Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Melange]

17 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

Good for you!

Aye, thanks. Now dealing with a customer the attitude would be different. Else they wouldn't be a repeat customer. But, once I've bought the game and won't be buying it again because I already have it, the point is moot. Maybe could slip in a bad review, but had no reason to. Honestly, some things that have been said by the game owners didn't quite sit well with me at first (before I bought it). But it looked fun, so I got it on sale anyway. No regrets as far as the fun/frustration factor goes. For me no other game beats it in that regard.

 

Nobody knows when this thing will be finished (gold status), not even the dev crew. 

 

In the mean time we adapt and play on. And come here to vent. It's all good.

Edited November 19, 2022 by Melange (see edit history)

[zztong]

3 hours ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

I don’t like those words when someone asks when do you expect x to be released. I still cannot imagine any modern business using “when it’s done” I still haven’t been show an example of a business using them except the john carmack quote from 10 years ago.

 

I'm not sure I understand any subtlety you might be expressing. I can't imagine a modern business that doesn't use this approach in some way for some services, typically when we start talking about teams that deliver services to _internal_ customers.

 

Perhaps you'll consider these:

 

(1) "Best effort clauses" are often found in contracts where somebody providing a service cannot be specific, including being specific about a delivery deadline. These contracts are common in many industries. You can read up on those clauses and get numerous examples.

 

(2) My current employer (Ohio University) has an IT department where "best effort" is all they promise for certain services they offer to departments. Basically, take a number and they'll get to you when they can. The service level agreements state as much.

 

(3) Internal project teams that work on projects with an iterative approach that focus on features, not deadlines, are quite common. They have internal customers. Easily the majority of project done by my employer's custom application development team are of this type. Sure, they also do project with deadlines, but that's usually when the project is being driven by a business need to hit a certain date. Not all projects have that need.

 

(4) I've worked in a couple of places where "when it's done" is effectively the working arrangement. For example, I was a contractor at a US West (a "Baby Bell" phone company) that published Yellow Pages. Internal developers to a legacy system were gone and the company wanted to add new features. When could I have the features ready? No idea. I'd never seen the system before. We developed a feature, tested it, released it, and then the sales people started selling ads using the feature. Of course the sales people wanted to start selling ads with the new feature once they knew we were working on it. Management wisely knew to forbid that. Management didn't want to promise something to a customer, make a sale, and then be unable to deliver. We worked that way the entire time, even after I was able to make reasonable estimates. Management never wanted to risk being in a situation where they would make a sale and then be unable to deliver.

 

I see TFP's approach being consistent with all of those. "When it's done." You can interpret it as being said with arrogance or stubbornness, but I really just think they're using it a a concise expression of their philosophy.

[metA]

the concept is good, the game is good, the code is horrible they made a mistake and should have optimized from the ground up instead of adding more and more without optimizing , if they would have started from the ground up, and then added things in optimizing them before adding more this wouldnt be the memory leak fest that it is today. We still in ALPHA? Jesus the longest running game in ALPHA that I have ever seen and now they wanna take away things that are unnecessary and unbalanced seems like the fun pimps are committing suicide on this game...  I love this game, I only wish TFP would just optimize the game, and leave it as is its already a great game without taking away from it, or adding anything to it. -Just Optimize and give your fans what they want online play nobody wants to play the game like youd have them play they want online play with multiple people, not 7-8 people only.

[redbeardt]

test

[beerfly]

1 hour ago, redbeardt said:

test

Test approved.

 

Welcome to the forums 🤠

[Pernicious]

5 hours ago, metA said:

the code is horrible they made a mistake and should have optimized from the ground up instead of adding more and more without optimizing , 

TFP are optimising primarily to get a common code base that will run on much more resource constrained consoles.

 

But that said, come on, It works perfectly fine on my 5 generation old PC, even with max zombies spawned cranked up. It drops only to a bit irritatingly choppy around T5 POIs. There's plenty of advice threads out there on how to tweak performance from turning off dynamic mesh, to setting processor affinity. 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Pernicious (see edit history)

[meganoth]

41 minutes ago, Pernicious said:

TFP are optimising primarily to get a common code base that will run on much more resource constrained consoles.

