PC Cookie cutter, everybody ends up exactly the same as everybody else, at level 300, or...

[WarMongerian]

Hey folks, so far, in my very limited experience with this great game, I have been playing on the easiest setting, which has allowed me to actually reach 300th level (though never yet doing so without a death or three along the way), and therefore I actually have had the chance to progress to the end game.  That being said, I am also deliberately restarting much more than playing all the way to 300th level.

After level 120-160 I pretty much have all the skills that I actually use/need, so the rest of the game I get progressively less and less satisfaction in the character development aspect of the game, as placing my hard eared skill points becomes more and more a choice of the lesser evil, rather than spending points to unlock something awesome.

Right now, I think that we end up with 16 skill points that we literally cannot spend on anything, but long before reaching that point, at level 284, we have long had less and less good places to spend our points on.

With this observation, I came to the conclusion that we needed the end game to get some TLC.

I don't want the game simplified, but expanded.

As things stand, you stop getting life/stamina at level 100, so from the stand point of a player building their character, you get less to work with from 100th level on.  What I would love to see added into the game, would be a way for the player to start to make choices that allow the character to choose a career choice.  This choice would be for a single career from among a list of many.  Not everyone will choose the same career, so this would allow a character to become unique (or at least, not a generic cookie-cutter gingerbread type of thing), and especially if a second career could be chosen at level 200, and a third at level 300.

Some half formed ideas...

Construction worker career choice, players can start making decisions and choices what to improve their character's abilities within the building trades.  In game, some improvement could be allowed in carrying capacity, for instance, as one path within the construction worker career choice, while a different path might allow a character to make an improved version of some blocks, as in a given block takes less resources to construct/repair, and another different path could lead to blocks having higher hit points, if the construction worker went that way, rather than the focus on carrying capacity, construction/repair costs, or the increased hitpoints of blocks on the third path, all within the construction worked career path.

Carrying capacity of building materials is one thing that bugs me.  Our little digital dues can carry huge amounts of materials, like 6,000 stacks of wood, clay, stone.  But then only 1,000 stacks of cobblestone and other, more advanced materials.  Carrying capacity is a huge thing in this game, so a branch within the construction worker career choice, to be able to increase that particular character's stack size limit, would be great.

Picture such a character being able to gradually increase the stack size of some building materials.  Right now 

existing character can never increase their stack sizes (at least, as far as I know), but what if we could choose which type of construction worker we wanted to be.  Might some choices exist as to which materials they can carry more of?  So, with the career, one choice might be increased stack sizes.  Another choice might be in improving the construction/repair costs of blocks.

Might we see cheaper block resource requirements?  Might we see a choice even within this?  Perhaps one path would lead to more expensive block building costs, but need no (or less) resource cost to make repairs, but a cheaper block construction would cost the usual prices.

What about more hit points for blocks, could this also be a point for discussion, and end up being yet another one of many exclusive choice a player can have to make their character unique, rather than a cookie-cutter of everyone else's characters?

This is only talking about a potential "construction worker career choice", what about a "Combat Medic career choice", or a "Hunter/Butcher career choice", or...

The list goes on and on.

What are peoples thoughts on being able to make their character unique?

 

[Jeraal]

Playing single player, I need to be able to do as many things as possible. Don't like the idea of being limited. Some of the overhaul mods have class systems. You choose a starting class, but eventually you are able to master all of them. 

 

[Vaeliorin]

I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who ever get to levels in even the mid-hundreds before restarting.  You end up basically immortal far before that point, and leveling up takes forever when you get that high level.

I've only ever hit the level cap once, and that was back in A16 when the level cap (at least in the mod I was playing, don't recall for the game in general) was 200.

 

[Suxar]

The maximum level I got was somewhere around 220-230. It was a game on a dedicated server and I was just having fun with different buildings, since I didn't really understand how zombies would behave in certain situations. The level appeared somehow by itself, I even forgot to distribute points at times, since it no longer interested me much.

 

[Old Crow]

It would be nice if we had unique "starter classes" to choose. I like how Project Zomboid and Abiotic Factor do it.

Choose your class for your initial perks and perk levels, here's some points and a list of perks and penalties.

Something similar to this might work better for 7DTD if you didn't earn points every single level, or if you stopped earning points after a certain level.

 

[Riamus]

I know classes have been discussed before.  I think I might even have suggested them at one point.  But it seems like most people don't like being limited in what they can do in this game.  Classes are basically a RPG feature and there's a strong dislike of RPG features in this game by a lot of people from what I've seen.  I don't really see a problem with it, though I am also fine with it as it is now.  I like being able to master anything I want without being limited by a class choice, especially since I tend to be a jack of all trades player in this game.

 

[WarMongerian]

Playing single player, I need to be able to do as many things as possible. Don't like the idea of being limited. Some of the overhaul mods have class systems. You choose a starting class, but eventually you are able to master all of them. 

Hmmm.  The Idea here is to add to the game, not to limit folks.  Everything you can do now, you could still do in a game where "Career Choices" were turned on, but you would have additional content to explore, that goes above and beyond what you can do right now.

