Let's discuss Learn By Doing for hopefully the last time.

[zztong]

While at the same time you have failed to demonstrate that the subset does not represent the majority.
Trying to use a straw man fallacy to create a Schrödinger's cat paradox

No. It's not a straw man. They're not misrepresenting your argument; they're questioning the data you're using to make your claim.

When a person conducts research, writes a paper, they have to defend that paper. Their methods matter. If you present a statement of fact, you can be asked to back that up with your evidence. If you don't or can't then how can anyone verify your claim?

A central problem we all face is that the forums aren't a representative population of the whole. It is a population of people who are invested in the game enough to express an opinion. So, if your methods involved collecting data from forum posts, you could potentially claim the results were representative of the feelings expressed on the forums as of the date range you sampled.

Then, how you collected the data would matter. If you, for instance, only read articles that contained "Jars" in the title and tried to say your results were indicative of how people thought about LBD, then the conclusion would likely be junk as people talking about Jars aren't necessarily the people talking about LBD.

Does this make sense? It's central to research methods.

Overall, this is why some people bristle at statements that say "the majority of players." None of us can know that. But statements that say, "my reading of the Steam forums suggests XYZ" is an informed opinion.

An added complication is there are at least 3 major forums with potentially different audiences. We can't be sure if a person looked at Steam that the results could be reliably applied to the readers of Reddit and this forum. We do have some opinions of persons characterizing this forum as being different than the others.

I'm not a researcher. I work with researchers, but we're mostly into things like the security of industrial and business systems. I say that because I'm going to speculate on what might prove to be reliable for making a claim about "the majority of players." If a survey were conducted, and the survey were presented to all players via the News item in the game, then it would be an option for all players to respond. And then, if the survey asked a number of demographic questions, or perhaps associate players with other data, such as time played, the date the game were purchased, then the survey might be able to show those who responded weren't just the drooling fanboys, those who were upset, just the "Old Guard", just those who wanted Jars, etc.

If anyone read this far, I'd point out opinions are perfectly cool. Even an opinion of what the majority of players might think is cool. Opinions lead to a hypothesis. A hypothesis isn't proof, but it is an educated guess.

 

[theFlu]

The developers take feedback and sentiment and make changes based on what they feel would be best going forward.

Yup, but it's a bit two-fold. Feedback is valuable, but only when it's .. "real". In the sense that there's actually a crappy mechanic behind it. If there's a crappy mechanic in the game, no amount of feedback is necessary; the mechanic remains crappy even if no-one says anything. And it remains crappy if literally everyone complains. It can be found without feedback, and fixed without feedback. The only real test is "is the mechanic good for the game".

Now, after watching them fumble for about 10 alphas, I no longer trust TFP to know what they actually want. They can't reliably decide "what's good for the game". From there, blindly following feedback is ... going to lead them to develop ideas and features they don't understand, like, or want. That's .. not going to be great, either. They can't make a thing they don't understand; not in something as complex as their game...

 

[Sapient6]

So we have some form of agreeance... You dislike aspects of the game. This is confirming the argument of my analysis that the majority of players are unhappy in some form of the games direction and delivery.
Does not mean you dont like the game and centrally wont stop playing or supporting it. But in your own words "I dislike both"

Well, yes and no?

I don't like the magazine system, so we agree on that score. But I did find the magazine system to be an improvement over the one it replaced (learning recipes from perk points). So I would say that I am happy with the direction of the game, both on this particular aspect and on others as well. (note: that will likely change if they bring back jars)

I will go on to say that the only thing TFP has done that really ticks me off is the use of AI to create concept art. That is disgusting and it should make everyone at TFP feel deep and lasting shame.

 

[Soulmonster]

Even people who aren't posting doesn't mean silent acceptance as it could be laziness, apathy, or other factors to include them enjoying the game. It's just very hard if not impossible to tell.

TFP can only go on things that are tangible such as things that might effect sales like steam reviews, poor YouTube reviews, etc that might turn people off when looking into a game.

