Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Jay_ombie]

Any reason models in game deform when dead ?

 

[Jost Amman]

41 minutes ago, Ricowan said:

The thing is, TFP has actual data from the game.  They know exactly how many players are doing X vs. Y.

You only have a handful of angry people posting here, which is NOT representative of the player base by a long shot.

I don't know if the data that's collected is driving TFP's game design decisions or not, I'm just pointing out that they do actually know a lot more about how people are playing their game than we do.

You're just stating the obvious there, I don't know why you even felt the need to reply to my post.

 

But no matter how informed or "right" the devs choice is, I'm free to disagree and to not like it.

So in this case, my own personal opinion is that this is a bad change. For me, it's less fun to build blocky BM bases to have more HP just to compensate the change. That's all.

[gpcstargate]

2 hours ago, DEADFACE said:

This is exactly what I was hoping for with the new block system. It's what seemed like the obvious way to do it to me, but instead we have to deal with either force upgrade paths (time consuming) or placing blocks and having to deal with either mistakes or being unable to reconfigure the build prior to committing resources.

 

The new block system is on the cusp of being perfect and this is the change that would make it that way.

 

Also, I don't understand everybody calling the block hp change "illogical", if you wanted logical you would be in favor of reduced hp for smaller blocks along with reduced resources. I personally don't care either way, I'll play the game and enjoy it regardless.

 

STEEL is STEEL ... block vs plate, it is made the same way and at the same cost. 

Their changing the Basic material mid stream ... and as a builder, I'm not happy about this one change.

 

And its been this way since A-18.1 for the most part.

[Aldranon]

1 hour ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

Could you explain this to me like I'm 5? 

 

It just coding shorthand for MustFixCount will keep adding 1 to itself.

Its a joke of course.

[DEADFACE]

7 minutes ago, gpcstargate said:

 

STEEL is STEEL ... block vs plate, it is made the same way and at the same cost. 

Their changing the Basic material mid stream ... and as a builder, I'm not happy about this one change.

Oh I have no problem telling that you and everybody else is unhappy about this change 😉

I said if you are going to use "logic" as an argument then the most logical course would be to have both reduced hp and materials and now you've responded by shouting about how they cost the same. Why did you quote me if you didn't even read what I said?

I also said I don't personally care, I'll have fun either way so I don't know why you would bother arguing with me like I'm somebody you have to convince.

[Mahnogard]

Last night I was getting pretty upset that the modular table pieces were missing from the wooden furniture block choices. Then I remembered - we got shapes for that! And I happily went back to furnishing my kitchen with a cute little table in the corner. 

 

Wooden furniture block > select kitchen chair > place kitchen chair > pick up chair then select color from the chair block. I like the flexibility but it's not super intuitive at first.

 

Regarding shapes: Square trellis can be climbed but the diamond design trellis cannot. I've been using trellises for loft access since A19 and I think diamond was climbable when it was part of the other group it used to be in. Also, railings / bars shapes but no center options? Not a huge deal because I'm used to cranking centered iron bars out of the forge anyway, but again - even the forged iron bars have a corner but no centered corner option.

 

The new window shapes are awesome! However. A few of them have the miniblinds texture (love that!), others are open shapes, while others are filled and have the split-texturing feature which is great but since we don't (unless I'm blind) have a window paint texture, it's kind of a stretch to call it a "window". I've tried a few of those with the shutter paint texture and that looks nice. I guess the window is implied.

 

I noticed that faucets are in metal furniture shapes now. Is that new? I may have just missed it before. (I know I can just wrench them or sometimes buy them but I like making stuff.) Will we ever be able to craft or buy some of the other storage bits like gun racks? Also, what demon do I have to make a sacrifice to in order to be able to paint sink and stovetop textures in the correct orientation? I try turning the crates when I place them but no matter what I do, it always seems to be either "wrong" or "different but also wrong". I'm in single player so after about 10 tries I give up and use the CM to get a sink if I can't find one for sale. I think the only things I ever spawn in are sinks and uncraftable / unbuyable storage items.

 

Yeah, I know, everyone else is worried about keeping zombies out of their bases and I'm playing 7 Days to Die: Better Homes and Gardens Edition. I'm building a defense perimeter too. Not just a kitchen.  

