Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Xtrakicking]

2 hours ago, SKINK said:

SNIP

You just want to show off your drawing skills, don't you?

[unholyjoe]

5 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Roland come back!  The forums is starting to smell and people are starting to look at each other funny....😅

 

 

Starting?

 

[SKINK]

.

Edited March 26, 2022 by SKINK (see edit history)

[Roland]

11 hours ago, meganoth said:

This sounds very unlike me, so maybe you are confusing me with Roland

 

Doesn't sound like me either. I've argued in the past in favor of this game being designated as a sandbox-- especially if you choose to enable the creative menu and turn on Godmode. Then it is really really really a sandbox. 

 

In addition, I would even go so far as to say that the xml files are themselves a kind of sandbox in their own right and so I would never disqualify the game being a sandbox just because someone told me to go edit the xml files to get what I wanted out of the game. Rather, I would say that that would be playing in two sandboxes at the same time...

 

11 hours ago, meganoth said:

Twitch integration was a private project by a 7D2D team member, care to tell him he can't do that in his free time? Sure, further development is likely on company time but I still would say this is a bad example.

 

I would agree that at this point Twitch integration is officially a feature that is taking company time and resources that could be spent on other features. I don't think the "Its a feature that was developed on Lathan's free time" argument holds water any longer. That was initially true but hasn't been true for several months now. Those who wish Twitch Integration was not a thing can legitimately opine that Lathan's time would be better served in other areas of the game. lol

[faatal]

6 hours ago, Xtrakicking said:

Absolutely wonderful news! Alpha 11 insta spawns, here I come.

They are not quite instant, but commercial, industrial and downtown areas have more biome enemy spawns. The harder the biome, the more there are and the quicker they respawn. Downtowns having tougher types of zombies and even faster respawns.

Edited November 12, 2021 by faatal (see edit history)

[SKINK]

.

Edited March 26, 2022 by SKINK (see edit history)

[Matt115]

10 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Yes, sloppy reading on my part, you did mention to add a second option

 

 

No, the word toilet is YOUR analogy of a basic need. And I used your word to describe the same thing. Instead of searching everywhere for an insult maybe look for the message. For you and (judging by the support you are getting from other forum posters) only you at the moment this option is a basic need. Everyone else seems to cope quite well without that option

 

 

Where did I say this is not a sandbox game in that paragraph? I would say this is "inattentive reading" from you now.

 

I said that this is partly a sandbox but to be called a sandbox in a genre mix a game just needs very few of those features. I made this point because you were arguing that this game having "unnormal" xml modding meant it isn't a sandbox. Or maybe you just meant the missing option preventing the game being a sandbox?

I didn't really want to ask, I#m sure you have a definition of what a sandbox is supposed to be and so 7D2D is not a sandbox to you. Fine by me. For me 7D2D is still a sandbox although other genres are more dominant in 7D2D.

 

My memory is very bad, so please show me a few of those posts where I supplemented anything by the words that this is a "sandbox" game. This sounds very unlike me, so maybe you are confusing me with Roland

 

 

 

Wait, you are "redefining" new players now as people who stay with it for a long time? 😄 I would call them long-term orr even veteran players.  And yes, they need replayability. Now seriously, you are talking to a guy with >2000 hours in the game and complain to him about missing replayability! 

 

Twitch integration was a private project by a 7D2D team member, care to tell him he can't do that in his free time? Sure, further development is likely on company time but I still would say this is a bad example.

 

Drones are a legitimite feature TFP planned though, lets look at it. Intelligence was missing a tier 3 "weapon" and fitting with the theme they created the drone. It was necessary to complete INT and it was an excellent idea in my view. Your twitch player who plays for 2 days will probably never see that drone (if it really will be classified as tier3). And yes, even though I have said repeatedly that the trader is OP I would prefer the drone to any trader config option.

 

By the way, an important information you might not know: TFP will add steam workshop support when the game goes gold. If you don't know, steam workshop is a simple way for "noobs" to install mods into games.  Yes, there is a reason this will be a late addition and yes, again, EA is not for everyone. If you need to install mods and can't, wait for the game going gold.

