PC Perks System and Level Gates

[Kubikus]

In previous alphas a dedicated team of players could unlock concrete and even steel on day 1. Just as a reference for how good those designs were.If the game includes learning-by-grinding then there will be players who vastly out-grind any "reasonable" progression.

A point-purchase system will get called everything from cheap to lazy to godknowswhat but umm... it works.

You get to choose which perk you want and which you will forgo. You can't simply be master of macroing everything.

So far, I had no problem grinding in A17, and the only system that might prevent grinders from having a certain something "too" early is the level gates. You could as well gate recipes and abilities purely by the number of days played.
For those who don't grind, a mechanic that is designed to counter grinding players is a bit frustrating.

 

[SnowDog1942]

I like the new perk system over A16.I'm glad max health and stamina are separated from eating food.

I would like level gates removed.

I would like too few points to buy everything

I like the idea of level gates being removed but imagine havng the final level of the health regen perk in very early game, you would be unkillable. Just one example of many.

 

[Rockspider]

In previous alphas a dedicated team of players could unlock concrete and even steel on day 1. Just as a reference for how good those designs were.If the game includes learning-by-grinding then there will be players who vastly out-grind any "reasonable" progression.

A point-purchase system will get called everything from cheap to lazy to godknowswhat but umm... it works.

You get to choose which perk you want and which you will forgo. You can't simply be master of macroing everything.

Why was a16 not balanced then? why no patches for the ai?

a16 is still a fun game to many players including myself. Yes there were problems with it but they have never been nor will be addressed.

As for a17 will it be released then ignored till a18? and maybe a whole new way of playing?

 

[Sergoros]

Liked A16 learn by doing more. Liked A16 wellness system. Dont really care that much for level gates or level cap. But, if current system to remain, imho, level gate on intellect is unnecessary. Imho, it should be a luxury stat, that you can waste your points on as much as you want, but if you do, your character would be super crap in everything else for a while. Aka smarty guy from walking dead.

 

[RestInPieces]

As for a17 will it be released then ignored till a18? and maybe a whole new way of playing?

I think they should have appreciated the value of modular patches by now.

 

[Gazz]

Why was a16 not balanced then? why no patches for the ai?

What are you talking about? The patch is called A17.

 

[SnowDog1942]

Does nobody realize you can max your A16 mining skills including 69er without ever mining, you just chose not to. Choose not to do that in A17 if it offends you so much.

You can do this with any skill in A16.

 

[Rockspider]

I think they should have appreciated the value of modular patches by now.

Exactly!

What are you talking about? The patch is called A17.

This I consider to be an overhaul not a patch and has taken a long long time coming. Patches should be a regular thing in an alpha game.

 

[wastelandstoic]

A16 perk/skill system, much more enjoyable.

 

[Vedui]

Great Poll!

1) I prefer a mix of perk/skill point. I like perking for certain things (crafting certain items/groups of items such as vehicles/ guns), to avoid book reading and RNG to do that. But I also like certain things to be dynamic. Run more for athletics. Wear more light armor to gain experience in it. Shoot a pistol more (and hit) to get better at it. Combining the new in A17 with some of the old in A16 would be great.

2) I kinda like how you advance wellness with perks, but also by food. Combine the system? Allow both?

3) LEvel gates are ok, I understand they help to avoid forges day 1 and steel day 2 and rushing in weird ways. But right now they've been perhaps a bit high? Although I think I saw some already adjusted, like bicycle went from 30 --> 20. Which is a lot better. Maybe they need to be reviewed and tweaked only.

4) I personally like to eventually be able to perk all the things I want. I don't care if that means I need a lot more experience to go lvl 200 to 201 ... but give me some way to move towards my target. Right now it feels like too few points, I made a lvl 50 character and tried to perk up, and I couldn't even get enough fighting skills up, let alone anything in crafting/science, in order to fight off the lvl 50 gametage on day 7 horde. I'm concerned it means you struggle up to lvl 100, and then it gets easier again as you've gotten "enough" into your key skills to stay alive, and can pad out after that.

Maybe we need to start the game with 10 skill points to "baseline" our character build, and then review whether the point progression is appropriate. Haven't played enough for that, but it does feel like initially you're struggling way more than expected, so many skills, and no points at all to bump into things.

