The upcoming changes feel promising

[Kalen]

I'd settle for them making sound when coming up behind you. Shouldn't need a mod for that. What are they? Rigged for silent running?

Also a good point

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

All of the future changes are great, but we still have the issue of the night time being too bright and not realistic enough, thus rendering candles and torches redundant etc. Isn't this something that can be changed easily without breaking game mechanics? Just looking forward to the patch notes that confirm brightness levels get updated.

To tell you the truth, I hate "darker nights" mods and the like and never use them. The darker nights of A21, however, were awesome and they were awesome because there are plenty of ways to offset the utter darkness in interiors and such. So, that's saying a lot coming from me when I otherwise prefer to be able to see where I'm going, though not necessarily the daylight at midnight lighting most games go far to pacify those who'd just rather not deal with torches and headlamps and the like.

 

[Kyoji]

I feel like TFP has completely lost the plot here. Most of the nostaglia complaints are from people remembering how the game felt when they first started playing. No amount of adding back features can return the newness and freshness of that experience. TFP can’t release a feature that wipes people’s brains and lets them experience the game for the first time again.

These changes feel reactive rather than forward looking and that makes me a little sad.

Nostalgia does have a part but I think the general game trend was exactly what people were dissatisfied with and people made that very clear. The issue isn't new or fresh its that the updates as of late have not been going in the direction people want.

The updates have brought a lot of good things like graphics, new POIs, and tiles, but have also changed the direction of the game.

An example. Quests.

Previously we were able to wonder around and scavenge for resources and you felt the freedom to do so as it was the only way to play, but with the advent of questing a better alternative to just running around came and people did that. At first questing was fun and a nice change of pace, but then came some negative externalities such as loot rooms, changes to stealth due to spawning mechanics and triggers.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Turn brightness down below 50% to make night darker without affecting daylight. It can get pretty dark, though some people still want it to be even darker.

Im aware of this and due to it my brightness is zero. however by Default for a horor survival game it should be darker by default! Because the base game brightness looks like crap.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

Im aware of this and due to it my brightness is zero. however by Default for a horor survival game it should be darker by default! Because the base game brightness looks like crap.

Any chance for a slider for accessibility reasons? Set it where it's comfortable?

 

[Roland]

Any chance for a slider for accessibility reasons? Set it where it's comfortable?

It already is a slider. You can choose any percentage from 0% to 49% for your own comfort level of darkness and any percentage from 50% to 100% for your own comfort level of brightness.

Adam says 0% is still too bright but mine is set to 15% and without a flashlight or torch, interiors and nighttime are pitch black for me. Maybe it’s a difference in monitors.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

It already is a slider. You can choose any percentage from 0% to 49% for your own comfort level of darkness and any percentage from 50% to 100% for your own comfort level of brightness.

Adam says 0% is still too bright but mine is set to 15% and without a flashlight or torch, interiors and nighttime are pitch black for me. Maybe it’s a difference in monitors.

Could be. Haven't played it in a while, but base game brightness did get a lot brighter from A21 to 1.0 for me. I'll look for that slider.

 

[Roland]

Could be. Haven't played it in a while, but base game brightness did get a lot brighter from A21 to 1.0 for me. I'll look for that slider.

I believe that it was for a 1.x update that faatal altered the brightness levels significantly for values less than 49%. So if you haven’t tried the game since 1.0 there was a fix.

50% and higher is for streamers who don’t want their audience to be watching a black screen. 49% and lower is for players who want dark nights and dark interiors and aren’t worried about audiences.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

I believe that it was for a 1.x update that faatal altered the brightness levels significantly for values less than 49%. So if you haven’t tried the game since 1.0 there was a fix.

50% and higher is for streamers who don’t want their audience to be watching a black screen. 49% and lower is for players who want dark nights and dark interiors and aren’t worried about audiences.

Aee we sure streamers don't just want to give themselves a free helmet light or be restricted to a single weapon hand with a torch and blame it on their audiences? I mean, that headlamp is pretty darn bright.

j/k Audiences do complain about that, but the better streamers and YouTubers who do give themselves free lights generally ditch any they pick up later from the little I've seen.

