Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[faatal]

8 hours ago, Tmodloader said:

Finished my first A20 horde night, 64 zombie setting, 300% block damage, it seemed surprisingly easy to stay in one spot, zombies don't seem to know what to do when you're on a tower with entrances blocked, they ended up attacking a nearby building instead of the supports for the one I was standing on. Are there any plans to make the AI target structural support if they can't get to you on horde night? Or is this the plan till gold?

They do target structural supports in a generic random sense. They do not do full scans up through every block to you because it would be slow.

1 hour ago, Outlaw_187 said:

I know this has been brought up before but the vultures are @%$#in ANNOYING in the wasteland & in the desert!! 

They are annoying anyway but it's way worse now. I have to get off my vehicle every 100 meters or so to get off & kill one that's harassing me!

 

@%$# OFF BIRDS!!!

Same rules as A19. Overall spawn rates have changed, but not specifically for vultures.

[Khalagar]

6 minutes ago, faatal said:

They do target structural supports in a generic random sense. They do not do full scans up through every block to you because it would be slow.

 

What ever happened to the 'breadcrumb trail" that was talked about in the past? Was a really interesting idea where the zombie would follow the footsteps the player took to get to their vantage point.

 

I feel like my suggested "Spider zombie that can "spray" a web ladder" or another zombie that could build a temp dirt block or something would help with that too in case the player breaks the stairs behind them.

[hiemfire]

34 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

What ever happened to the 'breadcrumb trail" that was talked about in the past? Was a really interesting idea where the zombie would follow the footsteps the player took to get to their vantage point.

Iirc it fades/decays, pertained to wanderers tracking a player they did not know the location of, and wasn't something that affected bloodmoon zombies since they know where you are.

[doughphunghus]

11 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

The concept of 1 quest per day at the trader would be a fantastic change in my opinion and it should have honestly been done when quests were first introduced in A17, but better late than never.  It makes absolutely no sense that a trader would offer you multiple quests to complete on a daily basis. Realism aside, this would also be great for balancing, especially early game when there is limited items to sell. If there's a coveted item that you really want, either give up hope, or explore to find a new town and take a quest from another trader to earn those dukes. This would also greatly encourage players to go deep into Better Barter & Daring Adventurer.

 

I know the goal of this isn't to crush "evil spam questing" lol. But honestly, I'm not a fan of spam questers - I've only been doing 1, max 2 quests from a trader per day for a couple playthroughs now, and I find it to be a better experience overall.

 

Also, acquiring a bicycle is far too easy right now. I'm hearing people getting that reward from the trader on the morning of day 2, which is ridiculous. This cancels out the gameplay path of crafting one yourself because, why would you?

@Roland For people who are against this change, I propose a compromise of sorts. Perhaps an additional bonus to the Daring Adventurer perk would be the ability to take two jobs from the same trader per day? It could be locked behind rank 2 or even rank 3 out of 4.

Alternatively, perhaps the player could accept multiple quests per day from a trader, but just one per tier.

I usually don’t do more than 1 quest per day (if even that) but the the traders in single player just feel like a “let me check if I can get what I want and not have to loot for it” items (usually the rare items).  I try to craft everything else *unless* I’m short on ammo and horde night approaches…

 

anyway, I think it would be neat if these were trader options:

- “empty/dead” trader: like a 15% chance the poi is there, but they are not or are a corpse. Not a lot of traders on a normal map, and 1 per town might make that town more of a challenge. if they’re not there/dead, it’s not protected as well.

- each trader is supposed? To be balanced for certain items/goods (Jen for medical, etc). I think adding a new quest type like “Jen needs medical supplies, bring back x medical items” and you just go find/craft them, no POI or burial quest like we have today. She needs 10 Medkits? Cool, go find or make them somewhere. The reward might just be dukes, or maybe a discount to normal items she already stocks that are not medical (like weapons, building, electrical) as those are things she’s less concerned with.