 

That is the current task, but TFP has been and surely will optimize to give more FPS to weak PCs as well. But the important thing is that optimizations before all features are in are suboptimal. This is why this is usually called "premature optimization" in computer science. 

 

41 minutes ago, Pernicious said:

 

But that said, come on, It works perfectly fine on my 5 generation old PC, even with max zombies spawned cranked up. It drops only to a bit irritatingly choppy around T5 POIs. There's plenty of advice threads out there on how to tweak performance from turning off dynamic mesh, to setting processor affinity. 

 

 

5 hours ago, metA said:

the concept is good, the game is good, the code is horrible

 

How do you know? Have you read through it? Or are you just guessing from having low FPS?

 

One big reason for the low FPS is that this is a voxel game. It has unique and unusual challenges. Normal graphics libraries do not have any support for it and though voxels allow unique features like a fully destructible world  the disadvantage is that it needs much more data to move around and calculate.

 

5 hours ago, metA said:

they made a mistake and should have optimized from the ground up instead of adding more and more without optimizing , if they would have started from the ground up, and then added things in optimizing them before adding more this wouldnt be the memory leak fest that it is today. We still in ALPHA? Jesus the longest running game in ALPHA that I have ever seen and now they wanna take away things that are unnecessary and unbalanced seems like the fun pimps are committing suicide on this game...  I love this game, I only wish TFP would just optimize the game, and leave it as is its already a great game without taking away from it, or adding anything to it. -Just Optimize and give your fans what they want online play nobody wants to play the game like youd have them play they want online play with multiple people, not 7-8 people only.

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

7 hours ago, metA said:

the concept is good, the game is good, the code is horrible they made a mistake and should have optimized from the ground up instead of adding more and more without optimizing , if they would have started from the ground up, and then added things in optimizing them before adding more this wouldnt be the memory leak fest that it is today. We still in ALPHA?

There was no mistake. Adding features in first and then optimizing afterward is an industry standard because it is most efficient. Your plan would likely double the development time which is funny since you already want to be finished with development. They have been optimizing all along but only with the goal to successfully add the next features they need and keep the game performant enough to be playable for testing. Once they are in final feature lock, all their optimizing efforts will be to improve the playability of the now finished game and then they’ll be able to make decisions for adding more enemies or more players. 
 

7 hours ago, metA said:

Jesus the longest running game in ALPHA that I have ever seen and now they wanna take away things that are unnecessary and unbalanced seems like the fun pimps are committing suicide on this game... 

 

You say that this game is the longest running game in alpha like it’s a bad thing. The game has been playable for this entire time. What they add or remove from the game always brings some individuals to predict that the game is dead…and yet it gains more popularity with every alpha. 
 

7 hours ago, metA said:

  I love this game, I only wish TFP would just optimize the game, and leave it as is its already a great game without taking away from it, or adding anything to it. -Just Optimize and give your fans what they want online play nobody wants to play the game like youd have them play they want online play with multiple people, not 7-8 people only.

Lol, this was almost word for word one of the jokes on the recent Hitler video. It’s pretty ridiculous to purchase a game that is in active development and expect it to stay the same without adding or removing anything from it. Sorry, but your expectations are way off. If you don’t like the development process which necessarily involves changes by the creative directors of the project, then don’t buy and play a game while it is being developed. Wait until it’s done and set in its final version. 
 

So far and based on evidence, there are a significant number of people willing and happy to play the game the devs would have them play. The new changes for A21 fix a number of issues, add a new dimension to early game survival, and improve and enhance both looting and crafting. We are getting some posts from people who don’t like looting who are unhappy about the changes but people who hate looting are a very small percentage of the players of this game. Their views are not going to stop TFP from enhancing a part of the game that will please the vast majority.
 

