Jump to content

A20 Developer Diary Discussions


Roland

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Burrfly said:

Wait, are there? I can't remember them after a16 was the last time? Maybe I'm completely wrong, then my bad

 

Because of performance problems they were reduced in frequency and size, but they are still there. This is supposed to get better again with further optimizations and maybe a better event system

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ShellHead said:

Yeah, though i think in most situations not knowing exactly what zed got killed by who wouldn’t mess up anyone too badly.

 

What I meant is when two zombies are down and you see an XP pop-up. You won't know which one of the two is the dead one because of the shared popup.

 

1 hour ago, ShellHead said:

 

My understanding of the problem was that it wasn’t the knockdown itself that was at issue but rather zeds getting flung back into the horde via the repulser mod for the baton, which made them easy to lose track of when things got hectic. Knockdown from pretty much every other source is much easier to keep track of, the only exception might be the AR book bonus but that still essentially boils down to “keep shooting in that direction” so i doubt that would trip anyone up.

 

As long as you have a closed front the zombies are always pushed away so I don't see a problem there. If it is a chaotic mingling you have enough enemies to hit and get hit by anyway so I prefer a zombie being down for a moment so I can hit the others. In such a mingling I have to constantly watch my back anyway as zombies could come from all sides. 

 

1 hour ago, ShellHead said:

as an aside, i really like the idea of zeds getting knocked down when critically injured to trick players into thinking they’re dead, i hope that is actually a mechanic.

 

It is. Just asked a co-player and he is sure as well.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Burrfly said:

Wait, are there? I can't remember them after a16 was the last time? Maybe I'm completely wrong, then my bad

Oh yea, they are still around. My friends and I got wrecked by one the other day playing every difficulty setting maxed. It was terrifying to have them run up on us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Otherwise, I am perfectly happy that spec'ing purely into the Int tree means my weakness is my combat skills until I get my hands on turrets.

 

The issue is more that even after speccing into it, you are still weak compared to the alternatives.  I tested it with a Shotgun messiah. Clearing it using melee + Junk Turrets used over 10,000 iron worth of junk turret ammo. Clearing it using an autoshotgun used like 100 shotgun shells, and I got more than that  back from clearing it, and the shotgun clear was like 3 times faster because I didn't have the turret set up time etc

 

It's the same issue as the "an unperked club is better than a fully perked and kitted out stun baton" thing. Half of it is just that shotgun and club are OP, but even comparing to an M60 and knuckles or something, the int tree just falls behind resource investment to return on investment wise. The junk turret requires 10+ minutes of mining iron  and an entire perk line + an entire magazine line + double the resources to run two junk turrets + all of the mining perks which means it needs strength investement too etc, just to actually be usable. A shotgun or m60 build just needs the attribute + gun skill and half the mods of a dual junk turret build

 

Crafting skills have been useless for a few alpha now where it's only good for rushing items the first week and then useless after because you need parts to craft stuff, can't even craft the tier 6 version, you get books that teach you the recipes for free, and you can just buy the workbenches instead of wasting skill points on it. Not even getting into the "Build all your workbenches and then take a respec potion to put the points somewhere else" levels of try hard min maxing. There's no real reason to craft anything since like A17 or which ever added quest rewards. You are way better off just taking the better quest reward perk and spamming quests to get quality 6 gear way faster and easier than a crafting build can, especially since quests give dukes and exp etc too on top of the rewards

 

I don't think int is trash, but it's just in an awkward spot like agility where you can 100% easily play the game without ever touching the entire perk line or weapons from it and you'd . . . probably be an optimal meta build honestly. Better Barter and the better rewards perk are top tier perks, but the rest of Int not so much, just like Parkour being an amazing perk but it's not worth wasting points on the Agility tree for because the weapons are terrible and the other perks aren't worth it

 

 

Edited by Khalagar (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Well is PVP still right?  that's way for example conan or rust have rebalance sometimes . Well  we don't have statitic but for sure more people using sledhammer that machete .  So yeah it could be but it pvp too . So i see two solutions : balance as PVP with  elements of E ( conan ) or PVE with elements of PVP ( the forest ) 

No the game is geared towards PvE.  Sure you can play PvP if you want to, but that is not the intent of this game when TFP first set out to create and develop 7D2D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Burrfly said:

@faatal why aren't there anymore wandering hordes? That really really made the game a lot of fun. I remember in one of my first playthroughs and it was night and I got outside my base and a RUNNING horde of zombies came towards me and I was scared as heck but it was so cool to also encounter wandering hordes it made it also a challenge.

