PC Open Letter to TFP's...

[AtomicUs5000]

You know, if you have a set distance from point a to point b (like making this game beta) and as you travel said distance, you halve the distance you travel with each step, you will never arrive at point b..

At this point calling it a "alpha" is taking on a whole new meaning.

But at some point you should be able to avoid them in a similar way.. Not three but maybe 30..

Everybody is so hung up on the "you shouldn't be able to avoid the horde no matter what"...Who says so???

It's called using your brain. I should be able to out-think some walking dead, and avoiding a fight is the easiest way to win the fight.

"just disable the hordes"

no..just make it so if you are smarter than they are, you don't "have" to fight them, unless you want to..

Why should anybody have to feel inferior by turning down the game from default to get that option?

I will fully admit, when I first started I had to turn everything off, and make them walk at all times.

Felt like a sissy doing it, but whatever.

But after playing it for months, I should be able to play on default, without feeling like i am overmatched.

I agree with what you're saying... 99%. The 1% I disagree with is the "Not three but maybe 30" If I can do this on day 1, it's a bad game. There is no genius moment here for the average person, especially knowing that the world is fully destructible. 
Now if they added some kind of high-tech block that you can get late game that blocks zombies from detecting you, and you established some strategy to survive until you can build up the skills and/or harvest the resources to obtain said blocks to eventually be safe... I'm all for that. That is a game.
 
Likewise, crafting a minibike and riding on it all day during BM as the survival strategy is not a good game. You won't be able to do it in a day, but it is possible before the first BM on default. Even if it took 21 days, it's still too soon. 
Now if they added spike mods to a 4x4, spiked roof mod, electric shock mod, etc... all these things you have to work for to achieve the safety on BM. It is a reasonable survival strategy to try to obtain all of these things. I'm all for that. That is a game.

 

[Demandred1957]

I agree with what you're saying... 99%. The 1% I disagree with is the "Not three but maybe 30" If I can do this on day 1, it's a bad game.

Not really imo.. If you are new to the game and you find a way to let you survive early on, more power to you.. Then later on as you grow and get experience and resources, and want to fight them, carry on..

For them to be able to "sense" you 30 blocks down is kinda immersion breaking to me. 3 blocks down? sure why not.. that's not really "working" for your survival, and within the realm of movie monsters abilty to "get you".

everybody likes to play differently, and the game does have the ability to be "one size fits all" if only they would let it.

Now if they added some kind of high-tech block that you can get late game that blocks zombies from detecting you, and you established some strategy to survive until you can build up the skills and/or harvest the resources to obtain said blocks to eventually be safe... I'm all for that. That is a game.

Yeah, I could see that.. along WITH the option of just being able to ride around UNTIL they built up those resources to make them blocks or other things you describe.

Maybe they are a scaredy cat and run screaming like a little girl when they see a zom..and their "strategy" is just to run around on a vehicle until they can achieve their game life goal of having those things you spoke of, and not have to think about the horde again..

Why is that such a horrible thing, that makes everybody froth at the mouth?

Nobody's forcing you to play that way if you don't want to..

 

[AtomicUs5000]

For them to be able to "sense" you 30 blocks down is kinda immersion breaking to me. 3 blocks down? sure why not.. that's not really "working" for your survival, and within the realm of movie monsters abilty to "get you".

everybody likes to play differently, and the game does have the ability to be "one size fits all" if only they would let it.

That's the lore of the Blood Moon. They can all sense you wherever you are. I don't know why. TFP probably doesn't even know why. It's an unexplained supernatural event. 
How is this immersion breaking for you, but being able to dig 30 meters down with a shovel made out of stone in a single day isn't?

 

[Demandred1957]

How is this immersion breaking for you, but being able to dig 30 meters down with a shovel made out of stone in a single day isn't?

Ok, maybe not on day 1, but by day 2 for sure. if you are motivated (by not wanting to die) you can do some amazing things after all.

