PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[RipClaw]

It's only a paradox for people who play in an "unbalanced" (or should I say "unnatural") way.

I don't want the game to be tailored and balanced over people who choose to ignore the (integral) looting part of the game. It's their problem, not the dev's or ours.

Is it a balanced way when people spend all their time looting? For my part, I think it is just as unnatural and unbalanced.

 

[Melange]

Building your own base versus retrofitting a POI comes with their pros, cons and different gameplay which is a great thing imo.

I do both. And yes as you say they have their pros and cons. Which is best? Can't really say. Depends on what POI, how the game smiles with RNG and if I want to stay with my current base build or try something else because of inherent flaws I've found. Easy to change, start again with another type of POI. I don't consider starting over as shameful. Not happy with the way its going? Reroll the dice and give it another go, this time it may be spectacular. 

 

[Melange]

they just added 1K shapes for building in A20!

I like to build. I am happy I have more shapes to use that in my SP game no one will ever see in my fortress (sarcasm in case it wasn't obvious)

It's only a paradox for people who play in an "unbalanced" (or should I say "unnatural") way.

I play in an unbalanced world. More XP. Zeds are weaker and I can inflict more damage. Paradox...meh, its what I can expect based on my initial game choice.

Is it a balanced way when people spend all their time looting?

Dunno about balance in that regard. I have to loot to get what I need to advance. Always did. So I don't see that as being a major change to gameplay

Many of the shapes existed before but you could only get them from the creative menu. The player now has access to them

Thanks for that being out of the creative menu. Creative is a big 'get these things too' temptation.

 

[Jost Amman]

Is it a balanced way when people spend all their time looting? For my part, I think it is just as unnatural and unbalanced.

I completely agree... and if you only play by looting, you won't have a wonderful base to live in, and you'll be stuck out in the rain!  :rain:

Ok, maybe they'll just cut and place a few blocks in a POI and be done, but still...

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that I can use these shapes now but what do you think happens when 99% of the players only loot and only 1% build a base at all? Do you think the developers would still invest time and work to improve building?

I don't think that will ever happen (and I don't need statistics to know!).

I like to build. I am happy I have more shapes to use that in my SP game no one will ever see in my fortress (sarcasm in case it wasn't obvious)

Yeah, and the same people won't see you winning against a huge horde or admire your great outfit.

Single player games have always been like this, and now you put that on The Fun Pimps?  :suspicious:

And by the way, I can enjoy my single player made base anyway even if I don't get the approval from someone else... but if I really, REALLY need to show off, then I take a few pictures and show them on Steam in the right discussion.  hoto:

 

[Melange]

and now you put that on The Fun Pimps? 

Well, no @Jost Amman. I said it as a fact and cast no blame on anyone. 

Behrugen sich bitte*

Spoiler

Please relax

 

[Jost Amman]

Well, no @Jost Amman. I said it as a fact and cast no blame on anyone. 

Behrugen sich bitte*

There was a bit of a misunderstanding, I'm not upset or anything like that... I understand your frustration.

However, that has nothing to do with lack of improvements for builders gameplay (which was RipClaw's initial argument), that's why I replied like I did.

 

[RipClaw]

Dunno about balance in that regard. I have to loot to get what I need to advance. Always did. So I don't see that as being a major change to gameplay

It's about the amount of looting that is necessary to get what you need. In A20, you can get surprisingly far with just a little looting. All T1 recipes can be unlocked via skills. Also all workbenches, electric traps and vehicles. I can make a bicycle, a workbench, a forge, iron tools, a baseball bat, a workbench, and a concrete mixer with only 2-4 days total of scavenging.

As far as I know so far, you can only craft Q1 pipe weapons, Q1 melee weapons and Q1 stone tools without magazines in A21. How many magazines you need in detail is currently unknown.

I would like to see a healthy mix of looting and other activities used as a baseline for balancing. Maybe half of the week for looting and the other half for other activities. Does that sound fair for all play styles?

