Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Rabbitslovecactus]

21 hours ago, Blur99 said:

I'm so glad to see more hedges coming soon.  I would love to see stackable/growing vines.  I'm thinking Pripyat post Chernobyl nuclear accident.  Let nature reclaim the abandoned buildings and allow us to camouflage our bases.

 

Yes I love this idea. I'm still trying to figure out how far after the pandemic this game is set in. The cars all look old and rusted. Same goes with many houses. Paint peeling etc.. It's only appropriate that we have overgrown vegetation and trees growing in strange places if that's the case. 

[saoron666]

3 minutes ago, Blitz0309 said:

500 hours?  Those are rookie numbers 😛 (currently at 2600+... ).

 

Granted my whole cycle is to play the new alpha... then when the mods get caught up run through various ones (preferably without reading about them).  Big fan of Darkness falls, though currently playing Crystal Hell.  Some of the tweaks/changes the mods make bring life into the game... for instance in Crystal hell... buildings can burn.

 

@madmole Another idea to alter zombie diversity could also be size scaling.  If you made the zombies come in differing scales as well as different clothing it would make a horde look a lot more unique and in theory not require a lot of effort.  I know you guys don't want to do zombie children, just make zombies spawn between 60%-110% normal scale, it would make a group walking look a bit more random. (Totally not a suggestion stolen from Crystal Hell or anything >.> <.< -.-;;)

 

The amount some mods do with this game is amazing... goofy, and sometimes awful.  But each mod is a different person's take on what they want the game to be.  We're not going to all agree, we just have to trust that the pimps take pride in this game and are doing their best work.  And from playing for close to a decade or so.. i have faith they will continue to make a great game.

my 500 hours was an example, meaning if someone actually played that much its cause they are dedicated to the game.

I personally have 2100 hours. 

and yes what we looking for is some changes, let it be scaling, colors, textures.. small things just to give a new effect and look

 

 

[HB_H4wk]

23 minutes ago, Rabbitslovecactus said:

 

Yes I love this idea. I'm still trying to figure out how far after the pandemic this game is set in. The cars all look old and rusted. Same goes with many houses. Paint peeling etc.. It's only appropriate that we have overgrown vegetation and trees growing in strange places if that's the case. 

That's what I love about the game, the time-frame is open to whatever you want to make it.

[Crypted]

33 minutes ago, Rabbitslovecactus said:

Yes I love this idea. I'm still trying to figure out how far after the pandemic this game is set in. The cars all look old and rusted. Same goes with many houses. Paint peeling etc.. It's only appropriate that we have overgrown vegetation and trees growing in strange places if that's the case. 

I think there should be some areas and/or POI's that have overgrown vegetation because it has to be more than 10-15 years after the apocalypse. To me it doesn't seem like there is enough cars on the road, but I'm sure this is going to get better. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Crypted (see edit history)

[HB_H4wk]

As I love to design prefabs I hope to see Radiated or semi-radiated terrain blocks to use in the Wasteland Biome.

[Guppycur]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

Yes. But it never went past the idea phase.  I really like the burnt zombie model for an undead zombie model and wouldn't mind replacing most of the models in the game with that model and having the rest be rare sightings as if the nukes burnt everyone to a crisp but didn't kill them but making them look basically the same. But then there would be some exceptions that were perhaps more recently turned people. Seems like that would be a pretty easy modlet to make...maybe.

Oddly, Xyth had a super low poly horde night only zombie; I wish I had tried it, because I think during a BM would be the best time to have a genetic model.  Sort of a "they only come out at night" model.  But turns out, AI is the real killer, so... <shrug>

[Guppycur]

50 minutes ago, HB_H4wk said:

There are a few working Mods that add different zombies to satisfy the want for different or new zombies, while The Fun Pimps work on the game. Simply add the mod and BAM!

 

 

 

 

 

 

...when trying to push the idea of variety, showing off ugly old a15 UMA zombies may not be the best sell. 😃

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Guppycur (see edit history)

[HB_H4wk]

9 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

...when trying to push the idea of variety, showing off ugly old a15 UMA zombies may not be the best sell. 😃

 

I was trying to help those that forget about our modding community that were complaining about no new zombies yet. Sorry I didn't realize they were from A15 but at least it's something. I think there are other Zombie mods out there so..

