PC V2.2 b3 EXP

[Riamus]

This is very interesting, I for example have seen that some people complain that the zombies are able to swim, or break concrete blocks with their hands, or can not drive during the hordes by the vultures, because it supposedly breaks the sandbox experience, if this were changed to please them it would affect me negatively, because I would have to impose myself not to use cheese techniques, more than I already do, everyone is free to play as they want but if the game design has some rules, you have to adapt. Of course you are free to use nerdpole or other cheesse techniques, I wouldn't criticize anyone for doing so, as long as they don't want to change the game to their vision.
There will always be people who think they are better for playing in a more difficult way, or with a certain weapon etc, this happens a lot in other games.

Do you find it difficult to not go to the roof of a tier 5 to get the loot instead of competing the POI? I think that is the important question. If you have no difficulty making decisions on how you play rather than succumbing to "cheating", then having things like nerd poling in the game really doesn't impact you. And if not, then that is kind of a "you" thing.

However, as I said, there is more than one side to this. There are of course instances where how others play will affect you. And there are others where it won't. Just looking at the kinda of posts I usually see here regarding things like double dipping or nerd poling, the posters aren't even suggesting that it impacts their own game. The wording of those posts is usually just that others shouldn't be allowed to "cheat". But since this game isn't designed for competitive gaming, someone "cheating" doesn't really matter. And when you have something like nerd poling that has a very useful job-cheating function, removing that because it is cheesy is actually harmful to legitimate players.

For reference, I have never used nerd poling to bypass a POI to get to the loot room. I will use it when building a tall base, or even to get back up to where I was if I fall off a skyscraper because of how parkour messes up your jumps when jumping into windows. I could run all the way back through the POI to get to where I was, but considering I already cleared it, there is no risk to doing that... Just wasted time. I see no reason to get back to where I was more quickly. Also, people being up using ladders. Someone wanting to reach the loot room can do that too. But for people trying to do things like building, you don't want to spend a lot of time building a bunch of ladders around your base to get up high. It is better to quickly drop blocks.

 

[grz__]

Do you find it difficult to not go to the roof of a tier 5 to get the loot instead of competing the POI? I think that is the important question. If you have no difficulty making decisions on how you play rather than succumbing to "cheating", then having things like nerd poling in the game really doesn't impact you. And if not, then that is kind of a "you" thing.

However, as I said, there is more than one side to this. There are of course instances where how others play will affect you. And there are others where it won't. Just looking at the kinda of posts I usually see here regarding things like double dipping or nerd poling, the posters aren't even suggesting that it impacts their own game. The wording of those posts is usually just that others shouldn't be allowed to "cheat". But since this game isn't designed for competitive gaming, someone "cheating" doesn't really matter. And when you have something like nerd poling that has a very useful job-cheating function, removing that because it is cheesy is actually harmful to legitimate players.

For reference, I have never used nerd poling to bypass a POI to get to the loot room. I will use it when building a tall base, or even to get back up to where I was if I fall off a skyscraper because of how parkour messes up your jumps when jumping into windows. I could run all the way back through the POI to get to where I was, but considering I already cleared it, there is no risk to doing that... Just wasted time. I see no reason to get back to where I was more quickly. Also, people being up using ladders. Someone wanting to reach the loot room can do that too. But for people trying to do things like building, you don't want to spend a lot of time building a bunch of ladders around your base to get up high. It is better to quickly drop blocks.

I was referring more to game mechanics like the ones I have given as an example, not the easy techniques to win, it doesn't affect me if another player uses cheese tactics, it would affect me if they change a well established game mechanic to make them happy. For example that the zombies can't break concrete blocks. I don't think players who use nerd poling or similar should be punished.

That's why I said it's an interesting topic, because there are several scenarios here.

 

[Riamus]

I was referring more to game mechanics like the ones I have given as an example, not the easy techniques to win, it doesn't affect me if another player uses cheese tactics, it would affect me if they change a well established game mechanic to make them happy. For example that the zombies can't break concrete blocks. I don't think players who use nerd poling or similar should be punished.

That's why I said it's an interesting topic, because there are several scenarios here.

I don't they would make zombies unable to break blocks since that just nullifies any real gameplay. But considering how they are letting people dictate the game to them now, who knows?

 

[Katalysor]

I hope TFP will bring back the scaling lootstage per biome as a game option instead of fully removing it. The idea is great to control progression and challenge without just making zombies stronger and beefier

 

[Lord of Qwantum]

Heres hoping they add further incentive to advance through all biomes. Still a step in the right direction! B)

 

[Gedrick]

Hey guys, thanks for the update. Out of curiosity, I run a cross play dedicated server, and I’m wondering if I can update my server to this version and still allow console players to join until the full release version drops. Seems there are some nice additions here which I appreciate, but I want to make sure I’m still compatible for console players.

Appreciate all the hard work!

 

[Riamus]

Hey guys, thanks for the update. Out of curiosity, I run a cross play dedicated server, and I’m wondering if I can update my server to this version and still allow console players to join until the full release version drops. Seems there are some nice additions here which I appreciate, but I want to make sure I’m still compatible for console players.

Appreciate all the hard work!

No. The versions have to match.

 

[Gedrick]

No. The versions have to match.

That’s what I thought, thank you.

 

[Rooster Gold]

Those advocating to keep making the game harder & harder need to realize the game isn't getting any easier, you're just getting better at it.

Increasing the difficulty or adding annoyances could backfire by driving away new players.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Those advocating to keep making the game harder & harder need to realize the game isn't getting any easier, you're just getting better at it.

