Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[vergilsparda]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

Hello All,

 

Last week, I finished the 4 unit apartment building I mentioned in my last post.  It will be a T2 questable POI in the country residential district.

 

I have started work on a new cave POI but still in the early planning phase.  I am hoping to come up with a t3 or higher design.  Will see where things end up.

 

 

While you're here, any news able to be given on the.. second(?) pass of previous POIs that haven't yet been updated to a21/a22 standards? I've been getting into 7 Days again after a huge break and I've been focusing on going through more 'new'/'updated' POIs and I gotta say the attention to detail in a lot of them is incredible. I recently did the L-shaped shopping center with apartments above it (I can't remember the name to save my life), and the sheer detail in each store absolutely blew my mind. You guys are doing genuinely great work with making the new/updated POIs feel genuinely lived in and cluttered despite the current restrictions of only being able to place one decoration per 1x1m block!

 

and speaking of, if there r any other devs who are allowed to talk or even if you yourself know, how is it going with block model changes/updates, new blocks, new deco etc? Anything cool you can talk about that we can look forward to seeing that we haven't before?

[Gamida]

4 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Again, wishful thinking. They're people with lives like us. They've been through the holidays, met with their families and friends.

They'll keep working for months and slowly progress toward the current goal.

 

No surprises. Just good, maybe a bit laid-back, but still good, steady work.

It'll take time.

 

It was a joke.

[doughphunghus]

1 hour ago, vergilsparda said:

I gotta say the attention to detail in a lot of them is incredible. I recently did the L-shaped shopping center with apartments above it (I can't remember the name to save my life), and the sheer detail in each store absolutely blew my mind. You guys are doing genuinely great work with making the new/updated POIs feel genuinely lived in and cluttered despite the current restrictions of only being able to place one decoration per 1x1m block!

I agree! I have loved the new look and feel of the updated POIs.  There is one in particular you find in the forest that's a very small "you pull it from a pickup" kind of travel trailer? that's "crashed" and on its side and it was really surprising how much there was to it on the inside.

Anyway: Great job POI makers! Thanks!

[Laz Man]

2 hours ago, doughphunghus said:

I agree! I have loved the new look and feel of the updated POIs.  There is one in particular you find in the forest that's a very small "you pull it from a pickup" kind of travel trailer? that's "crashed" and on its side and it was really surprising how much there was to it on the inside.

Anyway: Great job POI makers! Thanks!

 

Thanks!  We added some wilderness POIs last alpha with no gravel paths to them to give players some things to find on their own.

 

There should be a few more of them in A22 as well.

[FramFramson]

5 hours ago, vergilsparda said:

 

While you're here, any news able to be given on the.. second(?) pass of previous POIs that haven't yet been updated to a21/a22 standards?

 

 

Hoping so hard for 1-3 new fonts for the big block letters and a wide POI update which applies them. Shouldn't be TOO hard or take too long to do.

 

With the huge improvements to everything else, seeing the exact same signage on literally every building is easily the most visibly outdated aspect of POIs now.

[wolfbain5]

7 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Hello All,

 

Last week, I finished the 4 unit apartment building I mentioned in my last post.  It will be a T2 questable POI in the country residential district.

 

I have started work on a new cave POI but still in the early planning phase.  I am hoping to come up with a t3 or higher design.  Will see where things end up.

 

 

 

 

mining cave system, or animal den cave system with bears and wolves or mountain lions and perhaps a few pit traps with spikes that are covered and fall into?

 

or perhaps an abandoned resource mine that go converted into a survivalists bunker before the bombs dropped. brought his family in and still got infected?

Edited January 16 by wolfbain5 (see edit history)

[beerfly]

A cave system with bio lab in the end, for experimenting with animals to find a cure that went wrong. Not much place to escape. Bears, mountain lions, wolfs, Grace, few feral chickens and rabbits. T4. 

[Arez]

4 hours ago, Laz Man said:

There should be a few more of them in A22 as well.

Can't wait!

Have there been any plans for adding more easter egg POIs like the Fates Motel?

