PC Diablo vs 7d2d

[ungkor]

This is a random late night thought, but it seems like this game has been going in the direction of games like Diablo.   Run POI's (dungeons) over and over and over, to incrementally gain skills and weapons. 

Instead of finding a weapon, you find gun/weapon parts.  Instead of leveling and applying skills, you read 100's of books over and over to gain skills.  

I might be in the minority here, but I'd much rather see this game evolve into a more RPG experience than a Diablo experience.  

 

[Maharin]

Just throwing this out there... 7DTD is nearing the end of its development and will not be changing direction.  There is a small list of things coming to the game that aren't in yet (like bandits) but, for the most part, it is what it is.

Having said that, with how easy it is to mod this game you will see all kinds of user-based modifications to the game for a very long time to come.

 

[8_Hussars]

This is a random late night thought, but it seems like this game has been going in the direction of games like Diablo.   Run POI's (dungeons) over and over and over, to incrementally gain skills and weapons. 

Instead of finding a weapon, you find gun/weapon parts.  Instead of leveling and applying skills, you read 100's of books over and over to gain skills.  

I might be in the minority here, but I'd much rather see this game evolve into a more RPG experience than a Diablo experience.  

Unfortunately, until the trader is balanced properly (both quests and inventory) the min/max path will always be questing and an over reliance on looting.

The RPG experience is certainly there but a player has to impose the sandbox limits/conditions themselves or embrace an overhaul mod that has the game play interests the player values.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[warmer]

These are wildly different games. I am not sure how you are drawing comparisons. The only thing diablo like is the quality colors, other than that nearly every aspect of gameplay and presentation is different.

 

[Riamus]

I agree with warmer.  The games are really nothing alike.  Just because this game has certain RPG elements and Diablo is an Action RPG and therefore also has RPG elements doesn't make these similar.  Otherwise, you could say this game is the same thing as all other RPGs, which isn't true.  Diablo and pretty much any ARPG has an extreme amount of armor and weapons to find.  This game has almost none in comparison.  This game lets you destroy the world, Diablo doesn't.  I could go on, but there's no need.  This game is not even remotely the same as Diablo.  You'll need to pick a more appropriate game if you want to make comparisons.  This isn't even apples and oranges... it's apples and carrots.

 

[8_Hussars]

These are wildly different games.

I agree with warmer.  The games are really nothing alike.

Run POI's (dungeons) quests over and over and over, to incrementally gain skills and weapons. 

I might be in the minority here, but I'd much rather see this game evolve into a more RPG experience than a Diablo experience.  

IMHO, it's a fairly accurate broad brush comparison of the game loop most players embrace.  Substitute quests for dungeons above and you have the min/max loop of 7d2d.  Yes 7d2d is more than that but it needs the fleshing out of the story and sandbox balance, rather than just more POIs (which is great) and mechanics changes. 

 

[Roland]

Diablo is basically a university degree program in min/maxing. It promotes it, rewards it, and there are zero drawbacks to doing it with that game. In fact, it is required in order to keep progressing in the game from quest to quest without having to stop and grind on lesser dungeons for awhile in order to get your character up to scratch for whatever your current quest is.

7 Days to Die is not designed for min/maxing. It allows it but most who do it quickly feel unsatisfied and bored since the game's difficulty curve is so easily maintained without particularly focusing on min/maxing. In addition the progression ladder is much shorter than Diablo so min/maxing will get the player to the end of 7 Day's content extremely fast and then it is just the same thing with nothing new to strive for all the time.

You CAN play 7 Days to Die like Diablo but people should be mindful of what results they want to get and understand that 7 Days to Die questing and dungeon delving does not have to be played similarly to Diablo at all. Do it if it brings you joy but stop it if it frustrates you and makes the game end too quickly.

 

[Vaeliorin]

7 Days to Die is not designed for min/maxing. It allows it but most who do it quickly feel unsatisfied and bored since the game's difficulty curve is so easily maintained without particularly focusing on min/maxing. In addition the progression ladder is much shorter than Diablo so min/maxing will get the player to the end of 7 Day's content extremely fast and then it is just the same thing with nothing new to strive for all the time.

If we had the old A16 AI for horde nights (with destroy area mode added, so you couldn't just stilt base), it would allow people to try out more base designs.  As it is, designing bases is pretty boring, because I know exactly how (and if) it will work before I ever build it.  In A16 I'd spend dozens of hours working on a base and get the excitement of figuring out if it would work at all on the first horde night I tried it (usually it didn't work very well )

Honestly, that's the worst change for me in all the time I've played 7DTD.  Horde night has become boring because the AI is too predictable and controllable.  Sure, you can build bases that don't manipulate the AI, but it still turns into that as soon as some blocks get damaged and they all flock to the weak spot.

