Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Star69]

3 hours ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:

I am happy with the new short grasses and terrain textures.  My only wish would be that putting a land claim block down would mow all the tall grass within the land claimed area (and maybe give it menu option on the LCB radial in addition to show/hide boundary).  I have a very poor substitute as a mod that make the whole world look like The Duke's crazy brother Mowin' Matt went wild on the world.

Then you will be bummed to hear the rumor that grass regrowing is back. I haven’t confirmed it but If it’s true, it will kill my ocd neatness thing lol. Also if it’s true, how about putting down a claim block keeps it from regrowing in the protected area?? Not a game killer just an ocd killer.

[SnowDog1942]

19 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

It doesn't look like it. On kage848 stream's on Saturday he had lootstage 14 outside POIs, lootstage 19 during the quest, and lootstage 21 on a POI he had visited just before.

You are covered in gore from your fights with zombies, so of course any cut can get you zombie-infected. Besides, the bear might be incubating but not yet transformed, and wolves might be just vectors.

Anything can be explained away if u are creative enough.  It doesnt change the fact that its a stupid game mechanic.  At least make it so i get infected from walking into an iron spike for consistency sake, lol

 

Let me put it in a way TFP may agree.  The poor new players will rage quit when a non infected bear infects them,  i mean u gotta make it new player friendly right?  Being infected by a non infected boar on Day 1 and dying is not a good first impression.  Please, make the experience for new customers a good one

[HungryZombie]

On 12/8/2021 at 8:20 AM, BFT2020 said:

 

That is only one aspect of the change.  Seed loot chances (and locations where you can loot them from) has increased.  I have found corn seed in toilets.  There are new loot containers where you can find seeds.

 

So if your only source of creating a farm is from a single seed you find, then yes the odds are not very good.  If, however, you include finding seeds in the wild, then your chances are better.  Percentages may change, but we need to examine the farming change based on all the changes made throughout the world.

 

 

I have noticed I have been finding more seeds so that's a fair point.

 

I'm not really worried so much about having seeds available to plant, I was more noticing that it's not really worth it at all to turn 5 food into a seed. 

On 12/8/2021 at 8:32 AM, meganoth said:

 

1 food? I'm pretty sure it must be 2 food with unperked Living of the Land.

 

Generally, if you don't invest at least one point into the perk you will not get a self-sufficient production going. Making seeds from food is not advisable, so just plant seeds you find and use the plants you get for food.

 

 

Yeah with the perk it makes it a little more appealing but I'm still not sure that 5 potatoes for 2 potatoes plus a 50/50 chance for a seed is worth it.  Does the number of crops you need to make a seed go down with more perks?

 

I don't really farm much as all so my mind is just thinking of it academically as I don't really have skin in the game regarding the change. I just farm whatever seeds I find and that's been enough for me.

On 12/8/2021 at 8:42 AM, Stroichik said:

Or you can just die every night or so, to revive with 100% food parameter, since u only loose a bit of XP, because Devs scrapped Wellness system. That way u can forget about farming at all.

 

Honestly if I was going to go that route I'd just creative mode myself food. That's not really fun though. I don't really struggle with food though and never get a farm going. I have to be mindful of getting food but between looting, hunting what I run across and buying from vending machines I've never had a food problem except for the really rare random bad start.

[HungryZombie]

On 12/8/2021 at 9:37 AM, madmole said:

This is an interesting principal. I just pitched yesterday how to make looting your 45th cooking pot more interesting, and all workstation mods to be more specific. Lets give them quality so they reduce cooking time by x%, or do whatever %better as the quality goes up, then cooking pots beyond the first one are interesting to check the stats on and useful for more than scrap iron.

Because that first cooking pot is a hell yes, and the 2nd and everyone after that you feel meh about and wish it wasn't even in loot any more and you had found something else. This solves that and makes late game cooking / forging even better because all the mods would be rescaled.

 

People have made mods that let you scrap schematics into pages or something and you can use them to research and craft those schematics you just can't find. Might be something to explore.

