PC Steam reviews - I kinda figured

Roland, if we are JUST in a rush why would we care how we get there? BTW I've never NOT been in a rush to level up in A15/A16. I don't know why anyone wouldn't be. Being leveled up is all around better than the alternative. It sucks to suck. I want to be able to level up doing what I'm interested in doing. If I have to kill zombies to get better at killing/fighting, and I've chosen not to do it, then I've made that choice and I own it--in a zombie game sooner or later I'll have to face that. My choice. Ditching the A16 progression system entirely was a MISTAKE. They had a good thing going, and apparently they didn't even know it...
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This.

Sucking sucks.

No game that gives you the option to get better intends you to stay bad.

This is amplified 10fold if there are recipes gated behind levels.

In Ark, do you like not having a saddle for your awesome mount?

Even before xp got introduced, everything boiled down to getting better.

Better equipment to get more resources to survive better. Crafting weapons and armour to survive in big cities to loot more stuff to be better equipped...

This is the basis of EVERY survival game.

If you want to role play, that's fine. But getting better IS the core of the game. As long as it's a survival or an rpg, this will always be the core.

 
Not a straw man that I created if it even is a straw man at all. I read a lot of these forums and can say that there definitely is a sentiment among those who don’t like the current system that it slows them down too much and they hate the early game. There is definitely a sentiment voiced by people that we are “forced” to hunt and kill zombies. Why would someone feel forced to hunt and kill zombies for days at the exclusion of other activities if they weren’t primarily concerned with leveling up quickly?
As for spending perk points, I honestly do find it fun to choose exactly how I want to get better. I understand you don’t like it.

I’m not really defending the new system, btw. That is just your perception because...Im not angry? I see the pros and cons of both and am willing to adapt to both and that is because I see level progression as a secondary feature of this game and not a primary feature. Primary to me is exploring, crafting, mining, building, gearing up, and not dying. With these as my primary focus I have fun under either xp leveling system.

As I said, I had a 1000 hours in this game before xp was even a thing so HOW I get xp isn’t really anything to get upset over and if xp went away it would largely be the same game to me.
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Roland the Problem is , if you Play MP and this Server also offer something like PVP or is set to high Difficulty People need to Levelup to have a chance, so they must go and hunt Zombies. Also if People dont plan to stay in Stone Age for Weeks they must go and Hunt Zombies cause the few Random Zombies you see in Alpha 17 somewhere on the Road are a bad Joke , it never was such a empty world as it is in alpha 17 seems most Zombies are only inside the POI´s but not in the World anymore. If i run around a City and i only see some Zombies if i enter a House or Store and with much luck 1 or 2 somewhere outside thats not really not forcing people to hunt zombies.

And now? I can stay outside at night and continue building my base cause no Zombie show up and i build inside a City using a POI i cleared before. Only if it comes to Bloodmoon i see many zombies but strange they spawn very often inside the base and yes keystone is set and cover entire area.

So if people in Mp dont plan to stay in Stoneage and be easy Targets for other Players they must hunt Zombies. Ok sure the current Vanilla Loot Table throw guns and mods at you but thats also stupid, why the hell i shoudl find tons of guns and mods in a city , with all this guns and mods the people in the city should have survived.

And another thing the Traders. Before players trade with other players to get skillbooks resources and weapons or weapon parts now traders offer everything, food, resources, armor, guns, mods or you go for food to next vendor in a POI (who runs around and refill all those vending machines?) . NPC Traders offering some basic stuff is ok but traders offering tons of things is not really immersive, how this traders get all this stuff evertime? Why should a Trader sell me his nice and shiny Steel armor or his nice and shiny gun woudl he not keep it for himself to have a chance to survive?

why not add a Setting to enable or disable Traders and NPC vending Machines ?

 
I don't see why your lack of anger would influence my perception. But looking past that, you've been generally supportive of the developments that have come out of A17 and have been more vocal about how you feel the changes have been positive. It's not a large leap to make. If you're truly ambivalent to the change, it has not been apparent. So we debate you.
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I posted my objections to A17 early on. I guess the difference is that I did it once instead of spamming it in every thread I could. Oh, and I didn't call the devs names or describe them or their designs as stupid, retarded, lame, etc. And I didn't announce that until my objections were fixed I would be reverting to A16, uninstalling, writing a bad review, etc.

I ended up posting my objections a couple more times when someone directly asked me what I didn't like about A17. Luckily for me level gating has been lessened quite a bit and may even end up being removed. The team is still discussing that.

Usually when I am defending the developers or their designs it is to simply point out the fact that just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is a poor design. Level gates are an effective design and there were some people who wanted them and felt they were good challenges to work towards with a great reward earned once they got it. So who am I to say level gates are a bad design choice? They aren't. I just don't like them in my own play style.

