Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[MechanicalLens]

16 hours ago, XCOUNTRY said:

Hope the chicken is removed and we get a turkey or scaled quail instead. 

 

How about a feral Canadian goose instead? Those would be much more terrifying, hissing and flapping its wings as it charges you down.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

How about a feral Canadian goose instead? Those would be much more terrifying, hissing and flapping its wings as it charges you down.

I hate those things.  😁

[Adam the Waster]

 

theses animating are really cool/good 

 

much better then what we have now. I hope we get this for zombies, humans, first person combat

 

 

 

[Laz Man]

4 hours ago, Ricowan said:

 

 

 

OK, I'll try to keep this short.  

Zombies in this game, for the vast majority, are melee.  Their AI is melee focused (as it should be, cop vomit is stupid).  The code logic for this is fairly simple, and internally consistent with how I feel zombies should behave.
 

Bandits will, as I understand it, be ranged focused.  EVERY game that has ranged NPC enemies have to cheat in order to make them a challenge.  They shoot through terrain and/or objects, often they *see* through terrain and/or objects.  They see you instantly, etc.  I hate them.

Maybe it's possible to make them challenging without resorting to these things, but I'm biased by the last 20 years of games doing me wrong.   

 

I don't care about a story line, especially in a sandbox game.  Background lore is fine, and we don't need bandits to exist for lore to be filled out.

 

 

In general (not speaking for 7d2d), AI is handicapped to the point the player doesn't get frustrated.  Ranged combat is a good example.  A human player will take a varied amount of time to steady their aim at a target and pull the trigger.  This is often much slower than AI who will always execute given the same conditions over and over again.  This usually results in AI being programmed to do less damage, shooting less accurately, or take much longer to react to a player in order to deliver a satisfying experience to the player.

Edited February 24 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Matt115]

22 hours ago, TWORDY said:

So, the animal kingdom wasn`t enough with Necro-goat-mancery.

 

Here comes tactical crocks and an all-out feet fetish warfare...

 

Sorry lads, it`s Friday.

I hate it from deep of my heart

45 minutes ago, Adam the Waster said:

 

theses animating are really cool/good 

 

much better then what we have now. I hope we get this for zombies, humans, first person combat

 

 

 

It's looks sooo good

6 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

In general (not speaking for 7d2d), AI is handicapped to the point the player doesn't get frustrated.  Ranged combat is a good example.  A human player will take a varied amount of time to steady their aim at a target and pull the trigger.  This is often much slower than AI who will always execute given the same conditions over and over again.  This usually results in AI being programmed to do less damage, shooting less accurately, or take much longer to react to a player in order to deliver a satisfying experience to the player.

Typical 200X FPS - easy mission easy mission easy mission oh no this sniper mission is impossible damn.

 

Btw.  Interesting if Bandits will be able to throw granades

[seven]

On 2/22/2024 at 10:30 PM, Laz Man said:

 

Just wait until you see the nerd outfit with the fiber footwear....😁

 

If the nerd outfit is anything like we saw a preview of last year I'll gladly wait a long, long, looooonnnnng time. Like forever.

[Matt115]

1 minute ago, seven said:

 

If the nerd outfit is anything like we saw a preview of last year I'll gladly wait a long, long, looooonnnnng time. Like forever.

For nerd Vibram five fingers shoes would be suitable

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Adam the Waster said:

 

theses animating are really cool/good 

 

much better then what we have now. I hope we get this for zombies, humans, first person combat

That animation looks amazing!  I think that alone is enough to hype me up for A22.  Lol!

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

 

A human player will take a varied amount of time to steady their aim at a target and pull the trigger. 

This could easily be simulated by just having AI take a random time within a range of time before each shot to give some variation.  The range of that variance can even change depending on if they are stationary and firing at a stationary object (steady shots without variation) or on the move and firing at someone moving (large variation in timing and greater loss of accuracy).

