Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[RipClaw]

49 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Roland may be tight-lipped, but I have no such reservations and a secret inside source. So I can tell you about one new perk:

 

"Bookworm Level 1:" "Reading is second nature to you. Read books and magazines 30% faster."

Well, if you read 20 magazines in a row, reading 30% faster is nothing to sneeze at. 😉

 

49 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Oh, and here is how they changed Living of the Land:

 

"Living of the Land 1:" "Double the harvest of wild or planted crops. Crouch down and use your 
keen eyesight to find the tracks of your own farm plots.\nFarm plots cost 30% less to craft."

 

😇

Maybe I will finally find out where my garden has gone. I miss it dearly. 😁

[Vedui]

18 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

A lot of people have posted dissenting opinions, so not everyone is happy. But everyone happy is NEVER the case anyway when a feature changes or has its balance changed.

 

In my opinion a seed that I get back should just stay in the plot so the replanting isn't so tedious. But mostly I don't like all the clicking necessary to recraft seeds and put them into the plots again, switching around all the different seed stacks into the toolbelt and out again. Just too many clicks for my taste. But this is critizising the UI, not the harvest returns, which I find quite ok.

 

 

 

I fully agree! Artificially making farming worse due to requiring all the extra UI effort to open inventory, count how many seeds I need, craft which I need, put them back on hotbar, re plant and figure out where to put them so it's organized, yada yada as you highlight is a major pain which is unnecessary and just made people hate farming, even though after some tweaks the yield wasn't really a problem.

 

You should work for The Fun Pimps! Your voice needs to be heard!!

 

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content. That way the system would simply be part of a progression where someone could after appropriate quests/progression/base building/whatever remove some tedium by higher level progression.

 

Raft did that pretty well, where for water you start with tedious 1 cup manual refill and continually adding wood to burn --> This progresses to where you can add multiple cups at once, and no fuel --> Which in turn progresses to where you automate with direct pumping and purifying (at cost of battery use) --> Which at the end can then be pumped into a water tank storage, using a higher tier battery and essentially free recharging through windmill.

 

And yet, water is a huge thing throughout the game. It's always there, it just becomes easier and easier to manage, never goes away (it is survival after all), but has a progression that entices and rewards the player as they tech up.

 

We need far more of this in 7DTD.

 

/Ved

[Matt115]

4 hours ago, Zombiepoptard said:

Zzzzz I'm waiting for the big update punch. In Alpha 20 It was pipe weapons and prefab stamps that made cities look like cities. I'm not here to dog but I know you guys are withholding a lot of what makes these updates huge game improvements. I'm just wondering what the first person animation team is working on. Are they working on the other game or are they still being used to improve 7 days? 

 

quest types?

 

clothing stats update?

 

New weapons? 

 

First person animation improvement?!? 

 

JOEL!!! Where are you Joel!!!! come back!! I miss you! lol 

 

I also miss when Joel did Q&A's on is youtube channel. Made some wild projections but was food for my imagination. Now the dev team has gotten chunky and Joel probably wants to slip into more of a management role and not be as hands on. Where is The Fun Pump! 

Well after what we saw/ read for now

1. Probably this turn off pipe stuff

2. depends

3. nope

4. IDK

 

1 hour ago, Vedui said:

 

 

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content. That way the system would simply be part of a progression where someone could after appropriate quests/progression/base building/whatever remove some tedium by higher level progression.

 

Raft did that pretty well, where for water you start with tedious 1 cup manual refill and continually adding wood to burn --> This progresses to where you can add multiple cups at once, and no fuel --> Which in turn progresses to where you automate with direct pumping and purifying (at cost of battery use) --> Which at the end can then be pumped into a water tank storage, using a higher tier battery and essentially free recharging through windmill.

 

And yet, water is a huge thing throughout the game. It's always there, it just becomes easier and easier to manage, never goes away (it is survival after all), but has a progression that entices and rewards the player as they tech up.

 

We need far more of this in 7DTD.

 

/Ved

 

Nope. 7DTD is prety simple sandbox. So small of role NPC like this works now suit here good.