 

[Riamus]

If we had the old A16 AI for horde nights (with destroy area mode added, so you couldn't just stilt base), it would allow people to try out more base designs.  As it is, designing bases is pretty boring, because I know exactly how (and if) it will work before I ever build it.  In A16 I'd spend dozens of hours working on a base and get the excitement of figuring out if it would work at all on the first horde night I tried it (usually it didn't work very well )

Honestly, that's the worst change for me in all the time I've played 7DTD.  Horde night has become boring because the AI is too predictable and controllable.  Sure, you can build bases that don't manipulate the AI, but it still turns into that as soon as some blocks get damaged and they all flock to the weak spot.

I think part of that is that you have become very familiar with how the game works over all that time.  If everything still worked like A16, you would probably still know exactly how to build a base to make it work and if it would work before you test it out.  It was the same when I first started building bases in the game.  In the beginning, I tried things I thought would work but I wasn't always right.  Now, I know how to do it.

 

[BFT2020]

In my 3000+ hours, I never once compared a Q4 with a Q4 item to see which one has the better stats.  Once I got the Q4 item, I kept it until I got a higher Q item or the next tier (especially now with A21 having a clear distinction between tiers and quality)

 

[Riamus]

In my 3000+ hours, I never once compared a Q4 with a Q4 item to see which one has the better stats.  Once I got the Q4 item, I kept it until I got a higher Q item or the next tier (especially now with A21 having a clear distinction between tiers and quality)

I actually do but there isn't really any point to it because the difference isn't usually very much.  But for early game especially, a couple of points of damage can make a lot of difference.  And for clothing, getting enough points in heat/cold resistance to avoid the effects of weather can take some replacements (even though temperature isn't really a big deal, it's still nice not to be affected by it.).

But as far as a comparison with Diablo, item comparisons even for those who do them in this game are nowhere even remotely similar.

 

[Krougal]

I actually do but there isn't really any point to it because the difference isn't usually very much.  But for early game especially, a couple of points of damage can make a lot of difference.  And for clothing, getting enough points in heat/cold resistance to avoid the effects of weather can take some replacements (even though temperature isn't really a big deal, it's still nice not to be affected by it.).

But as far as a comparison with Diablo, item comparisons even for those who do them in this game are nowhere even remotely similar.

Yeah, I refuse to do that @%$# and yet I am a compulsive min/maxer so my solution was to mod out all the random stat differences.

I guess y'all are talking later versions of Diablo, although yeah, I guess even in the original it could be tedious comparing gear.

The Borderlands series are like the king of that, what seems like it should be a casual and relaxed game is actually about relentless optimization and good luck making an apples to apples comparison on the fly. Running across a shop terminal is a guaranteed timesink.

No, 7DTD is very simple compared to those.

 

[Riamus]

Yeah, I refuse to do that @%$# and yet I am a compulsive min/maxer so my solution was to mod out all the random stat differences.

I guess y'all are talking later versions of Diablo, although yeah, I guess even in the original it could be tedious comparing gear.

The Borderlands series are like the king of that, what seems like it should be a casual and relaxed game is actually about relentless optimization and good luck making an apples to apples comparison on the fly. Running across a shop terminal is a guaranteed timesink.

No, 7DTD is very simple compared to those.

Heh.  I like the ARPG itemizations.  But I never spent too much time on them and just quickly compared stuff and moved on.  After all, I'd find something better before long anyhow.

 

[Vaeliorin]

I think part of that is that you have become very familiar with how the game works over all that time.  If everything still worked like A16, you would probably still know exactly how to build a base to make it work and if it would work before you test it out.  It was the same when I first started building bases in the game.  In the beginning, I tried things I thought would work but I wasn't always right.  Now, I know how to do it.

I realize that you never played A16, but no, that's not the reason.  The AI in A16 was in many ways profoundly stupid.  Zombies basically just ran straight toward you from wherever they spawned.  If you had a 5 block thick wall on one side of your base and a 1 block thick wall on the other side, if they spawned on the side of the 5 block thick wall, they'd try and tunnel through that.  If you dug a 5 block wide trench all the way to bedrock all around your base, with bridges in each of the cardinal directions, unless you did something to slow them down, they would happily fling themselves into the trench (and even if you did something to slow them down, you'd still have some who would fling themselves into the trench.)

