Better Than Wolves Forum

Great...apparently DocHussey wasn't joking about the swarms of giant bees.

They've become a much more prominent part of the game as a result, making it much harder for me to pretend they aren't there. Lame.

FlowerChild wrote:Great...apparently DocHussey wasn't joking about the swarms of giant bees.

They've become a much more prominent part of the game as a result, making it much harder for me to pretend they aren't there. Lame.

It takes a special kinda of skill to make something as terrifying as a swarm of giant bees something you avoid becouse its ugly rather then you know, terrifying. Did i mention swarms of bees are supposed to be terrifying? Cuz they are!

So that's a why I was attacked by three hornets(Wasps?) all at once. The AI sucks though they fly in way too slowly to be a real danger. If they swung in a you had to drive out of the way that would be more interesting, but as it stands it's annoying as I run around trying to hit it out of the air... Then I got a crossbow and no more problems. I think I agree with everyone here on the Crossbow>every gun. Maybe if it did the damage of a pistol.

Dreambolt wrote:If they swung in a you had to drive out of the way that would be more interesting

Errrrr...strange, because that's exactly what they were doing with me. They were actually extremely difficult for me to hit in melee, but I picked off a few with a hunting rifle before realizing I could just run away from them to get them to despawn before coming back to my base later. I think they gave the AI on them a boost for this release.

I think I had about 5 of them come at me at once, with the size of the swarms apparently increasing as the days go by. Maybe the AI gets turned up on them too, as I don't think I had as much trouble hitting them on previous days.

Giant fucking bees aside, the game is a lot more fun with the crossbow recipe just plain removed. Really makes you treasure your firearms and conserve ammo for when you really need it.

Ya I'm taking back my previous comment on the Wasp AI, they are swooping in more than before now. I would like it if they where a bit fast since right now they stay annoyingly out of range for a while before you can beat them to death. Right now they are only dangerous if I'm not paying attention on a roof or if there's 5 of them and I'm in the open (and I decide to be stupid and not book it.)

I agree on the crossbow. at the very least it needs to be much weaker, though I've been finding the pump shotgun an upgrade on the crossbow in everything expect cost. it's perfect for almost everything. the added accuracy on medium range targets makes it ideal for hunting animals (taking aim, it kills deer from a medium distance without spooking them in a single shot). plus you don't need brass for shotgun shells. Though it obviously isn't any good for sniping at long range.

Dreambolt wrote: I agree on the crossbow. at the very least it needs to be much weaker, though I've been finding the pump shotgun an upgrade on the crossbow in everything expect cost. it's perfect for almost everything. the added accuracy on medium range targets makes it ideal for hunting animals (taking aim, it kills deer from a medium distance without spooking them in a single shot). plus you don't need brass for shotgun shells. Though it obviously isn't any good for sniping at long range.

Yeah, shotgun has become my preferred weapon, but at least in that case, it's something you have to work a bit for, whereas the crossbow you have access to in the first few minutes of the game. I agree that it needs a power nerf big time, but I also think the recipe needs to be pushed way back, possibly requiring forged metal part or what have you. I've been toying with a few ideas for my own config like requiring a shotgun trigger mechanism for the recipe or what have you.

On the brass for shotgun shells part, that's actually something I've been considering changing in my recipe config given you tend to wind up with massive surpluses of the stuff otherwise.

To anyone playing this, I've got two words: feral zombies.

I decided to give it a go yesterday with my usual settings (25% loot spawn, no air drop, my custom recipe config, random world) and MAN, does it ever make the game better. It's basically the same game that 7 Days was when I started playing it, and which I had largely forgotten about.

I had my reservations here, as being able to sneak around at night "makes sense", so I didn't really consider disabling it after it became the default when the stealth mechanics were added.

But, after giving myself a push to give feral zombies a try, I will say without reservation that it makes for a much better game. Without it, there just isn't much gameplay incentive to build. With it, you're naturally pushed towards building fortifications. It gives a lot more meaning and purpose to the game overall. It also makes night time much more terrifying and interesting.

