Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[MuffinMan]

1 hour ago, faatal said:

That is a unload unused resources call. It is on a timer and has to happen sometime or memory use would keep climbing. Slower computers take longer.

 

So if it is taking my 5950x/64GB RAM/3090 3-5 seconds sometimes, even slower comps are longer? That must be pretty bad for them because the long hitches make me feel like the game is about to crash and I even get that windows hourglass indicator like the window is frozen.

[Geoarrge]

I've been dying a lot on days 1-2 on default settings.  If I get past this, it's a reasonable challenge, but early on without a full set of starting gear, it's usually either a feral or a pack of 4+ coming into the building from outside.

Possible solutions:
1. Take feral spawning out of early gamestages
2. Reduce the detection range for wandering zombies in early gamestages
3. Reduce stamina cost of primitive weapons
4. As part of an extended intro chain, make the first T1 quest guaranteed to stay away from the town center, and reward with a bundle containing materials to build one pipe weapon, and 20 rounds of each pipe weapon ammo type.

5. Git gud

[Sal]

2 minutes ago, Geoarrge said:

I've been dying a lot on days 1-2 on default settings.  If I get past this, it's a reasonable challenge, but early on without a full set of starting gear, it's usually either a feral or a pack of 4+ coming into the building from outside.

Possible solutions:
1. Take feral spawning out of early gamestages
2. Reduce the detection range for wandering zombies in early gamestages
3. Reduce stamina cost of primitive weapons
4. As part of an extended intro chain, make the first T1 quest guaranteed to stay away from the town center, and reward with a bundle containing materials to build one pipe weapon, and 20 rounds of each pipe weapon ammo type.

5. Git gud

So you actually wanna make the game easier? Sorry but I can't get behind that idea at all.  My biggest complaint with the game in the past is that it's been way TOO easy.  Even playing perma. By day 30 your almost invincible regardless of settings. That's what I do like about the new feral system (which I always set to all and have NEVER played with other settings).

[Xtracker]

Hey, i recently discovered a breaking bug .. My friend was in forge searching something, next I told him that I was going to save games .. so I did. I left while reloading the save my friend couldn't open anything except the door, no interaction with the (E) key. I had to go to Appdata / 7DTD / save and find his EOS ID in 3 files and delete his progress, so he can open again. It is known bug ? I know i must post on different section, but maybe Dev will respond to that.

Maybe it is a way to fix that (don't erase a progress).

Thanks.

[GVLT]

Hi, can someone help me with performance bottleneck? I usually play on Ultra in 3440x1440, I've got stable 70-80 fps in suburban areas of pine forest, but when doing tier 5 POIs in wasteland for example I drop to 20 with occasional drops to 5. Resource manager displays my GPU loaded only to 35% percent, same with my CPU. Can I increase FPS for this locations by upgrading my rig? Or it's just the way the game works and It can only be helped with reducing draw distance?

[Aldranon]

4 hours ago, Geoarrge said:

I've been dying a lot on days 1-2 on default settings.  If I get past this, it's a reasonable challenge, but early on without a full set of starting gear, it's usually either a feral or a pack of 4+ coming into the building from outside.

Possible solutions:
1. Take feral spawning out of early gamestages
2. Reduce the detection range for wandering zombies in early gamestages
3. Reduce stamina cost of primitive weapons
4. As part of an extended intro chain, make the first T1 quest guaranteed to stay away from the town center, and reward with a bundle containing materials to build one pipe weapon, and 20 rounds of each pipe weapon ammo type.

5. Git gud

 

Maybe have a new difficulty level called "Tutorial", or "Assisted".

This would be good for people who are new to the game or want a more casual experience.

[spud42]

I have been watching a few youtubers and playing a bit.  From watching Jawoodle's horde every night series  i have noticed the number of times the Drone gets in the way. 

Its to the point where he compares it to Lydia another companion from a game we all should know...

it seems just like her the drone gets in between you and the zombies , blocks doorways etc. Josh almost fell out of a bell tower because of the drone. funny thing is i think he actually landed on it and saved a broken leg. 

I think the follow distance needs to be increased and it limited to beside you not directly in front.  we still need to be able to access it..... 

[spacepiggio]

I know its on the list but its Alpha 20 now, the Water Mechanics really need some love here...

Everything is looking so awesome & then we come to a Lake or Pond...worse Ive seen so far in all the Alphas...

There was that time I had a water supply at the entrance to my mine & a Z busted my Hot Tub flooding the mine shaft below. Started a new mine, too much water to displace with blocks. There are things spawning in the water displaceing it, looks bad Mole Man...Real Bad...needs Love....

