Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[PoloPoPo]

I am finally back for A20 and after my first in-game weeks I have to say very good job @TFP. A20 feels like a much better A19.

 

Two things I'd like to address though:

 

- Rain. It is raining way too often. So much bad weather it is unreal.

- Performance issues. A20 runs way worse than A19 did. All my favourite 7D2D streamers on YouTube experience the same problems like I do. FPS drops and huge lag spikes. Lowering my settings even to a ridiculous unpleasing level does not help. Maybe it is the feral sense option (which I love btw)? Did a T4 or T5 quest recently on a skyscraper (probably T5) in the wasteland and there were so many zombies in- and outside that it was unplayable due to lag. Had to cancel the quest and relog. That is a pity since I would love fighting bigger amounts of zombies outside horde night as well.

 

Talking about singleplayer.

 

Edit:

Before anyone questions my PC setup: I never had any performance issues with A19 on very high settings. Even ultra settings were possible except during horde night (increased zombie count) and huge T5 POIs.

[DEATH MECHANIC]

4 hours ago, DEADFACE said:

It does have a Vulkan renderer and it doesn't change much at all I'm afraid.

maybe not for you, but for me it almost doubles my graphics performance but it eventually will use all vram and then freeze. Have you tried it lately?

[Doomofman]

Anyone else running into an issue with the latest build of getting stuck in the skills menu/inventory? As in the menus show up but you can't click anything. Sometimes opening a different menu will fix it

[Demonoid74]

Day 36 , just got together a mini bike woohoo lol...now If only I could find a damn Beaker!!! Since I have the mini bike now been checking all 5 traders I have up for a few days now and no luck...cleared out a few Popping Pills locations as well...as everything else...

[Callum123456789]

1 hour ago, Demonoid74 said:

Day 36 , just got together a mini bike woohoo lol...now If only I could find a damn Beaker!!! Since I have the mini bike now been checking all 5 traders I have up for a few days now and no luck...cleared out a few Popping Pills locations as well...as everything else...

day 36? damn thats crazy by day 36 i had like 4 of them if you go into the snow biome or wasteland biome and raid a few medical poi's that is your best bet especially the t5 hospital i could be wrong here but I'm pretty sure those medical crates are affected by loot stage so the higher the loot stage means you will find more valuable medical supplies in those crates 

i wonder if we will be able to select which biomes will exclusively spawn in  RWG eventually for example play with only forest and wasteland or for a challenge only play with wasteland i  like the idea of that 

[Aero]

So, I just started playing A20 a few days ago.

 

I always liked the farm bit in this game, even tilling the soil with a hoe and the use of fertilizer a few alphas ago.

The Pimps simplified it a whole lot since then (like so many things).

 

But I don't understand what they did in this Alpha... They really made farming a whole lot more annoying.

 

- Why do we have to reseed everything again after you taken the grown plant. I thought this was a good decision to leave the seed in the ground. A real backwards step in the QoL.

- I understand it's done because there is a chance of not getting the seed back. How is this a sustainable way of farming?? I was happy to get some potatoes and corn going and now I have nothing again. I don't understand how this decision was made. Let's make farming as crap as we can, so people stay away from that.

 

But now I do get hundreds of bullets from day 1 and very good guns to make without a schematic etc. (The pipe guns are way overpowered to make from day 1, the blunderbuss was at least way less powerful).

 

So I can see where this is all going... let's go for a full FPS with some RPG elements and let's slowly remove all the other things. I wonder how long we can even farm. Removed by the next Alpha? or 2?

 

I said it before... It's always 2 steps forward with a new Alpha in some areas, but it's also always at least 1 step backwards in other areas.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Aero said:

So, I just started playing A20 a few days ago.

 

I always liked the farm bit in this game, even tilling the soil with a hoe and the use of fertilizer a few alphas ago.

The Pimps simplified it a whole lot since then (like so many things).

 

But I don't understand what they did in this Alpha... They really made farming a whole lot more annoying.

 

- Why do we have to reseed everything again after you taken the grown plant. I thought this was a good decision to leave the seed in the ground. A real backwards step in the QoL.

