PC first impressions of B173

[meganoth]

I'm only at the end of Day 10 on my first a19exp game, only switched to a19 on b173.

I might have read a hint about this perk, and that may have tipped things towards trying it, beacuse I'd never taken it before, but as a19s food stands right now the one 'must have' perk imo is Animal Tracker.

I've had success hunting bunnys doing this; drink a red tea or something with increased stamina regen, normal run to be nearish, but outside their spooked zone, stealth and get closer until they spook, then sprint in for the kill. I'm undecided on which is better, wood club or knives. Clubs have more reach and aoe minor damage, but knives use less stamina so it seems like the larger number of swings you get, or that you can sprint longer using knives might make it better for rabbits. But no question the bright green icon from Animal Tracker makes a huge difference keeping track of them in the grass. Also a solid tactic is when you can herd bunnys/chickens towards a wall.

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These are my overall impressions so far of a19. Bear in mind I've been playing 7dtd for 4+ years and I'm genuinely glad so many folks are having so much fun with it. I've also played Empyrion since Alpha 6, and I have no issues with it's farming/food system. Could be that it's more involved, or could be that rng doesn't decide your progress nearly as much, not sure.

Basic impression (and I'm cringing writing this) is that a19 is fairly boring. I started a new a18.4 game just a few weeks ago, so that experiance is fresh in mind, and I didn't feel this way about those first days.

To be fair one thing about this a19 game that is different is that the trader/city the starter quest sent me to has almost all the city in the snow. So after looting the 2 houses, the School, a military post and the small church that are outside the snow, I've had to travel quite a bit to find scattered pois.

I'm also electing to ignore all quests, same as the a18.4 game.

Think the major thing is the stamina/food bit. I like to build in 7dtd. I always mine quite a bit and start a mine night 1. But I was barely making it food/drink wise the first couple days, without any mining and walking everywhere (which just sucks). The animal tracker perk helped a lot, also bought master chef, and I looted a cooking pot day 2 so was able to make 3 bacon&eggs and some teas the second night. Day 3 I cleared the school, but got infected by a wolf. Spent all of day 4 & half of day 5 looking for honey/anitbiotics.

Day 10 I started relocating to another city that's entirely in the green forest. Spent all afternoon & evening clearing some of the rubble blocks away so the zeds can't get up to the 2nd floor (partially collapsed building). Each 200hp block takes 8 swings of a lvl5 stone axe with a gravedigger mod (haven't looted any melee mods so far, bought the gd at traders). I'd normally have broken out the first 6 blocks of the double wide concrete stairs, but no way in hell will I do that when each of the 6 would take -100- hits! So I blocked them off with a few cobb blocks.

Btw, I have bought lvl1 Miner69er and lvl1 Sexrex. So using food/teas yes, can swing basically non-stop, while stamina regen buff is active, but doing a measly 25 hp damage per swing is just not fun.

Food wise rng (or not rng, just the settings) hasn't been kind. I've looted schematics for Pumpkin and Yucca seeds, twice for both. Found 1 Aloe, 1 Corn and 1 Cotton seed. Nothing seed related for sale. Bought Living off the Land lvl1 to at least get double if I can ever find any potato/corn fields.

Been searching every nest I see, and I spent almost the whole of day 4 searching for honey and looting nests. Even bought eggs from trader when he had them. Used all my eggs and started out day 10 with 8 B&E. Used 2 B&Es and some grilled meat, plus several red teas, clearing rubble.

Not saying there isn't enough food, just not enough if you want to mine.

And while I have shovelled all the cobble/cement I've seen, if the trader hadn't had 700 cobb for sale I wouldn't have been able to reinforce all the openings in the ground floor of the poi I took for my inital base. And it came with concrete walls.

Having almost all the intial city in the snow didn't help. Sure I could have gone in while the inital temp protection was active, but with lumberjacks, daytime cougars & wolfs (I think?) that sure didn't sound like a good plan.

Oh, and to prepare for horde night I chopped off the wooden blocks of the front and back porch (so I could put in bars to shoot through), only the row connected to the concrete walls, then collapsed them. Did that with a lvl2 stone axe so what, ~14 hits per block? Mind numbingly boring.

I just don't get the combo of the food and stamina and by clear design the mining, along with stretching the primitive stage out, and now talking about having auger cost nearly as much stamina as steel tools.

Not intending to be hyperbolic but it really does seem like they're intentionally killing off any serious building, and I just don't see why.

They killed serious building in the early game. In other words in that part of the game where the zombies can't even get to you in the upper floor of a half-collapsed wood building and the horde night is finished at 12. Once you have established a food and coffee supply you can use iron or steel tools good enough to get a decent amount of materials or you can put some perk points into mining/sexrex and be half as good as a dedicated miner. While a dedicated miner can get enough material to build palaces like it always was. 