[mstdv inc]

@faatal Can we expect dx12 in the A20?

[icehot]

42 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

@faatal Can we expect dx12 in the A20?

 

DLSS and ray tracing might be nice too

[Callum123456789]

25 minutes ago, icehot said:

 

DLSS and ray tracing might be nice too

i dunno about ray tracing quite yet it would probably demolish your fps

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, MisutoM said:

 

It could be taken a step farther in a different direction and make the pipe pistol use .44 which would allow the damage on it to be buffed pretty substantially as it'd be balanced out by the relative rarity/cost of the ammo type early game. Then another popular suggestion that @Gazz actually asked me about on stream was to make the pipe machinegun fire 9mm. With these two changes, all ammo types would be useful early game but it'd also have other balance implications.

 

Machinegun users will use more 7.62 when they get a "real" machinegun, so by letting their primitive tier weapon use 9mm, they'll be able to save the more expensive 7.62 for later. This also opens up the door to make the pipe machinegun have it's damage lowered (as it's using a weaker ammo type) but still keep a healthy enough ammo capacity so it feels like a machinegun still. Since machineguns don't use 9mm later in their build, they wouldn't feel bad about going full auto and using all their 9mm, but they'd still have interesting friction points early game choosing between 9mm to use today or 7.62 to use eventually when they finish quests or buy from traders. Devil's advocate though - how do we convey to players that _this_ submachinegun is governed by the machinegun perk while this different submachinegun is governed by the pistol perk without confusing the player base?

 

The pipe pistol and LAR being changed to .44 means that the ammo type could be made more common and from an earlier game stage (it's incredibly rare in loot now even on day 70 in the wastelands). Pipe pistol could have it's damage buffed pretty substantially as it'd still be using the most rare and expensive ammo type, combine this with a slower rate of fire and it's already long reload animation and it'd be a perfect early game magnum and would transition perfectly into the .44 magnum at tier 2 which is fairly late game for pistol users, but they'd still have access to early game pistols (including toilet pistols on day 1 even) to use 9mm. Also, agility has access to the bow skill early game, so if their pipe weapon uses fairly rare and expensive ammo, that's ok because they have a perfectly viable other type of primitive ranged weapon. 

 

The LAR would make more sense using .44, but it'd also create another interesting balance point for the rifle skill similar to how SMG exists in pistols. Presently, the new buff to the crossbow makes it massively out-damage and out-stealth the sniper rifle and they both have functionally the same range as it's limited by the draw distance. By retooling the LAR to do more damage (to compensate for the rarity and expense of the ammo type) it could be like the reverse balance of pistols (nice asymmetric balancing that TFP like). Their tier 2 weapon could be their big damage and pretty high fire rate gun, while the sniper could become more specialized in sniping. This could be achieved by making the gun naturally more quiet and or giving it an innate stealth attack bonus similar to bows/xbows. 

 

 

None of this is a big deal though, just food for thought if the devs are still looking for a way to balance the pipe weapons and also considering other ammo type changes. 

 

This gets the Meganoth Royal Seal of Approval 😉.

 

As long as ammo is not really scarce the scrap machine gun will always own the other scrap weapons, especially the pistol. The "normal" use for guns in the first days is as a oh-@%$# weapon and for that task ammo usage is secondary anyway, only magazine size and damage count.

 

By changing ammo types for scrap pistol to .44 and scrap machine gun to 9mm players would have valid alternatives to choose from. And I think it would add a little depth to the early gun crafting

 

 

[BuildingWorker]

Because of the many  new mechanisms, the optimization of the  A20 version has not improved ( or even broken ) . So gentlmen/ladies of the production team, what is the best optimization of 7 Day to Die like? I look forward to better optimization. 😄

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, POCKET951 said:

It's also annoying when I go to the trader and 3/4 of the 5 quest he offers are restore power. It would be nice if they were weighted less OR you could reroll the quest loadout 1 time a day, or maybe have a token fee to reroll quest list?

 

Also it seems like a shame to have this new quest as a big advertised feature of A20 and have it feel like it flopped. I hope they adjust or make it more appealing  to do. Or atleast add more flexibility 

 

I don't think there are tier1 restore power quests. If you don't see an acceptable quest on your level just select one from the 5 tier1 quests offered.

 

 

7 hours ago, POCKET951 said:

Is there anything you guys are considering doing to make them more appealing, maybe even being more flexible with the time window? Make them offer a better set of rewards? Making them not require a full clear?

