A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[doughphunghus]

26 minutes ago, Roland said:

These days, people will refund the game within their two-hour window if they can’t handle the default difficulty rather than turn down the difficulty and play “baby” mode. 

Actually... this got me thinking...

I've seen younger (e.g under 18) kids try to play games I recommend to them and  I’ve seen them give up immediately when things turn out they are not OP immediately. Of course, these are family/relatives, and I’m trying to keep them from being bored, and I’m the older person, and these are not “gamer” kids.... but yeah, I think the basic phone games taught them that that’s all games are, and they never get immersed or spend time on anything that takes up any time. Games are for 5 min distractions, not days of playing the same game.  It is likely also because of the huge game variety these days, everyone just jumps around barely playing anything (“li have 1 hour to burn, let’s try 7d2d!... man, that was boring nothing happened. How about rocket league!”) and rarely “gets pulled in” to a game they personally love. Yeah, not everyone likes every game type, or has time, etc. ...

 

anyway, this reminded me of Diablo 3? Where when you start out, you can see this “locked” massive progression tree of “this makes the game harder”. It’s not like 3 levels, it’s like 10+... and it keeps going!  Maybe, instead of having “nomad” and “adventurer” and the few obvious difficulty settings, the “default” is actually the easiest/lowest,  And then add more default difficulty settings.  Maybe 6-8 total?  
 

this would make the “first time player” (more importantly, the “non or super casual gamer”) feel like they are not going to have to set it to “boring baby mode” to play/learn (and might just walk away without trying) as the default will actually be a super low difficulty bar, and everyone can see “there’s a lot of levels to ramp this up to”, so maybe experienced players will immediately sett it off of the low default, and pick “something in the middle, as I am already a master player”  but also won’t easily be able to jack it up to “insane” when they start playing because it will literally be insane, vs now it seems a lot of streamers can play this mode. I think “insane” should almost be unplayable unless you learn to run and hide a lot, fighting 1 zed at a time.

 

 

 

 

[mstdv inc]

  

57 minutes ago, Roland said:

That’s because the default was lowered a couple of years ago now so the number of complaints about the game being too hard are much more scarce now—you’re correct. But they were plentiful back in the day as well as lots of conversations on the forum suggesting that people turn down the difficulty when they complained that the game was “unfair”.
 

You can believe what you want but I have the benefit of having seen things both before and after the default difficulty change.
 

Like I said, people like you will, at an instant, be willing to come here and admit that the game is sooooo easy and you can only get enjoyment by playing insane nightmare 64 max alive 25% loot permadeath. Those who struggle with surviving even at the present settings don’t like to brag about that fact. Instead they call the game “crap” and “poorly balanced” and “unfair”.
 

the game has ALWAYS had frame rate issues on certain hardware in the past, there were bad reviews about bad performance AND due to difficulty. These days, as you admitted, most bad reviews are about bad frame rates and that is because of a very smart change to the default difficulty that was made.

 

Considering that I came to the game together with the release of A18. 2 and this was my first game with the crafting mechanics, I spent the first 50 hours trying to understand how and what works.I started over 6 or 7 times because the zombies destroyed my wooden box over and over again along with all the resources.

As a beginner at the beginning of the game, I was not explained that you can survive in ready-made buildings,and build your own (I thought that this is mandatory).
I was not told what resources are valuable,that there is a knife that can be used to cut up the remains of people and animals,that there is a wrench that can be used to extract mechanical parts and electrics.
I was not told about the upgrade of the block further than the tree.
I was seriously demolishing a cobblestone wall,putting steel frames in its place, and pouring them into concrete.
And I made a lot of mistakes before I lived through 10 blood moons.
I have 600+ hours in the game, but Insane and 64 zombies are still a lot for me, hardcore players are not so much, they just scream louder

Each of the five trader has many unused buildings on their territory.Perhaps it makes sense to use them for advanced training in the mechanics of the game.
And the training itself could be added as an item in the dialogue with the trader.

upd
And in fact, in the beginning, I was so involved in the game that I didn't pay attention to the FPS

Edited March 18, 2021 by mstdv inc (see edit history)

[Roland]

52 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Yeh, that's why the game's player base back when it was hard was so small and the reviews were so poor.

