Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Blake_]

I like this. The jiggle physics are nice.

 

Despite the brutal arm and hand clipping, that is one scary Mc dude.

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1351691896058474502

 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Blake_ (see edit history)

[khzmusik]

@faatal Regarding the changes to the weather system that you're doing... Are these changes NFRs or will there be functional updates to the code?

 

Specifically - will there be any way to get rid of the weather grace period, or to have the global temperature not be clamped at 70 and 101 degrees?

[MonkCrimson]

11 hours ago, madmole said:

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.

Hey madmole , grads for the most serious game out there .

I always had this in my back of my mind to see zombies overcome the defenses of my base , it seems that you can build really durable stuff in comparison to zombies powers (and even repair them on the fly with just 1 move with the claw hammer ) , is there a possibility to have a siege/tank zombie that spawns not that often but it will specialize in destroying structures or something similar ?

[Naz]

10 hours ago, faatal said:

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.

Based on what i've seen and the popularity on servers for disabling falling blocks to prevent lag and chunk corruption. I had really hoped SI was up there on the optimisation hit list. I was really concerned when they mention on one of the dev streams that they wanted to do some "Demolition" quests where you destroy/collapse a poi. Here is a video on A19 Nav of a small remnant structure collapse. You can see the framerate went from 115-130 FPS before it started, then the frames where removed and it nose dives down to 45-50 FPS. That 1 feature killed nearly 90% of the starting performance and that's the smallest tier of quest poi's. Anyone what had the idea to collapse a skyscraper knows it's not a fun experience. Performance aside large collapses glitch out and you end up with floating blocks all happening at a less than cinematic framerate.

It even affects combat, here is a video of what happens to performance when you shoot a block. This was in A17 but it is still an issue in A19, The number of people i've seen asking if it's possible to remove weapon block damage so they can use automatic weapons without the game turning into a 3 legged asthmatic hippo. You can see performance it cut in half when you damage a block. It does it anytime a block is damaged and si updates, this includes zombies so imagine 4 players with m60's and 16 zombies all whacking away during a hoard which is not an unreasonable situation.

I think rather than moving the load to the gpu maybe it's a better idea to not run that feature on a single core. 7DTD only scales in multicore performance up to 4 threads. This would be great in 2010, but these days 4 thread cpus are difficult to find new. Most modern cpus now are 6-8 cores and 12-16 threads. There is plenty of cpu gas in the tank these days but only if applications are made to take advantage of them. Core count and GPU performance has increases exponentially since 2013 but single thread performance hasn't changed that much.

Anyway that's my thought on SI😛 thanks for reading and i hope you'll at least give si a double take.

[beHypE]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before as I've been off the forums for a while, how is the new "biome tier system" coming along, and how exactly will it work ? I'm talking about having better loot in tougher biomes / POIs.

[PBRstreetgang]

If Zombies will be able to fit into a 1 frame high opening, does that mean players will be able to fit into a frame opening too? Would love crawling/prone animation for players.

[xfejiou5]

On 1/16/2021 at 4:57 AM, 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.

 

Hi faatal, speaking of hit detection: any word on when the large melee range issue will be addressed?

Edited January 20, 2021 by xfejiou5 (see edit history)

[Enchantra]

Love the game.  Keep up the great work.  Try not to ruin it with updates. (JK... or am I?)

 

Please, OH PLEASE, would you fix how the spider monkey zombie can hit through walls and hatches? He's killing my vibe.  I hates him. We ALL hates him. His screaming and jumping are quite enough.

 

Also, the vultures seem to have superspeed.  Since when can a vulture outrun a speeding motorcycle? 60mph is their natural max.  Were they exposed to radiation and have super powers?  Just curious.  

 

From one of the few ladies who play the game,

Thanks.

 

Enchantra

[Survager]

Hi MM.
I have a few questions about special infected.
We already know for sure that special infected will have unique behavior.

Question 1. Will each infected have unique animations for normal activities like walking, running and fighting?
Question 2. Will the special infected have some unique vulnerabilities? For example, the zombie Gasser could take increased damage from fire and shotgun, but would be nearly immune to bullet damage. Or a zombie with a sledgehammer could take increased damage from melee weapons, but other weapons will deal less damage to him than usual, and so on.

[Ianua]

Is there a plan to allow the Field of View to be set much larger for those of us that get severely motion sick while playing at lower settings?

[Irushian]

On 1/14/2021 at 6:25 PM, madmole said:

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.

 

You are still adding VR support as per your kickstarter goal, right?

 

Also, any chance you can fix some of the major exploits that happen on PvP servers? I know you don't exactly care for PvP but these exploits practically kill the server type when you can glitch your head through the terrain and see everything underground, and even fire through the terrain due to it. Not to mention that if you stick a block on top of a turret then it will allow the turret to also do the same.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Irushian (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

11 hours ago, Enchantra said:

Please, OH PLEASE, would you fix how the spider monkey zombie can hit through walls and hatches? He's killing my vibe.  I hates him. We ALL hates him. His screaming and jumping are quite enough.

 

This. Absolutely this. TFP, we respectfully request that you look into this whenever you can.

