Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[wolfbain5]

3 minutes ago, bloodmoth13 said:

My only problem with it is that i never find treasure maps and the digging quests stop at t2 or 3. Of course id hate to deal with a t5 dig quest (dig out a shamway sized hole lol) but i could definitely use more treasure maps.

a t5 would be great, dont increase the size. as the circle gets smaller, more zombies show up and at the end... feral mini horde

[rubens9311]

7 hours ago, Laynie said:

@JCrook1028 have a good video on how to dig treasure pretty quick!   

 Hope this helps.

 

I'm not spending an hour of my life on a spammer. Put the minutes where the treasure is or else I will think that you want to sell me your video. Get out of here !!

[madmole]

3 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

Funny, according to Joel the result is a mistake....

Well it sounds like one, but what he said is true now that I think about it. The game play is good, gathering what you need in the opposite biome but the drink choice is not intuitive. It would be better if it was some hot spicy thing that kept you warm.

[Tmodloader]

4 minutes ago, rubens9311 said:

 

I'm not spending an hour of my life on a spammer. Put the minutes where the treasure is or else I will think that you want to sell me your video. Get out of here !!

That's how thugtubers roll 😦

2 minutes ago, madmole said:

Well it sounds like one, but what he said is true now that I think about it. The game play is good, gathering what you need in the opposite biome but the drink choice is not intuitive. It would be better if it was some hot spicy thing that kept you warm.

Will there ever be a beverage that gives thermal resist? Gameplay is certainly good but maybe you could change it to like blueberry smoothie and yucca juice tea

[rubens9311]

3 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

That's how thugtubers roll 😦

Will there ever be a beverage that gives thermal resist? Gameplay is certainly good but maybe you could change it to like blueberry smoothie and yucca juice tea

 

Sorry if I was rude to some. But so much internet, so many social networks have managed to transform me into a devil when someone deceives me with their title or sells me something "secretly" :S

[Survager]

Can someone explain to me the logic behind the steel arrow recipes in the game?
There are three recipes for arrows / bolts:
- steel booms / bolts
- incendiary arrows / bolts
- explosive arrows / bolts

Why can't a character who has found a recipe for incendiary or explosive arrows / bolts know how to make regular steel arrows / bolts?
Logically, you first need to make a steel arrow / bolt and only then make a reinforced version of this (incendiary / explosive). Incendiary and Explosive Arrow / Bolt recipe has a steel tip.

 

Maybe it makes sense to add a steel arrow / bolt instead of a steel tip and plastic in the recipe for incendiary and explosive bolts?

 

Or maybe you should make it so that when learning recipes for Incendiary or Explosive Arrows / Bolts, the recipe for Normal Steel Arrows / Bolts is automatically learned? But in this case, incendiary and explosive variants should be made very rare.

 

Or, You can make a separate recipe for the steel head, and the player should be able to make steel arrows / bolts without a recipe, in this case it will solve the problem of logic.

 

Or is there some hidden logic that I couldn't find? 😁

[dcsobral]

I heard that random gen is going to be worked on for alpha 20, and I'd like to point out something that I've noticed after looking at map previews for hundreds of seeds (literally -- check https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E1abSNz0_rsoDd-3AVp6SzxY-AF7eVjMfVNhIXN3X20/edit#gid=997179930 for a list of the seeds I generated on b180 alone).

 

There's a subtle issue impacting the quality of cities in random gen: a disconnect between block sizes and prefab dimensions.

 

Let me explain that with images. Take the following city, which is about as big as they can be in alpha 19 stable:

 

 

The first thing to notice is how varied the size of each one is. Out of 356 prefabs, 195 do not share dimensions with any other prefab and 80 share it with only one other prefab. Only 38 prefabs share dimensions with more than four others. Note that this isn't about the size of building themselves, but about the "plot" the occupy, including green area.

 

More importantly, the dimensions of the prefabs do not take into account the actual available space inside a city. In alpha 19 stable each block is 120x120 of usable space unless a road is missing. The space between any two prefabs is 8m, so optimal non-wilderness prefab sizes are 24x24 and 56x56, but there's only one prefab with the first dimension and none with the second. On the other hand, the size shared by most prefabs is 25x25, which inevitably causes empty spaces.

