A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[Blake_]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

Why not 2022? There's no reason to rush. 

Shall we call it the alpha"7 dtd Avatar 2" for 'funsies'? I'm sure that it IS gonna be about water.

[Laynie]

18 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

That you'll soon be arrested for aggravated "forgery"?

This guy 😅😅 I wasn't ready for it. 😂

[LilMissNorti]

20 hours ago, Kandrathe said:

If people run 60 forges ( I thought 10 was over the top) maybe it is...   ☺️  Brass knobs, trophies, radiators melting in the forge is a pain.  I run out of space for low stacking items like radiators, and end up spending game time planning out how to not build a backlog.  I really would rather be mining, or killing zombies.  Not babysitting my forges, or mixers.

Employ an eager child or willing partner to the mix - my 'better' half got me in to this game and being the OCD Queen I am I generally am in charge of storage organisation and crafting...he mines/bulids/protects the base, I hunt and gather for food and resources.

 

I think the most forges we've had was 6 (2 of which were dedicated cement producers) and we do some pretty big builds on our playthroughs.

[Maxley]

50 minutes ago, Demonoid74 said:

Or do it how minecraft does it and the stair blocks auto-configurate into what should be in those situations? They figured it out , can not be that hard for the Fun Pimps

No auto configuring please. Anytime in Minecraft when I want stairs to be a certain way they auto configure into the opposite way I want them. Just leave it up to the player with an additional shape in the shape menu

Edited November 16, 2020 by Maxley (see edit history)

[HerrKingsley]

On 11/7/2020 at 7:35 PM, Mike06 said:

my 2 cents: 
 I just can not stomach another stock NPC mission in any game: Search And destroy target (area) X  , Escort Y, Retrieve Z. 

They kind of work in non-persistent world games that you pick up and play Match style. Like Left4Dead, Siege, Cod, Pubg. Buy on persistent and long games they are really hacky, thing the devs add to game when they can not think of anything original. Do not get me wrong Pimps have doe ground brraking work on Voxel and many other area, but you chickened out, you removed those magnificient features and relaced them stock RAD crap. Like skill the levelling and perks, uh ! has that not been done and re-done enough ?  I make this make 7d2d great again !...
 

 

What would be really cool is "Fortify Quests."

• Game picks one random POI
• Place a random NPC  in the POI
• Set's a timer until the horde comes.
• Player needs to fortify/defend the NPC in the POI from Zombies. 

 

[Blake_]

11 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

Also, no more day 2 dog hordes would be great.

Actually, animal hordes used to range from day three to day six. I could be wrong, as they were tweaked a few months back. Zd hordes on the other side, they love to visit at day 7 in the evening, bouncing boobs and jiggling jaws and everything.

[Liesel Weppen]

52 minutes ago, HerrKingsley said:

What would be really cool is "Fortify Quests."

• Game picks one random POI
• Place a random NPC  in the POI
• Set's a timer until the horde comes.
• Player needs to fortify/defend the NPC in the POI from Zombies. 

No time(r) to fortify, no NPCs, just "survive" but already done "defense quests":

https://7daystodiemods.com/stamples-defense-quests/

 

I guess it's hard to balance. Usually i don't want to really fortify a POI just for one quest. However, preparing it a little (removing stairs, closing windows, etc) might be ok.

Since quests were added to the game, i thought of such quests first. Especially to defend traders. Might be even an alternative to the bloodmoons, but requires to remove the trader protection. I'd imagine you get a radio call to defend, but it's your decision to help or not. But if not, the trader might get destroyed. But most probably it's also a game limitation that there can't be zombies attacking a trader, while no player is near.

Maybe combined with NPCs like some mods like darkness falls already do. Trader have NPCs that do a basic defense (for random single Zs). The quest finally would be to much for them.

[Jost Amman]

I like more the idea Madmole talked about some time ago: a dynamic event system.

[Naz]

8 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Actually, animal hordes used to range from day three to day six. I could be wrong, as they were tweaked a few months back. Zd hordes on the other side, they love to visit at day 7 in the evening, bouncing boobs and jiggling jaws and everything.

I've had a day 2 dog hoard in A16 & a day 2 Vulture hoard in A19.

[Blake_]

@faatal here's a question with a prologue: 

 

In a19.3 doors do not structurally support other doors. That is ok to avoid exploits I guess. I noticed that said band aid resulted in less creativity overall, with less cool multi stacked doors on some designs, so now I'm "unsure" if the change is intended to stay or if it's just temporary while the new doors are implemented. 

