PC From a passionate fan, I'm disappointed

[Niev]

Hi all, I've played 7DTD for 4 years and found it to be one of the most varied, creative and fun games ever made, a very good mix of good ideas all packed into one beautiful game, still extremely unfinished but the seed of something incredible to come.

Alpha after alpha I've come to realize that what I had found amazing about the game seemingly wasn't in the developer's mind at all, and that they were instead focusing on aspects that probably a lot of us agree were very far from what we expected.

Simply put, the developers think this game can even remotely compete with other survival open world (or not) games on the market, and they are focusing more on making the game similar to other games with 10 times the manpower and staff than to stick to their guns and make the original idea the gem it SHOULD be, but unfortunately isn't.. I don't want to sound harsh, because even though I don't know them personally I know them and their spirit through the game, and I know how passionate and genuine they are, so they have and will always have my deep respect. returning to the topic try stripping away the crafting and building from this game and ask yourself if you would play and how fun it would be and you will realize what the real strengths of this game are.

But the bigger problem is that all this time spent ignoring the basic stuff won't return, and we are approaching a game that is 5 years in alpha, which is not a very good look honestly. This game still has very basic issues like:

- completely bugged and inconsistent simulation of water, with no use for it and bad implementation into the game (no boats, no real swimming, zombies ignore water etc.)

- poor performance overall, game is still very buggy and prone to crashing and low performance on many systems, infinite loading, slow map creation (destroyed by Nitrogen) techincal level is the weakest aspect of this game

- very boring worlds and rudimentary map creation, nowhere near the direct contender which is minecraft, no attempt made to create more interesting worlds to wander, no caves, boring cities with no real variation

- no endgame or story to propel you forward, an ultimate very hard objective to strive for, or the end of a mistery about the origins of the plague, something to give context to the game and give it just that little more meaning

- wonky combat, mediocre animations, mediocre sound design (even though full of character), limited movement

- not very good stealth (I've given up on this one no game seems to get it anymore)

- vehicles are very good in some aspects and completely ridicolous in others. Immersive vehicles must be permanent, difficult to move commodities that are to be taken care of, not the current system where you can pocket them because they keep disappearing..

- very placeholder and boring enemies, that after 5 years haven't changed except the addition of left 4 dead zombies..

I think I could go on for a while about the fundamental issues still present, but I think I've made my point, which simply is that 7DTD's developers need to take a hard look in the mirror and realize that now, after all this time, it's very likely that they have the wrong priorities..they never addressed any fundamental problem and instead capped stuff behind 60 levels of grind, made "quests" for grinding said levels, removed skills and features (wellness, LBD etc.), added 3 guns, very elaborate and unbelievable POIs, made zombies intelligent and capable of pathfinding actually better than real human players (as they know the stats of blocks), I mean am I crazy here or is it all very tangential and sometimes destructive stuff for this game? all the "real" problems that make this game an unfinished alpha still sit there, while a lot of pet projects are brought into the game which is nice, but a waste of time. I am still waiting to make my dream game with this game, with all the features blatantly missing from it, and that's why I'm disappointed

As for the good stuff, this game has plenty too much to list, and is what made me get to 450 hours played, and proud of them, but I have to say the obvious reality got to me lately and I don't want to play a lot anymore.. just to finish, I thought of writing this post for almost 4 months now, it's something that I really feel deeply as I really appreciate your game and I am simply disappointed in its developement. The game is still a brilliant idea put into practice with incredible professionalism and personality in some aspects, but very lazy and superficial in others.. had to get this off my chest, thanks for the read and good hunting

 

[Roland]

Hey Niev, welcome to the forum.

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Without going point by point I just want to say that the developers are very actively working on the game. Their priorities may not match yours but they do plan to fix water and improve all areas of the game. Obviously design choices that they decide to stick to that you personally don't like are going to be disappointments for you so there isn't much to say about that.

We actually just completed 6 years in Steam Early Access last week so it has been a long haul and while 6 years may not look good to some I think the fact that they are still excited about the project and pushing forward their ideas and experimenting and working on new systems and features is the more important detail. Some people don't like that and just want them to finish the game and be done with their tinkering but there are a lot of us who really aren't looking forward to the end of this journey and still enjoy the changes and the whole process of development.

