Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[maxousara]

That looks like very complicated understand how dew water works we talk about that since 4 pages.

 

That collect 3 good water and take a lot of time thats it. Why each time we discover a New things we repeat the same question during 1 week each hours just read before.

[KhaineGB]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

Well, that's it. My entire point is that the existence of empty bottles is what allows us to create drinkable water on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle. But, maybe there is an "and" after all. Perhaps empty bottles is also what allows us to create glue on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle in the mid to late game. We ALWAYS have enough glue/duct tape to ALWAYS have our best weapon in good repair and never have to make do with backups. We never run out of molotovs and explosives and our weapons all work all horde night long because our scale of production was unrealistically large and too simple to get up and running too quickly.

 

If you are having to choose between drinking and repair kits by day 22 in the A20 system then for sure you are going to have to make tough choices and possibly have to either go into a horde night with suboptimal preparations or at least be down to the back up weaponry by the end of it. In the long run, glue won't be a problem and you will be back to mass producing stuff that requires it and duct tape but you will need to build your water farm first.

 

Honestly, this is a change from simplistic to complex which is what everyone claims to want. They didn't dumb things down but added a new workstation that opens up a new type of farming. And really it isn't a whole new system. All they did was add a dew collector that produces pure water and removed empty bottles and they reverted back to requiring a pot to boil water.

But the existence of being able to EVENTUALLY mass produce dew collectors also allows the player the ability to create drinkable water on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle.

You're not SUPPOSED to be struggling at mid game+ . This feels like trying to artificially increase how long it takes for the player to be self sufficient based on feedback of people saying there's nothing to do at end game... so make it take longer to get there.

And this is the point I'm making that I feel is being ignored, because the TFP workers always, always, always tow the line and don't want to listen. It's not just "I have jars therefore infinite water!"... you're thinking too small.

It's "I have jars so I can get water. Okay, where's my nearest water source. It's X meters or kilometers away. Right, that's valuable time taken up by travelling instead of doing Y, then I have to wait Z amount of time for it to turn into water.... etc" (side note, city tiles need less water because that's adding to the problem)

And yes, EVENTUALLY you can get so many jars that water isn't a problem. That's FINE. That's ok. If it's within the first week, then yes, the amount found in loot needs to be adjusted. If it's within the first two weeks, it might need to be adjusted. If it's within the first 3 weeks (like my case), that is COMPLETELY acceptable given that most folks tend to stop playing vanilla around Day 40/50 and then make a new save on a new map, possibly with a challenge in mind.

Honestly, some loot and recipe tweaks? Job done.
 

6 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Maybe, but how long does that really stretch the water survival challenge?  Pop a vitamin then spam drink all the murks you want.  Change vitamins you say?  Making pots super rare is a tough sell for MP servers.

 

Not saying your suggestions are not doable but they are not necessarily more fun then progressing towards having a dew collector farm.  Why not have both?  Well having both would diminish the collector to a fluff / convenience option since you wouldn't need it at all.

 

1) Why does the water survival challenge need to be stretched beyond day 14 or day 21? (in my case).

It doesn't. Most players feel done around day 40. If they're self sufficient on water somewhere around day 20, this is acceptable based on feedback i've seen.

2) Then don't make vitamins make the player immune to dysentary? Make it work like infection, but progress a LOT faster, and then vitamins and/or goldenrod cure X amount. Like in the earlier alphas were drinking murky water and geting dysentary could damn near be a death sentence if you didn't get goldenrod tea.

3) Making pots super rare isn't a tough sell for MP when the quest system resets POI's. I'd just spam quests with houses in them. Limit pots to oven drop only or placeable block, keep running quests.

Then the player will have to be careful how they spend their dukes too. The trader has a pot? Do you want to buy that, food or ammo? The trader doesn't have a pot, well now you need to decide between drinking, eating or shooting things in the face.

It's all a resource balance, and TIME is a resource, which I feel is often forgotten.

Edited July 24, 2022 by KhaineGB (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

I believe that, as any new feature, this new water system will surely need to find its balance.

I'm confident the devs will get there, eventually.

 

But what I really like about the dew collector is that "apocalypse survival feel" that right now is missing because we can just scoop water from wherever, and be done.

