Alpha 19 Developer Stream Series #4

[Roland]

Hey Survivalists,

 

On Friday June 19th at 9pm CST we will continue our series of behind the scenes interviews with the team that creates all the magic. Lathan will host again and this time his guest will be the Mad Mole, himself, Joel Huenink. Joel is the co-founder of The Fun Pimps and designer of 7 Days to Die. Joel will be showing a variety of gameplay features and answering questions on pretty much anything having to do with gameplay balance and design.

 

If you have any questions or topics you'd like to hear from Madmole, please ask them below

 

 

 

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If you missed any of the past developer streams here they are:

 

Alpha 19 Developer Stream #1

 

Alpha 19 Developer Stream #2

• https://keanurendon.com/
• http://joeystruve.daportfolio.com/
• https://joeliepoo.artstation.com/projects
• https://www.bbriley.com/

Alpha 19 Developer Stream #3

[charliebrownau]

--------------
Question:
Gday - Any news on Linux getting correctly fixed in A19 with OpenGL 4.x and Vulkan ?
Its unplayable on all A18 builds using Nvidia and AMD video cards on all distros

[Black Hat]

 

Any chance to see the ability of knocking down zeds with your legs?

And how about a bad @%$*#! long sword?

[Kage848]

Can you show us in game the Integrated Survival System as much as possible please?

With the new awesome looking zombies is FPS going to take a nosedive?

Will bandits be in Alpha 20? If not then when?

 

Thanks

[danielspoa]

after cleaning the perk tree whats ur vision for its future? is the idea to simplify it or to replace with new perks?

any idea you could share?

[Blake_]

When will we be seing more cool stuff like QUALITY OF LIFE FEATURES for dropping everything in a storage, advanced dropping/sorting of same type items and/or the random EVENT SYSTEM ( like Bethesda has for "road" encounters) ?

[Laz Man]

MM, what are your rough thoughts where trader stock items should be in relation to the looting game?

 

It was my understanding that the trader can alleviate some of the woes of RNG but can also wreck the looting game if overdone too much. 

 

I find it difficult to not to perk into Daring Adventurer and Better Barter Perks because of the significant value that they provide....

[LiftPizzas]

It seems like leaving POIs open for exploration would have a lot more replayability. As it is now, going through the same POI a second time is already boring because the path that you are coerced into following is exactly the same every time. Is there some reason why they are built this way, and with the addition of the mentioned "key to unlock end treasure" type of thingy, would it be possible to remove the one true path from existing POIs or at least make both types and have it optional which type spawns?

[gumifu]

Short summary - I'd like to see zombies grabbing and biting the player. Unlike all the Resident Evil games that I have played, the zombies in this game don't bite the player until their health have dropped to zero (i.e. dead). I think that is immersion breaking for a lot of folks like me who is used to zombies grabbing and biting my flesh off. In my opinion, the scariest thing about zombies is being eaten alive. This feeling of dread is not present here in this game when encountering zombies in close quarter. 

 

I wonder if it'd be reasonable to allow certain special infected zombies to grab the player for a brief moment before biting them. The bite can be prevented if the zombie is staggered or stunned during the grab/struggle animation. This will make solo gathering and looting much more dangerous, but the risk can be mitigated by looting with other survivors. People are stronger when they are together!

[DanLW]

With the advent of biomes affecting game stage multipliers, will there be items/mods/perks that can affect our game stage multiplier?

 

For example, nerdy glasses gives a 10% increase to xp.  How about similar items that could affect game stage in a similar way?  Maybe I'm overconfident and want to take on a horde at 1.5x current game stage.  Or maybe I got wrecked and need to put on a life preserver that gives a .5x game stage multiplier. 

[secateurs]

What is the endgame challenge? The game gets easier every day until you quit from boredom. Joel always seems more interested in confounding our acquisition of toys than giving us a real need for them.

Can we get plains and boreal forest biomes back? Woodland is basically the only habitable biome now, makes every map and playthrough seem even more the same.

[Marinxar]

Question :

 

What is the radius of the demolisher zombie explosion, and will the demolisher be tweaked or changed in any way for A19 ?


PS: These dev streams are awesome. Really appreciate how much effort you guys putting in to including the community in this development. 

[nemo888]

POI Question : What are your thoughts on POIs in A19  ?  Such as : 

• What POI work remains before gold 
• Any POI aspect that you think still needs work
• What makes a tier 3 POI different to a tier 4 POI  / tier 5 POI
• What's your favourite POI and why  .    Least favourite POI

Love the game. Keep doing what you're doing.

 

[meilodasreh]

Sorry if the answer was already given before (english not my native language, so I might have missed in the streams)

 

Will the on screen icons (as shown below) get a quick on/off option (keybound)?

 

 

 

I ask because I think they are quite useful while exploring in the wilderness,

but if you encounter an entity I assume it could lead to annoying/immersion breaking things like this???:

 

[TGondii]

Will the yellow challenge notes currently found in loot eventually become a part of the bandit mission/quest progression and story line?

