Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Adam the Waster]

At least a small country air feild would be cool. Like a place you learn to fly. It is the country side! Kinda like farcry 5

 

Or even a farm with a small air strip 

Then again there has to be a plane model. He'll he don't even have a chopper model... yet

Edited January 24 by Adam the Waster (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

I don't understand all this expectations from an Airport POI.

The only cool thing would be if the game could be able to spawn hundreds of zombies at once: THEN, and only then, it would be cool to have an airport filled with "ex-people".

 

Without that it would only be a very desolate place with too much space and too few zombies.

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

I don't understand all this expectations from an Airport POI.

The only cool thing would be if the game could be able to spawn hundreds of zombies at once: THEN, and only then, it would be cool to have an airport filled with "ex-people".

 

Without that it would only be a very desolate place with too much space and too few zombies.

Give the airport mod a try.  It is actually really well done and doesn't feel too empty.  It is also very large and has a variety of quest locations within it.  There are a few maps already available with it and Teragon can place it as if it was a single POI if you want to go that route, though you do need enough space for it to fit on your map.

 

It is also a fun place to drop a base in the middle of.

[faatal]

On 1/23/2024 at 12:17 AM, FramFramson said:

 

I don't know if you can share this or not, but will the new player characters have much in the way of editable features/morphs (facial... or rough body build/proportions morphs, like say we wanna play a tall himbo or the *ahem* rotund comic book guy), or is there simply going to be a library of stock presets of heads (and maybe bodies)?

I'm fully fine either way, considering that aside from changing skin tone and hair colour, right now you can make all of *two* characters; just excited and curious about what sort of options we're going to get.

They are doing preset parts, so you would pick a head and body and then vary some aspects like hair.

On 1/23/2024 at 3:01 AM, vergilsparda said:

 

first: HECK YES ambient occlusion, all my homies LOVE ambient occlusion.

 

Second, a question about roads. Are there any other changes to roads being made beyond tweaking generation speed? I'm someone who almost exclusively uses roads and and trails and doesn't often off-road, especially with the new vehicle damage changes, so I was wondering how difficult it would be to tweak the road generator so that a city or town once in a while has all four cardinal directions see entrances and exits. This is mostly a throwaway question not meant to be taken incredible urgently or seriously, but it's something that's been on my mind since the new RWG dropped.

 

It's also super good to hear that biome percentages are being tweaked for accuracy! I almost always make my wasteland biome smaller than the others and more often than not it comes out almost the same size or larger than the other two (or so comically small that cities won't spawn inside of it).

Roads are not planned to be changed unless we stumble on something or need to fix a bug. I did speed up road gen speeds about 3x, so I can now make an 8k world with default settings in <50 seconds. I do have a fast PC.

On 1/23/2024 at 5:34 PM, Doomofman said:

This question comes from someone who doesn't really know the ins and outs of how these various components work but my idiot brain reads those as things that'll make the game look better but run worse.

 

Or am I wrong and these are actually intended to reduce performance impact while maintaining the current fidelity?

 

I hope that made some sort of sense

Looking better, but running worse is often how it goes. In this case it may cost a few FPS, but it is not a final tweaked feature yet. The lower quality shadow settings may have contact shadows disabled.

[Jost Amman]

9 hours ago, Riamus said:

Give the airport mod a try.  It is actually really well done and doesn't feel too empty.  It is also very large and has a variety of quest locations within it.  There are a few maps already available with it and Teragon can place it as if it was a single POI if you want to go that route, though you do need enough space for it to fit on your map.

 

It is also a fun place to drop a base in the middle of.

My point is not about the POI itself, I'm sure the Airport MOD is great if you say so.

My point is that we need support for MORE zombie spawns (maybe after gold?) to really create tense locations like an airport full of zombies.

[Adam the Waster]

11 hours ago, faatal said:

 

Looking better, but running worse is often how it goes. In this case it may cost a few FPS, but it is not a final tweaked feature yet. The lower quality shadow settings may have contact shadows disabled.

Here's hoping we get alot of optimization in Alpha 22

 

Anyways! How is that going 

 

[Callum123456789]

yep more zombies = more opportunity for pois for sure i mean hey maybe a next tier up of infestation could be quarantine zone? where instead of 1.5x zombies it could be 2x or 2.5x the amount of zombies in that poi for an even more extreme challenge.

[Riamus]

Unfortunately, unless they can optimize the game enough, I doubt we'll see an increase to max spawns in an area because they are limiting things to make it work with console.  As is common for games developed for both console and PC, PC will suffer because console can't do everything that PC can.  There's nothing wrong with dual development like that but I really wish that they'd just offer it as two games that have differences based on capabilities of the systems rather than restricting what's available for PC.  But that would just generate a huge outcry from console gamers and so isn't going to happen.

[Adam the Waster]

2 hours ago, Riamus said:

Unfortunately, unless they can optimize the game enough, I doubt we'll see an increase to max spawns in an area because they are limiting things to make it work with console.  As is common for games developed for both console and PC, PC will suffer because console can't do everything that PC can.  There's nothing wrong with dual development like that but I really wish that they'd just offer it as two games that have differences based on capabilities of the systems rather than restricting what's available for PC.  But that would just generate a huge outcry from console gamers and so isn't going to happen.