[Red Eagle LXIX]

1 hour ago, DEADFACE said:

This is exactly what I was hoping for with the new block system. It's what seemed like the obvious way to do it to me, but instead we have to deal with either force upgrade paths (time consuming) or placing blocks and having to deal with either mistakes or being unable to reconfigure the build prior to committing resources.

 

The new block system is on the cusp of being perfect and this is the change that would make it that way.

 

Also, I don't understand everybody calling the block hp change "illogical", if you wanted logical you would be in favor of reduced hp for smaller blocks along with reduced resources. I personally don't care either way, I'll play the game and enjoy it regardless.

As someone whom specifically called it out as illogical here is my answer.

It is illogical currently because the resource cost is the same.

It is illogical currently because it only impacts some blocks.

It is illogical because larger blocks do not have a higher HP (and associated higher resource cost).

 

If the lower HP blocks cost less and larger blocks also got higher HP and cost more then it would make sense.

 

Edit: and just to be fair I have said I am in favor of the system, if it gets balanced out.

[NukemDed]

18 minutes ago, Mahnogard said:

 I'm building a defense perimeter too. Not just a kitchen.  

lol

 bro, having 4 sons, my kitchen IS a defensive perimeter!!

protect the fridge!!!

[Mahnogard]

2 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

lol

 bro, having 4 sons, my kitchen IS a defensive perimeter!!

protect the fridge!!!

Ha! Yeah, I can see that! Heck, even in game, I put A LOT of work into gathering all those eggs and I'm going to defend them with my life. 

[Macheezmo]

After a little testing, it seems like this is an overall a buff to poles and plates, but I'd need to test a little more extensively.  Zombies used to almost always do 6x damage to poles and plates thinking they were stuck.  It seems like they aren't doing that anymore, but I only tested them for a few minutes. 

[Kosmic Kerman]

1 minute ago, Macheezmo said:

After a little testing, it seems like this is an overall a buff to poles and plates, but I'd need to test a little more extensively.  Zombies used to almost always do 6x damage to poles and plates thinking they were stuck.  It seems like they aren't doing that anymore, but I only tested them for a few minutes. 

Are you comparing A19 to A20 or old exp build to new exp build?

[Macheezmo]

3 minutes ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

Are you comparing A19 to A20 or old exp build to new exp build?

A19 to new exp build.  If the zombies stopped doing 6x damage in A20, then poles and plates would've gotten a huge buff in A20 and this new build brings them closer to where they were in A19, but still overall stronger.  That's IF the 6x damage doesn't happen anymore, which I still want to test more, but from a quick test it seems not to be happening now.

[MuffinMan]

4 hours ago, icehot said:

 

Honestly upgrading won't gain you much in this game, the bottleneck is unlikely to be in the system, I spent £5,000 on a new computer, and barely got 10 to 20 fps increase in this game, it's not fully utilising the hardware at all, my GPU sits at 30% usage.

 

Any "complex" Unity game is usually CPU limited. All multithreading in "old" Unity has to be done manually and is more complex than it should be. I haven't stayed on top of recent Unity but it is likely better in that regard and I think they are upgrading Unity for Alpha 21? TFP could, probably with a lot of work gain significantly using the "new" ECS in Unity. I wouldn't like to be the guy working on that on an existing engine, usually it is best to start off with stuff like that from the start but it is significantly faster for having many "entities" in the world which 7DTD does.

 

So the best gains you will get with 7 Days to Die currently are CPU upgrades. Same applies to Rust, Rimworld, etc, etc. I saw +20% gains in 7DTD going from AMD 3900 to 5950x.

 

One major thing I hope TFP implement is keeping all graphical objects that are drawn centered around 0,0,0 . It is something most commercial engines are now starting to move to (UE5 will supposedly have it) , but without that when you move too far away from 0,0,0 in 7DTD there are precision issues graphically, jerky animations, movement, etc. Unfortunately out of the box most commercial engines are not really designed for procedural games where you would love to have double precision for the game code (0% performance difference) which is then moved to a 32bit float world for the GPU on the fly , it is easy if designed from the start like this and my own engines have been doing it since 2009. It will be good when UE and Unity finally do basic engine things right allowing developers to not have to jerry-rig solutions.

[Macheezmo]

I did a little more testing and the 6x damage is still there.  I'm not even sure why it wasn't happening in my original testing.  Regular zombies do 8 damage vs normal blocks and are doing 48 vs poles.  Feral zombies are doing 24 damage vs normal blocks and 144 damage vs poles which is enough to destroy wooden poles in a single hit.  I wouldn't mind the block hp nerf if the damage bonus wasn't still there.

