2.6 Difficulty Changes

[Kyoji]

True when it happens on the odd playthrough. I certainly don't get an early game toilet pistol every time I play and the primitive level of progression doesn't often get skipped entirely. Now put T1 pistols, shotguns, rifles, and machine guns in certain POIs and you'll pretty much be skipping the primitive stage every single playthrough.

Sure if you can beat the Golden Knight as soon as you enter Elden Ring but most people can't so they build up before they kill. The point is that yes in some situations there will be people who could get those early T1 weapons on day 1 which a lot of luck or skill but that would be the minority.

Plus it only saves you less than a week about of time. Hardly too OP. If anything progression is still too fast. I can get to the next tier of weapon by Day 2.

 

[Roland]

Sure if you can beat the Golden Knight as soon as you enter Elden Ring but most people can't so they build up before they kill

I bet if Elden Ring employed a voxel world a lot more people could beat that Golden Knight as soon as they enter....

 

[Kyoji]

I bet if Elden Ring employed a voxel world a lot more people could beat that Golden Knight as soon as they enter....

In this game time is a resource. If you spend hours trying to clear Navezgane corrections for some good loot then well on ya.

 

[meganoth]

Sure if you can beat the Golden Knight as soon as you enter Elden Ring but most people can't so they build up before they kill. The point is that yes in some situations there will be people who could get those early T1 weapons on day 1 which a lot of luck or skill but that would be the minority.

But a "build up" is no "build up" if you can or have to jump over a whole tier of weapon qualities. When a class of weapons in a game is not viable, the solution for the game designer must be to make them viable, not to let players easily avoid them.

You are expected to survive and progress with pipe weapons quality by quality step in the first few days.

Plus it only saves you less than a week about of time. Hardly too OP. If anything progression is still too fast. I can get to the next tier of weapon by Day 2.

If you can do that I don't understand what your problem is. Aren't you saying right now "Progression is too fast. Proposed solution: Make it faster" ?

 

[theFlu]

If you can do that I don't understand what your problem is.

Probably mainly realism; that's at least what I'm getting from it - and can somewhat agree. It wouldn't break progress all that much if certain military loot etc was always a minimum of T1 (T0 being pipes). Say anything POI-T3 and above, military themed, those places shouldn't really hold stone axes or pipe machine guns, ever. Same with the sealed pre-apo shotty boxes ...

Progression wouldn't speed up too much, and at least non-cheesed, most of those places are a decent challenge.

 

[Kyoji]

If you can do that I don't understand what your problem is. Aren't you saying right now "Progression is too fast. Proposed solution: Make it faster" ?

The issue is realism to a degree and game logic in another. In EVERY other zombie survival game I can think of military bases have better loot than most other POIs. Generally speaking they do unless you are in the early game in which they do not. You could put toxic miasma around such locations to prevent early access and I wouldn't mind, but finding pipe weapons in the locations is just plain stupid.

If you have such locations and are able to explore them early on then they should offer as much. Otherwise put them in a toxic zone or something. It is a massive waste of time to do them early and it's counter intuitive to game logic.

 

[bartek251]

Zombies now deal significantly increased damage, and even though I had 75 damage reduction from armor, on Insane difficulty a group of 5 Ferals was able to quickly take out 150 health points from me, even though previously Ferals were unable to do anything to me on Insane difficulty, unless there were about 20 of them.
besides, it's much easier to attract screamers

 

[BFT2020]

True when it happens on the odd playthrough. I certainly don't get an early game toilet pistol every time I play

I had a streak of getting them very early (along with hunting knives), but I think that is because I typically play agility and deep cuts / gunslinger is an early perk I would invest in

 

[MiTHMoN]

You are expected to survive and progress with pipe weapons quality by quality step in the first few days.

I take a pipe weapon from the quest pipe bundle, then I loot something in the next tier. If I loot a higher quality pipe weapon along the way, sure, I replace my old pipe weapon, but "quality by quality step in the first few days" is a bit of a stretch. Especially considering a toilet pistol outclasses all pipe weapons, and you can get those on day 1.

