Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[madmole]

On 12/24/2020 at 12:14 PM, Guppycur said:

You once told this story about bandits riding up in their gun-mounted jeep harassing player bases... I know that was an idea in your head, but how close to reality is that?

It won't happen. Decent melee and ranged bandits needs done yet and that itself is more than a handful.

On 12/26/2020 at 7:03 PM, SheeleMara said:

 

 Well if you want to go a step farther you could introduce copper, tin, and zinc deposits into the game and then have the ability to create bronze and brass through smelting. That way if you wanted to expand the early game even farther you could have "Copper" and "Bronze" Ages bridging the gap between the "Stone" and "Iron" Ages. 

We don't want to go further, mining is shippable.

On 12/26/2020 at 8:46 PM, Spuder said:

Had this alpha 16 preview video come up in my YouTube feed. Any chance we get this flamethrower trap added to the game? Looks like a model was made at one point in time.

Pretty much no to every "any chance for" question. We're adding bandits and some quests and polishing old content and going gold. Lots of great ideas to push to 7 Days 2 once we ship 7 Days.

On 12/27/2020 at 5:05 AM, dgneo said:

Hi,

 

first i will say thank you to all the devs!

 

So pls i have a Question. For me it will we massive more interresting when the Zombies are harder, so can you add "Big Boss" Zombies? I mean Boss Monters who can only killed by more than one player, like world boss?

 

Thank you.

Bandits with guns will be hard and we have some special infected designed if we get time could be a nice later game challenge.

On 12/28/2020 at 1:40 PM, Empyreal_Eagle said:

Are there plans to make the damage shown on zombies more realistic? For example like Left 4 Dead 2 you can make bullet holes in zombies and cuts with axes and swords. I would love to see the addition of visible damage on zombies from the various weapon types. Bullet holes based on the weapon used. Smaller holes for smaller caliber weapons and larger for shotguns and high power rifles. It would also be great to see more realistic animations/reactions from the zombies being shot or hit. I would also like to see more blood from the zombies when damaging them especially from high powered weapons.

No 7 days has 5000 more features than Left 4 Dead, so we need to polish what we have instead of adding endless features that don't really add value. Sure it's a nice touch but we have dismemberment and detail at that level is better suited towards a pure action game or AAA games where you just don't see more than a few features in a game.

On 1/3/2021 at 10:57 PM, BobbyLee298 said:

Is that advance forge gonna make it in A20, my FPS takes a hit with 8 forges running.

Nope.

[madmole]

On 1/8/2021 at 7:28 PM, Kosiam said:

6k, 8k, and 10k map sizes planned ...

 

What happened to the unlimited we were promised?

That was never promised.

[smokingpaper]

Will there be a "Toggle to run" option added, like Toggle to crouch? It helps save the pinky finger!

[Weazelsun]

@madmole Artistically will the wasteland biome and burnt forest biome get a remodel to make them look more unique? Currently the only difference in terms of model separating them is the ground textures and debris.

 

 

 

 

[Xtrakicking]

New zombie dog looking much better than the old one. I'm happy with it.

[MechanicalLens]

Any word on town sizes in A20 RWG? The largest cities (i.e. 100 POI's or larger) should be removed entirely. From my perspective it's poor game design to allow the player to settle in one location literally forever, especially if they have two or more of these cities generated in the local area like in A19/A18. The player should be forced to be a nomad until the end-game, travelling from location to location, bringing resources with them and harvesting more if needed, building a temporary base that can hold down the horde, and when they exhaust the region of resources the move on to a new location. Only late-game - gyrocopter and 4x4 truck phase - would they have the option of realistically setting down a permanent footing.

 

To summarize it simply, towns containing 100+ POI's are grossly overpowered and should be nerfed.

 

Edit reason: spelling error.

Speaking of nerfs, how about traders? I've had a change of heart and in my opinion a maximum of 10 traders is a little bit much for 8k map sizes. How about reducing that number to 5 (no chance for duplicates), or if you must, a maximum of 6 or 7?

Edited January 14, 2021 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[KingSlayerGM]

14 hours ago, madmole said:

That was never promised.

