Old systems are not better systems simply because they are old.

[Thunder]

I've got over a thousand hours logged in 7D2D. It's safe to say I've gotten my money's worth out of it a hundred times over, but I'll go one further and say the game would easily make the top 10 of most fun I've had playing a game. Horde nights with friends, especially early on... well... if your here reading this you already know. So I'm not here to hate on the game, but I can say I feel the game is a lot less fun than it used to be. A big part of that is the simple fact that I've played it so much, but that's certainly not the whole story.



The biggest fun killer happened when they changed the looting system making it impossible to get anything fun or exciting from vendors or looting. It used to be that early on you could get something really cool that would change your whole playthrough. Once I got an auger on day one from a pile of trash in a field. It was so exciting, it predicated the entire playthrough for me. While I intended to do something completely different, I decided to play in a way that maximized the benefit of having an auger so early in the game. I'd had a similar experience in almost every playthrough back then, I'd find a piece of loot in some random container that was so impactful it dictated the path I took from there. Sometimes the item would be in the vendor's secret stash, and I would have to feverishly attempt to earn enough dukes to buy said item before the trader restocked.



Looting used to be fun, great fun. Every container you opened held the promise of revealing something spectacular. The affects of the new looting system were felt immediately, looting became boring over night. From that moment to this day every container you open is a known quantity. It is going to be something boring. It is going to be something that based on your loot stage has the potential to be a very slight incremental upgrade. A tier 2 stone shovel. They didn't just increase the rarity of looting something fun, they removed the possibility entirely. I don't even bother to open gun safes anymore, especially in the early days. They are not worth the effort for the possible reward of a very slight incremental upgrade. Instead of excitement and wonder, opening a gun safe now feels like a slap to the face.



I've just described how an old system was vastly superior to the new system which appears to directly contradict the title. It's not a contradiction, the old loot system isn't better because it's old, it's because the new loot system fundamentally changed the game. Dukes used to have a point. Making money used to be important. Having a rapport with the vendors could be just as important as having big muscles. Going in to a a POI and looting every container used to be important. Risking your bisquet to take on a slightly more difficult POI would often prove to be worth it in the end when you came out with a big upgrade. The new loot system revolves around looting crafting ingredients and books, it flattened progression into a slow grind, it fundamentally changed the game. In my opinion it removed a great deal of fun, and I've not played much since as a direct result.



By contrast, I feel many of the small quality of life changes so many people seem to be lamenting have not really impacted gameplay. Jars were removed, yet water is less of a concern to me now than it ever was. In effect, with a handful of components you can perpetually manufacture jars, filled with water, with no material investment what so ever. You no longer get cold, hot, or wet. I can't remember the last time I cared if I was cold, hot, or wet. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say most of the old systems people seem so fond of were really just an inconvenience that was removed so players could focus on the core elements of the game. Adding them back wouldn't make the game more fun, because they weren't fun to begin with. Oh, it's hot in the desert, you need to wear a tank top under your heavy armor to stay cool, so I'd better take a tank top with me... now I'm having a good time. Oh, wet concrete takes time to cure, I need to build my horde base on day 18 and quest on day 19 instead of questing on day 18 and building on day 19... this is a party now.



Sure, the devs could add back a bunch of the old systems that were patently not fun. They could make it so that once again concrete takes time to cure, you have to carry around a bunch of clothes to wear for various temperatures, you have to carry around a stack of empty jars, and a dozen other things that do not fundamentally change the game but what we would end up with is a bunch of chores on top of boring flattened progression with stupid storms that do nothing but make you stand around in a POI and an unwarranted biome progression system that is exactly the same as we have now but instead of a badge icon we'll have a gas mask icon, albeit we'll be able to choose which biome to progress to.



In my opinion The Fun Pimps should focus on making the game more fun, because as it stands it's boring. Adding a bunch of chores, old or new, is not the answer. Get rid of storms and biome progression, the devs knew they weren't a good idea in the first place because they added a way to turn them off. Revert back to update 'whatever it was before storms' and then before making any changes to the game really think about whether or not the change would make the game more fun.

(The forums cut me off so I'll try to post my suggestions in a second post.)

I'll end where I started. I've gotten more than my money's worth out of 7 Days to Die, I've had hours of tremendous fun playing over the years. I'm very happy this game existed, and while I would love for it to grow and provide even more enjoyment, which I'd happily pay for, it owes me nothing at the point. I have little desire to play anymore, and the latest editions to the game have served only to make it that much less desirable. I feel the game has become a slow, flat grind of incremental progression and is in desperate need of a massive fun overhaul.



Thanks for your time.

 

[Riamus]

Get rid of storms and biome progression, the devs knew they weren't a good idea in the first place because they added a way to turn them off.

One critique... this is faulty logic. That isn't the only reason why they would want to add options to disable things. They know some people prefer sandbox, so they made it possible to disable the things that took away from that sandbox experience, while at the same time adding the things that fit in with their story plans for those who are more interested in that. Knowing that some will like something and some will not and adding an option is not the same thing as thinking it's a bad idea. And I'm saying that even though I'm not a fan of any form of gating mechanic in this game.

If adding options was proof that a mechanic was a bad idea, then you'd also be saying that having zombies in the game or horde nights in the game were thought to be bad ideas as well, considering those also have the ability to be disabled.

 

[Thunder]

I'll get you started...