 

[uselessjunkaccount]

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released. Some people rage and see it as a doomsday more severe than the one they play in. Some people loathe change but they will get used to it. Not that every change the TFP has made is good, looking at you A17 skill tree revamp, but this is something pretty minor that everyone can adapt to. Some people just hate having to adapt but honestly he shouldn't be playing an early access game if this is his mindset.

There are still plenty of options for riding out the horde night with zero engagement: skyscrapers, fire stations, hospital, city hall, ruined concrete buildings, mansions, prison, main street strip malls, movie theater, factories, etc.. Or be creative and go to a residential area/Diresville and connect 3-4 houses with an elevated walkway. Pick anything sturdy with at least two stories tall and stand somewhere above the ceiling of the second story.

 

[RipClaw]

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released. Some people rage and see it as a doomsday more severe than the one they play in. Some people loathe change but they will get used to it.

I'm sure the subject will come up again. Alpha 19 is currently still experimental. This means that all players still play Alpha 18 unless they have changed the beta tab to "latest experimental".

Also most of the players don't read the release notes. Therefore they will only notice when they experience it themselves. I asked several 7 Days players about it and nobody knew anything about it.

There are still plenty of options for riding out the horde night with zero engagement: skyscrapers, fire stations, hospital, city hall, ruined concrete buildings, mansions, prison, main street strip malls, movie theater, factories, etc.. Or be creative and go to a residential area/Diresville and connect 3-4 houses with an elevated walkway. Pick anything sturdy with at least two stories tall and stand somewhere above the ceiling of the second story.

All this requires preparation. You have to clear the building and remove the stairs.

But there are situations where you want to ride out the horde where you don't have time to prepare. For example if you play on a server and you realize after logging in that you have only a few minutes left to prepare for the horde. This can happen for example when the last player logged out shortly before the horde. Then the time on the server stops.

Best case scenario is that you have logged out in the base and the base is already prepared. Worst case: You have logged out somewhere far away from the base.

The fastest and easiest solution with the changes is to store everything it in a chest and place bedroll next to the chest. Then you wait for the horde and let them kill you. When you die, the horde will stop and you can drive home with an XP penalty for dying. Not really a fun solution.

 

[Demandred1957]

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released

Did you watch Vedui's video that I pulled this post from? "wuss the horde"

The fastest and easiest solution with the changes is to store everything it in a chest and place bedroll next to the chest. Then you wait for the horde and let them kill you. When you die, the horde will stop and you can drive home with an XP penalty for dying. Not really a fun solution.

Exactly. I mean, for sure I am glad I watched that video, and I will be dbl prepared for all future hordes because of it, but I hate this change because it feels so cheap..

I asked several 7 Days players about it and nobody knew anything about it.

Ahh, what a lovely little surprise they are going to get..lmao.

 

[katarynna]

It's called using your brain. I should be able to out-think some walking dead, and avoiding a fight is the easiest way to win the fight.

"just disable the hordes"

no..just make it so if you are smarter than they are, you don't "have" to fight them, unless you want to..

Why should anybody have to feel inferior by turning down the game from default to get that option?

Why would you feel inferior by changing the default settings to get the best game experience for yourself? I just don't understand this mentality.

You paid for the game. If the blood moon adds nothing enjoyable for you, turning it off doesn't make you lose man points. It just makes you smart.

 

[Demandred1957]

Why would you feel inferior by changing the default settings to get the best game experience for yourself? I just don't understand this mentality.

You paid for the game. If the blood moon adds nothing enjoyable for you, turning it off doesn't make you lose man points. It just makes you smart.

Well I know it did for me when I had to turn it down when I first started playing..

Default is "hey, everybody should be good enough to play at this level"

less than that is training wheels, then a tricycle..

I can play at default, and beat the horde. that's not the issue.

The issue of this whole letter, is I don't like having my plan B's that I earned by grinding through the game taken away in effect.

If something goes wrong during a high level horde, I don't see a problem with running away like a scared little girl, then coming back to fight then or another day.

 

[meganoth]

My argument is being able to use a vehicle in the way it was intended to be used for for 6 out of 7 days, but not the seventh day is broken and wrong.

