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A20 Developer Diary Discussions


Roland

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1 hour ago, Space4Ace said:

 

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.

 

Zombie poodle? Terrifying.

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On 1/14/2021 at 4:50 PM, MechanicalLens said:

The largest cities (i.e. 100 POI's or larger) should be removed entirely.

 

For the record, I am 100% against this, in fact I think you should go in the opposite direction. The cities aren't large enough as it is.

 

...Of course, the fact that two players disagree, is a good reason to make this a RWG setting. :)

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9 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

Anyway Roland I have a lot of respect for how you probably get a lot of people like me who stir the pot and cause trouble, yet you always try to create relatability and understanding rather than firing back. I've seen it too many times where you temper yourself and be the bigger man, and try to reason with people who are frustrated, and I've seen it happen several times where I was the frustrated person. I just want to, of my own volition, for no real reason, express the fact that I respect and appreciate the person you are. It's a fine example of how to conduct oneself. 

 

Dammit! You said this before I had a chance to respond to your last post. Now I gotta respond with relatability and understanding or say nothing.

 

So here's my response:

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Promethean Winchester said:

I'm on day 7 right now, still haven't died, Insane Nightmare. I'm using the Sledge instead of the wooden club and I'm having a LOT of fun with it

 

Weak. I'm currently on day 23 on Insane/Nightmare (permadeath). ;)

Almost died on day 22 though to two rad soldiers and a rad biker at the end of a T4 POI.

Just taking a jab, nothing harsh meant by it. I wish you luck on your Insane/Nightmare adventure!

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On 1/13/2021 at 6:45 PM, Danidas said:

Now that's a well done zombie dogo.

I think you guys are loosing time over something insignificant , we want so much from this game and you are all over some textures .

Tell you what , even if the dog was 1 plain color but they fix some major issues i would be still happy , like people cheating in multiplayer with glitches making everybodies lifes hard and like make the game more serious at surviving so when i play in survivalist and i end up at first week with loads of steaks , millions of boiled water , and if i mine for 1 day straight i can have so much gunpowder i start putting it in my coffee . Millions of other serious stuff out there and we are talking about textures !

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6 minutes ago, MonkCrimson said:

I think you guys are loosing time over something insignificant , we want so much from this game and you are all over some textures .

Tell you what , even if the dog was 1 plain color but they fix some major issues i would be still happy , like people cheating in multiplayer with glitches making everybodies lifes hard and like make the game more serious at surviving so when i play in survivalist and i end up at first week with loads of steaks , millions of boiled water , and if i mine for 1 day straight i can have so much gunpowder i start putting it in my coffee . Millions of other serious stuff out there and we are talking about textures !

This has been said a thousand times but apparently people still don't know it... The Fun Pimps is not a one developer business, especially not now.

They have devs working on "dev stuff" and "artists" working on textures and such... no one is wasting time on something they are not specialized in.

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Just now, Jost Amman said:

This has been said a thousand times but apparently people still don't know it... The Fun Pimps is not a one developer business, especially not now.

They have devs working on "dev stuff" and "artists" working on textures and such... no one is wasting time on something they are not specialized in.

I see , thx for correcting me .

I still don't care much about the textures of dogs , but this is just me , others may love this ! Cheers !

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8 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

I'm currently engaged in a playthrough where I am initiating zero contact with traders. It's quite liberating. If you're still playing the game, I suggest you give it a try at some point.

 

I have little issue with traders, both in Alpha 19, as it's been pointed out numerous times already by other individuals including Madmole himself, they are terribly unbalanced when it comes to loot progression, but in their stock and quest rewards. As it stands they are just overpowered vending machines that are one step away from the creative mode, essentially giving the player "free" handouts every few days. They are air drops or regular vending machines on steroids. Remove the human element, and that's all they are really. If you want to avoid traders, play with that mindset. ;)

 

I'm curious what they'll be like in Alpha 20, although I suspect they'll be as "essential to gameplay" as they are now. Hopefully we won't be getting nail guns and T4 augers for T2 quests though.

 

Edit reason: spelling error

Sounds like a fun challenge for my next series, thanks for the idea!

