Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Professor-Pip]

6 minutes ago, Wulf said:

Yeah, in the last couple of Alpha's i've kept playing my experimental save after Stable dropped with no issues.

I would expect it to be the same now.

Me too. I think the only reason we would have to generate a new world moving from experimental to stable would be if they made changes to existing POIs, RNG or add new blocks. This could cause errors if the game expects a POI to have one attribute and it has a different one. If I recall correctly, when they were working on some art upgrades during experimental this made old worlds incompatible with the new version of the game.

[Jost Amman]

29 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Well you still have the option to set your loot to 50% if you want to struggle.

I imagined someone would reply something this stupid.

Your suggestion would work perfectly, if I wanted all loot to be that way and not just water. 

[RipClaw]

7 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

I imagined someone would reply something this stupid.

Your suggestion would work perfectly, if I wanted all loot to be that way and not just water. 

Not all loot. According to the patch notes, some loot tables are exempt from the loot setting. But yes basically most other loot would be reduced too but at least you would no longer have a reason to complain about too much water.

[Aldranon]

Of course, someone will use the fire trap POI's into horde bases!

The POI with 3 fire traps could be very close to a hands-off base until late game.

 

Leave it to Jawoodle to figure that one out.

[Jost Amman]

34 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Not all loot. According to the patch notes, some loot tables are exempt from the loot setting. But yes basically most other loot would be reduced too but at least you would no longer have a reason to complain about too much water.

Anyway, we'll see how it plays out... as someone else said, maybe the stream I watched was skewed by good RNG, and on average, the water RNG is fine.

[Roland]

Regarding loot respawn:

 

Loot will still respawn. I did 10 minute days and set loot respawn to 5 days and looted a tier 3 poi. All containers that didn’t poof or change to an empty/open state respawned their loot when I went back. So most of the building had no loot— but the treasure room crates were reloaded and a few containers here and there which haven’t been given an empty/open state helper were reloaded. Anything I destroyed was still gone. 
 

With the chunk reset all containers were restored, all destroyed/harvested objects were restored, all empty/open objects were randomly restored. 
 

The only lootables that went poof were things like garbage bags, piles of clothes, stacks of ammo, duffel bags, etc. containers like shelves, medicine cabinets, cupboards, carts, garbage cans, etc did not go poof but did just become blocks in an open/empty state and no longer functioned as containers. Already existing open/empty “containers” are not containers at all and are just blocks that can be destroyed but not filled with loot. 

 

My suggestion is that if you want to use an existing fridge (for example) that has loot in it, just don’t loot it. Add your own stuff to it and always keep at least one thing in it. 
 

End room crates and chests and safes seem to stay as containers and so loot respawns in those. They don’t revert to their factory sealed wood encased labeled versions though. They are just the cardboard boxes you see after breaking them open when loot respawns in them. 
 

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

Anyway, we'll see how it plays out... as someone else said, maybe the stream I watched was skewed by good RNG, and on average, the water RNG is fine.

Water in loot was definitely more scarce in earlier builds than it is currently. They went through a few balancing passes and probably didn’t want it to be too punishing. If feedback from players seems to be that it is all trivial maybe they’ll push it back towards scarcity a bit. 
 

But I’ve seen several streams where the players struggled with water. It depends on how RWG treats you. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Moldy Bread]

So, what's going on with the water thing? So there's no more Empty Glass Jars? So what? You drink from a water source only? I'm confused.

[RipClaw]

19 minutes ago, Moldy Bread said:

So, what's going on with the water thing? So there's no more Empty Glass Jars? So what? You drink from a water source only? I'm confused.

You can find murky water in loot, you can buy water and drinks from vending machines and you build dew collectors which give you 3 clean water per day.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

Regarding loot respawn:

 

Loot will still respawn. I did 10 minute days and set loot respawn to 5 days and looted a tier 3 poi. All containers that didn’t poof or change to an empty/open state respawned their loot when I went back. So most of the building had no loot— but the treasure room crates were reloaded and a few containers here and there which haven’t been given an empty/open state helper were reloaded. Anything I destroyed was still gone. 
 

With the chunk reset all containers were restored, all destroyed/harvested objects were restored, all empty/open objects were randomly restored. 
 

