PC How do you like A17 experimental?

[SurvivalUK]

fwiw A17 is a huge step backwards for me

Pros

1. It got released
   
2. MP is greatly improved with the team benefits
   

Mixed

1. Dungeon POIs
   -*some* great designs
   -overdone
   -overpopulated
   -getting boring real fast "oh look i fell through yet another weak floor, silly me"
   -wardrobe Z's are a thing, really?
   
2. Towns and roads generally feel more organic
   

Cons

1. Graphics
   -oh the graphics what a complete hot mess they are. They aren't bad per-se, just completely inconsistent. Textures that flit between uber shiny and uber cartoony (not quite Borderlands but what will A18 look like)
   -No long term player pours 1000's of hours into 7DTD for the graphics, i get the devs want new revenue and the best way to market the game is to give it a graphics overall to make it shiny so less new player complain about the dated looks but once you get past the shiny exterior it's gameplay that counts (Minecraft anyone?).
   -Performance sucks donkey ****'s, so badly coded. We're not talking optimisations here, we're talking straight up bugged as hell experience that no dev worth their salt should have let out of the door. Fix it and if you aren't capable employ someone who can because it'll be money well spent.
   
2. Zombies
   -Hey lets all have a conga, immersion breaking beyond belief
   -Every Z is super intelligent and needs ninja level maze designs to outfox. I call BS, they are brain dead shambling piles of rotten flesh, not super elite intelligent beasts.
   -On the above point really they aren't even Z's within the game world. Just reskin them to be NPCs of an opposing faction, give them some guns and call them bandits.
   -In fact ignore the above, simply skin them as Marvel characters. They've been given super power of super human strength, the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound and acid spitting vomit. Heck when do they get frickin' laser beams from their eyes?
   -How elastic Z's rebounding from the floor like clockwork got through to relase is beyond me
   -Still the same lack of variety of skins, yeah that's the 1000th time i've killed a Boe, yeah me
   -Far to OP to building materials, the ability to collectively tear down a concrete bunker is ridiculous
   -Usual bullet sponges in the name of making them more challenging
   
3. Loot
   -No more Z loot bar a 2% chance of a loot bag drop (XML percentage chance)
   -No more searching and searching for the elusive find. I personally enjoyed looting the hotel or skyscraper because i need X item.
   -You have the potential to find end game guns and tools on day one and never have to progress them, just repair them
   
4. Progression
   -it's practically gone, everything is identikit now
   -better quality items don't exist only the duration before they break
   -How new players will cope early game getting shredded by OP Z's i don't know. Difficulty seems to go from 0 to 100 in no time at all.
   
5. Perks and level gating
   -horrible, horrible and horrible
   -Mod schematics that you consume rather than learn and can repeat, stupid idea that made it in
   -Recipes gone, oh i need to know how to cook a stew or make a decent bandage no worries. You just have to kill 36 Z's to accrue enough points to unlock those items, that's logical. So rather than read a book to learn skills i kill Z's to learn to cook, awesome. Rather than toil away with a pick axe to level up my mining skill i just need to spend a point. No satisfaction whatsoever in the system, no reward for effort of input / output.
   -Schematics gone, i actually enjoyed having a random play through where i got to day 29 and still hadn't found a mini bike. It meant i had to adapt my play choices to survive and search for loot. Equally you could get an early drop of the mini bike or crossbow book and that developed into a completely different path of a game. All that is gone, farm Z's unlock, farm Z's unlock, repeat ad nauseam.
   
6. Map terrain in RWG is bland in biomes terms
   
7. Underground living is gone, Z's have gained some mole like tunnelling abilities
   -Again another forced change. The vocal posters on here and within the dev team complaining tunnel rats aren't being challenged and we need to spoil their fun got listened to. Thanks for that, what harm did it ever do to anyone who chose to live above ground!
   
8. Mouse look and keyboard steering gone from transport, again who signed off on this and thought it was a good idea?
   

There a lot more but that's off the top of my head.

TFPs need to adopt the ten man rule regarding decision making because the ***** that is getting signed off on is awful.

TLDR:

A17e is a C- at best and it's only that rating because you still have some goodwill in the pot but it's running out.

 

[Anarath]

Considering Rolands last poll and its results, I find the above poll results a bit irritating. But thats just me I guess. *shrugs*

See: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?97336-Perks-System-and-Level-Gates

 

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

Considering Rolands last poll and its results, I find the above poll results a bit irritating. But thats just me I guess. *shrugs*
See: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?97336-Perks-System-and-Level-Gates

It may well be just you. I'm not seeing any conflict between the two polls, since they're asking different things.

