Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[FileMachete]

Hey @faatal, curious if you can/care-to share any tidbits on zombie pathing changes?

Vertical Wedges, zombie force fields (arrow slit block pathing), that kind of thing?

Or even just an intimidating vague statement, to juice the gossip mill? "Bases in A19 will need to be substantially different..."

(sry if asked & answered already)

[Sigil_Thane]

46 minutes ago, faatal said:

Let them freak (within reason). Gives them something to talk about while they wait. 😜

...is that a direct Madmole quote?

[Khalagar]

4 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

but imo. its best to tell people things that are a bit odd. yeah people will complain but its best to know before people get really mad when they play it

 

people could also give suggestions as well!

 

This. Yeah it's annoying that people over react without knowing what they are talking about, but it's still better to know in advance so others can explain "No, you don't understand what you are talking about" to the people who are  throwing a tizzy over every

 

  

8 hours ago, Onarr said:

You will essentially punish player for using vehicles.

 

. . .that IS the point. They are trying to offset vehicles by giving them a bit more of a cost because they are basically free ATM once you find a single shale patch.

 

60% increased food consumption while accelerating in vehicles sounds like a lot, but isn't really. It's likely just 60% increase over base food consumption, which is pretty low. So 60% more food per tick than you would consume while standing AFK will still not be all that much in a vehicle, and as others have said, by the time you have a vehicle you are completely unworried about food.

 

For people worrying about food, just buy food from trader vending machines and throw down a few farm plots. Which do just kinda need to be cheaper, because rotten meat is the rarest item in the game during a zombie apocalypse for some reason , but once you get some you can grow all the food you need easily

 

 

[Jost Amman]

38 minutes ago, Onarr said:

If the concept is stupid, what do you want to test about it? If somebody tells me that they want to make car that runs on farts should I wait for how it pans out? Yeah he might make it and it might achieve some goal, but its widly inpractical and majority of people will see him as a fool.

 Food as Madmole stated is early game problem, that does not translate much into late game. Later on role of the food is it gives you buffs. The only reason I can think of why they want to implement this solution is because avarage player in later stages have endless food and little to no drains, because they drive everywhere and shoot guns instead of melee. So as I see it they want to implement vehicle food drain, so they can make food relevant to late game now. That is something I can stand behind, but this is not the way to do it. I would much rather see food as a good trader item or quest objective rather than arbitrary punishment.  Right now it feels like hacked solution added at the very last second.

There's tons of things that don't make much sense in a game (in general) and in 7DTD specifically.

 

So why does this specific design choice especially get on your nerves?

Are you a car/motorcycle enthusiast or something? 🤨

[Damocles]

19 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

There's tons of things that don't make much sense in a game (in general) and in 7DTD specifically.

 

So why does this specific design choice especially get on your nerves?

Are you a car/motorcycle enthusiast or something? 🤨

Because neither plausible, nor what a normal player would expect. And obviously a bandage for the problem of item inflation with foods-stuff.

[faatal]

All activities burn calories. Plenty of info on the internet.

 

Sleeping

0.95 MET.

Standing quietly, standing in a line 1.3 MET.

Truck, semi, tractor, > 1 ton, or bus, driving 2.5 MET.

Driving a motor scooter, motorcycle 3.5 MET.

Bicycling, < 10 mph, leisure, to work or for pleasure 4 MET.

Bicycling, on dirt or farm road, moderate pace 5.8 MET.

Running 4 mph (13 min / mile) 5 MET.

Running, cross country 9 MET.

 

https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/

[PoloPoPo]

1 hour ago, PoloPoPo said:

Serious question: Why not just drastically decrease the amount of foodstuff that can be found in loot containers? 🙈

 

This together with some simple changes to the hunting system sound promising to me. Make deer only huntable with bow & arrows for example. If you kill it with the "wrong" weapon it does not give you meat (or just a very small amount). Small animals like rabbits and chicken can only be catched with bare hands. Predators like wolves and bears should be much much much stronger and harder to take out. A few hits of a bear should kill you and even in late game it should be a risk attacking predators. Risk of an infection when hit (bitten) by an animal should be increased a lot.

 

The feeling when you eventually succeed in getting raw meat from an animal together with some eggs from a bird's nest is awesome when you start a new game. Those things are really valuable and save your life. I think this feeling should be conserved throughout the game.

