PC Steam reviews - I kinda figured

[BobTheBard]

I haven't died on a horde yet, just made it through day 21. I just use 3 rows of spikes and drop molotovs on the big clusters of them, and I have 24 zombies. I use no cheese tactics. Just a box with iron bars to walk on. I expand it as I go so I have fallback areas. I don't think they do tons of damage, but maybe some things have changed.
I don't expect a melee weapon to be 100% effective against a feral or a radiated. I haven't seen many ferals yet and no radiated at all. If its poorly balanced we'll make adjustments.

The only time I've found feral and radiated zombies to be a problem running with melee is when they appear in groups. This mostly comes down to the fact that if I'm not precise they might survive a swing or two, which means Stamina starts to become a problem even with SexRex 5 if I have to deal with a bunch of them at once. There's also the fact that the presence of a group often means I can't focus on hitting the same one over and over since I'm bobbing and weaving around the group, which in the case of our glowing friends means they have time to regenerate their health. I might just suck, though, your experiences may differ.

Why can't you get out there and tank with all the heavy armor perks and a sledge or fireaxe? You only take 10% damage.

For me the reason often comes down to Bleed, which seems to happen very frequently, and if there's a pre-emptive defense against it other than never getting hit I haven't found it. I either have to soak the substantial health loss and keep fighting or stop fighting to bandage, and the latter often results in me taking more damage and half the time wind up bleeding again.

---

I also think Wolfy raised an interesting point, one I didn't entirely realize myself until he brushed up against it in one of his posts. I think one of the big things hurting crafter types is the removal of quality bonuses. Since you can find all kinds of items in the world (or at your local trader) and the quality of that item doesn't really matter (You get more uses out of a higher-quality item before it breaks but it also costs more to fix when it does) there's really little reward for making better items. I am, as I've often said, a crafter and a builder, but I do my part against the zombies too. In A16 I was able to hold my own with the group not because I had great combat stats but because I typically had the best equipment (My pride was a Q580 shotgun) and that was enough to partially compensate for the fact most of my points were invested in building rather than fighting. In A17 I've had to build with a much keener eye to combat if I still wanted to help out, opting for melee because I already had a sizeable Strength investment for Mother Lode and Miner 69er. While modifications will make up this difference in the very late game when I can have a best-quality 5-mod weapon they're very RNG-reliant and I might not necessarily get useful ones, and besides, by that point I've maxed out all my important crafting stuff anyway and have the points to go fully into melee or ranged weapons. Just something to consider.

 

[Hek Harris]

That's fair, it was always your stated intention, but have you noticed that in my opinion the more RPG elements you add the less fun the game becomes?

Fixed.

I think one of the big things hurting crafter types is the removal of quality bonuses. Since you can find all kinds of items in the world (or at your local trader) and the quality of that item doesn't really matter (You get more uses out of a higher-quality item before it breaks but it also costs more to fix when it does) there's really little reward for making better items.

Mods. I really don't understand why a lot of players say that quality item doesn't really matter. It's the same thing than before, but better.

 

[crazyduck]

Builder/Harvester XP is unbalanced, (fixed in the next patch) but game play is not. A top tier crafter, can craft the best mods, and install 5 mods into a gun or club and do some significant damage, where a pure fighter doesn't have the best mods or a pink weapon. Is it equal? No. Should it be? No. But if you bought one or two perks fully modded would rival the unmodded with all the perks.
Its a laugh how you call everything grinding. I role play and build my character an out house and a nice kitchen to cook in. I paint the walls and build cupboards, and put rugs down. I just play the game and buy the perks that fit this character and do the things I think that character would do in the situation. My point is there are 5000 ways to play this game, and none of it is grinding if you try to be creative and just play the game. Turn the difficulty down if you think its too hard for a builder, or buy a couple combat perks so combat isn't impossible for you.

Is it 100% balanced? Hell no. Playable? Totally. Its going to take time to balance and make every build work. First task is to make low INT players work before making NO combat perk players work. Nobody is stopping you from buying a couple of combat perks to minimize your frustration.

so you say you Roleplay and do what your Character would do in this situation?

