Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Con Agni]

So how do you combine the time investment of 7days and the fear element of PvP? Dead is dead.

 

...you die and lose your map, your skills, your claim, and your items? You're going to be a lot more cautious about engaging in battle.

 

If you're ridiculously over powered and can one shot anyone? Well, that will either promote team effort against you, or push for a game design where a bullet will kill you, no matter the gun quality.

 

True, but its another game from there...

[Chronosphere]

i wonder what the criteria is for the bar to move Hmm

[Guppycur]

True, but its another game from there...

 

Yep, hence another mode.

[Aurelius]

Not necessarily. Look at the changes that are actually happening. Essentially the top is being drained while the water is flowing out of the bottom, everything in between remains largely unchanged. We only need to know about the blocks that are changing from water to air and vice-versa. If a water block is surrounded by water blocks it's going to remain a water block, we don't need to know which particular water block is moving around inside the body of water so they can essentially remain static, you can treat large sections as a single object. You can save a lot of unnecessary calculation that way.

 

Storage and retrieval of the data can be done as an octree to save on disk space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octree

 

You beat me to it. Just to add to this, you can also assume that all surface blocks are going to change at the same rate and update their appearance only as quantum levels of emptying occur. This emptying calculation would only need to be done whenever a hole is added or removed.

 

-A

[Aldranon]

i wonder what the criteria is for the bar to move Hmm

 

Well, it WAS every Sunday. Until people started min/maxing and calculating the bar every. single. time! Oh, wait, that was me..

 

The good news is TFP and/or Roland are trying to make it as accurate as possible with a pinch of fudge factor. So what you see, is as close an approximation as anyone is prepared to give.

 

It has slowed down so MY guess of July looks to be fading and the "real" deadline of August is the target date.

[Roland]

i wonder what the criteria is for the bar to move Hmm

 

Science. Weird Science.

[Xeen]

Can we have so that battery bank be connected with multiple input. i.e. we Generator and Solar Bank both. this way we can use one battery bank to power our lines and use generator at night if battery goes too down ..Also sometime we get poor quality solar cell, hence I need 2-3 solar banks to power on battery to get wiring straight.

 

This +1

[Xeen]

I would like to see a Wind Turbine added as an option for power generation this would compliment the "off the grid" methods currently available.

[kamer1337]

wasn't water better in alpha 13 than now?

 

[Scyris]

As a guy that played 7 days do die since A1 having probably around 5k hours or more, thats owns Ark, Rust and other big survivals. i can tell you i know personally dozens if not hundreds of people that gave up on 7dtd because of the pvp instability. They switched to Ark, Rust, Connan and so on not because those games are better but because 7dtd is almost unplayable at pvp. I dont know exact amounts but i can tell you i played on every big pvp server, and nowdays there are barley 1-2 europe, 1-2 russia 1-2 Us good servers while back then before a12 when you could run decently 50-60 players on a map there were dozens of servers and all full regardless of week days. No matter what they do or how hard Devs can try this will never be a good single player game or coop. Ai is Ai and you have minecraft building style, in 2 hours you can beat the game is simple as that. While if it is pvp multi everything changes and gets meaning, from hoarding loot into making a good base design, playstyle everything... even the zombies are complementing so good the pvp in game creating amazing situations. I dont know if it was intentional or not but TFP hit the jackpot on the ideea of the survival multi player. And the day they wil focus on the pvp and multiplayer side to have at least 50-60 slots stable. Every other surv game will become a desert.

 

Or if they dont i almost bet at some point somone will copy all the ideeas point it in the right way and will get out a big ass game loved by everyone

 

Beat the game in 2 hours? You technacally can't "beat the game" because it has no scripted end. It takes far longer than 2 hours to even get established, you mean to tell me you got concrete/steel buildings steel tools at 450-500+ quality, a minibike and a ton of weapons and ammo by day 3? The problem with pvp in these games is the games are meant for a pve experence mostly, and pvp pretty much kills that aspect as the only threat then is other players. I don't even like playing 7dtd multiplayer co-op because to me the game gets way to easy when you have mutiple people working together. If you can "beat the game in 2 hours" pvp should be good, since your fully geared in 2 hours or less.