- I understand it's done because there is a chance of not getting the seed back. How is this a sustainable way of farming?? I was happy to get some potatoes and corn going and now I have nothing again. I don't understand how this decision was made. Let's make farming as crap as we can, so people stay away from that.

 

But now I do get hundreds of bullets from day 1 and very good guns to make without a schematic etc. (The pipe guns are way overpowered to make from day 1, the blunderbuss was at least way less powerful).

 

So I can see where this is all going... let's go for a full FPS with some RPG elements and let's slowly remove all the other things. I wonder how long we can even farm. Removed by the next Alpha? or 2?

 

I said it before... It's always 2 steps forward with a new Alpha in some areas, but it's also always at least 1 step backwards in other areas.

With no perk points spent on farming you can still plant and grow food and have some ingredients for cooking randomly as you find seeds and get some back after harvesting. 
 

In order to have a sustainable farm you need to spend at least one skill point on Living off the Land. If farming is an important part of your game then you should spend that single point. 

[zztong]

21 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

During the time until one person gets to the trader, takes the quest, gets to the POI, completes the quest, gets back to the trader and finishes the quest, I will clear several houses and get more profit not in money, but in total.

 

I've toyed with this approach and I think it works great in single player. In multiplayer, at the launch of a new map when a bunch of unteamed players are active, you can be find POIs are picked over pretty heavy and need the Trader quests to refresh them. Once the map has aged and players have become less active this approach seems to become more viable again.

[Aldranon]

I'm not sure you can make an interesting farming simulation in a game, IMO.  Unless farming has some scarcity and work added to it, it might as well be removed.  A20 is as good as farming can get, unless you added more time between harvests to make a harvest really mean something.

 

With A20, putting 3 points in farming is only 3 extra points as Fortitude + some Strength, is the new Full Strength of A19.  It just makes things a bit easier, with 2 points in cooking food/water is a non issue.

 

That weakens the character a bit in some combat powers of course but after a while, 5 points is almost nothing.

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, DEATH MECHANIC said:

maybe not for you, but for me it almost doubles my graphics performance but it eventually will use all vram and then freeze. Have you tried it lately?

 

I have been playing with vulkan (on Linux) for all of a19 and a20 (though I had to disable a few advanced features like SSAO).

Except for the last patch, there seems to be a change that destabilized vulkan on my machine or made another feature not work. Eventually I have to get off my a** and make a bug report. 😒

 

[DEADFACE]

4 hours ago, DEATH MECHANIC said:

maybe not for you, but for me it almost doubles my graphics performance but it eventually will use all vram and then freeze. Have you tried it lately?

I tried it during experimental, but abandoned it due to the freezing issues. It sounds like performance is going to greatly depend on specific graphics settings. I play on high with things like shadows turned down because shadows specifically murder performance in this game during certain times of day. If you play with shadows I could see Vulkan doubling your performance, but i'm not sure what other setting might have that effect.

 

Edit: I should mention I'm playing on Linux which may or may not affect the result.

[JCrook1028]

On 12/25/2021 at 3:11 PM, Matt115 said:

this game have name "7dtd" no " loot to survive" - so survive blood moon need to be the piority

The name was there before the blood moon horde. Originally it meant the infection killed you in 7 days. There was no horde night at all.

[Tmodloader]

Something I've noticed: There is no incentive to actually craft much of anything in this game aside from building shapes. All gear is easy to get from traders or looting. I just got a tier 5 steel club as a club build and I'm not even done with my 2nd week. There was no reason for me to devote any resources to crafting gear.  Before this I had just used a tier 6 stone club I found somewhere.

 

The situation was a bit similar back when I played a lot in A18, there wasn't much reason to craft my own stuff.

[Callum123456789]

10 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

The name was there before the blood moon horde. Originally it meant the infection killed you in 7 days. There was no horde night at all.

i believe it still does kill you in 7 days now not counting you getting hit i think?

[Tmodloader]

5 hours ago, Aero said:

But I don't understand what they did in this Alpha... They really made farming a whole lot more annoying.

