PC I've Been Playing A16.4 for months now, and I've noticed some things that bother me..

...gamestage 1500+ you should no longer be looting crap POI's anyway, but that is simply brushing off the original problem. You are very correct that regardless of gamestage, simple POI's need to get fixed.
As for this game ever reaching Beta, I personally hope that never happens. The most interesting aspect of this game has been its evolution. Each alpha has provided a challenge for me to solve. Find the most efficient endgame. And with each alpha, the rules change so that I need to find new solutions.
Gamestage 1500+, normal homes will still be useful for: brass, clearing out areas in a town so you can set up defenses, cheap electrical/mechanical parts or pipes (from AC units, kitchen appliances, light fixtures, etc), gun or wall safes, bookshelves for paper (shotgun shells), killing sleepers for their loot and XP. I could go on.

Also, I want it into beta and release so there is the good possibility that people will release finished mods with fun stuff in them. Apache with a manned minigun, anyone?

 
But by then, I loot the skyscrapers/shops only. So much easier. Like Walmart.

Com towers for elec parts (until DIY perk is filled).

baskets and chairs for mech parts.

Book tower run in a single day provides 500+ paper usually.

Houses become more of a hastle. But I do understand everyone has their way own way :smile-new:

 
The entire gamestage concept is broken. As said above, nobody seems to like the 'boss' zombies, well at least I don't. Radiated feral tank zombies are just dumb. Traditional zombies should be a sufficient threat, they don't even need to run. There should be lots of them, and they just keep coming. I would rather have a continual wave of slow moving hordes. Run in a building, loot what you can, and get out before you are swarmed. I have the most fun on Day 1, and every day since then is just more and more boring. I hate the forges, the traders, the workbenches, the purple rocket launchers... Yes, I can choose not to use them, but then you run into glowing green spitter cops and suddenly you are no longer playing a zombie game.

The problem with the developers is they keep adding new features that make the player character stronger, then they compensate by adding more boss zombies. It's a cycle they need to grow out of. Traditional zombies are what drew most of us to this game, and the devs should focus on that. I can go play DOOM 3 if I want, but no thanks.

They've made it too easy for people to create a strong base, so they keep adding in nonsense zombies to break through. What they should really do is just make it more difficult and time consuming to build anything. If people want to play Minecraft, they can add an option like creative mode, but I think most of us would be happier trying to fortify the school or an apartment building.

I want to be boarding up windows and doors, not plunking down steel blocks and autocannons.

 
The problem with the developers is they keep adding new features that make the player character stronger, then they compensate by adding more boss zombies. It's a cycle they need to grow out of. Traditional zombies are what drew most of us to this game, and the devs should focus on that. I can go play DOOM 3 if I want, but no thanks.
They've made it too easy for people to create a strong base, so they keep adding in nonsense zombies to break through. What they should really do is just make it more difficult and time consuming to build anything. If people want to play Minecraft, they can add an option like creative mode, but I think most of us would be happier trying to fortify the school or an apartment building.

I want to be boarding up windows and doors, not plunking down steel blocks and autocannons.
First, I just want to quote this:

Be careful about speaking for “most of us”...
But also I want to say a few things specifically about your points.

For one, I agree with you that the developers keep increasing the strength of the player character and that is a bad thing (without a well-implemented counter-balance). Back in A11 I complained that the sniper was too strong in PvP, and then they decided to add the AK-47 which has 6x the bullets and does the same damage as a sniper. Lmao. Then the rocket launcher came back which is ludicrous in PvP but tbh it's kinda fun to use in creative mode. I generally agree that the player should be a bit weaker.

But I will disagree with you on base building. They already made it significantly more expensive to build in A15 IIRC. It used to be much cheaper, especially wooden structures. In addition, they made it so the fastest you can destroy stone is 2 swings instead of 1. They have been nerfing building already way more than I prefer, because building is one of my favorite aspects of this game. Also creative mode is not fun for building imo because you don't have the sense of satisfaction of collecting the materials yourself to show off your hard work. I'd rather just go draw something or do 3d modeling than make buildings in 7 Days creative mode. Like what's the point? Therefore, the main motivator to building (for some of us) is actually the work we put into it, not the end result.

Boarding up windows and doors is fun but I don't think it's as fun in a free environment like 7 Days because you can just circumvent the zombies in other ways. In a game like, say, Killing Floor, which has restricted level design, boarding up buildings might be a really fun gameplay mechanic.

 
Here's an idea: Make a mega-blood-moon-horde appear every 7th week, but ease off on the difficulty ramping of the other blood moon nights. This helps in a lot of ways: It creates an epic preparation and standoff analogous to when first week that culminates in the first blood moon, it encourages the player to take multiweek scavenging adventures, it reduces the annoying slog of spending the whole game repairing your base, it gives the game a long-term scope, and it would be a great place to introduce the behemoth.