 

[MiTHMoN]

As far as I understand the topic of this post, I agree.

A new player I'm playing with mentioned how there were Working Stiffs crates in the Shotgun Messiah factory. And I think it speaks to the issue 7DTD has with loot not matching the POI.

I like that filing cabinets and bookshelves have magazines/books. That's good. I like that kitchen cupboards and refrigerators and ovens have food-themed loot. That's good. It's good to have cohesion between what room you're looting and the loot you're getting.

To that end, yes I think "military / police" themed POIs should have guns. Not stone axes or pipe weapons.

And it would make a lot more sense that those "hobbled together" survivor-type junk POIs should have pipe weapons. (I don't know any of them by name, but you know the ones with dew collectors, etc. I can think of at least 4 specific POIs of that theme currently).

There's good cohesion with Savage Country having clothing loot, and Crack-a-book having magazine/book loot, but some of the other places need more loot cohesion.

 

[Lax]

Would be nice to see pipe weapons get a buff to make them more viable/attractive. Because they're so ineffective the temptation to completely ignore them is too great.

Be curious to know if anyone actually has success using pipe weapons, other than the pipe machine gun, and don't mind them in their current state.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Be curious to know if anyone actually has success using pipe weapons, other than the pipe machine gun, and don't mind them in their current state.

Well, I hope this doesn't get nerfed, how low can it go. sling shot maybe.

I like to use the pipe baton when charging the spitter, the wide cross swipe
often dispels the swarm. and in the time he draws back to exhale again I
stab him in the head with a high tier bone knife because it has a fast power
strike reload.

For the Pipe machine gun, I have to admit This one I cheat on. I turn it into
a single shot 15 round rifle, that can be expanded. The rate of wasted fire,
and the recoil, especially if not standing still, is like shooting an uzi bb gun.
No thanks. Pop on a 4x scope, and it actually starts to make sense.

 

[meganoth]

I take a pipe weapon from the quest pipe bundle, then I loot something in the next tier. If I loot a higher quality pipe weapon along the way, sure, I replace my old pipe weapon, but "quality by quality step in the first few days" is a bit of a stretch.

I don't mean to say there can't be gaps, but TFP doesn't see pipe weapons as some sort of special weapon outside the progression. Just like my next pistol after quality 1 pistol will be a quality 2 pistol in about 45% of games, a quality 3 pistol in 35%, a quality 4 pistol in 15%, ... (numbers wildy guessed here), the same progression is likely wanted by the developers for the pipe weapon of a typical player in a typical game

The disconnect is IMHO entirely about immersion. TFP could have called the tier0 pistol mauser instead of pipe pistol and have an appropriate look and it probably would still be as bad as it is now. But it wouldn't be a pipe weapon and could easily fit into a shotgun messiah box immersively.

Especially considering a toilet pistol outclasses all pipe weapons, and you can get those on day 1.

You can, but that is just a lucky find. It is in the game because it is a nice tongue-in-cheek joke on the movie trope of pistols (or drugs) always hidden in toilets.
One could say that TFP accepts the imbalance of the pistol appearing too early because the joke is just too good to pass on it. And I agree, the humor in 7D2D is part of the reason I like the game. That is also the reason I like the sadly removed blunderbuss or the silly POI names.

 

[Kyoji]

Would be nice to see pipe weapons get a buff to make them more viable/attractive. Because they're so ineffective the temptation to completely ignore them is too great.

Be curious to know if anyone actually has success using pipe weapons, other than the pipe machine gun, and don't mind them in their current state.

I think weapon progression is too fast currently. You speed past tiers and it doesn't take long to get to end game weapons. I think the tiers should be stretched a bit and the early game slowed down slightly.

The disconnect is IMHO entirely about immersion. TFP could have called the tier0 pistol mauser instead of pipe pistol and have an appropriate look and it probably would still be as bad as it is now. But it wouldn't be a pipe weapon and could easily fit into a shotgun messiah box immersively.

