Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, icehot said:

Also if the trader only has stuff from your perks, to around the level of what you can craft, then there's zero point in traders - why would you bother with them?  You'd just craft the items because it's cheaper to do that than going out of your way to quest and earn money to get decent stuff.

 

Your argument is the same argument he is using for crafting, if he never can craft a better weapon than he has, then there is zero point in buying or searching for magazines. We players get a lot of dukes from quests and there is no "going out of your way" to quest. Quests rewards are so good that there is no **in-game** reason to NOT do them, you have a good chance for OP items for nothing and on top the money to buy sometimes OP items from the trader stock. And with lots of dukes to spend buying is as cheap as crafting a good weapon.

 

The only disadvantage of boosting crafting may be that the progression there is less random than loot and trader, so it might make sense to have it slightly trailing the others in progression. But at the moment it isn't slightly for weapon crafting even if you have not seen in in your own game.

 

There are some "easy" adjustments that would balance the game better:

1) Decrease the money you get from quests is one of the easiest. Even better if some of those dukes removed from quest rewards would be distributed into POI chests because this is one reason why MP players advance so much faster than SP players. 

 

2) Prevent higher tier quests from giving out items far above your progression. Those quests still can give you more valuable stuff (bigger stacks of ammo for example) and more dukes than lower tier quests but the item tier and quality should not invalidate your normal progression. The mistake of giving much better weapons for higher tier quests is that higher tier quests are only moderately more difficult than lower tier quests and often just take longer. But the quest reward seems to be as if the difficulty steps between different skull amounts were as steep as biome diffficulty in Valheim or quest difficulty in World of Warcraft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Philipp]

Regarding the current discussion about balancing: Possibly more weapons should be added besides adjusting how items are acquired and when.  The same also applies to a larger number of more dangerous zombies and animals.  If I have more weapons / zombies available I can balance the game more.  At the moment there seems to be a quick jump from "beginning" to "endgame".  The Gyrocopter serves as an example: it is actually "Endgame" and can be reached late.  But I couldn't think of anything that is as difficult and late to reach as the gyrocopter in the game

[meilodasreh]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

if he never can craft a better weapon than he has, then there is zero point in buying or searching for magazines.

Speaking of zero point:

 

My main weapons are both ones from the trader, because they are better than the crafted ones.

My quality4 compound bow which I got as a reward from a trader quite some time ago, has slightly better damage and the same amount of mod slots than the quality5 one I was finally able to craft, after finding the necessary magazines.

Not the greatest moment I had in the game 😐

 

Btw is the amount of modslots in weapons and armor a fixed value for each item?

Can anybody provide a list where I can look up how many there can be for each weapon/armor type and quality?

Couldn't yet figure out any consistent logic behind it.

Edited July 7, 2023 by meilodasreh (see edit history)

[meganoth]

20 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

Speaking of zero point:

 

My main weapons are both ones from the trader, because they are better than the crafted ones.

My quality4 compound bow which I got as a reward from a trader quite some time ago, has slightly better damage and the same amount of mod slots than the quality5 one I was finally able to craft, after finding the necessary magazines.

Not the greatest moment I had in the game 😐

 

Btw is the amount of modslots in weapons and armor a fixed value for each item?

Can anybody provide a list where I can look up how many there can be for each weapon/armor type and quality?

Couldn't yet figure out any consistent logic behind it.

 

Number of mod slots were changed with the latest patch and if you started your game before you will have a mix of older and newer items, with the older items unchanged. Thus you would see inconsistent results.

 

Also TFP seems to have made a mistake so that tier3 weapons do not have uniform mod slots at the moment.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Philipp said:

Regarding the current discussion about balancing: Possibly more weapons should be added besides adjusting how items are acquired and when.  The same also applies to a larger number of more dangerous zombies and animals.  If I have more weapons / zombies available I can balance the game more.  At the moment there seems to be a quick jump from "beginning" to "endgame".  The Gyrocopter serves as an example: it is actually "Endgame" and can be reached late.  But I couldn't think of anything that is as difficult and late to reach as the gyrocopter in the game

 

Effort to implement:

 

Balance magazine frequency: *

Balance the trader:  **

Add new zombies:  ************************

Add new weapons: ************************

 

😉

[Morloc]

Late feedback...

 

Bicycle coasting....perfect!

Bicylce and minibike damage seem appropriate. Definitely makes me think twice about plowing through the Wasteland.

