ThuggNastee
Refugee
I'm going to preface this by putting this out there: THIS IS ALL JUST MY OPINION, MAN...
Good morning/evening/whatever to you folks. I'm sure I'm speaking for a lot of people here, but I've not been able to enjoy 7D2D for a long time now, and I find that troublesome.
This game started as an awesome take on the zombie/survival-horror/open-world/sandbox style of game and has come a very long way from its humble beginnings (Anyone here remember the Minecraft-esque build method? Anyone...? Anyone...?). There are so many great things in the game as it sits right now, and the zombie models and biome designs are better than they ever have been, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, TFP seems to have forgotten what the original intent of the game was and have stripped away so much from what made the game great. Many of the features that used to be integral to the game have been removed or stripped back in favor of some less-than-great mechanics and obnoxious gates.
In my opinion, 7D2D has an incredible frame to build upon. The basic elements of the game are solid, but we need to change a lot of things to get it back on track.
1) Get rid of the biome gates. The smoothie mechanic feels absolutely horrible and take away from the "open world" aspect of the game. If I want to start the game by immediately going to the snow biomes, I should be able to do that. This mechanic feels more like a punishment than an actual "mechanic."
2) Reinstate the heat/cold/moisture mechanics. Previously, we had mechanics for heat and cold levels in the various biomes, which made sense for the appropriate biomes. If you went to a desert, you needed some lighter clothing or some mods that made your clothing lighter so you wouldn't overheat. If you were going to a cold mountain, you needed more insulation. If you dive into water, you get wet, which made it harder to move and made cold set in faster. The lack of this simply doesn't make sense in a "survival" game, particularly because they were already in the game previously. If I dive into a lake, I should get wet. If I go to the desert, I should get hot, and so on.
3) Increase spawn rates in towns and cities. In this current iteration, I've played on a server where I was trying to find burned zombies in the burned biome, as that was a requirement to get the badge to not be hit by the environment. I burned through 10 smoothies and several missions from Jenny, and not a single burned zombie showed up. I think I saw every OTHER kind of zombie in that area, but not the one that I actually needed. This is caused by TFP lowering spawn rates in the cities/towns, getting rid of the sound sensitivity of zombies, getting rid of the zombie "scent" mechanic where they could smell the food in your inventory, and other things. This must be changed. At the very least, I should be able to find the zombies I need to get that stupid badge in the appropriate biome with relative ease. I shouldn't have to burn through 10 smoothies to not find a single one.
4) Implement the things that were promised. Where the hell are the bandits? What the hell is this stupid "storm" mechanic that we have going on right now? As it sits now, there's no sign that the bandits will be implemented any time soon and the storms are basically a degen that barely effects you. There's no urgency or no danger in sitting in a storm. You can just get into a house and completely remove the effects or just spam healing items and completely ignore it.
5) Zombie pathing/targeting mechanics. While I think the pathing is decent overall, it's way too easy to cheese the zombies with some base builds. Additionally, there used to be mechanics like "dead piles" of zombies that they could run over in order to get over your defenses. There's also the issue of certain block types basically creating forcefields for bases or certain block types being "solid" when they clearly are not. I know some folks like the cheese style of base, and admittedly, they are pretty fun to build, but some improvements in the zombie pathing and targeting AI can keep the fun available while improving the survival aspects of the game. Zombies should also be able to take fall damage. If a player can take it, the enemies should be able to take it, in most cases.
6) Reinstate the old wellness system. In previous iterations of the game, there was a sort of wellness system that would have long-term effects on the player's health and stamina. Without this, temporary debuffs or degens to stats mean basically nothing, especially as you climb up the skill trees and can start negating the effects of, say, a broken leg immediately. Adding something like this back in would greatly improve the survival aspects of the game.
