Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Sigil_Thane]

3 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Hmm. I wonder what kind of AI changes will be made then?

Yep, it's just slightly annoying (but I'll get over it) where even if I show them a literal monstrosity of a base, they are convinced it's as useless as a wet paper bag. 😛 At least I can take pride in the fact that I know better.

For example: https://i.imgur.com/EBUxRfm.jpg

 

Dear RNG-sus.... that there is an INVESTMENT! How long did it take to paint all of those wood blocks? 

( j/k... just thought it relevant to the paint discussion too. )

22 minutes ago, Annihilatorza said:

Candle and a Pot.

Candle and spoon.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[hotpoon]

3 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

True, true, it just grinds my gears whenever there's a post on reddit of a new player asking for tips on horde bases, and every so often there's just this flood of comments with people suggesting, "Super Cheesy AI Pathing Base, Day 7!" All I can do is do my part and try to spread some truth in the world. 😛 (ie options exist people!)

Also, I just want your (or anybody's opinion) on something. Most of us can agree that having an infinite loop or a killing corridor as a base is exploitative of the zombie AI and thus is a taboo subject, but what of a trench surrounding your compound with stairs leading up to an entrance, forcing the zombies down a corridor where I am at ground level firing at them, and still at risk to myself. Yes, trenches have been utilized in warfare since the Middle Ages, but would you regard this as being as cheesy as some other designs? (I personally disagree, but I want your take, just out of curiosity.)

In a real zombie apocalypse, it would be silly not to exploit the fact that zombies aren't smart, so why not do it in game as well? I'm not sure why some people feel that if you find a risk free way to survive horde night that you are somehow cheating.  If all this game was was a simple FPS, then you would be ruining the game for yourself by avoiding direct combat, but 7 days to die is so much more than a simple FPS.  Personally, I enjoy a more hands on horde night, but for some people grinding for and designing a base that does the combat for you is very satisfying. I don't think it is a 'wrong' play style, just one of many play styles for the many-layered game that it is.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

 

[Annihilatorza]

10 minutes ago, hotpoon said:

In a real zombie apocalypse, it would be silly not to exploit the fact that zombies aren't smart, so why not do it in game as well? I'm not sure why some people feel that if you find a risk free way to survive horde night that you are somehow cheating.  If all this game was was a simple FPS, then you would be ruining the game for yourself by avoiding direct combat, but 7 days to die is so much more than a simple FPS.  Personally, I enjoy a more hands on horde night, but for some people grinding for and designing a base that does the combat for you is very satisfying. I don't think it is a 'wrong' play style, just one of many play styles for the many-layered game that it is.

Designing the base to fight for you is fine, not a problem.

 

I don't enjoy it when they do endless loops due the AI exploits, but to each his own.

 

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[mr.devolver]

1 hour ago, SnowDog1942 said:

What would be a lower tier than a campfire?

I don't know, but I learned to never underestimate TFP's capabilities to come up with some surprises. 😉

[Laz Man]

6 hours ago, Trankitas said:

This is really great, if the game is enjoyable for the devs, it should be 10 times more enjoyable for the clients (us).

It also means we should hopefully be close to Kraken time. 😀

6 hours ago, Trankitas said:

I would like to disagree, all my female 7 days to die companions (My wife, my cousins (3), and my grandma (ok, that one is a joke) saw painting as a really early game need, I know it's a survival game, but you are underestimating other aspects of the game that are really fun (Maybe not for you, but for a lot of the players)

I really like the working stiff logo on the clock, it's a close to gold feature, but you should show more publicity/products from Working stiff, Pop'n Pills, Crack a Book, etc. like Fallout does, it gives you the feel you are on a real world.

Not on default settings.  There is not enough time to sit around painting on 60 minute day settings during the early game for the avg. player. (Unless being carried by others)

 

And that's assuming you found a brush and some paint.

[Trankitas]

5 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

It also means we should hopefully be close to Kraken time. 😀

Not on default settings.  There is not enough time to sit around painting on 60 minute day settings during the early game for the avg. player. (Unless being carried by others)

 

And that's assuming you found a brush and some paint.

Well, i'm talking about my personal experience, not an absolute truth. But I carry them with the basic necessities, yes.

[Laz Man]

5 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

True, true, it just grinds my gears whenever there's a post on reddit of a new player asking for tips on horde bases, and every so often there's just this flood of comments with people suggesting, "Super Cheesy AI Pathing Base, Day 7!" All I can do is do my part and try to spread some truth in the world. 😛 (ie options exist people!)

