Disappointed With 17
Sure, some of the features brought to us in the new build are cool, and have been long saught after; however, this game has been in development since 2013? -And is still in alpha...although some major improvements have been made, it pains me to turn on 17 with optimism, to find myself nearly loosing all interest in an early access I was once proud to invest my time and money in.
Even with all of the "exciting new changes" the release of 17 has brought forward, the overall feel of the game is somehow even less stable than the prior build's and has crippled the overall enjoyment of the game for me, my friends, and family.
How is it possible? Well lets discuss it:
Where did "
Field of View" go? Why are we now defaulted to a disorienting view that makes me feel like I'm looking through a magnifying glass the whole time I'm playing? Where did the "
toggle sprint" go? Why do we now have to hold down a button the whole time for "turbo"? Since when did optimizing the game for controllers mean leaving keyboard and mouse users in the dust? I get it. The game is also on consoles and understandably there was a push to increase controller support, but why was it done in such a way that keyboard and mouse were neglected / negatively impacted?
Sure, there are some improved textures, but why do I have almost no control over most of my games video options? Where did contrast / brightness go? Now other players just boost there gamma 100%-200% to effectively "
cheat" and see in the dark and dominate the players who are trying to actually play the game correctly...I know people can tork their displays and graphic cards around this, but having an in-game option that allows it to be abused is simply opening the door for others to take advantage of.
How...and why do the zombies now stutter their animations even worse than they did in the previous builds? Often this causes misleading players in combat? I don't mind difficult, I can respect difficult, but melee has become an all around bad idea, primarily do to the jittery and unpredictable animations programmed into the base code of the game. What was wrong with the last build's animation utilization? Why was this changed, and for worse performance? It's like the animations reset halfway through at times, or are constantly out of sync with their relative actions.
For example, more often than not animations and actions don't sync properly, giving the perspective of a false delay with expected "cause an effect". The zombie swings and misses, you swing - but then take damage from a swing they already cycled a full animation for...
Try again? Sure, you swing - but even though you timed it properly with the animation, your bat hums right through the zombie's skull as if it were a ghost and the game registers what should have been a home run to the zombie's dome, it counts as a miss before the animation could catch up...
Trying to time attacks and predict dodging around a fray in 16 wasn't perfect, but playable. You could navigate melee combat or even begin to master it (even with some of the hiccups) after a few tries. However, in 17, don't bother. You will just die a victim to poor design.
Also, base building and leveling was a major boon in the previous version. The best survivors on a server would level, play smart, stealthy, and quiet - while building and stocking up masterly creative bases, often deep underground. However, in 17 - the zeds seemingly cut through concrete like it's an appetizer before gobbling your brains, leaving your few treasures easily exposed to any passer by. Many players now choose to simply float around a pond or half deep body of water as that seems to be the key to survival over living in nuclear fallout bunker build deep along the heart of the earth's crust...
Why!? Making changes to allow zombies to break through blocks easier, sure I'm on board. They should be able to dig through the ground too, absolutely! However, they shouldn't be able to eat, chew, and claw their way through Fort Knox in a single blood moon, when a player can drift around in floaties in a body of water and simply wait out the danger. That kind of ruins the point of intricate base building, at least against zeds.
This has made base building a much less important priority, and thus negatively impacted many who enjoyed planning, prepping, and constructing intricate fortresses and bunkers, which now equate to little more than a hurtle in the zeds race to your brains. Seriously...Base building and altering POI's to make them zombie resistant was provided a lot of thought and fun for survivor play styles like mine. For some of us who suck at FPS's we could turn the tables with a well defended and thought out base, which made the game so unique among the survival genres.
However, maybe it's because of the new engine, I don't know - 17 makes 7 Days feel more like a badly ported console game than it does the newest update to one of my once most favorite survival games.
You guys did an awesome job with the previous version, and
some of the new features 17 brought forward are good, but to me, overall the bad outweighs the good. Hopefully you guys will take a look at large amount of negative reviews on steam since the release of 17, read over the discussions thoroughly, and make the next version (or eventual first full release of the game) less like 17 and more like 16.
I was expecting 17 to be more like a polished 16 with a significant amount of additional content, and although 17 looks nicer, all and all it's a disappointment to me and my circle of once was 7 Day gamers. We will try it a bit more, but many of us have already returned to the previous version we prefer and love, and some others have have altogether quit playing. Depending on how future development goes, I may possibly end up joining them. I should hope not as 7 Days has a tremendous amount of potential and as my steam hours will show - I've enjoyed the previous versions of the game immensely.
Fun Pimps, I love you guys, I do. I've been a big fan and a supporter for many years. I've helped fund, and purchase several copies of the early access to help expand your network and support to get this game developed. However, this this newest release is sub par, and all around not enjoyable to me nor my friends. We have been waiting for a final stable and fun version of this game with all of the promised features for years, and with the release of 17, we're clearly still not there yet and possibly still a long ways out.
I sincerely hope Fun Pimps developers will research the feedback and take the negative ones into as much consideration as the positive ones. Hopefully, the next release will be truer to the game's original feel and play-style.
Thanks for your time and efforts,
A Frustrated Longtime Supporter and Survivor,
Shackelfourd aka "Der_Nate_Kerl"