 

-Will the NEW doors be (physic-induced) blocks and also stackable on top of each other so entities can damage them and/or is the structural integrity between doors going to remain the same as this recent a19.3 change with/without the new door changes ?

 

Expected Result: That doors are cool and destroyable like in the Arlene test video, but also the entity logic is tweaked to think of doors as if they were just normal material blocks and therefore the structural integrity wouldn't need to be set to 0 for door on door, allowing the pre a19.3 freedom.

 

It's absolutely no great deal either way, but I think it's worth a thought.

 

Gentle Hugs.

15 minutes ago, Naz said:

I've had a day 2 dog hoard in A16 & a day 2 Vulture hoard in A19.

Funny, I think the tweaks were made at some point in between, both done in a17 and tweaked later on pre19 release. I remember it from release notes off the top of my head. I could be wrong. A lot has happened over the years. But yeah, day 2 hardcore gameplay is a thing.

 

Edit: also, that later one (vultures) is a modified version of the horde timer, so that could also affect the wandering animal horde to just "always".

Edited November 16, 2020 by Blake_ (see edit history)

[FranticDan]

1 hour ago, Pritch said:

I have 2,000 hours in this game and literally my only complaint is the zombie combat system badly needs an overhaul.  I have introduced many friends to the game, but many don't stay because combat is so "jittery" and "unbearable.". The poor combat interactions make it hard for me to justify coming back to test out new alphas as well.  It is painful to struggle through.

 

Let me just say, I love everything else you guys have been doing.  It's truly remarkable how far you've come along. But please heed some friendly advice, combat needs massive work as it is a critical and ubiquitous interaction people have with the game.

 

The melee combat got a lot and I mean A LOT of love in A19. You have to absolutely miss to miss now, no more having the cursor on the zombie to register as a hit. Melee combat is so damn satisfying now.

I will note that I do get the occasional arrow going through zombie's faces which you can physically see the projectile go right through.

[Star69]

I agree that melee feels better from the players swing perspective....you hit when you think you should hit and at the proper distance from a zombie. However, on a multiplayer server, getting hit by a zombie with no corresponding swing animation 50% of the time is absolutely annoying as heck. I’m patiently waiting for a fix for that. Some people say that it never happens to them, guess I should learn how to take videos and edit them....never taken & edited videos in my life! 

[Maxley]

2 hours ago, Pritch said:

I have 2,000 hours in this game and literally my only complaint is the zombie combat system badly needs an overhaul.  I have introduced many friends to the game, but many don't stay because combat is so "jittery" and "unbearable.". The poor combat interactions make it hard for me to justify coming back to test out new alphas as well.  It is painful to struggle through.

 

Let me just say, I love everything else you guys have been doing.  It's truly remarkable how far you've come along. But please heed some friendly advice, combat needs massive work as it is a critical and ubiquitous interaction people have with the game.

 

I’ve noticed this when playing on servers, but on single player the combat is very fluid for me. Knowing your melee weapons range and using that knowledge to keep the maximum distance from a zombie while still being able to hit them is perhaps difficult at first for new players but you get used to it. How’s it feel in single player to you?

[SnowDog1942]

6 minutes ago, Maxley said:

I’ve noticed this when playing on servers, but on single player the combat is very fluid for me. Knowing your melee weapons range and using that knowledge to keep the maximum distance from a zombie while still being able to hit them is perhaps difficult at first for new players but you get used to it. How’s it feel in single player to you?

I keep bugging @faatal about this, but its like bugging my wife for sex at this point.   His answer (and her answer) are always... "later".

Edited November 16, 2020 by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Star69 said:

I agree that melee feels better from the players swing perspective....you hit when you think you should hit and at the proper distance from a zombie. However, on a multiplayer server, getting hit by a zombie with no corresponding swing animation 50% of the time is absolutely annoying as heck. I’m patiently waiting for a fix for that. Some people say that it never happens to them, guess I should learn how to take videos and edit them....never taken & edited videos in my life! 

Most people play SP or MP on private servers (better performance) so the swing animations are always in-sync.

 

MP has never been the main focus of the game since most of us play SP and (I think) this game was born as SP, so they'll get there but probably much much later.

