Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[mstdv inc]

3 hours ago, Old Crow said:

 

Delivery from one trader to another, I guess. Could be a contract, or supplies, etc.

 

Left 4 Dead did it, they can't?

Do you remember what at least 10 different zombies look like in L4D?I'm not.There are many of them, and they are different, but it's just a mass that is moving towards you.Is it better to attack clones or attack in masses when you hardly remember what zombies look like after exiting the game?I'm also for a variety of zombies, but so that their appearance is recognizable.

[Crypted]

Maybe that Is the case when 7DTD goes gold and not what they meant now with the zombies, but I doubt It's going to be around 50 zombies. 

[mstdv inc]

8 minutes ago, Riamus said:

The quests are still tier 1-5, but a tier 1 infestation is equivalent to a tier 2 clear.

More likely, when they are made aware of it still saying 50+, they will correct that number. They certainly aren't going to add 20 more zombie types before gold... If ever.

Actually 21 new zombies is not so scary.This is a total of 7 new zombies, each of which has a normal form, feral and radioactive.

[Crypted]

I count one zombie with the normal, feral and radioactive forms as the same zombie just with a different challenge/difficulty that comes with that specific zombie. 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Crypted (see edit history)

[Callum123456789]

19 minutes ago, Riamus said:

The quests are still tier 1-5, but a tier 1 infestation is equivalent to a tier 2 clear.

More likely, when they are made aware of it still saying 50+, they will correct that number.  They certainly aren't going to add 20 more zombie types before gold... If ever.

I see thanks for the clarification I thought they meant they repurposed tier 1 poi zombie spawns and made them applicable for tier 2's.

[Old Crow]

3 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

I see thanks for the clarification I thought they meant they repurposed tier 1 poi zombie spawns and made them applicable for tier 2's.

 

See, that's what I thought it was as well. Especially if I remember right, the POI they showed in the stream for the infestation was a T1 POI (a very small camp) but with T2 zombie parameters.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Old Crow (see edit history)

[mstdv inc]

4 minutes ago, Crypted said:

I count one zombie with the normal, feral and radioactive forms as the same zombie just with a different challenge that comes with that specific zombie.

You evaluate visually.From the point of view of the code, these are 3 different zombies.They have different characteristics, different spawn location at different stages of the game.
I'm pretty sure that when they wrote about 50 varieties of zombies, they meant more than 50 different instances of zombies.If you count all the zombies right now, you will find much more than 50 pieces, so we can assume that the developers have fulfilled their promise.

Spoiler

 

[Old Crow]

19 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

Do you remember what at least 10 different zombies look like in L4D?I'm not.There are many of them, and they are different, but it's just a mass that is moving towards you.Is it better to attack clones or attack in masses when you hardly remember what zombies look like after exiting the game?I'm also for a variety of zombies, but so that their appearance is recognizable.

 

I don't, but unless they're some sort of special zombie (a fat cop, wight, spider, etc) why should your basic zombie stand out? That's part of the horror - a massive, faceless crowd of hungry dead.

4 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

You evaluate visually.From the point of view of the code, these are 3 different zombies.They have different characteristics, different spawn location at different stages of the game.
I'm pretty sure that when they wrote about 50 varieties of zombies, they meant more than 50 different instances of zombies.If you count all the zombies right now, you will find much more than 50 pieces, so we can assume that the developers have fulfilled their promise.

  Hide contents

 

 

Fulfilled via clever semantics, but fulfilled.

[Matt115]

21 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

Do you remember what at least 10 different zombies look like in L4D?I'm not.There are many of them, and they are different, but it's just a mass that is moving towards you.Is it better to attack clones or attack in masses when you hardly remember what zombies look like after exiting the game?I'm also for a variety of zombies, but so that their appearance is recognizable.

