Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Reddevil]

https://i539.photobucket.com/albums/ff356/stanshome/Untitled.png

 

please tell me this isnt going to remain. They pop in when you get near camps and it kinda looks ridiculous. They would be better randomly walking places. Not to mention they don't attack if you leave them alone so you can walk past them and loot right next to them. They cant move through door ways so range attacks can easily kill them to then get lots of meat and hide. I found a camp with 6 and did this and no longer need food.

 

 

 

Other then that I have been enjoying all of A17 so GREAT work.

[beerfly]

I can imagine how people react when they see them for first time. Best first date ever.

[FileMachete]

{Nomad, 90-min, 18hr, BM 8 z's}

Just had 1st Horde Night in b199. Tried a setup with one platform on land and another in the water that I could jump to. 1st platform was 2x3, 4-high Cobblestone center poles, with wood frames on top (to shoot thru) & wood spikes 5 layers deep on all sides. 2nd platform in water was a 3x3 and stuck out of water a couple blocks; lower so able to jump from P1 to it.

 

 

Horde started, didn't take very long for them to break a path thru spikes and start on supports. Was doing so-so on defending the first pole they got to, which unfortunately was on the side where my run&jump diving board was hanging out 4 blocks, so likely to get collapsed if those two end poles went. But once they blew out a few more spikes and could get to the other pole it was looking bad. Just then, while thinking, "Bout time to go!" the buzzards came in. Got hit, Bleeding, trying to shoot w Sniper, the new "can't reload while zoomed in" had already caught me off guard (first time I've had a Sniper in A17) so that took time. By the time I killed one my Health was really low. I only had one Bacon&Eggs on me, so ate it, but didn't have anything else w instant +Health on me. And just as I was considering that and turned back to defending, a second buzzard swooped in and one-shotted me.

 

 

Spawned on a third platform I built a 5-6 hundred meters away. Z's were on me really quickly, & since this one was less defended they tore it up fast! Dropped me into them and I became a late night snack again. The collapse of the platform took out the bedroll as I intended. But the fall back spawn I'd set didn't work, guess only a single bedroll is used (no option given in death screen)? So wound up spawning way off in the burnt forest. Thankfully no z's around so huddled in the corner of one of those 'only a corner left standing' buildings until daylight.

 

 

Biggest screwups on my part were;

1) totally forgetting I had Molotovs on me

2) not building overhead protection, though in all fairness gathering -all- the mats & building everything I did was one hell of a grind

3) not hording the (very) few painkillers I'd looted.

 

Biggest things I'd suggest get looked at;

 

1) Wooden Spike durability.

That first platform alone used ~3200 wood for all those spikes. That's one hell of a grind in your first week.

-I had considered trying to 'block off' the corners by building 3x3x3 Flag or Cobb detours, but that's kind of a wash mats wise. I'm considering a tunnel type build for next go.

 

2) Really need a bag-craftable, weak substitute for Iron Bars (maybe upgradeable to Bars?)

Now that Scrap Frames must be made in the Forge your choices for something to walk on & shoot thru are extremely limited; Arrow Slits, but almost no space to shoot thru, Flagstone 1/4 SCTR blocks or Pillar 50s aren't a whole lot better (BTW where'd the Flag 1/4s go that fit in corners? All those nice new Ts/Corners don't have a mate). I wound up using Wood Frames.

 

3) The steep lvl gate on First Aid Bandages. Can't make them until Lvl-30 (Intellect 5), jebus!

Or -something- craftable from ~Lvl-5 or so that gives instant Health.

Don't forget that during the Drink/Eat/Use animations you can't do anything else & your movement speed is significantly reduced. Also Health from food is fairly quick, but not instant. And you can only take one painpill every 45 seconds or so?

 

Anyway. I've seen the many comments on staying up on a POI for first few BMs. Doesn't fit well with how I'd like to play; I've really enjoyed the 'build it yourself Tower Defense' portion of 7dtd & fervently hope that it will still be a viable path, even from the start, going forward.

[Guppycur]

Is here on forum any tutorial how to easy make a own server,perhapse for free or cheap server to buy?

Tnx

 

[CplCritter]

Noted: Cold weather makes you vulnerable to vultures. Also noted: You cannot outrun a vulture on a bicycle.

 

Confirmed - bicycle riding vultures. I almost corrected the above sentence, but what fun would that be.

[Lonestarcanuck]

is it just me or when I place a ladder or a hatch and its the last item in that toolbelt (1x hatch or 1x ladder section) I end up punching the placed ladder or hatch and doing damage to it.

 

I am on Windows/Multiplayer server - asking for a friend

[FileMachete]

is it just me or when I place a ladder or a hatch and its the last item in that toolbelt (1x hatch or 1x ladder section) I end up punching the placed ladder or hatch and doing damage to it.

