Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[mstdv inc]

3 hours ago, Trankitas said:

Will tracers (to see where are bullets coming from) be added at some point in the game? With the addition of bandits in A22 I think they would be necessary

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan", that is, if there is a body part in the crosshair at the time of the shot, then the game will count the hit.No bullets flying out.Without a ballistic examination.
The bow and crossbow use the mechanics of "projectile".Arrows and bolts fly physically and have ballistic characteristics.
To add a shot trail, you need to change the mechanics of firearms in the game to "projectile".

[Jost Amman]

3 hours ago, RipClaw said:

 

4 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I mean, you're free to ask any number of details if you so like, but my suggestion is to try it yourself when A21 is out, so that you can experience at least a bit of the thrill that you had when you first started playing 7D2D and you knew nothing.  

Actually, knowing nothing was extremely frustrating. It was building that brought me to the game. Not killing zombies or looting.

I do it anyway because it's part of the game but actually I enjoy working on bases the most and then being able to test them on horde night.

I never said that "discovering the game by yourself" was about fighting zombies. You can still learn the ropes by yourself on building, if that's your cup of tea.

But I understand now, if you like metagaming, it's your choice. My approach is the exact opposite... I don't want anyone to explain to me anything about a computer game if I can learn that by myself in-game. That's why it's hard for me to understand where you're coming from.

 

24 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan"

I think he's talking about Tracer Rounds, maybe? 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[jorbascrumps]

17 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I think he's talking about Tracer Rounds, maybe? 

 

Fairly certain their asking for bullet trails. Helpful to see where you're being shot at from.

 

As per @mstdv inc's comments, I doubt they will reimplement shooting mechanics when bandits are introduced. A possible solution could be directional hit effects around the screen to show you where enemies are.

[falloutcloud]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

Suggestion: Take a full stack

 

Suggestion: Drive around the 5 scrap iron blocks instead of over them.

 

People are letting their worries overcome their good sense. Why shouldn't you be punished for driving willy nilly over and on top of and through every obstacle you come across? Why shouldn't you be rewarded for driving well and effectively by avoiding such things? Going off-road and avoiding damage in the forest, snow, and desert biomes will be relatively easy. Going off-road in the wasteland and avoiding damage is going to be harder and you are going to pay for the choice to do so in repair kits. How MANY repair kits will depend on your skill as a driver-- as it should. If you aren't very skilled as a driver and don't want to have to repair a lot then stick to the roads and paths with your vehicle.  This is classic risk/reward gameplay with player skill factoring into the costs. This is game design 101.  Nerfing the damage down to where it is negligible and players don't have to use skills and good decisions and good planning and it doesn't matter because at most you'll just take a bit of damage that you can always repair when you get back to base isn't a good feature. There needs to be actual risk and an actual cost for how and where you choose to drive.

 

I would really like to see the shopping carts get some kind of physics so when you ram it it goes flying instead of disappearing. Will the damage keep me from ramming them though? No, because I hate those damn things.

[Laran Mithras]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

 

 

Too bad your machine gun can't ever explode....

 

 

Confirmed A22: exploding machine guns.

[mstdv inc]

@faatal please confirm or deny that the game uses hitscan for firearms and projectile for bow and crossbow?

[Roland]

2 hours ago, RhinoW said:

Question: The dismemberment we saw in the latest dev stream is still in early testing right?

 

Yes. It is all a work in progress. What they showed will be released with A21 but there will be more work done in the future. I'm sure they plan to bring dismemberment to additional zombies. 

[Wilkas]

Hello, guys. Tell me, please, do the developers have any plans at all to introduce a horse into the game as a transport? I'm not talking exactly about the release, bat, for example, after the release, is such an innovation even possible? It would also be great if he could use a weapon on a horse to shoot back from the dead

[Jost Amman]

31 minutes ago, Wilkas said:

I'm not talking exactly about the release, bat, for example, after the release, is such an innovation even possible?

I don't know about bats... but there were hornets in an old alpha.

They were removed, though, and we now have vultures.

 

As for horses, they already said multiple times that it's a hard pass.

[RhinoW]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Yes. It is all a work in progress. What they showed will be released with A21 but there will be more work done in the future. I'm sure they plan to bring dismemberment to additional zombies. 

I was referring to the current state of dismemberment itself, visually. There hasn't been talk about VFX updates on the blood effects and those showcases feel like they're just testing out the limbs falling and not the overall visual feedback. It was also shown that guns and sledgehammers decapitate heads instead of blowing them off like originally? Is this an oversight done on the stream or an actual feature? Same thing for hammers cutting an arm off?

