[MOD] Better Than Giant Bees: Hardcore Survival

[FlowerChild]

time to reanimate this thread.

 

A11 is up and i'm looking right into your face Flowerchild when is your impossibru mod is up for A11?

 

Not sure in all honesty. Played unmodded Alpha 11 for a few hours yesterday and the super-sized POIs are so depressing that I gave up on my save after encountering my first. The thought of looting the whole thing was distinctly non-fun

 

I *think* that the POI distribution and size may be moddable in A11 so I'll set aside some time later in the week to look into that. Will probably at least hold off for a couple of more patches though as I get the impression there are still a number of outstanding issues the Pimps are likely going to want to address, and there's no point updating the mod multiple times in a row while the game stabilizes.

[Xamllew]

Yeah, I had the same experience when I encountered a tool store, even with 50% loot I walked out of there with literally every tool there was including parts for a chainsaw and auger, it made me yearn for the BTGB days back. They didn't get leveled loot implemented but once that hits things should be a bit more rewarding.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I had the same experience when I encountered a tool store, even with 50% loot I walked out of there with literally every tool there was including parts for a chainsaw and auger, it made me yearn for the BTGB days back. They didn't get leveled loot implemented but once that hits things should be a bit more rewarding.

 

I personally really dislike the idea of leveled loot, so I can't say I'm looking forward to that

[Razzoriel]

It's almost like a slap in the face that they won't even let us mod the drop quality/loot system.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I had the same experience when I encountered a tool store, even with 50% loot I walked out of there with literally every tool there was including parts for a chainsaw and auger, it made me yearn for the BTGB days back.

 

BTW, on this one (tried to edit my post above but the timer expired):

 

I was actually talking about the overall number of buildings in towns rather than the larger buildings like the hardware store. The latter I can probably adjust through the loot tables, but the former I'm not entirely certain I can change at present (I think I might be able to though), and I frankly don't have much interest in playing the game with the way it is at present.

 

I talked a bit about this over on the BTW forums yesterday, so I'll quote part of that here:

 

They seem to have made POI's rarer, and for several days I was living in the only structure I could find which was a cabin in the woods, which was quite fun. Had dysentery though, which I didn't cure with goldenrod in time, so I needed to go out searching for antibiotics.

 

Eventually found a POI which was a huge sprawling mass of many blocks. Immediately had a "*** this" response at the thought of looting that mess, and promptly quit my game

 

So yeah, they seem to have made POI's rarer, but left them just as big as ever, which IMO is not a reasonable solution to the building density problem of previous releases. I suspect playing with feral zombies is no longer really feasible as you're much more likely to find no shelter at all, and if you do find it, it's likely going to be a severely depressing looting fest that may keep you occupied for a week, after which point the progression will essentially be over. I have the sinking feeling that they're balancing building density for "realism" rather than gameplay, and absolutely want to have these small towns here and there which I don't think suit the game well at all.

 

This kind of building density issue is one of my big pet peeves in survival games right now. It's also coming up in the Long Dark, which is another game I play quite a bit of, and they have one level (coastal highway) in particular where I think the building density is about twice what it should be. As a result, whenever I enter that area, the fun almost immediately drains out of the game as it completely messes up the overall pacing. Gameplay diversity is of course a good thing, and this kind of scavenging and exploring gameplay is much better IMO when you are alternating between the two regularly. Having very long stretches of either just winds up feeling extremely monotonous. Put another way, in a survival game, POIs are basically the "candy" that you're out looking for in your exploration. Having that candy both be incredibly rare and then having it suddenly dumped on you all at once in a volume where you'll never even want to look at another piece of candy ever again just isn't any fun at all.

 

EDIT: Just checked the new .xml files and it *seems* like I can now adjust the town sizes and take care of the above. Will need to run tests to verify that's the case, but at the very least the variables that have been exposed look promising.

[Cork55]

When you start modding A11, let me know if you encounter any issues with your 'cracked' safe system. I use it in my mod and ran into an issue where the cracked safe turned into a metal pipe elbow. I did get it working by changing the names of the downgrade items to wallsafeCracked, desksafeCracked and gunsafeCracked. Not sure if A11 didn't like the spaces in your original cracked safe names or not.

 

Just wanted to pass this along.

[FlowerChild]

When you start modding A11, let me know if you encounter any issues with your 'cracked' safe system. I use it in my mod and ran into an issue where the cracked safe turned into a metal pipe elbow. I did get it working by changing the names of the downgrade items to wallsafeCracked, desksafeCracked and gunsafeCracked. Not sure if A11 didn't like the spaces in your original cracked safe names or not.