 

I am on Windows/Multiplayer server - asking for a friend

 

Know issue, even has MadMole grinding his teeth

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Noted: Cold weather makes you vulnerable to vultures. Also noted: You cannot outrun a vulture on a bicycle.

 

Confirmed - bicycle riding vultures. I almost corrected the above sentence, but what fun would that be.

 

HaHa! Took me a 2nd read to get the joke, nice

[CplCritter]

is it just me or when I place a ladder or a hatch and its the last item in that toolbelt (1x hatch or 1x ladder section) I end up punching the placed ladder or hatch and doing damage to it.

 

I am on Windows/Multiplayer server - asking for a friend

 

I always do that when I build something irl. I call it a victory punch. Once completed, I'll give it a good punch to make sure it's solid and won't fall apart and to celebrate my accomplishment. Very realistic, I say keep it in! So far I've victory punched my workbench, forge, some wood frames, and wood spikes... I do not recommend victory punching the last one.

 

Oh, I also victory punched the picnic table I put together for Thanksgiving so we could enjoy the Arizona weather with our meal.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Know issue, even has MadMole grinding his teeth

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

HaHa! Took me a 2nd read to get the joke, nice

 

Lol, thanks. I couldn't resist once I saw what I did there.

[FileMachete]

CplCritter, very welcome. Now I'm waitin on the rest of the T-Day Victory punch story; how Ma may or may not have been victory punching the mashed potatos. Or maybe the old story of how you victory punched your first born and got thrown out of the hospital... :)

[meandog1000]

It would feel right on a much bigger map or a multi map game. Map to the north is all snow with better loot and tougher enemies. Map to the south, desert and same deal.

 

 

I had made that suggestion, but it was for multiple maps.

 

I like the idea of your multi-map game suggestion with the areas far north and south having better loot and zombies. Adds a end game to work to. I'd like to add onto it just a little and say if you go south past the desert you have an edited harder version of the burnt forest with EVEN tougher enemies and even better loot. Then when you go north past the snow, you have once again an edited version of the wasteland, make this where you have to go if you want huge cities, it will have not just have the hardest zombies and the best loot, but also the most zombies out of all the areas in the game, surviving there will be a challenge.

[wolffblood]

So, building, by far one of my favorite aspects to this game. The new/changed way most wooden frames are gated behind not only the workbench, but also the tablesaw, is something I am still adapting to. Not such a huge deal since I can, and occasionally did before, make most of what I used to in scrap anyway. It just feels weird having such a plethora of early game basic blocks now be locked behind multiple level 20+ perks. I would rough out almost every build in wood or scrap frames, then try to wait for concrete and just swap each one with wet block, loved the method. I'd use rebar but the choice of shapes is so low by comparison that I tend to ignore the category altogether as a result. Just some feedback.

 

Anyway, I will adapt and look forward to doing so, heck now I may just do scrap>flagstone and up from there, see how that method goes, but here's the thing I am STUCK on... I unlocked level one of Advanced Engineering, made my workbench, but it STILL says I need to unlock the recipe for the tablesaw, even thought that same unlock states that the tablesaw is part of it. I needs ma shape option fix, am I missing something or is this a bug?

 

Known bug. Table Saw is not linked to Advanced Engineering by accident.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

is it just me or when I place a ladder or a hatch and its the last item in that toolbelt (1x hatch or 1x ladder section) I end up punching the placed ladder or hatch and doing damage to it.

 

I am on Windows/Multiplayer server - asking for a friend

 

I do it with doors, frames, ramps, anything that's building material. When I place them with right click, many many times I'll end up power attacking with my fist or item i switched too before the place animation finishes. I'm pretty sure it's a known bug now.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Per the xml, Flurry of Blows is only supposed to affect light melee weapons. The current items designated as "light" are the stone axe, torch, club, reinforced club, knife, and machete. Will the descriptions for weapons and tools be updated so that players know what this perk applies to? And will we be getting mods (or another perk) to increase the swing speed of mining tools which are all tagged as medium?

 

I would hope they just get rid of the "light" part for now and keep it only "melee". I do feel though once they start adding many more perks, there'll need to be a way to get more

[meandog1000]

is it just me or when I place a ladder or a hatch and its the last item in that toolbelt (1x hatch or 1x ladder section) I end up punching the placed ladder or hatch and doing damage to it.

 

I am on Windows/Multiplayer server - asking for a friend

 

Happens to me too.

