Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Matt115]

Still no news 😕

[unholyjoe]

22 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Still no news 😕

still no skeletons, sorry

[zztong]

9 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

The water changes have been made for game balance, stop.

Realism or believability have nothing to do with it.

 

While I believe this is a true statement and support the Devs in their search for a way to extend the early game and their overall ability to experiment with game issues, I don't accept that "realism" has absolutely nothing to do with the game. At some point a lack of reality undercuts the game. If they were to take away gravity then it becomes hard to say the game is set in Arizona.

 

Perhaps gravity is too "out there" to compare to water availability, but we are talking about water. It covers 71% of the Earth's surface. All of the plant life shown in the game and all of the animals depend upon it and they're obviously living. (I've no idea if zombies need water.) Comparing it to gravity isn't so much of a stretch to me.

 

9 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Why don't you complain about carrying TONS of materials in your backpack?

I'll tell you why: BECAUSE IT'S A @%$#ING GAME!

 

Would it help? We can't pick our battles? Are you suggesting the game couldn't let us make working vehicles? Are you suggesting the game engine couldn't support a working backhoe, dump truck, etc?

 

All that said, I do recognize that "the game" is the practical reality that we all face. A perfect simulation is not the goal. But I do suggest at some point a lack of reality changes the game. I would be less interested in a zombie survival game taking place at the cellular level, where we all play white blood cells. I suspect I'm less interested in the struggle against zombies taking place on the planet Zargon-5. (Gosh, I hope neither of those are TFP's secret next project.)

 

7 hours ago, Aldranon said:

One could easily role-play that surface water is contaminated by cesium-137 (a byproduct of some nuclear detonations).  It desolves quickly into water and becomes cesium-hydroxide.  Drinking this will just TFU your body.  After 60-90 years, it might not be absolutely terrible if you drink ground water again.

 

Yeh, right on. There are a number of real-world survival issues that would let the Devs take the game in a direction that gets to the same goal of extending the early game. Virtual water containers and increased difficulty for water purification don't exclude any of that. Boiled water isn't perfectly potable water. Embrace that, move the production of truly potable water to a Chem Station, and you reach the goal.

 

But A21 with the announced water changes is cool with me too. Lets try it. Lets see how it goes. It isn't the end of the game. Its a tempest in a tea pot.

 

Take away gravity though and I'm outta here!

Edited January 6, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[meganoth]

14 minutes ago, zztong said:

 

...

 

All that said, I do recognize that "the game" is the practical reality that we all face. A perfect simulation is not the goal. But I do suggest at some point a lack of reality changes the game. I would be less interesting in a zombie survival game taking place at the cellular level, where we all play white blood cells. I suspect I'm less interested in the struggle against zombies taking place on the planet Zargon-5. (Gosh, I hope neither of those are TFP's secret next project.)

 

Next project? What about this project?

 

Did you know that there is a city called Navezgane on Zargon-5 ? ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zargon-5  for more details) 😁

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Morloc]

6 minutes ago, meganoth said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zargon-5

 

Those are not the droids anyone is looking for.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

 

[meilodasreh]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

But I do suggest at some point a lack of reality changes the game.

Your example with gravity fits quite well to that of @Jost Amman if you think it through.

I mean, you can build a big base made out of solid steel blocks, with the equivalent of 1000s of tons, ontop of a few flimsy plywood sticks.

Gravity isn't a thing in the game right now. 

Which is more or less the same point that Jost was bringing up, just more thought in the way of inventory space instead of structural stability.

 

btw I recently watched Neebs&Appsro (guess everybody knows them) playing a game called "the long dark",

which is a really serious survival game.

There you can't carry really much (weight is calculated realisticly, next to many many other things).

You constantly and unavoidably struggle what bits to take with you, and you never can stay anywhere long because you run out of resources (firewood, food, and so on).

And the list of "inconveniences" goes on and on.

 

I never will play that game myself.

Everlasting pain in the a is not what I call fun.

 

I will happily continue to carry the equivalent of a "Panamax Class" containership in my backpack in 7D2D,

knowing how silly it is, because I know otherwise it would totally suck.

[zztong]

16 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

Your example with gravity fits quite well to that of @Jost Amman if you think it through.

