Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Tin]

Thanks for watching the video! There was just so much to talk about and not enough time to explain properly everything. Its like we switched to unity 2018 and kind of had some broken ass graphics so there was video blackout for a while. Things are starting to look presentable again so and a lot of systems have been coming online during the video blackout so now there is just like so much new stuff to cover, I crammed 2 months of videos into one, but things will be explained as time goes on.

 

Cool! Hopefully you get more time now to pop in more often and present a few more vids as well. Again, TY for the latest vid and explained what you could atm.

[sijb777]

I'm sure you'll just fire off another "good for you" in reply to this but I have always felt that in a survival game it really is dumb to give incentives to hunt and kill zombies. If running away is just as viable as attacking then the game is getting closer to the way it should be, imo.

 

Loot tables can be altered to provide more brass. There can be corpse loot boxes added if necessary that give bones and flesh. Changing it as they have has some real benefits that make up for the downsides which as I noted can be firmed up in other ways either by the devs or through modding.

 

Hmmm those are some good points, guess we will have to see how it plays out. Adding in bones and flesh would give a decent enough reward to occasionally hunt them, but mostly just run. Maybe give them when you break the corpse sort of like breaking the gore block in a16? Then you don't get the duping problems with an actual loot box.

[Eihwaz]

What does "PVR" grafic mean? Is this a other format?

I find no german explaination/wikiside

 

and what does this mean for modders (starvation)?

[compuguru992000]

im with everyone else here, the lack of junk loot from zombies and loot in general from them is a major downside. wellness was one thing, i get refining the system. but now your gona make killing zombies in general just lacklustre. there's no reward to killing the zombies, may as well just kite them outside and lose them, where as before, your encouraged to thin the horde due to the rewards you get. all the *junk* in this game has its use, so collecting what you can and making use of it, is a integral part of the game.

 

big downer for me. but, otherwise it looks steller!

 

I see this as a great thing, my bet is thats its short term until the zombie gore block dupe glitch is resolved, even if its not temporary, the zombie gore block duplication glitch is resolved.

[Anabella]

When I think of a "real zombie apocalypse," I think about how I would avoid zombies if I could. I like that this is a viable thing for this game. [insert something about immersion]

 

I just can't believe you already went to "mod it." That's cold, man. That's cold.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

All games do it the same way? (Also, I used your quote because it was the easiest, but I tried to generalize it because plenty of others have had the same response without the qualifier.)

 

Something you kill in a game dropping no looting is pretty much something you kill dropping no loot. And btw I have played a modded 7 days were the zombies dropped no loot. I didn’t play it long though because because it was not fun.

[dandeneau6017]

Thanks TFP

 

Thanks for watching the video! There was just so much to talk about and not enough time to explain properly everything. Its like we switched to unity 2018 and kind of had some broken ass graphics so there was video blackout for a while. Things are starting to look presentable again so and a lot of systems have been coming online during the video blackout so now there is just like so much new stuff to cover, I crammed 2 months of videos into one, but things will be explained as time goes on.

 

I just wanted to take the time to say thank you to your team for everything you guys have done and continue to do. I have played video games for a very long time and have never had any title provide me with this much entertainment. To see the instant criticism of what you have shown rubbed me the wrong way. Enough so to actually make a post in this forum! Lol. What you have done with this game is amazing and despite the individuals who have issues with change (which I understand. When you like something why would you want change) please know that there are many people out there who wait for releases like these videos to begin planning how to work through these changes. Not demand ramifications for realizing your visions of what this game should be.

 

Overall, thank you guys for everything you do and I cannot wait to get my hands on a17. "Issues" and all

[wolfbain5]

1. where are we going to get rotted meat, bones, and fat. zombies don't seem to give it when you break the bodies. Fat and bones still from animals, but that reduces alot.

 

2. do zombies fully respawn if you dont empty it? not a good thing.

 

3. love the arrow reclamation.

 

4. the sounds are a good indication that the zed died, but that broken neck animation... it should also be an indicator, that and body going completely limp. but they aren't, they get back up. so far only the sound of the death scream is the only way to tell if it is actually dead.

 

5. there was a missing texture in MM's inventory at 4:06

 

6. melee looks interesting except that power attack on a prone zed, therefore possibly crawlers? wont hit very well?

