PC My Replayability Issue w/ A17

[Spider]

@Bubbahotetp-

WoW that's the best post I have seen since 17 dropped. But what do you think the odds are that they will listen to anything you posted. Slim to none and Slim just left town for the holidays.

 

[Scyris]

I agree for the most part...I will say that I still GREATLY value the bookstores (and some crazy new museum/underground bunker/testing facility POI i found) for the mod schematics.
The mods are definitely the "new" macguffin/holy grail that players are seeking in the game. The problem is that A17 bought in HARD to that concept. All other loot is SUPER quickly, if inconsistently attainable....any gun, any armor, any weapon, any tool, you can probably loot, quest, or buy it pretty easily...or can craft it at 100% strength the moment you unlock it. But the mods necessary for it are currently too few, too unvaried, and too late in the game.

I spend a lot of levels 40-100 just scouting around for mods or mod schematics so i can make my gear the way i want it later...but pre-40 could REALLY use some mod love too...something more than just the dye you find all over. There are also so few mods that every weapon DOES end up looking the same at high levels, despite one of the main purposes of them being to customize your weapons and tools differently from everyone.

There are few enough mods and numerous enough mod slots that, given all the mods and top end gear, all the gear will look pretty darned similar...even for gear where there is more than 5 possible mods that can be used at the same time, it just ends up shunting out clearly UNIVERSALLY inferior choices for clearly UNIVERSALLY superior ones...not choice, just X is better than Y.

Also, the mods are completely loot/quest only...complete RNG, so its less customization and more roguelike..."oh, in this game i ended up with this combination of mods to make this frankenstein monster of a gear combination" - no choice, just RNG and "this is what you get this playthru"

I'm really hoping mods get greatly and QUICKLY improved and expanded....player interest and replayability seems to rely on it, since TFP have seemingly decided that this is where the RNG loot aspect of the game is headed.

Yeah, my major gripe with a17 well one of them is how heavily it depends on the mod system, yet finding a full set of mods for something is ■■■■ near impossible. Useable mods need to drop alot more in loot imo.

 

[Ghostlight]

I agree this is the root of the problem. Up until a16, I thought this was a crafting+survival game. OFC you had to fight, and that was good, but it was never the main activity. With a17 suddenly it seems they try to stear the game direction into a combat game

If this really is the direction they are going, then there is ZERO point in having a Voxel engine. Port the entire game over to a classic polygon-based engine and at least it will look decent. Right now the game gets a lot of flak for its ancient graphics because people do not realize it is a Voxel game. No point in Voxel if you want to push the players away from building a base.

 

[Scyris]

Many of A17's most serious problems do not manifest until you have played quite a bit into it, or have restarted a second play-through. These include:
1) Severe lack of replayability. Since every player gets the same items unlocked at the same level every game, variety in subsequent runs is gone.

2) Player is OP by day 30. On day 30, or whenever the player hits level 100, all perks that matter will be maxed. The player is basically maxed. Now this also happened in all previous alphas, however, it never happened as early as this (day 30 jeezuz); and the player was never as OP as this (2-shotting Irradiated Cops? On max difficulty? Seriously?)

3) Player is guaranteed OP by level 100. Again those stupidly designed perks. They give me everything by level 100. So not only is level 100 OP, it is guaranteed OP. Every single run. As a side effect, this means there is zero need for the player to ever explore/loot again, as he has every item in the game at top tier by this point. You may hope to start looting mods at this stage in the game, but on day 30 I had enough mods to fill multiple tier 6 items many times over, so....no.

I feel the player is pretty op by level 50, Motocycle, lv 4 healing factor (regen 1 hp every 5s), tier 4 crafting. I never bother with the food/water perks, as i've never once had a problem with food or water in a17, I tend to have way more of both than I need without ever trying to find food. Actually come to think of it i've never ever had a problem with food/water since I started playing 7dtd.

 

[Ghostlight]

If your goal is power-leveling then combat is currently the most efficient choice in B208

Even if your goal is simply levelling, cmbat is the mosrt efficient way to do it.

If your goal is to just play the game, combat is just one of the things that you do.

Not really since almost every activity in the game has one or more "essential" skills locked behind perks. If you want perks you need to level. If you want to level you need to fight. Hence no matter what you want to do, you need to fight first and foremost to get the EXP to do <whatever>.

If you don’t want to fight zombies in POIs you can perk into range and stealth skills and one shot zombies.

Where are you going to get the EXP to buy those perks if you do not fight?

 

[Scyris]

If this really is the direction they are going, then there is ZERO point in having a Voxel engine. Port the entire game over to a classic polygon-based engine and at least it will look decent. Right now the game gets a lot of flak for its ancient graphics because people do not realize it is a Voxel game. No point in Voxel if you want to push the players away from building a base.

