Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[n2n1]

17 hours ago, Roland said:

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Can you give some examples of the type of richness and complexity loss you believe have been done to accommodate consoles?

I can.
A good example is A13.
After A12 there was a simplification towards consoles. We have already gone through this.

[Arma Rex]

I'd rather not have three thousand needless processes going on in the background of the game, to be honest. Whatever optimizations that undercut the experience you all notice hasn't stuck out to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. The only features that have been stripped out in favor of optimization I can think of is zombies no longer being able to trample farmland (when it existed), the removal of concrete drying (this was a mistake), and the smell feature (another mistake). Aside from that, optimization features like having the insides of buildings occluded when far away theoretically would be a massive performance boost in places like the skyscrapers.

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Arma Rex said:

I'd rather not have three thousand needless processes going on in the background of the game, to be honest. Whatever optimizations that undercut the experience you all notice hasn't stuck out to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. The only features that have been stripped out in favor of optimization I can think of is zombies no longer being able to trample farmland (when it existed), the removal of concrete drying (this was a mistake), and the smell feature (another mistake). Aside from that, optimization features like having the insides of buildings occluded when far away theoretically would be a massive performance boost in places like the skyscrapers.

 

Though all of those optimizations were done before work on the console started and were specifically because performance on many PCs(!!) were problematic. Complaints about performance in this forum or on steam have been coming from PC players not console players.

 

 

[SylenThunder]

4 hours ago, n2n1 said:

I can.
A good example is A13.
After A12 there was a simplification towards consoles. We have already gone through this.

When a13 was being worked on, I seriously doubt that TFP was doing any optimization for a console release that wasn't even in their plans. You could likely be referring to the TellTale/IronGalaxy release, which was not even done by TFP, and also was Alpha 14.7. AFAIK the only changes that were made as a result of the console release in that regard was a system that they developed on the console being ported to the PC.

 

And again, you have not provided actual evidence of systems that were simplified in order to support console use. Just saying "We have already gone through this." is not providing any detail.

[n2n1]

49 minutes ago, SylenThunder said:

When a13 was being worked on, I seriously doubt that TFP was doing any optimization for a console release that wasn't even in their plans. You could likely be referring to the TellTale/IronGalaxy release, which was not even done by TFP, and also was Alpha 14.7. AFAIK the only changes that were made as a result of the console release in that regard was a system that they developed on the console being ported to the PC.

 

And again, you have not provided actual evidence of systems that were simplified in order to support console use. Just saying "We have already gone through this." is not providing any detail.

 

[linewalker]

1 hour ago, n2n1 said:

 

 

I must say, this is exactly the response you would expect from someone who doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[Laz Man]

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

[Doomofman]

3 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

 

The zombie variants continue to look cool. I take it the arrow symbol is some sort of quick swap function for console?

[Roland]

11 hours ago, n2n1 said:

I can.
A good example is A13.
After A12 there was a simplification towards consoles. We have already gone through this.

I asked for specific features that got simplified and lost depth due to console accommodations. You said you can but then instead gave me an update version number. 
 

So I’m still asking. 

[zztong]

2 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

 

The targeting reticle is gone? Is that just console or PC too? (I really like the target reticle.)

[Doomofman]

46 minutes ago, zztong said:

 

The targeting reticle is gone? Is that just console or PC too? (I really like the target reticle.)

 

It's there... It's just black and barely visible for some reason

[Adam the Waster]

4 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

I know the choppyness is dude to the stream but that horde night.... damn that's sad 

 

But the rest is pretty good. 

 

Idc If the graphics get lowered if we get more zombies 

[Old Crow]

9 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

 

Question - what's the circular arrows on the items mean?

[FramFramson]

4 hours ago, Old Crow said:

 

Question - what's the circular arrows on the items mean?

 

Console control button/stick indicators, presumably. Same as the menus list the keys for the PC version.

 

Also, hey, it's the wedding POI! I forgot that even was a thing! Is it even in the game yet? Don't think I've seen it once in an A21 game.

[zztong]

1 hour ago, FramFramson said:

Also, hey, it's the wedding POI! I forgot that even was a thing! Is it even in the game yet? Don't think I've seen it once in an A21 game.

 

Yes, it is in A21.

[XCOUNTRY]

17 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

Was really hoping with the new hand models that we’d get accurate reloading. But alas my character can still shove 8 shotgun shells into the gun for the action of two shells. 
 

