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True Survival

I second the comment that we don't want an easier mod. IMO, changes beyond new functionality should be focused on making game-play "smoother"; that is, fewer "gotcha" gates that artificially slow down progression. The worst feeling I experienced playing this through was buying a perk, expecting to actually get that new functionality, then find there was a gate I had not yet gotten through that allows the perk to be used. I think in some cases that could be lessened by adding more information in the perk description, but I know there are limits to how much text you can use there. After a play through you come to know what skill levels you need for different things, but on the first time through it is confusing.

I would also like you to consider making the wood era more interesting, where building wood bases are actually useful. Right now Z's chew through wood forts like butter in early game, so your forced into POIs made of stone or better. It would be interesting if you only spawned zombies that do low block damage, so you could build a small wood defense and hold it in the first weeks. Over game time, say when you expect someone to have moved into the stone phase, ramp this up by spawning Z's with higher block damage during the blood-moon. That way someone who likes to build bases to survive has a meaningful progression. I think you cant change the block damage spawn during the day, only during the bloodmoons or by zone, so thats why I suggest only increasing the block damage during the bloodmoon. I think this works because thats the only time I really ever had a significant attack on my bases anyway unless I forced on by generating lots of heat to attract Z's.

Anyway, its just a suggestion. It always bothered me that in most mods a wood fort is useless, and since we spend so much time in the wood phase here, its especially so. Thanks.

 
@xyth-

Thats a cool idea. They only way it would work I know of would be to make copy's of the Zombies and give them lower wood damage and only spawn them for the starting hordes. There is no way to change the biome spawning by the day so they couldnt be changed without making the zombies spawn there always weaker for all of game play. There could be starting biomes where zombies that spawn are always weaker and the hordes could get gradually harder still. Or going another direction we could have a Hard Wood Tree and the wood from it could make the same wood blocks but much stronger. So like two levels of Wood Blocks.

 
@ Extinktion-
1-I don't need SDX to add those but they are UMA zombies and UMA entity s cause a lot of lag when spawned and just when there are more than few on screen. If you've noticed when walking in the wilderness you might get a second or two lag and then hear a Follower fighting in the distance. The Follower spawning is what causes the little stutter. You would get that stutter every time one spawned in a horde. I have added a few the Brute,the Baby and the charred Zombie. If you see a really cool one you want in just post the link and name to the thread with the code and ill add it.

2-Yes I'll be adding Morts Farming SDX mod and it has a bunch of new plants and foods

3-Farming, Fishing, Traps, Electricity, Melee Weapons, Guns, Zombies run in the shadows, New vehicle loot containers on the roads. Stuff like that

4-how the Followers are used will change. I just put them in like they are because it was the easiest way to get them tested and involved in game play. The plan is to have them locked in Bandit bases where you will need to break in and rescue them. Then you could take them back to your base to help defend the walls or what ever.

Sounds like the campfire got bugged. Just make another one. Or are you saying even new campfires did not work?
Good to hear, just bear in mind, that survivors are pretty bugged atm from the base game itself :p New campfires were bugged and i could not figure out the reason for it. Only thing i could figure out was, that it worked again after i deleted the mod. I didnt have the problem in earlier versions of the mod. I will just wait for the new version that works with sdx and then ill keep you up to date :)

Also i found this thread: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?57066-New-UMA-Zombies

Espacially the zombie reaper looks amazing and would make a realy nice "boss" you wouldnt want to meet at night. Maybe give him a realy nice scary sound if this is possible with sdx and you would have a scary as hell encounter

Edit: this is the direkt link with code and all:

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?57066-New-UMA-Zombies&p=556023&posted=1#post556023

but i just found out, that i can easily add him myself, so you dont need to if you dont want to :)

 
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Or perhaps a combination of your starting zone idea and your zombie copy idea. The harder wood block might not be enough alone as the current zombies chew through cobblestone fast enough, but it would certainly help slow them down. I like to play an active defense rather than sitting up in a POI waiting for daytime, but in this mod that seemed to be my only survival option (I refuse to hide underground like a rat) in the early game. Thanks for considering this change!

 
@xyth-

I could make it so the wood blocks the player builds from scratch do not give the zombies as much a damage bonus as normal "wood" items. So a player would have more incentive to build a wood base than stay in a wood poi

 
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Espacially the zombie reaper looks amazing and would make a realy nice "boss" you wouldnt want to meet at night. Maybe give him a realy nice scary sound if this is possible with sdx and you would have a scary as hell encounter
I'm with Spider on this one, as much as I like the UMA models they really kill game performance unless used sparingly. I'd rather have a much larger MAX alive than a few UMAs in game. 8-10 max alive makes for a pretty weak apocalypse, and UMA only makes that worse.

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@Spider - I thought zombie hand damage bonus was by material, not item. If you can do that it is certainly worth a go.

 
@xyth-I could make it so the wood blocks the player builds from scratch do not give the zombies as much a damage bonus as normal "wood" items
Why not have certain biome spawns have weak block damage zeds and keep the poi/wandering/horde zeds as they are?