If you have development fatigue there is nothing wrong with shelving the game for a year and coming back to it. I talk to people all the time who haven't played in 2 years or more and they are loving the return. I think the developers have some special plans for making this game moddable even beyond the current capabilities so hopefully you'll be able to get your vision out the game by time it is done.

 

[SylenThunder]

- completely bugged and inconsistent simulation of water, with no use for it and bad implementation into the game (no boats, no real swimming, zombies ignore water etc.)

The issue with water is performance. Several Alphas ago they attempted changing/upgrading the fluid dynamics of water. The end result was completely tanking the system of anyone that didn't have elite-level CPU and RAM hardware.

It's been noted several times that water will be worked on again after other core systems are finished.

- poor performance overall, game is still very buggy and prone to crashing and low performance on many systems, infinite loading, slow map creation (destroyed by Nitrogen) techincal level is the weakest aspect of this game

RWG is still a major work in progress. This isn't an easy task. Literally no other game is doing what 7 Days is regarding maps, so it's completely new territory for everyone. It's better than it was though, and they are still constantly striving to improve it.

- very boring worlds and rudimentary map creation, nowhere near the direct contender which is minecraft, no attempt made to create more interesting worlds to wander, no caves, boring cities with no real variation

This is really just an extension of the above comment. Look through this history of RWG from a8 until now, and you can see they are constantly trying to improve it. You just aren't aware of some of the aspects and impacts to performance behind the changes.

- no endgame or story to propel you forward, an ultimate very hard objective to strive for, or the end of a mistery about the origins of the plague, something to give context to the game and give it just that little more meaning

Story comes after the core content is finished. You're playing a game in early development. The story comes later.

One is planned, has been discussed quite a bit, and is very likely in progress right now.

- wonky combat, mediocre animations, mediocre sound design (even though full of character), limited movement

Again, still a work in progress. These last couple of updates have had some major changes and improvements in it.

- not very good stealth (I've given up on this one no game seems to get it anymore)

Most games treat stealth completely incorrectly. As a result most gamers have no clue what it really means. The common thought on stealth mechanics is invisibility, which is incorrect for most games developed.

In 7 Days it's not "stealth", it's actually sneaking. There are some core features it requires to fully function properly that are still being developed.

- vehicles are very good in some aspects and completely ridicolous in others. Immersive vehicles must be permanent, difficult to move commodities that are to be taken care of, not the current system where you can pocket them because they keep disappearing.

Mechanics. That's all it is. Different game mechanics. I'm sure you didn't blink an eye at carrying enough cement to build a grocery store in your pocket.

- very placeholder and boring enemies, that after 5 years haven't changed except the addition of left 4 dead zombies.

I can only assume that you haven't really played a17 or a18 at this point. HUGE changes is zed AI compared to previous versions, and something that is still a work in progress.

But the bigger problem is that all this time spent ignoring the basic stuff won't return, and we are approaching a game that is 5 years in alpha, which is not a very good look honestly.

The actual issue is people not understanding how development works, and how EA has changed that.

If TFP were to follow traditional methods, you wouldn't even be hearing about the games existence until next year. You'd see it advertised as up-and-coming in the spring. Probably a closed Beta in the Fall, Open Beta near 2021, and then release in the spring of 2021.

Of course, that's assuming that TFP has the near-unlimited funding of a AAA company.

Most games made from scratch take 5-7 years to develop, with many taking even longer. And that's a standard coming from studios with huge budgets and several hundred developers on staff.

The Fun Pimps are in line to follow the same cycle. Except they're a small indie company that got off the ground with a Kickstarter fund. They're developing a game that is more complex and organic than anything that currently exists on the market.

The only issue, is the failure to understand how things really work, and the failure to understand what's ultimately actually happening.

It's not lazy and superficial. It's extremely complex, and a real performance hog. No other game will tax your hardware as much as this one does. Hell even most benchmark software won't push your CPU, RAM or HDD as much as this client will.

 

[DeadGerry]

Hi Niev - have sympathy for your feelings; but sometimes there isn't a 'right and wrong' when it comes to personal preference.