 

[madmole]

On 6/5/2020 at 4:40 PM, Zombieforlife said:

So I watched a youtuber and he said A19 is coming in a week. Time to fess up. And give us an ETA. I was completely focused on A18 until I heard this. Now I'm ready to blow up my base and put a down payment on my zombie killin' drone.

There is nothing to fess up. It is done when its done, and no it won't be a week.

[Damocles]

10 minutes ago, faatal said:

All activities burn calories. Plenty of info on the internet.

 

Sleeping

0.95 MET.

Standing quietly, standing in a line 1.3 MET.

Truck, semi, tractor, > 1 ton, or bus, driving 2.5 MET.

Driving a motor scooter, motorcycle 3.5 MET.

Bicycling, < 10 mph, leisure, to work or for pleasure 4 MET.

Bicycling, on dirt or farm road, moderate pace 5.8 MET.

Running 4 mph (13 min / mile) 5 MET.

Running, cross country 9 MET.

 

https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/

The player is basically jogging around all the time with normal walkspeed.

So when walking (running), the player should use 2 times as many calories according to your chart compared to driving.

[Adam the Waster]

2 minutes ago, madmole said:

There is nothing to fess up. It is done when its done, and no it won't be a week.

[TheRani]

19 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Anybody care to provide a brief explanation on the niche appeal towards Linux and, more importantly, while it's still around? 😛

When I had Windows 7, and Windows 10 was released as a free upgrade, I started hearing horror stories from friends whose computers got upgraded without their permission, and then subsequently bricked by mandatory updates, and I wasn't having that nonsense.  So I switched to Ubuntu (one of the many Linux distros, and one of the more user-friendly ones).  At first I did most of my gaming via WINE, but there were some really great games (such as this one) that ran on Linux without it.  Then Steam made a compatibility layer called Proton that made a Ton more Windows games run properly on Linux.  So I now have Lots of fun games to play, and an operating system that simply lets me know when updates are available and lets me install them when I please.   When I buy my next computer, I will probably give Windows 10 a chance to redeem itself, but if it pisses me off, I will happily reinstall Ubuntu.

[Doc_mockingbird]

just a simple question. but, seeing how everything is getting an HD remake. I'm guessing we'll see new models for armor/clothing coming in the future as well?

p.s. Kankle Boots ugly AF. 

 

 

[faatal]

26 minutes ago, Damocles said:

The player is basically jogging around all the time with normal walkspeed.

So when walking (running), the player should use 2 times as many calories according to your chart compared to driving.

My point was all activities, including driving use calories. The 3.5 MET for driving a motorcycle, was most likely on nice clean roads, which is not what they are in the game. In any event we will use values that make sense game play wise. If it was based on reality, then you would not be moving at all with those tons of materials in your backpack.

[Jost Amman]

43 minutes ago, Damocles said:

Because neither plausible, nor what a normal player would expect. And obviously a bandage for the problem of item inflation with foods-stuff.

Ok, so you're fine with much less plausible things that are already in the game but for some reason this one is a no-go for you... I still don't get it.

I guess it's just something you've made up your mind on then.

[Khalagar]

People get hung up on the dumbest things. Had to argue with one dude about why a "junk drone" isn't any more nonsensical than zombies, autonomous junk turrets that can differentiate between friend and foe, a gyrocopter taped together, drilling down to bedrock and making a cave full of forges and campfires sealed off with vault doors etc.

 

 

Complainers gonna complain yo

[Guppys Fur]

19 minutes ago, faatal said:

My point was all activities, including driving use calories. The 3.5 MET for driving a motorcycle, was most likely on nice clean roads, which is not what they are in the game. In any event we will use values that make sense game play wise. If it was based on reality, then you would not be moving at all with those tons of materials in your backpack.

Interesting Angle.

I would be all FOR tying Food/water Drain to the amount of slots used in your backpack. That is a relation i would understand and appriciate

[JCrook1028]

On 6/7/2020 at 2:27 PM, faatal said:

I challenge you to drive a car down a beat up gravel or dirt road and see how easy it is. My wife and I did last year in a rental car and it was tense. Rock noise, bumping up and down, trying to not hit the big dips that might damage the car. That constant alertness and stress was definitely using calories.

 

Decaying old roads are not like the streets you are driving on now.

 

Now the gryo would not fall into that category, but I'd think sitting on a metal frame, looking down at the world with wind blasting you in the face and trying not to crash into something, would be equally stressful.

But using more food driving than walking/running? I repeat - silliness.

