Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[POCKET951]

15 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

What about the paper factory?

That POI was introduced back in A19 IIRC.

would you happen to remember its map name ( i.e shamway factory is factory lg 1)? you should be able to find it in the map editor

[schwanz9000]

23 minutes ago, Roland said:

Do you know whether it will stay like that or have they just not been migrated over?

Pretty sure they are going to stay that way.

[RipClaw]

5 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

would you happen to remember its map name ( i.e shamway factory is factory lg 1)? you should be able to find it in the map editor

The mapname is industrial_business_08

 

 

[Roland]

9 minutes ago, schwanz9000 said:

Pretty sure they are going to stay that way.

Thanks,  I updated the first page to reflect that. 👍

[hiemfire]

On 3/16/2022 at 11:02 AM, Roland said:

Perks now govern the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world

^From Roland's recent update of the first page.^

 

While I can see this working nicely for solo play, unless the loot table references the perk allocation of others grouped up with the person looting as well as their own perk allocation, this is going to make co-op play a bit more stressful by adding in  "Why the @%$# did you loot that? I needed to check it for (x) mag so I can craft (z) for us." infighting...

 

Put another way: Needs to reference team members' perk allocations or r.i.p. designated looter and hello "mandatory" Lucky Looter perk point allocations for everyone.

[Roland]

28 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

By unlock I actually mean that I can craft it.

 

I don't like to buy weapons and tools from the trader and T3 weapons and tools require a high lootstage in A20. But the schematics can sometimes be found early in the game if you are lucky.

 

In one of my last games in A20, I found the auger schematic and the crucible in the second week of in-game play. This allowed me to skip the steel tools. In the current game, however, I found the steel tool schematics very early but the crucible and auger schematics very late. As a result, I used steel tools instead of the auger, and instead of making steel, I bought it from the trader.
 

Because you find some schematics early and others late or not at all, the gameplay often changes significantly.

Crafting  is going to be linear within each skill tree. However, gamestage is variable now depending on biome so if you want early big rewards go play in the right biome to get that. 

[Trankitas]

Yesterday I was talking with friends about how broken for the game INT skill tree is (for CO-OP mostly) because of the tech skills.
Today I see this change and I like it.

 

Are there any estimates for A21 release? I'm dying to play it

[Roland]

5 minutes ago, Trankitas said:

Are there any estimates for A21 release? I'm dying to play it

 

2022

 

probably.

[KhaineGB]

3 hours ago, SnowDog1942 said:

 

Some RNG is a good thing unless you want everything to be perfectly predictable -- which to me is boring.

Like I said. nothing wrong with player options. You don't HAVE to do it if it's there.

 

36 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

2022

 

probably.

Can I badly crop this and then post it on twitter as a confirmed date?

Edited May 19, 2022 by KhaineGB (see edit history)

[Syphon583]

3 minutes ago, KhaineGB said:

Like I said. nothing wrong with player options. You don't HAVE to do it if it's there.

Can I badly crop this and then post it on twitter as a confirmed date?

Like this?

[Roland]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

^From Roland's recent update of the first page.^

 

While I can see this working nicely for solo play, unless the loot table references the perk allocation of others grouped up with the person looting as well as their own perk allocation, this is going to make co-op play a bit more stressful by adding in  "Why the @%$# did you loot that? I needed to check it for (x) mag so I can craft (z) for us." infighting...

 

Put another way: Needs to reference team members' perk allocations or r.i.p. designated looter and hello "mandatory" Lucky Looter perk point allocations for everyone.

This warms my heart. I hate the idea of designated looters. 

[NekoPawtato]

2 hours ago, hiemfire said:

^From Roland's recent update of the first page.^

 

While I can see this working nicely for solo play, unless the loot table references the perk allocation of others grouped up with the person looting as well as their own perk allocation, this is going to make co-op play a bit more stressful by adding in  "Why the @%$# did you loot that? I needed to check it for (x) mag so I can craft (z) for us." infighting...

 

Put another way: Needs to reference team members' perk allocations or r.i.p. designated looter and hello "mandatory" Lucky Looter perk point allocations for everyone.

I think to add to this, madmole said after you max out that magazine (ex lv 100 on shotguns), that book will stop dropping for you, which is great in solo, but MP means you can't store any excess you come across (via looting at least) to save for someone else to use if you yourself already maxed out that tree.

Edited May 19, 2022 by NekoPawtato (see edit history)

[LeksColman]

I used to grind resources in the mine to build an interesting base, and now I will grind books in A21 to build at least some kind of base in between grinding... 