I've been playing since (I think) alpha 8, and although I haven't agreed with every choice the devs have made and have REALLY disliked some aspects I think every aspect of the game has improved since those days - with a few exceptions which come down to taste or mechanics;

I do think the world full of Zombies feel has gotten away from where I enjoyed it best - probably alpha 12-16 had this really well; a real sense of danger even in daylight, listening for the soft sounds of distant feet and hiding in attics while hordes stumbled by wondering if I'd have to make a break for it or if they'd wander past. But the devs have a plan they are exploring for an encounters system which they reckon will restore that feeling, so for now it's a little disappointing, but I'm enjoying testing out the other new features while we wait for that to be implemented.

I never really liked the sleepers; and feel they aren't 'right' yet, but appreciate what they are trying to do; when they were first incorporated they felt potentially brilliant, but the mechanics were flawed and we got infinite spawns. We then got rid of that, but ended out with visible spawns all over. We're now at the point we get far less visible spawns, unless you rush through quickly - the jump scares were good initially, but that's worn off a bit now and it feels a little grindy; but it's definitely better than empty POI's.

The water has had it's ups and downs - when I started all it was good for was finding clay and filling bottles; it became a bit OP for base building when it slowed zeds or stopped them being able to reach / attack; and rivers looked terrible in later alpha's - we got worlds with too much water, worlds with no water and insane roads across giant lakes to nowhere - currently it seems they have dialled it waaaaay down until / unless they can integrate it well; but ultimately it is a problem and it is being worked on.

The lack of optimization has been a consistent gripe - but it's not something which has (imo) led to MANY people being unable to play - I got Ark around the same time as I got 7DtD and in comparison this has been a LOT better - my PC isn't great; and maybe once per alpha since 14 I've had to not play for a couple of weeks until they patched problems, the UMA texture zombies were a real problem for me - but it's always been fixed to the point I can play on at least moderate settings, and with the addition of 8RAM (so now I have 16) and a 4GB graphics card (preiously a 1GB) over four of five years play I can now play the current iteration on High quite happily - so I'm not sure I'd consider this a consistent problem - it's an issue with each alpha drop, but I reckon it's usually been fixed or at least made good by .2 or .4 each time - and don't think the graphics settings have ever led to a notable exclusion of players to anywhere near the levels that Ark experienced before release. I found this consistently playable with an i5 cpu, 8GB ram, a 1GB graphics card; and playable at high settings with i5, 16GB and a 4GB card - which is hardly cutting edge stuff.

In terms of crashing I've found &days to be SLIGHTLY more crash prone than other games I play, but not significantly worse than, for example, football manager, total war, crusader kings 2 and Fallout.

The map creation has been a bit of a see-saw - but between alpha 8 and now it's been a lot better, but also a LOT worse than it is now. I'd say for rivers and roads the earlier alphas were better, for towns alpha 16 prior to the .4 upgrade was my favourite, but we had biome bleed, giant cliffs, no cliffs, no water, too much water, too much burned / wasteland etc... but I don't remember any time among that that the community cried as one 'THIS!'. We've missed what we had before when the new thing hasn't been good - but it's never been 'right' and continues to be worked on - and in the meantime the Pregens made a really nice gesture to those who couldn't use the RWG and were bored of Navesgane. Implementing a story mode to a Randomly generated voxel world is an insane notion - and it could be that we'll end out with a pregenerated one for story with RWG just for sandbox play - but yes, it's a problem, but it is being worked on and I don't think they could have 'stopped' at any point before now and had the community feel satisfied either.

Ultimately; the community will probably never be 'satisfied' - there will always be people who fondly remember when particular bits of the game were exactly what they wanted; and every time we get something new half of us will go 'wow!' and half of us will go 'ooh! I don't like it!' - and new things will break, old things will break and get tidied up, replaced or re-invented as the game progressed; but what is guiding the Devs is their own initial vision, combined with their own experience of the journey so far, combined with the feedback of the players - all of which has to be tempered by the realities of the tools available to them and the technology available to players.

In summary - everything you're saying is right - but it's also all being worked on - except for matters of personal preference and taste; but hope you'll find the next iteration more pleasing, and if not you can always roll it back.

 

[Jeraal]

My thoughts on the development. It used to FEEL like a very unique game that was not like anything else out there. Now, it FEELS like a game that is trying to be just like every game out there with a slight twist. My hours spent in vanilla 17 and 18 combined come nowhere close to what I spent in vanilla 16, maybe even 15. If I was given a choice of being able to buy version 16 or one of the versions after, I would choose 16 to spend money on(yes I am aware I can still play previous Alphas, I do on occasion).