 

Loot container changes...great! This does indeed boost immersion. Small request...currently, when you loot one side in a aisle of shelves or some bookcases, you also loot the opposite side (same in the previous alpha) That feels weird. If changing that would mean too much loot, just reduce the percentage of shelves populated with loot to balance.

Also...given that we're on a never-ending quest for literature, it'd be good to update the old bookcase containers to clear their shelves when looted (or is this intentional to allow some loot respawn?).

 

Your new POI's and overhauls look sweet. It feels different out there!

 

Even playing with 25% loot, zombie drops have the possibility of being amazing. It's not overkill, but when a bag does drop, there's a feeling of glee!

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀
 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Morloc (see edit history)

[icehot]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Your argument is the same argument he is using for crafting, if he never can craft a better weapon than he has, then there is zero point in buying or searching for magazines. We players get a lot of dukes from quests and there is no "going out of your way" to quest. Quests rewards are so good that there is no **in-game** reason to NOT do them, you have a good chance for OP items for nothing and on top the money to buy sometimes OP items from the trader stock. And with lots of dukes to spend buying is as cheap as crafting a good weapon.

 

 

Yes I can see the comparison you're making there, but I would add to it, by saying that I do think the trader should be able to offer better things than you can craft - bear in mind, that you can craft whatever you want, whenever you like, dependant only really on your resources (which aren't difficult to get, wrench a few cars, loot magazines, do some mining - all very easy tasks)... Questing is more of a challenge, you are spending ammo, risking your life, taking time out of the day, and obviously getting paid for it, but you can still only select one loot reward for each quest (or two when a tier is completed - which btw I do think should be extended out, like a week of tier 1 or something - if they're aiming for around 4 weeks plus, then 1 tier per week makes some sort of sense with the tier 6 being the hardcore endgame to do after that time), and you're still limited to what you can buy from the trader either having it in stock, and the amount of dukes you've saved up, and perhaps some perks and other items to help make things more affordable.  So there's far more investment in that, so you'd expect something better.

 

Now just to be clear, I'm not saying it's not unbalanced at all, all I'm saying is that it's not as dramatic as people are making out, I think it's more of a slight issue than a major one.  I'm also trying to give a counter balance to the argument, cos we've all seen it before, where some loud voices speak up in the forums, then something gets nerfed to hell lol.

[doughphunghus]

3 hours ago, icehot said:

I do think the trader should be able to offer better things than you can craft

I agree on this. Its much more believable that a trader (in a compound) will have all sorts of shiny things you could possibly not be near able to craft. Imagine going to a car lot when you're still riding a bicycle and all they sell is bicycles. You expect them to have cars and some you cannot afford, not "come back next week and its all motorcycles and a few super bicycles... all at reasonable prices for you!"

in a way, to me its the "game economy" that would be better served by balancing things out.  If you want a high tier uncraftable item in the first few days youre gonna need to work a lot of jobs to get the dukes to pay for it.

 

Someone on here mentioned a system where you cannot repair anything you cant craft, and that seems like an added bonus of balancing, should you get/buy/find a really cool higher tier item. Sure: use it for a bit and then its done *until* you can repair it or sell it. Having "1 repair kit for almost everything" is kinda OP as well for balancing IMHO (though i haven't looked at the repair kits/parts/mechanics of weapons/vehicles in a21 yet, i think even if you have a proper repair kit, if its above your craft level too much you cannot repair it even with repair kits/parts)

 

if the repair kits hobbled you for high tier item "forever use" and economy were balanced a bit more (high tier items super high prices, low at reasonable prices), then you can have the "I found a t6 machine gun!" On day 1 and its ok because its not your "forever i have this working t6 machine gun" all game long.

 

Sure, in MP (joining an existing server) anyone can just hand you OP items, but as long as everyone starts in day 1, if someone can craft and repair high tier machine guns (as example) then cool, you have to beg, barter,or befriend them to get that bonus for yourself as they hand/repair/sell you higher things (like a personal trader  else loot or work with the vanilla traders.

Edited July 7, 2023 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[Aldranon]

Using the steam popular charts, 7D2D has never been a better game.

Also, I'm pretty sure that TFP will have enough money to finalize their vision of a perfected 7D2D and roll into a Part2 or something altogether new.

 

A21 is better than A20 IMO, but something is not quite right yet (IMO) and I think people have been hitting around the edges of the problem.

Maybe I need to wait for a slightly more balanced release of A21.

