PC Tried A19, A16 is still best Alpha

K

~Kevin~

New member
It seems rather than making the game more difficult as the player progresses, the developers are making it more difficult for the player to progress.  Now I need points in science and find books to make bellows and a forge?  I tried A18, went back to A16, and just tried the most recent experimental build.

Rather than throwing obstacles in the way of the player, why not add bosses to the hordes?

One of my biggest complaints since alpha 16 is the developers put obstacles in the way of the player.  For example, rather than skills leveling up as we use them, now we have to put a point in every skill?

I made a post about this awhile back and I realize people are going to have things they like and dislike about each alpha.  With that said I felt Alpha 16 was almost perfect.   What we needed were bosses to help the 7 day hordes difficulty progress.   Some people felt we leveled up to fast, or we may have gotten the forge to fast... etc.   So what if we did, were we entertained?   I know I was.

I currently have "1,105 hrs on record" in 7 days to die - https://steamcommunity.com/id/old-school-player/

Make it easy for players to level up, and build their base.  Because if they do not get something built by day "whatever you pick", the destroyer of bases is going to arrive and wreck havoc.  Instead of taking a few hours to rebuild after the 7 day horde, make it take days to rebuild.

I like 7 days to die, I really do.   I just feel the developers are going in the wrong direction.  What make 7 days to die great is slowing fading away with each beta.

 
~Kevin~ said:
It seems rather than making the game more difficult as the player progresses, the developers are making it more difficult for the player to progress.  Now I need points in science and find books to make bellows and a forge?  I tried A18, went back to A16, and just tried the most recent experimental build.

Rather than throwing obstacles in the way of the player, why not add bosses to the hordes?

One of my biggest complaints since alpha 16 is the developers put obstacles in the way of the player.  For example, rather than skills leveling up as we use them, now we have to put a point in every skill?

I made a post about this awhile back and I realize people are going to have things they like and dislike about each alpha.  With that said I felt Alpha 16 was almost perfect.   What we needed were bosses to help the 7 day hordes difficulty progress.   Some people felt we leveled up to fast, or we may have gotten the forge to fast... etc.   So what if we did, were we entertained?   I know I was.

I currently have "1,105 hrs on record" in 7 days to die - https://steamcommunity.com/id/old-school-player/

Make it easy for players to level up, and build their base.  Because if they do not get something built by day "whatever you pick", the destroyer of bases is going to arrive and wreck havoc.  Instead of taking a few hours to rebuild after the 7 day horde, make it take days to rebuild.

I like 7 days to die, I really do.   I just feel the developers are going in the wrong direction.  What make 7 days to die great is slowing fading away with each beta.
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Because people would race to have everything by day 20, then get bored. Then wait for next Alpha. So they are adding actual progression, and I dont have problem with it.

You obviously got bored with it if only have 1k hours. I have 3500 and had 2000 before A17.  Saw alot of people post wanting early access, and saying they started with alpha's in single digits and less than 1000 hours. Sounds like they got bored to me. Did you start playing on A16? I started A15.

I wasn't a fan if LBD. New skill tree isn't perfect, but I like it better.

You might want to try Darkness Falls overhaul then, it reverts alot back to A16.

 
~Kevin~ said:
It seems rather than making the game more difficult as the player progresses, the developers are making it more difficult for the player to progress.  Now I need points in science and find books to make bellows and a forge? 
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No. You need points in science and 1 perk point to make a forge. You need a schematic for bellows, but they're not required.

Boy, I can only imagine you back in the days of "Forge Ahead," lol

 
KeiraR said:
Yeah, it's amazing.
If I only had a floppy drive I could install Links 386 and Tie fighter again...
Click to expand...
Or you can just type those into google with "abadonware" next to it and swim in download links.

~Kevin~ said:
Make it easy for players to level up, and build their base.  Because if they do not get something built by day "whatever you pick", the destroyer of bases is going to arrive and wreck havoc.  Instead of taking a few hours to rebuild after the 7 day horde, make it take days to rebuild.
Click to expand...
I dont really like the idea that i gotta bumrush bases to beat the big boss each 7th day but on the overall i agree with you.

