PC Steam reviews - I kinda figured

[Royal Deluxe]

Simple point is

A percentage of the playerbase dislike the startgame.

No matter how good arguments anyone can give why a tediuous startgame make sense or even fun for the others.

These percentage cant or dont want to play the game this way.

The reason is a mood the startgame give them.

Theres simply no argument that would change that.

 

[meganoth]

Help me understand. Why would anyone want to prolong the early game? Why avoid leveling? Why beat on boulders with a stone axe, getting virtually no exp, and 1 piece of iron every 4 hits? Its not challaging and its certainly not fun.
Help me roland because this is just foreign to me.

Because I can get iron tools easily without being level 20 and having a forge. There's more than one way to skin the cat, even in this unfinished A17. So instead of farming zombies to get to 20 I scavenge, quest and visit the trader and have all the iron tools I need very early on and a very satisfying game.

I can't make seeds without spending a point. I can't plant those seeds without some crazy good RNG luck (I haven't looted a single hoe in all of a17), or having to spend a point to enable crafting of iron tools. Which is lvl-20, so no early gardens, and a fair amount of leveling required.

Note that a lot of people like that RNG has some influence on the path you take. A big part of playing a survival game means adapting to what you find. And I always found a hoe long before getting to tool crafting, even in SP. That surely is no help to you, but if you want a hoe I would suggest ransacking garages and the usual quest pois (with or without quests) to find lots of hardware loot chests. Even if you don't find a hoe that way, you still get money to buy some food (enough if you also do some hunting and visit houses with kitchens). Using a perk point for Slow Metabolism as early as possible also helps.

 

[lazerblade01]

The problem with spending points gained via XP vs. LBD (learn by doing) isn't just about progression. If you're playing SP and have maxed day length, and you don't want to feel pressured to hunt zombies just to get better at mining, building, crafting, or be capable of making stations to advance, you're still going to be stuck in early game far longer than 7 days.

The bigger problem, and one that was claimed to be a focus point, is multiplayer, where you have a group of people and the ones going out to loot and scavenge level up 3x+ faster than the people who stay at base gathering resources, building, and allegedly crafting gear for the group. This creates an imbalance, wherein one of the scavengers can unlock the workbench before a builder can, but would rather spend points in being able to do their own job better.

LBD, if balanced, offers builders and crafters progression in their own field to align with their needs. Of course they could spend points instead of naturally progressing, but then they'd have to gain the same amount of XP that a scavenger or combat-heavy player gets. Or the costs of skills and perks would have to be re-balanced to fit concurrent progression for each player.

As an example, why bother having someone specialize in armor and only be able to make leather when scrap metal armor is needed? Why bother specializing in building and be locked out of concrete when the rest of the group has gamestages that will pretty much require it for the next blood moon?

And anywhere that this applies in MP, it also applies in SP, and possibly more-so, because a player will need to meet their own needs when those needs arise. Unless, of course, the difficulty level is tailored to be balanced for both SP and MP...

 

[WolfyBlah]

I am a masochist for early access that is true. I'm in no rush to have development end.

Intresting that a moderator is of this opinon when the developers are not. Wev already been told that we will be going 'full release' missing features and with apparently no 'real' beta.

 

[meganoth]

LBD, if balanced, offers builders and crafters progression in their own field to align with their needs. Of course they could spend points instead of naturally progressing, but then they'd have to gain the same amount of XP that a scavenger or combat-heavy player gets. Or the costs of skills and perks would have to be re-balanced to fit concurrent progression for each player.

It was already announced by devs that xp gains would be further balanced so hopefully builders and crafters should advance like everyone else. One point less to worry about.

None of this requires points my ass.Nobody wants to mine without minig skills. Nobody wants to carry ♥♥♥♥k all in thier inventory.

Can you mine without spendig points? Sure if you are mentality deficient. Any sane person who wants to mine is going to put points into it because its not balanced to be fun if you dont, choice is

A) spend 10x the resource (time) for a fraction of the item yield

B) Spend points so mining isnt a ♥♥♥♥ing chore.

Thats not a choice anyone it thier right mind is going to choose the former in.