I mean, you can build a big base made out of solid steel blocks, with the equivalent of 1000s of tons, ontop of a few flimsy plywood sticks.

Gravity isn't a thing in the game right now.

 

I wouldn't say I hadn't thought it through, but I do take your point. Carrying a lot of stuff isn't involving gravity, per se. Never the less, characters are not floating about. You do come back to Earth after jumping. You do fall. The path of an arrow is parabolic. Etc.

 

I don't know that you're taking my point, however. The Devs chose to ignore reality in the case of harvesting a large quantity of natural resources even though there are viable real-world solutions that are common to the setting and sufficient game capacities to implement them. Maybe I don't have any "outrage" (too strong a word) for that when it comes to steel production, but for whatever matters of taste, I find it disappointing that I won't be able to carry water away from a lake, river, pond, or pool like our ancestors have done since before recorded history.

 

Am I inconsistent in my views? Perhaps. It's a luxury of being human.

[Doomofman]

2 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

still no skeletons, sorry

 

Oh I don't know about that

 

[meilodasreh]

 

11 minutes ago, zztong said:

I find it disappointing that I won't be able to carry water away from a lake, river, pond, or pool like our ancestors have done since before recorded history.

 

Am I inconsistent in my views? Perhaps.

I see your point, and I don't think you are inconsistent in your views.

It's the game that is (and has to be) inconsistent in some/many points for the sake of play fun against reality.

Therefore I'm also with you, right now it doesn't feel right that you can't just go fill a water container (whatever hollow thingy) in open water bodys.

Because many times the game sacrifices "obviously common sense stuff" (best example is said weight/inventory stuff) to be not too resctrictive.

Here they choose the other direction and increase it, and it remains to be seen how it will be accepted by the majority of players.

 

Of course water being so easy to get plenty could have also got mitigated by dramatially lowering stack size of jars, but then there would be people who would complain about the inconsistency of "why can I carry thousands of buckets full of concrete mix but only three water bottles at once?"

 

It all comes back to the aspect of necessary inconsistency, no matter what approach will be taken to try to balance the game in certain aspects.

[Fanatical_Meat]

3 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

still no skeletons, sorry

Throw the guy a bone and put a skeleton in a POI

[crazywildfire]

45 minutes ago, zztong said:

 

I wouldn't say I hadn't thought it through, but I do take your point. Carrying a lot of stuff isn't involving gravity, per se. Never the less, characters are not floating about. You do come back to Earth after jumping. You do fall. The path of an arrow is parabolic. Etc.

 

I don't know that you're taking my point, however. The Devs chose to ignore reality in the case of harvesting a large quantity of natural resources even though there are viable real-world solutions that are common to the setting and sufficient game capacities to implement them. Maybe I don't have any "outrage" (too strong a word) for that when it comes to steel production, but for whatever matters of taste, I find it disappointing that I won't be able to carry water away from a lake, river, pond, or pool like our ancestors have done since before recorded history.

 

Am I inconsistent in my views? Perhaps. It's a luxury of being human.

 

I wouldn't call it that. I'll repeat my thoughts on it I said several weeks ago......

 

Game play needs to always out weigh reality/immersion. I get it and totally fine with that. I also tilt my hat for them not being like other games and trying something new( I'm not talking about new in nobody else because I know other games have dew collectors). But when I comes down to it. How many survival games do we have that water/liquids are really an issue? Day z, scum, project zomboid and what rust or whatever have all kinds of drinks in loot. They also have some kind of fountain device in towns to drink from. Ark, Atlas both have clean water you can drink from. Collect rain to drink from as well as dig for water in ground if it comes down to it. Take Grounded and you find water drops and can make a dew collector. I can keep going but point is none of them are really difficult to get water. All add a water mechanic in game to must drink but none make you feel threatened really. So again tilt my hat to try something different but what do we really gain out of it? We done been told by day 4 you can have a dew collector so what by day 14 you will have 4 or 5 or even more? So we don't gain much out of this to be excited about in my personal opinion. It really doesn't add much to the game changing it to just struggle for the first 2 or 3 days.

