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...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑... has 7 Days to Die

(Banned) Jul 19, 2022 @ 1:33pm

A21 graphics improvements and water rework! O_O

Look over here[www.artstation.com] some graphics they're working on for A21. That's a graphics detail I've rarely seen in the current version of 7D2D!

Also, I noticed there some objects that make me think if they're adding new game mechanics like collecting rain water or using a radio for some reason...

Originally posted by Roland:
The dew collector is the new workstation. It is the lowest tier workstation and so will be the first one unlocked by reading Forge Ahead magazines.

It slowly collects three bottles of pure water (irrespective of biome or weather sorry Gup). Drinking water has been completely rebalanced for A21. Setting up multiple dew collectors will definitely become fundamental to survival and for building your base.

It is a passive station. It just does it’s thing once you place it and the interface is only to collect water from it. It isn’t a crafting station and it doesn’t unlock new recipes. But when you have three set up it makes your base look cool and you always feel happy opening it and removing pure water.

I think the footprint is 3x3 and the height is possibly 3 or 4 blocks? Can’t confirm right now but maybe someone else can.

There is not a more advanced version of the dew collector. It is not hard to build but it does take a lot of resources and a part( the filter) that can’t be crafted. In the beginning it will be tough to get multiple made but later it will get easier.

As for MP there is no need to modify vending machines or traders. Crafting teas will just be even more important. I am crafting more teas than I ever did before. You have less water now so you really want what you have to go farther and the teas really do help. Plus having a goldenrod tea on hand makes drinking murk less risky.

I know that there is going to be a lot of debate over the next while over realism and gameplay and why jars have been removed except as a visual unit of drinkable liquid. I can’t fault anyone for thinking it is weird. This game has always been quirky and weird with the bottles.

But it does play fun. It is fun getting the water part of survival managed and it does eventually reach a point where water survival is a breeze and doesn’t matter but the journey is much better……if you can forgive the oddities.

[Filling jars is] no longer possible. You can drink straight from a river or lake but you won’t be able to fill up a stack of empty bottles. There are no longer any empty bottles in A21. Bottles only exist as long as there is a liquid contained in them. They simply represent one unit of that liquid and not a literal bottle any longer.

Murky water is now the standard drink of the apocalypse. You will only ever find murky water when looting containers that have water. You will always have to boil your own pure water. But dew collectors generate pure water so they are very nice.

You can’t craft empty jars, find empty jars, or wind up with empty jars anymore.

The struggle for water lasts longer than three days now. I’ve actually found myself resorting to drinking murky water at times. Murky water works like the spoiled sandwiches. It recovers your thirst but damages your health slightly just like the sandwiches recover your hunger but damage your health. Makes for some interesting choices.

We cannot craft nor collect murky water. Glue now uses pure water in its recipe. For your production needs you would probably want a dew collector farm of at least a dozen collectors.

Also, while on the subject, for boiling murky water into pure water on the campfire you must have a pot in A21. No more can you boil murk without a pot. Sometimes we just have to drink murk. Rekt swears by it. He prefers murk to anything else.

Originally posted by faatal:
I've been doing some overall play testing lately. My current game (8k RWG and default settings) is starting day 4. The water struggle is real. I've had to drink about 5 bottles of murky water so far and managed to not get dysentery. I can boil water now and make 2 kinds of tea. I've never been so excited to loot a red tea. Tea is +4 water over boiled, so definitely making tea. Got my water back up to 90%, but the only drink I currently have is one golden rod tea. Trader so far has had no water. I know how to make the dew collector, but don't have the filter. Hopefully I can find a filter at a trader.

Originally posted by Roland:
Buckets carry water to transport water voxels from one place to another. If you pour out water from a bucket you’ll get a water voxel. I believe that you could probably drink directly from that water voxel but you can’t change it to bottled murky water or get it into a pot.

The reason likely has to do with how having easy to access infinite water destroys any chance of “the struggle”. @madmole would have to describe his thought process or maybe @schwanz9000 who worked on it with him could give more insight.

I completely understand what you are saying about this being a weird limitation that runs contrary to reality. I can get water into a bucket and carry it with me. I have a pot on my campfire but I’m not allowed to pour the water in my bucket into the pot on my campfire. It’s just another strange concession of reality to gameplay.

