Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Khalagar]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

I think crafting shines when you need to craft mods.

I always find schematics for mod crafting and I often craft weapon/armor mods myself after I get a workbench. 

 

Yeah atm crafting is basically just for mods for me as well. Mods could have quality / tiers and that would at least give you more things / reasons to craft.  Currently once you craft your mods you are basically done with crafting entirely besides just setting your work bench to make junk turret ammo. I don't even craft ammo or explosives anymore, I'm drowning in them in A20.

 

Pretty sure I had well over 500 rounds and 40+ explosives by the end of day 2 lol. I've got nearly a full box filled with ammo at this point (day 19), and haven't crafted a single bullet

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, Khalagar said:

 

Yeah atm crafting is basically just for mods for me as well. Mods could have quality / tiers and that would at least give you more things / reasons to craft.  Currently once you craft your mods you are basically done with crafting entirely besides just setting your work bench to make junk turret ammo. I don't even craft ammo or explosives anymore, I'm drowning in them in A20.

 

Pretty sure I had well over 500 rounds and 40+ explosives by the end of day 2 lol. I've got nearly a full box filled with ammo at this point (day 19), and haven't crafted a single bullet

 

I artificially boosted my loot stage in a creative test world and I flew to T5 POI's in the wasteland, bringing my loot stage to over 150. Ammo piles were giving me entire stacks, not even kidding. Lol A large ammo pile gave me 590-something 9mm bullets and almost a stack of 7.62, for example. Other than HP and AP ammo, and maybe slugs and rocket frags, I won't be crafting any ammo in A20, that's for sure.

[Blake_]

Alright, @madmole I finally got to plant and invest in "living off the land" Day 15 (day 30 in 1-hour days).

My opinion on farming:

 

Pros:

 

.You lose without investing at least one point : I like that. Makes the player give more importance to seeds and makes farming more "engaging".

 

. You get more yield than a19 with the Level 3 of the perk unlocked. Also cool.

 

.This rebalance prepares the game for the new armor bonuses. Also good.

 

Cons:

 

. Living off the Land 2 is crappy and just a stepping stone as seed recipes are plentiful. It should have at least a small increased chance to get seeds as always 50% is bad for gameplay feeling in my opinion. A 5% or 10% more should be more than enough. Not more, as the rest will be filled with the future armor/legendary weapon buffs.

 

It's subtle, but I enjoyed more planting once than the current system. The biggest thing here was that it saved time. I would had preferred if the seeds were used in many food recipes like yucca seeds for yucca smoothie for example in order to make them important, so the current loot abundance remains unchanged. And also would  make it so you can fail to harvest crops, either with a occasional decreased yield or a model swap into a rotten plant (requires 1 rotten model per plant that gives 1 seed).

 

All in all, for non-focused fortitude builds, farming is worse in the feeling that it projects and most importantly in the time that it makes us lose, which in this game is crutial. 

The fact that it's actually quite better in the crops it produces (level 3 LoL) doesn't make up for it enough.

 

Maybe the a21 armors will change my point of view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Doomofman]

I don't want to assume anything will/wont happen so figured I'd ask. 

 

Are we likely to see more older POIs updated with new assets in the patches / point releases? There's such a mix and match at the moment.

 

For example, I didn't realise there was a new model for the stone pallets as all the ones I'd seen in game were the old model, but saw someone else playing in the Joe Bros construction site and saw the new model, same with things like the lockers and munitions crate. It's very inconsistent at the moment

[Matt115]

3 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Well to be fair, Halo is split across Gamepass, Steam, Xbox etc. Still a huge leap for 7 Days though, it deserves the recognition for sure

 

Yep but halo is new game- so every AAA new game is popular . 7dtd is old game so such number is quiet impressive

[Firecat]

1 hour ago, GreyFox said:

Hi. Hope you all doing good and well .

 Madmole, please i got a question:

 Wonder why Factory_01, and Factory_02 didn't spawn on my random map.

 Did you guys renamed those?

Should i put any special number for the Seed?

 I did check by Teleport POI feature. Only Factory_03 show up, and it's incredible, but i miss the other two.

 

 Thanks for your awesome work.

 

I have generated and looked at a decent number of seeds to get a feel for what is "normal" in the new world generation, and I have noticed some trends. The spawning of factories and skyscrapers seems to have been flipped from alpha 19, where you were LUCKY if a skyscraper spawned, but factories would show up quite a lot. Now you get several skyscrapers per world, but you are lucky if you get more than 1 factory. I would also like to see the factories that show up boosted a bit (just a bit, we don't need multiple in every town, but more than 1 or 2 per entire map would be great!), since they are some of my favorite POI to explore and even build on. The new one is indeed incredible. Factory_03 seems to show up more than the other two, it's been on nearly every map I've made, but the others not as much. That could just be weird luck, though.