Also, I just want your (or anybody's opinion) on something. Most of us can agree that having an infinite loop or a killing corridor as a base is exploitative of the zombie AI and thus is a taboo subject, but what of a trench surrounding your compound with stairs leading up to an entrance, forcing the zombies down a corridor where I am at ground level firing at them, and still at risk to myself. Yes, trenches have been utilized in warfare since the Middle Ages, but would you regard this as being as cheesy as some other designs? (I personally disagree, but I want your take, just out of curiosity.)

Cheese is subjective player to player.  You can have a never ending debate about it.

 

[Cegleastro]

I don't know if anyone else has requested this yet, but what about something to help with inventory management. I know there are several mods out there that do a great job of managing inventory, but it would be nice to have it in the un-modded game.  I also think the A19 is looking pretty good so far, but I think the whole candy idea is just crazy.  You say candy gives zero calories...which is mostly all candy really is...empty calories and they seem to give almost 'magic like' affects.  I think we could easily do without the whole candy thing.  I would much rather see another posters suggestion of more paint textures for those that like to build amazing looking bases...i'm not one of them...my building skills suck!

[Khalagar]

7 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Tiny "rant" here, but I've been looking over some reviews and videos of 7D2D in A18, and I find it ridiculous that so many people still believe that you HAVE to exploit the zombies' AI, sending them on an infinite loop, in order to survive a BM horde in A18, meanwhile claiming that my castle and tower bases are "fake" since they are "impossible to defend in A18". I'm not even upset that I've been accused of being a fraud over and over, I just find it sad that people assume the game is just like A17 since it no longer resembles A16. Rant over, carry on people. 😛

 

It's because it's EXTREMELY expensive to have a horde base that isn't just a cheesy maze trying to exploit the AI.  You'll end up eventually in a spiral death loop where you spend 6 days out of 7 trying to rebuild your castle to 80% of what it was last horde night, and recraft 40% of the ammo you used, then the next horde hits and sends you back to zero again.

 

It will wear you down really, really fast with a conventional castle past like day 42, if you even make it that far before you start noticing you are losing resources every blood moon and aren't able to actually recoop them all in the following week.

 

You'll often see new players post their concrete box castle with 40 bajillion spikes outside it, and shed a tear for their innocence. In reality, zombies will just tear through a single 1 block path of spikes and ignore the other 39 bajillion spikes almost entirely, then run right up and all cluster together and beat the ever loving feces out of a single section of the wall and break it down in 20 seconds and then flood into the base.

 

And that's the cheap option. If they actually spread out and attack the whole base, they will do thousands and thousands of cement worth of damage, and then even with maxed out mining perks and auger it will take you 5+ days of solid cement crafting to even rebuild and repair what you had.  And then you'll realize you used 4,000+ bullets in a single night and depleted your entire stockpile

 

It's not even a zero sum game, it's a straight up losing game. You'll eventually run out of nearby iron nodes so you have to go further and further for steel replenishment, and will spend more and more and more of your time mining stone for cement and won't have time for trying to mine lead, nitrate, and coal for bullets, let alone trying to figure out how you are going to replace the 4,000+ bullets you spent per horde night without any brass

 

Well, it also depending on what settings you play on. If you are playing on nomad with the default zombies per player you will probably make it way longer before you start noticing the resource drain increasing.

 

I play on the second highest difficulty with 32 zombies per player, and at that difficulty it's just not feasible to have a noob style "PoI converted into a fortress" and actually keep it standing long term without basically giving up entirely on ever being able to do quests or do *anything* else but try to rebuild the base and restock materials after the last horde smashed them.

 

Your 3 options are basically

 

1. Build a maze or base that exploits the AI so you can kill them without them attacking your expensive concrete and undoing 10 minutes worth of work in 20 seconds

2. Get on a motorcycle and just drive away and not fight

3. Have a mobile fight on the road

 

 

 

I prefer option 3 personally. Drive out to an open section of the road, throw down two junk turrets (because their ammo is actually affordable to use en masse), fight in melee and use pipe bombs or the rare m60 burst to try and thin out the incoming horde. Pack up the turrets and throw out a Pocket Motorcycle™ when you start getting overwhelmed and move 100 yards down the road and repeat.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Laz Man]

17 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

It's because it's EXTREMELY expensive to have a horde base that isn't just a cheesy maze trying to exploit the AI.  You'll end up eventually in a spiral death loop where you spend 6 days out of 7 trying to rebuild your castle to 80% of what it was last horde night, and recraft 40% of the ammo you used, then the next horde hits and sends you back to zero again.

 

It will wear you down really, really fast with a conventional castle past like day 42, if you even make it that far before you start noticing you are losing resources every blood moon and aren't able to actually recoop them all in the following week.