Their views WILL inspire modders to patch things up for them to the way they like it which is another planned for and sanctioned feature of the game by the devs. They want the tiny minority of players who hate looting to still be able to play the game the way they want so they’ve designed the game so that it can be easily modded. The same goes for water or pretty much any feature of the game. 

[Annihilatorza]

9 hours ago, metA said:

the concept is good, the game is good, the code is horrible they made a mistake and should have optimized from the ground up instead of adding more and more without optimizing , if they would have started from the ground up, and then added things in optimizing them before adding more this wouldnt be the memory leak fest that it is today. We still in ALPHA? Jesus the longest running game in ALPHA that I have ever seen and now they wanna take away things that are unnecessary and unbalanced seems like the fun pimps are committing suicide on this game...  I love this game, I only wish TFP would just optimize the game, and leave it as is its already a great game without taking away from it, or adding anything to it. -Just Optimize and give your fans what they want online play nobody wants to play the game like youd have them play they want online play with multiple people, not 7-8 people only.

Hmm smells like a troll, you post this with exactly one post.

 

There are loads of games still in development with a equal or longer development cycle than 7D2D,  Star Citizen, beyond good and evil two 16years for that one.

 

None of those games have tried to do what 7D2D does not one.

 

Not even Unreal Engine 5.1 can do it, a full destructive world with vehicles and a full gravity system for each block.

 

I have done a ton of research and not even Minecraft does it but it's the closest game to it.

 

Are there problems yes are they fixing them yes they are.

 

Each alpha we get new features and benefits and feals like a new game.

 

Have mistakes been made yes they have but this game is unique and it's sales number reflect that.

 

Optimizing has happened is happening and will happen in the future.

 

They have a vision for THEIR game, I don't agree with everything but I trust them enough to give them the benefit of doubt, if you don't agree that's your choice.

[Jost Amman]

This was posted on Steam... I think it's funny! 

(credits to BGratz)

Spoiler

Leaked A21 bandits screenshot:

@faatal

[Roland]

The WIlson Bros are great!

[sillls]

So, I was clearing a PopNPills for a cylinder and I start getting attacked but Farels. They come through the front door at me one at a time. Then I get a Dire wolf and then yet another Farel. I head to the door once I hear a few lumberjack zombies coming. 

Just when I get to the door, I see this chicken come through and it shot right past me.  I realized latter that it must have been chased in by the zombies. 

 

But for a second I thought:  Is the chicken going to attack me to? 😂DAAM, what did TheFumPimps do now? 

[JayBiggS]

Could you always dye your motorcycle white?

[hiemfire]

11 minutes ago, JayBiggS said:

Could you always dye your motorcycle white?

Just don't put a dye in the slot.

[Maharin]

57 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Just don't put a dye in the slot.

 

White dye.  Slot.  Got it.

[bachgaman]

On 11/19/2022 at 2:23 PM, meilodasreh said:

I wouldn't mind if they totally got rid of electric post wires and replace that kind of trap with like an electrified floor plate or so.

Feels weird to me that Zs slowly glide through the wire without breaking it immediately...always get that terminator prison scene vibe. Feels out of place for me. 

super agree, electric traps are too strong and look very raw. especially spoils the impression of the game endlessly working "electric fence"

[RipClaw]

9 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

super agree, electric traps are too strong and look very raw. especially spoils the impression of the game endlessly working "electric fence"

The electric fence does not work endlessly. It gets damaged every time a zombie walks through. After a while, it doesn't work at all and you have to fix it.

And I wouldn't call electric traps strong either. You have to constantly repair them and invest a lot of resources. Anyone who has ever had many dart traps in operation knows how much iron you have to invest. And anyone who has had blade traps in operation knows that they can be easily destroyed and must also be constantly repaired during the horde.
 

[bachgaman]

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

The electric fence does not work endlessly. It gets damaged every time a zombie walks through. After a while, it doesn't work at all and you have to fix it.