For those that don't know, what the option does is allow zombies to sense precisely where you are at all times during the night. As a result, they will attack your "base" relentlessly. You have to prepare for the night as a result and make sure they can't get access to you instead of just crouching in a corner all night. Leaving in the morning also becomes more interesting as generally there is a gaggle of zombies that you have to make your way through.

Anyways, for anyone playing I highly recommend it. With the aforementioned settings and my recipe config, the game is finally starting to feel like a real survival experience.

I read somewhere that feral zombies will make it so one horde, aimed directly at your location, will spawn each night and that the size of that horde will increase in number each night.

Any truth to that and does it make it so there's a definite stop to how long you can survive? (as in, one day, they'll be too numerous to deal with,whatever you do).

You're talking about day seven hordes, which are in game already. We're working on a randomized feral solution for the normal game, like theres something that happens that can make any number of zeds turn feral and you'll have to deal with that.

DocHussey wrote:You're talking about day seven hordes, which are in game already. We're working on a randomized feral solution for the normal game, like theres something that happens that can make any number of zeds turn feral and you'll have to deal with that.

Just wanted to point out that super-hordes aren't even noticeable in practice unless they are feral. Otherwise there's a tendency to just crouch on a roof somewhere and those nights pass pretty much like any other.

With feral though, I've been making sure to return to my main base every seven days, and that has contributed greatly to me expanding upon it further and continuing to upgrade its fortifications.

All combined, it really provides a strong motivation to build, and continue to do so, in a single location, which is obviously something I consider to be a very important thing in voxel games, and which is something I have not felt in 7 Days since the stealth mechanics were added. Like I said above, while the whole stealth thing "makes sense", IMO, it had a severely detrimental impact on the game.

The stealth really doesn't make sense to me. People who live on poorly preserved food and have no way to reliably clean themselves tend to smell quite strongly. No amount of squatting is going to change that and most zombies mythos includes a decent ability to hunt by smell

It's looking like Alpha 10 has some promising features - ramped up survival difficulty, 'wellness' factor that discourages suiciding and eating terrible foods (I've discovered in 9.3 that eating Sham Sandwiches is perfectly viable: chow down, wait for 60-second debuff to go away, proceed as normal...sounds like that's thankfully going away), activity heat map (might encourage exploration), improved structure damage graphics, and Icy's favorite, being able to set zombies on fire with torches.

Why, it's almost as promising as the energy update for KSP 0.23 ;)

FlowerChild wrote: Just wanted to point out that super-hordes aren't even noticeable in practice unless they are feral. Otherwise there's a tendency to just crouch on a roof somewhere and those nights pass pretty much like any other.

By the way, the massive hordes that start on midnight of every 7th day are automatically feral, regardless of aggression settings, at least in 9.3..

Renegrade wrote: Why, it's almost as promising as the energy update for KSP 0.23 ;)

Hehe...yeah :)

Personally, the change log they posted seems rather light on gameplay changes to me. The focus seems to be mainly on visible upgrades and customization to player models, which unless you are playing multiplayer (which I generally don't except co-op with Icy for our video series) and doing so with a sufficient number of people that you can't tell who is who, doesn't really make much difference to the game.

We'll see, but I can't say I'm particularly excited about this one.

Renegrade wrote:By the way, the massive hordes that start on midnight of every 7th day are automatically feral, regardless of aggression settings, at least in 9.3..

Are they? Strange I've never noticed that. I wonder if without feral zombies if I was getting bored of my worlds and not making it to the 7th day in them. I was just living on roof tops and such in those games, so if those zombies are feral, they should have torn me a new one.

FlowerChild wrote: Personally, the change log they posted seems rather light on gameplay changes to me. The focus seems to be mainly on visible upgrades and customization to player models, which unless you are playing multiplayer (which I generally don't except co-op with Icy for our video series) and doing so with a sufficient number of people that you can't tell who is who, doesn't really make much difference to the game.

There's a lot going on that's not in the blog (which is indeed mostly about visual elements).

