7 days to die alpha 17 opinion
Hi fun pimps, hi forum members. My first post in this forum ever, but long time follower (alpha7) and longtime player (3.5k+ hours). I'm mostly playing sp or/and co-op with 2-3 friends. I have the feeling that I just have to tell you my opinion on latest alpha.
First of all I wanted to tell you, fun pimps, thank you for this amazing game(s). Am I the only one who has like 7 different versions of 7d2d? Please let them be still available after going gold.
I discovered mods pretty late. I think around a12 or 13. And I played since alpha14 almost every mod that was available, like valmod, true survival, ravenhearst and many others. But my favorite is war of the walkers, despite bad performance and stuttering.
I'm on this forum almost every day since alpha9 as well. And I'm thankful for sometimes really funny, serious and very entertaining discussions. Let's talk about alpha 17.
1. Pro's:
A. Better navezgane
B. New and better AI
C. Vehicles
D. New blocks and items
E. Mods
F. New poi's + dungeons
2. Cons:
A. Some Fps drops
B. Tool/weapon progress
C. No skills
3. Needs adjustments or further improvements:
A. Progression/perks/why no skills anymore?
B. AI
C. Bigger RWG
D. Weathersystem
E. Mining
F. Enemy balance
G. Schematics
4. Will b Missing 4ever
A. Crafting grid
B. Molds
C. Farming with water
D. Weapon parts
1 A: best navesgane up to date. I have no worries. In pimps I do trust.
1 B: very interesting ai improvements. I wish there would be more random behaviors, some dumb and some smarter zombies or the zombie could change their behavior between these two. Maybe a mix of A16 and a17.
1 C: thank you. Just some more improvements and mods for vehicles, please. In pimps I trust.
1 D: great. More, more, more is always welcome. I'm only missing weapon parts.
1 E: really cool addition. The only reason that keeps me going on loot run after day 14.
1 F: brilliant. Thanks a lot.
2 A: I have regularly stutter and fps drops in poi's with more than 5-6 z's. I guess optimizing will be there later for sure.
2 B: well, this part is an issue for me. I belong to the players who wish separate progression from stone to iron and than steel. Every time we craft one for the first time, it should be lvl 1. Now my first Iron tools are never below lvl 3,and steel is always lvl 6. Same chain for a melee weapon would be appreciated (stone-iron-steel).
2 C: imo the biggest disappointment. No skills anymore

I play most of the time sp and co-op. In my group I'm the builder and miner. Others go fight. When they come back they harvest more than me without even mining once. And they can craft better tools as well. All because perks are linked to level without any progression in your actual 'skills', which do not exist. Now we only loot together and never do different things any more. There is limitation of specializing. In perks there is, in doing not. In SP it is kind of ok. I just feel weird being powerful in ranged weapons without even having used them before.
3 A: love/hate relationship. I like it somehow, maybe because it's new but the points in 2C already mentioned, some perks feel wrong. Please bring some skills back, at least fighting and mining skills. Athletics, looting and construction skills were really tedious and not much fun. But kind of more I could understand why they were there. Even the most grindy (I think it was a15) version, where you had to craft things to raise your crafting skills was fun. But I understood balance issues with trader and online pvp players.
3 B: please more random behavior if possible. Otherwise players find the pattern to defend the base easily.
3 C: fataal gave some information on rwg. They are working on that. Take your time. More towns, villages and some surprises are welcome. But I'm cool with fixed maps like navezgane. One or more handcrafted maps would be amazing. Just imagine if the fun pimps could create a tool where modders and players could create their own poi's and even maps!!! That would make tfp immortal.
3 D: for me is weather survival the least wanted feature. It's seems to be broken atm.
3 E: like I mentioned in 2C. I hope some mods will give some more power so that we'll be able to mine in high lvl faster, just with one hit. Mining skill is essential IMHO.
3 F: there are some balance issues. I think you'll get first ferals around lvl 30 and first radiated around lvl 40. I reach this lvl mostly around day 5 or 6 (120min/day)and only looted diersville and few other poi's. Around day 10-12 I'm lvl 80 and all poi's are full of radiated and ferals. Even if I'm well equipped I'm dying very often, almost in every poi. No fun and mostly I start a new game. Is there a solution possible? Maybe only put some ferals and raise the number of z's with the players game stage. Otherwise I get powerful with equipment and perks but I feel weaker and more vulnerable.
3 G: some perks should be hidden behind books (recipes) like it used to be. It was the main reason in previous alphas to go for a loot run. There were days I couldn't find the minibike schematics for 14 days, sometimes I did on day 2. That was amazing. Now it's lvl based. It's always the same. Please think about it.
4 A-D: these features were 7d2d specific. I hope sooo badly that these features could be at least moddable. But I think I sadly know the answer.
Despite all I love this game and I'm often not sure if I should praise or curse the fun pimps for making this game. One thing I know for sure it will be a very sad day when the game goes gold. It's still an amazing journey. Thank you TFP.
(I know there's just a tiny chance that madmole or the developers going to read these very long posts, but splitting it was no option for me). Best regards from Germany. Cheers