PC Learn by doing instead of reading?

[Archael]

But not as it was in previous versions, where people was creating millions stone axes to learn how to create steel tools.
Using specific weapon or cooking, will increase your progress bar, and unlock new recipes or better quality gear.
Not all. Some things like armor ormedicine can stay as magazines.
using weapons and tools should fill a bar via damage dealt to blocks or enemies, and once bar is filled you learn how to make better gear.
imagine the miner who is constantly sitting in a mine and is @%$#ed of their rusty pickaxe that is constantly broken. this miner will look at the tool and look for a weakspots that can be fixed to make better gear.
Same with all weapons.
And as for cooking and advanced engineering - after creating some amount of items new ones are discovered, just like it was in previous versions. Will it be abusable? maybe in terms of items and food, will it be bad? Not really, you need materials to waste if you wants to learn new recipes faster, so there is a tradeoff.

 

[Scyris]

Play Darkness Falls mod in a20, (not avail for a21 yet), to see a learn by doing system that doesn't have the a16.4 issues the system had. Unfortunetaly TFP doesn't give 2 @%$#s about what we think or want, they said in a interview "We'll consider players suggestions as long as it aligns with our vision for the game" or something simmlar. Basically, if it doesn't fit their agenda they won't care what you suggest. Honestly? if they'd listen to the playerbase more this game would be far better than it is now, but they seem to have a hard line to stick to whatever vision they have for the game now.

 

[meganoth]

Play Darkness Falls mod in a20, (not avail for a21 yet), to see a learn by doing system that doesn't have the a16.4 issues the system had. Unfortunetaly TFP doesn't give 2 @%$#s about what we think or want, they said in a interview "We'll consider players suggestions as long as it aligns with our vision for the game" or something simmlar. Basically, if it doesn't fit their agenda they won't care what you suggest. Honestly? if they'd listen to the playerbase more this game would be far better than it is now, but they seem to have a hard line to stick to whatever vision they have for the game now.

The "Player base" is probably fairly split on whether they want perks or LBD. I am part of the player base and I don't want you to speak for me.

 

[Scyris]

The "Player base" is probably fairly split on whether they want perks or LBD. I am part of the player base and I don't want you to speak for me.

Most people who doesn't have a opinion/are against it on learn by doing has never played alpha 16.4. So the playerbase is very skewed there. Best way to solve it is have a22 use learn by doing, then ask which system they prefer, I have a good feeling learn by doing would win as long as they don't screw it up. Btw the learn by doing I mean is just for weapons/tools, like say clubs, and the learn by doing skill level determines what level pummel pete perk you can get, with the pummel pete perk being completly detached from str as a example. Bascially have a LBD system to determine how high you can take perks for weapons/tool lines instead of stat gates. I mostly go clubs because miner 69'er and motherload are too vital for a single player game, and you wanna up it early, but if there was a learn by doing skill for harvesting tools, I wouldn't need str, as I could use the tools and use that to level up miner 69'er and motherload.

Basically to make a long story short, I want weapon and tool use to be decoupled from stats and be its own thing, so were not gated by stats for our weapon choice(s).

 

[meganoth]

Nice idea, but somewhat time-consuming and expensive for TFP to do as they would have to optimize and balance the LBD system as well and if the "player base" would then want perks back they would have to scrap all other work they have done in the meantime and integrate that with the perk system again. Also they could not add bandits at the same time as that would influence the vote as well.

Maybe a better way would be to actually provide two versions, one with perks and one with LBD. So everybody can have what he wants. Drawback is that TFP would have to support both versions.

(Actually we have two versions available, one with perks and one with LBD (DF). But for some the availability of a mod doesn't count)

 

[Lokeus]

Nice idea, but somewhat time-consuming and expensive for TFP to do as they would have to optimize and balance the LBD system as well and if the "player base" would then want perks back they would have to scrap all other work they have done in the meantime and integrate that with the perk system again. Also they could not add bandits at the same time as that would influence the vote as well.