Yes, it is hard to impossible to tell - my point exactly.

TFP can use various metrics to guide their development. The most obvious is of course sales and fluctuations in number of players at any give time. Then they can look at reviews and commentaries. And they can of course do some survey to get below the vocal minority.

But maybe their main concern is making the game the way they want it and they are not overly concerned at long as a decent amount of people play the game. I have no idea.

Post automatically merged: Sunday at 7:40 AM

While at the same time you have failed to demonstrate that the subset does not represent the majority.
Trying to use a straw man fallacy to create a Schrödinger's cat paradox
Simple minds get caught on simple problems

I am not trying to argue that the subset doesn't represent the majority. That is not my job. Your job is to argue that it DOES represent the majority because it is you who make that claim. The onus is on you to argue for your opinions. Remember, my only argument is that we can't know if the vocal minority is representative for the majority, not that it isn't.

 

[zztong]

I can't remember who shared this data about reviews...

Steam ratings history

Check user ratings for any game over time. # Start typing the name of the game below and pick one.

www.lorenzostanco.com

... where it shows from Jun to Present a change from 87% positive recent reviews in June 2025 to 51% positive recent reviews. That's useful. The population is those who gave reviews during that time, which (if I understand the chart correctly) was around 13,000 reviews. That seems like a significant shift in such a short time.

Also interesting to me is if I switch the chart's Date Range to "Since 2016" there's also a significant upswing in opinion in November of 2019. I wonder what version of the game that was, because the reviews remain very positive for a long time after. It makes me curious what feature set was in that version of the game.

EDIT: And, related to a discussion of LBD, if LBD was in the game around that time.

 

[Kyoji]

Yup, but it's a bit two-fold. Feedback is valuable, but only when it's .. "real". In the sense that there's actually a crappy mechanic behind it. If there's a crappy mechanic in the game, no amount of feedback is necessary; the mechanic remains crappy even if no-one says anything. And it remains crappy if literally everyone complains. It can be found without feedback, and fixed without feedback. The only real test is "is the mechanic good for the game".

Now, after watching them fumble for about 10 alphas, I no longer trust TFP to know what they actually want. They can't reliably decide "what's good for the game". From there, blindly following feedback is ... going to lead them to develop ideas and features they don't understand, like, or want. That's .. not going to be great, either. They can't make a thing they don't understand; not in something as complex as their game...

Of course, the developers are paid employees who should be able to discern the best path forward given the development time table. Plus communication on why things are added or not added make a world of difference. The logic of not taking in feedback because they haven't done a good job lately seems pointless as that would invalidate even your feedback of not taking feedback.

But maybe their main concern is making the game the way they want it and they are not overly concerned at long as a decent amount of people play the game. I have no idea.

I would say that is likely not the case, at least not entirely, given the town hall and recent changes. I am sure the developers have a vision but much like how you might convince a friend to do something they might want to do the players can influence the developers train of thought with good feedback to where Joel or Rick may be like "yeah I never thought of it that way" and they then get to thinking how best to re-work or implement something.

 

[Charger265]

But what if the available data isn't complete enough to draw any conclusions? How would you determine if that's the case? How would you rule that out?

How would you rule out that the majority is actually happy with the game, and they simply don't visit reddit, or Youtube, or wherever else people have been most vocal about their opinions with the game currently?

I was thinking about this. You are on point with the right question to find answer.

Taking a look at player retention rate vs copies sold is a good place to start. A16 up until early A17 had the highest retention rate per player. Further leading to the evidence that A16 was the best iteration of engaging content of the games history.
A17-A20 slowly declined with spikes on updates. - This is the time when the slow burn of disgruntled players moved on.
Alpha 21 saw the second best player retention rates and really it out performed 1.0 and 2.0 - Based on the copies sold in that time it points to a large number of players returning.
1.0 saw a major spike as it came out of Alpha and the hype that follow. This produces a large number of copies sold increasing the player base but resulted in a major drop in player retention then quickly fell back to Alpha 21 stats despite the huge increase in player base.

