PC Bringing survival elements back into 7D2D ("tips" wanted)

[MechanicalLens]

The following is not a rant on the current state of the game (ie an RPG with survival elements) nor do I have rose tinted glasses from A16 and prior since, for one, I started playing in A17. I will also not go into any detail on why I'm making these changes since the reasoning behind the changes of many former survival elements are for understandable reasons and I do not wish for a flame war to start in the comments. Nevertheless, as someone with 4,000 hours in this game and a small amount of fondness for previous mechanics, I have a small urge to resurrect some of them in future playthroughs to create a slightly more immersive and challenging experience for myself rather than just turning the difficulty up to insane.

So far, for at least one future playthrough, I have made the following restrictions for myself:

1. Air drops disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

2. Loot respawn disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

3. No curing infection using honey or looted antibiotics. Infection can only be cured if I can craft my own herbal and/or regular antibiotics, or through dying

4. No usage of traders or vending machines (which also means no candies)

5. Eating canned food is banned

6. Using pain killers is banned (curing concussions aside)

7. Crafting first aid bandages or first aid kits is banned

8. Smelting dukes into forges is banned

9. Banned from looting Bob's Boars/Carl's Corn early game

10. **Some extra penalty to death (TBD)

11. Opening the map, disabled. This means no permanent or temporary waypoints and no easy option to navigate the world. Instead I will have to identify natural landmarks and create my own where necessary, label entire streets and towns with signs, leaving a breadcrumb trail of signs that lead back to my horse base and the like, etc.

Additional survival challenges. Credit to the users who posted down below.

12. Cancel the starting quests(?)

13. Lucky looter perk, banned

14. All quality level 2 stone tools and above must be replaced instead of repaired unless the tool in question is a higher level than I can craft. Playtesting required.

15. Cannot use note quests or treasure maps

(Note: I will not be playing permadeath due to the limited infection curing rule. If I get infected on day 1, I'm dead anyway.)

Having these rules will hopefully achieve the following:

1. Limited medical items. Pain killers may be banned, but crafting my own healing items are already a guaranteed addition to the list. With traders out of the picture, I won't be able to purchase them either. This will make POI's like the Pop-N-Pills stores much more coveted

2. Infection will be deadly at all points in the game again, up until I can craft my own drugs to cure me

3. With canned food removed from the picture, this will put a further emphasis on hunting. I might actually remember to farm again as well

4. No traders = no "free" handouts

5. Unless I go shotguns, then I won't have easily accessibly unlimited ammo (ie brass from duke casino tokens)

If you have any further suggestions I could add to this list, please speak up! I will say in advance however that I'm not interested in stipulations that break the flow of the game for me and restrict me to a large degree (outside of no trader usage, which is already covered), such as "no crafting", or "no vehicles", or "no skill points". Think of the small things.

Also, do you have any small stipulations like the examples listed above that you use in your personal playthroughs?

 

[BFT2020]

Don't use mods in tier 0 tools / weapons

Eating canned foods is banned - are you still able to use them for recipes?

Also, I would recommend FranticDan's mod.  It does increase the difficulty level in several ways, but some of the more interesting I have found:  Decreased amounts of resources while harvesting, some modifications to perks (for example, only harvest one per plant, farm plots more expensive), increase night spawns, increased ingredients for cooking.  This is the only mod I have tried out so far, though, so my suggestion list is a bit sparse right now

I also did a playthrough where I only used the items I could craft.  Everything except food and medical items was used as raw materials.  You will have to make an exception of some early items since you are not using traders (like use the first wrench to gather mechanical parts) or not.  Once I had my forge up and running, I stopped using pipes and melted them down, forcing myself to craft them when I needed them (which meant harvesting clay for them).  That was a bit extreme though.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Don't use mods in tier 0 tools / weapons

Eating canned foods is banned - are you still able to use them for recipes?