On 12/8/2021 at 10:06 AM, Roland said:

 

The first line proves my point that people who don't like to replant don't like farming as a feature. FYI, manual replanting isn't the linchpin that turns farming in this game into a farming sim.....by a long shot.

 

As to your point about dying to erase debuffs and regain food, water, and health.... I am with you 10000% and I've been voicing my opinion that at the least there needs to be an option to turn on persistent status after respawn for those who don't want death in a survival game to be the cure-all for everything we are trying to survive against. Does ANYONE really care about the XP delay to the next level?  I get that it can't be the default setting because new players would get into a death spiral they could not recover from. An option, though, would be nice.

 

My top three options wishlist:

 

Zombie Spawn Slider

Persistent Status After Respawn

HUD visibility 

 

 

I don't really care about the XP, it's true. But I really, really hate dying and become very disappointed in myself for it. Having a harsh consequence seems just nasty.

[wicketness]

mmmmm... Pretzel Truck.

 

Much happy.

Just doing some Landscape Work with the players.

[meganoth]

17 minutes ago, HungryZombie said:

 

I have noticed I have been finding more seeds so that's a fair point.

 

I'm not really worried so much about having seeds available to plant, I was more noticing that it's not really worth it at all to turn 5 food into a seed. 

 

Yeah with the perk it makes it a little more appealing but I'm still not sure that 5 potatoes for 2 potatoes plus a 50/50 chance for a seed is worth it.  Does the number of crops you need to make a seed go down with more perks?

 

I don't really farm much as all so my mind is just thinking of it academically as I don't really have skin in the game regarding the change. I just farm whatever seeds I find and that's been enough for me.

 

I'm sure the math is right as a lot of people checked the calculations. It is quite simple:

 

With no LotL never convert produce to seed as you will probably lose food

But with only one point in the perk you will already gain food on average if you convert produce to seeds.

 

[Roland]

5 minutes ago, HungryZombie said:

I don't really care about the XP, it's true. But I really, really hate dying and become very disappointed in myself for it. Having a harsh consequence seems just nasty.

 

I get disappointed when I die as well. But when I'm in the middle of trying to solve the critical injuries that I have and do it legitimately, I become even more disappointed if I die and then suddenly all the objectives I was working towards immediately got erased.

[Khalagar]

I agree and disagree on the injuries carrying over. I know what you mean about about losing that sense of progress when you are starving / dying of injuries etc and are trying to solve the issue, then it gets "taken away" when you die and you are stronger than ever. I'd be fine with injuries carrying over after deaths, if all of the injuries were fun / not anti fun. Infection and abrasion etc are not a game breaker, it's mostly just concussion and broken leg that are really annoying because they basically remove player agency.

 

Deaths should probably matter more, but they don't want to create death loops. It's hard to think up ideas that would be fun punishments, without them causing death loops. Things like your respawn location summoning a roaming horde that targets you would be a neat challenge and make you think twice about "spawn on my bed or near it", but then it's death loopy.

 

Same with something like "dying causes your armor to take X damage". Would make you have to use repair kits and think twice about dying, but then it makes you more likely to die again

[IzPrebuilt]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

Yes, reduce. Stealth works the same by reducing light and noise levels, while feral sense decreases the thresholds needed to see and hear the light and noise.

 

But feral sense also seems to massively increase how far away a zombie can see you. How *exactly* does feral sense work? and more importantly where is it hidden in the game files so I can mess around with it? 😀 I see something listed in the XML called AIFeralSense that is set to 1.5 for the basic zombies but I don't see what it does or how it is applied to any of the values? Is it reducing the threshold of noise waking zombies up by 50%? is it increasing the range at which zombies will awaken by 150%? both? The patch notes are painfully vague, I understand that Alpha 20 was a BIG BOI  but a lot of really helpul info was left to the players to figure out the hard and annoying way, like how the archery buff was given 1 line in the patch notes but it literally increases the damage of bows from 50%-92%? Did the guy who writes the patch notes not think any of this info was important?

