Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[GoofMcGee]

10 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Hmm, perhaps the solution is to give those who enjoy hanging out at the base more fun activities to engage in while they wait for the mags to arrive from the looters...🤔

 

 

 

Craftable pool tables.

But in order to play, you need to do a 4 tier quest to find each ball, 2 sticks, and chalk.

 

[Riamus]

11 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Hmm, perhaps the solution is to give those who enjoy hanging out at the base more fun activities to engage in while they wait for the mags to arrive from the looters...🤔

I'll take a working pinball machine, please!

[hiemfire]

36 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Hmm, perhaps the solution is to give those who enjoy hanging out at the base more fun activities to engage in while they wait for the mags to arrive from the looters...🤔

 

 

 

Define "fun". I've been around the block way too many times and watched many others get burned to take that one at face value.

[q123]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Here is an interesting poll external to this forum community done by Nerds Guns and Steel. Just a first impression poll of 3100 players. 😀

 

hmmm, 102% 🤡

ok... the 2% of the people who hate it also love it at the same time - sounds valid 😆

[Phoenixshade35]

I wouldn't mind seeing maybe some fun stuff like arcade cabinets with old atari style games to put around my base, maybe a functioning pool table at some point for some senseless fun with friends or alone

Real talk i wish we had a rain collection barrel or something to help with the water, weather is random but having a few around couldn't hurt

[Riamus]

3 minutes ago, Phoenixshade35 said:

I wouldn't mind seeing maybe some fun stuff like arcade cabinets with old atari style games to put around my base, maybe a functioning pool table at some point for some senseless fun with friends or alone

Real talk i wish we had a rain collection barrel or something to help with the water, weather is random but having a few around couldn't hurt

Water barrels would make water a non-issue so quickly, though.  Especially with how much it tends to rain.  They also stated that it was resource expensive to track rain and that was why they are using a time-based method instead.  What I wouldn't mind seeing is the option for a mid or late game ability to craft a large cistern to collect/hold water.  If it had a very high resource cost to craft it, it wouldn't affect early game and would allow mid or late game to have a large supply of water.  It seems like TFP is concerned more about the early game progression and less so about what you can do late game, so I'd think this would fit in well enough with their goals.  Of course, I don't have much need mid or late game for water, so it really doesn't matter much to me.  I'll be making mineral water, which lasts forever and the higher quality food lasts forever, so even if it uses water, it's not enough to matter.  And I don't really use much duct tape, so no need for that.  But I'm probably in the minority on water use. 

[Phoenixshade35]

7 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Water barrels would make water a non-issue so quickly, though.  Especially with how much it tends to rain.  They also stated that it was resource expensive to track rain and that was why they are using a time-based method instead.  What I wouldn't mind seeing is the option for a mid or late game ability to craft a large cistern to collect/hold water.  If it had a very high resource cost to craft it, it wouldn't affect early game and would allow mid or late game to have a large supply of water.  It seems like TFP is concerned more about the early game progression and less so about what you can do late game, so I'd think this would fit in well enough with their goals.  Of course, I don't have much need mid or late game for water, so it really doesn't matter much to me.  I'll be making mineral water, which lasts forever and the higher quality food lasts forever, so even if it uses water, it's not enough to matter.  And I don't really use much duct tape, so no need for that.  But I'm probably in the minority on water use. 

I wouldnt mind seeing a tier 2 or tier 3 dew collector that could collect more down the road, like one is iron and another is steel tier, similar to i would love extra tier workbenches that simply added extra output spots sorta thing, but it makes sense with the dew collectors, farms here we come haha

[Aldranon]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

 

Hmm, perhaps the solution is to give those who enjoy hanging out at the base more fun activities to engage in while they wait for the mags to arrive from the looters...🤔

 

 

 

 

Yeah, it an extremely focused game style now (Loot and loot some more, as fast as you can).

There is little room/need for "support" people as the "Hunter/gatherers can learn everything they need.

