PC How to avoid bad reviews ?

[JoelleEmmily]

I feel pretty assured that such tampering is'nt so easily done, I mean Steam makes their money off sales after all, it's in their interest to sell games. If it were so easy to manipulate the review score I'm sure it'd be no problem to whip up some automation to do so and we would see very few games with any negative scoring, bringing them even more sweet sweet sales. I can't say for sure though I have no idea how these metrics of theirs are calculated, I have to assume though that your opinion only counts once no matter how many times you post it or flip flop.

I agree... but how many individuals have we seen on the forum who have camped out on one side of the issue or the other? Much like voting, your review only counts as one... but a hundred, a thousand other individuals thinking as you do, that creates a movement, a statistically significant shift in data... People on both sides constantly fight against one another to influence the data... at some points, those shifts cancel each other out, at other times, one movement is larger than the other...

Personally, I don't believe Steam gives devs an "in" to manipulate their scores... admittedly, I have no evidence of this... but controversy attracts attention, and if a game goes from really well liked, to disliked, people will start clicking to find out why, so Steam wins either way. A game like 7 Days might lose trust in the fan base, and eventually sales might stagnate... but in the short term, a rush of sales is inevitable whenever there is a shift. No Man's Sky saw it, Fallout 76 is seeing it, and a tonne of other games will repeat the process... but in the long run, reputation, hard core fan response, dictates enduring solvency. No Man has, to some extent, repaired their reputation, not completely, but somewhat, and their player base has grown because of it... Games like Battlefront, and maybe Fallout 76, they traded their reputation and support... well, for essentially nothing, and the push-pull of reviews and online bickering, finally, or will, break, resulting in one side holding the shorter end of the rope.

Short term analysis never results in meaningful data, because, as Men in Black said, a person is smart, but people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and everybody knows it. They react, they fear negativity will cause a game studio to collapse and disappear, or they think a few bad design choices is the beginning of a slide to the eventual ruining of a game they loved, or, for whatever reason, they're mindlessly enthralled by a developer they believe can do no wrong. All of this generates a lot of immediate chatter, discussion, and analysis, but it's long trends that dictate the ultimate outcome.

 

[SurvivalUK]

Pretty sure Madmole hired a bunch of staff, told them to update Unity, and then played Fallout 4 from December 2017-August 2018. When getting ready for streamer release, he played it for 2 hours and went, this would be much better if it played like Fallout. Fast forward 3.5 months, and here we are.

Well the initial verdicts are in and previous alphas have been nothing like this. Even some of the thumbs up reviews say they hate it but are hoping for fixes!

 

[hotpoon]

Entirely possible I suppose, unlikely however since that is twice the average players playing before A17 exp dropped. I doubt an additional 10k players just decided to start playing the "old" version 30 days ago. But isn't that a great thing, you still have a choice and can enjoy the game by playing an older version?

You forget A17 was recently part of the bundle for the HumbleBundle monthly, and is currently on sale. There should be a ton of new players right now who don't even know what they are missing with the previous build.

 

[JaxTeller718]

Well the initial verdicts are in and previous alphas have been nothing like this. Even some of the thumbs up reviews say they hate it but are hoping for fixes!

But this can't be! We were all told it was just a small minority of forum users who are upset. Surely this must be wrong. Oh I know its only Steam reviews, they don't mean anything.

Or only players who are upset write reviews, the majority are happy and wont write a review

Or its just people trolling.

Or its just that people wont give it a chance and people will come around over time.

Or..... Or or MAYBE some of us had a point from the get go? Or MAYBE instead of telling people to handle it or get over it LISTEN, adapt the feedback you're given and admit you took the wrong direction. Blend both systems, make both parties happy.

No game is untouchable. The last thing I ever want to see this game become is a "what could have been". So many other games go through major overhauls that drive away their community. And I'm sorry to say reading all the negativity everywhere you turn (steam, reddit, facebook) that this is exactly the oath we are heading down.

 

[Randomdude]

Data analytics are extremely valuable for generating factual feedback. These tools should be a functionality that was added a long time ago. Since I've explicitly started a thread, bumped it, and asked this question in no less than 3 "A17 sucks threads" where Madmole has been posting, I'm just going to go ahead and assume they don't have this ability. Seems they just make the game they want, and don't even really understand who is playing what version of it. That leaves them unable to understand how people even enjoy playing the game.