Maybe a better way would be to actually provide two versions, one with perks and one with LBD. So everybody can have what he wants. Drawback is that TFP would have to support both versions.

(Actually we have two versions available, one with perks and one with LBD (DF). But for some the availability of a mod doesn't count)

What do you think about trying out so many perk systems by TFP? You are right, they seem to try and follow a specific agenda to find a neat final vanilla version which is satisfying not only for them. But to be honest, they are switching way too often for my taste. It seems that their vision changed too often in the past to me. Its not a shame to have Alpha 21 now and A22 in mind, but they could have progressed farther by now...

 

[warmer]

Most people who doesn't have a opinion/are against it on learn by doing has never played alpha 16.4. So the playerbase is very skewed there. 

there is no way to knows this. You are just throwing out a stat to support your point of view.

 

[meganoth]

What do you think about trying out so many perk systems by TFP? You are right, they seem to try and follow a specific agenda to find a neat final vanilla version which is satisfying not only for them. But to be honest, they are switching way too often for my taste. It seems that their vision changed too often in the past to me. Its not a shame to have Alpha 21 now and A22 in mind, but they could have progressed farther by now...

I have a different view about this. They did change their progression system completely only once, when they switched from LBD to a perk system over multiple alphas (even though for us players it felt like the main change happened between A16 and A17).

Madmole told me that the LBD system was always only a placeholder, and I think a developer also said that it was a system they got from an asset store or a similar source.

From A17 on they had an almost pure perk system, though the first system in A17 had to be redesigned once for A18. The crafting recipe system though was as long as I have known the game already learn-by-looting, basically. Finding schematics or magazines is just a different implementation of the same, you go out and loot to get better at crafting.

And this crafting recipe system changed in A17 as well to be partly perk-based and was reverted back to be only learn-by-looting again.

So in summary:

Progression of the player changed from LBD --> perks v1 --> perks v2. The evolution ended in A18 basically.

Progression of the player knowledge aka Crafting recipe learning changed from LBL1 --> LBL1 with perks --> LBL2.

 

[Lyote]

Most people who doesn't have a opinion/are against it on learn by doing has never played alpha 16.4. So the playerbase is very skewed there. Best way to solve it is have a22 use learn by doing, then ask which system they prefer, I have a good feeling learn by doing would win as long as they don't screw it up. Btw the learn by doing I mean is just for weapons/tools, like say clubs, and the learn by doing skill level determines what level pummel pete perk you can get, with the pummel pete perk being completly detached from str as a example. Bascially have a LBD system to determine how high you can take perks for weapons/tool lines instead of stat gates. I mostly go clubs because miner 69'er and motherload are too vital for a single player game, and you wanna up it early, but if there was a learn by doing skill for harvesting tools, I wouldn't need str, as I could use the tools and use that to level up miner 69'er and motherload.

Basically to make a long story short, I want weapon and tool use to be decoupled from stats and be its own thing, so were not gated by stats for our weapon choice(s).

I still think all the harvesting and non weapon perks should go over into their own tree

Always feels like a kick in the teeth to have to put a dozen points into Strength for the Heavy Armor perk knowing that those points to unlock level 7 Strength to enable all 4 levels of Heavy Armor will do absolutely nothing of value to my actual gameplay. All ive done is burn 10 levels worth of perk points to be allowed to spend the next 4 removing the handicap from my Armor
 

 

[Lokeus]

I have a different view about this. They did change their progression system completely only once, when they switched from LBD to a perk system over multiple alphas (even though for us players it felt like the main change happened between A16 and A17).

Madmole told me that the LBD system was always only a placeholder, and I think a developer also said that it was a system they got from an asset store or a similar source.

From A17 on they had an almost pure perk system, though the first system in A17 had to be redesigned once for A18. The crafting recipe system though was as long as I have known the game already learn-by-looting, basically. Finding schematics or magazines is just a different implementation of the same, you go out and loot to get better at crafting.

And this crafting recipe system changed in A17 as well to be partly perk-based and was reverted back to be only learn-by-looting again.

