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

[Taleric]

Completely concur, I have just been going about things wrong. I was moving constantly any being "greedy" vice securing an area. I think little differences from MC have me going after the wrong items.

#1 thing I enjoy, even my crap boxy build style looks sexy textured :P

Really though tons of growing potential.

[FlowerChild]

Really though tons of growing potential.

Yeah, the game has an absolute shit-ton of potential, however the thing I've been getting more and more concerned about with each passing release is the tendency to cave to the plethora of whining on their forums.

I've always been of the impression that these guys are solid designers, however, I think they're becoming weary with time in typical early access fashion, and they're compromising their vision left and right as a result.

I will put a big exclamation point next to my opinion of their design capabilities though due to the ladder thing I mentioned in my previous post, as there is just no excuse for blatantly ignoring design convention like that. That one definitely causes me to have my doubts.

Anyways, I think I'm happy with all the tweaks I've made so far and ready to release, so if you're looking for a more refined and challenging progression, be sure to check out the BTGB thread ;)

[DerAlex]

10.1 is here. A few bugfixes and a hand full of new stuff. Highlights:

-Changed torches can no longer be stacked and cannot be placed on a wall by themselves. To place one on a wall, first place a “Torch Holder” on the wall, then right click the torch holder with a torch to upgrade the empty torch holder to one that has a lit torch in it. Punch the lit torch to make the torch holder drop the torch. Torches degrade now when used as a weapon
-Fixed zombies not attacking client players unless they are close to player running Server
-Fixed antibiotics don’t expire (neither did an entire class of buffs)

http://7daystodie.com/alpha-10-1-hotfix-is-out/

http://joelhuenink.tumblr.com/post/1035 ... ew-content

[Taleric]

Well that's good :) just need the cement fix now. I think the torches are a more fair melee with degradation.

Try playing 7DtD a few days they back to BTW or vice versa ; It is so disorienting, FoV, pan speed and interaction button wise lol.

Incredible that while still a voxel game 7DtD is on the cusp of Arma to me. Not sure if it is the delay in item selection and movement or sounds but it really enhances immersion. MC is a world onto itself and it takes a while to accept interactions while 7DtD feels innate.

Edit: They did fix cement.

Spoiler

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Official Alpha 10.1 Release Notes
Added
Added nails to junk loot
Added green and blue tanktops
Added all colored tank tops to loot lists
Added red denim pants, brown denim pants, and plant fiber plants
Added recipe for plant fiber pants
Changed
Fixed vegetable stew recipe
Changed Burning can now be debuffed by drinking any water or juice
Changed coffee is always drinkable for an energy buff, but now offers negative hydration of -1
Changed torches can no longer be stacked and cannot be placed on a wall by themselves. To place one on a wall, first place a “Torch Holder” on the wall, then right click the torch holder with a torch to upgrade the empty torch holder to one that has a lit torch in it. Punch the lit torch to make the torch holder drop the torch.
Torches degrade now when used as a weapon
Changed removed recipe to make the item “coal torch”. The same recipe now makes a regular torch
Changed updated to latest EAC SDK, should fix problems for some users using the launcher on Windows
Changed renamed cloth and leather pants to cloth leg armor and leather leg armor
Changed renamed cloth shirt to cloth chest armor, and leather jacket to cloth chest armor
Fixed
Fixed ammo crate recipe
Fixed poured concrete never dried
Fixed reenabled “saveworld” console command
Fixed “Err” exception spamming the console and corrupting save games
Fixed loading XMLs when clients connect
Fixed server browser not showing details for peer2peer entries
Fixed server browser name filter would add newline on enter
Fixed server browser showing non-feral servers as feral
Fixed exception System.InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type
Fixed zombies not attacking client players unless they are close to player running server
Fixed antibiotics don’t expire (neither did an entire class of buffs)
Fixed you should be able to drink coffee even if you are full (negative thirst)
Fixed missing SteamAPI leads to exceptions instead of proper ingame error message
Fixed buffs can kill people with friendly fire, like light someone on fire with a torch who is your friend.
Fixed startdedicated.bat makes sure the steam_appid.txt contains the clients AppID
Fixed alt tabbing would cause UI artifacts on player model
Fixed pressing random many times would cause the textures to start offsetting
Fixed joining game through steam was skipping player profile check
Fixed planted trees go invisible after growing
Fixed the Iron armor and scrap armor sets now have their materials and textures working
Known Issues
Changing screen resolution/fullscreen causes weird character texture rendering. Changing clothes of any kind will fix the problem
New Fire debuff icon looks blank
4 new pants have blank icons and need english translations
2 new tank tops have icons and need english translations
Some clients may experience connection problems while playing which can result in the world chunks not drawing and zombies not moving. This can be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting
When loading a previous saved game Weapons can sometimes load rotated incorrectly. This can be fixed by switching hold items
Impact sounds for chainsaws/augers still use bullet impact sounds which is why they are too loud which will be fixed in the next build

