Alpha 20 goes live for survival game 7 Days to Die

My friends and I have been playing A20 Experimental on a dedicated server. There are a lot of improvements and a few issues.

Dynamic rendering is a decent improvement and visuals are a lot better in my opinion but performance and framerate have suffered.

We've disabled Feral Sense and Blood Moon/Horde Nights. Zombie difficulty is ramped up in my opinion. Tier 1 feels about like it always has but by Tier 3 quests it gets brutal. Ferals, Screamers, and Radiated zombies have shown up much earlier. Animals feel about the same with bears and cougars being challenging.

I didn't experiment with new weapons. I went with my favorite stealth build using crossbows and bows with brawling and supressed 9mm pistor as my backups. Using a 9mm pistol on POIs is sometimes a must on T3 and higher. Stealth feels really good still, but takes a little more care and effort.

Building isn't something I've explored a lot [edit: I've built a lot of bases before A20, but not in A20 yet], but I will say the new shapes are welcome. I'm not sure how I feel about the material consolidation for block building, but overall I think I like it.

My job in the group is cooking and I'll probably put points into mining eventually. Cooking is mostly the same, but farming got a huge nerf. I've been buying a lot of potatoes, mushrooms, and blueberries from vendors. The farmer in our group finally got to 3 points in "Living Off the Land" and so we'll start trying to grow more of our own veggies.

The robot companion is cool, but has some pathing issues and sometimes gets stuck in doorways.

Overall the difficulty feels ramped up a bit and there is a lot more requirements for crafting which feels a little grindy. The headlight mod for vehicles is awesome. It's like actually having headlamps. We haven't tried any mods so no comment there. It's a good update and better than I anticipated.


Last edited by randyl on 23 December 2021 at 12:36 am UTC

Pretty sure this is running on OpenGL still; quite impressively really. There is a option for Vulkan but its never been updated and doesn't really work; it be nice if they updated Vulkan and moved to it as the default.

Also this be a great game to get VR edition or something down the line.


Last edited by TheRiddick on 22 December 2021 at 4:52 am UTC

I've also had a lot of fun with the game. But, let's be honest: Now already 8 years in development and still an Alpha and "Early" Access?

Will it be the next Duke Nukem Forever (15 years in development)? ;)

I've also had a lot of fun with the game. But, let's be honest: Now already 8 years in development and still an Alpha and "Early" Access?

Will it be the next Duke Nukem Forever (15 years in development)? ;)

I think there's kind of a key difference there, in that you couldn't play Duke Nukem Forever while it was in development.

...And it's 70% discounted in the newly started Steam Sales!

I think there's kind of a key difference there, in that you couldn't play Duke Nukem Forever while it was in development.

I was more concerned with the development time.
However, I don't think the term "alpha" is right for this version either:
Alpha:

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished.[157] A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.[158] These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback.[157] Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped.[158] Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.

-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

New features and functions are still and always being added to 7dtd. You can't even begin to talk about a "feature complete".Although they have already reached Alpha 20 (!!!!)! Do they even intend to be finished sometime?

I think there's kind of a key difference there, in that you couldn't play Duke Nukem Forever while it was in development.

I was more concerned with the development time.
However, I don't think the term "alpha" is right for this version either:
Alpha:

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished.[157] A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.[158] These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback.[157] Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped.[158] Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.

-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

New features and functions are still and always being added to 7dtd. You can't even begin to talk about a "feature complete".Although they have already reached Alpha 20 (!!!!)! Do they even intend to be finished sometime?

Come to think of it, modern games don't really work with that whole model. For a lot of games, there really is no alpha/beta/complete because there are always new features being added after "completion", making it unclear just what "complete" even means for them. As a result, a game can be in a condition you might think of as done or late beta in terms of polish, assets and so forth, but major new features are still being implemented.

Actually, that's true of most open source software as well. You might say the whole alpha/beta/shipped paradigm is tied to the dominance of physical media: It's important if you're going to be pressing the software on DVDs and sending it off to stores. You have to define a finished product to ship, and efforts and stages have to be defined around that end goal. If it's distributed digitally and can be updated automatically on an ongoing basis, the whole concept gets a lot less relevant, or at least a lot less necessary.

Come to think of it, modern games don't really work with that whole model. For a lot of games, there really is no alpha/beta/complete because there are always new features being added after "completion", making it unclear just what "complete" even means for them. As a result, a game can be in a condition you might think of as done or late beta in terms of polish, assets and so forth, but major new features are still being implemented.

Actually, that's true of most open source software as well. You might say the whole alpha/beta/shipped paradigm is tied to the dominance of physical media: It's important if you're going to be pressing the software on DVDs and sending it off to stores. You have to define a finished product to ship, and efforts and stages have to be defined around that end goal. If it's distributed digitally and can be updated automatically on an ongoing basis, the whole concept gets a lot less relevant, or at least a lot less necessary.

So you're saying that calling a game "Early Access" for 8 years and being in an alpha stage (so not even a beta stage!) for 8 years is "normal"?