 

7. shovel looks like a good spear attack. didnt someone say we were getting spears? may be the new go to melee weapon

 

8. are there gonna be a lot of the floor blocks breaking out? there were a butt load in that first poi that the zed followed you through.

[The Gronk]

What does "PVR" grafic mean? Is this a other format?

I find no german explaination/wikiside

 

and what does this mean for modders (starvation)?

 

*PBR

 

Physically Based Rendering

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering

[unholyjoe]

What does "PVR" grafic mean? Is this a other format?

I find no german explaination/wikiside

 

and what does this mean for modders (starvation)?

 

it's PBR (Physically-Based Rendering)

 

i cant explain but you can start here. all i can say is, things look good and watching it on a video does not do it any justice.

 

 

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pbr+graphics&t=ffab&ia=web

 

 

[Janna3921]

I'm sure you'll just fire off another "good for you" in reply to this but I have always felt that in a survival game it really is dumb to give incentives to hunt and kill zombies. If running away is just as viable as attacking then the game is getting closer to the way it should be, imo.

 

.

 

 

Let me see if I understand this. It is okay to run from zombies, as it is a survival game and the goal should be to live, not go and hunt zombies to kill them for their loot.

Isn't that what those who have underground bases do? They have a place to go and be safe, to not place themselves in danger and be killed as they go out to fight on horde night, or any nighttime when the zombies are running?

You can go out in the daytime and look for loot, food, water and other items needed and if you run into zombies fight and defend yourself, but to place your life in danger just to fight, kill and get loot isn't what you should do if you want to survive.

 

I have watched only half of the video, the motion of his movement has me feeling as if I was having another vertigo attack and I can't stand those. I felt like I was getting sick from all that twisting around. So, I have been watching for 15 minutes, quit, watch for a bit and then stop and will be heading back in a minute.

[HIREDGUN]

WOW! Thanks @madmole for doing a video!

 

Arrows in Zombies - with recovery - AWESOME!

Color on weapons - Sweet! (what about vehicles will we be able to color the Jeep??)

 

Skill list @37:22 -- nice.

 

and Best feature of all... ITEMS GO TO SAME SLOTS !

[Andrivullar]

Lol @Roland ; Priceless responses. Then again, why am I not surprised, TFP has been saying "Tough ♥♥♥♥ if you don't like it" since forever, and yet.... Bows STILL glitch out, for how many alphas? Boy, I'm glad i got this when it was cheap. Bah, I got money on the table with the other guy; your following about to take ANOTHER hit, because you just don't listen to your players, and the worst of all, your hardcore players; Ya know, to this day, Ultima Online IS STILL RUNNING, because of the die-hard fans. -Shrug- I've still got Dual Universe I'm waiting on, zombie games come and go with the wind, but I am definitely saddened. @ Madmole, do yourself and your game a favor, and take a break from progressing after a17 is polished up, and come play with the player base for awhile so you can learn of our gripes first-hand; then you'll understand where some of us coming from.

 

I'd like to note, I've been here since alpha.... 6? way long time ago. Its maddening to watch TFP make 10 good steps forward in one area, just to make 20 giant leaps backwards in others, while being told "No, No, No." You know who else does this? EA games. Congrats, man, Congrats.

[Roland]

1. Dumbing down guns to a few fixed quality levels is awful, now once you have a top tier weapon you never need to strive for anything better whereas before you could hope to upgrade a 510 sniper to a 600 sniper over time, bad and simplistic change

 

The game is shifting from improving weapons from a number like 510 to another number like 600 to improving weapons by adding attachments to them. The tiers were changed to reflect durability and number of attachment slots. Once that change was made as far as damage and accuracy was concerned a 150 gun was just the same as 550 gun. All guns of whatever color will do the same base damage and the only advantage of a purple gun will be six slots to fill up with attachments to make the gun more badass than it ever was before even though it had the number 600 associated with it. As much fun as it was in pre A17 alphas pushing numbers up to even higher numbers I think that the mod attachments will be a more interesting and deeper experience.

 

2. Tying HP/health to hydration, simply a poorly thought out and bad design change that was totally unneeded

 

Why? I'm interested in why you think that the recovery rate of health should not be tied to hydration and what makes it bad design.