 

I don't know that just my opinion. I'm not against it but I'm also not excited for it either.

Edited January 6, 2023 by crazywildfire (see edit history)

[zztong]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

Next project? What about this project?

 

Did you know that there is a city called Navezgane on Zargon-5 ? ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zargon-5  for more details) 😁

 

Oh, sorry for "outing" the next project. It was a lucky guess. So, it's zombies in spaaaaaaaaaaace then. Umm, okay...

Edited January 6, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[Riamus]

4 hours ago, crazywildfire said:

 

I wouldn't call it that. I'll repeat my thoughts on it I said several weeks ago......

 

Game play needs to always out weigh reality/immersion. I get it and totally fine with that. I also tilt my hat for them not being like other games and trying something new( I'm not talking about new in nobody else because I know other games have dew collectors). But when I comes down to it. How many survival games do we have that water/liquids are really an issue? Day z, scum, project zomboid and what rust or whatever have all kinds of drinks in loot. They also have some kind of fountain device in towns to drink from. Ark, Atlas both have clean water you can drink from. Collect rain to drink from as well as dig for water in ground if it comes down to it. Take Grounded and you find water drops and can make a dew collector. I can keep going but point is none of them are really difficult to get water. All add a water mechanic in game to must drink but none make you feel threatened really. So again tilt my hat to try something different but what do we really gain out of it? We done been told by day 4 you can have a dew collector so what by day 14 you will have 4 or 5 or even more? So we don't gain much out of this to be excited about in my personal opinion. It really doesn't add much to the game changing it to just struggle for the first 2 or 3 days.

 

I don't know that just my opinion. I'm not against it but I'm also not excited for it either.

This is similar to what I've been thinking all along.  Water is going to be no problem within a few days even with the change, so why bother?  Now, I am happy to get rid of glass bottles and cans as I have no real use for either.  Other than my first game, I have rarely ever filled up a glass bottle because it isn't ever necessary.  But I think the fact that you can drink directly from water, but not collect it is just dumb.  Either remove drinking from water sources entirely (say they are too radiated or whatever) or allow collecting water from water sources you can drink from.  It really makes no sense otherwise.  Removing realism for gameplay is fine and I support it, but at the same time, you need to have the lack of realism actually make some sort of sense.

4 hours ago, zztong said:

 

Oh, sorry for "outing" the next project. It was a lucky guess. So, it's zombies in spaaaaaaaaaaace then. Umm, okay...

"Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

Edited January 7, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Fanatical_Meat]

Dammit I’d love to hear info as to what theme the new projects will have and what type of setting.

[zztong]

27 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Removing realism for gameplay is fine and I support it, but at the same time, you need to have the lack of realism actually make some sort of sense.

 

In a way, I kind of agree with that.

 

As I sit here thinking about points being made, I find myself wondering if perhaps the source of my objecting is that removing the ability to carry water away from a source is that it is "taking a capability away from humanity." Maybe I don't object to the mass excavation and transport of ore because humanity has that capability. The overall goal isn't unrealistic even if the representation of it is silly.

 

27 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Water is going to be no problem within a few days even with the change, so why bother?

 

And I kind of agree with this too. I'd be okay if the suffering lasted longer -- maybe not the extent of The Long Dark -- but I'd also note there's a big difference between experienced 7D2D players and newbs. The suffering of Twitch newbs is amazing. I recently watched two players. They're starving and I'm thinking "give me a primitive bow, a stone spear, and a day and I'll give you each close to a stack of bacon and eggs (assuming somebody has a $%^& cooking pot)." 

Edited January 6, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

3 hours ago, zztong said:

While I believe this is a true statement and support the Devs in their search for a way to extend the early game and their overall ability to experiment with game issues, I don't accept that "realism" has absolutely nothing to do with the game. At some point a lack of reality undercuts the game. If they were to take away gravity then it becomes hard to say the game is set in Arizona.

 

Perhaps gravity is too "out there" to compare to water availability, but we are talking about water. It covers 71% of the Earth's surface. All of the plant life shown in the game and all of the animals depend upon it and they're obviously living. (I've no idea if zombies need water.) Comparing it to gravity isn't so much of a stretch to me.