So in summary:

Progression of the player changed from LBD --> perks v1 --> perks v2. The evolution ended in A18 basically.

Progression of the player knowledge aka Crafting recipe learning changed from LBL1 --> LBL1 with perks --> LBL2.

Thanks for your sight of view, i started playing 7d2d right after it was released on steam as early access title and followed up development for around... 2 years? There is a big gap in my 7d2d experience with other alpha versions But though it is still fun to think about the pros and cons of their changes on the learning system. Should be staying in the wilderness without cities and traders be a legit way to play successfully the game? Yes i think so, even though i am thinking that you really have to profit from the ruins of civilization to get real advantages against the zombies. Outside your survival will be very "back to the roots" like for almost all the time, so... i really don`t the the big problem to loot a small wilderness POI from time to time and make your progress this way. Maybe i needs a bit more of stuff like traps and things like that to withstand bigger zombie hordes out in the wild.. But a map only with wilderness POIs and without cities or traders could incredibly fun i guess. Also with the implemented things which A21 already gives you. But i really would like to see waterfalls, "real rivers" as barriage against zombies. Finding existing caves already is an implemented thing but could be done better i guess. IMO they don`t need to change from existing system to satisfy all kind of players, but they could have a bit more focus on better / more exciting wilderness exploration. Huge handmade POI areas for the wilderness could be a valid solution, just keeping away any dungeon system or hidden main loot, but only for carrying players attention to it. And as he explores he will have normal zombie encounters and also average loot piles, this would be a really cool thing, what are you thinking?

 

[SylenThunder]

The problem with the LBD system was that is only really benefitted dedicated min/maxers and left the casual players way behind. It was also super easy to exploit to make progression of some skills trivial at best, yet left other skills with no good way to level them at all. 

Even with abusing the exploits, it was tedious at best. Having been around since single-digit Alphas, I am quite glad to see it gone. I'll also note that though I do find some frustrations with the new magazine system that are very similar to some of the frustrations that LBD created, I'm really liking the new system a lot more. 

 

[Survior]

I guess UL mod author is a genius because he fixed LBD to not be exploitable in a super easy and obvious way that actually works and is balance and a counterpart of perks and books. Everything the TFP do seems to be half-considered though as the old-timers constantly inform me of how every single alpha before my time has been unbalanced and exploit city. The only changes I've witnessed since the constant nerf of regular-joe-gamers-enjoyment of this game.

 

[meganoth]

Thanks for your sight of view, i started playing 7d2d right after it was released on steam as early access title and followed up development for around... 2 years? There is a big gap in my 7d2d experience with other alpha versions But though it is still fun to think about the pros and cons of their changes on the learning system. Should be staying in the wilderness without cities and traders be a legit way to play successfully the game? Yes i think so, even though i am thinking that you really have to profit from the ruins of civilization to get real advantages against the zombies. Outside your survival will be very "back to the roots" like for almost all the time, so... i really don`t the the big problem to loot a small wilderness POI from time to time and make your progress this way. Maybe i needs a bit more of stuff like traps and things like that to withstand bigger zombie hordes out in the wild.. But a map only with wilderness POIs and without cities or traders could incredibly fun i guess. Also with the implemented things which A21 already gives you. But i really would like to see waterfalls, "real rivers" as barriage against zombies. Finding existing caves already is an implemented thing but could be done better i guess. IMO they don`t need to change from existing system to satisfy all kind of players, but they could have a bit more focus on better / more exciting wilderness exploration. Huge handmade POI areas for the wilderness could be a valid solution, just keeping away any dungeon system or hidden main loot, but only for carrying players attention to it. And as he explores he will have normal zombie encounters and also average loot piles, this would be a really cool thing, what are you thinking?

I largely agree. The focus of the RWG developers for at least two alphas now seems to have been with improving the cities and it showed, but it ended with the wilderness in A20 being especially barren and uninteresting.  On the other hand they developed new ways to fill the wilderness in these two years, although less random and more handcrafted. My hope is that the focus of RWG devs and POI designers, now that cities seem somewhat finished, goes to making wilderness stamps and pois. I really hope that actually happens, as having wilderness just as a distance to the next town is just like an underground where zombies can't dig to.