- trader “faction” or something where things you do in game may make them not offer quests or bump up prices. Basically they do or do not like you based on something. Maybe you keep shooting other players, so Jen isn’t gif to talk to you anymore but Rekt is now your best friend. Maybe you walk in with a weapon and they tell you to get lost and don’t talk to you until restock day, or 7 days. Maybe if you die a lot Jen becomes more friendly. Sure, you can cheese these mechanics, but it might be neat to discover a trader hates/likes you and you get some unique quest options or deals.

- make trader “inventory” a lot more random in regards to the number of throngs they have. It seems they have a lot of items, but it might be neat if a trader only had 20 items (and maybe 1 item in secret stash) as they just ran out of stuff.

- a way to make a request to the trader for something you want. maybe Over time (many days or weeks, or less time if they like you) that item appears and they point it out (like a quest reward, but you can decide to buy it vs take your reward). Maybe the price of this item is much higher than normal as they specially got it for you. Might be a good way to get hard to find items.

- do the “player vending machines” at traders even work in single player? I don’t think I’ve been on a multiplayer game where they are used at the traders (they always build special trading hubs or other options).  I heard that “NPC’s may buy items in these machines” which would be nice (even if you don’t see them do it) It would give some reason to use them in the game as a way to convert stuff to dukes, and also use it your own personal stash for junk at the trader too.

- traders just “not there today”. Literally some chance (20%?) they’re gone all day maybe taking a nap or scavenging. If not this, then maybe a place the trader can “walk away to” like a downstairs bunker so they can come and go and you can visually see them when/if they come out during the day. If they were “not there” (and could walk out of their bunker) you could choose to hang around and see if they appear. Maybe they don’t. If this were a mechanic maybe you could make them come out if you had something they needed (like for Jen, maybe there’s a note or a quest list or some way to get quests for “things Jen needs” and that’s where you can get some “fetch x medical items” quests. 

for multiplayer, the traders just seem to be what you do as you can wipe out POis so fast as a team, and quests can be shared, so doing quests (and them quickly) is a more normal things to do I believe. I’ve also seen a lot of people just run/ride to all the traders on restock day to buy everything they need. I’m not sure how many single player people do this, but in multiplayer the “early bird gets the worm” for cool/new trader items. Maybe some of the mechanics I listed above could be used to combat that a little and make trading at traders a bit less … easy? In multiplayer I also see players just trading with others, which is great and almost a reason to not have traders in multiplayer (or at least make traders not such easy pickings).

 

another far out idea: have vehicles need “keys”. Yeah, I know we can just lock them today. If they had keys you could have vehicles parked at the trader (like 3 motorcycles, 2 SUV’s, a gyro, 5 bicycles. All pre colored and locked) and you buy them by buying the key for it. Might make the trader feel/look a bit neater. Of course, keys would disappear once “used” on a vehicle and you claim it. Traders could then be redone a little to have little internal parking or place for  everyone to drive in/out and the gyro to fly out/in from there.

- multiplayer “bounties”? Maybe if you shoot/hurt the trader, or just make them not like you, the trader puts a bounty on your head. Anyone who kills you claims it :).  Alternatively: the top x players with the highest kill counts have all traders no longer trade with them, and they all get offered up as bounty quests. Sure this could also be cheesed but maybe the bounty isn’t a lot of money, or is something symbolic like a sheriff badge or something by your name so people know you are a good shot, but unlikely to just kill them for their stuff. 
- speaking of badges next to your name, it might be interesting to be able to do enough quests or something to get indicators for others to see. Like you could have a “trader” or “hermit” or “questor” or “murderer” badges so people know what kind of reputation you have (maybe a board at the trader if not always by your name) and can deal with you based on reputation. like “oh doughphunghus has 20 player kills, but trader reputation indicates they are not a murderer but a trader”. Then people can more freely team up or meet up with players , or avoid them based on reputation or bounty.  Almost like “LBD but for role play”. Players never are bound to act by reputation, the traders just assign it based on actions or are where you go to see it.