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1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

This has been said a thousand times but apparently people still don't know it... The Fun Pimps is not a one developer business, especially not now.

They have devs working on "dev stuff" and "artists" working on textures and such... no one is wasting time on something they are not specialized in.

Well, a company could choose to hire more programmers and less artists. But I am sure it is a concious decision on their part and it is based on priorities and budget...

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I finished my first horde ever on Insane Nightmare last night, I made a melee killing corridor to use my sledgehammer in. At the end, for the day 14 bloodmoon, I'm constructing twin towers connected by an Iron bar bridge, with iron bar walkways around the top of each tower; That's where I'll go if they breach my killing corridor, entering phase two, where I rain death down on them from above with pipe bombs aplenty. This game is still really fun at times, may not be as fun as it used to be in terms of dopamine hits and the anticipation of "Is there a mining helmet in this car or a piece of cloth?" but it's still pretty fun. But I have to admit... Getting pretty tired of my first 20 POIs having nothing but stone and blunderbuss crap. It's not just weaker weapons, it's also more unrealistic and less conducive to immersion. When I crack open a gun safe in a gun store I don't feel like I should find 4 stone arrows, a homemade Blunderbuss, and a shovel. Rather than forcing stone tools down everyone's throats, you could literally remove them entirely and the game would only benefit from it. Just make it next to impossible to survive, make Insane Nightmare Permadeath the game's base ruleset, bring back chaotic loot, and level by doing. That way every run, every player has an adrenaline rush of the highest order, every player adapts to the weapons they find, progresses through level-by-doing, and allows the free-form of the world's exploration and loot found to define their character in the early-game, until they get what they'd prefer in the mid-game, and slowly invest into everything they'd like to have in the end-game.

You can manipulate people into more playthroughs to ramp up play time on steam, through a gameplay style that is more grindy and less fun like the attribute style and restricted loot, but it's just that, more grindy and less fun. A disservice. Genuinely feels like in the end, Zomboid might beat you guys in terms of game quality, only because those developers are leaning into the gritty realism and gameplay elements rather than the player grind and the graphics. I don't get terrific immersion from 7 days the way I would from Zomboid or Darkwood, only because it's easy to tell you guys sold the soul of the game to increase play time and make it more grindy. I have this dream, deep down, inside my heart... That you guys are just using the accessibility of Alpha 19 to make money, to recover from the telltale fiasco, and that it's your intention to, in the end, at least make a toggle option upon world creation which allows for chaotic loot, and freeform non-attribute-based leveling. I'm holding out hope that you guys are pretending to be EA in simplifying your game so you can pull a Hello Games at the last minute lol.

Look at Star Wars Battlefront right, it was such a disappointment. All graphics, but a fraction of the available heroes compared to the PS2 version, it had space battles, but you couldn't land in the enemy starship and sabotage it from inside. There was also a mere fraction of available planets and maps. They made a good game worse just because graphics, not gameplay, was EA's focus. But the other end of that developer spectrum is Hello Games, the redemption of the ineffectual, and the implementation of whatever will make everyone happy, in the end. That's all I'm hoping for... That in the end, Alpha 16 gameplay with chaotic loot and free-form leveling will be an option, alongside the graphical improvements we're seeing today. I know jumping repeatedly so you can level up your jumping skill is stupid but killing zombies to be a better miner is more stupid lol. At least level by doing is in alignment with reality, and you could easily explain-away the fact that player characters don't need sleep; They are immune to zombification, but the virus which zombified everyone else made us no longer need sleep. It ramped up every survivor's vitality who was fortunate enough to be immune to its entropic effects. Bam, plot explanation for not needing sleep in 7dtd. 

Edited by Promethean Winchester (see edit history)
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3 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

But I have to admit... Getting pretty tired of my first 20 POIs having nothing but stone and blunderbuss crap.

That is temporary. It is already improved in A20 and will continue to be improved as time goes on. However, there is likely to always be primitive weaponry to be found in containers during the first week if you are looting in an area that does not have a modified gamestage.

