Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[RhinoW]

On another note. Does anyone know if the TFP are going to look into the building upgrades any time soon?

 

Seems that the new art direction is going for that raider grunge style metal sheet defense in some assets, I was wondering if we'll get new blocks with that treatment.

 

I just miss the forged iron catwalks and how they treated as an unique block. It feels weird having a cobblestone/concrete catwalk with the same tiled texture as everything else. And I know its futile mentioning the iron upgrades, but god I miss that post apocalyptic look on my blocks and metallic sound when getting damaged.

[sillls]

Another thing that might help is if the game time stops when you are looking at trade menu's. 

You get to the trader late in the day with only an hour to go but you just start looking at what you can buy when you get kicked out. 

Sure you can rush it or try and get there sooner. But a pause would be better. 

[khzmusik]

7 minutes ago, sillls said:

Another thing that might help is if the game time stops when you are looking at trade menu's. 

You get to the trader late in the day with only an hour to go but you just start looking at what you can buy when you get kicked out. 

Sure you can rush it or try and get there sooner. But a pause would be better. 

 

TFP aren't going to do anything that pauses the game. It would be practically impossible to handle in multiplayer.

 

This is the reason they gave for never implementing the ability for players to sleep through the night.

[falloutcloud]

3 hours ago, weldabar said:

It seems this way to me too. I just unlocked crafting an iron pick axe and iron spear. I crafted both and when I saw the stats immediately threw them in the forge to be smelted. So from this I'm expecting to never craft lvl 1-3 of higher tiered items. Also my stone items only had a mod or two in them, not fully modded. It's much better progression than A20, where I would often jump from stone to steel. I do think there is still too much overlap.

I very much agree with this assessment. Going from tier 1 level 5 to tier 2 level 1 should feel like a progression. Considering it will hold less mods then the stats should play a bigger role. I can see looting a level 6 would have an overlap.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

Then either we have to nerf down everything below steel 3 to make room for that additional power gap between each tool or we have to make the character even more overpowered at high end.  You cant just manifest the power ranges that don't overlap out of nowhere.
 

As mentioned above, this is very much not a tweak, tis a global balance affecting thing. 

Or they tie mod quantity to tier instead of quality level.  That way you are always getting better.  That isn't even a difficult change to make.  Of course, everyone who uses only cloth armor would be upset since you won't be able to put as many mods in that since it is the lowest tier.  But for pretty much everyone else, that would solve this problem.  Most people are out of the first tier of stuff around the time they are getting more than one mod for the given item, so it would probably work very well.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

6 hours ago, falloutcloud said:

I very much agree with this assessment. Going from tier 1 level 5 to tier 2 level 1 should feel like a progression. Considering it will hold less mods then the stats should play a bigger role. I can see looting a level 6 would have an overlap.

In my opinion, they should (to the least) up the durability of the next tier by 100%, and maybe lower the stone tier durability by 50%.

That way you have something which is "better" which breaks every time, versus something that's slightly worse, but that you have to repair once a day.

 

That's also kind of realistic, isn't it?

After all, it's like fighting zombies with sticks, or fighting them with a durable, full steel, machete.

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Jost Amman (see edit history)

[Blaster_Yoda]

This game has always been RNG, period! It will likely always be RNG, Teir, Level, Etc makes no difference in that aspect. RNG rules this game, it is what makes it work the way it works (based on players in group).

 

As far as items, well, that's pure RNG, you might get a Teir 1 lvl 5 item with 200 durability or a Teir 2 level 1 with 200 durability or  you might get either one with 500 durability (note, the durablility numbers are for reference only).

 

Sorry to burst your bubble,

Blaster

 

Edit: If you want to see how the RNG works start a solo game and play around in the creative menu to see what happens to gear/weapons.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Blaster_Yoda (see edit history)

[Outlaw_187]

Hey guys, haven't posted in a while. Gotta say I'm loving A21. The game definitely feels harder. 

 

Those infestation quests can be a real kick in the d*ck!!

 

I know we all have our own "vision" for the game. The devs have added things and/or taken things away that has really peeved many folks. 

One thing the game REALLY needs is more zombie variations. Especially early game, you kill the same zombies over & over. 

 

I love the models we have now, they look amazing. Just need more!!

 

Anyways, great job pimps! Looking forward to bandits & beyond. 