I mean they are working on stuff to help with it but there's alot of back ground stuff going on 

[bdubyah]

4 hours ago, Riamus said:

Unfortunately, unless they can optimize the game enough, I doubt we'll see an increase to max spawns in an area because they are limiting things to make it work with console.  As is common for games developed for both console and PC, PC will suffer because console can't do everything that PC can.  There's nothing wrong with dual development like that but I really wish that they'd just offer it as two games that have differences based on capabilities of the systems rather than restricting what's available for PC.  But that would just generate a huge outcry from console gamers and so isn't going to happen.

It also means they have to be a bit more thorough with optimizations, which helps everyone. Which means while the console will be locked to its own settings, PC users can push the limits with mods. Or there could even end up being some UI options we can fiddle with that console won't have. We won't know till it gets here. 

[Riamus]

21 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

It also means they have to be a bit more thorough with optimizations, which helps everyone. Which means while the console will be locked to its own settings, PC users can push the limits with mods. Or there could even end up being some UI options we can fiddle with that console won't have. We won't know till it gets here. 

That is always the claim and yet how often did it work out that way?  I'm not saying optimizations won't benefit PC and obviously we have mods, which are very nice to have and won't be on console.  And others can make the game better on PC through use of mods, so that is always a benefit for PC.

 

What I mean is that the games coming out of the developers directly that are made for both PC and console are almost universally limited to support what a console can do.  Developers generally don't want to have the versions be too significantly different and so PC gets limited.

 

At least we do have mods and the controls aren't limited to controller setups, so this game isn't quite as limited as others.  But the devs here have said they have to limit some things because of console.  Things like paint styles, for example.

 

I'm not against games that are cross platform.  I just am not a fan of limitations placed on games just for the sake of console.

As far as number of zombies go, rather than limit to what console supports, I'd rather see console limited to what they support and PC have a higher number.  I know they are supporting cross platform gaming, but let the server choose to only allow PC in order to set the numbers higher or to allow both and keep the numbers lower.  But that won't happen.

[NukemDed]

3 hours ago, Riamus said:

I'm not against games that are cross platform. 

never figured out why ppl would go platform if controller support on pc is good. i hate keyboards, too many buttons = too many chances to push the wrong one. dont care if its pc or platform as long as i can play with controller

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, NukemDed said:

never figured out why ppl would go platform if controller support on pc is good. i hate keyboards, too many buttons = too many chances to push the wrong one. dont care if its pc or platform as long as i can play with controller

Lol.  I hate controllers.  As long as you set up the keyboard/mouse controls well, you generally shouldn't be hitting any wrong buttons and it's far easier (imo) to do multiple things quickly when you have access to more keys than a controller has buttons.  Of course, you need a decent keyboard.  My wireless one stopped working and I'm currently using a cheap wired one that is entirely flat keys and you can't tell what you're pressing, causing me to miskey things often.  But that's a problem with this specific keyboard.

[bdubyah]

8 hours ago, Riamus said:

That is always the claim and yet how often did it work out that way?  I'm not saying optimizations won't benefit PC and obviously we have mods, which are very nice to have and won't be on console.  And others can make the game better on PC through use of mods, so that is always a benefit for PC.

 

What I mean is that the games coming out of the developers directly that are made for both PC and console are almost universally limited to support what a console can do.  Developers generally don't want to have the versions be too significantly different and so PC gets limited.

 

At least we do have mods and the controls aren't limited to controller setups, so this game isn't quite as limited as others.  But the devs here have said they have to limit some things because of console.  Things like paint styles, for example.

 

I'm not against games that are cross platform.  I just am not a fan of limitations placed on games just for the sake of console.

As far as number of zombies go, rather than limit to what console supports, I'd rather see console limited to what they support and PC have a higher number.  I know they are supporting cross platform gaming, but let the server choose to only allow PC in order to set the numbers higher or to allow both and keep the numbers lower.  But that won't happen.

But this game wasn't made for console from the beginning. So a console version shouldn't really affect the PC side negatively. They likely just have to make some changes to smooth it out for consoles. Though the newest consoles are pretty powerful so I doubt there are going to be massive changes made.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, bdubyah said:

But this game wasn't made for console from the beginning. So a console version shouldn't really affect the PC side negatively. They likely just have to make some changes to smooth it out for consoles. Though the newest consoles are pretty powerful so I doubt there are going to be massive changes made.

 

Theoretically the cross-platform feature could result in limitations. For example, will TFP add or keep option settings that automatically prevent cross-platform play? It is possible to solve this with a warning text on the option, but that might not be acceptable to MS and Sony.

 

Note there is a big hypothetical "if" here, i.e. if MS/Sony would intervene or TFP simply wants to avoid the possibility or anything hindering cross-play.

 

[Doomofman]

https://x.com/7DaystoDie/status/1751277387965161675?s=20

 

Can someone tell me if I'm losing my mind. I'd swear there used to be a 'Grover' school POI (maybe A15 or A16) that was great for book shelves but I can't find any evidence. Is my brain just making stuff up?