Also, I would recommend FranticDan's mod.  It does increase the difficulty level in several ways, but some of the more interesting I have found:  Decreased amounts of resources while harvesting, some modifications to perks (for example, only harvest one per plant, farm plots more expensive), increase night spawns, increased ingredients for cooking.  This is the only mod I have tried out so far, though, so my suggestion list is a bit sparse right now

I also did a playthrough where I only used the items I could craft.  Everything except food and medical items was used as raw materials.  You will have to make an exception of some early items since you are not using traders (like use the first wrench to gather mechanical parts) or not.  Once I had my forge up and running, I stopped using pipes and melted them down, forcing myself to craft them when I needed them (which meant harvesting clay for them).  That was a bit extreme though.

Sounds like a great addition.  I was also considering adding the stipulation of not repairing any primitive tools (unless the one I have found is a higher level than I can currently craft), but idk, it might get a bit too tedious. @Roland I believe you mentioned this initially, how do you find it?

Good question. Sure, I'll use them for the super foods, but they'll be in short supply since I'll only be acquiring them through cabinets and cupboards, and through zombie loot drops.

Thanks for the suggestion.  However I'm not a fan of the decreased resource count detail as well as farm plots being more expensive (including only 1 crop per harvest). That's the problem with mods that make tons of changes vs individual modlets, there might be a detail or two here and there that you disagree with. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for modlets that rebalance food though, for instance. (Ex. One that nerfs bacon and eggs.)

I currently do the opposite; I try really hard not to craft any gear (weapons, tools, and armor). Thanks for the suggestion though! I'll turn it on its head and reinforce my current style of play and that will be: no crafting gear (outside of stone tools and my first set of iron tools). Everything else must be looted. I do make exceptions though like with electrical items, since most of them cannot be looted and, besides, I always find it satisfying to craft these items.

(I make the exception with my first set of iron tools since I like mining a lot of the time and sometimes it takes what feels like 50 years to find even a semi-decent iron pickaxe in alpha 19.)

 

[Roland]

Immediately cancel the starting quest. It feels so much better choosing how you get started and you'll get those four skill points pretty quickly anyway.

I was also considering adding the stipulation of not repairing any primitive tools (unless the one I have found is a higher level than I can currently craft), but idk, it might get a bit too tedious. @Roland I believe you mentioned this initially, how do you find it?

It was fine. It is tedious for brown level stone tools because they break so quickly that I ended up just repairing those for convenience-- but for the rest it really does make you do without until you can find or craft a new one.

 

[Jost Amman]

1. Air drops disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

2. Loot respawn disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

3. No curing infection using honey or looted antibiotics. Infection can only be cured if I can craft my own herbal and/or regular antibiotics, or through dying

:crutch:

5. Eating canned food is banned

6. Using pain killers is banned (still unsure)

7. Crafting first aid bandages or first aid kits is banned

8. Smelting dukes into forges is banned

9. Banned from looting Bob's Boars/Carl's Corn

:banplease:

4. No usage of traders or vending machines (which also means no candies)

:closed_2:

If you have any further suggestions I could add to this list, please speak up!

No "nerdpoling"!  :ballchain:

No "quests" from notes or treasure maps... (because they are similar to trader quests) 

 

[hiemfire]

6. Using pain killers is banned (still unsure)

I'd adjust this one to using them only to treat concussions. They're basically a Fallout Stim pack with a cooldown though so I understand why you're not wanting to use them.

10. **Some extra penalty to death (TBD)

I think you can set it to destroy everything in your inventory and hot bar using the base game options.

I'd also suggest banning Lucky Looter. Both the perk and mags.

No "nerdpoling"!  :ballchain:

May I introduce you to my friend Whode La'Hter.

No "quests" from notes

People still waste their time with these?

 

[MechanicalLens]

:crutch:

:banplease:

:closed_2:

No "nerdpoling"!  :ballchain:

No "quests" from notes or treasure maps... (because they are similar to trader quests) 

I never do those notes anyway, and now they'll be useless without a trader to hand them into. No treasure maps is an interesting one though, I like it!

