PC Players with 10000+ Hours game time

[Grandpa Minion]

Hello, 

over the years and thousands of hours i have playd this game.. i have personally seen alot of changes good and bad throughout the alphas. Most of which is nearly impossible to explain to new players "nublets" who are joining it for the first time or especially for those who can't understand "why has this game been in alpha so long?" "why this or that?"

I'm starting this post in hopes of players who have actually playd the game for extended time can post meaningfull ideas of how they would like to see this game moving forward instead of the same continous rhetoric. Please feel free if you have playd this game for 10000+ to leave a meaningfull comment on how you would like to see 7d2d progress in the future. For me its all about pvp.. i would like to see the game give more love to pvp players when fixn bugs and exploits- also the optimization to allow bigger servers again.

thanks

 

[Maharin]

Most games don't give you enough to even get 1000 hours out of them.  So consider yourself lucky to get such value from so small an investment.

Having said that, after you get all the stuff you can from the vanilla game, the way forward is, and always will be, mods.  Learn it, live it, love it.

And for what it's worth I have 6700+ hours so I guess my opinion isn't quite worth the time I put into this thread.

 

[SylenThunder]

I never trust numbers like that. I pretty much assume that to get that many hours, you just leave a spare PC logged into a server AFK all the time, or use a tool like HourBoostr. 

 

[Grandpa Minion]

And for what it's worth I have 6700+ hours so I guess my opinion isn't quite worth the time I put into this thread.

6700+ is a good enough amount to have seen the good and bad of this game. Going into the future what would you like to see? alot of people talk about bandits and such but from your experience what is the game lacking?

 

[theFlu]

I never trust numbers like that.

You're not wrong to distrust, the amount of people willing to lie about the numbers is probably higher than the amount of people with those kinds of actual numbers. Then again, I had over a year and a half in WoW before I quit it, spending most of my free time there back then, for years (of course). Might've been a little sad existence, but that means I myself have gotten to what, 500 days x 24 hours = 12 000 hours in a single game.

So, I won't take a claim at face value, but it's still quite a plausible number.

 

[doughphunghus]

Looks like i have some downtime today!....

chapter 1: these new hopes

For me, 7D2D is almost 1,600 hours on steam, and i probably had 3-400? On PS4... the second highest hours i have on steam is factorio at 460 hours. Other than "galaga" from my childhood, rocket league shows the highest guesstimate of time played (5 minute games generally)... and i will not list as its my personal addiction...but anyway, i know I'm not a hardcore 7D2D player, but "yeah i have a lot of game time" in my life... and 7D2D is my personal favorite for all it does/is.

Ive listed some of these on the forums, and i generally make mods for my own games to "fill in" what i want when no other mods exist... so moving forward, i think i would like:

- more "interconnectedness" of the POIs. And by this i mean: its nice with the new tiling systems that POis can be close together, almost touching. So you can make bridges between them (or jump). But if there were any way to have more "underground things" like sewers or "basements with a wall broken out and some digging done, or indication it might connect to something" it might be nice. With the "poi randomness" it would be interesting as you might be underground in a sewer pipe and its blocked (as the boundary of that POI) but if the pipes had a standard placement in a POI (like tile street edges do), it might be possible the adjacent pois pipe/basement has a hole to dig to (or as just part of a tiles underground sewer network). I know the "voxel space" or whatever its called seems to impact FPS with lots of "voxel surfaces" and underground "holes" seem to be not opyimal...but i feel that having more "underground structures/discovery" would just feel cool. Obviously "caves" but this has been poo poo-ed for "land stability" reasons but if its part of a POI or a tile it could work?

- the ability to mod and hook sounds (like repeating or "on hit/on destroy/on degrade/ etc)  to blocks. Obvs this could create chaos (imagine adding a sound to every wood block) but. If it could he done in any fashion it would be cool because you could mod in a lot more "environment immersion" easily. Personal "wants" are "randomly": creepily ticking clocks, signs/electronics that crackle, tvs that make static sound, structures that "creak" naturally. Trees that have different bird sounds coming from them. The only way ive seen it "doable" with mods is to have a block "degrade" to a special block made with sounds attached (in unity?).

- more electric options: the electrical system is fun but i really wish i could hook into existing poi lighting and power it on/off with my own wiring. If not, then the ability to craft "all the light choices" so i can break and replace them.  Having some lights be "on forever" (like poi lanterns, yellow garage lights, etc) and no way to turn them off and pick up/power them feels weird.  Of course "changing the color or type of light (blinking/bright/dim)" has been asked a lot but is mod only still.