BOOKS



First, the original book system is bad. It results from the developer's lack of understanding how randomness works. There are far too many books and far too few book containers to reliably acquire the book you need. The result is looting hundreds of books you either are not interested in or have already looted before you get the book you need. I imagine they were going for excitement and jubilant celebration when finally acquiring the book you are after. In my experience it is more often frustration and exasperation, sometimes even loathing when you find a book you've wanted the entire playthrough at the very end of a playthrough, long after it would have been useful.



I don't know why they didn't update the old book system with the new and far superior magazine system when it was implemented. This change alone would make the game a great deal more fun. (Unless of course your idea of fun is not getting the thing you want, the thing you built your character around, until late in the playthrough, if ever. I know masochism is a thing, it's just not my thing, or I dare say most people's thing.) Personally, I think it would be better to take the books out of the game and wind them into a better and more meaningful skill tree system that doesn't eventually turn you into a combination of Rambo, Betty Crocker, Paul Bunyan, John Wick, Inspector Gadget, Bob Vila, and Dirty Harry.

LOOT



The old system was far from perfect, but the new system is about as boring as a loot system could possibly get. Reverting to the old system would be better than nothing, but I think the entire system is in great need of a revamp that could potentially and single handedly fix the complete and utter lack of fun the game is currently experiencing. First of all, a loot system that makes sense would be a fun improvement. A system where you find things where you might expect to find things so if you need a certain thing you could focus on places you might actually find that thing. You would need to go over every item in the game, and give it a percent chance of being found in every container in the game, and even better, with a condition rating based on the container.



Take the handgun for example. I'd expect a pistol to be found in a nightstand beside a bed, in the glovebox of a car, in a gun safe of course, in an entertainment center, in a toolbox in the garage, in a box in the attic, behind the counter under a cash register, in a box under the floorboards. In a gun safe, I'd expect that if I found a handgun it would be in nice condition, so a high tiered weapon, possibly even a full category better than the average handgun at that point. So early on you might find a tier 6 pistol, with possibly even some accessories on it, as opposed to a lower tier pipe pistol you might find in a night stand. Gun safes should be harder to get in to as well. If you try to physically break into them, it should alert zombies from far and wide, perhaps even trigger a horde of zombies. Picking them shouldn't just be a matter of having a pile of lockpicks or eating a piece of candy and popping them open in seconds. There should be a sequence you have to go through, a minigame, where each time you mess up you have to start over. Skill in picking locks would slow down the sequence, and a higher tier lockpick would shorten the sequence. Eating a Jailbreaker would calm you down and let you focus like a skilled locksmith, effectively giving you a higher lock picking skill thus slowing the sequence.



This is just one example, with one possible solution. Try not to get to fixated on this example, but rather think about all the ways looting could be more compelling, more rewarding, and by extension more fun. Changing all quests to fetch quests would mean you could do away with the extremely problematic clear quests, which would mean players wouldn't have to clear houses anymore. This would allow you to make parts of houses more foreboding, like the attic and basement. I'm not going down in that basement! Maybe don't show us where the package is either, we know it's in the house somewhere, if we find it we can go get our reward. Perhaps we search most of the house and figure out it must be in the basement... maybe we decide to go back empty handed and get a new quest instead.



Looting should be more fun, and by extension, so should questing. It should not be a matter of running through a low tier house like a buzz saw, absolutely slaughtering every zombie you come across, while simultaneously clicking every container gathering up boring ingredients for your slow grind up in progression so that you can run through half a dozen slightly higher tiered houses like a buzz saw. I'm not saying, "Gimme, gimme, gimme moar lootz!" I'm saying make looting more fun and rewarding because as it stands it's just not fun or rewarding.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:29 PM

BOSSES



Bosses are tricky. All too often bosses are just bullet sponges with the ability to kill you with 1 or 2 hits. Zombie bears and dire wolves for example. They are only scary until they aren't. Bosses would add a lot to this game. They could range from a giant zombie that patrols a town to a horde of sleeping high level, extremely fast zombies scattered throughout the town. For the most part, I feel like bosses should be something the player doesn't really want any part of, and yet are some of the most challenging and rewarding content in the game. Perhaps there are 3 towns in a biome and one is guarded by a formidable boss. A player might just take the safe route and steer clear of that town, or perhaps sneak into that town and get at the treasure other adventurers were not brave enough to claim, while others, perhaps emboldened by their friends choose to take on the boss.



The key to fun boss encounters is that the players can make mistakes, but their mistakes need to be few and far between. I'll just say this right up front as well... It would be better not to have bosses than to have bad bosses. Yet bosses could add a great deal to 7 Days to Die. If you sneak into a house in a town with a boss, you sure wouldn't want to raise a ruckus. You wouldn't want to crack open a gun safe with a pickaxe that's for sure. You might not even want to use guns unless you had a silencer. However, you simply must get the bosses right or it won't be fun at all.

A good boss is quite formidable. It takes a lot to kill a good boss. A good boss absolutely must have mechanics that are extremely punishing, but relatively easy to counter. A classic example is the turn and charge mechanic. If the boss turns to you and charges, you need to get out of the way because if you are hit it will very nearly kill you. Very nearly kill you is key. A good boss battle is a war of attrition. If you get hit from a charge, unless you are low health, you should be able to survive, but you have to use a med kit and probably a cast, you've used up resources in your inventory to fix your mistake. I list this turn and charge mechanic only to illustrate the point that a good boss has mechanics that the player can avoid, not just runs straight toward you and gobbles you up like a direwolf, an example of a very bad boss. A good boss is a boss that you have to kill to win, but they are not so much worried about killing you as surviving you. It's their town, they've already won, they would just as soon you go away in defeat as kill you.