I'm looking at getting some late game customization for folks characters, so people could go above and beyond, but I don't want every character to end up just like every other character that is played to level 300.  You would have to make choices, and different choices would leed to a unique character, not a cookie cutter clone.

You could play just as you do right now, and "do everything" like you can right now, but the additional content would just make your particular character better at some things than everyone else, at what they have chosen to specialize in.

 

[zztong]

I'm generally a fan of choices, but I don't think "classes", based on careers or emphasis on a characteristic, makes any sense for this game, specially for single player. In multiplayer I can see why some teams of players engage in division of labor. I don't think classes really help. I also don't think they help late game. That division of labor helps more in the early game.

If while making a character you perhaps chose a career that you had prior to the apocalypse and perhaps started with some points in a couple skills reflecting that then maybe I'd be okay with that, but few real-life careers actually translate into being relevant in an apocalypse.

Overall though I do share the observation that you run out of things to spend point on up in the 200s and I'm open to ideas there.

 

[theFlu]

You could play just as you do right now, and "do everything" like you can right now, but the additional content would just make your particular character better at some things than everyone else, at what they have chosen to specialize in.

This is a common mistake; any significant choice requires sacrificing something else. You can either have:

- meaningful choices that prevent one another,

- "choices" that you can gather all of (only a choice of order, like the current skills at max level) or

- non-meaningful choices (doesn't matter what you took, won't change the outcome, so it won't feel any different in the long run).

 

[meganoth]

* AFAIK the game as intended by TFP has a playtime of about 60 hours (or was it 100?) and most players probably don't even reach that before restarting. Anything above is just sandbox freedom so you are not limited by the intentions of TFP. Just like some other games do not simply stop when the "You won" message pops up. So I hope you have a mod in mind when it comes to features for level 100 and above, you will surely never see those coming to vanilla.

* IMHO 7days already has classes, here they are called attributes. Though similar to some other modern RPG systems you are not limited by your class. It just so happens that your class perks are cheaper than other perks as you have to pay the attribute cost only once. You could call it a soft limit.

* A career (in other games and in 7days mods) seems to be similar to attributes, a limit to induce or force you to specific perk distributions. The only difference to attributes I see is that you often get some starter items with it and it is made even more obvious what perks to choose. Are people really so braindead that they need help to find miner69 and motherlode if they want to be a miner? Only the starter items may be a useful mechanic, if done right.

 

[Roland]

Reaching level 300 and maxing everything out is something you CAN do but not necessarily the intended destination that everyone must do. As you said, by time you reach level 150ish you pretty much max out the the attributes you started the game with and basically can do anything with the skills you chose. I believe the intention is that you then start over and play with a different mix for a different experience. 

I don't like the idea of a class locking away attributes and perks that don't "fit" that class. I feel as though the way the game is right now I develop the class in the way I want without restrictions other than the skillpoint cost to do so.

I never have and never will play a game until I reach level 300 alon or with others so it doesn't matter in the least to me that we all theoretically would end up as the exact same character at that point. The game does allow you to continue playing beyond the point where you max out the specialized class you developed up to level 100 or so but it doesn't mean you must keep going. It's like games that let you continue playing in the world after the story is finished and the credits have rolled. You CAN keep playing for years until you've done every side quest, visited every location, and done absolutely everything the game has available to play with. But then to say that everyone who does that has ended up playing the exact same game so something must be done to create differentiation for even those people who played for 100s of hours past the effective end of the game isn't reasonable.

 

[BFT2020]

In 4k hours of playing, I never got to Level 300.  I don't think I ever breached Level 200.

If I want a class system, I will install and play a mod.  For the most part, I am fine with the current progression system - and will be interested in the changes coming in V2.0.

 

[WarMongerian]

It would be nice if we had unique "starter classes" to choose. I like how Project Zomboid and Abiotic Factor do it.

I have to admit, it didn't occur to me for a "starter class", and others have mentioned that level 100 would be to high.  Ok, if level 100 is to high, what about career choice becoming available at 50-60 level range?

Another boo boo on my part, I didn't mention the current game just has one path and all the points you earn, work on that path, but not for the career paths, as they would have their own points and things to spend those points on.  Never enough to 'get everything', but enough to make an impact.

Let us look at what we have now as "Character Points" that can only be spent on attributes and perks.

Now say that 'Career Choices' also have their own spoint, but these points would not be able to be spent on attributes, nor their related skills, but rather on opportunities within their respective careers.

As such a system doesn't exist (yet) in 7DTD, we will just have to use our creativity to imagine something like what we have now, beu separate from and unique to whatever career path a given character is on.

I have to ask a question here:  Can their be different stack sizes in the game?  This whole idea revolves around each character being able to make choices that could/would allow them to have bigger stacks, if that was what choices they spent their career points in, but naturally, these stacks would be limited by whoever tries to interact with them.

For example, if a "Construction Worker" was selected as a career choice, and the player wanted the biggest stacks of building materials they could get (I'm looking at a cobblestone stack of 6000), and they put them in storage, any other character would be limited to the standard size stacks, unless they too were specked into larger stack sizes.