5 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

If I'm not mistaken, all firearms in the game use the mechanics of "hitscan", that is, if there is a body part in the crosshair at the time of the shot, then the game will count the hit.No bullets flying out.Without a ballistic examination.
The bow and crossbow use the mechanics of "projectile".Arrows and bolts fly physically and have ballistic characteristics.
To add a shot trail, you need to change the mechanics of firearms in the game to "projectile".

Hitscan games have bullet tracers as well, you don't need physics based projectiles to get them. Fallout 4 and counterstrike are examples of that. They're usually faint and their usage mostly comes in dark environments, which 7 days would benefit off considering night time is a major part of the game.

[LittleMonstersTV]

3 hours ago, RhinoW said:

I was referring to the current state of dismemberment itself, visually. There hasn't been talk about VFX updates on the blood effects and those showcases feel like they're just testing out the limbs falling and not the overall visual feedback. It was also shown that guns and sledgehammers decapitate heads instead of blowing them off like originally? Is this an oversight done on the stream or an actual feature? Same thing for hammers cutting an arm off?

 

The dismemberment we have in A20 was already the same - you could shoot Steve in the head and his head would just pop off.  Would be nice in the end, when they're done working on the system, that the dismemberment matched the type of damage inflicted and I'm sure they're working their way to that.

[HB_H4wk]

Still waiting for the Zombie Goats and Cows.

 

[HB_H4wk]

On 5/5/2023 at 12:10 AM, Laz Man said:

Speaking of gameplay, I have a question about POI design limits for Level designers:

 

Tier 1 POI Clear quests have around 9 zds, Infestation around 15-18 zds, sooo

How many Zds is your design limit for Tier 5 Infestation quests?

 

 

You answered... "Alot" 😅

 

 

 

 

Your answer to a question about how many zombies in a POI makes me feel like I have been abusing players on my server when I can pack almost 400 zombies in a partially collapsed Shopping mall that measures 60x100 that I created.

 

 

[faatal]

On 5/4/2023 at 11:40 AM, Naz said:

There are more believable with minimal dev time ways to communicate to the player the bike has broken. You could use sound effects like a tire popping or gears jamming, you could make the wheel animations hitch to make it look like somthing has broken/bent/warped preventing them spinning smoothly. 

 

Simply copy pasting the fx for the other vehicles on to a bicycle is a very "it's 16:59 on Friday" solution 🤣

Sure. The system was set up to use particles. Anything else would be additional work and I have other things to work on now.

[faatal]

On 5/4/2023 at 2:53 PM, Riamus said:

If that is the case, then this has changed from maybe something to mod out to something that must be modded out for me.  It will be the only thing that I feel the need to change.  I don't feel there is any value to destroying something that is expensive to make and potentially has a ton of loot in it.  It is nothing more than an annoyance that will generate anger when it happens and that isn't why I play games.

A20 vehicles explode the same way. I don't think zombie damage to vehicles has changed either.

 

You damaging your vehicle by hitting things is what has been increased.

[faatal]

On 5/4/2023 at 4:26 PM, Blake_ said:

One of the things I wanted to ask.... now that you have AI throttling, will you increase the blood moon entity limit for a21? 64 is nice, I don't know if you guys talked about it. I believe CPUs can handle a bit more in the very close future though. Current top of the line rigs are doing 200+ screamer battles without much of a slideshow.

Possibly, but there is other enemy related optimizations that need to be looked at as the throttling is pretty specific with what it is doing currently.

[faatal]

On 5/4/2023 at 10:45 PM, vergilsparda said:

1. With the new vehicle damage system, has anything been changed or put into place to prevent vehicles from taking damage when going up and over overpasses in towns and cities (or in general). I find that often when going up that ramp bit, because it's not smooth, the vehicle hit noise plays—mostly everything but the 4x4 (as in the stream the 4x4 went over the bridge/small overpass very easily) does this. And judging by the fact that any hit seems to cause vehicle damage, doing that would cause damage; unless it doesn't anymore. I've explained that poorly but I hope I explained it somewhat well enough that I made sense here lol
2. It was a little unclear in the stream as Lathan was still somewhat driving, but when vehicles are completely broken, will they be unable to be driven? Steve's explanation of certain visual items disappearing (the bike chain on the bike) and others creating sparks (the crank shaft) made it seem like when a vehicle hits 0% it will just stop working entirely.
3. And third, will armor plating mods, or perhaps a new type of plating mod, be added to vehicle mods in order to lower the amount of damage any given vehicle takes (perhaps a new mod, a vehicle armor plating mod of some kind, or some sort of actual plow mod that will take no damage from zombies lol)?

1 Hit damage is scaled by angle of impact, so glancing blows do much less. There is also a minimum impact amount, below which there is no damage.

2 I, not Steve talked about that. Chain on bike is the only disappearing part. Moving very slow without gas or at 0 health is the same as A20. No one seems to know that as they never got their vehicles to 0 health!

