PC [A17 Feedback From Twitch Streamer]

My complaint about the skill level-gating is not that it exist, but just that it's quite severe. Like I said, cut it in half or something. The issue is that if I play in a group of people, all of us are forced to spread out our points, because nobody can focus on leveling up one thing. I thought that was the entire point of how they've set this up, that you have an RPG experience, so you have a tank guy, a ranged guy, a crafting and traps guy, a builder, etc.
But because we are level-gated so severely, there won't be any impactful specialization. Instead, we'll just have everyone having all the skills late game.
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Cutting it in half takes us back to square one. You hit end game in half the time. I think the change is fantastic, it will keep people guessing and promote a longer game world.

I mean you will get there. You just wont get there in 5 days and thats a change that can only be positive for the overall gaming experience.

 
I say leave them as they are, you'll get used to it, stop whining that you need everything right away. Try using the trader more. I play mods where you don't get iron tools till 50 and steel till 90 or 100 in a16. However you can use the trader and a workbench to use iron or steel tools long before then. I hope they don't change them. Concrete by day 5 on 60 min days (or less) was kinda stupid.
I seen some streamers whining over having to wait till lv 20 for forge.. I am like: "You do know you can find forges in quite a few poi's right? try using them."

Please TFP: don't change the lv requirements for the skills, let people mod it if they want to. All I see is people whining because they still want baby mode. In Vanilla 7dtd a16 I am bored by lv 50, because I have steel tools already and can craft anything better than i'd ever find in the world, other than buying off trader of course.

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I agree as I've said already. People are just used to how much of a joke a16 is. They'll get used to a17 eventually. Remember a17 is bascally a entirely new game with how much was overhauled.
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This.

Its amazing to me how many people are complaining. These are the same people who play new mods every week because they get bored. Isnt the point to WANT to play your game world for more than 2 weeks or a month?

And the amount of people I am seeing that refuse, outright refuse, to change their play style and then moan under their breath about how things are so different is amazing. Its like people cant THINK outside the box even for a second and then want to blame the game for their failures. After hearing Gazz poke fun at some of this in a stream I am hopeful they can separate the early whining from the actual problems and wont rush to nerf everything.

 
...I feel like it would take less time to walk a mile or so to a trader every once in a while than it would be kill 20 levels worth of zombies. Yes, it's going to be irritating, but seriously, inconvenience is part of survival games..
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Once they have the beginning quest fixed, [apparently doesn't show Trader anymore... hope that's a bug],

you've now got a Trader on your map.

You can choose to set up near the trader "if" it's got a working forge.

If not... there's always restart. [hehehe]

Cutting it in half takes us back to square one. You hit end game in half the time. I think the change is fantastic, it will keep people guessing and promote a longer game world.
I mean you will get there. You just wont get there in 5 days and thats a change that can only be positive for the overall gaming experience.
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Yeah what's wrong with grinding a little anyway?

I played Runescape for seven years.

I've YET to see anything in 7DTD that I would ever consider grinding.

Try doing the same boring activity for 3 months .... just to earn a 16 bit Java cape!

That's grinding!

DLlsVAG.gif


 
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One word, Vik: replayability. If every game goes the exact same way without any need for adaptation to new circumstances then there isn’t much need to replay.
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Yup. That is also my concern...

but on 2nd reading... do you mean that levelgating gives you MORE replayability? Because it seems to me to be the opposite!

Because every game now will start either with you putting points into low level perks, because you cant put more into highlevel perks (because levelgated) so every game you will have about the same skills the first 14-21 days...

OR

you start xp farming day 1 to get the good stuff right away...

Thats the only two ones I can see.

Replayability would be:

"get book x" (books now make far more sense then back in A...whenever! there could be vending machines in bookstores, traders can sell them AND have them as a questreward!)

"perk 'xx' unlocks, once you have cleared 10 poi's; killed 30 zombies or farmed 30 crops (unlock based on achievements)

The levelgate will be the absolute same every game, so there is even LESS replayability.

 
7) Trying a Random Gen world this time. Either you removed the Find a Trader quest from putting a marker on the nearest trader, or there actually isn't a trader anywhere in the world. If it's the first, umm... that's pretty annoying to just have to wander around aimlessly before finding a trader, with the tutorial quest unable to be completed quickly, so please fix that. If it's the second, well, I found a bug, please fix that :)
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If it is the first it's a good thing.