IIRC there was a change in the design direction of the game some years ago, devs decided to go for more of a quality>quantity approach.

 

If you're really fiending for that kind of gameplay, there's a modpack called Darkness Falls that adds a lot of what you're looking for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

No the game is geared towards PvE.  Sure you can play PvP if you want to, but that is not the intent of this game when TFP first set out to create and develop 7D2D

If they choose to be PVE that's mean on coop/single balance will be good but PVP will be unbalance

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

The issue is more that even after speccing into it, you are still weak compared to the alternatives.  I tested it with a Shotgun messiah. Clearing it using melee + Junk Turrets used over 10,000 iron worth of junk turret ammo. Clearing it using an autoshotgun used like 100 shotgun shells, and I got more than that  back from clearing it, and the shotgun clear was like 3 times faster because I didn't have the turret set up time etc

 

It's the same issue as the "an unperked club is better than a fully perked and kitted out stun baton" thing. Half of it is just that shotgun and club are OP, but even comparing to an M60 and knuckles or something, the int tree just falls behind resource investment to return on investment wise.

 

Why do you always pick Fortitude as second comparison and act as if that wasn't a combat heavy OP class just like strength? Compare INT to agility or perception and you would actually compare attributes with a smaller focus on combat. Actually INT is the attribute with the highest utility focus and therefore the lowest combat focus. So it is to be expected that using only INT weapons creates the lowest damage output.

 

13 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

The junk turret requires 10+ minutes of mining iron  and an entire perk line + an entire magazine line + double the resources to run two junk turrets + all of the mining perks which means it needs strength investement too etc, just to actually be usable. A shotgun or m60 build just needs the attribute + gun skill and half the mods of a dual junk turret build

 

Make a different test:

Just take a shotgun with you and the ammo you got out of a previous quest or bought at the trader to the POI and use all the shotgun ammo you have and find in the factory to shoot at zombies groups and only use the baton for single zombies.  Keep 9mm and 7.62 ammo you find for horde night.

 

I'm sure you will get out with much much less turret ammo expended and will be through much faster. You also found the best use for the shotgun ammo.

 

13 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Crafting skills have been useless for a few alpha now where it's only good for rushing items the first week and then useless after because you need parts to craft stuff, can't even craft the tier 6 version, you get books that teach you the recipes for free, and you can just buy the workbenches instead of wasting skill points on it. Not even getting into the "Build all your workbenches and then take a respec potion to put the points somewhere else" levels of try hard min maxing. There's no real reason to craft anything since like A17 or which ever added quest rewards. You are way better off just taking the better quest reward perk and spamming quests to get quality 6 gear way faster and easier than a crafting build can, especially since quests give dukes and exp etc too on top of the rewards

 

I don't think int is trash, but it's just in an awkward spot like agility where you can 100% easily play the game without ever touching the entire perk line or weapons from it and you'd . . . probably be an optimal meta build honestly. Better Barter and the better rewards perk are top tier perks, but the rest of Int not so much, just like Parkour being an amazing perk but it's not worth wasting points on the Agility tree for because the weapons are terrible and the other perks aren't worth it

 

 

Definitely the trader is OP for experienced players. Finding the right stuff is easy for experienced players. BUT vanilla is for the inexperienced player who will NOT get workstations and all the recipes ready by day 7-10. If you want a balanced game as an experienced player you have to turn down loot frequency to compensate for all the knowledge how to get at stuff.

 

You pointed me to one omission in the game though: The trader never offers turret ammo as quest reward and (I may be wrong here) doesn't sell it, and you don't find it anywhere. I think that should be changed as it isn't logical that the INT player should need to be toiling in the mines more often than a miner himself.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

personally i decide what sort of game i want to play before i start. current is to build a base that can defend itself without my help.

therefore i chose strength first, for mining, straight to lvl7 to max miner and mother. sex rex and masterchef are nice qol gate openers. then int lvl 10 to guarantee steel and the crafting efficiency and turrets to get 2 going at once and of course a motor bike. im level 55 ish now and dont have anything i feel i NEED to perk into.

i have started on the rifles and penetrator as that really sorts them out if you build kill corridors ( with sledges to knock them off the walkway down to bedrock where they have to climb up past heaps of smg turrets ha ha.

any way to my point....

skill trees work well together if you have a goal in mind. you are your own team i suppose

and ill say it again, weapons work just fine without perks. just takes a few more shots is all.