 

3. No (we saw no loot drop from maybe 25 kills) loot from zeds is an example of how little people like MM have a clue about their own game and how its played. Almost all of the stuff they drop has a use in the game and this will severely restrict the supply of certain items which will increase the grind and I am gonna make a prediction here, A17 is going to hugely increase the grind in the same way the last few Alphas have, at the expense of fun and gameplay.

 

I dunno...You still find a ton of the same type of junk you got from zombies but now they are in backpacks, cars, cupboards, etc. I have found whole guns almost every time I've done a first day start. I get not everyone is going to like it though.

 

4. Melee combat looked clunky as hell

 

Maybe....It's definitely harder now.

 

5. You remapped use button so as to add in power attacks, ok I get it, but why the hell not keep the existing use button and just add the power attack to the OTHER button ? pointless and I hope to hell that stuff can be remapped

6. 2 Hours to clear a house he said, ok now its MM and he cant play for crap but even so lets say it takes 30 minutes, during which time you get zero loot from zombies which seem to spawn in very large numbers, all to get to, maybe, some loot crates at the end. Prediction, players are going to ignore these low reward high risk 'dungeons' and focus on the high loot stores so guess you just wasted a ton of dev time on a poorly thought out design decision..

 

These are good points. I didn't like the remapping of the use button either. As for the dungeons...your mileage will vary. I find them highly entertaining and if you destroy everything you can get a lot of useful materials. Some people will skip the dungeons and some won't. Some people will fight all the zombies and some people with stealth through. Some will engage the zombies when they wake up and some will avoid and run and loot fast and get away with what they can. Now that zombies don't commonly have loot everyone can try all those tactics and not feel like they're missing out on stuff. But, yeah, some will hate it.

 

7. Why in gods name cant we have a visual indicator that the zombie is dead? would that really be asking so much? I am pretty sure i can tell if something is dead or not

 

Sorry but I disagree 100% with you on this. Removing the onscreen text that would give away if a zombie was finally dead or not along with no HP bar make it so much better. You're pretty sure you can tell if a fantasy undead creature is really dead or not? On what are you basing all this experience pray tell? That Walking Dead Documentary...?

 

8. At this point, after over a year, you are worried about adding in a new graphic for a sideboard? like seriously no-one cares

9. Removal of visual numeric indicator for stamina and health is T E R R I B L E, what the hell are you thinking? this is the first thing people will mod back in because its beyond stupid

 

You like your numbers. Nobody can argue that someone else's preferences are bad so hopefully you can mod in your preference. I don't care about exact numbers. If I see the bar is half empty that is all I need to be able to process that I'm at 50%.

 

1. Backpack change, IF, and its a BIG IF, you dont need to be level 150/spend 2 weeks getting enough perks, to surpass the old capacity then this is an excellent change. IF however you are now going to spend MOST of the game gimped on capacity due to this change then yet again its just another nerf to add grind to the game, will have to see final implementation to judge

 

If you spend all the points you get from doing the tutorial quest on your strength attribute you will gain 10 inventory slots right then which puts you 5 slots beyond where the A16 max slots is and that should be before 10am on Day 1. So no need to worry over that.

 

2. Did you change the runspeed? it looked like you did, if you slowed it down then I wish bad things for you

 

Rage quit now.

 

 

I know there is a lot more to show so will keep my powder dry but seriously, after over a year there needs to be a LOT more improvements than shown here and it best not be about adding more grind, games are supposed to be fun, remember?

 

So many of the improvements are under the hood and coding changes that I doubt there will be anyone who will look at what they can see on the surface of the game and say that it was equal to what a year of work (in their opinion) should look like. I'm already mentally prepared for the onslaught of salt in that regard. Unfortunately, it will be those same people who will later praise and laud the modders for all their contributions not realizing that it is precisely what TFP did all year that has made it possible for modders to do more than they have ever been able to do in the past.

[Andrivullar]

That does not look like recovery of health, that looks like maximum health available, which is indeed a terrible design. I've noted that all the tests are usually in default difficulty; Do you even realize how hard zombies hit in difficulty 6? No? Then go try it.