Theres no progression in A19, its just an artifical grind placed to slow down players. I dont feel like im going anywhere, it turned the gameplay from:

  1. Enter a POI
  2. Fight the undead
  3. Explore and loot everything
  4. Be happy that you were lucky and found a pistol and some books.
Into:

  1. Enter a POI
  2. Fight the undead
  3. Abadon the area because every looting attempt is just wastes potential loot containers


Its no progress when the mainline goal of a players turn from "loot, kill and craft so i can deal with the horde" to "Just kill a bunch of things so the loot becomes normal and i can play like how it supposed to go".

You know whats the funniest thing of all? Take a look at both of the steam trailer videos for the game.

The one with the actors shows that this guy on day 7 has already have access to a wooden bow, a claw hammer, a pistol and a shotgun. The other gameplay video literally starts with the guy having a revolver on day 1.

I wouldnt have touched this game if we would had a trailer video what shows that the intented way of playing would be cavemen simulator.

 
I like the A-19, the A-16 and hate the attribute skill tree. It is NOT perfect, it is ALMOST. Weapons should not be linked to attributes, they should have their own skill tree. And the attributes themselves should give general bonuses like what happened on the A-17, of course with some differences from what happened on the A-17.

 
I actually do still miss A16, There were so many things about it that made the game more fun, Back then I could kill a thousand zombies with a knife and my ability to use a knife was more effective just from use rather than having to wait for a level every time I wanted my knifing to get better. Cutting down trees and mining meant just practicing them rather than Her der I killed a zombie, now I swing my pick axe at rocks better. I will say though, sitting down and making a thousand bows to learn how to make a bow better was annoying as well as finding weapon "parts" to build a weapon then having to learn how to make the weapon via a rare book to be annoying, though compared to now where all you find is a blunderbuss and stone tools.. I'd take it..

This A19 update actually makes no sense to me either because how slow the "gamestage" is vs leveling, Ive found myself crafting lv5 tools before finding anything in the world. Whats the point in looting again? IF they are worried about me getting bored with the game cause by day 20 I got every skill to 300 and made the game a joke, what the hell do they think is gonna do if by day 7 Im bored of finding stone tools even at game stage 50? WOO a lv6 Stone Axe!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
KeiraR said:
Yeah, it's amazing.
If I only had a floppy drive I could install Links 386 and Tie fighter again...
Click to expand...
No idea if this was sarcasm or not. :) but ya know.. if I had to choose which *PU was being maxed out by a game, I'd go with maxing out the CPU everytime. Eye candy is still candy, short term rush, not long lasting. And a game with deeper/wider gameplay will hold my interest longer than one that's just pretty.

This is a general statement/opinion. Not directed at 7dtd/TFPs. I get why they're focused on the pretty bit atm, it's important for their company.

And I get that TFPs were/are a small studio, so adding a bunch of different things that require animations isn't possible. But, thinking about some old games, I'd personally happily trade most of the graphic improvements for more items.

 
Solomon said:
Or you can just type those into google with "abadonware" next to it and swim in download links.

I dont really like the idea that i gotta bumrush bases to beat the big boss each 7th day but on the overall i agree with you.

Theres no progression in A19, its just an artifical grind placed to slow down players. I dont feel like im going anywhere, it turned the gameplay from:

  1. Enter a POI
  2. Fight the undead
  3. Explore and loot everything
  4. Be happy that you were lucky and found a pistol and some books.
Into:

  1. Enter a POI
  2. Fight the undead
  3. Abadon the area because every looting attempt is just wastes potential loot containers


Its no progress when the mainline goal of a players turn from "loot, kill and craft so i can deal with the horde" to "Just kill a bunch of things so the loot becomes normal and i can play like how it supposed to go".

You know whats the funniest thing of all? Take a look at both of the steam trailer videos for the game.