 

and for the zds lying down topic that's also going on, double tap. i shoot lots of zombies lying down and i also shoot a lot of dead zombies, and i dont often get surprised... actually i mèlee single normals, and swpa to guns only if it looks dicey. steel axe one shots most low level zds.

 

and thankfully there are plenty of wandering hordes still. smg turrets normally let me know its play time ( if i can get there in time.)

and shot gun turrets are awsome for keeping vultures off the roof on horde nights. 

 

god this game is awesome

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Burrfly said:

@faatal why aren't there anymore wandering hordes? That really really made the game a lot of fun. I remember in one of my first playthroughs and it was night and I got outside my base and a RUNNING horde of zombies came towards me and I was scared as heck but it was so cool to also encounter wandering hordes it made it also a challenge.

You are probably seeing wandering hordes and not recognizing them. Here's a few examples of things that are wandering hordes:

 

  • Dog horde, sometimes with zombie bears;
  • Wolf horde;
  • Vultures flying in the forest;
  • Zombies bashing stuff.

The last one is a pretty good indicator. Biome zombies rarely bash stuff because they are not trying to get to some place. Unless they see you, of course. If there are zombies bashing something then it is most likely a wandering horde going from point A to point B, bashing whatever is in their way.

 

On the first few days you'll usually get the animal hordes. Which, honestly, kind of sucks because the animal hordes are much more dangerous. I've died to wolf and dog hordes, but never to a zombie one. Vultures hordes are usually hard to detect because they leave you alone and fly so high they'll often go outside rendering range, but if you happen to be hurt while a vulture horde is around then you are in for some pain.

 

Sometimes you'll also get some zombies loudly walking nearby. I don't know why they sound so loud, but they do so to me. It's often a zombie from a wandering horde that has finished it's wandering and is now walking randomly. In these cases you can press F1 to open up the console and you'll see messages about zombies not longer being controlled by the wandering horde, and the wandering horde spawning further up.

 

5 hours ago, Matt115 said:

There is any planes of something like alarm to lure zombie hordes? Because it could be rly fun if  Speaker could respawn zombie hordes nearby 

Grenades, molotovs, timed charges, dynamite are all supposedly throwable decoys. They do not have distraction passive effects, though, so I don't think they are working like decoys.

 

Rocks (stone) and snowballs do work as decoys, though you have to throw so they hit the ground close to the zombies, then skip further away attracting them.  Otherwise... just make noise then stealthily move away.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Matt115 said:

If they choose to be PVE that's mean on coop/single balance will be good but PVP will be unbalance

There is no IF. They have stated repeatedly and for a long time that the game is built around PVE and that maybe after it is finished they will give PVP some attention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, dcsobral said:

You are probably seeing wandering hordes and not recognizing them. Here's a few examples of things that are wandering hordes:

 

  • Dog horde, sometimes with zombie bears;
  • Wolf horde;
  • Vultures flying in the forest;
  • Zombies bashing stuff.

The last one is a pretty good indicator. Biome zombies rarely bash stuff because they are not trying to get to some place. Unless they see you, of course. If there are zombies bashing something then it is most likely a wandering horde going from point A to point B, bashing whatever is in their way.

 

On the first few days you'll usually get the animal hordes. Which, honestly, kind of sucks because the animal hordes are much more dangerous. I've died to wolf and dog hordes, but never to a zombie one. Vultures hordes are usually hard to detect because they leave you alone and fly so high they'll often go outside rendering range, but if you happen to be hurt while a vulture horde is around then you are in for some pain.

 

Sometimes you'll also get some zombies loudly walking nearby. I don't know why they sound so loud, but they do so to me. It's often a zombie from a wandering horde that has finished it's wandering and is now walking randomly. In these cases you can press F1 to open up the console and you'll see messages about zombies not longer being controlled by the wandering horde, and the wandering horde spawning further up.

 

Grenades, molotovs, timed charges, dynamite are all supposedly throwable decoys. They do not have distraction passive effects, though, so I don't think they are working like decoys.

 

Rocks (stone) and snowballs do work as decoys, though you have to throw so they hit the ground close to the zombies, then skip further away attracting them.  Otherwise... just make noise then stealthily move away.