[Old Crow]

I haven't seen this brought up yet - the new trader compounds, specifically Rekt. He JUST got a new compound in A20, and already has another new one in A21. Were the A21 compounds planned for a while? If so, it just seems like a waste of time and money to have made a new compound for Rekt for A20, only to turn around and change it again in A21. @faatal

Edited April 22, 2023 by Old Crow (see edit history)

[Guppycur]

1 hour ago, HB_H4wk said:

I was trying to help those that forget about our modding community that were complaining about no new zombies yet. Sorry I didn't realize they were from A15 but at least it's something. I think there are other Zombie mods out there so..

I'm just picking at you a bit. 🙂

[bdubyah]

Was just watching a G9 vid watching him do quests and it reminded me of how once you unlock a new tier, you can still do lower tier quests to complete the higher tier for the reward. Is that intended and gonna stay? Seems odd you could unlock T5 quests and then run through a bunch of T1s to get the T5 reward.

[Old Crow]

2 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

Was just watching a G9 vid watching him do quests and it reminded me of how once you unlock a new tier, you can still do lower tier quests to complete the higher tier for the reward. Is that intended and gonna stay? Seems odd you could unlock T5 quests and then run through a bunch of T1s to get the T5 reward.

 

I haven't run into that, but now I'm curious. Was it just the tier completion reward?

[bdubyah]

12 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

I haven't run into that, but now I'm curious. Was it just the tier completion reward?

Basically. You can do T1 jobs all the way through until you get your T5 completion reward. You never have to do higher tier jobs to get them. The only benefit to higher tier quests is the loot in the POI themselves. But considering how the rewards usually have guaranteed good, high level gear it seems a bit odd you can get it only doing basic jobs.

[madmole]

8 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Em you guys wrote that next game won't be 7dtd 2 for sure. 

But if there will be 7dtd 2 - similiar system to l4d2 would be the option to be honest.

If you want to add paid DLC - make veterans happy is more important that focus on new players - because they will came for while and give shortly after so this mean they won't buy DLC

BTW. @madmole

 

Combat – Encounter over 50 unique zombie archetypes including special infected with unique behaviors and attacks

 

is this still information actual or outdated?  If still actual - this mean adding more zombies will make you closer to gold

Probably already have well over 50... there are 3 variants of each one already, standard, feral and radiated.

[Crypted]

43 minutes ago, madmole said:

Probably already have well over 50... there are 3 variants of each one already, standard, feral and radiated.

I counted the list of zombies and zombie animals and it's about 34 give or take, but I don't count the variants of each zombie as more zombies because there still the same zombie. I understand if there's a limit to how many zombies there can be. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Crypted (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

1 hour ago, bdubyah said:

Basically. You can do T1 jobs all the way through until you get your T5 completion reward. You never have to do higher tier jobs to get them. The only benefit to higher tier quests is the loot in the POI themselves. But considering how the rewards usually have guaranteed good, high level gear it seems a bit odd you can get it only doing basic jobs.

 

Interesting! Thanks for the info.

[WarWren]

The current zombies (which are great), have a lot of character but that lends to them standing out when there are more than one.  If they were to do more generic flesh eaten bloodied zombies to go  with the current models or a more skeletal zombie then I wonder if there would be less of a cloned look. Contrary to this though I do think the zombies with all their character have become quite iconic. I also like the idea of a common grunt zombie to fill numbers, especially for horde night. It is the big variations between the models that ironically makes them stand out as clones.

[Riamus]

11 hours ago, madmole said:

It's one of those things that would not move the needle on sales even .01% too. New customers don't care if we add more zombies. 

That is only partially true.  Directly speaking, no, more zombies don't move the sales needle.  However, more zombies are definitely one of the more requested items and adding more will increase enjoyment of the game.  That leads to better reviews.  And better reviews do impact sales.

 

Keeping in mind that I have played less than one year, I may not be "new" but I am also not really what you are thinking of when you think of veterans.  And it didn't take me very many hours of gameplay before I noticed the repetition of the zombies.  I certainly would have preferred more right from the start.  Unlike a game like a military game where you expect everyone to look virtually the same because the military doesn't exactly allow variety in clothing, this game is based on regular townspeople and so the expectation is that there will be variety.  You can't assume variety doesn't matter to people just because they are okay with lack of variety in games where it makes sense.  From the many requests for zombies over just the past year that I have seen here, it is something people want and so is an important thing to consider.  If it can't be done before gold, there is nothing stopping you from planning for it following gold.

