hordes and Wandering Hordes.

 

Wellness System was generally a bad/Cheesey Idea and was replaced by the current System that a lot of Players like more. Me included. Its more straight forward while still demands careful planning with Min/Max Health Pool.

 

LBD was allready discussed long and intense in the past months. There are + and - Sides to both Systems. They just went with Sytem B instead of A because they see more advantages. Also you cant judge the Perk System because the real Version of that is yet to be played: A18.

 

Zombie loot and Corpses: If you followed the Diary we now have Books that increase the Chance of Zombies to drop Loot. Also Zombie loot is something that one can pass on since they overhauled POIs so intense that its the main source of loot. Instead of easy-farming you now have to get your butt up and go looting and actual fighting for it. Something you said was lacking in your Clay-Argument.

 

"- Map size and biomes have been reduced for performance ( false: see upside ) " Ehm it was reduced for exactly those reasons. Also Map Generation takes about 1-2 hours for the map of the old Size. I was an Enemy about this too ( still am) but with the new Citiys and quest-resetting POIs im no longer mad about this. Did you even Play A17 ?

 

Sleepers and Empty Cities: First thing i have to agree with you ^^. I also wish for wandering Hordes in Cities. Problem appears to be the huge ressource Costs for alive Zombies. Thus the Sleeper system. ( also no ugly spawning infront of players )

 

Bees got replaced with vultures. Mutated Bees were rediculous. Dont see your point here.

 

you dont like the Level System of Weapons but refuse to say why... great. I think it was a good aproach to make Weapon Attachments count and the ranged Stats will severly increase Players Motivation to go for "the best". Also what do you mean "new Stats"? shall weapons now spit fire or explode on reload? This aint Borderlands^^

 

Books. Totally agree on this too. But it seems to come back in all its glory and even better.

 

One Trap got removed because its bugged, exploitable. Instead we got Steelspikes wich are even better from an immersion type of view that you previously said you wanted.

 

Smell System was broken and doesnt seem to come back. Indeed a bit sad but the new Stealth System is i think worth the shift of focus.

 

Critizing Farming but not knowing why. Great Move. It was discussed not even 10 pages ago. Not repeating all that.

 

Vehicle Mods come A19. Wich features got removed from A16?

 

Yes A18 seems to have huge Potential. We even restarted our Server after deciding to shut it down for good because A18 seems to be huge.

 

Madmole is one of the Heads of TFP and 7 Days to Die is "their Baby" Its their Vision they want to bring alive and if they decide to bring Wasteland more focus to be challenging ( wich you stated you want because wilderness got too boring) lets see how they do that.

 

Zombie AI. Not sure what youre complaining here about. Killing Zeds was way too easy and exploitable. Now they are a threat and no longer punch a useless wall forever. This is a good thing for the game.

 

Caves: There was a version from it, but made too much trouble and add less to gameplay. Again this aint Minecraft.

MM stated that they rather go with Manmade POIs- Mines and other Underground Facilities instead of those lifeless random generating mess.

[Ricowan]

For real? 4K was too much on an RTX 2080Ti??? Please tell me you're joking.

 

Too much for my eyes. Everything's too damn small on a 24" display at 4k. 1440p is perfect and performance is sweet AF. Borderlands3 is running at around 110fps average at 1440p.

[unlike them]

Caves: There was a version from it, but made too much trouble and add less to gameplay. Again this aint Minecraft.

MM stated that they rather go with Manmade POIs- Mines and other Underground Facilities instead of those lifeless random generating mess.

 

I don't want underground POIs. I want those random procedural caves. I mean yes, the POIs are great, I can never stop admiring them and have a huge respect for their creators. But procedural caves were different, you never knew what you gonna find behind the corner. I admit, I cannot explain why I loved them so much, but I did. I think it is like comparing Navezgane and RWG, yes, Nav is beautifully made and RWG is full of weird bugs, but you cannot get that feeling of discovery in Navezgane.

[Prisma501]

I don't want underground POIs. I want those random procedural caves. I mean yes, the POIs are great, I can never stop admiring them and have a huge respect for their creators. But procedural caves were different, you never knew what you gonna find behind the corner. I admit, I cannot explain why I loved them so much, but I did. I think it is like comparing Navezgane and RWG, yes, Nav is beautifully made and RWG is full of weird bugs, but you cannot get that feeling of discovery in Navezgane.

 

Pappa allready said no! Now finish your dinner tssssk.

 

Cheers

[Guest Rassilon]

I don't want underground POIs. I want those random procedural caves. I mean yes, the POIs are great, I can never stop admiring them and have a huge respect for their creators. But procedural caves were different, you never knew what you gonna find behind the corner. I admit, I cannot explain why I loved them so much, but I did. I think it is like comparing Navezgane and RWG, yes, Nav is beautifully made and RWG is full of weird bugs, but you cannot get that feeling of discovery in Navezgane.