It's not any more "god-mode" than using guns.

Your argument is basically you shouldn't be able to because..

A straw man (or strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, meanwhile the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

Meh, not buying that. They keep changing the "vision" because they are chasing exploits or something.. As someone said (but I don't know about" the original didn't even have BM hordes..

And how is that even slightly different than the hours you have poured into earning the vehicle, that is now basically useless when you really need it??

You don't even have to do that.. you can use far less resources to just make a "floating" base and afk the horde with a exploit that has been around for ages..

Lets continue to quote the definition of strawman: "The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument"

So with which different proposition have I replaced your proposition?

 

[Ralathar44]

Dying Light has a whole huge DLC map created for using a buggy to get around the map, its even easier to use the car to shake of runners then fighting them.

DLCs don't really count because they run by different rules.  DLCs can afford to be riskier, smaller scale, imbalanced, etc without it being a big impact because the base game has already done it's job.  For example Far Cry 3 has a DLC that is all 80's future tech and it's amazing, but it only gets away with how thin it is and how short it's run time is because it's a DLC....it'd never work as a 40 hour main game because there just isn't enough there to justify it.  It wraps up about the time it starts to wear out it's welcome and get old at 4-8 hours.  So a DLC is very much not the same thing as a game, again they run by different rules.

Also it should be noted that only a faction of players will buy the DLC to a game.  You pretty much have to sell expansions that add major content to a base game that already has replayability to get a high adoption rate on your DLC/Expansions.

 

[Demandred1957]

Lets continue to quote the definition of strawman: "The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument"

So with which different proposition have I replaced your proposition

My proposition is that you get to use the vehicles that you have earned, any way you like, now except during the horde, and that it's not fair or balanced, because of how they are used any other time.

your proposition is that during the horde, they are now "god-mode" and shouldn't be used like they are at any other time because it's a horde, and somehow that should make any difference to how a tool is used, and everybody should be fine with that just because, and without laying out any reasons why your scenario is somehow fair and balanced, considering the valid points I have put forward.

just saying "because it's a horde and you shouldn't be able to" doesn't cut it.

Now I never claimed to be part of a debate team, nor am I very eloquent, so if you wanna get into high level semantics, i'm going to have to tap out, and let someone who shares my viewpoint, and is capable of high level debate finish for me.

 

[katarynna]

My proposition is that you get to use the vehicles that you have earned, any way you like, now except during the horde, and that it's not fair or balanced, because of how they are used any other time.

your proposition is that during the horde, they are now "god-mode" and shouldn't be used like they are at any other time because it's a horde, and somehow that should make any difference to how a tool is used, and everybody should be fine with that just because, and without laying out any reasons why your scenario is somehow fair and balanced, considering the valid points I have put forward.

just saying "because it's a horde and you shouldn't be able to" doesn't cut it.

Now I never claimed to be part of a debate team, nor am I very eloquent, so if you wanna get into high level semantics, i'm going to have to tap out, and let someone who shares my viewpoint, and is capable of high level debate finish for me.

Several game mechanics work differently on horde night that they do the other 6 1/2 days of the week.

Stealth doesn't exist during horde, so all the time and energy agi players put into stealth builds are not able to be used during horde. Avoiding, shaking their aggro by running out of line of sight, and distracting them with rocks/snowballs doesn't work during the horde. The horde always knows where you are and always comes for you until either you die or they do.

So to me, making vehicles not be a god mode escape during the horde fits in with the other horde-specific mechanics. I suspect there will be other horde-specific mechanics in the future, but that is just a guess. TFP have said that the goal is that the only 100% safe way of avoiding the horde will be to stay at the traders that night for a hefty fee.

Other things changed include pyramid bases, stilt bases, and underground bases, but those changes affect non-horde times as well even though i believe the changes were made because of horde night. There are still exploit bases that work, but tfp are slowly making them obsolete as they have time.