 

As for under the hood coding, I'm a programmer myself, just not using that skill currently, and you wont hear any salt from me on that front; Changing spaghetti code to streamlined process is massive headaches and lots of staring. However, I will tell you "No, No, and No" on the functionality. Something tells me that you're just telling us to piss off over the loot thing; but have you ever played on a large server? good friggen luck finding enough brass, or really ANY loot without zeds. [day 2000, 30 people on at all times.... yeah. Okay, our "fears" and feedback is TOTES just fear of adaptation.]

 

And do you know the only reason I picked up this game, aside from the zeds? the same reason i loved ultima for the golden years. I like killing players, and I like taking their loot. Sadly, these games are dieing, for more than one reason. I pray the real zombie apocalypse happens, because I know they'll definitely drop random loot IRL.

[Eihwaz]

ty unholy for your answer =)

 

when i read this ... lets call it "angry"-comments i must think about this:

http://www.picslyrics.net/images/133571-michael-jackson-all-i-wanna-say-is-that.jpg

 

In front of my inner eye i see bloom_meister beating a drum xD

[Roland]

Lol @Roland ; Priceless responses. Then again, why am I not surprised, TFP has been saying "Tough ♥♥♥♥ if you don't like it" since forever, and yet.... Bows STILL glitch out, for how many alphas? Boy, I'm glad i got this when it was cheap. Bah, I got money on the table with the other guy; your following about to take ANOTHER hit, because you just don't listen to your players, and the worst of all, your hardcore players; Ya know, to this day, Ultima Online IS STILL RUNNING, because of the die-hard fans. -Shrug- I've still got Dual Universe I'm waiting on, zombie games come and go with the wind, but I am definitely saddened. @ Madmole, do yourself and your game a favor, and take a break from progressing after a17 is polished up, and come play with the player base for awhile so you can learn of our gripes first-hand; then you'll understand where some of us coming from.

 

I'd like to note, I've been here since alpha.... 6? way long time ago. Its maddening to watch TFP make 10 good steps forward in one area, just to make 20 giant leaps backwards in others, while being told "No, No, No." You know who else does this? EA games. Congrats, man, Congrats.

 

TFP might be saying "Tough ♥♥♥♥" about objections to their vanilla game but then at the same time they make the game so over the top moddable that pretty much anyone can get exactly what they want. The longevity of this game will be via modding. That is what the developers really want. A thriving community of people using the architecture of their game to be creative and do amazing things. This is a bad thing?

[sillls]

 

Madmole’s new GAMEPLAY video!!!

 

Finally.

 

Liked the video and yes Madmole really looked like a noob.

 

1.Sleepers suck because they reset every time you leave and enter a building and you have to clear it each time.

 

2.Also what is up with all that damage that zombies could take? An arrow though the brain and it still takes several more blows to take down???

One shot though the head and it should be done.

 

3.Loot could really use some reworking. Maybe go back to the way you had it?

 

4. Really liked it when Madmole used the shovel as a spear. Now that's what I'm talking about when I say

shovel-spear! https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?85897-Shovel-spears

If he used that, he would have been fine. Better range and can keep out of reach of the zombies.

 

5. I really don't get why the floors are giving out everywhere. I mean it would make sense if you were like on an upper floor but the ground floor? Come on.

 

6. Madmole would have done much better if he had gotten the basics out of the way, before charging into a dungeon crawl. Making more arrows, stashing junk, finding food and meds and so on.

 

 

The game looks cool and really like how it's going to use less memory.

[Andrivullar]

No roland, that is NOT a bad thing, but backstepping on vanilla aspects for.... what? because you feels its "useless junk" anyways, that the junk collectors get their playstyle removed over.... Feels? This is about the most logic i've gotten from it, "nobody liked looting them after horde night anyways" Uhhuh. And how many of us did you ask again? Cause i'm pretty sure if you did ask anyone, you asked loot pinatas who build in a obvious manner. PVE was boring to begin with, but no cause to fight zeds period now. Welcome to the alpha of "Nah, no need to fight the zeds. Look for the peasants with loot instead." Grumble. And here a17 was looking to be in the right direction, and boom. Shot themselves in the foot, yet again.