 
Apparently I can make material classes now in A15. Something that couldn't be done in earlier alphas. So a lot of little tricks like the Hand Dolly can be done now. Another example is I could make a lock pick item that could unlock doors instantly using it.

 
@Tin-

You could do it that way but then most players will build their bases in the easy biome. And the Wondering Hordes are not very reliable especialy on server where they could be walking anywhere.

 
4-how the Followers are used will change. I just put them in like they are because it was the easiest way to get them tested and involved in game play. The plan is to have them locked in Bandit bases where you will need to break in and rescue them. Then you could take them back to your base to help defend the walls or what ever.
I like the idea of having them in bandit bases and needing to be rescued. I'd like to suggest that (it possible) they can be randomly found in some POIs at a low spawn rate. It makes a bit of sense to find out scavengers and survivors at POIs and in cities from time to time.

 
@Tin-You could do it that way but then most players will build their bases in the easy biome. And the Wondering Hordes are not very reliable especialy on server where they could be walking anywhere.
Hopefully they rework the wandering horde system a bit when they add them to the gamestages system (at least I am pretty sure MM said they were going to be added to them). Which hopefully translates that they will also be assigned to be in every player areas as well.

 
Why not have certain biome spawns have weak block damage zeds and keep the poi/wandering/horde zeds as they are?
This is my preferred method, but whatever Spider decides to go with is what I'll accept and test out.

 
My observations on Spider-Oragepoilu discussion:

- If the numbers are right (0.033% chance to find a beaker in a madical cabinet), that makes 3000 cabinets on average to find one. And a player usually needs three beakers. So you better hunt nurses.

- If the numbers are right, we have 1/4 chance to find a T2 book in a safe, 31 T2 books in game, so to find a specific book the chances are 0.008, so 125 safes on average. Seems doable. Maybe I need to try harder. But nobody on our server has found the books I'm after. I hope you add them to traders.

- You say you expect a player to play 3-4 weeks an hour a day to start thinking about steel. My Steam says I play 11 hours a day (OMG I have no life) for three weeks on this current map (does it make 200+ hours?). My iron working is rising not too bad, no grinding, and I'm sure I can speed it up if I need it. But my player levels basicaly stopped after 50+ and I need 15 more levels to unlock steel. Maybe I'm not really determined enough to shortcut to steel, maybe I spend too much time looting safes for those books, I try not to grind if possible, playing rather relaxed. Steel is not my goal, but I think you are wrong if you think a player is close to steel after "3-4 weeks for one hour a day".

- I was surprised to learn you got engineering 48 when you were lvl 20. What's your secret? I am lvl 50+, have a big castle, had to resort to grinding (hundreds of purification tablets and purifying water with them), and only recently broke engineering 50. I think my 'flying' castle is to blame, no damage -> no repairs.

- You said athletics is the fastest skill. My athletics was rising pretty good when I was using stone tools, but now it doesn't seem to progress. I've reached athletics 50 (if I remember right) and I think this is it. Maybe I drive my bike too much, it doesn't help athletics at all. But I have no problem with it, this skill doesn't gate anything important.

- So after three weeks of playing the game full time (not an average player on our server) I still cannot continue my castle (have all materials and all the time, but lost my hope to find the books), I have not unlocked steel in a natural progression, I am not using guns (maybe I should, so my bad). If there were no menace of reset in the future I'd expect to play another month before getting tired. But I'm top player on the server (Wukepedia was top, but I haven't seen him for a while, maybe he joins when I sleep?). I don't belive many players will ever get to the endgame without grinding/tricking the system.

- We managed to balance the early stages to some extent, but very few people get to endgame to give feedback.

 
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@unlike them-

-Unlike the gun skill books the player can not collect and make the block books. So this does leave it up to luck to find any certain Block Book. What if we dropped the Block Skill Books completely and instead you had a chance to find a XXX(to be named later for immersion) in loot. You could use the XXX one time to examine and study a world block and learn how to make it. That way you could pick what block you wanted to learn(if you could find a POI with it).

-No I'm not saying I expect a player to play an hour a day for weeks I'm just using that as an example of the amount of hours it should take before you reach Steel Building. I don't know maybe 20-30 hours at lest for a experienced True Survival player. You are right about early and mid game being much more polished because I get more feed back on that part. I have some ideas on the XP system. The test we did with the material skills feels much better than before so i might expand that XP format to more skills. I think its a better XP curve.

-I got some engineering by crafting but most from just using a wrench to disassemble, repair and upgrade blocks. I was actually thinking of slowing it down because it leveled so fast. If you build a base where you use a tool to upgrade blocks your Engineering Skill will shoot up.

-Using Picks, Axes and Shovels raises Athletics and walking. Ya I would think if your ridding a bike everywhere it would be taking away from your Athletics XP you could be getting. Also every level increases how much XP you need for the next level. So it does take more and more XP to level Skills.

-Please don't let SDX ruin you current play time. I will not have every much time this week to even get into it. Its going to be a few weeks before I even have a test build to try and longer before its ready to go on the server. Enjoy your game.

-Why are you not using guns at your level?

