PC A feature we can all get behind... Choice

[Odin_the_Mad]

First I would just like to say that I love this game. I have put in almost 800 hours since A16 and I think A17 has been a huge improvement and I can tell The Fun Pimps have put in an enormous amount of effort, so thank you for all your hard work.

One feature that I think is lacking however is more choice. As you can probably tell from reading these forums everyone has a different idea about what the game should look like. If you make it harder because people say it's too difficult others say it's too hard and you nerf it to to make them happy, thus angering the ones who liked it. You just cant win. So instead of forcing people to play in a certain way why not just add the ability to tweak almost every setting upon starting a new game?

You could have setting for gamestage multiplier, zombie health, headshot multipliers, zombie spawn rates in wilderness and POIs, how common food is, how common ammo is, how big the wandering hordes are, how often screamers appear, how much fuel vehicles and generators consume, can zombies dig, trader prices, turn on/off ferals/specials etc, etc.

I got this idea from Project Zomboid, which is another great early access zombie survival game. And when you start you have the option of doing a "custom sandbox" and you go through page after page of settings, you can even set how sensitive zombies are to sound and sight. It really makes a huge difference when it comes to replayability because you can constantly create new scenarios for yourself and post challenges on the forums for people to try and beat with those settings.

There are just too many benefits to this kind of choice to even list, but I can assure you that this would be one feature that every single person would love and praise you for. Because it would allow everyone to tweak the game according to thier tastes. People will sing your praises far and wide, and you will see increases in sales and play time. And the best part of this? It's not really a major change. You are basically just giving players a way to change the .XML settings that already exist, but from in game. Now I know you could say that you could just mod the game but for a majority of your players that seems very difficult and every update they have to do it all over again, which can be frustrating.

At the end of the day this is your project and I'm just one player, but I make this suggestion as someone who really loves this game and wants to see it thrive. All I ask is that you consider it. Ask around, see what people think, and see if its feasible to do. Thanks again for creating such an awesome game, I look forward to seeing the next update!

-Odin_the_Mad-

 

[Skeeter63082]

+1 to this. I was thinking something similar, but nowhere near as developed as what you have conceived. I believe this is exacty what this game needs right now. Figuratively speaking, the meat and potatoes of the game are done, and now the only thing to do is to work on the gravy, which in this case will include game customization that will bring 7dtd back into alignment with a true sandbox feel.

 

[LuckyStar]

While I agree that having more choices that exist now would be nice, I also feel that there is such a thing as too many choices.

It can really intimidate new players.

So long as the list doesn't get ridiculous and it's in "Advanced" options I might be on board with this.

 

[Skeeter63082]

While I agree that having more choices that exist now would be nice, I also feel that there is such a thing as too many choices.
It can really intimidate new players.

So long as the list doesn't get ridiculous and it's in "Advanced" options I might be on board with this.

You read my mind. Starting servers could offer current settings availability with an "Advanced" button to open an extened options menu with all the stuff mentioned by the OP and even more. As long as the tooltips accurately explain what each thing does or they release a .txt file with the game to explain them in further detail, or both, then everything would be great for those who really want to customize their game to the max. People are already doing this through mods and manually editing XML files, especially on dedicated servers, so why not just put the options in there because obviously there's a group of people (a quickly growing group from what I can tell) who want this sort of thing.

 

[LuckyStar]

... As long as the tooltips accurately explain what each thing does or they release a .txt file with the game to explain them in further detail...

There we might have a problem.

TFP aren't exactly known for their documentation.

I'd give them a 3/10 in that department.

[They get a free pass since it's Alpha but still....]

 

[OzHawkeye]

While I agree that having more choices that exist now would be nice, I also feel that there is such a thing as too many choices.
It can really intimidate new players.

So long as the list doesn't get ridiculous and it's in "Advanced" options I might be on board with this.

Well, the number of things that could be tweaked already, through XML editing, would be literally into the hundreds of thousands.

So, I'm all for choice, 100% down the line.

However, it would be impossible for all possible choices to be reflected in an options menu, even one several (or indeed, several dozen) pages long, so for me, so long as I can mod it through XML edits, I'm all good.

Whatever TFP chooses to put into an in-game options menu, I'm all good with too, so long as it doesn't inordinately delay development that is.

 

[LuckyStar]

Well, the number of things that could be tweaked already, through XML editing, would be literally into the hundreds of thousands.
So, I'm all for choice, 100% down the line.

However, it would be impossible for all possible choices to be reflected in an options menu, even one several (or indeed, several dozen) pages long, so for me, so long as I can mod it through XML edits, I'm all good.

Whatever TFP chooses to put into an in-game options menu, I'm all good with too, so long as it doesn't inordinately delay development that is.

Yeah agreed.

And also, we need to remember that they gave us XPath and that was for Modders!

That was a really big statement by TFP to show support to the community.

I'm pretty happy about it.

So I guess as long as we're willing to meet them halfway I think this could work out.

 

[Skeeter63082]

There we might have a problem.

TFP aren't exactly known for their documentation.

