Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[The Gronk]

30 minutes ago, madmole said:

You will choose a head for your appearance. We aren't allowing ugly character customization any more.

Damn, and all I wanted was an accurate avatar.  😕

[madmole]

29 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

I was already aware of the merger; thanks for answering my question.  I'll be most interested if the singles can still be made without a book/schematic/perk.

Yeah I think an entry level one is a good idea just to teach ppl they can get some relief on day one if they work for it, but if you want the good stuff you need perks/books/crafting gates.

[MechanicalLens]

Just now, madmole said:

Yeah I think an entry level one is a good idea just to teach ppl they can get some relief on day one if they work for it, but if you want the good stuff you need perks/books/crafting gates.

 

Oh definitely, I completely agree with you on that for the same reason you provided.

 

Another thing that has been on my mind that is related to this topic: what of the Needle & Thread book series? Will it be completely reinvented or just sent to the recycle bin?

 

Also, while I have my reasons to doubt you've found enough time to put any significant hours into a personal world in 7D2D, if any at all (what with A20 being developed and all), if you have managed to sink some more hours into the game, how is that going? Any stories to tell?

[Xeen]

@faatal
I noticed with some dismay that on game stage 238 on Warrior difficulty I went an entire night with no zombies attacking my base so I made some burning barrels and put 4 of them outside my base one at each corner and still nothing. Keep in mind this is not unusual as I routinely get zero zombies at night.

I can't imagine this is a bug, is there something that can be done about this?

 

I also noticed that random zombie hordes hardly ever happen anymore.

 

I need some Zombluv, help a brother out!

 

P.S. Thank you for making the zombies smart, you da man!

[4sheetzngeegles]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

 

You don't rewrite all your game code for each new release/update. That would be crazy. 95%+ is the same code.

Spoiler

 

Now you might rewrite a system, but that is often overkill too. I am updating the Weather Manager, not rewriting it. Maybe 40% of the code has been touched.

 

We are not planning on doing altitude changes for any of it.

 

All creations by a person/company are automatically the copyright owner by default (in the USA anyway), unless stated otherwise.

 

Thank You, Faatal I honestly didn't know how it worked.  When playing, some of the environmental changes, animations, and AI responses

feel so vastly different, it often plays like a different game per release.

 

[faatal]

3 hours ago, Xeen said:

@faatal
I noticed with some dismay that on game stage 238 on Warrior difficulty I went an entire night with no zombies attacking my base so I made some burning barrels and put 4 of them outside my base one at each corner and still nothing. Keep in mind this is not unusual as I routinely get zero zombies at night.

I can't imagine this is a bug, is there something that can be done about this?

 

I also noticed that random zombie hordes hardly ever happen anymore.

 

I need some Zombluv, help a brother out!

 

P.S. Thank you for making the zombies smart, you da man!

Wandering hordes randomly skim along the edge of where a player is, so maybe you just got (un)lucky and they have not been noticing you?

 

That would be an interesting thing to bring in closer as their target's GS increases.

[Khalagar]

7 hours ago, madmole said:

you want the good stuff you need perks/books/crafting gates.

 

Solid change imo, I think more stuff should be gated behind perks as a lot of the perks are currently kind of noob traps. Like pack mule, where you spend perks on it only to find pocket mods that do the exact same thing for free. Books are too RNG for my terrible luck, I literally have never found the craftable lantern or blackstrap coffee  books even after like 150+ hours in A19 lol

[BluntTongs]

9 hours ago, madmole said:

We aren't allowing ugly character customization any more.

F in chat for every single one of my characters, what a damn shame

[TSBX]

21 hours ago, madmole said:

You will choose a head for your appearance. We aren't allowing ugly character customization any more.

So much for being able to RP...

 

[Blake_]

20 hours ago, madmole said:

Yeah I think an entry level one is a good idea just to teach ppl they can get some relief on day one if they work for it, but if you want the good stuff you need perks/books/crafting gates.

