Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Aldranon]

I just hope the game gets better in A17, in A16 by the time I hit char level 40-50 ish, which takes me by day 10 usually sometimes day 14, I am bored, as I have quality 400-450 tools/craftable weapons, usually have bought decent armor on the trader and then its like... What is there to do? I don't usually use guns as making the ammo is a pain in the ass with how many stations it needs, I miss being able to put ammo together in my inv, so this leaves me with bow/xbow.

 

If your bored you can:

 

Build a floating hot tub!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23540[/ATTACH]

Royal Deluxe's idea made into hot tub perfection by Al.

 

Or make the worlds largest and tallest building using only pick axe and other hand tools!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23541[/ATTACH]

Each one of the main supports has 200 steel! (If you look closely it's 4 poles near each main pillar.)

 

There is plenty to do, if you want

[Royal Deluxe]

Play how you want of course, but I don't see how the ability to disappear whenever you want to avoid danger is at all in the spirit of a 'dead is dead' mode. Yeah, you have to log out for real life reasons, but logging out deliberately to remove the risks for 'dead is dead' seems like missing the point.

 

And was not what i meaned, i meaned if you log out after a Gamesession to sleep in reallife (Sorry i really need that) it would be a "ragequit game" reason if you start the game next day and you spawn as fresh lvl 1.

 

We had this allready, was named MD5. Exact this is it how it would feel

[Maharin]

We had this allready, was named MD5.

 

In my world MD5 is an insecure hashing algorithm.

[rdunham3]

I agree with that. I would like GPS horde taken out and allow stealth to be used to avoid blood moon hordes. Put in some risk-worthy awards for facing the horde and it's up to the player if he wants to do that.

 

Instead of GPS, maybe make zombies see, smell, hear much better and it would make it thrilling even if played in stealth...

 

Part of the whole "survival game" thing is knowing when not to fight. If there isn't enough reward for the risk, and 7th's almost always fall in that category, the smart survivor tries to avoid the large group of unusually motivated zombies.

 

I've had 7th's that turned out to not be worth the ARROW expenditure, can't imagine how upset I'd have been if I'd been using brass half the night.

 

Another 7th tactic I haven't seen mentioned much is using a city block as expendable obstacles. It's not all that hard to keep 'em bashing walls, picking off a few here and there, without doing much more than placing a few blocks to get yourself from building to building. Probably wouldn't work with all feral cops but at the low to middle game stages letting a few junk buildings get wrecked is a perfectly reasonable way to get through a 7th.

[Aldranon]

Yeah I know you've been around very long (like I have), but your statements seemed a bit.. naïve. No offence of course. Longer development time does not equate more content. It could, but it could very well not be. Longer development does not equate more bugs squashed. It could, but it could very well not be.

 

I think it might be a bit naïve, equating the exponential growth in development time over the past 2-3 Alpha's to more content, with less bugs.

 

The real problem in any project is: as the system gets more complex, it becomes harder to get your mind wrapped around it. If the team doesn't try to hide complexity every step of the way then they could do a lot of wheel spinning and going nowhere. One way is to keep each subsystem, class and even sub procedures loosely coupled. Then they can work on squeezing out some optimization once its all running in beta.

 

It also appears they are using service calls in SP, is it easier to code for both MP and SP? I don't know. If your the only one using your computer, you don't need service calls IMO.

[Quantum Blue]

If you talking about a non exploitive fort, it would not be so small and if ammo was an issue which it is for most non-cheating players, then the fort starts getting huge.

 

So now the late game horde night become a HUGE grind of making enough reinforced concrete blocks to replace blocks destroyed PLUS an increase of around 10%-20% MORE blocks to soak up the ever stronger hoards. It starts taking game days to make your "small" fort ready for the next horde.

 

Not fun in my books or I bet most people who do not cheat or exploit.

 

Exploitive?

 

There's a way to arrange 7-12 wood/frames (better as blocks) to survive just about any horde. (7th day, wandering, dog pack, or 7+ wolves on day 2+) (Will not work for behemoths!) I don't consider it exploitive as it's allowed in the game - and it's exactly what I would do in real life.

 

Having said that, I typically only use wood blocks on early days. by day 45 I have concrete and metal trusses. (need very little repair - if any). (I also have a very SIMPLE base nearby. basically just a square bldg for crafting and storage - and a 'garage').