[Ralathar44]

10 hours ago, Riamus said:

Or they tie mod quantity to tier instead of quality level.  That way you are always getting better.  That isn't even a difficult change to make.  Of course, everyone who uses only cloth armor would be upset since you won't be able to put as many mods in that since it is the lowest tier.  But for pretty much everyone else, that would solve this problem.  Most people are out of the first tier of stuff around the time they are getting more than one mod for the given item, so it would probably work very well.

I didn't think someone would be able to make a suggestion that would actually bother me.  I have opinions and preferences ofc but im normally ok with rolling with whatever even if I argue for one thing or another.  But congratulations, you've suggested something I would actively hate.  This would be a monumental nerf to stone gear and a moderate nerf to iron gear.

We'd go back to how it was, where you'd upgrade to the next tier ASAP and quality meant nothing, only low tiers would be much weaker.  Right now Stone stuff is not bad and iron is pretty good and steel is basically just bonus awesomeness.  This would make stone stuff actively bad, iron good, and steel seen as required progression.

Mods make a huge difference in durability, damage, and stamina efficiency.  This would also put alot of stress on progression.  You wanna make people @%$# themselves about magazines more?  Go around nerfing the low tier stuff significantly.



And I'm not even touching armor.  Cloth is the lowest tier armor but its not the "worst" armor.  Its a highly specialized armor for stealth.  You'd just be nerfing it for no reason when this update already makes it notably worse.  And again you'd be putting stress on progression since now people would feel leather is alot more needed and thus be alot more worried about magazines.

No, no, 100 times no to this suggestion.  Thanks, I hate it lol.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

41 minutes ago, Blaster_Yoda said:

This game has always been RNG, period! It will likely always be RNG, Teir, Level, Etc makes no difference in that aspect. RNG rules this game, it is what makes it work the way it works (based on players in group).

 

As far as items, well, that's pure RNG, you might get a Teir 1 lvl 5 item with 200 durability or a Teir 2 level 1 with 200 durability or  you might get either one with 500 durability (note, the durablility numbers are for reference only).

The amount of RNG in the game and especially in crafting has varied from version to version. Not everything that is RNG now was RNG in earlier versions. For example, the stats of weapons and tools were fixed values until Alpha 18. I think it was in Alpha 17 when only the durability was determined by the quality. A Q1 iron pickaxe was just as good as a Q6 iron pickaxe. The Q1 just needed to be repaired more often.

 

However, since the developers also know that players can sometimes be unlucky, they have built in mechanisms that limit RNG or they try to compensate for bad luck.
One could say there is the illusion of randomness in this game but no real randomness.
 

[meganoth]

14 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

Then either we have to nerf down everything below steel 3 to make room for that additional power gap between each tool or we have to make the character even more overpowered at high end.  You cant just manifest the power ranges that don't overlap out of nowhere.

 

You missed the easiest option that would not need any global balance changes:  If TFP diminishes the stats range between q1 and q6 weapons, then the differenence between the tiers will be automatically bigger

 

Currently each quality level increases damage by 5% of the base damage for a weapon (if I remember correctly), plus/minus a random value. Reduce that to 3% and a q5 stone axe is not on average 20% better than a q1 stone axe but only 12%. An q1 iron pickaxe would now be 8% better in relation to that q5 stone axe without changing anything about it.

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

15 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

1) RNG (not everyone will experience the same)

2) The most easy to loot POIs often have a kitchen or some sort of kitchen cabinet -> hence more prob. to find cooking magazines

 

2) has been mentioned as the reason multiple times, it just means the problem is objectively present and not a result of misinterpreting random effects.

 

And it means that RNG or not, on average players will be much much faster progressing in cooking. RNG just means that with bad luck this might not happen, but with good luck the situation will be even worse.

 

There are a few options to address this, for example generally reduce the probability for finding cooking recipes, or reduce their probability after early game (so that you still progress fast in early game) or reduce the probability it can be found in kitchen containers.

 

Anyway, the problem seems a universal problem. At the moment our group finds cooking magazines in heaps, but also lots of traps or electricity magazines. But with almost all weapons we have almost no progress and we are at day 6 or 7. Our agility player can not build any of his weapons at q2 stone. This wouldn't be so bad if we couldn't already buy iron tier stuff easily at the trader. Yes, our game is statistically insignificant, but it seems many players see the same happening and there is a logical explanation why this is happening.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

The team is aware of the issues with lower quality weapons/tools (e.g. progression from stone > iron)  an adjustment is in the works.