[schwanz9000]

Wow! OK. So, uh. I guess everyone saw the dew collector art and wants to know about A21 Water Survival.

The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
There was just WAY too much food and water in the world and players would have boxes full of stuff at the end of Day 1.
We want players to feel the struggle of finding the simplest items first and working their way up the progressions.


Day 1:

You are given 1 jar of water at spawn. 

When that jar is consumed, the jar is not returned to your inventory. This mechanic was removed to promote survival aspects as well as the function of the new dew collector.

Having a hard time finding more water? You can now drink from bodies of water by looking at the water with empty hands, waiting a moment without moving, and then pressing E to drink.

Hand drinking AND murky water has the following side effects:
-5HP and plays a gross sound 
Has a 12% chance of dysentery

Other means of finding water is looting, vending machines, and traders.

Murky water can no longer be boiled without a cooking pot. This was skipping the risk murky has if consumed.

Snowballs are no longer a means to making water. Players could dig up stacks of snowballs and never have to find water again. They are still used in the Yucca Juice Smoothie or for throwing at your friends.

Loot has been adjusted so that drinks are no longer found in cabinets. There are just way too many cabinets in the game.
Many loot tables have been adjusted to only find murky water.
There are still rare chances to find water and other drinks in special loot containers.

Day 2 - 7:
Work on trader quests or looting POI's to find the resources needed for crafting a dew collector.

Once placed, a dew collector will slowly start to fill the bar on the first slot. When the bar is full, a jar of water will spawn in that slot.
Slots are filled based on time only and fills with or without the player being near it (works with the chunk unloaded).
The dew collector does not work any faster with rainfall.
The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). Random rolls can make this a few game hours shorter or longer.


Hope this helps to answer any questions. Please know that ANY of this can change before A21 launches.

[Guppycur]

[bunch of stuff]

 

So my fear is that the create item attribute will now be phased out of the game since (I believe) only the water uses it in vanilla.

 

Thoughts on that? 

[schwanz9000]

Not going anywhere. Used on ammo bundles, reward bundles and test loadouts.

[Matt115]

30 minutes ago, schwanz9000 said:

Wow! OK. So, uh. I guess everyone saw the dew collector art and wants to know about A21 Water Survival.

The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
There was just WAY too much food and water in the world and players would have boxes full of stuff at the end of Day 1.
We want players to feel the struggle of finding the simplest items first and working their way up the progressions.


Day 1:

You are given 1 jar of water at spawn. 

When that jar is consumed, the jar is not returned to your inventory. This mechanic was removed to promote survival aspects as well as the function of the new dew collector.

Having a hard time finding more water? You can now drink from bodies of water by looking at the water with empty hands, waiting a moment without moving, and then pressing E to drink.

Hand drinking AND murky water has the following side effects:
-5HP and plays a gross sound 
Has a 12% chance of dysentery

Other means of finding water is looting, vending machines, and traders.

Murky water can no longer be boiled without a cooking pot. This was skipping the risk murky has if consumed.

Snowballs are no longer a means to making water. Players could dig up stacks of snowballs and never have to find water again. They are still used in the Yucca Juice Smoothie or for throwing at your friends.

Loot has been adjusted so that drinks are no longer found in cabinets. There are just way too many cabinets in the game.
Many loot tables have been adjusted to only find murky water.
There are still rare chances to find water and other drinks in special loot containers.

Day 2 - 7:
Work on trader quests or looting POI's to find the resources needed for crafting a dew collector.

Once placed, a dew collector will slowly start to fill the bar on the first slot. When the bar is full, a jar of water will spawn in that slot.
Slots are filled based on time only and fills with or without the player being near it (works with the chunk unloaded).
The dew collector does not work any faster with rainfall.
The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). Random rolls can make this a few game hours shorter or longer.


Hope this helps to answer any questions. Please know that ANY of this can change before A21 launches.

 

So... jar will be disappear after drinking water or not?

[schwanz9000]

Jars are not returned to your inventory and cannot be crafted.

Edited July 24, 2022 by schwanz9000 (see edit history)

[beerfly]

Off of the topic, but when the new water voxel system is in, would we be able to put some electric fences in (shallow waters), with some splash damage bigger than on the ground ? 

