PC Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[mr.natural]

The RWG is the ONLY way to keep playing 7D2D on and on, so is an huge contribution to the game. After trying 17.1 stable (and Darkness Falls mod) I also noticed I don't play anymore 'cause of the boring RWG atm. I'm praying to the RPG gods to help TFP team.

 

[meganoth]

See, that's not the experience at all that people underground are after.
Underground isn't a pure sandbox experience. And it's not compartmentalizing the RPG experience.

Underground is a work experience. A grind experience. A resource gathering experience. It's not purely about avoidance.

Well, I never said anything about avoidance, And you yourself said that the zombies disturbing your grind "trance" is (beside the holes on the surface) the crux of the matter.

So it is about disturbing/interrupting you when you are mining or building which is exactly what I mean with the "pure" sandbox. Because you not only can do whatever you want, you can do it at any time free of interruptions. To get that on the surface you have to turn of zombies.

Think about a lot of the movies or books where there's a rebel base hidden underground. You KNOW, once you stick your head up into the surface, things are going to get very real.

And did they fear to be discovered before they stick their head up? Sure they did. And they were right, in some movies they were discovered (to name just one example: Total Recall).

When I mine for some time I too try to turn of my mind and go into "maintenance mode". But I surely get out of that mode immediately when hearing strange noises (though most of the time another player shouting in my ear over teamspeak :cocksure: ). Now I get it that if that happens 3 times a night every night it isn't working correctly anymore.

But is that really the case? Yes, in a top-down mine at the surface with an auger it really is.

But is it still the case 15 blocks down with you having 3 or 5 points in stealth? I cite the wiki (hope it is up-to-date): "Hide in the shadows 45% more effectively. Noises from actions while hidden are muffled 40% " and "Hide in the shadows 75% more effectively. Noises from actions while hidden are completely silent."

Maybe there is your solution to get into a trance without interruptions.

 

[meganoth]

But I must agree with Jackelmyer. People who kept their forges and workstations and storage underground in their vast tunnel networks that connected their dozens of outposts all over the map feel targeted. Most of us weren't trying to avoid fighting the horde on horde night. If I wanted to do that I would just run in a large circle around my base, ride a bike for thirty seconds, dismount, do some looting, cut down a tree, then get back on before the horde catches me. Or I would spend all night treading water. There are too many mechanics for avoiding the horde that specifically targeting underground playstyles seemed, erm, targeted.

You have read Rolands post #624 in this thread (https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?105259-Feedback-for-The-Fun-Pimps-on-Alpha-17&p=950427&viewfull=1#post950427 ) ? Fataal had to begin somewhere.

Much as removing zombie loot and harvesting to try to address item duping. We still have item duping and now less bones. It just always seems an overreaction.

There were other reasons you conveniently ignore (they were mentioned often enough at the time so you should know them too). Zombie loot was a nuisance, sometimes you were occupied half a day with looting after a horde night. It made zombies into loot delivery services, it devalued scavenging.

Like most changes there are advantages AND disadvantages and depending on your priorities it will look like a good or bad change. And there might be other solutions you think would be better. It's the developers priviledge to decide what solution is the best.

 

[Jackelmyer]

Well, I never said anything about avoidance, And you yourself said that the zombies disturbing your grind "trance" is (beside the holes on the surface) the crux of the matter.
So it is about disturbing/interrupting you when you are mining or building which is exactly what I mean with the "pure" sandbox. Because you not only can do whatever you want, you can do it at any time free of interruptions. To get that on the surface you have to turn of zombies.

And did they fear to be discovered before they stick their head up? Sure they did. And they were right, in some movies they were discovered (to name just one example: Total Recall).

When I mine for some time I too try to turn of my mind and go into "maintenance mode". But I surely get out of that mode immediately when hearing strange noises (though most of the time another player shouting in my ear over teamspeak :cocksure: ). Now I get it that if that happens 3 times a night every night it isn't working correctly anymore.

But is that really the case? Yes, in a top-down mine at the surface with an auger it really is.

