Things I Like/Dislike about Modern 7dtd and Why I think Alpha 17/18 are a perfect balance between survival and arcady sandbox

S

Someone_Alive

Refugee
Disclaimer these a lot of these are my experiences with the game and yours might be different so sorry if my comparisons don't line up with yours all that well.

Likes:

The environments and poi's are awesome it feels so emersive, love all the small details

The lighting is beautiful and coincide with the environments and pois really well.

The new zombies, ik not everyone likes the frost walker but I like how he feels a lil out of place, the plauge spitters annoying but he's chill and I haven't seen any of the new types of radiated yet. Also ik there old at this point but the mutated spitters are cool as too.

I like how the environment will sometimes react like in I think maybe greg's supermarket, the theft detection goes off when u walk by resulting in it attracting all the zombies nearby.

The challenges are nice addition

The new animations are crisp, the pipe weapons are so ■■■■ but look so cool

The hitbox's are also fantastic

Dislikes

The storms, they're annoying especially coinciding with the new biome challenges it doesn't work I was knee deep is desert tomfoolery then it said a storm was on the way a with no pois in site I had to bike it back to the burnt forest but I didn't get there in time and died, Ik it's probably just a case of mad cause bad but still it's annoying, I wish the desert storm was an actual sandstorm that would maybe decrease your move speed, restrict your vision and you had to wear a goggles mod or it maybe takes away 5 hit points every few seconds, I've had a few cool experiences boarded up in a shack or having to quickly clear out or huddle in house on the brink of death but idk it screws too much with time management and the general flow of the day and not in a fun way like a pack of dogs or a wandering horde before horde night starts would. BTW ik there toggleable but still it's an annoying addition that could've been cool. Burnt forest storms make sense a fire storm would really not be a fun time.

Biome progression/badges: It's fun to gather up the ingredients to craft the smoothie but it gets tedious and kinda makes me wanna put off going to new biomes but cause of the way traders work now where u have to go to the next one so u can unlock others made me go to them earlier than I would've so thumbs up to the trader rework but thumbs down to biome badges and the new loot caps, I really hate the loot caps It makes looting teir 4 pois and above in the forest and burnt forest feel useless cause why would I spend a day looting and breaking into the chest (with most likely a stone axe) when I could do 4 jobs for trader reck and get more loot plus coin plus a completion reward.

Crafting books are fine for the most part except for workbenches and vehicles I think workbenches should be a rare one time schematic and bring back minibikes for dumb■■■■s, I think it should be turned into a franchise, a dumb■■■■s guide for every vehicle, 3 volumes each to read to unlock the vehicle.

U can't throw spears anymore

I've heard the funpimps tune the ai to not work with curtain cheesy bases which sucks I don't like to cheese games but it sucks for those who do cause this games a sandbox game and not to mention the zombie ai's definitely not as good as it use to be getting stuck too much or focusing on blocks instead of u and I wouldn't be surprised if that's why.

Loot progression isn't the worst thing but I do think the game would be better if it was toggleable



I think Alpha 17/18 does better job at making exploration fun and feel different.
Spawing in a random biome was fun, u never knew what you were going to get creating a world and you'd adapt to the biome u spawned in either by staying the ■■■■ away from lumberjacks or trying not to exhaust your self in the desert, maybe by crafting a badana.

The old weather system paired with the clothes system was great you'd pack accordingly to what biome you wanted to go and sometimes you had to sacrifice defence over staying cool or warm or sometimes you'd find ■■■■ all and rush to find a forest.

Cities felt more of a threat cause you'd spend your time looting wild pois and than small towns if u could and then once you were happy with your gear you'd enter the desert city or something.

Also I wish showing a pois tier was toggleable, I enjoyed going into a teir 4 without knowing it and getting my ■■■■ kicked in because of it.

It felt way more emersive cause you weren't worried about your game stage or any game modifiers that didn't outright effect you, u had to worry about food, water, health skills, temperature and any effects you may have gotten now you're worried about all the same things minus temperature but plus loot stage, crafting book stage, poi tier, biome badge, inpending storm, non of the new editions feel emersive or like there was much attemp to fit them into a real world, it feels like they're adding additions to the game not the world if that makes sense.

