Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[JaxTeller718]

I'm very omnivorous. I've even eaten The Sandwiches when I had perfectly good food maybe a km away. I get by.

 

 

 

The funny thing is that I'm not even against learning by doing mechanics in principle - I just haven't come across one that doesn't revolve around sitting on your butt and crafting 3000 stone shovels or running a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts.

I know that some had suggested to have different grindable skills for stone and metal tools... but tripling the grind is not an effective way to reduce the grind.

 

All the MMOs and their crafting skills struggle with the same issue. It's boring as hell.

Base the crafting on some sort of rare loot or mined resource and it turns into a mining/farming game with the crafting being rather perfunctory.

The classic MMO solution is to throw mass amounts of content and recipes at the problem and mask the issue, an approach that would not work for TFP.

 

So you yanked out the entire system because some morons made a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts. Sounds legit. The very worst thing you can do is to engage and battle exploiters to this degree. Cover up the basic exploits yes. But now you are significantly changing the foundation of your game to go to war with at BEST a handful of people who will bang on a wood block all night to level their stone axe. What about the majority of players who WOULDN'T employ this tactic but rather enjoyed the system as it was? And were looking forward to improvements to it?

 

Biggest mistake I learned on my mod was removing fun things, sensible things that people liked to wreck an exploiters day. I lost a lot of players doing this on my server. It became a war. You exploit this, ok ill take it out now what. Well, you found a new way? Ok ill just remove XP from digging now what. You know who pays in the end when you do this? Your customers. You're never going to stop the player who will sit in bis base and craft 500 shovels because they have an insane amount of patience. You may as well lock the xmls too since an explorer can add 500 skill points to his starter quest. At what point do you draw a line in fighting something like that?

 

Mind you not everyone shares your opinion on MMO crafting, but theres a way to have BOTH if you have an open mind about it and not jump straight to a solution of "just remove it".

[khzmusik]

I notice this toolbar stuck in my game yesterday, happen to slot #5 only. all other works, not sure if it is related to slot. but just adding info.

 

I've encountered this issue (many times) and they have happened in different slots. Only one slot at a time, but they can be a different slot each time it happens. So, for example, it's not limited to just the fifth slot.

 

At least it's a known issue, reported by many people, so I'm pretty sure TFP are going to fix it in the next patch.

[wolffblood]

That is exactly my point.

 

I know there is balancing planned for this but as it stands although I'm playing a builder character I'm getting far more XP from wandering hordes and clearing the odd POI, I'm not even going out of my way to kill zombies. I'm a fighter who has a hobby as a construction worker instead of a construction worker who sometimes has to kill.

 

Makes sense. But that's the issue with xp balance for what people want to do :/

 

Especially since many people will think "Why does the builder level just as fast, if not faster than me, but doesn't do anything that could kill them or have negative repercussions?" I add the faster since if a person dies, they then have the debuff, then have to run all the way back for their stuff, etc. and a builder wouldn't have to do that since they will not likely die and if they do, they're usually right next to their base anyways. Then the builder is now stronger than the fighter, etc. etc.

 

A fighter does have a lot more risk involved, so a builder wouldn't inherently be a higher level than the fighter since majority of games base levels, progression, etc. based on risk involved. But to then balance it out, a player level in general is an issue alone for specializing. Some of the best games I've played with specializing were ones that had no player level and everything was based upon use (but it was a SP game, so not this issue of a builder lvling faster than a fighter since you were the only one actually getting anywhere. For the life of me I cannot remember the game). The big issue right now is just that a fighter can lvl like 10x faster more or less. Drop that to like 3x or so, then it would make more sense.

 

There's just so many factors to figure out and balancing to be done. A bit more insane than I want to care for currently, lol. I'll let TFP and the modders figure it out. Just means more different ways to play this game and more fun I'll have trying them all. Like now, I did make a joke map like I was talking of yesterday. Slower lvling, max perks, going to raise water/food back to normal, and no level gates. Pretty fun to just make bases and explore. Shoot, I may raise max stam and max hp up to 300 just for fun. Or just make it to like 500 stam, 500 food, no perk points. So have to find everything. Who knows. So many ways to play this game, hehehe.