No. in l4d2 you can easy spot how zombie looks like - a lot of them are in idle mode - this woman is barefoot , there is a soldier, this zombie cop have nightstick etc. btw. there is even many PoI connected variants - patients, nurse and docs in hospital, stuff in airport etc. So you don't have clone attack syndrome. And to be honest - people looks diffrent - so zombies shoulds looks diffrent too. i'm sure someone could ran away from home just in PJ and became infected.  So you can say - this one was cop, this was probably was infected in home , this one was infected during weeding etc. so make game more immersive

[Crypted]

2 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

You evaluate visually.From the point of view of the code, these are 3 different zombies.They have different characteristics, different spawn location at different stages of the game.
I'm pretty sure that when they wrote about 50 varieties of zombies, they meant more than 50 different instances of zombies.If you count all the zombies right now, you will find much more than 50 pieces, so we can assume that the developers have fulfilled their promise.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Still the same zombie though, but yes different looks and all with the feral having yellow glowing eyes and the radiated green look with the radiated zombies, I know the coding is different. 

[mstdv inc]

1 minute ago, Old Crow said:

 

why should your basic zombie stand out? That's part of the horror - a massive, faceless crowd of hungry dead.

Because 7 Days To Die is not a clone of Left 4 Dead

If you want to play Left 4 Dead, you go and play Left 4 Dead.Imagine that all the games will start copying whole fragments of other games.You are tired of Left 4 Dead, you want something different in the zombie world, you go to 7D2D and see whole fragments of Left 4 Dead there.That would be very strange.Some people want to see pieces of dying light in 7D2D.Wouldn't it be easier to go play those games that are more interesting to you now?You can take things from other games, but not stupidly copy, but come up with something of your own.TFP didn't copy zombies from l4d or DL, they created zombies, which you will remember for a long time.Some people like it, some don't, but that's how they see their game.They don't see their game assembled from fragments of other games.

There is such a cool mod for GTA SA, which is called Zombie Andreas (not advertising).So there are all ordinary and unique zombies, stupidly copied from Left 4 Dead.You can admire it and even play for a couple of hours.But if the mod developers hadn't implemented a lot of different mechanics, you would have lost interest in this mod after a couple of hours, because, apart from the zombies from Left 4 Dead, there would be nothing interesting there.

[Old Crow]

1 minute ago, mstdv inc said:

Because 7 Days To Die is not a clone of Left 4 Dead

If you want to play Left 4 Dead, you go and play Left 4 Dead.Imagine that all the games will start copying whole fragments of other games.You are tired of Left 4 Dead, you want something different in the zombie world, you go to 7D2D and see whole fragments of Left 4 Dead there.That would be very strange.Some people want to see pieces of dying light in 7D2D.Wouldn't it be easier to go play those games that are more interesting to you now?You can take things from other games, but not stupidly copy, but come up with something of your own.TFP didn't copy zombies from l4d or DL, they created zombies, which you will remember for a long time.Some people like it, some don't, but that's how they see their game.They don't see their game assembled from fragments of other games.

There is such a cool mod for GTA SA, which is called Zombie Andreas (not advertising).So there are all ordinary and unique zombies, stupidly copied from Left 4 Dead.You can admire it and even play for a couple of hours.But if the mod developers hadn't implemented a lot of different mechanics, you would have lost interest in this mod after a couple of hours, because, apart from the zombies from Left 4 Dead, there would be nothing interesting there.

 

It doesn't have to be a clone - I never said it did. Look at nearly any zombie video game out there and you'll find the same mass of "generic" zombie hordes. Same with zombie movies. It's easier to believe, so to speak, than it is to believe that every 7th zombie happens to have Nurse Joy/Officer Jenny Syndrome.

[mstdv inc]

8 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

No. in l4d2 you can easy spot how zombie looks like - a lot of them are in idle mode - this woman is barefoot , there is a soldier, this zombie cop have nightstick etc. btw. there is even many PoI connected variants - patients, nurse and docs in hospital, stuff in airport etc. So you don't have clone attack syndrome. And to be honest - people looks diffrent - so zombies shoulds looks diffrent too. i'm sure someone could ran away from home just in PJ and became infected. So you can say - this one was cop, this was probably was infected in home , this one was infected during weeding etc. so make game more immersive

When I played Left 4 Dead, I chose a heavy difficulty level and all I did was run and shoot.I didn't have time to stand and look at the zombies and the surroundings.If you stopped, you died.Perhaps it depends on the style of play and views on the game.I'm not trying to force you to take my point of view, I'm just sharing it.

7 minutes ago, Crypted said:

Still the same zombie though, but yes different looks and all with the feral having yellow glowing eyes and the radiated green look with the radiated zombies, I know the coding is different.

