Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Roland]

28 minutes ago, sloejack said:

This change (A21) appears to remove the common building blocks of character development and throws it all at (weighted) RNG based on a path selection.  This makes magazines more important to being able to play the game than they currently are and by extension increases the luck factor of the game.  If it's weighted so heavy as to effectively grant the same capabilities by forcing the magazines that drive the same progression onto you then the value of the change is just change for change's sake.

 

But it is limited to learning recipes. You are not improving your skills by random means. In A20, if you take miner 69er and mother lode, for example, they improved your block damage and increased the yields you got from harvesting as well as grant you recipes to craft higher tier tools. In A21, if you take miner 69er and mother lode you will still improve your block damage and increase the yields you get from harvesting and probably 69er will be the one to give a slight boost to finding tool magazines in loot. The skill will just not unlock recipes any more.

 

But there are lots of ways to get higher tier tools. Someone else can craft one for you. Someone can bring you back one that they found in loot. You can buy one at the trader. However you get your tools, you will deterministically be able to control how skilled you are with them just like A20. The only thing you won't be able to do is craft them yourself until you read enough magazines.

 

So in looking at the perks is the common building blocks of character development the number of recipes we know or is it the abilities and skills we gain from perks. Remember that all of the tier 2 and tier 3 recipes were learned by looting in A20 already. So the new method is really just a step forward from that. We are learning recipes from schematics but in little bits at a time instead of all at once from one schematic. But I'd say that if your team was able to function when recipes were learned by acquiring schematics they will be able to adapt to recipes being learned by acquiring magazines. Non-looters will still be able to perk up their skills just like normal and be reliant upon team mates to share with them the tools and such that they find just like happens now.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

I told my group about the changes and we all agree they're entirely positive.

 

For those who are worried that this increases the RNG for learning, that's not how maths works.

 

If the old system gave you a (1 in x) chance of finding a recipe all at once when you looted, while the new system gives you a (1 in 100*x ) chance of finding a magazine but you need to read 100 magazines to get the recipe, the distribution of probabilities will be different.

 

Both distribution have the same peak - i.e. on average you would expect to get the recipe after looting X times - but the distribution for the old all-or-nothing version has much longer tails to it - i.e. you're much likely to either get really lucky and get the recipe early or get really unlucky and get the recipe late.

 

By increasing the sample size while keeping the same mean you end up with a more reliable (and less "RNG") estimate of how long it will take to find each recipe. It prevents both the "I found the steel armour recipe on day one" situation that the devs want to avoid and the "I got to day 250 and still haven't found steel armour" situation that players want to avoid.

[POCKET951]

9 minutes ago, A Nice Cup of Tea said:

 

 

By increasing the sample size while keeping the same mean you end up with a more reliable (and less "RNG") estimate of how long it will take to find each recipe. It prevents both the "I found the steel armour recipe on day one" situation that the devs want to avoid and the "I got to day 250 and still haven't found steel armour" situation that players want to avoid.

It also avoids the "It's day 196 , I am level 278 and my lootstage is 330 in the forest and I can't find an anvil schematic because I don't have one and it won't drop because my lootstage is too high" problem

 

[NukemDed]

cant find an anvil?

build another forge

x2 to speed...

[beerfly]

13 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

cant find an anvil?

build another forge

x2 to speed...

Wait, you guys build a second forge ? 

 

*running away*

[NukemDed]

well yes. record must be about 20. that was building a massive base. all made of concrete. had 10 cement mixers too. i did have  an auger. only needed 1 of those.

[Matt115]

10 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

I'm sorry Matt...but...

Well.... so :

shorter version -  forcing specialisation is more immersive because.. this works in our times too because it's complicated enough so if someone want be rly good in something he have to focus on that thing. If 7dtd were let say - set in early medieval it could work for example : everyone using spear because it's cheap and easy to make. But it's better to buy Pike from Tom because he made few of them because he found harder wood

[Callum123456789]

i mean i kinda see where mad done is coming from but just sitting away in one area mining and mining and mining....well i wouldn't say myself its a good way to experience the game and i feel like looting as a whole would be more fun to progress through skills rather than mining for hours on end. i understand its the way you play and maybe even how 10% of the games population plays but this play style isnt really the best as levelling up entirely to get everything seems like a really cheesy way to get your better tools and craft better stuff etc i dunno i love the sound of the new changes i know others might not but hey its 7 days to die the game is ever changing and we will adapt to it its the reason why i love it

[Blake_]

7dtd is already pretty streamlined. Magazines don't add a thing if we don't want or need to craft anything but provide an alternative to do exactly that at any point, AND with added benefits compared to a20 (the empty space from the perk gets new bonuses) . We can just get everything from looting or buying it at a trader. I don't see a single problem, not even an increase in gameplay time - which was always high- , just a more balanced curve . Nevertheless, It's important to rant towards TFP . They are an evil corporation that thrives in the fun of the weak. Their substenance is gameplay time.

