PC Alpha 17, Not That Great

For me, the whole journey to endgame IS the game. I love being gimped to hell in a world that hates me when starting out and having to slowly but surely claw my way up. In that regard A17 is starting to feel a bit like the "Better than Wolves" mod for Minecraft, though 7DTD's progression system is obviously completely different. I'm loving it. Hell, I'm even thinking about lowering the XP you get from killing zombies to slow progression even a bit more. Random respawns on death would also be nice to have but I don't think the world is quite big enough for that (yet? One can only hope).

As soon as I'm a self sufficient tank, (almost) safe from zombies in my big ass base I'm done. In any game I play, endgame is when boredom starts.

So yea, quite a different opinion :) . Sure, it needs more balancing and I'm also still on the fence about a few things but for me A17 is a huge step in the right direction.

I also think (but I'm guessing here) that it's easier to mod out elements you don't like, like the level gating, than to mod them in. I know I will be doing some tweaking here and there myself. And that's the other thing that makes 7DTD so great, that it can so easily be modded out of the box with no special tools required. Just awesomesauce.

 
The developers went overboard with Alpha17. Plain and simple. This is mainly because this game has a large hardcore fanbase who plays this game for years now and want the game to become more and more difficult to play with every update. They want and need new challenges to be able to enjoy this game even longer as they already did. Its not that I don´t understand this wish. I have played this game for almost 3.000 hours actively. I played unmoded and moded versions of the game. I have my own server where I play together with friends.

The problem I see is that a lot of people here pushing TFP very hard to change 7 Days to Die into a Hardcore Zombie Slaughter Game. They forget about all the people that have a different playstyle or are new or future buyers and still have to learn the ropes of the game. This behavior splits the community in half and it makes the game become more and more grindy and a game only hardcorefans can enjoy. By all means, that can´t be the solution.

Alpha 16 might had its flaws but I believe it was one of the best versions TFP delivered to us so far, because it still gave you enough room to make your own decissions how to play the game even if some stuff was gated behind perks. What ever I wanted to do first I could do it. And this freedom of choice make games like 7 Days to Die great. All I want for this game to become is that people keep this freedom of choice.

I want people to build, loot, explore, kill what they want and when they want it, aware of the consequenses that might have. I want to see people play the difficulty they want and need, not a hardcore version that is forcing people to give up their own playstyle.

 
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I am willing to concede many points, I am just one man so speaking on behalf of the majority is false and I apologize, however there are a sizable amount of people that share my concerns.

My main issue is with the quality system.

If we are talking about realism then in a way just finding gun parts does make sense, here is why. People in this world had enough time to board up their houses and business. Therefore people surely must have went on a looting spree as panic set in, a prime target would be any location that has guns, point in case Shotgun Messiah. Since this takes place later on then it would make sense that we are picking at the scraps.

A16 had a system that felt like you were progressing and felt rewarding. You star of with parts, finally assemble a gun, it's not great but it is better than nothing. Slowly but surely you combine, replace and upgrade your gun. There is a great feeling putting that final piece in and upgrading a part to 600, this is because you worked for it. This system also meant that you were not running around with end level gear on day one as it was much rarer.

A17 however pretty much kicks the gun at you and say "here's your gun, whatever...". This takes away that feeling of progression and stabs a huge amount of enthusiasm for looting in the face. In A16 one of the things I was always on the lookout for was gun parts so I could repair my gun without loosing quality. It gave me something to loot for. In A17 You can repair a gun with a Repair Kit and there is no negative consequence. You can even craft guns later on eliminating much of the need to scavenge altogether.

In A17, on day one I spawned next to a Shotgun Messiah. After clearing the building (as best I could due to the silly zombie spawn mechanic) I looted and left the store now a walking arsenal. I had (if I remember right) four AK-47s, four SMGS, five Compund Bows, three Shotguns, five Pistols, a Sniper Rifle and two Hunting Rifles, along with a mountain of ammo. It was too easy.

It made me feel like "well, great... now what?"

All I could do with the other guns was sell them, thus on Day One I had a huge amount of cash/coins already. In A16 you needed all the parts you could get.

I really don't know why the system of A16 could not have been brought over and improved in A17, if it is because of the mods then the mod on your gun could just be automatically put back into your inventory like ammo is when you assemble the gun. I just feel like a huge source of progression and motivation (for looting) has just been ripped from the game.

Also, can we stop talking about realism, this is a game where a decayed corpse can smack down a solid steel wall and where the dead can run at you

The game now feels, slow. There is a difference between hard and tedious and A17 is not hard, just tedious. Skillgating everything just makes the game... boring, a grindfest.