 

Just wanted to pass this along.

 

Thanks man! I appreciate the heads up

[Xamllew]

BTW, on this one (tried to edit my post above but the timer expired):

 

I was actually talking about the overall number of buildings in towns rather than the larger buildings like the hardware store. The latter I can probably adjust through the loot tables, but the former I'm not entirely certain I can change at present (I think I might be able to though), and I frankly don't have much interest in playing the game with the way it is at present.

 

I talked a bit about this over on the BTW forums yesterday, so I'll quote part of that here:

 

Agreed on the POI density, the enormous true to life size towns are neat to see but I absolutely feel they crush any challenge of survival and exploration because now I have to deal with the whole town and I'm probably going to carry away enough canned food and water to sustain me for weeks. They certainly had Multiplayer in mind when they made these places so massive. I think Alpha 9 had it right with one small neighborhood every other biome and small roadside POIs interspersed between.

 

And yeah, I'm not wild about leveled loot either.

[Cork55]

BTW, on this one (tried to edit my post above but the timer expired):

 

I was actually talking about the overall number of buildings in towns rather than the larger buildings like the hardware store. The latter I can probably adjust through the loot tables, but the former I'm not entirely certain I can change at present (I think I might be able to though), and I frankly don't have much interest in playing the game with the way it is at present.

 

I talked a bit about this over on the BTW forums yesterday, so I'll quote part of that here:

 

 

 

EDIT: Just checked the new .xml files and it *seems* like I can now adjust the town sizes and take care of the above. Will need to run tests to verify that's the case, but at the very least the variables that have been exposed look promising.

 

Kinyajuu from the Fun Pimps said that there was an error with the town hub sizes and said to use this where the town hubs are in the rwgmixer file.

 

"Just so everyone knows, the towns had a measurement issue. Causing all town blocks to get culled from the town instead of just ones near a biome edge, leaving nothing but an intersection. I have fixed the bug so it will work correctly in the next patch.

 

In the meantime everyone can replace the property below for all "town" hubs in their rwgmixer.xml as a temp fix. Mileage may vary, depends on where the biome center is in relation to the edges. Some may still get culled, but plenty more towns should show up.

 

<property name="MaxCityBlockSizeInMeters" value="206,206" />

[FlowerChild]

I think Alpha 9 had it right with one small neighborhood every other biome and small roadside POIs interspersed between.

 

Yup, I agree. There was a time around Alpha 9 where I felt the building density was just about perfect, with buildings being rare enough that you were excited to find them rather than getting that sinking feeling at all the looting you were about to perform, and where traveling from one cluster to another was something you had to plan for.

 

If I can effectively mod the building gen settings that's what I'll try to aim for recreating again.

[FlowerChild]

[**** NEW RELEASE ****]

 

Version 1.2 of Better Than Giant Bees is ready for download!

 

Download Link

 

This release contains the following changes:

 

-Updated the mod to version 11.1 of 7 Days To Die.

 

-Changed dogs back to their Alpha 10 view angle to that they're more alert.

 

-Changed driftwood back so that it can be picked up directly like in Alpha 10. It still can only be used for burning in BTSG however.

 

-Changed plant fibers back to being crafted out of grass and yucca plants instead of harvesting directly from them.

 

-Changed (reduced) the size of towns. I'll likely need to do more balancing here, but at least this should prevent the obscenely large and totally fun-killing ones from appearing.

 

-Changed the blunderbuss to require a skill book to learn its recipe.

 

-Removed the whole thing with dogs giving up on attacking you after awhile that was added in Alpha 11.

 

-Removed the ability to craft bows, since similar to crossbows, they are still extremely overpowered relative to other ranged weapons.

 

-Removed casino coins from loot as they don't really serve any purpose and feel out of place due to being such a specialized scrap item.

 

-Removed the stone shovel.

 

-Removed sod.

 

Enjoy!

[Xamllew]

Nice changes, definitely gonna give this version a go. Only thing I would suggest is making the blunderbuss recipe a bit more complex instead of requiring a book, this way it'll still be a valid option when it's needed in early game, because IMO nobody is going to use it by mid-game when they find the book, too damn slow and inaccurate.

[FlowerChild]

Nice changes, definitely gonna give this version a go. Only thing I would suggest is making the blunderbuss recipe a bit more complex instead of requiring a book, this way it'll still be a valid option when it's needed in early game, because IMO nobody is going to use it by mid-game when they find the book, too damn slow and inaccurate.