Now that they can, I'm curious to see if they'll release statistics regarding how many players play SP vs MP BTW. 🤔

[Star69]

I have a rented Bluefang server, latency for me is a steady 40 and it’s passworded and with only 2 of players, no mods and I still get the missing swing animations. /shrugs  I’ll wait for fixes down the road.

[Blake_]

3 hours ago, falloutcloud said:

This makes a lot of sense to me. Glad the change was made

 

On a separate note, is a video stream of more features going to be coming sooner rather than later?

TFP sexted me about the date for the next video stream.

 

They said it's gonna be Soon™️ 

[Jost Amman]

2 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

TFP sexted me about the date for the next video stream.

 

They said it's gonna be Soon™️ 

Lol, now I understand why that Title... 

[PeNa1979]

Sorry, but i have to tell it : 

 

TFP are getting too lazy !!!

This game is the best game EVER made for any platform !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But TFP is slowly killing it......

Im playing this game offcourse from alpha 1, that was totally unplayable, then alpha 1.1 that was first public fix...

And from alpha 1.1 to cca alpha 15 it was everytime really goooooood upadte...but then is it get not half so good...

Every update brings a couple new textures for the same zombies only ! NO NEW VEHICLE for couple years !!!

Almost no new weapons...For M4 we have waitd from a15 i think where she was already...but hidden...

And where is "THE ELEVATOR TEST" block gone ??????????????? WHY ?????????? Why it is not already in the game for us ?!?!?!??! WE WANTED IT SO MUCH !!!!!!!

 

Sorry TFP, but ONE GOOD MODDER IS WORTH MORE AS HALF OF YOUR DEVELOPER TEAM !!!!!!!!!!!

 

So many good mods were in a17 and a18 and you almost done to destroy it...thanks god for people like Snufkin Arrakin and much more that are modding and made for this game SO MUCH new stuff we all so love !!!

 

I hope one day will 7DTD team rise again and wake up finally !!!!!! THIS GAME IS THE ONLY GAME IM PLAYING LAST 3 YEARS........Why ? BCS is the BEST IN THIS UNIVERSE !!!!!!!!! So stop killing i please and go develop and make new stuff THX to TFP and MODDERS...

[Blake_]

2 minutes ago, PeNa1979 said:

Sorry, but i have to tell it : 

 

TFP are getting too lazy !!!

This game is the best game EVER made for any platform !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But TFP is slowly killing it......

Im playing this game offcourse from alpha 1, that was totally unplayable, then alpha 1.1 that was first public fix...

And from alpha 1.1 to cca alpha 15 it was everytime really goooooood upadte...but then is it get not half so good...

Every update brings a couple new textures for the same zombies only ! NO NEW VEHICLE for couple years !!!

Almost no new weapons...For M4 we have waitd from a15 i think where she was already...but hidden...

And where is "THE ELEVATOR TEST" block gone ??????????????? WHY ?????????? Why it is not already in the game for us ?!?!?!??! WE WANTED IT SO MUCH !!!!!!!

 

Sorry TFP, but ONE GOOD MODDER IS WORTH MORE AS HALF OF YOUR DEVELOPER TEAM !!!!!!!!!!!

 

So many good mods were in a17 and a18 and you almost done to destroy it...thanks god for people like Snufkin Arrakin and much more that are modding and made for this game SO MUCH new stuff we all so love !!!

 

I hope one day will 7DTD team rise again and wake up finally !!!!!! THIS GAME IS THE ONLY GAME IM PLAYING LAST 3 YEARS........Why ? BCS is the BEST IN THIS UNIVERSE !!!!!!!!! So stop killing i please and go develop and make new stuff THX to TFP and MODDERS...

I have some extremely important feedback too. I believe TFP should really read this feedback below, if they don't, then I win, because my reasons are my reasons and they are important. Please notice me.

 

1-I believe EVERYONE should use caps when making a point. If not, the point would evaporate from the bottle and result in an artistic worldwide crisis forcing painters to use lines.

 

2- I firmly think that programmers at TFP should take my advice and use a new type of typing (more on that in the screenshot below).

Spoiler

 

3- Third and most very importantly mainly, they should really absolutely real learn how to rule a company and order sentences and a bit of spelingl.

 

Cheers.

[EggsAisle]

34 minutes ago, PeNa1979 said:

Sorry, but i have to tell it : 

 

TFP are getting too lazy !!!

This game is the best game EVER made for any platform !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But TFP is slowly killing it......

