Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[RipClaw]

@faatal I have a question. Some content creators sometimes have the problem that their 7 Days to die content is classified as not advertisement friendly because of the decapitations and dismemberments. Would it be technically possible to change this with a mod so that it looks the same as with the Demolisher? When I shoot the Demolisher's head off, it pops out of existence and there is only a hole where its neck used to be.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Right, I thought you were talking about the way others see you in COOP.

 

So the list is:

1. the bone work 
2. the recoil 
3. the running animation
4. the way your gun sways when moving the camera 
5. revamp all of that 
6. having more than one main attack melee animation

Of the above points, the only one I see has any meaningful merit is n.6 (but it would be a plus, not something lacking).

As for n.1 I'd ask for @SnowDog1942's expertise on how to handle it.

so you  think the skipping/ missing frames of the recoil is acceptable?

You think the 2d plan of gun sway is acceptable? 

You think that having your running animation be the bobbing of everything in your hand is ok as oppose to every fps doing the tuck and run.

Every game with melee animations at least have 2 animation one swing from the left to right. 

I'm not asking for much. I'm asking for bare minimum standards to be realized. 

I'm thinking you got way to comfortable with what the game is that any added compared standards of what an fps should be is just something that "would be a plus" at most.

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, Zombiepoptard said:

I'm thinking you got way to comfortable with what the game is that any added compared standards of what an fps should be is just something that "would be a plus" at most.

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't notice all the stuff you're so obsessed about.

If they change that, good for you, I guess: it won't make much difference to me.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Zombiepoptard said:

so you  think the skipping/ missing frames of the recoil is acceptable?

You think the 2d plan of gun sway is acceptable? 

You think that having your running animation be the bobbing of everything in your hand is ok as oppose to every fps doing the tuck and run.

Every game with melee animations at least have 2 animation one swing from the left to right. 

I'm not asking for much. I'm asking for bare minimum standards to be realized. 

I'm thinking you got way to comfortable with what the game is that any added compared standards of what an fps should be is just something that "would be a plus" at most.

I don't really care about any of that either.  It is fine if they improve it but I have no problems with it as it is.  I don't play this game with the expectation that it will look as realistic as various other games so none of that matters to me.  But like I said, I have no problem with that being improved for those who do care about it.

[fyiiamaheavy]

17 hours ago, faatal said:

I am not aware of the issue, but playing a sound at the hips (the ragdoll root location) is no harder than at the entity position (controller ground position), it is a matter of finding all the places in code playing sounds on the entity and changing them all to account for ragdolls being on or making it always use the hips.
I made a ticket.

Since you updated all weapons to have a better progression with damage outputs are you going to do the same for armors? A level 5 scrap armor should not be better then an Iron armor 

[Aldranon]

With the number of players online almost hitting 100K at one time, I don't think TFP will be in a hurry to change anything but obvious bugs.

 

And rightly so, TFP are on to something. 

 

[saltychipmunk]

12 hours ago, fyiiamaheavy said:

Since you updated all weapons to have a better progression with damage outputs are you going to do the same for armors? A level 5 scrap armor should not be better then an Iron armor 

I get the feeling they did not focus on the armor much because they were of the mind that they were going the change the system a bit  anyway in the next alpha 

[cehwiedel]

I submitted a bug report on this problem, but never heard or saw anything after that. Maybe I screwed up on the bug report.

 

Here's my problem: frequently, but not always, in both solo and multiplayer games, when a zombie is dismembered (head or limbs) by either me or an ally, the zombie's wound turns into a white hole. This white hole persists until the zombie despawns. If I look away, then turn back, the white hole is still there. In multiplayer, the other players do not see the white hole. This leads me to suspect my hardware setup is giving rendering code the conniptions.

 

I am running on a brand spanking new Mac mini with a Dell U2723QE display (27 inches, 3840 x 2160). MacOS Ventura Version 13.4.1. EAC turned off. No added mods.

 

This occurs on both the Navezgane map and on a solo 6k map that I generated myself.

 

This rendering error never occurred in prior alphas nor in my previous setup, an iMac.

 

Has anyone else run into this problem?

