Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[CplCritter]

My major gripes with the update for now:

 

-no FOV setting in the UI (really paternalistic choice)

-interior lighting is not baking low illumination in enclosed indoor areas anymore. Makes enclosed interior spaces too bright. The game uses many manually placed light sources as a workaround to somehow make lighting more varied.

-melee combat ability (at start) is inferior compared to using the bow. Pushes the player to use the bow. Which is mostly a balancing issue.

 

About the melee attack, I would have agreed with you until I forced myself to not use the bow for about 10-15 zombies. The power attack is superior to the bow. A well-placed power attack with melee knocks most zombies down in one shot and if you are quick and good enough, you can get the second power shot in before they can swing as they get up. 2 hit kill for the skilled player... not bad at all at level 3-5 player.

[DaVegaNL]

OMG. I found a BBQ outside the closest POI.

 

The game is done. Release it!

[raelemagy]

I tried playing the new alpha last night and at first sight it was beautiful, with an ok performance aswell, then I climbed a hill and looked at a town nearby and my fps when from 40~55 to 23~29 and never came back up again (Medium settings, Full Texture, No water particles, no reflections no anti-aliasing at 1080p). Later on the road to the trader I managed to get my fps back up by lowering my ressolution (♥♥♥♥ty solution but hey! It worked a bit!) I got 35~70 dependen on what I was looking or doing, than I walked a bit to a shed near the trader and my fps when down to 9! I looked around and a building was jalling apart for no reason, I never went anywhere near it, it just fell apart completely, leaving just one of the side walls (poor homeless sleepers) so...

Bug report:

 

Performance drop from 40~55 to 23~29 after some minutes of gameplay. (radeon gpu)

Buildings collapsing on random gen.

[Guppycur]

Why is everything so slow now? Swinging Stone Axe is horrible now. :f

 

Leveling up increases this quite a bit.

[owl79]

I purposely avoided all streams, and was looking forward to the game feeling all "new" and unspoiled again. But what are those graphics? Everything turns into blurry blobs just a few metres from me, and I already cranked up the LOD setting. This and the washed out look really doesn't feel like a positive change at ALL.

[spud42]

OMG. I found a BBQ outside the closest POI.

 

The game is done. Release it!

 

but you cant use it!!! doh!!! lol

[Guppycur]

Madmole distracted us!

 

... so it's day 14, 2200, me, doom, and aurealus are sitting on top of the Amityville house poi waiting for the horde to come in, and instead of paying attention to the stream of glowing cops and spiders that are pouring in, we're staring at the backdrop, the luminescence, the Moon, and overall beauty of the new spectrum.

 

Nicely done Joel.

[FiendD]

I've been searching through this forum a bit, and I've seen plenty of comments about various dynamics people like or performance issues people are having, but I haven't seen a whole lot about the skill/level progression change. In A16 (and earlier) many skills improved through their use (i.e. digging makes you a better digger), but A17 seems to promote a system where you can acquire skill in things you may never have even done before (i.e. Leveling up to put points in cooking, even though you've never cooked a thing in the game). For me, this has seriously taken away from the sense of accomplishment you build up over time. Would anyone care to comment? I would love to hear from the dev team about why this change was made.

[wolfbain5]

is the target supposed to get blurry when aiming? I can understand the world around the target blurring, but the target itself is blurred

[Mavarok]

What!!! Experimental is out!!!! Sorry Boss, I quit!!!!!!!!!

 

[Laz Man]

What!!! Experimental is out!!!! Sorry Boss, I quit!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Vacation starts tomorrow. Gonna be a FunPimp like thanksgiving this year (talking about 7d2d with my brother over good food).

 

Maybe we will reenact the moment rick and Joel decided to make the game.

[Robbing Zombie]

Sssooo, in Steam am I supposed to install in the Betas section the latest_experimental - Unstable build ? Never updated a game in Steam this way...

 

ed. Derp. And there we have it in the poll section.

