7 Days to Die - and How I'm now Spoiled

[DerAlex]

Lot of discussion already going on about that in the BTGB thread on the 7 Days forum. Even if you don't have an account, you might want to check the thread out to keep on top of what's going on with the mod.

I don't have an account there, but I do read the thread from time to time, propably more now that you are moving everything over there. I checked the thread first thing after my first 10.3 vanilla POI turned out to be gigantic, in the hopes that this is fixable. You posting that you can't change the POI spawning at the moment is kinda what prompted me to write this, in a "all hope is lost" kinda way ;)

It was more intended for the ppl who might play 7DTD vanilla without your mod. The poor souls...

[Renegrade]

Some of the random POIs are ginormus. I can't see the fun in that, I think I'll skip 10.3 for now. I hope the pimps adjust it a bit soon, I can't really imagine that this is intended. It's a shame you can't put an update on hold and update as you please, but since it's open access alpha and we are basically the alpha testers, I see why. Still...

You can opt-in to a "beta" of a specific version. Steam->7 Days to Die->Properties->Betas->pick your favorite version in the dropdown.

It looks like they've made entries from A8.6 through to A10.3 at this time.

[DerAlex]

You can opt-in to a "beta" of a specific version. Steam->7 Days to Die->Properties->Betas->pick your favorite version in the dropdown.

It looks like they've made entries from A8.6 through to A10.3 at this time.

What a strange new world we live in, where you can beta-test an obsolete alpha version of a game not yet released...

Thank you for that, this is amazing!

[DerAlex]

Some infos on Alpha 11, coming late Feb (or later):

Alpha 11 Status

Folks we’re back from our holiday break and ready to talk a little about Alpha 11 and some of the cool things we’re either working on already or our on our list and could make it in. A disclaimer Alpha 11 has an ambitious list so it could take us through the end of February to deliver. That said here is a list of our big ticket items depending how development goes there is no guarantee all items will make it into A11.

New Gun System – We’ve been planning on a new Gun system for a few months now and we’re finally ready to start on it. The new system allows players to find whole weapons that can be broken down to yield a specified number of good parts. The parts and assembled guns have 7 quality ranges including broken, damaged, poor, average, great, flawless and legendary. Once the player collects enough good parts he can assembly a working gun. The sum or average quality of all the parts determines the sum or average quality of the assembled weapon. The parts themselves govern attributes like damage, accuracy, degradation rate, scope zoom level, knockback strength, penetration and falloff range. This will allow for hundreds of thousands of permutations of guns. Later this system will also be used for Armor, Tools and Melee Weapons.

New FPS Hands and Animations – We have some awesome new high res first person male and female hands and will be integrating these as well as a whole new awesome set of first person animations.

New Weapons– We have a new makeshift Blunderbuss Muzzle loader and a new handmade bow that we’re working on integrating.

New First Person Camera Control System – We’re working on integrating a new first person procedural spring physics system with simulated gravity, mouse smoothing and acceleration

Wellness Improvements – We’re improving wellness stat change and top capacity feedback so players can understand the wellness system better.

Leveling & Leveled Loot – We’re enhancing our current player leveling system improving the criteria and adding leveled loot lists to the game so higher leveled players get better loot drops. This is needed to work with our new gun, armor, tool and weapon quality systems.

New Random Gen Mixing XML – We’re rolling out an XML random gen mixer so users can set up their own world including the selection of world size, biomes, height intensity, prefabs per biome, prefab chance to spawn and more

Usability Enhancements – We’re adding a new windows like Right Click function Menu for items in the players backpack, belt or loot containers. The player simply needs to right click on an item and a popup menu displays showing a list of item related actions which include: Take, Craft, Equip, Use, Eat, Drink, Read, Examine, Scrap and Compare. We’re also doing many smaller usability enhancements that just make the game a lot easier to play and learn.