I think despite the title alpha 15/ps4 did a great job at making every mechanic feel in world and like its ment to be there. purely just cause of the addition of action points and all the other survival elements like raw meat attracting zombies and cooked meat doing it less. In alpha 10, there'd be smell lines on the map showing how far u were attracting zombies from. Also gun and minibike creation was awesome in a15

But this is an alpha 17/18 post so imma zip it about my beloved ps4 edition. I think to genuinely solve most problems give us legacy toggles one that brings back alpha 17 gameplay and one for alpha 15/ps4 called ultimate survival mode for something idk if that's possible but it'd be awesome

It doesn't have to be the post polished thing at the start u can use old models (clothes models for example) and slowly remaster them and then once thats done you'd have the basis for ultimate mega insane survival mode (a15 mode) u could use stand ins at the start if u were going to bring back the old weapon and vehicle "crafting" system I use crafting lightly cause it's way cooler standard crafting.
You could slowly work on them in the background whilst the main game is still getting updates that's also why toggles for them would be good so its clear they're not the main game.

Thank you for reading this and if you're one of the funpimps thanks heaps and please consider playing some of the old versions to see what makes them so fun, a10, a15, a18 are my personal favourites I've never played alpha 15 on pc but I've heard that's the closest alpha to the ps4 edition.
 
Spawning in random biome was terrible. You spawn in the snow biome and died then respawned. I feel like this one is more nostalgic than actually a good idea.

The temperature system was indeed fun and I miss finding actual clothes in clothing stores.

The new world generation with cities is leagues better than anything we have had before. Perhaps some zombie spawning increases in cities would be nice, specifically commercial with a touch extra and industrial with a just a bit more than commercial.

Showing the POI tier is less immersive I suppose but it also makes the game better for newer players. Not sure how important this one is specifically to you but I would rate this very low on the importance list of things to care about.

Being able to customize and build your bikes was indeed fun and I generally miss parts qualities.

The meat attraction was more annoying than anything for me personally as most of your food came from hunting. It's one change I'm actually happy isn't around anymore. May be a hot take but the game isn't a 4x title where I should have to manage every little thing. I think with temperature coming back, storms, etc there will be enough to worry about. On a side note I hate screamers and heat maps. I get the idea but I still hate it. Farming screamers is too easy and before then they are annoying. Wondering hordes should have been enough.

There are things I miss for sure but I think until the game is finished they should focus on expanding current concepts or developing new ones as I don't want the 427th skill system rendition before bandits.
 
Good point on the random biome starts it was probably pre ■■■■ for others, personally I enjoyed the rough start though.
I completely forgot to mention the city/town gen in my likes, thanks for reminding me
 
I enjoyed and sorely miss LBD(hate magazines), patchwork biomes, zombies in the streets, old clothing system, smell system, 1-500(600?) quality for parts and completed items, item degradation... That's a quick list. I could probably find tons more of what I miss if I spent more time. Basically, for me, the game becomes less and less with each update. I can't remember the last time I wanted to play vanilla for any reason other than to see the new changes(and start looking for ways to undo them). If it weren't for mods that undo or modify a lot of the changes, I wouldn't spend what little time I currently do.
 
  • Storms are getting tweaks, according to faatal, so hopefully those tweaks will make some people happier. For instance, I know once of the changes is taking damage will be slower to occur.
  • The temperature system is planned to come back. They have to rework the code first.
  • Spears should be throwable again, I agree. I actually think they could use a little more buffing.
  • I think screamers are fun ^_^ but I can understand those who don't agree.
  • Showing the POI difficulty is a good thing. People should know what they are getting themselves into and prepare adequately.
  • The meat smelling mechanic was turned into Feral Sense, which can be toggled in settings. The game could use some more QoL settings, imo.
 
pApA^LeGBa said:
IT´s still beyond me how people can miss the LBD that this game had. It was easy to abuse. The meta was running around the campfire all night while crafting stone axes, it was stupid.
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I am with you on that.

However, it was a pretty drastic measure to throw all that out without any tweaking. Several overhauls blend LBD and crafting magazines/schematics with fair balance and good sucsess. I think a hybrid system would have been best.
 
8_Hussars said:
I am with you on that.

However, it was a pretty drastic measure to throw all that out without any tweaking. Several overhauls blend LBD and crafting magazines/schematics with fair balance and good sucsess. I think a hybrid system would have been best.
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I actually prefer the magazines, although the implementation could use some significant work. It promotes teamwork, saving magazines for your friends who are specializing in spears, workbenches, etc. and it rewards exploration as opposed to just doing stuff repetitively to gain skill. The only issue I have with it is that certain skills, like armor or crafting a crucible, take too many magazines. I rarely find myself in a situation where I can't make a weapon or tool of appropriate tier for my gamestage. I find it far less gamey than the old system.
 