[dregonazure]

So you yanked out the entire system because some morons made a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts. Sounds legit. The very worst thing you can do is to engage and battle exploiters to this degree. Cover up the basic exploits yes. But now you are significantly changing the foundation of your game to go to war with at BEST a handful of people who will bang on a wood block all night to level their stone axe. What about the majority of players who WOULDN'T employ this tactic but rather enjoyed the system as it was? And were looking forward to improvements to it?

 

Biggest mistake I learned on my mod was removing fun things, sensible things that people liked to wreck an exploiters day. I lost a lot of players doing this on my server. It became a war. You exploit this, ok ill take it out now what. Well, you found a new way? Ok ill just remove XP from digging now what. You know who pays in the end when you do this? Your customers. You're never going to stop the player who will sit in bis base and craft 500 shovels because they have an insane amount of patience. You may as well lock the xmls too since an explorer can add 500 skill points to his starter quest. At what point do you draw a line in fighting something like that?

 

Mind you not everyone shares your opinion on MMO crafting, but theres a way to have BOTH if you have an open mind about it and not jump straight to a solution of "just remove it".

 

sitting in your base just crafting 500 shovels isnt exactly fun gameplay though, and that exp should only help you make a better shovel rather than other tools. if crafting was more like say finalfantasy 14 or say dragon quest 11 where you actually have to pay attention and basically do a crafting mini game to make the item, maybe then they could have it give exp again but just clicking a button to craft 500 shovels and then tossing them out as they are being made is not exactly fun gameplay

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

 

A miner and builder have difficulties that aren't really obvious to an adrenaline pumped fighter. A huge problem is self-hypnosis. The first sign I usually get of a wandering horde is my screen getting covered in blood :-)

 

https://drmichaelharris.com/repetition/

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

sitting in your base just crafting 500 shovels isnt exactly fun gameplay though, and that exp should only help you make a better shovel rather than other tools. if crafting was more like say finalfantasy 14 or say dragon quest 11 where you actually have to pay attention and basically do a crafting mini game to make the item, maybe then they could have it give exp again but just clicking a button to craft 500 shovels and then tossing them out as they are being made is not exactly fun gameplay

 

The fix for this is so easy.

 

Diminishing returns on crafting the same item more than once. Maybe 10 or so level 1 stone axes and you're receiving no XP from them. Add an XP bonus to crafting more complicated things and the crafter then has a mini-game of trying to source as many different types of materials and a reason to craft some things they wouldn't bother with otherwise.

[khzmusik]

It's not a terrible idea and would solve abusing mechanics. You couldn't really take advantage of it by sitting around as it's gonna take 100s of days to level up high. Like u said still need go out for food, water and by then irradiateds show up so I don't think it's possible to survive without proper gear.

 

Might also promote better play instead of going gung ho on day 1, u die u don't get a skill point. But I think it's a bit frowned upon as it's too passive, I recall TFP have stated killing zombies should be rewarded more for the risk involved.

 

That came from Roland. I'm sure he was joking, but I too thought that the one-level-per-day idea is pretty great.

 

It would basically render every problem with XP balancing, level gating, etc. moot. There would be no XP at all, and no level gates needed since it's impossible build a "day 1 forge" or whatever.

 

This, and it would still allow players to choose skill trees according to their prefered play styles. So if I want to play the game without actively killing a single zombie (by e.g. running away, sneaking past, tricking them into traps) then I could do this without any penalties whatsoever.

 

But, actually, that choice might be why TFP don't do it. As you said, it can be considered too passive. Perhaps they're right, and if they are, it's why giving players too many choices can sometimes make the game less enjoyable.