 

[schwanz9000]

There are no plans for that.

[FranticDan]

59 minutes ago, schwanz9000 said:

The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). 

I'm gonna be the nerdy guy here and point out that, actually, a "60 minute day" takes 68 real minutes to pass.

(if you add a custom time of 150 minutes, it actually takes ~206 real minutes to pass)

The way timescales work in this game are wonky, I know!

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, schwanz9000 said:

Wow! OK. So, uh. I guess everyone saw the dew collector art and wants to know about A21 Water Survival.

The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
 

 From steam and kickstarter :

7 Days to Die is an open-world game that is a unique combination of first-person shooter, survival horror, tower defense, and role-playing games

Not  "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" .

 

What i mean? Lack of horror stuff from long long time. 7DTD is now like netlfix's "army of the dead" movie not horror like  at least "TWD" or "Dawn of living dead".  Honestly that's why i'm so frustrated. Yes survival is part - and we can agree about that. But you guys made so many simplification last times - guns parts , spikes etc. and now you want to make more complicated. This a little bit paradox. I use to thing that this game will be not for hardcore players. I get this - yours  vision but 1. we get pretty hard game ( A10/11 was hard - i bought in 2014)  2.  then some thing were harder some easier - better respawn but meal smell etc but this pretty hard, 3. after some time difficulty was stable.  4. simpification for long time 5. Now this. So honestly i don't know what expect anymore. 

 

And again "Horde" game. Not Tower defence - every alpha  for some time is even more focused on looting so traveling. what's a diffrence? In tower defence you just sit somehere and defence. If you go somewhere - it's just for short time  to get resources neccesary to defence yourself. Tower defence is just hm...  additional activity not "main meal" if you check 7dtd games most time people is... wandering somewhere looting POI's etc not preparing defencses - cutting tons of wood, melting iron to makes traps like... WW1. Yes some people have advance bases but usually they play in few people and it's 60 day + people who is making "exploit" bases. 

 

I can write much more about that but honestly... i'm tired when i see just few people give reaction and don't write any comment.

 

If someone want to talk moreabout that that - Pls write on priv

 

 

 

33 minutes ago, schwanz9000 said:

Jars are not returned to your inventory and can not be crafted.

And that's problem. 

If this was fantasy game and it was a magic potion - well our character throw away because runes on bottle etc. 

But if you want too keep post apo logic - just left water as is work and reduce number of cans by 90% - honestly it's much easier to find something to drink that food after X years after outbreak

Edited July 25, 2022 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[schwanz9000]

 

[Matt115]

3 minutes ago, schwanz9000 said:

 

 

Just now, unholyjoe said:

you know.... I heard that is a good game.

 

Ok fine but  what about rest? i mean describtion 

[Guppycur]

2 hours ago, schwanz9000 said:

Not going anywhere. Used on ammo bundles, reward bundles and test loadouts.

Thank you.  Nice job, nice presentation.

[Fanatical_Meat]

@Roland @schwanz9000

 

So far I like the water change as described.

Will we still be able to craft Molotov’s without jars?

[schwanz9000]

Yup! Uses the gas can, cloth, and oil bottle with blood moon morphing physics to turn itself into a flaming beer bottle. 😛

[Fanatical_Meat]

12 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Molotovs use cloth, gas, and oil. Still craftable but no bottles in the recipe.

oops just noticed this and it is good news

[Blake_]

3 hours ago, schwanz9000 said:

Wow! OK. So, uh. I guess everyone saw the dew collector art and wants to know about A21 Water Survival.

The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
There was just WAY too much food and water in the world and players would have boxes full of stuff at the end of Day 1.
We want players to feel the struggle of finding the simplest items first and working their way up the progressions.


Day 1:

You are given 1 jar of water at spawn. 

When that jar is consumed, the jar is not returned to your inventory. This mechanic was removed to promote survival aspects as well as the function of the new dew collector.

Having a hard time finding more water? You can now drink from bodies of water by looking at the water with empty hands, waiting a moment without moving, and then pressing E to drink.

Hand drinking AND murky water has the following side effects:
-5HP and plays a gross sound 
Has a 12% chance of dysentery

Other means of finding water is looting, vending machines, and traders.

