PC New perks part 2

[meganoth]

It always find it funny when the Pimps complain about spam crafting but people will simply end up doing whatever spamming to get fast skill points anyway. If that means digging at night while spam crafting or whatever.
Its the exact same just with a different layer of grease. But what will hurt people is the stripping of feature, combined with the massive amount of skill points you need. Before if you wanted, you are able to get all skills with a lot of work. This is now impossible. ( 200 / 350 max ).

Now when you start as a character, you will again be spam crafting or spam digging or spam whatever just to get fast points, so your character is not a punch doll. We already see how Zombie hit more ( backstep removed, Swing while going down, swinging when down ). The heat damage bug is fixed but your still getting a reduced damage output.

Yes, the game will be somewhat different. Just take the difficulty setting that suits you and you will be doing fine without the need to artifically spam whatever. What do you want to do in this game? Do it. You will get XP just fine.

I will not spam-craft, spam-dig or anything, I will just play and have fun. Your call if you aren't able to do that.

TFP did not lie when they said "we want you do die a lot". Unfortunately its not the dying that is the issue in 7D2D.

Its the lack of content after your first week in-game. All these changes are done to make you "progress" less fast, as to hide the lack of content down the line.

Strangely others have critizised that the perk system now makes you progress too fast.

Anyway, the lack of late-game content is there, definitely. There is also word from the developers that now with the enhanced scripting in place they want to add many more and varied items into the game. I think they already started added new food recipes with lots of different temporary buffs, but we'll see how much makes it into A17

None of content issue is fixed. Its even more stronger now because:

* Weapons come in one part

* Books are less useful ( useless? )... Vehicles are now all skills. Weapons are now skills.

* Mining is now also reduced to simply skill buying.

* Fertilizer is removed.

* Bones / rotten meat is as good as gone with bodies vanishing.

Sorry, but weapons come in one part and up to 6 mods. The weapon without mods is supposed to be as good as a quality 1 weapon in A16, you need the mods.

Mining didn't change at all, if you want to mine efficiently you needed to buy miner69er. Same as now.

Yes to books and fertilizer.

This entire 15 month rewrite simply shows something important. They knew 7D2D had a coding issue and they lied to the people. I remember clearly after the long 8 months A16, how they planned for A17 the be a "short" time to Alpha release because TFP did not like this long development cycle. Many people stopped playing because hey, A17 is coming soon ( inc me ). And here we are today with a game after 15 months with almost no new content. Lots of graphics, yes. But the actual content has only gained a few items, matched by the removal of items.

It's good to know that rotten meat for you is on the same level as a gyrocopter. I also remember that they said that they wanted a shorter A17. Whether they lied or simply changed plans is up to the observer, I don't see any benefit for them to make this lie so assume it is the latter. And I'm happy that they changed the plan because the new buff framework changes a lot.

I even think it wasn't even a change of plan but MM probably announced the shorter A17 before Gazz told him that he needed lots of time for the framework changes.

And this brings us back to lack of content. Slowing down the progression, does not fix the lack of content. And content is what people come back for. A graphical upgrade is something awwwww about for the first 10 minutes ( expect a lot of forum posts about how beautiful things look ) but the real response will come later, when people are used to to graphics and discover during their gameplay, that their is no new content!!!!

Yes, we will have to see what happens. I think the hunt for weapon mods, new food and vehicles and a few legendary items (that I assume will trickle in while the experimental is getting debugged to stable) will keep a lot of people happy.

 

[Roland]

It always find it funny when the Pimps complain about spam crafting but people will simply end up doing whatever spamming to get fast skill points anyway. If that means digging at night while spam crafting or whatever.
Its the exact same just with a different layer of grease. But what will hurt people is the stripping of feature, combined with the massive amount of skill points you need. Before if you wanted, you are able to get all skills with a lot of work. This is now impossible. ( 200 / 350 max ).

Now when you start as a character, you will again be spam crafting or spam digging or spam whatever just to get fast points, so your character is not a punch doll. We already see how Zombie hit more ( backstep removed, Swing while going down, swinging when down ). The heat damage bug is fixed but your still getting a reduced damage output.

1) Spam crafting was different because it involved an automatic process. People could go AFK and earn experience. Or they stayed and stared at timers and items popping into their inventory. This was not considered "playing the game" by the developers. By comparison, killing zombies, mining, chopping, scavenging, harvesting, and building ARE considered playing the game and none of those activities can be done by an auto process while AFK. TFP is fine with people grinding for fast points if that is their choice. Nobody has to do that. But staring at timers and going AFK to play the game was not something they wanted to support.