 

...oh wait. 😉

 

But...the game's player base WAS small and as a fledgling game the number of reviews were also small. As the game gained notoriety and the player base grew then a larger population of reviews came in and there were a much more significant number of poor reviews based on the learning curve of the game. You always say you understand why the developers make decisions to turn this game more mainstream and approachable even though you dislike the changes and would like for it to keep it's unique and complex processes and unforgiving survival mechanics because it makes for a more interesting game. I agree that the complexity and unforgiving difficulty make for a more interesting game. I also believe that such a game will always remain niche.

 

Sure, those of us who were here at and near the beginning and are still here playing, figured out the mechanics and stuck with the game even though we died a lot at first. But that doesn't make us typical players. Typical players die several times and then call the game stupid and uninstall it-- or even worse...refund if that option is still available. So if you make a lower difficulty the new default but keep the old default as a higher setting then you are including a lot more people and those who like it tougher can turn it up and feel better about themselves.

[Matt115]

A little bit offtop  but bandit camps coulde be good idea : small ones : just  small barricade bulding 2-3 archers (or blunderbuss) and 1 heavy bandit , medium takeover trader camp  4-5 archers 1-2 low tier gunners ( huting rilfe and pistols) , 2 -3 meeles and purple tier stuff chief( steel armor with shotgun or smg). Big camp could be military base : 4-5 gunners with smg or shotguns , 4 meeles with heavy steel sledgehammers , 1-2 with military snaiper rifle and boss with m60 or rpg. This  places could be part of quest or just POI but with reward chest  with rarity like : small camp - wood chest  with  low tier guns tools etc ,  medium - 2 wood  chest and 1 iron with medium tier items   , big with 5  wood chest 2 iron and 1 miltary with top tier stuff. what do you thinking about it? 

[Gazz]

It has become pretty common to call the easiest difficulty "Story Mode" but unfortunately we can't really do that due to the absence of a story. =P

[Blake_]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

Don't sweat over performance, event-handling done right is very very cheap. You have the drying events in a list sorted by time (sort is done by a fast insertion sort) and each tick just check the first entry whether it is due.

 

 

It sure is a non issue for performance. Not having wet concrete will still be cheaper. there's two fronts here:

 

1- The timer/tick drying stuff that you just said.

2- The texture switching.

 

The impact is low though. It's noticeable on rigs like mine and depends on the quantity of blocks involved. If you have 100+ of blocks on a timer very close together upgraded by that one-hit driver then a 2-5 fps is normal on my system.

 

1 hour ago, Guppycur said:

Yeh, that's why the game's player base back when it was hard was so small and the reviews were so poor.

 

...oh wait. 😉

 

Anything you say will be true. I can say the contrary and it will also be true. Why? because there are tens of thousands of reviews to pick from. So go play Subsistence, It's everything you ever wanted, a second life with hard threats, lots of convoluted recipes and infinite grinding. Hopefully you can mod in a way to insta-die on spawn. You may call it "Fantasy bloody playground with wands".

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Gazz said:

It has become pretty common to call the easiest difficulty "Story Mode" but unfortunately we can't really do that due to the absence of a story. =P

The story is in the Journal. You just need to read it.

 

...oh wait. 😉

[Tharkon]

Are there any plans on making Super Corn useful in A20? I noticed a commented out section for a Corn Meal recipe.

I am asking because I am thinking about modding the game to make it useful but if it is included in A20 I might just wait for that instead.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Tharkon (see edit history)

[beerfly]

On 3/17/2021 at 6:18 PM, Roland said:

The pipe shotgun looks pretty junky and definitely like it was jury-rigged together. Functionally it is the same as the blunderbuss but uses up shotgun ammo. There’s lots of shotgun ammo to be found...

Sounds awesome, wish they had a chance to misfire or something. Nevermind, I know this has been talked about and answer was no.

 

Hope you have a good game play story to tease us a bit, when the game state allows it in the future. 

[pregnable]

3 hours ago, Gazz said:

It has become pretty common to call the easiest difficulty "Story Mode" but unfortunately we can't really do that due to the absence of a story. =P

 

When you said that, the image of turning the games story mode into a dating sim, where you date the traders, popped into my head. 

 

I can see the player base romancing trader Rekt now, with a popup dialog box, with an anime bishounen version of him winking at you. 

 

I believe the entire community supports you on this new vision of 7 Dates to Die. 