Bosses would add so much to 7 Days to Die. They could even be incorporated into horde nights. The example I gave is just one of thousands of compelling and rewarding boss encounters. This game provides a perfect environment for such encounters as players could use so many different approaches to overcoming the challenge. Stealth, kiting, imprisonment, strategic base emplacements, or outright brute force. Done well they would be an amazing addition to the game, done poorly, well, you might as well just stick to storms and biome badges.

 

[Thunder]

One critique... this is faulty logic. That isn't the only reason why they would want to add options to disable things. They know some people prefer sandbox, so they made it possible to disable the things that took away from that sandbox experience, while at the same time adding the things that fit in with their story plans for those who are more interested in that. Knowing that some will like something and some will not and adding an option is not the same thing as thinking it's a bad idea. And I'm saying that even though I'm not a fan of any form of gating mechanic in this game.

If adding options was proof that a mechanic was a bad idea, then you'd also be saying that having zombies in the game or horde nights in the game were thought to be bad ideas as well, considering those also have the ability to be disabled.

Options are great, I'm all for options. Given enough options we could all mod the game to exactly what we want it to be. One problem with this would be finding people to play with us that enjoy the exact same complex set of options, especially considering that with enough options one game wouldn't even resemble another.

By and large the options the developers provide allow players to customize aspects of the game to make it more approachable to their skill level while still maintaining the developer's overall vision of the game. Things like number of zombies, difficulty of zombies, how much loot you get, and surprisingly even how often horde nights appear. Being a seemingly core mechanic of the game, being able to turn off horde nights appears to be an outlier in the settings, until you realize that on static servers horde nights are actually quite problematic. One player might log off just before a horde night and then another player logs in to immediately face the horde completely unprepared. Being able to disable horde nights was the simplest option to address this issue.

I think you'll find that nearly all options address difficulty of the game. While I'm sure that some might argue that storms would be included under difficulty, I don't personally agree. Who can't run into a building and stand there until the storm passes? Perhaps you find storms a great deal more challenging that I do, in which case we would have a difference of opinion, not a logical error. I do not find storms in any way difficult, nor do I see how they would present such a danger to others that they would need to turn them off to play, by extension I do not believe the developers were motivated by player safety to allow them to be disabled. Therefore I feel the ability to disable them was entirely a result of the developers knowing many players would simply find them unpalatable.

 

[YourMirror]

TLDR. I have almost 9900 hours played and still enjoying the hell out of this game.

 

[grz__]

I'll get you started...



BOOKS



First, the original book system is bad. It results from the developer's lack of understanding how randomness works. There are far too many books and far too few book containers to reliably acquire the book you need. The result is looting hundreds of books you either are not interested in or have already looted before you get the book you need. I imagine they were going for excitement and jubilant celebration when finally acquiring the book you are after. In my experience it is more often frustration and exasperation, sometimes even loathing when you find a book you've wanted the entire playthrough at the very end of a playthrough, long after it would have been useful.



I don't know why they didn't update the old book system with the new and far superior magazine system when it was implemented. This change alone would make the game a great deal more fun. (Unless of course your idea of fun is not getting the thing you want, the thing you built your character around, until late in the playthrough, if ever. I know masochism is a thing, it's just not my thing, or I dare say most people's thing.) Personally, I think it would be better to take the books out of the game and wind them into a better and more meaningful skill tree system that doesn't eventually turn you into a combination of Rambo, Betty Crocker, Paul Bunyan, John Wick, Inspector Gadget, Bob Vila, and Dirty Harry.

LOOT



The old system was far from perfect, but the new system is about as boring as a loot system could possibly get. Reverting to the old system would be better than nothing, but I think the entire system is in great need of a revamp that could potentially and single handedly fix the complete and utter lack of fun the game is currently experiencing. First of all, a loot system that makes sense would be a fun improvement. A system where you find things where you might expect to find things so if you need a certain thing you could focus on places you might actually find that thing. You would need to go over every item in the game, and give it a percent chance of being found in every container in the game, and even better, with a condition rating based on the container.



Take the handgun for example. I'd expect a pistol to be found in a nightstand beside a bed, in the glovebox of a car, in a gun safe of course, in an entertainment center, in a toolbox in the garage, in a box in the attic, behind the counter under a cash register, in a box under the floorboards. In a gun safe, I'd expect that if I found a handgun it would be in nice condition, so a high tiered weapon, possibly even a full category better than the average handgun at that point. So early on you might find a tier 6 pistol, with possibly even some accessories on it, as opposed to a lower tier pipe pistol you might find in a night stand. Gun safes should be harder to get in to as well. If you try to physically break into them, it should alert zombies from far and wide, perhaps even trigger a horde of zombies. Picking them shouldn't just be a matter of having a pile of lockpicks or eating a piece of candy and popping them open in seconds. There should be a sequence you have to go through, a minigame, where each time you mess up you have to start over. Skill in picking locks would slow down the sequence, and a higher tier lockpick would shorten the sequence. Eating a Jailbreaker would calm you down and let you focus like a skilled locksmith, effectively giving you a higher lock picking skill thus slowing the sequence.