I never liked it that the trader quest directly pointed to the next trader. I prefer to search and find it on my own.

Thus not showing the next trader is much better in my opinion.

7a) Found a trader, so for sure no quest marker going to it. Took me a long time, even flying around in creative. No way to complete the quest when I finally did find a trader.
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I would assume they only removed the "show the next trader", but they didn't remove the code of the trader quest that selected the next trader.

In other words you probably found another trader, but this other trader doesn't trigger the "you found the next trader".

 
the only thing i dont like so far about a17 siveria is the new combat system it seems way worse
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How so? Beyond some of the bugs (double-swinging, etc.) that will hopefully be cleared up in due time, it seems much better than it used to be -- melee combat against more than one or two zombies now seems legitimately dangerous, rather than just an affair of "Let me make sure I have enough stamina and clear space behind me while i thump on these guys and back-pedal."

 
but on 2nd reading... do you mean that levelgating gives you MORE replayability? Because it seems to me to be the opposite! Because every game now will start either with you putting points into low level perks, because you cant put more into highlevel perks (because levelgated) so every game you will have about the same skills the first 14-21 days...

OR

you start xp farming day 1 to get the good stuff right away...

The levelgate will be the absolute same every game, so there is even LESS replayability.
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My comment was meant to indicate that timegating would result in less replayability, so levelgating is at least better than that.

Still, I don't see things the way you do. Maybe people figure out how to survive without forges because they don't want to wait for level 20. Because there are so many different paths, it seems unlikely that people would buy the same perks each time. I know that I won't.

(I do wish that there were things still gated behind RNG books. I never once found an augur in A15-16, so I just figured it out! The required adaptability was great!)

 
Forge is a basic thing. Yes you can find it, but you also have to find a poi that is in an area that you like, which has access to the city and a trader if possible.
And its not about it beeing "easy". I already always played on the hardest difficulties in A16 (except lootabundance and respawn), but this isn't about difficulty. Its about grinding. Now the first 5 days will be simply killing zombies for xp. YAY FUN. After that I can start building a base...
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You always seem so focused on xp that you never seem to play the game. The game is set up so that whatever activity you do (scavenging, mining, building? and yes, killing zombies) you get xp. Do whatever is necessary to stay alive, the xp comes naturally.

And you can use the XP for perks that are for the most part optional. And even the ones who are not really optional have alternate sources, for example the forge. And with or without forge there is nothing wrong with building a temporary base for the first weeks with wood and cobblestone (at least in A15 cobblestone was very good for that, in A16 it was too weak, more balancing needed).

Since the difficulty curve is heavily linked to your xp progress, you even have a disadvantage if you just focus on xp. Since you presumably level faster that way you will have scavenged/mined less resources at level 20 than someone who focuses on collecting the right equipment, weapons and building materials.

I'm not sure I will like this auto-leveling of difficulty (smells like "Oblivion"), but at least it makes xp-grinding a pretty useless task except for people who desperately want to skip the early stages of the game.

7 Days to Grind.I feel like this starting exp grind should be must boring game stage in A17.
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Perfect example, someone who probably focuses on and sees only xp in the early game and as a result is bored by early game.

If you don't know what do do in early stage except level grinding then the game becomes a grinding game for you. Either use a mod or creative menue to skip early game. Or maybe ignore xp for a while and see if you find the fun that others find in early game.

 
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I love what I've seen so far. The skill tree has trade offs now. From watching kage848's stream it was interesting to see him struggle in melee combat (warrior difficulty) but then he came to realize it was because he focused solely in the intelligence stat/branch.

It makes total sense to me that you should have a harder time in melee compared to someone who focuses on strength/fortitude.

Skill choices should have trade offs and now it looks like it does. :)

Super excited really dig into the game come this thanksgiving break.

Thank you fun pimps. :)

 
Forge is a basic thing. Yes you can find it, but you also have to find a poi that is in an area that you like, which has access to the city and a trader if possible.
And its not about it beeing "easy". I already always played on the hardest difficulties in A16 (except lootabundance and respawn), but this isn't about difficulty. Its about grinding. Now the first 5 days will be simply killing zombies for xp. YAY FUN. After that I can start building a base...