But I like that TFP has tried to change things up, and I think there's merit in the new, maybe combining with the old for a better balanced mix

/V -

 

[ktr]

Perk system

Tentatively, I prefer the new perk system. As much as I love of the concept of 'learning by doing', I've yet to see a game that has this sort of system that doesn't have glaring holes. There's usually a few skills/abilities/whathaveyou that are, through normal gameplay, much slower to level to the point where the character lvl and lvl of other skills vastly outpaces them. This tends to lead to players looking for ways to efficiently lvl those skills in order to maintain their usefulness. There also tends to be a few that lvl ridiculously easy (lookin' at you Skyrim Stealth) to lvl.

The biggest problem I see with that kind of system is that it probably needs much more dev work and play testing in order balance around normal gameplay. Which then leads to the next 'problem' - power leveling. I say problem in quotes, because the issue isn't, I think, the ability to power level in and of itself but the inevitable cries of 'wow this game is too easy/there's no challenge/this is terrible'.

There also seems to be a plateau for a lot of skills at which point leveling them up requires concentrated effort instead of natural game play. (Bows in A16, I'm talking about you). While the new system might not be entirely to my tastes, I actually find it a lot less grindy. This might change as I play more and get to higher levels, but right now I'm pretty happy with it. (Except for level gates, but we'll get to that.)

I do think exp from zombies and sources other than zombies needs some tooling, but that's already in the pipeline.

I will say though - I don't think the game should be balanced to stop min/maxers or power levelers. It's almost impossible and tends to punish players who don't do those things. If there obvious problems (such as the old vehicle selling prices), those need to be fixed, but trying to curtail min/maxers is, from what I've seen, often a futile effort.

Wellness

I didn't hate the old wellness system and I don't love the new system, but IMO, wellness was far to easy to gain and keep even without trying to min/max. It was pretty easy to circumvent the death penalty of a wellness drop after week 2 at the latest.

The new system makes death count for more, though I am glad the penalty got dropped back to 30 minutes instead of an hour. Still don't like that it locks you out of higher crafting, but I can live with it for 30 minutes.

Level Gates

Eh, I'm not a fan of them overall. I hope some of them get lowered. I'd rather see progression lengthened and smoothed by virtue of risk/reward. Meaning, sure, I can dump all my points into building/gathering perks and those attributes, but now I can't fight the things that a higher gamestage is bringing to my door. Maybe this means some of the perks need to cost more points to make that impact obvious or something to nature.

Level Caps

I don't see the point of them. There is no end game here. No final boss that I can roll in on and kill in two hits because I'm at level 400 vs. the level 200 the boss was tuned for. If I want to be a god of the apocalypse, let me pls. The time investment in getting there is significant and I don't see the harm - especially in SP where you don't have team support. I can see where this might be a pain in public servers and PvP, but I'm not sure that level caps should be balanced around multiplayer since it directly impacts SP.

 

[Aerial]

Perk/Skill System:

I, too, dislike only acquiring abilities by leveling up and buying them. Maybe a system where you increase your base Perception/Fortitude/etc level by doing activities associated with that attribute, but then you buy specific perks with points once you've reached sufficient level in the base attribute?

I do feel like some of the perks are too powerful. We should never get to a point where we natively outheal bleed damage, for instance, or can never be stunned, etc.

None of that addresses the loss of gameplay variety that resulted from the RNG of finding or not finding important skill books in earlier alphas. Somehow, that needs to return to the game because otherwise each restart will quickly become the same game over and over.

Capping skill points to a restrictive level is one way, so that you have to choose between important skills and can't have them all. I think TFP intend weapon and armor mods to fill this role, but at the moment the perks are powerful enough that mods don't seem particularly important.

As much as not finding the forge book frustrated me from time to time, I still think making some skills and items available by RNG only would be appropriate.

Health/Wellness

The wellness system from A16 wasn't great, but at least it felt like food was critical for survival and there were clear rewards for being better able to feed yourself. I understand what TFP is trying to do with this new system but it's not very intuitive how food/drink counter health/stamina losses. I'm *still* staring at those bars with the gray and black stripes and thinking... okay, now food can fill up the gray part but not the black? Or is that stamina?

