Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Gamida]

Sorry for the long read.

 

I think 100% of us will agree that you will never get 100% of us to agree that this game (or any game for that matter) is perfect for everyone.

There are too many playstyles to have it so.

For instance, I myself, have never, ever used electrical objects in game such at the traps or even the smg and shotgun turrets.

I should say build. I have once or twice on occasion in a MP game put ammo in them and have repaired a trap.

I hardly even use spikes.

The thing is to me that there are a lot of single players of this game but I think it shines best when played in MP PVE. (My opinion, not fact)

I like to mine and farm. I find it relaxing as hell. Now I do go out and loot and rarely I will even do quests. I do know though that there are

others who live to do those things. They thrive on it. So it makes sense to try and band together with a group of players who like different

things. I think akin to all the fantasy books, movies where you have a heroic group of adventurers made up of different members with specialties 

in different things. Imagine how awful those stories would be if the group was all just say mages, or archers or whatever (yes, I am screwing up my

analogy as I am not well versed on the genre )

Anyway to make a long story longer, I think variety is the spice of life and we need to just join a group of misfits on an adventure to rid the world

of these zombie pests and create a new and exciting civilizati..............damn it there goes Leroy Jenkins again...

 

"Damn it Leroy, work on your timing!"

[pApA^LeGBa]

@Roland, i am always talking about MP Coop wich should be clear from my last posts. Don´t know where you got the idea i said SP shoudl be possible without looting, i never said that. And we do have people in the group who absolutly won´t go looting. If they are forced to, they won´t play. And i have done the builder/miner part myself already aswell in several playtroughs and will do so again propably. So i am talking for myself here.

 

And to your example, with water not beeing transportable is unique:  Really? That´s what you choose to say it´s unique? This is the typical case  of "Just because you are special, doesn´t mean you are usefull" right there. I can see the ads for 7 days now. "Play 7 days to die. The survival game where you can´t transport water" Oh my. Such an artifical challenge beeing praised as an advantage sounds actually desperate.

 

I mean can you imagine someone telling a friend that they should play 7 days because it´s so unique? "Hey mate, you should really play that survival game where you can´t take water from a lake and cook it so you can drink it. That´s so unique."

 

Thanks for the laugh, can we now be serious again?

Edited January 12, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[Roland]

17 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@Roland, i am always talking about MP Coop wich should be clear from my last posts. Don´t know where you got the idea i said SP shoudl be possible without looting, i never said that. And we do have people in the group who absolutly won´t go looting. If they are forced to, they won´t play. And i have done the builder/miner part myself already aswell in several playtroughs and will do so again propably. So i am talking for myself here.

 

And to your example, with water not beeing transportable is unique:  Really? That´s what you choose to say it´s unique? This is the typical case  of "Just because you are special, doesn´t mean you are usefull" right there. I can see the ads for 7 days now. "Play 7 days to die. The survival game where you can´t transport water" Oh my. Such an artifical challenge beeing praised as an advantage sounds actually desperate.

 

I mean can you imagine someone telling a friend that they should play 7 days because it´s so unique? "Hey mate, you should really play that survival game where you can´t take water from a lake and cook it so you can drink it. That´s so unique."

 

Thanks for the laugh, can we now be serious again?

 

7 Days to Die is the sum of its quirky parts. The new water survival is just one of those quirks. I never meant to say that we would sell the game based on it alone. If you play MP then you will be fine. The changes will help your team work together even more. There is no reason you should be left behind if you are building and others are looting. I've already stated why and how MP will not be negatively impacted by the changes. If you don't trust my word then you will have to wait to play it with your group.

[Gronal]

2 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

 

 

 

It seems like one of the game's perennial debates, which can be phrased many ways but one way is: should the zombies be effectual? There are (at least) two camps, and it's difficult to satisfy both of them.

 

People in the first camp, which has included me at times, bemoan the structural engineer zombies that know the weaknesses of a base, sometimes better than the player that built it does. The usually offered solution is zombies that just beat on random parts of your walls, because, y'know, they're just zombies and we don't expect them to behave overly analytically.