If so, then you and I have different understandings of "normal". Because having a game in alpha for 8 years, but not even having dates for a beta or an RC - let alone a "final" - that's not normal. And without knowing as a gamer, "WHEN can I finally expect a permanently stable version?" Why this is important ... here:

I played the game very intensively from Alpha 5 to Alpha 11. But to have a full-wipe of the servers / savegames with every alpha release - you lose the fun of the game. That's why my game colleagues and I gave up the game afterwards. Building a new fortress from scratch every time, only to start everything over again with the next alpha - you have to be a passionate masochist to still have fun with

Above all, it's a burner to release an unfinished PC game on the consoles. But since the console manufacturers don't allow "alpha" versions to be sold, the versions there were declared as "final" ... which is why these versions are now stuck in Alpha 13.

The game feels unfinished after 8 years, despite the undeniable fun factor, and has declamatory shortcomings and a visually arguably utilitarian UI. I'm seriously wondering if Fun Pimps will ever release a final version, if they're going to fine-tune all the alpha features in a beta, or if they'd rather tinker with new features for all eternity. An official Rodmap has not existed for ages.

Come to think of it, modern games don't really work with that whole model. For a lot of games, there really is no alpha/beta/complete because there are always new features being added after "completion", making it unclear just what "complete" even means for them. As a result, a game can be in a condition you might think of as done or late beta in terms of polish, assets and so forth, but major new features are still being implemented.

Actually, that's true of most open source software as well. You might say the whole alpha/beta/shipped paradigm is tied to the dominance of physical media: It's important if you're going to be pressing the software on DVDs and sending it off to stores. You have to define a finished product to ship, and efforts and stages have to be defined around that end goal. If it's distributed digitally and can be updated automatically on an ongoing basis, the whole concept gets a lot less relevant, or at least a lot less necessary.

The game feels unfinished after 8 years, despite the undeniable fun factor, and has declamatory shortcomings and a visually arguably utilitarian UI. I'm seriously wondering if Fun Pimps will ever release a final version, if they're going to fine-tune all the alpha features in a beta, or if they'd rather tinker with new features for all eternity. An official Rodmap has not existed for ages.

I think you are close to crux of the matter. In general software development doesn't mandate one true release process. There are guidelines sure, but they don't have to be followed in order to develop software.

Endless tinkering is most of comfortable state to be in. That sure isn't best way to make money though. For getting out of that loop is where the actual roadmap might help. Other way to finish the development is to just get bored with the project and announce that it's done.

One the positive side, 7 Days to Die still has six more years to reach Duke Nukem Forever (not sure when 7 Days to Die development actually started though). Star Citizen might have bit head start though.

So you're saying that calling a game "Early Access" for 8 years and being in an alpha stage (so not even a beta stage!) for 8 years is "normal"?

No, I'm saying what I said. Maybe try reading it. It was a more wide-ranging comment on the continued relevance, or lack thereof, of the whole concept of "alpha" and "beta" given current approaches to game distribution and maintenance.

The developer also mentioned recently that they plan to start removing older versions of the game, a bunch of which are available as opt-in Betas. They said it's due to limitations with Steam, so if you do have a game on the 19.x series you might want to make it go out with a bang.

Yeah, Valve only allows 25 "betas" per game (even when asking them multiple times to allow more as it should not cost them anything :( ). And we hit that limit already. But the recent ones are not going away soon, more likely we will drop off older releases first. Also, the current statement was more about us not keeping 19.0 to 19.5 available, as some people still played those instead of 19.6 ;)
(And as a last resort you can still just make copies of older versions. Even when they are no longer "available" on Steam you could still play those copies)

There is a option for Vulkan but its never been updated and doesn't really work; it be nice if they updated Vulkan and moved to it as the default.

Unfortunately it does not work like this. We can't do anything on Vulkan, other than making sure our shaders work. The heavy groundwork and bugfixes need to come from Unity - and by upgrading Unity from 2019.x to 2020.3 in Alpha 20 it should already be a lot more stable. And I know some people, both on Windows and Linux, have played with Vulkan even in Alpha 19 without issues and better performance compared to GLCore (as one would expect). It just seems that the combination of Unity's Vulkan implementation and certain GPUs and their drivers is still not really stable at all.

Also this be a great game to get VR edition or something down the line.

Never tried VR myself unfortunately, but I thought FPS games are typically not good for VR due to motion sickness, unless you used something like "teleportation" of the player, which in turn is bad for immersion etc? *I myself* don't see VR as a good fit for 7 Days, but I would not be deciding on that anyway :D


As for the "Still in EA" discussion: I can see how it is annoying for some people with the updates breaking saves, especially when you are mostly into the building aspect. For most people though the game becomes boring when playing a certain save for too long anyway though, and starting new is what keeps it interesting. So even for that there's not only a real downside for everyone ;)
But other than broken savegames (which isn't forced btw, most versions could be considered stable enough to just keep them and don't update unless you want the new stuff): What's bad about a game being in active development? After all you get lots of new stuff every year or so without ever having to pay again. Once a game is considered "final" you either get little to no updates (both in terms of content as well as fixes) from most devs or you at least have to pay for it in terms of DLCs. Even as a regular player myself I honestly simply never get why people would want a "this is final" sticker slapped on a game instead of getting free updates even if it meant it had an "Alpha" sticker on it :D