[Roland]

3 hours ago, pregnable said:

 

When you said that, the image of turning the games story mode into a dating sim, where you date the traders, popped into my head. 

 

I can see the player base romancing trader Rekt now, with a popup dialog box, with an anime bishounen version of him winking at you. 

 

I believe the entire community supports you on this new vision of 7 Dates to Die. 

 

[MechanicalLens]

6 hours ago, Tharkon said:

Are there any plans on making Super Corn useful in A20? I noticed a commented out section for a Corn Meal recipe.

I am asking because I am thinking about modding the game to make it useful but if it is included in A20 I might just wait for that instead.

 

Recently I cooked up 7,000 glue from super corn. I'd say that's useful enough.  

[Guppycur]

11 hours ago, Roland said:

But...the game's player base WAS small and as a fledgling game the number of reviews were also small. As the game gained notoriety and the player base grew then a larger population of reviews came in and there were a much more significant number of poor reviews based on the learning curve of the game. You always say you understand why the developers make decisions to turn this game more mainstream and approachable even though you dislike the changes and would like for it to keep it's unique and complex processes and unforgiving survival mechanics because it makes for a more interesting game. I agree that the complexity and unforgiving difficulty make for a more interesting game. I also believe that such a game will always remain niche.

 

Sure, those of us who were here at and near the beginning and are still here playing, figured out the mechanics and stuck with the game even though we died a lot at first. But that doesn't make us typical players. Typical players die several times and then call the game stupid and uninstall it-- or even worse...refund if that option is still available. So if you make a lower difficulty the new default but keep the old default as a higher setting then you are including a lot more people and those who like it tougher can turn it up and feel better about themselves.

This could be more of a failing of the tutorials than of the "hard" game mechanics.  Yes I get the business decision to cater to casuals and consolers, but don't conflate that with the success of the game when it came out.

 

We will never know what drove the success, or what "could have been"... Sure it's understandable to go with mainstream thinking and keep the game casual and at 25 hours, and it's easy to say the sales climb is a result of the destruction of difficulty, but it's equally easy to say the climb could have been higher if the game was left complex and the rust buddy analysis ignored. (Shrug)

 

At any rate, it's moot.  The player base has certainly shifted though...

 

But, question... 

 

The game grew successful despite it not having a tutorial for x years and despite it not initially being written with that sweet console money in mind.  

 

Why do you think that is?  What did drive its initial success?

 

Me, I think it captured the hard core audience that's capable of thought and who doesn't need instant gratification, then lost *that* audience then captured the casuals.

 

Was that the plan?  Dunno.  Seemed to work though.

 

But then how do you attribute Valheim's success?  It has the complexity 7 days lost, and the grind 7 days removed...

 

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling.  I did just wake from a glorious nap.  At 11pm.

[Ringkeeper]

1 hour ago, Guppycur said:

But then how do you attribute Valheim's success?  It has the complexity 7 days lost, and the grind 7 days removed...

 

Exactly that's why... it is simple enough that the lowest potato understands it and survives the crucial first 2h ... the grind comes later  

Depending how low you set the start, you attract more or less people. All depends how much of the cake you as developer want to sacrifice for your vision of the game. Worse on big companies, as they have to please the shareholders.

 

And you can't compare early 7DTD audience with Valheim audience... in-between are 10 years with hundreds of other similar games (afaik 7DTD was one of the first ones after Minecraft that had not only building or?) so people are kinda feed with that kind of games.

Also the gamer that started 7DTD where in a age range that still knew old games where "lol you play bad, you are dead" was the standard. I still think Dark Souls 3 was only that successful because it got hyped like crazy, looking that the first part was sold only a fraction of it....

 

In my opinion, 7DTD is at the moment (Alpha 19) kinda balanced between "i just want to relax my 40+ year old ass" and "i want to have a hard time"... you can choose with mods your own playstyle (jep, mods are important^^)

Edited March 19, 2021 by Ringkeeper (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

6 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

I really appreciate all that stuff, but...well...with my potato rig any possible future "4K-turbo-rendering-version" of Joel will - in any case -just look like this:

 

 

so thanks for nothing 😂

 

Consider it another form of art. Take Terraria as a reference. 😛

[Diragor]

15 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

As I observe from the reviews of beginners, most often they refuse to play because of problems with the frame rate on the actual hardware

Well I bet most of them try the highest settings cause Graphic>>>>>>>>>>gameplay

Just play on lower settings and it works great. I don't have a good PC (not even an SSD) but I can play this game without a problem just with lower settings. and it doesn't look bad without ultra mega super duper 4k. Why are people such graphic sl*ts

[Jost Amman]

8 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Now we know where that super corn went... 