 

Besides, it will completely kill role-playing with a group of friends, where someone is an engineer and builds a base, two miners extract resources for him, and two or three more people complete quests and loot the world.

 

*very sad thoughts*

[Evil_Geoff]

4 minutes ago, NekoPawtato said:

I think to add to this, madmole said after you max out that magazine (ex lv 100 on shotguns), that book will stop dropping for you, which is great in solo, but MP means you can't store any excess you come across (via looting at least) to save for someone else to use if you yourself already maxed out that tree.

Ugh.  Yeah, with the current set up, when we find books and schematics that have already been read, our group brings them back to base to share with the party.  New-to-server players can get caught up on book sets pretty quickly that way.  Maybe as a compensation for maxed out magazines not dropping any more, once a character hits max, they can craft their own "magazines" (or call 'em "diaries", or "recipes" or "Cliff Notes", or whatevers) that other players can read and learn from?

 

[Matt]

I don't see the problem.  These magazines just make it possible to craft higher quality/tier gear.  A new comer to a server can just get the good stuff from other players without having to find all the magazines.  They can still perk into the same skills to get the bonus.  As far as books I think they still drop randomly, I think Madmole just said the magazines will stop dropping for you when you max out a certain magazine.

 

[KhaineGB]

2 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

Like this?

Yes. Exactly this.

[Matt115]

On 5/18/2022 at 6:55 PM, madmole said:

Hi all!
We're very busy on Alpha 21 but I thought I would share the new crafting system and looting changes with you.

There are now tons of new skills that govern unlocking and the quality of items in the game.

A few examples of crafting skills are shotguns, pistols, cooking, armorer, medical, etc.

Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting skills. Many perks are being reworked to add value where before the main value was a recipe unlock.

Books no longer unlock recipes. The ones that did unlock items are being reworked to do something else.

 

Crafting skill is improved by finding magazines in the game. Mailboxes, file cabinets, book shelves etc can all contain various magazines that improve your skill.

Perking into shotguns for example, increases the odds of finding shotgun magazines, shotgun parts, and shotguns in loot. This makes early specialization work, and you are no longer at the will of the random numbers to find what you are looking for. There is still a chance to find other stuff, but you won't be level 100 and still using a brown double barrel because of random drops. Everything is weighted that you perk into. Once you find all 100 shotgun magazines, you will stop finding shotgun magazines so stuff that is still valuable to you will be found instead.

 

Skill ranges represent their unlocks. Some skills go to 100, others stop at 50, so they require less magazines read to max out.

All crafting ranges now do not overlap. For example with shotguns, skill 0 to 20 allows you to craft a brown to a blue pipe shotgun. Skill level 21-40 unlocks brown to blue double barrels. Skill level 41-75 unlocks brown to blue pump shotguns. 76-100 unlocks brown to blue auto shotguns. These numbers are just examples, I don't know the actual ranges, but now you don't just craft blue everything.

There is a new skill menu that has a few pages of skills that tracks what skill level you are at and shows what the skill unlocks.

How does it play?
Everyone on the team loves it. The search for technology is fun and you are always finding magazines and unlocking stuff every day. The magazines are useful for a very long time too, where before once you read a single schematic finding another was a disappointment. Now you always find useful magazines.

I found myself crafting nearly every range of pipe shotgun, stone axes etc. Even iron I would craft through most of the range. I would find some stuff and skip crafting for a bit, then when my skill superseded my item,  I'd be crafting again. I've never crafted so much stuff in years and it felt really great. You can no longer just sit around in your cave mining and level up and be crafting the best mining tools. You'll need to get out of the cave and search. However teams can still cooperate and share magazines with a dedicated crafter.

Traders sell magazines and offer magazines as rewards. I find myself taking those rewards quite often because it feels very rewarding to unlock things and level up your crafting skills.

Personally I love the new system. I've never seen a crafting system quite like this before, nor an intelligent loot system with deterministic random. It is playing very nice, and I'm really enjoying a long game. I like it because it feels realistic to read something and learn from it and the player can move through all the ranges of crafting and be making that choice... should I use my parts and craft a new gun, or wait another level? Personally I've always had enough parts to craft what I want because I find the parts for what I'm looking for instead of spear parts or whatever. So the new system weights the loot to what the player needs and it feels very rewarding and enjoyable to me and the testers.





 

Do Steel parts for steel tools like steel pickaxe still exist?

