In my opinion, no one except you has such a problem. Judging by the server where I play, someone carries out tasks of traders, and someone digs for himself little by little and builds.
My solution to save this game
- Thread starter BodyBagger111
- Start date
Kyoji
Survivor
Not sure I understand why a STR player can not use the trader? I do agree that simply looting is clearly subpar to questing. I think the quest loop makes the game less enjoyable and repetitive and I think incentivizing a loop that encourages burnout is bad design.
This is just adorable.
After all the backlash the game received, to the point that the devs even announced a “meeting hall” to backtrack on some of their decisions… I’m trying to show the actual source of frustration. Because it’s not just the jars. Recent changes have simply crossed the line of what many players can tolerate.
And yet you’re saying only I have a problem?
Well, thank you then — for declaring me solely responsible for pushing the game in the right direction.
But traders themselves are not the sole issue. They are just the harbingers of doom, that turned the game from a sandbox survival into a dungeon crawler / looter shooter.
7d2d is not some indie “passion project.”
7d2d is an idea that was sold to backers before it even existed, and without them, TFP wouldn’t exist at all. The idea was ambitious, complex — and that’s why it gathered so much support.
It was supposed to be a sandbox game with survival mechanics, crafting as the core feature, and RPG elements.
I understand why TFP went the way of easier cash: simplifying mechanics, making the game more arcade-like, more accessible for a wider audience. But the fact remains: it’s not TFP who funded 7d2d, it was the money of backers who wanted a specific product. Not a product stripped down and reshaped to appeal to casual players. Ironically, many of the people who supported the original design have already lost interest in this “new” one.
And right now, the trader-focused game loop is absolutely not what was initially promised.
Other problems include: non-truly-random loot, simplified mechanics like farming and food (we used to have more meat variety, and scent that attracted zombies), fewer zombies, fewer clothing options, less base variety… and more.
I’m here trying to propose compromises that would put the game back on track: a sandbox survival RPG with progression and story elements. That is possible in a sandbox game — it was the original vision.
But what everyone is screaming about can really be summed up as:
ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS
— imposed by devs on players.
And one of those is the massive discrepancy between playstyles, where questing gives everything, and every other playstyle feels like nothing more than a hobby.
This needs to change.
The sad thing is, that this pattern was already discovered and failed multiple times.
Take something unique, something people loved for what it originally was.
Fallout was a dark, witty, isometric RPG about choices, consequences, and survival in a cruel post-nuclear world.
Star Wars was a myth, a modern fairy tale about good and evil, mysticism, the Force, and heroism.
7 Days to Die was pitched and funded as a survival sandbox with crafting at its heart, a game about making your own story in a collapsing world.
Then what happens?
Studios decide that “it’s too niche.” They cut the depth, remove the difficulty, strip away the atmosphere, and replace it with mainstream trends.
Fallout became just another open-world action game with a post-apo skin.
Star Wars turned into Marvel-lite: flashy effects, jokes, and fanservice without the mythic weight.
7 Days to Die is on the path of becoming a quest-based looter shooter, where the trader loop overshadows the sandbox.
All in the name of “appealing to a wider audience.” But the irony is brutal:
When you dilute wine with water so everyone can drink it, you end up with something nobody actually enjoys.
Casual players leave quickly — they have hundreds of simpler games or movies tailored exactly for them.
And the core fans, the very people who kept the franchise alive, feel betrayed because what they backed, what they loved, has been replaced by a caricature of itself.
Why TFP can't turn 7d2d into what was supposed to be, and make another game that will be what they are now trying to do with 7d2d?
Take something unique, something people loved for what it originally was.
Fallout was a dark, witty, isometric RPG about choices, consequences, and survival in a cruel post-nuclear world.
Star Wars was a myth, a modern fairy tale about good and evil, mysticism, the Force, and heroism.
7 Days to Die was pitched and funded as a survival sandbox with crafting at its heart, a game about making your own story in a collapsing world.
Then what happens?
Studios decide that “it’s too niche.” They cut the depth, remove the difficulty, strip away the atmosphere, and replace it with mainstream trends.
Fallout became just another open-world action game with a post-apo skin.
Star Wars turned into Marvel-lite: flashy effects, jokes, and fanservice without the mythic weight.
7 Days to Die is on the path of becoming a quest-based looter shooter, where the trader loop overshadows the sandbox.
All in the name of “appealing to a wider audience.” But the irony is brutal:
When you dilute wine with water so everyone can drink it, you end up with something nobody actually enjoys.
Casual players leave quickly — they have hundreds of simpler games or movies tailored exactly for them.
And the core fans, the very people who kept the franchise alive, feel betrayed because what they backed, what they loved, has been replaced by a caricature of itself.
Why TFP can't turn 7d2d into what was supposed to be, and make another game that will be what they are now trying to do with 7d2d?
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
That would have been ideal. Finish the sandbox/survival game and move on to another, more ambitious project and/or one designed to appeal to an indiscriminate audience. That moment is past, though, isn't it? So, the question becomes: what now?
