PC Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[Gas]

Just to put it out there, I really was looking at this to be a look back and comparison to what I felt was important and good in this game in A16.4. Purely as an exercise of reflection.
I think most of us here can agree that 7 Days To Die has provided some of the most fun and amazing game play than most any other game we'd come across in a while. I don't hear that sentiment as much these days here on the forums or in conversation.

Would be really cool if anyone else had some reflections, good and bad, of what was good about prior 7D2D versus what we have today. Or what we have today which is way better than what we had in the past. Reflections, and ideally, without malice, I think are great feedback and probably needed these days.

This is pretty much the only game I play. I'll mess around with others, but I keep coming back to this one. I started in 12.5.

What 7DTD does right, are all the parts where it allows me to immerse. I don't have to mess with some NPC (I ignore traders) I don't have to be some chosen one, I can destroy whatever I want, build whatever I want, mod the xmls how ever I want. It's the only game I can think of that does that. I can go back and play whatever version I want. Not just the world, but the entire game, the code, everything about it is a sandbox. Excellent work there TFP!! For real.

What it does wrong are all the parts that break immersion. The leveling system breaks immersion. It's been like that since 13. Well, really since leveled loot was introduced in 12 I believe. The POIs in 17 are great! Look good, fun to explore. Jump scares when I cross a certain trigger point? Immersion breaking. Gear that gives me 10% more experience? What? Perks that give me special abilities once I sink an arbitrary amount of skill points I got from killing zombies into it? Huh? It's such a shift from the direction the game was going before it's like someone else is steering. If there's got to be some kind of leveling system (which I'm ok without) I do prefer LBD with a mix of cool stuff to learn from books etc. Sounds like we may be headed that way. Fingers crossed.

But dammit, I still like this game. If you strip away all the extraneous stuff that has been added over the years and get to the core of the game, it's still an awesome game. I like 10 the best for the most part. There are parts of 17 that feel like 10 to me. The early game especially. Not quite 10, but close. I still like 17 better anyway. For the first time I was actually excited to see an update. 17.2 makes me really, really, really happy because of the options we now have. Customizable hordes...yes, just yes.

So somewhere on that graph is me, happily playing 17. Not because it's better or worse than before. But because it's the only game that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I was on the graph for 16, 15, 14, 13 and 12 too. Sometimes I wasn't playing the latest version, but I was probably having fun with whatever version I was playing.

 

[fazi]

I'm here since A12, and i can tell you you can't judge the game just beacause of one A version.Right now, A17 is not even finished.RWG needs work.I'm not playing atm just beacause of RWG.A 15-16, were nice, but way to easy.A17 needs more work.I hope devs start adding things, not just starting from scratch each alpha.

Weapon system has to be like it was in A16 in my opinion, with books and parts.Some skills should be learn by doing, maybe only the basic ones.

What i wand and miss now in this game is the pleasure to play a map for 500 days for example.A17 added a lot of things to make you play more, for example the skill system , but also removed some, for example the weapons parts.

 

[art1336]

The game is less fun than it was before.
Less fun doesn't mean no fun, so those charts are useless for both sides of the arguments.

It is this guppy's opinion that Tfp needs to seriously REconsider their current direction, and seriously consider the negative impact a17 has had on the existing player base.

That is all.

I have heard that same opinion in threads all over this forum and on Steam, to say nothing of reddit or discord.

I really do hope that they will decide that the current direction is not what the game needs, but I am not very hopeful. One thing I learned is that criticism is normally met with disinterest and very rarely do you get the response "Oh, you're right, we screwed that up. Let us fix that, thanks for understanding."

 

[Guppycur]

I'm optimistic to a point; a lot of the initial "I hate a17 because" issues have been at least modified, if not changed.

 

[Soup]

I'm optimistic to a point; a lot of the initial "I hate a17 because" issues have been at least modified, if not changed.

I can't imagine I am the only person who has taken a check back once a week, see no updates, back to other game approach. In the event of the few smaller updates since A17 I am just reading the patch notes to see if the problems have been addresses, seeing they're not addressed, and again headed back to something else in the interim.

Unfortunately optimism that things would get fixed is gone on this end (1/4th a year later now) but hope that they will get fixed someday still remains.

 

[Hazeree]

So, this is the first time since Aug 2017 I have posted anything about 7D2D. I read these forums quite often though. I have reserved myself because I dont want to push my opinion without having played A17 first, which to date, I still havent.