[Khalagar]

Was Stun Baton stealth buffed / hotfixed and nobody mentioned it in the patch notes? I feel like in A19 the perks didn't work at all and they suddenly do now, that's how much better Stun Baton is lol. It's actually a fairly viable mid game weapon now. I've been testing it vs Pipe Baton and it does way less damage but the shock seems to do some unspecified amount of DoT that feels way higher than it was in A19 so it ends up with the stun baton being able to actually kill stuff after enough whacks

 

Bigger issue is the animations, pipe baton is so beautiful I want to marry it and be beaten by it every day, the stun baton animations and model can't compare

[HungryZombie]

22 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

So I'm curious, what settings is everyone playing on currently?

 

I play on default settings with nighttime speed set to jogging. I like more a walking dead type simulator than a first person shooter type game. I might try the feral sense after I explore the new changes.

[BFT2020]

23 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

So I'm curious, what settings is everyone playing on currently?

Survivalist, daytime jogging, feral sense on all the time, no loot respawn, rest I think I left on default for now

[Code6]

With A20, I am looking forward to putting hundreds more hours into 7 Days To Die.
 

I thought the game could really benefit from the addition of my second favorite language, Esperanto.  I speak Esperanto and I love 7 Days to Die.  I have spent the past year translating A19 into Esperanto. I made this work available as a localization modlet on Nexus Mods.

7TagojPorMorti
 

Unfortunately, as simple as it is to install mods in 7 Days to Die, it is still harder than using a language that is already included with the game.  There are not a lot of games that are available with Esperanto, so Esperanto gamers are very supportive of any that do include it.  The most relevant example is Minecraft.  There is even a server dedicated to Minecraft in Esperanto.  I constantly tell my Esperanto friends about 7 Days To Die and over the years I have purchased about 10 copies of the game to share with them.  I would love to be able to tell them that 7 Days To Die natively supports Esperanto.  (and no longer have to walk them through installing the mod)

I just loaded the new A20 localization.txt into my OneSky project and it looks like there are a significant number of additional phrases to translate.  I have already started translation of the new content.  It is going to take a while since it is just me and one other person, but hopefully it will be done before A21.

I don't know how to contact TFP directly, but I have been following this forum for a year and noticed that they sometimes read these posts.  I would like to offer my
Esperanto localization as a contribution to this game I love.

And if any Esperanto speakers want to join me in a fully translated version of the game, just let me know.  I run a server called Bongustaj Cerboj (Delicious Brains).
 

[Aldranon]

8 hours ago, madmole said:

Na, it's not a bug. Infection comes from wolves too and they aren't zombies.

 

So the premise is that all predators are in some stage of infection?

They fight with zombies a lot so I can see the reason for it.

 

10 hours ago, faatal said:

AI does not know if you are reloading, so bad luck?

 

Can zombies hear the reloading sound and react to that?

If that is the case, I would like the player to be able to shout some emotes that has the same effect as when you walk over trash!

 

For sure, the AI of the zombies has changed quite significantly.  That, or some of the new shapes are not fully recognized. 

[bachgaman]

So it’s like now I’m writing without a five-page delay. Can anyone explain to me what is wrong with this POI? Found it in another world and checked it, it all happened again.

Item 0 in the post below. 

 

3 hours ago, Khalagar said:

I agree and disagree on the injuries carrying over. I know what you mean about about losing that sense of progress when you are starving / dying of injuries etc and are trying to solve the issue, then it gets "taken away" when you die and you are stronger than ever. I'd be fine with injuries carrying over after deaths, if all of the injuries were fun / not anti fun. Infection and abrasion etc are not a game breaker, it's mostly just concussion and broken leg that are really annoying because they basically remove player agency.

 

Deaths should probably matter more, but they don't want to create death loops. It's hard to think up ideas that would be fun punishments, without them causing death loops. Things like your respawn location summoning a roaming horde that targets you would be a neat challenge and make you think twice about "spawn on my bed or near it", but then it's death loopy.