[MechanicalLens]

@madmole Regarding the new quest types being added into the game in a future update, will "combination quests" be implemented for them? (Ex. Quest to restore power + clear all zombies.)

 

I also heard something about infestation quests a couple of times. I sincerely hope they are what I can predict. My current criticism with the clear quests is they don't really offer any kind of unique experience versus standard looting. A quest that doubles the spawn rates within a POI, maybe increasing the POI's gamestage in the process as a bonus, would be pretty sweet.

[MechanicalLens]

Also, will there be quest types that give the player the choice of giving up valuable resources for a potential worthwhile reward? For example, a quest that instructs you to deliver antibiotics to an infected NPC (within a certain time frame?).

 

On a side note, instead of having traders available right off the bat, I think it would be fair if the player had to assist in rebuilding the compound and getting the traders back on their feet. Perhaps their compound is infested with zombies and must be cleared out. After that, x amount of basic resources (wood, cobblestone, etc.) must be delivered to the trader so that reconstruction can begin. Perhaps a nearby bandit facility is posing a significant looming threat and must be eliminated. Only after a certain amount of tasks are completed do the full functionality of the traders open up.

[Diragor]

About the "Zombies can fit through 1 block high holes" wanted to know is it only for holes at ground Level or will it also work for 1 block high holes. You can see hatch bases everywhere with a corridor and a hatch on the ground when opened will block the way on ground level so you can attack the zombies with meele. I wish they could crawl over a block. This would be the best!!

[Roland]

On 1/19/2021 at 11:09 AM, madmole said:

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.

 

I can confirm! I added some structure to the Shotgun Messiah factory and then flew away and no matter how far away I got my additions were still visible. Then I razed half of it to the ground and flew away again and the new status showed true no matter how far away I got. There were a few glitches as I got closer again with the previous state popping in and out but for sure it is very cool to see actual distant models that accurately represent changes in the world!

 

Now...will PVP players appreciate bases being visible from kilometers away....?

[MechanicalLens]

10 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I can confirm! I added some structure to the Shotgun Messiah factory and then flew away and no matter how far away I got my additions were still visible. Then I razed half of it to the ground and flew away again and the new status showed true no matter how far away I got. There were a few glitches as I got closer again with the previous state popping in and out but for sure it is very cool to see actual distant models that accurately represent changes in the world!

 

Now...will PVP players appreciate bases being visible from kilometers away....?

 

Finally I can terraform terrain and not feel irritated that as soon as I traverse a few dozen blocks in the opposite direction it doesn't magically visually pop into existence.  With that being said, I'd prefer not to engage in this tedious practice in the first place. Hopefully in Alpha 20 the player is able to locate reasonably flat locations outside of towns instead of the terrain being showered with never-ending ditches, mountains, and rolling hills.

[faatal]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:38 AM, xfejiou5 said:

 

Hi faatal, speaking of hit detection: any word on when the large melee range issue will be addressed?

Before gold? I've got a never ending list of things I'm working on, so hard to say when it percolates to the top.

On 1/20/2021 at 12:41 AM, khzmusik said:

@faatal Regarding the changes to the weather system that you're doing... Are these changes NFRs or will there be functional updates to the code?

 

Specifically - will there be any way to get rid of the weather grace period, or to have the global temperature not be clamped at 70 and 101 degrees?

The main functional change is biome weather parameters are in groups now, so something like a storm can change all parameters to ranges a storm should have.

 

Biome temperatures are in absolutes now and global temp is just a random +/-5.

 

Grace period is same.

 

There probably won't be many more changes (for a20) beyond that.

[MechanicalLens]

11 minutes ago, faatal said:

Before gold? I've got a never ending list of things I'm working on, so hard to say when it percolates to the top.

The main functional change is biome weather parameters are in groups now, so something like a storm can change all parameters to ranges a storm should have.

 

Biome temperatures are in absolutes now and global temp is just a random +/-5.

 

Grace period is same.

 

There probably won't be many more changes (for a20) beyond that.

 

Have any further ill effects / debuffs to hot or cold temperature been added that the player will experience, or is it the same old same old?

[faatal]

On 1/20/2021 at 7:53 AM, Naz said:

Based on what i've seen and the popularity on servers for disabling falling blocks to prevent lag and chunk corruption. I had really hoped SI was up there on the optimisation hit list. I was really concerned when they mention on one of the dev streams that they wanted to do some "Demolition" quests where you destroy/collapse a poi. Here is a video on A19 Nav of a small remnant structure collapse. You can see the framerate went from 115-130 FPS before it started, then the frames where removed and it nose dives down to 45-50 FPS. That 1 feature killed nearly 90% of the starting performance and that's the smallest tier of quest poi's. Anyone what had the idea to collapse a skyscraper knows it's not a fun experience. Performance aside large collapses glitch out and you end up with floating blocks all happening at a less than cinematic framerate.