2) Madmole has stated and it has been repeated that the level cap might be going away so that people can get everything if they are willing to do a lot of work. So this is something still being decided.

3) Backstep has not been removed. I backstep all the time and avoid getting hit all the time. Yes the zombies can swing during other motions now but as long as you are careful you can easily avoid getting hit. You are arguing from false premises.

TFP did not lie when they said "we want you do die a lot". Unfortunately its not the dying that is the issue in 7D2D.
Its the lack of content after your first week in-game. All these changes are done to make you "progress" less fast, as to hide the lack of content down the line.

None of content issue is fixed. Its even more stronger now because:

* Weapons come in one part

* Books are less useful ( useless? )... Vehicles are now all skills. Weapons are now skills.

* Mining is now also reduced to simply skill buying.

* Fertilizer is removed.

* Bones / rotten meat is as good as gone with bodies vanishing.

This follows the trend of simply reducing content and simplifying stuff. When people call the game Fallout, they are right. Fallout has gotten more and more simplified over the years. Consolised, generalized...

1) You are deliberately leaving out the attachments from your assessment about weapons. Weapons are not just one part. The base weapons are very basic and people are going to want to attach mods to them. There are dozens of mods that do a much wider range of buffs to the base weapons. Weapons as a whole are much better than they ever have been.

2) Books and schematics have a new role. It is still in flux. Vehicles are not all skills. Only unlocking the recipe is skill. You still have to find the components to make the vehicle parts and then assemble those parts to create the vehicle. Vehicle mods will be coming as well.

3) Mining is reduced to skill buying from what? There were always mining perks and now there are still mining perks. You can mine without spending a single perk point. Now you are just making stuff up. You still earn experience by mining and then you can use that experience to improve your ability to mine.

4) You haven't played it yet so it's understandable that you can't know how hard it is to decide between perks with the limited points you have. The way you are talking makes it seem like you think all points are available to spend however you wish but by spending points in one area you are denying yourself in other areas and those choices are very interesting. You may end up not liking it but I have found it very thought provoking and agonizing to decide what I want to focus on. It is NOT just thoughtless button push and now "vehicles!"

5) They are making the game lean so that they can then add content to a strong unified modular foundation. I know you are impatient. You have repeatedly stated that 5 years is way too long in your opinion but regardless...they aren't to the point in development you want them to be at. More content including bandits, survivors, and everything else in their list of goals is still forthcoming.

And i HATE the fact how they constantly point to mods to fix the gameplay issues. Hint: If people like mods that fix your issues, that means you are doing something wrong.

This is just wrong. Who's "they"? The developers? They have never once said to fix game problems with mods. They HAVE said that if something is not how you prefer then to go ahead and mod it. Big difference and one you seem not able to make. In your mind it is simply "I don't like it" = "broken". Problem is that the world is more diverse than you. Other people like vanilla just fine and there is nothing broken about design decisions that are made. You just don't like them so you have the option to mod them but you aren't fixing anything.

Then add insult to injury: It takes mods MONTHS after every Alpha release to get a stable version out. So we wait 15 months for A17. Then people can wait another few months to get a proper version of the game that is less console like? And then people have the same issue, when does A18 comes out and destroys all the mods again. You expect mods to have early access to the alphas so they can prepare their mods in advance!

We expect people whether they are modders or players to understand that this game is in development and that takes first priority. If you cannot stomach restarts, delays, experimentation, cuts, rewrites of mods...then you should wait until the game is done. That is really all this comes down to. You are suffering from development fatigue. It happens. Put the game away for a year and come back to it. Nobody will mind. The developers won't take it as a negative if you take a break. Modders volunteer to work on the game at this stage even though they know they will have to overhaul at the next update. Everyone is aware of this. TFP didn't hide the fact. Consenting adults.

This entire 15 month rewrite simply shows something important. They knew 7D2D had a coding issue and they lied to the people. I remember clearly after the long 8 months A16, how they planned for A17 the be a "short" time to Alpha release because TFP did not like this long development cycle. Many people stopped playing because hey, A17 is coming soon ( inc me ). And here we are today with a game after 15 months with almost no new content. Lots of graphics, yes. But the actual content has only gained a few items, matched by the removal of items.

They did not lie. They had every intention of going just six months but they went over. Why does it have to be a lie with you? That actually reveals more about you than it does about them. They feel bad that it happened but it did. Time will tell if they will be forgiven or not. I think most people who play A17 will forgive them. There is no doubt in my mind that most will see it as the best version of the game so far.