Vending machines have beverages and they are considerably more expensive in A21.

Originally posted by schwanz9000:
The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
There was just WAY too much food and water in the world and players would have boxes full of stuff at the end of Day 1.
We want players to feel the struggle of finding the simplest items first and working their way up the progressions.

Day 1:

You are given 1 jar of water at spawn.

When that jar is consumed, the jar is not returned to your inventory. This mechanic was removed to promote survival aspects as well as the function of the new dew collector.

Having a hard time finding more water? You can now drink from bodies of water by looking at the water with empty hands, waiting a moment without moving, and then pressing E to drink.

Hand drinking AND murky water has the following side effects:
-5HP and plays a gross sound
Has a 12% chance of dysentery

Other means of finding water is looting, vending machines, and traders.

Murky water can no longer be boiled without a cooking pot. This was skipping the risk murky has if consumed.

Snowballs are no longer a means to making water. Players could dig up stacks of snowballs and never have to find water again. They are still used in the Yucca Juice Smoothie or for throwing at your friends.

Loot has been adjusted so that drinks are no longer found in cabinets. There are just way too many cabinets in the game.
Many loot tables have been adjusted to only find murky water.
There are still rare chances to find water and other drinks in special loot containers.

Day 2 - 7:
Work on trader quests or looting POI's to find the resources needed for crafting a dew collector.

Once placed, a dew collector will slowly start to fill the bar on the first slot. When the bar is full, a jar of water will spawn in that slot.
Slots are filled based on time only and fills with or without the player being near it (works with the chunk unloaded).
The dew collector does not work any faster with rainfall.
The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). Random rolls can make this a few game hours shorter or longer.

Hope this helps to answer any questions. Please know that ANY of this can change before A21 launches.

Originally posted by Roland:
this change does bring consistency to the universe. No other substance in a container returns the empty container. Only canned food and drink did. Now those two exceptions work the same way as the rest and are no longer exceptions.

Use oil —> no empty oil can returns and you can’t craft an empty oil can.
Use gas —> no empty gas can returns and you can’t craft an empty gas can.
Use stew —> no empty bowl returns and you can’t craft an empty bowl.
Use acid —> no empty bottle returns and you can’t craft an empty acid bottle

There was never four pages devoted to the weirdness of those things and people have always just accepted it. Players new to A21 will most likely accept drinks and food not returning an empty container as well. It’s just us who need to adapt and it doesn’t take long at all. Once I accepted that empty jars were out of the game I no longer thought about it.

Besides….when this game originally started you did not get your jar returned. There were lots of jokes and memes posted about “where do the jars go?!?” So this isn’t even a new change. It is reverting the game back to its classic roots before console versions started influencing everything. I guess not being able to craft an empty bottle is new though. So half classic half progressive

About the Helmet Water Filter mod:

Originally posted by schwanz9000:
The mod removes all side effects from hand drinking and murky water. Without it, it would be -5HP per drink as well as a 12% risk of dysentery. It has a gain of 10 water.

Last edited by ...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...; Aug 22, 2022 @ 10:44am

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Originally posted by Shurenai:

As a user: To address an argument that continued for several pages:
A survival game is not the same as a survival simulator. There is, however, a sliding scale of complexity, realism, accuracy, etc that clarifies the difference between the two.

The basest level of a 'Survival Game' is to have a food bar, and/or a water bar that you must manage by eating and drinking respectively. That's it. It doesn't need to include gathering food or water in any realistic way. It could be as simple as just remembering to push a button from time to time, ala breathing in Manual Samuel.

Minecraft is an example of what most would classify as "non-simulation" of survival elements. It just makes you remember to eat from time to time- And that's it. No water intake required. It is at or near the left most end of the sliding scale.

However, As you move the scale towards Simulation, things become more complex.

At the far end of the scale you have games like The Long Dark. Harsh. Unforgiving. Realistic.

To make other comparisons outside the survival genre:

Flying a plane in GTA 5 is nothing like flying a plane in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Driving a race car in a racing simulator like iRacing or RaceRoom is nothing like driving a race car in burnout or other arcade racers.
Farming in Stardew Valley is nothing like farming in Farming Simulator 2022.
Making a meal in Cooking Mama is nothing like making a meal in Cooking Simulator.
And more besides.