 

People in the second camp accept the traditional "tower defense" mentality that zombies will take the path of least resistance, and build their bases accordingly. They make funnels, mazes, choke points, kill zones, and what have you that specifically depend on the zombies taking a predictable and "exploitable" path.

 

This strikes me as a possible zero sum game.

 

For every step towards zombies that just beat on random parts of your walls, you annoy someone in the second camp. This is not theoretical. Already, one can find plenty of forum threads where a user describes this thoughtful path they constructed for the zombies to march to their doom, only for the zombies to ignore it and beat on something else seemingly at random. I don't know what Vedui is calling tower defense but it requires enemy pathing you can rely on. That is to say, predictability. Otherwise, if the zombies were dumb and just beat on random blocks, base design would be pointlessly trivial. Any blocks you lay down in any configuration would be as good as any other, in a world where zombies beat on blocks at random.

 

And yet, for every step towards zombies that can reach you and take an efficient route to do it, you annoy someone in the first camp that, again, thinks such zombies are conceptually "too smart for their own good." Immersion is lost, because it's not very zombie-like behavior to them. Maybe I'm not describing the grievance some have here well, but suffice it to say this conflict is not easy to resolve to the satisfaction of both camps.

 

I can see why, if you're the AI programmer, you'd go with maximally effectual zombies, at least as a draft before making further refinements. You want it to be possible for the zombies to reach the player, which (current bugs aside) they definitely couldn't do before A17. And zombies that deliberately go to sub-optimal places to attack unimportant blocks - that, compared to structural engineer zombies, are there for show, to create the appearance of danger - are wasting resources that could be given to a zombie that's going to do something that matters.

 

So my thinking on this has evolved. I don't like structural engineer zombies, but I accept the premise that they must be generally capable: effectual at their goal of eventually reaching the player, if the interventions the player puts in the way are insufficient. At least until we get bandits, I see it as a necessary evil.

The thing is, for me - these 'intelligent' zombies are actually just kinda dumb still in a way. Predictability is the biggest downfall of the current zombie pathing, and is what makes them actually LESS effectual. In my opinion.
More variability to the zombie pathing would decrease the predictability and add more challenge. Say 50% of zombies take the current pathing, the other 50% are "dumb" perhaps. POI zombies should definitely be smart for reasons already discussed.

Why can't we have both? (disclaimer: I am not a programmer and have no idea how hard it is to develop the game)
From my perspective it seems like a gameplay choice to have ALL zombies be smart. Could it not be a simple dice roll whether a zombie is spawned in smart or not? That can't be that resource intensive a change.

Is it better to choose something that pleases one camp and not the other? Or to choose something that pleases both maybe slightly less?

p.s. I do actually respect whichever direction TFP want to go with the zombies. Even if I don't like it.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Gronal (see edit history)

[Grue]

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

Nonsense. Play a traditional tower defense game some time. Tower defense depends on enemies who usually go along fixed paths where the player distributes his traps and turrets, one main game element is to add traps at chokepoints. So A17 is the true tower defense, independent from advantages and disadvantages of that. Now I would immediately agree if you said you don't care for nomenclature, the more important thing is whether one of the two is more fun.

That is a very, very narrow interpretation of a tower defense game and it is also a poor excuse to justify bad design choices.

Like @Vedui said pre-A17 defenses had to be layered and cover more than one angle of attack like -gasp- an actual tower defense scenario. 

Now players are forced to use some variation of a cattle chute design to manage the flow of zombies.

Even the youtube videos are boring now. Instead of running around and actively defending, people just stand in one place and shoot at the conga line.

 

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

And in my view pre-A17 you had a slightly more active role as you were shifting positions while shooting the zombies, and I would agree that it might be more what you would expect from traditional zombies though I would hesitate to term that "realism". The disadvantage though was that it was an attrition game where it made no sense to have differently designed sides on a building. You always built a pillbox and it only mattered how long each side withstood the zombies and how much you could distribute the damage by walking around or the luck of zombie direction changing.

The most serious problem was that all bases got damaged all around which made repairing a long and boring task. I remember in A16 many players complaining that the repair time became a weekly grind

Active defense was the fun part! Actually having to move around and fight from all sides and rushing to repair a breach in the defenses between waves only to realize they are attacking the south wall now instead? 