Then your Character must be crazy, drunk or Rambo or dead already, cause if you think its normal that a Survivor with bad Weapons or also wiht good Weapons shoudl go out and start hunting Zombies to learn how to cook sorry really that would be perfect for some sort of Zombie Comedy Movie. And this 5000 Way sorry i did not find more then 3 ways. Figthing , minign or crafting now its only Fighting Fighting or making it hard for yourself and at same time loose in MP against every PVP Player.

 

[BobTheBard]

Not the same thing at all, Hek. Mods have to be found, bought, or built, as opposed to being an inherent quality of the item. I'm sitting at level 100 on my current game and still don't have enough mods to fill out a Q6 weapon because RNG hasn't been kind, and even then some of the mods I do have are pretty useless or are mods that replace the exact same thing the old quality bonuses would have done for me in the first place. So I suppose I shouldn't say quality doesn't matter, I should say quality only matters up to the number of useful mods you have available.

 

[HungryZombie]

Agree with MM. The reason I bought the game is #1. Crafting #2. Survival #3 Zombies

I never said I thought people didn't understand there were zombies to fight.

Am I wrong in thinking that a shooter type game is different than a tower defense game even though both have zombies in it?

While I send a lot of my free time playing video games, I don't play a lot of different games. I tend to stick with one or two games and play them for years so maybe I'm off the mark here.

 

[WolfyBlah]

Builder/Harvester XP is unbalanced, (fixed in the next patch) but game play is not. A top tier crafter, can craft the best mods, and install 5 mods into a gun or club and do some significant damage, where a pure fighter doesn't have the best mods or a pink weapon. Is it equal? No. Should it be? No. But if you bought one or two perks fully modded would rival the unmodded with all the perks.
Its a laugh how you call everything grinding. I role play and build my character an out house and a nice kitchen to cook in. I paint the walls and build cupboards, and put rugs down. I just play the game and buy the perks that fit this character and do the things I think that character would do in the situation. My point is there are 5000 ways to play this game, and none of it is grinding if you try to be creative and just play the game. Turn the difficulty down if you think its too hard for a builder, or buy a couple combat perks so combat isn't impossible for you.

Is it 100% balanced? Hell no. Playable? Totally. Its going to take time to balance and make every build work. First task is to make low INT players work before making NO combat perk players work. Nobody is stopping you from buying a couple of combat perks to minimize your frustration.

I call systems designed as nothing but a time investment from the player a grind because thats what they are. XP exisists for people to level up.

I have 0 difficulty in 7days to die and people like you saying "turn difficilty down if you are a flithy casual" (yes, paraphrasing) is beyond condecending, this has never been a difficult game on any difficulty.

This alpha is the easiest yet:

food/drink? Just put points here to make the game easier.

Stamina? Same deal

Tempreture? Same deal

You get the point.

Forgive me if im not understanding this but you cannot craft these mods until you loot the single use schematic to do so? Right?

So for a crafters melee weapon to be better they have to not only level up to a point where they can make it they also have to have looted (from POIs with tougher zombies) rare items.

Id bet by the time they loot 2 mod schematics for thier tool they will have found many many copies of said tool as loot.

Crafters path to optimal weapon: hours of leveling before you can even make it, hours (and hours and hours) of looting to find rare items.

Looters: find your weapon in loot, your alreadly looting anyway so you will have mods. Oh and you didnt have to invest in crafting the base item so you are either lower level or massivly more powerful in melee (dosent really matter which, lower gamestage or more powerful charcater both add up to easier gameplay)

 

[stasis78]

We're looking options like xp slider, zombie block damage, Blood moon frequency: every day, every 3 days every 7 days, every two weeks, every month, random, never. I think never would be good for the adventuring types who like to explore, and good for pvp, and for casuals who just like to build and don't want their stuff getting wrecked.

Now everyone will b**** about to many options lmao

100000% to random option!

 

[Hek Harris]

Not the same thing at all, Hek. Mods have to be found, bought, or built, as opposed to being an inherent quality of the item. I'm sitting at level 100 on my current game and still don't have enough mods to fill out a Q6 weapon because RNG hasn't been kind, and even then some of the mods I do have are pretty useless or are mods that replace the exact same thing the old quality bonuses would have done for me in the first place. So I suppose I shouldn't say quality doesn't matter, I should say quality only matters up to the number of useful mods you have available.