[Perlin_Worm]

To give Funpimps some cover I went on a 4 hour road trip with the fam and my youngest son was screaming how hungry he was so there you go.

[madmole]

On 6/6/2020 at 3:45 PM, Blake_ said:

That's bad. You guys can only squash like 14 MF tops per week being said bugs of various fixing difficulties and teams involved.  So the bug free release is in 40-50 days from now in the worst case scenario, which in fact is the best, because 14 MF per week can be sometimes 7 fixed, or 50 remaining bugs for the programming team only.

Development just doesn't work like that. You can't predict anything based on current sample rates from one day. Sometimes you fix 20 bugs in one day while none come in, sometimes 10 new ones come in while you fix none because you are in meetings all day. At the end of the day its done when it's done. Its pretty great already, but there are some regressions due to some improvements and we want to ship a better experimental if possible each alpha.

[Jost Amman]

15 minutes ago, madmole said:

Development just doesn't work like that. You can't predict anything based on current sample rates from one day. Sometimes you fix 20 bugs in one day while none come in, sometimes 10 new ones come in while you fix none because you are in meetings all day. At the end of the day its done when it's done. Its pretty great already, but there are some regressions due to some improvements and we want to ship a better experimental if possible each alpha.

That's 'cause ya'll doing it all wrong m8!

We don' leave no bugs squishing 'round here! No sir! 🤠

Spoiler

 

[madmole]

On 6/7/2020 at 2:01 PM, Guppys Fur said:

 

I dont like to jump on a hate-train before i layed Hands on A19 before it is out, but this really sounds like BS.

If you want increase Gas Usage, but 60% more Food Drain?

 

Cmon Guys...

Yes i read your Story with your vacation Fataal, but Gamewise this doesnt make ANY sense considering you guys took out food Poisening "because it made no fun and felt cheesy"

60% of a very tiny amount is still a small amount. It was the same as being AFK before which made food a non issue once you got a vehicle. No matter how active you are 80% of calories burned IRL come from base metabolism and not moving around and working. Yep just sitting on your @%$*#! breathing, thinking, uses 80% of the calories you take in. 20% from activity, roughly speaking. Do you not get hungry sitting on your @%$*#! driving somewhere? Its not going to drain your food meter dry, its actually going to burn a bit like it should. Was broken before. I wanted to just bump the base metaboliism but we want players to be able to idle and not get screwed so we added some to vehicles.

I hope that makes sense. Food should be an ongoing concern. Its way way cheaper than sprinting somewhere yet, but its using more than being AFK or idle.

[Gazz]

28 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

People get hung up on the dumbest things. Had to argue with one dude about why a "junk drone" isn't any more nonsensical than zombies, autonomous junk turrets that can differentiate between friend and foe...

As soon as you bring in zombies any notion of realism in your game falls off a cliff.

 

Plausibility? Sure. That can be valid. But it's plausible on a scale from silly to crazy.

[madmole]

23 hours ago, Damocles said:

How about implementing a more logic solution, and using more gas instead of food?

You know, like any normal person would expect those mechanics to work?

 

If you need a resource sink for food, there are lots of other activities the consumption could increase. (runnning, mining, salvaging, building, slapping etc)

Most people are not logical. The logical thing to do is to hose people for just standing around in their base, but we went the friendlier way and are attacking the race car drivers as they are the ones with loads of food piling up and not the noob who is standing around reading the tutorial. As I said, 80% of calories (roughly) are used just breathing IRL. I can sit on my @%$*#! or work out, I get hungry every 3-4 hours regardless. Do you not get hungry when traveling? Sorry bro everyone else does.

22 hours ago, beHypE said:

Who cares if it makes that much sense or not. Yes the numbers are over the top in terms of realism but if it adds anything to food being an absolute non-issue after a while (hint : after you don't run no more), that's cool for me.

 

Regarding vehicles, could the gyro be a little bit better on the road ? Just parking the damn thing is a chore, the reverse gear is terrible...

But they aren't. The base calorie rate for being idle is really really low and below normal... and we tuned it since his post anyway and will continue to tune until it feels good. The end result is hopefully you don't go from eating 5x a day to once a week like it was when you got a motor vehicle. That is just bad. Food needs to be a slight issue even late game if you don't put effort in.

[Adam the Waster]

i sit around and i get hungry every 1 minute 

[Gazz]

Yes, but not ingame. =P