 

i totally understand they fascination for them and played Minecraft myself for that very reason. But they were never a focus here and procederal Generation was tested and disregarded for A16 if i recall correctly. MM posted even Screenshots of Mapgenerator with the Perlin Worms generation.

 

Besides from FPS reasons they can Severly interfere with Structural Integrety and would make the area look like swiss cheese.

 

They decided to go a different way and not spend so much ressources on getting this to even work when its better spend otherwise. i made my peace with that^^.

[Amanitasec]

Vehicles will receive any mods in A18?

[Ricowan]

Regarding the issue of removing features in favor of new ways to do the same thing... What if this is done because the old way was too buggy, or too hard to maintain, from a code perspective? Say removing the hoe and tiling existing ground had some serious bugs, maybe due to changes to the voxel terrain code from earlier in A18's dev cycle? Replacing tilled earth with garden beds may have removed 10 MF bugs.

 

As for "modding"... If you're changing a value in an XML files, you are just doing a config change, you are NOT modding. People who have an almost clinical fear of making changes to XML files because it's not how we're meant to play, how do you explain the config changes you can make in the GUI? There's simply no room for a GUI for every possible config option, so there's XML editing. A "modlet" is simply a pre-scripted config change, for the most part.

 

There are XML changes that add actual new game functionality, that would be an actual "mod", but for the most part, editing XML files is not modding.

[KhaineGB]

Regarding the issue of removing features in favor of new ways to do the same thing... What if this is done because the old way was too buggy, or too hard to maintain, from a code perspective? Say removing the hoe and tiling existing ground had some serious bugs, maybe due to changes to the voxel terrain code from earlier in A18's dev cycle? Replacing tilled earth with garden beds may have removed 10 MF bugs.

 

As for "modding"... If you're changing a value in an XML files, you are just doing a config change, you are NOT modding. People who have an almost clinical fear of making changes to XML files because it's not how we're meant to play, how do you explain the config changes you can make in the GUI? There's simply no room for a GUI for every possible config option, so there's XML editing. A "modlet" is simply a pre-scripted config change, for the most part.

 

There are XML changes that add actual new game functionality, that would be an actual "mod", but for the most part, editing XML files is not modding.

 

Show me one XML-Only change you can make to add new game functionality...

[MechanicalLens]

Vehicles will receive any mods in A18?

 

A19, I believe.

[CannedSmeef]

Show me one XML-Only change you can make to add new game functionality...

 

You could give an "explosive" tag to every grass block, it would make combat with crawlers more risky

[Guppycur]

Guppy? Can you provide any screenshot of those Voxel density settings (almost) working?

Thanks

 

Sure, left is default, right is with the brick block having a -100 density.

 

...but I can promise you, the devs who actually handle this stuff are already aware, there's likely some justification against it (even though some of their prefabbers use this trick too)

 

[CannedSmeef]

Sure, left is default, right is with the brick block having a -100 density.

 

...but I can promise you, the devs who actually handle this stuff are already aware, there's likely some justification against it (even though some of their prefabbers use this trick too)

 

 

Wait this looks so much better, gameplay wise it prevents those annoying gaps inbetween that you get caught in too. Why aren't we doing this already?

[agrastiOs]

I feel once the Dynamic Music System includes combat music a lot of those annoyances about sneaky wolves, dogs, and zombies will be put to rest.

I wouldn't want the DMS to work in such a way that it would destroy surprises.

[fallenbox]

If I wanted all that I'd go play on the Xbox

 

what does that have to do with this topic

[Guppycur]

what does that have to do with this topic

 

Your list is easier to insult than it is to argue against. =)

[fallenbox]

Your list is easier to insult than it is to argue against. =)

 

cause you can't argue against, those are facts.

[Guppycur]

cause you can't argue against, those are facts.

 

And, just the tip of the iceberg.

[Guest Rassilon]

cause you can't argue against, those are facts.

 

nothing you claimed is a fact. its either your opinion or a lame troll approach as i tried to answer every single point of your list honestly and yet you havent responded to it else then to provoke other Forum users.

[Guppycur]

nothing you claimed is a fact. its either your opinion or a lame troll approach as i tried to answer every single point of your list honestly and yet you havent responded to it else then to provoke other Forum users.

 

...but yours are opinions as well?

 

You'll just have to accept that there are those of us that do NOT like the changes made "for performance", just as we have to accept that there are those who do like the game being dumbed down. =)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

*sorry, couldn't help myself, I did try though! =)*

[KhaineGB]

You could give an "explosive" tag to every grass block, it would make combat with crawlers more risky

 

Actually you can't because you'd also need to change the class of the block so it can explode.

 

Which means it then no longer counts as a plant. But that'd be using already existing game functionality.

[CannedSmeef]

Actually you can't because you'd also need to change the class of the block so it can explode.

 

Which means it then no longer counts as a plant. But that'd be using already existing game functionality.

 

I know lol, i was being sarcastic