- boats and water hazards. It feels like this was wanted some time ago (the shark), and "boat" appears to he a dim possibility still... but i feel that if a boat exists, you need "water hazards" to make boating risky. Like zeds/gators/sharks just damage your boat and you cant easily kill them. Or spitting vultures come at you a lot. This keeps you "able to boat around, but not hide on a boat" and makes swimming "possible, but not easy at all". This would make water a nice hazard/barrier on maps. Today you can just swim forever to cross water and be bored.

- more water pois/things. Just "on the edge or or in the middle of water. Like sunken boats/piers. Someone made "water tiles" for sunken neighborhoods and it looked really cool. Give people a reason to go into the water and be hampered by it while fighting.

- More "environment sounds and visuals". Like leaves in the forest, birds chirping. Etc. Mask the sounds of zeds a little, make it feel more "nature is alive"

- fix the "clipping" bugs so you cannot clip and see "everything underground".  I don't play pvp because of this alone. Anyone can easily find my underground base. And they always do when I'm not online.  If you pit a land claim down, they know where it is (invulnerable.... sometimes), and if you dont they can just look underground and see it.

- more debugging info when loading mods. Its kinda annoying to see warnings/errors whe n mods are used and not a nice text that tells you what mod its loading/processing that caused the error/warning. Sometimes it does, other times its "failed to load items.xml" and you have no idea which mods items.xml it is.

- the ability to mod and change the fog color, and bloodmoon color per biome/or day! Some people have asked to remove the lightening (for sensitive people). 
 

- hot and cold to be able to kill the player if they have not perked/defended against it. Yes: you should be able to die in the desert heat and the snow.

- having the radiation and hazmat suit "protection" possibility brought back. Ive heard inklings it might. Having a radiated city/ part of the map you cannot get into without type suit would be cool, as well as a rad zone being a loot/zed damage/zed health multiplier as a "final biome to fight in".

- going underground, like depth... say 6 blocks or more...should make it pitch black, requiring lighting. The further down you go the hotter it should get (or something dangerous, like oxygen dropping). Living/basing at bedrock should be a struggle but do-able.

- more jumping/climbing abilities of zeds. Whatever works. Right now we have vultures, and a jumper. Climbing is "maybe 2 high" but its when they stand on top of each other. Make zeds (or just more/some) able to jump or scale walls easier. Make it so "building a near inpenaprable wall" isn't so easy as making it 2-3 blocks high, and falling off a tall wall "hurt you". make the zeds abilities more dangerous and less predictable as today there are only a handful that can do special things and its "bomb, air attack, and that 1 jumper" (ok the cougar can jump too). Having them all able crawl through 1 block openings was a great change! 

- more zed sounds. Like a ton more. Make them generic so you cannot always know what zed is around the corner by its unique sounds (unless it randomly plays a unique sound). 

- ability to shoot down the air drop

plane. Have it land with a big boom, hole in whatever it hits. Maybe drop more than 1 cargo box.

- theres a fire mod. Its beautiful (and a new trap type, sort of) Make it vanilla!

- blood moon is fun (to me) and the concept of "defend the beacon" or similar is fun as well (and is in mods... and would be cool in vanilla) but maybe an extra special day (like every 3 bloodmoons?) where its like an all day horde (day and night) might be a fun challenge, and more days to track/prep for (and forget about and be slaughtered).

- more "bodily harms". Like infections, issues to treat/fight through. Whatever they are. Right now these are fairly easily mitigated (mostly) but having a lot more and medicines to treat them (giving chem station some love) would be a nice survival challenge. Really kill that stamina/health/visibility if you aren't careful. Make it hard to "carry all the meds /treatments you need" everywhere you go.

- more "holes/crashed car type of mini road fragments". Even just sinkholes would be neat, generated at map generation time. Make running/driving around a bit more dangerous, and interesting.

- there are mods to randomly replace "trash" with mines, making every POi different and more dangerous to just run through once you know the layout. Add to vanilla as option!

- mentioned quite a bit: either "random loot room locations" or (prob better) "loot room has a bit more loot, but move some good loot containers throughout the poi, randomly. Make "going straight to the known location of the loot" less rewarding. Make going through a well known POI more of a struggle no matter how much you play it.

