Jump to content

Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, DaVegaNL said:

How about those big yellow sprites? What's your opinion on them?

Theres a fine line between immersion and usability.  Is immersiveness as important when trying to find a bicycle left in a field of grass?  Or how about when digging in the side of a mountain of stone terrain blocks for what seems like forever?  Guess the thresold will vary from person to person.  Good thing its moddable via xml so it can be configured to the way people like it.

 

Edit: I sure hope they add the nav icon for the junk turret as god knows how many times I forgot it at a POI and had to double back to find it again lol.  I probably would configure my nav beacons to only be visible within a short distance not to clutter my compass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Theres a fine line between immersion and usability.  Is immersiveness as important when trying to find a bicycle left in a field of grass?  Or how about when digging in the side of a mountain of stone terrain blocks for what seems like forever?  Guess the thresold will vary from person to person.  Good thing its moddable via xml so it can be configured to the way people like it.

 

Edit: I sure hope they add the nav icon for the junk turret as god knows how many times I forgot it at a POI and had to double back to find it again lol.  I probably would configure my nav beacons to only be visible within a short distance not to clutter my compass.

I do that @%$*#! well, Leave it behind in the bowels of some POI :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are so many play styles which, I would add, includes many play intensities.

By "play intensity", the range would be from min-maxer (Try Hard) to being ultra casual (willfully incompetent).

 

Both are fun in their own ways, but being willfully incompetent requires a greater detachment from the game, so is actually more difficult for me.  I've started watching Anti-min-maxers on you tube and they are good for some laughs.  :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im all for different play styles, hell i do different each Alpha to try them out.

 

Im just looking for a balance to looting/crafting. Im happy with everything else ( that i know off ) . Even the changes to food/water drain while driving. When i bought a Alpha game, i understood that A14 wasn't how the game would be by gold. I think people may lose sight of that idk.

I'll be disappointed if they don't add a middle mouse attack with spiked knuckles to "Knuckle Rub" a Demo lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Damocles said:

There could also be point arrows above the bird nests. Would make them easier to find.

And in general have all containers and dropped items have a glow effect.

And special radar view, to see where the sleeper zombies are.

Me thinks someone does not like the change 😛

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I watched the dev stream.. New zombies look great, swimming zombies? That is just stupid, its bad enough they are structual engineers and can dig, now they can swim and faster than the player even? it makes NO sense, you need to let the player have SOME saftey somehow. Zombies still need some randomized skins with diff stats or something so were not fighting the same carbon copy zombie over and over. If the game was with monsters instead of humans turned zombie it'd be fine if they looked the same for the same monster, but this is a zombie game.

Autoshotgun looks nice, and will probably be one of my favorite guns in A19. The int stuff, Placeable junk turrets should never have existed and nor should the drone, they are too easly exploitable with their 10-14 meter activate distance for the turrets and I suspect the drone might be farther due to it being mobile. Lower junk turret/sledge turrets activation distance when placed to 1-2 meters (which is 1-2 blocks) This way they are useful for backup fire, but you can't sit on the floor above and drop it 2 floors below you to clear rooms out at 0 risk to the player. They have also become a crutch for players, many players now have gotten bad at the game when they lack a junk turret because they are too used to abusing them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can see that new and casual players are favored by the... less than completely immersive UI.  Along with some OP player equipment.

 

But its good business as causal players will tend to play without mods and more hardcore players will tend to use mods.

Also expert level players will sometimes include "willful incompetence" by not using OP things including turrets in some (all?) of their play through's. 

 

Of course having some options for the glaring UI issues would be great for everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Scyris said:

So I watched the dev stream.. New zombies look great, swimming zombies? That is just stupid, its bad enough they are structual engineers and can dig, now they can swim and faster than the player even? it makes NO sense, you need to let the player have SOME saftey somehow. Zombies still need some randomized skins with diff stats or something so were not fighting the same carbon copy zombie over and over. If the game was with monsters instead of humans turned zombie it'd be fine if they looked the same for the same monster, but this is a zombie game.

Autoshotgun looks nice, and will probably be one of my favorite guns in A19. The int stuff, Placeable junk turrets should never have existed and nor should the drone, they are too easly exploitable with their 10-14 meter activate distance for the turrets and I suspect the drone might be farther due to it being mobile. Lower junk turret/sledge turrets activation distance when placed to 1-2 meters (which is 1-2 blocks) This way they are useful for backup fire, but you can't sit on the floor above and drop it 2 floors below you to clear rooms out at 0 risk to the player. They have also become a crutch for players, many players now have gotten bad at the game when they lack a junk turret because they are too used to abusing them.