That is true, but I also think TFP are bucking the trend of themed progression. In games like DayZ, HumanitZ, and other survival games military bunkers simply offer the best loot but with a much increased difficulty to where you can't just waltz in there on day one. So it is also confusing for people who go into a Prison, Police Station or Military Base and find everything but a proper weapon.

If you balance out location tiers (increase the tier they are recognized as) and increase the general difficulty of tiers (pre-quest) then it be possible to make proper weapon locations. The issue is that much of the difficulty is given through quest triggers. IMO you shouldn't be able to go into a Shotgun Messiah Factory without a quest and find comparably little resistance to one with a quest enabled.

Of course I understand they would have to do a lot of code work to balance framerates and spawn mechanics but this is why it's more of a nice feature as I do not think this would radically improve the game.

 

[meganoth]

I think weapon progression is too fast currently. You speed past tiers and it doesn't take long to get to end game weapons. I think the tiers should be stretched a bit and the early game slowed down slightly.

That is true, but I also think TFP are bucking the trend of themed progression. In games like DayZ, HumanitZ, and other survival games military bunkers simply offer the best loot but with a much increased difficulty to where you can't just waltz in there on day one. So it is also confusing for people who go into a Prison, Police Station or Military Base and find everything but a proper weapon.

If you balance out location tiers (increase the tier they are recognized as) and increase the general difficulty of tiers (pre-quest) then it be possible to make proper weapon locations. The issue is that much of the difficulty is given through quest triggers. IMO you shouldn't be able to go into a Shotgun Messiah Factory without a quest and find comparably little resistance to one with a quest enabled.

Make it hard to get into Shotgun Messiah, they will still get in, after destroying 2 blocks. Make it impossible and you suddenly have more outliers like the imprenetable traders all over the map, and generate another outcry because of "TFP forces us to play a certain way and use traders". If you have a different solution than the above, sure. But I don't see adding invulnerable POIs as a good way ahead.

Of course I understand they would have to do a lot of code work to balance framerates and spawn mechanics but this is why it's more of a nice feature as I do not think this would radically improve the game.

 

[Rotor]

Indestructible PoIs are about as anti voxel as it gets. No thank you.

 

[Riamus]

I'm not opposed to some kind of change to loot, but comparing a fully destructible voxel game to a game where you can't destroy the POI and world doesn't really work. Just because something works in another game where you can't just break into a building doesn't mean you can do the same thing in this game. There's nothing wrong with games being different. We don't need the same mechanics in every game we play. Variety in games is a good thing and any changes need to be valid for the game we're talking about - in this case, a fully destructible voxel world where you can easily get into any POI from any direction. Feel free to make enemies harder in certain POI, but don't prevent people from being able to go into them.

 

[bdubyah]

They have a part system POIs use to add some randomness. They should just extend that to allow/force main loot parts to spawn in random areas of the POI. Sure, people will still learn all the points it could spawn, but 3-4 or more points in some of the bigger POIs would basically make you guess or you just end up going through most of it anyway.

At the end of the day though, it's not really a game problem to me. If players are choosing to cheese things, that's on them. They are just shortening the lifespan of that run. I had a user message me on Nexus saying he managed to dig under one of my Wasteland POIs to get to the power armor loot without having to fight the NPCs inside and that I should look at doing something about it. Why would I? He ruined his game, nothing wrong with the mod. What should I do, go place several layers of steel blocks under all my POIs? I maybe go add one directly under each power armor stand just to troll, but I don't see it as an issue I need to fix.

 

[theFlu]

Why would I? He ruined his game, nothing wrong with the mod.

I do agree to a degree, a degree strengthened by you doing modding on an existing framework. For TFP, I'd hope they always account for the destructible world - And preferably would use it in their "positive" design more. Like some wooden inner walls you're actually "intended" to go through, instead of dropping down an obvious death drop. Or places to place ladders to shortcut stuff, etc.

If the world IS destructible, and one still designs like everything from wood up is just solid; well, that's avoiding to utilize the most unique feature in the game.