 

What you guys seem to be missing is that for a lot of people the building and maintaining their base IS the game and that is way more "tower defense" than -waves vaguely- whatever it is you guys are currently trying to do.

 

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

On the other hand A17 and later you have to put much more brains into building, it is more interesting to try out different designs, you have more variation and possibilities. And traps suddenly make sense to add them, they have a much higher effect. And I strongly prefer those advantages to the 20 brain cells you need to use in a A16 horde night to see that some part of the wall is near braking and doing a few steps to the side.

 

From A17 on I actually have build all sorts of horde bases that all had in common that I (tried to) direct the zombies along paths, I was the architect of their doom, not the passive observer of which direction the zombies might come this time: "Oh, they spawn in the south, let us go ... mmmmh, let me think, ... let me think ... to the south wall then".

 

Do you really think that!?

I think anyone who does a lot of building would agree the AI changes made base building almost comically easy.

You can AFK a max zombies day 7000 horde with the current AI.

Actually it is not even base building anymore. It is crowd control.

The zombies are so amped up you can't afford to let them touch any surface for more than 10 seconds, so all the designs just run them through some variation of a cattle chute.

 

A16 hordes were much more fun and challenging.

 

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

Pre-A17 it was an attrition game where it made no sense to have differently designed sides on a building. You always built a pillbox and it only mattered how long each side withstood the zombies and how much you could distribute the damage by walking around or the luck of zombie direction changing.

The most serious problem was that all bases got damaged all around which made repairing a long and boring task.

 

At least the buildings had different sides. Now it is completely linear. You have the cattle chute and you stand in one spot and shoot/swing your weapon in one direction until they quit coming.

Once you build your base which is always a variation of the same basic design now, horde nights are literally boring.

 

The time crunch of getting your base repaired between attacks is was a major factor in playing the game, that created a need for resource management, time management, shoring up weak spots, planning additional defenses...

 

Now you dust off your horde base once a week, run a bunch of zombies through and forget about it until next week.

Maintenance is down to 5 minutes touching up chipped paint and topping off ammo.

Is that really the plan?

 

16 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

We did get a bigger backpack.

And a bigger tool belt.

And things like raw iron/scrap iron, animal hide/leather, bricks/cobblestone etc. were combined, resulting in fewer types of things to carry.
And we got vehicles that hold more inventory.
And drones that increase that further.

And cargo mods that increase that further.

 

Some people are insatiable. They're going to keep asking for bigger backpacks until they never, ever have to think about an inventory limit.

 

Almost as if players have been pushed, and pushed, and pushed into a more loot-centric Murder Hobo playstyle that requires cramming as much as possible into your pockets as you locust from one POI to the next.

 

 

15 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

It seems like one of the game's perennial debates, which can be phrased many ways but one way is: should the zombies be effectual? There are (at least) two camps, and it's difficult to satisfy both of them.

 

People in the first camp, which has included me at times, bemoan the structural engineer zombies that know the weaknesses of a base, sometimes better than the player that built it does. The usually offered solution is zombies that just beat on random parts of your walls, because, y'know, they're just zombies and we don't expect them to behave overly analytically.

 

People in the second camp accept the traditional "tower defense" mentality that zombies will take the path of least resistance, and build their bases accordingly. They make funnels, mazes, choke points, kill zones, and what have you that specifically depend on the zombies taking a predictable and "exploitable" path.

 

This strikes me as a possible zero sum game.

 

For every step towards zombies that just beat on random parts of your walls, you annoy someone in the second camp. This is not theoretical. Already, one can find plenty of forum threads where a user describes this thoughtful path they constructed for the zombies to march to their doom, only for the zombies to ignore it and beat on something else seemingly at random. I don't know what Vedui is calling tower defense but it requires enemy pathing you can rely on. That is to say, predictability. Otherwise, if the zombies were dumb and just beat on random blocks, base design would be pointlessly trivial. Any blocks you lay down in any configuration would be as good as any other, in a world where zombies beat on blocks at random.