 

You'll often see new players post their concrete box castle with 40 bajillion spikes outside it, and shed a tear for their innocence. In reality, zombies will just tear through a single 1 block path of spikes and ignore the other 39 bajillion spikes almost entirely, then run right up and all cluster together and beat the ever loving feces out of a single section of the wall and break it down in 20 seconds and then flood into the base.

 

And that's the cheap option. If they actually spread out and attack the whole base, they will do thousands and thousands of cement worth of damage, and then even with maxed out mining perks and auger it will take you 5+ days of solid cement crafting to even rebuild and repair what you had.  And then you'll realize you used 4,000+ bullets in a single night and depleted your entire stockpile

 

It's not even a zero sum game, it's a straight up losing game. You'll eventually run out of nearby iron nodes so you have to go further and further for steel replenishment, and will spend more and more and more of your time mining stone for cement and won't have time for trying to mine lead, nitrate, and coal for bullets, let alone trying to figure out how you are going to replace the 4,000+ bullets you spent per horde night without any brass

 

Well, it also depending on what settings you play on. If you are playing on nomad with the default zombies per player you will probably make it longer before you start noticing the resource drain increasing.

 

I play on the second highest difficulty with 32 zombies per player, and at that difficulty it's just not feasible to have a noob style "PoI converted into a fortress" and actually keep it standing long term without basically giving up entirely on ever being able to do quests or do *anything* else but try to rebuild the base and restock materials after the last horde smashed them.

 

Your 3 options are basically

 

1. Build a maze or base that exploits the AI so you can kill them without them attacking your expensive concrete and undoing 10 minutes worth of work in 20 seconds

2. Get on a motorcycle and just drive away and not fight

3. Have a mobile fight on the road

 

 

 

I prefer option 3 personally. Drive out to an open section of the road, throw down two junk turrets (because their ammo is actually affordable to use en masse), fight in melee and use pipe bombs or the rare m60 burst to try and thin out the incoming horde. Pack up the turrets and throw out a Pocket Motorcycle™ when you start getting overwhelmed and move 100 yards down the road and repeat.

Sounds like working as intended. 😂

 

Higher Difficulty is Difficult...check

More then 1 option to survive...check

 

But seriously, cheese is a moving target. They could change to fix one cheese but introduce a new cheese in the process.  Not sure if your just venting or if you actually have a suggestion in mind because before A17/A18, you just built super thick walls and the zeds just bee lined it at you and the game was over. Roll the credits.

 

Vedui did a recent video comparing A16 AI to A18 AI, and I cant believe people miss the old way which was even cheesier (dig a hole and place dirt over your head or build an elevated arch and watch the zeds spin in circles below you lol)

 

Reference Video:

 

 

 

[SnowDog1942]

16 minutes ago, Cegleastro said:

I don't know if anyone else has requested this yet, but what about something to help with inventory management. I know there are several mods out there that do a great job of managing inventory, but it would be nice to have it in the un-modded game.  I also think the A19 is looking pretty good so far, but I think the whole candy idea is just crazy.  You say candy gives zero calories...which is mostly all candy really is...empty calories and they seem to give almost 'magic like' affects.  I think we could easily do without the whole candy thing.  I would much rather see another posters suggestion of more paint textures for those that like to build amazing looking bases...i'm not one of them...my building skills suck!

 

Not a fan of the candy thing either.  I won't be using them so its not too big a deal to me besides wasted Dev time that could have been put towards something nice.   I've never used a vending machine anyway.. no change for me.  I know they said they are putting in candy to reduce food in vending machines.   A simpler and more believable way of reducing food in vending machines would have been to... you know.. reduce the food in vending machines ---- without adding magic candy.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Khalagar]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

Sounds like working as intended. 😂

 

Higher Difficulty is Difficult...check

More then 1 option to survive...check

 

Yeah, I'm not complaining about it, just explaining why many people end up resorting to cheesing the AI, it's just super costly not to, and is usually still quite dangerous and challenging even if you do make an efficient base.

 

Higher difficulties in games *should* require min maxing and actually putting thought into your design, so I don't have an issue with it requiring a pretty efficient base. I do think the zombies are a bit too smart though, like avoiding fall damage is pretty weird. That's basically a staple of zombie movies, tricking zombie hordes into falling off cliffs and stuff, and the way zombies will psychically know there's a trap lined tunnel and instead just dig down from above and decide to go through your roof instead is a bit too Einstein Zombie level.

 

Ideally, the solution would be to have different special zombies that can make paths for the other zombies. Like a Zombie Miner or something that specifically makes tunnels to different areas in an underground base and the other zombies could follow those tunnels, or spider zombies leaving a web ladder so others can follow them onto roofs or something

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Khalagar]

I mean, that's basically the case now though.