Are you planning legendary weapons for A20  or are you waiting for primitive ones to be in first? Btw long time since we heard about those.

[RealMayhemfest]

On 10/28/2020 at 9:49 PM, madmole said:

Welcome to the Alpha 20 Dev Diary. Here we will discuss upcoming features for Alpha 20.

 

Alpha 20 Dev Stream Videos

1) Alpha 20 First Look with Prime and Madmole October 28th, 2020

2) Alpha 20 Developer Live Stream November 25th, 2020

 

Alpha 20/21 Roadmap

1) Unity Update

• TFP will be working with Unity devs directly 

 

2) Random Generation Update

• New stamp tech that will allow artist created features such as mountains, hills, rivers, etc. to be placed in biomes. There will be a stable of different land features for the game to choose from.
• Additional controls in the map generation interface to give players more options for terrain generation such sliders to determine mountainous vs flat (for example).
• Biome selectors and city selectors to allow users to control the density of these map features.
• 6k, 8k, and 10k map sizes planned

 

3) Vehicle Mods

• Tinting mask will allow vehicles to have color details added to differentiate vehicle owners better

 

4) Shape Menu and Building Update

• Details Coming

 

5) Dynamic Imposters

• Changes to the world and player built forts will be represented in distant terrain

 

6) Micro Splat Improvements

• Details Coming

 

7) Feral Sense Game Option

• Set zombies to different states of awareness from dumb to feral

 

8.) Biome Difficulty

• Snow and Desert will have gamestage boost creating tougher enemies and better loot
• Wasteland will have a greater gamestage boost creating even tougher enemies and even better loot

 

9) Pipe Weapons for Primitive Tier

• Pipe Rifle
• Pipe Pistol
• Pipe Baton
• Pipe Shotgun

 

10) Trader to Trader progression

• Details Coming

 

11) Water Overhaul

• Details Coming

 

12) Loot Progression and Gamestaging Improvements

• Details Coming

 

13) Character Overhaul

• Replace UMA system with in-house custom system
• Thematic outfits will work like books. Wear the complete outfit and get a completion perk
• Current 10 armor/clothing slots reduced to 4 slots for outfits that will merge both clothing and armor values. No more clipping issues of wearing clothing under armor. Better balance on number of mod slots available to use with outfits.
• Foundation for Bandits

 

14) New POI's and Environment Art

• New Gas Station

 

15) AI and Sleeper Improvements

• Zombies can crawl through 1-meter holes
• Wandering Sleepers

 

16) Dynamic Music and Ambient Audio Improvements

• Details Coming

 

17) Animation Improvements

• Details Coming

 

18) Digging Quest Improvements

• Details Coming

 

19) Restore Power Quest

• Lights go out when rally marker is activated
• Find the generators and repair them

 

20) New Zombies/ Entities

• Nurse
• Drone
• Screamer
• Fat Cop

My only question to the devs and the community is, is there ever going to be a feature added that allows for zombie spawn rate to be increased on non blood moon days with out modding the game? That’s the one feature I’m dying for and this game would have everything I want lol.

Is there in A20 or in the near future, going to be a feature in game that allows for Zombie Spawn rate/density on non-blood moon days with out moding?

[madmole]

4 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Are you planning legendary weapons for A20  or are you waiting for primitive ones to be in first? Btw long time since we heard about those.

Nope, but legendary armors might pave the way for legendary guns, how I designed that could work, meaning the legendary bonus is double of what the blue bonus is, or could be a random range from 11-20%. I have a more advanced design I did a while back but it's so good/big I think it should just be saved for 7 Days 2.

17 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Solid change imo, I think more stuff should be gated behind perks as a lot of the perks are currently kind of noob traps. Like pack mule, where you spend perks on it only to find pocket mods that do the exact same thing for free. Books are too RNG for my terrible luck, I literally have never found the craftable lantern or blackstrap coffee  books even after like 150+ hours in A19 lol

Once there are enough mods though you might want to save that mod slot for something better than carry capacity, making the perk still viable.