(Theres no chapter 2, just making a star wars joke above

 

[Maharin]

6700+ is a good enough amount to have seen the good and bad of this game. Going into the future what would you like to see? alot of people talk about bandits and such but from your experience what is the game lacking?

It's not done yet... so it really isn't lacking anything.  I used to play all the time and now I play for a few weeks each new alpha, depending on the changes.

Having a discussion about what the game lacks before release is kind of a moot discussion.  If you're asking about what people want to see added before release then there are only a few realistic options since TFP has pretty much clearly stated what will likely be in by release and what will likely come after by them.

A short list of things I hope people create after release, in no particular order:

• Specialized map generation tools that allow for variations that TFP does not allow for
  
  All city map
  
• Central city
  
• Ring maps (like a dart board) with the center being wasteland and going out from there
  
• I could spend an hour on this list easily
  

[*]More POIs... so many that I can keep finding new ones in each play through.

[*]An option to play dead is dead... but for the whole world.  So that you can clean out a town and it will stay clean.  Add in options for wandering hordes and mega hordes that might stick around in your area for a long while or move on without pause.  But once all the zombies are dead you "win" or if you die they win.  EDIT: So the thought here is to pick some number as the victory kill count (1000 for example) and that number would be spread throughout the world.  Once you kill that number the game is over.  If you want blood moon hordes then those zombies don't count toward your goal.

[*]A blueprint system so that you can make and share building designs with other players.  This should also allow you a more streamlined way of building something to a set of blueprints within the game.

[*]Better building collapse physics that would allow for chunks of a building to survive and tumble some distance away to become a POI in its own right.  Remove one side of a POI base and watch it topple over, not just collapse vertically to the ground.  Yeah, I'm dreaming big with this one.

 

[Riamus]

It's funny when someone thinks the opinions of others don't matter for one reason or another - in this case, number of hours played.  Sure, someone who is very new to the game with only 20 hours or something isn't going to have much experience with it and so they may not understand some aspects of the game in order to give a good opinion.  But if someone has even 500 hours in the game, they are going to know it well enough to have just as valid an opinion as someone with thousands of hours.  Maybe they didn't play as far back or maybe they did.  Someone with 500 hours could have started playing in early alphas and just not put in tons of time each alpha, while someone  with 500 hours could have done that within the past few months if they really went crazy playing the game.  Maybe someone who has played more alphas could have more insight into changes made but that relates to number of alphas played and not the number of hours played.  Even then, all it really does is show that you know about what has changed.  But that doesn't really mean your opinions are any more valid than someone who hasn't played many different alphas.  Besides, as was pointed out, it is far more common for people claiming to have tons of hours in a game to have faked those hours in one way or another than for it to be true.  So if you had 10 people reply saying they had over 10k hours, most likely only one or two actually have that many hours actually played in the game.  So you'd just be getting replies from people who don't have that many hours anyhow.

This topic is rather moot anyhow.  They are focusing on finishing the game for gold.  There aren't going to be significant changes to the game at this point.  This type of topic would have been far better 5+ years ago... and it probably was posted many different times back then.  At this point, beyond what they have said they are adding like the bandits and armor changes, almost all updates will be polishing the game for gold - optimizations, art, additional POIs, network and multiplayer improvements, etc.  You could talk about what you'd like to see added after gold and that would make sense but any talk of stuff to be added before gold is not going to go anywhere.  I suppose making a wishlist even though you know it is too late for any of it is okay but to me it's really just a waste of time and effort.  Better to make one for the next game or for DLC after gold, imo.

 

[meganoth]

It's funny when someone thinks the opinions of others don't matter for one reason or another - in this case, number of hours played.  Sure, someone who is very new to the game with only 20 hours or something isn't going to have much experience with it and so they may not understand some aspects of the game in order to give a good opinion.  But if someone has even 500 hours in the game, they are going to know it well enough to have just as valid an opinion as someone with thousands of hours.  Maybe they didn't play as far back or maybe they did.  Someone with 500 hours could have started playing in early alphas and just not put in tons of time each alpha, while someone  with 500 hours could have done that within the past few months if they really went crazy playing the game.  Maybe someone who has played more alphas could have more insight into changes made but that relates to number of alphas played and not the number of hours played.  Even then, all it really does is show that you know about what has changed.  But that doesn't really mean your opinions are any more valid than someone who hasn't played many different alphas.  Besides, as was pointed out, it is far more common for people claiming to have tons of hours in a game to have faked those hours in one way or another than for it to be true.  So if you had 10 people reply saying they had over 10k hours, most likely only one or two actually have that many hours actually played in the game.  So you'd just be getting replies from people who don't have that many hours anyhow.