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3 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

You can manipulate people into more playthroughs to ramp up play time on steam

Not our motivation. Only players who like to brag about playtime care about playtime numbers. We get full payment for the game regardless of whether someone plays 5 minutes or 5000+ hours. This not a subscription game.

3 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

Genuinely feels like in the end, Zomboid might beat you guys

Not our concern. We already know our game is successful and we aren't measuring success in terms of any other game. Of course we celebrate milestones like 39K concurrent players and being in the top 100 but once again you are projecting player concerns onto developers. It is players who like to debate whether playstation is better than xbox or 7 Days is better than Project Zomboid. We figure most people will end up getting both games since both are priced very reasonably. For sure, Project Zomboid has different goals than 7 Days to Die and what a better world it is that TFP and TIS don't try to create two games that are just like each other in every regard other than the perspective. It means players can play two different games and get two different experiences.

3 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

it's easy to tell you guys sold the soul of the game to increase play time and make it more grindy.

It's easy because you went with the first thing that occurred to you and you are mistaken.

 

3 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

I have this dream, deep down, inside my heart... That you guys are just using the accessibility of Alpha 19 to make money, to recover from the telltale fiasco,

Interesting conspiracy theory....

 

4 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

I'm holding out hope that you guys are pretending to be EA in simplifying your game

We are streamlining and polishing. It is not pretense and it is not to try and be like Electronic Arts other than that there comes a time in ANY project where it is time to transform the rough draft into a final submission and that often involves trimming and polishing. Electronic Arts is often criticized for turning out sequels that are simply dumbed down and polished versions of their previous game. That is not the case here as this game is our first offering. Trying to say that development build 19.4 is more streamlined and polished than development build 16.4 and that is the same thing as EA pumping out sequels that are more streamlined and polished but basically the same as their predecessors is completely off the mark.

 

4 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

pull a Hello Games at the last minute

It's impossible to 100% say whether we will release a finished game that is completely different than what was promised and then a year later patch up that finished game to be closer to what was originally promised  since our game is not in fact finished yet. I can say I very much doubt that we will pull a Hello Games as our list of promised features is even now almost completely fulfilled. Then again you seem to be incapable of understanding the difference between gold released games and their sequels/dlcs/patches and indev projects that iterate from build to build in anticipation of a future gold release.

 

4 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

That in the end, Alpha 16 gameplay...

Let it go. It is long dead. Only a mod will resurrect A16 gameplay because there is absolutely no pathway in the future that leads to TFP releasing a gold version of 7 Days to Die with A16 gameplay. If you are only waiting around for that to happen as possibility please listen to me and believe me that it won't happen. Alpha 16 is strictly history in terms of this game. What about future games by TFP? That is the only hope you can entertain in regards to LBD and the type of chaotic loot you want. It will not happen in this game. There is no twist or surprise ending I assure you. Don't waste your time planning on it. If the way the game plays is not fun enough for you then move on to something that entertains you better. If you like the way the game plays then keep playing it.

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3 hours ago, Roland said:

"We already know our game is successful and we aren't measuring success in terms of any other game. Of course we celebrate milestones like 39K concurrent players and being in the top 100"

"We are streamlining and polishing."
 

But I doubt you'd have that surging milestone in concurrent players though if the core game wasn't made to be more grindy. Skyrim is a streamlined experience because you can jump on a forge to get restoration to 40 anytime you want, that's the definition of streamlined is it not? What you guys did was added more barriers to leveling and loot progression to drag it out for each player, and that led to more concurrent players because it takes more time now for players to get the same amount of satisfaction and fulfillment that they used to get. Before, 70 day runs were the average, and people just wanted to find new seeds run after run, base up in new POI's (Although you guys left the MD5 error unfixed for a year), and look for cool environments in RWG, get different loot every run, and have new weapons and mechanics and better graphics with time. Now most people just play until day 30, maybe character level 60-80, then try a new attribute in a new world with a new character. It definitely doesn't promote long-term investment in its current build. A16 was so good for long-term investment, but yeah obviously you guys left glaring bugs in it that gave it a horrible reputation on consoles and as a result on PC too, so you quickly scrambled to reinvent your game to stop the bad PR and pretend you had the solution all along. All you really had to do was build on A16 with these new weapons and perks without adding attributes and making the gameplay experience less streamlined. 
 

