Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Mikee]

there will be a stealth system. but smell will work again? or is it dropped?

[DaVegaNL]

I imagine prior to fixing the abhorrent AI, stealth would need to be be fixed, and seeing as though it seems on track for A17, its reason enough to believe that it'll be looked at in the (hopefully not so far) future

 

How so, if I may ask? I haven't seen anything being presented on stealth in any videos/pictures, besides the 'eyeball'-icon on the screen in the latest videos.

[IrishGhost]

Question about the new melee, is the animation shown final or is there a few things you guys still need to tweak on it? Looks a bit exaggerated.

Beside power attacks, another great addition to melee combat would be dynamic melee combat. For example a system similar to Mount and Blade where if you move your mouse up, your character will do an overhead attack. If you attack with your mouse moving down, a knockback (or stab for bladed weapons) and obviously moving your mouse left and right will swing your weapon in that direction. Would make combat feel more fluid and satisfying.

[Maharin]

Why does MM post pictures on the development of the game on Twitter, but not on the official forum? Mind-boggling, this lack of communication.

 

So you point to communications made and call it lack of communication?

[lordcrowler]

I know u do a gyrocopter right? Wll did u think about a boat to travel on water? I join today on a friend server and i cant explain why,but are a lot of lakes and rivers..well i travel more swiming than running on ground..

[beerfly]

I know u do a gyrocopter right? Wll did u think about a boat to travel on water? I join today on a friend server and i cant explain why,but are a lot of lakes and rivers..well i travel more swiming than running on ground..

 

Swiming is "fun" part , but yes, there have been thoughts on possible rafts, but that will eventually come when water system gets reworked. Until then we will either swim, go round, or wait for the new gyro to fly over. That is all we know.

[meganoth]

Where? In the DM's brain, a few seconds after the player announces his/her intent to do it.

 

I was expecting this reply and had the following reply stored in a fridge for immediate application:

Unholy Joe said "there is no game that is tailor made for every action". I don't call the game tailor made for the action if a random dynamic element like the DM is included as a catchall. I don't call this tailor-made. The DM could, if he had a bad day just say "You can't do that". That is not what I would call "tailor made".

 

Now its your turn again in the out-nitpicking-contest

 

Are you just assuming that, since there will be open containers that are guaranteed empty, the inverse will be true?

 

Yes, because I thought MM or someone else said something about checking the cupboards and creating them opened if they are empty. I could remember wrong or misunderstanding the algorithm or it was miscommunicated somewhere. And there is always the possibility that the algorithm even if correct at that time was changed in the mean time.

 

I hope so! Because the thing is, with just one state for each container, it's hard to have balanced quantities of loot while keeping the points of interest looking believable. What's good for world building may not be good for level design, and vice versa.

 

Every kitchen is going to have a half dozen or more cabinets. Every library requires a lot of bookshelves. But there are only so many books in the game, and you only need so many jars and so much canned food. ...

 

I don't see the difference in loot if the loot distribution isn't changed but only the visibility. They also could show only some of the empty boxes as opened (to change the assumption above and show more closed than opened drawers) and still keep the same loot distribution as previously.

 

The only interesting question here is: Can opened drawers change into closed drawers again on loot respawn (if enabled). I assume yes, but even if th answer would be no, it would be an interesting decline of loot availability that could work well with the growing ability of the player to acquire stuff by other means (especially the food)

[SnowDog1942]

We know AI has problems. I said maybe, because it has been passed to me to improve for A17, but I make no assumptions on how much better I can make it before A17 ships. Hopefully I will fix all the obvious issues.

 

Faatal, I want to start this post by saying my negativity has nothing to do with you. In fact from your interactions on this forum you are an awesome developer and great guy.

 

With that said, this post officially killed the hype for A17 for me. Now we know that substantial AI and by extension, bandits, are off the table for A17. The best we can hope for is Zeds to stop spinning in circles.

 

Granted different people work on different things and everything is prioritized, but how can gyrocopters be higher than AI on the list? was the stupid open loot container revamp more important that AI?

 

I would trade every single change and feature announced for A17 for AI and bandits. Except for maybe those sticky arrows that you cant pick up...i see myself getting weeks of enjoyment out of that game changing, immersion bringing, miracle.

 

In before I get these building block and foundation replys. All I will say that in A17 I was finally expecting a house but all we are getting is another year of foundation. The house will still be built at some point, I hope, but not in A17

[Gnomaana]

How so, if I may ask? I haven't seen anything being presented on stealth in any videos/pictures, besides the 'eyeball'-icon on the screen in the latest videos.

 

How do you propose they show you an unfinished stealth system? The icon you mentions indicates that they have been working on it for A17 but somehow you infer the opposite.