 

I am going to have to disagree with you a bit, the game is too easy currently.

 

With the like of floating bases, wedge exploits, arrow slit exploit, ramp exploit, driving away from hoards on hoard night, Building invulnerable water bases. 

 

I could go on but I think my point is made the game is to easy IMO, way to easy to survive without even using exploits.

 

Getting infected means nothing as I always have a cure on hand.

I am swimming in food.

 

If we were playing semi realism style game, you would have nothing but a wood log base as you cant make anything else and nothing could get through that as a rotting human hand would turn to mush against it.

 

To make cement you need limestone heated to very high temperatures to make cement and then how do you move multi tons of cement, 1 m3 of cement weighs 2.5 tons or 5000 pounds.

 

I agree with the Junk Turret needs tweaking, either decrease the activation range or increase the number of zombies in a POI as I have a level 4 one currently and it just murders everything with ease while exploring POI's and my game stage is over 120 already, So I just leave it at home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Matt 1977 said:

Ive used the turret on 1 play through, agree it needs tweaking. Just scrap for ammo...... no gun powder. Yet Blunderbuss ammo needs more mats. Just my thoughts. 

Hmmm maybe make it use scrap iron and gun powder to make a junk turret ammo cartridge or another possibility is that you have to wind it up for it to shoot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Matt 1977 said:

Ive used the turret on 1 play through, agree it needs tweaking. Just scrap for ammo...... no gun powder. Yet Blunderbuss ammo needs more mats. Just my thoughts. 

My issue is more the fact you can have to shoot at zombies in random poi's while your safe behind doors and such. IMO you should need both line of sight with the turret, and also have to be witnhin 1-2 blocks of it, or it don't fire. Would allow it to be used as backup damage but will fix the exploitability of it that it currently has. I mean i've seen players drop them 2-3 floors below them and they just mop everything out pretty fast at 0 risk to the player. I just do not understand it, they made zombies dig so underground players have a risk, they make them swim in a19 so you can't just hide on a lake at night or, the rotting zombies also somehow can swim faster than the player.. yeah figure that one out I can't, yet they allow placed junk turrets to fire at things while your half the Poi away completly safe.

 

I'm particlarly salty about the digging zombies myself, I used to make underground bases, not to hide from the horde, I usually fought them at ground level I like the challenge, but because everytime I build a base, I end up putting 1 block to many and it takes the entire base down due to the SI system, IMO if you place 1 block over the limit only THAT most recent block should fall, not have it cause a cascade that ends up taking down the entire structure. So I would build underground deep down as it just was easier since I didn't have to worry about SI that far down. Now? I am basically forced to fortify poi's because I am sick of going 1 block over the SI limit taking out my entire base. I like the brown church with no fence, take out back stairs and zombies usually always come in the front only, so you only have to defend 1 way on horde nights. Its pretty stable too, I base up near the cieling and it pretty much won't come down unless the zombies somehow blow out the entire 2 side walls.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Annihilatorza said:

I am going to have to disagree with you a bit, the game is too easy currently.

 

With the like of floating bases, wedge exploits, arrow slit exploit, ramp exploit, driving away from hoards on hoard night, Building invulnerable water bases. 

 

I could go on but I think my point is made the game is to easy IMO, way to easy to survive without even using exploits.

 

Getting infected means nothing as I always have a cure on hand.

I am swimming in food.

 

If we were playing semi realism style game, you would have nothing but a wood log base as you cant make anything else and nothing could get through that as a rotting human hand would turn to mush against it.

 

To make cement you need limestone heated to very high temperatures to make cement and then how do you move multi tons of cement, 1 m3 of cement weighs 2.5 tons or 5000 pounds.

 

I agree with the Junk Turret needs tweaking, either decrease the activation range or increase the number of zombies in a POI as I have a level 4 one currently and it just murders everything with ease while exploring POI's and my game stage is over 120 already, So I just leave it at home.

Sure, bring up the Concrete thing and not the Black powder in modern guns thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Annihilatorza said:

Hmmm maybe make it use scrap iron and gun powder to make a junk turret ammo cartridge or another possibility is that you have to wind it up for it to shoot.