Finally, I'm not averse to modding. Some people won't mod but that's not me. There are already mods that remove all the level gates so I'm confident that once we finally settle on the last 17.x version and I can really dig into it there will be a way for me to remove the gates. So I'm not mad or outraged that TFP wants to make their game their way. I paid $29.99 to experience all the iterations from start to finish. I knew that was what I was paying for and I have been entertained greatly by watching and participating in this process. I may enjoy the final product or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be burned out regardless of how it turns out.

 
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Roland's strawman is this supposed group of vocal players who want end game by day one.
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Well I admit as Ranzera pointed out that I was conflating two issues. Regardless of what progression system is in place there will be players that devour it in moments. But I do stand by my suspicion that there is a group of vocal players that wish to skip the early game as quickly as possible because they don't like it and they want to feel powerful and invulnerable sooner rather than later. Maybe not by day one but certainly by day 4ish.

But maybe it is just my imagination...

I've never NOT been in a rush to level up in A15/A16. I don't know why anyone wouldn't be. Being leveled up is all around better than the alternative. It sucks to suck.
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This.Sucking sucks.
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I posted my objections to A17 early on. I guess the difference is that I did it once instead of spamming it in every thread I could. Oh, and I didn't call the devs names or describe them or their designs as stupid, retarded, lame, etc. And I didn't announce that until my objections were fixed I would be reverting to A16, uninstalling, writing a bad review, etc.
I ended up posting my objections a couple more times when someone directly asked me what I didn't like about A17. Luckily for level gating has been lessened quite a bit and may even end up being removed. The team is still discussing that.

Usually when I am defending the developers or their designs it is to simply point out the fact that just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is a poor design. Level gates are an effective design and there were some people who wanted them and felt they were good challenges to work towards with a great reward earned once they got it. So who am I to say level gates are a bad design choice? They aren't. I just don't like them in my own play style.

Finally, I'm not averse to modding. Some people won't mod but that's not me. There are already mods that remove all the level gates so I'm confident that once we finally settle on the last 17.x version and I can really dig into it there will be a way for me to remove the gates. So I'm not mad or outraged that TFP wants to make their game their way. I paid $29.99 to experience all the iterations from start to finish. I knew that was what I was paying for and I have been entertained greatly by watching and participating in this process. I may enjoy the final product or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be burned out regardless of how it turns out.
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Roland it seems you miss one Important Point or possible more. One is this, you said

"Luckily for level gating has been lessened quite a bit and may even end up being removed. The team is still discussing that."

Thats great thats fine but thats nothing the Players get a Info its just something you know and the Devs know, there is no real communication between the Devs and the Players, no Information are Shared i dont see a Sticky on this Forum something like "things we possible wanna Change or undo" i only see your Comments, and i read the Comments form Madmole telling people to adapt, telling people to mod and that no game mechanic will be removed or reworked .

And this point, the communication between Devs and Players is really bad, something is changed possibel a short video is recorded as advertising and thats it after that patchnotes and nothing more nothing less.

If someone from the Devs make a Post as Sticky informing the People about possible changes many complaints would not be written again and again, but if the People get as answer adapt, mod it , you only want easy mode, no game mechanic will be changed you thought people stop complaining?

 
*grabs more popcorn* Man this should be a live broadcase, the forums.

But really, they're by far some of the most communicative devs. You can't expect a constantly updating journal and them stil lget progress done. They're human. And do you really thin kthat'll stop people from complaining? Fat chance lol, they'll complain about that, too. "OMG YOU SAID YOU GUIS WERE LOOKING AT THIS DO IT NOW OMG " will be spammed.

 
Well I admit as Ranzera pointed out that I was conflating two issues. Regardless of what progression system is in place there will be players that devour it in moments. But I do stand by my suspicion that there is a group of vocal players that wish to skip the early game as quickly as possible because they don't like it and they want to feel powerful and invulnerable sooner rather than later. Maybe not by day one but certainly by day 4ish.
But maybe it is just my imagination...
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I think it's more that it's not fun huffing and puffing for a few days.

But believe it or not, I get you. Hell I don't even like that you get picked apart because you're a mod and the only contact most get that's closest to a pimp.

 
Roland it seems you miss one Important Point or possible more. One is this, you said"Luckily for level gating has been lessened quite a bit and may even end up being removed. The team is still discussing that."

Thats great thats fine but thats nothing the Players get a Info its just something you know and the Devs know, there is no real communication between the Devs and the Players, no Information are Shared i dont see a Sticky on this Forum something like "things we possible wanna Change or undo" i only see your Comments, and i read the Comments form Madmole telling people to adapt, telling people to mod and that no game mechanic will be removed or reworked .

And this point, the communication between Devs and Players is really bad, something is changed possibel a short video is recorded as advertising and thats it after that patchnotes and nothing more nothing less.