Confirmed.

I haven't posted any polls nor any devs at TFP that I'm aware of. We make what we think everyone wants to play. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. That's why we change things. If a system is loved by TFP and most players who aren't biased then yes tough ♥♥♥♥.

They don't really give a ♥♥♥♥. The polls are someone else trying to play with numbers.

All we the disgusted have left is to go to our Steam client and post your review. Love it or hate it, just express yourself. All we have until they either understand why is it that were upset or just ignore and keep trying to build a Fallout/Skyrim clone.

 

[myrkana]

But this can't be! We were all told it was just a small minority of forum users who are upset. Surely this must be wrong. Oh I know its only Steam reviews, they don't mean anything.
Or only players who are upset write reviews, the majority are happy and wont write a review

Or its just people trolling.

Or its just that people wont give it a chance and people will come around over time.

Or..... Or or MAYBE some of us had a point from the get go? Or MAYBE instead of telling people to handle it or get over it LISTEN, adapt the feedback you're given and admit you took the wrong direction. Blend both systems, make both parties happy.

No game is untouchable. The last thing I ever want to see this game become is a "what could have been". So many other games go through major overhauls that drive away their community. And I'm sorry to say reading all the negativity everywhere you turn (steam, reddit, facebook) that this is exactly the oath we are heading down.

Those numbers are great but what about people like me? I havent updated my review in years and I'm very happy with the changes.... Realistically the only thing that matters is how many people are playing and continue to play. Even if they mod things they are still enjoying the game and keep playing it.

 

[SurvivalUK]

t some

But this can't be! We were all told it was just a small minority of forum users who are upset. Surely this must be wrong. Oh I know its only Steam reviews, they don't mean anything.
Or only players who are upset write reviews, the majority are happy and wont write a review

Or its just people trolling.

Or its just that people wont give it a chance and people will come around over time.

Or..... Or or MAYBE some of us had a point from the get go? Or MAYBE instead of telling people to handle it or get over it LISTEN, adapt the feedback you're given and admit you took the wrong direction. Blend both systems, make both parties happy.

No game is untouchable. The last thing I ever want to see this game become is a "what could have been". So many other games go through major overhauls that drive away their community. And I'm sorry to say reading all the negativity everywhere you turn (steam, reddit, facebook) that this is exactly the oath we are heading down.

Spot on!

Post A17 stable release is a potential pivot point in the development. Carry on regardless because it's their vision and we're here for the ride. Or go back more in line with the how things have been up to this point.

I know which i want!

 

[HerrKingsley]

Those numbers are great but what about people like me? I havent updated my review in years and I'm very happy with the changes.... Realistically the only thing that matters is how many people are playing and continue to play. Even if they mod things they are still enjoying the game and keep playing it.

And that is exactly what Jax will do and I bet a lot of us who are disappointed will download his mod and tfp can look at steam chart and say. "Look how many people are playing. We were right all the time, this is the best Alpha ever"

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Those numbers are great but what about people like me? I havent updated my review in years and I'm very happy with the changes.... Realistically the only thing that matters is how many people are playing and continue to play. Even if they mod things they are still enjoying the game and keep playing it.

what about people like me? I haven't updated my review since A13 and I'm still mostly unhappy with the changes... realistically, those numbers mostly balance out. Those that give negative reviews don't play anymore (or do but dont see any reason to do so again) those that give positives only change it once they dislike it... so yeah... a big dislike bar (everything on steam with reviews below 80% I generally don't even take a second look at, if there is no reason for it (like it beeing recommended to me) simply because there are SO MANY trashgames to sift through. So reviews falling below 70% is BAD. Like... REALLY bad. But I will make a seperate post in about two weeks once the last thirty days incompass the A17 release.

 

[LuckyStar]

And that is exactly what Jax will do and I bet a lot of us who are disappointed will download his mod and tfp can look at steam chart and say. "Look how many people are playing. We were right all the time, this is the best Alpha ever"

Welp...... I guess TFP better keep supporting the Modding community then huh?

^_^"

I don't care, in the end, what they do.

I'm going to mod the **** out of it anyway.

So long as I can, I'm happy.

That's not so bad right?