 

3 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

One thing the game REALLY needs is more zombie variations. Especially early game, you kill the same zombies over & over. 

 

I love the models we have now, they look amazing. Just need more!!

 

The character art team is fully aware of this desire from many players.  There are some ideas stewing but nothing concrete as of yet.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[elektrohund]

25 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Currently each quality level increases damage by 5% of the base damage for a weapon (if I remember correctly), plus/minus a random value. Reduce that to 3% and a q5 stone axe is not on average 20% better than a q1 stone axe but only 12%. An q1 iron pickaxe would now be 8% better in relation to that q5 stone axe without changing anything about it.

 

 

It's actually 15% per tier, and if you include the 10% mod slot power bonus, a fully modded tier 6 stone axe would deal almost twice as much damage as a fully modded tier 1 stone axe. It's wild!

Why does having mods equipped increase weapon damage anyway?

[RhinoW]

6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

In my opinion, they should (to the least) up the durability of the next tier by 100%, and maybe lower the stone tier durability by 50%.

That way you have something which is "better" which breaks every time, versus something that's slightly worse, but that you have to repair once a day.

 

That's also kind of realistic, isn't it?

After all, it's like fighting zombies with sticks, or fighting them with a durable, full steel, machete.

 

Durability is not an issue in this game, especially for stone stuff. It's a near instant repair that costs 1 of very easy stuff to get. I would only be skeptical of using something if they required parts to repair, but if I'm not mistaken, nearly everything is repaired with the repair kit. Though I do agree that the difference should be more radical like you said.

 

I do think there's a middle ground, like meganoth said, there could be a tier damage value nerf, or like riamus said, have more specific requirements for mods.

 

To be fair, I agree with both of their ideas. And I personally would handle the situation like this:

 

1. Have the quality disparity/requirements increase based on tier:

    - Stone tools would require 10 magazines to reach max quality, while the following tiers would require exponentially more.

    - However, also make the qualities have different percentage gains based on tier +3%/5%/7%

    - This makes sure that stone tools are average all around (as they should) and the max tier has significant upgrades between qualities, which also take longer to reach, extending the endgame and buffing the early game to mid game progression by getting into tier 2 weapons.

 

2. Rebalance mods to tie with both quality and tier:

   - Stone 1-2 quality would not allow any mods, while 3-4 quality allows 1 and 5 quality would allow 2

   - Iron 1-2 quality would allow 1 mod, 3-4 quality allows 2, and 5 quality allows 3

   - Steel 1-2 quality allows 2, 3-4 quality allows 3, 5 quality allows 4

   - Quality 6 weapons would allow 4 at all times to prevent people from not being able to use their favorite gun (4 is the max right? genuinely can't remember)

 

   Something along these lines, I just wrote this in a few minutes, but each weapon be it tier or quality, would feel very different from each other.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by RhinoW (see edit history)

[sillls]

I would not mind seeing this as a POI.     11:40  

 

 

 

[Boop]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

You missed the easiest option that would not need any global balance changes:  If TFP diminishes the stats range between q1 and q6 weapons, then the differenence between the tiers will be automatically bigger

 

Currently each quality level increases damage by 5% of the base damage for a weapon (if I remember correctly), plus/minus a random value. Reduce that to 3% and a q5 stone axe is not on average 20% better than a q1 stone axe but only 12%. An q1 iron pickaxe would now be 8% better in relation to that q5 stone axe without changing anything about it.

That doesn't "fix" the problem though, it just makes it less apparent.

 

The current system needs to go. My guess is that it's an old relic that was patchworked in without much thought and put on the "later" pile.

Items scale poorly because the mod system is completely out of whack. Adding 10% damage per mod surpasses every other benefit, making #mod slots the only thing that counts. Mods are also allowed to suck because you only use them for that sweet damage boost anyway.

 

The hard solution here is to remove mod increases to damage - no more 10% boost per mod. For the new system:

1 - Quality determines straight up damage, just like it does already. 

2 - Even out mod slots. Each tier has 1 more mod slot, and can gain 2 more slots at higher Q. Q1-2 Stone spear has 0 slots, Q3-4 stone spear has 1 slot, Q5-6 has 2 slots. Q1-2 Iron spear has 1 mod slot, Q3-4 iron spear has 2 mod slots, Q5-6 iron spear has 3 mod slots. Q1-2 Steel spear has 2 mod slots, Q3-4 steel spear has 3 mod slots, Q5-6 steel spear has 4 mod slots. A theoretical T4 spear would start at 3 mod slots and end at 5. This will keep a consistent level across tiers and ensure that at the very least, a Q2 iron spear will be a worthwhile upgrade over a Q6 stone spear.