It absolutely makes a difference whether it's a Game or a Simulator.

But, How exactly each game tackles any given thing is up to the individual game- Just like minecraft forgoes water survival elements. A game can be a survival game so long as it represents those basest needs of the human body in some way shape or form- Hunger, thirst, etc. How complex it is or isn't is up to the individual game.

In 7DTD, This line is drawn at utilizing basic survival elements. It is a Survival game; Not a survival Simulator. We have temperature, but it's not particularly unforgiving at the moment, we have food but it's barely a bother, we have water but it's a non issue past day 2; And making those elements have a meaningful, but not overbearing impact on the gameplay loop.

As the game is in development this means trying out different ways of balancing things out. And, As those survival elements currently have basically no impact on the gameplay loop, it means rebalancing them to make them more relevant.

It doesn't mean the coming water changes are perfect; Or ideal. But it IS an attempt to make water a relevant concern to the player without A: taking the player out of the gameplay loop or B: letting the player solve the problem for the rest of time in 5 minutes.

And to close this portion, I think the main issue in contention on 'Survival game' vs 'Survival Simulator' is the conceptual difference between Simulation and Emulation. It might amuse you to find out that the meaning and application of these two concepts are a bit backwards from what you might expect.

A survival game strives to "Simulate" survival. To approximate the feel of a survival situation in a game-like manner, a survival game Simulates the aspects of it; To need to drink, to need to eat- But it is not exact. It's an imitation with an appearance/characterization that matches on some levels what we expect from 'survival', but that does not explicitly match that expectation at every step.

A survival simulator strives to "Emulate" survival. It aims to match or surpass the original in so much as it is possible to do so within the medium- Obviously as a video game, a survival simulator will never be able to wholly emulate reality. But it strives to come as close to doing so as it reasonably can in it's chosen aspects.

In fairness, Both an emulation and simulation are, technically speaking, imitations in the end; as neither is the original thing.. But despite being similar...they aren't really the same.

As a final note, Not every title aims to include every facet of the idea to the same degree, be it more to the game end of the spectrum or more to the simulator end of the spectrum. At the end of the day they're all still video games.

=====================

Speaking as a moderator: I've cleaned up a fair chunk of the last few pages.
Just a few notes:

Please stay on topic. The topic here is a bit loose due to the information that has been appended as it has continued; But some of you went WAY off into completely different topics. Stick to discussing the art/models presented, and the water changes that were brought up due to the rain catcher model.
Don't call each other trolls, white knights or shills, or anything else insulting. If you can't make your argument without insulting people, You need to step back from the thread.
Don't accuse people of being paid-actors; It's an accusation that can be equally levied both ways and no one can actually deny the claim in any convincing way, which makes it prone to huge arguments and against the rules; On top of which it is an accusation, which falls under the flaming rule.

And as a moderator-ish note: If you want to keep arguing the specifics and nuance of 'Survival games' vs 'Survival simulators', Please make a new thread to do so, as it's prone to go off the topic of this thread, since it's only tangentially related to the water changes to begin with.

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Showing 1-15 of 416 comments

sintri

Jul 19, 2022 @ 2:11pm

Models seem to be from a third party. Site also says Unreal so it's probably gonna look alot worse when it's loaded into unity.

...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑... has 7 Days to Die

(Banned) Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:00pm

Originally posted by sintri:
Models seem to be from a third party. Site also says Unreal so it's probably gonna look alot worse when it's loaded into unity.

Well, it's been advertised on the official forums by a member of TFP, so...

Last edited by ...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...; Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:01pm

Shurenai

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:10pm

I don't see mention of unreal- But it does appear to be a collaboration thing.

The blurb on the right:
"7 Days to Die
Dekogon Studios had the pleasure to assist The Fun Pimps with asset support for the game 7 Days to Die.
We are extremely proud to present some of the accomplishments of the Dekogon team in collaboration with The Fun Pimps here from our talented artists! Dekogon was responsible for the creation props and assets with respect to voxel sizes on the grid."

So TFP worked with Dekogon Studios on the assets.

...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑... has 7 Days to Die

(Banned) Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:12pm

I thought it was something like that.
Thanks for clarifying.