The thing is, if you mine every night as a dedicated miner (all necessary perks at 5) you always could get material in amounts that allowed you building far in excess of anything needed to build a horde-night capable base. If you want to build palaces or are the miner of your co-op group you might need that. But if you are a SP player who just wants to repel the horde what sense does it make for you to have your chest overflowing with material?

So essentially even a miner is @%$*#!ty now at mining in the early game. Like a stealth player is @%$*#!ty at stealth in the early game and a sniper is VERY @%$*#!ty at sniping in the early game. That is a normal progression in a game, you are just not used to it as you were playing alphas before where you could find or buy and use the good stuff at day 5 at the latest.

 

[FileMachete]

@meganoth just so I don't have to put it everywhere (for other readers, I know you already know), all the following is my opinion.

I've figured out a couple bits that were the peas under the mattress. One being that I always assumed that the changes towards newer players and that first 30-50 hours of gameplay would see a new player into mid-ish game. I never thought that it would mostly be comprised of the early game.

Second, while there was/are a number of things where players could jump ahead, like looting a Q5 Rifle day 1, I never considered mining up a few thousand stone via nighttime mining during the first week to be that, or overpowered in any way.

If a player chose to go mining, and spent a few points into the mining perks, they were trading away being more effective in other areas. No question the previous looting system helped out by it being possible to have much better weapons than now. at similar stages.

Which means going the mining route in a19 early on also results in being even 'gimpier' than before, leading an experianced player to avoid tougher pois; which is another 'cost'. Add in the food/drink drain. Master Chef, Living of the Land, really need a couple points into each now. 2 in MC as Meat Stew was moved to lvl2, and it not only has twice the stamina buff as Bacon & Eggs, but isn't dependent on RNG for Eggs to make. 2 in LotL for the ability to craft vegetable seeds. Without the food burn of early, no or low-spec mining, I think a single point into MC for the Teas and B&E would be enough to get by until you looted/bought the other recipes.

Basically just agreeing with you, but felt it worth pointing out a couple of the 2nd and 3rd removed effects/impacts of the combined changes in a19 to early mining.

**Here's my two big points/questions/concerns:

*What is gained by these changes?

As has been pointed out, players readily take over POIs and easily survive early hordes, doing very little to fortify the poi.

>> Other than in PvP, what is the harm in players building their own early bases?

I would think that it would be encouraged as building is a significant part of 7dtd.

My thoughts go; to some new players Building will be the hook that draws them in. For others it could be Mining. Both of which 7dtd can be proud of and both offer unique or hard to find aspects. Setting things so that it's argueably the most expensive activity could see them spitting the hook out.

*Doesn't this further expose the imbalance of the Strength tree, and shine a brighter light on the restrictive nature of the trees?

I haven't looked at the numbers for the Perks themselves to compare a18 to a19 for Sexrex, Miner69er and Motherlode, but it feels at least a full level weaker in a19. In a18 1 point in Sexrex and 2 points each in Miner69er and Motherlode was "kinda okay" with an Iron pick. In a19, with 3 points into each (which meant another 2 points into Strength) it didn't feel as strong as a18s, but it cost several more points.

I now have Sexrex to lvl3 and Miner69er/Motherlode to lvl4. Mining with a q4 Iron pick (the lvl5 I crafted was worse than the lvl4, even with an additional mod installed) with mods now feels similar to what putting 1, 2 & 2 did in a18. I think that's 8 points difference, not sure do to changes.

Point being that in a19 miners will need to go further, or all the way as you said, in these three perks. Meaning even deeper into Strength, so almost certainly more folks noticing that point cost if they prefer to go with a different ranged or melee weapon.

--though maybe that will turn out to be the silver lining; decoupling weapons from the trees, who knows.

Last bit.

But if you are a SP player who just wants to repel the horde what sense does it make for you to have your chest overflowing with material?

Not sure of the context of this, so this might not be a valid reply.

I'd usually mine the early nights away. Playing 90min days as that suits me, so nights can be boring with nothing to do early game. Mining checked the 'being busy' and 'productive' boxes. While some of the raw materials might not get used immediately, I seldom had "excess" mats until maybe ~3 weeks in (I only run a single forge until later on). So once I could basically keep the forge running non-stop for a couple days, I'd build out the basement, basically wasting materials by puttering about during the night keeping myself entertained. Then mine every other or every third night. I never wound up with true excess stone until I had an Auger and my final horde base was built.

>> the writing side of me brain is exhausted gonna drink some kumbocha and try to get a couple levels to start un-gimping my character. 39hp damage from the q1 AK ain't gonna cut it anymore.

