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Developer Discussions: Alpha 17


Roland

Developer Discussions: Alpha 17  

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  1. 1. Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

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I can make a lot of gas for you, the classic way. Just give me some beer and some cabbage!

 

Thnx, i think i pass ;)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Then dig up shale (desert biome) and process it at the Chem Lab.

 

So we lost it then, and only the mining remained?

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The only way you can safely go out scavenging with the vehicles now is to park, pic the vehicle up, create a storage box, put the vehicle and its contents in the box, scavenge, place the vehicle back when you are done, and reload it.

 

I also now mark the box with a temporary map mark just in case, and haven't lost a vehicle since doing this.

 

Also, don't place a new vehicle down if you have one already out... I lost a bike when I placed a minibike down.. the bike just vanished.

 

I justr got the motorcycle, and I gotta say, it looks amazing! I'd like to see jump for it and the bike be added (or maybe a mod we can add to them?) and we can share bike tracks with the poi sharing.

 

I'd also like to see the motorcycle start stripped, and have several mods available to add to it for the current final look. I know the vehicle can knock zombies down, but maybe the spike mods on the bike can do more zombie damage, and we can get kill xp from adding them? (I'm thinking of doing a horde night on the motorcycle, taking care of the horde with the spied motorcycle....lol!

 

Maybe irradiated or ferals can do vehicle damage so they need to be repaired and not indestructable cheese tools?

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Faatal, I know trying to give players xp from trap kills is hard now because traps are now blocks and not entities...

 

 

... maybe when zombie health asks a death occurs for a non player interaction, repurposing the party xp code players within range of a zombie death can get at least partial xp?

 

Zombies only die for player interaction, rare falls and explosion damage, right?

 

The only death that wouldn't result be caused by a player would be a vehicle explosion right?

 

This would give us low overhead zombie trap kill xp, like we get in fortnite save the world. That makes putting out traps beneficial for sp and mp, rewarding the collection and use of trap resources.

 

Also can the loot bag drop life be extended to more game hours so they are still around after a hoarde night, or quest poi death, enabling its recovery when you get back?

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Also can the loot bag drop life be extended to more game hours so they are still around after a hoarde night, or quest poi death, enabling its recovery when you get back?

The 7 day horde is not intended to be a loot delivery truck.

 

Loot still drops but if you want it you'll have to make a run for it. ;)

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Faatal, I know trying to give players xp from trap kills is hard now because traps are now blocks and not entities...

 

 

... maybe when zombie health asks a death occurs for a non player interaction, repurposing the party xp code players within range of a zombie death can get at least partial xp?

 

Zombies only die for player interaction, rare falls and explosion damage, right?

 

The only death that wouldn't result be caused by a player would be a vehicle explosion right?

 

This would give us low overhead zombie trap kill xp, like we get in fortnite save the world. That makes putting out traps beneficial for sp and mp, rewarding the collection and use of trap resources.

 

Also can the loot bag drop life be extended to more game hours so they are still around after a hoarde night, or quest poi death, enabling its recovery when you get back?

 

My wish in life is for people to stop bringing up passive zombie killing xp. I can't speak for them, but every indication is that this will never be a thing.

 

How would this even work on MP horde nights/ What if the person who placed the traps is offline? Does everyone just get xp? Like some participation trophy?

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I will split this feedback into 5 parts. There will be a lot of text.

 

This is meant as an objective look at A17. Even things that I like are in "the bad" and other way around.

Enjoying something doesn't instantly make it good.

PLEASE!!! Refrain from arguing back and forth in the comments. Tell me once where you think I am wrong and try and keep it at that.

A17 was far over a year in the making and a lot of systems have been worked on or even completely overhauled.

It feels fresh, mostly because we have been used to A16 for so long. That doesn't mean the change is a good one, even if he feels nice and rewarding in the first few hours of play.

 

So to start this all off on a positive note, here are

 

 

The good

+stunning graphics. It looks supremely nice and most things have been reworked to give the game a better feel of dread

+new blocks and pois. Just wow. I feel like its a completely new game. It feels more alive in every way. Pois are now varied and even the same pois look different because of the

+lootcontainers. YES. This is really nice. It gives you a feel of reward instantly. Not sure if "empty" ones from the start will respawn stuff lateron and become "normal" containers (that would be awesome) but while not perfect, it improves the feel of looting a lot

+mods. (gunparts in the bad) I really like the different effect of them. I disagree with them giving the weapon damage, but the mods itself are awesome.