Heck, I once built a 5 block deep base with a 10 block long ramp coming down to me (completely uncovered) and what I ended up with was a group of zombies milling around above my head come morning.  I'd even put in doors that I left open to try and lure the zombies down, and they didn't go for it.

This is a base I built in A16.  That trench goes all the way down to bedrock (that's the whitish bit you can see on the near side, that's what bedrock used to look like.)  I had zombies fling themselves into that trench and almost undermine my base.  With the new AI, that wouldn't happen, they'd just happily cross the bridges.

View attachment 2375

I mean, yes, I could have easily built a base that could withstand any horde (heck, like I mentioned you could just build an elevated base and stand there all night, since the zombies didn't try to attack things when they couldn't reach you, which was admittedly a problem, and why I mentioned adding the destroy area mode.)  But I could also try all kinds of designs to see what worked.  Now, like I said, the zombie AI is so predictable that I know whether a base is going to work (for the most part...I had one fail when they changed the length of path a zombie would follow) before I place the first block.

I built another base that was basically an octagon with tunnels to the center in each of the cardinal directions, the sections between the tunnels completely filled with reinforced cement blocks (hoping the zombies would "slide" along the angled blocks and end up in the tunnels) and they simply tried to dig their way through the walls (the zombies always came from NE/SE/NW/SW on horde night back in those days.)  Nowadays, they'd have gone directly to the tunnels.

The point is, I could build these things and I would never know until horde night if they would work.  Sometimes they worked.  Sometimes they were spectacular failures.  But I had to actually try them against the horde to see what would happen.  I couldn't manipulate the AI to just walk into my death trap in an orderly fashion.  And that's what I miss, the ability to try out ideas and see if they would work, not to be able to plan out a perfect base without issues. 

If I could make myself forget how the AI works, that would be great, but I can't.  Hence, boredom ensues.

 

[BFT2020]

Yeah I remembered A16, where you just had to move away from the damaged wall to get them to start attacking fresh walls.  While not predictable, you could easily exploit the zombie AI / spawning if you built your base big enough.

 

[Riamus]

I realize that you never played A16, but no, that's not the reason.  The AI in A16 was in many ways profoundly stupid.  Zombies basically just ran straight toward you from wherever they spawned.  If you had a 5 block thick wall on one side of your base and a 1 block thick wall on the other side, if they spawned on the side of the 5 block thick wall, they'd try and tunnel through that.  If you dug a 5 block wide trench all the way to bedrock all around your base, with bridges in each of the cardinal directions, unless you did something to slow them down, they would happily fling themselves into the trench (and even if you did something to slow them down, you'd still have some who would fling themselves into the trench.)

Heck, I once built a 5 block deep base with a 10 block long ramp coming down to me (completely uncovered) and what I ended up with was a group of zombies milling around above my head come morning.  I'd even put in doors that I left open to try and lure the zombies down, and they didn't go for it.

This is a base I built in A16.  That trench goes all the way down to bedrock (that's the whitish bit you can see on the near side, that's what bedrock used to look like.)  I had zombies fling themselves into that trench and almost undermine my base.  With the new AI, that wouldn't happen, they'd just happily cross the bridges.

View attachment 2375

I mean, yes, I could have easily built a base that could withstand any horde (heck, like I mentioned you could just build an elevated base and stand there all night, since the zombies didn't try to attack things when they couldn't reach you, which was admittedly a problem, and why I mentioned adding the destroy area mode.)  But I could also try all kinds of designs to see what worked.  Now, like I said, the zombie AI is so predictable that I know whether a base is going to work (for the most part...I had one fail when they changed the length of path a zombie would follow) before I place the first block.

I built another base that was basically an octagon with tunnels to the center in each of the cardinal directions, the sections between the tunnels completely filled with reinforced cement blocks (hoping the zombies would "slide" along the angled blocks and end up in the tunnels) and they simply tried to dig their way through the walls (the zombies always came from NE/SE/NW/SW on horde night back in those days.)  Nowadays, they'd have gone directly to the tunnels.

The point is, I could build these things and I would never know until horde night if they would work.  Sometimes they worked.  Sometimes they were spectacular failures.  But I had to actually try them against the horde to see what would happen.  I couldn't manipulate the AI to just walk into my death trap in an orderly fashion.  And that's what I miss, the ability to try out ideas and see if they would work, not to be able to plan out a perfect base without issues. 