 

[ShadesOfKnight]

While I don't agree with all of the OP's points, I do think I agree with the spirit of his complaint.

This game is very ambitious and I have no doubt that its development is challenging.

That said, I think that perhaps the devs should consider finding a roadmap and sticking to it, finishing it completely before trying something new and different. Would it please everyone? Of course not.

Looking at the different Alphas I can't help but wonder if perhaps they should have called it "complete" at some point, focused on fixing genuine bugs, and then gone on to make the next alpha as a genuine "new version" instead of an extension of the alpha methodology. I only say this because sometimes, for instance comparing the XBOX alpha to the current PC alpha, you have two very different games - not sequels, not reboots, but actually different. Related, but in a cousins sort of way.

Just my 02, inflation adjusted for 2019.

 

[Shin]

For what it's worth OP. I totally agree with all you say!

 

[Morloc]

RWG is still a major work in progress. This isn't an easy task. Literally no other game is doing what 7 Days is regarding maps, so it's completely new territory for everyone. It's better than it was though, and they are still constantly striving to improve it.

Without question there have been some improvements with the RWG, but one thing which has made me scratch my head is that there were elements of A16's RNG which are still superior to the current one. I'll admit that I may have a false memory of how good it was, but I seem to recall (for example) that POIs tended to sit flush with the surrounding terrain in a way that we haven't seen since. Couldn't we reincorporate those algorithms, or is this like one of those things I see on "Ancient Aliens" such as Greek Fire?

-Morloc

 

[DeadGerry]

While I don't agree with all of the OP's points, I do think I agree with the spirit of his complaint.
This game is very ambitious and I have no doubt that its development is challenging.

That said, I think that perhaps the devs should consider finding a roadmap and sticking to it, finishing it completely before trying something new and different. Would it please everyone? Of course not.

Looking at the different Alphas I can't help but wonder if perhaps they should have called it "complete" at some point, focused on fixing genuine bugs, and then gone on to make the next alpha as a genuine "new version" instead of an extension of the alpha methodology. I only say this because sometimes, for instance comparing the XBOX alpha to the current PC alpha, you have two very different games - not sequels, not reboots, but actually different. Related, but in a cousins sort of way.

Just my 02, inflation adjusted for 2019.

There is a roadmap - the starter goals are easily found.

Had they called it 'complete' before now they would have failed to approach their starter goals.

Personally I think they should release alpha 16 as a standalone sandbox multiplayer experience, but keep working on it for a 7DtD release which meets their goals.

Alpha 16 was magnificent, but didn't meet the initial goals - but deserves recognition as a ridiculously flawed but gloriously fun, and unique sandbox experience.

 

[Survager]

Mechanics. That's all it is. Different game mechanics. I'm sure you didn't blink an eye at carrying enough cement to build a grocery store in your pocket.

Hi @SylenThunder!

I have a cool idea on this. At least I think my idea is cool

Joel once wrote that it would be nice if, in the presence of transport in the backpack, the character could experience maximum overload. If this is realized, it can also be applied to other subjects.

My idea:

It is necessary that any heavy building blocks give the character a complete overload. Put a block of concrete in a backpack, get a complete overload, and so on.

This overload should not work in the scope of the claim block and the sleeping bag.

In the task execution zone, if the task has not been completed yet, the effect of the “zone without overload” should not work either.

Also, such an area, let's call it the "area without overload", can be added for each transport. And for an early game, you can add a simple hand wheelbarrow, which can be created simply from wood.

This simple hand wheelbarrow will also have an “area without overload”, and it can be pushed in front of you, taken to mines, and so on, to drag any building materials to the construction site or to transport for subsequent transportation.

What do you think about such an implementation of realism in the game?

 

[Feycat]

RWG is still a major work in progress. This isn't an easy task. Literally no other game is doing what 7 Days is regarding maps, so it's completely new territory for everyone.