+traders. Finally a trader isn't like your granny who somehow has everything you could possibly need and basically giftwraps every item for you, while buying the most useless ♥♥♥♥ for insane prices

+quests. I will mention this in balancing, but overall a really nice feel to it. The rewards really make me WANT to take the quests and go through the chores of digging for 10 minutes or walking through endless desert

+vehicles. OMG I CANT WAIT TO FINALLY GET IN ONE!!! It looks great, I only heard great things, this is probably the best thing of this alpha.

 

 

 

The meh

+-death penalties/wellness. Well.. I was a big fan of wellness, as it slowly increased over time, while it rewarded you for not dying and actually eating good food. The problem was that when you already were at min wellness, dying made no difference.

I would have liked for the wellness system to stay intact and give the death penalty depending on your maximum wellness (a lot of wellness? only 5 minutes penalty-10 wellness; at the bare minimum of wellness-0wellness 45min of penalty)

but its fine this way.

+-progression/feel of the game. I am generally a play who likes to spend his time on the buildup. So I welcome a bit slower earlygame. However, the way this is done in A17 is not a good one. Instead of giving more to do, increasing crafting costs and ressources with lower quality simply not giving a lot of ressources, you have made the earlygame a crawl. This will be talked about in the bad again, but overall, this needs revision, because slowing the game down a bit is fine, but the way it is done is not.

+-RWG. I hate that it is now always the same (snow north desert south) this takes away a lot of freedom and replayability. I know why it was done, the new temperature system is brutal. But still. The other stuff is fine! When excluding all the bugs, the world feels more like a real world and not just some sin cos lines on top of each other. There are flat parts, there are small hills and bigger ones (mountains are missing, at least in the grasland... amybe thats just me). So if you work out all the bugs, its a more believable world.

+-perks. I like some of them. I like a lot of them. But most of them don't feel like I earned them. It feels like the trader in A16. Like I just farmed a bit and then bought it and there I am, now with a perk. I think more perkvariety or even extra challenges (instead of levelgating) like "walk 20km" to get that sprintboost 5 would feel a LOT more rewarding. It feels like what I'm doing makes a difference. Right now the perks... are just there. They are fine... and can be fun... but aren't much special.

 

The bad

-no gunparts. I hate that you now find guns in the whole and every gun does the same damage and quality was set from 600 to 6, which in turn scrambles progression. (*) It gave such a nice curve of progression and if they had just done what a lot of people suggested (stock improving stability,barrel accuracy, magazine how often reload is stuck, parts durability and all of them improve damage) they would have such a nice system. Now its a simple "gun or no gun!" and the only difference is how many mods I can install, which give dmg (yay. My weapon is now green, so it shoots harder! Yay my weapon now has a scope/laser so it shoots harder yay)

There was NO REASON to completely remove this awesome system, as it made every weapon unique and had a lot of potential.

-level gating. HOW. WHY. Who thought this is a good idea. Name me one game where levelgating helps the game and is not an obvious last resort to fix glaring progression issues (so no A16). No one who has studied gamedesign... hell no one who has played games regularly would think levelgating is a good idea in a SANDBOX SURVIVAL GAME (even for rpg/horror games)

Just don't. I gave you my examples on how to fix this without arbitrary levelrequirements... do with those what you want. But if you don't remove them, I will, for the first time in 7d2d, mod my xmls.

-performance. DAMN this is bad. I understand that it is EA experimental. But I cannot see how this could improve AT LEAST on the level that A16 was running (we were promised improvements on performance). Yes I have no doubt you will get this to work, but it still had to be said.

-progression. its all over the place. Leveling takes longer, better perks are gated behind level, but in the same breath I found an AK-47 and a shotgun with around 70 ammo on day 8. And since weapons are all the same, I'm already better off then I was in A16 on day 50.

-zombies. I like that they now are a threat. BUT. Their A.I. is way too straightforward, they rather sit there for 5 minutes to hit blocks on end, instead of taking the "free" route through the spikes that they don't even see. They must be psycic.

The conga line of wandering hordes are still gps trackers and are now slow as hell on daytime.

The spawning of zombies in pois (not talking about amount, thats for balancing) is cheaty. They are only there to surprise the player, which doesn't feel like this world is actually real, but that the devs just wanted to scare players. There could have been other ways to do that. Also playerdetection is super weird (*jumps* *atomic bomb explodes*).