 

And yet, for every step towards zombies that can reach you and take an efficient route to do it, you annoy someone in the first camp that, again, thinks such zombies are conceptually "too smart for their own good." Immersion is lost, because it's not very zombie-like behavior to them. Maybe I'm not describing the grievance some have here well, but suffice it to say this conflict is not easy to resolve to the satisfaction of both camps.

 

I can see why, if you're the AI programmer, you'd go with maximally effectual zombies, at least as a draft before making further refinements. You want it to be possible for the zombies to reach the player, which (current bugs aside) they definitely couldn't do before A17. And zombies that deliberately go to sub-optimal places to attack unimportant blocks - that, compared to structural engineer zombies, are there for show, to create the appearance of danger - are wasting resources that could be given to a zombie that's going to do something that matters.

 

So my thinking on this has evolved. I don't like structural engineer zombies, but I accept the premise that they must be generally capable: effectual at their goal of eventually reaching the player, if the interventions the player puts in the way are insufficient. At least until we get bandits, I see it as a necessary evil.

 

First, thank you for a well reasoned response.

For the record, I am firmly in the zombies should act like zombies camp. They should not be laser guided structural engineers.

 

But it is not a completely black or white, zero sum game as you put it.

 

If you recall from A16, yes zombies would come from different directions and kind of randomly "test" your defenses. They would get stuck on spikes, beat on the closest wall. Typical zombie behavior. 

But what happened if they breached the wall or broke your door? Now that there was a path, all the ones nearby would go for it and pour through. Now, as a defender, you have a problem.

 

My point is, the pathing was already there, A17 just cranked that pathing up to 11 and gave them the magical ability to target the weakest wall from orbit. 

Now, if you recall, A17 also drastically increased block damage at the same time. Which in combination effectively turned the zombies into guided ordinance that would find and exploit the weakest part of your defenses faster than you could say "Oh @%$#!"

 

This completely negated about 75% of static defenses, spikes, moats etc. are nearly useless and the only good wall, is no wall at all because they would just drill through anything you put in front of them in 10 seconds flat.

 

This essentially forced players to to channel them down a path or they will make their own.

It went from defending your base, to defending a single linear path.

Oh and A17 also took away barbed wire.... which let's face it, was a total @%$# move.

 

Which brings us to Tower Defense

Since people keep randomly invoking the concept of Tower Defense (as if emulating @%$#ty browser games is some kind of holy grail to be aspired to), I will put it in those terms.

 

I would submit, that having to defend your entire base, which often includes literal towers, from attacks coming from all sides is more like defending a tower, than exploiting obnoxiously linear pathing to kill a conga line of zombies. 

 

Yes, some pathing is necessary, but we are way up in the "too much of a good thing" territory in terms of the AI pathing, especially if you give them the ability to flawlessly detect and hone in on the path of least resistance.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Grue (see edit history)

[Grue]

By the way, what happens to the Military Stealth Boots? 

Are they still only available through crafting from that one book? Did they get taken out of the game?

 

I always liked those because they were crafting only, if you wanted them you had to actually work for them, not just get lucky while rooting through a dumpster.

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Gamida said:

I find it relaxing as hell.

I don't think you understand what hell is.

 

59 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Really? That´s what you choose to say it´s unique?

You're the King of straw man arguments! 

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[Roland]

51 minutes ago, Grue said:

Now players are forced to use some variation of a cattle chute design to manage the flow of zombies.

 

This is completely false. Just because the cattle chute design is perceived to be the most efficient zombie processing factory style way of doing it doesn't mean anyone is forced to do it. Since A18 when faatal adjusted the pathing for zombies, their ability to sense long paths has been nerfed by quite a bit. If you build a large base (I'm talking 15x15 square not anything of megalithic proportions) or take over a large POI you do get attacks from multiple sides and  you do have to move around to defend different places. Anyone who feels like this is a fun way to play horde night can do it if they choose to.

 

Its time to stop always referencing A17 initial pathing and AI as the reference for supposed current zombie behavior.

 

51 minutes ago, Grue said:

Active defense was the fun part! Actually having to move around and fight from all sides and rushing to repair a breach in the defenses between waves only to realize they are attacking the south wall now instead? 