 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, bachgaman said:

What kind of support? Are you talking about a Kuosimodo hater who spam dislikes and your friend Ronald? Are you really drawing any conclusions from a sample of 2.5 people?😂

 

Where did I say you didn't say that?

How are you doing with reading? I wrote what I wrote, namely that you contradict yourself trying to sit on two chairs

Freedom, creativity, the ability to set your own rules, goals, objectives. If the developer does not allow this, then this is not a sandbox. We can do this only by workaround "cheating" ways, by replacing the game files. This means the developer does not allow us to do this. So the game is not a sandbox.

Trying to catch on a lie again? How incredulous you are. Should I go through the entire forum and re-read all the threads to prove to you that I'm not lying?

And I said that it was YOU who told me? I didn't seem to write that. But even so, then ... man

Took two minutes to find this. Pull yourself together

Do veterans come into the game and immediately become veterans? It seems to me that you did not understand anything, but made a clever face.

So what? We have discussed this a hundred times already (I will not give links, look for it yourself). Am I now prohibited from referring to Twitch integration as bells and whistles to lure new audience? If it is, in fact, it is. In this context, I am not saying that they HAVE to do something different. What I'm talking about is that this is the right content to attract people to the game. But the game also needs content to keep people in it. So that they don't throw it after the first playthrough. How can you not understand this meaning?

It is a pity if this is really the case. The idea is terrible, because it is disgustingly knocked out of the primitivism of the post-apocalypse. It is impossible to assemble a flying smart AI robot from @%$# and sticks on your knee. And if our character is such a genius, why doesn't he create a flying army of killer robots? And will not fly with them into space? This is absurd and spoils the whole atmosphere of the game. The robotic guns were on the edge, but this...

What difference does it make if he sees it on stream, man, did you forget again? Two days of tight play on standard difficulty is quite a lot to reach the max perk level even for a beginner, especially if he is spoiled by watching the stream and now stupidly repeats the streamer's actions.

Well done, but even I understand that the costs of developing the discussed trader's options are not equal to the costs of developing a drone

Thanks for the info, but I've already tried all big and popular mods I found. By the way, i dont like most of them. But there are ingenious ones like the Undead Legacy. Precisely in terms of little things, such as a redesigned backpack, in which 1 feather is not equivalent to 6,000 lead by weight (as in the vanilla version)

 

Okay to both of you: okay honestly i don't understand to "keep" weapons everywhere- in my opinion the best option would be -  int crafting and "material use" efficiency, perception range weapons , strenght- melee +throw weapons , fortituide mining/farming, agility scavenging + movement. But this doesn't matter anymore because it is too late. TFP will add drones?  okay @meganoth - they could  for example add flamethrower. @bachgaman make dron isn't so hard- honestly you can find people who are making them on yt . But i agree with you: kuosimodo is a hater .

 

2 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

I never said it was hard, just that it is not something I would want to do.  What you see as a simple setting change on the front end has a ton of work in the background in order to implement it properly.  Once you start updating things like an UI, you want to have all the changes planned out ahead of time so you are only doing it once; especially if you are pushing to release the game in 1-2 additional development iterations.

 

Then you have to consider project management.  Say they have 26 tasks (I don't know how many they have exactly) labeled A through Z.  Task Z is to finalize the UI with all new options.  Tasks S through Y are additional customization options that they want to add to the game settings based on internal discussions and gamer feedback (lets say Task U is trader customization options).  Task Z requires tasks S through Y to be done first, or the person doing Task Z would have to keep going back to this task as another of the prerequisite task is completed.  Since Task Z is not critical or game breaking, they would wait until all of the prerequisite tasks are completed (only a sadistic person would ask a programmer to constantly redo Task Z over and over again if it is not a high priority task).