This topic is rather moot anyhow.  They are focusing on finishing the game for gold.  There aren't going to be significant changes to the game at this point.  This type of topic would have been far better 5+ years ago... and it probably was posted many different times back then.  At this point, beyond what they have said they are adding like the bandits and armor changes, almost all updates will be polishing the game for gold - optimizations, art, additional POIs, network and multiplayer improvements, etc.  You could talk about what you'd like to see added after gold and that would make sense but any talk of stuff to be added before gold is not going to go anywhere.  I suppose making a wishlist even though you know it is too late for any of it is okay but to me it's really just a waste of time and effort.  Better to make one for the next game or for DLC after gold, imo.

Recognize that your discussion whether this topic is futlie or not is quite as useful or useless as the topic itself. But I agree that the opinion of 1000+ players is not necessarily worth more than that of a newbie. As the game has to work for veterans and newbies alike if it wants to stay relevant for a long time, newbies can point to problems just like veterans.

Me, I want

1) legendary weapons (those look like they are a sure bet eventually) and weapon degradation.

2) An upgrade to the tile system so you can specify exactly which tiles can attach to other tiles.

3) The extensive lakes of earlier alphas.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Spoiler

TFS, or their mods have said in the past, that they don't care about the old guard, but are focused on bringing in new players.
Yes, not the exact wording, but very close to it. So the more you play it, the more it devalues your feedback for them. You are already loyal, if you like the updates that is great. But they don't care what you say, since you don't see the game the same way as a new potential customer.
This is one of... quite a few reasons why many of the old guard who weren't undyingly loyal left this forum at around A17.
But they don't care (and they said so multiple times). Their numbers is all that count for them. What that says about my plans for their future games...

:tape:

I'm only in the low thousands, since I have not really played since A17 (still about 400hours, which is a lot if I look how I feel about the games development )
Been here since A8
And I would wish for the game to get a sense of direction. Its great that they said Gold is close...
But they also said that A19 (or 20?) was the last biggest update so that they can release updates in shorter timeframes... sooo...
-The leveling still after 4 Alphas feels like a tacked on feature (lets hope A21 changes that as advertised)
-Looting has become much too straightforward for my taste. Where is the sense of exploration if I know every POI will have a room with the best loot? SOME can have it... but most should spread out these goodies as much as possible.
-guns have too much influence over the game. Especially early game. I mean... there is a reason why I have called it a Looter-Shooter since A17. Never had any problem getting enough ammo if I didn't run around guns blazing and shooting in the air.
-A bit more randomness. Not only lootwise, but POI wise... if I know exactly how hard a POI is... that takes away the fun of exploring. Some of the best moments I ever had was in big POIs where there were nearly no zombies, so I just went through it easily... only to realize the exit is covered with a roaming hoard.
-Crafting is a mess now... its not any simpler to understand, has become basicially useless in 95% of cases since looted stuff is just that much better and the only thing you'll really be crafting isnt equipment, its ammo and blocks to build.

 

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

I truly have no clue how much time i have invested. I play off line single player, have posted a couple of maps,

a lighting tutorial, small modlets, and participated in Medieval mod with GuppyCur and his discord. Its a lot. but here is what I show.

 

[warmer]

First let me say pure quantity of hours dont mean much if you rack up 5k hours in the last alpha by running a server for a year.

That being said, 

I have played solo and multi player with friends on every Alpha since 6 for at least 25-100 hrs each, and that is all it really takes to understand the difference between them.

I miss a few things a great deal and I feel that the games environment/mood really suffer from a few key changes.

These below I've added back with mods;

Caves;

falling through the roof of a cave ceiling running through the forest is one of the most intense moments I have had in 7D2D. They took out caves due to world gen time last I heard. Give us that want to wait a tick box

Fire/burnable wooden structures;

It just brings you into real world tactics/consequences/realism territory. I suppose this was removed because of frame drops and pvp abuse, but I go straight to cobble stone once I build a custom, so that is never an issue for me.

Lootable/Persistent zombies that slowly decay to gore;

This is another realism/grit/setting thing that is incredibly effective at making the game feel more immersive. I never liked the loot bag, and would rather zeds be looted. Not to mentiom how awesomely/horrific things look after horde night. When you compare that to vanilla  Vanilla is really tame in comparison to how it makes you feel after a slaughterfest.