I'd adjust this one to using them only to treat concussions. They're basically a Fallout Stim pack with a cooldown though so I understand why you're not wanting to use them.

I think you can set it to destroy everything in your inventory and hot bar using the base game options.

I'd also suggest banning Lucky Looter. Both the perk and mags.

May I introduce you to my friend Whode La'Hter.

People still waste their time with these?

My main "issue" with painkillers is their frequency in which they spawn in loot. By mid-game I have a dozen stacks or more in my medical chest, and it would feel odd to limit myself on their usage, so I'll just ban myself from using them altogether. Using them for concussions though, certainly.  My goal is to create an experience where medical items should be strategically used, hence I won't to be spam crafting first aid bandages or kits like I mentioned above.

I'll take a look at that, thanks for the tip.

Ehh, I'm unsure on that one. What reasoning do you have behind this proposal? I'm curious. (Is it due to books like the one that allows you to find more ammunition in loot? Because I can understand that. With that being said, I legit have no idea how large the bonuses are from those books.) Banning the perk though I can see merit in. I never invest in it anyway though.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Immediately cancel the starting quest. It feels so much better choosing how you get started and you'll get those four skill points pretty quickly anyway.

It was fine. It is tedious for brown level stone tools because they break so quickly that I ended up just repairing those for convenience-- but for the rest it really does make you do without until you can find or craft a new one.

I'll think about that one, but it's a hot contender for sure.  I'll try it in a couple of worlds, probably in A20 experimental where I might need to frequently restart anyway, and see how I like it.

And that is one reason why one of my first skill points spent is always a point into Miner 69er.

Thank you for the feedback though!

 

[BFT2020]

Ehh, I'm unsure on that one. What reasoning do you have behind this proposal? I'm curious. (Is it due to books like the one that allows you to find more ammunition in loot? Because I can understand that. With that being said, I legit have no idea how large the bonuses are from those books.) Banning the perk though I can see merit in. I never invest in it anyway though.

I don't think you are going to see a big difference, maybe if you play for a long time (in amounts).

I would keep them (books at least).  Since you are not using the traders at all (are you going to generate a map with no traders on it?), you already are hurting for ammo since you won't be able to use them to purchase ammo or reset POIs.

 

[MechanicalLens]

I don't think you are going to see a big difference, maybe if you play for a long time (in amounts).

I would keep them (books at least).  Since you are not using the traders at all (are you going to generate a map with no traders on it?), you already are hurting for ammo since you won't be able to use them to purchase ammo or reset POIs.

That depends on if A20 will allow you to generate maps with no traders, and I am 100% confident in knowing the answer to that one: not gonna happen. Instead I will simply ignore their compounds and pretend they do not exist. There are plenty of POI's - radio towers, junk yards, remnants, broken buildings, etc. - that I ignore anyway so it wouldn't be anything new.

I've played without traders the one time. Ammo honestly wasn't that big a problem, unless you cannot find a chem station by around day 28.

UPDATE: I would like to make the addition that perhaps I will not be using the map in the game at all. I would simply rebind it to a key I never press or something. Instead I'll have to navigate using landmarks, signs I place on streets and the like, etc. I can imagine this one being slightly tedious and annoying but interesting as well. It would force me to use further ingenuity so as to not get myself lost. It would also make me pay attention to the compass more, maybe the direction of the sun as well.

If a modlet becomes available that disables the time shown at the top of the screen, I would probably install that one as well.

 

[hiemfire]

Ehh, I'm unsure on that one. What reasoning do you have behind this proposal? I'm curious. (Is it due to books like the one that allows you to find more ammunition in loot? Because I can understand that. With that being said, I legit have no idea how large the bonuses are from those books.) Banning the perk though I can see merit in. I never invest in it anyway though.

The bonuses are enough to be noticeable for me vs not having the mags. It might be part of why you find so many painkillers and other meds in loot. I'm mainly suggesting it so you have as little monkeying with the base loot rng as possible.