3 Probably, but I don't know when that will get added.

22 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I generally try to avoid hitting objects, but when driving through the desert or wasteland you will inevitably hit objects. I have no problem repairing my vehicle.

 

My question was whether the damage values you see in the stream are the final balancing for the Experimental or if they were raised to show what a badly damaged vehicle looks like in the stream without having to drive against walls for 5 minutes.

 

Damage numbers were not changed. That is how they currently are. The damage scaling is easy change by us and like many things, we will adjust it as necessary to achieve the balance we want.

[Jost Amman]

10 minutes ago, faatal said:

Probably, but I don't know when that will get added.

Yes, please! This would be a great addition! 

[RipClaw]

7 minutes ago, faatal said:

2 I, not Steve talked about that. Chain on bike is the only disappearing part. Moving very slow without gas or at 0 health is the same as A20. No one seems to know that as they never got their vehicles to 0 health!

I think most people know how it feels when the vehicle runs out of gas. But hardly anyone will let their health drop to 0. Personally, I repair my vehicle when it is down to 80%. Most of the time even much earlier.

[faatal]

22 hours ago, Survager said:

When something is created in the workbench and at this time the light of the lamp burns brighter, this is clearly visible and logical. 👍

In regards to the forge, wouldn't it make more sense for the bellows to be animated to compress and decompress when something is being created there? 😇

I understand that this is more difficult to do than changing the intensity of the glow, but if you guys decide to do this, do not forget about the concrete mixer, it would also like to spin when they mix the concrete 😉

 

And the campfire could just sound a little different when something is being cooked there. For example, it could be the sounds of frying or gurgling 🙂

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

Sure, it could be better, but most of us have like 5 things we are working on and we have little time left for when we would like to release. Different methods take different amounts of time to do and often require different combinations of people to work on them.

 

New cement mixer model is not done. Bellows were not made to animate.

 

The new campfire with the 3 parts turning off/on is in, but art is being adjusted. It does glow brighter during crafting and looks fine.

19 hours ago, Survager said:

On the last stream, we were shown that zombies will eat the corpses of animals. Do you have plan's that zombie-vulture/bears/wolves/coyotes also make it with deer's/rabbit's/chicken's corpse?

Sure, I can dream about a thousand features, but we shall see what we have time for.

18 hours ago, Gamida said:

Wait. I never even noticed that. Do you mean we can kill zoms again by hitting with vehicle if we don't mind the trade off of it doing damage?

Don't mind that at all.

Yes. Vehicles do a lot more damage to zombies and you take it as well.

[faatal]

17 hours ago, zztong said:

I'm cool with seeing how the vehicles play, but I do hope:

 

(1) Running into a shopping cart does not continue to be like running into a block of granite, and

 

(2) That if the vehicle has spikes and a ram plate that running into a fleshy zombie doesn't hurt [the vehicle] too much. Otherwise, could I please take off the spikes and ram plate so that getting around in the wilderness was easier?

1 Is the same. Shopping carts are blocks. Blocks don't move. Would need to be a prop and with lower health or special hit rules....

2 At some point vehicles are supposed to get separate parts to represent mods, so they can be turned on/off, but we did not have the time in A21.

[faatal]

13 hours ago, MichaelL. said:

It's my understanding that there has been a lot of optimization of the lighting in-game - which helps a lot with FPS.  I'm curious if we will still be able to light obects/blocks "internally " (from the inside-out) by turning off the light's shadow setting in order to create special effects? 

There have been some changes to lighting. I would not use the word "lot". FPS is better somewhat. PC hardware, your settings and what the game is doing and rendering vary greatly, so it all comes down to what your current bottleneck is.

 

Changing a Unity light's settings is exactly the same.

10 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

@faatal please confirm or deny that the game uses hitscan for firearms and projectile for bow and crossbow?

Yes.

[Pineapple Killer]

@faatal is there any plan to add a mod for the vehicles to take less damage? Like and armor/plating mod?

[Cr0wst0rm]

1 hour ago, Pineapple Killer said:

@faatal is there any plan to add a mod for the vehicles to take less damage? Like and armor/plating mod?

I think the mods were discussed a very long time ago. Still no progress on them? Are they dropped?

Edited May 6, 2023 by Cr0wst0rm (see edit history)

[Burrfly]

Alpha 21 is looking like a better update than a20 so far, just sad that you guys removed materials and rebar frames and aren't gonna add them back this update. I think it would be cool to ask your playerbase for a vote about this, maybe via Steam, 'cause I THINK that the majority liked the more materials we had back before alpha 20 more. Otherwise I'm just gonna play alpha 16 or 17. Btw no hate, just caring. Ps thnx 4 reading