No, scavenging, questing for or buying iron tools already gives you a lot better yield without lots of perk points. Call me crazy but I have been playing this way for all of A17

 

[Exxodous]

The bigger problem, and one that was claimed to be a focus point, is multiplayer, where you have a group of people and the ones going out to loot and scavenge level up 3x+ faster than the people who stay at base gathering resources, building, and allegedly crafting gear for the group. This creates an imbalance, wherein one of the scavengers can unlock the workbench before a builder can, but would rather spend points in being able to do their own job better.

There are options in the menu to help with this. The wife and I play together and although she has killed 150 Zeds to my 1000 we are separated by one level. And she has the higher one.

Setting the xp sharing radius higher allows her to share my xp while she gains from mining, building etc. Some may yell and scream that is cheesy expanding the xp sharing radius but everyone is also always complaining about everything should be an "option" in the start menu.

So in this case the option is there (in MP games) so everyone can level at the same rate. This solves the problem of builders and crafters being unable to unlock the tools and stations at a time that needed by the scavengers and zombie slayers.

 

[Guppycur]

Died 10 times on day 49, 8 str, all the melee and stamina you can buy, and it was all useless. The minute I ran out of bullets, my usefulness went away. Meleeing a half dozen rad zombies and God knows how many others, just isn't doable.

Now, I spend the entire week just preparing for horde night... And not the fun kind of preparation (exploring, learning), but the BORING kind (crafting mats, crafting more mats, building).

I don't mind dying, I do it a lot, but it just wasn't fun.

 

[Benjiro]

2) I'm not interested in speeding through the beginning.

But is the game not designed to push people to speed past the beginning?

Pre-A17: You rush every day to get a base going for the 7th day, you know the core of the game. Bad tools like a 50 durability bow, club, stone tools only result in so many resources. You also need time to get food. Find a good location. All while avoiding zombies.

Yes, the game is easy for your Roland because you probably played it a hundred times!!! My first games used to be horror fests not knowing anything or the optimal path to even survive a night, let alone the 7th day.

A17:

Your reignite love for A17 is not the new systems but because it changes to much that you feel like a newbie again, so you enjoy more the progress. You saver those moments but you also transplant negative feelings unto other people who dislike this total changeover and did not have a issue with the old system.

Do you understand now better?

For the devs to admitting this system is a mistake, will never happen. They put in too much time and everybody knows that they will keep tinkering with this system. It will not be removed in favor of the old style and we players know this ( and some of use are pissed ). Its what happens when you live in a bubble for 16 months without any external feedback, why a system like this may be a mistake.

For my part, they can simply rename 7D2D to 7D2Excel because that is the fun level. Sure, its fun the first few days just like Excel is. New fresh, figuring everything out but then you start to notice, its not fun anymore, its work, its all designed around forcing people to work at XP gaining, at every step, every interval.

You only need to look at the Steam reviews over the years. A12,13,14 all did not introduce this negativity. A16 is where it first started with broken mechanism and a trend/focus to the a new system. You also see the coloration of more negative reviews then any Alpha before.

And now A17, yea ... I am sorry to say, the devs can not stop this negativity with some changes left or right. It will again take months to change the system step by step, to reintroduce "repeatable fun", notice this word, repeatable. When people who know the system still feel like its fun.

I am tired of explaining the same thing to be honest. Its always wait, wait, its a alpha, its experimental, its ... a wast of frucking time. The AI system was not ready and was released in a state that any bit of beta testing will quickly have shows its flaws. The perk system was almost a last few months development given how unfinished it was during the first introductions. Where has all this time gone?? A lot of the work does not feel like 20 man team with 16+ months ( not counting feature already in A16 development cycle ).

People expected CONTENT!!!!! Not less content.

* Smaller maps

* no smell ( again )

* AI that is better in building but weak in hordes

* no expanded electricity

* no underground air system for caves

* no real caves at all! Another stripped feature promised back for A17

* no real new content beyond bikes and jeep.

* weapon parts stripped

* Durability as good as stripped on everything, including engines!

* Features stripped like progression system

* Cheap solution for content by reusing the same assets ( glowstick / gloweyes ferals with the same models )

* Cheap tricks like the whole stamina system to slow down progress. Or gates ( bye! ). Or XP hunting.

It feels more barebone then even the old alphas. The excuses how its still in Alpha and how the devs will add content later grow very tiresome after 2 years! We already know they are going to wast a lot of time fixing this mess ( again! ).