Integrate Steam Networking – We’re adding, evaluating and integrating new Steam Networking code and are optimistic we will gain performance, stability and more reliable Nat punch through

Server Browser Enhancements – We’re integrating better server stat options that are easier to read as well as integrating a new server filtering system, icon tips and scrolling

That’s the main stuff and if time permits these features below might also make it into Alpha 11 :)

New Armor System – Inspired by our new gun system we’re will also be working on new armor system where the player can craft or find in loot Leather and Iron armor pieces with 6 quality ranges including damaged, poor, average, great, flawless and legendary. Once the player reads the associated book or accumulates the minimum skill points he can begin crafting the lowest level leather or iron armor. To craft the higher tiered armor the player must either boost his skills or find higher tiered armor through looting.

Drivable Minibike –We’re adding a drivable minibike. Players must gain mechanical knowledge through books and skills and then find parts to craft and assemble a chassis, break and throttle cable, small engine, gas tank and more.

New Localization System – We’re integrating a new Spreadsheet based localization system allowing much easier multi-language support for in game items, crafting, dialogue, tips, in game help journal and quests.

Improved Random World Generation – We’re improving the random gen pathing system to allow vertical cutting as well as tunnels and a more robust town code.

I can't figure out why anybody would want mouse smoothing or mouse acceleration. But some nice stuff on there, too. The bike will propably break the whole game thou, if you're faster than Zombies with it. Hopefully they restrict it to a point in the game where you have "won" regardless.

Leveled loot sounds like "grind zombies for lvl 4 chicken soup"... all kinds of strange

Source: http://7daystodie.com/alpha-11-status-c ... more-news/

[devak]

Some infos on Alpha 11, coming late Feb (or later):

I can't figure out why anybody would want mouse smoothing or mouse acceleration. But some nice stuff on there, too. The bike will propably break the whole game thou, if you're faster than Zombies with it. Hopefully they restrict it to a point in the game where you have "won" regardless.

Leveled loot sounds like "grind zombies for lvl 4 chicken soup"... all kinds of strange

Source: http://7daystodie.com/alpha-11-status-c ... more-news/

Leveled loot sounds like Flowerchild can have more control over how and when people get access to tech to have a less pure random and a more guided unlock system.

Though the RPG elements, and the leveled guns give me Borderlands feelings. While i liked those games a LOT (like hundreds of hours and coop with friends a lot), the looting system inevitably broke down to "sift through 500 crap guns to replace that one gun you've been carrying for 5 game hours now". Especially the "legendary" gun label gives me a WTF moment. Quick, how many legendary real guns do you know?

[FlowerChild]

Quick, how many legendary real guns do you know?

One, and I called her Charlene.

[VegasGoat]

I don't understand why they'd bother with gun/armor "leveling". Seems unnecessary when you already have a variety of guns & armor. Based on those stats I don't think the "hundreds of thousands of permutations of gun" will really result in any kind of gameplay variety. It'll just be ditching your old gun when you make/find one that is "better" using whatever critera. I like the way BTGB makes finding a gun an "aww yeah" moment. This is just going to make finding a gun a "whatever, it's crap" moment.

On the other hand, level based loot tables sounds like a cool idea to allow for better progression.

I like the bike too. After surviving for a while, walking everywhere gets tiresome, and the bike could also let you go back to places you've previously looted to get the safes or other things you couldn't use at the time.

[FlowerChild]

Really can't say any of that excites me. In particular, I don't see what problem that the Pimps are trying to address with all the gun leveling and such, given the game is oversaturated with ranged weapons in the first place, and there's not enough fidelity in enemy types to warrant better guns. At present, one gun is pretty much as good as the next in that they all kill everything right quick.

So, to me, it sounds like the classic "faulty solution to a nonexistent problem".

I REALLY don't like the idea of leveled loot either. I'd much rather see particularly tough locations have better loot rather than the player creating a magic warp bubble around themselves that somehow causes better stuff to show up in regular containers. I suspect this is going to turn "I need to find 'foo' kind of building in order to find the supplies I need" to "I need to level up before looting this house so I can get better stuff out of it".

That idea is incredibly gamey and really takes away from the grittiness and believability of the world IMO.