Hope you have a great day

 

[meganoth]

On taking over POI for the first horde nights instead of building it: This was always the easiest way to survive the first hordes, in any alpha. First time players (unless they got their ideas from youtube) should naturally gravitate to use a poi anyway. When I played my first game I would not have been able to build a horde base from scratch, I would not have known how. If that is needed for a player to continue he is already lost for 7D2D (or needs friends to introduce him to the game).

Experienced players on the other hand know how to effectively get resources and are usually able to build a base for the first horde night from scratch, in any alpha.

There is no direct harm if a novice player could swim in resources. But if even a novice can get materials in heaps in early game, an experienced player doesn't even need to invest into miner perks to do the same. It devalues the investment in miner perks if nobody really needs them.

 

[FileMachete]

On taking over POI for the first horde nights instead of building it: This was always the easiest way to survive the first hordes, in any alpha. First time players (unless they got their ideas from youtube) should naturally gravitate to use a poi anyway. When I played my first game I would not have been able to build a horde base from scratch, I would not have known how. If that is needed for a player to continue he is already lost for 7D2D (or needs friends to introduce him to the game).

Experienced players on the other hand know how to effectively get resources and are usually able to build a base for the first horde night from scratch, in any alpha.

Pretty much agree with all of this. And my first base was a wooden shack with a door, and a couple windows to fire through, heh.

And this helped clarify what I was thinking, regarding brand new players and building. I was stubborn and kept viewing building my own base for that first horde night as a challenge. So I kept learning and experimenting. Had a couple successes but they didn't allow me to melee, so tried various columns, 1/4s, etc. Finally found a pole based setup that allowed melee, could be upgraded along the way, so good until maybe the fourth or fifth horde night (this was back when you could kite the zeds away from heavily damaged sections, so more total wall length was a good thing).

Anyway, I don't think I would have tried all that if mining back then was as it is now. And for me, the building is the main thing that draws me to play 7dtd.

There is no direct harm if a novice player could swim in resources. But if even a novice can get materials in heaps in early game, an experienced player doesn't even need to invest into miner perks to do the same. It devalues the investment in miner perks if nobody really needs them.

Agree zero-spec mining should be a real pain, and have low returns. And maybe the current point cost wouldn't bug me as much if there was a distinct 'Mining' tree.

(btw, I envision a setup where there are still 'main' trees, with a couple sub-specialitys under them, but also new 'special' trees, Mining, Crafting, Farming/Cooking, what have you, these would be gated similar to now, by the highest level you've reached in a 'main' tree. So instead of needing to be lvl 5 in Strength to buy lvl x of Miner69er, you could be lvl 5 in Perc, or Fort and be able to buy it)

Side thought; if the first (& second lvl?) Miner69er & Motherlode just improved mining Stone/Clay/Sand but not the Ores, then maybe that would open up a bit of room to increase early stone axe mining damage against the basic materials, without making gunpowder/gas too plentiful?

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Anyway I appreciate your patience meganoth. Things are as they are, and I'm certainly capable of adjusting things to my wishes. But as of b173 this is looking like the first alpha where I won't have multiple short experimental games and a few vanilla stable playthroughs.

 

[meganoth]

Pretty much agree with all of this. And my first base was a wooden shack with a door, and a couple windows to fire through, heh.

And this helped clarify what I was thinking, regarding brand new players and building. I was stubborn and kept viewing building my own base for that first horde night as a challenge. So I kept learning and experimenting. Had a couple successes but they didn't allow me to melee, so tried various columns, 1/4s, etc. Finally found a pole based setup that allowed melee, could be upgraded along the way, so good until maybe the fourth or fifth horde night (this was back when you could kite the zeds away from heavily damaged sections, so more total wall length was a good thing).

Anyway, I don't think I would have tried all that if mining back then was as it is now. And for me, the building is the main thing that draws me to play 7dtd.

Agree zero-spec mining should be a real pain, and have low returns. And maybe the current point cost wouldn't bug me as much if there was a distinct 'Mining' tree.

(btw, I envision a setup where there are still 'main' trees, with a couple sub-specialitys under them, but also new 'special' trees, Mining, Crafting, Farming/Cooking, what have you, these would be gated similar to now, by the highest level you've reached in a 'main' tree. So instead of needing to be lvl 5 in Strength to buy lvl x of Miner69er, you could be lvl 5 in Perc, or Fort and be able to buy it)

Side thought; if the first (& second lvl?) Miner69er & Motherlode just improved mining Stone/Clay/Sand but not the Ores, then maybe that would open up a bit of room to increase early stone axe mining damage against the basic materials, without making gunpowder/gas too plentiful?