[Ralathar44]

On 7/13/2023 at 6:25 AM, RipClaw said:

It works for you and your playstyle, but that doesn't mean it works for everyone in every situation. A player who doesn't loot, or loots very little, will progress slowly or not at all with the magazine system. Someone who does nothing but looting will progress quickly.

It also depends on how many opportunities you have to find magazines. The more loot containers you have that could potentially hold a magazine, the faster you will progress. Looting a crack a book can give you a huge boost in progress. If you have a town with a lot of mailboxes and news dispensers, you will also progress faster than if you have a town that does not.

Look,  while im all for adding a little magazine progression outside of looting and trader to soften things a little, (my own suggestion earlier being that 1 magazine knowledge point be given per perk level and to all underlying skills per attribute level) but end of the day the scavenging is supposed to be part of the core loop.  Asking to be able to progress well without scavenging is alot like asking to be able to progress in Borderlands well without spending points in your skill trees.

You can't just let someone bypass a core loop entirely without invalidating that core loop.  It no longer becomes core, it becomes optional, which radically changes the design of your game.  7DTD without scavenging is just a tower defense building game where you can completely turn off the town defense aspect.  If someone wants that....go to creative mode.  That's the place for them.  Spawn magazines for every X milestone they think is appropriate or find a mod that does it for them if they're too lazy to do it themselves but somehow not too lazy to complain about it.

7DTD or the devs are not trying to be dicks, but the game cannot be all things to all people.  It has to have a concrete focused design.  No matter how much people throw around terms like sandbox, sandbox games still have a focused concrete design and core loops you have to go through.  Which is why Minecraft, Skyrim, Just Cause, Goat Simulator, Grand Theft Auto, etc have their own very defined and unique feels.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[Ralathar44]

19 hours ago, Zombiepoptard said:

so you  think the skipping/ missing frames of the recoil is acceptable?

You think the 2d plan of gun sway is acceptable? 

You think that having your running animation be the bobbing of everything in your hand is ok as oppose to every fps doing the tuck and run.

Every game with melee animations at least have 2 animation one swing from the left to right. 

I'm not asking for much. I'm asking for bare minimum standards to be realized. 

I'm thinking you got way to comfortable with what the game is that any added compared standards of what an fps should be is just something that "would be a plus" at most.

You're the first person I've ever heard complain about any of this so its clearly not a common issue.  I don't see anything egregiously out of place in the gunplay and not only do I not expect this to be Call of Duty or Battlefield or Destiny but I also think its not only fine but healthy for different games to implement their gunplay in different ways.

As far as melee animations....communicating to the player accurately where their attack will land > else.  Most other games with all the animation variations don't have near the same level of precision.  And even something like Dark Souls or Elden Ring that lives off of its melee combat very successfully doesn't give you a left right left cadence when you take individual swings.  

We're not doing combos in 7DTD, we're getting in individual swings where they are safe.  Which is actually very classic old school Dark Souls lol.  Combos, for the most part, are not really a thing in actual martial combat.  Certainly you'll follow up an attack if you see an opening but you're not gonna left right left kick dragon punch hurricane kick lol.  You add in individual extra strikes only as appropriate to the situation.  Go watch some MMA for a decent idea lol.  The same extrapolates over to weaponry.   I'm not gonna say "muh realism" but I will say that designing combat this way is another valid style and not everything has to be some sort of fantasy RPG where you bust out some sick 5 hit sword combo.  We have the modern Final Fantasy games for that.  Or Devil May Cry or God of War.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

5 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

You can't just let someone bypass a core loop entirely without invalidating that core loop.  It no longer becomes core, it becomes optional, which radically changes the design of your game.  7DTD without scavenging is just a tower defense building game where you can completely turn off the town defense aspect.

What exactly does this have to do with my post? I was simply explaining the inherent characteristics of the magazine system. The more you loot, or can loot, the faster you progress.

For example, I was lucky enough to spawn next to a large town with two Crack a Book, which I was even able to loot again as part of a quest. So my progress was very fast.  Other players are unlucky enough to spawn next to a small town and progress more slowly. That's the magazine system.

 

That's why I'm not a fan of the OP's idea that quest rewards, vendor inventory and loot should all be based on the crafting skills. Currently, the quest rewards are based only on the quest tier and the quest type. This could be adjusted so that the lootstage or the player level is taken into account.