But is it still the case 15 blocks down with you having 3 or 5 points in stealth? I cite the wiki (hope it is up-to-date): "Hide in the shadows 45% more effectively. Noises from actions while hidden are muffled 40% " and "Hide in the shadows 75% more effectively. Noises from actions while hidden are completely silent."

Maybe there is your solution to get into a trance without interruptions.

This is part of my annoyance and in fair reflection to what something Roland said, some things can be done... "Wrong".

I hear you that with stealth skills, you can handle some of those issues. But again we're back to a very linear character progression path that we didn't used to have. Which... Fine. Go linear with the game design. But don't half ass it.

If we're supposed to combat spec first, then throw in some stealth specs, then splash in some stamina specs, then maybe some build specs fine.

Then make World of Warcraft like classes and skill trees. Give a clear path for "proper" game play. People who are combat oriented and aren't so build/crafting oriented slid right into A17, roughly. But everyone else was trying to figure out wth the game went sideways.

If you and TFP feel that we all should be running down a specific skill path, then just build it in already.

I honestly never liked the stealth much. Made POI's way too easy.

 

[Cirion]

Then make World of Warcraft like classes and skill trees. Give a clear path for "proper" game play. People who are combat oriented and aren't so build/crafting oriented slid right into A17, roughly. But everyone else was trying to figure out wth the game went sideways.

If you have read much comments here which I bet you probably have, you'll find that the only people not complaining about the A17 perk system, virtually all of them, are all combat spec'ing early on. Of course you're not going to complain about it then.

I personally am trying to push for every specialization being exactly as viable as the rest in the context of how the game progresses in difficulty (gamestage), to make specializing in ANY of the trees being enticing, rather than most people automatically going for combat which is the logical choice the way the game is set up now due to difficulty (gamestage) being primarily calculated by player level. Also, since many specializations are merged together (For example, melee combat & mining specialization is in the same tree). It would make more sense IMO to split them out to force people to make a more targeted choice... mining OR combat and not both.

You're right, they should just outright makes "Class" specialization trees instead of the way it is set up now.

- Mining specialization

- Melee combat specialization

- Ranged combat specialization

- Tank

- Crafter

- Ninja (stealth) & stamina skills

- Barterer

- Scavenger

(Possibly make Miner/Crafter into one class?)

This is one way they could adjust it. Somewhat similar to the way they have it now, with splitting out a couple of them which were previously combined into one tree.

I think splitting them out like this would make more meaningful, more well thought out decisions on how to specialize and also hopefully make people consider other builds besides just combat.

I still prefer learn by doing, but I think this might make A17's current system a little better.

 

[Roland]

Wait....people are saying please don't make it linear but are at the same time asking for labeled classes with defined mixes of perks spelled out for the player to follow?

Why?

The current class system is completely user defined and created on the fly as you play. It is ultimate freedom. This reminds me of people who complain that open world games have no objectives when what they have are a multitude of player defined objectives.

The game is not linear. You are just choosing to follow the same path you defined for yourself as the only viable path there is. That is an illusion. I play the game differently almost every time.

Choosing full combat spec has nothing to do with liking the current system. Being able to enjoy advantages and disadvantages in your character and experience the game in different ways every time you play with different challenges due to the weaknesses of a particular build is what makes the system great.

 

[Jackelmyer]

Wait....people are saying please don't make it linear but are at the same time asking for labeled classes with defined mixes of perks spelled out for the player to follow?
Why?

The current class system is completely user defined and created on the fly as you play. It is ultimate freedom. This reminds me of people who complain that open world games have no objectives when what they have are a multitude of player defined objectives.

The game is not linear. You are just choosing to follow the same path you defined for yourself as the only viable path there is. That is an illusion. I play the game differently almost every time.

Choosing full combat spec has nothing to do with liking the current system. Being able to enjoy advantages and disadvantages in your character and experience the game in different ways every time you play with different challenges due to the weaknesses of a particular build is what makes the system great.

No. Not both. Pick one or the other. What's asked for is either close the pandora's box of skills or open it all the way and handle the problems that come out.