 

Yeah, I'm still working on this whole bit. Doing so right now actually

 

This was just my first pass in porting the mod over to version 11. Usually when I do so I triage the more complex balancing work and just focus on getting everything working right, playing it safe on potentially balance-breaking new items on such.

 

Like I was just working on rebalancing the wooden bow so it can be included in the progression without totally devaluing guns and melee, and that's coming along quite nicely. Next up I'll be tweaking the blunderbuss and making it a more interesting and integrated part of things, likely making it accessible through a more common skill book and boosting its power slightly so that it's more worthwhile to use. For once I actually think something is underpowered in the game

 

Hopefully that'll gate it between bows and before modern firearms in the progression. I would like to see it as the kind of thing where you'll be able to dispatch a single zombie quickly before wading into a fight with melee weapons, so I may even up the reload time while also boosting damage if I can.

[benledolmen]

Hi.

 

First of all, I enjoyed playing your mod on 10.4 (stone axing gun safe all morning was the best part^^).

 

I'm here to ask a question. Will you do something about not leveled loot? I mean finding purple tools right on day 1?

It's my only game breaker with A11.

 

I don't know if that is changeable.

 

thx

[Razzoriel]

If you do find it, Flower, would you mind sharing with the community? Been hunting the damn file that controls leveled loot probabilities, but no success.

[FlowerChild]

I'm here to ask a question. Will you do something about not leveled loot? I mean finding purple tools right on day 1?

It's my only game breaker with A11.thx

 

Does that even happen with BTGB though? Whole tools are exceedingly rare to begin with in the mod as I generally favor players crafting their own stuff rather than finding it.

 

I certainly haven't run into anything like that in my testing of the mod.

 

If you do find it, Flower, would you mind sharing with the community? Been hunting the damn file that controls leveled loot probabilities, but no success.

 

I know that one thing you can do is remove to leveled properties from an item entirely by removing the:

 

       <property class="Attributes">

 

section from it. You can also adjust the parameters within to govern the full range of stats that an item can have based on its quality. So say, if the damage range gets excessive on some weapons, you can either tone it down, or remove the qualities effect on damage entirely.

 

I've already been fooling around with that for the blunderbuss so that its behavior is more consistent regardless of quality. You can check out my changes to it in the next release if you like for an example.

 

The above may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it can definitely help in toning down day 1 craziness if that's what you're after.

[Razzoriel]

I'm up for a bigger challenge; modifying how much the player's level will influence the levelled drops.

 

But yeah, I'm tweaking those already. Thanks for the help.

[FlowerChild]

I'm up for a bigger challenge; modifying how much the player's level will influence the levelled drops.

 

But yeah, I'm tweaking those already. Thanks for the help.

 

No worries. The player's level affecting loot drops is not something I'm personally interested in as a feature (I really don't like that idea), so I haven't really dug into it any.

[Razzoriel]

Yeah, me neither, but since it's there, and we can't remove it, better as well stick with it.

 

Or go to the other extreme and completely remove quality levels from all items.

[FlowerChild]

[**** NEW RELEASE ****]

 

Version 1.21 of Better Than Giant Bees is ready for download!

 

Download Link

 

This release contains the following changes:

 

-Added the wooden bow and arrows back into the progression. You can build them right from the start (no skill book required), but I've heavily nerfed their values so that they aren't as effective as firearms later in the game, and to ensure that there's actually a reason to work towards finding and making guns. They also shouldn't be as effective as melee weapons in dispatching large numbers of zombies in the early game so that hand to hand isn't totally devalued either. I've basically balanced it so that it's a weapon that's only appropriate based on context, like in launching an initial sneak attack, or hunting rabbits. Note that as part of this I've greatly reduced the default velocity of arrows down from 400 meters per second, so you should no longer hear a sonic boom when loosing an arrow, and aiming high is now actually a thing

 

-Added feathers back into bird nest loot given they're now needed for arrows.

 

-Changed (tweaked) the blunderbuss to have a better place in the progression. It's now a more effective single shot weapon, and I've placed the ability to learn its recipe in a number of different skill books (metal working, intro to chemistry, firearm maintenance, etc.: basically all books related to metal working, explosives, or firearms) so that it is likely to be learned earlier in the game, before the player is able to put together more advanced guns.

 

-Changed the way skill affects the crafting of clubs so that they don't suffer a heavy damage penalty due to poor crafting. They're just clubs afterall, and this was having a very negative impact on the effectiveness of early game melee combat.