 

[Ralathar44]

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

What exactly does this have to do with my post? I was simply explaining the inherent characteristics of the magazine system. The more you loot, or can loot, the faster you progress.

For example, I was lucky enough to spawn next to a large town with two Crack a Book, which I was even able to loot again as part of a quest. So my progress was very fast.  Other players are unlucky enough to spawn next to a small town and progress more slowly. That's the magazine system.

 

That's why I'm not a fan of the OP's idea that quest rewards, vendor inventory and loot should all be based on the crafting skills. Currently, the quest rewards are based only on the quest tier and the quest type. This could be adjusted so that the lootstage or the player level is taken into account.

 

Ironically that variability is good.  As long as the bottom bound is high enough to ensure decent progression or the player is given some sort of agency or safeguard allowing them to keep progression at a decent level.  People play alot longer when things are highly variable vs when they are much more homogeneous.  The times where you get the towns without the crack a book or mailboxes or etc are what make the times you DO get them feel so good. 

This has alot to do with psychology and the methodologies of reinforcing habits.  Variable Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement is heinously effective.  tl;dr uncertain rewards.  But you do need a minimum success rate of returns to maximize it.  See casinos and the "wins" where you get your money back alot today vs just losing all the time like it used to be.  It's well known and used constantly in gaming, though it's hard to find good publicly available examples.  Talking about that kinda @%$# publicly just has a bad look so game dev normally tucks that one away in back corners in recording limited lectures and meetings never intended to see the light of public.  The Jimquisition has covered it a few times and snuck away or dug up some footage before though :P.

Essentially as long as there are sufficient protections against being RNG screwed you're good.  And one thing I've learned about this update is that you kinda do wanna focus if you want to progress fast in an area because the loot pools get in each other's way.  You'll see this really take effect when you start completing magazine collections of stuff you've perked in, other perked stuff speeds up.  On the other hand if you're jack of all trades you're master of none for quite some time.  So I think alot of issues have to do with people spreading themselves too thin. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

Ironically that variability is good.  As long as the bottom bound is high enough to ensure decent progression or the player is given some sort of agency or safeguard allowing them to keep progression at a decent level.  People play alot longer when things are highly variable vs when they are much more homogeneous.  The times where you get the towns without the crack a book or mailboxes or etc are what make the times you DO get them feel so good. 

This has alot to do with psychology and the methodologies of reinforcing habits.  Variable Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement is heinously effective.  tl;dr uncertain rewards.  But you do need a minimum success rate of returns to maximize it.  See casinos and the "wins" where you get your money back alot today vs just losing all the time like it used to be.  It's well known and used constantly in gaming, though it's hard to find good publicly available examples.  Talking about that kinda @%$# publicly just has a bad look so game dev normally tucks that one away in back corners in recording limited lectures and meetings never intended to see the light of public.  The Jimquisition has covered it a few times and snuck away or dug up some footage before though :P.

Essentially as long as there are sufficient protections against being RNG screwed you're good.  And one thing I've learned about this update is that you kinda do wanna focus if you want to progress fast in an area because the loot pools get in each other's way.  You'll see this really take effect when you start completing magazine collections of stuff you've perked in, other perked stuff speeds up.  On the other hand if you're jack of all trades you're master of none for quite some time.  So I think alot of issues have to do with people spreading themselves too thin. 

 

And that is why I don't like this boost being tied to perks. It means I have to consider meta reasons when spending my perk points. I may want to be better and faster at cooking, but no, that would dilute my weapon perks bonus!

 

[BFT2020]

33 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

And that is why I don't like this boost being tied to perks. It means I have to consider meta reasons when spending my perk points. I may want to be better and faster at cooking, but no, that would dilute my weapon perks bonus!

 

 

I am assuming you are talking about the crafting magazines, but in the specialty containers, the weapon perks and cooking perks won't fight against each other (so you are not going to find crafting magazines for weapons in a Shamway crate and no food crafting recipes in shotgun messiah crates).