 

[zztong]

I'm pretty ambivalent to smell. I feel the opposite, as I think feral sense is superior BECAUSE it is always on.

I used Feral Sense once. It pretty much blew stealth away at the time. I wish it were more than just off/on. For instance, if we could change its range/strength, which zombies had it, and under what conditions, then I think it would be a much nicer feature.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

I remember someone from TFP commenting that they didn’t like how the game looked when streamed with the brightness set higher. I wouldn’t lay this at the feet of streamers and their audiences.

 

[Roland]

I remember someone from TFP commenting that they didn’t like how the game looked when streamed with the brightness set higher. I wouldn’t lay this at the feet of streamers and their audiences.

Not to discount your memory but one of the lead programmers is a streamer and this issue did come up in meetings and making sure there were good brightness settings for streaming was a consideration. I don’t lay anything at the feet of streamers—all the responsibility, credit, and fault lie with the developers but it’s a fact that they do make decisions with the twitch side of things being considered.

 

[Paiper Zombee]

I'm pretty ambivalent to smell. I feel the opposite, as I think feral sense is superior BECAUSE it is always on. I've played with the new smell and it is a little different in execution to the way the old smell worked improving on that original design. However, since it can be turned off by wrapping up meat or putting it in a container, there isn't THAT much gameplay.

Smell icon appears
Put food in bicycle
Smell icon disappears.

Whereas you can't mitigate feral sense. You have to deal with it and adapt to it and always take it into account.

I'm not against it or anything, but I could take it or leave it. I missed it until feral sense was added and that satisfied my desire for zombies to come at me from all around the surrounding environment. That being said, I wouldn't turn it off if there was an option and will play with both feral sense and smell.

When bandits are added it would be cool if you heard them commenting on the putrid smell whenever you get near them....haha

Well look at you getting to play with the new smell system before the rest of us!

I feel like you can't compare smell to feral sense because they're two different things. Feral sense basically gives all zombies (or is it all entities including bears, zombie bears, and mountain cougars?) horde night tracking, whereas smell was built to make the player be more cautious of what they're carrying on their person at any given time. Stack the upcoming smell with feral sense and that desire for all zombies to come at you from everywhere should be on overdrive.

And bandits can't talk. They probably stank just as much if not more than the player. lol.

I feel like TFP has completely lost the plot here. Most of the nostaglia complaints are from people remembering how the game felt when they first started playing. No amount of adding back features can return the newness and freshness of that experience. TFP can’t release a feature that wipes people’s brains and lets them experience the game for the first time again.

These changes feel reactive rather than forward looking and that makes me a little sad.

I would've completely agreed with this if not for Joel's posts talking about how there were things they wanted in the game that had to be removed due to their tech at the time. Now that TFP have the tech that allows for them to add back the things that they never wanted to take out in the first place, plus things that fit into their scope that players miss, I feel that the changes are taking us forward rather than being reactive.

 

[Balun]

Where's the chicken coop in that list???

 

[Roland]

Well look at you getting to play with the new smell system before the rest of us!

[flex]
Don't be jealous but I sniff each empty jar I obtain and then polish it on my new shirt while scavenging around outside during a raging ember storm without taking damage before putting it into my inventory right before harvesting a queen bee from a nearby stump to take back to my base. Now excuse me while I jump in the lake to clean off this apocalypse smell and say hello to Jen who relies upon me completely...
[/flex]

 

[Rotor]

I feel like TFP has completely lost the plot here.

Maybe but the only thing I am familiar with is jars, and the rest of it sounds pretty good to me /shrugs.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

Nostalgia does have a part but I think the general game trend was exactly what people were dissatisfied with and people made that very clear. The issue isn't new or fresh its that the updates as of late have not been going in the direction people want.

The updates have brought a lot of good things like graphics, new POIs, and tiles, but have also changed the direction of the game.

An example. Quests.