 

[Ralathar44]

34 minutes ago, Phoenixshade35 said:

I wouldnt mind seeing a tier 2 or tier 3 dew collector that could collect more down the road, like one is iron and another is steel tier, similar to i would love extra tier workbenches that simply added extra output spots sorta thing, but it makes sense with the dew collectors, farms here we come haha

Honestly I say let us craft dew collectors without the water filter, but they provide murky water.  Then let us upgrade the dew collectors with the filter, a much bigger reservoir and faster collection speeds.  So it'd be like the campfire and forge with upgrade slots.  Like maybe fully upgraded it fills 2 jars per cycle and each of the 3 rows stacks to 10.  Then maybe you could have a higher tier water solution involving electricity for late game bulk water collection for industrial glue production. 

[Jost Amman]

I wish there was an option to move or dismantle dew collectors. 

[Ralathar44]

10 minutes ago, Aldranon said:

 

Yeah, it an extremely focused game style now (Loot and loot some more, as fast as you can).

There is little room/need for "support" people as the "Hunter/gatherers can learn everything they need.

 

That is definitely not the case.  Farming is still quite powerful.  People not spending points on it are not finding forge books or vehicle books as fast as they want.  Harvesting tools and salvage tools fall way behind, etc.

And, playing devil's advocate on my own argument just now, lets say your hunter gathered have all the magazines they need for everything somehow without and perk points put in.  What you say is still not accurate.  Advanced Engineering, Miner69er, Huntsman, Salvage Operations, Living Off the Land, etc.  These bonuses are huge.  Even if you have the same tools you cannot hope to match their returns.  You'll be spending 3 hours to do what they do in 1 assuming infinite resources to harvest.  And in many cases with limited resources like seeds/cars/etc your resources will be limited and you'll just get a fraction of their returns.

Not to mention that every minute you're doing those tasks you're not hunter/gathering are ya? :P.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[manni44]

6 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I wish there was an option to move or dismantle dew collectors. 

U can move them like a Workbench or a Forge

[Neminsis]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

It’s all random.

That's part of the problem though isn't it? There should be some baseline frequency where the balance just works for new and casual players no matter their playstyle. 




 

[Riamus]

15 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I wish there was an option to move or dismantle dew collectors. 

If it is in your land claim, you can move it.

[Aldranon]

17 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

That is definitely not the case.  Farming is still quite powerful.  People not spending points on it are not finding forge books or vehicle books as fast as they want.  Harvesting tools and salvage tools fall way behind, etc.

And, playing devil's advocate on my own argument just now, lets say your hunter gathered have all the magazines they need for everything somehow without and perk points put in.  What you say is still not accurate.  Advanced Engineering, Miner69er, Huntsman, Salvage Operations, Living Off the Land, etc.  These bonuses are huge.  Even if you have the same tools you cannot hope to match their returns.  You'll be spending 3 hours to do what they do in 1 assuming infinite resources to harvest.  And in many cases with limited resources like seeds/cars/etc your resources will be limited and you'll just get a fraction of their returns.

Not to mention that every minute you're doing those tasks you're not hunter/gathering are ya? :P.

 

Farming a 10x10 plot area takes 5 minutes.  This is too trivial for one person to do.

Horde base buildings are now compact and that would take a few days and then its done.

A day-to-day base can be almost any POI with minor modifications.

 

But you do you and I support you following your dreams.

[Neminsis]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

But here’s the thing. Reports of dead and destroyed game play styles are always greatly exaggerated during the first weeks of experimental. 

Because someone eventually gets around to fixing balance issues like they did with the strength tree which has now been replaced by the Intellect tree as the must have?

Try playing anything that's not a city start without traders and see if you can make it work. Try playing any playstyle that's not the approved playstyle of questing and see if you can make it work. There's really only one game play loop right now, and that's to quest and buy what you need, and the intellect tree is sitting right there saying "pick me" 🙄

[mstdv inc]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

Hey everyone: There is a poll here:  https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/32143-poll-which-progression-system-did-you-prefer/

 

Please take a few seconds and vote.

 

 

 

Such surveys need to be conducted on Steam or on the game's start screen to get maximum coverage. A few hundred people from the forum is not an indicator.

[Roland]

1 minute ago, Neminsis said:

Because someone eventually gets around to fixing balance issues like they did with the strength tree which has now been replaced by the Intellect tree as the must have?