Im playing this game offcourse from alpha 1, that was totally unplayable, then alpha 1.1 that was first public fix...

And from alpha 1.1 to cca alpha 15 it was everytime really goooooood upadte...but then is it get not half so good...

Every update brings a couple new textures for the same zombies only ! NO NEW VEHICLE for couple years !!!

Almost no new weapons...For M4 we have waitd from a15 i think where she was already...but hidden...

And where is "THE ELEVATOR TEST" block gone ??????????????? WHY ?????????? Why it is not already in the game for us ?!?!?!??! WE WANTED IT SO MUCH !!!!!!!

 

Sorry TFP, but ONE GOOD MODDER IS WORTH MORE AS HALF OF YOUR DEVELOPER TEAM !!!!!!!!!!!

 

So many good mods were in a17 and a18 and you almost done to destroy it...thanks god for people like Snufkin Arrakin and much more that are modding and made for this game SO MUCH new stuff we all so love !!!

 

I hope one day will 7DTD team rise again and wake up finally !!!!!! THIS GAME IS THE ONLY GAME IM PLAYING LAST 3 YEARS........Why ? BCS is the BEST IN THIS UNIVERSE !!!!!!!!! So stop killing i please and go develop and make new stuff THX to TFP and MODDERS...

I always wonder about people who post like this, like, are these the same people who scream out their car windows "Work faster, you lazy idiots!!!" at road construction workers? There's just something magical about that combination of rage, ignorance, and whininess. 

[Phoenixshade35]

1 hour ago, bdubyah said:

Is there ever going to be localization applied to POI names? So that when we accept quests it doesn't tell us the file name? Would be kind of nice if it didn't say it at all, just said "house" or "business" instead.

I can agree and disagree with you, like if it got changed to something like, home 203 on yada yada street, would be world building.

Same time i dont mind the way it is especially for those that like to modify buildings in creative they know what to look for in the files

 

One thing i would love to see though, is some of the houses that have fallen to disrepair and buisnesses that have broken areas, id love variation in them so an example would be messiah_01, messiah_02, messiah_03, where some areas are not broken, paths are different, it would be more world building, but that would be down the road

[bdubyah]

1 hour ago, Phoenixshade35 said:

I can agree and disagree with you, like if it got changed to something like, home 203 on yada yada street, would be world building.

Same time i dont mind the way it is especially for those that like to modify buildings in creative they know what to look for in the files

 

One thing i would love to see though, is some of the houses that have fallen to disrepair and buisnesses that have broken areas, id love variation in them so an example would be messiah_01, messiah_02, messiah_03, where some areas are not broken, paths are different, it would be more world building, but that would be down the road

It wouldn't change file names or anything. It would simply change what you see when accepting quests.

[beHypE]

On 11/17/2020 at 12:19 AM, Maxley said:

I’ve noticed this when playing on servers, but on single player the combat is very fluid for me. Knowing your melee weapons range and using that knowledge to keep the maximum distance from a zombie while still being able to hit them is perhaps difficult at first for new players but you get used to it. How’s it feel in single player to you?

I'm not sure his issue is latency-related. I think it's more about the overall animations, feel, variety in gameplay. And on that subject, he's not wrong, there's really nothing special about the combat system. It's really binary to be honest, left click or right click with the right timing, rinse and repeat. Quite honestly it's the only thing, along with animations, that still screams "alpha" when I play; it seems like a first pass of something bigger.

[meilodasreh]

3 hours ago, beHypE said:

I'm not sure his issue is latency-related. I think it's more about the overall animations, feel, variety in gameplay. And on that subject, he's not wrong, there's really nothing special about the combat system. It's really binary to be honest, left click or right click with the right timing, rinse and repeat. Quite honestly it's the only thing, along with animations, that still screams "alpha" when I play; it seems like a first pass of something bigger.

I agree. A bit more variety in swings, but without getting it to a too much "scientific" level, that's what I would like to see.

But fear not, as madmole is such a big fan of Skyrim, it's easy to imagine the 7d2d combat system might go a similar way. 

Swings from one side to the other, quick little lunge, big brutal downswing, maybe also some rudimental blocking system...nothing extravagant, just being able to ragdoll the Zs in a certain direction (or just slamming them into the ground) would be cool.

It was once discussed if it should be possible to nail Zs against the wall with bolts...just to throw that into the ring again 🙂

Or is this already possible? Have to agree I haven't used a crossbow since A17... 😄