3 - Mods provide an *effect* that is worth using. The best example of this is the scope for a sniper rifle. 2x, 4x, 8x scopes have a distinct use. The scope doesn't need to provide a 10% damage boost as it provides an effect that changes how you play. Using an 8x scope? Perfect hunter rifle or sniper, but good luck trying to shotgun a zombie at 1m distance.  All mods should be like this. Equipping your weapon with 4 terrible mods would no longer be useful, but thinking about your use case could lead to some significant advantages in the right scenario. And of course generic mods will still be of generic use. The diffficult part is that all these mods need to be created and pondered so that they fit. This is presumably why TFP added the 10% bonus in the first place; as a temporary placeholder so they wouldn't have to think about making all mods useful.

 

What happens with the scaling with this system? A Q5 stone weapon will be slightly worse than a Q1 iron weapon *unless* you have 2 excellent mods. If you only have 1 then Q1 iron will be slightly better.

Scaling will be toned down between Q1 and Q6 as a) the number of mods are lowered and b) mods no longer provide an inherent 10% bonus. The scaling from quality can of course be adjusted to fit whatever numbers are needed on the tiers, and presumably they will be scaled up to account for the 40% extra damage that has been removed from mods. This will also make upgrading quality a worthwhile pursuit in itself.

The big challenge is going to be making interesting and valuable mods; which also happens to be an elegant ingress towards making the weapon classes more distinct.

[Riamus]

4 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

I didn't think someone would be able to make a suggestion that would actually bother me.  I have opinions and preferences ofc but im normally ok with rolling with whatever even if I argue for one thing or another.  But congratulations, you've suggested something I would actively hate.  This would be a monumental nerf to stone gear and a moderate nerf to iron gear.

We'd go back to how it was, where you'd upgrade to the next tier ASAP and quality meant nothing, only low tiers would be much weaker.  Right now Stone stuff is not bad and iron is pretty good and steel is basically just bonus awesomeness.  This would make stone stuff actively bad, iron good, and steel seen as required progression.

Mods make a huge difference in durability, damage, and stamina efficiency.  This would also put alot of stress on progression.  You wanna make people @%$# themselves about magazines more?  Go around nerfing the low tier stuff significantly.



And I'm not even touching armor.  Cloth is the lowest tier armor but its not the "worst" armor.  Its a highly specialized armor for stealth.  You'd just be nerfing it for no reason when this update already makes it notably worse.  And again you'd be putting stress on progression since now people would feel leather is alot more needed and thus be alot more worried about magazines.

No, no, 100 times no to this suggestion.  Thanks, I hate it lol.

Well, since LazMan said they are working on a change for it, any ideas are moot but I'm curious on your response.  Shouldn't we want players to upgrade?  You shouldn't be using stone if you can use iron or iron if you can use steel.  Those should be better.  Mods shouldn't make stone better than iron.  And really, how many mods do you end up having for stone before you upgrade as it is currently?  1, maybe 2 if you are upgrading slowly or happen to be lucky in what drops early game (at least normally; you can always have a game where you find a lot of mods)?  You really shouldn't have stone long enough to max out the mods.  If you do, then it's probably because you don't want to craft a quality 1-3 or 4 iron weapon because it's actually worse than keeping your quality 5/6 stone weapon.  Not because you can't do so.  The stone really should not be better than iron regardless of mods.

 

Even for cloth, you can stealth in military armor.  I understand why that's not the preferred option but they could look into making it a better stealth option for players if they wanted.  In the end, cloth is just cloth.  It shouldn't be the best armor in the game.  You shouldn't be able to buff it with mods enough that it's a great option for anything other than just being quiet for stealth, imo.  (I know anyone who uses it this way will disagree and I understand why but at the same time it really doesn't make sense and is just what players are used to and so want to keep.)

[meilodasreh]

19 hours ago, FranticDan said:

Request: Can we please get these stairs with railings?

 

Here you go

Edited June 23, 2023 by meilodasreh (see edit history)

[sillls]

And the best class to have in the game goes to... The mail man.

Yes, you read that right. 

I am sure that people would say tank or rouge, but you would be wrong. 