Kinda agree, you don't need voxels to have base building, look at Ark survival evolved and such.

 

[Ghostlight]

I agree for the most part...I will say that I still GREATLY value the bookstores (and some crazy new museum/underground bunker/testing facility POI i found) for the mod schematics.
The mods are definitely the "new" macguffin/holy grail that players are seeking in the game. The problem is that A17 bought in HARD to that concept. All other loot is SUPER quickly, if inconsistently attainable....any gun, any armor, any weapon, any tool, you can probably loot, quest, or buy it pretty easily...or can craft it at 100% strength the moment you unlock it. But the mods necessary for it are currently too few, too unvaried, and too late in the game.

I spend a lot of levels 40-100 just scouting around for mods or mod schematics so i can make my gear the way i want it later...but pre-40 could REALLY use some mod love too...something more than just the dye you find all over. .

You are doing it wrong, I'm afraid. Just put 3 points into Daring Adventurer, then spend 1 to 2 days running the most time-efficient Trader quests you can. Bingo! More mods than you will ever need. I am level 100 and have one full storage full of mods that i have no item to put them all, because all my items are fully modded. I even have multiple weapons of the same type just to find a place to put the mods I have.

 

[Ghostlight]

The following are the Steam statistics on how many people are playing 7DTD sice the 24th nov up until today:
Date Peak players Week day

24-nov 26572 sat about the 13th most popular game on steam

25-nov 27388 sun

26-nov 19746 mon

27-nov 19025 tue

28-nov 18504 wed 20th most popular

29-nov 18201 thu

30-nov 18880 fri

01-dec 21734 sat

02-dec 24273 sun

03-dec 17046 mon place 34

04-dec 16300 tue place 23

05-dec 15763 wed place 27

06-dec 15783 thu place 30

07-dec 15304 fri place 42

08-dec 19511 sat place 28

09-dec 20470 sun place 26

10-dec 14239 mon place 35

Holy cow, I've never seen a new experimental alpha fall off so quickly. That is shocking. I really hope TFP take note of this and don't let their arrogance ruin their game. Swallow your pride TFP, and own up that the new systems and mechanics are more or less garbage across the board. You will very quickly be forgiven by your loving playerbase.

Bottom line: A16.4 with only the new graphics, AI, vehicles and POIs would be without doubt, a superior game to A17. Fix it!

 

[Ghostlight]

I feel the player is pretty op by level 50, Motocycle, lv 4 healing factor (regen 1 hp every 5s), tier 4 crafting. I never bother with the food/water perks, as i've never once had a problem with food or water in a17, I tend to have way more of both than I need without ever trying to find food. Actually come to think of it i've never ever had a problem with food/water since I started playing 7dtd.

Well, that will depend on the player and the difficulty level. In my post, I decided to cite level 100 because while you might be ANECDOTALLY OP by level 50, you are FACTUALLY OP by level 100, because there is simply no way to get any more powerful. You have every item in the game at top tier and full of mods, and all relevant perks maxed. There is nowhere else to go.

 

[Randomdude]

A17 was not a sudden change. It is the culmination of the changes begun in A11 when for the very first time experience points were tallied and applied to tool and weapon progression. No, the direction has been clear and it’s inexorably going to continue on its course.

"Trying to balance "survival, RPG, FPS, Tower Defense, Voxel building, sandbox" would be too much work or even impossible for a team like Blizzard or Bethesda. For this to work they'd need a team for each genre and listen to each to make sure that any of the other teams plans don't interpose the others."

First... Never once did I say I minded the RPG aspect of the game. I think is unbalanced but I also explain that with tweaking it should be fine.

Second... I stand by my comment for the reason of being turned off. The time needed to balance all this genres together and the PvP aspect of it would take the next 5 years (look at the "gutting" of the building aspect, just to make the zombies "feel" dangerous/smarter). Money will run out eventually and another injection will be needed to continue development. The decision at that time would probably mean "selling" something or just cutting your losses and releasing an incomplete/unbalanced game quoting all the "bullet points" of the kick starter and making sure you're not liable.

Hypothetical, yes... But I've seen enough "big" projects to see a pothole from a far and raise a red flag about it before we get there.

This is what turns me off... The rabbit hole that is balancing a game that tries to be EVERY game.

- - - Updated - - -

I've made this point before: They have already found something that a ton of people liked. All that was needed was a little tweaking and extending of the current concept.

This is an amazingly informative post. GJ!

 

[Bubbahotetp]

@Bubbahotetp-

WoW that's the best post I have seen since 17 dropped. But what do you think the odds are that they will listen to anything you posted. Slim to none and Slim just left town for the holidays.