If someone from the Devs make a Post as Sticky informing the People about possible changes many complaints would not be written again and again, but if the People get as answer adapt, mod it , you only want easy mode, no game mechanic will be changed you thought people stop complaining?
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Um, there's a whole section with dev news where the top dev himself gave that very news, a while back.

 
I posted my objections to A17 early on. I guess the difference is that I did it once instead of spamming it in every thread I could. Oh, and I didn't call the devs names or describe them or their designs as stupid, retarded, lame, etc. And I didn't announce that until my objections were fixed I would be reverting to A16, uninstalling, writing a bad review, etc.
I ended up posting my objections a couple more times when someone directly asked me what I didn't like about A17. Luckily for level gating has been lessened quite a bit and may even end up being removed. The team is still discussing that.
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I had no idea. That's certainly before my time on these boards! Looking back, I probably should have joined sooner, I've had a sinking feeling almost since the videos started coming out.

Usually when I am defending the developers or their designs it is to simply point out the fact that just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is a poor design. Level gates are an effective design and there were some people who wanted them and felt they were good challenges to work towards with a great reward earned once they got it. So who am I to say level gates are a bad design choice? They aren't. I just don't like them in my own play style.
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Sometimes it isn't, other times it is. Getting better at something while doing things totally unrelated make for awkward mental gymnastics at best. Gutting a lot of core gameplay and calling it an update are more mental gymnastics (and yes I'm aware of the core rewrite). I'm not against level gates. A16 had them too, a lot more of them in fact.

Finally, I'm not averse to modding. Some people won't mod but that's not me. There are already mods that remove all the level gates so I'm confident that once we finally settle on the last 17.x version and I can really dig into it there will be a way for me to remove the gates. So I'm not mad or outraged that TFP wants to make their game their way. I paid $29.99 to experience all the iterations from start to finish. I knew that was what I was paying for and I have been entertained greatly by watching and participating in this process. I may enjoy the final product or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be burned out regardless of how it turns out.
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I'm not against modding either. However, the success of a mod on MP is far from a sure thing. More than that another person's mod online probably won't fit my taste. I haven't tried the big mods but the mods I usually see spread around add cartoonish features that I'm not interested in. Modding is a blessing and a curse.

 
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Thats great thats fine but thats nothing the Players get a Info its just something you know and the Devs know...
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Right. And do you know what the Enraged do when I post information I know from the devs? They attack me and say that I am shilling, and being a yes man, and making proclamations with my inflated ego, and bullying...etc.

Someone: The new AI sucks. It is so easily exploited. The zombies always know right where you are. I'm going to uninstall this until it gets returned to the way it was in A16.

Roland: The new AI is just the first version. It is not the intended final product. faatal has plans to make it better. The developers are aware of the exploits and the issues and they are working on solutions.

Someone: You just have to say that stuff Roland as a company man! How far up TFP's ass is your head these days?!?! Why do you have to dictate to us and stifle criticism so much?!?!??!! Stop telling me to shutup and go away!!!!!!

Nobody asks questions when they are livid. They just make accusations and leap to wild conspiracies and they don't want to hear actual real information from the developers. They just want to hear that they are going to get their way.

 
Here's my review on Steam. I didn't "disapprove" but my enthusiasm and optimism from the first review in 2016? Gone.

Posted: Sep 2, 2016 @ 4:48pm
Updated: Jan 2 @ 8:14pm

 


EARLY ACCESS REVIEW


Alpha run of 7DTD is amazing. You can scale up or down graphics depending on your system, making this game very accessible to a large number of players. Gameplay has largely been good. There are glitches (it is alpha) but it is playable. I have lost advanced items like the minibike and that's frustrating but... It's alpha. And for the price, it's definitely paid for itself in entertainment.

 


The difficulty is also scalable. This means you can make this game as difficult or as easy as you want. My first 20 hours of the game were played without zombies to get a feel for how the game is set up and how crafting works.

 


The crafting system is easy-to-moderate to learn. There are a variety of items to create and plenty of ways to source materials.

 


While Steam only logs online hours spent, I've played over 300 hours in this game. It is possibly one of the most interesting voxel-based minecraftish sandbox games out there. Bonus points: it works on linux (some finessing may be needed).

 


The only downsides I see is there is almost no benefit, at this juncture, for cooperative play. In PVP servers, you spend most of your time creating a base just to stay protected from zombies and then inevitably have it destroyed by some autistic 12-year-old child. The good news is that you're pretty much free to sit outside that person's camp and hit'em with a 7.62mm round. If only real life was so rewarding.

 


PVE servers seem to be more rewarding in terms of teamwork. There's a lot of awesome building options and if you have a group of people, the sky is the limit.

 


Looking forward to the Alpha 15 release.