Now changes I would love to see:

Level system/skills

I really miss learning by doing. Ala old Elder Scrolls style of leveling skills. I would love an rpg game where you dont even have "skills" just passive bonuses for getting better at repeated tasks. That is a true-ish "role" playing game. I think the new system if the loot table is balanced well against player behavior, this should influence it in a similar direction.

Lockpicking/safe cracking;

A simple mini game would be great, vs whatever magic RNG is going on behind the scenes. I have never been a fan of a skill being pure random chance influenced by skill level. Let me the player influence the outcome as well. Elder Scrolls games are some of the best example of simple and effective minigames. Now picking a "safe" needs to be addressed. That makes no sense. Give me a code I find in a desk, or a stethoscope from a nurse. This whole pick business is just silly. Make a note with a code (auto unlocks like the keyrack for doors) or an item that is required and a similar mini game to lock picking. Nothing overly complicated, but give the player a hand in the outcome.

Storage Broadcasting;

Storage broadcasting allows a crafting station's usage and access to materials from all unlocked/shareable storage chests in a given proximity without requiring to have the materials on you. This is a huge quality of life/more time having fun feature. Everytime I play with a big group someone is always overly anal about organization and makes the whole group wait for them to satisfy their OCD. Broadcast chests solve a lot of that micro managing time we spend doing things that have no gameplay value. The biggest reason I never finished Diable 3 was how exhausted I was when it came to inventory management.

 

[FA_Q2]

I never trust numbers like that. I pretty much assume that to get that many hours, you just leave a spare PC logged into a server AFK all the time, or use a tool like HourBoostr. 

Or they could run their own server which is, more than likely, what has driven the OP's numbers through the roof.  That may give him some insight that most players will not have though multiplayer in a game like this is always a struggle.



However....

I do not think that those of us with thousands of hours actually have the best perspective on the health and needs of the game because we have passed the point that most people would play.  Most of the changes I would like to see happen apply to a game that I have become very good at and may not improve the experience for those coming to the game from a fresh perspective.  We certainly have A perspective and may have some good insight as the posts thus far have shown but just as important would be the insights gained from people that have tens of hours of gameplay and are acutely aware of things that frustrated them with their initial introduction to the game.  There were several things that almost made me delete the game when I first played but those insights are mostly gone and apply to an iteration of the game that does not even resemble the current version.

Lockpicking/safe cracking;

A simple mini game would be great, vs whatever magic RNG is going on behind the scenes. I have never been a fan of a skill being pure random chance influenced by skill level. Let me the player influence the outcome as well. Elder Scrolls games are some of the best example of simple and effective minigames. Now picking a "safe" needs to be addressed. That makes no sense. Give me a code I find in a desk, or a stethoscope from a nurse. This whole pick business is just silly. Make a note with a code (auto unlocks like the keyrack for doors) or an item that is required and a similar mini game to lock picking. Nothing overly complicated, but give the player a hand in the outcome.

Please no, lol.

This is, actually a good idea but having played games like this for decades I have likely 'picked' tens of thousands of digital locks and... I am SO tired of doing so

One of the things I now remove if playing a Bethsada game now but the lockpicking minigame missing is clearly a 'me' thing and not a generally something that is a good idea.  

Broadcast [SIZE=14.6px]workstations[/SIZE] though, [SIZE=14.6px]absolutely[/SIZE].  I do not see it happening though as multiple people access a chest at the same time looks like a no go as that has been brought up many times.  I think there may be issues with the way storage is coded in this game.  The new(ish) sorting, fill all and fill same buttons help a LOT of that inventory fatigue for me at least as I can just keep a min of one item in a bod and those buttons make it auto sort.  Certainly not as bad as Diablo, that inventory [SIZE=14.6px]management[/SIZE] system is purposefully annoying.

 

[Riamus]

Caves would be great to see back in the game.  The did mention that they'd like to do something with caves in one of the dev streams but it sounded like a wish that might not be fulfilled.  It would be great, though.

Fire, especially on a large scale, can greatly kill frame rates and they are trying to keep minimum specs low enough for more people to play and to also make it work on console.  They are adding fire on small scale - the environmental feature - in A21 and mentioned that a flamethrower might not be entirely off the table.  But seeing stuff burn is very unlikely to happen.  Or, if it does happen, it'll likely just be certain objects and not blocks for walls and such.  I'm not really a fan of stuff burning down anyhow.