[madmole]

43 minutes ago, RealMayhemfest said:

My only question to the devs and the community is, is there ever going to be a feature added that allows for zombie spawn rate to be increased on non blood moon days with out modding the game? That’s the one feature I’m dying for and this game would have everything I want lol.

Is there in A20 or in the near future, going to be a feature in game that allows for Zombie Spawn rate/density on non-blood moon days with out moding?

There is no plans for that, as it could really impact the frame rate, so something like that is best suited as a mod IMO.

[MechanicalLens]

Just now, madmole said:

There is no plans for that, as it could really impact the frame rate, so something like that is best suited as a mod IMO.

 

...Which already exists.

[madmole]

4 hours ago, TSBX said:

So much for being able to RP...

 

How does crappy sliders that don't really change much compete with a decent amount of properly modeled/textured heads to choose from? We might let you change hair/eye/skin color none of that is even started on yet, but the main thing is proper pbr faces that are professional looking and performant. Uma is ugly and slow, and wastes a giant texture on each player in the game, his armor etc is all baked to a single unique sheet. The new system can share textures and stream them.

[MechanicalLens]

Could the scrap timers for brass items (minus radiators, of course) be reduced in A20? It would be such a wonderful quality of life change. I never scrap brass unless I absolutely have to, but it's a bit excessive in my eyes that it takes nearly 2 minutes for a single candlestick to be broken down when lead items only take a few seconds per.

[SnowDog1942]

42 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Could the scrap timers for brass items (minus radiators, of course) be reduced in A20? It would be such a wonderful quality of life change. I never scrap brass unless I absolutely have to, but it's a bit excessive in my eyes that it takes nearly 2 minutes for a single candlestick to be broken down when lead items only take a few seconds per.

i suggest increasing time to scrap lead

[Blake_]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

How does crappy sliders that don't really change much compete with a decent amount of properly modeled/textured heads to choose from? We might let you change hair/eye/skin color none of that is even started on yet, but the main thing is proper pbr faces that are professional looking and performant. Uma is ugly and slow, and wastes a giant texture on each player in the game, his armor etc is all baked to a single unique sheet. The new system can share textures and stream them.

The system that you are describing alone is not good enough because it needs a bit too many faces to not be repetitive. You see, it's really just faces that need to be absolutely "slidable" within a mild margin (not TES Oblivion's scary faces lol) because humans are by design extremely good on faces (except ones with Brad Pitt's condition, which are rare).

 

 

So the best character creation system is like Bethesda does: A good bunch of predefined faces that are extremely modifiable with a good swappable model from the neck up, but allowing the player to slide groups of vertexes/polygons**  WITHIN REASON which they call "nose", or "cheeks" or "chin" ...etc  and from there they just add a bunch of bodies that are very similar and with far less sliders if any. 

 

**(I believe Maya/3dMax and their 2.5 D cousin Zbrush have a way to colour/tag local parts to make them easier to call from code)

 

A character creation system with predefined faces just has to have over 100 heads to be interesting, so by trying to make it easier you are making the game worse and repetitive on the random npc/player side . In the end, a slider head model with local features (cheeks, nose, mouth and eyebrows/forehead being a normal approach)  with all the difficult code involved is the best way to go long term and will save hundreds of hours of modeling time once hooked up.

 

And repetition. It's really all about avoiding it.

 

[TSBX]

5 hours ago, madmole said:

How does crappy sliders that don't really change much compete with a decent amount of properly modeled/textured heads to choose from? We might let you change hair/eye/skin color none of that is even started on yet, but the main thing is proper pbr faces that are professional looking and performant. Uma is ugly and slow, and wastes a giant texture on each player in the game, his armor etc is all baked to a single unique sheet. The new system can share textures and stream them.

Whoa there big guy, it was a joke. Didn't intend to ruffle any feathers.