 

- Why do we have to reseed everything again after you taken the grown plant. I thought this was a good decision to leave the seed in the ground. A real backwards step in the QoL.

 

This is actually balancing QoL for me because I would always double punch plants anyway somehow so it's nice that I can just keep moving on without worry and just replant any seeds I get, I like the farming changes, makes it less "one and done" and more exciting to find wild seeds. I'd personally argue the change is excellent, farming is still very strong. If you're running out of things to plant then it's because you're cooking all your veggies immediately, you should set some aside to refill all your plots first. 

[Callum123456789]

on one of my worlds i have a massive farm with over one thousand farm plots and each harvest i easily get 700 potatoes 800 corn 400 super corn and about 500 mushrooms its pretty good

[Tmodloader]

5 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

on one of my worlds i have a massive farm with over one thousand farm plots and each harvest i easily get 700 potatoes 800 corn 400 super corn and about 500 mushrooms its pretty good

This game is weird, I see so many complaints that it's too hard but I frequently find it too easy but upping the settings any more makes the zombies become bullet sponges which I don't like either. It took me a few runs to get going but I'm almost on my second blood moon in permadeath with nightmare speed at night and run speed at day with 300% block damage for player and AI (including horde night).

 

My biggest dilemma lately is whether to try feral sense or not to see if that makes it feel tough for me without bullet sponges. I fear feral sense will make me want to go guns blazing everywhere instead of trying to sneak around.

4 hours ago, Roland said:

In order to have a sustainable farm you need to spend at least one skill point on Living off the Land. If farming is an important part of your game then you should spend that single point. 

I actually kind of want living off the land 1 to give 3 plants from farming, this will still let the perk cause sustainability but it'd make it cut close with 5.5 average output. This would make you be required to invest in sustainable farming if you really want it. I am unsure if such a close cut would be frustrating though. I would think it'd be balanced with 3 for perk lv1, 4 or 5 for perk level 2, 6 for perk level 3. 

[Callum123456789]

9 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

This game is weird, I see so many complaints that it's too hard but I frequently find it too easy but upping the settings any more makes the zombies become bullet sponges which I don't like either. It took me a few runs to get going but I'm almost on my second blood moon in permadeath with nightmare speed at night and run speed at day with 300% block damage for player and AI (including horde night).

 

My biggest dilemma lately is whether to try feral sense or not to see if that makes it feel tough for me without bullet sponges. I fear feral sense will make me want to go guns blazing everywhere instead of trying to sneak around.

i mean with feral sense enabled you shoot a gun in the middle of a city your gonna attract atleast like 5 or 6 zombies at a go its cool

[Tmodloader]

8 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

i mean with feral sense enabled you shoot a gun in the middle of a city your gonna attract atleast like 5 or 6 zombies at a go its cool

That does sound preferable, I probably just need to test it out, the important thing would be sneak being useful still, but if they're gonna aggro anyway it's better to go guns blazing than caught sneaking. 

 

I worry how the new outfit system planned for A21 will affect balance. Lategame I remember, at least in A18, the only real thing you look for are mods for your gear. Other than that you just build around. I hope they add other stuff to do.

[Khalagar]

38 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

Something I've noticed: There is no incentive to actually craft much of anything in this game aside from building shapes. All gear is easy to get from traders or looting. I just got a tier 5 steel club as a club build and I'm not even done with my 2nd week. There was no reason for me to devote any resources to crafting gear.  Before this I had just used a tier 6 stone club I found somewhere.

 

The situation was a bit similar back when I played a lot in A18, there wasn't much reason to craft my own stuff.

 

Yeah, Madmole has hinted that A21 will have a lot of crafting changes to maybe make it more appealing. ATM crafting is basically pointless besides just for mods or *maybe* to craft a quality 5 t3 weapon if you didn't get one already, but once you've crafted it once you are done.