 

[madmole]

Holly crap! That's it! Madmole was talking about weapon modifications, but leaderdog was referring to file/game mods... then it hit me... You're trying to imitate Fallout 4! The item mods, the cascading perks, the level gates... their all pieces of fallout 4's progression system, channeling players into building a more balanced character instead of over specializing and overpower in one specific area... Fallout 4 was an over stuffed game trying to do way too much... yes, the gun play was a massive improvement over 3, yes it had some incredible story telling, but without game mods, the whole things was a clunky patchworked mess... 7 Days new content is great, like I said, I love the new bicycle, but a lot of the fallout gadgets were great too... but still, fallout is almost unplayable without mods... most people who buy fallout 4, do so because they consider it a great platform for modding, now, with their move to 76, and nothing being mod-able, customizable, or fixable, the whole concept of the game is beginning to drown in it's own spittle... you're chasing a falling star...
What's the answer? I don't know... Am I right about you all trying to imitate a fallout style progression system... actually, I'd bet my skin on it, either that, or some variation on the system adopted by some studio inspired you... Is that a bad thing? YES! Fallout 4 is great... with mods... Bethesda is a very good studio... if you ignore their never ending buggy mess... or their current behavior...

There is nothing wrong with your atmosphere, it can be scary, sometimes inspiring, and the sound engineering is very good... your block diversity and ability to make just about anything, is astounding... J.C. Channel built a very passable Cthulhu... tools and weapons are fun and varied... but your progression and leveling mechanics have always been directionless... I'm not complaining about your new stuff, and I think very few other people would scoff at them either... but the arbitrary, "you can't build a crucible until you kill X amount of Zombies," is soul sucking... combat is a little wonky, but personally, I find it way too easy, which is fine, not everyone plays the same way...

Please Madmole, take a page from Concerned Ape, stick to your vision, and K.I.S.S the mechanics... 7 Days to Die is it's concept, it's a world you tame and make your own... it's an anarchist's dreamland... don't try to be the man, man... be the dude...

We are increasing passive xp so you can level and perk up without killing zombies so builders can do their thing. We wanted attributes and we had skills but took them out because they sandwiched in too much confusion.

 

[Poojam]

Welp...... I guess TFP better keep supporting the Modding community then huh?
^_^"

I don't care, in the end, what they do.

I'm going to mod the **** out of it anyway.

So long as I can, I'm happy.

That's not so bad right?

It's bad if you want to play on a multiplayer server. Because when new people look to buy the game and see it has crap for reviews, then they won't buy it.

 

[madmole]

Pretty sure Madmole hired a bunch of staff, told them to update Unity, and then played Fallout 4 from December 2017-August 2018. When getting ready for streamer release, he played it for 2 hours and went, this would be much better if it played like Fallout. Fast forward 3.5 months, and here we are.
edit - Yep.

https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/75zojh/alpha_17_concept_art_madmole/

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout76/users/144415?tab=about+me

Anyone who's been following us since the beginning knows the elevator pitch: A destroyable world like minecraft meets a post apocalypse like fallout, with zombies like in TWD and tower defense, crafting and survival. I'm a huge Bethesda fan boy which should be no surprise to anyone if our products feel inspired by those games.

Anyhow, we are working to balance things and trying to support all play styles. It will take some time but we've always managed to calm things down after 3 patches.

 

[madmole]

Some good posts here, some bad ones but at least it is civil, good job. I am going to say the same as I have before:
I like A17 except for 1 problem: Finding food is very hard and it is severely tied to stamina, which is the life blood of your character. You can no longer go into a house to find food as the sleepers spawn in over the top numbers ( 6 in one room as a newb player is ridiculous ) and add the fact that they spawn AFTER I enter the room. This is total hogwash - rubbish - garbage - put your own description for bad if you wish.

It is 90% of why my review is negative after I bragged on it for years and directly convinced 8 people to buy it. But hey, leave this kind of stuff in and watch as most of your base toggles recommendation with me and you can have threads like this one over a drink. Or two or three.

It was that way on the first couple experimentals, lately I see 1-3 guys in the first room. Try going for the smaller houses early on, and we are balancing the pois. There is always the difficulty slider and new run settings make them always walk if its too hard until we get it better balanced.