I am frank when i say that i have no idea about the future for 7D2D. If A17 fails in returning a uptick in people playing ( and people buying ), ... That is why you never do 15 month releases. When you keep them short, people keep playing and it draws in new players. Even some hosts have stopped selling 7D2D MP servers because of lack of interest.
And this brings us back to lack of content. Slowing down the progression, does not fix the lack of content. And content is what people come back for. A graphical upgrade is something awwwww about for the first 10 minutes ( expect a lot of forum posts about how beautiful things look ) but the real response will come later, when people are used to to graphics and discover during their gameplay, that their is no new content!!!!

1) I agree that you have no idea. You have conjecture based on fear and anger. Fear that your preference of playing isn't going to be supported going forward and anger that development is taking longer than you like. This is completely understandable but your emotions about it are dampening your logic. Logic would dictate that the small surface things you have seen in the videos are not everything there is to the update. But because of your fear and anger you are assuming that what has been shown is all there is.

2) There is a ton of content in this update. It just isn't the content you want so once again "what I don't like" = "broken" with you but just altered to "content i don't like" = "not content".

3) You say they are slowing down the progression while others are ranting that they've sped up the progression too much...lol. It's all relative and that is why the progression system is not broken as you say. It is simply a baseline that people can adjust to their preferred style via xml edits. You say that is using modding to fix the problem. I say it is using modding to adjust the game options to a new preference. It is simply a difference in perspective. Yours makes you angry and bitter towards the developers. It's apparent in how you immediately assume they lied when things turned out differently than they planned. Mine makes me happy and grateful towards the developers. Others feel the same and you can tell because as long as they know the game is still being developed they are content to wait and follow and experience each new iteration.

 

[RestInPieces]

I'll mostly quote Roland for convenience.

1) Spam crafting was different because it involved an automatic process. People could go AFK and earn experience.

I may be wrong, but I strongly believe this could have just been fixed easily without them changing the whole system though.

2) Madmole has stated and it has been repeated that the level cap might be going away so that people can get everything if they are willing to do a lot of work. So this is something still being decided.

I think it is clear that this will create problems between SP and MP. Tech progression-related perks should be independent from gameplay perks imo and be integrated into an exploration-related progression system and perks concerning survival should be toned-down/changed so that they don't affect the survival-related gameplay loop of the game.

3) Backstep has not been removed. I backstep all the time and avoid getting hit all the time. Yes the zombies can swing during other motions now but as long as you are careful you can easily avoid getting hit. You are arguing from false premises.

Removing backwards sprinting (I think that's what Ben means to say) was a good change. Normal zombie combat needs to see many more dramatic improvements and consequently, fewer bulletsponges.

1) You are deliberately leaving out the attachments from your assessment about weapons. Weapons are not just one part. The base weapons are very basic and people are going to want to attach mods to them. There are dozens of mods that do a much wider range of buffs to the base weapons. Weapons as a whole are much better than they ever have been.

Another good change. Sometimes streamlining means making systems that were needlessly complex, more intuitive. I think that is the case here - will see in-game.

2) Books and schematics have a new role. It is still in flux.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any planning at all when it comes to designing this game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not saying this just because of the above, but because of the continuous revamps. Anyway their game, their pace.

5) They are making the game lean so that they can then add content to a strong unified modular foundation. I know you are impatient. You have repeatedly stated that 5 years is way too long in your opinion but regardless...they aren't to the point in development you want them to be at. More content including bandits, survivors, and everything else in their list of goals is still forthcoming.

Actually think that the game has enough content, so that IF they use it cleverly, they could make the progression curve much longer, take advantage of every game asset and make it more intuitive (vague, but I described what that means in the other thread). Players will never stop asking for new content as long as they can uneventfully chew through any amount of current content that exists.

In your mind it is simply "I don't like it" = "broken". Problem is that the world is more diverse than you. Other people like vanilla just fine and there is nothing broken about design decisions that are made. You just don't like them so you have the option to mod them but you aren't fixing anything.

2) There is a ton of content in this update. It just isn't the content you want so once again "what I don't like" = "broken" with you but just altered to "content i don't like" = "not content".

This is worth talking about. Tastes can be easily confused with self-conflicting/unintuitive design. If everything was subjective, no game ever would be considered to be mediocre or bad, like I said in the other thread. Some perks seem to be doing that (conflicting with other areas of the game) - I know it is a matter of fine-tuning, I am just wondering why this is not obvious.

3) You say they are slowing down the progression while others are ranting that they've sped up the progression too much...lol. It's all relative and that is why the progression system is not broken as you say.

I am one of them. Throughout development, sometimes it was overly random, sometimes it had... weird gating and in general imho it's fast. Am I saying this because of my personal tastes? Not only. I am mostly saying it because of these simple reasons:

-They don't properly exploit all of their own assets/game content, which simply is a shame. From building materials, to tools and so on.