The one with the actors shows that this guy on day 7 has already have access to a wooden bow, a claw hammer, a pistol and a shotgun. The other gameplay video literally starts with the guy having a revolver on day 1.

I wouldnt have touched this game if we would had a trailer video what shows that the intented way of playing would be cavemen simulator.
Click to expand...
Yeah, due to the garbage linear loot system I never touch safes anymore till after a certain GS because they will be filled with garbage. I really want them to go back to a18 loot where getting a quality 4-6 item was rare as hell even at high gamestage, and the loot was random, you could get lucky and find a pump shotgun on day 1, or a steel tool, Now? the game is so frigging boring, there is virtually no reason to loot things early because all it'll have is stone tools or scrap armor. I play dead is dead myself so the linear loot system hits me even harder, as it doesn't have the randomness a18 had, its the same... boring...progression every damn game. When a18 exp came out I was playing it for 8-12 hours a day, every day as I loved it. A19? I think i've played less than 30 hours total of a19, because the loot system just completly ruined the game for me that they have in a19. It was that big of a change and that hated of a change by me and others.

It seems in general the new loot system is hated by the majority of players as I see almost no one saying they actually like it, so I really hope they go back to how a18 was, and leave it at that, and just add the new items into it. It could be done in a a19.1 patch or something since it'd just be copying the loot.xml from a18 and adding the new items into it, which there aren't THAT many. Maybe tweak it a bit so its a bit harder to find steel tools etc early, but do not remove the option entirely.

The game was better back in a16 for a few reasons, learn by doing, which I will admit needed some tweaks, i'd rather it be just for weapons and mining tools only, and the level in those skills determines the perks you can learn which also ups the quality of the tool you can craft. A16 also gave the player choice, if you wanted to live in a hole in the ground and skip horde night? you were allowed to, in a18? Nope they took that away as now zombies can dig, a19, zombies can now swim and they somehow can swim faster than the player char, so the float on water option for dealing with the horde is now gone too. Then you have how they screw stealth builds, first they have the trash piles on both sides of a door in the intended path of the stupid as hell every damn poi is a maze crap, then they have rooms where second you walk in everything aggro's and gpses to you no matter how high your stealth skills are.

I used to build underground bases in a16 not to avoid the horde, but because of the structural intergrity system, and how buggy it was. You go one block over the limit and it took out the entire row instead of just the most recent one placed, worse, it'll probably cause a cascade that takes out your entire base, all due to 1 block. I used to try to build multi floor tower bases, and every single time when doing the last floor, if I go 1 block over the limit, it not only ruins that floor, but it also took out the 2 floors below for some reason, floors that according to console commands should have been perfectly stable enough that 1-4 blocks shouldn't have taken it out from falling on it.

All in all A19 is 1 step forward on graphics, 10 steps back on everything else for me. The game is losing its sandbox playstyle due to being forced by the devs to play in certain ways. I really wonder if the devs ever actually play the game, without using any cheats to see just how boring a19 actually is. Try playing dead is dead in a19, its boring on the 2nd time as its exactly the same as the first time due to the way loot is now. Compared to a18, where you could at least have a chance of getting something nice and rare like a steel tool on day 1 (it'd be quality 1 but still better than iron), the change of that happening added so much fun to the game, and it was happy feel-good times when you got a lucky loot drop early. Sadly this cannot happen period in a19 the way its setup.

 
watzlp said:
I actually do still miss A16, There were so many things about it that made the game more fun, Back then I could kill a thousand zombies with a knife and my ability to use a knife was more effective just from use rather than having to wait for a level every time I wanted my knifing to get better. Cutting down trees and mining meant just practicing them rather than Her der I killed a zombie, now I swing my pick axe at rocks better.
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I recall Madmole saying somewhere in A18/19 dev diary that you don't have to. You can go mining all day and spent that days skillpoints earned towards mining or kill bunch of zombies and put points into melee specific perks. Tadaa, problem solved with some self restricting rules. 

 
in the dev diary, i had an interaction with madmole where i said "there's no reason for me to loot in the early game because i'll just upgrade from a Q1 stone axe to a Q2. it's not fun or rewarding."

his response was "sure it is. better is better." i think they found a slap-dash way to extend the game and now they have to defend it. i don't believe even they think it's good or fun.

