Your ideas on improving survival aspects

Adam the Waster

Adam the Waster

Well-known member
Sense on the dev diary people agreed alot of 7dtd survival aspects is slighty lacking. I wanted to here peoples ideas on how to improve it/make it harder. 

I'll credit others people's ideas that also inspire me 

@FramFramson randomized health on zombies of all tiers and even changes in .movement speed and movement style too make things unpredictable 

Towns have Much more hostiles roaming around like zombie dogs, cops, Solders and clusters of zombies, even screamers 

Making rual pois more of a safe opinion 

More hostile Wildlife such as coyotes, packs of coyotes and hostile hogs. Wolf packs and more

More tiers of zombies for all stages of the game. From debuffer like the Putrid zombie, the quick starving zombie, the hardern Hulk varrant, the ranged toxic varrant. Etc 

Repair kits are more expensive, needing

1 oil, 3 iron, 2 tape, 2 mechanical parts 

POIS have clusters of zombies sleeping outside and around pois that will respawn often unless you have a land claim block down 

Pois have alarms that if set will spawn a massive horde. Can disable 

effects and other injuries 

• Sickness that lowers food and water and if not cursed you get even weaker 

• Toxic exposure that weakens health and damage resistance gotten from special zombies and acid from ranged attacks

• Poison that lowers stamina and health. Gotten from spider zombies and snakes 

• Radation exposure: from swimming in water, eatting bad food or water and from things around the map like barrels and radioactive zombies. Lowers your Max Hp, stamina and weakens you and your stats. Need anti Radation drugs 

• Weather exposure: overtime when your out and about, no matter the biome. Weather will effect you. Pine forest and forest will get warm and cold and will lower hp regen and food for cold, and lower stamina regeneration and water for heat. 

Each biome has a varring Weather 

• Food poisoning. Chance of not only disitary but food poisoning that lowers health and makes you lose a chunk of food and water 

• Food decay: all foods aside from canned goods have a timer that the longer you don't eat it. The higher the % of getting sick is too the point where it will go bad 

• Water system: jars and cans are back but at a cost: only 5 jars at a time and getting water from rivers gives you poison water, contaminate, radioactive, and other horrible things. The only ways to clean it are with using anti Radation drugs to ""clean"" It into murky water, or use a chemistry station. The best way to get murky water is via dew collectors or upgrades water collectors. 

• Water filters/life straws will clean Radation and sickness but you still lose health and they have durability cuz the water is still horrible 

Effects when your hungry and thirsty for too long such as low blood sugar,  blured vision, weakness, and more

What are your ideas?

 
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Adam the Waster said:
What are your ideas?
Click to expand...


It kind of depends on how rough you want survival to be.

I'd like to add/change a few things to environmental survival, but not without trying to make major complications for the player. For instance, I make (via mods) the normal water have a dysentery chance and only what is called "mineral water" made at a chem station is truly potable water. The end effect is you still have to worry about curing dysentery for much longer into your game. As such, the game continues to have that survival aspect and you make that kind of decision for longer.

If murky water didn't come from POIs then you would have to dedicate time to gathering it. Suddenly the only consideration about choosing a base location isn't proximity to a trader.

Managing heat/cold gets discussed regularly.

I'd like some unpredictable complications, perhaps tied to environmental factors. For instance, if I could say Feral Sense was tied to the presence of fog. Or, maybe the amount of Feral Sense corresponds to the amount of fog. Then when fog rolled in zombies would become more aware.

Maybe rain would make stealth more effective (drowns out small player noises) but perhaps thunder might change a sleeper into a wanderer or you just get a couple more wanderers when it is a thunder storm. Flashes of lightning provide light that make stealth less effective for a moment.

Spoiling food would make me hunt more later in the game. Refrigeration could require power leading to a larger fuel expenditure. Recipes and canning supplies would provide an alternative.

 
I really like the idea of decaying food. Nice.

Would be nice if you had a toggle option at the start of creating a new game to play vanilla or ultra hard-core survival with many of these suggestions enabled.

Possibly a different type of fatigue where the longer you stay awake and on your feet traveling, looting the more tired and sleepy you get. If you stay up too long, insomnia kicks in with the danger of you passing out and being at the mercy of Zeds finding a free meal. The only way to cure it is by resting or sleeping a set amount of time, eating away at the time before horde night with little preparation.

 
As a mod for survival I'm basically piecing it together as I go.

1 Distributing, resources among the biomes, and location types.

2 Recipes based on using the resources from number 1.
3 Having a constant biological threat supplemented with a partial.
4 Having a constant physical threat, and a supplemental threat.
5 as above but environmental. Tfp is taking care of this in 2.0
6 Removing the skulls, and level indicators, and allowing various
tier pois in each biome.
7 Having the trader poi quests send you to various tiers without
level indication. Just says clear or fetch dig.
8 Lower visibility of surrounding unless in the middle of a street.
9 Variable radiation in POIs.
10 Readjust food water, to be based on event and exertion.
11 Backpack starter slots, less in the beginning and unlocked as skill
and days alive progress. Higher penalty going over open slots.
12 smaller stacks for items dependent on a weighted variable, before
they split and take up more slots.
13 Set crafting personal work stations to high level, but those found
in game can be repaired with different requirements. Limited use before
repair.
14 Power water lights sewage etc. is off and needs to be repaired per
grid and fueled. Possibly attacked randomly by zombies because of heat
generation.
15 removing all torches and remote lights from pois, the only light is
supplied if A torch is made or a flashlight is placed, but with limited
battery life.