Previously we were able to wonder around and scavenge for resources and you felt the freedom to do so as it was the only way to play, but with the advent of questing a better alternative to just running around came and people did that. At first questing was fun and a nice change of pace, but then came some negative externalities such as loot rooms, changes to stealth due to spawning mechanics and triggers.

They're odd jobs. Quests actually have you questing, i.e. going on grand adventures, solving mysteries, resolving (or not) factional conflicts, etc. Sorry, but I'll never allow myself to get used to repetitive, random bs being called "quests." (Beth's "radiant" system is not at all "radiant" to me and RNG is too heavily relied on these days, imo. Beth's influence on that score has travelled far and wide.) And, yes, I suppose I should have said "not nostalgia so much as." How very either/or of me.

It's not the "direction" so much as the implementation I get the sense most were going on about. "Direction" is pretty obviously shorthand for no guidance vs. some guidance. That's a community rift that will never be healed. Some like the guidance; some don't. I'll admit it's pretty heavy-handed at times, but that's about all I can agree to myself.

 

[Kalen]

It's not the "direction" so much as the implementation I get the sense most were going on about. "Direction" is pretty obviously shorthand for no guidance vs. some guidance. That's a community rift that will never be healed. Some like the guidance; some don't. I'll admit it's pretty heavy-handed at times, but that's about all I can agree to myself.

I think when people say they don't like the direction, I believe they mean the game moving from a survival focused game to zombie killing game. At least thats how I feel and thats what I generally see people comment on when they talk about direction.

 

[Lax]

Love it, hate it, agree with it, disagree with it. One thing is still true: freedom to play "your" way is still there.

When I feel like a game has such poor gameplay that I just can't take it anymore I usually abandon it and move on to something else. 7 Days is far from that for me. It still manages to hold my attention and keeps me coming back.

I have an entire library of titles I have yet to touch or barely scratched the surface playing. Just recently started playing Cyber Punk 2077 and Outer Worlds. Diggin both of them so far. But what happens when a new update comes out for 7 Days? Yup, back to the wasteland for me.

 

[Kyoji]

I think when people say they don't like the direction, I believe they mean the game moving from a survival focused game to zombie killing game. At least thats how I feel and thats what I generally see people comment on when they talk about direction.

It's not so much a zombie killing game either.

Certain things like graphics increase the value of the newest iterations of the game, but generally speaking people feel the game lacks a few things:

• More linear - progression via questing and dungeon-like POIs combined with actual biome progression that was walked back a bit
• Less complex - systems have been refined into simplified versions of themselves where you no longer need fertilizer, rebar, parts, fewer meat types, etc.
• Weaker systems - replaced systems are generally weaker than their previous counterparts. We used to have snow slowly fall and build up with rain and wetness along with heat and cold. All of that was removed for a general "storm" category that isn't as interesting or as interactive.
• Easier survival - the game has made survival much easier with the increase in canned food and water in loot whereas previously you would have empty jars and have to hunt early on for meat as there were no cities with guaranteed food stores. Nights are also very much brighter.

So in general the game has been simplified and systems have been replaced by weaker systems. I would argue the armor is worse in every category aside from aesthetics, storms don't provide as much game value as temperature interaction did previously, spawning near cities and making cities easier to venture into has lowered the early game difficulty by giving you most every resource within walking distance.

This isn't to discount many of the positive contributions the game has accrued over the years (as there is plenty) and is more directed to what I feel is missing.

Some things I don't expect to change, for example even if they remove questing/traders as a toggle the POIs are still dungeon-like and linear. I don't suspect rebar, fertilizer, etc to return either. Storms are still a work in progress so hopefully they can fill the gap left by the removal of the previous survival elements such as making rain, the desert and snow matter when venturing out. Cities should be much more dangerous and people should start by small towns or the wilderness and work their way up to city ventures. There is your progression. This would also help make food and water more valuable early on and make smell practical to bring back. Nights in general could use some TLC with simplified moon phases where you can have brighter and darker nights randomly at the end of each day.