 

[Outlaw_187]

1 hour ago, Odetta said:

Ya gotta use one of these 

Give me a whole stack of em, lol. Holy hell......😬😠😡🤬😁

[Matt115]

10 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

The concept of 1 quest per day at the trader would be a fantastic change in my opinion and it should have honestly been done when quests were first introduced in A17, but better late than never.  It makes absolutely no sense that a trader would offer you multiple quests to complete on a daily basis. Realism aside, this would also be great for balancing, especially early game when there is limited items to sell. If there's a coveted item that you really want, either give up hope, or explore to find a new town and take a quest from another trader to earn those dukes. This would also greatly encourage players to go deep into Better Barter & Daring Adventurer.

 

I know the goal of this isn't to crush "evil spam questing" lol. But honestly, I'm not a fan of spam questers - I've only been doing 1, max 2 quests from a trader per day for a couple playthroughs now, and I find it to be a better experience overall.

 

Also, acquiring a bicycle is far too easy right now. I'm hearing people getting that reward from the trader on the morning of day 2, which is ridiculous. This cancels out the gameplay path of crafting one yourself because, why would you?

@Roland For people who are against this change, I propose a compromise of sorts. Perhaps an additional bonus to the Daring Adventurer perk would be the ability to take two jobs from the same trader per day? It could be locked behind rank 2 or even rank 3 out of 4.

Alternatively, perhaps the player could accept multiple quests per day from a trader, but just one per tier.

It will be bad as hell and @Khalagar is right about that. Well from realism point of view : traders probably have tons of things to do - so they send people to kill zombie get stuff etc and work is never done - "you find a radio? cool now i need you to find me map of japan and australia because i think some docs can still live there etc". From gameplay point of view - honestly i think looting need to be nerfed - why ? 2 reasons - 1 realism 2 gameplay. 

1. - well 7dtd's outbreak happens maybe 10-20 years ago right? and we can assume some nukes were dropped + there were a lot of bombarding in cites etc.  so most clothes would be rotten, parts rusted etc. and the best things would be taken by groups ( like duke group ) or in secret military bases. So people would focusing on fighting with diffrent groups and farming + crafting and maybe sometimes start mining salt for example.

in my opinion zombie timline have 6 stages.

1. outbreak - 1-2 first weeks most of the world is safe  - like in l4d2 , world war z movie

2. before winter- most of the world is destroyed by zombie but you can still find a lot of stuff

3. after winter- few years passed almost everyone lifed in small group = resources are usually still easy to find but but some things are mising.

4. 7DTD period- most of small groups became bigger groups living stable on some ground-  farming and crafting is basic source of things and food. sometimes happens wars bettwen groups,

5. TLOU2 period- almost like period before but most people was born after ourbreak and nature take the cites.

6. "horizon zero dawn" period-  zombies are almost gone but most of knowledge too - so you have neo-medival period. in short- random teen will know how to read and write use shotgun and flashlight but will go barefoot to not waste animal skin to make shoes

 

2. gameplay point of view -  this game have name "7dtd" no " loot to survive" - so survive blood moon need to be the piority. This mean zombie will attack you so what do you need ? defense - walls in medival style of spikes in ww1 vibes.. So looting would be waste of time for most of the time- why? because you can get using this "source" enough wood and iron. So default  gameplay "style" would be - 

1. make quest and loot do get enough tools have fast as you can. 

2. cutting trees at day and mining at night.

3. make walls , spikes and farms.

4.  put turrets and robotic turrets.

5. be "support" for your defense system.

6. after survive a horde fix holes spike field etc

7. loot to find things that you can't make - acid,  beaker , tiers etc,

8. make you farm bigger and make new workstation,

9. prepar better defense.

10. survive the night.

11 repeat 6- 10 

2

[Victor.19]

Why doesn't 7 days to die use all gpu and CPU power for better frame rates? When I go to the cities the fps drops to 20 with the GPU and CPU in very low use, do not reach even 50%. Do we have any improvement on that? A18 didn't have that problem. I believe that if we had at least 45 fps in the cities would already be very good. 