[RipClaw]

18 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

i mean i kinda see where mad done is coming from but just sitting away in one area mining and mining and mining....well i wouldn't say myself its a good way to experience the game and i feel like looting as a whole would be more fun to progress through skills rather than mining for hours on end.

It always depends on how you look at it. For me, looting is boring. I open a loot container, either find something useful or not and move on to the next loot container. In between killing a few zombies but none of it requires any problem solving or creativity.

 

The fun for me starts with building and mining is part of it. When I build something I often have to solve problems and you can get creative. Sometimes I can even combine building and mining like with my current underground base.

 

By the way, you can't get everything in A20 just by sitting in the mine and farming XP. All T2 and T3 recipes require that you find the schematics. For example, I can build an iron pickaxe but neither a steel pickaxe nor an auger without the schematics.

 

 

[dcsobral]

On 5/21/2022 at 6:41 PM, Laz Man said:

 

Let me rephrase that.  Magazine stores will be hot targets as well....😆

So, basically, this was madmole's attempt to appease Mat115 by making newstands more relevant? 😜

[Guppycur]

So as you know, Valheim is a fantastic game, and has many many features I'd love to see in 7days.  I've been slowly modding features in, but I was wondering about fast travel/portals?

 

Have y'all considered introducing them?

 

On one hand, it doesn't really fit thematically with the current stage of the game, but on the other, if earned or as a quest reward or as a jump start to a quest itself, it could be an amazing add.

 

Something I hope you guys consider.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgCDX7NioZE

 

Another thing I'm wholly interested in is upgrading workbenches by placing bench addon's nearby; I know we used to be able to upgrade workbenches by adding things like a crucible and whatnot, have y'all put any consideration into workbench upgrades by proximity?

 

[LagunaFox]

Now then, I apologize for the double post but I really want to say that I love this idea. I've always had a bone to pick with the way crafting weapons works in this game honestly (I started with alpha 19 myself but I do have nearly 1,000 hours in the game at this point). I always hated that you can just go kill 1,000 zombies, level up and spend the perk point to improve something that will let you craft better weapons. I'm sorry but killing zombies does not make the knowledge on how to make a better gun just pop in your head, it doesn't work like that lol.

 

The old learning by doing system had potential and I played the Darkness Falls mod at least in part because I wanted to experience that system but I ultimately found that it was very resource intensive, mostly the resource of time - it took forever to upgrade skill levels that way by doing very tedious work. I think this new system is the most logical, realistic and immersive system that you could use honestly. If civilization ended tomorrow most of us wouldn't have any idea how to build a gun or maintain it, however we can read so all we need is to find a set of instructions.

I also hated that some gun schematics were entirely pointless. Like why does the ak schematic even exist? If you are going to be making an ak you are going to be putting points into the machine gunner perk to create higher quality guns and the very first perk point you put into machine gunner automatically unlocks ak crafting anyway. There is literally no point in that schematic existing what so ever, same can be said for the pistol schematic or the double barrel shotgun schematic.

I have mixed feelings on linking magazine drop rates to the weapon perks. On the one hand I like the ability to influence what kind of drops I'm going to get so that I can create a specific build that I want to use. I've often felt like the smg gets relegated to late game a little too much when I think it should be a mid game alternative to things like the ak and tactical assault rifle. On the other hand I'm worried that this means you'll never get magazines for weapon classes that you aren't putting perk points into making it a little harder to have a good variety of weapons that use all the ammo types in the game. The main reason why I think the changes to ammo drops and other things work currently is because you can just make the pipe guns and use a different ammo type with another gun when you run out of one kind of ammo, even more so when you move past the pipe weapons into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tiers of loot.

I think overall this will be an excellent addition to the game but I really hope we don't have a ton of really badly balanced versions of this initially or it will put a lot of people off on the system entirely. First impressions do matter a fair bit so I hope a lot of time and effort goes into finding the right balance for this system in terms of drops and how they scale with the pace of leveling up and increasing difficulty as we players progress through the game.