[bdubyah]

Have there been many new deco assets added in A22? I know that was a big thing for A21 so not sure if there was much left that was needed. Mainly asking because with all the new blocks and new shapes it doesn't leave us modders much room in the custom block department. So the more added is less room we have. Unless, you know...TFP wants to up the limit...

[Falcon197]

38 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

Have there been many new deco assets added in A22? I know that was a big thing for A21 so not sure if there was much left that was needed. Mainly asking because with all the new blocks and new shapes it doesn't leave us modders much room in the custom block department. So the more added is less room we have. Unless, you know...TFP wants to up the limit...

 

I second this question and suggestion.  More custom blocks is better.

[Adam the Waster]

13 hours ago, wolfbain5 said:

mining cave system, or animal den cave system with bears and wolves or mountain lions and perhaps a few pit traps with spikes that are covered and fall into?

 

or perhaps an abandoned resource mine that go converted into a survivalists bunker before the bombs dropped. brought his family in and still got infected?

The nazezgane mine would be cool or more places like lug and dump (miss that name) 

3 hours ago, bdubyah said:

Have there been many new deco assets added in A22? I know that was a big thing for A21 so not sure if there was much left that was needed. Mainly asking because with all the new blocks and new shapes it doesn't leave us modders much room in the custom block department. So the more added is less room we have. Unless, you know...TFP wants to up the limit...

I just want even more craftable decor, like the corrugated metal and wooden gates/walls etc

[Space4Ace]

22 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Hello All,

 

Last week, I finished the 4 unit apartment building I mentioned in my last post.  It will be a T2 questable POI in the country residential district.

 

I have started work on a new cave POI but still in the early planning phase.  I am hoping to come up with a t3 or higher design.  Will see where things end up.

 

 

 

 

Hi Laz Man!

Is it too late to call the Football Stadium just the Stadium, meaning a venue where there could also be concerts, etc.

Since there is no football players or cheerleaders zombies anymore in the game, it makes little sense for it to be a football stadium.

Anything here makes any sense? (I'm very tired)

[Adam the Waster]

4 hours ago, Space4Ace said:

Hi Laz Man!

Is it too late to call the Football Stadium just the Stadium, meaning a venue where there could also be concerts, etc.

Since there is no football players or cheerleaders zombies anymore in the game, it makes little sense for it to be a football stadium.

Anything here makes any sense? (I'm very tired)

I mean it kinda does. Not many people would be dressed as a football player or a cheerleader (unless it's also the club) 

 

If a outbreak happened right now and I raided my football stadium. I wouldn't really see many football players unless people wear it as armor

[Laz Man]

21 hours ago, Arez said:

Can't wait!

Have there been any plans for adding more easter egg POIs like the Fates Motel?

 

There were a few hidden easter eggs in A21.  Perhaps a few more in 22.

 

9 hours ago, Space4Ace said:

Hi Laz Man!

Is it too late to call the Football Stadium just the Stadium, meaning a venue where there could also be concerts, etc.

Since there is no football players or cheerleaders zombies anymore in the game, it makes little sense for it to be a football stadium.

Anything here makes any sense? (I'm very tired)

 

It actually was transformed into a smaller athletic complex. 😎

[Arez]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

There were a few hidden easter eggs in A21.  Perhaps a few more in 22.

OH MY GOD! It's the little things. It's the little things that go a long way!

I'm too excited now!

[Jaska]

On 1/16/2024 at 2:14 AM, vergilsparda said:

 

While you're here, any news able to be given on the.. second(?) pass of previous POIs that haven't yet been updated to a21/a22 standards? I've been getting into 7 Days again after a huge break and I've been focusing on going through more 'new'/'updated' POIs and I gotta say the attention to detail in a lot of them is incredible. I recently did the L-shaped shopping center with apartments above it (I can't remember the name to save my life), and the sheer detail in each store absolutely blew my mind. You guys are doing genuinely great work with making the new/updated POIs feel genuinely lived in and cluttered despite the current restrictions of only being able to place one decoration per 1x1m block!

 

and speaking of, if there r any other devs who are allowed to talk or even if you yourself know, how is it going with block model changes/updates, new blocks, new deco etc? Anything cool you can talk about that we can look forward to seeing that we haven't before?