 

Same with something like "dying causes your armor to take X damage". Would make you have to use repair kits and think twice about dying, but then it makes you more likely to die again

If you are caught in a death loop, then you have lost. Why not? After all, death penalties might be optional. In fact, we already have this with the removal of items, but it could be more varied. Rebirth after death should be a second chance, not a reward

[bachgaman]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I'm sure the math is right as a lot of people checked the calculations. It is quite simple:

 

With no LotL never convert produce to seed as you will probably lose food

But with only one point in the perk you will already gain food on average if you convert produce to seeds.

 

Perhaps I misunderstood the mechanics, but now you "buy" a seed for 5 fruits, plant a seed and get guaranteed 4 fruits and with a 50% probability you get one seed. If so, then on average you get 6.5 fruits (1 seed = 5 fruits, which means 0.5 seed = 2.5 fruits) without LoTL and thus, even without LoTL, on average you win 1.5 fruits from each planting. Did I understand the new farming correctly? I have not tried this yet as it is unnecessary, as well as many other things if you are playing with the OP trader.

[overgoat]

I know there are no guaranteed timelines, but how long typically do the experimental releases last before going stable?  Weeks or months?  Are fresh installs recommended between versions?  I'm getting attached to my A20 world and will be dreading that potential wipe.

[bachgaman]

On 12/9/2021 at 1:25 AM, Blake_ said:

That is an awesome idea. But what if you die of infection? It can be done like you said but I would suggest recovering from infection a little bit after waking up IF you died from it of course,. If player didn't die of infection then keep it as is.

Tell me honestly, have you ever died from an infection? I've never even come close to it. There is always honey or antibiotics. Even in a game with 25% loot and a deleted trader, I had no problem with this. I'm still curious if I will turn into a zombie if this happens, or if I will just die.

[Blake_]

41 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

Tell me honestly, have you ever died from an infection? I've never even come close to it. There is always honey or antibiotics. Even in a game with 25% loot and a deleted trader, I had no problem with this. I'm still curious if I will turn into a zombie if this happens, or if I will just die.

The fact that is extremely rare doesn't make the issue go away. It can happen. And if it remains after death at 100% then the death loop is unavoidable. 25% health and 0 food and water plus exp penalty is completely viable instead.

[bachgaman]

Just now, Blake_ said:

The fact that is extremely rare doesn't make the issue go away. It can happen. And if it remains after death at 100% then the death loop is unavoidable. 25% health and 0 food and water plus exp penalty is completely viable instead.

I completely agree with everything you wrote. Just curious if anyone has ever died from infection in this game.

[Blake_]

Just now, bachgaman said:

I completely agree with everything you wrote. Just curious if anyone has ever died from infection in this game.

In theory you die at exactly 3 hours after first infected with no treatment. But the penalties from 15% onward are exponentially more severe. It would be nice if that time was halved. I've never died from infection either.

[hiemfire]

2 hours ago, Aldranon said:

So the premise is that all predators are in some stage of infection?

Review of bacterial and viral zoonotic infections transmitted by dogs (nih.gov)

Just as an example. Ain't like that stuff just died off. If anything they got nastier...

[Gazz]

22 hours ago, Aldranon said:

Uninfected bears can infect you.

 

A bite from a domestic dog has a serious chance of infection. With wild animals it's only worse.

[Outlaw_187]

1 hour ago, bachgaman said:

I completely agree with everything you wrote. Just curious if anyone has ever died from infection in this game.

I did once. Although this was on the PS4 version so alpha 15 ish. I actually forgot I was infected & by the time I noticed it, how the hell I didn't notice it is beyond me, I was at like 95%.

 

In that version, once you hit 100%, you just keel over & die. 

And yes, I felt like a complete jackass..

[MechanicalLens]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

The fact that is extremely rare doesn't make the issue go away. It can happen. And if it remains after death at 100% then the death loop is unavoidable. 25% health and 0 food and water plus exp penalty is completely viable instead.

 

I disagree. What if your bedroll was destroyed? You would respawn somewhere in the wilderness with low health, slowly ticking down as you died from hunger and thirst. If you were far enough away from your base, or from a POI to raid, you would succumb, and your original backpack would no longer be displayed. If the cards were played "right", you would die over and over again.