And I wouldn't call electric traps strong either. You have to constantly repair them and invest a lot of resources. Anyone who has ever had many dart traps in operation knows how much iron you have to invest. And anyone who has had blade traps in operation knows that they can be easily destroyed and must also be constantly repaired during the horde.
 

Lol, how much damage does he take for each zombie? And how difficult it is to repair it, given that there is no delay in the game to repair anything. Any repair is done instantly. In my experience it needs to be repaired 1-2 times per blood moon at very high stages

Darts deal incredibly high damage for virtually no cost. It's very funny to see the phrase "how much iron you have to invest", considering that iron is literally everywhere and by the end of the first week you have a drill and a miner 69 => you have endless free iron => darts is free

[meganoth]

46 minutes ago, sillls said:

Can someone tell me more about this?  

What are the compounds going to look like?

 

No pictures shown yet (to my knowledge, I'm not on their social media channels)

 

46 minutes ago, sillls said:

Trader inventories going to work with crafting. Are they saying that you have to be able to craft at that level before you can buy it?

 

I think it means that trader won't have stuff that is miles ahead of your progression and therefore won't make crafting useless. They also will have magazines to buy.

 

It probably also means that there will be more crafting ingredients to buy (especially weapon parts) instead of only complete weapons.

 

46 minutes ago, sillls said:

Why remove Secret stash?  

 

Because that is where the normal progression was massively bypassed.

 

 

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, bachgaman said:

Lol, how much damage does he take for each zombie? And how difficult it is to repair it, given that there is no delay in the game to repair anything. Any repair is done instantly. In my experience it needs to be repaired 1-2 times per blood moon at very high stages

It does not matter how much it is damaged per zombie. The fact is that the electric fences don't last the whole horde and you have to repair them, so the statement that they work endlessly is simply wrong. In the same way you could argue that guns work endlessly because you can repair them during the horde and by the way a repair kit doesn't cost much either.
 

2 hours ago, bachgaman said:

Darts deal incredibly high damage for virtually no cost. It's very funny to see the phrase "how much iron you have to invest", considering that iron is literally everywhere and by the end of the first week you have a drill and a miner 69 => you have endless free iron => darts is free

To craft the iron darts you need to mine iron and clay and smelt them in the forge. A dart trap can hold 1500 iron darts, which require a total of 4500 iron and 1500 clay. For a base with e.g. 6 dart traps you need 27000 iron and 9000 clay per week.

 

By the way, according to your own reasoning, ammunition is also free. Lead, nitrate and coal can be mined and you can sell stone and iron for 1200 coins per stack to the trader. The coins can be melted for brass. The trader restock every 3 days. So per week I can make up to 14400 coins from one trader only with stacks of stone and iron. That gives me 2880 bullet casings per week.

 

If you have an auger already in first week then you are either very lucky to find the schematic or you bought it from the trader. Both will no longer be possible in A21.

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[sillls]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

No pictures shown yet (to my knowledge, I'm not on their social media channels)

 

 

I think it means that trader won't have stuff that is miles ahead of your progression and therefore won't make crafting useless. They also will have magazines to buy.

 

It probably also means that there will be more crafting ingredients to buy (especially weapon parts) instead of only complete weapons.

 

 

Because that is where the normal progression was massively bypassed.

 

 

Thanks for your insight. A shame if they don't have any way to bypass progression.  Seems like it would be better to have something. Maybe a risk/reward system. 

One thing that really bothers me is finding stone tools around. Even in locked safes. Sheesh. 

[bachgaman]

48 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

It does not matter how much it is damaged per zombie. The fact is that the electric fences don't last the whole horde and you have to repair them, so the statement that they work endlessly is simply wrong. In the same way you could argue that guns work endlessly because you can repair them during the horde and by the way a repair kit doesn't cost much either.

Not true. It is very important. If you need to repair it 1-2 times in hundreds of hits, then it's almost endless. And by the way, it's almost free.