Overall the current system feels too much like an action RPG where death just means you go back to the most recent save point and try again. It doesn't feel like a survival game.

 

[Shillen]

I really love learning by doing. If you never kill zombies you shouldn't be good at killing zombies. If you never mine you shouldn't be good at mining. I love almost everything about the new update except the leveling/perk system.

 

[Gazz]

And you are absolutely allowed to do that. You're just not forced to.

 

[Guppycur]

In previous alphas a dedicated team of players could unlock concrete and even steel on day 1. Just as a reference for how good those designs were.If the game includes learning-by-grinding then there will be players who vastly out-grind any "reasonable" progression.

A point-purchase system will get called everything from cheap to lazy to godknowswhat but umm... it works.

You get to choose which perk you want and which you will forgo. You can't simply be master of macroing everything.

Specific to hoard nights:

The problem is that on day 7 we are level x and are unable to craft XYZ defenses against a fixed enemy, which sounds good on paper, but then on day 35 we are level y and are ABLE to craft XYZ defenses against a fixed enemy, but the inherent problem is it is the same exact threat.

Making us wait to achieve the ability to make defenses against the same threat is boring. And weird. And artificial.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm just waking up, so I may not be clear on what I'm saying, but the gist is that as a player we are unable to control what we can do, and the experiences are very fixed. Every, single, time. Personal game skill levels no longer make a difference in gameplay.

 

[PinkLed5]

It's just not as cut and dry as the poll makes it. I miss the a16 system where skills were leveled through use but I far prefer the perk system of a17. I'm not opposed to level gating, but I think there are better ways to do it. For example, there's no level gates in Minecraft but if you want to build an enchanting table it takes hours of gameplay to get there. Similar features could be implemented in 7D2D for things like the forge or workbench, etc, but if they stayed as they were I wouldn't be too upset.

 

[JaxTeller718]

My biggest gripe is action exp, BUT it can be limited. I do not want spam crafting or dig levelling back, although digging can yield extremely low amounts of xp like hitting grass does.

I think the current perk system mixed in with a system where we gain skill levels by firing our weapon or stabbing a zombie works best. I mean you can do it, you limit xp NOW to zombies mostly. So limit weapon and tool experience to zombies as well. That makes sense, the more i use my gun the better my aim is, the better my accuracy is. You call it grinding. Maybe it is but what's wrong with a grind that makes sense? The lesser of two evils in my opinion between that and getting better at your gun by punching grass.

 

[RestInPieces]

It's just not as cut and dry as the poll makes it. I miss the a16 system where skills were leveled through use but I far prefer the perk system of a17. I'm not opposed to level gating, but I think there are better ways to do it. For example, there's no level gates in Minecraft but if you want to build an enchanting table it takes hours of gameplay to get there. Similar features could be implemented in 7D2D for things like the forge or workbench, etc, but if they stayed as they were I wouldn't be too upset.

The Subnautica way is a good way to achieve recipe gating by exploration. With some adjustments since the Subnautica world is fixed.

 

[Randomdude]

Bring back books.

Muscle Magazine = Strength +1

Guns n' Ammo = Perception +1

Or maybe you need to find multiples for 1 point (1/3) (2/3) (3/3) = 1 point.

I really do miss books that were really an amazing find at the first stages of some games. Seeing a Crack a Book at the beginning and going "Meh!" breaks my heart.

/rant

While were at it... the mod recipe system is BS, HATE it! If you find a recipe, you learn it and that's it. From that point on you should "know" how to use it. /end rant

 

[Snowydeath]

Bring back books.
Muscle Magazine = Strength +1

Guns n' Ammo = Perception +1

Or maybe you need to find multiples for 1 point (1/3) (2/3) (3/3) = 1 point.

I really do miss books that were really an amazing find at the first stages of some games. Seeing a Crack a Book at the beginning and going "Meh!" breaks my heart.

/rant

While were at it... the mod recipe system is BS, HATE it! If you find a recipe, you learn it and that's it. From that point on you should "know" how to use it. /end rant

Sure. Go learn how to build certain things in real life and automatically know how to do it forever! That’s not how memory works for 99% of the population. Also. You find BPs constantly so I see no reason to know them forever.