I've been concerned for a long time whenever they mention "RPG elements" they had planned. Now I'm beginning to realize why :)

[Renegrade]

Uhhh.. Minibike? What's this minibike nonsense? (maybe that's an American thing? They're pretty much banned here, you'd never find one now, let alone after a zombie apocalypse)

You'd think that they'd go with a pedal bicycle, as they're incredibly common and would be fairly practical (doesn't need gas, very quiet) in real world terms, and also could be justified in not being super fast (apparently just running can overload a multiplayer server or even a singleplayer game on a low end system), and are relatively easy to maintain..

Really can't say any of that excites me. In particular, I don't see what problem that the Pimps are trying to address with all the gun leveling and such, given the game is oversaturated with ranged weapons in the first place, and there's not enough fidelity in enemy types to warrant better guns. At present, one gun is pretty much as good as the next in that they all kill everything right quick.

Well, it might help with the uh, gunbundance issue if the current guns are actually top-of-the-line/legendary/perfect/nearly-un-findable models, and most of the stuff you'll find will now be next to useless instead of two stop shotgun shopping ;)

Given some of their past changes though, I'm not going to hold my breath as asphyxiation is (apparently) a terrible way to go. I'm afraid that the current guns will actually be only mediocre ones in the new system :/

I guess their vision is basically Call of ZombieField 4....?

I REALLY don't like the idea of leveled loot either. I'd much rather see particularly tough locations have better loot rather than the player creating a magic warp bubble around themselves that somehow causes better stuff to show up in regular containers. I suspect this is going to turn "I need to find 'foo' kind of building in order to find the supplies I need" to "I need to level up before looting this house so I can get better stuff out of it".

With you 100% on that, man. If they really want to put looting on some sort of leveling/RPG system, just make the more experienced looters a bit faster and quieter... No need for magical loot leveling BS fields.

Starting loud and slow would also dovetail nicely with loot/difficulty regions; you'd be soft-gated out of high risk areas until you had the tools, health, and speed/silence to tackle the hard areas.

[FlowerChild]

Uhhh.. Minibike? What's this minibike nonsense? (maybe that's an American thing? They're pretty much banned here, you'd never find one now, let alone after a zombie apocalypse)

I find the really odd thing about the whole vehicle thing (not just the minibike, I was dreading the inclusion of cars as well and hopped they wouldn't get to that idea), is that they're simultaneously building in a means of transport while they *remove the incentive to go anywhere* by doing stuff like plopping down huge POI's that you can survive almost indefinitely on everywhere, and turning all the biomes into homogenous gruel so traveling from one to another isn't really worthwhile either.

It may seem like a really obvious statement, but in order for vehicles to be a worthwhile gameplay element in a game, you really need to give the player somewhere to go and a desire to get there.

Lots of conflicting design choices going on right now that I can only assume are the result of disjointed community feedback/whining.

[Dralnalak]

My first thought at "minibike" was some kind of off-road motorcycle, like they use in dirt bikes. That's probably my first thought because I've seen them used in post-apoc movies before. They're good for for rougher terrain, don't eat up gas like a Hummer or something would, and you can load several into a truck for scouting expeditions with a group.

I think they'd be an interesting addition to the game, IF they were done well. First, there's the problem of keeping it fueled (though that gets easier once you have a good corn farm set up). Second, you have to keep up with maintenance.

Thirdly, there's the noise issue. Every off-road motorcycle I've seen has been rather loud. You'll be sounding the zombie dinner bell for miles around.

That would make the bikes have an interesting choice: Do I save myself the time getting there and back so I can do it in daylight, but at the risk of creating my own personal horde?

Then there's also the issue of breaking bones and/or your head if you crash the bike.


Sadly, I fear that the Fun Pimps will make a vehicle have more advantages than possible disadvantages, but I will try and remain hopeful.

[gaga654]

So I just recently got this game and before I begin playing it, I was wondering how much do I need to know beforehand? I'd like to be able to figure out stuff on my own but from skimming this thread it looks like there is some pretty complicated stuff. If I just dive in should I be able to figure out what to do? And are there any specific things that I should know that I wouldn't be able to figure out without looking them up somewhere?

[FlowerChild]

So I just recently got this game and before I begin playing it, I was wondering how much do I need to know beforehand? I'd like to be able to figure out stuff on my own but from skimming this thread it looks like there is some pretty complicated stuff. If I just dive in should I be able to figure out what to do? And are there any specific things that I should know that I wouldn't be able to figure out without looking them up somewhere?

