Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Natalie77]

XD

 

We already plan to bring that up in size MM, this does not allow our players to build 2 diff areas of the map tho does it? Be very aware of how long it is in between alphas, and very aware that we have players that stick with us thought the Whole year, one build gets kinda boring over time, community builds are important and need protecting, we keep our players interested and active in the game and allow more builds.

 

Yes, we all play the game how you intended it to be played MM, for the first 2-3 months, then the newness wears off, and our players look for new things to build, after reaching 200 it becomes a building game for Most our players. This is what keeps servers active for the whole year of an alpha. Many differant builds, Protecting them is a must.

 

I dont wish to sound like i am ungratful about the choices and decisions with your game, and am trying to explain this in the nicest calmest way possible , this is my experiance from being admin for years on a large multiplayer server.

 

I agree in all points. I am a german server owner and my english is not so good, but I understand your words and see the problems too.

 

Players came at the beginning and try to survive, then after round about three months a half of them go and wait until the next alpha come. The other player build wonderful buildings. But there are bad players, thet like to destroy and to troll. A claim could help but not only one claim. the players need a lot of them.

 

But that is not the only reason why one claim isn´t enough. We build a mall, a playertown, a lobby, dungeons, labyrinth and and and. these building need the claimprotection to stay intact.

 

We hope we could make anything to protect these buildings and have fun. Whitelisting is no option. We love new players that will play on our server and have fun.

 

I hope it was understandable.

 

What I have see today on the stream from valcry was nice I like the new buildings and the new way to play but I not like the decision to regulate the claims.

[madmole]

XD

 

We already plan to bring that up in size MM, this does not allow our players to build 2 diff areas of the map tho does it? Be very aware of how long it is in between alphas, and very aware that we have players that stick with us thought the Whole year, one build gets kinda boring over time, community builds are important and need protecting, we keep our players interested and active in the game and allow more builds.

 

Yes, we all play the game how you intended it to be played MM, for the first 2-3 months, then the newness wears off, and our players look for new things to build, after reaching 200 it becomes a building game for Most our players. This is what keeps servers active for the whole year of an alpha. Many differant builds, Protecting them is a must.

 

I dont wish to sound like i am ungratful about the choices and decisions with your game, and am trying to explain this in the nicest calmest way possible , this is my experiance from being admin for years on a large multiplayer server.

 

We intend to release much shorter alphas in the future. How much shorter should be a welcome surprise but I'm not saying. That still doesn't address your concern though about PVE building all over. We do have grander ideas for land claims but what we did was what we could with the limited time we had. We'll take your needs into consideration at the next round table discussion though.

[madmole]

Yes. The zombie animations have an order. My plan is to knock them down with arrows, wait for them to fall, make sure I step back so that they're "getting up swing" does not connect, and then do a finishing move with a club.

 

My head math says I can also club, club, power move Club, knock down, step back, step in, power move to finish, 2 normal Zeds, before losing stamina.

 

There is no good reason to not power attack except when you are out of stamina. I do switch from bow to melee sometimes though, like Power attack kill a dude, then use bow a bit, switch back to my fireaxe and continue power attacking. I tend to use bows while my health is low and I have nothing but natural healing going on too.

[madmole]

So it comes down to always stuffing yourself. And you have no idea if your fullness is 101% or 150%.

And it still makes no sense that your stamina gets penalized for not being fed to the point where you literally can't eat any more. It's supposed to be an apocalypse... Wouldn't you expect to go hungry for a while sometimes?

 

When food is 0% is your stamina also 0% so you can't even punch a plant to get something to eat?

 

Another thing I noticed: Finding stations at traders is totally useless now. Without a perk, you won't be crafting anyway.

 

You are watching day 1 noobs play. Stamina is a no issue once you pump your agility. Having 150 + base stamina, combined with REX perks its fairly easily at that point.

[madmole]

So are there going to be followers as some point?

 

We will see how the NPC framework performs. I'd like to allow 1 follower but framerate dictates most moves.

[madmole]

It might have been said before but how much can you over eat and does it has concequenses? Overeating should make you go slower if we are being realistic (although, it would suck )

 

Can every gun have a silencer now?

 

I think you barf if you overeat too much. As I said its not an issue once you start buying agility and your base stamina is 150+ and you have some stam use reduction perks.

[madmole]

"Stay down!" seems like a pretty bad perk. Since zombies won't stay down, knocking them down just makes their heads harder to hit.