 

[Diragor]

In A20, you can get surprisingly far with just a little looting

Yeah it really is. I started a game on Medium difficulty and played nomadic. Only looting, buying and questing was allowed. The only allowed Block was cooking place and damn was it easy to survive like this. doing some quests to get the Bike and leave everything important in it. I can tell you it was so much fun and felt so much more real to just wander around, loot buildings and try to survive in the wildness. The worst part was BM xD don't even try it

7 Days is such a nice survival game. I Love all the aspects that are possible. The only thing thats left are the Bandits that are hopefully coming in A21 and more traps in A22? (Please )

 

[Matt115]

Some new art from about a week ago from the Dekogon contract, this time showing off the new ammo crate pallets.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQlele

Looks rly good

Looting is better because of the wide variety of magazines there are now and the fact that you need multiples of the same one to work up the crafting ladders. In this way, looting is better because it feels rewarding to get a magazine and read it-- especially when it is a magazine that hits the next threshold so you learn how to craft something new or something better. Crafting is better because with this new system I am learning how to craft things that are of higher quality than what I can find. So when I advance a level in tool crafting because I just found a magazine that lets me craft a green stone axe I can craft one immediately and replace my previous yellow one.

You are using A20 thinking about looting vs crafting. In A20, you loot and find a weapon or you craft a weapon and most of the time the one you find is better than what you can craft. So yes, in that context better looting means worse crafting.

In A21, the thing that makes looting better is the means to being able to craft better rather than the item you want. So looting isn't better because suddenly the containers all have blue bows which means you never ever craft one. The looting is better because you've found enough archery magazines that increase your crafting skill to the point that you can make a blue bow while you are still only finding orange or yellow level bows in weapons containers. 

So looting better and crafting better does exist. It's called A21.

You say about stone axe. Yes this will be working for stone axe. But steel tools still be pointless to make because there you have STEEL PARTS. And magazine will not help with that only forced you to even more looting. "looting isn't better because suddenly the containers all have blue bows which means you never ever craft one." for primitive bow for sure. But until you will find enough bow parts to create blue wooden bow you will probably find or buy wooden bow much faster.  So  if you told : " number of parts neccesary to make tools/guns was reduced by  25%-50%" I would agree that crafting was fixed. Now it's  "magasine hunting" make looking for parts and magasines making mining even less efective - why spend time mining while you can do quests and looting poi in this same time? in A17/A18 i spend a lot of time on mining  and i get steel tools so fast and this was rly rewarding

It's only a paradox for people who play in an "unbalanced" (or should I say "unnatural") way.

I don't want the game to be tailored and balanced over people who choose to ignore the (integral) looting part of the game. It's their problem, not the dev's or ours.

Well there is diffrence between ignoring and see that something too much focused.

A16 - I spend 5 H mining now i have steel tools

A20- I spend 10 h looking for 1 steel part because i don't have one steel tool parts so it was much faster to do quest to restart POI's/ buy steel pickaxe.

So yeah this is natural way - what are you doing in for example minecraft to get better tools? mining. Terraria? mining. Medieval dynasty? mining. Mining mining mining -  this is just standard : harvesting +looting ---> mining --> a little bit looting ----> mining 

 

[Laz Man]

I would like to see a healthy mix of looting and other activities used as a baseline for balancing. Maybe half of the week for looting and the other half for other activities. Does that sound fair for all play styles?

I don't think all activities need to be equal with each other.  I believe looting, questing / exploration, and bloodmoons is the main gameplay loop while all other activities support those.

This will probably be even more evident once the main story quests come online.

Edit: However, although things like mining / crafting are not primary, I would love to see unique rewards for those who invest in those activities heavily.  For example, a master crafter would somehow gain a unique / exlusive craft while a master miner can acquire a unique / exclusive ore.

 

[Doomofman]

I don't think all activities need to be equal with each other.  I believe looting, questing / exploration, and bloodmoons is the main gameplay loop while all other activities support those.

This will probably be even more evident once the main story quests come online.

Edit: However, although things like mining / crafting are not primary, I would love to see unique rewards for those who invest in those activities heavily.  For example, a master crafter would somehow gain a unique / exlusive craft while a master miner can acquire a unique / exclusive ore.