[Mechanimal]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

 

There is a subway station with the outgoing and incoming tunnels all caved in. It is part of one of the tiles for the downtown area. There are not long underground tunnels to explore.

*yet!

- There are no long underground tunnels to explore, yet.

That and more realistic highways would be super neat. Be super cool if there were like one or two major highways cutting across a map. They conveniently tend to be long, straight and deliberately try to line up with the cardinal directions, so it feels like it would work out well with this engine and new tile system. Like the full 4 lane(2 each side) minimum with a wide median area like is across most of the US, with the big grassy middle and 2-4 lane wide grass patches on either side. Then either a sharp forest line or fence. It could have it's own "POI" spawn areas too, akin to smaller remnants or those little booth POI thingies and car accidents/construction, especially at over/under passes.

Then it would be cool to have gas stations at the exit/on ramps, farms with fences right up to the grassy edges, etc. Would be a super neat way to more "realistically" grow/build the various communities, sprouting off from the highway(s). And there could of course still be back roads and cities off on their own. 

I'd think hopefully both the underground/subway as well as highway systems could exist as their own tile groups? The subway build there now feels like it is part of the tile, not an inserted POI.

If this kind of thing were ever an option in the RWG menu, to have one or two highways cutting straight up/across a map, I would basically always have it on. Have driven cross the country twice irl, took the southern route to LA, then up the coast and took 80 out of San Fran for the northern route back to the east coast... this simply be the structure of our major arterial roadways. I think the new RWG tile system feels ripe to make something like this happen, would certainly make gen'd worlds feel more custom built, realistic, and fun to navigate.

Also Merry Holiday.

[Mechanimal]

8 hours ago, Jay_ombie said:

 

Technically could have been the caves that we no longer have ...

I miss under ground caverns, I suppose we have the POI underground stuff I guess...

I'm still waiting for the day someone mods in a mofuggin Tunnel Boring Machine. Seriously:) I played a ton of modded minecraft with my son when he was younger and one of my fav mods was Railcraft. It added one of these and I loved that thing. We also added Galacticraft, so of course I went to Mars and created tunnel networks with them. Dug out a large room(hub), set one up pointed in each direction, fill with mats(gravel for holes and tracks, it lays the tracks too!) and fuel, press go and walk away. We also always added Buildcraft, which had piping systems(with sorting, both for objects as well as fluids(water, or oil pipelines to make rocket fuel, for example). They all also added more raw mats etc, and neat multiblock vats where you could see material build up inside, stuff like that. I've yet to see any mods in this game go to such lengths. It was some of the most fun I've ever had in a voxel engine. Wonder if we'll ever one day see such systems added to 7dtd, either vanilla or via mod(s). If nothing else I do hope we get more electrical system and trap attention before Gold, building on the Tower Defense aspect of the game.

[Star69]

4 hours ago, Victor.19 said:

Why doesn't 7 days to die use all gpu and CPU power for better frame rates? When I go to the cities the fps drops to 20 with the GPU and CPU in very low use, do not reach even 50%. Do we have any improvement on that? A18 didn't have that problem. I believe that if we had at least 45 fps in the cities would already be very good. 

Try turning dynamic mesh off and see if it helps in the city. As for an explanation on cpu/gpu, I’ll let someone chime in.

[Callum123456789]

9 minutes ago, Star69 said:

Try turning dynamic mesh off and see if it helps in the city. As for an explanation on cpu/gpu, I’ll let someone chime in.

I've already done that while turning dynamic mesh off I have a pretty good computer in the city centre on high I often get 40 to 50 fps but when I enter any of the bigger buildings it drops to 15 to 20 fps maybe if he turned down texture quality or ss reflections that would help they have been known to drag down fps 

[Tmodloader]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

They do target structural supports in a generic random sense. They do not do full scans up through every block to you because it would be slow.