 

Not speaking for TFP, but restore-power quests actually have buffed loot in them because it is night and often in the town center. I actually got stuff out that looked better than the stuff out of normal POIs. TFP could reason that it is a choice like going to the wasteland for the higher loot gamestage.

 

I think an easy fix to the trader loot would be to have tier3 restore-power quests use tier2 POIs, tier4 use tier3 POIs, and so on. This would make the quest overall easier at a specific tier while keeping the higher trader reward of that tier

 

 

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, spud42 said:

I have been watching a few youtubers and playing a bit.  From watching Jawoodle's horde every night series  i have noticed the number of times the Drone gets in the way. 

Its to the point where he compares it to Lydia another companion from a game we all should know...

it seems just like her the drone gets in between you and the zombies , blocks doorways etc. Josh almost fell out of a bell tower because of the drone. funny thing is i think he actually landed on it and saved a broken leg. 

I think the follow distance needs to be increased and it limited to beside you not directly in front.  we still need to be able to access it..... 

 

What if all INT turret/drones kept their place in inventory but grayed out when you place them ?

 

I think this would be a general improvement of drone/turret handling because:

1) You would not reuse that slot and then have to search for the drone in inventory. Happens with turrets all the time.

2) You then could still access the menue of the drone with holding R and that would be the signal for the drone to approach you !

 

[Wulf]

9 hours ago, faatal said:

That is a unload unused resources call. It is on a timer and has to happen sometime or memory use would keep climbing. Slower computers take longer.

Same call using same rules as A19.

Basically yes, but is the unload. Garbage collection is incremental (multiple frames) and runs every few minutes and is rarely noticed.

 

So I'm running a new PC compared to when i ran A19. Ryzen 5900x + 32GB + 3060Ti. I don't 'remember' there being this much a of a hitch sometimes. Though that is just that, I don't *remember* it. But if the hitch is THIS bad on my current machine, hopefully that is something you can optimize further...

[MechanicalLens]

56 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

I don't think there are tier1 restore power quests. If you don't see an acceptable quest on your level just select one from the 5 tier1 quests offered.

 

 

 

Not speaking for TFP, but restore-power quests actually have buffed loot in them because it is night and often in the town center. I actually got stuff out that looked better than the stuff out of normal POIs. TFP could reason that it is a choice like going to the wasteland for the higher loot gamestage.

 

I think an easy fix to the trader loot would be to have tier3 restore-power quests use tier2 POIs, tier4 use tier3 POIs, and so on. This would make the quest overall easier at a specific tier while keeping the higher trader reward of that tier

 

 

 

Or they could just buff the amount of dukes and XP you receive from the trader for completing a Restore Power, at the very least.  Just a spitball.

[Kosmic Kerman]

11 hours ago, Vedui said:

 

Yes. If progression was altered. I personally had the comment watching dev streams that ammo and weapons were super common. It's not hard to have hundreds of rounds of ammo day 1-2, and a few pipe weapons. Save a bit of cash and buy a proper low quality "proper" firearm is easy day 1-2 as well.

 

If progression was day 1-5 bows and if VERY lucky a pipe weapon, then day 6-12 pipe weapons, and 13++ getting into "factory made" firearms, I think people would for sure use them.

 

Right now I commonly find pipe weapons that are better than factory made weapons. Why use that q4 Ak-47 when your Q6 pipe machinegun has more mod slots and better stats?   I'd be proud if I could with some pipes and duct tape put together something that's better than a somewhat beat up ak-47

I've done two play throughs and I have been short on ammo for the first week (default days).  If my first playthrough I had very little 9mm and a little more 7.62. In my second playthrough I had more 9mm than 7.62.  In both playthroughs, the 7.62 ammo I received had to be saved for emergencies like bears, dire wolves, and dog hordes. In my second playthrough I had finally amassed a small cushion of 7.62 and that cushion disappeared after clearing the Bear Den on a quest. I have serious doubts about the ability to consistently obtain "hundreds of rounds" in the first 2 days. I haven't included shotgun shells here because I've found the pipe shotgun to be less useful than the blunderbuss. And shotguns seems to be somewhat rarer drops than in A19.

 

In terms of the pipe machine gun being better than the AK, it has a lower magazine capacity and I've never had enough ranged mods drop early enough in the game that mod capacity on the pipe machine gun matters. 