[meganoth]

 

 

9 hours ago, icehot said:

Yes I can see the comparison you're making there, but I would add to it, by saying that I do think the trader should be able to offer better things than you can craft

 

Oh, I fully agree that the best solution would be that the trader has lots of nice stuff to offer but the poor player looks sadly at the display and, counting his small heap of dukes, thinks he can save up enough money to get that quality 4 double barrel eventually, but that shiny auto shotty is right out of the question (I am exaggerating obviously, I assume you get the drift).

 

But the trader stock is in fact the smaller problem if at all and might not even need any adjustment at all once the quest rewards are reigned in.

 

9 hours ago, icehot said:

bear in mind, that you can craft whatever you want, whenever you like, dependant only really on your resources (which aren't difficult to get, wrench a few cars, loot magazines, do some mining - all very easy tasks)... Questing is more of a challenge, you are spending ammo, risking your life, taking time out of the day, and obviously getting paid for it, but you can still only select one loot reward for each quest

 

"craft whatever you want"? No. A shotgun player with a quality 3 double barrel wants to craft anything above q3 and nothing below q3. And if he hasn't the magazines, he can't do that. And if you simply got magazines daily in your mailbox then it would be kind of automatic. But it isn't, crafting progress is randomized like everything else

 

One loot reward? In 7D2D you have relatively few items you desire at any one point in the game. It does happen from time to time that you can't select an item you want because there is a better reward offered as well, but come on, you still get to choose. And if you are speccing STR and one of your choices at day 12 is a a good pump or auto shotty then anything else you might want might generate a nanosecond of regret, nothing more. Meanwhile your crafting is at pipe shotguns, and someone saying "craft whatever you want, whenever you like" generates a good laugh 😄 

 

9 hours ago, icehot said:

Now just to be clear, I'm not saying it's not unbalanced at all, all I'm saying is that it's not as dramatic as people are making out, I think it's more of a slight issue than a major one.  I'm also trying to give a counter balance to the argument, cos we've all seen it before, where some loud voices speak up in the forums, then something gets nerfed to hell lol.

 

The example above with the pump/auto shotgun is probably right out of my MP game, not a dramatization (though I am not sure whether it is pump or auto). Now if it was the only item I would say it doesn't matter. But everyone of us has tier2 to tier3 items and they all are from the trader. If there isn't a change, we will get our complete equipment ONLY from the trader.

 

 

[the_envenom]

23 hours ago, GoofMcGee said:

 

Nah, that's your food wallet.  You store all your food in there.  Silly.  Sheesh.

I guess so..., they removed my photos, guess they want that meat animation forever ¯\_(⊙︿⊙)_/¯

[icehot]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

"craft whatever you want"? No. A shotgun player with a quality 3 double barrel wants to craft anything above q3 and nothing below q3. And if he hasn't the magazines, he can't do that. And if you simply got magazines daily in your mailbox then it would be kind of automatic. But it isn't, crafting progress is randomized like everything else

Come on, I did say in there that it's reliant on resources including the magazines - the point I'm making is that it's purely just time involved in that, not really much risk compared to questing.  It also sounds like in a lot of cases we're comparing MP to SP, I don't really play MP at all, so getting one quest reward per quest for me doesn't seem that bad - perhaps it is a much bigger issue in MP, I don't know?

 

An example I could offer that is available to everyone to see, would be watching IzPrebuilt's latest series on youtube - it seems to me on there, his crafting ability is WAY ahead of what the trader is offering, just because he seems to be pretty damn good at cheesing almost all the mechanics of the game to his advantage including the magazines, he's being very strategic about point placement, double looting, and going to specific areas etc to get exactly all the magazines he's wanting - he's been crafting blue iron tools in yesterdays episode (I think it was by day 8 or 9), well in advance of what the trader has been offering, and he was also one of the people pushing for quest rewards to be good as well.

[Jost Amman]

32 minutes ago, icehot said:

the point I'm making is that it's purely just time involved in that, not really much risk compared to questing.

Time management is part of the game. Not everything needs to be about risk (even if it's fun).

By your reasoning, cooking times, crafting times and leveling, should all need a risk factor or happen instantly?

[icehot]

5 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Time management is part of the game. Not everything needs to be about risk (even if it's fun).

By your reasoning, cooking times, crafting times and leveling, should all need a risk factor or happen instantly?

No that's not the point I'm making AT ALL.  There's levels of risk, and crafting is one of the lowest, and so should lag behind something that is higher risk/higher reward etc.