 
I played at least 100 hours for each expansion before this one - just can't get into the stone age on this alpha.   :(  

 
What is everyone doing that they are still in the stone age by day 7? I play on default settings with difficulty on Nomad and have no problem getting out of the stone age within a few days, and that is with essentially only entering a PoI when I have a quest for it. If I just went house to house clearing houses I imagine my game stage would climb much faster, questing gives some bonus exp but you lose a lot of time running back and forth.

 
~Kevin~ said:
It seems rather than making the game more difficult as the player progresses, the developers are making it more difficult for the player to progress.  Now I need points in science and find books to make bellows and a forge?  I tried A18, went back to A16, and just tried the most recent experimental build.

Rather than throwing obstacles in the way of the player, why not add bosses to the hordes?

One of my biggest complaints since alpha 16 is the developers put obstacles in the way of the player.  For example, rather than skills leveling up as we use them, now we have to put a point in every skill?

I made a post about this awhile back and I realize people are going to have things they like and dislike about each alpha.  With that said I felt Alpha 16 was almost perfect.   What we needed were bosses to help the 7 day hordes difficulty progress.   Some people felt we leveled up to fast, or we may have gotten the forge to fast... etc.   So what if we did, were we entertained?   I know I was.

I currently have "1,105 hrs on record" in 7 days to die - https://steamcommunity.com/id/old-school-player/

Make it easy for players to level up, and build their base.  Because if they do not get something built by day "whatever you pick", the destroyer of bases is going to arrive and wreck havoc.  Instead of taking a few hours to rebuild after the 7 day horde, make it take days to rebuild.

I like 7 days to die, I really do.   I just feel the developers are going in the wrong direction.  What make 7 days to die great is slowing fading away with each beta.
Click to expand...
Yeah, exactly as you say. The game reached it's peak at a14-a16 and we hoped that there would be some polish added and maybe some good mod support, but sadly it turns into pile of steaming @%$*#! as good bits get removed, options and mod support becomes broken, while same time running worse and worse. Potentially best pvp game (full destruction, real threat from environment [unlike Rust, but it is slowly catching up and stealing 7d players]) ridden with exploits, bugs and now crappy progression.

 
Whorhay said:
What is everyone doing that they are still in the stone age by day 7? I play on default settings with difficulty on Nomad and have no problem getting out of the stone age within a few days, and that is with essentially only entering a PoI when I have a quest for it. If I just went house to house clearing houses I imagine my game stage would climb much faster, questing gives some bonus exp but you lose a lot of time running back and forth.
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Counter-question, what are YOU doing that you are not in stone age by day 7?

To me it sounds like you are kind of rushing things to speed up your gamestage faster than the people who just play "normally".

 
I for one never got past day 2 on any of my A19 play-throughs - just not fun for me - I'm one of those who really enjoyed the "treasure hunt" aspect of the game and the feeling of elation when you found a weapon day one or the feeling of let down when it took you several days to find a decent weapon.  Additionally, one of my play-throughs I dropped because it was the stone age combined with the traders quests all being over 1 kilometer away, which is nuts!  

 
Spatch said:
I for one never got past day 2 on any of my A19 play-throughs - just not fun for me - I'm one of those who really enjoyed the "treasure hunt" aspect of the game and the feeling of elation when you found a weapon day one or the feeling of let down when it took you several days to find a decent weapon.  Additionally, one of my play-throughs I dropped because it was the stone age combined with the traders quests all being over 1 kilometer away, which is nuts!  
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OH yeah, that too. Remember finding that 11 quality ak, and then finding that rare 400 quality part, slapping it in and having weapon gain stats realistically based on part exchanged? Sounds like different game, lol.

 
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