 

[outhous]

17 hours ago, GRITTY said:

the new pick ax sound is really bad

Was wondering if this was something just bugging in my game or what... my buddy says it sounds the same (he is fairly new to the game, what does he know). To me it has that 'fingernails on the chalkboard' effect. Sounds like hitting metal wrapped in a thick layer of mashed up aluminum foil. It has a crunchy snow sound to it, please change this. 🙏I beg you.

[dcsobral]

On 12/18/2021 at 8:54 AM, canadianbluebeer said:

There is something just WRONG with having one of the fat zeds do the crouch and TRY to leap.

(they're too fat and just sorta lurch at you and nibble your ankles)

Big Momma... leaping.... no. just no.

Bouncy balls, what's wrong?

[GRITTY]

15 minutes ago, outhous said:

Was wondering if this was something just bugging in my game or what... my buddy says it sounds the same (he is fairly new to the game, what does he know). To me it has that 'fingernails on the chalkboard' effect. Sounds like hitting metal wrapped in a thick layer of mashed up aluminum foil. It has a crunchy snow sound to it, please change this. 🙏I beg you.

 

i mine a lot and i've found the new sound pretty unbearable.  this is the only thing in a20 that i just flat out don't like.  i'm working on a way to change the XML to make all the mining sounds like the sound of hitting rocks.  like you said, it's very fingernails on the chalkboard.  i would love to know from TFP, what is the new sound supposed to sound like? i just can't place what the sound is and maybe that's why i find it so off putting.  it's like if uncanny valley had a sound.  

[dcsobral]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:46 PM, Khalagar said:

Have y'all even read the club line? It has a super high chance to stagger / stun / knockdown and does stupid high extra damage to stunned targets, all while it literally has better stats then the baton to begin with.

 

  It has the exact same damage. It is slower, so less DPS, but now it uses less stamina too which really makes up for it. I've seen a lot of streamers that just attack, back off, wait for the zombie act or not, then go in again. The pipe baton is the superior weapon for them (compared to the wooden club). 

 

Now... skills and magazines. The clubs are incredibly OP in this regard. Three exclusive mods, incredible bonuses and plus the completion bonus that makes it the best melee weapon bar none, since it allows you to always power attack. But you won't be seeing much of these while you are still using a wooden club.

 

On 12/18/2021 at 3:46 PM, Khalagar said:

People stop playing all the time no matter what. Like MM said, A20 isn't going to fix burnout and if someone quits because they can't find an auger or steel pick in the first week then it be like it is. The loot change undoubtedly increased player retention,  and made it so 95% of the items in the game weren't pointless. Finding a steel pick day 5 meant you no longer cared about any iron or lesser drops you found. 

"What you said is not true because of X" "Well, here's the counterproof" "It doesn't matter anyway". Plus strawman. No one dropped out of the game because they couldn't find a steel pick on day 5. They dropped out because they couldn't find a quality 1 iron pickaxe on day 21. Because the loot on alpha 19 was very, very boring for weeks.  And there's a big difference between burnout and boring. The same people who stopped playing alpha 19 altogether are all in on alph a20.

 

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

This gets the Meganoth Royal Seal of Approval 😉.

 

As long as ammo is not really scarce the scrap machine gun will always own the other scrap weapons, especially the pistol. The "normal" use for guns in the first days is as a oh-@%$# weapon and for that task ammo usage is secondary anyway, only magazine size and damage count.

 

By changing ammo types for scrap pistol to .44 and scrap machine gun to 9mm players would have valid alternatives to choose from. And I think it would add a little depth to the early gun crafting

 

 

Hmm, I might mod that in for next playthrough to see how it works, or I can do it now and just craft new guns.  Thing is though, I don't have any 44 cal ammo so far so my pipe pistol will stop being useful.  I already got a higher damage reduction and slower fire rate on the pipe machine gun to see how it feels with a stronger nerf.

[dcsobral]

On 12/18/2021 at 5:59 PM, Ouch Quit It said:

Anyone else notice that engines are disappearing everytime there is a new update....ive had about 25 motors go POOF out of generators??

Also you switch over to 3rd person when wearing night vision and driving the motorcycle.

 

None of these things happened to me.

[dcsobral]

On 12/19/2021 at 6:59 AM, MechanicalLens said:

Just curious, how come the auger starts to gradually lose block damage as it gets below 50% durability level?

It's been that way since forever. The chainsaw too. I believe I reported it in alpha 17. You know what else loses "capacity" when below 50% durability? Armor. It doesn't show on the stats, but it loses rating starting on 50%, until it reaches 0 at 0% durability.