Lucky Looter Perk mag rewards:


Vol. 1


Lucky Looter: Dukes


Find more dukes coins in loot


Vol. 2


Lucky Looter: Ammunition


Find more ammunition in loot


Vol. 3


Lucky Looter: Brass


Find more brass in loot


Vol. 4


Lucky Looter: Lead


Find more lead in loot


Vol. 5


Lucky Looter: Junk


Find more junk in loot


Vol. 6


Lucky Looter: Food


Find more food in loot


Vol. 7


Lucky Looter: Medical Supplies


Find more medical supplies in loot


Final


Lucky @%$#


Enemies have a higher chance (20%) to drop loot

I've played without traders the one time. Ammo honestly wasn't that big a problem, unless you cannot find a chem station by around day 28.

Did they remove the less efficient 2 coal + 2 nitrate = 1 gunpowder craft from the player inventory? News to me if they did.

 

[MechanicalLens]

The bonuses are enough to be noticeable for me vs not having the mags. It might be part of why you find so many painkillers and other meds in loot. I'm mainly suggesting it so you have as little monkeying with the base loot rng as possible.

Lucky Looter Perk mag rewards:


Vol. 1


Lucky Looter: Dukes


Find more dukes coins in loot


Vol. 2


Lucky Looter: Ammunition


Find more ammunition in loot


Vol. 3


Lucky Looter: Brass


Find more brass in loot


Vol. 4


Lucky Looter: Lead


Find more lead in loot


Vol. 5


Lucky Looter: Junk


Find more junk in loot


Vol. 6


Lucky Looter: Food


Find more food in loot


Vol. 7


Lucky Looter: Medical Supplies


Find more medical supplies in loot


Final


Lucky @%$#


Enemies have a higher chance (20%) to drop loot



Did they remove the less efficient 2 coal + 2 nitrate = 1 gunpowder craft from the player inventory? News to me if they did.

Ahh, I see. I'll probably restrict myself on that book series then as well.

Honestly I don't use painkillers that often due to the abundance of first aid bandages and kits I can craft. Even without the mag bonus and with restricting myself from crafting these advanced healing items I would probably be swimming in painkillers and never struggling for first aid supplies anyway, hence why I won't be using them.

Regarding aloe cream... Undecided.

You know, I always forget that's an option. You are very correct, you can still craft gunpowder in such a manner.

 

[7daystodierocks]

The following is not a rant on the current state of the game (ie an RPG with survival elements) nor do I have rose tinted glasses from A16 and prior since, for one, I started playing in A17. I will also not go into any detail on why I'm making these changes since the reasoning behind the changes of many former survival elements are for understandable reasons and I do not wish for a flame war to start in the comments. Nevertheless, as someone with 4,000 hours in this game and a small amount of fondness for previous mechanics, I have a small urge to resurrect some of them in future playthroughs to create a slightly more immersive and challenging experience for myself rather than just turning the difficulty up to insane.

So far, for at least one future playthrough, I have made the following restrictions for myself:

1. Air drops disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

2. Loot respawn disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

3. No curing infection using honey or looted antibiotics. Infection can only be cured if I can craft my own herbal and/or regular antibiotics, or through dying

4. No usage of traders or vending machines (which also means no candies)

5. Eating canned food is banned

6. Using pain killers is banned (curing concussions aside)

7. Crafting first aid bandages or first aid kits is banned

8. Smelting dukes into forges is banned

9. Banned from looting Bob's Boars/Carl's Corn early game

10. **Some extra penalty to death (TBD)

11. Opening the map, disabled. This means no permanent or temporary waypoints and no easy option to navigate the world. Instead I will have to identify natural landmarks and create my own where necessary, label entire streets and towns with signs, leaving a breadcrumb trail of signs that lead back to my horse base and the like, etc.

Additional survival challenges. Credit to the users who posted down below.

12. Cancel the starting quests(?)

13. Lucky looter perk, banned

14. All quality level 2 stone tools and above must be replaced instead of repaired unless the tool in question is a higher level than I can craft. Playtesting required.