I can see how zombie corpses hanging around might look horrific after horde night but I don't really see any reason to add that back.  Loot bags might be strange and maybe they could instead have any zombie that would give a loot back stick around until looted so you have a corpse rather than a bag.  But leaving all of them as corpses?  It doesn't interest me any.

LBD, especially in the Elder Scrolls series, is a good reason why I don't like LBD.  It's very grindy and tends to make you do things you wouldn't normally do just to get better.  Not a good thing, imo.  LBD as a concept is great but I have never seen it implemented in a way that wasn't grindy or a chore or require repetitive tasks in one form or another that you wouldn't necessarily do except because you have to in order to get better.  Gaining ability by killing things works because it's what you're already doing and you can't really spam it.  Of course, that's no different from XP gains and leveling up.  Skills and perks are just an abstraction of spending a long time doing something to learn it and I prefer that to LBD.  If LBD was done in a way that wasn't grindy, then it might be okay.  But the Elder Scrolls version of it is certainly not what I'd strive to mimic.

Lockpicking minigames are kind of two sided.  Yes, I hate breaking a dozen lockpicks one time in this game while unlocking the next thing without breaking any.  Sometimes the RNG is so bad in this game for lockpicking that it just gets annoying.  However, after you've done a lockpicking minigame for the 100th time, it is really old and you don't want to do it again.  Those games, especially Elder Scrolls versions of that, tend to make me stop opening locks that I don't absolutely have to open by mid-game because it just gets so tiresome to keep doing it.  In some cases, you can improve your ability enough that it is almost impossible to not unlock something in a couple of seconds and then it isn't so bad but at that point, you might as well not even have a minigame.  I'm fine with the way it's done in this game, though I'd much prefer either an extended unlock time without any chance to break lockpicks (for balancing purposes) or at least just a reduced chance to break lockpicks for each lockpick broken.  So your chance to break the first might be 20%, then 18% for the second, 16% for the third, etc. or whatever values you want to use so that you're not likely to get a bad RNG streak of breaking 20+ lockpicks on a single lock even at max lockpicking.

Crafting from nearby chests without having to manually grab the resources would be a great QoL thing to add to the game.  It can be a pain to gather everything.  Though, with the crafting tracker being added in A21, I think maybe they aren't going to add this.  But we can hope.

 

[Grandpa Minion]

I miss a few things a great deal and I feel that the games environment/mood really suffer from a few key changes.

Thats a definate.. one of the biggest mistakes i believe the pimps ever made was taking calipers out of the game. Back than calipers forced players to travel around the map to search for them. The way it is now players can pretty much stay put in any region to get everything they need. Calipers where great for pvp because players traveled the map alot more creating more chances for pvp.

 

[meganoth]

TFS, or their mods have said in the past, that they don't care about the old guard, but are focused on bringing in new players.
Yes, not the exact wording, but very close to it. So the more you play it, the more it devalues your feedback for them. You are already loyal, if you like the updates that is great. But they don't care what you say, since you don't see the game the same way as a new potential customer.
This is one of... quite a few reasons why many of the old guard who weren't undyingly loyal left this forum at around A17.
But they don't care (and they said so multiple times). Their numbers is all that count for them. What that says about my plans for their future games...

Since I am one of the mods that said something similar you might refer to me in this paragraph. In that case you should know that I was paraphrasing what I heard TFP devs say and may have either be misunderstood by you, or using the wrong words or were even wrong myself interpreting their words (it was a long time ago, I don't know what exact words I used, just like you don't remember who said it).

Whatever it was, to my knowledge they never said in any way that they ignore veterans. The only thing they said was that the vanilla game(!) with default settings(!) is always the game with which new players start and therefore has to be balanced around novice players. They never said they don't listen to veteran players and I got the impression they do react to novice and veteran players both, but naturally only as far as it doesn't interfere with their own plans.

-Crafting is a mess now... its not any simpler to understand, has become basicially useless in 95% of cases since looted stuff is just that much better and the only thing you'll really be crafting isnt equipment, its ammo and blocks to build.
 

Yeah and surprise, crafting was just overhauled to be much more relevant. We just will never know how much of that is the result of player input or their own observation.