Thanks, I do like that they attack in a generic sense and aren't super smart but still it feels like there's some sort of thrill missing from horde night. I was on a small water tower type structure with support beams under me, I was planning an escape route for the inevitable collapse but instead the horde went for the building next to it all night which was odd.

6 hours ago, Matt115 said:

honestly i think looting need to be nerfed

I am of the exact opposite opinion, traders give too good rewards already where it almost seems wasteful to go into a poi without a mission for me these days. 

[Tmodloader]

On 12/24/2021 at 10:04 AM, Kosmic Kerman said:

Maybe but they seem to be the only option for weapon/tool progression until late in the game. I'm on day 31 (60 min days, 100 XP) and all of my weapons except a crafted SMG are from Trader rewards or Trader purchase (a Q4 pistol bought in the first week) and most of my tools are from the trader as well. Steel shovels just started dropping for me in loot.  Weapon/tool drops from loot caches seems to have been drastically reduced in A20. Even if trader rewards were reduced they would still be worth doing. You could always do a no trader run. Nothing is truly mandatory.

That's perfect as I said. Reducing the rewards would be a good thing, it should still be worth doing, just not overpowering like it is, as you can see with most of your gear coming from trader. 

[Matt115]

22 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

 

I am of the exact opposite opinion, traders give too good rewards already where it almost seems wasteful to go into a poi without a mission for me these days. 

Well for my this reason why quests are so good - in walking dead characters go to somewhere because they need guns or medicines  etc. In 7dtd this totaly random ( honestly you can sometimes find any vitamins in pharmarcy or in hospital) so quest is good motivation to visit this places

[Kosmic Kerman]

1 hour ago, Tmodloader said:

That's perfect as I said. Reducing the rewards would be a good thing, it should still be worth doing, just not overpowering like it is, as you can see with most of your gear coming from trader. 

Yes most of my gear comes from the Trader A20 until mid game because pretty much nothing drops from loot caches now. If the Trader rewards are reduced then the play is still to do the missions so you can get the dukes to buy the better stuff from their inventory,  I think the trader game loop is pretty good. Early game it's generally the best option. Mid to late game, it's just something to do even if the rewards are generally not worth it.  Reducing trader rewards would also hurt leveling up new traders as by the time you are doing that you really don't want garbage rewards.

[faatal]

3 hours ago, Tmodloader said:

Thanks, I do like that they attack in a generic sense and aren't super smart but still it feels like there's some sort of thrill missing from horde night. I was on a small water tower type structure with support beams under me, I was planning an escape route for the inevitable collapse but instead the horde went for the building next to it all night which was odd.

I would not go by what happened on first or even second horde night. Those are not meant to be that hard.

7 hours ago, Victor.19 said:

Why doesn't 7 days to die use all gpu and CPU power for better frame rates? When I go to the cities the fps drops to 20 with the GPU and CPU in very low use, do not reach even 50%. Do we have any improvement on that? A18 didn't have that problem. I believe that if we had at least 45 fps in the cities would already be very good. 

There is no simple answer. There are a ton of different CPUs and GPUs combined with the various video and graphics settings.

 

A20 is basically the same as A18 from an engine standpoint, but with a newer version of Unity, some optimizations and additional features like dynamic mesh, dense cities and updated world content.

 

What CPU, GPU and memory do you have? What graphics resolution are you using?

[Aldranon]

12 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

I know this has been brought up before but the vultures are @%$#in ANNOYING in the wasteland & in the desert!! 

They are annoying anyway but it's way worse now. I have to get off my vehicle every 100 meters or so to get off & kill one that's harassing me!

 

@%$# OFF BIRDS!!!

 

I have a good x-bow so I use all the feathers for stone bolts for horde night! 

 

Save the ammo for tier 4 and 5 POI's!

[Kalex]

Anybody else having problems getting seeds/spores from mushrooms? With LotL 3 planted 20 mushrooms, waited for them to grow then harvested them and only got 1 seed.

