PC Another "direction of the game thread" and iam concerned...

It is sprint speed and he plays on warrior. I've seen the stream.
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Low gamestage, sprint speed and on warrior. His weapons were 1 or 2 tapping zombies, of course he can just run in the open. He's fully modded out geared out and everything. Nightmare speed and Insane is made for that. He could have had 9,000 zombies spawning and all he had to do was jog around. I got logged out typing another response, but I don't get why people are so stuck on if their base isn't 100% invincible then building is worthless. Really? Come on.

 
The base used to be the place for crafting. I wanted to have somewere safe for my workbenches and forges, and a safe place to craft, mostly during night. Now, crafting is dead, so no need for a base, a small hordbase or even a POI will do just fine. Make crafting great again!

 
OP, your post is very well written and I can relate to at least some of your feelings. I could be wrong but I get a sense that you really enjoyed the very open sandbox nature of previous alphas. There is something to be said about the freedom to do what you please at whatever pace that you want in open sandbox games.

In past alphas (been playing since Alpha 6), we pretty much were thrust into a zombie filled world with very little direction aside from just surviving. Gameplay consisted of killing reoccurring biome specific zombie spawns and the occasional one time static zombie spawns in some POIs (custom POIs only?) while preparing for the 7 day horde.

Gameplay was alot more simpler and causal back then. Loot, gather, craft, survive traditional zombie types (hornet is the exception to this 😂), prepare for reoccurring wave of zombies every 7 days. The zombie counts felt much higher back then, probably due to graphic demands which were much lower and the rate of respawn was much higher, especially in the wasteland biome and hub city at coordinates 0,0.

I do have many fond memories of those days and do miss some of it. However, looking back I can see how one dimensional the gameplay was and understand why it was changed.

More thoughts on this later as its late... keep surviving all!!! 😎👍

 
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Low gamestage, sprint speed and on warrior. His weapons were 1 or 2 tapping zombies, of course he can just run in the open. He's fully modded out geared out and everything. Nightmare speed and Insane is made for that. He could have had 9,000 zombies spawning and all he had to do was jog around. I got logged out typing another response, but I don't get why people are so stuck on if their base isn't 100% invincible then building is worthless. Really? Come on.
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It's not about the base being 100% invincible but a defense should never be completely broken during the horde. If I die during the horde because the defense fails it doesn't matter if it's at the beginning of the horde or at the end of the horde.

I don't know why you want to have the feeling of fear, despair and helplessness during the horde but for me these are very negative emotions. So I want to build my defense as strong as possible so I don't have to experience those emotions.

The problem I have is that the base design becomes a minor matter once you have enough ammo and grenades. I could just as well stand on a big concrete block during the horde. It wouldn't make any difference.

 
This is nonsense, and it is only in your mind. Personally, I like playing zombies always walk since they introduced that option. I don't think that makes anything wrong with the game. In fact, it means that I can play how I want without marginalizing other options.
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I would agree with you if it was officially said that it is a shooter but that has always been denied. So it should also be possible to play the game on default settings without firearms and that also applies to horde night.

"The new AI made more strategies possible" and "there used to be more different kinds of bases"? These two things don't make sense together.
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It makes sense when you look at all changes between A16 and A17

Group block damage and increased block damage in general has eliminated almost all melee base designs in A17 and most of the designs where you depend on a single wall to protect your base. And the demolisher is certainly not going to help change that. He does 500 block damage per hit and when he explodes you certainly don't want to stand next to him.

Funnel bases and bases that generally use zombie pathfinding now work better than with the old AI.

I tested a funnel base in A16 and had to dig deep trenches around the base to get the zombies to run into the entrance. Still, more than enough zombies fell into the trenches and did damage down there.

Oh, you mean choke points and murder holes and the Zwinger which allowed more opportunities to shoot at the assailants before hand-to-hand combat inside the castle was necessary? Definitely still supports my counter to your point.
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Your depiction sounded to me more like these fantasy movies where a big army rushes towards the walls of a castle and the defenders desperately shoot down from the walls.

The Zwinger is a bit more smart than that. It forces attackers to give up their cover. You may not only shoot from the battlements at the attackers in the Zwinger. There are hidden entrances through which defenders can then get into the Zwinger and enclose the attackers. The murderer holes were mainly used to pour boiling fat over attackers.

The defense of a castle was clearly more complex than just a thick wall from which one shoots down.

You should check out the Shadiversity Youtube Channel. There you will learn a lot about medieval defences.