[Jost Amman]

43 minutes ago, icehot said:

No that's not the point I'm making AT ALL.  There's levels of risk, and crafting is one of the lowest, and so should lag behind something that is higher risk/higher reward etc.

Acquiring magazines is based on looting and quest rewards (and I think that's it), so the risk involved is of that level.

What else would you expect?

[icehot]

6 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

Acquiring magazines is based on looting and quest rewards (and I think that's it), so the risk involved is of that level.

What else would you expect?

No it's not, you can go around looting mailboxes, trash, buying them, nerd polling to the end loot, cars etc etc.  I didn't say it was zero risk, and you should be crafting level 1 stone axes, whilst being offered purple steel axes at the trader, just that it shouldn't be equal.

 

Infact it's a bit like why you'd have a chance at better loot from breaking into cop cars, or looting the wasteland - higher risk, higher reward, that's it really.  Now whether they've got the balance of risk to reward correct, that's another question, but I'm really pointing out to the people who think crafting should be the same or better than questing.

Edited July 8, 2023 by icehot (see edit history)

[Sephiroth87xz]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:29 AM, icehot said:

 

From the way you've said this, you make it sound like you expect the trader to ONLY have items for your perk tree - like finding an iron spear made all your points in agility worthless, why does it?  You decided you wanted to use knives, not spears, so who cares what spear he has?  It hasn't stopped you aiming to be able to craft knives.

 

Also if the trader only has stuff from your perks, to around the level of what you can craft, then there's zero point in traders - why would you bother with them?  You'd just craft the items because it's cheaper to do that than going out of your way to quest and earn money to get decent stuff.

 

I've just spent the past two hours playing to day 17, in the intellect tree, and the trader has had some ok stuff, but nothing that's made me want to jump trees, I've just ignored those items because I'm focussing on the intellect style.  Rewards and items are also not that amazing that I'm seeing either.

 

I don't see this as a big problem in the slightest, I've not been skipping parts of the game, I've been doing various bits of crafting, certain mods, some weapons, some armour etc.  I've been looting for some stuff, and buying other things - I've been basing my decisions on my character, and where I can currently get the best items.  Sometimes that's been crafting, other times it's been looting, other times it's been quest rewards, and other times that's been buying from the trader.  I don't see that as unbalanced, as I've been doing all of it.  And I still don't think I have anything really special or anywhere near end game.  He's had a steel club for sale recently, but why would I pick that when I'm playing for the stun baton, and all my skills are in that?

 

And how do you know the magazine system is the full intended line of progression in terms of time?  You are making an assumption there.  What if it's exactly what I'm doing?,  Where I'm using a mixture of different parts of the game, to get whatever I need/want at that particular time.  I've only just got onto iron tools btw, which I think is reasonable, one I bought, one was a quest reward, and the other one I crafted.

 

You should read all the comments.

 

The problem isn't the presence of different items than the one i have perks.

 

The problem is traders/quests/loot give higher quality/tier items than the perks i have.

 

This show a real problem of balance of progression for traders/loot/quests which ruin progression and difficulty of the game.

 

 

Again you should read the comment of developer i posted, he said want to make tiers not overlap.

 

Why they should do this type of progression only for crafting and not for the other part of the game?

 

And after readed your other comments the "risk", for get magazine about weapons you need to enter inside PoI, you can't random loots things.

 

Without talking you can do money and buy weaponms too soon breaking the balance, without really risk, so this argument really isn't valid.

 

I think you not understand all parts of the game need a progression system balanced with the difficulty system of the game.

 

Actually magazine/crafting is overall balanced.

 

Traders/quests/loot is not balanced, breaking progression and difficulty system.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Sephiroth87xz (see edit history)

[icehot]

Quote

You should read all the comments.

 

I have read all the comments, and I disagree with you.

 

Quote

The problem is traders/quests/loot give higher quality/tier items than the perks i have.

 

This show a real problem of balance of progression for traders/loot/quests which ruin progression and difficulty of the game.

 

This is not a problem in my opinion, I think it's correct, it might be too much perhaps, but I think it's correct.  Traders SHOULD offer better items than you can craft yourself, not all the time, but definitely some of the time.

 

Quote

Again you should read the comment of developer i posted, he said want to make tiers not overlap.

 

I know this, and what they're doing here, is simply making sure that a tier 1 baseball bat is better than a T6 wooden club - that doesn't say anything to the fact that different parts of the game should offer different levels of reward.