[NekoPawtato]

Random thought/question, will forgetting elixir reset magazine progress?

[Matt115]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

You can find a lot of magazines. 10-12 of one type per day?  Maybe. I’m sure the amounts in loot will change several times before A21 comes out. It’s still a WIP. 
 

 

.... just... when i see this new  crafting system i'm even more dissapointed that unsuall

3 hours ago, Roland said:

 

2022

 

probably.

i hope it will happen after  2025

[Matt115]

On 5/18/2022 at 6:55 PM, madmole said:

t is playing very nice, and I'm really enjoying a long game. I like it because it feels realistic to read something and learn from it and the player can move through all the ranges of crafting and be making that choice... should I use my parts and craft a new gun, or wait another level? 

 

With all respect Madmole but... : This can be nice or be realistic. 

I will tell a story .  In my country it was so hard to buy computer so one newsspaper decided to print how to make your own pc - well it was possible to made but magasine was rly hard to get so - you lack one of them? bye bye computer. And it was hard to find materials. So if you want to make realitic --> magasine should be extreme rare and to make 1 gun you need at least few diffrents number -  for example part 1 , part 2 part 3 for pipe shotgun , 4 5 6 for double barrel shotgun etc.

 

And honestly this change will make int even more underpower. Because only reason will be invest enough points to make workbench. Even investing points in barter and quest will be pointeless because traders will be nerfed xd

[Matt115]

i don't want to be negative just i'm disspointed . This remind me  a game very  popular in Poland in 2010 . It was called Metin 2  and in this game  If you want to make your skill better you have to buy this same book few times (at least this depends on server because it could be changes by main admin) level up this skill xd people hated this solution and was joking about that a lot but as negative 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[Matt115]

Just i don't know what to say about that. Honestly i never seen similiar crafting system that's true. but this "book" system remind me Metin2 skills system so much. Yeah and as always people will be saying that will be fun and that's is more important that realistic system. And they  can say " it was used in this game and as you said it was popular so this mean it was ok" .... and this will be not so true why? metin 2 was good not because it was good game but was F2P mmo -- WoW was too expenstive here. Even sometimes was hard to buy good game so people just going to newsstands and was buying 19,99 zł games (  20 zł was like dunno 4 dollars? and usually so cheap games were terrible except old games like Serious sam or "hidden diamonds" like painkiller). So if someone had more money and lived in bigger city played dunno cod or crysis. i don't know even why i'm writing about this but ... just don't fix things that work maybe not perfect but at least works. Just.... this sounds more casual that older system. I know 7dtd don't want to make 7dtd more hardcore.

 

Everything that left is just waiting for  more news. 

Ps. Just don't write that "mods will solve your problem" because this is not true

[LeksColman]

it's still a mystery to me in the current crafting system, why, if I made a club out of iron, then I can't figure out how to make a club out of steel? Is there some fundamentally different approach? or what about a pickaxe? also, different technologies? if you introduce a new system for leveling up crafting levels in A21, it’s better to let any tool be made immediately after leveling up the basic skill, but the quality, resource costs for creating and repairing will increase depending on the books you read. I may have to do this mechanic myself later, unfortunately, so that it would be more pleasant to play.

[Roland]

56 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

So if you want to make realitic --> magasine should be extreme rare and to make 1 gun you need at least few diffrents number -  for example part 1 , part 2 part 3 for pipe shotgun , 4 5 6 for double barrel shotgun etc.

This is basically how it works. It takes finding a few magazines in order to learn to craft anything. You can think of it as part 1 2 and 3.  
 

The system does deliver a realistic sense of searching for knowledge and piecing it together from a few different sources. 

[Matt115]

18 minutes ago, Roland said:

This is basically how it works. It takes finding a few magazines in order to learn to craft anything. You can think of it as part 1 2 and 3.  
 

The system does deliver a realistic sense of searching for knowledge and piecing it together from a few different sources. 

I had... terrible lecturer on my university. He is old and... hm we don't like him because he forced to use his books on few diffrent subjects. And i found after 2-3 weeks part 2 and 3 but i coudn't find part 1. i manage to find this after... 2 months. 

7dtd take part after fall of nukes right? i'm not living in USA but i think it could be hard to find some books in more country states. And after fall of nukes it should be extreme rare. Yes it would take a lot of time ( at least 12 hours of playing) to finish on "gun" but... that's a point. But i know players hate undynamic gameplay

Edited May 19, 2022 by Matt115 (see edit history)