Murky water can no longer be boiled without a cooking pot. This was skipping the risk murky has if consumed.

Snowballs are no longer a means to making water. Players could dig up stacks of snowballs and never have to find water again. They are still used in the Yucca Juice Smoothie or for throwing at your friends.

Loot has been adjusted so that drinks are no longer found in cabinets. There are just way too many cabinets in the game.
Many loot tables have been adjusted to only find murky water.
There are still rare chances to find water and other drinks in special loot containers.

Day 2 - 7:
Work on trader quests or looting POI's to find the resources needed for crafting a dew collector.

Once placed, a dew collector will slowly start to fill the bar on the first slot. When the bar is full, a jar of water will spawn in that slot.
Slots are filled based on time only and fills with or without the player being near it (works with the chunk unloaded).
The dew collector does not work any faster with rainfall.
The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). Random rolls can make this a few game hours shorter or longer.


Hope this helps to answer any questions. Please know that ANY of this can change before A21 launches.

Alright. Early game looks awesome now, but what about mid game when we have 10 dew collectors and a hot albino tiger fetching us water? 

 

That triggers the question... have you guys thought of reducing the 3 units of water per day (or making it fail to produce water sometimes) and  increasing/guaranteing them bia a workstation "mod"? That way we wouldn't be on day 30 with a water factory that is sure to produce an ocean per hour, as things like bellows or crucibles are not that easy to find and exploit.

 

Love the change! Many of good ones lately, well thought off and straightforward .

[BasicallyACat]

We have a question about the new looting system with the bonuses to find things in the looter's skill tree.  Does this apply across a party, or is it only character by character?

 

Also, yeah, we don't get the idea of having no empty bottles anymore.  It just doesn't fit the gameworld logic.

[Capp00]

Genuinely curious as to how the new hydration will affect long-game survival.

Is it going to be like DayZ where we have to have Dew Collectors (instead of wells) setup at strategic spots to spot and hydrate?

Losing the jars is interesting, as that's 90% of the loot I find lol. So, maybe a craftable canteen? some way for us to carry clean water with us on long trips.

 

I can say that if the search for water is the more constant threat after the first week, it would get annoying.

 

And what about all the different smoothies, teas and COFFEE!! lol gotta have coffee.

[BFT2020]

30 minutes ago, BasicallyACat said:

We have a question about the new looting system with the bonuses to find things in the looter's skill tree.  Does this apply across a party, or is it only character by character?

Same as lucky looter, it’s only by character.

14 minutes ago, Capp00 said:

 

And what about all the different smoothies, teas and COFFEE!! lol gotta have coffee.

Based on the dev’s and Roland’s comments, those are staying in the game.

[Blake_]

9 minutes ago, Capp00 said:

Genuinely curious as to how the new hydration will affect long-game survival.

Is it going to be like DayZ where we have to have Dew Collectors (instead of wells) setup at strategic spots to spot and hydrate?

Losing the jars is interesting, as that's 90% of the loot I find lol. So, maybe a craftable canteen? some way for us to carry clean water with us on long trips.

 

I can say that if the search for water is the more constant threat after the first week, it would get annoying.

 

And what about all the different smoothies, teas and COFFEE!! lol gotta have coffee.

Hi Capp00! You seem misunderstand the change. Nothing about the drink crafting has changed, except that there are no glass bottles anymore . You craft teas, coffees,  carry drinks and buy them and, on -rare occasions- find them on specific loot containers. The dew collector generates the old potable water, you take it and put it in the inventory, and you decide when to drink it. Same with the rest, minus the hindrance of the glass jar.

 

The dew collector does not , I repeat, does not directly replenish your drink bar. You take the "water unit with the icon of potable water in a jar" and then decide when to use it.

[POCKET951]

So with the traders finally being properly balanced in A21 and the price of beverages in vending machines going up, can we expect a discount on trader items to combat the inflation that occurred as a result of the a20 trader balance?  Every day our dukes are worth less and less.  Or maybe you could give us 10% more dukes by default.

[POCKET951]

Also, what will we find in cabinets in A21 since 95% of them contain jarred beverages or empty jars in A20? @schwanz9000