Apocalyptical Survivor Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 My wife and I just recently started playing 7 Days to Die, and we're really enjoying it. We're now up to Day 77, just got through a rough horde night, but base survived easily and we made it through the other side. This game is not only early access, it's in "alpha" stage. And yet it's one of the most complete, well-polished early access games I've ever played. I've encountered almost no bugs, everything I've used to date works perfectly, and there is so much to do, so much I've yet to see (we just discovered a desert biome), it's astonishing how much this game has to offer, and how fun it is. So why is it still in "alpha"? What else is coming? I can see that there needs to be some compelling endgame content, always the biggest challenge in any game with this much structured progression. Is there a development roadmap somewhere I can consult to see what's coming? All I can say is, if this game truly is in alpha stage and there's that much more to come, I'm deliriously excited for its future. But part of me thinks that this could be that the developers are just wary of making a "game complete" commitment and everything that brings with it. Reviews, critiques, warranties, etc., when they can just instead sit back and just keep adding stuff whenever they feel like it, without pressure (since it appears their early access is selling well as is). What's actually going on, anyone know? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFT2020 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Bandits Updating the armor / clothing system Updating the crafting system Updating POIs to utilize the new blocks and tile sets system Improving water Continuous improvement on the RWG system Continuous improvement on performance issues Improving the netcode Improving the models (replacing the existing placeholders and updating to HD) Improving the loot tables and removing legacy code just to name a few There was a big change from A19 to A20 if you happened to started playing before A20. Even if you haven't, it might be worthwhile to install the previous Alpha just to see how much of a change has occurred. They are close to getting to final release. They have more items that want to implement and then bug chasing / improvements / balancing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maharin Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 You forgot to add feral ziplines to that list. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meganoth Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 (edited) But essentially it is just bandits and a hint of a story about two factions that is missing. That was one of the kickstarter promises and their stated reason for waiting with a release. Since a few of them are already doing preliminary work on new games I would guess their patience is running out as well. It is a small team though so we are still talking about 2 years (my personal estimate), and in programming it always takes more time than expected ;-). Edited June 29, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Well - because alpha is the "safest" name for that. But this game is almost finished - maybe 1 or 2 years more. In Dev diary A21 you can find actual roadmap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 7 hours ago, Matt115 said: Well - because alpha is the "safest" name for that. But this game is almost finished - maybe 1 or 2 years more. In Dev diary A21 you can find actual roadmap. Do you happen to know on wich page of the thread by any chance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apocalyptical Survivor Posted June 30, 2022 Author Share Posted June 30, 2022 Wow, lots more information than I realized. I need to read the dev diaries. Thanks for the reference, glad to hear there's a real future ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 6 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said: Do you happen to know on wich page of the thread by any chance? Well first post A21 Release Date: "Done When It's Done" CONFIRMED A21 FEATURES New Places of Interest Updated and New (Decorative) Vehicle Models Additional Advanced World Generation Options Biome Percent Sliders Learn By Looting System 23 new skills to govern crafting (photo in gallery below) 23 new magazines added to loot Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting at all The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments. Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points as well as increase quality of crafting for items with quality Each tech level has a separate range in the skill spectrum so that you have to work up through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone axe no long means you automatically can also craft a blue iron axe. Some skills have 100 levels but others have less depending on how many unlocks there are for recipes and quality tiers. A new skill page showing your progress has been added to the player interface (photo in gallery below) Skill magazines can be found, bought, and/or received as quest rewards. The topic of the magazine matches the location you would expect to find it in the world. Perks now govern the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world When you max out a skill, the probability bonus granted by perks for finding the corresponding magazine for that skill drops off. The magazine will still show up randomly in loot but no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching parts will remain. Interactive Environmental Hazards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0mgZ9zB9m4 Flaming broken gas pipes blocking the way. A valve to turn off the gas flow is located elsewhere. Doors Double Doors Partially damaged doors with large holes can be shot/meleed through to damage enemies on the other side Water Simulation All new water coding--water is no longer a block but a water voxel Water voxels flow into neighboring voxels that are marked to allow it. Water can be in the same space as a block Water does not flow or fall continuously like a river or a waterfall more details to come. Armor New Iron Armor More details to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotor Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 Hmm, that is a list of features, not a "roadmap" of game development. Unless I misunderstood. This is my idea of a roadmap: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/progress-tracker/teams Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFT2020 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 1 hour ago, Rotor said: Hmm, that is a list of features, not a "roadmap" of game development. Unless I misunderstood. This is my idea of a roadmap: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/progress-tracker/teams Regards, It's a roadmap if you are driving down the street. If you go through the intersection, you are on your own at that point 😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outhous Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 I guess it could be considered the Roadmap for the for A21. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maharin Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 It's the apocalypse... roadmaps are more suggestion than anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 They have never published their roadmap to the public. You can see the kickstarter feature list here and each alpha has a feature list as Matt showed but without any progress tracking. The game is technically still in alpha because not all features have been added yet. But in actuality their model is a hybrid because they are adding new systems and features but also refining and polishing existing features and systems. Once they "leave alpha" the beta phase will be short because they've been doing a lot of beta work already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 1 hour ago, Roland said: They have never published their roadmap to the public. You can see the kickstarter feature list here and each alpha has a feature list as Matt showed but without any progress tracking. The game is technically still in alpha because not all features have been added yet. But in actuality their model is a hybrid because they are adding new systems and features but also refining and polishing existing features and systems. Once they "leave alpha" the beta phase will be short because they've been doing a lot of beta work already. Well.. alpha and beta now it's just name a lot of game even after "released" can be called beta and often a lot of things are added after 1.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meganoth Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 37 minutes ago, Matt115 said: Well.. alpha and beta now it's just name a lot of game even after "released" can be called beta and often a lot of things are added after 1.0 A released game is usually not in beta. Its maturity can be called beta as a synonym for "unfinished". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 3 minutes ago, meganoth said: A released game is usually not in beta. Its maturity can be called beta as a synonym for "unfinished". Sometimes developer is "forced" to publish game even in beta state - they just change beta into "finished" doing nothing because they don't have time to finish game and after that they trying to fix things - like in CP situation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 (edited) Ah dang it, i thought it was an actual roadmap. I knew this one already. Thx for the effort though. @Matt115 Wasn´t even hoping for any dates of release, just wanted to know what exactly is still on the list for the game overall besides the stuff for A21 and the kickstarter goals and maybe how many alphas we can expect. @Roland i really hope they don´t go too short on Beta. Optimizing the game is pretty importnant, right now during alpha getting for example those huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go. Edited June 30, 2022 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 16 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said: huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go. In some game i have sometimes even worst fps drops - i have RTX 3080 and Lotr war on north iron fortress is still big problem. Well probably downtown still will be big problem because this the most "richest" place for unique props, blocks etc. And.. TFP learned for years how to make RWG so i think such problems will not exist in their next game because their new game code will much cleaner that 7dtd code 20 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said: Thx for the effort though. @Matt115 I like helping 20 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFT2020 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 1 hour ago, pApA^LeGBa said: @Roland i really hope they don´t go too short on Beta. Optimizing the game is pretty importnant, right now during alpha getting for example those huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go. I think what Roland was hinting at was their plan to keep polishing and improving the game throughout the next Alphas to the point that there won't be much to do once the final Alpha is released and they go into the Beta stage. We are seeing examples of it already. Recall that faatal recently looked into the windows causing issues. That is something they are already working on now, so hopefully it will be an item checked off before Beta rolls out. We are also seeing balancing changes going on throughout the development phase. They want to get the game to final status, but they are not under a self-imposed deadline to release it like some recent examples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 (edited) 7 hours ago, Matt115 said: In some game i have sometimes even worst fps drops - i have RTX 3080 and Lotr war on north iron fortress is still big problem. Well probably downtown still will be big problem because this the most "richest" place for unique props, blocks etc. And.. TFP learned for years how to make RWG so i think such problems will not exist in their next game because their new game code will much cleaner that 7dtd code. Well, the game is in development still. So if there is no way of getting rid of those FPS drops and stuttering, they need to revamp downtown to be not as demanding to the hardware or the engine, even if that means that downtown buildings can´t be that tight together anymore. Edited July 1, 2022 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 7 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said: Well, the game is in development still. So if there is no way of getting rid of those FPS drops and stuttering, they need to revamp downtown to be not as demanding to the hardware or the engine, even if that means that downtown buildings can´t be that tight together anymore. Well this is not good idea - 20 FPS is good enough to play. You can't show "FPS" on screen while you can show buildings on steam right? Well another option is just increase min requirements to be sure that there will be 20 FPS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerfly Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 Shortly, the future of the game is bright 🤠 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt115 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 6 minutes ago, beerfly said: Shortly, the future of the game is bright 🤠 Well this is not true too - this depends on mod community Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFT2020 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 16 minutes ago, beerfly said: Shortly, the future of the game is bright 🤠 gotta wear shades Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 16 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said: @Roland i really hope they don´t go too short on Beta. Optimizing the game is pretty importnant, right now during alpha getting for example those huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go. They won’t skimp. Beta will be “done when it’s done.” It will be comparatively short to Alpha but they do want quality. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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