 

Have you seen it in action? It does what it says. You smack them and they flatten out again. They are pretty much dead meat at that point.

[Guppycur]

We intend to release much shorter alphas in the future. How much shorter should be a welcome surprise but I'm not saying. That still doesn't address your concern though about PVE building all over. We do have grander ideas for land claims but what we did was what we could with the limited time we had. We'll take your needs into consideration at the next round table discussion though.

 

Thanks MM! You're a gem, like 99% of the time. =)

[madmole]

Well, I thought that Joel's girlfriend was really nice, just like her daughter Pokketninja.

 

And thank you Joel for taking time to answer questions. It was fun.

 

Now about A17e... Wonderful!!! I played with DianddraD and Beelzybud last night and it was a blast. I got wrecked many times, but half of it was my own fault for wanting to get my bag in the middle of the night. The dog horde on the first or second day was brutal!

 

Great job TFP! I couldn't be happier.

 

Loved reading this. It was music to my ears watching Kage play last night and he was saying what I've been saying, its like a whole new game.

[Guppycur]

There is no good reason to not power attack except when you are out of stamina. I do switch from bow to melee sometimes though, like Power attack kill a dude, then use bow a bit, switch back to my fireaxe and continue power attacking. I tend to use bows while my health is low and I have nothing but natural healing going on too.

 

My concern with overusing the power attack is okay, I take out a few zeds, and I /think/ I'm in the clear but I'm dead tired, I turn a corner and there's a dog/feral/teleporting sleeper/something I need to run from...

 

...at no point do I plan to totally exhaust my stamina if I can help it. =)

[Damit]

Really?

Then please explain how they built that dump truck honest question here that didn't look possible.

 

The dump truck is an admin build but pretty sure the only creative block in it is the sand. We dont have any custom blocks. You are welcome to logon and have a quick look around. Type /locations and teleport around the truck is at /quarry. No one on server at the moment, cannot imagine why

[Gnomaana]

There is no good reason to not power attack except when you are out of stamina. I do switch from bow to melee sometimes though, like Power attack kill a dude, then use bow a bit, switch back to my fireaxe and continue power attacking. I tend to use bows while my health is low and I have nothing but natural healing going on too.

 

Isn't that a sure sign of something that needs to be balanced? A power attack should not be the "default" choice for every attack should it? There is a reason a decent boxer throws 10 jabs for every 1 or 2 power punches. Even as I typed that I realized that if you balanced it so that you had to use 10 normals/1 power attack the game would be dull but the main point still stands, sort of.

[Deceiver101]

Hey Thanks MM for answering so many questions.

 

How do landclaim blocks work with friends now? If I put it down, can a friend build within its range if they are my ally/in my party?

 

If this has already been answered, could someone link/quote the post.

[toores]

You are watching day 1 noobs play. Stamina is a no issue once you pump your agility. Having 150 + base stamina, combined with REX perks its fairly easily at that point.

 

Actually, I was just thinking, maybe I'm getting this wrong. Does my damage decrease when my stamina is low? If it doesn't anymore, it might be ok.

[faatal]

Game looks like even more fun for early game now, which is the best part. Zombies are moving well too and the POIs look great. I'm concerned about zombies disappearing in front of you when on low settings though. That's a huge problem and I hope TFP are addressing it.

 

Testing the fix right now. Ironically it is the tree quality setting that is doing it.

[Gnomaana]

Loved reading this. It was music to my ears watching Kage play last night and he was saying what I've been saying, its like a whole new game.

 

I've been watching Kage for couple years and I can honestly say that seemed like the most fun and the most scared I've seen him in 7 Days the whole time I've watched. He did freak out about the lvl gate for Forge but seemed to get past it. I really never have agreed with how fast he thinks progression should be so I think that part of A17 is perfect. It always disappointed me when I got a forge running on day 2 unless I just lucked into a usable one.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Testing the fix right now. Ironically it is the tree quality setting that is doing it.

 

LMAO. Don't you just love code? It's like it has a mind of it's own and likes to screw with devs. The tree code basically went, "hmmmm I would like to cause a bug but if it has anything to do with trees it will be too easy for those damn devs....I KNOW the zombies go poof."

[toores]

Have you seen it in action? It does what it says. You smack them and they flatten out again. They are pretty much dead meat at that point.