-Players can skip much of it and then complain that they eventually get bored because they reach the "end of the line".

Sorry to say it Fun Pimps, but fighting zombies in this game is not all that fun. It's relatively easy to master regardless of weapons, except when fighting certain enemies you rarely see. So grinding XP by bonking zeds on the head is no more fun than crafting axes for me.

Zombie XP is a bad idea for many obvious reasons. They should get rid of it already.

It always find it funny when the Pimps complain about spam crafting but people will simply end up doing whatever spamming to get fast skill points anyway. If that means digging at night while spam crafting or whatever.

What irks me is that I never got a reply from anyone about why that system couldn't be salvaged by the use of simple diminishing returns.

Its the lack of content after your first week in-game. All these changes are done to make you "progress" less fast, as to hide the lack of content down the line.

Oh I wish that progression was slower. But at the game's current state this would serve no purpose. If there was more emphasis on the game's survival elements, it wouldn't feel like a grind in the first place.

 

[Roland]

I may be wrong, but I strongly believe this could have just been fixed easily without them changing the whole system though.

Gazz was the one trying to make the bucking bronco bull of crafting xp fit in with the rest of the xp pathways and he didn't seem to think it was easy and I don't think he ignored all the suggestions voiced here. Gazz is a regular. They are no looking at what can be done on a limited basis for crafting xp to decide if they can put it in. The new event based buff system they have is so much more powerful and there are things they can do now that were not possible with A16. So maybe.

I think it is clear that this will create problems between SP and MP. Tech progression-related perks should be independent from gameplay perks imo and be integrated into an exploration-related progression system and perks concerning survival should be toned-down/changed so that they don't affect the survival-related gameplay loop of the game.

This is exactly the type of feedback Madmole will want to hear once you have played it and can comment from a position of knowledge about the A17 game state as a whole. He is actually quite excited for experimental this time around because of the perk system.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any planning at all when it comes to designing this game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Not saying this just because of the above, but because of the continuous revamps. Anyway their game, their pace.

In this case the books and schematics were always considered place-holders. They remained placeholders so long most people just thought they were the real deal. But I remember when they were added and all the random haters complained about them that one of the assurances we gave them to placate them was that they were just placeholders until the skill/perk system was in place. Why did they experiment with them so much? They like to try all sorts of things that might not be for this game but might be for something coming in the future.

What irks me is that I never got a reply from anyone about why that system couldn't be salvaged by the use of simple diminishing returns.

The system wasn't where they wanted it. They are interested in powerful modular system. It wasn't that they couldn't have found some ugly way to patch the old system to make it work. It was that they wanted keep developing and create a system that was powerful and unified modifying effects into one system. They are looking at diminishing returns for crafting xp now to see whether they can do it and have it be balanced with other xp earning avenues. More importantly, the system they have now will serve them well for this game AND their next game.

 

[Gas]

To me, the perks and what I know of A17 look just like everything else I've seen TFP do since I've been playing from 12.5. I like about half of what they've done and scratch my head at the other half of what they've done.

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

I will have to play a17 to see if i like this new system or not.

I can understand why they would lock recipes behind skills, because a lot of the youtubers have complained about things being locked behind rng. To drive the point home War of the Walkers has this problem with skill fragments. I suspect TFP have seen the frustration that RNG causes, and have said "Screw it, a simplified perk system it is". Looking at the video, it appears that you can get the points for a forge day one, and still get a day one forge.

My issue is single player. In single player you have no choice but to be Conan the MacGuyver ( which is why single player is so much fun)who leans all the skills and fights all the zombies. Now the shops may be the balance for this as: A) you can buy the things you can't craft and B)they may offer skill points as quest rewards, or you get a skill point for completing a quest on top of a reward?

If they really want to balance things out, then they can put comic books and mags in the bookshelfs that can give a skill point, but make those rare finds. This would reward scavenging. This would help in single player, and they can make them single player only drops if they are worried about multiplayer.

As for the simplifying system, I suspect that they are moving away from minecraft style resource grinds and more toward don't starve food management. Once you make a farm in minecraft and 7 days you are set. You have "food for days" as kicks says, and you just focus on bunkering down and killing the waves of bullet sponges. with the removal of fertilizer, you no longer need rancid meat, so gore blocks are not that big of a deal now( i will still miss them). The down side is bones were needed for glue, and glue was needed for making duct tape. This makes me suspect that gore blocks were removed to make the game more difficult. (did i mention that i still miss gore blocks)

so based on this, i suspect that we will have to really change up the play style in a17 to be not just base building and defense, but also a survival horror food and ammo management as well. I hope that they will bring back the old school gore blocks, that the zombies would use to climb up the walls, as those were really cool and made base building a challenge. With the adding of jeeps and gyro copters, i also suspect that the maps will be much bigger, and that is why they are focusing on optimization.