As you say, RNG is sometimes kind of a female dog. I'm lvl 100 too and my safes are full of mods. But I explore a lot and of course traders can help too.

Now everyone will b**** about to many options lmao100000% to random option!

Waiting now for #slidersgate...

 

[crazywildfire]

As you say, RNG is sometimes kind of a female dog. I'm lvl 100 too and my safes are full of mods. But I explore a lot and of course traders can help too.



Waiting now for #slidersgate...

Yes RNG can be a female dog. I think when they fix some of the mod stuff and add more some might come to like it more. Of course some probably will not. Then the only issue (maybe not the only) would come down to RNG being a female dog or not.

 

[quyxkh]

the presence of a group often means I can't focus on hitting the same one over and over since I'm bobbing and weaving around the group

So split them up, that's one of the things powerhits are good for, knock one down and dart away, the others follow you, now you've separated one of them from the group. For more, drop barbed wire for tactical stringing, that works. But if you're in the open you _want_ the minihordes all bunched up, It's Molotov Time!

edit:sp

 

[Snowydeath]

Steam Reviews are my holy grail when deciding on whether to invest my time in a game.
Good for you. I'd take it VERY seriously that they released an Alpha update, and the approval rating dropped to 36%.

Well... that's like your opinion man.

Uhhh, approval rating is 79% overall and Recently is 54%

Also, people need to stop being so critical of a survival game, if you just wanna build. Just play in Cheat Mode or Creative... The options exist, stop ignoring them...

 

[CovertOrreo]

Builder/Harvester XP is unbalanced, (fixed in the next patch) but game play is not. A top tier crafter, can craft the best mods, and install 5 mods into a gun or club and do some significant damage, where a pure fighter doesn't have the best mods or a pink weapon. Is it equal? No. Should it be? No. But if you bought one or two perks fully modded would rival the unmodded with all the perks.

Question here,

Playing with 5 other people one person maxes INT and can make all the schematics etc... can he make me a lvl6 AK and add all the mods to it then I use it to its full ability (max damage etc)? Or do the mods applied only work if the person using the item has the required perks(yeah science etc)?

 

[Hek Harris]

Yes RNG can be a female dog. I think when they fix some of the mod stuff and add more some might come to like it more. Of course some probably will not. Then the only issue (maybe not the only) would come down to RNG being a female dog or not.

I've always loved when RNG plays with my nerves. In my current game, at lvl 100, I had'nt found any nailgun (and my base was ridiculous, cause I hate working with a hammer or a wrench). But it gave me a purpose. It was my holy graal. And as Arthur, I missed completely my quest and decided to buy the perk... RNG, in my opinion, is the heart of the game : it brings frustration and joy. So yes, it's a female dog.

Question here,Playing with 5 other people one person maxes INT and can make all the schematics etc... can he make me a lvl6 AK and add all the mods to it then I use it to its full ability (max damage etc)? Or do the mods applied only work if the person using the item has the required perks(yeah science etc)?

I may be wrong, but I think you can fit all the mods and get their advantages without the perk.

 

[Benjiro]

Its sad how toxic the internet has become. Back in the day it was just elite nerds and most people felt blessed to be online and share mods and stories about their gaming experiences. Normies would be like "what are you doing on that machine?" and didn't comprehend FTP/MIRC or forums in their infancy. Now every idiot with a phone has a toxic opinion. Before it took knowledge and effort to even know how to post online and where.
A few options can give the game legs for more people so its good for everyone. The default is how we envision it to be played, but if adding more options makes the game enjoyable in a lot more ways then its good.

The problem being that your vision changed over the years your developed the game. When somebody like me bothers to look at the original game goal and how it looked and played, A17 is a step away from the original game play mechanics.

When you post ( other post ) this is how you and other 7D2D developers envisioned 7D2D to be, i call bull on that. When you have been programming for 25 years like me, you know darn well that somebody telling you 5 years into a project, "hey, this is how we envisioned it 5 years ago", that this is total untrue to the bone. Peoples vision change all the time, especially over the years as new technology, experience and other factors get involved.

In my personal opinion Joel, the game has gone down the drain with the recent changes. I have been on the record a lot of times stating a simple fact. If TFPs bothered spending a lot of those 16 months into actual content, instead of rewriting half the game on the buff system, you actually might have rivaled some of the mods.