The previous one indicated that around half the respondants preferred the older perk/skill/level system to the new one. However, it doesn't say anything about how strong that preference is. People who voted that they prefer the old system to the new one in that poll might have views about A17 anywhere from "It is garbage. I hate everything about it." (the perk/level system being one of the things they hate) to "In general I love it. The things I don't like are overshadowed by the good." (the perk/level system being one of the things they don't like but which they feel is overshadowed by the things they love).

The earlier poll was asking whether people preferred the A16 or A17 way of doing things. Someone saying they prefer the A16 way doesn't necessarily mean they hate the A17 way (or that they hate A17 in general). They might like both ways of doing things - it's just that of the two they prefer the A16 way. That's all the earlier poll was asking.

 

[Sellsents]

In general I dislike it. It has good aspects but overall it is worse.

 


Pro:


- A lot of the new textures look very nice


- More vehicles (always good)


- new poi´s (same as above)


- character creation (still needs work, but I somehow like it now more then before)

 


Con:


- rwg (its so bad atm that I have no words for it)


- zombie AI (braindead people gone smart, smash through concret like the hulk and dig down very fast. I really don´t wanna know who came up with that idea)


- guns guns and guns (yeah lets have them all at day one. Levelgate every other little thing in this game but guns. Makes only sense for americans, sorry guys buts true. don´t know how to cook an egg but at least you can shoot a rifle like a pro. what else does humanity need to survive the apocalypse)


- level gates and the perksystem (not a friend of that)


- I want my books back (bookstores used to have a meaning you know)


- Looting houses (no fun anymore, way to many zombies inside, especially the fall down of zombies from upper floors)


- no Zombie loot (there should at least be an option to turn it on and off. I liked to play without loot respawn. So zombie loot was important too me and the only reason why i wanted to kill them instead of avoiding them was the loot not the exp)


- building (no fun anymore)


- mining (no fun anymore)


- missing recipes like the jaildoor or the woodspikes (absolutely a no go for me. I loved this door and the spikes. There are also some other recipes that I enjoyed much and they just got removed without any reason)

 

[lazyknob]

Totally unrelated to the conversation thus far, but at some point I wish there's a convenient respawn 'button' for cars and cities to return back to their pristine existences.

When 7dtd goes stable and servers exist for much longer on MP servers, over time things get trashed, cars all get wrenched and generally newcomers to the server get screwed to an extent.

Not everyone would like a server wipe nor server admins would like to go through the hassle of selecting specific chunks to restore or individually saving player bases to import over after a wipe. 'Evergreen' servers will be a thing if the feature is introduced.

 

[Ghostlight]

I play on carebear settings untill im all powerful - and this game is over too quick and is too easy!

Do you call Normal carebear? If so then sure. I played 2 weeks on Normal, 2 weeks on max. Shrug. So someone who actually totally played on Normal would hit 100 long before day 30, right? So the complaint is still very real, is it not? There's a guy on Steam saying he hit 100 on day 8 (!), presumably playing on less than Normal. Guess what his main complaint about the game was? Yep...."I have everything, what's the point?"

Your difficulty level is only going to affect when you hit level 100. The problem is simply that you are maxed out when you hit 100 whatever day it happens, and it happens much earlier than it ever would in A16. And given the max player level is 300, this is ridiculous.

Allowing the player to craft top tier of everything in the game just through perks is poor design and the results are obvious. You now have a casual game for casual players who just want to be given everything without effort.

 

[beHypE]

I've stated this before on the forums but i'll just say it again. I think a LOT of issues and bad community feedback is due to the long development/release cycles. In a year of time, there is a massive amount of work that is being done towards a certain game-play direction. You imagine a feature, implement it, then you go onto imagining and implementing another feature that relies / is balanced around the first one, and so on. You end up with a huge package that is either a huge hit or a pretty big miss. At some point you're that "deep" into that direction that you don't even see how far you strayed away from what made the game great in the first place. Once your feedback arrives, you invested so much it's hard to even fathom "rolling back".

It's sad to accept and I might just be proven wrong, but given how much time was invested to create the new skill/perk/gating system, the removal of schematics for most crafting recipes in favor of perk-gating everything, the new tool/weapon quality 1-6 system where only mods matter and no more parts to effectively assemble better guns over time, I just don't see a massive overhaul happening that would bring back the older system's glory (in my book at least). It would probably take a revert of months of a team's work to "restore" things and expand upon them.