So sure Roland, the start may feel new to a lot of people but its after the start where the game fails even harder then in the past. And that is the result after 16 months of waiting! So A18 in 2022 with even less features? A16 had less durability for long term gaming and relied all on mods. A17 is even more a issue. So do you think its up to modders to AGAIN fix up the developers their mistakes???

Where is the fun? Its a game that has replay ability but the fun part seems to be left at the door.

 

[HungryZombie]

Died 10 times on day 49, 8 str, all the melee and stamina you can buy, and it was all useless. The minute I ran out of bullets, my usefulness went away. Meleeing a half dozen rad zombies and God knows how many others, just isn't doable.
Now, I spend the entire week just preparing for horde night... And not the fun kind of preparation (exploring, learning), but the BORING kind (crafting mats, crafting more mats, building).

I don't mind dying, I do it a lot, but it just wasn't fun.

You playing on default settings?

Were you facing running zombies?

Did you have any armor on?

Honest sincere questions, I want to try out higher lvl melee myself. I keep restarting because i have a new idea to test so I haven't faced to many rad zombies yet.

 

[Exxodous]

You playing on default settings?
Were you facing running zombies?

Did you have any armor on?

Honest sincere questions, I want to try out higher lvl melee myself. I keep restarting because i have a new idea to test so I haven't faced to many rad zombies yet.

There is nothing default about his server lol

 

[Skydog]

The most important option the game needs, "Disable Bloodmoon"
Go on a server, see that 95% of the player log out for the bloodmoon night and understand

95% of the player dont want the Bloodmoon night

Aside from the stamina issue I don't have any real complaints anymore about A17. But I have always disliked blood moon night. To me, it places artificial limitations on how I should play the game. Yes gathering resources and base building can be fun, but I honestly enjoy exploring, looting POI's and fighting zombies out in the world a whole lot more. Being tied to my 'horde night base' every 7th night limits that.

This has only gotten worse with the introduction of the awesome new dungeon like POI's. A large one can take almost a whole day of game time but you are limited to how many you can explore because you also need to be gathering stone, wood and so on to use to defend your base on BM night. One of the most memorable times I had in A16 was when I was exploring a firehouse and a horde spawned and moved through it. I found myself hiding up on a ledge terrified to move or make a sound lest I be spotted and killed. I've never felt that standing on my fortified, electrified, blade trapped base waiting for the sun to rise on BM night.

For me the perfect settings would allow me to 'disable bloodmoon' and 'increase random horde spawns' either in # of times per day or amount of zombies, or both! This would allow me the options of building a base that can stand up to those hordes if I decide to stick around for the day, or taking on the risk of having a horde spawn near me while I was out exploring.

I get that not everyone feels that way, but in a perfect world we'd have the option to do so if we wanted.

 

[JaxTeller718]

Help me understand. Why would anyone want to prolong the early game? Why avoid leveling? Why beat on boulders with a stone axe, getting virtually no exp, and 1 piece of iron every 4 hits? Its not challaging and its certainly not fun.
Help me roland because this is just foreign to me.

But that's just it. It IS fun. Just not for you. You know what I find boring? Traders. To me they are a game crutch and one of the most uninteresting aspects of this game. But you love them. I can't fathom why.

And all of that is ok. Trust me when I say in my circles I know more people who like the first 5 days way more than anything after. In your circles the trader is probably a very important component to the game. Its just about what you get out of it when you play.

TFP have the hard task of pleasing both crowds. But its usually not a good idea to say things like anyone and all, because generalized sweeping statemnts usually come back to bite you, as i have learned myself first hand

 

[leaderdog]

Note that a lot of people like that RNG has some influence on the path you take. A big part of playing a survival game means adapting to what you find. And I always found a hoe long before getting to tool crafting, even in SP. That surely is no help to you, but if you want a hoe I would suggest ransacking garages and the usual quest pois (with or without quests) to find lots of hardware loot chests. Even if you don't find a hoe that way, you still get money to buy some food (enough if you also do some hunting and visit houses with kitchens). Using a perk point for Slow Metabolism as early as possible also helps.

I've said this as well, however what you're written here also points out the uselessness of a skill system to start out with. in a survival situation you do what you must to survive, if that means loot, cook, build, whatever, that's what you do. So throwing in a skill system with level gates doesn't add enjoyment, it's not a sense of progression, it's just simple crap that slows you down from playing the game how you want simply on artificial barriers.