This is just one example, with one possible solution. Try not to get to fixated on this example, but rather think about all the ways looting could be more compelling, more rewarding, and by extension more fun. Changing all quests to fetch quests would mean you could do away with the extremely problematic clear quests, which would mean players wouldn't have to clear houses anymore. This would allow you to make parts of houses more foreboding, like the attic and basement. I'm not going down in that basement! Maybe don't show us where the package is either, we know it's in the house somewhere, if we find it we can go get our reward. Perhaps we search most of the house and figure out it must be in the basement... maybe we decide to go back empty handed and get a new quest instead.



Looting should be more fun, and by extension, so should questing. It should not be a matter of running through a low tier house like a buzz saw, absolutely slaughtering every zombie you come across, while simultaneously clicking every container gathering up boring ingredients for your slow grind up in progression so that you can run through half a dozen slightly higher tiered houses like a buzz saw. I'm not saying, "Gimme, gimme, gimme moar lootz!" I'm saying make looting more fun and rewarding because as it stands it's just not fun or rewarding.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:29 PM

BOSSES



Bosses are tricky. All too often bosses are just bullet sponges with the ability to kill you with 1 or 2 hits. Zombie bears and dire wolves for example. They are only scary until they aren't. Bosses would add a lot to this game. They could range from a giant zombie that patrols a town to a horde of sleeping high level, extremely fast zombies scattered throughout the town. For the most part, I feel like bosses should be something the player doesn't really want any part of, and yet are some of the most challenging and rewarding content in the game. Perhaps there are 3 towns in a biome and one is guarded by a formidable boss. A player might just take the safe route and steer clear of that town, or perhaps sneak into that town and get at the treasure other adventurers were not brave enough to claim, while others, perhaps emboldened by their friends choose to take on the boss.



The key to fun boss encounters is that the players can make mistakes, but their mistakes need to be few and far between. I'll just say this right up front as well... It would be better not to have bosses than to have bad bosses. Yet bosses could add a great deal to 7 Days to Die. If you sneak into a house in a town with a boss, you sure wouldn't want to raise a ruckus. You wouldn't want to crack open a gun safe with a pickaxe that's for sure. You might not even want to use guns unless you had a silencer. However, you simply must get the bosses right or it won't be fun at all.

A good boss is quite formidable. It takes a lot to kill a good boss. A good boss absolutely must have mechanics that are extremely punishing, but relatively easy to counter. A classic example is the turn and charge mechanic. If the boss turns to you and charges, you need to get out of the way because if you are hit it will very nearly kill you. Very nearly kill you is key. A good boss battle is a war of attrition. If you get hit from a charge, unless you are low health, you should be able to survive, but you have to use a med kit and probably a cast, you've used up resources in your inventory to fix your mistake. I list this turn and charge mechanic only to illustrate the point that a good boss has mechanics that the player can avoid, not just runs straight toward you and gobbles you up like a direwolf, an example of a very bad boss. A good boss is a boss that you have to kill to win, but they are not so much worried about killing you as surviving you. It's their town, they've already won, they would just as soon you go away in defeat as kill you.



Bosses would add so much to 7 Days to Die. They could even be incorporated into horde nights. The example I gave is just one of thousands of compelling and rewarding boss encounters. This game provides a perfect environment for such encounters as players could use so many different approaches to overcoming the challenge. Stealth, kiting, imprisonment, strategic base emplacements, or outright brute force. Done well they would be an amazing addition to the game, done poorly, well, you might as well just stick to storms and biome badges.

I agree about the loot, right now it's not very exciting because you almost know what you're going to get, if I'm not mistaken they're going to implement new weapons or non-craftable accessories, which would help a bit,



Bosses, giant zombies is the worst idea I've read in a long time, no offense, it's just my opinion, bandit bosses when they implement it I can understand, although I'm not interested in bandits, I will disable them in the menu if possible, the closest thing to zombie bosses are the frostclaw and the plague spitter, and add new attacks that are not the classic hit, this game does not have a complex combat system so adding bosses, will not be more than sponges of bullets, which does not fit with the game. In my opinion

 

[Thunder]

TIDC (too irrelevant don't care), I've got over 1000 and no longer enjoy it. That's a real thing that happened. The developers appear to want to appeal to a wide audience and to that end seem to want feedback. As a fan of the game I took time to give them comprehensive feedback, your not reading my feedback does not dismiss it. This game exists in a highly competitive sector, there are newer, shinier games coming out every day. If they are going to continue to exist they have to make money, and to make money they need to sell games. A lot of people are dissatisfied with the current state of the game, so much so that the recent reviews score on Steam have fallen to mixed.

As a fan of the game I would think you would want the developers to continue to find this game worth their time to develop. They need to sell games in order for that to remain true. The falling score of their game makes it harder to sell games. They held a town hall to address the falling score. Unless they do not understand what a town hall meeting is...

A town hall meeting is a public forum where community members can interact with their elected officials or company leaders to discuss important issues, ask questions, and share feedback.

...they are welcoming feedback. Why aren't you? Furthermore what have you contributed to this discussion thread?

 

[YourMirror]

I don' t read walls of text. So don't the devs. My discussion ends with i still like and play the game as it is now. Period.

 

[Thunder]

this game does not have a complex combat system so adding bosses, will not be more than sponges of bullets, which does not fit with the game.

