PC Amazing Gimmick. Well done.

Just to point out:If you are super paranoid about unstable floors you can detect them without stepping on them.
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I tap them with a stone axe and take a good look at the hp listed. Perked into stealth heavy, so I can smash / loot / etc usually without waking anything up.

 
So I would even say the player should be able to lose track of time from time to time and find themselves too far away from base safety before nightfall. There shouldn't be a guaranteed way to quickly and effortlessly be reminded of the time because that shuts the door on some very interesting and tense survival situations
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+1

Would be great if most of the hud elements were made to appear by items that you could find in the world/craft and equip.

 
+1
Would be great if most of the hud elements were made to appear by items that you could find in the world/craft and equip.
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+1

I feel a bit of a Terraria and Project Zomboid vibes. In the first, each information accessory you gather shows some info under the minimap like location, enemies killed, current movement speed, best resource/treasure in range, weather, time, etc. PZ lets you see a digital watch after you find one and pick up into your main inventory.

In 7DTD there could be a watch slot, where you can put in a wrist watch that would show additional info. Different watches would show more or less information about: time of day, day of the year (date), compass (although it would require an overhaul of the map so it's more difficult to get your bearings), temperature (sure why not, some watches surely have this) and perhaps even the weather outside.

BACK TO TOPIC: My first experiences with a "pitfall" was deadly (both in A16 in Dishong, as well as in a house dungeon in A17), but all for different reasons. In A16 i started jumping on furniture, but further in time checking the floors and creeping through the POIs. I found in other games trap floors also, which sometimes don't really look like something is wrong. Playing DisD surely can be fun, but i would never try this at an updated (or new game i bought) mainly because there could be things i do not know. It's like choosing to play a HardCore character in a game you don't know, because the possibility is there, before you get to finish the game at least once.

 
Just to clarify, I am not defending undetectable false floors that lead to guaranteed instant fall death. I want traps that lead to life or death situations and thrilling narrow escapes. A survival game should expose the player to situations that must be survived because they are potentially lethal.
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After a while of absence I wanted to take a peek into A17 some weeks ago.

I started a new game, walked around for a few minutes, ran into some zombies and started beating them up. During the fight I realized a growl from behind and saw a bear charging at me. After the respawn I grabbed my backpack and instantly ran into a wolf. I closed my eyes, started running and managed to escape.

At some point I started to build a basic base for the first night next to a lone house. I thought: let's loot that thing real quick. Said and done. After entering the building I fell into the pit and died again.

That was an 'interesting' first day. I knew I was cought off guard and I wouldn't do the same mistake twice.

In terms of new player experience I would think: This game throws enemys at me that 'oneshot' me. It puts me into unforeseeable traps that'll kill me without any chance of survival and this happens to me right about 15 minutes after I started the game for the first time.

Those life or death situations (in this case caused by false floors) are only present in the early game. There are none of this situations once you reach a certain level of equipment/number of skillpoints. If I fall through the floor with some mid game equipment I think: Well, ok then. Let's start clearing the POI from bottom to top.

From a player's perspective I would like to have a risk-reward ratio: I'm searching for a special item or want to do a special thing so I have to put myself into danger to achieve my objective, even if I'm at day 200.

I don't want to fall in a hole full of zombies while I'm equipped with a wooden club and some plant fiber in my inventory.

 
I'm searching for a special item or want to do a special thing so I have to put myself into danger to achieve my objective, even if I'm at day 200. I don't want to fall in a hole full of zombies while I'm equipped with a wooden club and some plant fiber in my inventory.
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The problem is that the dungeon POI's, like all POI's are prefabs, meaning they can't dynamically adjust the POI blocks dependent on your level, or even the level of difficulty the game is running at. So, if it's a trapdoor, it's going to be one, whether you're level 1 or 100.

The zombies though are dynamically generated, so at level 1 hopefully you don't fall into a pit of 20 irradiated, feral cops, but the trapdoor is a permanent feature of that POI.

That, by the way, is the downside of these mechanics, insofar as, once you know that particular POI well enough, you know where the traps are and their "gotcha" value falls away to virtually zero.

 
You went in to clear a POI equipped only with a club and plant fibers....?

You were killed by a bear which was bad luck but not something I believe should be changed. I wouldn’t want bears to be withheld until a certain gamestage.

You escaped the wolf but it could have been lethal as well. What were you feeling as you ran from that wolf? What did you feel when you turned around and noticed you had lost it? If the devs prevented the spawning of that wolf until you were ready for it then you would never experience those feelings.

I would say the same goes for POis. TFP could put an indicator on POIs to classify them as easy medium and hard or teleport the player away until they are a certain level but then that makes the world seem more artificial.

I started back in Alpha 5 and died many times as I was learning the game. Even then I would often restart and try and survive longer and longer. Not all new players will quit the game because they died and not all new gamers will hate the lethality if the early game. I don’t think TFP should soften how lethal the game can be. I would be disappointed if dangers only showed up after I was geared and perked to handle them or if every trap had a tell.

 
Just to clarify, I am not defending undetectable false floors that lead to guaranteed instant fall death. I want traps that lead to life or death situations and thrilling narrow escapes. A survival game should expose the player to situations that must be survived because they are potentially lethal.
The player should get poisoned or infected from time to time and that poisoning or infection should lead to a countdown to certain death if action isn't taken. There should not be a guaranteed way to prevent getting poisoned or infected in the first place because then that shuts the door on surviving poisoning and infection.

The player should take a fall from time to time and that fall should lead to a life or death situation that can be possibly escaped. There should not be a guaranteed way to spot every false floor so the player never falls because then that shuts the door on surviving those very thrilling and fun (when you win) scenarios.

The player should get stunned when hit from time to time because getting stunned leads to a tense life or death situation where you might survive or you might die depending on how you handle it. There should not be a guaranteed whay to never be stunned because that shuts the door on surviving those tense moments.

And finally...

When I first played The Walking Dad's invisible HUD mod which removed all indicators from the screen I found myself losing track of time and getting caught out at night away from my base because there was no clock always in my face. This led to some very interesting survival scenarios that I never would have enjoyed if the clock was visible.

So I would even say the player should be able to lose track of time from time to time and find themselves too far away from base safety before nightfall. There shouldn't be a guaranteed way to quickly and effortlessly be reminded of the time because that shuts the door on some very interesting and tense survival situations
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I agree that those life and death situations can be awesome.

The poisoning and infection...I dont know. The player should have a way of avoiding it by playing carefully, because being poisoned or infected does not lead to any interesting gameplay. Its a punishment. It promotes gameplay in a way that it is a danger, that player has to avoid. Being unavoidable is not a good idea IMHO.

Removing time hud seems like a good idea, but player should still have some option to measure time. Either have watches that he can check by pressing a key, or at least by envinroment. Now the change between day and night is too sharp.

Danger of being stunned should be always there, and perk should not make you immune to it. However, having consumables that makes you immune for say two minutes would be fine. Perks should not let you completely bypass game mechanics. Only consumables and only temporarily.

 
The problem is that the dungeon POI's, like all POI's are prefabs, meaning they can't dynamically adjust the POI blocks dependent on your level, or even the level of difficulty the game is running at. So, if it's a trapdoor, it's going to be one, whether you're level 1 or 100.
The zombies though are dynamically generated, so at level 1 hopefully you don't fall into a pit of 20 irradiated, feral cops, but the trapdoor is a permanent feature of that POI.

That, by the way, is the downside of these mechanics, insofar as, once you know that particular POI well enough, you know where the traps are and their "gotcha" value falls away to virtually zero.
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That's not really true. Pois come in levels or tiers. Like when you get a t5 quest it sends you to a t5 poi. All they have to do is dont put trap floors in t1 pois right?

 
That's not really true. Pois come in levels or tiers. Like when you get a t5 quest it sends you to a t5 poi. All they have to do is dont put trap floors in t1 pois right?
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Well, you can still run into a high-tier POI while scavenging.

 
One could easily make a mod for this. Just make duplicates of the POIs, remove the traps, adjust tiers if you want. Then in random gen, you will see those POIs that may or may not be one with a trap. This is what they should have done right from the beginning when they introduced these traps.

Personally, I would take it a step further and make duplicates of the POIs that are known to have good loot in a specific spot, and I would put them somewhere else. Someone could think they were clever by nerd-poling to the top where it usually is, only to find out that it isn't there this time.

I don't think they would spend time doing this. They've spent a lot of time making all of those POIs we have. The amount of time to spend putting a mod like this together is not very significant at all.

 
You went in to clear a POI equipped only with a club and plant fibers....?
You were killed by a bear which was bad luck but not something I believe should be changed. I wouldn’t want bears to be withheld until a certain gamestage.

You escaped the wolf but it could have been lethal as well. What were you feeling as you ran from that wolf? What did you feel when you turned around and noticed you had lost it? If the devs prevented the spawning of that wolf until you were ready for it then you would never experience those feelings.

I would say the same goes for POis. TFP could put an indicator on POIs to classify them as easy medium and hard or teleport the player away until they are a certain level but then that makes the world seem more artificial.

I started back in Alpha 5 and died many times as I was learning the game. Even then I would often restart and try and survive longer and longer. Not all new players will quit the game because they died and not all new gamers will hate the lethality if the early game. I don’t think TFP should soften how lethal the game can be. I would be disappointed if dangers only showed up after I was geared and perked to handle them or if every trap had a tell.
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I also play this game for a while now. That's why I thought - after escaping the wolf - it sucks to face a bear and a wolf right after I start a new game. There was no thrill because running away from dangerous situations is a gameplay strategy. I placed a bedroll by reflex to make sure to respawn at this location and was aware of losing nothing (there was nothing to lose at all right after the start).

When I look back to my first steps into the game I imagine beeing stunned and killed by zombies, struggling to repair my base on horde nights (IMO another feature beeing no more present because: do the meta like put the zombies into a loop, find concrete for the first horde night or use a POI).

Anyways you bring it straight to the point: The game shows lethality in the early game. It's the point where you walk into a POI, fall into the pit, think WTF? and never fall into it again because you know: Break the front door and be aware of the undetectable fals floor.

If that false floor feature is a thing make it dynamic and put zombies like cops into that thing. That would be a challenge in terms of a near death experience. And put this feature only into POIs that are known for good loot. I don't know anything about the technical realization but IMO this floor thing is just a noob trap in its current state. There's no immersion in terms of lethality. You just fall into it once and know to avoid it the next time you enter the POI.

As I said, I have no problem with this feature. I just think it's useless for veterans and annoying for new bros.

PS:

Yea, I walked into the POI with a wooden club and plant fiber in my inventory. OK, I lied. I had some wood and a bow with me, too. Now I still do it that way because I know that there's a basement and it's more healthy to enter it using the stairs.

 
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