16 Find a trader not gps'ed

17 Have solid and blended biomes, It readjusts the rules a bit

These are totally personal preferences, so I have been teaching myself how
to add each as time allows.

 
Adam the Waster said:
Sense on the dev diary people agreed alot of 7dtd survival aspects is slighty lacking. I wanted to here peoples ideas on how to improve it/make it harder. 

I'll credit others people's ideas that also inspire me 

@FramFramson randomized health on zombies of all tiers and even changes in .movement speed and movement style too make things unpredictable 

Towns have Much more hostiles roaming around like zombie dogs, cops, Solders and clusters of zombies, even screamers 

Making rual pois more of a safe opinion 

More hostile Wildlife such as coyotes, packs of coyotes and hostile hogs. Wolf packs and more

More tiers of zombies for all stages of the game. From debuffer like the Putrid zombie, the quick starving zombie, the hardern Hulk varrant, the ranged toxic varrant. Etc 

Repair kits are more expensive, needing

1 oil, 3 iron, 2 tape, 2 mechanical parts 

POIS have clusters of zombies sleeping outside and around pois that will respawn often unless you have a land claim block down 

Pois have alarms that if set will spawn a massive horde. Can disable 

effects and other injuries 

• Sickness that lowers food and water and if not cursed you get even weaker 

• Toxic exposure that weakens health and damage resistance gotten from special zombies and acid from ranged attacks

• Poison that lowers stamina and health. Gotten from spider zombies and snakes 

• Radation exposure: from swimming in water, eatting bad food or water and from things around the map like barrels and radioactive zombies. Lowers your Max Hp, stamina and weakens you and your stats. Need anti Radation drugs 

• Weather exposure: overtime when your out and about, no matter the biome. Weather will effect you. Pine forest and forest will get warm and cold and will lower hp regen and food for cold, and lower stamina regeneration and water for heat. 

Each biome has a varring Weather 

• Food poisoning. Chance of not only disitary but food poisoning that lowers health and makes you lose a chunk of food and water 

• Food decay: all foods aside from canned goods have a timer that the longer you don't eat it. The higher the % of getting sick is too the point where it will go bad 

• Water system: jars and cans are back but at a cost: only 5 jars at a time and getting water from rivers gives you poison water, contaminate, radioactive, and other horrible things. The only ways to clean it are with using anti Radation drugs to ""clean"" It into murky water, or use a chemistry station. The best way to get murky water is via dew collectors or upgrades water collectors. 

• Water filters/life straws will clean Radation and sickness but you still lose health and they have durability cuz the water is still horrible 

Effects when your hungry and thirsty for too long such as low blood sugar,  blured vision, weakness, and more

What are your ideas?
Click to expand...


I've done a couple mods which add difficulty, including making motorbike/4x4/gyro significantly more expensive, crops taking several times as long to grow, etc. 

Always interested in dynamic increases in difficulty requiring skill and thought to address.

 
Grandpa Minion said:
this is a very easy one to answer:

"Your ideas on improving survival aspects?"

 join a PVP server
Click to expand...
Console users: 

Wtf are servers? 

FramFramson said:
I've done a couple mods which add difficulty, including making motorbike/4x4/gyro significantly more expensive, crops taking several times as long to grow, etc. 

Always interested in dynamic increases in difficulty requiring skill and thought to address.
Click to expand...
I think something like this would be good too. 

Needing a radiator, oil, and imo. The vehicle itself needs to go back to the old way where you assemble it. And it degrades over time and had quality.  

But increase difficulty should also change things for the world itself like slower crop time, harsher effects, etc

 
Grandpa Minion said:
this is a very easy one to answer:

"Your ideas on improving survival aspects?"

 join a PVP server
Click to expand...


I suppose. I don't really associate survival with PvP. I think of PvP as a meat grinder where nobody has any expectation of survival. I guess what I mean by that is I would see survival and perma-death being complimentary. You die, you make a new game. But I can't imagine PvP and perma-death being complementary. You die and you don't return to the server until it changes maps? Well, I dunno. Maybe. If you had a bunch of players into that you could have a kind of "Hunger Games" setup and once you have a winner you go again: A new map every two hours.

Okay, you talked me into it, or I talked me into it, or something. I could maybe even see playing a Hunger Games server from time to time.

If it were a long term map, and players respawned, it would have to be a server without safe zones otherwise you only risk your excess gear, right?

 
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any nublet that joins a pvp server generally learns 7d2d suvivabliity faster than free lancing on pve..

its almost a must because players are continuously on their toes more paying attention about everything going on around their surroundings in pvp.