 

In the case of downtown prefabs, it is even worse. Downtown is at most four blocks in size, but the skyscrapers, which are downtown-only, all exceed 56m in at least one dimension, as you can see here:

 

 

The Crack a Book is the only one of them that could fit side-by-side with another one equal to it.

 

Regardless, the disregard for optimal prefab sizes for cities result in a lot of empty space, like the industrial area of that city:

 

 

Unless random gen is made to make roads fit prefab placement, one of the most important things to improve random gen cities is to make prefab dimensions and block sizes a better fit for each other.

 

PS: I'm only talking about x and z dimensions, not y. Height isn't relevant here. I also sorted x and z before making these statistics, so x,?,z was considered the same size as z,??,x.

[The Gronk]

1 hour ago, wolfbain5 said:

a t5 would be great, dont increase the size. as the circle gets smaller, more zombies show up and at the end... feral mini horde

Randomizing the horde(s) would be a good thing.  It's a little predictable that the instant you open the chest a horde spawns. 

 

There's already a trigger somewhere in the code that detects you digging close to the chest.  Rig one of those up to a randomised horde spawner and you'll have to pay a hell of a lot more attention when digging. 

 

My only problem with the new treasure hunt mechanic is that it's far too easy.

51 minutes ago, madmole said:

Well it sounds like one, but what he said is true now that I think about it. The game play is good, gathering what you need in the opposite biome but the drink choice is not intuitive. It would be better if it was some hot spicy thing that kept you warm.

At the risk of planting ideas that should never be voiced...

 

Anything but Pumpkin-Spice-Latte!  🙂

43 minutes ago, Orsey said:

Can someone explain to me the logic behind the steel arrow recipes in the game?
There are three recipes for arrows / bolts:
- steel booms / bolts
- incendiary arrows / bolts
- explosive arrows / bolts

Why can't a character who has found a recipe for incendiary or explosive arrows / bolts know how to make regular steel arrows / bolts?
Logically, you first need to make a steel arrow / bolt and only then make a reinforced version of this (incendiary / explosive). Incendiary and Explosive Arrow / Bolt recipe has a steel tip.

Maybe it makes sense to add a steel arrow / bolt instead of a steel tip and plastic in the recipe for incendiary and explosive bolts?

 

Or maybe you should make it so that when learning recipes for Incendiary or Explosive Arrows / Bolts, the recipe for Normal Steel Arrows / Bolts is automatically learned? But in this case, incendiary and explosive variants should be made very rare.

 

Or is there some hidden logic that I couldn't find? 😁

The fine threadwork or correct adhesive used to attach bodkin or broadhead is significantly different than wrapping flammable wadding around a practice arrow or gaffa-taping a grenade to a twig?

[Adam the Waster]

2 hours ago, Orsey said:

Can someone explain to me the logic behind the steel arrow recipes in the game?
There are three recipes for arrows / bolts:
- steel booms / bolts
- incendiary arrows / bolts
- explosive arrows / bolts

Why can't a character who has found a recipe for incendiary or explosive arrows / bolts know how to make regular steel arrows / bolts?
Logically, you first need to make a steel arrow / bolt and only then make a reinforced version of this (incendiary / explosive). Incendiary and Explosive Arrow / Bolt recipe has a steel tip.

Maybe it makes sense to add a steel arrow / bolt instead of a steel tip and plastic in the recipe for incendiary and explosive bolts?

 

Or maybe you should make it so that when learning recipes for Incendiary or Explosive Arrows / Bolts, the recipe for Normal Steel Arrows / Bolts is automatically learned? But in this case, incendiary and explosive variants should be made very rare.

 

Or is there some hidden logic that I couldn't find? 😁

i mean i think arrows and bolts should be the same so when you're looting you don't find bolts or arrows you just find arrows and arrows work the same as bolts. it could make space for something new but. im going off topic

[Tmodloader]

Technically going by this logic, once you learn how to make an iron sledgehammer or an iron arrow, you should automatically unlock the steel recipe

[BFT2020]

3 hours ago, rubens9311 said:

 

I'm not spending an hour of my life on a spammer. Put the minutes where the treasure is or else I will think that you want to sell me your video. Get out of here !!