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Anyway I appreciate your patience meganoth. Things are as they are, and I'm certainly capable of adjusting things to my wishes. But as of b173 this is looking like the first alpha where I won't have multiple short experimental games and a few vanilla stable playthroughs.

We are just discussing the game and maybe we discover some way to improve the game or maybe we find out it works well after all. My current opinion is it works out but I'm influenced by my own subjective view on the game.

Your primary concern seems to be that builders are too strongly forced into STR and a lot of perk points in the triumvirate Sexrex/miner69/motherlode.

Now if you are serious about building big then sinking lots of points into strength makes sense, but you never need to be higher than STR 6 plus cigar to max out all miner skills. The saved 7 points already get you to 7 (with the right glasses) in another attribute  which makes it possible to have your favoured weapon combo at perk level 4. 

So max miner plus a weapon combo from a different attribute at 4 costs the same as max miner plus shotgun/club combo at perl level 5. And yes, I think this is a fair trade for ignoring class restrictions.

 

[FileMachete]

We are just discussing the game and maybe we discover some way to improve the game or maybe we find out it works well after all. My current opinion is it works out but I'm influenced by my own subjective view on the game.

Totally fair. And I'll definately own that this area gets my dander up. If any of what I've written has seemed at all presonal then I do apologize.

Your primary concern seems to be that builders are too strongly forced into STR and a lot of perk points in the triumvirate Sexrex/miner69/motherlode.

Yes and no. It's not that Mining shouldn't require "strength" it's how 7dtds Trees work. "Strength" isn't a stand alone attribute. It also point gates a variety of perks.

It's the additional point gate, or "Tree Tax" cost/s that come across as insult to injury when a player is so bold as to choose a weapon outside the strength tree that pushes my buttons.

Now if you are serious about building big then sinking lots of points into strength makes sense,

I wouldn't disagree with this if strength was just an attribute.

I disagree with this due to how 7dtds Trees work. Every point into the main Str Tree is an additional point cost I'll have to overcome if I choose to use weapon/s from other trees.

And yep, I'm not considering the "Strength Tree" from an "attribute" perspective. If the only perks under the Tree were the ones that really did take strength then, okay. And yes, the str tree is the best as to how it's perks should require strength. Only the cooking and Shotgun bits fail. As a whole the "Trees" have kludges. Rule#1 Cardio should be in Agility. Stealth bits under Perception. Brawler under Str. Let's not go down this rabbit hole though. I'll conceed they did a decent job fitting things into the trees.

My disagreement is with the idea of Trees with Perks underneath and directly gated by them.

Simply because the design inhibits freedom to choose.

Which, to me, is what you lay out here;

but you never need to be higher than STR 6 plus cigar to max out all miner skills. The saved 7 points already get you to 7 (with the right glasses) in another attribute  which makes it possible to have your favoured weapon combo at perk level 4.

Yes, they decreased the costs of mining perks. (I think that says they recognized mining was too expensive)

But I don't view that as a "savings".

It still costs 7 points in Strength.

On top of 14 points for Sexrex/Miner/Mother.

And I think it's fair to put at least a couple of the points spent in MasterChef/LivingOffTheLand into the "Mining" column. Best case is you're very rng lucky and get a couple recipe schematics, plus at least the Corn & Potato Seeds schematics. Otherwise you're spending 6 points to literally feed your mining habit, heh. But to be fair we could set those aside as a 'stubborn' tax; unwilling to wait for rng and instead buying them.

So max miner plus a weapon combo from a different attribute at 4 costs the same as max miner plus shotgun/club combo at perl level 5. And yes, I think this is a fair trade for ignoring class restrictions.

Okay. We can agree to disagree. and (not meant as a jab) I do appreciate you using the "restrictions" word.

I know there's little in what I've posted about this and a couple other topics that indicate that I do understand, at least to some degree, the constraints TFPs are under. Yet I have worked in/for small companies. I know that the "bottom line" is often much more restrictive than the owners would wish it were. And of course I can't see behind the curtains, nor likely share all the same opinions.

But I would like it, "on the record" so to speak, that a lot of why things like the early game mining nerf and the character trees lead me to post is that I see them as being bad for the game.

Personally I can easily compensate for either via console or a quick modlet. And it's not simply carebearing the new player experiance, though I can see that intreptation. I'm simply for setting the hook firmly before they even know they're hooked, -then- you start reeling them into the boat where the really bad things happen.

I wasn't actually kidding about having Vultures with contact grenades around their necks. There's some sick @%$*#! out there who's rigging the Demolishers, why not birds too? But I wouldn't support those being in the wandering vulture horde I got around day 10.

Hope you're not in the path of the storm, and if you are/were that alls well with you & yours.