 

Ok, I just thought the animation takes the head away from me, without it you can just bash the head every time.

 

Anyway, I'm glad it's finally here. All the games coming out lately suck so bad that I started a new 7 days world just few days ago

[Boldero]

Testing the fix right now. Ironically it is the tree quality setting that is doing it.

 

Saturday and working on a fix already, this guys a keeper! 07

[TylerDB]

So it comes down to always stuffing yourself. And you have no idea if your fullness is 101% or 150%.

And it still makes no sense that your stamina gets penalized for not being fed to the point where you literally can't eat any more. It's supposed to be an apocalypse... Wouldn't you expect to go hungry for a while sometimes?

 

When food is 0% is your stamina also 0% so you can't even punch a plant to get something to eat?

 

Another thing I noticed: Finding stations at traders is totally useless now. Without a perk, you won't be crafting anyway.

 

I agree with the 50% honestly if you are overfull it should come with a debuff as well. Last time i went for all you can eat, i didnt leave feeling like i could run a marathon 😂

[Swiftpaw]

Question about A17 modding:

 

Will we be able to have the Linux equivalent of ".d" folders where all config files in the folder get loaded so that we can create mods that won't step on the toes of other mods because, for example, one or more mods wants to replace the entire entityclasses.xml file like with A16 (my mod does this and conflicts with other mods because of it)? Where if the config files redefine any existing class/entity/whatever it will only override previous occurrences of that specifically defined thing? Maybe you can do that now in A16 and I'm just doing mods wrong, but I've seen lots of mods do this and mine does it as well. I know there's the Mods folder, but I didn't know if it could insert or override settings in something like entityclasses.xml or not.

 

Thanks in advance! :3

[chicky]

We intend to release much shorter alphas in the future.

 

Good. The Project Management discipline was non-existent for this version. You should consider getting a *real* PM that understands the gaming development process, and has the authority to make people toe the line. Many exist. Really, the project creep here for an alpha was horrendous and completely unacceptable in all but hobby projects. Now that I've said what desperately needed to be said, I will shut my mouth and go back to the shadows. (Awaiting the ban hammer and "you're a poopy-head" type comments).

[Alcyon]

Goodbye, we won't miss you.

[madmole]

My concern with overusing the power attack is okay, I take out a few zeds, and I /think/ I'm in the clear but I'm dead tired, I turn a corner and there's a dog/feral/teleporting sleeper/something I need to run from...

 

...at no point do I plan to totally exhaust my stamina if I can help it. =)

 

Dogs dont bite you 3 times per second non stop any more, so they aren't as big of concern as before, but yeah keeping some stamina in reserve is a good idea.

[Red Eagle LXIX]

Question about A17 modding:

 

Will we be able to have the Linux equivalent of ".d" folders where all config files in the folder get loaded so that we can create mods that won't step on the toes of other mods because, for example, one or more mods wants to replace the entire entityclasses.xml file like with A16 (my mod does this and conflicts with other mods because of it)? Where if the config files redefine any existing class/entity/whatever it will only override previous occurrences of that specifically defined thing? Maybe you can do that now in A16 and I'm just doing mods wrong, but I've seen lots of mods do this and mine does it as well. I know there's the Mods folder, but I didn't know if it could insert or override settings in something like entityclasses.xml or not.

 

Thanks in advance! :3

Per the Release Notes you might want to check out: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?93816-XPath-Modding-Explanation-Thread

 

Short Answer - Yes. Yes. No more need for full file replacing.

[madmole]

Isn't that a sure sign of something that needs to be balanced? A power attack should not be the "default" choice for every attack should it? There is a reason a decent boxer throws 10 jabs for every 1 or 2 power punches. Even as I typed that I realized that if you balanced it so that you had to use 10 normals/1 power attack the game would be dull but the main point still stands, sort of.

 

I probably worded that wrong. You can put yourself into a bad sitution by using all your stamina, like you literally cannot throw another attack. In most cases you can hold the button until its ready to go again and time the hit. This is fighting one zombie. If there are more then no, you would not want to use all your stamina. I tend to wait and just throw power attacks though unless I'm low health and low stamina and I'm cornered, in which case I'll throw a primart attack or switch to a gun because its an emergency. Early game I use less power attacks. Once I get going I invest in Agility and sexual trex and then I can nearly power attack all the time with some weapons.

 

There is probably a lot of balancing to do yet too