It took me 15 seconds to find the spot where he started looking for the treasure in the video.  Didn’t have to watch the entire thing....

[Astronomical]

11 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Oh @#$&...

 

While I totally appreciate the comedy of this post (I lol'd irl) the gyro is actually pretty easy to glide in for a power off landing. Just pitch down trading altitude for airspeed and as you approach the ground or intended point of landing begin to gently level off followed by a shallow flair to soft touch down. Textbook stuff guys! 😉

[Roland]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

It took me 15 seconds to find the spot where he started looking for the treasure in the video.  Didn’t have to watch the entire thing....

Indeed. It's sad when people let their obvious prejudice against streamers in general overwhelm their judgement. There was nothing at all spam related in posting a video about 7 Days to Die to answer someone's question about 7 Days to Die on the website by the makers of 7 Days to Die. Nothing is being sold and I too just scanned through the video with my mouse on the advancement bar until I saw the orange ring in the images and watched a method it turns out I mildly disagree with....

[JCrook1028]

5 hours ago, rubens9311 said:

 

I'm not spending an hour of my life on a spammer. Put the minutes where the treasure is or else I will think that you want to sell me your video. Get out of here !!

You may want to pay a bit of attention before getting all butthurt. The person who made the video (me) is NOT the person who linked it.... So no, I was not "trying to sell you my video".

5 hours ago, Tmodloader said:

That's how thugtubers roll 

Ah yes. Yet another person who didn't pay attention to facts before making an ignorant comment. The person who posted the video was not the person who made it.....

5 hours ago, madmole said:

Well it sounds like one, but what he said is true now that I think about it. The game play is good, gathering what you need in the opposite biome but the drink choice is not intuitive. It would be better if it was some hot spicy thing that kept you warm.

So the real question is. Will we get a drink that helps with the heat?

[Aldranon]

I almost hope that heat (the desert) is something you just have to deal with.

As the desert is the only place with the priceless shale that shifts the game into high gear!

 

I like the feel of going on "an expedition" to get no more than 100,000 worth of gas. I am very careful when mining shale as I took a beating once when I got too greedy and the whole (edit: mine) caved in!    Good times! 😁 

[BobbyLee298]

3 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

i mean i think arrows and bolts should be the same so when you're looting you don't find bolts or arrows you just find arrows and arrows work the same as bolts. it could make space for something new but. im going off topic

I dont think so, in fact thats somthing mm would say, tho i dont mind how it is now

2 hours ago, Tmodloader said:

Technically going by this logic, once you learn how to make an iron sledgehammer or an iron arrow, you should automatically unlock the steel recipe

Thats for gameplay, if one recipe unlocked a whole class of a weapon or tool, by day 30 youll have everything unlock and nothing else to do!

Now that would be too boring

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

So the real question is. Will we get a drink that helps with the heat?

Yucca Juice should already be the one.

It's probably a couple lines in the XML ffs, but Gazz is busy doing something else... (A20)

[Eko]

On 8/27/2020 at 2:06 AM, Blake_ said:

MM, are underground threats of any kind within your design works for this upcoming alpha?

OH MY GOD gigaaaaantic hungry moles that burrow underground and try to eat players and Zs alike. They can be named Mad Moles!

[wolfbain5]

41 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Yucca Juice should already be the one.

It's probably a couple lines in the XML ffs, but Gazz is busy doing something else... (A20)

it used to be that way, Gazz removed them. prolly after some meeting, he would never intentionally pick on the players, not Gazz...

[Eko]

On 8/27/2020 at 2:46 AM, faatal said:

People underestimate zombie hearing. They detect you more by hearing than seeing. We do not have audio occlusion, so walls do not block sounds.

 

With zero light and maximum stealth perks, they will always see/hear at some minimum distance like 1m.