[Matt115]

1 minute ago, LagunaFox said:

Now then, I apologize for the double post but I really want to say that I love this idea. I've always had a bone to pick with the way crafting weapons works in this game honestly (I started with alpha 19 myself but I do have nearly 1,000 hours in the game at this point). I always hated that you can just go kill 1,000 zombies, level up and spend the perk point to improve something that will let you craft better weapons. I'm sorry but killing zombies does not make the knowledge on how to make a better gun just pop in your head, it doesn't work like that lol.

 

 

Well... this works this way sometimes. i'm not  joking. Ofc you will not figured out how to make AK47 but you can figured out something unespected - few gunsmith by their war experience use a strange solution to improve weapons

2 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

This is something I absolutely love about Valheim. You upgrade your workstation and decorate your shop at the same time. Terraria also does this. It is very satisfying. I hope TFP considers this strongly for their next game if it even has craft stations.

Yes i love this too. and honestly... i hope this will have a lot of upgrades

[Roland]

28 minutes ago, LagunaFox said:

Now then, I apologize for the double post but I really want to say that I love this idea. I've always had a bone to pick with the way crafting weapons works in this game honestly (I started with alpha 19 myself but I do have nearly 1,000 hours in the game at this point). I always hated that you can just go kill 1,000 zombies, level up and spend the perk point to improve something that will let you craft better weapons. I'm sorry but killing zombies does not make the knowledge on how to make a better gun just pop in your head, it doesn't work like that lol.

 

The old learning by doing system had potential and I played the Darkness Falls mod at least in part because I wanted to experience that system but I ultimately found that it was very resource intensive, mostly the resource of time - it took forever to upgrade skill levels that way by doing very tedious work. I think this new system is the most logical, realistic and immersive system that you could use honestly. If civilization ended tomorrow most of us wouldn't have any idea how to build a gun or maintain it, however we can read so all we need is to find a set of instructions.

 

Thanks for coming out of lurking. Hope you continue to post

 

The new system isn't going to remove the feeling of killing zombies and then getting better at farming (for example). You will still earn xp for killing zombies which will poop out skill points when you level up which you can then use to better yourself at things that have nothing to do with killing zombies. The best solution for that is to play the game without specifically trying to grind for xp doing just one activity that seems to be the best generator. If you focus on doing some of everything then the skill points feel like a general reward for being a well rounded survivor and then there isn't that feeling of disconnect between how you get the points and what you spend on them.

 

But I agree that where crafting is concerned the new system really delivers on giving you the feeling that you are learning to craft better by finding and piecing together old world knowledge which is definitely better than kill zombies -->make better shovel.

 

28 minutes ago, LagunaFox said:

I also hated that some gun schematics were entirely pointless. Like why does the ak schematic even exist? If you are going to be making an ak you are going to be putting points into the machine gunner perk to create higher quality guns and the very first perk point you put into machine gunner automatically unlocks ak crafting anyway. There is literally no point in that schematic existing what so ever, same can be said for the pistol schematic or the double barrel shotgun schematic.

 

Yeah weird...There were no pipe weapons before A20 so perhaps they thought that if someone who didn't plan to perk into machine guns found an AK47 recipe early and could craft one for themselves it would be pretty cool and a nice alternative to the primitive bow or blunderbus. But I agree that finding one outside of the first week or so is probably pointless.

 

28 minutes ago, LagunaFox said:

On the other hand I'm worried that this means you'll never get magazines for weapon classes that you aren't putting perk points into making it a little harder to have a good variety of weapons that use all the ammo types in the game.

 

Don't worry. If anything you will wonder whether the perk boost is actually helping you because you get such a mixture of so many different magazines... 

 

28 minutes ago, LagunaFox said:

I think overall this will be an excellent addition to the game but I really hope we don't have a ton of really badly balanced versions of this initially or it will put a lot of people off on the system entirely. First impressions do matter a fair bit so I hope a lot of time and effort goes into finding the right balance for this system in terms of drops and how they scale with the pace of leveling up and increasing difficulty as we players progress through the game.