 

Not saying that is better, just that it can be simulated easily enough. 😀

Edited February 24 by Riamus (see edit history)

[bdubyah]

Mountain lion looks great. Hope it looks that good walking around in game. Also hope the zombie dog gets that level of animation love as well.

 

Edit: And speaking of animations, has there ever been any thought given to adding in more zombie animations, and even possibly randomizing them? We already randomize them with mods, but having more than 3-4 basic types would be nice.

Edited February 24 by bdubyah (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

2 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

 

theses animating are really cool/good 

 

much better then what we have now. I hope we get this for zombies, humans, first person combat

 

 

 

 

The animation that plays out 30 seconds in is eerily similar to the zombie dogs' wake-up trigger. Cougars in POI's coming to A22?

Edited February 24 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[Hells_Janitor]

10 hours ago, Riamus said:

Unless I am mistaken, the story will most likely be limited to Navesgane, though you might get some lore bits (like that starter quest note we have now) in other maps.  This is actually a good thing because any story they come up with, no matter how interesting, will be boring after the first game or two and this game is intended to be replayed many, many times.  I think the same will be true for any kind of "end game" they have.  It'll be tied to the story, which is most likely only in Navesgane, and it will not really end the game but just end the story line.  So I wouldn't worry too much about that.  Besides, it will probably be modded out pretty quickly if it's anywhere other than Navesgane.

 

Honestly, that feels like the best solution, to my way of thinking anyway. Keeping the 'story' mode to the 'story' map, ie Navezgane, and leaving the bulk of it out of RWG would definitely be the best of both worlds, for me at least.

 

12 hours ago, Arez said:

I don't care if any of this stuff is added, as long as I have the option to remove it if I don't like it.

 

and that's the kicker. We NEED an option to remove it if we don't like/don't want it.

 

Hopefully, that'll be the case.

Edited February 25 by Hells_Janitor (see edit history)

[faatal]

16 hours ago, Tete1805 said:

Can you tell us how many programmers are still working on 7 Days?

Many, plus many console programmers, but we all have our areas we work in. We lost two successive programmers working on player body/outfits/equipment, leaving Lathan and I to finish it. We have a new graphics programmer doing skin/hair shaders and mesh work and other gfx tech, but that is a different area.

[Laz Man]

6 hours ago, seven said:

 

If the nerd outfit is anything like we saw a preview of last year I'll gladly wait a long, long, looooonnnnng time. Like forever.

Lets just say you won't be picking up any of the ladies (or men) at prom wearing that outfit...😁

5 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

The animation that plays out 30 seconds in is eerily similar to the zombie dogs' wake-up trigger. Cougars in POI's coming to A22?

 

The thought crossed my mind for the "Bob Cat Bar" POI but decided against it as it was designed as a Tier 1 POI.... 😁

Edited February 25 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[XCOUNTRY]

9 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Lets just say you won't be picking up any of the ladies (or men) at prom wearing that outfit...😁

 

The thought crossed my mind for the "Bob Cat Bar" POI but decided against it as it was designed as a Tier 1 POI.... 😁

Are hit points scalable with game stage? If so can a POI be set to lower the game stage of a player to have a mt lion in that POI not be as difficult?

[Adam the Waster]

10 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Lets just say you won't be picking up any of the ladies (or men) at prom wearing that outfit...😁

 

 

I would date a chick wearing that ngl 

[Mister Forgash]

I'm not super-hyped for bandits either, but I'll withhold judgement, 'till I'm playing against them.. I see some concerns about disabling them, but as some have said, there's an option to turn off zombies in our zombie game, it would be no surprise to me if we can turn off bandits in the zombie game as well.
.. talks of bandits randomly popping up got me thinking, and before long, I was on this tangent of thought-
Once bandits are implemented, any likelihood of us getting new "bandit clear" quests? -That would (in my theory) take a preexisting T1-4 PoI, and when you hit the exclamation point, load in bandits (in lesser numbers) instead of zombies? Sorta like infestation uses the same PoIs, but an alternate set of spawn ins.