 

A different way you can also approach this is to have a crafting perk in each attribute tree and tie all those crafting magazines to that perk and remove them from the other perks.  So for example, in Strength, have a strength crafting perk so spending points in there would increase find chances for magazines for sledgehammers, clubs, shotguns, armor, and cooking.  That way, you can simply perk into Master Chef for improved cooking skills but not boost your rate of finding those magazines (instead just perking into say Agility crafting perk if you want to find magazines faster for the weapons in that tree).   And if you want to max out Cooking skill but have a small chance of increasing strength crafting recipes, you can put a perk into the Strength crafting perk and max out, say Agility, so you are more likely to find a Deep Cuts magazine than a sledgehammer or club magazine.

 

There are cons to doing it this way, but it is another way to look at this situation.

[Ralathar44]

52 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

And that is why I don't like this boost being tied to perks. It means I have to consider meta reasons when spending my perk points. I may want to be better and faster at cooking, but no, that would dilute my weapon perks bonus!

 

I totally get that, but as mentioned it does mean that focusing vs being a generalist makes a difference and I also really like that.  So I guess you could say I like the fact that it really makes choices matter more than I dislike the fact I have to play around it.  Making choices always comes with tradeoffs by necessity. 

That being said i wouldnt worry about cooking.  Not only will cooking max out pretty fast but most of the places cooking is in the loot table do not conflict with other magazines.   You're not gonna be finding 50 shotgun magazines in cabinets, but you WILL find cooking magazines in cabinets.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[Uncle Al]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

And that is why I don't like this boost being tied to perks. It means I have to consider meta reasons when spending my perk points. I may want to be better and faster at cooking, but no, that would dilute my weapon perks bonus!

 

I'm am noticing this problem with vehicle magazines. I've played a game with a build that's heavily perked into salvage, with also a couple of points in Miner 69er. Unfortunately, passing gas crates contain four possible magazines: harvesting tools, salvage tools, forge ahead and vehicles. Passing gas crates are pretty much the only commonly available lootable item that weights decently for vehicle magazines.

 

What that means is strength/perception builds are absolutely awful at crafting vehicles...

 

I really wish the perk weighting had been done as it was originally described, where perks grant a chance at extra magazines rather than changing the weightings of loot. Something like (2% x container magazine weighting) chance per perk point of an extra magazine every time you loot a container. That way you'd still never find magazines outside of their proper containers (as the weight chance is zero) but having a perk would never slow your progress in any crafting line. It would mean high level characters find more magazines than low level ones, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

[BFT2020]

20 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

I'm am noticing this problem with vehicle magazines. I've played a game with a build that's heavily perked into salvage, with also a couple of points in Miner 69er. Unfortunately, passing gas crates contain four possible magazines: harvesting tools, salvage tools, forge ahead and vehicles. Passing gas crates are pretty much the only commonly available lootable item that weights decently for vehicle magazines.

 

Garage boxes and Mo Power crates have a good chance of the vehicle crafting skill magazines.  Interesting it is not part of the bonus loot group from loot chests (only salvage, harvest, repair, and workstations) that you can get items from in T3 or higher loot containers.  Wonder if adding vehicle crafting mags to the bonus loot group would be a small increase in drop rates.

 

20 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

I really wish the perk weighting had been done as it was originally described, where perks grant a chance at extra magazines rather than changing the weightings of loot. Something like (2% x container magazine weighting) chance per perk point of an extra magazine every time you loot a container. That way you'd still never find magazines outside of their proper containers (as the weight chance is zero) but having a perk would never slow your progress in any crafting line. It would mean high level characters find more magazines than low level ones, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

 

I don't recall it being described as doubling the amount of magazines you could find, just that you increase the probability of finding them in loot.  I do recall TFP talking about going to specific POIs and having a higher chance of getting the magazines you need, and that the perks would also increase the chance of finding any tied to that perk.

[meganoth]

25 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

I totally get that, but as mentioned it does mean that focusing vs being a generalist makes a difference and I also really like that.  So I guess you could say I like the fact that it really makes choices matter more than I dislike the fact I have to play around it.  Making choices always comes with tradeoffs by necessity. 

That being said i wouldnt worry about cooking.  Not only will cooking max out pretty fast but most of the places cooking is in the loot table do not conflict with other magazines.   You're not gonna be finding 50 shotgun magazines in cabinets, but you WILL find cooking magazines in cabinets.