The game used to feel like a crafting, base building game with zombies as a threat. Now it feels more like a zombie grinder with base building included.

 
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More like 80 negative threads since I'm obviously deleting all of those other negative threads you don't see.... :p
Please remember that A17 hasn't been released yet. You have been given access to the final weeks of it's development so there is still work to be done and some things are not finished. Also, the developers are not going to kneejerk and reverse themselves based on feedback given during the initial four days. They are going to let things play out for awhile and some things will improve as they finish them.
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I'm digging it so far, the levelgating isn't bad as I thought it would be. I have to rethink my horde night plans too. Day 21 and I'm getting cops and irradiated wights. When out to the top of the hospital and freaked out almost jumping off. I won't say what is up there, but isn't not what I was expecting

 
Think of it as you have several games to play. Nothing is stopping you now.
This is a non issue.
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It is for me because I'll play a modified version and I'm long tired of starting over programming in the changes, so I await a finish product. To me this wasn't advertised as a game in perpetual development, with wild variations to the game given to you. The game was stated what it is, what the road map was left was and from there has taken on this bizarre development life that I didn't purchase into nor was sold this way to us. Just finish it and start working on 8 Days already. There is a reason/purpose for a final released game, they've even said don't mod until we go final, still waiting...

EA/KS are slowing down as articles are showing, not that none will dive in, but more and more people are wanting the final product again. This game has never hit release version, will it?

 
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I am willing to concede many points, I am just one man so speaking on behalf of the majority is false and I apologize, however there are a sizable amount of people that share my concerns.
My main issue is with the quality system.

If we are talking about realism then in a way just finding gun parts does make sense, here is why. People in this world had enough time to board up their houses and business. Therefore people surely must have went on a looting spree as panic set in, a prime target would be any location that has guns, point in case Shotgun Messiah. Since this takes place later on then it would make sense that we are picking at the scraps.

A16 had a system that felt like you were progressing and felt rewarding. You star of with parts, finally assemble a gun, it's not great but it is better than nothing. Slowly but surely you combine, replace and upgrade your gun. There is a great feeling putting that final piece in and upgrading a part to 600, this is because you worked for it. This system also meant that you were not running around with end level gear on day one as it was much rarer.

A17 however pretty much kicks the gun at you and say "here's your gun, whatever...". This takes away that feeling of progression and stabs a huge amount of enthusiasm for looting in the face. In A16 one of the things I was always on the lookout for was gun parts so I could repair my gun without loosing quality. It gave me something to loot for. In A17 You can repair a gun with a Repair Kit and there is no negative consequence. You can even craft guns later on eliminating much of the need to scavenge altogether.

In A17, on day one I spawned next to a Shotgun Messiah. After clearing the building (as best I could due to the silly zombie spawn mechanic) I looted and left the store now a walking arsenal. I had (if I remember right) four AK-47s, four SMGS, five Compund Bows, three Shotguns, five Pistols, a Sniper Rifle and two Hunting Rifles, along with a mountain of ammo. It was too easy.

It made me feel like "well, great... now what?"

All I could do with the other guns was sell them, thus on Day One I had a huge amount of cash/coins already. In A16 you needed all the parts you could get.

I really don't know why the system of A16 could not have been brought over and improved in A17, if it is because of the mods then the mod on your gun could just be automatically put back into your inventory like ammo is when you assemble the gun. I just feel like a huge source of progression and motivation (for looting) has just been ripped from the game.

Also, can we stop talking about realism, this is a game where a decayed corpse can smack down a solid steel wall and where the dead can run at you

The game now feels, slow. There is a difference between hard and tedious and A17 is not hard, just tedious. Skillgating everything just makes the game... boring, a grindfest.

The game used to feel like a crafting, base building game with zombies as a threat. Now it feels more like a zombie grinder with base building included.
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Thx @Moldy Bread, well explaining (i'm bad in english)

this is my problem and my feeling in A17e, why i am bored.

 
A16 had a system that felt like you were progressing and felt rewarding. You star of with parts, finally assemble a gun, it's not great but it is better than nothing. Slowly but surely you combine, replace and upgrade your gun. There is a great feeling putting that final piece in and upgrading a part to 600, this is because you worked for it. This system also meant that you were not running around with end level gear on day one as it was much rarer.

... snip....

The game now feels, slow. There is a difference between hard and tedious and A17 is not hard, just tedious. Skillgating everything just makes the game... boring, a grindfest.