 
-Please don't let SDX ruin you current play time. I will not have every much time this week to even get into it. Its going to be a few weeks before I even have a test build to try and longer before its ready to go on the server. Enjoy your game.
Ah, OK! I was getting the itch to start up a new game but was hesitant because of the game breaker that was going to be the next update. Thanks for letting us know it'll be a bit of a ways off before. Enjoy the holiday time, Spider, and enjoy the start of the New Year.

 
- What I love about you is your thinking outside the box. Yes Reverse Engineering! I imagine I'd be thrilled travelling the world exploring and examining POIs in search for unique blocks instead of the tiresome grind 'clear the resistance - shortcut to a safe - move to the next building - repeat'. Definetely worth a try!

- Like I said, your expectations are 20-30 hours, my experience is 200+ hours.

- Ever mentioning a reset is an Evil Magic Curse that destroys any motivation to continue playing. No matter how distant that perspective is. We all want SDX, but the reaction on our server was :uncomfortableness:

- Yes I have heavy lags, maybe my PC is to blame, maybe it is UMA indeed, idk. But if you remove followers from 'everywhere' and leave them only in certain POIs, I hope it will help.

- Hey, maybe lock them in Wasteland? :black_eyed: I don't think we currently have any motivation to travel to that biome, might as well remove it from RWG.

 
Has anyone out there come up with a good game seed and/or a good mod of the rwgmixer file ? I'd like a seed with more cities, less towns and closer together which I will make myself unless anyone out there has made some good ones. Please post here if you have. Any Aussies or kiwis looking for a server try mine - its called World of Pain, hosted in Melbourne. Thx.

 
- What I love about you is your thinking outside the box. Yes Reverse Engineering!
- Like I said, your expectations are 20-30 hours, my experience is 200+ hours.

- Ever mentioning a reset is an Evil Magic Curse that destroys any motivation to continue playing. No matter how distant that perspective is. We all want SDX, but the reaction on our server was :uncomfortableness:
I agree with all three of these comments. Reverse engineering is a great idea. I'm estimating 200+ hours of gametime to get to steel, probably more unless you drop the level gate. Finally, I also cant bring myself to continue playing the mod knowing a new version is coming. Glad your starting on it soon.

 
Ok going to toss out some ideas here and see what yall think. This is pertaining to the True Survival w/SDX build I am starting to iron out.

1- Change Wood, Stone, Iron, Steel Working to Primitive Crafting, Journeyman Crafting, Adept Crafting and Master Craftsman. Crafting Items will be divided by what section of the game you should be crafting it.(Primitive being the start of the game and Master Craftsman being end game)

2- Make Cobblestone unlock before Wood Building.

3-Simplify crafting XP. Each crafting stage (Primitive,Journeyman,Adept,Master Craftsman) will have 3 levels of crafting XP 5xp/10xp/20xp. Item XP will be determined by the complexity of the crafting ingredients or the quantity.

4-Simplify crafting times. All crafting times will be determined by the amount of items in the recipe. With each ingredient item increasing craft time by 3-5(??) seconds.

5-Currently our Material Crafting Skills(Wood,Stone,Iron,Steel) start at 120XP per level with a 2.2% increases with each level making level 100 cost 1,121XP. I want to change that to start at 150XP per level with a 1.94% increases per level and level 100 cost 1,005XP. I want to expand this XP curve to other other Crafting Skills like Medicine, Engineering, Miscellaneous and Gun Smithing.

6-Remove Building Block Skill Books from loot and make an item drop in their place that will allow the player to inspect a world block and learn how to make it.

Thats what I got so far. I will add more as I think it through

 
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You can use both the left and right mouse buttons to perform regular swings and power swings against objects at the same time (just hold down both buttons). Even with 0 stamina you can chop down a tree in less than half the time as just holding left button, same with rocks, etc.

I played with some friends in coop last night, up to day 11. Our 7 day horde did not spawn at all. In fact we've noticed that day 1 has by far the most zombies, they are just all over the place as we rapidly attempt to run to each other. By day 11 we saw 0 wandering hordes, 0 night hordes, and even walked into a fallout city and only saw a single zombie anywhere in the entire area. Sounds like something has gone wrong? Also, we've never seen the chicken/bear hordes or anything like that from the first post of this thread, are those still in the game?

In terms of balance I'd just like to echo what someone else was saying before about the mod being very confusing with unlocks that give you absolutely nothing because the thing you just unlocked is hidden behind a gate you didn't know about. Even right in the beginning of the game with wood spikes you need a tool to 'finish' them but don't have access to any tools for 7+ days unless you get a lucky drop. 5 months ago we played till day 50 or so and after that experience and having restarted 4-5 times in the last week (limited # of deaths between us) our expectation of any recipe learned or skills purchases is that we won't be able to do anything with them until much later in the game. Some of this is UI related, recipes requiring a bench but there being no indication that a bench is necessary until it's already purchased and some of it is simply obtuse like wood spikes which are craftable on day 1 but not usable until day 10 or more in most circumstances.

There are so many things in the mod that's it's just impossible to remember everything so making things more intuitive would be a nice quality of life enhancement. For example the spikes could be functional immediately but AWFUL until upgraded with a tool and many of the skills could reference the specific bench needed before purchased, etc.

 
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