I mean that's exactly what I said, several times. I'm totally against adding bad bosses to the game. Zombie bears and dire wolves are very bad bosses that already exist. They are bullet sponges that just run straight for you and mess you up if they manage to get to you. I agree, they shouldn't be in the game. You can easily avoid them to the point they might as well not even exist until you get to the point where you can easily destroy them before they can close the distance. Then you can just farm them for red bags all day long.

7D2D has everything required to implement fun and challenging boss battles, except possibly imagination. All the mechanics already exist in game. Mobs can summon adds, place AoE on the ground, hurl projectiles, explode, run really fast, jump really far, even fly. There's absolutely nothing stopping the developers from creating a mob that would be powerful enough to make most adventurers think twice, something that would actually challenge us, make us think before we ran in unloading an auto shotgun in their general direction.

 

[Thunder]

I don' t read walls of text. So don't the devs. My discussion ends with i still like and play the game as it is now. Period.

Then why did you feel the need to even respond to this discussion? Oh, and by the way, that word doesn't mean what you think it means. I'm beginning to understand that, to you, any text longer than a sentence might prove difficult to scale and therefore seem like a wall, but the syntax of my feedback is properly structured, punctuated, and grammatically correct.

I'm almost as perplexed as to why you seem to take so much pride in your inability to churn through less than a couple dozen paragraphs, as I am why you would bother to add to a discussion nothing more than you have nothing to offer the discussion.

 

[grz__]

I mean that's exactly what I said, several times. I'm totally against adding bad bosses to the game. Zombie bears and dire wolves are very bad bosses that already exist. They are bullet sponges that just run straight for you and mess you up if they manage to get to you. I agree, they shouldn't be in the game. You can easily avoid them to the point they might as well not even exist until you get to the point where you can easily destroy them before they can close the distance. Then you can just farm them for red bags all day long.

7D2D has everything required to implement fun and challenging boss battles, except possibly imagination. All the mechanics already exist in game. Mobs can summon adds, place AoE on the ground, hurl projectiles, explode, run really fast, jump really far, even fly. There's absolutely nothing stopping the developers from creating a mob that would be powerful enough to make most adventurers think twice, something that would actually challenge us, make us think before we ran in unloading an auto shotgun in their general direction.

The bears and direwolf are not bosses, they are mutated zombie animals, and they are strong, I don't want them removed from the game, they are a real danger and can kill you and catch you off guard, another thing is that you are op in the late game, then nothing is dangerous, because there are some weapons that are op, different zombies, with different attacks like the pague spitter and the frostclaw, if I see it well, although some don't like them either and are making changes.

 

[Thunder]

The bears and direwolf are not bosses, they are mutated zombie animals, and they are strong, I don't want them removed from the game, they are a real danger and can kill you and catch you off guard, another thing is that you are op in the late game, then nothing is dangerous, because there are some weapons that are op, different zombies, with different attacks like the pague spitter and the frostclaw, if I see it well, although some don't like them either and are making changes.

They are the very definition of bullet sponges. They do nothing except soak up bullets until they either die or close the distance and kill you. Whether or not they are a boss really depends on what you've got in your hand. I want to thank you for helping me make my point when you said, "you are op in the late game, then nothing is dangerous"

I tried to be extremely vague when discussing bosses because I hoped people wouldn't get too wrapped up in specific examples. I think the game would be more fun if there were something that was dangerous. You correctly pointed out that we are OP in the late game, but we are also OP in the middle game and the early game, we are OP in every phase of the game. Once you understand that you shouldn't finish the tutorial and head straight for the wasteland with your wood club, you understand that there is progression in the game. If you follow the progression you'll have a slow, flat, incremental trek through the game where you start off walking backwards fighting one slow zombie with a wooden club and end up walking backwards spraying a horde of zombies with an M60. We are always OP because as long as we follow the slow, flat, incremental progression nothing in the world is dangerous.

In fact, running out of food, water, or bandages is the greatest danger we face and those are of little concern after the first week. Bosses, in whatever form, could add some danger and challenge back to the game. Something that doesn't instantly die, even if you are well within the slow, flat, incremental progression window. Something that will take a bit of time and resources to kill, yet isn't just a bullet sponge that soaks up bullets and instantly kills you when it closes the distance. There are thousands of extremely challenging and fun boss encounters in hundreds of games. I'm not saying turn 7D2D into WoW or Dark Souls, I'm saying put some tough mobs into 7D2D that make you move around a bit, use your wits, use your environment, maybe even use a little teamwork, something to make you think twice about tangling with.

The developers are thinking storms and biome badges to make it take longer to get to end game. I think they should instead be thinking about ways to challenge us when we get there, and even along the way. Put some fun back in the game. Give us a reason to to have an M60 and 10K rounds of ammo besides just so that we can stand in a doorway and mow down a line of stupid zombies on horde night.

This could be as simple as a mob that incorporates several of the current mobs in game. A screamer/plague spitter/demolisher/cop/spider that summons adds every so often. It could spit plague bees at you that slow you if stung, when you are far away and then jump toward you like a spider. If you are mid range it could puke cop vomit at you that explodes on contact. If you are close to it you need to be careful not to hit it in the button because it will explode ooze all over anything close by in all directions (without killing itself in the process like a normal demo). Players could debuff it with various things like fire might stop it from summoning, or electricity might prevent it from jumping.