 

[Poojam]

Anyone who's been following us since the beginning knows the elevator pitch: A destroyable world like minecraft meets a post apocalypse like fallout, with zombies like in TWD and tower defense, crafting and survival. I'm a huge Bethesda fan boy which should be no surprise to anyone if our products feel inspired by those games.
Anyhow, we are working to balance things and trying to support all play styles. It will take some time but we've always managed to calm things down after 3 patches.

Well I love sandbox survival, tower defense, crafting and survival. I absolutely loathe Fallout and just about any other leveling based RPG.

Making the game more like Fallout has taken the sand out of the sandbox for me.

 

[madmole]

Sorry to tell you MM: but 17 is nothing like a plague and bad decissions all over the place. Your so called "interesting perks and attributes system" is bs. Turning every house into a dungeon is bs. Filling every house to the brim with zombies and the roofs with vultures that respawn quiker as you can kill them is bs. Taking items like the spikes, fertilizer or the prisondoor out of the game is bs. Finding more guns than food is bs. Zombies destroying concrete like paper or digging down in seconds is bs. Binding food on stamina is bs. Only allowing people to have one active claimblock is bs.
You simply took peoples fun away with Alpha 17 turning this awesome game into a zombie shooter, because you didn´t get what goldmine you actually had with A16. And the sadest part is, that you still don´t get it.

There is some merit to what you say. The perk system is awesome, I will die in that hill. The rest are balancing. I think prison doors were bugged and wouldn't work with the AI without some massive problem so they were disabled for now. Vultures have been nerfed are you really playing the latest build? Seems like some people are on the hate wagon for stuff we fixed already. We're working on balance.

 

[madmole]

Well I love sandbox survival, tower defense, crafting and survival. I absolutely loathe Fallout and just about any other leveling based RPG.
Making the game more like Fallout has taken the sand out of the sandbox for me.

That sucks. Hopefully some balance changes can get you back on board. Stamina, builder xp is crap, claim blocks, quest xp and economy, all noted. (and a ton of other things). We've had perks for many alphas. I showed all the perks on youtube months ago, and the response seemed pretty positive. What changed?

 

[Poojam]

There is some merit to what you say. The perk system is awesome, I will die in that hill. The rest are balancing. I think prison doors were bugged and wouldn't work with the AI without some massive problem so they were disabled for now. Vultures have been nerfed are you really playing the latest build? Seems like some people are on the hate wagon for stuff we fixed already. We're working on balance.

I'll give it another shot when you're done talking about balance, and there aren't 40+ steam reviews every day that say "A17 killed the fun".

 

[Viktoriusiii]

That sucks. Hopefully some balance changes can get you back on board. Stamina, builder xp is crap, claim blocks, quest xp and economy, all noted. (and a ton of other things). We've had perks for many alphas. I showed all the perks on youtube months ago, and the response seemed pretty positive. What changed?

You gate them.

They do not feel rewarding/are way too powerful or unrealistic (jumping higher) or are a simple necessity (pack mule, miner, stamina) so while it is nice to have something that is more than just a %boost, these perks are simply boring and unbalanced.

I could probably name perks that would actually make the game fun again, but most of them would be discarded to "break the balance" (5% higher movementspeed, food that actually boosts your max stamina/hp, and more).

And not to forget, that you removed nearly all incremental progress. Before you slowly got 1 more damage by using the pickaxe a lot, now you have 25% simply by clicking "buy".

And if I'm allowed to guess:

a lot (myself included) thought, those perks were ADDED to the existing system, not replacing it.

Yes it's a naive thought in retrospect, but still something I hoped and a lot of players still wish for.

 

[SurvivalUK]

That sucks. Hopefully some balance changes can get you back on board. Stamina, builder xp is crap, claim blocks, quest xp and economy, all noted. (and a ton of other things). We've had perks for many alphas. I showed all the perks on youtube months ago, and the response seemed pretty positive. What changed?

With the greatest of respect your hamfisted YT videos didn't show how unfun the games direction had gone.

In isolation they were interesting but in actual fleshed out gameplay not so much.

Balancing isn't going to fix A17, not by any stretch. It's off in a different direction now and it's has been repeated a lot on about it becoming a generic FO4 clone, i agree. Let FO4 be FO4 and 7 Days be it's own game.

There are endless threads in General detailing why A17 is such a departure from A16 and why that sucks. It isn't just a vocal minority.