If I could make myself forget how the AI works, that would be great, but I can't.  Hence, boredom ensues.

I think it's just a different effect with the same outcome.  By that, I mean that in A16, you knew how the zombies worked.  Yes, they'd attack from whatever side they were on without really having any intelligence to speak of.  Now, they'll follow the easiest route if there is one available, with some going into destroy mode occasionally.  In both cases, you know how they'll react and what they will do.  It may be true that in A16, they'd just attack from wherever they came from and so you if you didn't design the base to work for all directions of attack, you wouldn't know if it'll hold up because it may hold up if they come from a certain set of directions but not from another set of directions.  Versus now, where you always know the route they'll take and so can more easily determine if it'll work.  Is that what you mean?  To me, it's all pretty much the same and just a different base design and planning being needed in A16 in order to know what will or won't work.  Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean?  Maybe you are just meaning that it is easier to know how well it will work now?  Which I guess is what you said initially and what I suggested you might be able to say if you played A16 now.  *shrug*    I suppose without seeing it in action, I probably can't really see what the difference is.  To me, if you know they all come at you head-on, it doesn't seem like it would really be any harder to know what will work than if you know they'll take the path of least resistance.

I think if they were to update the AI to use a variety of different things, it would go a long way towards making horde night an actual challenge.  Have some going straight at you, regardless what's in the way.  Have others follow the easiest path.  Have others follow a more difficult path.  With variety, you can't know as easily what the zombies will do and can't exploit them as easily.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Versus now, where you always know the route they'll take and so can more easily determine if it'll work.  Is that what you mean?

Basically this.  It's too easy to manipulate the AI now.  Heck, it's hard not to manipulate it.  In A16, I could try different things to try and get the zombies to go where I wanted, and I never knew if it was going to work (it, admittedly, usually didn't).  Now, I always know where they're going to go, so there's no more excitement any more in trying out new base designs.  It honestly feels like a waste of time trying to come up with new base designs, because unless you intentionally do something to make your base suck, they all end up working the same.

 

[Maxwar]

Basically this.  It's too easy to manipulate the AI now.  Heck, it's hard not to manipulate it.  In A16, I could try different things to try and get the zombies to go where I wanted, and I never knew if it was going to work (it, admittedly, usually didn't).  Now, I always know where they're going to go, so there's no more excitement any more in trying out new base designs.  It honestly feels like a waste of time trying to come up with new base designs, because unless you intentionally do something to make your base suck, they all end up working the same.

I agree that most base designs you see nowadays tend to always work kind of the same and that is a bit of a shame. However I'd still say that what we have now is an improvement over what we had back in A16. 

Before the zombie AI update, all my horde base designs were pretty much big fortifications with multi layered 360 degree defenses and some kind of platforms for me to move around and attack the zombies wherever they were.  You could make some variations on the theme but the overall principle was still always the same, just tank the night and then repair the damage. IIrc There was not much else that worked reliably, barring maybe some quirky cheese builds that used specific exploits. Zombie AI had some exploitable characteristics like iirc they were attracted to doors so you could use that but it was not super reliable and they always ended up swarming a bit everywhere and punched whatever was in front of them. I am sometimes nostalgic of the chaos and destruction that such hordes made but overall I would not go back. 

Bunker style bases can still work nowadays but tend to be less efficient than pathing bases so have fallen out of fashion, but some players still like to use them. 

This being said I feel like pathing bases allow for more flavour and creativity than straight up bunker bases. You can make some tower defense trap labyrinth, some kind of basic funnel and kill zone. You can make a setup using drawbridges and swtiches to make the zombies change directions and waste time. You can make a setup that make zombies fall in pits. You can make pits shallow for easy kill or alternatively make the pits deep for added fall damage. You can make base designs that make melee a viable option for killing the horde. You can put robotic sledges at clever places to make funnies happen etc.  I typically try to vary from run to run. 

I see suggestions to add more diversity to zombies AI. Like some take the path of least resistance like they do now, but some others just swarm, some other go around etc. While this seem to be a good idea at first glance, I suspect it would just make all the pathing designs unreliables and usher their disapperances and because of unpredictible AI we would just be back to big bunkers like before. 

By the way, zombies do still make some random damage here and there so there is still a little bit of the old AI that lives on. But if you add too much of this randomness I suspect you will eventually hit a threshold where pathing base designs are kind of not really worth it anymore.