Yeah, it's funny isn't it? Saying this to players is the wrong audience, because what are they supposed to do with this? You get responses like "Nooo but its stil teh best survivel gaem out teheereee!!" Well, not according to most Steam players it isn't (again, look at the numbers, nothing about them screams best survival game, more like worst survival game in the top 100 list!).

Saying this to the mods is pointless. Their job is to keep the cattle in line and prod them until they shut up. Sorry mods, but those of you most vocal on here often times seem like the ones who know the least about what they're actually doing on here.

Trying to say something like this to the pimps is like trying to say to the pope he got the bible wrong, they'll just find a new way of justifying why their choices were the best ever and they got a plan anyway. Well who knows - maybe they're even working on a completely different game by now and this is just kept rolling as long as it's mostly going down hill by its own power. Who can say? Or maybe they have a solid business strategy going and are cool as ice, have it all down and they'll make me look like a completely stupid prick with my comments!? Who is to say? Which ever it is, you don't need two brain cells to figure out that I'd prefer the last over any other option.

Why do I bother with this? Frustration, I guess. All I got left. And if everything goes down the drain I'll get to say "I told you so!".

What many people on here forget is that not every fan of 7dtd is a 16 year old with pimples and who's idea of afterplay has something to do with wipes for a cellphone screen.

The audience of 7dtd is actually surprisingly mature (granted, old and mature aren't the same thing, replace at your own leasure) in many cases, most likely also the people who'll get the most annoyed by "the antics" you see in relation to the company, game development, forum moderation and game mechanics.

I'll keep doing this until it's no fun anymore, or until they find a way to make the game more interesting than beating a dead horse. I try to stay positive, which'll be indicated by me continuing to drop by. When I'm not doing that anymore then I've lost the rest of my hope. Probalby the result of it taking seven years to die. (Corny but it sounded like a fun final word ;P )

 

[PoppaTot]

The audience of 7dtd is actually surprisingly mature (granted, old and mature aren't the same thing, replace at your own leasure) in many cases, most likely also the people who'll get the most annoyed by "the antics" you see in relation to the company, game development, forum moderation and game mechanics.

I agree with you here completely. The Devs (for the most part) in their replies have seemed condescending when responding to feedback, the Mods (for the most part) are disrespectful to the community in their responses as well (one actually told me to block them in their response because that is how they are and have been for years). Then others in the forum stick up for them and say things along the lines of "that's just their way of joking around, you just have to get to know them"..... No thanks, best to just look past the majority of their posts and cherry-pick the useful points.

I genuinely hope TFPs have a complete game plan here and are not just winging it, because they had gold and seem to think that they infallible at this point.

Just my thoughts on the topic and I know some (most/all?) won't agree with me.

 

[R0bb0b]

My opinion is they wouldn't have spent almost 1.5 years completely redesigning their game to walk it back after the latest experimental. Too bad, because they were headed down such a unique path of endless player opportunity. Now it's feeling like another run-of-the-mill "I'll do a couple play-throughs and re-visit in a year or so when it feels fresh for another one" or "it's now Halloween season, let's dust off 7DTD for a quick play" FeelsBadMan

The path to level 60 on my second play through was excruciating. I might do it maybe one more time.

 

[Aldranon]

Whoa! A game can not damage a graphics card by using it. If something starts to smell then you either have a defective gfx card or a faulty / badly installed fan on it.
Something to look into before it starts smoking. Computer components run on smoke so it is important that the smoke stays inside.

Good to know, I bought some big computer fans anyway.

Maybe it was the special Russian quality electrical power grid again...

Anyway, I ran a few more days and no smoky smell... maybe I was thinking too hard?

 

[Bubbahotetp]

I genuinely hope TFPs have a complete game plan here and are not just winging it, because they had gold and seem to think that they infallible at this point.

Just my thoughts on the topic and I know some (most/all?) won't agree with me.

Yeah I hope it's genious at work rather than what ever millenial attitude about good hard work you can interpret into this (ouch, that one burned even my fingertips...).

Nice talking to ya.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Even if your goal is simply levelling, cmbat is the mosrt efficient way to do it.


Not really since almost every activity in the game has one or more "essential" skills locked behind perks. If you want perks you need to level. If you want to level you need to fight. Hence no matter what you want to do, you need to fight first and foremost to get the EXP to do <whatever>.

Where are you going to get the EXP to buy those perks if you do not fight?

The point you are completely missing is that if you just play the game, you will get plenty of xp. I was level 26 by day 14 without making any effort to power level. At this rate I’’ll probably end up between 50-60 by day 30 (Not 100) I spent a total of 4-5 days looting in that 14 days. All the other xp came from engaging wandering hordes or zombies in my way. If your goal is too get to the highest level possible as quickly as possible you will need to focus on killing zombies. BUT that is a CHOICE you make. If you are not worried about leveling, xp will come as you just play be it by POIs, wandering hordes, or blood moon hordes.