Little tired at the moment, so won't give a full response, but Sarudak recently asked something similar and I gave him the low down. If you search on his recent posts, should be within the most recent dozen or so.

[DerAlex]

Alpha 11 News:

They are in the progress of switching from Unity 4 to Unity 5, polished a lot of the assets and textures, included some 3rd party stuff (speed tree), added new shaders (ambient occlusion), and the game looks awesome. Screenshots in the spoiler:

Spoiler

Show

They are also claming that the performance is better by a huge margin. The new update will also feature some new gameplay elements like natural caves, bow-and-arrow and blunderbuss, and also some strange new system where your lvl decides how good the item is you are crafting (not progression, more like an axe crafted at lvl 10 is better than an axe crafted at lvl 1. Afaik, almost nothing is gated). I guess we'll have to see how this new system will play, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. But graphically and, more importantly atmospherically, it looks amazing.

All pictures taken from here

[FlowerChild]

Unfortunately, they also seem to be pursuing "RPG elements" whole hog, and what I've heard of them so far really doesn't interest me.

I'm honestly wondering if I'll continue supporting BTGB after the next release. Will wait and see until I actually play it of course, but I get the distinct impression that those features may cause me to lose interest in the game entirely. The whole "higher level characters get better loot out of the same containers" thing in particular really turns me off.

Obviously, I'm all for gameplay over realism, but in this case it feels like a distinctly unnatural way of achieving a design goal when there are much more interesting alternatives available (progressively harder biomes also containing better loot for example). I also tend to view "RPG elements" as a backup for when you can't fully simulate something reasonably (like squad-based combat or what have you), whereas they seem to view them as a feature, or design goal, onto itself.

There are some interesting exceptions to that mind you, like Borderlands, but there's a big question mark for me whether they're well suited for survival/creative games where the player's ability to directly manipulate the environment is a big part of the appeal, while RPG elements serve to further abstract things. To me, they thus seem to be operating at crossed-purposes to a big part of what makes these kind of games so fun in the first place.

[DerAlex]

I still hope the whole leveled loot thing is something they scrapped in the meantime... the last time I read about it through the official channels was in early january. That really is a stupid idea, and maybe they realized that too.

Leveled crafting on the other hand... that's something I want to try before I judge it, I'm not completely opposed to the idea. I can imagine that that would put a min-maxer like myself in the position where you would craft the same stuff every time you level, over and over again, instead of repairing it, which requires many times more resources, which I actually like to see. Part of me also likes the idea of being able to make better equipment over time, although I would probably like it being tied to perks and not tied to some generic level. Especcially coop would propably benefit from some kind of perk system, ether something like magicite where you pick your perks at the beginning, or something like fallout, where you pick a perk every other level. If it fits in the game I can't say until I tried it. I think the game certanly can be balanced around this leveled crafting system, and that in turn could make it a better experience.

On the plus side, they claim they changed melee and animations and whatnot so that combat itself is more dangerous, and it's not as easy or even impossible to stunlock enemies like we're all used to. So maybe it will all work out in the end. Maybe in the case of 7DTD we got the end game before we got the early game, in that everybody is used to be able to kill everything from the beginning. Maybe throu the new item system and the new combat, you have to work to get as powerful as you are now right from the beginning. They even gated the crossbow now. Now if they would make the hundreds of firearms in the game rarer by a factor of about 50.... One can hope...

The most fun I had this year in gaming was definitely Dying Light. You start out as a guy that barely can handle more than a small handful of zombies at a time, and at the end of the game you are a zombie killing machine. I think I'd love this kind of character progression. This would make all the POIs really really hard at the beginning, and exponentially more dangerous the bigger the POI is. What you wish for with the different difficulty in different biomes would be automatically achieved throu zombies that are somewhat capable in killing you and are more than loot dispensers.

If the updated and polished new engine improves the performance as much as they claim, they could, in theory, up the zombie spawn rate by a lot. The number of zombies Dying Light throws at you is quite ridiculous, I'd love to see something like that. Funnily enough, this would even somewhat "fix" the op crossbow, since you need many more arrows and the reloading would add up to annoying levels. Maybe.