The repair kit is really too cheap, but guns waste bullets, and bullets require shells. And for the shells you need brass, which cannot be dug out in the amount of several thousand per minute. Thus, the use of guns requires a conditionally non-infinite resource. Of course there is a trader exploit

52 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

To craft the iron darts you need to mine iron and clay and smelt them in the forge. A dart trap can hold 1500 iron darts, which require a total of 4500 iron and 1500 clay. For a base with e.g. 6 dart traps you need 27000 iron and 9000 clay per week.

Are you not funny yourself? Is 4k iron a lot? It's less than 1 minute in mine. And tell me why you need 6 dart traps at the base. One is enough and it will almost single-handedly destroy the horde in BM, i tested. Its overly efficient

55 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

By the way, according to your own reasoning, ammunition is also free. Lead, nitrate and coal can be mined and you can sell stone and iron for 1200 coins per stack to the trader. The coins can be melted for brass. The trader restock every 3 days. So per week I can make up to 14400 coins from one trader only with stacks of stone and iron. That gives me 2880 bullet casings per week.

Cool, but compare this paragraph and the previous one to see how much more free it is. To make a bullet, you need to go to one mine, then another, then a third, then work on a chemical table,, in a forge, on a workbench and so on. To make a dart you need to go to one mine and work in a forge. At the same time, the dart is stronger. Fair? Not

Yes, ammo is still cheap, but at least it requires brass. In addition, it require more operations than darts. At the same time, darts are still have more damage. That's why I say traps are too strong (too effective)

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

If you have an auger already in first week then you are either very lucky to find the schematic or you bought it from the trader. Both will no longer be possible in A21.

Yes, I bought it from a trader. Because trader and INT branch is broken and too strong. I've been telling you about this for over a year and I've only gotten dislikes. And now it's fixed. But who cares what will change who knows when, if we are discussing the game in its current state?

[RipClaw]

17 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

Not true. It is very important. If you need to repair it 1-2 times in hundreds of hits, then it's almost endless. And by the way, it's almost free.

Almost endless is not endless and almost free is not free either.

 

26 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

The repair kit is really too cheap, but guns waste bullets, and bullets require shells. And for the shells you need brass, which cannot be dug out in the amount of several thousand per minute. Thus, the use of guns requires a conditionally non-infinite resource. Of course there is a trader exploit

Guns also kill zombies while fences stun them. Do you see the difference?

 

27 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

Are you not funny yourself? Is 4k iron a lot? It's less than 1 minute in mine. And tell me why you need 6 dart traps at the base. One is enough and it will almost single-handedly destroy the horde in BM, i tested. Its overly efficient

Maybe a day 7 horde with 8 zombies simultaneously. Try killing a day 70 horde with demolishers and 32 zombies simultaneously with a single dart trap. Good luck with that.

 

32 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

Cool, but compare this paragraph and the previous one to see how much more free it is. To make a bullet, you need to go to one mine, then another, then a third, then work on a chemical table,, in a forge, on a workbench and so on. To make a dart you need to go to one mine and work in a forge. At the same time, the dart is stronger. Fair? Not

Oh suddenly there is free and more free ? And it doesn't matter how many mines or anything else you need. Your whole argument was based only on the fact that there is unlimited iron. The other resources are also unlimited and in addition you find ammo in loot.
 

There are numerous differences between the dart trap and a gun. For example, the dart trap can only shoot in one direction. Whereas with a gun you can aim freely. In addition, firearms have the advantage that they do more damage through skills in contrast to a dart trap. A iron dart always deals a entity damage of 45. For example, a Q5 Pipe Machinegun with 3 mods deals 51.6 damage + 40% more damage with level 4 of the Machine Gunner perk and 260% headshot damage with level 7 of Fortitude. If I use my Q5 M60 this damage increases to 78.4 per hit + all the perks.

 

1 hour ago, bachgaman said:

Yes, ammo is still cheap, but at least it requires brass. In addition, it require more operations than darts. At the same time, darts are still have more damage. That's why I say traps are too strong (too effective)

Yes it takes a few more steps to make bullets but unlike iron darts you find the ammo in loot and you also get ammo for T1 and T2 quests as well. I also explained how to get brass with stone and iron. If you need more brass there are plenty of sources. There is no shortage of brass in A20.