 

Regarding limiting features so it works on console, one of the worst choices a game company can make is to do that.  I get that there is an expectation that PC and console will be identical, but that is really a dumb notion that isn't a requirement.  PC will almost always be able to do more than console and limiting the game just because console can't handle someone makes it a worse game for PC players.  These days, game companies make games for both PC and console and try to keep them the same and it just lowers the quality of the PC game significantly.  I'm not saying to have major features on PC and not console, but if you have to limit something like zombies or painting textures on console, go ahead... But don't limit them for PC.  Just be clear when you sell the two that PC has a few more things.  This is really no different than allowing mods on PC even if you may not have that option on console.

 

Last, I am pretty sure most DLC sales come from veteran players, or at least those who have played a decent amount.  I could be wrong about that, but I have only once bought a DLC for a game I hadn't played enough of to know if it was worth paying for the DLC.  So keeping your veteran players rather than losing them due to boredom of the repetition of things like zombies will also increase sales in the form of DLC sales, which you have said you were looking into doing.  So, yes, sales are impacted by whether or not zombie variations are added, either in the form of new unique zombies or skinned zombies or both.

 

If we could get dozens of new unique zombies, I would obviously prefer that.  But adding only a couple isn't going to really make any difference.  That is why I mentioned skins.  It's far less work and allows for adding far more variety.  Yes, it's not the best option but it does give you far more variety than you'll ever get from only adding unique zombies.  Some of the comments about how it skins aren't good are in reference to skins that are poorly implemented.  They don't consider that skins can actually be implemented very well if the developers choose to make the effort.  Just because some games are designed with skins and don't put any real effort into them and so they look horrible doesn't mean you can't have them look good with the appropriate effort.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Crypted]

33 minutes ago, Riamus said:

That is only partially true.  Directly speaking, no, more zombies don't move the sales needle.  However, more zombies are definitely one of the more requested items and adding more will increase enjoyment of the game.  That leads to better reviews.  And better reviews do impact sales.

This is completely true the enjoyment is always important to the players, or they won't want any part in it. 

33 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Keeping in mind that I have played less than one year, I may not be "new" but I am also not really what you are thinking of when you think of veterans.  And it didn't take me very many hours of gameplay before I noticed the repetition of the zombies.  I certainly would have preferred more right from the start.  Unlike a game like a military game where you expect everyone to look virtually the same because the military doesn't exactly allow variety in clothing, this game is based on regular townspeople and so the expectation is that there will be variety.  You can't assume variety doesn't matter to people just because they are okay with lack of variety in games where it's makes sense.  From the baby requests for zombies over just the past year that I have seen here, it is something people want and so is an important thing to consider.  If it can't be done before gold, there is nothing stopping you from planning for it following gold.

 

A zombie clone army here and there do get very repetitive and I understand that the TFP are busy right now with bandits and player models along with the rest of the Roadmap to Gold and Beyond but after all that then new zombies should get added in. 

33 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Regarding limiting factors so it works in console, one of the worst choices a game company can make us to do that.  I get that there is an expectation that PC and console will be identical, but that is really a dumb notion that isn't a requirement.  PC will almost always be able to do more than console and limiting the game just because console can't handle someone makes it a worse game for PC players.  These days, game companies make games for both PC and console and try to keep them the same and it just lowers the quality of the PC game significantly.  I'm not saying to have major grapes on PC and not console, but if you have to limit something like zombies or painting textures on console, go ahead... But don't limit them for PC.  Just be clear when you sell the two that PC has a few more things.  This is really no different than allowing mods on PC even if you may not have that option on console.

I think that PC and Console games should be in sync because some people feel left out, for example console players can't even play sons of the forests right now but PC players can. 

33 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Last, I am pretty sure most DLC sales come from veteran players, or at least those who have played a decent amount.  I could be wrong about that, but I have only once bought a DLC for a game I hadn't played enough of to know if it was worth paying for the DLC.  So keeping your veteran players rather than losing them due to boredom of the repetition of things like zombies will also increase sales in the form of DLC sales, which you have said you were looking into doing.  So, yes, asked are impacted by whether or not zombie variations are added, either in three form of new unique zombies or skinned zombies or both.

When it comes to DLC I'll only buy it if there's more content, I don't really care about the skins for your character. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Crypted (see edit history)

[Crypted]

40 minutes ago, Riamus said:

If we could get dozens of new unique zombies, I would obviously prefer that.  But adding only a couple isn't going to really make any difference.  That is why I mentioned skins.  It's far less work and allows for adding far more variety.  Yes, it's not the best option but it does give you far more variety than you'll ever get from only adding unique zombies.  Some of the comments about how it skins aren't good are in reference to skins that are poorly implemented.  They don't consider that skins can actually be implemented very well if the developers choose to make the effort.  Just because some games are designed with skins and don't put any real effort into them and so they look horrible doesn't mean you can't have them look good with the appropriate effort.