I think they have a somewhat confused development. They put the cart before the horse, the development is all over the place, and, more often than not, seems to be motivated by "I/the players want this" and not "this has to be done". The development of codependent systems is not done at the same time, but in some cases months apart, and in the time inbetween, the game is somewhat broken or at least doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a game design standpoint. Maybe everything will fall in place at the end, I not yet doubt their vision for the game. Alpha is alpha and all that jazz. Or maybe I'm way to optimistic...

[Dralnalak]

I figure I'll judge the game changes once they are actually released. I've gotten cynical about the differences between what early access or beta or whatever developers say a thing will be and what it actually is when released. :)

What I am really looking forward to is performance improvements. I have been seeing other companies also talking about how using Unity 5 properly really helps their game run better. I had to give up on playing 7 Days to Die a while back because as updates were released it was running worse and worse on my computer, which is borderline. I've barely played around with the open world generation because of that.

[Renegrade]

My first thought at "minibike" was some kind of off-road motorcycle, like they use in dirt bikes. That's probably my first thought because I've seen them used in post-apoc movies before. They're good for for rougher terrain, don't eat up gas like a Hummer or something would, and you can load several into a truck for scouting expeditions with a group.

A dirt bike is not in any way a 'mini' bike just because it's smaller than a Hog or a Goldwing. Heck most SUVs are smaller than a Goldwing. "Minibike" specifically refers to things like:

Spoiler

Show

(any motorbike would be more efficient than a hummer. Even the 6-cylinder Goldwing...)

Obviously, I'm all for gameplay over realism, but in this case it feels like a distinctly unnatural way of achieving a design goal when there are much more interesting alternatives available (progressively harder biomes also containing better loot for example).

I would be 120% for a biome-based progression. The leveled loot concept is driving me batty. They could diversify the zeds (the non-specials are all generally 100 health and hit the same amount AFAIK) and place 'em in progressively harder biomes, and I'd be in heaven. And if they really wanted to have a "loot skill" for whatever reason, just make it affect speed and noise level...

Now if they would scrap the crossbow recipe being made from dirt and scrap and make the hundreds of firearms in the game rarer by a factor of about 50.... One can hope...

They gated the crossbow behind forged materials and leather according to a dev post. The wooden bow replaces it as the intro weapon. I've gotten the impression though that they intend this to be a "zombie shooting game", come heck or high water.. EA announces Shoot People In A Slightly Different Way 7: Undead Shooter 5!

(Might explain why the melee system is so primitive though)

I think they have a somewhat confused development. They put the cart before the horse, the development is all over the place, and, more often than not, seems to be motivated by "I/the players want this" and not "this has to be done".

I think they attached the horses to some rolling stock, and then put the whole shebang in the water and called it a boat. :/

Oh well. They should be releasing Soon™, so we can see for ourselves Soon™ enough. (Whining about increased difficulty is already "QQ"ing it's hideous way into the 7DTD forums... failures need to uninstall, damn it!)

[Dralnalak]

"Minibike" specifically refers to things like:

That is not a motorcycle of any sort. That is not even a bike. That's a child's toy some idiot parent decided would be fun to ride before they broke it and made their child cry. Heck, Barbie has a better vehicle than that in those lawnmower sized Jeep knockoffs. The Barbie Jeep would certainly be better off road.

You ride that "Minibike" you posted around here and I can't imagine what the local bikers would do to you. After they finished laughing at you, of course.

I like the idea of a dirt bike type motorcycle in a survival game, as long as keeping it fueled is difficult. It makes perfect sense for when the roads are no longer in good shape and you need to get around. Plus, dirt bikes don't freak out at zombies like horses. Though the sound of a dirt bike would probably draw them in from quite a ways...

[Renegrade]

That is not a motorcycle of any sort. That is not even a bike. That's a child's toy some idiot parent decided would be fun to ride before they broke it and made their child cry. Heck, Barbie has a better vehicle than that in those lawnmower sized Jeep knockoffs. The Barbie Jeep would certainly be better off road.