The game used to feel like a crafting, base building game with zombies as a threat. Now it feels more like a zombie grinder with base building included.
Click to expand...
That's weird. In A16, the whole business of upgrading your gun through finding incrementally better parts seemed like one of the most absurdly grindy aspects of the game. The only way to improve your gun was to grind to get as many parts as possible in the hopes that it would be better than the one you had. I'l admit, it was a fun late-game minigame; I remember obsessively doing that with the cosmetic items too, but it didn't have that much impact on the the survival aspect of the game. I'm not that sad to see it go for the sake of streamlining and weapon mods. Maybe instead of focusing on gun quality you could try to do something else this alpha, like giving your tools and armor matching dye colors. :smile-new:

 
And that the player base is roughly 2/3 of what it was a year ago.
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The 32K figure was achieved when 16.4 stable was released, 17e is by far the most played experimental release.

Just look at the peaks versus release dates, it's not hard to do.

Edit: sorry 16.0

 
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I am willing to concede many points, I am just one man so speaking on behalf of the majority is false and I apologize, however there are a sizable amount of people that share my concerns.
My main issue is with the quality system.

If we are talking about realism then in a way just finding gun parts does make sense, here is why. People in this world had enough time to board up their houses and business. Therefore people surely must have went on a looting spree as panic set in, a prime target would be any location that has guns, point in case Shotgun Messiah. Since this takes place later on then it would make sense that we are picking at the scraps.

A16 had a system that felt like you were progressing and felt rewarding. You star of with parts, finally assemble a gun, it's not great but it is better than nothing. Slowly but surely you combine, replace and upgrade your gun. There is a great feeling putting that final piece in and upgrading a part to 600, this is because you worked for it. This system also meant that you were not running around with end level gear on day one as it was much rarer.

A17 however pretty much kicks the gun at you and say "here's your gun, whatever...". This takes away that feeling of progression and stabs a huge amount of enthusiasm for looting in the face. In A16 one of the things I was always on the lookout for was gun parts so I could repair my gun without loosing quality. It gave me something to loot for. In A17 You can repair a gun with a Repair Kit and there is no negative consequence. You can even craft guns later on eliminating much of the need to scavenge altogether.

In A17, on day one I spawned next to a Shotgun Messiah. After clearing the building (as best I could due to the silly zombie spawn mechanic) I looted and left the store now a walking arsenal. I had (if I remember right) four AK-47s, four SMGS, five Compund Bows, three Shotguns, five Pistols, a Sniper Rifle and two Hunting Rifles, along with a mountain of ammo. It was too easy.

It made me feel like "well, great... now what?"

All I could do with the other guns was sell them, thus on Day One I had a huge amount of cash/coins already. In A16 you needed all the parts you could get.

I really don't know why the system of A16 could not have been brought over and improved in A17, if it is because of the mods then the mod on your gun could just be automatically put back into your inventory like ammo is when you assemble the gun. I just feel like a huge source of progression and motivation (for looting) has just been ripped from the game.

Also, can we stop talking about realism, this is a game where a decayed corpse can smack down a solid steel wall and where the dead can run at you

The game now feels, slow. There is a difference between hard and tedious and A17 is not hard, just tedious. Skillgating everything just makes the game... boring, a grindfest.

The game used to feel like a crafting, base building game with zombies as a threat. Now it feels more like a zombie grinder with base building included.
Click to expand...
In Starvation mod for Alpha 16.4, you could have both, weapon parts you needed to find to assemble your weapon AND weapon modifications. Why was it a problem to make it that way in the official game?

 
The 32K figure was achieved when 16.4 stable was released, 17e is by far the most played experimental release.
Just look at the peaks versus release dates, it's not hard to do.
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Expectations... We waited more than a year for new update, of course all people were curious and tried, but that doesn't necessarily mean the numbers will not fall again soon.

 
Expectations... We waited more than a year for new update, of course all people were curious and tried, but that doesn't necessarily mean the numbers will not fall again soon.
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The whole point to the original post was to use real stats, not made up ones.

 
Expectations... We waited more than a year for new update, of course all people were curious and tried, but that doesn't necessarily mean the numbers will not fall again soon.
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Here’s the thing. If they do fall soon and fail to rebound then TFP absolutely will look at that and hold meetings to discuss what they need to do to change that. But if they don’t fall and in fact continue to rise I doubt that those who are hoping that the majority hates the change will accept that result. They’ll explain it away and say that it doesn’t reflect general acceptance and satisfaction with the changes.

