From Sandbox Survival to Scripted Progression

Korbin5120

Refugee
Obligatory “I've been playing since the early Alphas and have over 4,000 hours on PC.” This game used to be my go-to for open world survival. But after playing through 1.0 and now 2.0, I’m finding it harder to stay engaged. It’s lost the unpredictable, emergent chaos that made it great.

Back in Alpha 16.4 (my favorite version) survival felt real. In earlier alphas heatstroke, hypothermia, wet clothes, zombie smell, stealth, layered clothing, food poisoning, stamina loss from temperature. You had to respond to the world around you and adapt. No two playthroughs ever felt the same.

Now, everything is structured and gated. You don’t need to survive the Burnt Forest, Desert, or Wasteland. You just chug a smoothie, wait out a timer, then get a badge that makes you immune. The most punishing environments in the game are reduced to visual filters and checkboxes. It’s not survival, it’s pacing.

Loot used to be logical. You could tell when you were taking a risk based on the POI, not just the biome. Weapon parts were valuable. You’d combine a few poor-quality parts into something a bit better. It kept looting exciting even mid- to late-game. That’s gone now too.

Even things like clothing customization are a shadow of what they were. Clothing has been eliminated. You can’t dye armor. Many survival systems such as temperature, sickness, water cleanliness have been watered down to the point of irrelevance. Now we have magic potions, collectible badges, and perk books that replace “learn by doing.”

While I LOVE the work but into RWG there’s no real sense of discovery when you know biome order and loot caps in advance. And with loot gated by biome stage, not difficulty or POI type, it feels scripted. Why does a ruined shack in the Wasteland have better loot than a tower in the Forest?

The biome progression system had potential, but I would prefer an approach that would've made survival harder, not easier. Let us earn resilience over time. Add craftable items for temporary protection ala bandanas for smoke, sunscreen for the desert, iodine pills for radiation. Traders could offer wearable gear through hard quests and real rewards for real risk. Let storms actually affect gameplay. A blizzard should slow you down and chill you. A sandstorm should obscure vision and raise temperature. Acid rain in the wasteland would force players into dangerous POIs.

I’m aware the devs are trying to guide new players through the experience, and that’s fine. But in doing so, they’ve stripped away what made 7D7D different. The game once was unpredictable, customizable, and brutal. You could build your story, not follow a set trader quest progression path.

Right now, it feels like the game is trying to push us all through the same track. From Forest to Burnt to Desert to Snow to Wasteland. Every biome feels like a content gate instead of a sandbox to survive and explore. I used to build long-term bases, explore, and return with what I’d learned. Now I feel like I’m just passing through.

This isn’t hate. Incredible work has been done on this game and I love the improvements to the world, the POIs. Pipe weapons added early game options and I would love to see MORE variety of weapons added.

I care enough to write this because 7 Days to Die meant something to me. It was one of the few survival games that got it right. It gave us freedom, challenge, unpredictability. It didn’t handhold. It didn’t railroad.

Now, it feels like the game is trying to tell its story instead of letting me create mine

And that's what made this game unforgettable.
 
Simple answer is that yes, the devs are going to be pushing progression as they build towards the story. I am not a fan if it either, but it is how it is. Thankfully, you can ignore all of it... at least if you aren't using RWG to make your map and are willing to disable things in settings.
 
Simple answer is that yes, the devs are going to be pushing progression as they build towards the story. I am not a fan if it either, but it is how it is. Thankfully, you can ignore all of it... at least if you aren't using RWG to make your map and are willing to disable things in settings.
Maybe we will get a "Story mode" versus "Survivor mode" one day. If the goal is to send us through a 28 day cycle with a week per biome, perhaps ending with the Duke in the wasteland then OK. Im sure that will be popular with some folks. That just isnt the "An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games." that I fell in love with.

And yes, very grateful for the ability to roll back alphas and for the modding community. But there are obviously limitations.
 
I think a classic survival mode is the way to go, for veteran players who want to play as usual but with the improvements of the game. I hope they can keep tweaking the options in the menu and eventually expand these options, for changes in future updates.
 
Maybe we will get a "Story mode" versus "Survivor mode" one day. If the goal is to send us through a 28 day cycle with a week per biome, perhaps ending with the Duke in the wasteland then OK. Im sure that will be popular with some folks. That just isnt the "An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games." that I fell in love with.

And yes, very grateful for the ability to roll back alphas and for the modding community. But there are obviously limitations.

I think they said that the story will be only on Navezgane. Not sure. Would make sense as it is the only map where the POI´s are always the same and i am assuming that the factions will have dedicated POI´s which can´t be guaranteed on a RWG map. I could be totally wrong here though.
 
You can make survival harder by adjusting settings.

If you don't like the current biome progression or the storms just turn them off.

I do miss the way they used to upgrade weapons but the system in place now gives you a great deal of latitude on how you develop your character. We didn't have as many weapons back then as we do now either.
 
I think they said that the story will be only on Navezgane. Not sure. Would make sense as it is the only map where the POI´s are always the same and i am assuming that the factions will have dedicated POI´s which can´t be guaranteed on a RWG map. I could be totally wrong here though.
I think that has just been speculation. I haven't seen a dev actually say that. But it is what I expect and have said. At most, maybe they'll also add it to pregen maps. I don't expect it to be added to RWG maps.

As far as being able to guarantee something in RWG, that is easy enough for then to do if they needed to. Just place those in a district that is always used or on gateway tiles with a size that is common and then have those placed before any other POI.

But I don't think it makes sense in RWG even if they can do it. The game is designed to be played many times, and few would want to see the same story every single game.
 
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