 

It was just a simple example. And naturally it only affects general loot chests like the book chests in a bookstore or all the newspaper stands, but the dilution effect still seems to be quite strong.

 

Choices are good, but choices for meta-reasons may not be. Imagine trying to explain this "feature" to a new player of the game. 

 

[gpcstargate]

@schwanz9000 May I ask ... WILL we EVER get the parts that are missing in the build menu. Been over 2 years of asking and I really enjoy the building in the game. Over a year ago, I even gave a list of parts by reference numbers of parts that were needed ... mainly inside and outside corners. ... There are others that drop off to no where, but corners are the biggest issue.

Thank you from a player that's been playing since 2015 and has over 8000 hours in game ... modded and Vanilla.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Roland
tagged the developer over the shapes menu (see edit history)

[Ralathar44]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

Choices are good, but choices for meta-reasons may not be. Imagine trying to explain this "feature" to a new player of the game. 

Imagine trying to explain Dark Souls to a new player.  Yet Elden Ring is a smash hit.  Same story with Terraria or even Valheim.  Those chew new players up and kill them until they learn.  We went through 10 years of coddling gamers and pretending they are idiots.  The average gamer is 30+ years old, their kids likely game or can get help, and youtube tutorials are everywhere.  There are also plenty of "noob friendly" games to play if someone wants simple stuff in the genre.

Gaming is thankfully moving out of the phase where we assume every new player is a brain dead invalid.  Much like Elden Ring you can play 7DTD without understanding all the nuances and do the loops, you'll learn the nuances in time.  Your average player didn''t know the nuances of Apex Legends or Fortnite or DOTA 2 or Rust or etc.  They just enjoy those games anyways and learn as they go.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[vergilsparda]

2 hours ago, gpcstargate said:

@schwanz9000 May I ask ... WILL we EVER get the parts that are missing in the build menu. Been over 2 years of asking and I really enjoy the building in the game. Over a year ago, I even gave a list of parts by reference numbers of parts that were needed ... mainly inside and outside corners. ... There are others that drop off to no where, but corners are the biggest issue.

Thank you from a player that's been playing since 2015 and has over 8000 hours in game ... modded and Vanilla.

 

tacking onto this that the build shapes called 'logs' definitely need more options... like full-width 4 and 2 ways, full-width corners (for interior walls),  and some matching window/door-hole shapes to cap the open ends where windows and doors would go, otherwise there are gaps between the logs... found that out the hard way trying to build a log cabin with them instead of just cubes. i realize that for them specifically it will be difficult because they are mostly round shapes and those eat polygons/tris like nobody's business, but it would be nice eventually to have some. (i did manage by using 1/2 cubes, they're the same width)

 

obviously that's a huge undertaking so it's going to be very low on the pole here so i'm not expecting them but it would be nice!

[faatal]

On 7/13/2023 at 2:44 AM, mstdv inc said:

No. I mean, A21 will be A21.1, A21.2 and maximum A21.3. We won't have A21.7 like it was with A20. I hope.
That's the question.

Yes. The plan for A22 is to be much shorter than A21, which means there would be less room for 21.x updates.

[faatal]

On 7/13/2023 at 11:48 AM, RipClaw said:

@faatal I have a question. Some content creators sometimes have the problem that their 7 Days to die content is classified as not advertisement friendly because of the decapitations and dismemberments. Would it be technically possible to change this with a mod so that it looks the same as with the Demolisher? When I shoot the Demolisher's head off, it pops out of existence and there is only a hole where its neck used to be.

 

I am not sure how many places in code/xml would need to change to just get a stub.

[Roland]

3 hours ago, faatal said:

I am not sure how many places in code/xml would need to change to just get a stub.

Just make the twitch integration “confetti” a top menu option for anyone who doesn’t want gore for whatever reason. 

[Arma Rex]

3 hours ago, faatal said:

Yes. The plan for A22 is to be much shorter than A21, which means there would be less room for 21.x updates.

Exciting. I assume then a good chunk of the work on bandits has been complete, or is there other features that are shaping up nicely that would lend to an earlier release date?