 

But, just for fun, will take on day 70+ hordes with only a few wood blocks. (I don't use rockets and am way too wussy to take on 6 feral cops and/or 11+ screamers without them.)

[Gareee]

Part of the whole "survival game" thing is knowing when not to fight. If there isn't enough reward for the risk, and 7th's almost always fall in that category, the smart survivor tries to avoid the large group of unusually motivated zombies.

 

I've had 7th's that turned out to not be worth the ARROW expenditure, can't imagine how upset I'd have been if I'd been using brass half the night.

 

Another 7th tactic I haven't seen mentioned much is using a city block as expendable obstacles. It's not all that hard to keep 'em bashing walls, picking off a few here and there, without doing much more than placing a few blocks to get yourself from building to building. Probably wouldn't work with all feral cops but at the low to middle game stages letting a few junk buildings get wrecked is a perfectly reasonable way to get through a 7th.

 

I think thats one of the big problems with the 7th day horde nights.. there no reward for surviving and defending a base. Loot drops are poor, and the only thing you can gain is experience, BUT if your base defenses are doing all the work, you don't even get that extra exp.

 

There needs to be a beneficial reason to remain in your base, let it take the punishment, and survive without a casualty. Right now its smarter and much easier to just go camp out in a ruined building at the top for the night.

[Crater Creator]

I think thats one of the big problems with the 7th day horde nights.. there no reward for surviving and defending a base. Loot drops are poor, and the only thing you can gain is experience, BUT if your base defenses are doing all the work, you don't even get that extra exp.

 

There needs to be a beneficial reason to remain in your base, let it take the punishment, and survive without a casualty. Right now its smarter and much easier to just go camp out in a ruined building at the top for the night.

 

Maybe this much talked about new buff system could apply to enemies. A regular Zombie Boe has his regular loot list, but if he has the 'bloodmoon' buff, his loot is somehow enhanced (higher quality, greater chance of quests... enhanced could mean a lot of things). This would also be a better way to give the feral versions of zombies better loot than what's done now (using fat zombie loot as an all-purpose 'slightly better than normal' loot list).

[Survager]

Gazz can you please hofix a few bugs in the game ?

As example i think it would be nice if the player drops all items of his belt every 3rd time he meets a wolf

 

This is my old idea )))

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?32991-Suggestion-zombie-behavior-and-types&p=322479&viewfull=1#post322479

[Crater Creator]

Instead of GPS, maybe make zombies see, smell, hear much better and it would make it thrilling even if played in stealth...

 

Like, suppose the zombies could smell so well, they could follow your scent to establish your location no matter where you are.

 

I kid, but that's what I imagine the zombies are doing during the blood moon from a role playing perspective. Something about the full moon whips them into a frenzy while heightening their natural senses.

[Tilleen]

Like, suppose the zombies could smell so well, they could follow your scent to establish your location no matter where you are.

 

I kid, but that's what I imagine the zombies are doing during the blood moon from a role playing perspective. Something about the full moon whips them into a frenzy while heightening their natural senses.

 

I want to know why the moon takes 4 hours to go over, but the sun takes 18 hours and still it never catches the sun.

 

But seriously, the phase of the moon could be an indicator of when a blood moon is coming assuming that it could change. Or you could have a number of moons (the one moon was fractured at the beginning of the Apocalypse) that when they align or a number of them align then a blood hoard is triggered the next night. Gives a warning if you are watching and could be made to make it seem a bit random.

[IrishGhost]

Maybe this much talked about new buff system could apply to enemies. A regular Zombie Boe has his regular loot list, but if he has the 'bloodmoon' buff, his loot is somehow enhanced (higher quality, greater chance of quests... enhanced could mean a lot of things). This would also be a better way to give the feral versions of zombies better loot than what's done now (using fat zombie loot as an all-purpose 'slightly better than normal' loot list).

 

I like this idea and whole heartily agree, but I still get a good amount of satisfaction on surviving the 7th night without dying

[Xtrakicking]

I think thats one of the big problems with the 7th day horde nights.. there no reward for surviving and defending a base. Loot drops are poor, and the only thing you can gain is experience, BUT if your base defenses are doing all the work, you don't even get that extra exp.

 

There needs to be a beneficial reason to remain in your base, let it take the punishment, and survive without a casualty. Right now its smarter and much easier to just go camp out in a ruined building at the top for the night.