[FlowerChild]

-Changed torches can no longer be stacked and cannot be placed on a wall by themselves. To place one on a wall, first place a “Torch Holder” on the wall, then right click the torch holder with a torch to upgrade the empty torch holder to one that has a lit torch in it. Punch the lit torch to make the torch holder drop the torch. Torches degrade now when used as a weapon

I'm really wondering about this one. I just finished updating my BTGB config files for 10.1, so I haven't tried the new release out yet, but the decision to require holders and to make torches non-stackable is an odd one to be sure and I'm interested in seeing how it plays.

Yes, I understand of course that it's necessary if they're going to be a weapon (hence why I removed the fire buff from torches), but I'm uncertain if the hassle that's going to cause in building is worth gaining that one small thing. I suspect the net result is that people won't bother with torches as much (the holders are made of metal), and bases are going to look a little duller as a result.

BTW Taleric, they also fixed the concrete pouring thing as far as I can tell.

[DerAlex]

The torch thing is a step in the right direction. The wall holder I think is a fun idea. As I understand, torches are unstackable because they now degrade. Also, they implemented the wall holder partly because otherwise you get the green placement-shadow everytime you hold a torch and look at a wall or floor. Torches are now more weapon than light source it seems. They have a few ideas for other lightning sources:

For all you about to explode in fury, don’t worry, we’re adding candles to the game you can light your homes with in the very near future, and not long after that electricity and real lamps you can turn on and off.

[FlowerChild]

The torch thing is a step in the right direction. The wall holder i think is a fun idea. As I understand, they implemented the wall holder partly because otherwise you get the green placement-shadow everytime you hold a torch and look at a wall or floor. They have a few ideas for other lightning sources:

Personally, I think it's more because if they hadn't done that, then you could refresh a torch's durability just by placing it and taking it again. Essentially it's a problem with having a weapon that is also a placeable block. It'll likely still be exploitable as is if you are say defending your base with torches and have an empty holder handy to use to refresh its durability.

IMO, this is a whole lot of hassle for nothing because they randomly wanted to turn torches into a weapon, in a game that's oversaturated with weapon variants already, but like I said, I want to play around with it some before making further judgements on it.

[DerAlex]

Personally, I think it's more because if they hadn't done that, then you could refresh a torch's durability just by placing it and taking it again. Essentially it's a problem with having a weapon that is also a placeable block. It'll likely still be exploitable as is if you are say defending your base with torches and have an empty holder handy to use to refresh its durability.

Is that the case? That sounds like a bug if it is, or at least a work in progress. Wouldn't they define the holder as some sort of container which preserves damage values? It's like put-bad-enchantments-in-minecardchests-and-break-them-to-remove-enchantment all over again

IMO, this is a whole lot of hassle for nothing because they randomly wanted to turn torches into a weapon, in a game that's oversaturated with weapon variants already

I feel the same way... more weapons is the one thing the game doesn't need. I still like the wall holders :D

Anyway, Alpha 10 is not enough for me to get back in. Alpha 8 is the last version I really played, and I'm not getting my fancy tickled skillfully enough to get back in just now. The longer I wait, the more features and functions I have to learn at once. Wanna get that fresh car smell feeling again. Also the game is too damn easy.

[FlowerChild]

Anyway, Alpha 10 is not enough for me to get back in. Alpha 8 is the last version I really played, and I'm not getting my fancy tickled skillfully enough to get back in just now. The longer I wait, the more features and functions I have to learn at once. Wanna get that fresh car smell feeling again.

Yeah, I can understand that. I'm much the same with many of the pre-release games I play.

Also the game is too damn easy.

Well...I'm working on fixing that :)

[DerAlex]

Also the game is too damn easy.

Well...I'm working on fixing that :)

I saw your change log, good to see that you can change a lot more than in the last version. I hope they keep giving more access to the modders over time, this has so much potential. I certainly look forward to seeing BTGB grow!