I agree with you about skins if each zombie looks completely different, but if not then I'll gladly settle for new unique zombies because I'm sure TFP have ideas for more zombies if they add any more. I mean on the A21 dev stream episode 2 they showed off some nice designs of the new bandits and character models. 

[Adam the Waster]

i think the main thing on my mind now is.

when will we get some gameplay updates? 

Art is good now, Weapons are good, traps (could uses some more imo), Armor is fine, but the gameplay is still clunky  

[Crypted]

2 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

i think the main thing on my mind now is.

when will we get some gameplay updates? 

Art is good now, Weapons are good, traps (could uses some more imo), Armor is fine, but the gameplay is still clunky  

The Armor is on the Roadmap to Gold and Beyond list so that will probably change depending on what TFP do to it, I agree with you on gameplay updates. 

[Blake_]

9 hours ago, Jugginator said:

 

 

Yep, this precisely. Some people would like repeated skins with slightly different things on them others will be like "oh boy a zombie boe with a yellow shirt... and one with a black shirt.. oh hey that one has more dirt on his face... again..."

 

Repetitive is repetitive, unless we have a few thousand zombie models the same people would always complain about repeating zombies.

And then we go on with 9 bandit models instead of a character creator that  swaps heads  and some equipment. I'm not gonna lie, that design choice is not great in a world with this level of freedom. There's no defending this issue aside from: "too little time, too much to do", and I believe that is the actual real reason. 

 

In my opinion, there are many more things to do until gold, and zd variation can come later, if ever. All the current ones can always become special entities and a proper system can be implemented to generate "fluff" ones, but it doesn't really take priority over things like factions, story or quests.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Blake_ said:

And then we go on with 9 bandit models instead of a character creator that  swaps heads  and some equipment. I'm not gonna lie, that design choice is not great in a world with this level of freedom. There's no defending this issue aside from: "too little time, too much to do", and I believe that is the actual real reason. 

 

In my opinion, there are many more things to do until gold, and zd variation can come later, if ever. All the current ones can always become special entities and a proper system can be implemented to generate "fluff" ones, but it doesn't really take priority over things like factions, story or quests.

You know... factions sound nice and might be worthwhile.  Considering how the game itself plays, a story is likely to be interesting once and then you ignore it.  This is a game you play over and over again.  No story, no matter how good, will last past the first one or two games.  Yes, you can have multiple endings, but how much will that matter when you play this game dozens of times?  Don't get me wrong, I want a story.  I just don't think it'll matter beyond that first game.  And they may not even have a story in random maps.  They might only do it in Navesgane.  Either way, it's nice and I'll take it, but in the end I care more about what I'm doing 90% of the time... killing zombies.  Art for everything I see is important and I'm happy to see the updates and new POIs are very good to have though there are some great POI packs available that fill that need even though I still want to get more from TFP.  But the zombies are also very important.  I'm sure bandits will become very important as well and I have to wonder if we're going to only get half a dozen or so different bandits and end up with the same repetition as we have with zombies.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Crypted said:

I think that PC and Console games should be in sync because some people feel left out, for example console players can't even play sons of the forests right now but PC players can.

I have to just say... So what?  It may be harsh to say that, but when it comes down to it, there are many games only available on console that I can't play because they aren't available at all on PC and never will be.  I have the choice of either getting the console that has the games I would like to play or else not playing them.  Everyone has the same choice.  People like console and I get that.  I do as well.  But if you really enjoy gaming, you have a much larger selection of games on PC and a PC is not too expensive to have one that will play most of them.  Sure, it's more than a single console but it seems that most console owners have at least 2 consoles and at that point, you can get a PC that will play most games at least at Medium graphics.  I mean, 4 years ago I spent about $700 on a lower end desktop and it played all games that I wanted to play on Ultra settings at that time and for a couple of years.  After that, I started to have to lower graphics to high until very recently when I sometimes had to lower graphics to medium.  With an update to RAM, that resolved most of that and I can run at Ultra again on most things I want to play  $700 isn't a high cost for playing PC games and isn't so very much more than console costs that it is a stretch to get.

 

Anyhow, what it really comes down to for me is that even if you have everything the same between PC and console, you still have the possibility of far better graphics on PC if the option is there in the specific game, so console is already missing out on stuff.  It's my own opinion that if you choose console, you have to accept that you won't get everything that you can with PC and just be okay with that.  And if you aren't okay with that, then consider having a PC in addition to console.  I know that's not a popular opinion.