I'll obviously give A17 stable its chance once it's released, but as of today i'm already almost convinced i'll eventually rollback to A16, even though it would suck because I actually like a decent amount of A17's features. I just don't think those outweigh the loss of many things that made the game stand out for me, especially those little random things that made me always want to create a new game to "start over and see how it goes".

I loved it more in its first week than I do now. Its an overall improvement, but the more you play the more you realize aside from the POIs (which i adore) and the Ai its basically the same with LESS choices and randomness.
So far in 4 restarts I've built the same character because its kind of how you fall into it. If you're melee you go one way and never change, if you're ranged you go one way. Buy one oerk of Chef and you're solid. Open the bag space. Rinse repeat. Blah Blah.

This pretty much sums up all my concerns. I realise most of the issues I have regarding A17 are actually all related towards replayability and the lack of RNG. Everything can be done in the exact same sequence, everything gets unlocked at the exact same pace because everything is behind a predictable, static level gate. Sure, you can decide to take different paths, but it's not about choosing to play differently, but more about actually having to adapt to what the world you're currently in offers you. RWG is another aspect, no more RNG of "what biome will I find over that hill ?", but only "I need a desert for Aloe, let's go south". I just don't see the replayability in A17 that A16 had, and i'm already barely looking forward to creating a new game because I feel like it won't be much different to the one i'm playing on now, aside from exploring a different area and building a different base.

 

[Jedo]

Your difficulty level is only going to affect when you hit level 100. The problem is simply that you are maxed out when you hit 100 whatever day it happens, and it happens much earlier than it ever would in A16. And given the max player level is 300, this is ridiculous.

So they should raise the level cap for top-tier stuff to 300?

 

[Ghostlight]

So they should raise the level cap for top-tier stuff to 300?

Very sadly, this seems exactly like the sort of half-arsed fix TFP will go for if they respond at all to complaints that the game is so much shorter than before (in terms of the point where the player becomes maxed out).

Right now they need to do something to re-instate the RNG aspect of needing to explore and loot to get what you want rather than have it handed to you at level x. Where is the joy of finding something really rare? What has the game become where the most satisfying thing I could find in a loot container right now is GLUE?! I mean WTF... or Where I'd rather find a Gore Block than a Gun Safe?

Can I stress once more that at level 103 and having everything there is to have in the game....I have looted one half of an average sized town (not even a city) on my map in total. Almost none of my map is explored and there is no need for me to explore it because I have everything I could ever want.

 

[zootal]

Strange, I just continued (a little more careful, sure, but that's it) when I had the debuff. And I'm definitely not the hardcore player playing on insane.
A temporary -1 or -2 on all attributes doesn't sound that horrible to me. Are you really sure sitting and waiting is your only option?

For some maybe. Personally, I get up and do stuff, but just have to be careful. Sometimes I'll stay inside and work on my base. Fix the broken windows, maybe work on that workshop expansion. Still - the original hour long nerf was just too over the top, and even a half hour for those of us that have RL obligations that limit our gaming time, is too much. But I'm not saying anything that hasn't been beaten to death in these forums already.

I lean towards the Leroy Jenkins approach. It's more fun, though it does cause a higher death rate. It's just how I like to play.

 

[Jedo]

Can I stress once more...

Seems like [we'll have to agree to disagree].

 

[JCrook1028]

Agree.I understand that they wanted to redesign the Navezgane towns and the new POIs are fantastic work. But what did speak against leaving the replaced classic house POIs in for more variety and a somewhat easier tier of lootable places in random gen?

Agreed. While the new dungeon POI's are interesting they are far to common. Cut the % down by 50% or so and imo you're getting closer to what feels right. I may or may not even do one of each of them. I never did all the highrises either. The only Highrise I ever did more than once was the Crack a Book tower. I can almost guarantee I'd never do a new dungeon POI more than once. No need to. No desire to.

 

[meganoth]

Right now they need to do something to re-instate the RNG aspect of needing to explore and loot to get what you want rather than have it handed to you at level x. Where is the joy of finding something really rare? What has the game become where the most satisfying thing I could find in a loot container right now is GLUE?! I mean WTF... or Where I'd rather find a Gore Block than a Gun Safe?

I'll say that until I have played the game to a high level this is something I can't judge. But just looking at what the perks and attributes give you at max I can make a good guess that perks really need some toning down and all kinds of mods need to supply what is removed that way (which would make scavenging and RNG important again and add variation to playthroughs)

I also think that considering we are in the middle of much balancing and TFPs assurance that the mods now in the game are just the first wave I don't even think I need to find out the answer to this question.