[Jost Amman]

4 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

As it is not exactly mentioned in the first post,

I would like to ask how the "new door tech" is coming along (madmole showed that hilarious teaser vid a while ago where the door blasted into pieces and poor arlene bellyflopping down the stairs 😆)

 

As I understood he was just experimenting around at that point.

 

So how far did that make progress?

Will that eventually make it into A20?

Or was it dropped/given up because of whatever reasons?

 

One word: Ziplines! 

 

On a side note... that grumpy owl picture makes me crack every time I see it lol

Edited March 19, 2021 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[meilodasreh]

4 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

Take Terraria as a reference. 😛

I had another game in mind when i saw the result of my pixeled Joel:

 

So now I guess I will find out that I am really really old...or does anyone else here recognize him?

[Jost Amman]

56 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

I had another game in mind when i saw the result of my pixeled Joel:

 

So now I guess I will find out that I am really really old...or does anyone else here recognize him?

Manic Miner's character running on the Sinclair ZX-Spectrum? 

[uncle.heavy]

1 hour ago, meilodasreh said:

 

So now I guess I will find out that I am really really old...or does anyone else here recognize him?

You have not lived without a playthrough of

Spoiler

Rick Dangerous

Not. One. Instant.

Edited March 19, 2021 by uncle.heavy (see edit history)

[meganoth]

While the success of Valheim provides some valuable lessons, just copying what it did would be a mistake. Games have success because (a) they get the crucial word of mouth and (b) because they find a niche that isn't filled at the moment.

 

The first can't be copied. It is a function of luck and in some cases the right decision to hire the right streamers on the right platform(s) and generally the feel of the first 2 hours of gameplay. With none of the current hypes there is any guarantee that they will have long-term success. Lots of people already stopped playing Valheim and lots of people only bought it because EVERYONE was playing it. I know, I bought it exactly because I wanted to know why it got all that buzz.

 

Now it doesn't matter for Valheim anymore, they got enough sales to last them a few years whatever happens. But such a hype can't easily be replicated and in the case of 7D2D being on the market for 8 years makes it twice as difficult to generate a sudden hype. Not impossible, but very very hard.

 

The latter (occupying the niche) can not be copied directly as well. Because now that niche is filled by Valheim, simple as that. There is space for multiple games in any niche, but it is a clear case of diminishing returns the more games try to go there.

 

But I concur with Guppycur on the general principle that difficult, complex or grindy games can have a lot of success, they just need to find a place where a demand exists that is not met by other games. And that is the problem when you try to cater for the mainstream players. There lots of bigger shinier AAA and "easy listening" games fill that demand and a game by a small developer would need to compete with all the AAA companies on THEIR home turf.

 

That is why 7D2D may still need ways to make the first 2 hours fun for any beginner, but after that needs the complexity and depth to keep its core audience for the long-term success.

Edited March 19, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meilodasreh]

55 minutes ago, uncle.heavy said:

You have not lived without a playthrough of

  Reveal hidden contents

Rick Dangerous

 

we have a winner 👍

phew its been decades since...

[Guppycur]

And we are practically on rails these days... Do this, in this order, or die.  Sandbox play is broken... I guess you technically could, but it's no longer fun.  Not enough to do.  And there used to be.  The devs (well, Joel) have said time and again "we want you to do xyz".  And it shows.  

[Jost Amman]

35 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

And we are practically on rails these days... Do this, in this order, or die.  Sandbox play is broken... I guess you technically could, but it's no longer fun.  Not enough to do.  And there used to be.  The devs (well, Joel) have said time and again "we want you to do xyz".  And it shows.  

I partially disagree with your analysis. TFP, and especially Joel, have always tried to keep the game on track with THEIR vision, that's all.

I don't see 7D2D forcing anyone doing the same exact things to survive or win: there's plenty of ways you can play and thrive (excluding nightmare/insane modes).

 

The part that I agree with is that TFP have never wanted this game to be one where you can ignore the horde or thrive just by comfortably sitting in your base building stuff, so they added game mechanics to discourage that.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Jost Amman (see edit history)