This is just one way to add another data set to the mix that does not require any user interaction from forums and social media but delivers raw player numbers and play time filling the large hole of the argument "but what about the players who dont post"
Really if it followed the trend of an engaging game that produced a long entertaining playthrough we should be seeing player statics increase dramatically but we are not they have completely stagnated.

Post automatically merged: Sunday at 8:03 AM

No. It's not a straw man. They're not misrepresenting your argument; they're questioning the data you're using to make your claim.

When a person conducts research, writes a paper, they have to defend that paper. Their methods matter. If you present a statement of fact, you can be asked to back that up with your evidence. If you don't or can't then how can anyone verify your claim?

At the same time the person who is refuting the claim has to prove their rebuttable.
If not the statement i made is accurate and correct.

 

[plzkthxbye]

Taking a look at player retention rate vs copies sold is a good place to start.

Where do you get copies sold data from? I didn't buy my copy from Steam (I bought directly from TFP website back when A13 was the current version), but I activated it on Steam.

evidence that A16 was the best iteration of engaging content of the games history

I can't see how you can conclude this from retention data, particularly the "engaging content" claim. If the figures you're using are accurate enough to determine player retention (which I don't know if they are), you can't conclude why the retention was so high at that point.

This is the time when the slow burn of disgruntled players moved on

Or maybe other games came out at that time that players found more interesting? There's no way to know how many different reasons -- other than becoming disgruntled -- there were for the numbers diminishing at that time. Grounded 2 just came out in the past few days, for example, so many people might have put 7DTD on the shelf for now to go check that out.

Alpha 21 saw the second best player retention rates

Which is interesting since that's the version where jars were removed

 

[Soulmonster]

At the same time the person who is refuting the claim has to prove their rebuttable.

I am not refuting the claim that the majority of players are not happy (I have no idea), but that your subset of data represents the majority. And no, I don't have to prove that it doesn't represent the majority, it is you who have to claim it does because it is inherent to your argument.

 

[zztong]

At the same time the person who is refuting the claim has to prove their rebuttable.
If not the statement i made is accurate and correct.

An absence of proof against your statement is not proof of your statement's accuracy.

If they presented facts in rebuttal then they too would invite scrutiny. But they're not doing that. They're questioning your statement of fact.

Analogy: If you two were playing poker and all the bets were placed and called, you could say "I have a full house so I win", but you don't actually win until you lay down your cards and everyone can see that you do actually have the superior hand. You're saying "I have a full house" and they are saying "no you don't." So, lay down your cards.

 

[Xacsis]

Exactly! Why everyone is forced into one specific play style to progress. Why not make it more organic, so that every player can play how they want and everyone is progressing in field they are enjoying?!

To Clarify and I apologize for this but I feel the Learn by Doing is the chore list type progression. I have played many games like this and they always end in a terrible meta. No, you have to smelt 13k silver ingots because you get 32.73478 exp per ingot instead of silver bars which gives you 31.2732 exp per bar. It turns harvesting into a chore.

It is the Runescape method where you hear about people spending whole days just chopping wood to get their levels up. Logging into go what chore do I need to level up today.

 

[zztong]

Also interesting to me is if I switch the chart's Date Range to "Since 2016" there's also a significant upswing in opinion in November of 2019. I wonder what version of the game that was, because the reviews remain very positive for a long time after.

Here's a screen capture of the chart to which I was referring. The URL is shown so you can view it directly if you wish.



I went back through the news on this site...

October | 2017 | 7 Days to Die

7daystodie.com

... and attempted to find the dates for each version that was documented there. I found dates for A13 through V2.0. I could have easily written down an incorrect date or inaccurately plotted it, so please check my work.

Here is my attempt to plot those versions on that graph...



As was mentioned by somebody else, probably in another discussion, the dip in positive results for 2.0 appears to be shown.

But, related to this discussion of LBD (and discussions of the superiority of A16), consider the relative positivity of reviews then, to the relative positivity of reviews for A18 and A19.