Some of the highlights include:
- Increased survival difficulty (which I believe involved changes to loot spawn rates/types, plus as a side effect from other features below)
- Food no longer comes with +health/+stamina bonuses (the veryveryvery slow regen should still be there though)
- Wellness system (abusing deaths/respawns/rotten food is now more severely punished)
- Activity heatmap (zeds are attracted to areas of high player activity)
- Gore blocks (ties in with heat maps and allows zombies to overcome certain types of barriers with what amounts to mounds of corpses)
- Farming fixed (no more grass explosions)
- Some new Points of Interest (and possibly higher density of PoIs in random gen)
- Icons for leg injuries fixed
- Concrete now has an updated system (it apparently pours; that sounds vaguely familiar somehow ;) )

Obviously boarding the hypetrain is a one-way ticket to disappointment in the end, but I am rather optimistic about this update. Remembering the caveat that sometimes planned features go awry and make a problem worse... Energy update for teh win!

Oh and setting zeds on fire with torches, which should make Icy happy :)

FlowerChild wrote: Are they? Strange I've never noticed that. I wonder if without feral zombies if I was getting bored of my worlds and not making it to the 7th day in them. I was just living on roof tops and such in those games, so if those zombies are feral, they should have torn me a new one.

They're supposed to be; they've always been so for me (although I have seen some youtube videos where the feral horde didn't happen at all). A .. very large .. horde should spawn just after midnight (so technically it's on the 8th/15th/22nd etc), and it gets bigger with each following week (upto week 7, after which it resets to week 1 size).

This horde has always been feral for me.. I'm always detected regardless of what I'm doing...and if I'm not in a well-fortified base/refitted house (those buildings you and Icy were in earlier are actually quite amenable to fortification I've discovered), they really do tear me a new one.

- Gore blocks (ties in with heat maps and allows zombies to overcome certain types of barriers with what amounts to mounds of corpses)

Like this? lol

jorgebonafe wrote:Like this?

Spoiler

Show

lol

Pretty much :)

By the way, Madmole said this just recently:

Madmole wrote:Actually torches now require tallow which is melted down from animal fat in the cooking pot so I doubt people will be making torches easily. Coal torches don't but I've removed coal from resource rocks so you need to mine it so it's not real easy to get a torch. And as easy as I made it look, it's not that OP, its very easy to get stunned and killed by a group of zombies. I give the player one torch on startup now so they won't be in the dark.

Sounds like torches are moving up the tech tree (aside from the initial one) and resource rocks are getting a beating with the nerf bat. Presumably 'resource rocks' those are the big boulders strewn around the landscape.

Source: http://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread ... post153905

Alpha 10 is out. Sounds good. I'm looking forward to seeing heat maps in action.

http://7daystodie.com/alpha-10-apocalyp ... se-is-out/

DerAlex wrote:Alpha 10 is out. Sounds good. I'm looking forward to seeing heat maps in action.

Aha! Been waiting eagerly on this one. Awesome.

BTW: To anyone who has had performance problems with this game before, I've long suspected it was a memory issue.

There's a new video option to reduce texture resolution, and seriously, the difference is night and day. I can't believe how smooth the game is running by just cutting it in half.

Does anyone happen to know why the equipment you spawn with was changed to include a torch?

I remember seeing an explanation for that somewhere from one of the devs, but for the life of me can't find it again and can't remember what the rationale was.

Very tempted to rip it out for BTGB, but want to make sure I'm not forgetting something crucial :)

FlowerChild wrote:Does anyone happen to know why the equipment you spawn with was changed to include a torch?

I remember reading something about they were giving you one to start because they had made torches harder to create now. You now need animal fat for regular torches, and coal is going to be harder to find for those type of torches. The idea was to let the players start with at least a little light.

Though now that you can set zombies on fire, having a torch at start adds a bit of fun factor too. :)

Dralnalak wrote: I remember reading something about they were giving you one to start because they had made torches harder to create now. You now need animal fat for regular torches, and coal is going to be harder to find for those type of torches. The idea was to let the players start with at least a little light.