That's the whole point - that's what "minibike" means. Specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minibike . I remember when those were introduced - I was riding a Nighthawk CB250 at the time, which is a low end real bike, and I sharply disapproved of those things. Fortunately, they were largely banned shortly thereafter (illegal to operate in any public space here in Ontario). I've never heard of 'minibike' referring to anything else. It sounds like Squad TFP might not be including them in A11 but if/when they do sneak in, I can't see them being anything but that (ie a real motocross/offroad/dirt bike would tear across the landscape too fast for it to load, let alone be balanced in any sort of way).

[DerAlex]

Quotes from the devs

About leveled loot:

We are planning on leveled loot, and actually its in there, its just I don't have time to integrate it correctly so maybe a12. We haven't really fleshed it out yet. I'm leaning towards difficult areas having better loot vs level based, but it will probably be both. You'll always have a chance to find legendary at level 1 but a higher level guy might have more chance is all. As I said, we haven't finalized it. It might be perk based too, like the scrounger perk in fallout3. Its currently 100% random. I do want tougher enemies to drop better stuff. For Alpha 11 only crafting being tied to level and not loot seems like what we'll be getting. I am definitely looking forward to level influencing loot though, even if it's just to a smaller degree.

On how big the range of quality of crafted items are:

Don't assume everything is as it was. Everything until you get a quality range of about 300 is worse than what you are used to using.

About gore blocks:

Don't underestimate Gore blocks. All it takes are a few to die near a place you didn't think they could get to and they are over a wall. It's a lot different, more dynamic. Before you could just sit there and look for cracks and repair them now they can get over walls anywhere and once a zombie dies on a spike his corpse is there making that spike ineffective, so spikes are not going to stop a large number of zombies. It's quite a bit different.

About melee combat:

I'll admit, I *detest* melee combat. Before the stun change, and after.

that one doesn't sound too good.

Source: http://7dtd.tk/devtracker/?style=glowAlways

[DaveYanakov]

"Minibike" specifically refers to things like:

Only thing I can think of when i hear minibike is https://i.imgur.com/wpUmHuk.webm

[Renegrade]

Well, A11 dropped - and I have to say, I have no idea what to make of it. There are some good things (it's a bit more progress oriented, some of the evil things have been gated, yields from at least some of the mining stuff reduced (coal and potassium nitrate ore is now 1->5 instead of 1->10, possibly iron), they got rid of surface veins of ore, plus some sensible bits like you can scrap clothing and skill books ;) ), but the level stuff feels kinda.. tacked on, and the quality thing a bit.. odd. I think POIs might have been scaled back, although my sample set is small still.

Only thing I can think of when i hear minibike is https://i.imgur.com/wpUmHuk.webm

That's the highest tier minibike ;)

[FlowerChild]

Well, A11 dropped - and I have to say, I have no idea what to make of it. There are some good things (it's a bit more progress oriented, some of the evil things have been gated, yields from at least some of the mining stuff reduced (coal and potassium nitrate ore is now 1->5 instead of 1->10, possibly iron), they got rid of surface veins of ore, plus some sensible bits like you can scrap clothing and skill books ;) ), but the level stuff feels kinda.. tacked on, and the quality thing a bit.. odd. I think POIs might have been scaled back, although my sample set is small still.

Yeah...I dunno man. Reading over the change log isn't really doing much for me. I'll definitely give it a try at some point in the next week or so, but I'm not exactly feeling excited about it.

As an aside:

Added new first person procedural camera system with procedurally based physics and inertia

Ok...I've spent most of my life developing games and I still don't know wtf that's supposed to mean :)

EDIT: Although now that I think about it some more, a game with procedurally generated physics would be pretty damn trippy:

"After rolling some dice we've determined that your world exists within five dimensions, with inverse gravity, and all viable life forms have exoskeletons to prevent their innards from slowly drifting away. Deal with it."

I somehow doubt that's what they meant though. I think it far more likely that someone just got a little carried away in describing their physics-based camera system :)

[devak]

Well, A11 dropped - and I have to say, I have no idea what to make of it.

It seems that they're aiming at Borderlands: Zombie Survival.