[dcsobral]

I wish world generation would save a thumbnail of the world, that could be displayed when choosing a world to start a new game. It can be hard recalling which world is what.  I know a lot of people don't want any spoilers for the world, so perhaps just worlds generated from the previewer or with an option to turn preview on and off by default. Here's a thumbnail I generated, as an example of what I'm talking about:

 

[MechanicalLens]

Going through the wasteland early on is absolutely worth it. I went in with only a couple level 5 pipe shotguns and I managed to pull out two level 5 steel shovels, a level 6 robotic sledge, a level 4 robotic turret, a level 6 pistol, a treasure map, two level 4 wrenches, a level 6 steel spear, and two level 3 bolt action rifles. (Loot stage was around 115.)

 

Sure I almost got mauled by dogs, vultures, and bears several times, but it was worth it. The POI's were dead easy given that the biome progression doesn't affect gamestage in POI's as far as I can tell; I was facing regular day 8 zombies. Well, except for the radiated zombies and cops and spiders showing up.

[Mick]

On 12/8/2021 at 8:39 AM, madmole said:

Nope, they completely bypass the natural progression that gives the player a feeling of accomplishment. WIthout needs and desires, the game is boring so I had them make them ALL broken. Now when you finally craft one or buy one you feel extremely rewarded instead of meh I'm already at late game tech because I found a trader with all the workstations intact on day 1. @%$# that.

Aw, that's too bad - it was cool finding a working chemistry station or workbench early game. I was using a chem station at one of the "survivor" POIs for a bit and it wasn't even fully cleared yet. It was actually kinda of dangerous, lol. Admittedly we build workstations as soon as possible even if we found a working bench nearby because we obv don't want to be waiting for trader to open and nighttime is for crafting. Also never found a trader w/ more than two working benches - I could see where one w/ all off them or just work/chem/mixer might "force" us to just plop down and base there even if it wasn't the greatest area. 😃

[Jost Amman]

10 minutes ago, Mick said:

Admittedly we build workstations as soon as possible even if we found a working bench nearby because we obv don't want to be waiting for trader to open and nighttime is for crafting.

Can I ask what do you guys craft usually? 

[Khalagar]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

Living off the Land 2 is crappy and just a stepping stone as seed recipes are plentiful

 

Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

 

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT  balance team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

 

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle fuel saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

 

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

 

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop

[dcsobral]

3 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

 

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

 

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

 

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

 

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop

I like that.

[beHypE]

7 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Usually you can get shotgun parts from double-barrels to craft a good combat shotgun early. But I agree, half of the weapon drops should simply be replaced by 1-3 parts dropping.

 

 

Honestly the rework of gun parts is one of the few, if not the only system that got reworked that I find significantly worse and less appealing than the original. It provided constant upgrading possibilities and every other gun that you found could have worse overall stats but still consist of a part that was an upgrade to yours. It also made your gun... "yours", an item with an history of progress. Right now the crafting part is simply not working, because the whole system isn't granular enough and because crafting now means wasting parts you won't get back, and thus you just almost always save them for a Quality 5 craft, but by the time that is a thing, you've probably moved up a Tier. Upgrading only ever translates through finding a higher level item and doesn't involve any tinkering, the previous version becoming trader food in almost every scenario, once you have unmodded it and moved over your mods to the new gun. Guns simply don't feel special at all, and the whole system seems a bit flawed, which is kind of a shame given how central guns are in the game.

[MechanicalLens]

Okay so while you can't find the robotic drone until late game now, I just found the schematic to craft it at loot stage 39 on day 9.

[Khalagar]

What is this gear icon buff  in the bottom left of my HUD? I thought it was the drone but my friend has it too even when he's not near it

 

[dcsobral]

33 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

Okay so while you can't find the robotic drone until late game now, I just found the schematic to craft it at loot stage 39 on day 9.

What do you mean? Jawoodle found it on day 1.

2 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

What is this gear icon buff  in the bottom left of my HUD? I thought it was the drone but my friend has it too even when he's not near it

 

Have you clicked it?

[Khalagar]

2 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

Have you clicked it?

 

You think you're so smart don't you. You're right though and that worked, and it is the drone giving stamina regen

[MisutoM]

I've put 60 hours into a world in alpha 20 so far as an agility main build and focused heavily on bows because I like them and they were buffed so it sounded fun. My bow ended up getting outpaced by weapons I hadn't invested point into, but not for the reasons you might think - it was because I couldn't find a crucible. Steel was everywhere so I had no problem crafting a motorcycle, guns, mods, etc. But without a crucible I was hard locked out of steel arrowheads. 

 

Early to early-mid game they felt great, but I did notice the same problem as last alpha that some of the books feel particularly bad - namely the exploding arrows and flame arrows books. You have to find specific books to unlock these and then also have obtained a crucible to be able to craft the steel arrow heads for them. Even with the buff to their damage, exploding arrows only deal about half the damage of a pipe bomb, but they are considerably more expensive and locked behind crucible and a book. I've also noticed that I've found very few steel arrow heads in loot ~90 over 60 hours of game play and it's worth noting that you can't retrieve exploding arrows so that's only 90 potential shots for the entire game. It's certainly just variance that it took me 57 hours to get a crucible, but that's still 2 specific items you need to luck into and one of those items literally does nothing without the other. 