 

We'll see  Things will definitely be spicy after A21 releases because everyone who suspected they wouldn't like and then try it and don't like it will come back to give their feedback.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[Uncle Al]

The forthcoming crafting system seems to be raising an interest in discussing learn by doing systems again.  I'm unsure why, but for what it's worth, here's some comments on LBD with reference to the proposed crafting system:

 

I'm a firm believer that gameplay trumps realism when it comes to game systems.  I'm happy with being able to carry quarter of a million tons of concrete, but forty different types of flower slows me to a crawl.

 

That said, I don't think LBD systems are so much 'more realistic' than the perk allocation systems.  You don't learn to make steel tools by working in stone.  So with most LBD systems the knowledge still 'pops into your head'.  If you want a realistic LBD system you should have to try and do things like make a pistol, with a 0.1% chance of success, because you have no skill, and you ruin the parts if you fail.  If you succeed, you get a chance for a skill up in pistol smithing.  Realistic, yes, but it sounds like a horrible game system.

 

'By doing' systems aways run into the issue that you don't want people to learn from doing, you want them to learn from 'doing usefully'.  Constructing lots of rules for what's useful (can you skill up by repeatedly hurting your team mate then healing each other up, thus gaining weapon and first aid skills?) requires intensive development.  It's far easier, and actually gets a similar result overall, if you just abstract 'doing something useful' into exp and let players gain exp by 'doing anything useful'.  That's the current perk approach - killing zombies, building, crafting and trading are seen as 'useful' so they give exp, and you don't worry too much past that point.

 

The downside is there's no granularity to exp.  You just gain it in the same flavour no matter how you earn it.  Varying the method of earning exp just varies the rate of gain - mining and building win out in the current model.  That's not too big a problem because most players aren't fanatical min-maxers, and there are other benefits to killing the zombie who's chewing your face off even though ignoring them and keeping mining is better from a pure exp standpoint.  Gaining xp without gaining gear is also not purely beneficial due to other game systems.

 

For crafting, the new system adds some granularity.  You still have to do 'something useful' to skill up (loot appropriate containers) but what you loot, and what perks you've picked, influence the type of exp you get.  It seems a good trade off where 'doing something useful' is still pretty abstracted, but the player has some control over the outcome.  After all, isn't that what we want from a progression system?  Agency, visible improvement, an avoidance of having to do 'weird things' (cacti anyone) in order to progress our characters and a development effort that's reasonable within the timeline of the project (so no sets of thousands of rules as to which scenarios should 'count' for learning and which don't).

 

My biggest concern for the proposed system is actually the biggest weakness of LBD - there's a risk of ending up with builds all being very similar.  A system where you have to sacrifice something else to skill up in athletics, for example, generates much more diversity than one where your skill ticks up from running.  Hopefully the ability to target containers, coupled with adjustment to magazine drops by perks, will prevent this happening.

[POCKET951]

57 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

 

The best solution for that is to play the game without specifically trying to grind for xp doing just one activity that seems to be the best generator. If you focus on doing some of everything then the skill points feel like a general reward for being a well rounded survivor and then there isn't that feeling of disconnect between how you get the points and what you spend on them.

 

 Speaking of everything giving exp. Is there any chance harvesting your farm crops could give a little more exp than it currently does? it rewards a pitiful amount of exp compared to everything else you do that DOES give you exp. Building gives you boatloads more exp.  I wouldn't mind if farming exp was a bit more substantial because farming exp is just so inconsequential atm. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by POCKET951 (see edit history)

[Matt115]

36 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

The forthcoming crafting system seems to be raising an interest in discussing learn by doing systems again.  I'm unsure why, but for what it's worth, here's some comments on LBD with reference to the proposed crafting system:

 

 

Well this interesting topic because it's something new - there is no point to talk about caves or zombie variants because nothing new happens about that

[BobbyLee298]

I know LBD is gone but honestly it would been cool to see a comeback for the small things like looting and crafting speeds (not crafting tiers that was op). like yes people used to abuse the system and get their levels up fast but for something like looting, there's really no way of "boosting" because you have to loot a different containers every time so technically you just gotta go out and loot. Its was a fun PASSIVE mechanic in the game that whenever you saw something like "Looting Leveled up" it would be a "o nice" moment... 

 

 

Also the new crafting system LBL sounds cool, but its also seems like a glorified schematic system with tiers tied to it... Honestly tho cant wait to try it out to get a real impression of it, for all i know this could be a nice add-on to the game! maybe... ha

 

 

And since im ranting already.... This one is more of a question.