 

Try playing 7dtd on insane by yourself, in single player, its a joke with multiple people, but try doing it on your own, its not nearly as easy.

 

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wasn't water better in alpha 13 than now?

 

 

I remember that, what happened to that water in the later alpha's that it got downgraded so much?

[Scyris]

You can definitely drop the mic with that reply. If anyone still don't get it, they are either trolling, or will never get it.

 

Never under-estimate how stupid todays gamers are. It happens many times that they can have the thing right smack in front of them telling them how to do something and they STILL need to ask others how to do it, and have their hand held. I blame this on the fact of how casualified games are these days. Way to much hand holding goes on. Its why I like 7dtd, you have that short tutorial for 5 skill points, then lead to yoru first trader, but after that, your pretty much on your own.

[Ouch Quit It]

Coughs * VIDEO * Coughs

[Scyris]

Question

 

What always bugged me, that the damage of guns got reduced, the more the quality goes down.

 

With the new Buff System, how about leaving the Damage Constant at X, but add Chances for Stuck Weapons, Exploding rounds in the Barrel, and such stuff ( English Terms missing, sorry ), Meaning making the gun faulty / non functioning, the more quality goes down.

 

Zed come at you, you have a 20% Weapon. You have Ammo and pull the Trigger, but only a "click" is to hear... thats where the panic begins.

 

I always hated that aspect myself, once a item hits half durability it takes a massive hit to performance all of a sudden, you can notice this alot with tools mainly. It starts gradually but farther you go from the halfway point the sharper the drop comes. IMO the performance shouldn't drop at all, until its at like 10% durability left.

 

This brings me to ask a question though: how will repairs work in A17? as now quality goes from 1-600 and you lose a percent of quality on a repair, but in A17 everything only has 6 quality levels now. Will the quality drop on repairs be removed? if so I don't mind having to repair at half durability. I am just wondering how its going to work when it goes from 600 quality levels down to 6.

 

I'm also not a fan of the permament hp bar damage till you heal it with first-aid bandages/kits, I hated how rads in falout 4 lowered my max hp, its a ocd thing I feel, that bar not being full just bothers the hell out of me for some inane reason.

[Scyris]

For your weekend contemplation, I started on AI obstacle checking for other animals/zombies and when blocked they flail and push/ragdoll what was in their way. Pretty amusing watching a pack knocking each other down to get to you.

 

In theory this will be used to push the pack forward, supplement wall damage, assist with climbing, allow big guys to surge through and maybe toss around the little guys (a bit).

 

I rather like the sound of this, watching the zombies ragdoll each other is going to be a pretty big source of entertainment for me. Like anytime I go into one of those army camps the ones with land mines everywhere, I usually fire off a loud gun a few times, to draw some nearby zombies, just so I can laugh my arse off when they step on a mine and get ragdolled right up in the air. It never gets old heh.

[Delkadous]

 

 

Mod Note: The enemy hp bar is a proof of concept artist’s first rendition. The thickness of the bar, it’s location, and even it’s implementation is still under discussion. Your critical feedback is welcome but there is no need for panic.

 

I would like to vote against any type of enemy HP bar. it really takes away from the immersion and turns the game into more of a RPG style then Survival. The guess work of when an enemy is going to die is awesome and the feeling you get when it finally goes down is even better. The same with the XP bar, i get more joy from the sudden "hey! you leveld up!" then having (again) the RPG style XP bar on my screen. This is also coming from a person who enjoys a minimal UI. the less stuff on screen the better. I don't mind hitting C to check my character stats in game. Having the XP bar will ultimately make people want to just simply grind out levels then enjoy the game. Its a visual cue for "oh, I'm almost there.. whats a few more zombies?" End up dying or some crap like that. It's just my two cents on the matter.