I know this because it has already happened. When the recent reviews were mixed those who were angry pointed to that as proof of a major problem and even predicted the end of the company and death of the game. Now that the reviews are all positive the same people say that Steam reviews don’t mean anything.

So far the number has been increasing. It was 17k on day 1 and it reached 20k by day 2. On day 3 it was 23k. The next couple of weeks will be telling to see if people are sticking with it to test. Yes, I realize that not all who are playing are satisfied but are trying to give it a fair and full chance. But even the critics of the last couple of days have told us of servers emptying and only one out of several friends still playing so with so many allegedly rage quitting and moving on and only a very few soldiering on despite their distaste for the new features, it should be tough for the numbers to increase unless a significant portion of the players are actually enjoying themselves.

 
Something occured to me when reading this topics comments... So many people say that the new skill tree is so bad because it is levelgating...
Does anyone remember A16 skills? Sure you could buy some of the first levels of some skills, but later stages required quite a lot of points or levels. Miner 69'er? Invest into Mining skill before you can upgrade it further. Want water or food usage cut even more? Reach level 20/40/60... Want bigger bonuses for weapons? You need more proficiency in the base skill if you want to decapitate/do more damage. So either git gud with the base skills or invest hard earned points into them before you learn that "Decapitator" level 3 or 4.

The only difference now is that some of the "essentials" like the forge or minibike are locked away after a higher base values. I guess some tweaking could be done, but on the other hand it pushes early game a bit to try scavenging/doing quests/grinding/coming up ideas for the first day horde.
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And people like me have complained even back then! But we gritted our teeth, because the most level-gated stuff was super endgame (chemstation) or made at least some sense!

LEVEL-GATING IS NEVER A GOOD SOLUTION!!!

There are so many other ways to handle/slow down progression!

 
Here’s the thing. If they do fall soon and fail to rebound then TFP absolutely will look at that and hold meetings to discuss what they need to do to change that. But if they don’t fall and in fact continue to rise I doubt that those who are hoping that the majority hates the change will accept that result. They’ll explain it away and say that it doesn’t reflect general acceptance and satisfaction with the changes.
I know this because it has already happened. When the recent reviews were mixed those who were angry pointed to that as proof of a major problem and even predicted the end of the company and death of the game. Now that the reviews are all positive the same people say that Steam reviews don’t mean anything.

So far the number has been increasing. It was 17k on day 1 and it reached 20k by day 2. On day 3 it was 23k. The next couple of weeks will be telling to see if people are sticking with it to test. Yes, I realize that not all who are playing are satisfied but are trying to give it a fair and full chance. But even the critics of the last couple of days have told us of servers emptying and only one out of several friends still playing so with so many allegedly rage quitting and moving on and only a very few soldiering on despite their distaste for the new features, it should be tough for the numbers to increase unless a significant portion of the players are actually enjoying themselves.
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I think TFP need to analyze the data a bit more than steam stats for in-game players. Knowing which version, whether it's modded, and whether it's solo/multiplayer would be much more valuable. Do they analyze these things?

 
I think TFP need to analyze the data a bit more than steam stats for in-game players. Knowing which version, whether it's modded, and whether it's solo/multiplayer would be much more valuable. Do they analyze these things?
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edit - It also doesn't hurt the server population that the game is on sale for $9. A ton of new positive reviews should be taken with a grain of salt if they actually have sold a lot of copies recently. Fresh downloads are likely playing A16.4.

 
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edit - It also doesn't hurt the server population that the game is on sale for $9. A ton of new positive reviews should be taken with a grain of salt if they actually have sold a lot of copies recently. Fresh downloads are likely playing A16.4.
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Yes, that might be true. It didn’t seem to make a difference during the humble bundle sale or the Halloween sale but maybe everyone who would give positive reviews were waiting for the Thanksgiving sale. Maybe the streamer event made the difference.

Rick talks about stats that he has access to that goes beyond the basic steam stats that we all can see. I’m not privy to his sourcesyy

 
Poojam makes a very good point. Alpha 16 was by far the easiest of the alphas (since 12 when I started playing) and lots complained about it.

So if people's introduction to 7 days to die is alpha 16 and then in a few weeks/month alpha 17 goes live, you may have a flood of people quitting the game or a new flood of post about why alpha 17 changed so much and is less fun. If the pimps don't "fix" a lot of the boredom that was introduced to in 17 (pointing out all the unhappy threads).

and yeah, "fun" is subjective. But I think the majority of people are not liking the restrictive/reptetive game play now.

 
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