But instead its another remove features left and right, to replace with features that really are strange and feel forced just so it can work with the buff system.

POIs all feel the same. They are fun for the first time but after a few building you are like: What, did ever house have fake floors, does every house really need 25 hidden briefcases/garbage bins/... Does ever house really need hidden zombies in the most ridiculous spots!! O look, the loot is in the top of basement guarded with some ferals/radiated. How special. /sarcasm. Let not forget the "on rails" experience with lights illuminating the way ( we do not want the player to actually solve a puzzel, now do we, or heave forbid, he breaks a wall down to by) *sigh*... It just breaks any form of immersion in the game. I feel sad for the guys working on the building, you see the put a lot of time in them but the amount of game design issues just feels some somebody gave the designers a one page "todo list", with points they can not deviate from.

For some people the new game style is fun ( at first, lets see when they restart a world a few times *grins* ). But in my experience, the game has gone from a more or less immersive world but lacking in content, to a world that is a parody of itself. Sure, graphics are better, some features are nice but do i feel like making a base / home in this world is fun.

No ... That is the issue Madmole and its not something you can fix with some more options. Traders are a so massive exploit these days to gain quick iron or steel items, to bypass the point gating, its stupid. You do not feel like a lone survivor anymore, your just a trade jock. Searching for that illustrious book for a specific item in the past felt like a reward, now its just X amount of zombie killing away.

Part of the old base game mechanic has been destroyed and there is no undoing that anymore. So thanks but no thanks, your vision argument is bull and we know it. I can only imagine how electricity and other system might have looked like, if people actually focused on content and not rewriting code again and again.

And this is the issue with TFPs... You guys are so focus on your ideal, you rewrite code again and again for little gains. Did Random gen need another update, no. Did we need time wasted on a Unity update, just for some nicer shadows ( that lags a lot of people ), No ... The AI is a nice gain but again, so broken that we now have congo lines and zombies that are so easy to trick or simply bypass any defense. No middleground. So again, time will be wasted on fixing this. That is again no new content.

What about the time wasted going to the capture studio for the bandits. Well, bandits delayed again.

With every rewrite of the code, new bugs and issue show up. That is normal in code development. Sometimes you need to dare say: No, enough is enough. Focus on the content to allow people to play longer. XP gating is not the solution, its lame. Your game is not D&D. Now you have a lot of "toxic" players, you are going to spend months trying to fix up all the issues because your still not done. And by the time all this settle, we are another 6 months later with again no major content progression.

And at some point Joel, your going to say. Well, ♥♥♥♥ this, we are releasing 1.0. And your going to push actual content to paid DLCs. And while this is going on, your competitors simply grow.

Take a book out of Subnautica their development. They did go in with a vision and they developed their game in 3 years time. The had basic mechanics worked out very early on. They deal with the whole "underground" issue very early on, without resorting to cheap digging zombie tricks. Yes, they do not have random gen but they do have a entire storyline!

So not to sound condescending but from one developer to another. Get your act together over at your office or your going to be rewritting the same code over and over again.

Frankly, this entire rewrite has been a big error on TFPs part in my book because all it has accomplished it creating a massive rift in the community. And that toxic that you mention, sorry mate but its a large part the fault of you guys. A lot of those issues that you did not like like spam crafting what had solutions, are not dozen of times worse with XP farming. Spam crafting got out of your way, XP farming does not because without it, your f*cked as a builder/peaceful/slow player.

I am pissed at A17 and i personally hate what it is but you know what. ♥♥♥♥ this and stop rewritting code all the time. Add content! And release a stable finished version. And let mods fix your messes! Every time you rewrite code, its harder for the mod authors to fix this mess anyway.

Its already such a mess anyway, you can better release it and work on DLCs then trying to fix it now. ♥♥♥♥, did not want to write this amount of text again. *sigh* ....

 

[BobTheBard]

I can confirm Hek's statement. Once you have the gun and the mods made anyone can mix and match them without any perks or bonuses.

 

[JCrook1028]

Go craft a chainsaw you don't need to be great at melee to saw zeds up.

I know it's not your main point or anything but just so you know. Chainsaw is absolutely useless against z's in A17. try it, you'll see.

 

[Thecolours]

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.

What did you change to make the game more enjoyable for yourself?