[CplCritter]

CplCritter, very welcome. Now I'm waitin on the rest of the T-Day Victory punch story; how Ma may or may not have been victory punching the mashed potatos. Or maybe the old story of how you victory punched your first born and got thrown out of the hospital... :)

 

Ha - Mystery solved, that's why there was a fake nail in my mashed potaters! I did victory punch the turkey... not because I made it... because I saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought it was a vulture. Not my proudest moment. I also carved the turkey and got no feathers - where do I send the bug report? I think I need to talk to someone about PTSD.

 

BTW I plead the 5th on the hospital thing.

[wolffblood]

it seems the wandering hordes have learned a new trick.

 

in a16 they would spawn in and walk a straight line to your last known location. if they didnt see you, would continue that path till despawn.

 

last night I saw one coming and ran before they saw me. hid behind a tree that was almost out of render so I could watch them, wait till they leave and go back to collecting rock. Nope. They stoped about 10m past where i was then began to spread out like they were looking for me.

 

not sure if bugged or working as intended but it's a game changer.

 

no more wait them out.

now its engage or gtfo

 

Yeah. Happens a lot to me too. I think it may be if they heard you, they go into the InvestigateSound mode, then once they don't find you, they revert back to a normal Wandering mode that you would normally find and don't go back into a wandering horde mode which they started out in. I've had them keep walking twice, but both times was me sitting in my base looking through perks, so I was making zero sound. Every other time, I had been crafting, gathering resources, base building, something that makes noise and they end up checking it out then wander around.

[Gareee]

Something else we noticed last night, with two players looking at gamestage, the numbers were completely different on their systems.

 

I'm wondering if game stage calculation has a bug, or if the menu display had a bug reporting incorrect numbers? As I mentioned previously in another reply, if the party shared range is increased, the HUD display doesn't reflect that change, showing you are out of range, but still getting the bonus xp.

 

After sleeping on our experience yesterday, these are the combined things as far as game difficulty and zombie interaction that would help:

 

Lower zombie block damage to 75% or 50%..maybe tie that to difficulty level? On nomad, I'm thinking 50% might be more reasonable to make building and defending a base viable.

 

Gamestage calculation is way too high...I had 12 deaths by day 20, was only using reinforced club and iron arrows, but my gamestage is 65.

 

We are seeing a ton of irradiated and ferals, and a visit from screamers every 10 minutes in game. I think gamestage calculation should be cut in half so or destruction capability matches zombie difficulty.

 

The combination of these two changes would put the current difficulty we are seeing at day 20 to day 40, and by then I would think we would have better weapon capability, turrets, and armor of some kind.

 

As it is currently, creating a defendable base isn't even in the cards on day 20, and after watching how fast they blow through cobblestone, if we don't have massive amounts of cement by day 30, we'll have to just let zombies trash pois an not really defend at all.

 

Its killing us not being able to fight a 7 day horde in at least some manner, but we don't mind not being able to really have a dependable base early game. Day 30-40 seem reasonable, stretching game progress more towards later game. Kind of like walking dead, you scrabble to survive early game, and later game try to fight back and create something sustainable.

 

The zombie strength is fighting feels great, but melee is too risky too often at day 20 because its too easy to be killed...guns just attract way too many zombies (good).

 

As previously mentioned, we are also getting too many screamers, ferals, wights, and spitters to keep you with.

 

Quests are a great way to increase our character's equipment, but most take a full day to complete, so you can really only do 2 a week if you want to be able to upkeep your supplies and progress what you can eat and craft.

 

It's great we have more to do, but zombie difficulty is ramping up too fast to keep pace with.

 

We'll try max alive at 30 today (half vanilla) and horde number per player at 4 (30% reduction) today to see if it helps performance enough to make horde nights and screamer hordes playable.

 

If these don't help, I fear a17 will be unplayable for horde night base building.

 

(Maybe a stronger block for base building can be also be added in combination with lower zombie block damage to make base building a viable option? Or maybe just increase concrete block durability? Day 14 hordes shouldn't be able to tear down a large concrete building like the pop n pills, fire station, or the crack a book. Save that for day 50 )

 

Please do NOT nerf zombie player attacks or ai..that feels great. We want it tough, but fair.

 

Also perks need to list requirements to avoid progress confusion learning the new system. Popup tooltips over the perks listing requirements would be clean and user friendly. (Maybe also make them list in red if not available, and white if available as a visual que?)

 

It's very frustrating to think you've unlocked a new perk you want, only to find out its gated by something else.

 

Last observation, tools should have a full list of its benefits, even if it's a popup tooltip in the menu, it scrollable list.

 

Other games also have an encyclopedia listing ingredients and hints where to obtain them.... maybe this could be added, and it could unlock more items as they were either discovered, or as intelligence levels were unlocked?

 

(I REALLY like this last idea, and it could aid testers as well as an up to date in game resource on game changes.)

