PC Balancing SP

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Hollowprime

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Hello guys and girls,

I was thinking that SP seems kind of weak compared to MP. What I mean is playing single player rewards less experience and is much more challenging than playing MP.

The MP gameplay is vastly different compared to the SP. In MP you can choose what kind of class you want to be,either the leader (so you max intelligence),the farmer (you max endurance),the miner (you max strength) the sniper (you max agility) and so on.

In SP however you either follow a certain path or you die. The more SP games I play the more I realise there is generally only one most efficient build which is headshot perks>> stamina perks >> scavenging perks >>mining perks >> intelligence perks

In MP experience is shared to gain multiple levels in a go. You can clear multiple houses and huge buildings in a day but in SP this is almost impossible until very late game..

The fact that in MP you share experience without penalties is unfair for the SP experience. Splitting the loot in MP is easy since you clear multiple areas .

That reminds me of meepo in DotA where in the past versions one could split farm lanes and get many more levels ahead of his enemies making the game easier early game.You wouldn't lose gold neither experience and you'd essentially split farm which is very similar to what happens on 7d2d. You literally gain multiple levels based on the amount of people you have in a group. You can even split people to multitask while clearing a few houses.

I don't know what to suggest as a change. I really enjoy SP and have many lag related issues with A17 than I did in A16. Even if I do join a MP server I will mostly remain alone because I don't trust people destroying my property when I'm not looking (this happened at least two times in the past).

Should MP experience gain get nerfed? Should SP get buffed? Should I just up the experience gain on SP and have the same effect? I kind of find it cheating .

Share your thoughts!

 
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Personally I think that the SP game really only has "challenge" going for it. The only reason you could want to play SP is to overcome the challenge of surviving by yourself. It should be tough and as long as there are options to make it easier if necessary then it is fine for the game to be biased in balance towards teamwork making the SP version more challenging as a byproduct.

Currently:

You can play on Scavenger which slows gamestages and reduces zombie HP.

You can make enemies always walk.

You can increase your own block damage.

You can decrease zombie block damage.

You can increase xp gain to level faster.

You can increase the loot.

You can lengthen the gap between bloodmoons or turn them off completely.

You can increase the frequency of supply drops and have them be marked for you to collect at your leisure.

I think there is plenty already provided by the game to make SP easier and offset the challenge that comes from the game being balanced more for teamwork. There are sure to be plenty of people who will want to keep it at default knowing that it will be a challenge to do as a lone survivor.

 
Personally I think that the SP game really only has "challenge" going for it. The only reason you could want to play SP is to overcome the challenge of surviving by yourself. It should be tough and as long as there are options to make it easier if necessary then it is fine for the game to be biased in balance towards teamwork making the SP version more challenging as a byproduct.
Currently:

You can play on Scavenger which slows gamestages and reduces zombie HP.

You can make enemies always walk.

You can increase your own block damage.

You can decrease zombie block damage.

You can increase xp gain to level faster.

You can increase the loot.

You can lengthen the gap between bloodmoons or turn them off completely.

You can increase the frequency of supply drops and have them be marked for you to collect at your leisure.

I think there is plenty already provided by the game to make SP easier and offset the challenge that comes from the game being balanced more for teamwork. There are sure to be plenty of people who will want to keep it at default knowing that it will be a challenge to do as a lone survivor.
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You're right it's customizable though the default settings are a thorn in the ego of the player (me and some others included).

What I'd really love to see is the addition of more options for the zombie spawns. There are currently mods that enable you to change spawn rates on SP.They essentially increase the max number of zombies (iirc to hundreds don't know if engine can handle so many) ,then they increase the frequency of the hordes and make all of them walk. This way the modders gave a true walking dead experience where the problem is not if you can kill a zombie but rather how long you handle smashing hundreds of them without losing your traps then your walls and finally your base. A tower defense experience.

Is it possible to add those options as configurable in the future patches? I'm sure lots of people would love this . Perhaps even have preset scenarios or modes which the community favors as "challenging" or "relaxing".

 
The only reason you could want to play SP is to overcome the challenge of surviving by yourself.
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Or possibly you just hate multiplayer in general, in all games.

After all, as the saying goes, "Hell is other people."

 
Or possibly you just hate multiplayer in general, in all games.
After all, as the saying goes, "Hell is other people."
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I mainly play SP because of the challenge. For MP, I tend to like competitive games over coop. PVP isn’t very strong... at least at the moment. They’ve strengthened coop with the shared xp and healing others, but that’s just not for me. I usually just end up frustrated, not only when players do stupid things, but also in trying to plan play times.

 
I play SP myself. Not because of the challenge but because it is difficult for me to plan play times.

I agree with you that multiplayer players have an advantage in specialization. A player in a group can practically be a god in battle on day 7. But then he still can't build his own weapons and vehicles. The disadvantage of specialization is that you are dependent on others and you have to share resources with others. In addition, there must be a certain role distribution in a group for it to work. If everyone specializes in the same, it doesn't work.