Try playing anything that's not a city start without traders and see if you can make it work. Try playing any playstyle that's not the approved playstyle of questing and see if you can make it work. There's really only one game play loop right now, and that's to quest and buy what you need, and the intellect tree is sitting right there saying "pick me" 🙄

Sometimes it is because of balancing and TFP is working through that and will continue to work through it for the 21.x updates. 
 

But a lot of times it is because someone figures out how to make it work and soon the word spreads and eventually playstyles thought to be closed by the dastardly developers really aren’t. 
 

Im not saying I’m the genius who can figure it out but someone will. 
 

Or not—and perhaps people will need to mod the game in order to play it the way they want to. 

[Neminsis]

5 hours ago, Roland said:

Here is an interesting poll external to this forum community done by Nerds Guns and Steel. Just a first impression poll of 3100 players.

You do understand that his audience is going to lean that way no matter what, right? 

[Belgarion32]

How are the zombies spawned in for the police cars? Is it random or is it supposed to be scaled? Are they supposed to be like only doable with a couple machine guns or something? 5 ferals with 2 being whites vs level 9 with a pipe pistol and bat was absolutely no chance.

[RipClaw]

15 minutes ago, Belgarion32 said:

How are the zombies spawned in for the police cars? Is it random or is it supposed to be scaled? Are they supposed to be like only doable with a couple machine guns or something? 5 ferals with 2 being whites vs level 9 with a pipe pistol and bat was absolutely no chance.

As I understand it, these are always ferals zombies. It is random whether zombies spawn or not but I don't know how high the chance is. However, you can prevent this from happening by opening the police car with lock picks.
 

Edited June 17, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Khissi]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

I wish there was an option to move or dismantle dew collectors. 

I've moved mine twice.  Hold the E button down and you'll get the prompt.

[Neminsis]

12 minutes ago, Roland said:

Or not—and perhaps people will need to mod the game in order to play it the way they want to

Again, people should not have to mod the game in order to make it playable, especially not new players who are going to fumble around, give it a couple tries and then decide that they wasted their money. There should be a baseline where it just works the first time you try it no matter how bad you are at the game. 

Right now that baseline is, you get to the trader, you discover that everything is obtainable through dukes and you throw points into better barter and daring adventurer only to later wonder why there are even other perk trees.

I do get it, I've been through the experimental phase 5 times now, and I've been lurking on this forum for nearly as long. It's easy to understand how one could come to the conclusion that everyone just doesn't understand the game well enough to understand how things will actually work out. Sure, people were saying that digging Zs would ruin underground bases, but up until a20 you could dig deep enough to be undetectable, and now with wandering hordes more precisely and more frequently coming close to the player is that still true? It doesn't matter because there are many things that the player can do to circumvent the issue. The player has agency.

On the other hand there is very little the player can do about how far away particularly important books are going to drop or if RNG is going to be kind. The player doesn't have agency. That's why this time it's different.

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, manni44 said:

U can move them like a Workbench or a Forge

Thanks. The first one I built was over a POI and I didn't have a LCB, so I thought it wasn't possible.

Good to know!  

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[vergilsparda]

On 6/16/2023 at 2:18 AM, Riamus said:

Anyone tried to get screenshots in A21?  I tried taking 2 today and they are nowhere to be found.  The default location would still be %appdata%\7DaysToDie\Screenshots\, right?  No A21 screenshots are there even though I got the screenshot taken popup from Steam each time.  I even used the search box to look for A21 (A20 screenshots start with A20, so I'd assume A21 screenshots start with A21) and got no results.

It should put them there, if you use F9 for screenshots. You get the Steam popup, so I think you're using F12 (Steam screenshot) instead? I only get the popup with F12, and those are located in \\Program Files x(86)\Steam\userdata\[steamID?]\760\remote\251570\screenshots (depending on the game, 7DTD's is 251570). If you have steam installed somewhere than the default folder then itll be in that folder instead of Program Files. Unless you are using F9 and I just have the notification turned off, then it should be in your appdata folder!

 

My question to stay on topic is, where are all the new models and textures located? I hate asking because I feel selfish since they seem to be well-hidden, but I kinda need them for my modlet and I cannot find them anywhere. I want to (faithfully) recreate them, but the vending machines aren't where they used to be. Totally understand if you don't want me doing that again, I can do my best with the screenshots I take in game, but it would seriously help the process along lol 😔