[Gazz]

23 hours ago, Aldranon said:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

May all your dreams come true and Santa gives you a sock full of coal!!

 

What?  At the price of coal these days, load it up Santa!! 

 

Yeah! More gunpowder!

 

3 hours ago, Aldranon said:

 

I have a good x-bow so I use all the feathers for stone bolts for horde night! 

 

Save the ammo for tier 4 and 5 POI's!

 

It's the other way around for me. Use the crossbow all week long and then whatever gun to shoot whatever ammo I got during the week.

 

[Aldranon]

3 hours ago, Gazz said:

 

It's the other way around for me. Use the crossbow all week long and then whatever gun to shoot whatever ammo I got during the week.

 

 

I can respect that for sure!

But trying to fight off the "Radiated Rushs" on some of the tier 5 POI's with a X-Bow will end badly (for me anyways).

 

For example: I have a quality 6, M60 with over 120 rounds in its magazine and It took most of it to stop a "rad rush" at an end location on a Tier-5 POI.  I was firing mostly carefully too.  I couldn't help but think of an "Aliens" clip that showed the ammo counter rolling down!  Too fun!  (That was perked up to level 4 in MG too!)

[Gazz]

I've only been to T4s by now but I can avoid the mad rush quite reliably. Close a door to buy time and hide a few rooms over, then come back.

I know it "takes forever" compared to the M60 approach. =P

[spacepiggio]

OK, I think we need a Zombie Wabbit, I really want to have a Python Moment & Run Away...Run Away...Run Away...Run Away...Run Away...Run Away...Run Away...

Theyre really fast & I would like a Z Wabbit to go for the Jugular in a single hop. I got the idea after being chased by a wabbit on my mini-bike & I just respawned from getting attacked by a pack of 7 Dogs. I want to disover an abandoned mine & get attacked by a pack of Rabid Wabbits then fight or Run Away...

[meganoth]

22 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

Welp this was short lived.
My pc became a pipebomb and popped!

i shall Wait for it too come out on Xbox 

 

What exactly popped? If its the power supply (it often is) a replacement might be easier to get than say the GPU.

22 hours ago, Lemmers said:

If they added a progression system for traders, players could improve the loot quality of restocks by doing specific quests. Like import/export trade missions, salvaging specific materials the trader needs to build things, protecting an incoming delivery from bandits, or whatever they can think of. To keep things balanced, there could be timed events where they put out a distress call that they are under siege by bandits or zombies and failing to help them results in a chunk of trader progress being reset (worse loot and visually the base looks worse again).

So players can try to babysit every trader if they like that kind of gameplay and be rewarded for it, or players could ignore traders completely and spend their time looting and crafting without feeling punished. Maybe an actual "restock" truck spawns on the map and drives to a trader, so if you are roleplaying as a bandit you could attack it for a free chest at the cost of trader progression (and they keep their old stock for another couple days until the next truck arrives).

That kind of world building would really flesh out the game IMO and make me immersed, while solving the issues of traders being OP in early/midgame and the lack of lategame content currently. And it's not dependent on complicated AI or new animations to implement this kind of system.

 

You tried to list the only two things that need no change and even failed at that 😁. A handful new quest types, bandits, an event system, a defended truck spawning in and out, an escort mission. Lots of stuff that depends on AI.

 

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, Kalex said:

Anybody else having problems getting seeds/spores from mushrooms? With LotL 3 planted 20 mushrooms, waited for them to grow then harvested them and only got 1 seed.

 

Did you mean mushroom seeds or mushrooms (which would be converted to just 4 seeds) ?

 

I harvested yesterday and the best results I had were mushrooms with 2 seeds from 2 plants. Don't ask about the corn though.

[Doomofman]

Anyone else getting occasional really bad stutter that doesn't manifest itself on the FPS counter?

 

Was doing one of the Warehouse POIs just now and the game started stuttering like it was running at 20fps or something but the FPS counter (both Steam and built in) said the game was 60/70 fps