 

But that is only a small slice of what they are doing.  Tasks A-R are higher priority, and the top 10 tasks (A-J) are ones that they have to complete.  In my scenario, lets say Task D is to tie all the elements together (the story, traders, Noah, the Duke, the bandits, etc.).  Once Task D is completed, how does Task U affect it?  Does giving the players the option to eliminate traders break the game?  Does it tie into the plan for the game overall?  How does Tasks A-R affect the remaining tasks?

 

There are other things that have to be taken into consideration before they can even start working on additional customization options (I recall a comment from a TFP member about not wanting the UI to become bloated, so that requirement itself could potentially limit additions to it).

And sometimes even small change could destroy a game- in utima horses could eat your eq XD

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

I'm talking about people wanting that feature. If TFP looks for interesting options for people they don't count people largely indifferent to that feature, they look for a mass of people who would need it. You claim to speak for "new players who play the game a lot", I just don't see any trace of them here in the forum at least to call that a **basic** neccessity

 

 

"Now you literally tell me "no, man, this game is not a sandbox, well, more precisely, a sandbox, well, not quite, well, you know, I just don't want to agree with you on anything.""

 

 

And there is the freedom to set your own goals and objectives. There is the creativity available. But no game is a perfect simulation and allows EVERYTHING you just invented as a goal, there are always limitations. In a space sim sandbox you often can play as trader, pirat and headhunter, but you usually can't play as a cashier in a bank, it is still called a sandbox.

Furthermore the only wall between you and your ability to play without traders is not even installing of any mods, it is just to not use traders. But tell me what profession is that you are playing here, a non-trader? What role are you missing in this sandbox?

 

 

Thanks for searching. These seem to be the only posts where I mention sandbox to you. In both those posts there wasn't a single mention of modding and one was a speculative piece about treasure hunter, the other I mentioned sandbox to say that there a a few goals in the game you can choose. And we argued a lot already so I have a bit of a difficulty to match those two posts with your assertion that I made a link between modding/limiting yourself and this being a sandbox game.

 

 

Please refrain from adding insults after every reply. A child grows up to be an adult, but when someone says "child" he doesn't refer to adults.

 

 

I just said it would be a somewhat bad example for your case because it didn't start as something planned and developed by TFP, it was never an item on any priority list inside TFP. And the drone is a much clearer case to argue about because it was clearly high on the priority list of TFP.

 

"but the game also needs content" So the drone is not content? How about we wait first whether it proves to be a popular item or not.

 

 

The drone isn't much farther ahead to current tech than the robotic turrets and traps that all have a friend-foe detection, some even a detection between living and dead person.

 

Questioning realism in this game is rather useless, there is a heap of unrealistic stuff in it. Accept it or play a more realistic game. The developers won't change the overall direction of the game because you don't like it. 

 

 

So what? If you look around, you can find stupid people anywhere. Why should people who don't play the game enter into a discussion about features of the game? And no, max perk level does not give you the schematic of a tier3 item. 

 

 

True, but the drone was your example. Obviously cost of development alone is not the only metric to decide which feature gets implemented and which isn't. What others have tried to say that removing the trader is not a thing TFP can implement in 2 days and forget about it the rest of development, it is NOT an insignificant effort.

 

 

Good, you found a mod to your liking. Vanilla is supposed to be "outplayed" by veteran players, everyone eventually gets fed up with the same stuff. This is why games-as-a-service exist (7D2D isn't one but sometimes feels like one when a new alpha gets released) and this is why players get mad with anticipation when a new alpha in EA comes about.