And as I've said many times, there are better ways like the books (buy from trader or specialist from trader camp if rng isn't your friend) and many more creative ways to add enjoyment to the game. Way more fun than oh boooooiiiiy a new skill point. I don't understand the movement towards this seeing as it's, especially, not fun in a survival game.

But, fun is subjective right. And honestly, if you want a different user group to purchase and play the game then I guess you change the game to meet their specific needs.

When people ask what I play I still say 7dtd (although it is greatly reduced now) I would explain to them how amazing it is and that they should check it out. Now, when they ask it's like.... 'it used to be amazing, but not happy with their direction. Hopefully, they'll figure things out.'

Sorry but the wind has been fully taken out of my sails. and I'm sure with many it's the same way.

 

[Benjiro]

It was already announced by devs that xp gains would be further balanced so hopefully builders and crafters should advance like everyone else. One point less to worry about.

They already did those changes and it was still so much easier to XP farm zombies compared to your gain in building/crafting. You know that people now actually run forges to get screamer hordes? Yea, its gotten that bad.

No, scavenging, questing for or buying iron tools already gives you a lot better yield without lots of perk points. Call me crazy but I have been playing this way for all of A17

Questing: The first A17 Experimental yes but that has also been nerved to hell and back.

Scavenging: That is XP hunting from the unrealistic 30 zombies per house.

Buying iron tools: yes, that is the trader exploit that now everybody falls back on. Its the equivalent of the dreaded spam crafting but now people spam whatever task to get coin. So sure, you can get iron tools early on but it does not undo the points that WolfyBlah has. You as a character can not do things anymore yourself without XP hunting for days.

Being honest, i think the trader is a bad design in the game. People hunt for traders because of the workbenches, forges, etc. Its also the easy safe way to get iron and other tools. The game is more challenging without the traders and that is fact.

Traders are simply the new spam crafting. But way more easy and powerful then spam crafting ever was.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

@meganoth nope not talking about myself here. The mods here do represent TFP and should act like it. And it doesn´t matter that they are not employed by TFP, they still represent them.

And what do they do? Answering in a way that would get a user at least a warning. If you can´t take on with customers in a polite way no matter what happens you maybe shouldn´t be a mod.

 

[meganoth]

Roland, sure there will always such someones as you describe in your Post. But to be honest if a First AI Version is added and is such a big exploit as it currently is why it was already added ? Sure its Alpha its Early Access i know it, but if something is only one big Exploit like the current AI

Welcome to early access, what did you expect? Obviously not unfinished development versions, but that is what EA is about, a peek into the development process with unfinished versions. Lower your expectations or wait for a final version, those are your options.

Don't tell me that you had difficulties in A16 to exploit the AI? In fact the A16 AI was so easy to exploit that people were doing it without knowing. In A17 I already died a few times because I forgot this or that loophole. Never happened in A16. I don't think there is any question that A17 AI is already better than A16. Do still exploits exist? Sure, that's why they put the new AI in and set us on the task to find the exploits.

Where did you learn about the exploits? By yourself or did you get the info from streamers or by reading forum posts? If the latter then it surely isn't a big exploit when you needed thousands of other players to do the bug hunting work for you.

And other thing with Questions , i asked many Questions in different threads and not one really not one was Answered. As example i asked Madmole after he told me to give Examples and told me i shoudl mod it if i dont like it why i cant add a Custom Item Description to something or why Localization.txt is not shared by Server cause both would be needed to really Modifiy the Game and at same time keep it User Friendly. Answer was hmm nothing, in other Threads i also asked and not answers. Last Answer i got was from a PM i wrote to Alloc and his answer was that there is currently no Modding Support for Localiziation File.

That is probably the answer: It isn't in yet. Adding it needs time, a scarce developer resource. In my opinion they made a mistake by putting lots of mod handling features so low on their priority lists (for example something like XPATH should have been in a long time ago), but again, it is EA.

Generally you can't expect developers to be answering every question, because we are thousands and have lots of questions and for each questions there is maybe 1 or 2 developers who could answer it. So getting an answer depends on luck that the right person is reading the forum at the right time.

 

[Guppycur]

You playing on default settings?
Were you facing running zombies?

Did you have any armor on?