[Thecolours]

I wish item quality was still a thing. There's no wow factor after finding your 20th 2 mods shotgun. But, just imagine you randomly came across a lvl 600 5 mods sniper rifle. It would be amazing. And I'm not suggesting we bring back combining items in the workbenches, either.

[Gareee]

I can't connect to the EXP17 servers, anyone else with the same problem? Stuck at "connecting to server........"

Already tried verify game files, everything is fine.

 

for dedicated servers, they have to edit a specific line for the server to connect.

This line:

 

<property name="ServerDisabledNetworkProtocols" value="SteamNetworking"/> <!-- Networking protocols that should not be used. Separated by comma. Possible values: LiteNetLib, SteamNetworking -->

 

Needs to be edited to this:

 

<property name="ServerDisabledNetworkProtocols" value=""/> <!-- Networking protocols that should not be used. Separated by comma. Possible values: LiteNetLib, SteamNetworking -->

 

Notice this--> value="SteamNetworking"/

Was changed to this: value=""/

 

Thank Guppy for the fix info!

 

[Laz Man]

I wish item quality was still a thing. There's no wow factor after finding your 20th 2 mods shotgun. But, just imagine you randomly came across a lvl 600 5 mods sniper rifle. It would be amazing. And I'm not suggesting we bring back combining items in the workbenches, either.

 

Perhaps what is missing is varying wpn statistics (unmodded). For example finding a purple sniper with max dmg roll (450 to 550 dmg per shot)

 

Edit: havent played long enough to know if all purple snipers have the same dmg.

[Jedo]

I think you get improved graphics when you buy the correct perk.

[icharis]

Thank you so much for all the wedge corners.

Has anyone pointed out that crouching used to lower your pov by about 0.6m and now it only lowers you by about 0.25m? It seems to make it much more difficult to melee zombies from atop a wall.

[Laz Man]

I think you get improved graphics when you buy the correct perk.

 

Yes, perception tree. I also read in the release notes wearing glasses also helps and that there is a magazine that Grant's improved graphics for 15 minutes.

[Snoops]

for dedicated servers, they have to edit a specific line for the server to connect.

This line:

 

 

 

Needs to be edited to this:

 

 

 

Notice this--> value="SteamNetworking"/

Was changed to this: value=""/

 

Thank Guppy for the fix info!

 

 

I did this but it still either sits on 0% or connecting to server. I have tried multiple times, reinstalled it on the dedi but always the same result. The game works fine if i host it from my own computer, others can connect with no issues.

[Gazz]

Vacation starts tomorrow. Gonna be a FunPimp like thanksgiving this year (talking about 7d2d with my brother over good food).

 

Maybe we will reenact the moment rick and Joel decided to make the game.

Ah! The Ceremony of Creation!

[Gareee]

I did this but it still either sits on 0% or connecting to server. I have tried multiple times, reinstalled it on the dedi but always the same result. The game works fine if i host it from my own computer, others can connect with no issues.

 

Only thing I can offer is it does take a LOT of time to generate the world first.. I'm sitting at 40 minutes on default rgw size. it might still be generating the world.

[Wardronex]

Gazz In last update There was a coretemp change rate % that I could mess with as too give it a faster or more gradual difference in temp.

I can not seem to find this Now.

 

Seems like temperature is all hard numbers now.

 

Is that correct or is there a number I can change or do I have to Mod this back in myself?

 

NVM I found it weathersurvival Seems it is all set to 0 and missing many things from previous version.

Going to try and copy paste old into here and see what happens provably crash the game.

So I am correct it is all hard numbers now.

This is a bad idea at this stage of game unless it is meant for future use as to have seasons added over entire map.<<(Only reason I can see for it)

As it is now you can go from overheating on 1 single block to Instantaneously freezing on the block right next to it.

As it is now only way to prevent this is to carry around 2 different sets of clothing at all times.

How Is anyone to loot anything with an entire set of clothing taking up space in there inventory???