You have said several times that to you, using weapons and traps is the same as running away in a vehicle. The difference is that while using weapons and traps to defend against the horde, you are actively engaging it with a chance to fail. (see all the demolisher rage posts here and on steam) In a18, driving around on horde night is almost 100% guaranteed safety. There is a difference to me at least, and to the fun pimps. 

Personally, I don't care either way because I have never used vehicles as a method to drive around on horde night. I also don't care what anyone else does in their games. But the above is my understanding of why they made the change and why i think it's fair.

 

[Solomon]

Several game mechanics work differently on horde night that they do the other 6 1/2 days of the week.

Stealth doesn't exist during horde, so all the time and energy agi players put into stealth builds are not able to be used during horde. Avoiding, shaking their aggro by running out of line of sight, and distracting them with rocks/snowballs doesn't work during the horde. The horde always knows where you are and always comes for you until either you die or they do.

So to me, making vehicles not be a god mode escape during the horde fits in with the other horde-specific mechanics. I suspect there will be other horde-specific mechanics in the future, but that is just a guess. TFP have said that the goal is that the only 100% safe way of avoiding the horde will be to stay at the traders that night for a hefty fee.

Other things changed include pyramid bases, stilt bases, and underground bases, but those changes affect non-horde times as well even though i believe the changes were made because of horde night. There are still exploit bases that work, but tfp are slowly making them obsolete as they have time.

You have said several times that to you, using weapons and traps is the same as running away in a vehicle. The difference is that while using weapons and traps to defend against the horde, you are actively engaging it with a chance to fail. (see all the demolisher rage posts here and on steam) In a18, driving around on horde night is almost 100% guaranteed safety. There is a difference to me at least, and to the fun pimps. 

Personally, I don't care either way because I have never used vehicles as a method to drive around on horde night. I also don't care what anyone else does in their games. But the above is my understanding of why they made the change and why i think it's fair.

Honestly i would much more prefer the horde night to be something what is dangerous but not because its homing on you.

For example lets say that the horde night doesnt do anything but spawn a bunch of berserking zombies what attack anything on sight including blocks. You are turning off all lights on your base, extinguish all fires, enter stealth and hope nothing sees you or gets aggroed on a badly placed trap making them attack your place.

You can avoid the horde if you are extremely careful or you can attack them like normally to end it. You can try to run away in stealth or use a vehicle and see the berserking guys all home into you because of the noise.

 

[Raestloz]

But the above is my understanding of why they made the change and why i think it's fair.

I think it is wrong to call that fair. It's "fair" as in "it works like that with others too", but the most glaring flaw of this, that is you're not allowed to use stealth, breaks the effort of people who play smart, who avoid the zombies as much as possible and invest in stealth. Blood Moon takes away that playstyle entirely: their combat skill sneak attack is taken out, and I don't think it's fair at all. Why is a certain playstyle so much weaker compared to other playstyles?

By the way I'm not debating on the 4x4 thing, just specifically stealth during blood moon

 

[AtomicUs5000]

By the way I'm not debating on the 4x4 thing, just specifically stealth during blood moon

I think it's worthy its own topic.
I suggested that maybe stealth could allow getting away on vehicles... however, I don't think this is enough since it doesn't help out a team very much.
I know the stealth role during BM issue has been presented before. Maybe someone will come up with a decent idea this time.

 

[meganoth]

My proposition is that you get to use the vehicles that you have earned, any way you like, now except during the horde, and that it's not fair or balanced, because of how they are used any other time.

your proposition is that during the horde, they are now "god-mode" and shouldn't be used like they are at any other time because it's a horde, and somehow that should make any difference to how a tool is used, and everybody should be fine with that just because, and without laying out any reasons why your scenario is somehow fair and balanced, considering the valid points I have put forward.

just saying "because it's a horde and you shouldn't be able to" doesn't cut it.

Now I never claimed to be part of a debate team, nor am I very eloquent, so if you wanna get into high level semantics, i'm going to have to tap out, and let someone who shares my viewpoint, and is capable of high level debate finish for me.

I'm just not happy to be repeatedly accused of using a disingenious debating technique. So you should at least be able to justify that accusation.