You yourself have explicitly stated "wrong ways" of playing. That wasn't quite so prevalent in A16. And if you want to talk whack analogies or references, we're not talking about some naked guy running into the wasteland with a face painted volley ball.

And it absolutely has to do with Combat specing. People who say "I have no problem" are in a vast majority using combat specs from the start. Many, don't even talk about getting to craft and build specs and rely purely on loot and traders.

Tell ya what, put out a poll. Something like below or just put in what's below. Should pretty quickly show one way or another.

A17 Spec vs Challenge Poll
What best fits your game play experience if played on the default difficulty for 7 Days To Die?

* Do you spec mostly or fully in combat, trade, loot, and/or stealth skills for your first 60 levels and and game is easy to moderate in challenge?

* Do you spec mostly or fully in combat, trade, loot, and/or stealth skills for your first 60 levels and and game is hard to very hard in challenge?

* Do you spec mostly or fully in crafting, build, and/or mining skills for your first 60 levels and and game is easy to moderate in challenge?

* Do you spec mostly or fully in crafting, build, and/or mining skills for your first 60 levels and and game is hard to very hard in challenge?

 

[Cirion]

Every specialization should be equally valid and have a balanced list of pros and cons of choosing it...

yes?

Currently this is not the case. Otherwise the vast majority of players would not choose combat specializations.

 

[OldManBrian]

Wait....people are saying please don't make it linear but are at the same time asking for labeled classes with defined mixes of perks spelled out for the player to follow?
Why?

The current class system is completely user defined and created on the fly as you play. It is ultimate freedom. This reminds me of people who complain that open world games have no objectives when what they have are a multitude of player defined objectives.

The game is not linear. You are just choosing to follow the same path you defined for yourself as the only viable path there is. That is an illusion. I play the game differently almost every time.

Choosing full combat spec has nothing to do with liking the current system. Being able to enjoy advantages and disadvantages in your character and experience the game in different ways every time you play with different challenges due to the weaknesses of a particular build is what makes the system great.

I think the problem is that in a16 you increased skill with usage and then bought specific perks for specific gameplay styles, which worked great.

In a17, you invest points in Attributes first (strength, agility, etc), then specific perks for specific gameplay styles. The problem is there's tons of bleedover between the attributes and perks which leads to players needing to either spread themselves thin or feeling like they've wasted points.

 

[Cirion]

I think the problem is that in a16 you increased skill with usage and then bought specific perks for specific gameplay styles, which worked great.
In a17, you invest points in Attributes first (strength, agility, etc), then specific perks for specific gameplay styles. The problem is there's tons of bleedover between the attributes and perks which leads to players needing to either spread themselves thin or feeling like they've wasted points.

This is a good point.

More freedom would mean eliminating the "attributes" entirely and letting users just pick and choose straight up from perks directly. Get rid of the middle man (attributes). Turn the "middle man" attributes into perks of their own.

More than once I have found myself with a bunch of points only to realize almost all of them got "Wasted" being forced to level up the attribute instead of the getting the perk I wanted.

For example, I'll often want to level up mining skill early on. But to do that, I'm forced to spend points on strength, which I may or may not care about in and of itself, but it's mandatory in order to spend points elsewhere first.

The point I was trying to make with classes is that the impression I got was TFP is trying to pigeon hole us into classes, so if that's the case, might as well go all in and properly do classes. If they're trying to give us freedom, then let's get rid of these silly attributes.

 

[RestInPieces]

Wait....people are saying please don't make it linear but are at the same time asking for labeled classes with defined mixes of perks spelled out for the player to follow?
Why?

The current class system is completely user defined and created on the fly as you play. It is ultimate freedom. This reminds me of people who complain that open world games have no objectives when what they have are a multitude of player defined objectives.

The game is not linear. You are just choosing to follow the same path you defined for yourself as the only viable path there is. That is an illusion. I play the game differently almost every time.

Choosing full combat spec has nothing to do with liking the current system. Being able to enjoy advantages and disadvantages in your character and experience the game in different ways every time you play with different challenges due to the weaknesses of a particular build is what makes the system great.