 
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RipClaw, I have tried to listen and engage with you. It has become clear to me that your problem is that the default game is too hard now, and you don't want to try hard enough to overcome it (or, you know, turn down the difficulty). I am sure that it is possible to play the game on default settings without firearms, if you are cunning enough. I have not seen any particular thing which makes melee bases nonviable. (I assume that kiting is still a thing.) The only limit to base defenses is the human mind, particularly because the zombie AI is just coding. Outsmart the coding. *shrug*

The base used to be the place for crafting. I wanted to have somewere safe for my workbenches and forges, and a safe place to craft, mostly during night. Now, crafting is dead, so no need for a base, a small hordbase or even a POI will do just fine. Make crafting great again!
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I still hang out in my base at night just as I did before. I organize and I craft. As I find new schematics and level up, new things become available for me to craft, so I make them.

 
RipClaw, I have tried to listen and engage with you. It has become clear to me that your problem is that the default game is too hard now, and you don't want to try hard enough to overcome it (or, you know, turn down the difficulty). I am sure that it is possible to play the game on default settings without firearms, if you are cunning enough. I have not seen any particular thing which makes melee bases nonviable. (I assume that kiting is still a thing.) The only limit to base defenses is the human mind, particularly because the zombie AI is just coding. Outsmart the coding. *shrug*
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The game is not too difficult but too much focused on firearms at the moment.

This is not a big surprise since Madmole seems to me to be the type of player who can't do without firearms. No matter which build he tested, in the Horde Night he always resorted to firearms. And how he set the traps clearly showed that he had no experience with traps at all.

I only play at Standard and that's only one level above the simplest level. I don't have any problems with ferals or radioactive zombies, nor do I have any problems with zombies in general. Only the demolisher gives me a headache. But I will find a way to kill him reliably without the danger that the explosion will be triggered.

I can outsmart the AI at any time. That is not the problem. I also found a glitch in the AI during my tests that caused this:

I can make the zombies run in loops forever and make it impossible for them to reach me. That's not a problem but these tactics are nothing I want to use if I can avoid it.

By the way, if someone speaks of a base, this is not necessarily the base where the workstations and the storage are located. Many players have two bases. For example, I always have a base where my workstations are and a base for the horde.

 
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The only limit to base defenses is the human mind, particularly because the zombie AI is just coding. Outsmart the coding. *shrug*
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When you have to outsmart a zombie, you've already lost ;)

 
The game is not too difficult but too much focused on firearms at the moment.This is not a big surprise since Madmole seems to me to be the type of player who can't do without firearms. No matter which build he tested, in the Horde Night he always resorted to firearms. And how he set the traps clearly showed that he had no experience with traps at all.

I only play at Standard and that's only one level above the simplest level. I don't have any problems with ferals or radioactive zombies, nor do I have any problems with zombies in general. Only the demolisher gives me a headache. But I will find a way to kill him reliably without the danger that the explosion will be triggered.

I can outsmart the AI at any time. That is not the problem. I also found a glitch in the AI during my tests that caused this:

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Why is it important for a base to be necessary? Should not one just build a base because they enjoy it?

 
The POIs should be designed to be much less defensible. The stronger the building material and size, the more work you need to do to make sure it's sealed.

I mean, is there anyone who actually thinks "The rooftop strategy is too hard, please buff it".

 
I pretty much agree with everything you typed. Except the base-building bit; I still enjoy that, even though it is essentially pointless.
But yeah the game is a mere shadow of its former greatness.
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i really don't think so! it's what makes 7DTD special to me

 
To anyone talking about "I need more zombies around":

You are aware that an encounter system is planned to give that feeling back? The wilderness zombie spawning was reduced for performance (as it can be read in the dev diary).

The encounter system (also mentioned in the dev diary) should give you back some (or most?) of the old feeling.

I will stick to my guns that the encounter system will do everything its meant to, which is sell the player into feeling like the world is teaming with zombies, without spawning guys that just sit there and eat cpu waiting for a player to stumble across them and count against maxalive. Your method (our old method) is careless and wasteful, we're doing something elegant we can control, and keep people at 60fps at all times. ONce the player leaves it despawns and we can send someone else an encounter. We can do mini blood moons in the near future, wandering traders, bandit patrols, wandering hordes, a few zombies eating a corpse, a damsel in distress, all game staged for the person we plan it for.
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Link to the post of madmole

 
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I don't know why you want to have the feeling of fear, despair and helplessness during the horde but for me these are very negative emotions. So I want to build my defense as strong as possible so I don't have to experience those emotions.