15. Cannot use note quests or treasure maps

(Note: I will not be playing permadeath due to the limited infection curing rule. If I get infected on day 1, I'm dead anyway.)

Having these rules will hopefully achieve the following:

1. Limited medical items. Pain killers may be banned, but crafting my own healing items are already a guaranteed addition to the list. With traders out of the picture, I won't be able to purchase them either. This will make POI's like the Pop-N-Pills stores much more coveted

2. Infection will be deadly at all points in the game again, up until I can craft my own drugs to cure me

3. With canned food removed from the picture, this will put a further emphasis on hunting. I might actually remember to farm again as well

4. No traders = no "free" handouts

5. Unless I go shotguns, then I won't have easily accessibly unlimited ammo (ie brass from duke casino tokens)

If you have any further suggestions I could add to this list, please speak up! I will say in advance however that I'm not interested in stipulations that break the flow of the game for me and restrict me to a large degree (outside of no trader usage, which is already covered), such as "no crafting", or "no vehicles", or "no skill points". Think of the small things.

Also, do you have any small stipulations like the examples listed above that you use in your personal playthroughs?

dont know if this rule would count but do Melee only no ranged whatsoever

 

[hiemfire]

Regarding aloe cream... Undecided.

Maybe lump it in with the First Aid Kits and First Aid bandages, what you find in loot only?

 

[MechanicalLens]

Maybe lump it in with the First Aid Kits and First Aid bandages, what you find in loot only?

Yeah, probably. I'll most likely just use them to help cure abrasions.

 

[Jost Amman]

I would simply rebind it to a key I never press or something.

Bind it to the <ANY KEY>... people have been searching for it on the keyboard for ages, but never found it.

 

[khzmusik]

I feel you about the gradual diminishment of the survival aspects, but it's a hard problem to solve. In a survival game, the player's sense of progression happens by gaining abilities that make survival easier (better food and drink, higher level tools, etc). For players who actually want the stress of surviving, the game "rewards" you by making it more boring.

This isn't limited to 7D2D either. Players in games like Subnautica or Raft suffer the same fate, eventually.

IMHO, ideally the answer isn't to remove stuff from the game, it's to make the survival aspects harder in later game stages, so that you need the gained abilities to survive at all. It's the reason I made the food spoilage modlet, and added seasons to the game that affect crop growth. (I'm not plugging my modlets, just saying why I made them.)

Otherwise, you can remove all the "easy" parts from the game that you wan't, but all you're really doing is extending the early game. I'm not saying that's a bad idea, just saying that eventually you'll end up with stacks of meds, food, drinks, etc. no matter what.

Having said that:

That depends on if A20 will allow you to generate maps with no traders, and I am 100% confident in knowing the answer to that one: not gonna happen. Instead I will simply ignore their compounds and pretend they do not exist. There are plenty of POI's - radio towers, junk yards, remnants, broken buildings, etc. - that I ignore anyway so it wouldn't be anything new.

I've played without traders the one time. Ammo honestly wasn't that big a problem, unless you cannot find a chem station by around day 28.

UPDATE: I would like to make the addition that perhaps I will not be using the map in the game at all. I would simply rebind it to a key I never press or something. Instead I'll have to navigate using landmarks, signs I place on streets and the like, etc. I can imagine this one being slightly tedious and annoying but interesting as well. It would force me to use further ingenuity so as to not get myself lost. It would also make me pay attention to the compass more, maybe the direction of the sun as well.

If a modlet becomes available that disables the time shown at the top of the screen, I would probably install that one as well.

If you're using vanilla RWG, you should be able to remove all mention of the trader POIs in rwgmixer.xml, and they shouldn't spawn. I have not tried it though, so YMMV.

You might be able to get rid of the map by messing around with the "mapArea" window in XUi/windows.xml - or possibly even getting rid of it altogether. Again, I have not tried it.