And it seems you may have the wrong idea about what a strawman is. Because to show I'm doing a strawman you would have had to list a second proposition of yours that you never made, NOT my proposition. I'm not the one who started using the high level semantics and I'm ok with you either dropping that accusation or really showing why it is a strawman.

-----

Now back to the topic: As katarynna expülained so well, the 7th day in the game is a special day with special rules. Those special rules mean that:

On 6 of 7 nights I can do the follwowing things and if I'm careful and stealthy and have a secure place I can get to I'm relatively sure to survive this unharmed

1) I can just walk quietly to a tree and fell it

2) or harvest my farm plots

3) or even loot a POI I cleared on the day

4) or drive around in a vehicle

On day 7 I can do all of these things too, but almost immediately this gets me surrounded by a large group of dangerous running zombies. Is that fair?

When you don't know it the first time, probably not really. When you know it, it is just an additional challenge the game puts before you on a regular basis and you can prepare for it. Since it is an alpha the rules may change from alpha to alpha.

Does that explanation make more sense to you?

You also say that the vehicle cost you lots of time and resources. Correct. But maybe not enough. How much is enough is determined by the developers and they obviously decided that the costs of the vehicle is not, especially because it is so useful any other day of the week.

You say other exploits are still open. Correct. But they have exactly one developer in charge of AI that can fix all those exploits. He has only 8 hours per day to work on this and many other tasks and it takes him multiple days to fix just one of the many exploits. So a few weeks ago he fixed the pyramid exploit and in a different week he found time to fix or balance the vehicle exploit/OP/balance problem (however you want to call it). 7D2D is in alpha and not finished, exploits get fixed slowly and over time.

By the way, in reality there are also special rules on the seventh day:  In most countries you can't shop on sunday because the shops are closed. Is it unfair? Unbalanced? 

 

[katarynna]

I think it is wrong to call that fair. It's "fair" as in "it works like that with others too", but the most glaring flaw of this, that is you're not allowed to use stealth, breaks the effort of people who play smart, who avoid the zombies as much as possible and invest in stealth. Blood Moon takes away that playstyle entirely: their combat skill sneak attack is taken out, and I don't think it's fair at all. Why is a certain playstyle so much weaker compared to other playstyles?

By the way I'm not debating on the 4x4 thing, just specifically stealth during blood moon

i remember some discussion madmole participated in regarding possible buffs to stealth during bloodmoon, so it may get something added.

However, the main advantage stealth players have on horde night is the piles of ammo they loot all week, while using very little. They can use much more ammo on horde night since they get most of their kills the rest of the week with stealth melee, or 1 shot kills with bows or handguns.

 

[Raestloz]

piles of ammo they loot all week

I do not think this is necessarily a good trade off. Every point spent on sneak attack is a point not spent on combat skill that increases damage.

In Agility attribute you can either take Hidden Strike or Gunslinger. For the sake of argument we're not entertaining "What if they take both?", that'd lead to a never ending "they could've taken these skills instead". Incidentally, they both cost the same as far as skill points go

Hidden Strike grants 200% extra sneak attack damage on top of the standard 50%, so you're dealing 350% damage per attack

Gunslinger deals 50% extra damage with 100% extra damage every 3rd shot, so about 115% extra damage per shot for a total of 215% damage per attack

In order to compensate for the loss of Hidden Strike, you'd need to gather more than double the usual bullets, and considering you'd still need at least 1 bullet per zombie to kill them anyway, I don't think Hidden Strike is good enough.

Not to mention the distinct advantage faster reload brings, which would up the damage dealt per second

but as you say stealth may get buffed, so they recognized there's a problem

 

[katarynna]

Yup, the conversation i remember was definitely a "maybe we could do something like" possibility kind of conversation, not a "this is coming in a future alpha" conversation.

The idea thrown around was that possibly ducking out of sight would give you a couple seconds to get off a shot that would have the sneak attack damage, regardless of the horde gps ability.

That sounds fair to me, but not sure how or if something like that would ever be implemented. Just that a possible buff to stealth playstyles for horde night only is on the table.