7) Fix the ■■■■ "dew" collectors and liquids in general. They're rain collectors guys. Come on. I know this is a bit nit-pickey, but seriously. They're rain collectors. Additionally, in previous iterations of the game, we'd have glass jars that could be found to store things in. If you wanted to make some sort of beverage, you'd have to have a glass jar. That makes sense, if you ask me. Liquid do be like that. Why is it now that when you make water, you have some single-use jar that just magically appears? Not only that, but why would we NOT keep those jars, especially given that they were already in the game before? The survival aspect of the game would greatly improve with simple changes like these.
8) Get rid of those stupid magazines. There's nothing worse than being gated in progression because you can't find a stupid magazine to build something, or to create something. My favorite example of this is "grilled meat." I don't need a ■■■■ magazine to create that. It's pretty straight forward. It's kind of in the name. This isn't a five star restaurant. This is Navezgane and we're all a bit jacked here. Reinstating the old "learn by doing" system would be ideal, in my opinion. The books could stay, but I feel as though those should only be around to unlock certain skills or items. For example, the creation of certain items or to augment things you already do/have.
9) Better armor and dying options. We used to have all sorts of different kinds of armor types that we could dye and would be better or worse in certain situations. The fact that we can't dye the current armor set is just insane, considering we used to be able to dye things previously. Instead of the current armor sets, I would propose to use the older armor sets, but create items that would give benefits to certain skills. For example, the "farmer" set might be able to equip a special item in its gloves called "Master Trowel" to improve the yield of plants or maybe you could add a hand-sickle to the game that would do less damage to terrain/enemies/buildings, but would improve the yield of crops.
10) STOP. MAKING. DLC. Seriously. You guys. You haven't even delivered on promises made when the game initially launched, but you're selling cosmetic DLCs that we can't actually see. Not only that, but at least one of the traders actively advertises them. That feels terrible, especially in a game that's not even really finished yet, even though it's in the 2.0 iteration.
Once again, this is all my opinion. I doubt TFP will read this, but I hope they do and I hope this starts some discussion on how this game could be better. It's got such a cool framework already built into it and the community is pretty awesome. Hopefully the game can follow suit and be better going forward.
Good morning/evening/whatever to you folks. I'm sure I'm speaking for a lot of people here, but I've not been able to enjoy 7D2D for a long time now, and I find that troublesome.
This game started as an awesome take on the zombie/survival-horror/open-world/sandbox style of game and has come a very long way from its humble beginnings (Anyone here remember the Minecraft-esque build method? Anyone...? Anyone...?). There are so many great things in the game as it sits right now, and the zombie models and biome designs are better than they ever have been, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, TFP seems to have forgotten what the original intent of the game was and have stripped away so much from what made the game great. Many of the features that used to be integral to the game have been removed or stripped back in favor of some less-than-great mechanics and obnoxious gates.
In my opinion, 7D2D has an incredible frame to build upon. The basic elements of the game are solid, but we need to change a lot of things to get it back on track.
1) Get rid of the biome gates. The smoothie mechanic feels absolutely horrible and take away from the "open world" aspect of the game. If I want to start the game by immediately going to the snow biomes, I should be able to do that. This mechanic feels more like a punishment than an actual "mechanic."
2) Reinstate the heat/cold/moisture mechanics. Previously, we had mechanics for heat and cold levels in the various biomes, which made sense for the appropriate biomes. If you went to a desert, you needed some lighter clothing or some mods that made your clothing lighter so you wouldn't overheat. If you were going to a cold mountain, you needed more insulation. If you dive into water, you get wet, which made it harder to move and made cold set in faster. The lack of this simply doesn't make sense in a "survival" game, particularly because they were already in the game previously. If I dive into a lake, I should get wet. If I go to the desert, I should get hot, and so on.