-hitboxes. Has been talked about in this forums, but still: You should not only hit a zombie when he is in the little cross at the end of your swing. My sledgehammer should hit everything in front of me (at least depending in the swing). This way makes faster weapons a lot more forgiving, which feels bad, because I like the harder hitting ones. This could have been in bugs, because its so broken. Fix this.

-removal of stainless steel. Zombies got more dangerous. We need more endgame content. WHY WOULD YOU REMOVE and endgame item now? Especially since it was so super rare that you only had that day 100+ and even then without defenses this would crumble.

 

(*) if I have to find 4 parts and the chance is 1/50, the overall chance to find them is 1/200. But until then, i gradually progress, finding more and more parts, until I finally have the gun.

If I have to find 1 part and the chance is 1/200, for a long time I don't have anything to show for it, no plan to go to the trader to look for that last part... and suddenly BOOM. Completely functional, endgame AK-47.

The bugs

-when trying to place a block on top of 2 blocks (standing on the ground) the camera teleports 1/4th of a block downwards when you try to adjust your mouse (hard to explain, just try it)

-a lot of rwg bugs

-sometimes textures right in front of you load with ldr(long distance render) textures

-dying and ragequitting while dying leads to your death counting twice (ingame as well as on steam)

-enemy hitboxes are weird. If you go as fast backwards as you can vultures become big hummingbirds and just float after you, trying to attack you, but keep their exact distance. Zombies also have a hitrange that seems too small. Solution: add just the tiniest of range to all attacks (not wolves dogs bears and hogs) and see if that fixes it, rince repeat

-quest item cannot be moved. Should not be droppable, but movable to different spots

 

 

The balance issues

I have not played enough of A17 to give more balancing issues, as I've only reached lvl 25, day 10. Thats why most of this is bound to the early game. (Also nothing with levelgates is mentioned because I hope they will remove that soon)

 

-block hp/zombie blockdmg

-spawnrate of ferals in pois/quests (should not appear before a certain gamestage, maybe not even before day 7)

-spawnrate of zombies in pois/quests

-too many guns

-nests are everywhere (900 feathers and 90+ eggs on day 9) burnt biome should not have any (or at least very very few) nests, because they all burnt and because you can see them so insanely well

-a "lucky gun find" early is worse then a crossbow. only perks make weapons viable.

-running takes too much stamina. I get why mining should take a lot, but stopping every 150 meters (non desert) to get a breather (even with lvl 1 perk) is just not enjoyable

-loot from zombies should be more frequent, and more specific to the killed zombie (hazmat guy dropped an ak... instead of hazmat clothes, nurse dropped water instead of healing...)

-loot in cars is absolutely insane. Got 20+ 7.65 bulltes on my very first car and more

 

 

I was actually able to reduce most of this to a sensible size, even if it took a bit of rewriting.

I hope this is easier to read and get useful data from than a wall of text

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Not today. Probably Monday.

 

Zombie XP reduction, ranged weapon balancing, player jump/step noise reducing, stealth working vs vultures and other changes went in today. I plan on playtesting those changes over the weekend.

 

Anyway you can provide a full list off all the changes going into the next update?

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You miss a planed feature for the release... in A16^^

 

I will never forget ....

FIRE!!!!!

 

But, plans are just that... plans... it is not a chiseled in stone thing... :) when devs discuss things and want things in game... it may not always happen.

 

but look on brite side... i havent seen anything stating its been scrapped or on the floor (like behemoths and zip line)... so there is always hope.. so cross your webbed toes and feathers :) and hope for the best.

 

also... fire is hazardous to ducks... especially the sittingDucks :)

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Hi Fun Pimps

My name is Gamours, Twitch streameur, kickstarter backer of your game and I have +3500 hours on pvp servers.

First, i'm sorry for my english.

 

Today I write this message because i'm really afraid of this A17.

 

Can you explain me Fun Pimps :

- Removal of Log spike, How you protect a tower roof now ? New spikes is cool but only 135Hp*3, useless ?

Old spike = 12.000Hp

- Item fort bite, When a player jump on a tower roof or a pit, he take 0 damage on spikes and He can kill turret with the utilisation of a medkit ( + millitary equipement ) why you add this item so powerfull ?

- Only one landclaimblock, I want to say " why not " but...why again ? If I need a big base, I need a claim size +/-45 and a deadzone +30, If a player enter in a zone with a landclaimblock in hands, He can spotted all bunker in a very area because the LCB become red, i'm sorry but it's not a good idea.