 


---UPDATE 01/02/2019---

 


I wrote my initial review back in 2016 -- back when it was Alpha 14. It is now Alpha 17 as the time of this writing. To be honest, I've put in enough hours to say I got my money's worth. Sadly, I won't be continuing on with testing this iteration. The game has improved a LOT in terms of weapon improvements and turning each building into a challenge. It's just no longer my cup of tea. The engine has become VERY resource intensive -- so if you don't have a decent gaming desktop or laptop, you're going to cruise around at 14-28 fps. I find Alpha 17 to be very grinding. I guess the creators of the game are steering it from an 'anything goes' sandbox game into a more refined vision. I don't really like the vision. You may love it.
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Right. And do you know what the Enraged do when I post information I know from the devs? They attack me and say that I am shilling, and being a yes man, and making proclamations with my inflated ego, and bullying...etc.
Someone: The new AI sucks. It is so easily exploited. The zombies always know right where you are. I'm going to uninstall this until it gets returned to the way it was in A16.

Roland: The new AI is just the first version. It is not the intended final product. faatal has plans to make it better. The developers are aware of the exploits and the issues and they are working on solutions.

Someone: You just have to say that stuff Roland as a company man! How far up TFP's ass is your head these days?!?! Why do you have to dictate to us and stifle criticism so much?!?!??!! Stop telling me to shutup and go away!!!!!!

Nobody asks questions when they are livid. They just make accusations and leap to wild conspiracies and they don't want to hear actual real information from the developers. They just want to hear that they are going to get their way.
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I wouldn't worry about a few random stragglers that live on this forum.

 
I wouldn't worry about a few random stragglers that live on this forum.
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Well, as a moderator myself, I'm working to reduce that number from "a few" to "none" eventually... hehe.

I hate the way Roland gets treated sometimes on these boards, one of the reasons I took up Rolands offer to become a moderator was to try and get negative feedback into a civil constructive fashion, but it's a hard slog.

Modding is, I have little doubt, the ultimate, best, asset of the game. If Gold goes live in an extremely hyper-moddable state, then I have no doubt, you'll see mods come out that twist and turn the game every which way but loose, and introduce, modify, resurrect, features to suit all possible tastes.

That's why, even if I don't personally care for the Perk system, I'm still such a big supporter of TFP - I believe, in fact, I'm damned near certain, that when Gold goes live, those features of previous Alphas that I especially enjoyed, I'll be able to mod back in, or someone else will release a mod that does it for me. :smile-new:

 
I see the game as doing tasks to get food, water, and shelter taken care of and then explore and loot and build defenses to survive blood moons and then continue exploring and improving gear and reaching the point at which you feel invulnerable.
I really enjoyed this game when there was no experience or levels at all. Every task and objective I set for myself was simply to survive and move toward thriving. Since xp has been introduced I read all the time posts like “mining isn’t worth doing because you don’t earn enough xp”.

In my opinion, the LBD model puts too much of a focus on doing tasks for their own sake instead of doing them for survival game focused objectives. I personally don’t like that distracting mechanic constantly turning my thoughts towards xp gains. I feel xp gains should be a supporting background feature rather than the whole point of playing.

I like the point system because (once I fixed the killing xp imbalance) I truly felt free to do whatever I wanted in order achieve objectives to live and survive knowing it was all helping me to improve. I spend my points at night and truly enjoy making those purchasing decisions.

If I were to mod the game further it would be to remove the xp bar and the xp gains from the main screen because I don’t want anything screaming at me to notice xp.

LBD as a system screams “focus on xp!!!” more loudly than all other game mechanics. I wonder whether some of you who are so angry about these changes to the xp mechanic would even enjoy playing Alpha 10 which was the last update pre-xp. Would you even enjoy the game without any xp in the game at all?
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Hmmm, you have actually posed a very interesting scenario. I think if there was a lot more looting options (1-600 qual or some other mechanic in effect) you add the mods in, put everything BACK into recipes and schematics ONLY and remove xp and progression?

I think it may work. I know one thing. Working on the mod I'm SO absorbed into having perks and progression make sense. It's kind of a crutch in a way. It forces the game to go longer. It keeps things away from the player for pre-determined amount of time.

Id be very interested in a version of A17 (but with quality back in so we have a lot of reasons to loot tools and weapons) that has ZERO xp and progression. It may actually be a crazier and more wild experience.

The game would be scavenger and crafting focused. Id play it.

 
I thought madmole, roland and the guy with the fuzzy face in the videos were all the same person. This is not so?

I am ok with those weird surface dwellers having what they want, like digging zombies. As for us normal people, the underground dwellers, we can have what we want too...

BECAUSE somewhere in this thread, madmole/roland/fuzzy face is *on record* saying that they will consider adding at least some "options" (like turning off digging zombies). Just make sure that happens, or there's going to be trouble! The more options the better. Maybe some sliders too.

 
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