TFP obviously have alienated much (and I think, most, despite all the "silent majority" speculation on this forum) of their original audience. Question is: do they care any more than the owners of the IPs you've mentioned? I don't get the impression they do.
If I were a Kickstarter baker, I would request some kind of reparation for defrauding my donations.
But legal things aside, would be difficult (but lawyer said it's not impossible) to actually get something.
Right now Devs can change some things to make game more sandboxy, to at least make a compromise between their promises and their current goal.
And I was posting changes, that are not as difficult to implement to make this compromise.
One of those changes is to remove magazines and make crafting progression tied to playstyle. Like action skills but learning crafting better tools.
Removal of traders, or at least make it toggle, with some balance changes to items sold only.
Quests from notes. No finished items from loot.
And few more.
Of course balancing would be difficult at that point.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Their Kickstarter goals technically have been and are being met. They've not done anything illegal. I'd have to say "get a grip" to that.
The problem is that they obviously have a history of removing working, if not refined, (possibly placeholder?) systems people enjoyed and/or replacing them with less common sensical systems, superficial checklists and UI icons in the name of preventing supposed exploits or supporting a story mode that doesn't require the kind of gatekeeping instituted by the "progression" systems (which they've acknowledged and apparently plan to change), etc. It's rubbed people the wrong way and it doesn't have to be any more serious than that.
This is their first game and any and all missteps I've personally chalked up to inexperience, which in no way implies incompetence but more a "learning as you go" philosophy. Ergo, I've personally been willing to cut them plenty of slack from A21 to now. Since 1.0, I've been horrified by the direction it's taken myself not least on the business end. Microtransactions in an unfinished game? Already milking the IP of an unfinished game with a new one based on it? And here I thought I might have found an indie that was doing everything right on the business end and looking forward to the direction the game seemed to be headed in beyond it's highly repetitive gameplay loop.
All history now.
There have been good discussions about the possibility of hybrid systems down the line (LBD for skills; magazines and books for crafting and bonuses; organic water collection alongside dew collectors, etc.) None of the more reasonable I would think too difficult to implement provided they're thoroughly thought through beforehand. I don't see a return of many of the systems already trashed, but them's the breaks.
Last edited:
I know you don't like DLCs, but please call them by their name.
I googled for "are separately bought DLCs microtransactions?" and the general consensus on the net seems that those DLCs are not microtransactions. DLCs are seen as a precursor though (the horse armor) and all microtransactions are DLCs as well, but not all DLCs are microtransactions. Microtransactions are done in an in-game store and almost always use some special currency. An important part of their danger comes from the ease with which people can buy them, in-game, with a few clicks at most, never seeing the actual costs because of the virtual currency used.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
I know what a DLC is supposed to be -- a substantial expansion -- and the industry is not going to redefine the term for me any more than it's going to redefine the term, RPG, for me and I don't care how widespread acceptance of micro- and macrotransactions has become. They're still the parasite in our wallets as well as an ignomious, class stratifying practice and no one is going to manage my perception of that.
You love your technicalities, I know, but you can have them. No offence intended. You want to believe they're something they're not and deny their effect on the quality of the games we now lease and of which we never actually own a copy as well as players and developers alike? Be my guest. I'ma be over here reminding everyone what DLC actually is and that we don't own copies of the games we buy due to larger, ignomious economic trends in the tech industry and beyond.
Don't ever ask me to acclimate myself to institutionalized greed, ill-will and delusion and we'll get along great.
I know what a DLC is supposed to be -- a substantial expansion -- and the industry is not going to redefine the term for me any more than it's going to redefine the term, RPG, for me and I don't care how widespread acceptance of micro- and macrotransactions has become. They're still the parasite in our wallets as well as an ignomious, class stratifying practice and no one is going to manage my perception of that.
You love your technicalities, I know, but you can have them. No offence intended. You want to believe they're something they're not and deny their effect on the quality of the games we now lease and of which we never actually own a copy as well as players and developers alike? Be my guest. I'ma be over here reminding everyone what DLC actually is and that we don't own copies of the games we buy due to larger, ignomious economic trends in the tech industry and beyond.
Don't ever ask me to acclimate myself to institutionalized greed, ill-will and delusion and we'll get along great.
I made a wide bow around ark adn haven't bought it to this day because they made a DLC before release. I do not like many practices of the games industry, even though we draw our lines at different points.
I am not asking you to change your opinion one bit about pre-release DLCs or what TFP has done here. I am just asking you to use the right words so their definitions don't get as weak and ambiguous as the definitions of words like "RPG" or "survival" who, as many here have critizised, have lost much of their meaning.
No offence intended as well. I just think a tower of babel situation is working better for the industry than for the gamers
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Words (or terms) and definitions are obviously different and I chalk that up to industry propaganda. It's no wonder we can't agree on anything when names have been rendered practically useless. Your mileage may vary.