 

I've for long time wanted to also thank POI-creators for their awesome work! There should be an option - like if you are on debug mode - to see who has made the POI. There are so many clever things you have done only with shapes. And the player is so many times rewarded for being "clever", for paying attention.

 

Is there need for more POI-creators? I would really like to contribute. I also have some simple ideas which would enhance replayability and exploring the POIs (and the world). Some of would be really easy to implement also.

Screenshots from 2 POIs which I made to last alpha:

Spoiler

 

 

 

This was originally alpha 19.

 

BR Jaska

Edited January 17 by Jaska (see edit history)

[doughphunghus]

On 1/16/2024 at 12:10 AM, FramFramson said:

 

Hoping so hard for 1-3 new fonts for the big block letters and a wide POI update which applies them. Shouldn't be TOO hard or take too long to do.

 

With the huge improvements to everything else, seeing the exact same signage on literally every building is easily the most visibly outdated aspect of POIs now.

Also agree. If we had lowercase letters, and ?maybe a cursive? Set of letters (as cursive runs together) it would liven things up a bit. i wish you could make a sign with text on it and it could be saved in a poi with the text on it.

[Outlaw_187]

Hope everyone had a great Holiday & a safe New Year's!

Does anyone have any experience with those mini Bee Link gaming PC's? 

Been seeing quite a few video reviews about them on YouTube. They look quite powerful based on the specs of some of the models. 

Seems like they should be able to play 7 Days on at least high settings, possibly higher? 

 

Can't wait to jump back in with A22 when it arrives. Gotta admit the thing I'm looking forward to the most is the clothing/hair color variations for the Z's!

[Prydonian]

Hi, guys.  I haven't been around for while because I thought a few months off would help the development time pass faster.  I gotta say, I'm surprised to see this thread not replaced by one for A22 yet... I know, you've been talking about it, I read the last few pages.  I was going to make a mostly-joke about that being because they were planning to surprise us by saying, "Haha, there is no A22, next up is 1.0!" but I see someone already did on this very page.  I haven't been able to find anything about why there's not a countdown to A22 yet.  Can I assume the reason is that it's still many months away?

Edited January 18 by Prydonian (see edit history)

[Laran Mithras]

I wonder if Bandits are a case of "bit off more than we could chew."

It isn't just a zombie reskin; these may have firearms.

 

I see balance issues, definitely. Playing with the NPC mod, I found there were times the wife and I were simply ambushed by a single opponent who took us both down before we figured out from where the shots were coming. Bad enough on lower difficulties. On higher, I don't think many players will appreciate being shot for 80% of their health, dance around trying to look for them, get shot again and... dead.

 

Do the Bandits have advanced AI with the same weapons we have? Kiss your playthrough goodbye. Do they dumb down the Bandits by making them blind outside of 8 blocks? Nerf their firearm damage? I imagine this isn't going to be easy.

[beerfly]

I guess they would add some red dots as markers in the compass on the top part of the screen as they do with enemies in quests.

 

They better do it, because you got a good point here and balance is pretty much what will make them good addition or a bad one. 

[meganoth]

I would assume good methods to nerf bandits would be range, accuracy and damage, as well as keeping them to specific areas.

 

Especially accuracy and damage could be tuned to be very bad or even guaranteed misses the first few shots and then continually improving. That way you would always have time to just go behind some corner and give yourself time to orient.

 

Also bandits could very well only occur in bandit camps (and then in the center of cities only) and possibly as wandering hordes in late game. After all bandits may be end-game opponents only, at least that was the plan stated by TFP a long time ago.

 

Modders often tune their mods for advanced players and they expect those players to know how to handle them even at low level. TFP has to think about novice players, IMHO it is very likely that experienced players will be a bit dissappointed by the difficulty bandits actually provide. Though if they are relegated to end game you should expect difficulty on par or even higher than the demolisher, but only if you play that far.

 

EDIT: Just a wild guess, but maybe they hope to make them really dangerous only if they act as a group, i.e. that a single bandit is easy to kill because you can easily exploit its AI, but in a group you would have a few bandits pinning you down with low damage shots while two others try to narrow the distance to get in shotgun range. So in mid-game you would see single bandits, but the real danger would come with groups of bandits.