One idea to make the wilderness a bit more interesting may be if TFP added some "danger" that makes having a permanent crafting base in cities difficult again. But I don't think that is a priority to them. They want to finish the game and apart from bandits there will not be many new features coming before release.

I guess UL mod author is a genius because he fixed LBD to not be exploitable in a super easy and obvious way that actually works and is balance and a counterpart of perks and books. Everything the TFP do seems to be half-considered though as the old-timers constantly inform me of how every single alpha before my time has been unbalanced and exploit city. The only changes I've witnessed since the constant nerf of regular-joe-gamers-enjoyment of this game.

One of the player I play with won't touch UL with a ten foot pole. And even I wouldn't play it twice in the same year. But it is a fantastic mod and if you can stomach the increased "grind" may be your ideal game. 

In other words, not a system I would like as a replacement of vanilla, but an excellent mod on par with DF.

 

[Survior]

I thought all you mods loved increased grind and ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously though, although SQ does make UL grindy, that's also not hard to to reduce with some modlets and even so, his system of reading, learning and skill perks actually works either way. It's not an impossible mission. It's also not even rare for people to say something like TFP could learn a lot from the UL mod and in my opinion this is certainly one of the things UL does so well.

 

[RhinoW]

One idea to make the wilderness a bit more interesting may be if TFP added some "danger" that makes having a permanent crafting base in cities difficult again. But I don't think that is a priority to them. They want to finish the game and apart from bandits there will not be many new features coming before release.

I might be a minority here, but I really think bandits is possibly one of the worst things to add to the game. It will 100% take a bunch of time to make, needing more complex AI and animations than the zombies, and it will come with its fair share of bugs until it is fixed, which will take up more time.

Time that could be used to focus on the main selling points of this game, which is the sandbox exploration and tower defense/7 day horde and polishing it. Why would they add something the game clearly doesn't need? Hats of to them for going with the duke storyline and having all that cool concept art and most likely really neat end game ideas in the backlog, but isn't that essentially shifting the focus of the game into 2 major parts? Bandits/Storyline and Zombies? When the game has always been about the zombies and surviving them? Only recently (in comparison to how many alphas there are) did the trader actually become something core to the gameplay rather than an elusive spawn on the map.

So many things that still need to be looked into (and I know some of these are already confirmed)

- Stealth and sleepers

- Combat and fluidity (recoil, animations, weapon swapping, hit reactions)

- Gore and VFX update (ex: zombie cop puke)

- Sound update and vehicle physics/controls

- Player character and armor

- New mods/Mod visuals/Mod rebalance

- Swimming

- Biome/PoI identity and zombie variants (remember the frostbitten zombies from previous alphas?)

- Special infected (we need new ones, some for bloodmoons, some for PoIs, some for both, and with very distinct abilities to make the player have to think about their base building)

- Blood Moon spawns (currently it's just shoot the bullet sponges that decide to focus on a single block until the demolisher comes which then punishes you from shooting a horde)

7 days to die is the only PVE survival zombie game out there that is able to differentiate itself from others and actually innovate, rather than being a reskin of your average survival game with X setting. Why would they go the route of adding bandits, to, let's be real, an already buggy game with its current AI. Never once in my life did I think "Damn, this game really needs human enemies".

 

[AtomicUs5000]

7 days to die is the only PVE survival zombie game out there that is able to differentiate itself from others and actually innovate, rather than being a reskin of your average survival game with X setting. Why would they go the route of adding bandits, to, let's be real, an already buggy game with its current AI. Never once in my life did I think "Damn, this game really needs human enemies".

 
I'd like to hear more thoughts on this., but probably within its own topic.