[dcsobral]

22 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Adjusting the material costs would mean you need three different generic block items per material instead of one. I.e. 3 wood shapes, 3 cobbelstone shapes, ... . And segment the shapes menue into 3 different shape menues that you can't just convert from one into the other.

 

It can be done, sure, but I guess that is a big disadvantage  and they won't like it much

 

Oh, just thought of an alternative: Poles would use up 1 wood shape while full blocks would use up 4 wood shapes when you place a block

 

And I guess the reasons are:

1) it conforms to expectations (i.e. a pole in reality has less "HP" than a full block)

2) They also have big in-game advantages as they use much less space for the same defense value

While it's all true, I'd rather the change was done the other way around, with the minimum durability remaining what it is right now. 

22 hours ago, Mechanimal said:

Yeah... I'm surprised your the only one that's so far mentioned this one, give it another few days.

I, just, don't even know why this even happened, and am especially confused as to why the material/upgrade cost wouldn't also be adjusted the same way.

Like, one way or the other, or just put it back the way it was. Reducing block HP by 75% is no subtle nerf, jfc. But to still require the same amount of material to get there is an off the charts mistake.

I was having fun with the new shapes, so much for that I guess. I am highly skeptical this will stay as it is in this patch, it'll either revert to the way it was(ideal) or upgrade cost will be reduced to reflect the lower HP values(unfortunate, but tolerable. Still a massive blow to base building). Can't imagine how or why anyone could be happy with this cruel and unusual change. So if someone can manage to defend this, please try, lol. 

Gnamod did it, and it was awesome. Case closed. Though the material cost was also decreased in Gnamod's case.

[Roland]

51 minutes ago, Eighmy_Lupin said:

This once again reeks of "how dare they play differently then me, let's make it impossible for them to continueto to do so" 

 

I think we should experiment a bit before declaring bases impossible. We have heard that wail of despair after almost every alpha release and within a month people are building bases that are impervious to zombies. People were building bases that NEVER got breached before and now people are worried that with the lower HP on certain blocks their bases might get breached. 

 

But I bet creative people will figure things out.

 

Maybe all horde bases will be blocky and gross at first but then some people will start innovating and before long the shapes will be used and bases will be sexy and they will withstand the onslaught and everyone who said TFP just made things impossible again will feel foolish.

[dcsobral]

22 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Basically our cheat bases are compromised. That means the main objective of the change was balance. Now, full blocks are encouraged in order to not exploit entities that can actually go through 1 meter holes, like dogs, wolves and spiders. Before, you could just put a tiny pole on the side and they couldn't jump. Now you still can, but it has less hp, so it's a good trade off.

 

And, ironically, the change also promotes realism. No way that a tiny stick pole is stronger than a full block pillar. Yeah, materials are the same, but it's a game and complexity in this case is a headache.

Poles have been the most common zombie-facing wall since alpha 16 because it allows melee while preventing zombies from moving forward. Now, if you think that a base that needs to be protected by melee is a cheat base, then we clearly have very different definitions of cheat bases. I presume a non-cheat base for you is one where one sits on top of a platform and rain gunfire on zombies that can't reach you, then?

[Roland]

6 hours ago, bachgaman said:

Then why are you whining?

 

Speaking of whining, I remember one of the local people who argued that whining on this forum never leads to anything. Now recall that 90% of A20 complaints were related to the new farm, which, by the way, is positive, even without LOTL (for those who are friends with school mathematics). And what do we see

LOL

So go on to tell how the decrease of durability of blocks hinders to receive aesthetic pleasure, and not to cheat the game (I believe). Maybe the change will be canceled if there are ten more offended cheaters

 

lol...That change to LOTL 2 was planned even before experimental dropped but there was not time to implement it. It was not added because of some complaining. It was added to the very first patch that was available after experimental released.  Nice try though.

3 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

Poles have been the most common zombie-facing wall since alpha 16 because it allows melee while preventing zombies from moving forward. Now, if you think that a base that needs to be protected by melee is a cheat base, then we clearly have very different definitions of cheat bases. I presume a non-cheat base for you is one where one sits on top of a platform and rain gunfire on zombies that can't reach you, then?