And finally, @doughphunghus created a modlet called UI-Hide-TheDayAndTime that works exactly as advertised. I've used it and can recommend it (it's even server-side safe):

 

[Urban Blackbear]

If you really want a hard game then disallow the use of repair kits. Basically means you have to ditch everything and find or craft a new one when it breaks.

 

[TWORDY]

I will try not to put down anyone`s opinion. I feel like survival aspects are being neglected slowly indeed. The game is being transitioned into an open-world, tower defense, voxel game with RPG elements, with rather early attempts at relatively polished shooter mechanics. I don`t want to bite the hand that feeds (me/us) with content. My biased lensing solely involved.

1. Air drops disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

Air-drops usually do not contain anything of value most of the time. There is no higher stake at obtaining them, I believe, that's the main problem.

2. Loot respawn disabled (standard for my personal worlds)

I disabled loot respawn myself. There is already an additional reward after scoring the trader's mission.

3. No curing infection using honey or looted antibiotics. Infection can only be cured if I can craft my own herbal and/or regular antibiotics, or through dying

In my solely biased perception, one of the small problems among many issues is a class system. Currently, going through the main unlock gate in Intelligence is obligatory for stronger potions. One main progression gate means less hassle if done right and ultimately makes this proposal within a grasp.

4. No usage of traders or vending machines (which also means no candies)

I never liked the candies mostly as a concept because sweets add a complete arcade feel to the game in my opinion. Simply put, buff on top of the other buff seems like taxation scheme on paper. After a brief realization of buffs, and their significance, I got used to them naturally. It`s not my cup of tea since I play from A11.

5. Eating canned food is banned

That`s one hardcore change here . I`m completely lost with that one. I never liked stockpiling dozens of different cans, which simply left me with mixed feelings.

6. Using pain killers is banned (curing concussions aside)

Painkillers should bring relief to a pain (faster movement after serious injury, no blurry vision effect with concussion as someone mentioned above) instead of refilling the health bar.

7. Crafting first aid bandages or first aid kits is banned

Such abilities should be available in late mid-game or something.

8. Smelting dukes into forges is banned

Better not to mention anything about dukes. I`m gonna get charged with ideological subversion and domestic terrorism represented in heavy number of dislikes, if I ever attempt again.

9. Banned from looting Bob's Boars/Carl's Corn early game

Kinda OP at least in theory to find the cornfield in the early game, harvest all corn, and then keep a stockpile for later by yourself. In real-life, such event makes sense.

10. **Some extra penalty to death (TBD)

I`m for that at some point. Mostly as an optional feature or in higher difficulty level, Warrior and above. I used to be with the many ones, who demanded no penalty after death. Only to get more rookies into the game. So, please don`t aim at meee. 

11. Opening the map, disabled. This means no permanent or temporary waypoints and no easy option to navigate the world. Instead I will have to identify natural landmarks and create my own where necessary, label entire streets and towns with signs, leaving a breadcrumb trail of signs that lead back to my horse base and the like, etc.

I got lost with breadcrumb trail. I would like to have a map with a flamaster, so I could draw on it like in freaking Paint. No idea.

12. Cancel the starting quests(?)

Leaving the mission zone cancels the action as we all probably know. So what`s the matter?

13. Lucky looter perk, banned

Strong emphasis on this perk makes in my view this game more arcade? I am not entirely sure by myself...

14. All quality level 2 stone tools and above must be replaced instead of repaired unless the tool in question is a higher level than I can craft. Playtesting required.

Sounds good at first glance. But, in reality the game will become more grindy, if that`s what You aim for.

15. Cannot use note quests or treasure maps

I`m completely ignoring note quests. Treasure maps have to be even scarce and contain a real deal stuff inside, barely available in Forest biome.

 

[hiemfire]

Leaving the mission zone cancels the action as we all probably know. So what`s the matter?

There is no "mission zone" for the first chain of quests that end with the quest that takes you to the trader. You can literally walk to the opposite side of the map with the starter quests up and finish them there. The main draws for doing them where you spawn at are getting them out of the way and the initial spawn area is clear of hostiles till you leave it.