 
The entire gamestage concept is broken. As said above, nobody seems to like the 'boss' zombies, well at least I don't. Radiated feral tank zombies are just dumb. Traditional zombies should be a sufficient threat, they don't even need to run. There should be lots of them, and they just keep coming. I would rather have a continual wave of slow moving hordes. Run in a building, loot what you can, and get out before you are swarmed. I have the most fun on Day 1, and every day since then is just more and more boring. I hate the forges, the traders, the workbenches, the purple rocket launchers... Yes, I can choose not to use them, but then you run into glowing green spitter cops and suddenly you are no longer playing a zombie game.
The problem with the developers is they keep adding new features that make the player character stronger, then they compensate by adding more boss zombies. It's a cycle they need to grow out of. Traditional zombies are what drew most of us to this game, and the devs should focus on that. I can go play DOOM 3 if I want, but no thanks.

They've made it too easy for people to create a strong base, so they keep adding in nonsense zombies to break through. What they should really do is just make it more difficult and time consuming to build anything. If people want to play Minecraft, they can add an option like creative mode, but I think most of us would be happier trying to fortify the school or an apartment building.

I want to be boarding up windows and doors, not plunking down steel blocks and autocannons.
Agree with this. I don't like the "fixed" gamestages either and most of the factors they are calculated from (e.g increased by level, decreased by deaths). I'd prefer them to be more dynamic and slightly more random. I'd prefer the game to feel more like a vibrant zombie apocalypse world where some of your actions will draw more zombies and more often, than some obvious fixed superficial system than steadily increases the difficulty.

I'll go as far as to say that I despise the irradiated bullet sponge monsters - to me they feel like nothing more than gimmicks to increase the difficulty when there could be so many other more intuitive ways to achieve this. Only the combination of randomized zombie (combat, for starters) behavior, improved survival elements and their consequences, better pathing and occasional bandits would definitely be enough to keep the player engaged, while ramping up the difficulty seamlessly.

As for the traps, they definitely need some further balancing and even if I don't personally agree that the latter stages of tech progression should be taken out (steel, turrets etc), I believe they should be much harder to acquire.

Here's an idea: Make a mega-blood-moon-horde appear every 7th week, but ease off on the difficulty ramping of the other blood moon nights. This helps in a lot of ways: It creates an epic preparation and standoff analogous to when first week that culminates in the first blood moon, it encourages the player to take multiweek scavenging adventures, it reduces the annoying slog of spending the whole game repairing your base, it gives the game a long-term scope, and it would be a great place to introduce the behemoth.
Imo hordes/blood moon would be best if they were randomized with subtle signs like zombie population, lack of/migrations of animals etc indicating the coming of one. I do like the idea of large blood moon hordes later in the game with their own set of queues, but I definitely would not like them to be fixed. Some limitations should be considered so that the player doesn't 100% get overwhelmed, but making each playthrough different through randomization is a must.

 
Agree with this. I don't like the "fixed" gamestages either and most of the factors they are calculated from (e.g increased by level, decreased by deaths). I'd prefer them to be more dynamic and slightly more random. I'd prefer the game to feel more like a vibrant zombie apocalypse world where some of your actions will draw more zombies and more often, than some obvious fixed superficial system than steadily increases the difficulty.
I'll go as far as to say that I despise the irradiated bullet sponge monsters - to me they feel like nothing more than gimmicks to increase the difficulty when there could be so many other more intuitive ways to achieve this. Only the combination of randomized zombie (combat, for starters) behavior, improved survival elements and their consequences, better pathing and occasional bandits would definitely be enough to keep the player engaged, while ramping up the difficulty seamlessly.

As for the traps, they definitely need some further balancing and even if I don't personally agree that the latter stages of tech progression should be taken out (steel, turrets etc), I believe they should be much harder to acquire.

Imo hordes/blood moon would be best if they were randomized with subtle signs like zombie population, lack of/migrations of animals etc indicating the coming of one. I do like the idea of large blood moon hordes later in the game with their own set of queues, but I definitely would not like them to be fixed. Some limitations should be considered so that the player doesn't 100% get overwhelmed, but making each playthrough different through randomization is a must.

Okay, I think I see where you're going, but I don't think randomizing zombie hordes based on random numbers is the best way to make each playthrough unique. A lot of the variability in good tower defense games can come from the terrain and the availible resources. Just look at BTD5: In that game the order and composition of the waves is exactly the same, but playing each map gives a unique experience.

I'd rather have the difficulty curve more handcrafted, because it allows the designers to turn it into a work of art, with the form and sense of purpose of a piece of music. Right now, we have a curve that goes up constantly going up in a predicable and boring way, and what you are suggesting is white noise added on top of that that (though I might settle for pink noise).