Death in A19 is meh i can die and its not a big deal, heck my broken foot and infections are gone! All you lose is just some XP and yours stats are down until you make the xp back... Does TFP have any plans on updating the death system to be alittle more undesirable?       say like the old wellness system

[Matt115]

4 minutes ago, BobbyLee298 said:

I know LBD is gone but honestly it would been cool to see a comeback for the small things like looting and crafting speeds (not crafting tiers that was op). like yes people used to abuse the system and get their levels up fast but for something like looting, there's really no way of "boosting" because you have to loot a different containers every time so technically you just gotta go out and loot. Its was a fun PASSIVE mechanic in the game that whenever you saw something like "Looting Leveled up" it would be a "o nice" moment... 

 

 

Also the new crafting system LBL sounds cool, but its also seems like a glorified schematic system with tiers tied to it... Honestly tho cant wait to try it out to get a real impression of it, for all i know this could be a nice add-on to the game! maybe... ha

 

 

And since im ranting already.... This one is more of a question.

Death in A19 is meh i can die and its not a big deal, heck my broken foot and infections are gone! All you lose is just some XP and yours stats are down until you make the xp back... Does TFP have any plans on updating the death system to be alittle more undesirable?       say like the old wellness system

Probably not because "7dtd is base for mods"

[Blake_]

7 hours ago, Guppycur said:

So as you know, Valheim is a fantastic game, and has many many features I'd love to see in 7days.  I've been slowly modding features in, but I was wondering about fast travel/portals?

 

Have y'all considered introducing them?

 

On one hand, it doesn't really fit thematically with the current stage of the game, but on the other, if earned or as a quest reward or as a jump start to a quest itself, it could be an amazing add.

 

Something I hope you guys consider.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgCDX7NioZE

 

Another thing I'm wholly interested in is upgrading workbenches by placing bench addon's nearby; I know we used to be able to upgrade workbenches by adding things like a crucible and whatnot, have y'all put any consideration into workbench upgrades by proximity?

 

Workbench upgrades are a "meh" from me. Bases are usually crowded enough already, and it would be only visual as the feature is already in.

 

"Portals" are a strong YES though, as a fast travel option, like a guy with a car/horse that takes you to a quest or a trader for X amount of dukes, I deem it very cool.  It may need to be instantaneous, for MP reasons.

[Deceptive Pastry]

11 hours ago, Laz Man said:

However, the devs have a different view on how 7d2d should be played.

This would be less of a problem if the devs view on how 7d should be played wasn't different from their own view a few years ago, and wasn't constantly changing. But this really encapsulates my experience with 7 days since I've started playing. We are at the whims of developers who are constantly changing their minds and nothing is going to change that, and nobody will be able to get used to or pin down what the experience of playing 7 days is like or is "supposed" to be like until it is finished, whenever that may be. Until then, those of us who were more happy with what the devs views were 3-4 years ago when we originally bought the game will have to mod.

Also, part of the draw of survival crafting games like this is having more freedom as to how to play. That in itself is a selling point. 7 days increasingly tells us that more and more of our playstyles are "wrong", apparently.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Deceptive Pastry (see edit history)

[faatal]

On 5/24/2022 at 1:11 AM, KhaineGB said:

Nice. Any new features in that release you guys can take advantage of? Or just wanting to stay current?

Nothing in particular. A few editor improvements. Performance seems a bit better.

[KhaineGB]

20 minutes ago, faatal said:

Nothing in particular. A few editor improvements. Performance seems a bit better.

That's a shame. I was hoping unity and slipped in some secret sauce you folks could use.

I've noticed the editor seems to load WAY faster on 2021.3 vs 2020.3.

[Laz Man]

4 hours ago, Deceptive Pastry said:

This would be less of a problem if the devs view on how 7d should be played wasn't different from their own view a few years ago, and wasn't constantly changing. But this really encapsulates my experience with 7 days since I've started playing. We are at the whims of developers who are constantly changing their minds and nothing is going to change that, and nobody will be able to get used to or pin down what the experience of playing 7 days is like or is "supposed" to be like until it is finished, whenever that may be. Until then, those of us who were more happy with what the devs views were 3-4 years ago when we originally bought the game will have to mod.

Also, part of the draw of survival crafting games like this is having more freedom as to how to play. That in itself is a selling point. 7 days increasingly tells us that more and more of our playstyles are "wrong", apparently.

 

What specific change rubbed you the wrong way and why?  The reasoning behind the upcoming crafting change was fully shared by Roland.  Was there something you disagreeded with it inparticular?