I'd give them a 3/10 in that department.

[They get a free pass since it's Alpha but still....]

Room for improvement then. They should take that as a challenge and beef up that aspect of the game.

 

[Aldranon]

The Main difficulty setting should be the "One stop shopping" for 90% of players. Controlling all other sub settings. Right now, it doesn't reflect the games true difficulty.

**For example, setting Insane level would also set:

10 minute days

12 hour daylight

Nightmare running

Loot 25%

No Airdrops

ect... you get the point

Then a person that wanted to adjust something, could.

There are other settings possible dealing with player progression and even the RNG mixer. That's right, Insane difficulty gives you only the snow biome as the default.

 

[Gazz]

Players love to ask for more options because obviously it would be so easy to add.

So what if every option makes the code 5% more complex?

Adding 40 more options only makes the whole 703% as complex and cumbersome to work with and that's not counting the time to constantly test all permutations. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Aldranon]

Players love to ask for more options because obviously it would be so easy to add.
So what if every option makes the code 5% more complex?

Adding 40 more options only makes the whole 703% as complex and cumbersome to work with and that's not counting the time to constantly test all permutations. What could possibly go wrong?

That's a big IF for most options. I can see changing the AI "cleverness" for each difficulty setting would be the mother of all nightmare coding!

Changing the xml text that the games initializing segment ultimately reads in, would take effort for sure, but not a huge amount.

 

[LuckyStar]

Players love to ask for more options because obviously it would be so easy to add.
So what if every option makes the code 5% more complex?

Adding 40 more options only makes the whole 703% as complex and cumbersome to work with and that's not counting the time to constantly test all permutations. What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah we get that you can't add everything as an option.

It gets complicated.

A few more options would be nice.

Something not too ridiculous to code.

[Not right now, I'd rather see efforts go into RWG to be honest. hehe]

Also.... I noticed you skipped right by the comments on the lack of documentation. =P'

Again, you guys get a free pass. This is Alpha not Beta.

[Documentation generally comes when everything is in place and working as expected.


No sense writing too much when it may change or be replaced completely.]

 

[Skeeter63082]

Players love to ask for more options because obviously it would be so easy to add.
So what if every option makes the code 5% more complex?

Adding 40 more options only makes the whole 703% as complex and cumbersome to work with and that's not counting the time to constantly test all permutations. What could possibly go wrong?

Truthfully, this wouldn't complicate the code much at all. All you would be doing is creating hooks into the XML file to allow editing from the menu instead of having to do this manually in the file itself. Honestly, it shouldn't increase the code amount by more than 1% since all you are really doing is expanding the options interface to access more of the XML files. The front end, i.e. developing the menu itself would be the bulk of the development time and coding, but even that would be fairly minimal.

 

[WolfyBlah]

Players love to ask for more options because obviously it would be so easy to add.
So what if every option makes the code 5% more complex?

Adding 40 more options only makes the whole 703% as complex and cumbersome to work with and that's not counting the time to constantly test all permutations. What could possibly go wrong?

And you love removing options from the game and forcing people down a narrow (grindy) path that you consider fun.

And i mean come on, really? Maybe 90% of the things people want options for need no more testing than ' does this setting actualy work and modify xyz variable'

Its the developers job to develop... and to be frank: they wasted 16 months implementing a new skill system that quite a few people hate (and making it almost impossible to fix back to the better, working system).

And to compound that they are having to max large balance tweaks to everything..more dev time wasted when we are still missing features.

 

[ricp]

And you love removing options from the game and forcing people down a narrow (grindy) path that you consider fun.
And i mean come on, really? Maybe 90% of the things people want options for need no more testing than ' does this setting actualy work and modify xyz variable'

Its the developers job to develop... and to be frank: they wasted 16 months implementing a new skill system that quite a few people hate (and making it almost impossible to fix back to the better, working system).

And to compound that they are having to max large balance tweaks to everything..more dev time wasted when we are still missing features.

That's a pretty ignorant diatribe there buddy. Obviously you are entitled to your opinion but such sweeping statements like "they wasted 16 months" or that any change would be really easy and require little or no testing comes across as someone who has absolutely no experience in large complicated projects.

 

[Exxodous]

Its the developers job to develop... and to be frank: they wasted 16 months implementing a new skill system that quite a few people hate

I'll grant you some people hate the new system, but you have to admit "quite a few" love it. So what makes your opinion more important than mine for instance? The only vote that counts is copies sold and number of people playing. If those continue to go up as it seems they are, looks like the haters are SOL, and no amount of insulting is going to change that.

The solution to your problem is really simple. For example I do not like Fortnite so....wait for it...... I don't play it. I don't spend hour upon hour telling them how much their game sucks. I play games that I enjoy instead. See how easy that is?

And to compound that they are having to max large balance tweaks to everything..more dev time wasted when we are still missing features.

What part of "experimental" and "Alpha" do you not understand??

 

[Doctor3D]

Options are nice. But, I think the core game should be balanced before we get 'pages and pages' of options. It would be less efficient if everyone was manipulating tons of options and then discussing their gameplay and devs trying to balance the game based on the widely varied play experiences.