 

[Riamus]

Any system used for gaining skills will be met with people who support it completely and those who hate it entirely and where most people are somewhere in the middle.  There is no perfect system that everyone will like or think works well.  This is simply due to the fact that people like different things and play the game in different ways.  A min/max player will certainly want a system that lets them easily do that to reach the best stuff in the shortest amount of time, while a casual player will want something that just works without a significant amount of effort.  Players who don't like grinding will want something that doesn't require grinding and those who do like grinding will want something that has some amount of grind to it.  You can't please everyone.  UL might be great for some people, while for others it isn't.  There will be those who love it and those who hate it.  Just because someone thinks it works great doesn't mean others will agree.  Even the most popular game ever made had people who didn't like it.  That's what really needs to be understood.

All of the talk about how the new LBR system is horrible and needs to be removed won't get anyone anywhere.  They aren't likely to remove it.  If you don't like the system, you'll have better luck trying to give feedback on making it better without replacing it as they'll be far more interested in considering those types of suggestions.  You have the chance to give feedback that could improve the system and make it something you don't mind (even if it's not your favorite system) or you can slam the devs and those who like the system and go on about how others do it better and how it should be scrapped and, in the end, you're wasting your time because those kinds of comments are just going to be ignored by the devs and then your feedback amounts to nothing.  Do you want to try and get the system better or do you want to just be argumentative?

Anyone who wants to try and make the game (and this system) better really is best served by offering ways to improve the system the devs have chosen to use.  Or you can just continue to complain about how so-and-so does it better without offering anything to improve the game, if that's what you really feel the need to do.

I might be a minority here, but I really think bandits is possibly one of the worst things to add to the game.

I'm thinking a similar thing as well.  I enjoy this game because it's zombies.  If I want living human enemies, I'd play something else.  I think bandits will end up watering down the game into something less enjoyable.  But I haven't seen it and so could be wrong.  I'll give it a try when they are added but I'll probably be looking for someone to mod them out of the game if there isn't an option in the game to disable them.  I just really can't see any value in bandits in this game.  We'll see, though.

 

[meganoth]

I thought all you mods loved increased grind and ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously though, although SQ does make UL grindy, that's also not hard to to reduce with some modlets and even so, his system of reading, learning and skill perks actually works either way. It's not an impossible mission. It's also not even rare for people to say something like TFP could learn a lot from the UL mod and in my opinion this is certainly one of the things UL does so well.

I don't think LBD is unworkable, it has its advantages (mainly the instant cratification, for we are all hamsters in a hamster wheel). Valheim shows that it can work very well (as in "not have serious faults"), though Valheim also shows how useless it can get when you learn everything automatically. In Valheim the main effect seems to be to give a death penalty.

 

[meganoth]

I might be a minority here, but I really think bandits is possibly one of the worst things to add to the game. It will 100% take a bunch of time to make, needing more complex AI and animations than the zombies, and it will come with its fair share of bugs until it is fixed, which will take up more time.

It already took a bunch of time to make, specifically most of A21 was used for bandits though they didn't get finished in time.

Time that could be used to focus on the main selling points of this game, which is the sandbox exploration and tower defense/7 day horde and polishing it. Why would they add something the game clearly doesn't need?

The most simple answer: Because it was one of the promises in the kickstarter. And if kickstarter promised a story as well, bandits aka NPCs make that possible as well. 

Hats of to them for going with the duke storyline and having all that cool concept art and most likely really neat end game ideas in the backlog, but isn't that essentially shifting the focus of the game into 2 major parts? Bandits/Storyline and Zombies? When the game has always been about the zombies and surviving them? Only recently (in comparison to how many alphas there are) did the trader actually become something core to the gameplay rather than an elusive spawn on the map.

So many things that still need to be looked into (and I know some of these are already confirmed)

- Stealth and sleepers

- Combat and fluidity (recoil, animations, weapon swapping, hit reactions)

- Gore and VFX update (ex: zombie cop puke)

- Sound update and vehicle physics/controls

- Player character and armor

PC and armor were developed hand in hand with bandits, I assume we will look like bandits and they will look very much like us. <insert philosophical piece of wisdom>

- New mods/Mod visuals/Mod rebalance

- Swimming

- Biome/PoI identity and zombie variants (remember the frostbitten zombies from previous alphas?)