 

I mean something that works similiar to boomer bile from l4d

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Matt115 said:

There is any planes of something like alarm to lure zombie hordes? Because it could be rly fun if  Speaker could respawn zombie hordes nearby 

 

Like in the Darkness Falls mod, some of the vehicles have alarms on them, now I loot the vehicles last.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, BIOHAZARD57 said:

Are there any plans to make the zombies more satisfying to shoot/damage? For example: a bullet hole or stab wound being left on the zombies. Or maybe at least increase the amount of blood that come from the zombies.

Voxel based zombies?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, BIOHAZARD57 said:

Are there any plans to make the zombies more satisfying to shoot/damage? For example: a bullet hole or stab wound being left on the zombies. Or maybe at least increase the amount of blood that come from the zombies.

 

Performance already drops to a near slide show on horde nights even on high end computers, imagine trying to add so much extra detail when your junk turrets or m60 opened fire into the horde

 

 

Personally, my biggest thing I would like to get some love graphics wise, would be a TLC pass for the trees and grass and dirt etc. Not sure if the devs have anything planned in that direction atm, or if that's just a 7 Days 2 Die type update

 

My modded skyrim looks about like this and actually runs better than 7 days most of the time (besides Riften obviously). Obviously not to the level shown in Skyrim, but  just some general updating of the fauna to get more variance and stuff in it would be pretty nice.

 

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B2PjQEYAMJM/maxresdefault.jpg

Edited by Khalagar (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

Why do you always pick Fortitude as second comparison and act as if that wasn't a combat heavy OP class just like strength? Compare INT to agility or perception and you would actually compare attributes with a smaller focus on combat. Actually INT is the attribute with the highest utility focus and therefore the lowest combat focus. So it is to be expected that using only INT weapons creates the lowest damage output.

They probably pick it because FORT has the least directly offensive perks of any stat, tied with INT, so it would make sense to compare them in general. The issue there is that ARs and knuckles are currently overtuned and need a nerf.

AGI and PER are both at least as combat focused as STR, AGI doesn’t even have a gathering perk, so comparing INT to them would be more unfair to INT.

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

Make a different test:

Just take a shotgun with you and the ammo you got out of a previous quest or bought at the trader to the POI and use all the shotgun ammo you have and find in the factory to shoot at zombies groups and only use the baton for single zombies.  Keep 9mm and 7.62 ammo you find for horde night.

 

I'm sure you will get out with much much less turret ammo expended and will be through much faster. You also found the best use for the shotgun ammo.

I think it’s a good shift for INT players to need more preparation to clear out POIs than other stats. But from what i’ve seen, most trader quests require you to go through POIs so this winds up being a bit paradoxical: you need ammo to clear POIs, but you need to complete quests for the ammo, but you need to clear POIs to complete quests. 

It also just seems a little much that 3 weapons and 10 skill points are less effective than 1 weapon and 5 skill points, even taking the advantages of the turrets and the reduced combat efficiency of the INT tree into account.

At a certain point you have to ask “are the perked turrets and the unperked shotgun meaningfully more effective than just the unperked shotgun?”

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

Definitely the trader is OP for experienced players. Finding the right stuff is easy for experienced players. BUT vanilla is for the inexperienced player who will NOT get workstations and all the recipes ready by day 7-10. If you want a balanced game as an experienced player you have to turn down loot frequency to compensate for all the knowledge how to get at stuff.

 

You pointed me to one omission in the game though: The trader never offers turret ammo as quest reward and (I may be wrong here) doesn't sell it, and you don't find it anywhere. I think that should be changed as it isn't logical that the INT player should need to be toiling in the mines more often than a miner himself.

The trader update in A20 should bring things back in line. That, combined with the smoother gear progression, should help make sure crafting is made firmly relevant to all levels of play which is why i’m very excited for it.

turret ammo from the traders will also make early-game INT more viable for players who might not know to maximize use of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, ShellHead said:

They probably pick it because FORT has the least directly offensive perks of any stat, tied with INT, so it would make sense to compare them in general. The issue there is that ARs and knuckles are currently overtuned and need a nerf.

AGI and PER are both at least as combat focused as STR, AGI doesn’t even have a gathering perk, so comparing INT to them would be more unfair to INT.

 

I consider FORT and STR the combat heavy attributes because they clearly have the weapons advantage over all other attributes. For example: Except for the two highest difficulties a normal player could get away with using the tier1 gun of FORT even in endgame and because of the big magazine the m60 is the ultimate oh @%$# weapon (IMHO), even better than the shotgun.