I know this will change. A18 will probably see an explosion of new items and my bet is that the hot topic of A18 will be the size of the backpack !

 

[Doctor3D]

Balance and progression are the primary issues of A17 for me. This is not just simply a result of it being still in experimental, either. The perks themselves are just too OP in how they are designed and the top tier ones need to either be entirely done away with or made only for specialization.

The current state of my character: Gamestage is around 600:

-I rarely need to eat

-I rarely need to drink

-I rarely get tired

-Weather has no effect on me at all

-I never have to manage inventory or make decisions about it

-Even if I did - Well, I NEVER have to loot - if I don't have it - I can just make it (Cars and Trash is where the necessary loot is now)

-Zombies cannot stun me

-Zombies cannot infect me

-Zombies can beat on me for actual seconds before I even get nervous

-Zombies have not killed me

-I one-shot most all of them with a modded magnum and maxed gunslinger -shoot the norms get the bonus then shoot the ferals.

-I almost instantly heal after a hit and have used less than a dozen or so bandages in the entire play-through

-Zombies don't stand a chance in breaching my base - they'd rather just beat on a random pillar and pile up in the same area making it easy to just blow them all up.

The game starts out slow and a bit tedious. I didn't mind it too much, but I could see and understand the complaints. But, once you started to level - the progression infinitely accelerates and it becomes over all too quick. The game is like a firework right now. Just a quick bang and then you're already at end-game.

The perks are just too much. Many of the perks take away most of the mechanics in the game. Once you max them out - half of all the features in the survival game no longer are relevant to you.

So not only does some serious balance need to be applied in terms of loot, crafting, zombie threat, etc - but the top tiers of the perks themselves need to be reconsidered or possibly limit the maximum of the most OP ones to a specialization class for each.

 

[Ghostlight]

Seems like [we'll have to agree to disagree].

[Yes. Let's just do that.]

 

[Ghostlight]

The current state of my character: Gamestage is around 600:

I agree with everything and am experiencing the same. What level are you, what difficulty and what day? GS 600 sounds really high (isn't it near the max? a level 300 player who hadn't died for 300 days would have 600 on normal I think??)

Anyways, I ask because I had a faint hope that as my GS rose further my feeling of super OPness at level 100 would perhaps depart, but your post dashes that hope.

 

[Roland]

-I rarely need to eat

-I rarely need to drink

-I rarely get tired

-Weather has no effect on me at all

-I never have to manage inventory or make decisions about it

-Even if I did - Well, I NEVER have to loot - if I don't have it - I can just make it (Cars and Trash is where the necessary loot is now)

-Zombies cannot stun me

-Zombies cannot infect me

-Zombies can beat on me for actual seconds before I even get nervous

-Zombies have not killed me

-I one-shot most all of them with a modded magnum and maxed gunslinger -shoot the norms get the bonus then shoot the ferals.

-I almost instantly heal after a hit and have used less than a dozen or so bandages in the entire play-through

-Zombies don't stand a chance in breaching my base - they'd rather just beat on a random pillar and pile up in the same area making it easy to just blow them all up.

This pretty much sums up what some % of players want to be able to attain by Day 3...

 

[PoppaTot]

This pretty much sums up what some % of players want to be able to attain by Day 3...

You'd think as a Super Moderator you would let the arguments go instead furthering them with statements like that.

However; I agree that some just want "easy mode" flipped on, that doesn't mean you should instigate them lol

 

[Roland]

You'd think as a Super Moderator you would let the arguments go instead furthering them with statements like that.
However; I agree that some just want "easy mode" flipped on, that doesn't mean you should instigate them lol

Poppa...I've moderated this forum for little over three years now pretty much the same way. I know my style won't please everyone and I'm not concerned much by those who can't handle a little good-natured ribbing (my comment wasn't even aimed at a particular person). I joke around a lot and I poke fun at conventions and false assumptions. My expectation is that people who come here think that the fun subject of this forum is a zombie video game and not some solemn subject like brain cancer research or family support for diabetics.

So when a golden moment like Doc's post comes up that allows me to poke fun at the desire of some to be able to rush to that character state during the first week of the game while at the same time hopefully driving home the point of the necessity of having some kind of gating/pacing mechanism to prevent players from ascending to godhood too early (if ever)-- Whelp, I am what I am and I'm gonna take it. If my personality ever leads to my dismissal as a Super Moderator then so be it.

Mod the forum. Add me to your ignore list.

 

[PoppaTot]

Mod the forum. Add me to your ignore list.

Way to make people feel welcome, kudos to you :encouragement: