Alpha 18 feedback and balancing thread

[Jay_ombie]

thinking about it, gating ammo manufacture until later on is probably not a bad idea

 

honestly a pistol is easy to find day 1. nitrate lead coal are so easy to find and dig a few blocks as you pass by. work benches are in most garages. not hard at all to make ammunition once you have a forge that takes one perk point. perk points can be earned in 5 mins from starting

why mess with bows at all?

with no other perks than forge which is a no brainer you can kick ass from midday day 1

takes a little longer sometimes but not often.

i like it as i am a casual gamer but cant comprehend how people struggle.

 

so if it is hard with a bow maybe there are balance issues.

i will go bows next iteration and see for nyself

 

but irl id rather have an ak...

correction irl id rather be fishing

 

I think guns shouldn’t come into play least until after day 3. Just don’t use clubs or bows enough due to how easy indeed it is to find guns and ammo now.

 

I love the guns but I need to earn and survive first before I get my toy guns.

[Haidrgna]

thinking about it, gating ammo manufacture until later on is probably not a bad idea

 

The thing is, it is supposed to be gated behind 2 workbenches, but as you say it is super easy to find a working workbench on day 1 and getting the forge is no challenge either. The raw materials are literally everywhere and even the ammo itself and the guns are everywhere.

 

Bows indeed lose value quickly, except for more stealthy gameplay. Gunfire draws in zombies, but there is not much in vanilla to draw in, so blasting away has no real consequences compared to being silent/careful.

[SnowDog1942]

What is this mythical sensible player and where do we find it? =P

 

They are the ones who just buy the game and play instead of coming to the forums to post one sexual innuendo zinger after another.

[Perlin_Worm]

Bows are in a good place as of b5. If there are any shortcomings, it is the stealth perks do not have great synergy with the bow as they should for a stealth weapon. Have stealth perks elevate the bow beyond other weapons and we are in business.

 

The knife weapon is almost there but not quite. Have knife bleed debuff zombie rage and it will have functional purpose

[tom2590]

Ludia please help me I'm not playing the game.

when I bought it all went bad but now from mysterious circumstances it is not possible to start ..

turns on and after a while it turns off nothing jumps or menu.

 

 

Ludia prosim pomôžte mi nejde mi hra.

ked som si ju zakْpil všetko fičalo ale teraz zo zلhadn‎ch okolnostي nejde spustit..

zapne a po chvيli mi to vypne neskočي mi nič ani menu.

 

[Prisma501]

Ludia please help me I'm not playing the game.

when I bought it all went bad but now from mysterious circumstances it is not possible to start ..

turns on and after a while it turns off nothing jumps or menu.

 

 

Ludia prosim pomôžte mi nejde mi hra.

ked som si ju zakْpil všetko fičalo ale teraz zo zلhadn‎ch okolnostي nejde spustit..

zapne a po chvيli mi to vypne neskočي mi nič ani menu.

 

Forum is English only. [Yep! Fixed now. -ed] And for your problem you need to go to support forum.

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?68-General-Support

 

Cheers

[Gareee]

Have knife bleed debuff zombie rage and it will have functional purpose

 

I like this idea!

[Survager]

The problem is player craftable lights can be spammed. You could place a hundred close to each other. We are not trying to spam place POI lights. Yes, you try to add some limits, but then it gets complicated, which takes time, so not a priority now.

 

Also, I was thinking a front light on the gyro might help.

 

How do you look at prohibiting the placement of light sources very close to each other how does it now work with trees? This could reduce spam. I am wrong?

[quyxkh]

In previous alphas I went only with a bow against zombies in the first 3 weeks of gameplay. Right now it feels like guns are more viable option against zombies during horde nights with some traps/automatic turrets... or its just my playstyle.

 

I finished day 28 by maybe 2am with club, bow and molotovs, default settings on nomad. No traps, no turrets. Just my bunker (my kid said I should name it The Cocktail Club. There's a service window!). The club still does a lot of killing, not sure I'll go past 5 str, if I'm going to max-attribute anything for splodey headshots fists might be awfully gratifying, flurry of blows at fist speed?

 

The bow's a setup weapon in open combat, it's there to stagger them for easy headshots with the club. Still carry just a no-perks Q1 pistol, haven't made any ammo, pretty sure I've still used more cloth for bandages than bullets for the frakme moments. I can't go in dumb to the heavier POIs since the rads started showing up, and when I run into those it's a stretch to call it kiting, running away until I get lucky maybe, but I still don't use the gun unless I've pulled a leeroy. I've started dropping disposable barbed-wire fences in doors sometimes, they're not as game-changing as the raw wire was but they can turn the tide.