As far as the path in the skill tree for single players is concerned, it depends on the preferences. For the early game I usually use the melee. This also helps me to collect resources because the skills for mining and melee are under strength in the skill tree. I also invest points in fortitude at an early stage because it's easier to get hurt in melee combat and the skills "Living of the Land" and "The Huntman" are in the fortitude branch which helps me with food.

 
I play SP myself. Not because of the challenge but because it is difficult for me to plan play times.
I agree with you that multiplayer players have an advantage in specialization. A player in a group can practically be a god in battle on day 7. But then he still can't build his own weapons and vehicles. The disadvantage of specialization is that you are dependent on others and you have to share resources with others. In addition, there must be a certain role distribution in a group for it to work. If everyone specializes in the same, it doesn't work.

As far as the path in the skill tree for single players is concerned, it depends on the preferences. For the early game I usually use the melee. This also helps me to collect resources because the skills for mining and melee are under strength in the skill tree. I also invest points in fortitude at an early stage because it's easier to get hurt in melee combat and the skills "Living of the Land" and "The Huntman" are in the fortitude branch which helps me with food.
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Well specialization might require a total of say 14 points for a good farmer,but on day 7 ,assuming you have X number of people you'll get around X times more experience than playing SP. Specialization kind of dissapears after level 40 or so since you've probably maxed the entire tree. That's just my opinion at least.

But the reason I don't particularly enjoy playing in MP servers is ,as you said,I don't have planned play time. This means I am vulnerable to raiders since the land claim block's duration on most servers dissapears after just a couple of days.

 
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I'd say the exact opposite. SP doesn't need to be made easier. MP needs to be made harder. Experience sharing on MP just makes it a joke. Instead of 5 players sharing one xp pool the pool is boosted before being split. I don't like that at all, not one little bit.

 
In SP my go to move is to set all to walk except ferals which I set to jog.

The only serious draw back is horde night turns into horde morning because it takes them so long to get to my base. Running on horde night in SP is just suicide until you have a seriously defensible compound with loads of traps.

 
Games such as Ark (7DTD runs towards that i think) i had a bit of a problem due to them not being designed for SP. Sure you can change settings, but some things are hard to get through. Ark specifically has long taming time and high damage from higher level enemies. As much as i'm mostly a SP person and like to experience games by myself, disadvantages from playing alone and no company can be rough.

Still, i'm no specialist and as much as i played many different games, it's hard to point to a solution to enrich both MP and SP experience.

 
So I've played in a game with 500% experience gain. It felt like the original A16 experience,fast leveling in just 5 days.

However,the game stage grew much faster as well and I ended up having to fight ferals with perkless sledgehammer. Needless to say it follows the same leveling ,the only difference being if you don't level up the correct perks you'll end up being irradiated poop.

 
I replied to something similar on reddit. But basically, yes, SP is alot more challenging compared to MP where you can team up with a partner or a group to get things done. It also allows for dedicated specs in which say 1 person in the group can be like the main crafter and hence focus his/her points in Intellect for example.

I play mostly SP myself and A17 has allowed for a fair range of customization in the options menu. The one thing that I find helps balances out the SP is to simply increase the amount of skill points gained per level. I experimented with gaining 5 skill points per level but I do think its too much (I play very casually and am more focused on the building aspect so I don't really mind). Ideally, I think a gain of 3 points per level for SP is more than enough. Definitely won't recommend increasing the XP multiplier since the leveling corresponds to the gamestage and its not exactly fun to be fighting ferals and irradiated when we don't have the gear for it.

PS: Maybe TFP's can put the skill points gained per level as an option as well. Though its more of a QoL thing since its pretty easy to edit in the progression.xml file.

 
Ideally, I think a gain of 3 points per level for SP is more than enough. Definitely won't recommend increasing the XP multiplier since the leveling corresponds to the gamestage and its not exactly fun to be fighting ferals and irradiated when we don't have the gear for it.
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Ahh that is a good work around to game stage. Sometimes I play SP on 150% and I find that gets out of hand pretty quick and I am level 10 by day 3 quite often and the difficulty gets ramped up fast.

I think a 1 - 3 points per level would be good. 1 - 5 (5 being) likely you would max out things by level 20 and that seem far too soon.

 
Ahh that is a good work around to game stage. Sometimes I play SP on 150% and I find that gets out of hand pretty quick and I am level 10 by day 3 quite often and the difficulty gets ramped up fast.
I think a 1 - 3 points per level would be good. 1 - 5 (5 being) likely you would max out things by level 20 and that seem far too soon.
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I've been giving myself 2 points/level and have found that to be about right for me in my SP. That amount helps me feel like I'm keeping up with the game stage without feeling like I'm cheating and becoming to OP to quick.