 

 

Edited January 18 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

33 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I would assume good methods to nerf bandits would be range, accuracy and damage, as well as keeping them to specific areas.

 

Especially accuracy and damage could be tuned to be very bad or even guaranteed misses the first few shots and then continually improving. That way you would always have time to just go behind some corner and give yourself time to orient.

 

Also bandits could very well only occur in bandit camps (and then in the center of cities only) and possibly as wandering hordes in late game. After all bandits may be end-game opponents only, at least that was the plan stated by TFP a long time ago.

 

Modders often tune their mods for advanced players and they expect those players to know how to handle them even at low level. TFP has to think about novice players, IMHO it is very likely that experienced players will be a bit dissappointed by the difficulty bandits actually provide. Though if they are relegated to end game you should expect difficulty on par or even higher than the demolisher, but only if you play that far.

 

EDIT: Just a wild guess, but maybe they hope to make them really dangerous only if they act as a group, i.e. that a single bandit is easy to kill because you can easily exploit its AI, but in a group you would have a few bandits pinning you down with low damage shots while two others try to narrow the distance to get in shotgun range. So in mid-game you would see single bandits, but the real danger would come with groups of bandits.

 

 

 

Ranged enemies is a fun topic.  Gaming has been dumbing ranged AI down for years so players don't get frustrated fighting them.

 

The magic sauce imo, is dumbing them down just enough where most players don't realize AND have a challenging / fun experience.

 

If you have ever experienced 100% detection no miss aimbots from 1000 meters away, you know what I mean. 😆

 

 

[meganoth]

39 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Ranged enemies is a fun topic.  Gaming has been dumbing ranged AI down for years so players don't get frustrated fighting them.

 

The magic sauce imo, is dumbing them down just enough where most players don't realize AND have a challenging / fun experience.

 

If you have ever experienced 100% detection no miss aimbots from 1000 meters away, you know what I mean. 😆

 

 

 

Right. I would consider the "goblins" in the Plains in Valheim a good example. They have bows and (largely depending on your equipment) they can kill you with say 4 or 5 hits. They always announce their presence through shouts but they are small and can be invisible in high grass. A single one is easy as you only need to run in any direction except straight at him to avoid being hit and you can see the arrows flying to know where he is. They also shoot slowly so you have time to orient or run to them between shots. But have 2 or more shooting at you from different directions or in group with melee goblings they get rather deadly. 

 

Now bandits will have guns and it will be more difficult to spot bullets flying at you. But the AI could just be programmed to always shoot in the direction you were a split second before. And similar to the player shooting the bandit could have a circle of accuracy in which he would hit randomly. Result: If you are standing still you would get hit with say 50 to 90% probability on mid range, but if you are running around that probability would go down to 5 to 20% automatically.

 

In effect you would have no difficulty fighting with a single bandit if he needs say 5 or more hits to kill you. But against a group those low probabilites would get you killed if you can't find cover or eliminate some of them very fast

 

Edited January 18 by meganoth (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

7 hours ago, Laran Mithras said:

I wonder if Bandits are a case of "bit off more than we could chew."

It isn't just a zombie reskin; these may have firearms.

 

I see balance issues, definitely. Playing with the NPC mod, I found there were times the wife and I were simply ambushed by a single opponent who took us both down before we figured out from where the shots were coming. Bad enough on lower difficulties. On higher, I don't think many players will appreciate being shot for 80% of their health, dance around trying to look for them, get shot again and... dead.

 

Do the Bandits have advanced AI with the same weapons we have? Kiss your playthrough goodbye. Do they dumb down the Bandits by making them blind outside of 8 blocks? Nerf their firearm damage? I imagine this isn't going to be easy.

I love the work done on NPCmod, but you can't compare that to what TFP will do. Most of what is used in NPCmod is just old TFP code/AI. They will likely balance them the same as zombies. Lower difficulty means they do less damage, maybe accuracy, etc. I'm sure they will be good, and will only help us modders do even more with them.

Edited January 18 by bdubyah (see edit history)