Hey Joel, can we please have a developer stream soon? I'm dying to know what's going on behind the curtains

[Shado47]

@madmole Hey, I wanted to bring up something that I have been thinking about for a long time and probably suggested once before. Seeing as people keep asking if more basic zombies will be added, its safe to say players want more variety in terms of zombies. Have you considered adding a clothing / hair color system for zombies? Basically all zombie models would be with only basic clothing and individual zombies spawn with different clothing items on, similar to how Minecraft zombies can spawn with different armor items on different slots. This way a horde of zombies of the same type would still look massively different from zombie to zombie. Add randomly tinted hair colors to that (95% natural colors) and hordes will really have all the variety anyone could ever ask for without the devs having to add more zombie types. This would also allow any zombie to become a "special infected" by giving them a gamestage dependent chance to wear special clothing like the Demolitioner zombie's bomb jacket. I mean, you'll most likely be implementing a system just like this for bandits anyway so they can have varying outfits made from different items... there isn't really a reason to not do it for zombies as well and once and for all get rid of the question of variety and making hordes look like actual hordes, not the result of a cloning accident.

[faatal]

On 12/30/2020 at 1:56 PM, petruherro said:

@faatal Hello! Was the game upgraded to use the unity job system/burst compiler?

No. That would require a ton of code rewriting, which is not going to happen.

On 1/4/2021 at 3:34 AM, 4sheetzngeegles said:

Faatal

 

I have a question regarding loot distribution and randomization. Actually it has to do with
randomization in all aspects of the game.

 

Would it add undue amount of overhead to processing if, there was a database monitor added
for the acquired inventory of each player?

That is not likely to happen. We have many other tasks that need our time.

[faatal]

On 1/5/2021 at 7:32 AM, Blake_ said:

Hi @faatal , happy new year. Can you throw some fish stick for us to chew? I have prepared a few blunt yet sensual and direct questions regarding a20, I hope you don't mind.

 

1.  What are you working on at the moment ?

 

2. Are you allowed to talk about special infected ? Specifically stuff like : how many are in the works, how far ahead is the AI ... etc.

 

3. Any news about RWG ? Anything will do.

 

4. Any info about POI, models, weapons or general stuff  that is curently being adressed by the programming team that you know of?

 

Thanks in advance.

1 This week: Fixing holes/overlaps in block meshes/colliders (added shape ModelOffset). Testing (using) Unity 2019.4. Changes to skin quality settings, so can change on a per entity/LOD basis. Fixed a playtest load bug. Improved shape loading. Improved chunk debug grid drawing. Improving chunk mesh generation.

 

2 That will probably be A21

 

3 Saw some new screenshots today. New POI placement system is looking cool.

 

4 Artists are working on new weapon, block and zed/animal content, but nothing that has needed programmers for, other that the skin change I made.

On 1/9/2021 at 9:25 AM, Crater Creator said:

I've been doing more prefab building recently, and I had two questions on the future of textures.

 

I understand that you can't just go adding world textures whenever, because the texture atlas can't get too big. Given this constraint, and that you're expanding tinting to vehicles in A20, have you considered tinting for world textures?

 

I estimate you could free up space for about 20 more world textures, if you strategically converted the ones you could to a base texture plus a tint (e.g. "concrete white" + tint = "concrete purple"), and possibly more if you allowed decals (e.g. "storage crate" + explosive icon = "storage explosives").

 

With recent emphasis on beautifying character art and more, it feels like the time has come to give world textures some love.  The freed up texture space could be used to provide some additional options I find lacking, such as an oriental rug, white or off-white carpet, and a map of Navezgane (arguably more usable than, say, Madmole's gravestone).

 

My second question is, what determines if a block is paintable?  For example, it's cool that the old wooden chair is paintable, but the black wooden end table isn't.  Would making the end table paintable be a simple matter of checking a couple flags in Unity?  Or would an artist have to mess with the UVs and re-export the asset?

 

 

We could make texture changes using layers or whatever, but don't know that we have the time for that. My general goal is to optimize what we have and not add features, unless the feature is a good memory or performance win.

 

Block type and possibly xml settings may determine painting, but I've not looked much at how that works.