First, that graph. I think it is quite meaningful. I think that the peeks for A16 and A17 release....mean nothing. Its simply showing the hype that an alpha release has. That says nothing about the game. What does the graph say then? That line between releases. In one the the links to steam, its shows that between Jan 2017 and Oct 2017 there was a steady average of about 7K players per day (read that right?). This is your player base. This shows how much people enjoy the game. I first started playing around Feb 2017 and stopped in Aug. About the time A17 release was first projected. During the time I played, I played non-stop. I could not get enough. Anticipation was the only reason I took a break. That excitement for A17 kinda ruined vanilla.

If that graph flattens back out to the same level, then nothing really improved. If it stayed at its peak, or kept going higher, that would be all the evidence needed to prove that A16 supporters were a minority and the game needed all the changes implemented.

Now, why havent I played A17? From the mass amount of threads talking about all of the changes, I have no desire to. Just as the OP stated, very eloquently, I share the same opinion. Everything removed, I did not ask for. What I wanted:

Better AI where attacking hatches was the same as attacking doors.

More endgame content, via more danger.

Optimization.

My endgame was to edit the xml so that gamestage 5000+ was reached by GS 1500. I wanted that final horde faster. By the time I reached 1500, i was ready for the worst the game could throw at me. Well, what it could render at least. Optimization was what I wanted most. I built horde bases that were the best mix of active and passive defenses. Having dozens of exploding cops and quickly repairing as fast as possible. The adrenile rush of watching parts of the base start to crumble, and how to react with explosive crossbow bolts. I loved late gamestage horde night. The building up to that endgame was just as fun. The tactics to efficiently get the books needed for bikes and augers, and leveling up to build better things. Mining during the week to regain the supplies needed for yet another horde night. It was a constant rush and race.

But most of what I enjoyed the most in A16 has been literally wiped out. Mining is broken. RWG is broken. Progression is broken. At least from what I liked about it. The hordes are now ridiculously overpowered and you have to rely on whole gun looting to survive. Weapons were supposed to be a late game thing. Now, all the streamers have AKs and rocket launchers on 7th day horde, and need them to fend them off. Coming up with a decent early base design (that did not use exploits) was half the fun. I pitted my numerous designs against each stage of the game. But it is obvious that that no longer exists. It would be better to choose a POI to sacrifice instead of building from scratch, and fighting off the horde is a matter of xp farming. And to find out the game has gotten worse for optimization just kills it further.

Now, I get it. I am only one person who plays this. And if the graph showed a massive incline that just kept going, then great. I could just sit on the A16 Starvation mod and call that my game. And everyone else got what they wanted, which would be A17 (and beyond). But if that graph keeps declining and stabilizes back to the same level, then they changed 7D2D without payback.

 

[Shin]

Wall of EXTREMELY good text....

I cant agree more, and thats on everything! I'm one of those who "quit" the game. But still show up in the stats of current players. Thats 'cause I keep coming back and trying even if I promised not to look back. Sadly, I'm regretting my revisit every time.

The game sucks atm imho. Thank you so much for writing this Jackelmyer, couldn't have done it myself.

 

[Cirion]

Even still, only so much information can be gleaned from one plot. I am an engineer and like to get as much data as I can to actually make conclusions, but I'd tend to agree the average players between releases is probably the most meaningful number.

We really would need to get more conclusive info...

- What versions people are playing (and how many players are playing said version)

- How many new people vs. Old players are playing 7D2D now

- Player turnover rate (kind of related to #2)

- Subjective "Fun" rating of all the players (since, just playing the game may not mean people prefer A17 to A16).

- Average playtime of each player

At the end of the day, I am sure TFP is trying to get the most money for their work (like any business would) so if the amount of unique players increased from 16 to 17, that's good news for them money wise. That said, it can be easy to fall into the trap of going for profits over a quality game. I am sure it is not an easy balance to make a good game while making enough money though.

I do think you're right though, that an average player count is probably a reasonable estimate of how well the game is doing, even if it is lacking a lot of information in it. Getting an exceptionally good peak OFTEN means your average player count is going to be good... but not always. Sometimes it just means enough hype was generated to get a lot of people to try it out.

 

[FA_Q2]

Reading these forums makes me feel like the only person that actually prefers 17 over 16. Like a LOT.