Honest sincere questions, I want to try out higher lvl melee myself. I keep restarting because i have a new idea to test so I haven't faced to many rad zombies yet.

No level Gates so I would not be hampered by tfp stupidity, and 10x the biome spawns so that there were actual threats early game. Plus a variety of other things that made early game more challenging in a fun way.

Moderate (mostly) iron armor, but the real issue boiled down to two things.

1) Melee being totally ineffective against rad zombies, which forced you to

2). Base building is a week long chore when they can tear through anything very quickly.

I'm building an ai cheese base away from the main horde base, in hopes I'm able to actually have fun playing the subsequent weeks.

Or I suppose I could just wait horde night out again on another vanilla poi, but that's a day wasted just clearing it, and no real sense of accomplishment.

...in every build, after playing, I'm able to find the secret sauce that makes early, mid, and late game FUN, and mod appropriately.

I got it for early game, but unfortunately the game skipped mid and went straight to late.

 

[JaxTeller718]

None of this requires points my ass.Nobody wants to mine without minig skills. Nobody wants to carry ♥♥♥♥k all in thier inventory.

Can you mine without spendig points? Sure if you are mentality deficient. Any sane person who wants to mine is going to put points into it because its not balanced to be fun if you dont, choice is

A) spend 10x the resource (time) for a fraction of the item yield

B) Spend points so mining isnt a ♥♥♥♥ing chore.

Thats not a choice anyone it thier right mind is going to choose the former in.

You are REQUIRED TO LEVEL to unlock crafting recipes.

There is nothing forcing you to grind XP. Just your nerfed stats and slow speed. Oh and if you want to craft a forge, or steel, and be able to boil a bloody egg.

Iv already made a list of the skils that are mandatory for my enjoyment of the game, without them the game is not enjoyable.

-motherload (all +harvest skills)

-pack mule

-stamina

-all crafting recipes.

Wow. You are actually helping me change my mind about 17. Maybe they should leave it as is and be done with it. I don't think anyone eill ever be content anyway. Once they give players the one thing they want they are right on to the next one.

I'm no fan of 17 in its vanilla state but you know what I did? I changed it all. And I enjoying it. And it's a wonderful freedom to have, to tailor things to your liking instead of getting upset here. I've managed to now enjoy the content much more instead of dwelling on what I want for me.

Im really curious why mining is so important to you on day 1-4 though.

EDIT - Haha Damn Guppy we were sort of on the same track with the modding to your liking portion. Bro chest bump.

 

[Benjiro]

But that's just it. It IS fun. Just not for you. You know what I find boring? Traders. To me they are a game crutch and one of the most uninteresting aspects of this game. But you love them. I can't fathom why.

Jax:

See his streams and you know why fast. When you have 3 or 4 people finding traders in MP, marking down what trader has a forge, workbench, CI, ... and then do all the quests for quick rewards in a group. This is why Kage loves the traders, because its a build in game cheat.

Without using the traders / trader quests / trader tools, A17 is way more harder and time consuming. And harder is less fun to stream because nobody wants to watch Kage hit a rock for 5 hours with his weak stone tools, his non existing stamina etc.

For him playing without traders will cost him viewers because of the mega grind. And that in turn cost him money. So its not hard to understand why he loves traders. Its a soft way to cheat the game early mega grind.

 

[WolfyBlah]

But that's just it. It IS fun. Just not for you. You know what I find boring? Traders. To me they are a game crutch and one of the most uninteresting aspects of this game. But you love them. I can't fathom why.
And all of that is ok. Trust me when I say in my circles I know more people who like the first 5 days way more than anything after. In your circles the trader is probably a very important component to the game. Its just about what you get out of it when you play.

TFP have the hard task of pleasing both crowds. But its usually not a good idea to say things like anyone and all, because generalized sweeping statemnts usually come back to bite you, as i have learned myself first hand

I always got the impression that the reason kage likes the traders so much is that they allow you to buy advanced items (steel, tools, weapons) long before you can craft them.

Is it really that he likes he traders or is that getting a steel pick early makes mining enjoyable instead of tediously slow like it is with the stoneaxe/iron pick?

As much as i love kages videos (he introduced quite a few of us to the game) he *has* to like whatever crap the developers decide. He cant stop playing 7days if he dosent like crafting timers, because its part of his income and his channel would be tiny without 7days to die.