[Blake_]

1 hour ago, faatal said:

1 This week: Fixing holes/overlaps in block meshes/colliders (added shape ModelOffset). Testing (using) Unity 2019.4. Changes to skin quality settings, so can change on a per entity/LOD basis. Fixed a playtest load bug. Improved shape loading. Improved chunk debug grid drawing. Improving chunk mesh generation.

 

2 That will probably be A21

 

3 Saw some new screenshots today. New POI placement system is looking cool.

 

4 Artists are working on new weapon, block and zed/animal content, but nothing that has needed programmers for, other that the skin change I made.

We could make texture changes using layers or whatever, but don't know that we have the time for that. My general goal is to optimize what we have and not add features, unless the feature is a good memory or performance win.

 

Block type and possibly xml settings may determine painting, but I've not looked much at how that works.

Thank you for the optimizations, the skin LOD is going to improve performance in my Atari quite a bit. I was baffled at their level of detail despite having them on low. 

 

Also I noticed that several electrodomestics could use a severe downgrade of the texture when looking at them from a distance (in my Nintendo Pc  distance is about 20+ meters, aka the average corner to corner distance of a room in a Tier 1 POI), and of course they should never vanish even at 0% LOD. They do vanish still, from 5 m( like the toaster)  to 15 meters ( ~the rest) . Increasing the vanishment distance should do the trick. 

 

Nice to hear about RWG POI improvements. Also I hope you guys get to do some special ZD AI soon enough. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Blake_ (see edit history)

[Adam the Waster]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

It won't happen. Decent melee and ranged bandits needs done yet and that itself is more than a handful.

 

@madmole

So what is the plan for melee and Ranged bandits in terms of movement. will they just Run at you like a Crazy person and just stick out like a sore thumb while shooting you or will they be a bit more advance? like Dodging, Blocking, Crouching etc

Also will they do anything to bases like open doors, break walls, etc or will they just be the same as zombies. 
  

[Morloc]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

It won't happen.

 

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

We don't want to go further

 

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

Pretty much no to every "any chance for" question.

 

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

No

 

On 1/14/2021 at 1:25 PM, madmole said:

Nope.

 

On 1/14/2021 at 1:36 PM, madmole said:

That was never promised.

 

 

 

 

 

-Morloc

[Space4Ace]

On 1/13/2021 at 10:58 AM, Adam the Waster said:

BBQ anyone?

 

 

Nice job and all but, doesn't it look too much like the Resident Evil dogs?

Just saying because TFP had a zombie early on that looked too much like a zombie from another game and were forced to remove it, right?

Does it have to be a Doberman? Any zombie dog would be scary.

 

[BobbyLee298]

@faatal did working with unity devs help you fellas with anything also what version of unity is a20 running?

[Peteras0]

Hello, I want ask if you're planning add trains? It could be a good to transport goods across the map, some railroads, it would be good decor/addon to the game, something like endgame vehicle and players can make more efficient rail system across the maps to long distances, worst downside would be rails itself, for it cant go everywhere, like gyrocopter, or other vehicles, but coal and gas in game, it would make steam and diesel like lokomotives to work good to the game, like in metro.
Sorry for my spelling if any mistakes, English is my second Language.

[faatal]

15 hours ago, BobbyLee298 said:

@faatal did working with unity devs help you fellas with anything also what version of unity is a20 running?

That has not happened yet. A20 is on 2019.4.17, but may get another update if any good fixes happen before we get to experimental.

[MechanicalLens]

Will a counter to the "hatch base" be finalized in Alpha 20? Much like pole walls of old, this newer concept has taken the 7D2D community by storm; basically everyone is using them to create melee only horde bases. (This is not to mention that triple upgraded vault hatches have almost double the max HP of steel blocks. Fun fact for you there.) TFP's vision for how the player should deal with the horde is pretty clear, and one that I agree with. The player should be expending bullets and the occasional explosive or molotov on horde night, not swinging a sledgehammer or a club all night. I hope a countermeasure can be put in place so that these melee only horde bases can be successfully thwarted.

[ltbrunt]

I'm not expecting anything this early on but would like to get any info about bandits. When they make it into the game it will be like Christmas come early. I love the game and this is the thing daydream about most. 

[Tahaan]

@Devs is there any news about "dynamic prefabs" and about the water rework that is mentioned in A20... What does those things bring us and what do they do?