[Javabean867]

21 hours ago, Doomofman said:

https://x.com/7DaystoDie/status/1751277387965161675?s=20

 

Can someone tell me if I'm losing my mind. I'd swear there used to be a 'Grover' school POI (maybe A15 or A16) that was great for book shelves but I can't find any evidence. Is my brain just making stuff up?

You are not.  It was a poi that you could make spawn using different map makers like terragen.

[Matt115]

On 1/27/2024 at 5:27 PM, Doomofman said:

https://x.com/7DaystoDie/status/1751277387965161675?s=20

 

Can someone tell me if I'm losing my mind. I'd swear there used to be a 'Grover' school POI (maybe A15 or A16) that was great for book shelves but I can't find any evidence. Is my brain just making stuff up?

School PoI? i was thinking that  TFP don't want zombie kids 😂

 

But seriously : i manage to force my friend to play in 7dtd so i will tell you tomorrow about his experiences for A21 

[Trankitas]

I find it weird that there's not an A22 dev diary yet, It's been half a year since A21 launched right?

[Matt115]

So here we go with A21 review :

I played with my friend. He didn't followed anything about 7dtd. Because of that some things "clear" for people here aren't for him

what is good ? 

Art is soo good - both props and POI's design = looted is big + ,

Some QoL like fast cleaning invetory.

You can meet harder zombie variants.

much  more options for building.

Better health system

Better performance

door holes

What is bad? 

LBL - for my friend it's totaly unclear what exactly you need to do to make for example 2 LVL stone axe - perks  or magasines or what. Better explanation needed. But concept is fine yet describtion better

Zombies and animals too often just "jumping" without point in one place

CRAFTING by one small thing is terrible. Why? because "track" option cause too much missclick in situation when there is no time for that ( like bleeding)

Traders - traders are high or something. How 10 glues is this worthy as 100 bullets? or gun mode and 1000 wooden planks? Yet - add vendings machines with food and drinks is good.

A little bit lack of one vision about some things : devs don't want zombie kids ( okay) but then adds daycare? then he will will bit... confused - will be new school pois but won't add zombie kids. Ok won't kids so why add such POI's? it's like don't want to add alcohol but add brewery

Lack of "team spawn" - it would be good to able to start close each other not 4 km far away. 

Chipboard blocks instead frames

 

 

 

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

CRAFTING by one small thing is terrible. Why? because "track" option cause too much missclick in situation when there is no time for that ( like bleeding)

It would be great if they could add to the HUD (e.g.) three buttons where you can link some "quick crafting" recipes, so that you only need to click them to craft.

 

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

A little bit lack of one vision about some things : devs don't want zombie kids ( okay) but then adds daycare? then he will will bit... confused - will be new school pois but won't add zombie kids. Ok won't kids so why add such POI's?

The kids immune system was much stronger than those of adults, so they were immune. But after their parents turned... well, you know hoe it ended.

(just a possible in-lore explanation )

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

 

CRAFTING by one small thing is terrible. Why? because "track" option cause too much missclick in situation when there is no time for that ( like bleeding)

 

Couple of things

 

1) pinning recipes has been asked for so long now, so it isn’t going away

 

2) Don’t wait until you need first aid to craft first aid.  Always have it on you, even a lowly bandage is going to be beneficial….not if you have to craft it first.

[Adam the Waster]

47 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

 

The kids immune system was much stronger than those of adults, so they were immune. But after their parents turned... well, you know hoe it ended.

(just a possible in-lore explanation )

Maybe they ate them all for protein 

8 hours ago, Trankitas said:

I find it weird that there's not an A22 dev diary yet, It's been half a year since A21 launched right?

I AM THE DEV DAIRY 

Edited January 29 by Adam the Waster (see edit history)

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

It would be great if they could add to the HUD (e.g.) three buttons where you can link some "quick crafting" recipes, so that you only need to click them to craft.

 

The kids immune system was much stronger than those of adults, so they were immune. But after their parents turned... well, you know hoe it ended.

(just a possible in-lore explanation )

1. Yeah it could be great!

2. then... add KIDS SKELETONS as lore explanation 😉😂😆 I want use every occasion to mention skeletons.

 

Btw. my friend wanted to make castle near water. he was pretty upset when he figured out about lack of jars 😅

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

Couple of things

 

1) pinning recipes has been asked for so long now, so it isn’t going away

 

2) Don’t wait until you need first aid to craft first aid.  Always have it on you, even a lowly bandage is going to be beneficial….not if you have to craft it first.

1.  It could be put in diffrent place like item describtion not just in this same place like crafting. It would be solve that problem. 

2. Actualy - pretty early stage + lack of free space. My friend was thinking that dogs can only make bleeding like during previous alphas

[Old Crow]

9 hours ago, Trankitas said:

I find it weird that there's not an A22 dev diary yet, It's been half a year since A21 launched right?

 

Especially since A22 is supposedly coming in Q1 2024. I have a feeling they either forgot to start the A22 dev diary, aren't starting on at all, or A22 isn't coming Q1 2024.