Except, they already took away gravity... with the magical backpack that is immune to item weight, you know. 

 

3 hours ago, zztong said:

A perfect simulation is not the goal. But I do suggest at some point a lack of reality changes the game.

That's not the point. The point is that since this is a game, the devs can bend and twist "realism" whenever they need to achieve the goals they envisioned for it.

And, BTW, I think the word you're searching for is "believability", am I right?

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[Grue]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I don't need to address them, because I think the current A21 implementation could be the right choice.

 

I could discuss any number of theories about how the game should be, but why? The devs make educated choices on their game. I can agree or disagree with them, like them or not, but I won't discuss John Doe's theories on how the game should be, because I'm only interested, to the most, in discussing feedback. This is not feedback, this is preemptive whining based on how you imagine the game will play out.

 

I'll gladly discuss feedback on A21 experimental when it's out, though.

 

I see you are not a fan of thinking ahead to avoid mistakes.

 

Have you heard the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" or perhaps, "Measure twice, cut once"?

 

The time to correct course is before the mistake is made.

 

It is far better to give the feedback at the concept stage than to wait for them to @%$# things up then complain about it after the damage is done. By then, they will have already wasted the dev time on their new anti-features so they are more likely to fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy and run with it, than they are to correct the completely foreseeable problem(s) they should have avoided in the first place.

 

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

Which choice exactly is prevented?

 

The choice to go to the nearest pond/river/swimming pool to collect as much dirty water as I need.

Yes, it still needs to be boiled for food/drinks, but I should still be able to go get it in virtually unlimited quantities outside of a desert biome.

 

I keep hearing people say some variation of it being for game balance. That's fine, but if the implementation is anything like the A20 farming nerf, hard pass.

They made farming such a low-yield, pain-in-the-ass, time sink that it is practically not worth the effort to farm anymore.

Adding more pointless grind and wasting my time does not make for better gameplay.

 

As it stands, it sounds like this water nerf is just adding a pointless resource bottleneck and wasting my time for no good reason.

So let's assume, as Aldranon suggested, that the river water is contaminated with cesium for the sake of storyline and balance, what then?

For things like glue, that should not matter, we should be able to collect and use dirty water in bulk for that as we always have.

 

For food and drinks, logically more processing would be needed to clean the water and make it potable. Filtering, boiling etc. That makes room for a water purifier to be added in late game to handle filtering/decontaminating large quantities of dirty water.

In the mean time, there is the dew catcher comes in to provide a more limited amount of clean drinking water with minimal processing needed. Low quantity/higher quality that is the trade off.

The goal being to make the dew catcher they want to add an optional extra instead of a forced bottleneck.

 

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

The thing is that the magazine system does not force normal players to do anything that they aren't doing already. Are you going through POIs collecting stuff? If yes, you will automatically find magazines. You don't need to change your routine at all if you don't flat out ignore the scavenging part

 

Ironically, my playstyle is about doing very minimal looting. The bulk of my time is spent mining, crafting, and base building.

 

I would rather craft a new tool than go loot one.

Under the current system, if there is something you want right away, a crucible for example, spend points on it. If you rather wait try your luck at finding a working crucible or crucible schematic by looting appropriate POIs, more power to you.

 

With the proposed changes, instead of needing to learn/buy/loot a single schematic, it now appears the crafting is going to be locked behind looting a bunch of magazines. 

All that does is add more grind and I don't see how locking both the schematics and item quality behind a paywall of a magazines is going to make the game better in any appreciable way.

 

But that is almost beside the point.

I am still a bit wary of "overhauls" because the A17 skill overhaul was a steaming pile of dog @%$# and it took them literally years to make it viable again.

To put it plainly, the value of the proposed changes does not seem to outweigh the risk that they will @%$# it up from a basic risk/reward perspective.

Once bitten, twice shy.

 

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

I made a comparison. Avoiding to use the dew collector is as easy or difficult as avoiding the forge. I didn't say anything about HOW difficult it is.

 

In effect if Grue is okay with the forge being in the game he should be okay with the dew collector as well.

 

Water is daily necessary on a survival level, by comparison using a forge is a luxury.

Your character won't die for lack of a forge.