Sounds dangerously close to Learn by Doing  

 

[Falcon197]

Some new art from about a week ago from the Dekogon contract, this time showing off the new ammo crate pallets.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQlele

These!  These look amazing!

One suggestion I'd offer for a new block, if feasible, would be pallets of gold bricks / bullion for POIs like banks or other vaults.  They could be broken for gold nuggets.

They'd also go really well with my Fort Knox base.  Just saying 

 

[Roland]

It all depends on how fast you make progress even if you spend, say, 50% of your time building. If the progress is so slow that people feel they have to loot more to survive the next horde, they will do that. Not because it's the most efficient, but because they feel they have to.
 

Of course, players who only loot will have a much faster progress. And this is where balancing comes into play.

As long as the developers don't forget that building still exists and don't throw it out of the game because nobody builds anymore anyway.
That's always my fear when aspects of the game are neglected. The developers might feel that it is unnecessary and can be removed.

Building is one of Madmole’s favorite activities. I can’t imagine a universe in which building is forgotten. 

 

[Melange]

I would like to see a healthy mix of looting and other activities used as a baseline for balancing. Maybe half of the week for looting and the other half for other activities. Does that sound fair for all play styles?

Seems fair. But neither of us has had our hands on A21, so its all supposition at this point. I have walked away from 7dtd before because of what I perceived as forced radical changes in playstyle.  I'll give A21 a go. Not looking forward to hits on my health and possible dysentary when I need to drink from some gutter whilst looting for who knows how many magazines though. At minimum I forsee a lot of restarts of the game for me. And I'll be looking for a change of clothing. Perhaps quite often...

 

[Slingblade2040]

Meanwhile in the Dev diary someone just explained to me that 7D2D has a more severe food and water management than most survival games. Consider me confused.

In multi-player I can see the problem but I can't imagine food and water being an issue even on day 1 or even as a new player  if they are on the single player version. the snow biome has a ton of animals for meat, farming  also for food  and water from the lakes and rivers. they do have perks to slow down the rate at which food and water is used.

Honestly I think if the option was there for those people to remove food and water use they would take it out. since a lot of people seem to consider the task of feeding and keeping the character hydrated as tedious and would rather loot and shoot zombies and at that point this game is just a looter shooter and less about survival which seems like its leaning towards more and more each alpha.

 

[Melange]

I don't think all activities need to be equal with each other.  I believe looting, questing / exploration, and bloodmoons is the main gameplay loop while all other activities support those.

This will probably be even more evident once the main story quests come online.

Edit: However, although things like mining / crafting are not primary, I would love to see unique rewards for those who invest in those activities heavily.  For example, a master crafter would somehow gain a unique / exlusive craft while a master miner can acquire a unique / exclusive ore.

Only asking: Have you been given access to the current rendition of A21, and are you playing it? 

 

[Jost Amman]

Only asking: Have you been given access to the current rendition of A21, and are you playing it? 

He should be... he's part of the QA team! 

 

[unholyjoe]

He should be... he's part of the QA team! 

and he is on the level design team.

 

[Melange]

He should be... he's part of the QA team! 

and he is on the level design team.

Dunno how to respond except for "Doh, I should have known" and "So feed us a little then". Honestly, @unholyjoe you do a good job of being kinda vague (nebulous?) in your posts. Probably comes with the territory. I get that. But if the QA moniker is ignored, you'd come across as a moderator, not one of the TFP crew. 

 

[unholyjoe]

Dunno how to respond except for "Doh, I should have known" and "So feed us a little then". Honestly, @unholyjoe you do a good job of being kinda vague (nebulous?) in your posts. Probably comes with the territory. I get that. But if the QA moniker is ignored, you'd come across as a moderator, not one of the TFP crew. 

i sometimes will offer tid bits but i will not jeopardize my job/position because the public wants to see the candy. some people have such permission... all i can say is... i signed an NDA and i honor it.. i let those with permissions do the revealing.

what i do show on forum has been talked about or already released on one of the socials that i do not participate in. no i do not try to tick people off but those who get offended need to understand that there are rules and bosses and wives .... ooops