[corvette81]

After following this update from when 16 hit to now(which is a first for me) I was keen to jump in, today after jumping in I noticed my FPS count was halved(was only getting about 15 before so halved is not good). I lowered the last setting I could(lods) and tried to play but alas the game decided it was not to be, it kept freezing and never unfreezing, I couldn't fight a basic zombie and I never even got the chance to try and loot anything, so to say I am disappointed would be an understatement. I dunno if this build was never optimized or if you guys just did something or what but for me I won't be playing 7days again and its not because I don't want to its literally cause I can't. I hope something changes but after the delays and wait for this update I am worried it never will, if someone can tell me if the stable release won't have these issues I will be back but until then I am signing off so goodbye.

[Guppycur]

Thoughts:

 

Game is beautiful. Nicely done. I don't even miss the maple.

 

Map size is going to be fine. We're doing NAV ffs and have barely scratched the surface, and are on day 15 or so.

 

Perks and what's required is quite confusing; I didn't even know you could hover over some sections to get additional requirement info... so it's hard to tell WHY we can't build things, particularly like a mod recipe. I have everything, I'm at the workbench, and don't know why it says I don't know the recipe when I'm holding the recipe? That needs some tightening up.

 

Horde Nights: Still entirely beatable, but still fun. They path almost TOO well, and get tripped up in the larger pois, presumably because they're attacking all of those ♥♥♥♥ing useless sandbags and then having to re-calculate for the new weakest block. They did make the house unusable for the NEXT horde night though, so that's good.

 

Network jankiness: I suppose it's good that they can't hit you from "so far away" anymore (latency having caused them to appear farther than they actually were) but I'm not certain the new system of them teleporting to their current location is any better.

 

Progression: I don't mind the slow progression, it does make the first 3 days hard, which is good, but I wouldn't mind some stuff making more sense. Boiling an egg requires a perk? Weird. That kind of thing. I'm doing about 2 levels per day... definitely faster than my teammates, but I'm also the melee guy.

 

Teamwork: This version utilizes teamwork the most. We all have our roles and they fit nicely together, except that because as the main melee guy I'm getting the most XP, I'm having to help out with other roles because I have the points to do so. XP gains should be as fast for all of us IMO, even if some aren't necessarily killing it with zombie kills.

 

RWG: Looks like Nav to me. Nicely done.

 

Arrow Sticking: This really is a fun component. =) Everdeen!

 

Single LCB in multiplayer: This will kill open servers on later days when the fun building has commenced... PvP too.

 

Food/Water/Health/Stamina relation: I'm still not 100% sure wtf causes what. You can tell me 10 times that being full of food/water helps health/stam, but when it doesn't actually do it, I've no clue if it's a mechanic or bug.

 

Weapon Mods: I'm not sold on these being the ONLY reason to be happy to get a higher quality weapon... they're gated so much anyway, what's the point? I am glad they decided to allow mods to be removable.

 

Repair: I think I'm still on the same stone axe as day 1? Why make another? Oh no, wait, I had to when I started my quest chain.

 

Quest Chain: Really should front load ALL of those instead of putting them into a chain, so that we aren't wasting precious day 1 time doing so very little preparation for the night...

 

Trader Quests: The Digging one is nigh impossible, but does seem to pay the most, so... I guess? The Area Clearing one is weird, I couldn't always find the zombies to clear, even following the orange dots. I haven't done the Fetch one yet.

 

Snakes: These suck. When you're on higher ground and they're climbing up a slope to get you, they'll simply burrow into the ground and be impossible to hit. Still not a threat though.

 

Vultures: Loving them! You know they're above you, and you're in constant anticipation of whether or not they're going to come at you. They're easy to kill when they do though.

 

Zombie Bears: Still tanks, still janky anims (goes for all 4 legged's), and still no threat if you're above them.

 

Modability: 10/10.

 

[scraps520]

Played through the first 5 days in my game and so far nothing catastrophic has happened. All the updated textures look absolutely amazing. The only thing is the zombie spawning is alittle wacky.