 

[DaVegaNL]

It's still by far my favorite game (not of all time, Neverwinter Nights has that honor) and it's the only one I play.

.. you don't say ^^

 

[AlyssaFaden]

Generally speaking I'm having fun, and I don't have problems with 90% of the things other people are having problems with (gated content, grinding, missing gun pieces etc). That said, I fully acknowledge and accept that some people do not like these changes and respect *why* they don't like them. And if the pimps put any of these things back to A16 type of realm, I'd equally be okay with that.

That said .. a couple of things are really grinding my gears:

- the pimps spend more time (it seems) trying to stop players from doing things, than just evolving the game. There are more bugs now than I was seeing in A14, and a lot of the SAME bugs ... but still effort is being thrown into stopping players building X or Y or Z. Enough of the "chasing the player builds and nerfing them" already and try to focus and getting the long standing bugs resolved.

- AI. The AI is terrible. I'm not even an AI snob, but in the pimps chasing the player builds to try and come up with a zombie AI that stops them, they've just driven the AI into stupidville. Like it's APPALLINGLY bad.

I would be happy with zombies just beelining for the player or hitting nearby random blocks for crazy damage ... but instead we have:

- zombies hit one block at head height, and then move on. skip a block and start the process again, creating a Swiss cheese grater effect in the wall. lots of windows with no breakthrough. Source: kage videos and my own play through

- zombies will literally go running off. 1 block of flagstone between them and the player, and they go sprinting off into the distance for some bizarre reason. Source: Glock horde night (which was a JOKE and an insult)

- zombies literally can't figure out the most direct and simple of routes. a small horde in the room beyond with nothing but a stone wall between me and them. Off their room is an open door way, into the room next to me ... with an open doorway. IN other words it's a simple u shape of NO OBSTACLES to my position. The horde chose to wail on the wall instead ... okay, I think, this could get hairy. Until they destroyed the 1 block at head height (see AI complaint #1) and then they RAN OFF and got themselves stuck behind a piece of furniture. They literally did half the work to get to me (granted, ignoring the direct clear path) ... and when one block was destroyed and the threat could get real ... they ran off.

The zombies have no concept of that block at their feet at all.

 

[Roland]

Generally speaking I'm having fun, and I don't have problems with 90% of the things other people are having problems with (gated content, grinding, missing gun pieces etc). That said, I fully acknowledge and accept that some people do not like these changes and respect *why* they don't like them. And if the pimps put any of these things back to A16 type of realm, I'd equally be okay with that.
That said .. a couple of things are really grinding my gears:

- the pimps spend more time (it seems) trying to stop players from doing things, than just evolving the game. There are more bugs now than I was seeing in A14, and a lot of the SAME bugs ... but still effort is being thrown into stopping players building X or Y or Z. Enough of the "chasing the player builds and nerfing them" already and try to focus and getting the long standing bugs resolved.

- AI. The AI is terrible. I'm not even an AI snob, but in the pimps chasing the player builds to try and come up with a zombie AI that stops them, they've just driven the AI into stupidville. Like it's APPALLINGLY bad.

I would be happy with zombies just beelining for the player or hitting nearby random blocks for crazy damage ... but instead we have:

- zombies hit one block at head height, and then move on. skip a block and start the process again, creating a Swiss cheese grater effect in the wall. lots of windows with no breakthrough. Source: kage videos and my own play through

- zombies will literally go running off. 1 block of flagstone between them and the player, and they go sprinting off into the distance for some bizarre reason. Source: Glock horde night (which was a JOKE and an insult)

- zombies literally can't figure out the most direct and simple of routes. a small horde in the room beyond with nothing but a stone wall between me and them. Off their room is an open door way, into the room next to me ... with an open doorway. IN other words it's a simple u shape of NO OBSTACLES to my position. The horde chose to wail on the wall instead ... okay, I think, this could get hairy. Until they destroyed the 1 block at head height (see AI complaint #1) and then they RAN OFF and got themselves stuck behind a piece of furniture. They literally did half the work to get to me (granted, ignoring the direct clear path) ... and when one block was destroyed and the threat could get real ... they ran off.

The zombies have no concept of that block at their feet at all.