 

About realism - i know it was never target to be realistic but  well i'm not happy about how 7dtd changed- honestly old gameplays suggest it will be "f.e.a.r 1 and 2  as sandbox" not "mad max with green and zombies"- i was thinking in the future they will add ghosts, corpses everywhere etc not drones . So i understand why people are disappointing- but i understand this change- light tones= more people would buy it= more cash. But it doesn't change that  previouse version suggest it will "horror with sandbox type of gameplay" not " sandbox with mad max vibes". So-  i don't expect realism but i expected horror so i have a right to be dissapointed with this change

4 hours ago, SKINK said:

I have no idea if TFP's are going to make the Feral Wight a special infected with any abilities. If not, I'd like to make suggestion to make him have a more destinct goal compared to normal zombies. Currently The Feral Wight has no ability aside from having more HP than regular zombies. My idea is to make him a pathfinder for zombies to create entrences by breaching down doors, iron bars. I assume with A21 that zombies will be able to navigate through 1 block terrain meaning that it won't be neacessary to have him brake down a hatch that has been folded up in a doorway, such as a hatch base design. I want the Feral Wight to be a threat on Horde Nights aswell as finding him inside of POIS or in the wilderness. I like the idea of him being a very vigor fueled monster that is very relentless, meaning that he will be a frontline fighter that will focus as a towering vanguard drawing all attention towards him.

 

Why should the Feral Wight be a special infected?

 

The foundation is already set by having a nice model that got updated in A20. So I thought that it would be a shame to not equip an ability to The Feral Wight. We currently don't have any special infected that can preform such a feat and could be a fun element to challenge the players ability to rely less on hatches or door spamming and create more chaos. He would also be a fun surprise element for player when they see how he can chew down on their defences. 

 

Special Abilities

 

Basic Traits:

HP: 750

ARMOR: None

HP REGENERATION: 15 HP/Sec

LIMB REGROWTH: 10 Sec

 

 

 

Door Denter: 

This ability speaks for it self in terms of it's main target, doors. The Feral wight once mounted within a blocks distance away from a door will perform an action which will make the zombie hurl it's towering mass against the door to cause 20% damagae increase on doors. The Feral Wight makes a grunt to indicate that he has started performing the action. Zombies are naturally attracted to doors which The Feral Wight creates an even weaker spot on the base/structures. 

Bar Bender:

Bar Bender is an ability that allows the feral wight to instantaneously break a bar block. It will perform a quick animation of his hands grabbing the bars and janking his hands away from it to instantly break it. Grunt notification is present on this ability too. 

Rapid Regrowth:

The ability activates upon the Feral Wight taking any damage to quickly recover HP as time goes on, but that's not it. If a player were to shoot of or decapitate any limb from the feral wight it would grow back again. So for example: if a leg were to be blown off it would start to crawl but as soon as it fully regenerates it gets back up to startsprinting again.

 

COUNTER:

To counter The Feral Wight from not being an unstoppable force of mutated nature, there are some weapons that can effectivly damage the Wight over time such as the molotov or blade trap or any fast firing rate weapon that won't let him regain any health making him vulnerable. While a arm has been decapitated it will do 50% less damage. So focus on damaging a limb or target a head and kill him quickly. He is very hard to kill in a crowd unless there are explosives. 

 

20 minutes ago, SKINK said:

The Screamer

 

The Screamer have recieved a brand new model for A20 which looks fantastic, but I really find it unusual how she doesn't have any purpose around Horde Nights and therefor being left out from the group. I think it's very important that we try and include all special infected and make them spawn at Horde Nights, POIS and in the general vicinity. 

So I've decided to try and figure out a way to make her be eligible for all scenarios.

 

Why should The Screamer be remade when she is already has a ability?

 

The Screamer currently has 2 features which is heat detection and zombie spawning. These mechanics are ok but I think that for this game to be more unique I think it's better to focus on making each special infected good at certain task that can be usefull in every scenario. By reworking her abilities we could lend her spawning feature of zombies to another zombie and finetune the spawn mechanic to make it fair even for horde nights. So I want to make her in to a DEBUFF focused zombie. I still want her to have a call to attract not zombies, but birds and dogs instead.

 

 

Basic Stats

HP: 235

Armor: None

Damage: Bleed

No Feral version

Games Stage appearence 35 - Max

Seeks out heat scources like normally

Spawns zombie dogs and vultures

 

ABILITIES

 

-Shreak:

 

When The Screamer has spotted a survivor it shreaks. She goes in to a animation which steches her tounge out and intimidates the player to know that reinforcment is coming. If the Screamer goes in to the animation to shreak, the player has a small window to stagger her with either explosives or a sledge turret or something that knocks her over. The shreak has a 20 block player affecting radius around the Screamer and can pass through walls or any object.

