Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Roland]

First post updated with link to the stream video, reveals from the stream bullet pointed below, as well as A20 experimental release date estimate from Rick.

 

Let me know if you feel I missed something important.

[MechanicalLens]

• All legacy zombies have been converted to new HD standard

 

What about the soldier? We haven't seen any mention of that one AFAIK

14 minutes ago, Roland said:

First post updated with link to the stream video, reveals from the stream bullet pointed below, as well as A20 experimental release date estimate from Rick.

 

Let me know if you feel I missed something important.

 

Trader balance - pushed to A21

 

[faatal]

5 hours ago, onark said:

Hi, I really hope devs read my personal opinion, I love this game since years ago but I'm tired of starting a new game over and over again, I want to play in a creative game for creating perdurable buildings and things such as this, wasting multiple hours for something, not for losing everything each x months. Just leave it as it is now and start to develope a new game, like 7D2D2 if you want, that way you can do every new thing you want but without the pressure of fandom.

Features and the data formats that back many features will continue to change until beta. Beta should happen before gold. That means previous alpha's worlds usually won't load. The simple way to lock in and not break your worlds is to not update the game, which would be similar to us saying hey we are done now and everything in the future is 7dtd 2.

 

Now if you locked in to a version, you would be missing all the new features. Like the massive pile of new block shapes coming in A20 and shape UI that goes with it.

4 hours ago, Survager said:

Shouldn't he throw bunches aimed at the player, as the zombie Cop does?

I'd prefer new zombies not act like old zombies, since then it is just a reskin, which is boring.

2 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

But what I was trying to ask was:  Will the Feral Wight get any new abilities?

Maybe, but not planned.

[faatal]

18 hours ago, Naz said:

@faatal If you have a sec could you look at these performance tweaks and share your thoughts? if they check out with you, they could give a substantial boost to performance in a20 and they're small changes. I can measure that things are better with them, but i still don't understand the "how" they work as well as they do and i don't know if there are any potential issues running the game with them.

1 is locking the game to 4 physical cores, helps more the more cores/threads you have. I saw a 20-25% improvement in Valheim with the same tweak so maybe it's a unity thing?

2 is editing a file called boot.config , this has a similar boost to the 4 core affinity tweak, however it's not compatible with eac, so currently it can only be used in sp. Using both of these tweaks substantially boost performance. I don't know how useful or practical to implement the 4 core affinity tweak could be, however the boot.config tweak is a very simple change and as long as there are no side effects it might be worth changing it in vanilla. It would also be nice to know what exactly the changes are and what they do 😛

1 Makes sense since you want the main thread and graphics threads on the the best cores by themselves. Don't know how we would make Unity do that. Added to TODO list.

 

2 boot.config is generated by Unity during a build. We do not change it directly. gfx-enable-gfx-jobs=1 is already in A20's because graphics jobs is a player setting that was turned on months ago. I did not notice a performance boost, but it would depend on what your bottlenecks are.

 

Thanks

[faatal]

38 minutes ago, Roland said:

First post updated with link to the stream video, reveals from the stream bullet pointed below, as well as A20 experimental release date estimate from Rick.

 

Let me know if you feel I missed something important.

I added and edited a few things too.

[Blake_]

14 minutes ago, faatal said:

1 Makes sense since you want the main thread and graphics threads on the the best cores by themselves. Don't know how we would make Unity do that. Added to TODO list.

 

2 boot.config is generated my Unity during a build. We do not change it directly. gfx-enable-gfx-jobs=1 is already in A20's because graphics jobs is a player setting that was turned on months ago. I did not notice a performance boost, but it would depend on what your bottlenecks are.

 

Thanks

Awesome! Not concerned until bandits though, it runs better since 19.3/19.4

 

A while ago you promised on your Pikachu's grave that you would increase sleeper volume spawn performance/ wandering horde performance and that some of those could be better than they are now.

 

My question is:

 

Are a20 (1-)horde spawns/(2-)animal horde spawns, and (3-)huge-simultaneous-adjacent-consecutive sleeper volume spawns better in performance than a19?

 

I believe you already said "no" for hordes but I might be wrong or very forgetful.

[samljer]

@faatal You guys keep mentioning all new HD zombies; none of them are left to do, and showed them off.

 

But I dont think I have seen the zombies "demolisher" or "feral wight", and a few others.

Also, what about "Grace" ???

 

 

I believe you when they say they are done 😛 Just wondering if we can get a peek.

[NukemDed]

hi @faatal and @roland

 

i havent heard much about the 'events system' (or was it 'random events') that i think was meant to help make it feel as if there are more zombies around, and to trigger quests, and well, events..

 

has the feral sense taken this role?

 

[Roland]

16 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

hi @faatal and @roland

 

i havent heard much about the 'events system' (or was it 'random events') that i think was meant to help make it feel as if there are more zombies around, and to trigger quests, and well, events..

 

has the feral sense taken this role?