Only need things in 7dtd is water rework, bandits, story and 7dtd can be finished

 

NPC etc. maybe in sequel but not here

[Vedui]

15 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Nope. 7DTD is prety simple sandbox. So small of role NPC like this works now suit here good.

Only need things in 7dtd is water rework, bandits, story and 7dtd can be finished

 

NPC etc. maybe in sequel but not here

 

Yes, it's a simple sandbox.That's a huge part of the problem.

 

Over the last few years we've seen systems and mechanics changing over and over, lotsa graphic improvements, but core features have not been added to any significant degree post electricity in Alpha 16. Mods back many years ago had some rudimentary features like that with NPC's farming,guarding your base etc. A bunch of other games made by small teams have that in their games.

 

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

 

 

[Roland]

25 minutes ago, Vedui said:

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

 

Why would 7 Days to Die be without those things? As you stated, it already includes those things thanks to the tools and hooks provided by the developers for exactly that purpose.

[RipClaw]

4 hours ago, Vedui said:

However! Tediousness as current system COULD be acceptable, if late game you could say hire an NPC as a gardener who would go and harvest, recraft, and replant for you, as part of end game content.

I think an NPC would be overkill here. A growth chamber, for example, would be an interesting concept that is probably not that difficult to implement. Of course it has to look a bit junky to fit the setting. A seed is placed in a slot and every two days the harvest ends up in the inventory of the chamber. The only downside I see is that bonuses from perks wouldn't work since you don't harvest yourself.

 

 

[Aldranon]

NPC's are already done in a mod.  The AI of them is not so good so far. (IMO)

I'm pretty sure NPC AI can be worked out into something more immersive. 

 

/dream on

A smart enough NPC AI could make 7D2D the "Game of the year" when it goes gold.  If it gives mod'ers a tools to use the AI, then there could be so many great mods for added replay!

/dream off

[NekoPawtato]

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

I think an NPC would be overkill here. A growth chamber, for example, would be an interesting concept that is probably not that difficult to implement. Of course it has to look a bit junky to fit the setting. A seed is placed in a slot and every two days the harvest ends up in the inventory of the chamber. The only downside I see is that bonuses from perks wouldn't work since you don't harvest yourself.

 

 

This sounds neat, almost like a plant-based workstation (kind of like the dew collector) -- maybe it could be locked behind a certain level of living off the land, or farming magazine

 

When I have large farms, I mainly try to harvest with auger, due to it's high attack rate. Usually works until I have short crops like cotton and end up hitting the farm plot. But it's way faster than fists.

For replanting I have a sign nearby so I don't have to math (ex: if my rows are 17 blocks each the sign might say 17, 34, 51, 68...etc)

Edited August 26, 2022 by NekoPawtato (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

6 hours ago, Vedui said:

 

I fully agree! Artificially making farming worse due to requiring all the extra UI effort to open inventory, count how many seeds I need, craft which I need, put them back on hotbar, re plant and figure out where to put them so it's organized, yada yada as you highlight is a major pain which is unnecessary and just made people hate farming, even though after some tweaks the yield wasn't really a problem.

 

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

 

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

[Matt115]

5 hours ago, Vedui said:

 

Yes, it's a simple sandbox.That's a huge part of the problem.

 

Over the last few years we've seen systems and mechanics changing over and over, lotsa graphic improvements, but core features have not been added to any significant degree post electricity in Alpha 16. Mods back many years ago had some rudimentary features like that with NPC's farming,guarding your base etc. A bunch of other games made by small teams have that in their games.

 

7 days to die without it will be just fine. It just won't be great or at the top of the genre.

 

 

 

Every big series was simple on begining : biding of issac, fnaf, Mount and blade etc.  So simple gameplay is good but it's "learn how to play" when someone learn how to play good --> then use mods.

 

Ofc Game being something between Medieval dynasty and 7DTD would be interesting but this would be cost in non voxel world or graphic in A11 style . Why? well advance AI in voxel game need better CPU or worst graphic

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

 

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

 

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

 

You forget that for the planting you also need to put every single type of plant into a belt slot. On top of crafting the new seeds, once for every type! And you have to do that every 3 days, while you can craft a huge amount of ammo in one session and be done with it for a week or two.