[Khalagar]

6 hours ago, madmole said:

Once there are enough mods though you might want to save that mod slot for something better than carry capacity, making the perk still viable.

 

Ah yeah, more mods would definitely help!

[Adam the Waster]

On 12/15/2020 at 7:59 PM, faatal said:

Wandering hordes randomly skim along the edge of where a player is, so maybe you just got (un)lucky and they have not been noticing you?

 

That would be an interesting thing to bring in closer as their target's GS increases.

now thats what im talking about!
 

[Crater Creator]

7 hours ago, madmole said:

How does crappy sliders that don't really change much compete with a decent amount of properly modeled/textured heads to choose from? We might let you change hair/eye/skin color none of that is even started on yet, but the main thing is proper pbr faces that are professional looking and performant. Uma is ugly and slow, and wastes a giant texture on each player in the game, his armor etc is all baked to a single unique sheet. The new system can share textures and stream them.

 

Variety is fun.  For some of us, playing around with sliders isn't just something to get out of the way before you get to the game.  It is itself fun, intrinsically: a place to experiment, be artistic and creative, role play, and take satisfaction in the fact that no one has ever played the game with this particular character before, in the same way we find it satisfying to play on a random world no one else has seen before.  My first hour (literally, I clocked it) of playing Fallout 4 was spent in the character creator, despite the rest of the game not holding my interest for long.

 

Swapping between heads that have gotten an artist's stamp of approval guts most of that fun.  Don't forget, people make bases that aren't professional looking or performant, and share images and videos of them, all the time.  And you let players do this, because it's fun and this is a sandbox.  You do your best to make the pieces look good and perform well, but with few exceptions (like a minimum distance between trees) you don't limit what players can make.

 

 

...With that said, the greatest need for variety is not with the player characters, but with the zombies, and eventually bandits.  If a new player starts a game and plays just through the first Blood Moon, they'll still typically see hundreds, possibly thousands of zombies.  And they're only getting a subset of the zombie types at any given gamestage.  So if you do any further work on character variation, I hope you do it on zombies.  Tinted clothing and skin, subtle scaling, body part swaps... I get that UMA didn't pan out, but anything would be better than clones - even new, high quality HD clones.

[Noctoras]

17 hours ago, madmole said:

Nope, but legendary armors might pave the way for legendary guns, how I designed that could work, meaning the legendary bonus is double of what the blue bonus is, or could be a random range from 11-20%. I have a more advanced design I did a while back but it's so good/big I think it should just be saved for 7 Days 2.

Once there are enough mods though you might want to save that mod slot for something better than carry capacity, making the perk still viable.

 

Personally, I think you could even go some further with the bonus, but make it extremely rare ... like, it's not for granted to find a legendary even in 100 in game hours, but if you find it, it has a bonus of maybe 50% oder 75% over a regular weapon. 

 

I don't see it as overpowered, after all the legendary weapon alone doesn't give you a legendary armor, so you are still easily vulnerable. 

 

That said, you've gone to some extreme with the demolisher (a bit too far in my opinion, if having no base and fight on the street is much more resource efficient than having a base) - with a legendary, 11-20% seems too cautious in my eyes. It would probably just feel like a tear 7 weapon instead of something really special. In addition to the stats, a specific paint or minor design modification might make it stand out from an optical POV as well.

 

Just my two cents. 

[BobbyLee298]

could we see, See through scopes for A20, meaning no more black screen with crosshairs, also those crosshairs could use some 2k textures IMO

 

Also do you plane on making the new Holo sight, and Desert vulture red dot its own mod, so people can use a holo sight or that low profile red dot on other guns

[madmole]

19 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Could the scrap timers for brass items (minus radiators, of course) be reduced in A20? It would be such a wonderful quality of life change. I never scrap brass unless I absolutely have to, but it's a bit excessive in my eyes that it takes nearly 2 minutes for a single candlestick to be broken down when lead items only take a few seconds per.

I looked into that a while back and there isn't an easy way to speed it up, other than to change the weights and rebalance everything.