Cobblestone and other building materials would be for the construction worker career, while stacks of medical items would be the fortey of the "Combat Medic Career Choice".

Naturally, not all stacks would be affected by any given career, nor would all stacks need to be able to reach 6000 items, but how about a "Salvage Expert Career Choice" getting to at last stack engines 3 high?  Could batteries (what with them each having a level) be able to stack, or no?

 

[Riamus]

Just to point out... with 2.0, there will be more perks to choose from and all perks will have 5 tiers instead of some having less than that.  That by itself will tend to cause people to have different builds from one another more than they do now.  It won't be a lot of new perks - probably fewer than 10 - but the extra perks plus the extra levels means more variety in builds until you're higher level.  Since most people play for between 30-60 days (TFP's goal is for 70 days) using the default 1 hour days, most people are done long before they have the same build as everyone else.  Of course, they'll have the same build as people who like the same perks, but that's true even if you add classes.

I don't think stack size differences are a good option as it just gets messy using shared crates when one person can use one size stack and another can use a different size stack.  If you did classes in this game, I think it should only be a very basic system where you get a few starter perk points related to the class and a specific set of starter items related to the class.  Beyond that, the class shouldn't impact what perks you can choose or anything like that.  They'd basically just be a way to start your character as if you have a little skill from before the apocalypse and a few items to start with.  I wouldn't really go beyond that based on the responses I've seen in the past regarding classes by most people.

 

[WarMongerian]

This is a common mistake; any significant choice requires sacrificing something else. You can either have:

1) - meaningful choices that prevent one another,

2) - "choices" that you can gather all of (only a choice of order, like the current skills at max level) or

3) - non-meaningful choices (doesn't matter what you took, won't change the outcome, so it won't feel any different in the long run).

I'm not liking the wording here, but this is essentially what the current (great) game offers, and what this idea is meant to overcome.  I don't like it that all of my characters have to end up exactly the same, and that I cannot do anything (character building wise) that makes my character unique.  So in the above (slightly altered) quoted post, # 2 and 3 are not what I'm looking for.

#1 above, is what I'm looking for, but I prefer to think that a character is not sacrificing a thing (which, to me at least, implies they have a right to everything), but rather, is just focusing on some additional skills.  These additional skills wouldn't have to totally block other skills, but if you choose one path, even for awhile, you cannot walk another path at the same time, so you would have to stop following the first path, to switch to another.

 

[YourMirror]

Poll addiction. There might be some professional help available.

 

[WarMongerian]

Poll addiction. There might be some professional help available.

Guilty as charged, and I have to apologise for way back, when you asked me if  knew how the polls worked, and it turned out, I didn't.  So, thank you for the heads up, and for helping me grow.

As far as stack size increases, have you any thoughts as to which materials should 'belong' to which career?

 

[theFlu]

#1 above, is what I'm looking for, but I prefer to think that a character is not sacrificing a thing

Choose a path, can't choose two (now you're at #1 if the "path" is actually significant). But "don't sacrifice the others" => you're back at 2), get them all, just later.

And since you're still talking about "additional skills" without even defining them, I can only assume they wouldn't be "necessary" for ... anything; the "fully specced" characters would do just fine without them - you're essentially back at 3), insignificant choices. Cosmetics.

If you want your characters not to end up the same, take forgetting elixir out of the game, and limit your max skill point total to 45-60 or so. That already would give each new character actual differences, while keeping the game perfectly playable. Each skill point spent would also take impressive amounts of pondering..

 

[WarMongerian]

And since you're still talking about "additional skills" without even defining them,

Well, some of it has been mentioned, the increased stack sizes for related items.  Will the game break without these, no.  Will we be able to achieve differentness amongst the characters, yes.

Letting builders have all building materials of increased size, would be nice to have, but I would want the careers to have at least two mutually exclusive 'paths' the player can set his character on, builders for instance, might be able to chose to build blocks that cost more to build, but less to repair/have more hit points.

Letting Medics have, ore medicines in a stack, makes them better able to do their job, and still be able to loot, but if the alternative path were better medicines/heals more...?

A Scavenger character might be able to stack salvaged items 'higher and deeper', but what else might be done there as an alternative, being able to stack unstackable items of some types (I don't know if items that have a level can be stacked, I suspect not, but who knows) perhaps?  Maybe there are not enough parts that don't usually stack, and don't have a level, so perhaps MODS might be lumped in here?

 

[Old Crow]

I know classes have been discussed before.  I think I might even have suggested them at one point.  But it seems like most people don't like being limited in what they can do in this game.  Classes are basically a RPG feature and there's a strong dislike of RPG features in this game by a lot of people from what I've seen.  I don't really see a problem with it, though I am also fine with it as it is now.  I like being able to master anything I want without being limited by a class choice, especially since I tend to be a jack of all trades player in this game.

Who says classes have to be limiting? Ever played a Soulsborne game? You pick a class that's statted in a certain direction, but you can turn that class into any playstyle you want. It just depends on how the player allocates future points.