You never replied in the discussion we were having about this in that other thread

You yourself have said that survival must dictate the player's actions and thought of a more intuitive concept (not system) than the current one that would allow that. And at some point you did recognize that lack of balance between leveling paths can create problems.

All the above only show that the game design molds the player's actions. Each player has his own pace, you can't ask them to pace themselves, you have to do it in a sublime way through the design.

Balancing xp sources is more of a band-aid but will help nonetheless. TFP have attempted to balance xp sources but from my experience not in a great way. They have to balance actions/time evenly imo, throughout the whole progression and in some cases (like zombie xp) without taking into account action cost (even if it seems like the right way to go).

Atm zombies are by far the most effective way to level early game and when specced into combat, whereas mining xp becomes super-effective when the player can do a lot of block damage since it is dependent on it (correct me if I am wrong). Conclusion - depending on the stage you are/spec, there is a single most effective way to progress, which makes progression seem very linear.

So, we established that the game rewards you for being effective - no matter one's "leveling speed", players *will* be inclined to choose the most effective method. And that itself will create a negative experience. The solution to this is certainly not players having to try to pace themselves ignoring their natural pace, in order to have a wholistic/non-grindy/whatever experience. Yes, I keep saying this and I've become tiring, but this debate about which system is less linear will continue ad nauseam without any resolution ever, because imo the comparison basis is off, as both were/are very flawed.

 

[Cirion]

@Restinpieces

I don't speak for Roland per-se but I am pretty sure I recall him saying something along the lines of "being efficient" is purely a player's choice of how to play the game, and Roland is quoted as saying he likes to play organically and he himself usually doesn't worry about being efficient.

That's not necessarily wrong, but there are certain game designs that lend itself for people feeling like they "Need" to be efficient, more so than others, especially in the context of 7 day hordes always on the horizon having a sense of constant "urgency". It actually is possible to reduce the "feel" that you "need" to be efficient, even in some people who might otherwise tend to adopt that kind of playstyle. True there are some people who will always look for the most efficient ways to play, I don't deny that, but A17 really turned a lot more people into "efficiency monkies" than before. IMO.

The ONLY way to play efficiently now is to kill zombies early game, and then transition to mining mid game or so. Mining is very slow early game, and zombies aren't so great later game, and needing whatever it is, 52 million? exp to max out lends itself to being as efficient as possible.

Where Roland and I do see eye to eye is that a better game design would tend to lend itself to promote the player just playing the game and simply doing what it takes to survive and not worry about oh I need to grind zombies so I can level up and level X skill or oh I need to grind mining skill so I can level up and level Y skill

 

[Cirion]

I made a comment in a thread like two weeks ago where I recommended that some more sources of exp either be introduced or further improved.

One example was - Upgrading blocks should give dramatically more exp.

I was rather disheartened when a sarcastic reply was something along these lines... "What's next, giving EXP from painting?"

Actually you know what? Giving exp from painting isn't such a bad idea. The more sources for exp the better, this promotes players actually PLAYING THE GAME because they know they'll get exp whether they kill zombies, whether they loot, whether they build things, where they mine, where they beautify their base, whether their farm. I hope people get where I'm going with this? I still am not a fan of this current system but it'd be one way to improve it and have less of a urgent "need" to grind at any particular time. All of the methods to get exp should have EQUAL RETURN FOR THEIR EFFORT though. This way even efficiency players wouldn't immediately gravitate to one form of exp grinding and then complain that it is the only way to get exp.

 

[RestInPieces]

@Restinpieces
I don't speak for Roland per-se but I am pretty sure I recall him saying something along the lines of "being efficient" is purely a player's choice of how to play the game, and Roland is quoted as saying he likes to play organically and he himself usually doesn't worry about being efficient.