 

[FileMachete]

Sorry to have let you down

nah I was reading too much into it & wound up 'chasing the rabbit', heh.

None of this requires you to spend any points in order to get it done for the very first 7 day horde. You will, of course, gain points as you go about accomplishing these objectives and certainly spend them to improve in areas you wish but you could hold onto those points and do just fine for first blood moon. Everything you mentioned was done before there ever were experience or skill points to spend. Yes, we were more capable by default back then but not very much more so. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend points, I'm just saying there is nothing that forces you to go out and only kill zombies for 2-3 days as quickly as you can to gain as many points as you can in order to be ready for Day 7.

Fair points. Though I have found that while your gamestage is really low (first couple days), you can tackle dungeons that I didn't expect would be doable. They're almost deserted.

Let's be real. It's really a 14 day countdown timer because bloodmoon 1 doesn't really count does it and if you are playing 90 minute days and not afraid to go out and do some boulder mining and tree chopping at night then by golly that is one timer with pleeeeeeenty of time.

Agree that there are options/choices. I've cheesed the first 7 day horde a couple times in earlier playthroughs, I chose not to this time, so built a 3x3x4-high tower. Was definately easy. Nighttime is spent mining. No legit mining helmet yet so no 'outside' work. Cheated in a mining helm to mine as the torch shuffle is a bit of a pita

Not a single one of these activities require points to be spent.

Agreed. Intended as supporting *

Yes travel takes time but it doesn't require points. Plus as you said as you travel you will find nests and harvest rocks and wood while out hunting for animals and new POI's that might have that more-precious-than-pearls iron pot.

Agreed. Intended as supporting *

Is tilled soil still a requirement? There was talk about it not being a requirement any longer but I haven't tested planting on regular soil. Making seeds do cost a point but you get four from doing the starter quest and if early gardens is important to you then one of those four can go on this. As you can tell I haven't planted a garden yet myself and yet I never am suffering for food. Worst case scenario I buy food from the trader. But you are correct (unless you're mistaken about tilled soil being a requirement) that early gardens are super tough now.

I thought so, but hadn't heard tilled soil might not be a 'thing' anymore so never thought to check.

This was also going to the later use of 'require'. Yet poorly worded as, of course, gardening is an optional choice.

Encouraging you and pushing you I can agree with and depending on the personality and preferences of each individual that pushing and encouraging will feel more or less. But REQUIRING? nope. We will have to agree to disagree on that. But I do understand that not everyone is the same as me and will strongly desire to level up quickly for the reasons you stated.

This was the asterik bit *

"From my point of view every single mechanic in a17 is either encouraging, pushing or requiring me to level up. Except one; gamestage increase."

Ok with agreeing to disagree My sister would certainly strongly agree that I am a very agreeably disagreeable pita :lol:

Early game rewards to me are surviving in a world in which I am extremely vulnerable and my survival is tenuous. One wrong move or bad misjudgement WILL mean my death. Once I get to the point that if I make a tactical error it doesn't matter because between my armor, my stack of medkits, my AK-47, and my 150+ health that error isn't going to get me killed. It's just going to use up one of my many medkits.

I fully agree with this idea. And it's totally fine if we have differing ideas of where 'fun' begins.

Something fairly small, like how much of a pack-rat someone is, will influence/impact their perception of fun.

Or the early game running vs. stamina, gah. Couldn't take it so modded the stamina cost of running. To much it turns out; so no cardio perk currently, oopsies I know it's being looked at, this is about current b240.

Edit: the rest is just rambling, heh. Do want to say thanks for replying. It helped me understand the earlier gordian knot, ha! And I had visions of Disneys Kaa, though I may just be projecting... why am I sleepy all of a sudden? <lol>

~tl:dr~

I'd like to go out and do more exploring than I have. There's nothing hard coded in the game preventing me from doing so. Yet for exploring to meet my personal definition of 'fun', I want to be able to somehow have safe spots to place a bedroll & store the treasure.

Previously cobblestone & a basement worked fine. Quick, cheap, and just tough enough. Also could mine at night. As a SP I wouldn't mind taking over a non-important POI to use as a FOB, but the single land claim block means it's going to be infested on return trips after I've carved out another FOB elsewhere.