[wolffblood]

sitting in your base just crafting 500 shovels isnt exactly fun gameplay though, and that exp should only help you make a better shovel rather than other tools. if crafting was more like say finalfantasy 14 or say dragon quest 11 where you actually have to pay attention and basically do a crafting mini game to make the item, maybe then they could have it give exp again but just clicking a button to craft 500 shovels and then tossing them out as they are being made is not exactly fun gameplay

 

Could you imagine?

 

Skill:

Make every item it's own skill.

 

Unlock:

Only able to open them up through recipe points (basically every point is saying you found the recipe for the item, generically).

 

Quality:

When you make an item, it only lvls up that item's skill (basically need so much xp making that item to then rank up to next quality tier).

 

Next Material: (stone -> iron -> steel, etc.)

A. Max out quality tier allows next tier to be learned (requires max grinding)

B. OR just have next tier require previous to be unlocked to be able to learn. Just make it more points the higher the tier, but doesn't ever require making anything of the actually item (requires no grinding)

C. OR require it to be say stone shovel tier 3 then you can unlock iron shovel tier 1 with recipe points (requires some grinding)

 

If (A) or ©, maybe have books in the world where you can pick up, then choose to say increase a skill by so much xp. It'll lower some grinding for those that go book hunting and want to do something other than stand around grinding crafting, etc.

 

I mean, yeah, it won't work for everything, but at least for weapons/armor it would work well enough. Possibly even for building for the (wood -> iron, etc.) so you can't just straight up make stuff right off, but gives some progression to say, understanding better materials for buildings. A thought, lol. I couldn't imagine the time going into that though, creating that system.

[wolffblood]

A miner and builder have difficulties that aren't really obvious to an adrenaline pumped fighter. A huge problem is self-hypnosis. The first sign I usually get of a wandering horde is my screen getting covered in blood :-)

 

https://drmichaelharris.com/repetition/

 

Lol, yepp. But if I play a game that makes me do that, I may as well just go sit on my bed or stare at the ceiling, haha. My friend actually does that a lot, or we'll be talking and he's not paying attention and ends up being attacked by a horde. I think a lot of my issue comes with just the fact of having ADD and RLS. So I'm constantly needing to do something or I go a bit insane to say. I've gotten down to just bouncing my legs for hours on end to keep me okay when I play games or while at work since I have a programming job. So just sitting and harvesting is like a process where I hit 10 times, run around the thing to see if any zombies are coming, repeat. So I never really just do the same thing, hehe.

[Gareee]

My wife had a failed quest with a fetch item stuck in her inv. She can't turn it in, and can't remove it from her inventory. We are running on a dedicated server with rat

 

Is there some way to force remove that item from her inventory either with an admin command, or a tool in rat?

[meganoth]

A fighter does have a lot more risk involved, so a builder wouldn't inherently be a higher level than the fighter since majority of games base levels, progression, etc. based on risk involved.

 

The fighters reward for his risk could be the loot though, not the xp.

 

I also would change the way screamers work: If you create more heat, you don't get screamers more frequently, you just get a harder group (i.e. more ferals and glowing). Because there is no risk involved in screamer farming why should it give more reward?

[wolffblood]

The fighters reward for his risk could be the loot though, not the xp.

 

I also would change the way screamers work: If you create more heat, you don't get screamers more frequently, you just get a harder group (i.e. more ferals and glowing). Because there is no risk involved in screamer farming why should it give more reward?

 

Hmmm, loot as the reward, there is that. But that works for SP. For MP, not so much since then that means the fighters in the group are taking higher risk for everyone having the same loot (cause it'll be brought back to base and everyone can use it). Builder never leaves yet still gets all the loot and same level as fighters, etc. Typically, that should not matter because it means they use your stuff to make better defenses or stuff for you. I think the issue would then come down to PvP as to why a builder is just as strong as a fighter, since guns really will kill people quick no matter whether you perk into it or not.