Within the limits of this data:

• Only product reviews (those who felt inclined to leave a review)
• Only reviews on Steam (so PC players, not console)
• The functionality of lorenzostanco . com being a black box that may not accurately collect or display the information

I think the data suggests the feature set of A18 and A19 were the pinnacle of positive feedback. I don't know exactly which versions included features that LBD would count. A15, A16 .(.. A17?) but it appears to be a general downward trend in positivity from A15 through the beginning of A17.

I hesitate to draw a conclusion about LBD, other than to say A18 and A19 were strongly positive without it. It would be possible it absence was overshadowed by significant improvement in other areas. The data doesn't let us tease out any specific features.

What did I mess up? Am I reaching too far to draw a conclusion? Are there other sources of data that should be considered?

 

[theFlu]

I hesitate to draw a conclusion about LBD, other than to say A18 and A19 were strongly positive without it. It would be possible it absence was overshadowed by significant improvement in other areas. The data doesn't let us tease out any specific features.

Or even a simple survivorship bias; the people reacting negatively, quit. From there an influx of people living under the new game; a new audience.

Not claiming a significant size to that effect, but I don't think the metric is able to find any effect of LBD. Mainly due to people not even trying to evaluate that, just the game as is; if it's the best in its class (minecraft zombies), it'll get good overall ratings even if some parts aren't as good as they could.

 

[Rotor]

I came in Dec 2021, so looks like A20, as I forget. I thought the game was pretty ■■■■ good. I mean it is still good, .... then it started creeping or getting "fixed"

 

[Charger265]

I am not trying to argue that the subset doesn't represent the majority. That is not my job. Your job is to argue that it DOES represent the majority because it is you who make that claim. The onus is on you to argue for your opinions. Remember, my only argument is that we can't know if the vocal minority is representative for the majority, not that it isn't.

But you are making that argument. And by making that statement the same rules apply to your argument as you are apply to mine. I have presented arguments and data to provide reference to my statement. But you chose to refute it. Which is perfectly fine to do.

I am not refuting the claim that the majority of players are not happy (I have no idea), but that your subset of data represents the majority. And no, I don't have to prove that it doesn't represent the majority, it is you who have to claim it does because it is inherent to your argument.

Then why are you making the argument except for the reason that its a differing opinion you dont like so you will make any excuses to fight it. Again i have spent the time to investigate what data is available to arrive at a logical conclusion. You are free to agree or disagree

Where do you get copies sold data from? I didn't buy my copy from Steam (I bought directly from TFP website back when A13 was the current version), but I activated it on Steam.

Used data scraping to look for press releases and milestones for 7DTD

I can't see how you can conclude this from retention data, particularly the "engaging content" claim. If the figures you're using are accurate enough to determine player retention (which I don't know if they are), you can't conclude why the retention was so high at that point.

"Further leading to the evidence" At no point did i say it was the sole reason but it does clearly show the player retention was at its highest. You can decide the exact reason why based on your own opinion.

Or maybe other games came out at that time that players found more interesting? There's no way to know how many different reasons -- other than becoming disgruntled -- there were for the numbers diminishing at that time. Grounded 2 just came out in the past few days, for example, so many people might have put 7DTD on the shelf for now to go check that out.

Logical conclusion can be formed from the data.

Which is interesting since that's the version where jars were removed

Yes but this was also the lead up tot he hype of 1.0
The removal of jars argument has been made and as we have both pointed out it wasnt an issue.

Your question how to address the missing data was a good one but these are nothing more than grasping at ideas to find any reason to say i dont have a valid argument.

An absence of proof against your statement is not proof of your statement's accuracy.

If they presented facts in rebuttal then they too would invite scrutiny. But they're not doing that. They're questioning your statement of fact.

I dont think you understand the the statement. The argument that most are presenting is based on how they feel. Refuting data presented stands true to "Ignorance is bliss" Unless you can provide some form of evidence that reufuts the presented evidence. Yes you can paint a murky picture and thats all that is being hung onto.