That's not necessarily wrong, but there are certain game designs that lend itself for people feeling like they "Need" to be efficient, more so than others, especially in the context of 7 day hordes always on the horizon having a sense of constant "urgency". It actually is possible to reduce the "feel" that you "need" to be efficient, even in some people who might otherwise tend to adopt that kind of playstyle. True there are some people who will always look for the most efficient ways to play, I don't deny that, but A17 really turned a lot more people into "efficiency monkies" than before. IMO.

Yep, same discussion was done in the other thread recently https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?109564-Problems-with-A17-2-that-aren-t-on-the-known-issues-list-of-the-patch-notes&p=947994&viewfull=1#post947994

Even completely excluding the urgency of the game's demands, the game at the moment, especially with the current system, as you said, rewards you for leveling, not only with power/qol etc, but most importantly, it rewards you with unlocking new content. This alone is incentive enough and it's no wonder people are trying to find the most effective ways to be efficient.

When you include the urgency - it's a very long discussion, but I'll just briefly and generally say that, the less urgency, the more everything in the game (perks, items, actions, etc) is "devalued" (not necessarily in the sense of entertainment). For example in a hypothetical game with zero urgency or game demands, you are left with a sandbox (which is not a necessarily bad thing depending on taste). But let's leave it at that - this is a different discussion.

I made a comment in a thread like two weeks ago where I recommended that some more sources of exp either be introduced or further improved.
One example was - Upgrading blocks should give dramatically more exp.

I was rather disheartened when a sarcastic reply was something along these lines... "What's next, giving EXP from painting?"

Actually you know what? Giving exp from painting isn't such a bad idea. The more sources for exp the better, this promotes players actually PLAYING THE GAME because they know they'll get exp whether they kill zombies, whether they loot, whether they build things, where they mine, where they beautify their base, whether their farm. I hope people get where I'm going with this? I still am not a fan of this current system but it'd be one way to improve it and have less of a urgent "need" to grind at any particular time. All of the methods to get exp should have EQUAL RETURN FOR THEIR EFFORT though. This way even efficiency players wouldn't immediately gravitate to one form of exp grinding and then complain that it is the only way to get exp.

I agree. And these sources should be reasonably balanced, so that survival needs/preferences dominate the player's priorities. The more balanced they can be, the better. And as I said above, they should be balanced with /time, not with things like block damage, which change dramatically over the course of the game. And unfortunately as intuitive as it seems, I don't think cost should play a factor. At least not with the current game's "economy". And even then, if it was, players in different settings would still gravitate towards the most costly way of leveling and perceive the game as linear. As for zombie kill rate, it will always dramatically change through perks/items but, meh, as I keep saying that was never a good idea.

 

[Roland]

This is a good point.
More freedom would mean eliminating the "attributes" entirely and letting users just pick and choose straight up from perks directly. Get rid of the middle man (attributes). Turn the "middle man" attributes into perks of their own.

More than once I have found myself with a bunch of points only to realize almost all of them got "Wasted" being forced to level up the attribute instead of the getting the perk I wanted.

For example, I'll often want to level up mining skill early on. But to do that, I'm forced to spend points on strength, which I may or may not care about in and of itself, but it's mandatory in order to spend points elsewhere first.

The point I was trying to make with classes is that the impression I got was TFP is trying to pigeon hole us into classes, so if that's the case, might as well go all in and properly do classes. If they're trying to give us freedom, then let's get rid of these silly attributes.

You act as though spending the points in attributes is solely for unlocking perks. This is not the case. You get benefits in addition to unlocking the perks. There is zero waste purchasing to level 10 of any attribute. Benefit comes from each.

 

[Cirion]

You act as though spending the points in attributes is solely for unlocking perks. This is not the case. You get benefits in addition to unlocking the perks. There is zero waste purchasing to level 10 of any attribute. Benefit comes from each.

That is not the point I was trying to convey. Yes a lot of the attributes are useful, but I still don't always want to be forced to buy them before certain other perks. This is another form of "level gating" which I am not the greatest fan of in a game where freedom is one of the defining features. As one example, earlier game I would prefer to have high HP regen than a higher HP pool if I had to choose between the two, and I would, if I could. This is for many reasons, one of which is that bleed can be particularly deadly early game and HP regen can help get you out of some bad situations like that. They may be useful, but they're still blocking us from buying other perks that some players may deem more important at a given point in time.