 

As for screamers, yes, that would definitely add more risk. I'm actually going to add the Screamer Bear mod here soon to change it up. I'd say if you do have too much heat though, say like when it maxes out, it sends multiple screamers to your location from different directions and if one screamer dies within so much distance of another, they instant scream since they saw their scouting buddy just die and not have that scream delay.

[Gazz]

So you yanked out the entire system because some morons made a macro to fire 5000 crossbow bolts. Sounds legit. The very worst thing you can do is to engage and battle exploiters to this degree. Cover up the basic exploits yes. But now you are significantly changing the foundation of your game to go to war with at BEST a handful of people who will bang on a wood block all night to level their stone axe. What about the majority of players who WOULDN'T employ this tactic but rather enjoyed the system as it was? And were looking forward to improvements to it?

The spammy skills have only been in since A10 or so. Definitely not a foundation of the game.

[Lonestarcanuck]

So there is a nasty bug that has been reported multiple times in the B240 Bug forum about loosing your items on your toolbelt if you are on a bike.

 

I have seen this happen on bicycle and minibike and to me personally. its pretty bad and it happens random, it took 10 on/off attempts for me.

 

Do we have a fix in the pipeline for this? many players forget and well it sucks.

[wolffblood]

So there is a nasty bug that has been reported multiple times in the B240 Bug forum about loosing your items on your toolbelt if you are on a bike.

 

I have seen this happen on bicycle and minibike and to me personally. its pretty bad and it happens random, it took 10 on/off attempts for me.

 

Do we have a fix in the pipeline for this? many players forget and well it sucks.

 

Good thing I've yet to get a bike, lol. Thought "10 on/off attempts". Are you saying that you can get those items to come back as long as you keep getting on and off?

[JaxTeller718]

Could you imagine?

 

Skill:

Make every item it's own skill.

 

Unlock:

Only able to open them up through recipe points (basically every point is saying you found the recipe for the item, generically).

 

Quality:

When you make an item, it only lvls up that item's skill (basically need so much xp making that item to then rank up to next quality tier).

 

Next Material: (stone -> iron -> steel, etc.)

A. Max out quality tier allows next tier to be learned (requires max grinding)

B. OR just have next tier require previous to be unlocked to be able to learn. Just make it more points the higher the tier, but doesn't ever require making anything of the actually item (requires no grinding)

C. OR require it to be say stone shovel tier 3 then you can unlock iron shovel tier 1 with recipe points (requires some grinding)

 

If (A) or ©, maybe have books in the world where you can pick up, then choose to say increase a skill by so much xp. It'll lower some grinding for those that go book hunting and want to do something other than stand around grinding crafting, etc.

 

I mean, yeah, it won't work for everything, but at least for weapons/armor it would work well enough. Possibly even for building for the (wood -> iron, etc.) so you can't just straight up make stuff right off, but gives some progression to say, understanding better materials for buildings. A thought, lol. I couldn't imagine the time going into that though, creating that system.

 

I did EXACTLY that when I rewrote the progression file for Scavengers of the Living Dead on 16, something which i can NOT do on 17 so that mod is effectively dead.

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?93822-Scavengers-of-the-Living-Dead&highlight=scavengers

 

Read about 10 paragraphs down in that post.

[wolffblood]

I did EXACTLY that when I rewrote the progression file for Scavengers of the Living Dead on 16, something which i can NOT do on 17 so that mod is effectively dead. And if i a stupid lowly modder can do it then surely they can as well. They just choose not to.

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?93822-Scavengers-of-the-Living-Dead&highlight=scavengers

 

Read about 10 paragraphs down in that post.

 

Oh, wow. Lol, if only that came out before Ravenhearst, . I loved Ravenhearst, but I could only play it SP, MP would just lag I and my friend out, lol. Though this Scavenger mod seems more up my alley. I'm guessing the cvars wouldn't be able to help, huh.

[HerrKingsley]

Some of the best games I've played with specializing were ones that had no player level and everything was based upon use (but it was a SP game, so not this issue of a builder lvling faster than a fighter since you were the only one actually getting anywhere. For the life of me I cannot remember the game).