I'm not on the payroll here. I'm not trying to develop the game for them. Don't take an example I came up with off the cuff as the only way to to incorporate more challenge and fun into the game. I'm just trying to rebut the idea that they couldn't implement a boss type mob that was fun and challenging into the game. Something to give us pause, and requires us to get creative to take down or circumvent. Something that doesn't just run at us with a bajillion hitpoints and instantly kills us if it catches us. Something we can't just stand behind a gate and dump bullets into.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

They are the very definition of bullet sponges. They do nothing except soak up bullets until they either die or close the distance and kill you. Whether or not they are a boss really depends on what you've got in your hand. I want to thank you for helping me make my point when you said, "you are op in the late game, then nothing is dangerous"

I tried to be extremely vague when discussing bosses because I hoped people wouldn't get too wrapped up in specific examples. I think the game would be more fun if there were something that was dangerous. You correctly pointed out that we are OP in the late game, but we are also OP in the middle game and the early game, we are OP in every phase of the game. Once you understand that you shouldn't finish the tutorial and head straight for the wasteland with your wood club, you understand that there is progression in the game. If you follow the progression you'll have a slow, flat, incremental trek through the game where you start off walking backwards fighting one slow zombie with a wooden club and end up walking backwards spraying a horde of zombies with an M60. We are always OP because as long as we follow the slow, flat, incremental progression nothing in the world is dangerous.

In fact, running out of food, water, or bandages is the greatest danger we face and those are of little concern after the first week. Bosses, in whatever form, could add some danger and challenge back to the game. Something that doesn't instantly die, even if you are well within the slow, flat, incremental progression window. Something that will take a bit of time and resources to kill, yet isn't just a bullet sponge that soaks up bullets and instantly kills you when it closes the distance. There are thousands of extremely challenging and fun boss encounters in hundreds of games. I'm not saying turn 7D2D into WoW or Dark Souls, I'm saying put some tough mobs into 7D2D that make you move around a bit, use your wits, use your environment, maybe even use a little teamwork, something to make you think twice about tangling with.

The developers are thinking storms and biome badges to make it take longer to get to end game. I think they should instead be thinking about ways to challenge us when we get there, and even along the way. Put some fun back in the game. Give us a reason to to have an M60 and 10K rounds of ammo besides just so that we can stand in a doorway and mow down a line of stupid zombies on horde night.

This could be as simple as a mob that incorporates several of the current mobs in game. A screamer/plague spitter/demolisher/cop/spider that summons adds every so often. It could spit plague bees at you that slow you if stung, when you are far away and then jump toward you like a spider. If you are mid range it could puke cop vomit at you that explodes on contact. If you are close to it you need to be careful not to hit it in the button because it will explode ooze all over anything close by in all directions (without killing itself in the process like a normal demo). Players could debuff it with various things like fire might stop it from summoning, or electricity might prevent it from jumping.

I'm not on the payroll here. I'm not trying to develop the game for them. Don't take an example I came up with off the cuff as the only way to to incorporate more challenge and fun into the game. I'm just trying to rebut the idea that they couldn't implement a boss type mob that was fun and challenging into the game. Something to give us pause, and requires us to get creative to take down or circumvent. Something that doesn't just run at us with a bajillion hitpoints and instantly kills us if it catches us. Something we can't just stand behind a gate and dump bullets into.

Are you on console or PC? PROJECT Z 2.1 has bosses, but...guess what? They're just bullet sponges. 60000 HP? Yeah, no thanks. Point being, if boss type enemies are being suggested, specific and original examples with attacks that require strategizing would be good because we're obviously having a hard time imagining them in this game. Were it a souls-like, they would be easy to imagine, but it isn't a souls-like. The combat is just not varied enough to accomodate them as far as I can tell. As for flame ball and other projectile throwing enemy types, they're both in the game and in overhauls that include them: Darkness Falls and Rebirth come to mind.

There are also "boss type mobs" in the game...in POIs. That's been the devs' way of introducing more challenge thus far.

 

[Kyoji]

The biggest fun killer happened when they changed the looting system making it impossible to get anything fun or exciting from vendors or looting. It used to be that early on you could get something really cool that would change your whole playthrough. Once I got an auger on day one from a pile of trash in a field. It was so exciting, it predicated the entire playthrough for me. While I intended to do something completely different, I decided to play in a way that maximized the benefit of having an auger so early in the game. I'd had a similar experience in almost every playthrough back then, I'd find a piece of loot in some random container that was so impactful it dictated the path I took from there. Sometimes the item would be in the vendor's secret stash, and I would have to feverishly attempt to earn enough dukes to buy said item before the trader restocked.

Looting used to be fun, great fun. Every container you opened held the promise of revealing something spectacular. The affects of the new looting system were felt immediately, looting became boring over night. From that moment to this day every container you open is a known quantity. It is going to be something boring. It is going to be something that based on your loot stage has the potential to be a very slight incremental upgrade. A tier 2 stone shovel. They didn't just increase the rarity of looting something fun, they removed the possibility entirely. I don't even bother to open gun safes anymore, especially in the early days. They are not worth the effort for the possible reward of a very slight incremental upgrade. Instead of excitement and wonder, opening a gun safe now feels like a slap to the face.

I agree that loot tables should be loosened a bit. Nothing too extreme, but specific high tier loot containers should be able to drop some higher rarity or higher tier items. I agree that gun safes should have proper guns and ammo in them. Looting one for a pipe pistol is unrewarding. That being said it also has to be balanced. Things like gun safes shouldn't be in early POIs as an example.