 

Crowd control with guns looks expensive. Pipe bombs might be cheaper than the molotovs but I like to make zeds burn, plus the trip to the desert is fun.

[dcsobral]

What is this mythical sensible player and where do we find it? =P

 

I wouldn't go so far as call them sensible, by any stretch! In fact, they tend to operate more on the basis of myths and hearsay than hard evidence, but when the game gets laggy near your own base but not elsewhere, I don't know a single person who doesn't try to figure out what's going on.

[dcsobral]

honestly a pistol is easy to find day 1. nitrate lead coal are so easy to find and dig a few blocks as you pass by. work benches are in most garages. not hard at all to make ammunition once you have a forge that takes one perk point. perk points can be earned in 5 mins from starting

why mess with bows at all?

with no other perks than forge which is a no brainer you can kick ass from midday day 1

takes a little longer sometimes but not often.

i like it as i am a casual gamer but cant comprehend how people struggle.

 

so if it is hard with a bow maybe there are balance issues.

i will go bows next iteration and see for nyself

 

but irl id rather have an ak...

correction irl id rather be fishing

 

Actually, I find pistols rather hard to find early game. In the two games I've played so far, I've gotten AKs, M60s and SMGs before I ever found a pistol. Granted, early game of the first one was the first experimental, so it doesn't reflect what the game currently is, but the second one I started on 18.2.

 

Bows, however, are silent, and a compound crossbow with steel crossbows does more damage than almost anything else. It might not help if you are running for your life from a mob, but it kills most zombies on headshots, particularly if you have the magazines and get the bonus against sleepers. Even radiated zombies, which won't go down in the first shot, I usually just reload and shoot again one or two more times, before they even start moving in my direction, and that's enough to kill them.

 

And, no, a silenced pistol is not as silent as the bow/crossbow.

 

On a side note, that "no brainer" forge perk is something I never put points into. I think it's useless to put points in it, as a matter of fact. Why would anyone do such a thing? Working forges are easy to find, forged iron is easy to find, and forge schematic is easy to find/buy, and mining early game sucks, so there's little to put in the forge anyway.

[dcsobral]

Bows are in a good place as of b5. If there are any shortcomings, it is the stealth perks do not have great synergy with the bow as they should for a stealth weapon. Have stealth perks elevate the bow beyond other weapons and we are in business.

 

The knife weapon is almost there but not quite. Have knife bleed debuff zombie rage and it will have functional purpose

 

Hitting a zombie with a knife slows it down, if I understand it correctly. I think it's the bleeding buff that makes it so, and that's an automatic one with a knife.

[meganoth]

Thanks; it's good to get other people's perspectives.

 

On the argument that you can have a bank of forges running in parallel and make bricks without tying up your backpack, the same could be said for cobblestone, using a bank of workbenches.

 

On the argument that bricks offer an aesthetic alternative, all the brick textures have long been available to paint on whatever block you want.

 

On the argument that clay beats stone on acquisition time, I did another test. I had no skill points spent, and used an unmodded steel shovel and pickaxe.

One, 250 HP dirt block yielded 22 units of clay soil.

One, 500 HP stone block yielded 55 units of small stone.

That's 0.11 units of product for each 1 HP of damage in both cases. The clay yield per unit of HP is even worse for ground (the topsoil that's embedded with plant fibers) and sand. Also, dirt is not available in the desert, while stone is available in all biomes. So, other than having to dig through a few dirt blocks to reach the stone, if anything stone has the edge over clay in acquisition time.

 

On AlbasterW's argument that bricks provide more instant HP without the need to upgrade... well that's true, but that convenience comes at the cost of over four times as long to make the brick block in the first place.

 

TL;DR: fix bricks, Gazz!

 

Yes on the forges, it simply means crafting time in the forge does not matter because it happens parallel to anything the player does.

 

Your test is a bit beside the point, which was the time to get the materials. Who cares about blocks, there are hundred thousands available

 

I made a timed test with stone shovel and stone axe and 10 minutes in game yielded 70 clay but only 47 stones.

 

Steel shovel against steel axe may be a different ratio but usually you won't dig for cobblestone/brick anymore when you have steel tools.