3) Increase spawn rates in towns and cities. In this current iteration, I've played on a server where I was trying to find burned zombies in the burned biome, as that was a requirement to get the badge to not be hit by the environment. I burned through 10 smoothies and several missions from Jenny, and not a single burned zombie showed up. I think I saw every OTHER kind of zombie in that area, but not the one that I actually needed. This is caused by TFP lowering spawn rates in the cities/towns, getting rid of the sound sensitivity of zombies, getting rid of the zombie "scent" mechanic where they could smell the food in your inventory, and other things. This must be changed. At the very least, I should be able to find the zombies I need to get that stupid badge in the appropriate biome with relative ease. I shouldn't have to burn through 10 smoothies to not find a single one.
4) Implement the things that were promised. Where the hell are the bandits? What the hell is this stupid "storm" mechanic that we have going on right now? As it sits now, there's no sign that the bandits will be implemented any time soon and the storms are basically a degen that barely effects you. There's no urgency or no danger in sitting in a storm. You can just get into a house and completely remove the effects or just spam healing items and completely ignore it.
5) Zombie pathing/targeting mechanics. While I think the pathing is decent overall, it's way too easy to cheese the zombies with some base builds. Additionally, there used to be mechanics like "dead piles" of zombies that they could run over in order to get over your defenses. There's also the issue of certain block types basically creating forcefields for bases or certain block types being "solid" when they clearly are not. I know some folks like the cheese style of base, and admittedly, they are pretty fun to build, but some improvements in the zombie pathing and targeting AI can keep the fun available while improving the survival aspects of the game. Zombies should also be able to take fall damage. If a player can take it, the enemies should be able to take it, in most cases.
6) Reinstate the old wellness system. In previous iterations of the game, there was a sort of wellness system that would have long-term effects on the player's health and stamina. Without this, temporary debuffs or degens to stats mean basically nothing, especially as you climb up the skill trees and can start negating the effects of, say, a broken leg immediately. Adding something like this back in would greatly improve the survival aspects of the game.
7) Fix the ■■■■ "dew" collectors and liquids in general. They're rain collectors guys. Come on. I know this is a bit nit-pickey, but seriously. They're rain collectors. Additionally, in previous iterations of the game, we'd have glass jars that could be found to store things in. If you wanted to make some sort of beverage, you'd have to have a glass jar. That makes sense, if you ask me. Liquid do be like that. Why is it now that when you make water, you have some single-use jar that just magically appears? Not only that, but why would we NOT keep those jars, especially given that they were already in the game before? The survival aspect of the game would greatly improve with simple changes like these.
8) Get rid of those stupid magazines. There's nothing worse than being gated in progression because you can't find a stupid magazine to build something, or to create something. My favorite example of this is "grilled meat." I don't need a ■■■■ magazine to create that. It's pretty straight forward. It's kind of in the name. This isn't a five star restaurant. This is Navezgane and we're all a bit jacked here. Reinstating the old "learn by doing" system would be ideal, in my opinion. The books could stay, but I feel as though those should only be around to unlock certain skills or items. For example, the creation of certain items or to augment things you already do/have.
9) Better armor and dying options. We used to have all sorts of different kinds of armor types that we could dye and would be better or worse in certain situations. The fact that we can't dye the current armor set is just insane, considering we used to be able to dye things previously. Instead of the current armor sets, I would propose to use the older armor sets, but create items that would give benefits to certain skills. For example, the "farmer" set might be able to equip a special item in its gloves called "Master Trowel" to improve the yield of plants or maybe you could add a hand-sickle to the game that would do less damage to terrain/enemies/buildings, but would improve the yield of crops.
10) STOP. MAKING. DLC. Seriously. You guys. You haven't even delivered on promises made when the game initially launched, but you're selling cosmetic DLCs that we can't actually see. Not only that, but at least one of the traders actively advertises them. That feels terrible, especially in a game that's not even really finished yet, even though it's in the 2.0 iteration.
Once again, this is all my opinion. I doubt TFP will read this, but I hope they do and I hope this starts some discussion on how this game could be better. It's got such a cool framework already built into it and the community is pretty awesome. Hopefully the game can follow suit and be better going forward.