My suggestion, More LCB but another craft system : the tungsten like first alpha was perfect : )

- Craft, lvl100 you can craft weapon Q6 and equipment Q6. The equipment is no longer rare and no longer have any interest in being picked up from a dead players, it's very very very long too pick all moduls on a dead players....

Please, delete the perks "craft of weapon" and "craft equipment" but add the recipse for skirt / Tshirt / short / jean etc....

- Parkour perk, Hum.....Who had this idea? in an old version we can go under 1 block, it was so powerfull but removal ( nice decision ) but now you come back with a jump of 3m !!! WHYYYYYYY ? I don't want to kill players who jump like bugs bunny, it's ridiculous, sorry

- The new system of wellness, for me, it's a good idea but I don't understand why the stamina = foods ?

Why don't make Stamina = water ( Irl, when I run, my body need water ) and Heal = foods, when your foods become at 0% you loose MAX heath. For me, it's logic no ?

- Rocket launcher is so many powerfull on a player, need to be fix or become a very very very rarely item

It's the bigs flaws of this update for me.

 

Thank Fun Pimps for your works

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The motorcycle and bike were not on a hill... Right in the front parking lot the Working Stiff store I'm camping out on.

 

When my motorcycle disappeared, I was out on foot crushing boulders for iron and ventured quite far. I'm wondering if it despawned because of the distance I traveled without it...? My bicycle disappeared long before... right after I got my motorcycle and started using that primarily. I was away from my base, came back and the bicycle was gone. That would also support the distance making vehicles despawn. I could be wrong, but just a thought. Is this a known thing?

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A few people had mentioned many pages back that the bicycle will roll away on you if you park it on any kind of slope at all, and you'll have to chase it down, Not sure if that's still the case in b208.

 

I found that if you stop the vehicle completely before getting off that it doesn't roll. If you get off and it is still moving then it will continue moving for a little bit and terrain can cause it to move downhill.

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i must agree, lootbags from dead z is not much worth. maybe put in there some more ammo, repairkits, real food (not canned), few pieces of steel would be nice find in early game, since steel is gated by higher levels.

 

about level gating. there is no good way to spezialise. you may get points, but your desired attribute and perks are way too far away , protected by lvl gate. remove lvl gate from attributes and lower perk gate by half (at least). those are my 2 coins

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I kill Zombies all day long with cool traps without any XP ^^ just for the fun of watching a bloody mess... btw I miss the flamethrower turret...

 

Some seem to say it was never there. I do remember it was around at least in creative in b197 and maybe b199. Best I can tell this is the xml code for it.

 

<block name="flamethrowerTrap">

<property name="Extends" value="dartTrap"/>

<property name="CreativeMode" value="None"/>

<property name="Class" value="Launcher"/>

<property name="DisplayType" value="blockElectricalHardenedMulti" />

<property name="Material" value="Mmetal_hard"/>

<property name="Shape" value="ModelEntity"/>

<property name="Mesh" value="models"/>

<property name="Path" value="solid"/>

<property name="Model" value="Entities/Electrical/flameThrowerTrapPrefab"/>

<property name="MultiBlockDim" value="1,2,2"/>

<property name="OnlySimpleRotations" value="true"/>

<property name="PlaySound" value="darttrap_fire"/>

<!-- <property name="StartSound" value="darttrap_start"/> -->

<property name="EndSound" value="darttrap_end"/>

<property name="BurstFireRate" value="0.3"/>

<property name="ShowTargeting" value="false"/>

<property name="Collide" value="sight,movement,melee,bullet,arrow,rocket"/>

<property name="AmmoItem" value="ammoGasCan"/>

<property name="RequiredPower" value="10"/>

<property name="Stacknumber" value="10"/>

<property name="TakeDelay" value="10"/>

<property name="EconomicValue" value="220"/>

<property name="FilterTags" value="fdecor,felectrical,ftraps"/>

<property name="SortOrder1" value="70a0"/>

</block>

 

At some point it was clearly changed to not show up(<property name="CreativeMode" value="None"/>), and there is not a recipe for it in recipe.xml that i can find, so it cant be crafted. I never used it to see if it worked, but I did place one in the world. Took up a bit too much room for me to feel it was very practical with my base design though.

 

Just confirming you aren't crazy Mr. Duck

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You can regulate the appearance of the POI of buildings in ruins that have almost nothing to plunder, I mean buildings that have nothing that are all destroyed, occupy almost 70% of the cities and have nothing important, is very annoying, several maps with the same problem, and I do not see so many new POIs, I see these buildings destroyed on all sides and it becomes too repetitive

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