[BobTheBard]

Yes on the forges, it simply means crafting time in the forge does not matter because it happens parallel to anything the player does.

 

Your test is a bit beside the point, which was the time to get the materials. Who cares about blocks, there are hundred thousands available

 

I made a timed test with stone shovel and stone axe and 10 minutes in game yielded 70 clay but only 47 stones.

 

Steel shovel against steel axe may be a different ratio but usually you won't dig for cobblestone/brick anymore when you have steel tools.

 

1) Crafting time on the forge does matter, because unless you have multiple forges then crafting on the forge means that you can't use that forge to craft anything else during that time. It's basically the same as backpack crafting in that regard, except you can't forge iron or steel from your backpack. I'm not sure whose case I'm making, just pointing this out.

 

2) If you're still using stone tools then you don't have a forge yet, so the point's a bit moot. If you have any intention of being a serious builder then the first thing you should do when you find a forge is get iron tools (assuming you haven't looted them yet). Also, a pickaxe is the proper tool for mining stone but since there aren't stone pickaxes (I often wonder why not?) you have to make do with a stone axe, which is naturally going to be less efficient.

 

3) A big argument in favor of cobblestone over brick is the fact you often don't need to spend any time or effort to craft it at all. Cobblestone and concrete mix are abundant in many POIs, so you can get a substantial amount of the stuff just going around looting as long as you remember to bring a shovel. It's not unusual to have a small cobblestone or concrete bunker before even finding a cement mixer, no crafting required.

[NukemDed]

On a side note, that "no brainer" forge perk is something I never put points into. I think it's useless to put points in it, as a matter of fact. Why would anyone do such a thing? Working forges are easy to find, forged iron is easy to find, and forge schematic is easy to find/buy, and mining early game sucks, so there's little to put in the forge anyway.

 

sorry if the comment on the forge seemed off, its a no brainer for me. I like to have one up and running asap, and get miner 69er as well so I can make iron tools asap too. then I am building up iron, clay, brass, lead, stone in the forge for quick crafting later on. fortune favours the prepared I suppose. I get frustrated when you get a schematic and find out you have to spend ages scavenging for the ingredients. at least if I am hard out smelting as early as possible, the chances are I am a good ways to having enough resource if not already there.

 

thinking about forge occurrence, it seems to me there are more workbenches lying around than forges. and less than both for chem stations? less again for table saw? probably why I go for a forge as workbenches are super easy to find. knock a hole n a garage if not able to get in, kite out zds if required, 1 in 3? have a schematic if busted. 5 mins in a reasonable sized town and you have the schematic. garages also seem the best place for boxes with anvils tools repair kits and those other early on goodies that make you go "come to papa!"

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

and don't forget a lot of those perks raise your efficiencies at level 1, so straight away you are getting more resource faster at better quality etc

I reckon you get to a better place quicker if you generalise a bit before you specialise.

[meganoth]

1) Crafting time on the forge does matter, because unless you have multiple forges then crafting on the forge means that you can't use that forge to craft anything else during that time. It's basically the same as backpack crafting in that regard, except you can't forge iron or steel from your backpack. I'm not sure whose case I'm making, just pointing this out.

 

2) If you're still using stone tools then you don't have a forge yet, so the point's a bit moot. If you have any intention of being a serious builder then the first thing you should do when you find a forge is get iron tools (assuming you haven't looted them yet). Also, a pickaxe is the proper tool for mining stone but since there aren't stone pickaxes (I often wonder why not?) you have to make do with a stone axe, which is naturally going to be less efficient.

 

3) A big argument in favor of cobblestone over brick is the fact you often don't need to spend any time or effort to craft it at all. Cobblestone and concrete mix are abundant in many POIs, so you can get a substantial amount of the stuff just going around looting as long as you remember to bring a shovel. It's not unusual to have a small cobblestone or concrete bunker before even finding a cement mixer, no crafting required.

 

Good point, I agree that iron tools would probably be the best to test.

 

I did a test with stone tools because I thought crator had used them too. And then saw he used steel when I wanted to report my findings. If you want to do a test with iron, be my guest

[Boa_2K7]

I, for one, do miss the toggle for equipping/disarming items via hotbar keys. ie. press 1 once to equip axe, press again to disarm. \m/ \m/

[bdubyah]

I, for one, do miss the toggle for equipping/disarming items via hotbar keys. ie. press 1 once to equip axe, press again to disarm. \m/ \m/

 

This. ^^^

 

One of the things I miss coming from ARK. Hitting Q to sheath whatever you have in your hand.