I know you guys feel like you have it figured out and I know it can't be changed. I'm just explaining why you guys are deluded in thinking so and I'm coming across as rude but I'm just being objective. A longer experience is not streamlining, and concurrent players just means you've created a game formula that denies people long term fulfillment. A16 was better for that, minus the state of the animations and everything else. Like I said, the soul is kind of gone. And it's simple deduction that the Telltale fiasco had everything to do with you guys reinventing the game. You're running a business, make your paper. Not here to judge that, just here to say you guys shouldn't throw away the old progression system entirely. It's a mistake. It should be preserved, even as a toggle option in the world-creation menu. Everybody who voted that they liked A17 better were just the people who stuck around after you changed it, them and anybody new who came after the changes. Nobody voted who preferred A16... I certainly didn't, because they, and I, were gone for a while. After the poor console port, the Telltale situation, and you guys dramatically changing the experience on PC with the attribute system, a lot of people just left for a while and felt it was going under. Votes don't mean much when you're only surrounded by supporters. Now, for the graphics, I deal with the new attribute system, but my disappointment is a constant thing. It used to truly feel better to play this game, it was the difference between crack and coke. Now it's crack

Edited by Promethean Winchester (see edit history)
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If I clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 character and no skill investment whatsoever, on Insane Nightmare mode, will you guys put in a toggle option for old school skill progression and chaotic loot? Can I earn it? I'll livestream every attempt until I earn it lmmfao. I will do ANYTHING. I will clear the Shotgun Messiah Factory with a level 1 wooden club and my good intentions beginning to end no editing on the most difficult settings possible to literally earn this, and you gotta understand, that's probably like months of suffering to achieve it. Worth it, I would commit.

Edited by Promethean Winchester (see edit history)
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7 hours ago, Promethean Winchester said:

<snip>

 

It seems we are playing sister worlds with sister bases. Fascinating, quite fascinating.

3 hours ago, Roland said:

That is temporary. It is already improved in A20 and will continue to be improved as time goes on. However, there is likely to always be primitive weaponry to be found in containers during the first week if you are looting in an area that does not have a modified gamestage.

 

While I am open to the idea of at least some variety, it would be unfortunate if the gamestage increase of some biomes was great enough that it discouraged the player from looting in the forest biome almost entirely. (Ex. Why loot in the forest biome to find quality level 1 AK's and the like where as if you loot in the wasteland you can get quality level 4 or 5 equivalent weapons.) Hopefully the new dangers of the wasteland can really create an in-depth risk and reward system.

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57 minutes ago, Peteras0 said:

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.

 

Trains!?

 

I think this fine post by @Morloc answers your question nicely. 😉

 

On 1/16/2021 at 5:44 PM, Morloc said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvampyrefangs.files.word

 

 

 

-Morloc

 

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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.

 

 

 

 

They are getting combined into 1 biome...

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11 minutes ago, Invîs said:

Hello everyone, I heard there was once a dog companion planned but then got cancled. Is there for the future any other kind of npc companion planned?

Thanks for your time :)

 

In A20 if you max out the Strength tree you'll get a little Madmole companion.  All he does is comment on how he'd own you at Quake and make fun of your little bird arms.  Once in a while he'll tell you to "get to the choppa", it's a fine addition to the game.

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Hi Roland, I'm Miguel and I'm spanish from Spain.
I would like some translations of the game to be correctly corrected from Spanish.

Here the following:

 

"Revolver" is "pistola".

"Metralleta AK-47" is "fusil de asalto AK-47" or "rifle de asalto AK-47".

"Metralleta M60" is "ametralladora M60".

Where the configuration options of a new game, the option: "marcar las gotas de aire" could be "suministros aéreos".

where the map in the game, "se siente como" could be "temperatura ambiental".

In the skills, where perception, "El penetrador" sounds fatal in spanish. Could be "el acechador".

Looking for loot in safes, the one called "caja fuerte empotrable" could be "caja fuerte", "empotrable" sounds fatal in spanish.

 

Greetings Roland, Madmole and everyone.

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

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