I have seen those behaviors in my plays as well but I have also seen zombies take the shorter path and also successfully hit both top and bottom block to make an opening they can come through. Bugs and optimizing is first priority now but I know that faatal has plans for improving the AI for the zombies both in the ways in which they are too smart and in the ways they are unnaturally dumb. I can also tell you that the AI needed an overhaul of its entire system and it was not a matter of chasing player metas on building to put an end to them but it was to fix the pathing of entities so that they can traverse the voxel terrain better (which is a success) and to create something with more potential for both zombies and bandits. That aspect is still in need of work to be sure.

 

[Jackelmyer]

- the pimps spend more time (it seems) trying to stop players from doing things, than just evolving the game. There are more bugs now than I was seeing in A14, and a lot of the SAME bugs ... but still effort is being thrown into stopping players building X or Y or Z. Enough of the "chasing the player builds and nerfing them" already and try to focus and getting the long standing bugs resolved.

I honestly wanted to talk about this very point but I wanted to avoid Pimp Bashing.

But honestly, there's some pretty clear evidence and if memory serves statements that they specifically tried to kill safe underground bases. New settings are coming. But due to substantial outcry after people strongly stated their feelings against.

* Bedrock moved to +3 depth. Closer to surface.

* Iron Ore literally cannot be found below +12 to +15 depth.

* Richest Underground Deposits are 10-25 blocks below the surface.

* Zombies dig to find you a least as far as 40 blocks below the surface.

Sure, the bedrock may have moved to support the Gyrocopter... But... I really doubt it. Sky scraper height was more than sufficient.

You literally can't build a forge day 1 or 2 anymore. Not without modding the server or some very VERY severely focused game play, which is still, unlikely.

I mean. I thought 7D2D was going to be at least partially a real survival game. And not based on food. Not based on weather. I don't care about that aspect of survival. Things are hunting me day and night. Real world or game, I'm going to find the fastest and best way, especially on play through 2+, to cheat death.

If that means I build a forge day 1? GREAT! Instead of, what to me, was in the past, very strong attention to "how's this going to play out" detail was used to address specific game balance issues. Where A17, the skill design seems so very thrown in last minute and tossed over the fence with such little consideration it's not funny.

You basically have to spend points on stamina.

* Not as dramatic in A17.1 b9, but still notable.

You have to spend points on your encumbrance.

You have to waste points and time on a general Int stat (int 4) and wait till level 10 in order to get a forge.

You have to slowly progress through vehicles before you can even think about owning a Jeep. My God. This was a amazing carrot to put at the end of a few nasty POIs. And if people figured out how to get to it too quickly, frankly, learn to build your own POIs. All it takes is 1-3 layers of steel reinforced concrete around a building and pretty much everyone except speed runner types are going through the indicated front door.

There's better solutions then lazy...

And all of this is why I didn't originally mention it.

You can't actually have two opposing things.

An Open World Sandbox partially based game.

And

People playing EXACTLY how you want.

If you want them playing exactly as you want, and I mean this sincerely, use Unreal, no voxels, no destroyable world's, and build the path through the game that you want the player to go through. And that's TOTALLY FINE. There's a million of those games out there. Yours can be too.

Or. Go back to how you used to speak of 7D2D. Kinda like Minecraft but scary and threatening. That's what I heard in old videos. *shrug*. A voxel game, it's a great platform for it.

 

[n2n1]

Statistics are very dangerous if you do not know the true reasons for its change, it may happen that something completely unexpected will happen (of course, based on this graph) and you do not even understand why everything ended so abruptly.

 

[Ghostlight]

Well, it’s not MY graph. It’s the graph of Steam charts. Secondly, it doesn’t mean nothing. It most definitely means something. I shared my view of it and admitted that I could be wrong and acknowledged that I am hopeful that the game is doing well. Here is what is interesting about your points.
1) You want to give credit to A16 completely for its own swell on the chart but want to give most of A17’s swell to A16 as well. Maybe most of A16’s rise to 32k players was a bunch of people reverting back to A15.....

Except there was little talk of people reverting to A15 back when A16 dropped. I remember A16 being universally liked because it more or less only added new content, and great content at that (electricity for example). It didnt take working and appreciated game systems and gut them for inferior ones. Whereas, the sentiment of disliking the current alpha so much that you revert to a previous alpha is a new phenominon with A17. And it comes up in threads again and again and again.

I can see how your interpretations helps you keep the hope alive that TFP will somehow be forced to reverse some of their decisions.