 

Other questions: 
1. Will you ever offload S.I to the GPU (it is the perfect problem space match) and will you ever use all CPU cores for A.I ?  

2. I only have a #1.  Sorry.  

 

[madmole]

On 1/14/2021 at 12:57 PM, smokingpaper said:

Will there be a "Toggle to run" option added, like Toggle to crouch? It helps save the pinky finger!

I'd like to have that, not sure when we can get it in though.

On 1/14/2021 at 3:24 PM, Weazelsun said:

@madmole Artistically will the wasteland biome and burnt forest biome get a remodel to make them look more unique? Currently the only difference in terms of model separating them is the ground textures and debris.

 

 

 

 

I think the plan is to get rid of the burnt forest as it's own biome, and make the wasteland have burnt forest areas, but I could be wrong and it might stay. The wasteland hasn't had any love yet that we plan to do.

On 1/15/2021 at 3:29 AM, KingSlayerGM said:

Hey Joel, can we please have a developer stream soon? I'm dying to know what's going on behind the curtains

I'm not sure what is planned yet, but I'm sure we will continue them soon or when we feel like there is enough new content to warrant a showing.

16 hours ago, ltbrunt said:

I'm not expecting anything this early on but would like to get any info about bandits. When they make it into the game it will be like Christmas come early. I love the game and this is the thing daydream about most. 

We've recently completed concept art of upcoming bandits, which will come in weak, medium and strong versions for variety and game staging, and they look really cool. Hopefully A21 we can have bandits finally, as the models are going into production soon so programming will have everything it needs, and really after 20 drops we just don't have much ambitions beyond bandits and the new character armor and quests, so now is the time.

[madmole]

9 hours ago, Tahaan said:

@Devs is there any news about "dynamic prefabs" and about the water rework that is mentioned in A20... What does those things bring us and what do they do?

 

This is in afaik, and will allow for distant chunks to show changes, like player bases, or building and terrain blown up. It still needs tested and verified, and might get disabled if its too slow or buggy, but hopefully launches in A20 as I think it will be a nice touch and seeing your base in the distance will be awesome.

[KingSlayerGM]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

...really after 20 drops we just don't have much ambitions beyond bandits and the new character armor and quests, so now is the time.

What about legendary weapons? And special infected zombies?

Also @madmole, what is the current vision for bandits? Will they be randomly roaming the land? Will they spawn in their own POIs? Will they spawn with quests?

[Blake_]

6 hours ago, madmole said:

I'd like to have that, not sure when we can get it in though.

I think the plan is to get rid of the burnt forest as it's own biome, and make the wasteland have burnt forest areas, but I could be wrong and it might stay. The wasteland hasn't had any love yet that we plan to do.

I'm not sure what is planned yet, but I'm sure we will continue them soon or when we feel like there is enough new content to warrant a showing.

We've recently completed concept art of upcoming bandits, which will come in weak, medium and strong versions for variety and game staging, and they look really cool. Hopefully A21 we can have bandits finally, as the models are going into production soon so programming will have everything it needs, and really after 20 drops we just don't have much ambitions beyond bandits and the new character armor and quests, so now is the time.

 

@madmole thank you very much for the info. I have a question.

 

Barring quests that involve npcs , are you planning on implementing any other less elaborated quests that don't require living entities to work like the upcoming generator one?

 

Specifically simple quests like :

 

-"go there and find info" and you find a note with lore/info. Can be chained/collectable/more than one note.

-Or even like, "bring me X"  from "location"  to do Y (or just bring me 50 pelts lol).

-With Zds ? (Tier 1) go there and kill the feral fatty in that POI (all the way up to go and kill that radiated demolisher/cop/special infected for higher levels)

 

A penny for your thoughts.

 

[faatal]

17 hours ago, Tahaan said:

@Devs is there any news about "dynamic prefabs" and about the water rework that is mentioned in A20... What does those things bring us and what do they do?

 

Other questions: 
1. Will you ever offload S.I to the GPU (it is the perfect problem space match) and will you ever use all CPU cores for A.I ?  

2. I only have a #1.  Sorry.  

 

Probably not. If you profile the game, it shows neither one of those things as issues. We plan on continuing to optimize the slower parts of the game, not parts that already run fast enough.