[Gnomaana]

Faatal, I want to start this post by saying my negativity has nothing to do with you. In fact from your interactions on this forum you are an awesome developer and great guy.

 

With that said, this post officially killed the hype for A17 for me. Now we know that substantial AI and by extension, bandits, are off the table for A17. The best we can hope for is Zeds to stop spinning in circles.

 

Granted different people work on different things and everything is prioritized, but how can gyrocopters be higher than AI on the list? was the stupid open loot container revamp more important that AI?

 

I would trade every single change and feature announced for A17 for AI and bandits. Except for maybe those sticky arrows that you cant pick up...i see myself getting weeks of enjoyment out of that game changing, immersion bringing, miracle.

 

In before I get these building block and foundation replys. All I will say that in A17 I was finally expecting a house but all we are getting is another year of foundation. The house will still be built at some point, I hope, but not in A17

 

Half the forum is complaining about no information yet you seem to know the final state A17 will take all from one Dev posting that he has been assigned to work on AI. Your powers of deduction must far outstrip us mere mortals.

[SnowDog1942]

Half the forum is complaining about no information yet you seem to know the final state A17 will take all from one Dev posting that he has been assigned to work on AI. Your powers of deduction must far outstrip us mere mortals.

 

Deduction is the key here. AI is on a guys list , below gyrcopters, and hasnt been looked at after how many months of A17 development? 4, 5 ,6 ?

 

Think about that and tell me if AI and bandits have enough priority to be in A17

[Tin]

We know AI has problems. I said maybe, because it has been passed to me to improve for A17, but I make no assumptions on how much better I can make it before A17 ships. Hopefully I will fix all the obvious issues.

 

If at the very least you can get them to path better and stop them from doing the circle dance that would be great! IT would also make the game more challenging just by getting the entities to the player more efficiently.

 

Maybe in the short term merge the "UtilAI" and some of it's functions into the AI task/target system that is being used mostly now and unify them. At the very least it would give a touch more function to the entities.

[Gmad03]

Yeahi hope the AI is at least on par with a15 again bc the current AI really ruins the game imo. I wish they would focus on making actual survival aspects to the game and stop making toys for the game. We need new weapons foods drinks systems

[meganoth]

For a dev looking to get quick info and reach an audience directly Twitter/Discord/Facebook just makes better business sense.

 

In a variation of Occams and Hanlon's Razor I would even apply Meganoths Razor; "Never attribute to deliberate choice that which can be adequately explained by convenience and chance".

 

Does MM really weigh all communications, where to put them and how they are received? I don't have that impression. Twiiter is nice and convenient for dropping a small bit of information, one could say twitter was invented for exactly this. And as can be seen, 1 minute later it is distributed to the forum, so there is only a problem if someone thinks he is entitled to get special treatment.

 

 

We know AI has problems. I said maybe, because it has been passed to me to improve for A17, but I make no assumptions on how much better I can make it before A17 ships. Hopefully I will fix all the obvious issues.

 

Please fix it so the zombies dance is more pleasing to the eye. I would recommend a random selection of foxtrot, macarena (for melee zombies), tango etc..

Random horde spawns could have a group dance. But please, no Michael Jackson stuff, also medieval dances might be too "orderly".

Also nice would be war dances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_dance), like Capoeira or a sabre dance

 

[Maharin]

Swiming is "fun" part , but yes, there have been thoughts on possible rafts, but that will eventually come when water system gets reworked. Until then we will either swim, go round, or wait for the new gyro to fly over. That is all we know.

 

There is a third option... bridge building. I've done it many times and it can even be a somewhat fun and challenging mini-game.

[TylerDB]

Why would he want to post here? Its a cess pool of bitching and moaning about every little thing... im sure someone would still find something to whine about “ahhh the hill is too high, i cant believe this game!”

[DaVegaNL]

Faatal, I want to start this post by saying my negativity has nothing to do with you. In fact from your interactions on this forum you are an awesome developer and great guy.

 

With that said, this post officially killed the hype for A17 for me. Now we know that substantial AI and by extension, bandits, are off the table for A17. The best we can hope for is Zeds to stop spinning in circles.

 

Granted different people work on different things and everything is prioritized, but how can gyrocopters be higher than AI on the list? was the stupid open loot container revamp more important that AI?

 

I would trade every single change and feature announced for A17 for AI and bandits. Except for maybe those sticky arrows that you cant pick up...i see myself getting weeks of enjoyment out of that game changing, immersion bringing, miracle.

 

In before I get these building block and foundation replys. All I will say that in A17 I was finally expecting a house but all we are getting is another year of foundation. The house will still be built at some point, I hope, but not in A17

 

Hear, bloody hear. I fully support this opinion. My negativity is not directed towards Faatal of course, just on the message.