 

Just count how much clicks you would need to build 2000 9mm bullets. Usually you need only one type of ammo. I'd say that should be possible with about 50 mouse clicks (a bit more if stack sizes are low, didn't check that) and you are done for 2 weeks.

 

With a farm of (on average) 5 seeds per plant you need 20 clicks per plant type and there are 12 plants types (not counting cotton naturally), so we are talking about up to 240 clicks, every 3 days.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[zztong]

On 8/25/2022 at 4:07 PM, Roland said:

If you have not spent any points on Living off the land you should not be trying to build a huge farm. You should just plant whatever seeds you find and harvest the crops for food and live off of whatever you manage to get as a supplement to however else you are getting food--presumably hunting.

 

I disagree. I'd save the seed so that when I get to LOTL 3 I have it to start my farm. Growing a stray potato to bake isn't that critical. I won't even be making farm plots until I have LOTL 2.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

6 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

 

I never really found it tedious to do the farming in A20, but I can be patient and usually just set aside some time at night to do the activity.  We basically do the same steps whenever we craft anything in this game so not sure why farming is getting such hate.  For example, need to craft 9 mm, so need to craft gunpowder, craft bullet tips, and craft casings.  Then combine all those items and craft them again into either individual bullets or boxes of bullets.  Opening and closing various boxes as I grab and return the basic crafting materials, then grabbing the finish product and putting it into a different storage container.  You could make the same argument that all of this is unnecessary and why don't TFP just make it so you an instantly craft bullets while standing in the middle of your base?

 

If I could change anything, it would be lengthening the time it takes for the plants to grow and be harvestable.

 

Farming could have been altered instead of wrecked.

 

They could have kept in wild planting (which I will repeat was an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable nomadic system; with the hoe crafting and ability to fertilise the plots for better yield) and fixed the issues but they didn't.

 

Then it became plot only garbage. This farming method; although a sad shadow of the former; which could have been added alongside not instead of, could have been balanced by simply adding a chance for some crops to mature 'failed' - something perhaps governed by an rng.

 

Then perks could have reduced the chance of dead or unproductive crops. Just a thought.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Beelzebubs Ghost (see edit history)

[Aldranon]

3 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

Farming could have been altered instead of wrecked.

 

They could have kept in wild planting (which I will repeat was an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable nomadic system; with the hoe crafting and ability to fertilise the plots for better yield) and fixed the issues but they didn't.

 

Then it became plot only garbage. This farming method; although a sad shadow of the former; which could have been added alongside not instead of, could have been balanced by simply adding a chance for some crops to mature 'failed' - something perhaps governed by an rng.

 

Then perks could have reduced the chance of dead or unproductive crops. Just a thought.

 

I believe they were trying to make everything a block to optimize the game somehow.

Anyway, the farm blocks are great for me, as I put them on the roof of my horde base (yup, living on the edge). 

To keep the plots safer from vulture vomit, I now build my fighting locations at the corners of my base, this adds interest for me as I don't "game the system", its just me, 3 meters above the ground, with a shotgun...

[Blake_]

What if you could tell the drone to go harvest <select a field of crops> for you? Or have some kind of electric contraption that harvests for us in the late, LATE game.

 

Farming is nice. But it gets tedious later in the game if you plant, say , just a few dozen crops. Having a way to reduce that time would give us more of that precious time to do any other thing, like enjoying emergent gameplay or watching the sunset while holding hands with Snowdog.

[POCKET951]

1 hour ago, bdubyah said:

Any chance a multi-return scrapping ever happens? Was just watching G9 loot a Savage Country and he had an inventory full of tank tops and most had dye installed. Would be nice to be able to scrap them with the dye in them and get the cloth and paint so you don't have to remove the dye first. Just a QOL thing.

this would be awesoem to have +1

[spud42]

with the amount of food available and the number of farm plots found in drops along with quest rewards , the only reason i have planted anything is for the look of it around my home. 