Building a decent FOB requires reinforced concrete, in my opinion. Bear in mind I like to mine at night so the base needs to hold out long enough to allow time to climb back up to defend. Certainly doable, and doesn't require an active LCB. But not 'very early game' since more mats & a mixer is needed.

There's something I should have mentioned that I think is skewing my experiance; I'm playing Nav map and have mostly wound up on the shore of the western lakes. I've gone through all of the poi's around the lake and the cluster of four east of the forest trader. Also the bookstore. Haul has been an iron shovel, a couple claw hammers & a sledgehammer. Some t1/2 pistols/shotguns/hunting-rifles/compund-bows. No Marksmans or Magnum yet, one t1 SMG in an air drop. Hit burnt forest early for cooking pot & a wrench. No looting Perks or goggles so far. Couple mods for Heavy armor, which I'm not using, and the anvil head thingy for a sledge. 7-10 schematics? Mostly t2 or t3 so can't make them. The t1's I think are also for HA.

With this mining/crafting toon build I expected to be quite gimped. Doesn't feel like it though. And it's not due to gear. Iron reinforced club w green dye, non-modded compund bow w iron arrows, dyed shotgun for any 'oh sheet' moments; had one so far. Just starting to get running (ferals?) zeds. No rads/cops so far.

Day 21, 15:30 hrs. Lvl-42. GS=90. 535 Z kills. Nomad 90-m days.

Attribute: Perception 1/10. Salvage Operations 1/5.

Attribute: Strength 6/10. Sex Trex 2/5. Skull Crush 2/5. Miner 69er 2/5. Pack Mule 3/5. Mother Lode 3/5.

Attribute: Fortitude 2/10 (Health 110). Healing Factor 1/5. Slow Metabolism 1/5.

Attribute: Agility 1/10 (Stamina 100).

Attribute: Intellect 7/10. Better Barter 2/5. Hammer&Forge 2/5. Grease Monkey 2/5. Adv Engineering 2/5. Yeah Science 1/5. Master Chef 1/5.

2 Points available to spend.

For horde night I have two connected 3x3x4-high towers w birdcages, 5 blocks between them, double row of iron spikes. Don't really expect it to be challenging but we'll see <grinning but already put in too many smileys>

 

[Exxodous]

Snipped for space

I disagree with your opinion. However, thank you for sharing your opinion. I'm sure the feedback on your opinion is much appreciated.

 

[SurvivalUK]

The problem being that your vision changed over the years your developed the game. When somebody like me bothers to look at the original game goal and how it looked and played, A17 is a step away from the original game play mechanics.
When you post ( other post ) this is how you and other 7D2D developers envisioned 7D2D to be, i call bull on that. When you have been programming for 25 years like me, you know darn well that somebody telling you 5 years into a project, "hey, this is how we envisioned it 5 years ago", that this is total untrue to the bone. Peoples vision change all the time, especially over the years as new technology, experience and other factors get involved.

In my personal opinion Joel, the game has gone down the drain with the recent changes. I have been on the record a lot of times stating a simple fact. If TFPs bothered spending a lot of those 16 months into actual content, instead of rewriting half the game on the buff system, you actually might have rivaled some of the mods.

But instead its another remove features left and right, to replace with features that really are strange and feel forced just so it can work with the buff system.

POIs all feel the same. They are fun for the first time but after a few building you are like: What, did ever house have fake floors, does every house really need 25 hidden briefcases/garbage bins/... Does ever house really need hidden zombies in the most ridiculous spots!! O look, the loot is in the top of basement guarded with some ferals/radiated. How special. /sarcasm. Let not forget the "on rails" experience with lights illuminating the way ( we do not want the player to actually solve a puzzel, now do we, or heave forbid, he breaks a wall down to by) *sigh*... It just breaks any form of immersion in the game. I feel sad for the guys working on the building, you see the put a lot of time in them but the amount of game design issues just feels some somebody gave the designers a one page "todo list", with points they can not deviate from.

For some people the new game style is fun ( at first, lets see when they restart a world a few times *grins* ). But in my experience, the game has gone from a more or less immersive world but lacking in content, to a world that is a parody of itself. Sure, graphics are better, some features are nice but do i feel like making a base / home in this world is fun.