 

Right now we have no real good idea where to locate acid for making bicycle tires, for instance.

[sinda]

I've never seen this on SP or local net MP games.

 

I said this 2 days ago:

 

"That could literally be lag. You send a pos update to server, delay, server spawns based on your position and tells client, delay, the client has continued to move and is in a new position, client spawns, you see.

 

This is all a fine balance between, latency, settings and performance impact, which we will need to continue to tweak. In a perfect world, the whole POI would spawn, before you got near it, but big POIs with all those spawned zombies would hurt FPS. I am making a few tweaks of values now, that might help."

 

It would be an interesting test, to spawn dark smoke where a zombie will be when you get near a POI, then replace with a zombie when it spawns and then see how many people see the dark smoke, meaning the spawn was delayed.

 

part of the problem is and has been in the sleeper volume sizes. this was true for a16 also.

 

larger volumes would help make up for that "lag".

i personally rarely see this issue on SP, but see it more on MP. larger volumes do help to negate this.

 

https://puu.sh/C70A9/8c87e8593f.jpg

[Mechanimal]

Known bug. Table Saw is not linked to Advanced Engineering by accident.

 

Ah, good to know, thanks wolffblood. But does that mean the Table Saw isn't otherwise unlockable, like, at all? If so what/how, be a shame to not have access to all that it is needed to make. But if that's what is then that's what is, just be nice to stop worrying about it and do other things until fixified.

[ivailogeimara]

What do you guys think about this? It kinda belongs here but I've posted it in it's own thread because it's little long. And I don't think that many people read the General Discussions section of the forum. It'll be also nice to hear the devs opinion on it.

[wolffblood]

Ah, good to know, thanks wolffblood. But does that mean the Table Saw isn't otherwise unlockable, like, at all? If so what/how, be a shame to not have access to all that it is needed to make. But if that's what is then that's what is, just be nice to stop worrying about it and do other things until fixified.

 

You could fix it in the progression xml file I believe. Just have to make it actually be unlocked. That is quickest way. It's the same with the chem station, need the table saw to craft something to craft the chem station, lol. I forgot what it was though. But I bet the next build will fix that issue.

[madmole]

Err.....wasn't 70 the bottom end of the wellness loss not 30 in A16? Or are you talking about a wellness system you tried and abandoned for A17?

 

Some alpha before 16.

[Gareee]

My character's name is Moses.

 

 

RWG roads need some tlc... we are seeing some really steep unnavigable drops and climbs along road paths.

[XCOUNTRY]

What do you guys think about this? It kinda belongs here but I've posted it in it's own thread because it's little long. And I don't think that many people read the General Discussions section of the forum. It'll be also nice to hear the devs opinion on it.

 

Maybe the new framework they built won't allow this from from being implemented simply? I think the easy solution would be to just give more xp for other types of activity so people can gain as much experience as the zombie slayers.

[madmole]

So the new AI path finding code is from here https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/ai/a-pathfinding-project-pro-87744 and only costs about 50 USD.

 

So the strategy is buy as much from the Unity store and throw it onto Steam these days?

 

My experience with Unity store assets is they are ok to quickly prototype something, but usually are not optimized and aren't just a drag and drop in experience. Especially with our game, its more like the 7 days engine and unity is a small subset of code. Usually they aren't worth the effort to try and get them in. By the time you do that you could have coded your own that does exactly what you wanted it to without bloatware. (UMA, UFPS) Then there are the performance considerations.

[FileMachete]

Ha - Mystery solved, that's why there was a fake nail in my mashed potaters! I did victory punch the turkey... not because I made it... because I saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought it was a vulture. Not my proudest moment. I also carved the turkey and got no feathers - where do I send the bug report? I think I need to talk to someone about PTSD.

 

BTW I plead the 5th on the hospital thing.

 

Ha! " I also carved the turkey and got no feathers - where do I send the bug report?" classic!

Good job, & yeah, I'd plead the 5th too

[Mechanimal]

You could fix it in the progression xml file I believe. Just have to make it actually be unlocked. That is quickest way. It's the same with the chem station, need the table saw to craft something to craft the chem station, lol. I forgot what it was though. But I bet the next build will fix that issue.

 

Ah, good idea, I can probably dig around in the XMLs and find it, I was just showing my son how to find those, he's getting into such things, and of course he already knew. I've worked in advanced robotics for 20 years and never touched a line of code, I'm all design and anatomy, engineering/prototyping, physical stuff. I know a few colleagues who would be shocked to hear I touched some code. I'd just tell them "But I need my tablesaw to help me survive the zombie apocalypse!", make the duh face, and walk away.

 

Thanks again wolffblood.