I agree that simple zombies, feral and radioactive should visually differ more from each other.

1 minute ago, Old Crow said:

 

It doesn't have to be a clone - I never said it did. Look at nearly any zombie video game out there and you'll find the same mass of "generic" zombie hordes. Same with zombie movies. It's easier to believe, so to speak, than it is to believe that every 7th zombie happens to have Nurse Joy/Officer Jenny Syndrome.

That's the thing, that in many games "ordinary" zombies. TFP didn't want to do as in many games.There are those templates that are used when creating games, TV series and movies about zombies.But no one is obliged to always follow these patterns.

[Riamus]

37 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

I see thanks for the clarification I thought they meant they repurposed tier 1 poi zombie spawns and made them applicable for tier 2's.

 

34 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

See, that's what I thought it was as well. Especially if I remember right, the POI they showed in the stream for the infestation was a T1 POI (a very small camp) but with T2 zombie parameters.

I think my answer was confusing... A tier 1 infestation quest will be in a tier 1 POI with tier 2 parameters (approximately as that is up to the POI designers, I think).  The trader won't give you a tier 6 infestation quest.  It will be labeled tier 5.  And you won't have tier 6 POI.  The tier 5 infestation quests will use tier 5 POI.

 

At least, that is what I understood from the stream. I may be incorrect.  I'd have to watch it again too see if the quest choice for the infestation was labeled tier 1.

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

So in this situation it would be false advertisment 

Why?  I'm not sure what you are referring to being false advertising.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

i edited because i remind myself something ;

Combat – Encounter over 50 unique zombie archetypes including special infected with unique behaviors and attacks.

 

well: this is from offical page - now if we count infected animals ( i shoudn't count zombie bear and zombie dogs but left it be ) - it's 30 not "over 50". so - they should add at least 20 zombies more before gold. It should be in roadmap in :

 

ROADMAP TO GOLD AND BEYOND

1. Bandits
2. Armor
3. Weather
4. Factions & Story
5. Steam Workshop Support

 

so: it have to be OFFICIALLY confirmed and added before gold. i'm not complaing about A21 only - but lack in roadmap. 

If they officialy add to the list " at least 20 more zombies " or " at least 50 zombie in game before gold" - i would be satisactioned

 

Okay, you make a good point with the 50 unique zombies. I think there probably were 50+ unique zombies at one point but things changed and the website didn't get updated. @Crater Creator can probably bring that up with Rick at some point now that you've brought it up. Just understand, that it will be the number that changes and not the game. Or maybe they will change it to "over 50 unique enemy archetypes including bandits, animals, zombies, and special infected" because once they have all the bandit types in it may be back up to 50.

 

It isn't false advertising, it is outdated information and while it is still important to get it updated it isn't the same thing nor does it have the same intentions. The screenshots and video clips of the game on Steam were outdated for years before they swapped them with more current footage and pictures. Its not best practice but it happens and when it is known it should get fixed.

38 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I think my answer was confusing... A tier 1 infestation quest will be in a tier 1 POI with tier 2 parameters (approximately as that is up to the POI designers, I think).  The trader won't give you a tier 6 infestation quest.  It will be labeled tier 5.  And you won't have tier 6 POI.  The tier 5 infestation quests will use tier 5 POI.

 

This is exactly right. All quests and POIs are still labeled T1-T5. An infestation label makes the quest and the POI effectively +1 Tier in regards to how many zombies there are. It also adds an infestation crate to the loot room. There are no natural T6 POIs.

 

So... Take a clear quest at the Hospital and it will be a T5 clear. Take an infested clear quest at the same hospital and it will be like a T6 clear would be if they existed naturally and there will be an extra infestation loot box with the rest of the final loot.

[Riamus]

9 minutes ago, Roland said:

Okay, you make a good point with the 50 unique zombies. I think there probably were 50+ unique zombies at one point but things changed and the website didn't get updated.

Actually, the wording on that may be accurate.  It states 50+ "including" infected.  That means that part of that number are the infected zombies.  If they are counting infected in that number, then you pretty much expect to count every variation.  That means that for every unique zombie, you count 3.  And some animals have zombie variations as well.  These would all be counted towards the 50+ based on the use of "including".  If they had said "in addition to" or "as well as" then those wouldn't be counted towards that 50+.