[meilodasreh]

And yet I assume, no matter how convenient the dew collector will turn out,

playing a survival game where you stand next to a lake or any other water source and you don't have any option to pick up water from it, will always feel...chewy.

[Jost Amman]

46 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Water is going to be no problem within a few days even with the change, so why bother?

As far as I understand, it's not like that.

 

There are two levels of "water survival":

1. You must find water or you'll die of dehydration
2. After you've finally covered the basic needs (4/5 days?), you still have a limited quantity of water available for other stuff (glue, cooking, and so on...)

If that's the case, the changes to water are meaningful both for the early game, AND the middle game.

In late game, of course, water shouldn't be an issue at all.

[Jost Amman]

17 minutes ago, Grue said:

I see you are not a fan of thinking ahead to avoid mistakes.

Have you heard the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" or perhaps, "Measure twice, cut once"?

The time to correct course is before the mistake is made.

With your own words, though, you're handling me the perfect example to explain why I disagree.

Yours (ours) comments, are vastly uninformed for now, or to the most, they're educated guesses.

Basically, we're measuring twice something that we can't actually measure.

 

So, in the end, you're "correcting" something without really knowing what it is that you're correcting.

Does it make sense now? At least, that's my opinion on why we should discuss possible changes only after we play the A21 experimental.

 

The only alternative would be for The Fun Pimps to share their internal documents (if any) where they lay out in detail what the change is, how it works (even the XMLs) and how the new water survival mechanic blends with the rest of the game. That would probably be the bare minimum to be able to give real feedback, instead of opinions on speculations.

[Jinx_DG]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:35 PM, crazywildfire said:

At some point you can learn to make a dew collector that will give you X amount of glass water jars every X amount of time. Again once you drink it the jar vanishes.

From my understanding the "jar" is just a visual representing one unit of liquid. There is no "jar" to collect nor to disappear. You are collecting up to three units of water represented visually by a jar picture. Just as with "gas cans". There are no gas cans in game, but it's used as a visual for one unit of gas. 

[unholyjoe]

1 minute ago, Jinx_DG said:

From my understanding the "jar" is just a visual representing one unit of liquid. There is no "jar" to collect nor to disappear. You are collecting up to three units of water represented visually by a jar picture. Just as with "gas cans". There are no gas cans in game, but it's used as a visual for one unit of gas. 

precisely thank you.

 

 

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

 

Oh, sorry for "outing" the next project. It was a lucky guess. So, it's zombies in spaaaaaaaaaaace then. Umm, okay...

 

You didn't get the joke. I was hinting at 7D2D already playing on Zarkon-5.

 

[crazywildfire]

35 minutes ago, Jinx_DG said:

From my understanding the "jar" is just a visual representing one unit of liquid. There is no "jar" to collect nor to disappear. You are collecting up to three units of water represented visually by a jar picture. Just as with "gas cans". There are no gas cans in game, but it's used as a visual for one unit of gas. 

 

Same dang difference is it not? One dew drop or 1 jar of water. Makes no difference. People are goin to go by the picture tells them so really regardless if it represents one dew drop the picture is telling us 1 jar of water. It makes no difference either way of what you call it bottom line you don't get a empty jar back. So call it what you will. 

 

Edit: come to think about it. now you make me point out that drinking one dew drop would not hydrate me. So calling it that make zero sense and would be up on the list as the dumbest things on earth. Of course this is just my opinion.

 

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

As far as I understand, it's not like that.

 

There are two levels of "water survival":

1. You must find water or you'll die of dehydration
2. After you've finally covered the basic needs (4/5 days?), you still have a limited quantity of water available for other stuff (glue, cooking, and so on...)

If that's the case, the changes to water are meaningful both for the early game, AND the middle game.

In late game, of course, water shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

From my understanding glue is under consideration so a possible chance something might change on it. But we don't know for sure so as far as we know it is the same so....

Edited January 6, 2023 by crazywildfire (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

14 minutes ago, crazywildfire said:

From my understanding glue is under consideration so a possible chance something might change on it. But we don't know for sure so as far as we know it is the same so....

The last comment from the devs on Glue was that it WILL use clean water instead of murky, so...