 
Adam the Waster said:
Needing a radiator, oil, and imo. The vehicle itself needs to go back to the old way where you assemble it. And it degrades over time and had quality. 
Click to expand...
And the battery mattering!

I couldn't add the battery & quality back in, but my mod changes the motorbike to requiring 3 engines, 4x4 requires 6 (and 8 tires, lol), and the gyro requires 8 engines. They also require more steel, mechanical parts, electrical parts etc. I actually started with lower numbers but you just get SO MANY engines and parts over time.

I might upgrade it to a "vehicle madness lite" type system where you no longer find engines, but engine parts instead and have to build a specific engine (with roughly the same cost, plus maybe some oil, a radiator etc.) for each vehicle. I don't want to make it too grindy, but right now, by the time you can build any vehicle you've long since been drowning in parts, which completely obviates the challenge.

 
FramFramson said:
And the battery mattering!

I couldn't add the battery & quality back in, but my mod changes the motorbike to requiring 3 engines, 4x4 requires 6 (and 8 tires, lol), and the gyro requires 8 engines. They also require more steel, mechanical parts, electrical parts etc. I actually started with lower numbers but you just get SO MANY engines and parts over time.

I might upgrade it to a "vehicle madness lite" type system where you no longer find engines, but engine parts instead and have to build a specific engine (with roughly the same cost, plus maybe some oil, a radiator etc.) for each vehicle. I don't want to make it too grindy, but right now, by the time you can build any vehicle you've long since been drowning in parts, which completely obviates the challenge.
Click to expand...
I would love something like this 

 
more realistic survival, more game mechanics and survival aspects, more guns and melee types, better animations (1st and 3rd person), 10 ingredient slots for crafting instead of 5, more resource, more plants in wildlife, more creatures in wild life, bird entities, more wildlife sound effects, realistic chopping, birch and maple trees to be finished and brough back to world generation, all buildings covered with varius plants and ivys, more vehicle types, remove vehicle old way crafting, and instead make mechanic of repairing vehicles found in the world!

 
I wouldn't mind food decaying, but it should be a reasonable amount of time.  If they did go that route, we would want a thing to help preserve the food.

The repair kits being too cheap, i kind of agree with.  But the lock-picks are too expensive.  They should honestly just be made with forged iron.

I would like temperature to matter.  I think the different armor sets should have different cold/hot protections based on the set.  

Honestly, though.  I think the game is in a good spot for me survival-wise.  I think the main survival issue is the zombies.  Have more special zombies.  Have more zombies out in the real world.  

 
Food spoilage would honestly go a LONG way to increasing the survival aspects of the game. As others have said, keep the food spoilage at a reasonable rate and introduce various ways/levels to preserve food (salt, refrigerate, dehydrate, freeze, etc.). As it is, food is such an easy thing to overcome, you might as well remove hunger from the game.

Beyond that, weather/temperature really needs to make a comeback, which going by recent rumblings in the dev diary, we might just see that in the next update. 🤞

There are obviously other things you can do which would bring more realistic survival, but this game does strike a nice balance between arcade and realism, and I think making the game too hardcore might turn off a lot of people, myself included. There are already hardcore survival games. We don't need another.

 
Suxar said:
On the one hand you are right, but having played Conan Exiles, I can say that this only creates inconvenience, without affecting survival in any way.
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I haven't played that personally, but I can certainly see how it might ruin a game if not implemented correctly. That and it's always possible that certain difficulty settings could enable/disable food spoilage.

 
Syphon583 said:
I haven't played that personally, but I can certainly see how it might ruin a game if not implemented correctly. That and it's always possible that certain difficulty settings could enable/disable food spoilage.
Click to expand...
It's not that it ruins the game, it's just that you have to distract yourself with unnecessary actions. For example, instead of cooking 6 stacks of food and not thinking about it for a while, you regularly cook half a stack. This simply increases the number of your actions and drags out the game a little, but in essence it doesn't affect anything.

 
Suxar said:
It's not that it ruins the game, it's just that you have to distract yourself with unnecessary actions. For example, instead of cooking 6 stacks of food and not thinking about it for a while, you regularly cook half a stack. This simply increases the number of your actions and drags out the game a little, but in essence it doesn't affect anything.
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Oh god, people are lazy to take extra steps in game which is not overloaded with em

 
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ALEXZANDER said:
Oh god, people are lazy to take extra steps 
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I just don't want to micromanage. In Conan Exiles, for example, you spend half your time checking all sorts of traps, compost pits, dryers, presses, digging ore (there's too much of it there), chopping down trees, and so on, and not exploring the map, fighting, or capturing slaves. And it's starting to get annoying. Instead of a survival simulator, you get a squirrel in a wheel simulator.

 
Suxar said:
I just don't want to micromanage. In Conan Exiles, for example, you spend half your time checking all sorts of traps, compost pits, dryers, presses, digging ore (there's too much of it there), chopping down trees, and so on, and not exploring the map, fighting, or capturing slaves. And it's starting to get annoying. Instead of a survival simulator, you get a squirrel in a wheel simulator.
Click to expand...
Yes its too bad when its too much but its also bad when there is none of it!

 
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