Once inflicted by the scream the player will recieve a minor speed penalty and a 3 sec vision blur along side a 15 sec timer that removes a player crafted/perk buff for example: Mega Crush, Recog, Brawler effect, Beer buzz etc. Along side the timer penalty to your buffs she gives you an concussion that hurts your head when you get a random blur effect similar to what the game already has.

 

Her scream attracts however vultures and zombie dogs to spawn but instead much further away so the player won't really notice them just appear out of nothing. Her ability should work fine since she is ''limited'' to dogs and birds but she will become easier to deal with during horde nights because can't spawn in tougher enemies to give you too much preassure. 

 

Here is the debuff process: 1. Screams -> 2. player gets councussion/timer on buffs + speed penalty -> 3. Zombie dogs and vultures start spawning -> 4. They all attack you

 

             

 

-Neck Chewer:

 

There is no real surprise that sharp teeth cause alot of trouble. Once the Screamer has landed a hit sucsessvly the player begins to bleed for 8 seconds.

Each second removes 5 HP from the health pool making this a death sentence if not treated properly. Medkits and bandages of any kind will stop the bleeding. 

Try and stay further away and deal kill her quickly before she goes in to her animation to call the dogs and birds.

 

            

 

 

 

This both post more suit to "pimp dreams" - to feral - this sound too complicated for 7dtd - this more is dynamic so this would create a lot of stange bugs. It would be cool in dunno The Forest or  DAYZ but it coudn't be easy added to 7dtd.

About screamer 1. ability ok 2 no-  because "keep" player in this type of game will create bugs. This would be fun in l4d2 but not here

[LTKarhel]

19 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

If you only knew where I really live atm...😅

we could practially be neighbors...seem from a galactic scale of course.

But locating me in Bavaria...no Sir, not even close.

It fits ... Then stop by for a beer ... I have rum and cola there

 

How about a little mockery: Bavarian or Low German drooling zombie ....? I mean you don't understand the zombies anyway ....... or it will be a one-sided dialogue

 

Waiting for the patch .......... some stupid ideas come to mind: classic_biggrin

Edited November 12, 2021 by LTKarhel (see edit history)

[SKINK]

-

Edited March 26, 2022 by SKINK (see edit history)

[faatal]

10 minutes ago, SKINK said:

Oh I just realised that I should post this in the Pimp dreams section. My bad I'm very new to the forum.

That would be best. We are very busy finishing up A20, so not interested in big changes right now.

[Morloc]

My thoughts on the Screamer.

 

Though I like her the way she is for the most part, I think she could be improved by being a little more forgiving on letting out the summoning wail (you should have a better chance to kill her before she wails). Once she does wail however, I think the horde that comes should be larger.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

[Xtrakicking]

1 hour ago, faatal said:

They are not quite instant, but commercial, industrial and downtown areas have more biome enemy spawns. The harder the biome, the more there are and the quicker they respawn. Downtowns having tougher types of zombies and even faster respawns.

Would it be possible to make them instant by editing the files, tho?

[meilodasreh]

21 minutes ago, Morloc said:

My thoughts on the Screamer.

 

Though I like her the way she is for the most part, I think she could be improved by being a little more forgiving on letting out the summoning wail (you should have a better chance to kill her before she wails). Once she does wail however, I think the horde that comes should be larger.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

well, what do you know! I didn't expect that.

Did our dark Arch Necromancer Morloc reach into deceased grandmas pill organizer?

Or is there a new Misses Morloc?

[JCrook1028]

22 hours ago, bachgaman said:

Do traders provide exclusive items? No.

Yes - solar panels.

[Khalagar]

2 hours ago, faatal said:

They are not quite instant, but commercial, industrial and downtown areas have more biome enemy spawns. The harder the biome, the more there are and the quicker they respawn. Downtowns having tougher types of zombies and even faster respawns.