 

So do it. Listen to the fun angel sitting on your right shoulder instead of the efficiency devil on your left shoulder. If defending a base by moving to different fronts is what you like then build a base that supports it instead of a base that uses a cattle chute.

 

51 minutes ago, Grue said:

Do you really think that!?

I think anyone who does a lot of building would agree the AI changes made base building almost comically easy.

You can AFK do a max zombies day 7000 horde with the current AI.

Actually it is not even base building anymore. It is crowd control.

The zombies are so amped up you can't afford to let them touch any surface for more than 10 seconds, so all the designs just run them through some variation of a cattle chute.

 

Its not a thought exercise. It is reality. You are caught up in the efficiency meta that is popular because people like to grind zombies up in a machine they created. But that doesn't mean it is the only way. It means that either you never got out of the popular box as seen on YouTube and tried doing something else or you have but regardless of what you claim you enjoy, you actually gravitate to efficiency more than you do the fun of running to different fronts and defending your base on all sides.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

5 hours ago, YoSoyFreeman said:

I think that finding a lv6 item is still a problem cause you wont need to craft more. Maybe LV6 items could be not repairable? This way you would need to choose when to use the best gear and still need to find replacements, which would be cooler in my opinion.

This why I had hoped TFP would add item degradation back in. They are all-in on trying to make crafting more useful and important, and making items degrade seems like a no-brainer to assist that cause, but they don't seem to want to add it back. And that would allow for letting Q6 be craftable without it making crafting OP as the item would degrade anyway.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Gronal said:

The thing is, for me - these 'intelligent' zombies are actually just kinda dumb still in a way. Predictability is the biggest downfall of the current zombie pathing, and is what makes them actually LESS effectual. In my opinion.
More variability to the zombie pathing would decrease the predictability and add more challenge. Say 50% of zombies take the current pathing, the other 50% are "dumb" perhaps. POI zombies should definitely be smart for reasons already discussed.

Why can't we have both? (disclaimer: I am not a programmer and have no idea how hard it is to develop the game)
From my perspective it seems like a gameplay choice to have ALL zombies be smart. Could it not be a simple dice roll whether a zombie is spawned in smart or not? That can't be that resource intensive a change.

Is it better to choose something that pleases one camp and not the other? Or to choose something that pleases both maybe slightly less?

p.s. I do actually respect whichever direction TFP want to go with the zombies. Even if I don't like it.

 

There is already a percentage of zombies that randomly act dumb. But if TFP makes the percentage of dumb zombies too high then you eventually loose the control of the zombies as the 50% that are all around attacking random spots have to be dealt with as well. And in SP that also means that you can't have a path to you to steer the zombies as that path usually has to be actively protected

 

 

[BFT2020]

6 hours ago, YoSoyFreeman said:

I think that finding a lv6 item is still a problem cause you wont need to craft more. Maybe LV6 items could be not repairable? This way you would need to choose when to use the best gear and still need to find replacements, which would be cooler in my opinion.

 

I mod my game so that all tools, weapons, and armor are not repairable.  So crafting is a must if you want to keep using gear and survive.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Grue said:

That is a very, very narrow interpretation of a tower defense game and it is also a poor excuse to justify bad design choices.

 

I didn't bring up the term "tower defense" to make an argument, Vedui did that when he said "There are no more tower defense elements of 7dtd as a result."

 

And I also said "Now I would immediately agree if you said you don't care for nomenclature, the more important thing is whether one of the two is more fun." 

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

Like @Vedui said pre-A17 defenses had to be layered and cover more than one angle of attack like -gasp- an actual tower defense scenario. 

 

Double-Gasp. I do that all the time. My horde bases always have multiple (and usually differently constructed) attack lanes, because zombies spawning on the other side won't find the entrance when I only have one. And often I have more lanes for redundancy where I can switch between them. And I always have fallback-positions if the primary position is overrun.

 

And it can get overrun because I always try something new and my first versions often have bugs.

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

Now players are forced to use some variation of a cattle chute design to manage the flow of zombies.

Even the youtube videos are boring now. Instead of running around and actively defending, people just stand in one place and shoot at the conga line.