It would not be so bad if the attributes only cost 1 point at all levels, the real pain is felt because they cost 5 points towards the end, which is 5 points you could have used on other perks.

 

[Jackelmyer]

You act as though spending the points in attributes is solely for unlocking perks. This is not the case. You get benefits in addition to unlocking the perks. There is zero waste purchasing to level 10 of any attribute. Benefit comes from each.

The problem is the value of the benefits provided by the attribute bonuses versus the benefits provided by what is gated behind the attribute. Hence. I have to waste points on something I don't want right now to get something I do want right now.

Couple that with the incredibly unnoticeable incremental boosts that attributes give and it feels more wasteful.

I won't say that the attribute boosts aren't helpful. But in reality, it's hard to notice those tiny increments of damage, max stamina, max health, etc, until you've gone through 3-4 levels of the attribute itself.

For example: 100 stamina vs 110 stamina... meh... Doesn't really feel like much. 100 stamina versus 130 stamina. I... actually feel that difference. 100 stamina versus 150 stamina. Okay. That's a big jump...

The incremental boosts on attributes do provide benefit. But if it is mostly unnoticeable, then, it kinda doesn't.

Benefits like anything else are tied to perception. If I don't perceive it, it doesn't exist. Screenshot/Video evidence or not.

 

[Jackelmyer]

Ya know, A17 would make a hell of a lot more sense if you started on one side of the map and the map was a biome gradient of tech, resources, and enemy difficulty.

Start out stone age. Move easy to get to turrets, electricity, and so on.

 

[Star69]

I agree that the issue isn’t with the perks or attributes themselves but how the whole thing is organized. I don’t even think it’s the loss of learning by doing. I hate mining, I don’t mine and I have a partner that loves mining. I’m a scavenger pure & simple. In the current setting, in order to get a bigger backpack, better quality loot and better barter for selling that loot, I have to get mining abilities to do so... more block damage, making better quality tools etc. That does not make the least bit of sense. In A16.4, when I specc’d for scavenging, I only bought the skills I needed. I didn’t make better tools, I didn’t do more block damage. If the goal of A17 was for making things better for role playing, then it’s way worse than A16.4. It seems like regardless if you are a miner or scavenger, you have to buy all the same attributes, whether you need them or not. That does not feel ‘organic’ and helps, I think, explain why we feel more pressure to play one way regardless of our role. Kill zombies, buy attributes we don’t need in order to get stuff we do need. Makes no sense to me. I don’t want to be forced into being a ‘well-rounded’ individual to play this game. Maybe if we didn’t come from a system where we could truly specialize then it wouldn’t be as big of a deal.

 

[OldManBrian]

You act as though spending the points in attributes is solely for unlocking perks. This is not the case. You get benefits in addition to unlocking the perks. There is zero waste purchasing to level 10 of any attribute. Benefit comes from each.

It just feels bloated and too incremental in a17. If you want to be a builder you need builder perks, for builder perks you need intellect, for the resources you need better resource gathering perks, for those you need strength, to do that properly you need stamina gaining perks, to get that you need agility. Oh, and want different block types that have no defensive value? Yeah you need another perk for that too, and you need to build a saw table and run back and fourth to that. Each of these are tiny gains that don't individually feel like much until you get 2 or 3 levels from 4 or 5 different perks \ attributes. It's overly complicated and ineffectual. You end up purchasing literally almost 100 individual levels by the end.

In a16 you invested in tools, workbench, concrete, miner 69er, and sexual tyrannosaurus. It was simple, straightforward, and significant. Each unlock was major, and even levels of tools were significant as each quality level brought multiple bonuses instead of just durability.

10-20 perk\attribute levels per perk\attribute just feels like wayy too many to have gratifying gains from buying perks, I think 5 is a sweet spot for significant and noticable gains for players, and when possible just a single significant unlock is even more preferable.