The only lootables that went poof were things like garbage bags, piles of clothes, stacks of ammo, duffel bags, etc. containers like shelves, medicine cabinets, cupboards, carts, garbage cans, etc did not go poof but did just become blocks in an open/empty state and no longer functioned as containers. Already existing open/empty “containers” are not containers at all and are just blocks that can be destroyed but not filled with loot. 

 

My suggestion is that if you want to use an existing fridge (for example) that has loot in it, just don’t loot it. Add your own stuff to it and always keep at least one thing in it. 
 

End room crates and chests and safes seem to stay as containers and so loot respawns in those. They don’t revert to their factory sealed wood encased labeled versions though. They are just the cardboard boxes you see after breaking them open when loot respawns in them. 
 

Water in loot was definitely more scarce in earlier builds than it is currently. They went through a few balancing passes and probably didn’t want it to be too punishing. If feedback from players seems to be that it is all trivial maybe they’ll push it back towards scarcity a bit. 
 

But I’ve seen several streams where the players struggled with water. It depends on how RWG treats you. 

This is unfortunate.  Most things now have an open state, so other than the loot room, little well respawn.  Toilets, sinks, cabinets... Water coolers.  Maybe bookshelves.  I'm sure I'm missing some stuff.  But most everything else now has open states.  And I am sure they plan to make cabinets change to open states at some point (kinda surprised they didn't already do this) and organize add an open state for sinks.  You'll be left with a loot room and nothing else to incentise you to rerun the POI if not questing.  I am wondering if I'll find myself manually resetting the chunk before going into a POI from now on.  Not ideal at all.  Or maybe I'll give up scavenging without a quest, which is sad.

[Moldy Bread]

26 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

You can find murky water in loot, you can buy water and drinks from vending machines and you build dew collectors which give you 3 clean water per day.

So what happens to the jars and stuff you drink from? Do they just disappear?

Edited June 10, 2023 by Moldy Bread (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

16 minutes ago, Riamus said:

This is unfortunate.  Most things now have an open state, so other than the loot room, little well respawn.  Toilets, sinks, cabinets... Water coolers.  Maybe bookshelves.  I'm sure I'm missing some stuff.  But most everything else now has open states.  And I am sure they plan to make cabinets change to open states at some point (kinda surprised they didn't already do this) and organize add an open state for sinks.  You'll be left with a loot room and nothing else to incentise you to rerun the POI if not questing.  I am wondering if I'll find myself manually resetting the chunk before going into a POI from now on.  Not ideal at all.  Or maybe I'll give up scavenging without a quest, which is sad.

This is actually MUCH better than before. True looting.

Stuff doesn't "respawn" in real life... if this is, even a bit, still a survival game, then that's something that goes in the right direction.

 

This will also balance out the "boost" you receive when you start out. The first days you'll have full loot and can kick-start your base, your crafting, and even leveling.

But after some time, you start having diminishing returns (as it should be) and you either have to move to a new area, or live on renewable resources.  

 

4 minutes ago, Moldy Bread said:

So what happens to the jars and stuff you drink from? Do they just disappear?

Yep.

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[Gronal]

18 minutes ago, Moldy Bread said:

So what happens to the jars and stuff you drink from? Do they just disappear?

This has been talked about a lot, but to catch you up. Yes just like the gas cans, oil bottles, acid bottles, etc.

[Laran Mithras]

Adding to Gronal's mini catch-you-up, water availability was indeed trivial in almost every playthrough I've done. There seems to be water every 100-200 meters. If I was to translate my current location to a 7DTD map, there would be 1 stream about 2K away. That's it. No pools, no culverts.

 

Personally, I really look forward to scarcer water. In a zombie/nuclear apocalypse of 7DTD, how much perfect water would one expect to find? How many houses keep a bottle of water in the cupboard? Not many. Milk, juices - all spoiled. I imagine the only enduring atrocity remaining would be energy drinks. Enough deadly chemicals there to survive 3 centuries of apocalypse...

[ParadiseLostUK]

47 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

This is actually MUCH better than before. True looting.

Stuff doesn't "respawn" in real life... if this is, even a bit, still a survival game, then that's something that goes in the right direction.

 

This will also balance out the "boost" you receive when you start out. The first days you'll have full loot and can kick-start your base, your crafting, and even leveling.