 

I'm really hoping the crafting perks get a pretty good overhaul as well, they are just a noob trap atm and are a complete waste of points. Madmole also mentioned knowing the int tree sucked as well, so hopefully it also gets a nice pass through to give it some buffs.  I'm hoping they can nail down the sledge and turret issues in the next patch or two, the robotic weapons are in a pretty bad spot in A20. The sledge can't hit jack crap thanks to the zombies crawl animation, and they both fall through the floor constantly so you can't even use the turrets in a PoI

 

Sad int boy is sad

[Tmodloader]

25 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

I'm hoping they can nail down the sledge and turret issues in the next patch or two, the robotic weapons are in a pretty bad spot in A20. 

While I agree with literally everything else you said, including int tree issues (it's very niche compared to the others and a bit too focused on crafting when crafting is bad in general). I started using a turret I found and setting it up in POIs to run back to as I clear rooms (maining club and shotgun) and it has actually been a big help so far. I've only tried it for a little bit though so it's anecdotal, I'll have to see how it works in higher tier areas. I want to see some of the niche stuff get fixed like buffing the party, perhaps if you are alone, it can buff you? Stuff like that. 

 

Somehow strength feels so strong compared to everything else I've tried. I can't think of a good way to fix it though.

[Doomofman]

On an unrelated note to what's currently being discussed in this thread... 

 

One thing I'm loving in A20 is that some POIs have zombies in them that aren't included in the Clear quests which can lead to some nice surprises/panic moments when you think you've killed all the zombies because the clear quest is complete.

 

Can't remember all the ones I've run into so far but one of the farms has a hidden lumberjack, one of the factories has some surprise vultures and some other POI has a couple of Lois zombies (I forget her real name, I think she's Marlene or Darlene). 

[DEATH MECHANIC]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I have been playing with vulkan (on Linux) for all of a19 and a20 (though I had to disable a few advanced features like SSAO).

Except for the last patch, there seems to be a change that destabilized vulkan on my machine or made another feature not work. Eventually I have to get off my a** and make a bug report. 😒

 

i didn't think that vulkan was "fully supported" yet, so i just figured that was probably the reason it has issues. i have some log files if you want them to go along with your report

I use Linux as well.

If the freezing is an unexpected bug i hope that its an easy fix, and maybe gets straightened out with the next hotfix.

5 hours ago, DEADFACE said:

I tried it during experimental, but abandoned it due to the freezing issues. It sounds like performance is going to greatly depend on specific graphics settings. I play on high with things like shadows turned down because shadows specifically murder performance in this game during certain times of day. If you play with shadows I could see Vulkan doubling your performance, but i'm not sure what other setting might have that effect.

 

Edit: I should mention I'm playing on Linux which may or may not affect the result.

If i play using glcore i have to stay around the medium settings with shadows off to have a decent experience gaming. Using vulkan i can play on high setting with shadows on low and have a much better gaming and visual experience. You are correct about the shadows "murdering performance" but the game looks sooo much better with the shadows on, with them off the games is way to bright and whitewashed for me to really enjoy.

Basically if i set the presets to high the game can become unplayable at times because the lag is so bad on glcore, framerate can drop to the teens. If i switch to vulkan and change no settings at all, i average almost double frame rates all over the map and the lag is almost gone completely. framerates stays above 40-50 fps in the same areas that it can drop to the teens using glcore.

i use Linux as well, btw

 

[Matt115]

3 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Yeah, Madmole has hinted that A21 will have a lot of crafting changes to maybe make it more appealing. ATM crafting is basically pointless besides just for mods or *maybe* to craft a quality 5 t3 weapon if you didn't get one already, but once you've crafted it once you are done.

 

I'm really hoping the crafting perks get a pretty good overhaul as well, they are just a noob trap atm and are a complete waste of points. Madmole also mentioned knowing the int tree sucked as well, so hopefully it also gets a nice pass through to give it some buffs.  I'm hoping they can nail down the sledge and turret issues in the next patch or two, the robotic weapons are in a pretty bad spot in A20. The sledge can't hit jack crap thanks to the zombies crawl animation, and they both fall through the floor constantly so you can't even use the turrets in a PoI

 

Sad int boy is sad

Damn i want A21 roadmap now XD

 

[Demonoid74]

I really wish I could craft a Beaker right about now