Analogy: If you two were playing poker and all the bets were placed and called, you could say "I have a full house so I win", but you don't actually win until you lay down your cards and everyone can see that you do actually have the superior hand. You're saying "I have a full house" and they are saying "no you don't." So, lay down your cards.

I have played down the cards you haven't. Making your argument invalid and your analogy correct.

Here's a screen capture of the chart to which I was referring. The URL is shown so you can view it directly if you wish.

View attachment 36041

I went back through the news on this site...

October | 2017 | 7 Days to Die

7daystodie.com

... and attempted to find the dates for each version that was documented there. I found dates for A13 through V2.0. I could have easily written down an incorrect date or inaccurately plotted it, so please check my work.

Here is my attempt to plot those versions on that graph...

View attachment 36040

As was mentioned by somebody else, probably in another discussion, the dip in positive results for 2.0 appears to be shown.

But, related to this discussion of LBD (and discussions of the superiority of A16), consider the relative positivity of reviews then, to the relative positivity of reviews for A18 and A19.

Within the limits of this data:

• Only product reviews (those who felt inclined to leave a review)
• Only reviews on Steam (so PC players, not console)
• The functionality of lorenzostanco . com being a black box that may not accurately collect or display the information

I think the data suggests the feature set of A18 and A19 were the pinnacle of positive feedback. I don't know exactly which versions included features that LBD would count. A15, A16 .(.. A17?) but it appears to be a general downward trend in positivity from A15 through the beginning of A17.

I hesitate to draw a conclusion about LBD, other than to say A18 and A19 were strongly positive without it. It would be possible it absence was overshadowed by significant improvement in other areas. The data doesn't let us tease out any specific features.

What did I mess up? Am I reaching too far to draw a conclusion? Are there other sources of data that should be considered?

I can see how AI came to that conclusion. with A18 & A19 Did you happen to factor in Covid and the majority of the world went into lock down allowing an uptick in new players through new sales. Due to everyone being stuck inside?
Did you also factor in that with low users/sales the variables on a graph will show a higher degree of variation?
I have no problem with you are taking AI references but when you do make sure you make sure you advise others.

 

[Soulmonster]

But you are making that argument.

No, I am arguing that you haven't demonstrated that the subset is representative of the whole.

 

[Rotor]

There will never be a "last time" for this topic because people will never shut up about it.

As a joke I was going to post something about the "burning question" but figured to look and see if there had been any mention prior.

You sir ruined my fun .

 

[Soulmonster]

Then why are you making the argument

Because you deserve to be told when you are wrong and because I see many other people here use the same flawed argument that the number of complainers indicate that most players are unhappy.

 

[Charger265]

No, I am arguing that you haven't demonstrated that the subset is representative of the whole.

So that just your opinion... Ok.. Again as i said before its up to you if you agree or disagree.
I will there for show you the same respect you have shown to my opinion on the subject.

Because you deserve to be told when you are wrong and because I see many other people here use the same flawed argument that the number of complainers indicate that most players are unhappy.

You have said you have no way of knowing that im wrong or right. See how your arguments have no logical outcome.
Now you claim "Flawed argument" prove it.. I dont think you have...
Shoe is on the other foot now. Am i allowed to play your game?

 

[Kalen]

I think the data suggests the feature set of A18 and A19 were the pinnacle of positive feedback. I don't know exactly which versions included features that LBD would count. A15, A16 .(.. A17?) but it appears to be a general downward trend in positivity from A15 through the beginning of A17.

I hesitate to draw a conclusion about LBD, other than to say A18 and A19 were strongly positive without it. It would be possible it absence was overshadowed by significant improvement in other areas. The data doesn't let us tease out any specific features.

Lets not forget that those older versions of the game were far more janky than the current versions. Very buggy and very ugly things that I think drive negative reviews far more strongly than whatever systems might be in place. I think no matter your stance on LBD, no one can argue that the game hasn't become more polished over the years.