 

[doughphunghus]

A second pass, specifically for "caves"...

so: caves are a "no go" because stability issues for above ground structures, and maybe "base building suffers if cave is below" and maybe "making randomly generated caves is "chaos" (or something where its too unpredictable and maybe looks bad in practice and just isnt "amazing enough"). Or maybe even "if we add some standard cave areas/pois, its just not interesting enough" ....many reasons to not have caves brought back. Well.... hear me out..

Peole really really liked caves. I loved caves. I loved crashing into the open holes, and making mini stashes in them, finding mushrooms/stalagtites (and mites)...

its kinda a shame that in a voxel world, all the "voxel action" happens on the surface. Sure, you can dig and thats amazing (make your own caves) but its not the same as being underground and basically sort of trapped in a maze where you cannot get on or jump off a roof to safety.  Theres this huge "underground space" thats basically never used/accessed other than to make valleys and mountains

So: Maybe a "happy midpoint" would be to make "cave tiles" that are just like the tiles int he game today (with roads and POis on them) except these tiles just act like big underground pois (or just caves with lots of levels and stuff). Then you could have "cave cities" just like the regular cities. With this, you can still "reserve" areas above ground that have no cave beneath it, still giving the "look and feel" of an above ground town.  Of course, all structures below ground have to he hand placed because its part of the tile, but make enough of them and the tiles connect... or maybe don't connect the "cave roads" at the center if the tiles, just have "standardized below ground areas" in the tiles that caves can connect, maybe a little spot suggesting "if you dig here, maybe you come out the other aide in another cave area.... maybe you dont.

Anyway, this would make "making more tiles, with large underground areas" fun, and still allow pois to be placed on top of them, just not "as many" as a fully poi covered tile.

So: caves could be brought back, and maybe feel sort of randomish (tiles connecting) and the "fps impact" not too bad as the tile surface only has a few (or none!) small normal pois on top of it. Currently any large underground stuff is still attached as part of a poi, and only a few times have i seem it done with the tiles (like shallow sewers).

The only things i can see maybe being an issue is zombie spawning, im not sure how that occurs in/on tiles, or underground. The only "solution" to this (my guess, without changing any vanilla game stuff) is, on the tile surface have them spawn near cave "open holes" or "thin spots" so they spawn on top , and then crawl/dig to get you.

And, of course, my original complaint: make it super dark underground. Like pitch black. 

 

[SylenThunder]

Or they could run their own server which is, more than likely, what has driven the OP's numbers through the roof. 

I mean, they do run their own server, but the server doesn't affect user time. It's a different app ID. I mean hell, I run 2-3 times as many servers as Gramps, and have probably been doing it longer. I've also scored a lot more PvP kills than he has. I'm still under 7000 hours though.

And, of course, my original complaint: make it super dark underground. Like pitch black. 

This has always bugged me. Sunlight shouldn't just pass through 30 meters of stone. 

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Well with my recorded 35 minutes, I am simpler than many others.

Yes   The alpha 7 head turn. My first enmass creep factor.

No    The redo of the ambient night sounds. But Yes to
the directional sound. Working on it now.

No    Altiude temp differential set back to a base template. I mod this.

Yes   To the 28days later melody. But I understand copyrights and all.

Yes   To the multimode built into the exe, expecially the horde mode in the

recessed land scape. Great as a tutorial for basic building and creepy.

Yes   To the plains biome, I would bust my butt getting there for a little peace.
At that time I would play, Navezgane more than the random gen.

Yes for getting rid of the pine forest/forest, because the texture looked like
radiated zone.

Yes   To adding random respawn points, Talk about death penalty. You would respawn
where you got ganked. All creatures still there, you had to fight to run away or it
was rinse repeat.

Yes to spider animation change, although there was one where they would stand and
spiderman up the wall, instead of crawl levitate.

Yes   Rabbit kabobs, they were soothing.

Yes   Hornets nests, = honey.

Yes to snow cover, and icy wet roads.

Yes    The day to night transition was a bit more pleasing. No to abrupt lighting
changes. So i made a fractalized set of biome mixtures, altitude related. I use a
single Light spectrum, the only thing that changes is weather.

Yes to the basic mechanic for crafting, before it was a Wiki necessary 90 degree
learning curve.

Yes to sticks, just not the floating design, and yes to making planks to shore up
reinforcements.

Yes to the old pitch black nights.

Finally yes to spears especially throwing,  No to just jabbing animation. Unless its
locked out I use both animations and will re-enable it.

 

[Grandpa Minion]

I'm still under 7000 hours though.

7000 in game and 3000 forums hours get you there