Is audio occlusion under consideration for implementation? I, for one, find it quite immersion breaking and extremely distracting to have an angry Z beating down doors from the outside while I am trying to sneak around inside. As far as I am concerned, if the Zs in the same room as me can't detect me, there is no reason some wandering dingleberry outside should be able to detect me. If not, perhaps we could see about lowering the agro range of outside Z's vs inside ones? Does noise work on a sliding scale? As in, the closer the Z is, the more noticeable your noise? So if I was hacking away at some wood with an axe, it makes say 15 noise when there are no Z's around, but if one wandered within say 20m of me, the noise "volume" to the Z goes up to 30? Perhaps that could be tweaked if already existing, or added if not?

EDIT: sorry i just realised that by what you said in the last statement, back stabbing a Z for stealth kill is impossible? So really, if youre running stealth you have to go ranged over melee?

 

EDIT 2: also sorry ignore the first edit. It turns out this question has already been answered. Some have previously stated that knives can deal damage before the Z's notice you.

[Blake_]

8 hours ago, madmole said:

Well it sounds like one, but what he said is true now that I think about it. The game play is good, gathering what you need in the opposite biome but the drink choice is not intuitive. It would be better if it was some hot spicy thing that kept you warm.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. **Arizona mutant black scorpion pepper drink** for the win;  or whatever Chuck Norris drinked when he was a baby.

[Eko]

On 8/27/2020 at 3:20 AM, pregnable said:

So if I am only really waking up zombies at scripted spots, then it just makes me wonder why I invested in the stealth skill at all, cause I can do the same thing without it and a shotgun. 

This. So much this. 

I love playing stealth in a lot of games, but in 7 days its only useful sometimes. Its useful in a way that every build can use a little stealth, but not enough to waste points on it. I haven't played 19 as much as i did other alphas, but with the perk changes this alpha I got really excited, and then disappointed. 

I can run through a POI, making heaps of noise and waking up every mother@%$*#!er in there, blasting away with several noisy weapons and take the entire POI in less than 5 minutes. If I did the same thing with stealth, it would take me about 10 to 20 minutes and i would STILL be agro'd by Zs outside as well as a few inside that seem to have godlike hearing despite my perks and destroyed trash/anti trash combat book. This wouldn't normally be an issue for me, because I would just play the game the way I want anyway, but when playing against or even WITH other players and seeing them happily breeze through POI's while I struggle not to lose patience and drop my class can be extremely belittling. 

There needs to be more incentive to use stealth. Maybe an XP or drops bonus? Just an idea. Either that, or rework the system so that outside Z's arent so problematic and inside Z's don't get to detect us regardless of our hard earned perk points. 

[Jost Amman]

11 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

Yes, my thoughts exactly. **Arizona mutant black scorpion pepper drink** for the win;  or whatever Chuck Norris drinked when he was a baby.

You should know that the first zombie ever recorded in history was a dead man accidentally hit by Chuck. He had already killed the man, but to make sure... Chuck Norris hit him again on the head so hard that the poor bod, reanimated and started running searching for his brain. That's why zombies always scream "BRAAAINNSSS"! 

3 minutes ago, Eko said:

This. So much this. 

I love playing stealth in a lot of games, but in 7 days its only useful sometimes. Its useful in a way that every build can use a little stealth, but not enough to waste points on it. I haven't played 19 as much as i did other alphas, but with the perk changes this alpha I got really excited, and then disappointed. 

I can run through a POI, making heaps of noise and waking up every mother@%$*#!er in there, blasting away with several noisy weapons and take the entire POI in less than 5 minutes. If I did the same thing with stealth, it would take me about 10 to 20 minutes and i would STILL be agro'd by Zs outside as well as a few inside that seem to have godlike hearing despite my perks and destroyed trash/anti trash combat book. This wouldn't normally be an issue for me, because I would just play the game the way I want anyway, but when playing against or even WITH other players and seeing them happily breeze through POI's while I struggle not to lose patience and drop my class can be extremely belittling. 

There needs to be more incentive to use stealth. Maybe an XP or drops bonus? Just an idea. Either that, or rework the system so that outside Z's arent so problematic and inside Z's don't get to detect us regardless of our hard earned perk points. 