 

-Changed animals back to having their pre-Alpha 11 view angle so that they're more alert and harder to sneak up on. The reduced view angle was making hunting them much too easy.

 

-Changed (reduced) the number of sticks that drop from some of the new bushes, as they were resulting in a surplus.

 

-Changed (increased) the number of skill books in bookcases slightly due to the decrease in town size in the previous release.

 

-Removed the magnum parts from corpses and feral zombies.

 

Enjoy!

[benledolmen]

Does that even happen with BTGB though? Whole tools are exceedingly rare to begin with in the mod as I generally favor players crafting their own stuff rather than finding it.

 

I certainly haven't run into anything like that in my testing of the mod.

 

Ok, thanks. Of course, if tools are really rare, finding a good one is a real reward. That's what I'm looking for and what I like in your mod.

 

I'll try it after exhausting vanilla game.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, me neither, but since it's there, and we can't remove it, better as well stick with it.

 

Or go to the other extreme and completely remove quality levels from all items.

 

Well, I do like the quality levels and the concept of more experienced players being able to *craft* better items, so I don't want to disable that stuff. I just really don't like the whole "higher level players get better loot out of the same containers" thing.

 

IMO, it's inevitably going to lead to gamey behavior like "hmmm...better kill a few more zombies before opening that cabinet so I get better loot", which is going to be fairly destructive to overall immersion. There's a whole host of problems I anticipate with that kind of system, but I think that one player thought process sums it up nicely, and illustrates how such a system will likely result in a lot of metagaming. Having separate skills for say looting or crafting might help with that, but I strongly suspect that system will cause far more problems than it solves regardless.

 

Anyways, I'm just not down with it. The Pimps may prove me wrong there and do something brilliant with it that I haven't considered, but in all likelihood future versions of the mod will just disable the system once it is added, as I'm personally not interested in playing the game that way.

 

Ok, thanks. Of course, if tools are really rare, finding a good one is a real reward. That's what I'm looking for and what I like in your mod.

 

Yeah, I really doubt it'll be an issue with BTGB, and if it is I can certainly take a further look at it. Having gone over some of the numbers, I think the current range of values governed by quality may be a little too extreme in many cases and I may tone some more down in the future.

 

The Blunderbuss was a good example: it's an early game item, but its damage range was *highly* dependent on crafting quality, and it did rubbish damage if the quality was low. Hence why it tended to feel entirely useless, because in the period of the game where you'd want to craft it, you'd inevitably craft a low quality one.

 

So I switched things around so that skill has a big impact on durability, but not on damage. As a result, your early game ones will likely fall apart after a few shots (or require a lot of metal strips to repair all the time), and if for some reason you still need one later in the game (like on a respawn), then you'll be able to craft one that will last a very long time before falling apart, but which does the same base damage.

[Xamllew]

Ugh, 400mp/s for a bow? That's like 3 times the speed of the the best modern fiberglass bows out there. I hope that was an oversight on their part.

[FlowerChild]

Ugh, 400mp/s for a bow? That's like 3 times the speed of the the best modern fiberglass bows out there. I hope that was an oversight on their part.

 

I suspect that would be a compound bow to get velocities that high as well. I looked it up and modern recurve bows clock in around 65 m/s. Recurve bows have a higher velocity at the same size as regular bows, and the one in the game is definitely not recurve.

 

I played around with a number of values to see what worked well, and in the end opted for 45 m/s for the homemade wooden bow in the game as it provides a nice challenge in getting headshots and hunting small game like rabbits, so yeah, like 1/9th that of the vanilla bow, plus the damage and durability is nerfed, as well as having more expensive arrows.

 

In my own play I'm finding that I'm reserving it for special occasions like taking out zombies from a slight distance if I am heavily wounded, or hunting the occasional rabbit if I am low on food, which was my design intent with the bow rebalance, as I didn't want it to totally dominate the early game and make melee combat immediately obsolete.

 

I think this is actually the first time I've played 7 Days that I don't have a massive brass surplus, as I'm using most of it for arrowheads

[LorenzoMatterhorn]

Thanks for all the hard work on the mod FC! I played vanilla for a few days after the patch but as usual the challenge didn't last past day 3.

 

One possible issue I can see is the day 6 random 20 dog hordes. I just went through it, they came at 9:20 am, I saw them coming and managed to duck all but the first three. Unfortunately, with nothing but a spiked club 3 dogs was still too much. My guess is that the sheer number of dogs must be a bug in the game, but it's a bit more pronounce in BTGB since we often don't have guns yet on day 6.