It's also not as simple as just mapping the XML values to the GUI. There are going to be bugs associated with the actual options you pass through that you cannot anticipate. So they will need to be tested. And, each time you make changes to the game- they are going to have to be all tested again. It will cause delays.

Just as an example, the new speed settings cause occasional animation glitches. If you set the zombies to 'run' - they glitch out occasionally and warp around after playing their pain animation but before continuing the run animation. That's an option they put in the game born from an existing variable just as if they had provided it for you to change manually in the game's GUI. Even when they actually did it themselves - it's STILL got bugs..Imagine the bugs if they just linked the XML to an options page in the GUI and let you go hog-wild changing things.

 

[WolfyBlah]

That's a pretty ignorant diatribe there buddy. Obviously you are entitled to your opinion but such sweeping statements like "they wasted 16 months" or that any change would be really easy and require little or no testing comes across as someone who has absolutely no experience in large complicated projects.

I stated exactly what testing would be needed: checking that variables are updated. Thats ALL the testing needed with more options, making surr they do as advertised.

And yeah its my opinon that a17 has been a complete waste, nothing added has made the game more fun for me, infact just the opposite everything has made the game less fun.

- new AI is horrible

- new skill system is horrible

- vehicles: why did we need more of these? They all do the exact same thing (which is mostly just justify giving the player terrible move speed and stamina)

-temporary buffs are worthless (not in a balance sense, in a 'they add nothing to the game senae')

-new POIs are probably the single worst addition in 7days history (which is pretty impressive consisering the long list of 'screw your playstyle' choices the developers have made)

Am i missing any other 'features' of a17?

 

[WolfyBlah]

Options are nice. But, I think the core game should be balanced before we get 'pages and pages' of options. It would be less efficient if everyone was manipulating tons of options and then discussing their gameplay and devs trying to balance the game based on the widely varied play experiences.
It's also not as simple as just mapping the XML values to the GUI. There are going to be bugs associated with the actual options you pass through that you cannot anticipate. So they will need to be tested. And, each time you make changes to the game- they are going to have to be all tested again. It will cause delays.

Just as an example, the new speed settings cause occasional animation glitches. If you set the zombies to 'run' - they glitch out occasionally and warp around after playing their pain animation but before continuing the run animation. That's an option they put in the game born from an existing variable just as if they had provided it for you to change manually in the game's GUI. Even when they actually did it themselves - it's STILL got bugs..Imagine the bugs if they just linked the XML to an options page in the GUI and let you go hog-wild changing things.

Yeah things need to be tested, but adding a boat load of options to the game frankly adds way more to the games longevity than what the development has focused on so far: making a narrow unfun experiance.

 

[ricp]

And yeah its my opinon that a17 has been a complete waste, nothing added has made the game more fun for me, infact just the opposite everything has made the game less fun.

You are totally entitled to that opinion, it's how that opinion was disseminated that I found issue with. Just look at what you wrote; "complete waste". That's highly insulting. You can say you don't like the changes, but who are you to decide whether someone's contribution to a computer game is a waste or not? Especially as you have absolutely no visibility of what was done and for what reason.

It's this sort of knee jerk reaction from people who have done nothing more than pay £20 (or $ or € or whatever) who somehow seem to think that gives them carte blanche to ridicule the time spent developing a game that a lot of people actually like and find the *autistic_screeching* is way over the top.

Criticism, sure, but it must be constructive. I wrote a post about this before but salty children whined and gave me negative rep which just shows that there is a minority of people in the community who don't care about the game so long as it fits their exact template. Any deviation from that template is somehow akin to the world ending.

Let's just look at the other points you made.

"AI is terrible". No mention that they are a significant improvement since A16. I would also suggest that you have never written any AI routines. It's actually very hard for all sorts of reasons, and that's before you then need to rip most of it out in order to support the number of AI. You either get few, very clever, zombies or lots more who are much less "clever".

"Skill system is horrible". Said it before, it's not changing in A17 (it might be in A18, who knows) so to continue complaining about this is pointless. It is the one point I have sympathy with, but again it's the explicit disregard for any positive.

"Vehicles and why so many". Go back, read up on the A16 comments, you'll see there was a lot of positivity regarding new vehicles in A17. There was lots of positive feedback on the YT videos showing the bike, the jeep or the motorcycle. Why have so many? Hell why have so many guns, why have so many different things to eat. At this point it seems you are complaining that TFP have added stuff to the game. Edit: See the one thing that disappoints me with vehicles is a lack of a boat. We've all got stuck on the other side of water where RWG seems to have generated a crossing miles away.

"Temp buffs are worthless". If you fail to use them as an advantage then that's your issue, not the game's. They are certainly not OP and provide a short term benefit. For example, about to loot Shotgun Messiah, why not use a looting buff. About to take on a PoI with ferals, why not use a melee buff.

As for the new PoI's being "the single worst addition in 7 days history" that actually had me laughing out loud. You are in such a tiny minority with that it's not even worth discussing.