 

[PoppaTot]

The point you are completely missing is that if you just play the game, you will get plenty of xp. I was level 26 by day 14 without making any effort to power level. At this rate I’’ll probably end up between 50-60 by day 30 (Not 100) I spent a total of 4-5 days looting in that 14 days. All the other xp came from engaging wandering hordes or zombies in my way. If your goal is too get to the highest level possible as quickly as possible you will need to focus on killing zombies. BUT that is a CHOICE you make. If you are not worried about leveling, xp will come as you just play be it by POIs, wandering hordes, or blood moon hordes.

I 100% agree with you that people choose to play the game the way they want. However, the choices have been dictated to us now. For example purposes, say I want to have a forge so I can get a mine going asap because that is my choice how to play. I can't do that without killing zombies, and I either have to XP grind the zombies, or play a different path until I get there the dictated way. Not to mention the XP zombie grind needed to even mine efficiently now. I know balances are coming, I'm not complaining, I'm just posturing that the freedom of choices have been reduced to a directed linear path revolving around zombie killing.

This was just an example, and I'm genuinely happy that the current A17e is working well with your playstyle, but the backlash we're seeing is because it's not working for everyone. A lot of those players with good amount of hours and dedication to this game under their belts.

Everyone has opinions on this and now it is time to see what TFP do with these opinions.

EDIT: sometimes words are hard lol

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

I 100% agree with you that people choose to play the game the way they want. However, the choices have been dictated to us now. For example purposes, say I want to have a forge so I can get a mine going asap because that is my choice how to play. I can't do that without killing zombies, and I either have to XP grind the zombies, or play a different path until I get there the dictated way. Not to mention the XP zombie grind needed to even have to mine efficiently now. I know balances are coming, I'm not complaining, I'm just posturing that the freedom of choices have been reduced to a directed linear path revolving around zombie killing.
This was just an example, and I'm genuinely happy that the current A17e is working well with your playstyle, but the backlash we're seeing is because it's not working for everyone. A lot of those players with good amount of hours and dedication to this game under their belts.

Everyone has opinions on this and now it is time to see what TFP do with these opinions.

EDIT: sometimes words are hard lol

My normal playstyle in A16 was to rush progression and power level by killing zombies and mining. I adjusted my playstyle for A17 as a result of all of the negative posts complaining that you could not build bases early and that it was zombie combat simulator. I was curious if this was really true. It turns out, it wasn’t. The game doesn’t force you to do anything. The player chooses how they want to play. I had a forge on day 1 by setting up shop in a forge house. If I hadn’t it wouldn’t have mattered anyway as as I found iron tools and forged iron by looting. Also iron tools are less of a boon in A17 and are not essential early game. With respect to base building, I stayed in the forge house for the 7 day horde and built a base for the 14 day horde. Now that I’ve gotten more familiar with what bases work and how to play efficiently in A17, a 7 day base is entirely possible.

Edit - This is not really about anyone’s particular playstyle and more about some posters’ insistent claims that there is only one way to play A17.

 

[PoppaTot]

With respect to base building, I stayed in the forge house for the 7 day horde and built a base for the 14 day horde. Now that I’ve gotten more familiar with what bases work and how to play efficiently in A17, a 7 day base is entirely possible.

This has always been an option, I don't disagree with you at all. I would generally use existing structures for my early horde nights.... while I was building a base. Now I'm just using them for early horde nights, while I'm grinding XP so I can level enough to start building a base. Again, I'm genuinely happy that A17e works for your current playstyle, and kudos to you for changing from what previous enjoyed doing. That simply is not the case for some others.

 

[Ghostlight]

The point you are completely missing is that if you just play the game, you will get plenty of xp. I was level 26 by day 14 without making any effort to power level. At this rate I’’ll probably end up between 50-60 by day 30 (Not 100) I spent a total of 4-5 days looting in that 14 days. All the other xp came from engaging wandering hordes or zombies in my way. If your goal is too get to the highest level possible as quickly as possible you will need to focus on killing zombies. BUT that is a CHOICE you make. If you are not worried about leveling, xp will come as you just play be it by POIs, wandering hordes, or blood moon hordes.

This is pretty much what I did. Other than killing zombies when I saw them (which is NOT the same as going all out to power level), I played A17 the same as I played every alpha before it. I still ended up level 100 on day 30. Put it this way, I have a full-on 3-story Steel base with 3 layers of electrical defences on day 32. It is not like I was skimping the building and mining to go kill zombies.

I reckon if I had played the POI jumping game and not bothered with building anything, I'd have been level 100 somewhere on day 20.

And yeah the early reports that base building (at least on week 1) was dead were just coming from the players who suck at the game getting their ■■■ handed to them. Bases work just fine in A17. I've built the same bases I always build with no issues.