 

I kind of agree. The thing is, unless purely killing hundreds of zombies for the joy of it is what you like (like me) or you love the tower defense aspect of the game, fighting against the horde isn't really that worth it. You waste a ton of ammo and it's a lot easier to just stay on the rooftop of a building till it passes.

 

It's kind of discouraging to know that you could just spend the night on some ruined building that you don't care about instead of building a giant fortress only for it to slowly get wrecked by zombies. I mean, I know that's the whole point and it's fun, but when there are easier and cheaper solutions to it then it's just a bit frustrating.

 

The only solution I see to that problem would be for zombies to be able to reach players more efficiently so that just camping on an abandoned house's attic isn't enough to survive the horde. Having an awesome fortress should be necessary at least at some point to survive.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Maybe this much talked about new buff system could apply to enemies. A regular Zombie Boe has his regular loot list, but if he has the 'bloodmoon' buff, his loot is somehow enhanced (higher quality, greater chance of quests... enhanced could mean a lot of things). This would also be a better way to give the feral versions of zombies better loot than what's done now (using fat zombie loot as an all-purpose 'slightly better than normal' loot list).

 

I feel like that would make players OP by the end of the 2nd horde. It's already kind of easy to get good gear if you know where to look.

[Royal Deluxe]

This mod try to make the player participate at all Gamecontent

* Bloodmon Questrow aka contract: Fight the Bloodmoon hordes give nice rewards

 

my Sollution

[Odetta]

Reputation idea for 7 day hordes: (When implemented) What if on horde night you can choose to fly a flag of a certain group of your choosing. After surviving the horde, they would tally up all your horde kills; personal kills = +3 while passive kills (spikes, traps, etc.) = +1 with special infected scaling these value. They would then give you a massive amount of reputation for that group and X amount of loot caches (with a chance for group specific items, i.e. Duke's Hammer) depending on how you did on horde night. This will also come with a rare chance to get an "epic quality" quest from the specific group.

 

I don't know, just trying to come up with ways to reward players for fighting the horde. Of course if you don't like the hordes you can still earn reputation and rare quests in between hordes.

[The Batman]

- back from hibernation -

 

I really dislike referring to Dying Light every time. But I feel it approaches several things combat related so much better than 7 Days. The special zombies there really make you feel like yer gonna die if you make a mistake. And that when you die it's your fault.

 

In 7days it's always some dog hitting you from 6+ blocks away, or some other zombie randomly hitting you while doing pirouettes at the speed of light and stunning you.

 

That said, I'm 100% sure every player could eventually learn to either negate or work around any zombie or horde in general if needed. And everyone could get a 0 death on any difficulty as well. It's really not that hard. The gameplay surrounding combat and involving: Kill + reward is lacking a lot. Structural repairs being the biggest issue atm. (Yes small bases take less resources but c'mon, only hobos live in a 6 x 6 steel bunker!)

 

Playing with starvation mod atm, and it really adds a lot that the vanilla game is lacking. But there's still a lot room for even more stuff. However it requires so much RAM from the servers.... Devs need to fix that first if possible before broadening the entire game.

 

There's plenty of ideas for improvement, but will the servers ever be able to handle it plus will the devs have to the time to add it all?

When we were playing in our massive fortress with 3-4 players online, the server would rack 5-6 GB RAM easily.

I think any MP server with a population of 10+ players or more structural stuff added be it mods or future content would require so much RAM that no one can afford it anymore ^^

 

Batman,

[Roland]

Woah...you spelled brooding as h-i-b-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n. Everyone knows you go off at times to brood about all the crime that exists and also about your parents. You've been away staring at their portraits all this time. Its fine. Welcome back.

 

Optimizations are ongoing...

[Crater Creator]

I feel like [buffing loot from blood moon zombies] would make players OP by the end of the 2nd horde. It's already kind of easy to get good gear if you know where to look.

 

Well, everything's relative. If that means you get the good stuff too early, there are ways to nerf everything down a notch so that what we now consider average gear becomes good gear. For instance, in ComSenMod I made a new 'trash' quality template, so that garbage cans and dumpsters have below-average quality loot.

[Crater Creator]

I want to know why the moon takes 4 hours to go over, but the sun takes 18 hours and still it never catches the sun.