 

"Zombie cop over there, someone get it"

 

"GET THE DEMO ZOMBIE BEFORE IT GETS CLOSE"

"Someone get that stupid vulture, it keeps kicking me in the back of the head"

 

The rest of the fodder are just secondary targets you shoot between identifying the big threats

[The Gronk]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

Yep, it's why I never use Fortbites, or Megacrush, or Grandpa's Moonshine, or Coffee or Blackstrap Coffee, at least in A18... Incredibly situational buffs that I can do fine without, and even if I was bothered to use them, I'd forget they existed 90% of the time anyway. 😛 I think the implementation of candy is fine, I'll probably just never use them is all.

Now what would be nice is if you could dump some Megacrush into the engine of your vehicle and for a few minutes it could travel hundreds of kilometres per hour. 😛

Nonsense!  Drink the petrol and run there!  🙂
 

 

https://i.redd.it/cbota0ofpfl01.jpg
 

 

[Dimpy]

5 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

That might also turn horde nights into an annoying game of whack-a-mole. Identify x type of zombie, and take them down. That's fine by itself, but imagine if half the zombies had some special ability that made you concentrate your fire on them. That might work out, or it might not. (Doing this would also once again draw in the realism crowd. :P)

What if there was a special zombie that was immune to bullets? Then it would not longer be whack-a-mole.

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Worrun]

2 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

It's because it's EXTREMELY expensive to have a horde base that isn't just a cheesy maze trying to exploit the AI.  You'll end up eventually in a spiral death loop where you spend 6 days out of 7 trying to rebuild your castle to 80% of what it was last horde night, and recraft 40% of the ammo you used, then the next horde hits and sends you back to zero again.

 

It will wear you down really, really fast with a conventional castle past like day 42, if you even make it that far before you start noticing you are losing resources every blood moon and aren't able to actually recoop them all in the following week.

 

You'll often see new players post their concrete box castle with 40 bajillion spikes outside it, and shed a tear for their innocence. In reality, zombies will just tear through a single 1 block path of spikes and ignore the other 39 bajillion spikes almost entirely, then run right up and all cluster together and beat the ever loving feces out of a single section of the wall and break it down in 20 seconds and then flood into the base.

 

And that's the cheap option. If they actually spread out and attack the whole base, they will do thousands and thousands of cement worth of damage, and then even with maxed out mining perks and auger it will take you 5+ days of solid cement crafting to even rebuild and repair what you had.  And then you'll realize you used 4,000+ bullets in a single night and depleted your entire stockpile

 

It's not even a zero sum game, it's a straight up losing game. You'll eventually run out of nearby iron nodes so you have to go further and further for steel replenishment, and will spend more and more and more of your time mining stone for cement and won't have time for trying to mine lead, nitrate, and coal for bullets, let alone trying to figure out how you are going to replace the 4,000+ bullets you spent per horde night without any brass

 

Well, it also depending on what settings you play on. If you are playing on nomad with the default zombies per player you will probably make it way longer before you start noticing the resource drain increasing.

 

I play on the second highest difficulty with 32 zombies per player, and at that difficulty it's just not feasible to have a noob style "PoI converted into a fortress" and actually keep it standing long term without basically giving up entirely on ever being able to do quests or do *anything* else but try to rebuild the base and restock materials after the last horde smashed them.

 

Your 3 options are basically

 

1. Build a maze or base that exploits the AI so you can kill them without them attacking your expensive concrete and undoing 10 minutes worth of work in 20 seconds

2. Get on a motorcycle and just drive away and not fight

3. Have a mobile fight on the road

 

 

 

I prefer option 3 personally. Drive out to an open section of the road, throw down two junk turrets (because their ammo is actually affordable to use en masse), fight in melee and use pipe bombs or the rare m60 burst to try and thin out the incoming horde. Pack up the turrets and throw out a Pocket Motorcycle™ when you start getting overwhelmed and move 100 yards down the road and repeat.

 

Straight up truth. 

[MechanicalLens]

deleted

[Roland]

My main complaint is with zombie behaviors that are unintended and not with how players choose to defend. 
 

If zombies are supposed to attack steep slope blocks but aren’t then I want that fixed. 
If zombies are supposed to leap a gap from a ledge but are just falling off that ledge then that should be fixed. 
If zombies are remaining stuck in a loop when it is intended that they will stop and go into destruction mode then I want that fixed. 
If zombies are supposed to be able to travel across the narrow edge of a wedge block but they are always falling then I want that fixed. 
 

Once the zombies are all behaving the way the devs say they should be behaving, I guarantee that people will stil find easy ways to defend and that is perfectly fine. The game supports these choices. The developers are not in a battle against player metas. They simply are working to get the enemies to behave correctly and this process will cause certain defenses to not be 100% any longer.