Bo0Mz

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:38pm

these look really good

Flippy

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:41pm

Any youtube videos about whats coming up? I have looked around a bit but nothing new.

Midas

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:45pm

Nice. Simple models with smart textures to make them look better. They'll look worse in game than they will in pictures, but those are still nice improvements.

atom heart has 7 Days to Die

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:50pm

The rain catcher could be a thing, if they work out the water mechanics. It all looks amazing, the talent of some people always makes me smile.

brightcat7 has 7 Days to Die

Jul 19, 2022 @ 3:57pm

What radio ? no used to me as am born deaf.

Spider

Jul 19, 2022 @ 4:15pm

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:
Look over here[www.artstation.com] some graphics they're working on for A21. That's a graphics detail I've rarely seen in the current version of 7D2D!

Also, I noticed there some objects that make me think if they're adding new game mechanics like collecting rain water or using a radio for some reason...

Someone found more "stuff"!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zDRW94
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PeKNby
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YK2qAw
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/03VLBy
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9NL4ON
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NGmBBz
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Wm038v
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2qVKKy
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kl3BBn
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xYPwk4

Thanks for your diligent presentation of new features. Looks great!

#10

BORG

(Banned) Jul 19, 2022 @ 4:21pm

Yippee...Nothing to write home about at all.

It's Insubstantial content. Core content and finalisation of mechanics and the game's development completion are substantially far more important than eye candies. They won't even look as good in game as those images and if they do, it's likely the game will suffer yet another performance blow below the belt.

Don't get me wrong they look alright, but I as others out there do not care one bit about eye candy graphics upgrades of any sort at this stage of the games' development. That stuff should come later post alpha.

#11

...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑... has 7 Days to Die

(Banned) Jul 19, 2022 @ 4:31pm

Originally posted by BORG:
Yippee...Nothing to write home about at all.

It's Insubstantial content. Core content and finalisation of mechanics and the game's development completion are substantially far more important than eye candies. They won't even look as good in game as those images and if they do, it's likely the game will suffer yet another performance blow below the belt.

Don't get me wrong they look alright, but I as others out there do not care one bit about eye candy graphics upgrades of any sort at this stage of the games' development. That stuff should come later post alpha.

I know, I know... I just post this for "US FEW FANBOYS" who still fall for these kind of distractions. We're of course far far less than the OTHERS' group you're part of!

You know. I'm not very smart, so when they show me some eye candy, I immediately start drooling and rolling on the ground happy like a dog. To each his own I guess!

#12

sintri

Jul 19, 2022 @ 5:27pm

Been out of the field for a decade or two, but most 3d modeling programs can convert to numerous formats, though it's also very possible they share the same formats. Unreal just does a bunch of post processing and lighting better which can and generally will make it look more lifelike.

Last edited by sintri; Jul 19, 2022 @ 5:52pm

#13

MoistGamer has 7 Days to Die

Jul 19, 2022 @ 5:54pm

Those look nice. Almost too nice for the rest of the world to be honest. If that battery bank for example was sitting on the ground in the current world, on gravel, concrete, wood, cobble, paint, it would look pretty out of place. I wonder if this means the rest of the 'world' is getting a graphical overhaul too, or, if as others predicted these are just slightly scaled up images.

All comparisons and hearsay aside, those look really nice as they are.

Seven years went under the bridge
Like time was standing still
Heaven knows what happens now
You've got to, you've gotta say you will

Last edited by MoistGamer; Jul 19, 2022 @ 5:57pm

#14

VideogameAddiction has 7 Days to Die

Jul 19, 2022 @ 6:02pm

Originally posted by BORG:
Yippee...Nothing to write home about at all.

It's Insubstantial content. Core content and finalisation of mechanics and the game's development completion are substantially far more important than eye candies. They won't even look as good in game as those images and if they do, it's likely the game will suffer yet another performance blow below the belt.

Don't get me wrong they look alright, but I as others out there do not care one bit about eye candy graphics upgrades of any sort at this stage of the games' development. That stuff should come later post alpha.

Do you think artists work on core content or mechanics? Pretty sure they are handled by others.

#15

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Date Posted: Jul 19, 2022 @ 1:33pm

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