 

Feral Sense is different. The random event manager won't be done in A20. Maybe it will in A21 or maybe it won't be done at all. I hope it will but it was a feature Joel just talked about wanting to do and not one that was actually in the development plan. If they decide to drop it then I guess Feral Sense will be the replacement-- but I hope we get both at some point.

[Jost Amman]

Are rebar frames gone too for A20? 

[Survager]

On 10/29/2020 at 3:49 AM, madmole said:

Fuse Boxes updated and made into triggers

@faatal

Will the player have to find a fuse in the location to use it with the Fuse Box (insert the fuse into the fuse box to activate this trigger)?

[playlessNamer]

9 hours ago, faatal said:

Like the massive pile of new block shapes coming in A20 and shape UI that goes with it.
 

aaand the crowd is outa controool! So by the way i hear this just for the first time, can you spotlight this in a vid pls?

 

And while you are working on shape UI: Its absolute horrible to hold down a button to open a menu! Its a cramp to change blockshapes actually and you cant leave the shapemenu wit Esc. Doesnt feel fluid. There must be a better solution.

[mr.devolver]

I captured the best moment from the A20 stream for you. You're welcome.

 

[Adam the Waster]

4 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

rebar frames 

You mean Free iron?

[SrslyGTFO]

So, the new spider zombie. Joel let it slip in the stream that it climbs. Is this true, or was he mistakenly thinking of the old A15 mechanic? Since Joel is NEVER wrong, it climbs, right??

[DarlingCows]

Hey TFP will the upcoming Wednesday feature the RND world gen developers? I would like to try to ask them questions. If not making a schedule of who’s coming on Wednesdays would be awesome. 

[faatal]

3 hours ago, SrslyGTFO said:

So, the new spider zombie. Joel let it slip in the stream that it climbs. Is this true, or was he mistakenly thinking of the old A15 mechanic? Since Joel is NEVER wrong, it climbs, right??

It is a new model. The AI acts the same.

[jeromeN7]

13 hours ago, faatal said:

1 Makes sense since you want the main thread and graphics threads on the the best cores by themselves. Don't know how we would make Unity do that. Added to TODO list.

 

2 boot.config is generated my Unity during a build. We do not change it directly. gfx-enable-gfx-jobs=1 is already in A20's because graphics jobs is a player setting that was turned on months ago. I did not notice a performance boost, but it would depend on what your bottlenecks are.

 

Thanks

My Specs are CPU R7 2700x, RAM 2x16 GB, GPU RTX 2060 Super.

 

I play at 1080p at ultra settings with no occlusion. Getting about 50-80 FPS, graphics settings don't really effect performance, only getting 40-60% GPU usage. My CPU usage peaks at a max of 41%. I've too have noticed an improvement by locking it to my 4 fastest cores.

 

I hope there are ambitions to get 7DTD to run better by full release?

[MechanicalLens]

@Roland (or someone else who is affiliated with TFP in some, way, shape, or form, or a member of TFP staff themselves), The amount of comments and subreddit threads I've seen where people are unaware of the open/closed book symbols for read/unread schematics is truly astonishing, and if you ask me, honestly not surprising. I can guarantee you that if hundreds of content creators each made a "10 things you didn't know about 7D2D" video and this small detail was their #1 pick, their video would be flooded with individuals who would be shocked to learn that this is a feature; I've seen it happen. I genuinely believe it's not a case of people being idiots or unobservant, as some might claim - this is genuinely just such a small detail that can easily be overlooked. I would suggest that an improved visual indicator for if you've read/not read a book/schematic to be implemented. Either they should be colorized accordingly (closed book = green, read book = red), or these icons should be replaced with a good old fashioned checkmark and cross.

[AtomicUs5000]

Will the POI editor include a way to create our own city tiles and assign the POI size groups to areas within?
Are the tiles themselves a specific size?
Are they all the same size?

[MechanicalLens]

Also, another small suggestion/request, could the stone sledgehammer and the bone knife (maybe the stone shovel while we're at it) be moved to the basic crafting menu alongside the wooden club, primitive bow, and stone spear? It feels odd that the former three are a little more tucked away.

 

Edit: Forgot about the knuckle wraps.

[Roland]

5 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

the open/closed book symbols for read/unread schematics

What?!? That’s a thing?!?!

[MechanicalLens]

The death apartment building... Is it a T5 or have I been seeing things this entire time? Everyone is now claiming it's always been a T4 POI (that we don't have a T5 apartment building at all), and this was further emphasized when TFP showed off that POI on the most recent stream and claimed it had been upgraded from T4 to a T5 place.

[JamesKirk]

Will there be an option to automatically unload the drone on the (open) loading area of the 4x4? Clearing out big POIs is really a pain of prioritizing what to keep or leave behind. Sending the drone would be a great relief.

[SrslyGTFO]

10 hours ago, faatal said:

It is a new model. The AI acts the same.

Boooo, you've dashed my belief that Joel can never be wrong, and now I'm depressed. 😛