 

Active defense was the fun part! Actually having to move around and fight from all sides and rushing to repair a breach in the defenses between waves only to realize they are attacking the south wall now instead? 

 

Yes, that happens to me. But I don't make the mistake of copying bases from youtube.

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

What you guys seem to be missing is that for a lot of people the building and maintaining their base IS the game and that is way more "tower defense" than -waves vaguely- whatever it is you guys are currently trying to do.

 

My bases are often as close to tower defense as it can get. But I think we agree that that is not important, right?

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

 

Do you really think that!?

I think anyone who does a lot of building would agree the AI changes made base building almost comically easy.

You can AFK do a max zombies day 7000 horde with the current AI.

Actually it is not even base building anymore. It is crowd control.

The zombies are so amped up you can't afford to let them touch any surface for more than 10 seconds, so all the designs just run them through some variation of a cattle chute.

 

Where I agree is that the zombies of A20 are not what they used to be. But A17 showed that it can be different with the same AI, we would just have to find a better balance of block damage and group-damage-buff somewhere between A17 and A20 to give the zombies a better chance.

 

And the fact that zombies actually hit blocks for minutes on end before they get through shows that currently their damage is too low. I don't see your 10 seconds in A20

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

 

A16 hordes were much more fun and challenging.

 

 

At least the buildings had different sides.

 

They didn't in A16. That was my point.

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

 

 

Now it is completely linear. You have the cattle chute and you stand in one spot and shoot/swing your weapon in one direction until they quit coming.

Once you build your base which is always a variation of the same basic design now, horde nights are literally boring.

 

The time crunch of getting your base repaired between attacks is was a major factor in playing the game, that created a need for resource management, time management, shoring up weak spots, planning additional defenses...

 

Now you dust off your horde base once a week, run a bunch of zombies through and forget about it until next week.

Maintenance is down to 5 minutes touching up chipped paint and topping off ammo.

Is that really the plan?

 

 

Almost as if players have been pushed, and pushed, and pushed into a more loot-centric Murder Hobo playstyle that requires cramming as much as possible into your pockets as you locust from one POI to the next.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Grue said:

 

Which brings us to Tower Defense

Since people keep randomly invoking the concept of Tower Defense (as if emulating @%$#ty browser games is some kind of holy grail to be aspired to), I will put it in those terms.

 

I assume you meant Vedui with that? 😉

 

 

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, Grue said:

Now players are forced to use some variation of a cattle chute design to manage the flow of zombies.

Even the youtube videos are boring now. Instead of running around and actively defending, people just stand in one place and shoot at the conga line.

 

Not true, it just takes some work.  My previous playthrough, I converted one of the T1 gas stations in a bunker style horde base  By the end of the playthrough, I had wide openings on all 4 sides with various traps to help assist with controlling the zombies.  The zombies were even nice to help me out by tearing out some of the blocks on the first few horde nights  😉

 

I have done the same thing with the burnt out convenience store and the bar that is for sale.  Small and compact, better make sure you stock up on ammo 🙂

 

Current playthrough I have taken over the ruined 4 floor apartment building and trying a maze type defense leading them all the way around and eventually up to the 3rd floor (4th floor is where my main base is).  Only 15 days in so can't judge if it will work (also have yet to find the workbench schematic so I am limited to only things i can craft in my backpack).  Only thing is, this base I decided that I can't repair it while the horde is going on so I am currently working on my 3rd fallback position on the second floor.

[Guppycur]

Jesus @Roland, didn't you retire?  Go, bye, leave, get out while you can. 😃

 

I'm with BDub, degradation helped tremendously.  This current system of repairing anything no matter how broken means I'm not super excited when I find something I already have.

[Roland]

24 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Jesus @Roland, didn't you retire? 

 

Now it's just my hobby...

 

24 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

Go, bye, leave, get out while you can.

 

I'll have a lot less to say about A22, trust me.

26 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

I'm with BDub, degradation helped tremendously.

 

Same! Why do we even have diamond tipped mods for stuff when degradation matters so little?

[DanLW]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

You are caught up in the efficiency meta that is popular because people like to grind zombies up in a machine they created.