LittleNightma said:
  • Storms are getting tweaks, according to faatal, so hopefully those tweaks will make some people happier. For instance, I know once of the changes is taking damage will be slower to occur.
  • The temperature system is planned to come back. They have to rework the code first.
  • Spears should be throwable again, I agree. I actually think they could use a little more buffing.
  • I think screamers are fun ^_^ but I can understand those who don't agree.
  • Showing the POI difficulty is a good thing. People should know what they are getting themselves into and prepare adequately.
  • The meat smelling mechanic was turned into Feral Sense, which can be toggled in settings. The game could use some more QoL settings, imo.
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The only thing I disagree on with this is throwing spears. As a spear user, I hated the thrown spear mechanic and am very happy they removed it. Throwing the spear removed any real value from power attacks and meant you were always having to hunt down your spear and potentially lose it if you can't find it in time. I even had it get stuck in another player and it took a LOT of effort to try and get it back again because it wouldn't let me select it until I got in exactly the right position related to the other player. It might have dropped if they logged out, of course. But it just wasn't something I liked.

If people would like a thrown spear option, I think the better option is to just make a new weapon (perhaps calling it a javelin) and then have that be a thrown weapon and allow it to stack so you can throw more than one at a time and don't have to have a lot of duplicate weapons on your tool belt just to throw one and switch to the next in order to have something in your hands again.
 
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pApA^LeGBa said:
IT´s still beyond me how people can miss the LBD that this game had. It was easy to abuse. The meta was running around the campfire all night while crafting stone axes, it was stupid.
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That was "A" way to play if you chose to. Was it easy to abuse? Sure, if you chose to. It should have been tweaked and adjusted, not thrown away.
 
Riamus said:
The only thing I disagree on with this is throwing spears. As a spear user, I hated the thrown spear mechanic and am very happy they removed it. Throwing the spear removed any real value from power attacks and meant you were always having to hunt down your spear and potentially lose it if you can't find it in time. I even had it get stuck in another player and it took a LOT of effort to try and get it back again because it wouldn't let me select it until I got in exactly the right position related to the other player. It might have dropped if the logged out, of course. But it just wasn't something I liked.

If people would like a thrown spear option, I think the better option is to just make a new weapon (perhaps calling it a javelin) and then have that be a thrown weapon and allow it to stack so you can thrown more than one at a time and don't have to have a lot of duplicate weapons on your tool belt just to throw one and switch to the next in order to have something in your hands again.
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That's fair! I thought spear throwing was extremely fun, but you're right. The hunting down part was extremely tedious and most of the time I lost them anyway. If throwing had its own special perk and had a better way for us to locate them I'd be down for it to be added again.
 
A throwing skill could be an entirely new weapon group that includes throwing axes, javelins (or spears), throwing knives, etc. All of which can be stacked and work similarly to archery, where you can recover some of them, but not all. Any mods would apply to the stack. You could swap between the different weapons like you do ammo in a ranged weapon.
 
@8_Hussars I was playing online a lot at that time on different servers. The majority did it. And nowadays many want that easy cheese back for exactly that reason.

I wouldn´t mind the LBD that Darkness Falls has at all.
 
Jeraal said:
That was "A" way to play if you chose to. Was it easy to abuse? Sure, if you chose to. It should have been tweaked and adjusted, not thrown away.
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Yeah I agree. People that abuse things like that are idiots. It just takes self control. For instance we all can access Creative mode, and it has uses (for example) if a bug means you lose your drone, you could either build a new one or creative-mode-one-back-in. Does that make creative mode bad ?, no it just means children can abuse it. LBD I've only really experienced in the Rebirth overhaul mod, and after playing with magazines for so long before that, I felt/feel cheated by LBD being replaced by "smallminded" ie simplistic magazines. But it's what we have and if I want to play properly I can always fire up Rebirth to experience LBD and lots of other cool things that vanilla doesn't offer
 
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AxonDomini said:
I actually prefer the magazines, although the implementation could use some significant work. It promotes teamwork, saving magazines for your friends who are specializing in spears, workbenches, etc. and it rewards exploration as opposed to just doing stuff repetitively to gain skill. The only issue I have with it is that certain skills, like armor or crafting a crucible, take too many magazines. I rarely find myself in a situation where I can't make a weapon or tool of appropriate tier for my gamestage. I find it far less gamey than the old system.
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To be honest, I do prefer the magazines to the A16.4 exploitable LBD. I just think there is room for both approaches in a hybrid system and some overhauls make it work.
 