It even affects combat, here is a video of what happens to performance when you shoot a block. This was in A17 but it is still an issue in A19, The number of people i've seen asking if it's possible to remove weapon block damage so they can use automatic weapons without the game turning into a 3 legged asthmatic hippo. You can see performance it cut in half when you damage a block. It does it anytime a block is damaged and si updates, this includes zombies so imagine 4 players with m60's and 16 zombies all whacking away during a hoard which is not an unreasonable situation.

I think rather than moving the load to the gpu maybe it's a better idea to not run that feature on a single core. 7DTD only scales in multicore performance up to 4 threads. This would be great in 2010, but these days 4 thread cpus are difficult to find new. Most modern cpus now are 6-8 cores and 12-16 threads. There is plenty of cpu gas in the tank these days but only if applications are made to take advantage of them. Core count and GPU performance has increases exponentially since 2013 but single thread performance hasn't changed that much.

Anyway that's my thought on SI😛 thanks for reading and i hope you'll at least give si a double take.

You are blaming SI, when I don't think that is the main overhead. Profiling clearly shows chunk mesh and collider updates as the big overhead, which is primarily internal to Unity with data copying and PhysX updates. There are multiple chunk layers and their mesh and colliders update in the same frame, so hopefully I can slice that over multiple frames to reduces spikes. Have not tried changing it yet, since I tend to bounce between features, optimizations and bugs. There are some other mesh settings to try, plus some of our mesh building code could be faster. Our mesh building is on a separate thread (the faster part), but mesh copying to Unity has to be done on the main thread.

5 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

Have any further ill effects / debuffs to hot or cold temperature been added that the player will experience, or is it the same old same old?

I did improve the hot/cold screen effects the other day, but that is cosmetic.

 

I'd like it more brutal as a trade off for the eventual better biome loot, but now you are talking designer area.

[MechanicalLens]

5 minutes ago, faatal said:

I'd like it more brutal as a trade off for the eventual better biome loot, but now you are talking designer area.

 

Very true.

 

Now I am in the belief this is not within the realm of your job, but since we're on topic, I thought I'd ask anyway. Have you heard any word if the cooling effect of yucca juice will be re-added into the game in A20 or a future update in general?

[faatal]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:46 AM, Enchantra said:

Please, OH PLEASE, would you fix how the spider monkey zombie can hit through walls and hatches? He's killing my vibe.  I hates him. We ALL hates him. His screaming and jumping are quite enough.

 

Also, the vultures seem to have superspeed.  Since when can a vulture outrun a speeding motorcycle? 60mph is their natural max.  Were they exposed to radiation and have super powers?

Well that is your typical problem with having standard vertical character controller cylinders with something that is drawn mostly horizontally (like many animals). Basically it needs to be offset back, so the head is more towards the center, but is probably not a trivial change. It should get "better" at some point.

 

There is nothing natural about those vultures. They are Undead.

5 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

Very true.

 

Now I am in the belief this is not within the realm of your job, but since we're on topic, I thought I'd ask anyway. Have you heard any word if the cooling effect of yucca juice will be re-added into the game in A20 or a future update in general?

I have not, but it would make sense if heat was a worse effect, that you would want things to counter it.

19 hours ago, Diragor said:

About the "Zombies can fit through 1 block high holes" wanted to know is it only for holes at ground Level or will it also work for 1 block high holes. You can see hatch bases everywhere with a corridor and a hatch on the ground when opened will block the way on ground level so you can attack the zombies with meele. I wish they could crawl over a block. This would be the best!!

It will be a big can of worms, but no work has been done on it yet, so can't say what will be using it, in what cases or how it will look.

[Blake_]

1 hour ago, faatal said:

It will be a big can of worms, but no work has been done on it yet, so can't say what will be using it, in what cases or how it will look.

Yeah, I guess there's some AI behind that too, nevermind the animation transitions and ragdolling feedback. On the plus side, it can be done cheaper  than  some other pathing behaviours like the arrowslit floor non-pathing exploit solution.

 

There's not enough faatals for all these changes.

 

Question:

 

Are you guys planning to touch the animal code in some way ? meaning combat hit feedback (like the Zds currently have, currently the dogs just stop ) ; ability to bend and turn a bit more organically (IK bones stuff) ...etc ?

 

[KingSlayerGM]

3 hours ago, faatal said:

It will be a big can of worms, but no work has been done on it yet, so can't say what will be using it, in what cases or how it will look.

This feature is listed on the first page of this thread, and no work has been done on it?

[Naz]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

You are blaming SI, when I don't think that is the main overhead. Profiling clearly shows chunk mesh and collider updates as the big overhead, which is primarily internal to Unity with data copying and PhysX updates. There are multiple chunk layers and their mesh and colliders update in the same frame, so hopefully I can slice that over multiple frames to reduces spikes. Have not tried changing it yet, since I tend to bounce between features, optimizations and bugs. There are some other mesh settings to try, plus some of our mesh building code could be faster. Our mesh building is on a separate thread (the faster part), but mesh copying to Unity has to be done on the main thread.

Thank you for taking a look and replying. Yes obviously I can only make deductions based on what I can see on the surface. Si or mesh coliders I'm just happy the issue got the attention of the right person. I was really happy to see that the unity devs will be working with tfp. Hopefully they can help squeeze out some more nice gains. 👍