It was called 7dtd alpha 10

[Guppycur]

@devs

 

Please isolate the xp gain icon from everything else so it can be edited out of the UI without having to lose everything that is also in HUDRightStatBar, thanks.

 

I don't want to know when I kill them, thanks.

[JaxTeller718]

Oh, wow. Lol, if only that came out before Ravenhearst, . I loved Ravenhearst, but I could only play it SP, MP would just lag I and my friend out, lol. Though this Scavenger mod seems more up my alley. I'm guessing the cvars wouldn't be able to help, huh.

 

Potentially yes, although with 1-100 skill level gone, craft qual nerfed to 6 it might be difficult or just a huge adjustment. After we get a working version of RH out for people I plan to revisit this and see if i can salvage the idea.

[HerrKingsley]

The spammy skills have only been in since A10 or so. Definitely not a foundation of the game.

 

A10 didn't have item levels.

[wolffblood]

Potentially yes, although with 1-100 skill level gone, craft qual nerfed to 6 it might be difficult or just a huge adjustment. After we get a working version of RH out for people I plan to revisit this and see if i can salvage the idea.

 

I'd say just make like quality lvl 1 is previous 1-20, 2 is 21-41, so on and so forth (I know it makes it to 120, but just a concept, lol). Also, I think it's from Ravenhearst, but didn't one of your guys add in quality of like 1-120? Can't remember his name. Hmmmm. Wish I actually ever had time to dig into these things, lol. Hate it's more of theories or ideas I can think of but never actually dig into, so sometimes I feel dumb when tossing out an idea that a modder has already looked into and was like, "nope, not happening", lol.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

@devs

 

Please isolate the xp gain icon from everything else so it can be edited out of the UI without having to lose everything that is also in HUDRightStatBar, thanks.

 

I don't want to know when I kill them, thanks.

 

Hopefully you've got rid of the xp bar, too? lol, I actually look at that more since it's more mid screen where I'm looking.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

A10 didn't have item levels.

 

Lol, you helped his point more, lol.

[DaVegaNL]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I really like the game now, with the current skill system and the level gates. Makes me feel that i need to accomplish something. Having goals. Haven't had that feeling since I started playing this game 4 years ago.

[unlike them]

My wife had a failed quest with a fetch item stuck in her inv. She can't turn it in, and can't remove it from her inventory. We are running on a dedicated server with rat

 

Is there some way to force remove that item from her inventory either with an admin command, or a tool in rat?

 

Yes, there is:

Type 'cm' in console, open creative menu, then there is a 'trash can' icon above your inventory. If you press it, this deletes EVERYTHING from your inventory (and the belt!). So remove everything from the inventory and the belt into a storage container before that. I think your armor/clothes are safe, but you can remove them just for safety too.

 

edit: so you are on dedi? can you open creative menu on dedi?

 

another way is just to remove the quest from the quest menu, this removes the quest item too, so no need for the admin command.

[JaxTeller718]

I'd say just make like quality lvl 1 is previous 1-20, 2 is 21-41, so on and so forth (I know it makes it to 120, but just a concept, lol). Also, I think it's from Ravenhearst, but didn't one of your guys add in quality of like 1-120? Can't remember his name. Hmmmm. Wish I actually ever had time to dig into these things, lol. Hate it's more of theories or ideas I can think of but never actually dig into, so sometimes I feel dumb when tossing out an idea that a modder has already looked into and was like, "nope, not happening", lol.

 

 

Yes we have working 1-120 quality level items now which is why I say we can potentially get Scavengers going. With Deceptive Pastry being able to rig a working Action Skill as well i think the results could be favorable and could work.

[Guppycur]

Hopefully you've got rid of the xp bar, too? lol, I actually look at that more since it's more mid screen where I'm looking.

 

Lol I don't even know which bar is the xp bar.