 

Agi in comparison needs a lot more perk points to be effective as their damage potential starts from a lower level. I don't see that necessarily as an advantage that you need a lot more levels to get in range of FORT or STR. The strength of AGI is a completely separate "game mode" where you can relatively safely do quests in the night provided you invested your points in it. In typical fantasy RPG parlance you would call that attribute the rogue assassin class.

 

PER has a strong tier3 weapon, but all lower tiers are hampered by small magazines, especially the tier 1 weapon. There is almost no application for the long range the guns are capable of and melee is one of the most difficult weapons to handle effectively. PER can shine on horde night, but the rest of the week I consider its utility perks more important that the combat perks. The RPG equivalent would be the thief half of the rogue class.

 

 

6 hours ago, ShellHead said:

I think it’s a good shift for INT players to need more preparation to clear out POIs than other stats. But from what i’ve seen, most trader quests require you to go through POIs so this winds up being a bit paradoxical: you need ammo to clear POIs, but you need to complete quests for the ammo, but you need to clear POIs to complete quests. 

It also just seems a little much that 3 weapons and 10 skill points are less effective than 1 weapon and 5 skill points, even taking the advantages of the turrets and the reduced combat efficiency of the INT tree into account.

At a certain point you have to ask “are the perked turrets and the unperked shotgun meaningfully more effective than just the unperked shotgun?”

 

Well, just ask that question now. At the current time I would say definitely yes for me. Even with a shotgun I miss sometimes or forget to reload or the weapon even breaks at the wrong time (yes, I'm sloppy there).  Also while running around with double barrel or even pump shotgun you need to reload a lot more often than you would like. The turrets are the only companion in single player to watch my back. And set up behind you they even literally watch your back. The effectiveness of the baton in fights with multiple enemies is very low, no question about that, but the turret(s) really shine in fights against multiple opponents. 

 

 

6 hours ago, ShellHead said:

The trader update in A20 should bring things back in line. That, combined with the smoother gear progression, should help make sure crafting is made firmly relevant to all levels of play which is why i’m very excited for it.

turret ammo from the traders will also make early-game INT more viable for players who might not know to maximize use of them.

 

Yes and yes. In theory the game was designed with a balance so that the more effective ammo is harder to get and needs more effort to get enough of it. But effectively ammo of all sizes was too plentiful and easy to get in pretty much every alpha I played. But there is hope for much more balanced setup in A20. If the first people are complaining they don't find enough ammo we might have reached a good balance.

 

 

5 hours ago, DaVegaNL said:

What's up guys? This game still being developed? Been a while since I last checked.

 

I saw a sneak peak video was posted in November last year. Please tell me the game isn't abandoned.

It isn't abandoned, but was sold to the new Telltale for further develpment. A big patch is being developed right now. 😁

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, n2n1 said:

Good job.... but you guys seem to have completely lost the sense of reality... (yes, of course it is appropriate in your game).

But it doesn't scare or give an atmosphere. It's just cuuul. Add more fire - to make it more absurd. Maybe then it will work...

 

I liked the one that was earlier - it had crooked fingers, his skin was burned and it looked like a... victim...

I just think that - despite the fact that it "luuuks cuuul" -  it's already quite bored... now there are many games with similar art - you have lost your charm.

 

I totally agree. That looks nothing like any burning zombie I have ever seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

*sniffs*

you smell bacon?
Image

well if he had less teeth and black he would looking better xd but still he looks good

1 hour ago, n2n1 said:

Good job.... but you guys seem to have completely lost the sense of reality... (yes, of course it is appropriate in your game).

But it doesn't scare or give an atmosphere. It's just cuuul. Add more fire - to make it more absurd. Maybe then it will work...

 

I liked the one that was earlier - it had crooked fingers, his skin was burned and it looked like a... victim...

I just think that - despite the fact that it "luuuks cuuul" -  it's already quite bored... now there are many games with similar art - you have lost your charm.

 

 

24 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

I totally agree. That looks nothing like any burning zombie I have ever seen.

Well in cod cold war and outbreake there are burned zombies and looks rly more better xd i have feeling that they after 19 feeling  decide to throw away reality and make it as comedy xd junk guns and normal guns looks like post apo movies from 80-90  , junk drones  this zombie model, geez , fat coop looks like "modern" model of boomer from l4d2 but this zombie looks like some undead from oblivion or skyrim xd 

Edited by Matt115 (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Crater Creator changed the title to A20 Developer Diary Discussions
  • Roland unpinned this topic

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...