No ... That is the issue Madmole and its not something you can fix with some more options. Traders are a so massive exploit these days to gain quick iron or steel items, to bypass the point gating, its stupid. You do not feel like a lone survivor anymore, your just a trade jock. Searching for that illustrious book for a specific item in the past felt like a reward, now its just X amount of zombie killing away.

Part of the old base game mechanic has been destroyed and there is no undoing that anymore. So thanks but no thanks, your vision argument is bull and we know it. I can only imagine how electricity and other system might have looked like, if people actually focused on content and not rewriting code again and again.

And this is the issue with TFPs... You guys are so focus on your ideal, you rewrite code again and again for little gains. Did Random gen need another update, no. Did we need time wasted on a Unity update, just for some nicer shadows ( that lags a lot of people ), No ... The AI is a nice gain but again, so broken that we now have congo lines and zombies that are so easy to trick or simply bypass any defense. No middleground. So again, time will be wasted on fixing this. That is again no new content.

What about the time wasted going to the capture studio for the bandits. Well, bandits delayed again.

With every rewrite of the code, new bugs and issue show up. That is normal in code development. Sometimes you need to dare say: No, enough is enough. Focus on the content to allow people to play longer. XP gating is not the solution, its lame. Your game is not D&D. Now you have a lot of "toxic" players, you are going to spend months trying to fix up all the issues because your still not done. And by the time all this settle, we are another 6 months later with again no major content progression.

And at some point Joel, your going to say. Well, ♥♥♥♥ this, we are releasing 1.0. And your going to push actual content to paid DLCs. And while this is going on, your competitors simply grow.

Take a book out of Subnautica their development. They did go in with a vision and they developed their game in 3 years time. The had basic mechanics worked out very early on. They deal with the whole "underground" issue very early on, without resorting to cheap digging zombie tricks. Yes, they do not have random gen but they do have a entire storyline!

So not to sound condescending but from one developer to another. Get your act together over at your office or your going to be rewritting the same code over and over again.

Frankly, this entire rewrite has been a big error on TFPs part in my book because all it has accomplished it creating a massive rift in the community. And that toxic that you mention, sorry mate but its a large part the fault of you guys. A lot of those issues that you did not like like spam crafting what had solutions, are not dozen of times worse with XP farming. Spam crafting got out of your way, XP farming does not because without it, your f*cked as a builder/peaceful/slow player.

I am pissed at A17 and i personally hate what it is but you know what. ♥♥♥♥ this and stop rewritting code all the time. Add content! And release a stable finished version. And let mods fix your messes! Every time you rewrite code, its harder for the mod authors to fix this mess anyway.

Its already such a mess anyway, you can better release it and work on DLCs then trying to fix it now. ♥♥♥♥, did not want to write this amount of text again. *sigh* ....

fwiw this perfectly sums things up for me too.

The only point i'd add or perhaps labour on is performance. Who the hell signed off on releasing this dogs dinner with it's micro stutters / crashing fps needs dropping in a Zed pit full of spikes and ferals. Yes i know some people have low standards or simply use potatoes for PCs and those groups of people will run the graphics at Minecraft level details but time has moved on. If you look over the slew of bad Steam reviews performance either crops up heavily or at least it's mentioned as well as all the gameplay faults. Yeah blah Voxel, blah Alpha, blah EA game, blah Unitity engine. No, those are excuses for poor work and the bar is much much higher for other EA these days. The team from a graphics engine perspective just seems to have run out of talent in respect of getting it to a decent playable level. I'm not talking beta level polish / optimisations but simply not having the game drop 50% at moderate graphics settings any time you get inside or even near a house. That it was seriously deemed acceptable to ship in this condition after such a prolonged patch cycle is appalling.

The game has generated millions upon millions in income and yet runs like a school project. Yes things got improved in general graphics quality but what's the point if when you turn those things on it's so bad it's a pointless exercise? So people end up lowering settings, so you back to it looking like previous alphas or the current recommendation of lower your resolution to turnip levels to retain the gloss but stand well back because it's a pixelated mess.

You employed level designers and they did an amazing job with their designs in a single alpha. The way they are used in the game ruined a lot of their efforts but that's not their fault. Employ someone short term who knows what they are doing to fix the performance mess and it'd pay dividends. The rest of the team can look at fixing the gameplay and game mechanics.