 

Quote

I think you not understand all parts of the game need a progression system balanced with the difficulty system of the game.

 

I do understand this, but I don't think you're correct.  That doesn't mean I think it's perfectly balanced, just that I think the quests/traders should offer better items.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2023 by icehot (see edit history)

[meilodasreh]

Am I the only one that gets the feeling that slower progression in the game is mostly achieved/caused not by all these fancy changes in game mechanics,

but just because I spend most of the time at night with staring at all these cool little details on the workbenches instead of organizing things to craft?

Really this is cool, excellent work, so much love for detail!❤️

[Sephiroth87xz]

13 minutes ago, icehot said:

 

I have read all the comments, and I disagree with you.

 

 

This is not a problem in my opinion, I think it's correct, it might be too much perhaps, but I think it's correct.  Traders SHOULD offer better items than you can craft yourself, not all the time, but definitely some of the time.

 

 

I know this, and what they're doing here, is simply making sure that a tier 1 baseball bat is better than a T6 wooden club - that doesn't say anything to the fact that different parts of the game should offer different levels of reward.

 

 

I do understand this, but I don't think you're correct.  That doesn't mean I think it's perfectly balanced, just that I think the quests/traders should offer better items.

 

 

Game design don't work in this way.

Easy accessible too much higher grade items break the progression and difficulty system.

 

Developers can't have a system of the game break the progression and difficulty system.

 

Is not a matter of opinion.

 

Your idea with the actual balance is simple wrong for videogame gameplay design.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Sephiroth87xz (see edit history)

[icehot]

Just now, Sephiroth87xz said:

Game design don't work in this way.

 

You can't have a system of the game break the progression and difficulty system.

 

Is not a matter of opinion.

 

Yes it is a matter of opinion, your opinion is that it's broken, mine is that it's not and is correct, infact it's also how I'd design it, because I understand risk/reward ratio.  The higher the risk, the higher the reward you should hope for.  Otherwise there's no point in it - that's what dictates motivation along with ambition.  Might as well get rid of the wasteland cos that offers higher rewards than you can craft too.

[meilodasreh]

some people are just not able to get into somebody elses heads, and see things from a different point of view.

They don't even try to understand another opinion, but just decide that it's a matter of others didn't read correct, are not able to understand or whatever.

Because there can only be one opinion that is correct (the own), and everybody else cannot understand the truth when they disagree.

Ah, if it was that simple, the world would be a better place.

Peace.

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

Game design don't work in this way.

Easy accessible too much higher grade items break the progression and difficulty system.

 

 

If the player doesn't have the money to buy all the easily accesible systems then it does work. Ignore my comment if lots of money was part of what you meant with "easy access"

 

[Dreyseth]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

If the player doesn't have the money to buy all the easily accesible systems then it does work. Ignore my comment if lots of money was part of what you meant with "easy access"

 

 

Perhaps outside the scope of the current game, but maybe one system that could help with trader "availability balancing" would be if a demand economy were further simulated.

 

Could be as simple as having a higher price at the trader for initial availability of an item, but the price drops an amount each day until sold.

 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Dreyseth said:

 

Perhaps outside the scope of the current game, but maybe one system that could help with trader "availability balancing" would be if a demand economy were further simulated.

 

Could be as simple as having a higher price at the trader for initial availability of an item, but the price drops an amount each day until sold.

 

It's an interesting idea but I'm not sure it would really change anything.  First, as meganoth pointed out, money is easy to come by so it isn't an issue to pay the higher price to begin with.  And even if that weren't the case, people would just wait until the day before the inventory changes to buy stuff.  That really doesn't balance anything, imo.  Still an interesting idea for other reasons.

[Dreyseth]

1 minute ago, Riamus said:

It's an interesting idea but I'm not sure it would really change anything.  First, as meganoth pointed out, money is easy to come by so it isn't an issue to pay the higher price to begin with.  And even if that weren't the case, people would just wait until the day before the inventory changes to buy stuff.  That really doesn't balance anything, imo.  Still an interesting idea for other reasons.

 

I completely agree, money should not be as readily available  as meganoth pointed out, but waiting for price to drop would be another player choice; to get what you want or need now, or risk waiting for it. 

 

Such a system wouldn't have to have a guarantied lowest price either, it could be a randomized or weighted amount, or no change at all.  Risk versus reward.  Lots of ways to adjust such a system under the hood, but probably not worth looking at so late in game development.