Back to the damn torches, I think the implementation of the burning debuff is a first step of a much broader set of features. Using a torch as a weapon might very well be a horrible idea later on. I imagine they will add some kind of fire physics later in development, and one burning horde goes all apocalypse now on your safehouse. This is just my speculation. Speculation and a bit of PTSD from the fucking dragonfly that grilled 25 of my 27 beefalos in Don't Starve earlier today...

[FlowerChild]

I saw your change log, good to see that you can change a lot more than in the last version. I hope they keep giving more access to the modders over time, this has so much potential. I certainly look forward to seeing BTGB grow!

Next release is already much more solid actually as there were a number of things exposed in the last release I hadn't fiddled with yet. I think I'm already done with it, but am starting a new game with 10.1 to playtest it before release.

Back to the damn torches, I think the implementation of the burning debuff is a first step of a much broader set of features. Using a torch as a weapon might very well be a horrible idea later on. I imagine they will add some kind of fire physics later in development, and one burning horde goes all apocalypse now on your safehouse.

Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines that if the fire has a chance of spreading from the zombies to wood structures, that would already go a long way and would also incentivize building out of more advanced materials.

However, that's not really an excuse for slapping an overpowered weapon into the game like that until that feature is ready. Yes, it's early access and all, but if you entirely break the balance of the game with something like that, it invalidates a lot of other potential play testing.

I'm also not sure if their planning is extending that far. Right now the torch thing is feeling to me like a poorly conceived feature that is having band aids applied to it until it hopefully works right.

[FlowerChild]

I've discovered something rather interesting that I think is having a big impact on efforts to get a harder experience out of the game:

Turns out the loot abundance % is a bit of a crock, or at least the way it's labeled leads to a rather inaccurate impression.

After playing around with the loot tables quite a bit, I think this is how that setting works: it's not that at 25% you get 1/4 of the loot you'd get otherwise, as you'd might expect. What I *think* it's doing instead is giving you the same loot, but cutting the stack size of items it's going to generate by 1/4, and rounding those numbers up.

So, this means that if you'd normally get 3 cans of beans or whatever, instead, you'll get one. But you'll still get at least one can of beans every time a stack would be generated.

So, if you were going to get a rare book or something 5% of the time, you'll still get it 5% of the time. If you were going to get a bag containing beans, water, and a pistol, you'll still get all of them, but maybe you'll get 1 can and 1 bottle instead of the 3 or 4 of each you'd get on normal loot settings, while the pistol is unaffected and you'll get the 1 pistol regardless.

In other words, you're actually getting a LOT more stuff than you'd expect for a 25% setting as a lot of the items come in single stack sizes anyways.

Now, I can't see the actual code, so I can't be 100% certain this is how it's working, but the above theory matches my observations so far.

[DerAlex]

I can confirm that. I played with 200% loot abundance for about a day, in the hope of finding an auger. I never did, just like you described, low chance stays low chance. But I got like 39 feathers in a single nest and stuff like that. Haven't played with over 50% since then.

I look forward to your release. I think I'll break my rule about not playing A10, I wanna try this as soon as you're happy with it.

[FlowerChild]

I can confirm that. I played with 200% loot abundance for about a day, in the hope of finding an auger. I never did, just like you described, low chance stays low chance. But I got like 39 feathers in a single nest and stuff like that. Haven't played with over 50% since then.

Ah...cool, thanks for the confirmation. I played around with it a bit more after my last post, and I think I have how it works internally fairly sorted out after a fair amount of trial and error.

I always wondered how come no matter how low I turned the loot settings down I always wound up the a chest full of guns. Now it makes sense as given guns are single-stack items I don't think they are affected at all by the loot abundance settings :)

And it looks like I've got that part sorted out too. I always wished that guns were more like relics of the old world that you would treasure, in the style of the old Mad Max films, rather than something that was available in abundance and which you don't even really need to bother to maintain because there's always a new one laying about somewhere. I think the settings I have now bring it a little closer to that, although it may take some more tweaking to get it just right.

I look forward to your release. I think I'll break my rule about not playing A10, I wanna try this as soon as you're happy with it.

Very cool! I was beginning to wonder if my and Icy were the only ones playing this thing. Will be good to have another set of eyes on it, but from the looks of the 7 Days boards I really don't think I want to get involved with releasing it to the wider audience there ;)

[Renegrade]

I've been playing A10 stock for a bit, and I have to say I largely concur with your long post on the previous page, FlowerChild. The Wellness system was an especially big disappointment for me (although at least it's hitting the die-to-cure exploiters a bit). I was expecting garbage-y foods to be much, much worse, and negative effects (like oh, being infected by the zombie clap) to be worse too. They really need to put some teeth into that, to make it easier to lose wellness..