"FTP" mobile game "monetization strategies" are obviously not the only thing PC and console gaming have adopted from that space, consciously and otherwise. Why develop a video game when standard practice in the industry today is to provide players with "challenges" (i.e. mundane tasks they're already doing in the course of highly repetitive, "normal" gameplay) and "achievements" (read: checklists) to check off to make them think, erroneously, they're getting somewhere and/or actually accomplishing something other than running in place? Younguns, who've never known anything other than checklists and slot machine-like HUD displays, will never be any the wiser unless they play classic games and, until they start demanding more, video games will continue to nosedive in quality.

That said, Richard Huenink himself has expressed his dissatisfaction with the modern, exploitative direction of video games and I've no doubt the intent to do something vastly different is genuine, but it's not turning out that way in practice.

I've no idea what A17 & A18 were like. I do know what 1.0 and 2.0 are like. I can also plainly see for myself there's a history of TFP pulling out systems with any depth or interest to them and replacing them with just such sleights of hand and checklists (and, of course, recipes) characteristic of mobile and "live service" games rather than fully implementing and/or refining those systems, which may or may not have been part of a game engine template in the first place. I've no idea whether TFP just doesn't have the knowledge base on hand to do it or are doing this purposefully, thinking they're keeping up with modern expectations with implementations such as "challenge" windows. I've always thought they were learning as they go and have been more than fine with that. Ironically, though, that's why I now have to withdraw my support of the game.

I know the game is not going to change significantly at this point. They'll tweak a few numbers and call it good rather than completing the game they started because that's their history. Heck, they say they're already working on another game in another engine when this one is one third finished. Impression is: they bit off more they could chew with the RPG promises, perhaps inspired by the success of Skyrim or some other "open world" phenomenon like everyone else, including Bandai Namco and/or FromSoftware to be frank; raked over the trader/looting/crafting systems trying to get them absolutely perfect when there is no such thing as 'perfect,' but only whole or complete; and are now out of time to make drastic changes. Lesson learned? Tune in next game?

Perfectionism is a momentum killer and, if there's anything TFP can be "accused" of, it's perfectionism.

Not making any suggestions for improvement for the reason noted above: I know the game is not going to change significantly at this point.
 
InfiniteWarrior said:
I've no idea what A17 & A18 were like. I do know what 1.0 and 2.0 are like.
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If you get bored of 2.0 before 3.0 gets here, give 16.4 a try (assuming PC ofc). It might not be that great to go back, but it's basically a different game. I'm suggesting 16 and not 17 for the zed AI changes, iirc they came in in 17 and the first patch with it was .. obnoxious. It may have been toned down by end of 17, but if you want to see the "classic" vibe, 16 or earlier.
 
Someone_Alive said:
I've heard the funpimps tune the ai to not work with curtain cheesy bases which sucks I don't like to cheese games but it sucks for those who do cause this games a sandbox game and not to mention the zombie ai's definitely not as good as it use to be getting stuck too much or focusing on blocks instead of u and I wouldn't be surprised if that's why.
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I have a good friend who always says, "I don't like to repeat gossip so listen carefully I'm only going to tell you once..."

The facts: TFP doesn't care about what types of bases players make. TFP does care about zombie AI and pathing. TFP does care about blocks and physics behaving properly.

The gossip: TFP actively tries to undermine players by wrecking their base building strategies for dealing with zombies.

Sometimes when TFP fixes a block or adjusts the AI/pathing, it may appear that they are trying to wreck your base design but they really weren't. They didn't even know how you were building your base. To avoid getting screwed over by an update in regards to your base design, try to avoid using pathing bugs as the crux of your strategy. Also try to avoid using blocks that seem to have magical properties in disrupting zombie pathing as the crux of your strategy. The reason is that these bugs and inconsistencies will eventually get fixed and then the keystone of your strategy is gone and you might mistakenly feel picked on.

I believe that right now there is a cubbyhole block that when rotated a certain way the zombies won't walk on it. Guaranteed that some people are using that block to surround their base. Guaranteed it will get fixed sometime soon because that block is not behaving properly. Use it for now for fun if you wish but don't make that block your "playstyle".
 
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