[Jay_ombie]

This. ^^^

 

One of the things I miss coming from ARK. Hitting Q to sheath whatever you have in your hand.

 

This is useful when those like taking screen shots as well.

 

Also.....

 

NVIDIA - PhysX 5.0

 

any chance for support later on for say water ?

 

For liquid simulations, developers will be able to use discrete particle simulations to model fluids and granular flow. The implementation is scalable; large time steps can be used to stably simulate a wide range of liquids. The Discrete Element Model (DEM) provides support for friction and adhesion. PhysX 5.0 also uses an implementation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate liquids with discrete particles, a technique used in oceanography and volcanography.

[faatal]

This is useful when those like taking screen shots as well.

 

Also.....

 

NVIDIA - PhysX 5.0

 

any chance for support later on for say water ?

 

For liquid simulations, developers will be able to use discrete particle simulations to model fluids and granular flow. The implementation is scalable; large time steps can be used to stably simulate a wide range of liquids. The Discrete Element Model (DEM) provides support for friction and adhesion. PhysX 5.0 also uses an implementation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate liquids with discrete particles, a technique used in oceanography and volcanography.

 

Probably not. I am still waiting on Unity 2019.3 final release (still buggy, Jan?), which has PhysX 4.1. Even if Unity updated to 5.0 next year, they still need to expose the features to developers, since you do not get direct access to PhysX.

[dcsobral]

Hey, do I remember it correctly that Madmole talked about having to use a valve to turn off a steam trap when doing a dungeon poi, on early pre-alpha 18 videos? Whatever happened to that idea? The lack of active traps in prefabs is disheartening.

[faatal]

How do you look at prohibiting the placement of light sources very close to each other how does it now work with trees? This could reduce spam. I am wrong?

 

The use case is not like trees. You should be able to place 2 or 5 torches next to each other. That is reasonable, but when each player is doing that in separate areas, it needs to be moderated, which is what turning them off at distance achieves.

[faatal]

But isn't that a player problem? What do TFP care if players shoot themselves in the foot?

 

It is our problem, when they leave bad reviews or bad mouth us to the world, which hurts our image and our sales, so it matters to me.

[iamnuff]

Then build a castle.

 

How many layers of concrete makes a 'castle' to you? I'm on two already, but it's barely enough.

Multiple layers of concrete walls with metal bars in the centre two rows, to hold the Z's off for long enough for you to kill them. Even then, you're going to lose blocks all around your outside.

Feels kind of crappy, since there aren't a lot of viable base designs, but I've tried all sorts of stuff like ladder/hatch-only access to my base, or living on the top floor of a tower, living in an underground bunker, windows on all sides, windows on only one side, ect.

 

Now that they zombies can path-find better, they will undermine towers and dig down into bunkers, and attacking from alternating sides on horde-night is a problem if you place all of your defences on one side.

 

Z's block damage is just too high for a regular building to stand up to them for the full duration of horde-night, unless you have enough players with guns (or turrets) to keep the zombies from piling up against the walls.

 

Knocking block damage down to about 30-50% in the settings stops them from just drilling though your cobblestone/concrete walls in seconds, but it lowers the tension in POI's, because they can't get out of locked rooms, and you can just close doors behind yourself as you move about to buy yourself time to heal or reload.

... which makes sense, I guess.

 

Maybe if the block-damage stayed high, but there was some sort of cooldown, preventing multiple zombies from being able to strike the same block simultaneously?

As is, a z-pile grinding against your walls can hit the same block ten or twenty times in about two seconds, which drains the block-hp from max to broken in seconds. Ensuring that they can't pile up like that is absolutely vital.

 

Putting spikes against your walls has them not be able to hit the block behind the spikes, so they break holes through your walls at head-level, which creates a nice shooting porthole, but it's probably not an intentional solution.

 

As-is, we generally ring the base with multiple layers of electric fence, to try to keep them away from the walls as we kill them, but that means spending tons and tons of ammo.

 

Personally, I kind of want to try a five-layer wall on three sizes, to see if that deters the zombies from even attempting to get in from those directions. That'd be a huge pain to gather resources for and upgrade though.

Could debugmode it, i guess.

[mr.natural]

How many layers of concrete makes a 'castle' to you? I'm on two already, but it's barely enough. ....

 

Try upgrading to steel, much better that way.