 

If this is an issue with a lot of other archers, it might be worth looking at possible solutions, such as upping the chance to find steel arrow heads in loot and starting at earlier game stages. Or, to rebalance both flaming and exploding arrows to need iron heads which are much more readably available since the recipes are already locked behind a book series that you have to randomly find. Personally I think iron heads would feel fair given their low damage compared to similar explosives and their otherwise high cost (an entire duct tape to do ~half a pipe bomb of damage). Perhaps even making two types of exploding and flame arrows, one for iron and one for steel with steel being the better of the two since it's more expensive. Alternatively, they could stay as a late game luxury, but maybe increase their damage to be same as a pipe bomb and similarly increase their gun powder to craft to 12. Finally, you could even consider two recipes for steel arrow heads, for example, without a crucible they cost 21 iron each, and a crucible reduces that cost to 7 (the current cost). They'd be 3x more expensive but still obtainable thus making the books you found actually feel impactful. There's likely many other ways you could go about changing this if anyone else even feels it's an issue, but those are the suggestions chat and I brainstormed together for whatever it's worth.  

 

Also, and more minorly, a lot of viewers and myself were confused as to whether exploding arrows specifically scale off of the archer perk, demolitions perk, both, or neither. So maybe a note on the arrow saying what perk affects it would help make things more clear to players? 

[MechanicalLens]

7 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

What do you mean? Jawoodle found it on day 1.

 

Pretty sure TFP made a patch where you cannot find the drone until late game now.

 

Can't say the same for the schematic though.

[hiemfire]

55 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

What do you mean? Jawoodle found it on day 1.

From here:

Listed in the b214-b218 Changelog under "Changed"

Quote

• Fixed an issue that would allow drones and drone mods to be found too early 

 

[Marinxar]

Will it be possible to change the way that the game store the RWG detail ?  So I can use the new RWG, create a nice map with the settings I want, and then after it is created, there is a .cfg file I can then upload to my hosted server, and the server will then generate a map according to those specifics ?

 

I really love the new RWG, but with ADSL it is simply not practically possible to upload a entire generated map to the server. 

[dcsobral]

Acid barrels give gas. And only gas. You can wrench them for acid, but their loot is only gas. Gas on an acid barrel?

[Blake_]

5 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Very much agree with this, I had been thinking  about mentioning it as well. LoTL 2 is so weak that I don't want to waste points leveling fort to get it, and it makes me not want to progress on to LoTL 3. It could definitely use a rework to make it more appealing

 

One neat idea that League of Legend's TFT  balance team just did to make bad augments (basically perks) more appealing was giving free stuff when you picked the augment, which I could honestly see working in 7 Days. It had it's share of forum criers when it was announced, but it's been extremely well received once people actually got a hold of it (kind of like the farming change in 7 days)

 

Things like "Take Living of Land 2 and you get 2 free farm plots / a farm bundle level X", or "Take vehicle crafting perk level 3 and get a free vehicle fuel saver mod / vehicle starter bundle level X" etc. Just minor stuff that isn't game breakingly strong, but are tempting to help make meh options a bit more rewarding when you are like "Hmm I guess if took LoTL 2 right now I could plant those extra corn seeds I found and have those start growing . . ."

 

I don't really feel like the team cares much about "lore breaking", but to avoid the cries of stuff just appearing in your inventory it could arrive via targetted air drop or you get it when you talk to a trader or something. It would open up a lot of options, and the technology is already there in the game with the new bundle systems and air drops etc.

 

Just food for thought, as an alternative to balancing some of the perks in the future if simple number tweaks keeps swinging it between OP and "useless trash not worth taking" nonstop

Giving stuff is what Traders do already. And It's plenty. More than plenty. I prefer small permanent bonuses, doesn't matter how small. 5% or 10% seed chance increase is good enough to make LoL great again.

[POCKET951]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

Giving stuff is what Traders do already. And It's plenty. More than plenty. I prefer small permanent bonuses, doesn't matter how small. 5% or 10% seed chance increase is good enough to make LoL great again.

LoTL 2 is awful. It needs something. Extra chance to make another farmplot? Double harvest exp? +5%chance to harvest seeds? Maybe even a 10% chance to get 2 seeds instead of 1. It doesn't need to be insane. But it needs to be something better than what Is there

[Khalagar]

4 hours ago, MisutoM said:

I couldn't find a crucible.

 

This is shocking to me, I have been finding DOZENS of crucibles for sale at traders, and found the schematic at least once or twice too. I did max out the trader perk, but just driving around to 2-3 traders I will find multiple crucibles.

 

Cigar was the one I absolutely could not find, so I checked all my local traders and found like 5 crucibles lol. I think a crucible costs me like 12k before cigar and sugar butts + the other discount stacking stuff, which isn't too bad. I though they buffed the spawn chance because they are so common for me. I  did have a run in A18 though where I was on like day 50 and still couldn't find the crucible or the schematic either one so I know your pain though