Ah, k, see I was wondering the exact opposite: why they had made the great move of making torches harder to get then partially reversed that by giving you one :)

Will rip that out the gusto. Man, having more modding access is seriously rocking ;)

EDIT: Actually, I was able to rip out all the equipment the player spawns with. Bonus!

Well, after a few hours with it, can't say I'm impressed. They seem to have fallen into the trap of "for every thing we make harder, let's make 2 things easier". Net result is everything feels easier to come by.

Anyways, happy to have more modding capability, because that's easy enough to fix ;)

Lol crap, I am going to have to watch some pros because I get my butt handed to me consistently. I want to be able to enjoy the BtB changes :P

I get to day two but as soon as I move to a new location I have to kill zombies nonstop. It am just confused how best to deal with their spawning. It is not like MC where most are seen before aggro.

Edit: Aha! Much better now, I focused on teching in as small an area as possible. I though scavenging was much more essential.

Ok, my observations of Alpha 10 after a some more play time:

-Wellness system: whatever. The only impact this has had on me is periodic messages about me getting bonuses for living well despite me just eating everything I find lying around, old rotten sandwiches included.

-Tweaks to buffs: I didn't treat my dysentery with golden rod tea in time, and the game informed me I'm now bleeding from my anus and require antibiotics. I like that.

-Torches setting zombies on fire: they took an infinite use item that is relatively easy to come by and turned it into one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Lame. Luckily, this was easy for me to disable.

-New character customization: visual fluff. Whatever.

-New "decayed" blocks (doors etc.): largely visual fluff, but it does make the environment look cooler, and makes it a little harder to get into some buildings.

-Blocks of houses in random worlds: I seriously hate this, and unfortunately I don't think there's anything I can do about it. It's turned the wilderness into one big suburban sprawl where there is an overabundance of places to loot. Previously, I had to plan expeditions to buildings I had found from my main base, usually planning to spend the night there. Now you can just walk a couple of hundred meters in any direction and find a place to loot, which also makes taking the risk of going into the wasteland/city for loot a non-consideration.

-Club tweaks: I can see no rhyme nor reason behind these. The game is still over saturated with club variants and now the top tiered one (spiked), which is very easy to get, is incredibly overpowered capable of killing most zombies in a single hit, thereby deincentivizing trying to acquire higher tier weapons because the one you can make within the first few minutes of the game is all you'll ever need. Again though, this was easy enough to fix.

-Trophies made out of different metals: I hate this one too. There's already an overabundance of metal in the game, and now the one metal they had that took some effort to acquire (Tungsten), is now just found randomly lying about. I ripped this out post-haste.

-Zombie heat system. I've noticed no impact whatsoever from this, but after discovering the joy of feral zombies, there's no going back from it for me, and I suspect with feral settings the heat mode doesn't matter much anyways (since zombies already know where you are at night). On the other hand though, before release the developers thought the heat system was broken during play only to find out that it isn't after checking the code, so I suspect the impact on play is minimal at best anyways.

-New ladder climbing mechanics: Hate. I can understand why they did it but the problem is that it basically goes against 20 years of FPS convention and uses a whole new system that causes me to have to think about it every time I go up and down a ladder, thus breaking suspension of disbelief. I think they would have been much better off just doing the Minecraft thing and adding a key that allows you to stop movement on a ladder.

So yeah, overall a big "meh". The game certainly isn't harder than it was before, and I'd say it's arguably a lot easier due to the loot abundance and overpowered weapons. To me, all the pre-release hype about how much harder the game was getting, was just that, as it sure doesn't seem that way to me. It's almost as if with each bump in difficulty the devs feel obliged to apologetically make something else easier.

Taleric wrote:Lol crap, I am going to have to watch some pros because I get my butt handed to me consistently. I want to be able to enjoy the BtB changes :P

Ok, that I just don't get. Even with all my changes it's extremely rare that I run into situations I'd consider difficult :)

I get to day two but as soon as I move to a new location I have to kill zombies nonstop.

Why though? Is just walking away not an option?

Yes, there is a never ending supply of zombies, but there's also very little reason to kill them unless you have a specific objective in mind.