Could you elaborate on this? I'm trying to figure out what it is that 7d2d is doing with terrain generation that is unique and I can't figure it out. Many games use random terrain gen with structures, I play several other voxel games, etc. I'm legit curious what you mean by that

 

[SylenThunder]

Could you elaborate on this? I'm trying to figure out what it is that 7d2d is doing with terrain generation that is unique and I can't figure it out. Many games use random terrain gen with structures, I play several other voxel games, etc. I'm legit curious what you mean by that

Most other voxel games are using a much simpler mesh mapping for the terrain, and don't have a full voxel terrain with SI. I cannot think of a single other game using terrain mechanics as complex as 7 Days is right now. Empyrion is the closest of the true Voxel games, and they're using the mesh terrain.

 

[Niil945]

Could you elaborate on this? I'm trying to figure out what it is that 7d2d is doing with terrain generation that is unique and I can't figure it out. Many games use random terrain gen with structures, I play several other voxel games, etc. I'm legit curious what you mean by that

After tinkering a bit with Nitrogen this really boggles my mind. The maps from there are really nice, seemingly include POI's that don't show up in RWG (or I've just been very unlucky) the world blends together smoother in the sense that the terrain blending seems natural and isn't so...distinct I guess, and it does it in like 1/5 or less the time for me.

 

[OzHawkeye]

After tinkering a bit with Nitrogen this really boggles my mind. The maps from there are really nice, seemingly include POI's that don't show up in RWG (or I've just been very unlucky) the world blends together smoother in the sense that the terrain blending seems natural and isn't so...distinct I guess, and it does it in like 1/5 or less the time for me.

Nitrogen includes a pack of community made POI's last time I checked.

That it generates maps so much quicker is, yeah, well, hard to not notice.

 

[Niil945]

Nitrogen includes a pack of community made POI's last time I checked.
That it generates maps so much quicker is, yeah, well, hard to not notice.

So I've noticed there's an additional option for something called Compopack as well as a third option but I'm just referring to maps with the default setting of vanilla poi's. Specifically the locations I'm seeing that I have not seen on probably about a dozen RWG maps are Crack A Book Headquarters and several distinct skyscrapers that look like apartments or something. I haven't been in them yet but it's not the standard tier 5 quest Apartment Building. I mean, it's possible that I've just had really, really bad luck with RWG or maybe I'm misunderstanding what they mean by vanilla. Maybe it's a collection of all POI's that have been out over the course of the game and they've put ones in that have been taken out for performance or other reasons.

 

[ShadesOfKnight]

There is a roadmap - the starter goals are easily found.

True, there is an easily found roadmap. But it's false to say they're really following it. They've gone a long... LONG way from them. It doesn't look like they're pursuing their original goals (in the kickstarter) so much as saying "wouldn't it be cool if we..." and adding things. IMLTHO, it looks like scope creep of the worst kind.

 

[Laz Man]

Robert (Kinyajuu) would be the best to answer what changes or plans there are for RWG.

If I had guess, he ran out of time to fully finish RWG for A18 and had to revert in a previous working version for the time being.

I remember all sorts of "socket" system talk a while back but not sure what became of it.

 

[Feycat]

Yeah, Nitrogen is the only thing we use. Every time we try RWG it's terrible. And Navaz for some reason only has like 3 POIs per tier, which is insane. Nitro has a lot more. I don't know why the Pimps don't try to figure out what Nitro does and use it.

 

[Roland]

True, there is an easily found roadmap. But it's false to say they're really following it. They've gone a long... LONG way from them. It doesn't look like they're pursuing their original goals (in the kickstarter) so much as saying "wouldn't it be cool if we..." and adding things. IMLTHO, it looks like scope creep of the worst kind.

Can you give specific examples of where you believe they’ve gone off the rails of their original vision?

 

[DeadGerry]

True, there is an easily found roadmap. But it's false to say they're really following it. They've gone a long... LONG way from them. It doesn't look like they're pursuing their original goals (in the kickstarter) so much as saying "wouldn't it be cool if we..." and adding things. IMLTHO, it looks like scope creep of the worst kind.

There is a fairly detailed rebuttal of this available in the forum if you do a search. You are entitled to your own opinion; but the people steering the game are the people who created it. Seems they'd know.

As time, experience, feedback from players and technology changes they've adapted; but surely that's what you'd expect a decent developer to do?

I'd like to hear any specifics of what you mean, though, you may have a point; but nothing raised in this thread is in it's "finished" state; and almost all of it has been stated by the devs as under work to improve and restore lost greatness and improve past and present shortcomings - so it's a little dramatic to be declaring judgement when things are still in flux.