[BobbyLee298]

Let me be that one gun guy

 

will older guns get at least good quality animations (the mags dont even get removed from the guns during reload)  and the pump shotgun always loads 2 shells no matter how much you shot, will that get fixed

 

will the gun textures get updated to somthing nice (2k 4k)

 

now for more weapons why limit the guns by your 3 Tier weapon system (ak47 M4 M60) dont limit yourself with that idea, more weapons the better and as of right now there arent that many (bullet) weapons IMO even tho you fellas just added 3 new guns (thanks for that tho)

 

Can TFP do a vote for weapons people want to see in the game for later alphas?

 

AND finally could it be possible to add at least 1 new gun like every 2-4 alphas (1-2 years) just to keep things fresh-ish (like adding salvage guns, grandpas WW2 guns, and maybe a knuckle rub gun)

 

 

Thanks for everything anyway if this doesnt get answered

[flukebreaker]

Will the enemy difficulty (per gamestage) be adjusted to compensate for the new loot progression?

 

Will falling out of rails be fixed?

 

Will TFP consider adding a crude dyeing system to vehicles? We know you envision a more refined system, but a tint like you've created for Junk Turrets would be a fast fix to a crucial multiplayer problem.

[Maxley]

Will there be vehicle crash physics added so that if you hit a wall going full speed on a motorcycle you are ejected and sent flying forward? Can you make so vehicles can be flipped over if they roll off a steep hill? I think this would go well with the A20 vehicle update.

 

Also, could stun barons get a chain lighting stun effect if you put points into their related skill? They suck at doing damage but they could be good for crowd control 

[Blake_]

Bonus questions: 

 

1- Madmole, will you have an active role designing/enhancing new quests in the future with the heroic godly hands that brought the game back on the shelves  in a18 ?

 

 

2- Is Trader Jen secretly hidding a Joel in her booth when she closes the shop ? I can still hear her/him say: "Trader Joel is now closed" with a manly voice.

 

Edit: I'm starting to doubt Jen's gender.

[madmole]

On 6/18/2020 at 2:23 PM, Laz Man said:

MM, what are your rough thoughts where trader stock items should be in relation to the looting game?

 

It was my understanding that the trader can alleviate some of the woes of RNG but can also wreck the looting game if overdone too much. 

 

I find it difficult to not to perk into Daring Adventurer and Better Barter Perks because of the significant value that they provide....

Quests should be some levels above where you are at in loot so it is better, but not game breaking. We have no means of doing this in a19, so it will be an a20 thing. We've done what we could with it, but its not perfect yet.

4 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Bonus questions: 

 

1- Madmole, will you have an active role designing/enhancing new quests in the future with the heroic godly hands that brought the game back on the shelves  in a18 ?

 

 

2- Is Trader Jen secretly hidding a Joel in her booth when she closes the shop ? I can still hear her/him say: "Trader Joel is now closed" with a manly voice.

 

Edit: I'm starting to doubt Jen's gender.

Thanks... and yes I will work with the team to help make sure all quests are feeling good.

All traders will get new signs and open/closed audio at some future alpha.

7 hours ago, flukebreaker said:

Will the enemy difficulty (per gamestage) be adjusted to compensate for the new loot progression?

 

Will falling out of rails be fixed?

 

Will TFP consider adding a crude dyeing system to vehicles? We know you envision a more refined system, but a tint like you've created for Junk Turrets would be a fast fix to a crucial multiplayer problem.

No its fine. You simply aren't OP early game.

Hopefully railings can be improved.

Vehicle coloring hopefully at some point.

On 6/18/2020 at 1:02 PM, Blake_ said:

When will we be seing more cool stuff like QUALITY OF LIFE FEATURES for dropping everything in a storage, advanced dropping/sorting of same type items and/or the random EVENT SYSTEM ( like Bethesda has for "road" encounters) ?

When its done.

We've touched on about every other question in the stream. Thanks guys!!

[flukebreaker]

7 hours ago, madmole said:

Quests should be some levels above where you are at in loot so it is better, but not game breaking. We have no means of doing this in a19, so it will be an a20 thing. We've done what we could with it, but its not perfect yet.

Thanks... and yes I will work with the team to help make sure all quests are feeling good.

All traders will get new signs and open/closed audio at some future alpha.

No its fine. You simply aren't OP early game.

Hopefully railings can be improved.

Vehicle coloring hopefully at some point.

When its done.

We've touched on about every other question in the stream. Thanks guys!!

Really appreciate you taking the time to come answer our questions here.

[Arkus201]

1. Any plans on adding a bullet casing bulk crafting?

2. Late game blade weapons (Katana would be perfect) 

3. This is more for the programming, but is it possible to make so editing textures and sounds (not affecting gameplay features) in .assets files does not break EAC?