 
Hello guys and girls,I was thinking that SP seems kind of weak compared to MP. What I mean is playing single player rewards less experience and is much more challenging than playing MP.

The MP gameplay is vastly different compared to the SP. In MP you can choose what kind of class you want to be,either the leader (so you max intelligence),the farmer (you max endurance),the miner (you max strength) the sniper (you max agility) and so on.

In SP however you either follow a certain path or you die. The more SP games I play the more I realise there is generally only one most efficient build which is headshot perks>> stamina perks >> scavenging perks >>mining perks >> intelligence perks

In MP experience is shared to gain multiple levels in a go. You can clear multiple houses and huge buildings in a day but in SP this is almost impossible until very late game..

The fact that in MP you share experience without penalties is unfair for the SP experience. Splitting the loot in MP is easy since you clear multiple areas .

That reminds me of meepo in DotA where in the past versions one could split farm lanes and get many more levels ahead of his enemies making the game easier early game.You wouldn't lose gold neither experience and you'd essentially split farm which is very similar to what happens on 7d2d. You literally gain multiple levels based on the amount of people you have in a group. You can even split people to multitask while clearing a few houses.

I don't know what to suggest as a change. I really enjoy SP and have many lag related issues with A17 than I did in A16. Even if I do join a MP server I will mostly remain alone because I don't trust people destroying my property when I'm not looking (this happened at least two times in the past).

Should MP experience gain get nerfed? Should SP get buffed? Should I just up the experience gain on SP and have the same effect? I kind of find it cheating .

Share your thoughts!
Click to expand...
Well I do agree to a degree lol The shared experience is a boon to MP... But I do play SP much more than MP. For me I always get one chef, one physician, one cardio, one healing factor, one huntsman, living off the land, one headshot... A few into tyrannosaurus... Then a at least 1 lucky looter and salvage operations. I usually reserve guns for horde nights so the one headshot goes a long way. With the ability to make things gated, I see no choice but to go intel and 'miner.' Much of the distribution goes into miner and motherload. Many games are get stuff to make stuff and get more stuff to make better stuff... With the ability to make better things (forge, bike, minibike, etc.) gated, for me its better to do that then to spend early points into headshot. Since I'm very good with a bow I rely on it virtually all the time. I only see the biggest difference with one headshot. For me I mean once I get or am able to make an iron pick and then a wrench, its virtually game over. For me - because many places aren't beneficial to loot early in the game, a bike is an extremely important tool to have. Especially if I can ride to the next town and find the working stiff's, or shotgun messiah... That's better than having to spend a long time running there... Situational knowledge is an important part of the game too. Needless to say that with a minibike I can traverse a great deal of the map, going from town to town to find working stiffs, shotgun messiah's or that great looting POI...

 
As there are more solutions towards MP preference (shared XP, different players specializing in different areas, etc.), SP will need to have a boost in some way. Like i mentioned before, i could be playing ARK with default taming times, but that would require me to stay in game for a number of dinos literally for a couple hours... in one spot... doing practically nothing... protecting the thing i want to be tamed...

In 7DTD there are also some hurdles that need to be addressed, some of which are surely done through the options for playing the generated world. Sure you want a challenge, but it shouldn't be on the premise of players getting too overwhelmed without a reason (gamestage ramping too high) or the players getting too much (having OP skills early game). There is so much to do in the game, yet the incentives do not push us towards many of the actions and we have to challenge ourselves to do those things sometimes.

Sure, survival is its own reward, but that doesn't mean the game shouldn't push you towards a few goals here and there... Otherwise, 7DTD will be like Kenshi (of which i heard and not played), where you're free to do anything, yet are no savior, champion or super hero in the lands. You're just a regular dude and can do anything, whereas that freedom is good for a few people, but the rest will feel overwhelmed without a purpose...

This is why i wait for next updates... even though they take long...

 
I've been giving myself 2 points/level and have found that to be about right for me in my SP. That amount helps me feel like I'm keeping up with the game stage without feeling like I'm cheating and becoming to OP to quick.
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An option like this would be nice.

Skill points per level:

1 - recomended for co-op

2 - recomended for solo

3 - recomended for 99 percent of the millenials on this forum who want everything handed to them during week 1 and are adverse to any type of challenge.

 
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Having a slider to pick how many skillpoints you get per level would be nice when starting a game. Otherwise, i'd see the higher difficulties dish out more skillpoints mainly because it is more difficult.

 
Balancing is tough if the next step is already 100% more. So 2 points per day seem to be too much. Not in early game where SP game feels much different and harder than co-op play, but in middle and probably late game.

I would change the starting quest skill points instead. co-op players would get only 2 points whereas SP players would get 8.

 
The best solution would be to get more XP on higher levels, which means gaining SPs faster. This raises gamestage faster, so GS shouldn't be tied to level only.

 
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