 

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On RWG in a17:

Random worlds in a17 onward will be fully "pregenerated". This means that the world generator will output the same data structure as navezgane but in a save folder. This means that any rwg world will load just as fast as navezgane going forward.

 

After fixing the vehicles and adding new ones it was determined that RWG's runtime code was just waaaay too slow. So now it instead gets all the data set up and exports it in a common format which allows for quicker chunk loading.

 

With the change to pregeneration and using the socket(tile) system over the entire world there will be some other changes as well. For the better. Over the next couple of days I will give a bit more detail on what else these changes to RWG mean for the average player, modders, and server owners. I think most will be very happy.

 

More to come...

 

Means we get a world wipe then eh? I just started on a nice castle in a Random Gen too T_T lol

[Gnomaana]

I would like to vote against any type of enemy HP bar. it really takes away from the immersion and turns the game into more of a RPG style then Survival. The guess work of when an enemy is going to die is awesome and the feeling you get when it finally goes down is even better. The same with the XP bar, i get more joy from the sudden "hey! you leveld up!" then having (again) the RPG style XP bar on my screen. This is also coming from a person who enjoys a minimal UI. the less stuff on screen the better. I don't mind hitting C to check my character stats in game. Having the XP bar will ultimately make people want to just simply grind out levels then enjoy the game. Its a visual cue for "oh, I'm almost there.. whats a few more zombies?" End up dying or some crap like that. It's just my two cents on the matter.

 

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Means we get a world wipe then eh? I just started on a nice castle in a Random Gen too T_T lol

 

Has there ever been an Alpha that didn't require a world wipe?

[The Gronk]

I remember that, what happened to that water in the later alpha's that it got downgraded so much?

 

The old system was open to exploitation by griefers, you could drown a base with a few buckets of water.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Has there ever been an Alpha that didn't require a world wipe?

 

No, there hasn't as far as I can remember.

[Menace312]

Surely months to release yet, though.

So game away

[Kalex]

Com on man. That's what those shows are all about. Drawing out the drama and milking that for all its worth. So people keep watching it and paying for it.

 

 

That's exactly why I quit watching The Walking Dead two and a half seasons ago. FTWD seems to be a bit faster paced, but I'm sure eventually they will get to the milking phase as well and I will stop watching it as well.

 

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I remember that, what happened to that water in the later alpha's that it got downgraded so much?

 

Getting rid of those stupid (and exploitive) water elevators probably.

[Snowydeath]

Science. Weird Science.

 

You mean you created a woman with your computer???!!!?

[Snowydeath]

can we have a sombrero?

 

That would work nicely with the Poncho!

[cevkiv]

You mean you created a woman with your computer???!!!?

 

That or with people constantly complaining, "From my heart and from my hand why don't people understand my intentions?"

[beerfly]

That would work nicely with the Poncho!

 

And navezgane radio stations that depends on biomes, far south mexican music, north whatever it is and depending if you are on a hill you get better and more stations. Better - a quests involving bandits , who also listen this radio station. Had this in mind recently and scraches my brain a bit. Even a mod for ingame radio would be fun, so if you listen lauder you won`t hear the horde or the doggie parade closing in.

[beerfly]

But once I become the: "Maximum Melee Mincing Machine" then kill count will go up... a bit.

 

We`ll all be killing machines with chance to fail set on 50% . I really want Pimps make us survive in style, could be very tough but will worth it.

Agree that they should not tell us how exactly AI works. Finding how devs challenged themselves to challenge us is something I can`t wait for

[cevkiv]

We`ll all be killing machines with chance to fail set on 50% . I really want Pimps make us survive in style, could be very tough but will worth it.

Agree that they should not tell us how exactly AI works. Finding how devs challenged themselves to challenge us is something I can`t wait for

 

I have this repeated issue, and it happens every time, and it could entirely be a base design and/or placement problem, where past day 49 I just can't repair my base or rearm myself fast enough to survive wandering packs and the next blood moon. So 'in style' might be a bit hard for me.