 

You don't like electric traps? Then do not use them or mod the so weak that you are happy with it.

 

1 hour ago, bachgaman said:

Yes, I bought it from a trader. Because trader and INT branch is broken and too strong. I've been telling you about this for over a year and I've only gotten dislikes. And now it's fixed. But who cares what will change who knows when, if we are discussing the game in its current state?

So your argument is "it's broken and that's why I'm exploiting it". I have never bought an auger or a gun from a trader because of similar considerations. However, I accept that the developers have made it possible and that players use it. I have imposed this limitation on myself.
 

The current state for developers is A21. The whole balancing and progress will change simply because you can no longer easily get stronger weapons or an auger. 

Who knows how long it will even be before we can build dart traps or blade traps in A21.

 

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, sillls said:

Thanks for your insight. A shame if they don't have any way to bypass progression.  Seems like it would be better to have something. Maybe a risk/reward system. 

One thing that really bothers me is finding stone tools around. Even in locked safes. Sheesh. 

 

There is a risk/reward system in the game. Just go to desert, winter biome or wasteland and you can jump ahead of the curve

[bachgaman]

6 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Almost endless is not endless and almost free is not free either.

You pick on words

9 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Guns also kill zombies while fences stun them. Do you see the difference?

You were the first who compare guns with a fence

10 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Maybe a day 7 horde with 8 zombies simultaneously. Try killing a day 70 horde with demolishers and 32 zombies simultaneously with a single dart trap. Good luck with that.

 

Day 70? What's the point of playing until day 70 if i have a auger on day 7. The game actually ends on day 20-30 as the limit of all possibilities is reached. Anyway, i will try when i get my laptop

13 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Oh suddenly there is free and more free ? And it doesn't matter how many mines or anything else you need. Your whole argument was based only on the fact that there is unlimited iron. The other resources are also unlimited and in addition you find ammo in loot.
 

There are numerous differences between the dart trap and a gun. For example, the dart trap can only shoot in one direction. Whereas with a gun you can aim freely. In addition, firearms have the advantage that they do more damage through skills in contrast to a dart trap. A iron dart always deals a entity damage of 45. For example, a Q5 Pipe Machinegun with 3 mods deals 51.6 damage + 40% more damage with level 4 of the Machine Gunner perk and 260% headshot damage with level 7 of Fortitude. If I use my Q5 M60 this damage increases to 78.4 per hit + all the perks.

 

"More free" is sarcasm because obviously the price is the time and effort it takes to get something. You say that ammo is free as well as darts, although it is obvious that it takes a lot more actions and resources to produce them. Even based on your words in the same paragraph where you put them on a par with darts. And good luck with only headshots in a 10 fps game

17 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Yes it takes a few more steps to make bullets but unlike iron darts you find the ammo in loot and you also get ammo for T1 and T2 quests as well. I also explained how to get brass with stone and iron. If you need more brass there are plenty of sources. There is no shortage of brass in A20.

 

You don't like electric traps? Then do not use them or mod the so weak that you are happy with it.

The production of ammo is still more resource-intensive and labor-intensive than darts

I do not use in some games, in some I limit it

18 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

So your argument is "it's broken and that's why I'm exploiting it". I have never bought an auger or a gun from a trader because of similar considerations. However, I accept that the developers have made it possible and that players use it. I have imposed this limitation on myself.
 

The current state for developers is A21. The whole balancing and progress will change simply because you can no longer easily get stronger weapons or an auger. 

Who knows how long it will even be before we can build dart traps or blade traps in A21.

Not this way. My argument is "I see an obvious hole in the game balance and I report it." After that game where I showed everyone how easy it is to get a auger and a concrete base on day 7, I played games without a trader. Of course, when I play, I try to play to the limit. Otherwise it's not interesting. But unfortunately, I often have to impose restrictions on myself due to the fact that the balance of the game is bad.

 

I don't see where to download A21? Or are we developers?