But after some time, you start having diminishing returns (as it should be) and you either have to move to a new area, or live on renewable resources.  

 

Yep.

 

I agree, I usually play with loot respawn at longest possible time or off entirely.  What's the point in having a whole map to explore if you can just stay in the same town throughout the entire playthrough?  I do mostly play single player though.

[Old Crow]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Regarding loot respawn:

 

Loot will still respawn. I did 10 minute days and set loot respawn to 5 days and looted a tier 3 poi. All containers that didn’t poof or change to an empty/open state respawned their loot when I went back. So most of the building had no loot— but the treasure room crates were reloaded and a few containers here and there which haven’t been given an empty/open state helper were reloaded. Anything I destroyed was still gone. 
 

With the chunk reset all containers were restored, all destroyed/harvested objects were restored, all empty/open objects were randomly restored. 
 

The only lootables that went poof were things like garbage bags, piles of clothes, stacks of ammo, duffel bags, etc. containers like shelves, medicine cabinets, cupboards, carts, garbage cans, etc did not go poof but did just become blocks in an open/empty state and no longer functioned as containers. Already existing open/empty “containers” are not containers at all and are just blocks that can be destroyed but not filled with loot. 

 

My suggestion is that if you want to use an existing fridge (for example) that has loot in it, just don’t loot it. Add your own stuff to it and always keep at least one thing in it. 
 

End room crates and chests and safes seem to stay as containers and so loot respawns in those. They don’t revert to their factory sealed wood encased labeled versions though. They are just the cardboard boxes you see after breaking them open when loot respawns in them. 

 

 

Thanks for clarifying this!

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:

This is actually MUCH better than before. True looting.

Stuff doesn't "respawn" in real life... if this is, even a bit, still a survival game, then that's something that goes in the right direction.

 

This will also balance out the "boost" you receive when you start out. The first days you'll have full loot and can kick-start your base, your crafting, and even leveling.

But after some time, you start having diminishing returns (as it should be) and you either have to move to a new area, or live on renewable resources.  

 

Yep.

 

That is really just a matter of preference.  This is a game and does not have to match real life.  I like going back through a POI multiple times without having a quest, but if there is no real reward for doing it again, it leaves me not really feeling like it is worth my time.

 

And, to be clear, I travel to every town at least once.  I don't stay in one place.  And if I wanted to stay in one town, why would that be bad?  People can play it how they like.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

1 minute ago, Riamus said:

That is really just a matter of preference.

I agree.

[mstdv inc]

8 hours ago, Wulf said:

Yeah, in the last couple of Alpha's i've kept playing my experimental save after Stable dropped with no issues.

I would expect it to be the same now.

I think, as always, there will be a warning that you may encounter some problems if you start on EXP and continue on Stable, but when playing A19 and A20, I started to survive right away and did not encounter any problems.

4 hours ago, Roland said:

Water in loot was definitely more scarce in earlier builds than it is currently. They went through a few balancing passes and probably didn’t want it to be too punishing. If feedback from players seems to be that it is all trivial maybe they’ll push it back towards scarcity a bit.
 

But I’ve seen several streams where the players struggled with water. It depends on how RWG treats you.

It always seemed to me that the balance is adjusted based on standard settings. This allows you to increase the difficulty for those who find it easy, and reduce it for those who find it too difficult.

To be honest, I haven't seen a any stream with standard settings. Maybe I haven't looked closely enough, I don't rule it out.
The fact is that experienced players will start with more complex settings anyway, and if it is difficult for them at the same time, it means that the team did everything right.

Edited June 10, 2023 by mstdv inc (see edit history)

[mstdv inc]

3 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

This is actually MUCH better than before. True looting.

Stuff doesn't "respawn" in real life... if this is, even a bit, still a survival game, then that's something that goes in the right direction.

When I first started playing in the summer of 2020 and was studying the settings for creating one of the first worlds, I saw the item "loot rebirth". I was very surprised and started figuring out how to re-collect loot from the same buildings in the apocalypse.
Are they really little gnomes who put everything in its place at night? Maybe a caring aunt? Zombies? The government? UFOs? 

In any case, since then I have always limited the revival of loot. 
I like to explore, travel and build many bases in different biomes while surviving.
The territory is "cleared", there are no more zombies and there are no more resources, it's time to move on to survive.