Not a bad idea, making the ammo cost 1 gunpowder at least per, also make it have to be made at a workbench like gun ammo.  I'd be happy with just the activating distance getting nerfed down to 1-2 blocks away from it, so you can't just drop it in a room and hide perfectly safe while it kills things. You may think its weak, but those junk turrets can chew things up pretty good when perked into it, partially because it counts as "trap damage" and trap damage ignores damage reduction on zombies from difficulty.. or so I been told it does. On warrior things take about 13% less damage from the players attacks, survivalist I think is ~20-25% and insane is ~25-40% less. this is why zombies feel more tanky on higher difficulties. Its not their hp going up, player damage vs entity's gets a penalty. On the default difficulty which is 1 below nomad, player deals 125% to zombies, and zombies only delal 75% of their normal damage to players. Nomad its 100%/100% even game. I've tested these with a health bar mod, as the zombies hp does not go up or down based on difficulty, they just get less/more resistant to damage due to a penalty applied to the player. I think you can look at the code to find the exact numbers, as I know they aren't in a xml anywhere, i've looked.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Annihilatorza said:

I am going to have to disagree with you a bit, the game is too easy currently.

 

With the like of floating bases, wedge exploits, arrow slit exploit, ramp exploit, driving away from hoards on hoard night, Building invulnerable water bases. 

 

I could go on but I think my point is made the game is to easy IMO, way to easy to survive without even using exploits.

 

Getting infected means nothing as I always have a cure on hand.

I am swimming in food.

 

If we were playing semi realism style game, you would have nothing but a wood log base as you cant make anything else and nothing could get through that as a rotting human hand would turn to mush against it.

 

To make cement you need limestone heated to very high temperatures to make cement and then how do you move multi tons of cement, 1 m3 of cement weighs 2.5 tons or 5000 pounds.

 

I agree with the Junk Turret needs tweaking, either decrease the activation range or increase the number of zombies in a POI as I have a level 4 one currently and it just murders everything with ease while exploring POI's and my game stage is over 120 already, So I just leave it at home.

The food/water/disease system honestly may as well not exist in 7dtd, its only an issue for a small part of day 1, and after that its really not a problem anymore. The problem is its too easy to find a abundance of these things in loot, or at trader. Even at 25% loot, you should be fine after day 1 for food/water. I honestly facepalm at people that somehow starve/dehydrate to death in 7dtd, with food being as abundant as it is I just scream to myself: "How the hell did you manage to starve/dehydrate to death with all the food/water sources?!?" I started playing back when a10 came out, and even as a new player i've not once even come close to dying due to food/water issues. Closest I got was a17 or 18 when they added that silly purge 95% of your food for food poisoning thing. Which I just gorged on food 10 seconds later to fix. That debuff though DOES hurt early day 1 if you get it and vitamins are GOLD on day 1-3 since they prevent that stuff entirely (hell vitamins are useful period due to making you immune to stuff like food poisoning), but midgame by day 7? you should have so much food that food poisoning is no longer anything to worry about anymore. As for water, you can now boil water without a pot, all you need is a campfire and it just takes longer.

 

IMO drinking any water other than purified should have a chance to give you an zombie virus infection along with dysentery and a various amount of other conditions, if boiling water is all you had to do to kill the zombie virus it'd not have gotten as bad as it did. Unless its like z-nation/the walking dead, where its airborne and everyone has it already its just activated from a dormant state by a zombie bite that causes it to kill the host, or in TWD's case, by death period.

 

The Zombie Infection should honestly be a constant issue, Eating well and antibiotics will fight off some of the infection but you can never actually cure it. Over time it'll go up slower than it does now, but if your attacked by a zombified creature them hiting you can cause the virus to activate causing the infection rate to rise faster for a short time. Kinda like dying light, once infected all they have is a serum that lets you keep your human side intact and supresses the symptoms, if you run out or go too long without it? you fully turn and then there is no helping you anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just watched latest stream #3. Must admit, the art department outdid theirselves (really good job). The vision of the game as MM once described gets together and yea guys, keep kicking butts. 

 

Oh ya, and I am sure I am in love with burned forest biome now. Did wasteland got some changes or its a surprise ? :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Trankitas said:

Be sure to tune in tonight on Prime's Stream, you can discuss gameplay and balance stuff with the Legend himself (Madmole).

Hope most of us make it, here in Europe it starts at 4am and I`ll be in. 

 

Be sure to prepare your questions, guys. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, beerfly said:

Hope most of us make it, here in Europe it starts at 4am and I`ll be in. 

 

Be sure to prepare your questions, guys. 

Wow that's commitment, in Uruguay (where I live) starts at 23:00 so no worries for me... Yesterday I was on the entire 3 hour stream, will you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always thought that Junk Turrets were using a spring to launch the projectile.

So what if Junk Turrets needed a Battery to fire?

 

Field swappable & say a fully charged T1 Battery was good for 500 shots?

No idea what the difference is between a T1 & T6 Battery but if I recall from past use of solar cells & battery banks it's pretty significant...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Roland locked this topic
  • Roland unlocked this topic
  • Roland locked and unpinned this topic

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...