I’m not asking to have to load bullets into magazines, that’s tedious. Just accurately display the number of rounds my character loads into the gun in real time. Then let me use them as they are put in, if I interrupt the reload animation it shouldn’t reset me to zero. 
 

Something like if I pull the trigger while loading the shotgun the character stops and pumps, then I can click again to shoot. 

[Outlaw_187]

19 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

Wasn't there a new blood effect mentioned when zombies take damage? This looks the same as we have now. 

Anyway great video though, thanks for sharing. Can't wait for A22 & for console players to once again enjoy this game. 

[Matt115]

20 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Although this console footage, this does provide a glimpse of the state of A22 for anyone interested.

I realy new zombie variants. Just hope for more corpses variants ^^

[gruuli]

I just created an account to write this comment.

 

Thanks for these awesome updates, i'm new to 7 Days to Die (so have been playing quite a bit with a coop partner since alpha 21.2) and we think the game is really cool, it's super fun, although objectively it's a rather average game, but the setting (apocalypse) and the atmosphere (weather effects etc.) are really nice.

 

I'm really looking forward to alpha 22 and, contrary to what most people think, i'm especially looking forward to the improved vulkan support (whatever that means exactly) and the renewed support of the DX12 API (i think it was already there when i started it briefly).

 

Keep going!

[Adam the Waster]

2 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

Wasn't there a new blood effect mentioned when zombies take damage? This looks the same as we have now. 

Anyway great video though, thanks for sharing. Can't wait for A22 & for console players to once again enjoy this game. 

Probably not added yet in the demo

I do really love the new zombie skins it looks cool. Just hoping soon we will get new specials and new sounds and we will be set. 

[NekoPawtato]

2 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

Wasn't there a new blood effect mentioned when zombies take damage? This looks the same as we have now. 

Anyway great video though, thanks for sharing. Can't wait for A22 & for console players to once again enjoy this game. 

Watch the businessman zombie around the 1 minute mark when his head gets blown off 😉

[Roland]

3 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

Wasn't there a new blood effect mentioned when zombies take damage? This looks the same as we have now. 

Anyway great video though, thanks for sharing. Can't wait for A22 & for console players to once again enjoy this game. 

 

The PAX-East build was a special demo build from which they removed a few unfinished  features that weren't ready to be shown. There are new blood effects and as screenshots show they have been extending dismemberment and gore effects to all the zombies that don't have them in A21 but they were not in the demo version because they were not in a good enough state in time for the show.

Edited April 13 by Roland (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

17 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

Idc If the graphics get lowered if we get more zombies

As we were talking about before, that isn't the problem. The game only has a handful of zombie types. There is barely any more stress having 10 of one zombie on screen versus 100 as far as graphics go, other than maybe the jiggle physics stuff they added. The AI is mostly what drags the game down when the zombie counts get high. They had mentioned making a simpler AI to use on horde nights but not sure if that is still the plan or not. They also said the smarter AI they gave zombies around A17 or so was testing it for when bandits came in, which made me think once they did add bandits, that zombies would go back to a simpler AI.

 

I wouldn't mind zombies staying smart during the day, or maybe just having sleepers spawn with the better AI so they can navigate buildings better, but horde night AI should be simpler. As it is, zombies try to get to your height first, then try to get close. They should reverse that and make them try to take a straight path to get close first, then worry about the height. That would make them more dangerous again as they wouldn't be as easy to cheese with pathing.

Edited April 13 by bdubyah (see edit history)

[Jaska]

3 hours ago, bdubyah said:

As we were talking about before, that isn't the problem. The game only has a handful of zombie types. There is barely any more stress having 10 of one zombie on screen versus 100 as far as graphics go, other than maybe the jiggle physics stuff they added. The AI is mostly what drags the game down when the zombie counts get high. They had mentioned making a simpler AI to use on horde nights but not sure if that is still the plan or not. They also said the smarter AI they gave zombies around A17 or so was testing it for when bandits came in, which made me think once they did add bandits, that zombies would go back to a simpler AI.

 

I wouldn't mind zombies staying smart during the day, or maybe just having sleepers spawn with the better AI so they can navigate buildings better, but horde night AI should be simpler. As it is, zombies try to get to your height first, then try to get close. They should reverse that and make them try to take a straight path to get close first, then worry about the height. That would make them more dangerous again as they wouldn't be as easy to cheese with pathing.

 

Or do both. Spawn 10-25% "better" navigating versions and rest the simpler etc.

[Makaroni95]

Can we get new Skyscraper variants?