 

So now there is a bigger chance that they will break through but has anyone tested it on a horde night? Did they die? Did they have to alternate between melee and repair? I just wonder exactly how bad it is now. If zombies never had even a chance of breaking through before but now there is a chance but it can still be managed by effective horde night management-- it might turn out to be a more thrilling affair.

 

Or it may turn out to be a disaster. Are there any videos that can be linked? I'd like to see a horde night where the zombies possibly break through where before they never ever did.

8 hours ago, gpcstargate said:

WELL .. That Sucks big Time ... Steel Plates only have a 5000 hit point compared to the 10000 that steel normally does.

 

You just killed the Game for a lot of builders, thanks alot

 

I get the upset over the poles for melee defense on horde night. How do the plates destroy your building plans exactly? What were you using them for where 10000 hp were a must and 5000 hp are game killing?

[Kosmic Kerman]

Not to mention that I believe Steel is 7000HP anyway.

[dcsobral]

18 hours ago, Darklegend222 said:

I believe it's LOS, but we do give off a scent trail since A18 from what I remember. So we can still be tracked through blocks albeit lightly

It can't be LoS because these zombies are usually inside a closet, so they wouldn't be able to see the player to begin with. Also, the scent system was removed in alpha 19, iirc.

[pregnable]

8 hours ago, Lord Morphleyes said:

 

As a new player I found it inconsistent with my expectations when I discovered that poles and posts had the same HP as full on 1 meter cubes.  My expectations were based on, you know, reality and I found it immersion breaking.  I thought it was just lazy programming I excused it because the game is in Alpha.  No way in hell I would accept that from a finished product game unless it only cost like $9.99. Its just dumb. 

 

As far as costing less materials, that totally makes sense and would be a nice (although not necessary) adjustment. By the time I am getting fancy with my bases I am not micro managing my materials like that since they are more than abundant. I much rather TFP spend their time on making crafting viable.

 

To you all the are complaining about the materials cost not being adjusted down to match the HP, your level of butt hurt 7wood, 7cobblestone, 7......  really makes me question the sincerity of your argument.  It seems like there is something else you are not saying and it makes it difficult for me to recieve your opinion with the gravity I hope it deserves.

 

I haven't been able to get in the forums in awhile so...

 

 

The blocks need some way to be able to see what their health is for newer players.  If the block health is relative to the amount of space in the voxel they fill, that would probably be fine, because most newer players would assume that and figure it out pretty quick. 

 

It is highly unlikely that they are going to put that much work into it though, and then the costs would still need to reflect the amount of health they give. 

 

This has nothing to do with me exploiting or using them... I do not think they messed with my melee horde base at all, but it is very inconsistent for a voxel game and has really just made a bunch of shapes inferior. 

 

I usually just run around without a base on horde night anyway.

 

The funny thing about this change is that there are now some new huge OP blocks that only cost a normal amount to upgrade, lel. 

[RBN]

So the builder heaven of all shapes lasted only a week.

 

The shapes menu was great, finally we have access to every kind of block to build cool bases and you destroy it with this decision..

 

Lets be honest....who will use a inferior kind of block that cost the same that a full block?

 

So back to ugly and boring square bases.

 

 

 

 

[SnowDog1942]

39 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I think we should experiment a bit before declaring bases impossible.

 

Im not a big builder type guy here so not much skin in the game.   That being said it is pretty stupid to nerf some blocks HP without making them take less mats to build/upgrade or even know how much HP they have before you build it.  My blocky bases will be just as happy as ever but that doesn't make this any less dumb.

[dcsobral]

6 hours ago, Jay_ombie said:

Any reason models in game deform when dead ?

 

They ragdoll.

6 hours ago, gpcstargate said:

 

STEEL is STEEL ... block vs plate, it is made the same way and at the same cost. 

Their changing the Basic material mid stream ... and as a builder, I'm not happy about this one change.

 

And its been this way since A-18.1 for the most part.

Actually, it is NOT midstream. It's experimental. Experimental means subject to change at any time. If you want to not be subject to changes at any time, they have something else: the "stable".

[Roland]

10 minutes ago, SnowDog1942 said:

 

Im not a big builder type guy here so not much skin in the game.   That being said it is pretty stupid to nerf some blocks HP without making them take less mats to build/upgrade or even know how much HP they have before you build it.  My blocky bases will be just as happy as ever but that doesn't make this any less dumb.

I guess. Blocks are so cheap now in general. I’m understanding of disappointment over the change. Just a bit disbelieving of the phrase “TFP has made my base impossible!”