If the waves were to be randomized through, I would rather see that appear through tangible player interactions with the environment rather than random numbers. For example, the zombies could slowly and irreversibly evolve to deal with the player's base. Have a stilted base? Frustrated zombies spinning circles under you call in engineer zombies that attack the weakest structural points (credit to GuppyCur on that idea). Hide in a shallow hole in the ground? Next horde night will be full of dogs that dig down. Escape the zombies by minibike? It'll get harder and harder to outrun them like that every time. Rely on a smart, well designed base with strong fortifications, hundreds of hours of skill and high quality weapons? Get plowed down by a horde of BS bullet-sponge irradiated feral Wights and Cops! (Not so sure about the last one).

 
- Block health indeed doesn't matter. We also make huge megabases with 1-4 players. But if you don't rush towards them on horde night. It will take about 2-3 minutes before the first wall is down. That's why I suggest very kindly that they either reduce zombie attack speed VS blocks or rude the damage the special zombies do vs blocks.
- The game stage on the one hand makes sense, because you are lvled and have better equipment and guns etc. However that is not always the case. And when you don't have a blue shotgun or higher, it will get very hard to kill a feral radiated cop because their HP regen is just plain silly.

I like the idea of more spawn specific locations though. And to not have feral fat cops spawn inside a random shack. I"ve had 8 of them spawn inside a cabin once. Was quite the blast.

I love the idea of feral radiated stuff. But their hp regen is off the charts. That's why most stuff can't kill them. Just give them more raw base hp instead.

You're right about the music box figurines. It's very annoying and hard to combat such an AI. Whereas normal melee combat is very ezmode.

That's one of the biggest flaws I see in running zombies (IMO) the twirling zombies.

Batman,

EDIT: Welcome to the forums!
Honestly, i would like to see the blocks cause arm damage to the zombies. Sure the zombies will eventually destroy a cobblestone block, but they will lose their arm in the process. They are dead bodies that fell no pain, like a cannibal with leprosy, so they should lose their arm when attack a block that is too hard.

This would balance things out a bit in my opinion. I would not be too upset that my steel block was destroyed if is see a bunch of armless zombies running toward me.

 
Honestly, i would like to see the blocks cause arm damage to the zombies. Sure the zombies will eventually destroy a cobblestone block, but they will lose their arm in the process. They are dead bodies that fell no pain, like a cannibal with leprosy, so they should lose their arm when attack a block that is too hard.
This would balance things out a bit in my opinion. I would not be too upset that my steel block was destroyed if is see a bunch of armless zombies running toward me.
Definitely agree with this

 
I think we should bring up this issue again once we see what A17 has in store for us.
Also idk about you guys but I feel fairly rewarded by the zombie loot on 7th nights. Guns, ammo, tons of scrap, bones...
On day 63 (2 hr days/no deaths) my 4 shotguns consumed 1272 rounds and my 1 auto turret consumed 1,500 rounds and I used about 270 rounds from my sniper rifle and AK-47 to take out the Irradiateds. The loot was not even close to the ammo cost.

I got tired of playing 7 days to gather ammo and have built a more ammo efficient base. As of day 77 the loot to cost ratio is better but I'm not happy with it yet.

 
The balance in this game is really off... you can just easily dig down a few blocks and be completely safe with no guns or skills. I think the worst thing about this game is you have no reason to explore or go anywhere, all you need to do is smelt steel and trade it at the trader. I honestly hate the direction this game is going with superzombies and all that nonsense. All I want is to explore and scavenge, but it kind of sucks to not have any guns and you are just trying to find some scrap metal and suddenly you are running into monsters straight out of DOOM. The game just needs more balance. Right now it's trying to push us into a tower defense, and you have to deliberately leave yourself vulnerable by not going underground.
The explore and scavenge is still there, but its not the whole game. I look at it as a game that cycles through three different stages:

Stage 1 Find and gather materials, try not to get killed

Stage 2 Tower defense game, build and defend your base.

Stage 3 Construction game, make your base fun, attractive, and efficient.

Back to Stage 1 You have better armor, weapons, and skills, but the zombies are also stronger!

 
Definitely agree with this
I've been pushing that idea for a lonnng time. Let them beat themselves all the way to death. Solves the problem of digging zombies becoming ridiculous too.

-Morloc

 
since zombies can bite (if you didnt know :D )

they should still be able to attack the wall after their hands are gone... but they should do only 10%dmg

 
The entire gamestage concept is broken. As said above, nobody seems to like the 'boss' zombies, well at least I don't. Radiated feral tank zombies are just dumb. Traditional zombies should be a sufficient threat, they don't even need to run. There should be lots of them, and they just keep coming. I would rather have a continual wave of slow moving hordes. Run in a building, loot what you can, and get out before you are swarmed. I have the most fun on Day 1, and every day since then is just more and more boring. I hate the forges, the traders, the workbenches, the purple rocket launchers... Yes, I can choose not to use them, but then you run into glowing green spitter cops and suddenly you are no longer playing a zombie game.
The problem with the developers is they keep adding new features that make the player character stronger, then they compensate by adding more boss zombies. It's a cycle they need to grow out of. Traditional zombies are what drew most of us to this game, and the devs should focus on that. I can go play DOOM 3 if I want, but no thanks.