[Roland]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:49 PM, NukemDed said:

sorry again - mostly because i am feeling stroppy

set -1 in diablo still gave partial SET bonuses

semantics i know, but i wasted 3 years at university and the only thing that i learnt that was worthwhile was 'higher education' is another term for arguing semantics 

the rest of the world was getting on and doing it

whazzat? sounds tasty

 

That's like saying that not wearing any of the pieces gives a "zero set bonus" so even if you wear nothing you're still getting a set bonus. Your semantics are fine but you think that if you put "set" all in caps it changes the meaning. I can do that too: PARTIAL set bonus.

 

What Matt wants is to get the FULL set bonus for wearing everything but the flipflop because otherwise he will feel forced into wearing the flipflops. Go back and look at the two lists of bonuses you posted for Diablo. Does Diablo let someone get all the bonuses from the second list if they aren't wearing everything from the set? If so, you've got me and I'll retract my statement. If not, then you're just agreeing 100% with me while capitalizing the word set.  

 

If it helps, I will amend my statement to emphasize that what I meant was that no game in existence gives a full set bonus for only wearing a partial set. Some games will give a partial bonus (including 7 Days to Die A22) for wearing a partial set 

[Javabean867]

13 hours ago, Laz Man said:

The thought crossed my mind for the "Bob Cat Bar" POI but decided against it as it was designed as a Tier 1 POI.... 😁

Is it possiblentonhave games Tage triggers for different animal spawns in pois?  Like you could set it up so that at game stage X there is a % chance that a cougar spawns, instead of a dog or wolf?

[Adam the Waster]

15 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

The thought crossed my mind for the "Bob Cat Bar" POI but decided against it as it was designed as a Tier 1 POI.... 😁

Maybe a cave or a cougars bar.  Ether one would be neet

[Old Crow]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

 

That's like saying that not wearing any of the pieces gives a "zero set bonus" so even if you wear nothing you're still getting a set bonus. Your semantics are fine but you think that if you put "set" all in caps it changes the meaning. I can do that too: PARTIAL set bonus.

 

What Matt wants is to get the FULL set bonus for wearing everything but the flipflop because otherwise he will feel forced into wearing the flipflops. Go back and look at the two lists of bonuses you posted for Diablo. Does Diablo let someone get all the bonuses from the second list if they aren't wearing everything from the set? If so, you've got me and I'll retract my statement. If not, then you're just agreeing 100% with me while capitalizing the word set.  

 

If it helps, I will amend my statement to emphasize that what I meant was that no game in existence gives a full set bonus for only wearing a partial set. Some games will give a partial bonus (including 7 Days to Die A22) for wearing a partial set 

 

Torchlight 2 will give the full (yes, FULL) set bonus for not wearing the full set.

[Roland]

3 hours ago, Old Crow said:

 

Torchlight 2 will give the full (yes, FULL) set bonus for not wearing the full set.

Cool. I have that game but haven’t played it in years and never realized that. So there’s one.
 

After A22 releases there will still be just one. 

 

 

EDIT: So I was curious and looked up the Torchlight wiki and here's the lowdown. You get an armor set bonus by wearing at least two pieces of the collection and it doesn't matter which two pieces you wear. BUT...it isn't really the full bonus because each additional piece worn adds another benefit to the set bonus. This means that if you are wearing all 9 pieces of the Sentinal collection (for example) your set bonus is a lot more...full and robust and I don't think any player would be happy to just stop at 2 pieces satisfied that the full set bonus was theirs.

 

I was willing to be proven wrong and still am but when it comes down to it, even in Torchlight 2 you don't get all the benefits of the actual full set by only wearing some of the pieces. Not only that but you get no set bonus at all if you drop below the (admittedly simple) threshold of 2 pieces. 