 

Seriously though; What excuse do you have over the bow glitches? I'm not even a great programmer, and by now, thats one bug that should've been done squashed, and then you go and remove reticle when you zoom down the sights. [This is the exact reason most diehard fps people just goahead and tape a reddot of string/ect, then we dont care when the bow is off center, in the way, or generally unworkable "legitly"

[ArticulatedDrunk]

Are we gonna get more bones and fat from animals to replace the gore blocks? What about scavenging xp. I like the new stuff but there seem to have been some oversights in the process of performance improvements.

[Pico]

The dungeons/basements look really good.

 

Very glad to have arrow recovery. It'll now be a priority to recover arrows before the corpse vanishes.

 

Note the fine blue line above the toolbelt - I believe it indicates overall level of health (but I could be wrong, only noticed it at the end of the vid).

 

I'd like to suggest for videos that Joel enlist a player like Pocket to do the gameplay, and he can then be free to narrate. He'd get to say a lot more, and we'd get to see the game being played properly, so it's a win-win. He gets to talk more on the technical aspects, and at the same time we get to see gameplay, rather than so much dithering in a menu screen.

 

That indeed was a pig on the roof, but it seemed to vanaish. Another bug perhaps?

[Andrivullar]

I'll tell you this, in theory, sure it works for single player. In server setting, yeah right. Bones and fat just became rares. But hundreds of hours of play time I surely have no idea what im talking about. [As in, i religiously skinned zed corpses, and still balked at the fact it took forever to get a good stockpile of glue.]

[Pico]

Oooh, just had a good realisation regarding the vanishing corpses. This will ASSIST on horde night. It used to be I'd get my base encircled by corpses, so any further kills were 'lost' in regard to looting (being a corpse on top of a corpse, the top corpse being lost), but now if an empty corpse vanishes it'll free up space for another to be killed and recovered on the same spot. So in the morning it's a quick run around to get all the backpacks, and less time spent hacking at bodies. Me likie!

[merlinfire]

TFP might be saying "Tough ♥♥♥♥" about objections to their vanilla game but then at the same time they make the game so over the top moddable that pretty much anyone can get exactly what they want. The longevity of this game will be via modding. That is what the developers really want. A thriving community of people using the architecture of their game to be creative and do amazing things. This is a bad thing?

 

He's right you know. TFP hasn't meaningfully listened to the playerbase about major issues in a long damn time. We're never consulted about major changes. Makes it hard to believe the folks making the design decisions play the game like the rest of us. Take a poll of the top 10 concerns or feature requests. Take the top 50. I guarantee you that "make zombies not drop loot" wouldn't even be in the top 100.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

And how many of us did you ask again?

 

I feel highly confident that the answer to that question is "nobody". Though if the question were phrased properly, there's no dearth of "Yes men" ready to affirm any decision.

[DUST2DEATH]

Luckily, as a business, they can choose to consult or not, whomever they feel.

 

you're either going to like it, mod it, or move on.

 

The entitlement here. geez.

[Janna3921]

Just finished watching it. It is obvious, as Joel said, he is rusty in the game. Which a lot of viewers won't understand is that who wants to take their work home with them. So I can understand to some extent his being a bit off. At the same time, it might have been a good idea to have practiced for three or more hours before he played.

in what I liked, the arrows, being able to retrieve them, that is a big plus

the graphics are really nice and my computer can handle it, so I won't have a problem.

the new houses all look really nice

the shovel can be used as a spear

 

what I DO NOT like

zombie respawning again when you lead the zombies outside to fight with more room, go back in and they have respawned, Not FAIR!

Hate the water and food are connected to stamina, that is wrong, just wrong. especially at the start you won't have a lot of food and the last thing you need is to have your stamina that severely affected.

No loot, that is the biggest complaint I have read from players from videos that I watch, Kage848, GameEdged, Games4Kickz and some others, in MP there is very little loot left and getting it from zombies is their main source. Now no loot from zombies, no bones, or rotten flesh, that is really going to hurt them. Most of the loot in the zombies was crap anyhow, so taking that away is insult to injury.

It won't matter with the more dangerous ones, they never had any loot anyhow, but at least they had bones and rotten flesh.

 

I'm looking forward to the A17, I'm not pitching a fit on how long, I'd rather you take two weeks, three or even another month or two to get it right. And what we are seeing isn't the finished, polished version, so I am trusting that there will be changes that fixes the problems many here have pointed out.