- Special infected (we need new ones, some for bloodmoons, some for PoIs, some for both, and with very distinct abilities to make the player have to think about their base building)

- Blood Moon spawns (currently it's just shoot the bullet sponges that decide to focus on a single block until the demolisher comes which then punishes you from shooting a horde)

7 days to die is the only PVE survival zombie game out there that is able to differentiate itself from others and actually innovate, rather than being a reskin of your average survival game with X setting. Why would they go the route of adding bandits, to, let's be real, an already buggy game with its current AI. Never once in my life did I think "Damn, this game really needs human enemies".

TFP did 10 years ago

 

[Scyris]

Nice idea, but somewhat time-consuming and expensive for TFP to do as they would have to optimize and balance the LBD system as well and if the "player base" would then want perks back they would have to scrap all other work they have done in the meantime and integrate that with the perk system again. Also they could not add bandits at the same time as that would influence the vote as well.

Maybe a better way would be to actually provide two versions, one with perks and one with LBD. So everybody can have what he wants. Drawback is that TFP would have to support both versions.

(Actually we have two versions available, one with perks and one with LBD (DF). But for some the availability of a mod doesn't count)

Oh don't give me that, if a single modder can do it in a short time (less than a week working an hour or 2 a day or so), tfp has no excuse. Darkness Falls completly tosses vanilla's stat system in the garbage (where it should be imo) each alpha, and I believe its very easy for him it implement it everytime the game updates. This proves the coding to support it still exists from when it was in a16.4, if it wasn't it'd be much harder to be put in, still doable, just be more work, going from a16.4's system to the a18 stat system was probally way more work than if they just fixed the 2-3 issues with the a16.4 system, yet instead of fixing the few small issues it had they decided to redo it from scratch.

As for balancing it.

skill levels 1, 20, 40, 60, 80 are level 1,2,3,4,5 of a perk like pummel pete, miner 69'er, motherload etc. To balance headshot damage. look at what the bonus is at 10 in the stat, and set it as a range from 1 skill to 100 skill. with 0 skill being equil to 1 stat, and 100 skill being whatever the stat at 10 would have (this can be done, many aspects of the game already use this system). You could also make the action skill give a bit of damage, and a bit faster reload that stacks on top of the perks, but that could come later.

The point is just because mods exist aren't an excuse for the devs to bascially ignore what the playerbase. I'm tired of 7dtd devs using mods as a excuse as to why they don't have X feature, give us a real reason. Your not making a game just for yourselves devs, your making it to try to appeal to players to buy it, need to learn to cave on some things for the sake of players.

Good example is the whole needing farm plots, Devs say its because you can't hoe the ground due to some technical reason with the way the game handles biomes or something (I forget exactly what it was but it was along these lines), yet multiple mods have shown it can easly be done and it works fine. Whats the excuse now? As your technical reason was just debunked since modders were able to do it without a problem, calling it a "hacky" way doesn't matter, what matters is it was easly done, by some modder in his home on his own. TFP in this case made a choice, thats the only reason it "needed" to be changed. BTW DF also has the farm plots, you can use either way to grow crops, either hoeing the ground or using farm plots.. See players like choices? Some like the farm plots in DF, me? I just hoe the ground.

One of my biggest gripes is TFP keeps removing choice from the player, A21 with the sex t-rex thing is a prime example, why not add it to the weapon lines as they did, but also leave sex t-rex in? so players could choose to invest in sex t-rex to get all around stam reduction, or could choose to ignore it and focus on their chosen stat/weapon. I know what i'd choose, I'd choose to get sex t-rex in str, as its more efficent, as even maxing the stam reduction in ONE weapon or tool line now costs over double the perk points maxing sex t-rex used to cost that effected every weapon or tool. Its just gone from being efficent to super inefficent as hell from a20 to a21.