 

So I must amend that after A22 releases there will still be zero games that allow players all the benefits of the full set if they are wearing fewer pieces than all of them. I don't deny that there will be partial bonuses.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited February 26 by Roland (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

Cool. I have that game but haven’t played it in years and never realized that. So there’s one.
 

After A22 releases there will still be just one. 

 

 

EDIT: So I was curious and looked up the Torchlight wiki and here's the lowdown. You get an armor set bonus by wearing at least two pieces of the collection and it doesn't matter which two pieces you wear. BUT...it isn't really the full bonus because each additional piece worn adds another benefit to the set bonus. This means that if you are wearing all 9 pieces of the Sentinal collection (for example) your set bonus is a lot more...full and robust and I don't think any player would be happy to just stop at 2 pieces satisfied that the full set bonus was theirs.

 

I was willing to be proven wrong and still am but when it comes down to it, even in Torchlight 2 you don't get all the benefits of the actual full set by only wearing some of the pieces. Not only that but you get no set bonus at all if you drop below the (admittedly simple) threshold of 2 pieces. 

 

So I must amend that after A22 releases there will still be zero games that allow players all the benefits of the full set if they are wearing fewer pieces than all of them. I don't deny that there will be partial bonuses.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you neglected to mention or show, is that Runemaster (one of your examples) is an 8 piece set, but only requires 3 pieces to be worn in order to achieve the full set bonus.

[Roland]

37 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

What you neglected to mention or show, is that Runemaster (one of your examples) is an 8 piece set, but only requires 3 pieces to be worn in order to achieve the full set bonus.

 

I see what you mean. Sorry, the wiki part that I read didn't give me all the info and I didn't know enough about the game to search for more. That was my bad for not fully researching it.

 

So it appears that each piece has a bonus that it grants and in addition, there is a set bonus once you have at least 3 pieces. I concede that there is at least one game that does not require you to get all the pieces of an armor collection for the set bonus. But...I will point out that there still is a threshold and if you are a piece short of that threshold then you don't get the full bonus. In 7 Days to Die that threshold is going to be all the pieces. 

[Morloc]

11 hours ago, Roland said:

So it appears that each piece has a bonus that it grants and in addition, there is a set bonus once you have at least 3 pieces. I concede that there is at least one game that does not require you to get all the pieces of an armor collection for the set bonus. But...I will point out that there still is a threshold and if you are a piece short of that threshold then you don't get the full bonus.

 

Grim Dawn also has incremental set bonuses beginning at the 2nd item.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀

[BFT2020]

Just because one or more games out there give a partial set bonus for a few items (and not the complete set) doesn't mean that TFP need to do the same thing with their armor sets.

 

Comparing the two games so far:

 

• 7 Days to Die has 5 armor spots - Head, Chest, Arms, Legs, and Feet
• Torchlight 2 has 10 spots - Helmets, Chest Armor, Shoulders, Gloves, Leggings, Boots, Shields, Belts, Necklaces, Rings

Throw in the fact that Torchlight 2 has a wide variety of sets ranging from unique and rare to common items with tiers.  The common items don't contribute to the set bonuses themselves.  It is very complex system that they have setup for armor pieces which is based on the type of the game which is to consistently upgrade your gear to push your numbers higher.

 

Since 7 days to die looks like it's armor system is going to be simpler than Torchlight's system is, having all the items equipped to get a set bonus seems fair.  You will get the same bonus if you have a lower quality T1 boot compared to the Q6 boot.  And you only have to obtain 5 pieces (compared to 10 if Torchlight 2 had the same requirement).

 

In addition, 7 days to die has a higher chance that you can complete the entire set compared to Torchlight 2.  Even if you can't find the item in loot or at the trader, you can also craft the missing pieces of the set to complete it.

 

If you don't want to wear that part of the armor set because you don't like flip flops or how it looks, then you decided that it is better for how your characters appears in game rather than any full set bonus you might get if you equipped all of the items.  I think choices like that are fine in the game.