 

I didn't realize this because I never had a name put to it, but I am caught in this also, and here is why.  Killing Zombies is the best way to get XP, which means perks and progression.  I've not used traps and turrets because they "rob" me of XP. 

 

(This is partly why I hope your 0xp mod makes a comeback)

 

If killing Zombies was not about XP, I think the tower defense aspect would make a huge comeback.  Instead of trying to funnel them straight to me, I would set up 360 degree defenses and automation and management of defenses would become my goal.  Judging from all the traps that TFP have made which I never use, that would be more in line with TFP's vision.  And I think it would be more fun than me trying to be king murder hobo.

[Roland]

3 minutes ago, DanLW said:

 

I didn't realize this because I never had a name put to it, but I am caught in this also, and here is why.  Killing Zombies is the best way to get XP, which means perks and progression.  I've not used traps and turrets because they "rob" me of XP. 

 

(This is partly why I hope your 0xp mod makes a comeback)

 

If killing Zombies was not about XP, I think the tower defense aspect would make a huge comeback.  Instead of trying to funnel them straight to me, I would set up 360 degree defenses and automation and management of defenses would become my goal.  Judging from all the traps that TFP have made which I never use, that would be more in line with TFP's vision.  And I think it would be more fun than me trying to be king murder hobo.

 

0xp mod will need to be picked up by someone else to make a comeback. Interested? Maybe I'll look at it again after full release if nobody else is interested but I don't have what it takes to continually update it after every Alpha. It was fun to do but once it wasn't fun, I stopped doing it.

 

As for base design, you can do a large perimeter base that you must actively run to each side and directly kill the zombies and make repairs. There is plenty of xp reward for doing that if you don't leave it to spikes.

[Doomofman]

12 hours ago, Doomofman said:

Any chance we'll see anything new of A21 in the next month? I noticed it was September the last time there was a piece of art posted on social media

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

Clarification: "the next Alpha" is referring to Alpha 22. -CC

Edited January 13, 2023 by Crater Creator
clarification (see edit history)

[Roland]

18 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

Now see? I'm already somewhat out of the loop. I don't know whether "Next alpha" means A21 or A22. I suspect A22 but I could be wrong. The team is working on all sorts of things some of which will make A21 and some of which will come in A22 and as far as I know the new outfit system was coming in A22 with bandits. The tweet isn't super clear with no numbers mentioned. To the players the next alpha is still A21 but to many of the developers the next alpha is A22 because they are already testing A21...

 

Maybe @Crater Creator will update the first page with this announcement so we know!

Edited January 12, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

17 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

 

 

Fyi, next Alpha doesn't necessarily mean A21.  Lots of progress in this area though, can't wait for folks to see it eventually...

[Cr0wst0rm]

16 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

 

That means very good news, dont know if they copletely overhauled the "custom" character customization system from old alphas, if it will be just completely switching models (like wildlands for example), but very nice that they decided to overhaul this. If it is modular, they should go with this system on zombies too....

[Adam the Waster]

18 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

 

dosent even look like 7dtd!

good work

 

[Doomofman]

2 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Fyi, next Alpha doesn't necessarily mean A21.  Lots of progress in this area though, can't wait for folks to see it eventually...

 

That's a shame. Nice to see some new stuff but I guess it'd be nice to see the stuff that's actually coming in the real 'next' alpha for the players

 

But I'm just being ungrateful is all. As Roland said, it's not exactly clear, especially for anyone outside of the forums

[crazywildfire]

15 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

dosent even look like 7dtd!

good work

 

 

Agree, looks great.

..........

 

Now for them to fix voip *smug lol

I know I know use discord. That works when playing with close friends. Not for an open community server with lots of people or any open server really. On top of wanting to do light RP as well. 

[Grimace521]

1 hour ago, Doomofman said:

 

Well this answers that question.... 

 

My next question is... What the @%$#?

 

https://twitter.com/7DaystoDie/status/1613643297049948161?s=20

 

a pretty awesome model/animation. i would assume this comes with a22 since the new clothing system was supposed to come with bandits and as far as i know bandits have been pushed back for a22 but still very exciting to get a sneak peek after several months of silence in that regard. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Grimace521 (see edit history)