 

[Numberz]

Gazz was the one trying to make the bucking bronco bull of crafting xp fit in with the rest of the xp pathways and he didn't seem to think it was easy and I don't think he ignored all the suggestions voiced here. Gazz is a regular. They are now looking at what can be done on a limited basis for crafting xp to decide if they can put it in. The new event based buff system they have is so much more powerful and there are things they can do now that were not possible with A16. So maybe.

I thought I'd post some ideas about how this might be achieved and others could also chime in. Perhaps we could get a useful discussion started.

Firstly, it isn't just about crafting xp or perhaps you are using that as an umbrella term. There are several ways of generating XP in the game (and perhaps I've missed one or two here):

- crafting of items/blocks (CraftingIngredientXP)

- repairing of items

- repairing and upgrading of blocks

- using of items (ActionExp)

- harvesting of resources

- bartering

- athletics

- scavenging

- armor (leveling by being hit)

1. Crafting

- one thing I've been doing since A15 is rebalancing the XP of the ingredients so that easy to gather ingredients have the least XP values. In this way, something like a stone shovel has a tiny amount of XP compared to something like a steel shovel.

- secondly, how about the idea of singular or diminishing returns on crafting stacks. how about 10% less XP for each consecutive item in a stack to be crafted. after the 10th item in the stack, XP goes to zero for each subsequent one.

2. Repairing of items

- the amounts here are negligible and I'm not sure anything needs to be done

- I would suggest reducing the repair XP multiplier to 1 or 2, especially for cheaper items

3. Repairing and upgrading of blocks

- this is a big one. I see people sitting all night slightly damaging a wood block and then repairing it over and over again to grind skills. I also see people running in circles and tapping the ground with a stone axe or stone shovel doing the same.

- only thing that comes to mind for this one is for XP to only be granted when a block is fully upgraded to another block

4. Using of items

- this is the XP that is gained when you shoot or hit something with a weapons / gun / tool

- I guess this is where the idea of running around tapping the ground with a wooden club comes from

- for guns, melee weapons, and archery, perhaps XP should only be granted when what is stuck is a zombie or an animal

- for tools, I'm open to ideas, but I'm not sure if this is even exploitative when talking about tools

5. Armor

- leveling by getting hit is just a bad idea

- just get rid of this and level with perks

6. Bartering / Scavenging / Athletics

- the mechanics behind these are hidden, so I'm open to ideas

7. Harvesting

- another big XP generator in game

- like crafting, rebalance the XP granted for each resource base on how easy it is to gather

- things like grass, wood, rocks should be reduced to a fraction

 

[meganoth]

@Numberz: Good overview.

1) scavening (opening containers) still needs XP so stealthy avoidance of zombies gets you XP.

2) Buying and selling stuff is a way to save perk points on recipe perks. So to award XP for it is sort of a double reward. Only one reason why bartering in A16 was totally overpowered. Barter XP should go away.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Just lol at the fertilizer crafting and hoeing it in beeing realistic. Omegalul tbh. And i hate that term.

Regarding the long waiting for the new update: Roland is right with everything he says. But people are people sadly, most of them spoiled brats with no patience. And this long waiting is hurting the game. Just look how the ratings went down on steam, when the game didn´t even change.

I don´t like it, but you gotta be cautious and not take too long. Just read the comments on the steam forums beneath the latest news. It gets worse everyday. Not every kind of attention is automatically good for your product...

 

[Viktoriusiii]

I'll mostly quote Roland for convenience.


I may be wrong, but I strongly believe this could have just been fixed easily without them changing the whole system though.

Yeah there was. I gave multiple examples back in the day (because i was fighting for "spamcrafting") one of them i still remember was:

Every skill has a "passive xp-bar"

So now while playing, every bar filled up a certain amount, at which point it would stop. You could only get that max amount of skillxp for crafting that specific thing. The bar would then slowly grow more, until you can craft something again. Obviously quality of the crafted item was still a factor. So you wouldn't go from 99 to 100 by crafting a clothshirt.

That was a solution that tackled EVERYTHING, but they completly ignored.

(no spamcrafting since after you have filled that bar, you won't get xp in that skill until some time went by)

And I thought of this solution in less then an hour. How they didn't find a solution and rather completly changed the system that takes them 12+ months and most of the older fans don't like is beyond me.

 

[Kubikus]

no i wanted to have this post on the unnumbered perk thread