Why you ask? It's because the mail man gets all of the skills. Whereas others simply focus on a rather small set of skills. 

But the mailman not also gets all of the skills, but he can max out on them as well. 🤩

What does the mailman do? Well, what does a mailman do?! He gets the mail, DUU!  He goes to every single mailbox and post office box and gets skills from almost every single one. Of course, he can also get a few more from newsstands. 

Even a newb, someone starting out can master the fine arts of the mailman. 

The mailman can get his skills fast and can soon be a master at everything. Soon becoming Master!

So the next time you see a mailman, show him some respect of he just might go Postol on you. 😁

[FranticDan]

11 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

 

Here you go

Ahhh, perfect
Don't have to worry about people falling off the edge since no one can climb them anymore  

[fragtzack]

Navezgane Prison <Salute> POI team !

 

[fragtzack]

28 minutes ago, fragtzack said:

Navezgane Prison <Salute> POI team !

 

Thought I was completing the quest to clear Navezgane Prison.  Alas, the Prison seems bugged. There is still 2 zombies left that can't be found. When I got to the spot where the zombie is indicated by yellow dot, there dot is in mid air with nothing there or around. I tried "killall" in console to no avail.

 

[Ralathar44]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

You missed the easiest option that would not need any global balance changes:  If TFP diminishes the stats range between q1 and q6 weapons, then the differenence between the tiers will be automatically bigger

 

Currently each quality level increases damage by 5% of the base damage for a weapon (if I remember correctly), plus/minus a random value. Reduce that to 3% and a q5 stone axe is not on average 20% better than a q1 stone axe but only 12%. An q1 iron pickaxe would now be 8% better in relation to that q5 stone axe without changing anything about it.

 

Nope, I actually did think of that.  You're not thinking of this with balance brain. 

First of all it is a global balance change, you're changing the balance of literally every weapon and tool lol.  Q5 stone gets nerfed by 8% globally, which might not sound like much but if you cross any hit thresholds it becomes substantial.  And that's going to happen across the range of quality/weapons/enemies/tools.  So it won't be 8%.  Let's take the common zombie.  Lets say pre-nerf it took Q5 stone 3 hits and a power attack on the ground to kill...all headshots.  Now it takes 4 hits and a power attack.  That's effectively a 25% nerf for the most common weapon in the game.  Players are going to notice their stone tools are weaker.


It also STILL runs into much the same problem as currently.  Right now its a question of "x is literally better than y", but even if you squish everything numerically you're forgetting about the repair costs.  Stone Spear does not have repair kits required to maintain.  If Iron upgrades are only a tiny bit better (and with the mod amount differences they'll prolly still be worse) then its not better at all unless you have infinite repair kits.  In a game state where the water economy has been hit and glue and duct tape have significant value then Stone Spear is still going to be the better choice for smart players until roughly the same quality break point...iron 3.  This is even worse for Stone Axe since its good for everything and now Stone

Not only that but you've made this change at a cost.  Quality now matters alot less.  Not only might you still skip Quality 5 stone to Q3 iron, you might just skip qualities more in general now because it takes 2 qualities to make the difference of 1 now.  5% vs 6% for two compressed qualities.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[Claud]

A21 b317

I don't know where to post, but I will post it here. I found 2 bugs so far. One of them I'm not quite sure if it's a bug.

 

1) When it begins raining, the brightness settings indoors goes down dramatically, to the point you can barely see anything at all, only in areas where there's no available source of light. If you see the video in this link, you will see how going back to a zone where it has light normalizes everything, going downstairs makes everything pitch dark, and even by solely looking downstairs, everything goes pitch black:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/697933906879447130/1121840816428679178/7_Days_To_Die_2023-06-22_16-06-58.mp4

 

2) When I was playing, I alt-tabbed, doing so froze the game, then my entire computer, then both of my screens went pitch black, to the point they stopped detecting video source as if my PC was turned off for few seconds, and when it got back, it alt tabbed, but the game froze.

When I opened the game again, every single time I try to load my world, it gets an error and the game keeps freezing, which I assume that this now corrupted my world for good. This is the error I get every single time I try to load in. The last action I did before alt tabbing was completing a quest and I selected as reward the crafting bundle.

 

Computer specs:

-i9 10900

-RTX 2070 Super

-32GB Ram

-Game is installed on a M2 disc.

 

I hope this helps, because my world now can't be loaded since I get this error every single time.