I agree, I also think that the only solution here is that they re-write the trigger volumes and have their POI guys re-check / re-work every single POI in the game to fix the issues. I know it's a lot of work, but maybe in A20 they could deliver the change and solve once and for all the problem.

[Eko]

On 8/27/2020 at 3:29 AM, Jost Amman said:

1) While clearing a POI you can break closet doors with arrows, they'll make a loud noise but since "you're sneaking" the zombie inside won't wake up. Even if this is intended it is broken IMO and leaving it as it is will just make the game look dumb.

2) While sneaking in range of a zombie in the dark you turn on the helmet light and the "sneak meter" goes all the way up, but the zombie won't still see you.

3) In some POI's rooftop if you sneak near the area where the zombies are supposed to spawn you'll see no one, then when you enter the "volume" you'll suddenly see all the zombies appear out of thin air. That's another thing that needs fixing unless you want to completely ruin people's immersion.

4) I forgot! You can also kill Boars by sneaking in front of them (like literally in front of them) and shoot them in the face with a BB or shotty.

1. Can confirm you can do this. I have noticed some POI's seem designed to try and prevent this, but I just take my time getting the right angle to hit the wardrobe door anyway. I think you can do this even without sneaking, and with a noisy gun, but I cant remember for certain. Wardrobe sleepers seem to only activate based on your proximity or trigger points. As in, you can't sneak past these in my experience. 

I actually like that you can surprise a sleeper this way, but do agree that the noise not waking them up seems off. At the same time though, I am so used to this game's noise oddities that I barely miss a step over it now. I mean, if an outside Z can hear me opening a cupboard while the one 2m away from me inside can't, I kind of just give up on any sense of immersion or reality after that nonsense. 

2. I think this is because they want the helmet light to affect your ability to sneak, but also dont want too much emphasis on zombie sight. They prefer the idea of Z's hearing us rather than seeing us. So turning on the light makes it more LIKELY that the Z's will notice you, but not until you make a sound. Realistic? Not really, but I think its intentional and I understand why they did it. 

3. This one is a bit of an issue for me in only certain POIs. You'd have to do some testing and pick out each one if you want them to take notice of this, I think. My main issue was at day 2 or something and I had a cottage to raid for a quest. I had stone arrows and a primitive bow, a stone sledge, that sort of thing, and this quest threw me a damn radiated feral angry granddad. I had cleared the entire cottage besides the basement where this ass was sitting, but the only way in was directly in his line of sight or down a ladder. Knowing you cant stealth down a ladder, I knew I was done for, but I tried anyway. Of course I died. again and again. Each time I died, he despawned. But each time I revisited the cottage, he would respawn as sleeper volume. He would only spawn after I had descended at least 2 rungs of the ladder. So I thought I'd be smart and chop away the floor. I chopped away almost the entire floor before realising the game would not spawn him until i got down to his level. This was probably the singly most frustrating time ive ever had and I believe i stopped playing for a while because after I had gone to extreme lengths to kill him, there was no fancy loot down there anyway and ofc my quest was long gone. Very bad experience. Luckily im long term hooked on the game already. 

4. I remember this being a problem in previous alphas, but in this one I haven't noticed because piggies are near the top of my list of entities not to @%$*#! with until i have a gun with a decent amount of ammo!

On 8/27/2020 at 4:07 AM, SnowDog1942 said:

Stealth blah blah blah who cares ,  its useless on horde night and its more fun to fight something thats fighting back.  
 

what about spawing in roaming zeds inside of houses when u get close.  Now that would be more fun!!

 

you know, sleepers , that.... arent....sleeping...

Stealth blah blah who cares ..... okay. selfish, but youre entitled to your opinion ... useless on horde night ... actually, see below .... more fun ... again, your opinion. Newsflash: other people have different opinions and that does not make yours or theirs any less valid 🤯

I dont know if its intended or a bug, but sometimes on horde night I can get stealth shots while sneaking. Havent tested extensively, but ive noticed it enough to try and remember to pop a squat whenever i can on horde nights. 

Roaming Z's in POIs would be cool. More of a challenge to sneak around and score a stealth kill

[MechanicalLens]

Edit: Nevermind, delete this, it was a fake death. JOSH!!! >.<