I've just described how an old system was vastly superior to the new system which appears to directly contradict the title. It's not a contradiction, the old loot system isn't better because it's old, it's because the new loot system fundamentally changed the game. Dukes used to have a point. Making money used to be important. Having a rapport with the vendors could be just as important as having big muscles. Going in to a a POI and looting every container used to be important. Risking your bisquet to take on a slightly more difficult POI would often prove to be worth it in the end when you came out with a big upgrade. The new loot system revolves around looting crafting ingredients and books, it flattened progression into a slow grind, it fundamentally changed the game. In my opinion it removed a great deal of fun, and I've not played much since as a direct result.

I don't think that is a matter of new or old but balancing. Dukes can still have a point and loot tables can be modified. The amount of items gained on an adventure or what a trader sells can all be changed.

By contrast, I feel many of the small quality of life changes so many people seem to be lamenting have not really impacted gameplay. Jars were removed, yet water is less of a concern to me now than it ever was. In effect, with a handful of components you can perpetually manufacture jars, filled with water, with no material investment what so ever. You no longer get cold, hot, or wet. I can't remember the last time I cared if I was cold, hot, or wet. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say most of the old systems people seem so fond of were really just an inconvenience that was removed so players could focus on the core elements of the game. Adding them back wouldn't make the game more fun, because they weren't fun to begin with. Oh, it's hot in the desert, you need to wear a tank top under your heavy armor to stay cool, so I'd better take a tank top with me... now I'm having a good time. Oh, wet concrete takes time to cure, I need to build my horde base on day 18 and quest on day 19 instead of questing on day 18 and building on day 19... this is a party now.

That is subjective. Temperature always played an important role for me in the game and the downsides of heat making you drink more and the cold making you eat more had impact when you had to hunt for food because canned goods were not in every shelf and many POIs had little loot to begin with.

They are inconvenient in the same way that Diamonds in Minecraft weren't just everywhere and you had to dig a decent amount to get them. Things easily obtained are not cherished. Adding difficulty to the game is what makes it enjoyable when you overcome it. The core elements of the game are survival, open world and zombies. No where in the tags do I see anything about loot.

It's important to understand that while your ideas may have merit that people agree with, it's not good to disparage others for their ideas. Just because it isn't important to you doesn't mean anything to me.

Take the handgun for example. I'd expect a pistol to be found in a nightstand beside a bed, in the glovebox of a car, in a gun safe of course, in an entertainment center, in a toolbox in the garage, in a box in the attic, behind the counter under a cash register, in a box under the floorboards. In a gun safe, I'd expect that if I found a handgun it would be in nice condition, so a high tiered weapon, possibly even a full category better than the average handgun at that point. So early on you might find a tier 6 pistol, with possibly even some accessories on it, as opposed to a lower tier pipe pistol you might find in a night stand. Gun safes should be harder to get in to as well. If you try to physically break into them, it should alert zombies from far and wide, perhaps even trigger a horde of zombies. Picking them shouldn't just be a matter of having a pile of lockpicks or eating a piece of candy and popping them open in seconds. There should be a sequence you have to go through, a minigame, where each time you mess up you have to start over. Skill in picking locks would slow down the sequence, and a higher tier lockpick would shorten the sequence. Eating a Jailbreaker would calm you down and let you focus like a skilled locksmith, effectively giving you a higher lock picking skill thus slowing the sequence.

A purple pistol in a nightstand? So you want the game to be over by week one then? I agree that some loot divergence is good in making it a bit more random and specific loot containers should have more rewarding loot but let's mot go crazy by fixing one problem - randomness and creating a new problem - the game is over in two weeks.

While the minigame stuff sounds interesting, I agree with your earlier presupposition that the developers shouldn't waste time on things of low impact when it's faster to find easier solutions.

Bosses are tricky.

We have a horde system which is nice. As far as boss zombies go concepts like the Behemoth could return as a roaming zombie in the wasteland during specific events (like fog). They would spawn within "x" meters around you - outside of a POI and roam throughout the night as an example forcing you to stay indoors or brave outside while being as sneaky as you can to avoid detection.

I think bandits and the Duke would qualify for bosses and I imagine if you progress through the storyline with Higashi you might find some experiments gone wrong as bosses for specific quests.


Also, what is with this trend to disclose how many hours we have played? If I have more does my opinion matter more? Not to rail on anyone for it, but I just find it amusing.

 

[grz__]

They are the very definition of bullet sponges. They do nothing except soak up bullets until they either die or close the distance and kill you. Whether or not they are a boss really depends on what you've got in your hand. I want to thank you for helping me make my point when you said, "you are op in the late game, then nothing is dangerous"

I tried to be extremely vague when discussing bosses because I hoped people wouldn't get too wrapped up in specific examples. I think the game would be more fun if there were something that was dangerous. You correctly pointed out that we are OP in the late game, but we are also OP in the middle game and the early game, we are OP in every phase of the game. Once you understand that you shouldn't finish the tutorial and head straight for the wasteland with your wood club, you understand that there is progression in the game. If you follow the progression you'll have a slow, flat, incremental trek through the game where you start off walking backwards fighting one slow zombie with a wooden club and end up walking backwards spraying a horde of zombies with an M60. We are always OP because as long as we follow the slow, flat, incremental progression nothing in the world is dangerous.