They've made it too easy for people to create a strong base, so they keep adding in nonsense zombies to break through. What they should really do is just make it more difficult and time consuming to build anything. If people want to play Minecraft, they can add an option like creative mode, but I think most of us would be happier trying to fortify the school or an apartment building.

I want to be boarding up windows and doors, not plunking down steel blocks and autocannons.
I agree with it needing some more balance. Hopefully A17 we will see more if not then cross fingers that it gets where it needs before it is ready to go gold.

I don't mind the additional zombies they have done. But again I feel they still need some work done with them to make them where they should be.

I don't want to play creative or minecraft. I like going out and gathering things and making it myself not some cheap add it to your inventory way. As the game in general I like most of what they have done with it by adding the workbench, forge and such and feel they could add a few more things but that is just me. But basically I like all the different things I can do in the game and not just one or two simple things like going and around and killing zombies and just boarding up windows.

The real problem is they are not going to be able to create a game to please everyone. I bet just the ones that play the game that uses the forums like one thing when another doesn't. But so far they have made a game that is enjoyable by many people. Yes it still needs work but it is still in process so I'm really interested in what else they are going to be doing and now that it is getting closer to the end stages of alpha how they are going to be looking at balancing it more.

 
The entire gamestage concept is broken. As said above, nobody seems to like the 'boss' zombies, well at least I don't. Radiated feral tank zombies are just dumb. Traditional zombies should be a sufficient threat, they don't even need to run. There should be lots of them, and they just keep coming. I would rather have a continual wave of slow moving hordes. Run in a building, loot what you can, and get out before you are swarmed. I have the most fun on Day 1, and every day since then is just more and more boring. I hate the forges, the traders, the workbenches, the purple rocket launchers... Yes, I can choose not to use them, but then you run into glowing green spitter cops and suddenly you are no longer playing a zombie game.
The problem with the developers is they keep adding new features that make the player character stronger, then they compensate by adding more boss zombies. It's a cycle they need to grow out of. Traditional zombies are what drew most of us to this game, and the devs should focus on that. I can go play DOOM 3 if I want, but no thanks.

They've made it too easy for people to create a strong base, so they keep adding in nonsense zombies to break through. What they should really do is just make it more difficult and time consuming to build anything. If people want to play Minecraft, they can add an option like creative mode, but I think most of us would be happier trying to fortify the school or an apartment building.

I want to be boarding up windows and doors, not plunking down steel blocks and autocannons.

With that list it seems you just want a different game. Maybe something like left for dead? You only enjoy the basic survival of the first days, with no progression wahtsoever. I think you may like that game much more.

Im the oposite. I like progression. I like me and my base becoming better and better, and the enemies also getting stronger and stronger.

 
With that list it seems you just want a different game. Maybe something like left for dead? You only enjoy the basic survival of the first days, with no progression wahtsoever. I think you may like that game much more.
Im the oposite. I like progression. I like me and my base becoming better and better, and the enemies also getting stronger and stronger.
Have you played L4D? The game with literal boss zombies called Tank? And because he wants more difficult base building you suggest a game with no base building?

I'm in the same boat that I would prefer more standard zombies, massive hordes. But I recognize the FPS issues are what hold that back. But theoretically, that will improve

 
As for the traps, they definitely need some further balancing and even if I don't personally agree that the latter stages of tech progression should be taken out (steel, turrets etc), I believe they should be much harder to acquire.
I would like to point out the Hard to acquire aspect.

For me a big part of this game scavanging. But once I reach a certain point in the game where I have a decent base and everything I need to survive, like good waepons, armor, food/a farm etc. I feel a lack of another goal to achieve. To get to this point in the game I mostly didn´t even have to go to biomes like the wasteland or snowy mountains or any other difficult biome because with time you find everything in the forest. Wouldn´t it be cool to be forced to go to certain biomes in order to find special loot/rewards and make boimes like the wasteland or burned forest way to difficult for players below say level 50 or 60? And then endgame Biomes like nuclear fallout zone for players above level 80 or 90 all with respective loot?

Tbh. I am to lazy to repair my precious base after a 7 day horde and I go to an abandoned appartment building to wait for horde night to be over anyway so my base won´t get destroyed every 7 days. I don´t like zombies with just tons of hp that take ages to kill. But regarding zombies there where already some good suggestions in the comments.

 
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