This may be necessary for servers. But even if there are 32 players on the server, I doubt they will collect all the loot from all the buildings on even the smallest RWG 6k map before they get tired of this survival.

Perhaps it is laziness and unwillingness to explore the world. It is very strange for me to come to the same poi as to the store. This is not why the developers have created more than 600 unique buildings for us.

Edited June 10, 2023 by mstdv inc (see edit history)

[Wulf]

About the crafting books/levels.

 

The release notes mention "each level of a perk will give a probability boost to certain magazines.". Is that boost at the cost of looting chance for other magazines? (i.e. the weights are more shifted towards the perks you have selected)

 

What happens when you max out a crafting tree? Will you still continue to find those magazines at the 'boosted level'? Or will the perk effect deactivate and your chances will be reset to default? The latter seems preferable to me.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Wulf (see edit history)

[Riamus]

14 minutes ago, Wulf said:

About the crafting books/levels.

 

The release notes mention "each level of a perk will give a probability boost to certain magazines.". Is that boost at the cost of looting chance for other magazines? (i.e. the weights are more shifted towards the perks you have selected)

 

What happens when you max out a crafting tree? Will you still continue to find those magazines at the 'boosted level'? Or will the perk effect deactivate and your chances will be reset to default? The latter seems preferable to me.

The boost goes away after you max it out.  If you want to keep the boost to help get magazines for others, be sure not to read the last one.

 

It doesn't reduce the chance of getting other magazines.  You just have an increased chance of getting one of those magazines in addition to what you might have gotten.  At least, that is what I understood when they explained it.

[Yukkie]

20 minutes ago, Wulf said:

製作書・レベルについて。

 

リリースノートには「特典の各レベルにより、特定の雑誌の確率が上昇します。」と記載されています。それは他の雑誌のチャンスを奪うことを犠牲にしてのブーストなのでしょうか？(つまり、選択した特典の方に重みがよりシフトされます)

 

クラフトツリーを最大まで拡張するとどうなりますか? 今後もこれらの雑誌を「ブースト レベル」で見つけ続けるつもりですか? それとも特典効果が無効になり、チャンスはデフォルトにリセットされますか? 私にとっては後者の方が好ましいように思えます。

I have heard that while certain books are easier to find, the impact is minor.
And when complete, other books that are close to complete will be easier to discover.
But there is still a high degree of randomness, and you will discover a variety of books if you look around without being aware of it.

The probability of finding a cookbook in a gun store or a rifle book in a diner should be low, but it is possible that there was a cook whose hobby was hunting. (It is also possible to find books in different categories.)

I understand that.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Yukkie (see edit history)

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Yukkie said:

I have heard that while certain books are easier to find, the impact is minor.
And when complete, other books that are close to complete will be easier to discover.
But there is still a high degree of randomness, and you will discover a variety of books if you look around without being aware of it.

The probability of finding a cookbook in a gun store or a rifle book in a diner should be low, but it is possible that there was a cook whose hobby was hunting. (It is also possible to find books in different categories.)

I understand that.

Exactly. 
 

In fact, in the short term you may find more magazines and parts for other weapons you haven’t perked into leading you to think it’s bugged but in the long term you will come out ahead in what you perked into. The boost doesn’t guarantee that you’ll find the mag you want in every loot container. It just guarantees you won’t never find the mag you need. 
 

Every playthrough has been different for me due to the randomness of it. 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Aldranon]

Loot Respawn could be part of the games grander plot AND/OR just a convenient vehicle for endless gameplay.  

 

If it's part of a multi game plot (two games) this first game (7D2D) the player is hallucinating or dreaming this:

If they choose the White River group, they could wake up in a part 2 with the player the only person immune to the virus!

If they choice the bandits they will die OR possibly wake up as patient Zero, a zombie  in part 2!

The player has to kill one of the two leaders to end the game.

 

Of course, it's all conjecture but that's how my brain works. 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Aldranon (see edit history)

[Nimeni]

Just a small feedback from what i have seen in in some streams.

 

Food and water is not that hard to get, is definitely more scarce but not what i was expecting.  There was some who were unlucky to find food and water, but they were looking for it in places that was a low chance to find it.

You can drink water from a pond/river with your hand s if you can t find any.