Aside from that, some thoughts:
1. Zombies on fire: I dunno, I felt this was kinda useless aside from the pyromaniac aspect. Possibly because of #2/2a.
1a. Torch changes: I've read that they might be reverting the placement system to 9.3-style. And you CAN renew a torch by putting it in a bracket, although you have to break it out of the bracket to get it back..
2. Club proliferation: Yes, still way too many kinds, especially how you can easily skip to a reinforced club past the barbed one, and how the wood one isn't really competitive with the stone axe. The barbed one is pretty much insta-kill thanks to 2a.
2a. There's a "blunt trauma" effect on the clubs that make headshots more effective. Not sure what to make of this aside from "it has a nice meaty bone-breaky sound".
3. Trophies: Totally agree - the tungsten one is definitely a major "WHY!?!?!" moment.
4. Ladder climbing: I was kinda under the impression that FPSes didn't have any consistency in this thing, but if they're breaking convention, it wouldn't be the first time (ex. shift-clicking in inventory)...
5. Heat map: I reduced my normal activity level, and only had scouts every week or so. I haven't let them find me yet though so not sure what a scout-spawned horde is like.

I always wondered how come no matter how low I turned the loot settings down I always wound up the a chest full of guns. Now it makes sense as given guns are single-stack items I don't think they are affected at all by the loot abundance settings :)

I did something similar to DerAlex and have come to that same conclusion. You probably have more guns and rares than you would have at 100% or 200% in fact, as you're going to have to loot more for regular supplies...

Very cool! I was beginning to wonder if my and Icy were the only ones playing this thing. Will be good to have another set of eyes on it, but from the looks of the 7 Days boards I really don't think I want to get involved with releasing it to the wider audience there ;)

At the risk of aggravating Icy's "slippery slope", I play it too, for what it's worth.

Especially since it looks like they've opened up a bunch of the XML files..

[FlowerChild]

As an aside, I think I finally figured out how the wellness system impacts the game:

It amplifies death spirals substantially. If you go through a series of deaths, your wellness takes a major hit and your situation becomes more and more desperate where your stats are decreased and food in particular seems to help you less and less.

Of course, in stock you hardly ever die, so this isn't really noticeable, but after a series of deaths I just experienced in BTGB, it definitely started to hurt :)

I'm still undecided on whether I like it. Yes, it's a death penalty, which I like, but on the other hand, this is one area in which I might take mercy on new players as a designer as it means that the game keeps upping the difficulty the worse a player you are.

Will need to play with it some more to make up my mind on it.

[Renegrade]

As an aside, I think I finally figured out how the wellness system impacts the game:

It amplifies death spirals substantially. If you go through a series of deaths, your wellness takes a major hit and your situation becomes more and more desperate where your stats are decreased and food in particular seems to help you less and less.

Yeah, we discussed negative feedback loops in the BTSM thread on the KSP forum a ways back, and the Wellness system is an example of that.

Fortunately, Wellness of zero corresponds to 50% health/stamina (in theory..), which does put a bottom on that feedback loop.

Maybe The Fun Pimps should make it zero at the start, or cap the bottom at 100 instead, making it a positive-only feedback loop?

[FlowerChild]

Maybe The Fun Pimps should make it zero at the start, or cap the bottom at 100 instead, making it a positive-only feedback loop?

Maybe. Or just get rid of beds ;)

[DerAlex]

Alpha 10.3 is here:

-Changes to the character creation menu. Fluff fluff and fluff. I hope they are done with it for now.

Other than that, some fine tuning to the ATM pretty unpolished and somewhat broken wellness system:

-Added a new wellness curve, It’s easier to earn wellness when your wellness is lower than it is when its is higher.
-Added Vitamins to the loot which boost wellness and cure Dysentery.
-Getting stunned has a chance to lower your wellness
-Reduced wellness from antibiotics from 5 to 2

Additionally:

-Changed torches now have a random burn time of about 20 minutes. After this they will disappear. (Funnily enought, the new candles do not seem to burn out...)
-Added beer item, beer to loot, and beverage cooler loot containers which appear in gas stations, old businesses, pharmacies, gun stores, hardware stores, movie theaters and ski lodges. With beer you can now get both a positive Beer buff and a negative hangover debuff. (Positive Beer buff... wat?)
-Changed improved town code to allow larger buildings. You’ll see a much larger variety of different buildings in towns now (yaay)
-Added new pharmacies, book stores and hardware stores with custom signs,decor and special loot to Navezgane and Random Gen (also yaay)
-Added new cobblestone upgrade system. Cobblestone walls are now made by first creating a cobblestone frame which is made from 5 sticks and some plant fiber to “stake” out the area where you will build the cobblestone wall. Once you place the frame you take cobblestones (made from cement and small rocks) and you right click the frame to upgrade it to a ¼ high cobblestone wall. Repeat several times to complete the wall. The cobblestone frames have very little structural integrity so you might need to support your cobblestone outward structures until they are completed with another supporting block. (also also yaay. I think.)
-Changed towns now use random block sizes and shapes (not exactly sure what that means. Maybe less POI with exactly 4 houses in a square. I can't imagine they mean building blocks. So, propably also yaay)
-Changed removed dogs from burnt forest. Dogs should now only appear in the wasteland and at Barns (meh. Stupid change IMHO)
-Fixed dog attack animations and spastic spinning dogs. Dogs are now easier to kill (less buggy = more better. Even thou killing dogs was always easy when you know what you are doing, even with melee weapons. Hint: Sprint backwards)

Full Change Log:
http://7daystodie.com/merry-xmas-alpha-10-3-is-here/

Edit:
Even thou I disagree with devoting so much time to a character creator while the game is not done in so many other areas, I can't say I'm not looking forward to playing with as this handsome fellow:

Spoiler

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[Renegrade]

-Added a new wellness curve, It’s easier to earn wellness when your wellness is lower than it is when its is higher.

I was actually suggesting that in a thread in the general discussion area heh.

-Getting stunned has a chance to lower your wellness

...wat?

-Reduced wellness from antibiotics from 5 to 2

Yay!

-Added beer item, beer to loot, and beverage cooler loot containers which appear in gas stations, old businesses, pharmacies, gun stores, hardware stores, movie theaters and ski lodges. With beer you can now get both a positive Beer buff and a negative hangover debuff. (Positive Beer buff... wat?)

I actually know a guy who actually works better once he's outside of a beer or two.

-Changed improved town code to allow larger buildings. You’ll see a much larger variety of different buildings in towns now (yaay)

I have yet to see a larger building. I just see ridiculously/needlessly HUUUGE towns now with regular buildings in 'em. A10.4 anybody?

-Changed removed dogs from burnt forest. Dogs should now only appear in the wasteland and at Barns (meh. Stupid change IMHO)

I would have done the opposite, remove 'em from barns (which are a low-loot, poor SI, fail of a place), and left 'em in burnt forest, as burnt forest is supposed to be an enhanced difficulty biome AFAIK. (below wastelands and city but above everything else)

Not sure if this is intended, but dogs are actually more dangerous than zombie cops I find. Zombie cops have terrible, static aim (when they start hurling, just make a jump to the left, or a step to the right...), make a lot of noise, and move very slowly and are basically free ammo if you have a shotgun, but the first sign of a zombie dog is all too often it chewing on your leather pants, since they're low to the ground, fast, and only rarely make their rather quiet idle noises.

[FlowerChild]

I have yet to see a larger building. I just see ridiculously/needlessly HUUUGE towns now with regular buildings in 'em. A10.4 anybody?

Probably just variance there. I've been seeing a fair number like factories in the middle of towns.

I would have done the opposite, remove 'em from barns (which are a low-loot, poor SI, fail of a place), and left 'em in burnt forest, as burnt forest is supposed to be an enhanced difficulty biome AFAIK. (below wastelands and city but above everything else)

Yeah, I've already added dogs back to the burnt forest, as I'm certainly not down with making the biomes *less* distinct than they already are :)

[Renegrade]

Yeah, I've already added dogs back to the burnt forest, as I'm certainly not down with making the biomes *less* distinct than they already are :)

Excellent :)

Especially funny how they say 'biome' and then attack the very meaning of the word by taking away any 'ecosystem' differences like oh, the life forms found there :)

[FlowerChild]

New release is out, over on the 7 Days forums BTGB thread. OP also updated to say as much.

This will be the last time I post notification of a new release here, as I'm trying to cut down on the work involved in maintaining two separate threads.

[DerAlex]

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...

[FlowerChild]

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...

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.