I have so many airdrops of meat stews and others that i really havent had to cook much at all .  it is a single player world started with a20 and continued to current a20.6

 

[BFT2020]

15 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

You forget that for the planting you also need to put every single type of plant into a belt slot. On top of crafting the new seeds, once for every type! And you have to do that every 3 days, while you can craft a huge amount of ammo in one session and be done with it for a week or two.

 

Just count how much clicks you would need to build 2000 9mm bullets. Usually you need only one type of ammo. I'd say that should be possible with about 50 mouse clicks (a bit more if stack sizes are low, didn't check that) and you are done for 2 weeks.

 

With a farm of (on average) 5 seeds per plant you need 20 clicks per plant type and there are 12 plants types (not counting cotton naturally), so we are talking about up to 240 clicks, every 3 days.

 

 

Clicking never bothered me, because at the end of a long play session, the amount of clicks from farming is always small compared to the total overall.

 

crafting, farming, building - those are all night time activities for me so it never seems tedious for me, it actually makes the night go by faster as I am keeping busy

[JCrook1028]

13 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

They could have kept in wild planting (which I will repeat was an outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable nomadic system; with the hoe crafting and ability to fertilise the plots for better yield)

That was done because the new terrain system forced them to do away with planting in the soil directly. It was not a standalone decision. It was a result of another system changing.

[Zombiepoptard]

17 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

You mean tiles...😅

ah yes tiles. Stamps are the little stuff right?

 

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, Zombiepoptard said:

ah yes tiles. Stamps are the little stuff right?

 

Stamps are the large organic terrain pieces like canyons / mesas, mountains and rivers I believe.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Ripflex]

I do agree that it's forcing a single playing style for player progression.  And you describe a player that Mines - builds - farms - cooks that will get NOTHING for rewards or progression when Alpha 21 goes out.  I remember when alpha 19 came out, I went on STRIKE to prove a point; my teammates that I rolled with thought hey, this building a base and mining a bit not that hard ... 7 days later the base was garbage, the gang was starving and we had a lack of resources gathered and they were low level and ungeared (I crafted their gear to btw).

 

I realise the most FUN part is exploring questing and looting and the XP rewards and progression been focusing only on that part.  While Crafting, build, farming and cooking little to NO XP, and you can't get magazines or books to progress unless you drop everything and loot yourself while nothing gets done.   Now you'll probably say - hey why not share the responsibilities ?  -  is farming and cooking fun than blowing a zombie's head open ? - no, Is staring a Blocks and understanding how Structural integrity works fun !? - no  Mining for 4 straight hours a time well spent ?  - no.  I be lucky to get 10 minutes of their time to do one of the tasks until they get bored and jump on their vehicle to go blow up zombies ...

 

Maybe it'll all work out ...

Edited August 27, 2022 by Ripflex (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

24 minutes ago, Morloc said:

Before the game is released, are there and plans to have some cool scare-the-crap-out-of-you sounds added (replacement of the zombie attack sounds etc.)?

Yes! That, and please remove the toilet flushing water sound in the night!! 

[Jost Amman]

21 minutes ago, Ripflex said:

I realise the most FUN part is exploring questing and looting and the XP rewards and progression been focusing only on that part.  While Crafting, build, farming and cooking little to NO XP

I'm sorry?? What are you talking about? ... Have you ever played this game?

 

• Everybody knows building is absolutely one of the best ways to get XP.
• Mining and farming wood, does also give a fair amount of XP.
• Crafting gives a small amount of XP, but there are ways, especially for miners, to get a HUGE amount of XP by crafting material Bundles!

So, no, you're dead wrong on almost everything you said.

 

24 minutes ago, Ripflex said:

and you can't get magazines or books to progress unless you drop everything and loot yourself while nothing gets done.

Wrong again. In A21, you can sell your mined materials to a trader, and buy magazines from them. And by the way, if you decide to be stuck all the time in one place, mining and building, I say it's just FAIR that you don't get the bonuses that people who risk their lives all day get!

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

9 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

That was done because the new terrain system forced them to do away with planting in the soil directly. It was not a standalone decision. It was a result of another system changing.

 

It still seems to work fine with the mod though...  does that not tell you something?..