The problem I have is that the base design becomes a minor matter once you have enough ammo and grenades. I could just as well stand on a big concrete block during the horde. It wouldn't make any difference.
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Because of this:

With nearly 10 million copies sold, 7 Days to Die has defined the survival genre, with unrivaled crafting and world-building content. Set in a brutally unforgiving post-apocalyptic world overrun by the undead, 7 Days to Die is an open-world game that is a unique combination of first person shooter, survival horror, tower defense, and role-playing games. It presents combat, crafting, looting, mining, exploration, and character growth, in a way that has seen a rapturous response from fans worldwide. Play the definitive zombie survival sandbox RPG that came first. Navezgane awaits!

Brutally unforgiving (as in, yes fear, despair as you said is supposed to be on horde nights)...survival horror, tower defense. And the focus on varied gunplay being hated on by the few, remember it was advertised as so. It's what you all signed up for. And yes you could stand on a big block of concrete and use all your ammo, or you could build something more sensible that somewhat passivly defends itself in conjuncture with you defending it, enabling you to use arrows and other less expensive ammo, saving the good ammo for things such as demolishers before they wreak your walls/traps up.

Brutally unforgiving, not "well, it could be brutal but only if you want it to be". Not trying ot be harsh, but working yourself up on that while the game is being advertised elsewise is hurting your enjoyment, perhaps.

 
To anyone talking about "I need more zombies around":You are aware that an encounter system is planned to give that feeling back? The wilderness zombie spawning was reduced for performance (as it can be read in the dev diary).

The encounter system (also mentioned in the dev diary) should give you back some (or most?) of the old feeling.

Link to the post of madmole
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Someone else said it previously in this thread (forgive me for not going back and checking who) that increasing the wake radius of the sleepers would be good.

I think that might be a good compromise between performance and the need for more zombies, but I also think we should be given a slider to increase zombies if our pcs can handle it - like with any graphics setting, if you max it out and your pc isn't up for the task, then be prepared for poor performance or turn it down.

 
Someone else said it previously in this thread (forgive me for not going back and checking who) that increasing the wake radius of the sleepers would be good.
I think that might be a good compromise between performance and the need for more zombies, but I also think we should be given a slider to increase zombies if our pcs can handle it - like with any graphics setting, if you max it out and your pc isn't up for the task, then be prepared for poor performance or turn it down.
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A slider seems to be a non-brainer. I've played mods that added tons of zombies to the world and they ran fine on my PC.

 
I just don't buy that more zombies would ruin performance. Somehow we can have horde nights with 24 alive on nightmare speed chewing up your base, but having 5-10 joggers in the streets would hurt performance so bad it's not doable ? No way. Also as stated, make it an option / a slider.

 
I just don't buy that more zombies would ruin performance. Somehow we can have horde nights with 24 alive on nightmare speed chewing up your base, but having 5-10 joggers in the streets would hurt performance so bad it's not doable ? No way. Also as stated, make it an option / a slider.
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I agree here. I think it is more the fact that MM himself was getting annoyed by wilderness street zombies coming after him when he was looting pois. He made mentions of this numerous times before a18 released, and I believe also mentioned he asked the team to reduce them due to the fact he was dying to them and it felt cheap.

Also zombies do die every few hours in game if they are not targeting anything. You can see this in action if you speed in game time up via the admin panel. I think they survive for about half a day. Sometimes you see this in game when fighting a zed and they just fall over before you reach them. So the argument that resources are being wasted letting them walk about doesnt make too much sense either.

 
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To anyone talking about "I need more zombies around":You are aware that an encounter system is planned to give that feeling back? The wilderness zombie spawning was reduced for performance (as it can be read in the dev diary).

The encounter system (also mentioned in the dev diary) should give you back some (or most?) of the old feeling.

Link to the post of madmole
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I really hope they do but according to the devdiary way back they would add smellsystem back a long time ago too, that never happened.

We have to react on what IS rather than ISN´T and atm this game is in a very bad state regarding gameplay and feeling. When it comes to visuals and worlddesign (except for dungeonlooter ♥♥♥♥) its fine, and if visulas are going be the prize of good gameplay and zombies etc... i personally say RIP.

 
I agree here. I think it is more the fact that MM himself was getting annoyed by wilderness street zombies coming after him when he was looting pois. He made mentions of this numerous times before a18 released, and I believe also mentioned he asked the team to reduce them due to the fact he was dying to them and it felt cheap.
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TFP are finally working on backstory for the game. Most zombies have agoraphobia, so they don't really exist out in the wilderness. Horde night is when they are driven insane by the player coming into their buildings and flushing them out or killing them. That's the real reason.

 
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