 

Great change IMO, playing with the increased spawn mod is super fun and more how the base game should be imo. Makes it more like a zombie outbreak and makes it so it's actually dangerous to go out at night or into cities etc. ATM you can just kite or kill the ones that get in the way even at night with them running

 

Crank up the spawns to make people fear the cities!

[Roland]

50 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Would it be possible to make them instant by editing the files, tho?

 

That's a big zero!

 

As in put a big zero in for the respawndelay and it will make it instant.

[faatal]

1 hour ago, Xtrakicking said:

Would it be possible to make them instant by editing the files, tho?

Sure reduce respawndelay and have some fun!

 

<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="0.3" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesForestDowntown" tags="downtown" />

[wicketness]

@Guppycur

 

The Guppycurian Forum Whore.

 

I am sorry to say i am no longer interested in your beard and consider this an official divorce.

 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition has much better beards i am sorry you had to find out this way.

I left a note on your profile, and another beard intercepted and made an offer i could not refuse.

 

Good Bye Guppycurian Forum Whore.

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Faatal

 

I have two questions, i hope you can answer. The first is directly
related to A20, the second not so much but is an included feature that
I am curious about.
 
You mentioned something on your Twitch playthrough.

 

Regarding grouping POI's, to regulate spawn rates and volume. The question
I have is, using this in conjunction with the group stamping city layout
will it be possible to regulate "how many" of a particular poi will appear
in a random gen?

 

Example: 8k world random, if I'd like it to have 5 military pois, no matter
which one. This is mainly a thought for the RPG style i play. Scenario: 5
outposts, loot xml only has arms and armor in these outposts, hospital
medical equipment, and each is a death trap, other pois would have misc.
survival necessities like food water, regular clothing.

 

The second question is regarding the shadowed lighting when entering an
enclosure. Is it based on distance from a portal, or are certain block
positions given a designated value to regulate light level.

 

Example: doorway/window/hole light gamma 100%, distance +2 paces gamma 60%
OR is it radius to perimeter gradually reducing to 0%.

[Morloc]

1 hour ago, meilodasreh said:

Or is there a new Misses Morloc?

 

As a matter of fact, I did indeed just get engaged Saturday.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

[Xtrakicking]

56 minutes ago, faatal said:

Sure reduce respawndelay and have some fun!

 

<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="0.3" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesForestDowntown" tags="downtown" />

Beautiful!

[IvanChyruk]

Spoiler

Вы надеетесь на обновление в конце этого месяца? есть ли критические ошибки? как на последнем потоке кровавой ночи. момент, когда игра просто остановилась. когда, нам всем нужно знать когда!

 

Are you hoping for an update at the end of this month? are there critical bugs? like the last stream of bloody night. the moment when the game just stopped. when, we all need to know when!
 

Please use an online translation tool, this is an english-only site

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by meganoth
translation (see edit history)

[crazywildfire]

1 hour ago, Morloc said:

 

As a matter of fact, I did indeed just get engaged Saturday.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

 

Omg yes, oh wait you wasn't asking me was you 🤪

 

But for real congratulations 👍

[Khalagar]

34 minutes ago, IvanChyruk said:

Are you hoping for an update at the end of this month?

 

Yes, yes I am

[Blake_]

On 11/11/2021 at 8:25 PM, dcsobral said:

Also also... Whoever made that blockbuster (or was it the police station?) is an evil genius. It was suggested that Hernan did it, which is interesting... Hernan's work has always been impressive but deviousness isn't an attribute I had associated with him before. He might be spending too much time with laz man.

Lazman is just an npc in this story, a ridiculously sensual-voiced well adjusted builder npc. On the bigger picture he can't compete with Block Cowboy . Block Cowboy comes and inserts new shapes on a whim and goes on riding into the sunset. I would gladly steal his identity to feel if just a bit more heroic in my every day routine. 

 

Let's just hope that he is a mature person and he never makes "Rick" Picks into blocks.