[Maharin]

Why would he want to post here? Its a cess pool of bitching and moaning about every little thing... im sure someone would still find something to whine about “ahhh the hill is too high, i cant believe this game!”

 

Some of us like to have fun here, too.

 

EDIT: But it is very obvious that too many people here don't get that this game is under active development and not a released product.

[DaVegaNL]

How do you propose they show you an unfinished stealth system? The icon you mentions indicates that they have been working on it for A17 but somehow you infer the opposite.

 

Well, perhaps discuss what its intentions are? Up to now, no mention has been made on an updated stealth system. Hence my question how one could infer that development on the stealth system is 'on track'. If showing something on a picture/video quickly equals development being on track, we would have many, many more features than what we have now.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

So you point to communications made and call it lack of communication?

 

Okay, I update my statement. Mind-boggling, this lack of communication on the forum.

[meganoth]

Deduction is the key here. AI is on a guys list , below gyrcopters, and hasnt been looked at after how many months of A17 development? 4, 5 ,6 ?

 

Sherlock Holmes would turn in his grave. You are using so many assumptions:

1) You assume they have ALL work ordered strictly by priority and

2) working at that list in the strict order of priority. Lots of evidence that that isn't true

3) You assume a mockup of a gyrocopter and a blimp that seem to have been created on a whim by Fataal are already serious implementation of a feature. Think ziplines if you want to have a counter example.

4) You assume that nobody else has done anything about AI before Fataal was assigned to this. Ok, this might be closer to the truth than any of your other assumptions

 

Note I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying you assume too much for your deduction.

 

Oh, and to also give an opinion: Their priorities are not your priorities. 7D2D obviously works for many people well enough, I don't have much problems with dancing zombies, it is a fun random element, it breaks immersion (so what, I don't care?), it even saved my life on occasion when I had been to careless or network delays got me in trouble. THIS IS EA, accept the problems or do something else.

[Maharin]

Okay, I update my statement. Mind-boggling, this lack of communication on the forum.

 

Why do you think he should have to do it twice? Subscribe to his twitter channel if you want to get all of the communications. It's free.

[DaVegaNL]

Sherlock Holmes would turn in his grave. You are using so many assumptions:

1) You assume they have ALL work ordered strictly by priority and

2) working at that list in the strict order of priority. Lots of evidence that that isn't true

3) You assume a mockup of a gyrocopter and a blimp that seem to have been created on a whim by Fataal are already serious implementation of a feature. Think ziplines if you want to have a counter example.

4) You assume that nobody else has done anything about AI before Fataal was assigned to this. Ok, this might be closer to the truth than any of your other assumptions

 

Note I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying you assume too much for your deduction.

 

I'm assuming some things too mate. And you know what it's making me for assuming, right..?

 

1) One would assume that rather complex mechanisms/items get started on relatively early in development. Right? Since then you will have more time to get it done. Hence I'm assuming that if AI will receive an update this Alpha, development on it started relatively early. I'm assuming it is not something one can create in a spare afternoon. Right?

2) One of the developers (Faatal) mentioned that AI is something on his list of things to look at. Hence I'm assuming he has not taken a look at it yet. Right?

3) No information (at all) about potential AI improvements have been given out by TFP in Alpha 17 up to this point. Right?

 

Is it therefore that much of an extended reasoning to say that one might be skeptical that meaningful AI improvements (as in: the AI framework for bandits) will be part of the upcoming Alpha release?

 

Of course, he might not be the only developer working on AI. But why would that be the right assumption?

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Why do you think he should have to do it twice? Subscribe to his twitter channel if you want to get all of the communications. It's free.

 

I know. I have. For a long time.

 

I just think it's.. strange.. that the developer of a game does not share news on the development of a game on the development blog of that same game. No?

[sillls]

Why would he want to post here? Its a cess pool of bitching and moaning about every little thing... im sure someone would still find something to whine about “ahhh the hill is too high, i cant believe this game!”

 

Some of us like to have fun here, too.

 

EDIT: But it is very obvious that too many people here don't get that this game is under active development and not a released product.

 

Yet some of us just like to find stuff to complain about.

 

I know, lets complain about complaining. YEAH!

[Ouch Quit It]

I was on the Medieval Engineers forum and Madmole is posting there too...couple of videos about 7DTD...you just have to look on the internet for info. You guys are clueless! Smh

 

Ouch

[DeadMole]

We know AI has problems. I said maybe, because it has been passed to me to improve for A17, but I make no assumptions on how much better I can make it before A17 ships. Hopefully I will fix all the obvious issues.

 

Well, at least someone is finally working on it.