In fact, running out of food, water, or bandages is the greatest danger we face and those are of little concern after the first week. Bosses, in whatever form, could add some danger and challenge back to the game. Something that doesn't instantly die, even if you are well within the slow, flat, incremental progression window. Something that will take a bit of time and resources to kill, yet isn't just a bullet sponge that soaks up bullets and instantly kills you when it closes the distance. There are thousands of extremely challenging and fun boss encounters in hundreds of games. I'm not saying turn 7D2D into WoW or Dark Souls, I'm saying put some tough mobs into 7D2D that make you move around a bit, use your wits, use your environment, maybe even use a little teamwork, something to make you think twice about tangling with.

The developers are thinking storms and biome badges to make it take longer to get to end game. I think they should instead be thinking about ways to challenge us when we get there, and even along the way. Put some fun back in the game. Give us a reason to to have an M60 and 10K rounds of ammo besides just so that we can stand in a doorway and mow down a line of stupid zombies on horde night.

This could be as simple as a mob that incorporates several of the current mobs in game. A screamer/plague spitter/demolisher/cop/spider that summons adds every so often. It could spit plague bees at you that slow you if stung, when you are far away and then jump toward you like a spider. If you are mid range it could puke cop vomit at you that explodes on contact. If you are close to it you need to be careful not to hit it in the button because it will explode ooze all over anything close by in all directions (without killing itself in the process like a normal demo). Players could debuff it with various things like fire might stop it from summoning, or electricity might prevent it from jumping.

I'm not on the payroll here. I'm not trying to develop the game for them. Don't take an example I came up with off the cuff as the only way to to incorporate more challenge and fun into the game. I'm just trying to rebut the idea that they couldn't implement a boss type mob that was fun and challenging into the game. Something to give us pause, and requires us to get creative to take down or circumvent. Something that doesn't just run at us with a bajillion hitpoints and instantly kills us if it catches us. Something we can't just stand behind a gate and dump bullets into.

Let's see, you talk about different zombies with different attacks that require a bit of strategy instead of just shooting them, and I agree. I used it as an example in the previous comment, with the plague spitter and the frostclaw, but those aren't bosses, they're zombies with different attacks. You mentioned that the player is OP in all phases of the game. I don't know if I understood correctly, but not being able to go to the wasteland on day 1 with a club is normal, just like in Dark Souls, you don't go to the area where there's a very strong boss until you're prepared.

About the bullet sponges on the bears etc, they are zombies, they are supposed to be stupid and tough, they are not going to create a strategy to kill you, in many zombie movies, these are tough and withstand many shots, as for the storms, it is supposed to be an apocalypse, it is not that the devs want to slow you down, for me it is a survival mechanic that will join the future ones that are supposedly being developed.

 

[ElCabong]

I occasionally loot some really fantastic stuff. In the last playthrough I looted an auto shotgun. Never seen one before. Never seen a weapon with that many modification slots. Had some really great fun with it.

In this playthrough I looted a quality level 5 assassins middle from a bag a mutated zombie dropped. I'm only in quality level 3.

 

[Roland]

This thread is a case study for the idea that different people have fun in different ways and what seems boring and tedious to you is impactful and thematic to me and vice versa. There is no one best design and no mechanic that is patently bad or garbage. As soon as anything is changed for your better someone else will write about the wrong direction and how they just don’t play as much as they used to. They could add a match three mini-game for lockpicking and there would be somebody somewhere overjoyed…

Either go with the flow and find the fun of each version or find a mod that helps the fun return.

 

[Kyoji]

This thread is a case study for the idea that different people have fun in different ways and what seems boring and tedious to you is impactful and thematic to me and vice versa. There is no one best design and no mechanic that is patently bad or garbage. As soon as anything is changed for your better someone else will write about the wrong direction and how they just don’t play as much as they used to. They could add a match three mini-game for lockpicking and there would be somebody somewhere overjoyed…

Either go with the flow and find the fun of each version or find a mod that helps the fun return.

Or complain until a town hall is held and they change the game to match what you want. Squeeky wheel gets the grease.

There is a marked difference between a handful of people versus a lot of people complaining about things and I would l not correlate what one person says to be the same as what people were having issues with leading up to the town hall. Not even close. A for effort though.

 

[Rotor]

Squeeky wheel gets the grease.

Or gets replaced .

 

[Krougal]

I'll end where I started. I've gotten more than my money's worth out of 7 Days to Die, I've had hours of tremendous fun playing over the years. I'm very happy this game existed, and while I would love for it to grow and provide even more enjoyment, which I'd happily pay for, it owes me nothing at the point. I have little desire to play anymore, and the latest editions to the game have served only to make it that much less desirable. I feel the game has become a slow, flat grind of incremental progression and is in desperate need of a massive fun overhaul.

Well said.

I still give it a thumbs down on Steam, because I currently would not recommend this game to anyone, but yeah, unlike say Empyrion, it hasn't been all bad. I got a lot of enjoyment out of this game, and if I had the drive to do an overhaul mod (because the rest of you have even worse ideas than the devs ) I could still get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I'm worn out.

And let's face it, the entire gaming industry sucks at this point, I haven't looked forward to a new release of anything in years. I think a lot of us are in that same boat where we just hope some of our EA indy games actually get finished and don't suck, because the AAA are mostly just ■■■■ designed to part you and your money from each other and give as little in return as possible.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 8:57 PM

Or gets replaced .

The squeaky wheel get's the kick!
Go for the eyes boo! Go for the eyes!