 

But seriously, the phase of the moon could be an indicator of when a blood moon is coming assuming that it could change. Or you could have a number of moons (the one moon was fractured at the beginning of the Apocalypse) that when they align or a number of them align then a blood hoard is triggered the next night. Gives a warning if you are watching and could be made to make it seem a bit random.

 

If you're a purist, you can play with 12-hour days and 12-hour nights. You might be the first player to ever do that, though.

 

I just assumed the moon already changed phases every night, but I never looked at it closely on non-horde nights. I bet Roland could get behind going by the moon phases instead of a UI element.

[Tin]

If you're a purist, you can play with 12-hour days and 12-hour nights. You might be the first player to ever do that, though.

 

I just assumed the moon already changed phases every night, but I never looked at it closely on non-horde nights. I bet Roland could get behind going by the moon phases instead of a UI element.

 

Doesn't even need to be moon phases.

Just make the night before change to the wasteland spectrum, then red (like it is) for the blood moon. No need for the wastelands to have that spectrum constantly, just make it more smokey or what not.

[TSBX]

 

In 7days it's always some dog hitting you from 6+ blocks away, or some other zombie randomly hitting you while doing pirouettes at the speed of light and stunning you.

 

That said, I'm 100% sure every player could eventually learn to either negate or work around any zombie or horde in general if needed. And everyone could get a 0 death on any difficulty as well. It's really not that hard. The gameplay surrounding combat and involving: Kill + reward is lacking a lot. Structural repairs being the biggest issue atm. (Yes small bases take less resources but c'mon, only hobos live in a 6 x 6 steel bunker!)

 

Playing with starvation mod atm, and it really adds a lot that the vanilla game is lacking. But there's still a lot room for even more stuff. However it requires so much RAM from the servers.... Devs need to fix that first if possible before broadening the entire game.

 

There's plenty of ideas for improvement, but will the servers ever be able to handle it plus will the devs have to the time to add it all?

When we were playing in our massive fortress with 3-4 players online, the server would rack 5-6 GB RAM easily.

I think any MP server with a population of 10+ players or more structural stuff added be it mods or future content would require so much RAM that no one can afford it anymore ^^

 

Batman,

 

• Dead Until Daylight has a pretty good combat and I hope gold 7D has something comparable. It's not there now, but neither was RWG during A8, it's all relative.

 

• The six blocks away dog comment is largely false, I've played dozens of hours of A16 and while the circling issue has been rampant, I've yet to get hit from far away like I have in previous alphas. Maybe it's the server you're playing with latency issues.

 

• Starvation is cool and good.

 

• I think at some point we need to evaluate why a zombie horde knows where you are once a week other than "Game design balance". Maybe the endgame content would be eliminating zombie infested POI's instead of just looting them and killing sleepers. Maybe some sort of system could be implemented where the more unattended zombie activity there is, the greater chance of a 7D type horde. Clear out a town completely, you're good for a few days. I'd also like to see infestation sites ala State of Decay. You have POI's that are infested and spawn zombies.

[PiercedFromWithin]

I get hit from 10 feet away all the time, sometimes when they aren't even swinging in my direction. I'd die much less if I didn't. Got bleeding out 3 times from 3 lumberjacks in a row just tonight, not one of them was ever close enough to hit me when they swung. Had the bandages to cover it but still annoying. Ping is pretty much always 50-100max with 2 players. When we tried a "local hosted dedicated" the one who was running the dedi thought it was even worse for him than usual even though he was only at 20 ping on the same computer(pretty decent PC too, he just upgraded it). But then the next week I couldn't even see the server so we gave up on that idea anyway.

 

 

The moon does change phases but I have no idea how it's scheduled. I had thought at one point it might be cool to have the phases take a week so every full moon is blood moon. Still not sure why it sometimes turns blue though.

[Aldranon]

Sometimes the graphics losses synchronization with the combat results. This is the reason I think the game uses service calls. I'm not a fan of SOC because you would need a transaction to keep graphics and combat in sync. But then, your character could be moved back to the start of an attack every time something attacked you.

 

Just say no to SOC.

[Roland]

I bet Roland could get behind going by the moon phases instead of a UI element.

 

That does put the shizzle in my dizzle.

 

Still not sure why it sometimes turns blue though.

 

As long as it only happens once in a very great while... immersion is maintained! Too frequent blue moons is the epitome of unrealistic mechanics.

[The Batman]

About your new avatar Roland... We could slap that image on the moon and have it crash on 7days Earth, every 7th day.