[faatal]

On 4/14/2023 at 5:51 PM, Darthjake said:

 

Yeah, but you note he didn't say how big the map was, I mean 4k maps can be ready in 5 min or so depending on how many cities you've got programmed in.

 

I made an 8k map the other day and it took 3.5 mins. Granted, this is on my new PC, which is a AMD 7950x.

[faatal]

18 hours ago, HeLLKnight said:

In case @Faatal you say again no to HDRP, some people are about to release in a few days a functional FSR 2.2 support working in Classic/Built-in pipeline to Unity Asset Store. This would be a big win for all of us.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/boost-your-fps-with-amd-fidelityfx-super-resolution-2-0-fsr-2-support.1357190/

Interesting. I'll keep an eye on that thread. If it works well, then we may support it.

Thanks for the info.

[faatal]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

There is a difference between working steadily on bandits since A15 until today and starting on bandits for A15 and then putting them aside until the start of A21 work. The first statement denotes about 5 years of working on bandits while the second more accurately puts it at about a year and a half.

Yes.

 

I started at TFP at the beginning of A17 and later in that alpha, took over AI and made large changes to how AI for zombies and animals worked. Until A21, there were dozens of big things and hundreds of smaller things for me that were higher priority than bandit AI. The new bandit work, which started during A21, is based on the current state of the AI systems, not prototype code/data from 6-7 years ago.

[Crypted]

What all is intended for the bandits and how many kinds of bandits are there supposed to be, If I'm asking at the right time. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Crypted (see edit history)

[FinkPloyd]

17 hours ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

I only hope this is intentional with the new player customization coming up. They should hook it up with this system (make it very scalable) and make zombies randomized. I would LOVE to see that.

5 different head variations, 5 different tops, 5 different pants... That would make up to 125 possible unique zombies. Just imagine that!
 

I was also wondering if FP could leverage the dismemberment system and new character creation system to allow a greater variety of zombie appearances.

 

I played a mod that randomised the zombie movement animations and I was surprised how much that 'small' of a change added to the immersion.

 

Probably something for 7D2D 2 this far down the development road.

[Blake_]

@faatal I have a couple of questions:

 

1.How many options does the Chunk reset option have? I mean I'm curious if there are just simple ones like 10,25,20,50 days (and disabled) or if more advanced ones like "enable only on chunks without player-made blocks (resets if all player-made blocks get destroyed" or things like "do not reset land claim areas", etc, are a thing.

 

2. How better does 7dtd perform in a21 vs a20? did you noticed significant gains near trees, water, Zombies and/or Blood Moons in general? 

 

Thank you in advance. 

[khzmusik]

14 hours ago, Matt115 said:

It was early idea - it was scrapped early. zombies doesn't looked too good

 

I think you are talking about the zombies using UMA (Unity Multipurpose Avatar). That is the same system that is currently used for player characters. It is also used by some modders (ErrorNull, Snufkins) to make custom zombies.

 

They were talked about in a dev diary for one of the earlier alphas (can't remember which). TFP didn't "give up" on them, and the issue was not that they "looked bad." The issue was performance. The resources needed to render UMA characters on screen meant that the game could have about half of the number of zombies that it can have now. TFP decided (probably correctly) that players would rather see a greater number of zombies than a greater variety. (But also, yeah, the UMA assets didn't age well.)

 

UMA is also a third-party tool, so there wasn't much that TFP could do to optimize it.

 

I am also hoping that the new player character system can be exploited to make custom zombies (or human NPCs). Even if TFP don't do it themselves, it would be cool if modders could use it in a way that is similar to using UMA now.

[beerfly]

I wonder, just a bit, but enough, what is @Kuosimodo`s opinion on first stream about A21 ?  

 

*hiding under the bed*

Edited April 16, 2023 by beerfly
cheese (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

31 minutes ago, beerfly said:

I wonder, just a bit, but enough, what is @Kuosimodo`s opinion on first stream about A21 ?  

 

*hiding under the bed*

Well. That's easy.

 

@Kuosimodo: you can put a reaction to this post of mine this way:

• "Like" - if you liked the Dev Stream
• "Thumb Down" - if you didn't like it
• "Knuckle Rub" - if you liked some things and didn't like other things (not impressed / average)