Levelgating only does one thing: it forces you to grind levels instead of doing things you want to do, because without the levels you cant do them(or only less efficiently).

I have never heard anyone with any experience in gamedevelopment say "levelgating is a good thing." They mostly say "it is a possibility if other options cost too many ressources" It does the job of making it harder for the player... but only in the way that he has to counteract the levelgating by farming.

You know what WOULD be better?

Timegating.

Unlock forge after your first 72ingame hours

Unlock 'xxx' after 'xx' ingame hours.

10x better system. Yes you can unlock stuff by standing around, but standing around does:

raise gamestage

drain food/water

not give you any ressources whatsoever

But I guess they dislike it, because you can unlock it without doing anything... Ive heard too many insane things from TFPs to not see that they might actually give me this reason :D
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Change is tough, especially when it effects the ways you have enjoyed the game previosuly.

I challenge you to approach the game differently than previous alphas and see if you can adapt.

Half the fun is figuring it out isn't it?

 
I watched Gage's stream and the impression I got was that they wanted players to do more scavenging, more fighting zombies and less base building early on, as if it were a zombie apocalypse. It would explain why a lot of what used to be basic skills are now locked away until much higher player levels.

Having said that, what doesn't seem to make sense if that was the intention is the inventory slots. In A16, you start out with 32 slots while in A17 it's 18 slots with slots 19 through 45 available but highly penalized. Sure, you have more slots totally, but overall, they're much less useful. Before, in A16, it was difficult enough to go on a scavenging outing for any length of time before having to return to base. With the default of just 18 slots now, it makes scavenging more useless than before especially if base building is being discouraged early on.

 
Perfect example, someone who probably focuses on and sees only xp in the early game and as a result is bored by early game.

If you don't know what do do in early stage except level grinding then the game becomes a grinding game for you. Either use a mod or creative menue to skip early game. Or maybe ignore xp for a while and see if you find the fun that others find in early game.
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I know what I may do in early game, with A15 and A16 I played 20+ servers for each alpha, and after all early game just become routine. Some kind of preparing to main game. With new alpha it should be fun play early game few times, but in A16 all I need to start playing normal game was level 20-25. And in same time when levelling, I make other preparations, so time looks balanced. Now , in A17 I noticed that I must got level 50 before "grinding tutorial" ends.

 
Change is tough, especially when it effects the ways you have enjoyed the game previosuly.
I challenge you to approach the game differently than previous alphas and see if you can adapt.

Half the fun is figuring it out isn't it?
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Yeah I like that attitude.

It's going to be fun feeling like a noob again and being scared of zombies.

Can't wait!

 
9) Some of the core gameplay loops are broken. I assume TFP intended this, otherwise they've made some bad oversights. I am very curious what they think the most common loops will be now in A17. I would really like to see an unedited LP from someone on TFP staff, just to see how they are playing the game.

 
It does prevent rushing through the early progression. Those who don't like playing as a weak character for very long won't be happy and if you want to specialize in just one area then you will have to save points rather than spend them.
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Yep. I lasted about an hour. It's reallllly slow. Combined with the enormous level gates (Auger @ Lvl 100), I think I would rather have toothpicks inserted under my fingernails than play A17.

I hate Oblivion, Elder Scrolls, Skyrim, and anything Bethesda. It all makes sense now, because apparently it's heavily modelled after them.

 
How so? Beyond some of the bugs (double-swinging, etc.) that will hopefully be cleared up in due time, it seems much better than it used to be -- melee combat against more than one or two zombies now seems legitimately dangerous, rather than just an affair of "Let me make sure I have enough stamina and clear space behind me while i thump on these guys and back-pedal."
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I've not found it any harder than before. With a level 1 club I can quite easily down roaming hordes and clear POIs without getting hit. Just gotta time the hit like before and be a bit better with the aim. Walking backwards is still fast enough to stay out of the zombie's reach so with some patience and spatial awareness you can take down any amount of zombies. I fact in 2 hours play earlier I only got hit once and that was when I got cornered by zombies leaping out of cupboards and from an overhead trapdoor (which was pretty cool).

 
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