Depends how many more copies they want to sell doesn't it? Coming to the game via Steam and knowing very little as a potential new player, and looking at the reviews, I wouldn't touch the game. In fact most new customers will not even give it a second glance. Recent Reviews: Mixed. Overall: Mostly Positive. Most new customers stop reading there. The recent reviews speak for themselves. At the end of the day I like A17. I love the game. But it is very easy to highlight where the gameplay took a step back in this alpha. FUN-WISE.

Also I would hope it wasn't a situation of TFP being "forced to" revert some changes. That sounds very much like only doing it to appease potential new players. How about seeing common sense and listening to the players who actually play the game for hours on end.

 

[Ghostlight]

I have heard that same opinion in threads all over this forum and on Steam, to say nothing of reddit or discord.

You've heard it. I've heard it. The posters above and and below me have heard it. My mum has heard it and she's deaf. Her dog has too, etc. The only people who have not, are TFP it seems. If I was them I'd be shi**ing bricks watching the game's reputation plummet like this. However the only conclusion is that they already have made enough cash on the game that it doesn't matter one jot to them if they never sell another copy. So it has become very much a personal vision thing and to hell with the players' needs. Sorry but that's how it feels to me.

 

[meganoth]

Except there was little talk of people reverting to A15 back when A16 dropped. I remember A16 being universally liked because it more or less only added new content, and great content at that (electricity for example).

I call that whitewashing history :distrust: . A16 experimental had tons of controversy because of the removal of crafting XP. People were complaining that they don't have anything to do at night. RWG was critizised a lot (there were big holes down to bedrock if I remember correctly). Electricity was liked but not its FPS impact.

But that also supports your observation that adding content does not generate much controversy (apart from bugs introduced with it), changing or removing does. If TFPs main drive were not producing the game they want but the game that made the least uproar in the forums they should only add stuff.

But honestly, there's some pretty clear evidence and if memory serves statements that they specifically tried to kill safe underground bases. New settings are coming. But due to substantial outcry after people strongly stated their feelings against.

Yes, they want to kill 100% safe underground bases. And the reasons are quite obvious. They don't want to kill underground bases. Hope you can see the subtle difference.

 

[RipClaw]

Yes, the want to kill 100% safe underground bases. And the reasons are quite obvious. They don't want to kill underground bases. Hope you can see the subtle difference.

Whether they did it with the intention of driving the people out of the underground or just didn't think about it when they made the decision to let the zombie dig again doesn't matter for the result.

I experimented with building an underground base in Alpha 17. If you use the zombies' pathfinding against them, you can build an underground base. At the moment it wouldn't recommend it because there are always changes in the pathfinding. In addition, such bases are not exactly inconspicuous. So it's not too useful for PvP.

By the way. Where are all the people who supposedly wanted to build underground fortresses when there is finally a threat to underground bases?

 

[Jackelmyer]

Yes, the want to kill 100% safe underground bases. And the reasons are quite obvious. They don't want to kill underground bases. Hope you can see the subtle difference.

Fine. But I hope you can see the similarity.

For single player and co-op, an underground base primary purposes were mining in peace and having forges hidden from screamers.

If we're forced to dig above a depth in which zombies will detect and dig for us, then they've hurt or killed both underground and 100% safe underground. And none of this matters. As far as I know digging is going to be an option in settings.

The point was TFP sought to force certain game play styles. Which, for a game with a Sandbox element, simply is going to cause a lot of player friction and dissent. Which... Clearly... It has.

I would suggest next time people throw a fit on how others play, ask to simply get a setting and a feature to get the game play you're looking for.

 

[Cirion]

I would suggest next time people throw a fit on how others play, ask to simply get a setting and a feature to get the game play you're looking for.

^^ This. Was underground building somewhat OP before? Kinda, but it took a lot of effort to make a proper underground horde base. Vanilla version of the game should be kind of challenging, so should digging have been introduced for vanilla? Probably. But should there be a setting to disable this? Absolutely.

The fact is that some playstyles have been removed. Yeah you can still build underground bases, but the manner in which you can do so has now become 10x the work. This is like a politician's answer to something - politicians are excellent at telling "half truths", "technically true", etc. In reality, most people no longer build underground, and those that do, it's simply not as effective as before. This isn't eliminating a playstyle outright, but it may as well be. It's like a government adding a 100%+ tax on an item, also known as a "soft ban". It isn't strictly illegal, but may as well be, due to the prohibitive costs... like when my city tried to introduce something like a 300-400% tax on cigarettes. Ridiculous.