Increasing the difficulty or adding annoyances could backfire by driving away new players.

Add difficulty sliders and real changes when you change difficulty. State of decay 2 is a great example

 

[Adam the Waster]

Add difficulty sliders.

Granted that's not the only solution. The game should be welcoming to new players. Unlike games like ark.

But dumming things down for the sake of making things easy is not the solution

Allowing spawns in the pine forest only? Fair and good

Making ammo as common as candy? Not really but we are getting a slider so ima turn that down.

 

[ilexev]

Certes, ce n'est pas la seule solution. Le jeu doit être accueillant pour les nouveaux joueurs, contrairement à des jeux comme Ark.

Mais simplifier les choses pour les rendre plus faciles n’est pas la solution.

Autoriser les pontes uniquement dans la pinède ? Juste et bon.

Rendre les munitions aussi courantes que les bonbons ? Pas vraiment, mais on va avoir un curseur, alors je vais le baisser.

Ls munitions doivent définitivement être rare même sans curseur

 

[Riamus]

Those advocating to keep making the game harder & harder need to realize the game isn't getting any easier, you're just getting better at it.

Increasing the difficulty or adding annoyances could backfire by driving away new players.

Although true, this game is hardly a difficult game even for new players. Sure, they may not understand how certain things work, and they may not know to watch out for specific spawns in specific POI, but that's part of learning a new game. It only takes a small number of hours to learn what you need to learn. After that, this game is really very easy. I'm not saying you might not die, but just that you can survive without a great deal of difficulty, regardless of settings. Though, of course, certain settings can make it harder for newer players - feral sense and sprinting zombies are good examples. Even so, the game is not that difficult and since new players can disable things like feral sense and slow down zombies, it's hardly a problem for new players.

But yes, the more you play, the easier it gets. This also results in people feeling the game is boring, not challenging, not as good as older versions, etc. It's easy to think older versions were better because you weren't as good and so they were more challenging and think that it was just that the older versions were more challenging in themselves instead of it being related to you getting better. I'm not saying things in older versions might not have actually been more challenging, but that it's easy to confuse the two things unless you go back to the old version and see if it really was as challenging as you thought at the time.

 

[pookandpie]

best update if these have been removed and changed

• Removed "Loot Stage Caps" from all biomes
• Removed lootstage_max from all biomes

This was literally something I was just inquiring about a week or two ago on these very forums.

I was asking why the loot caps were still around since we had all gotten the wasteland biome badge (like, why would you continue using this new mechanic if it arbitrarily capped your loot stage to 180 in the snow biome, vs 340+ with biome progression off? Of *course* we turned off biome progression when we discovered that, the mechanic had literally nothing beneficial to offer us. All stick, no carrot).

So, good change IMO. I would also have been fine with loot stage caps being removed entirely once you get the wasteland badge, but this works too.

 

[Lax]

I hope TFP will bring back the scaling lootstage per biome as a game option instead of fully removing it. The idea is great to control progression and challenge without just making zombies stronger and beefier

This I believe is the mark of truly great game design and the challenge to overcome.

How do you get someone to naturally desire to progress further in your game? How do you get them to say, "Wow I can't wait to get over there"? And how do you do this in a natural, unforced way that doesn't feel gimmicky?

Some games do this better than others and can be used as an example to learn from. For example, Valheim. Another open world game with biomes.

I think Valheim does a great job of handling the progression problem. You want to move on from the safe forest to the Black Forest? Why? Well because they have iron over there and I could really use that iron to upgrade my gear. Fine go right ahead, go there and get your precious iron. But you'll need a pickaxe to mine it!

You have the freedom to go into any biome you choose in Valheim. You also have the natural desire to want to travel there because all the superior gear is there. But the natural tools needed to progress are located in your current biome. And the enemies over there are so fierce you'll be running back to the safety of the forest in no time.

And as you spend more time in your safe, peaceful biome, the difficulty starts to naturally ramp up, forcing you out and gently nudging you to progress to that next biome.

I think 7 Days could learn a lot from that natural progression without outright copying the exact same formula. There are progression "elements" there that can be emulated if done right.

 

[Roland]

Sometimes it really appears that people think the developers are empty vessels. They are not. They are gamers and people with real ideas about what seems fun to them. When they make changes to the game that align with community feedback, they do it because they also see the fun of it for themselves. If they bring jars back it won't be because some small subreddit faction tugged Joel's strings and made him bring jars back. It will only happen if Joel, himself, after playing for the past year decides that bringing jars back in some way would be more fun after all--AND the entire team supports the idea. They know that any change they make will disenchant someone and so they make changes that they are happy with,

 

[Roland]

This I believe is the mark of truly great game design and the challenge to overcome.

How do you get someone to naturally desire to progress further in your game? How do you get them to say, "Wow I can't wait to get over there"? And how do you do this in a natural, unforced way that doesn't feel gimmicky?

Some games do this better than others and can be used as an example to learn from. For example, Valheim. Another open world game with biomes.

I think Valheim does a great job of handling the progression problem. You want to move on from the safe forest to the Black Forest? Why? Well because they have iron over there and I could really use that iron to upgrade my gear. Fine go right ahead, go there and get your precious iron. But you'll need a pickaxe to mine it!

You have the freedom to go into any biome you choose in Valheim. You also have the natural desire to want to travel there because all the superior gear is there. But the natural tools needed to progress are located in your current biome. And the enemies over there are so fierce you'll be running back to the safety of the forest in no time.

And as you spend more time in your safe, peaceful biome, the difficulty starts to naturally ramp up, forcing you out and gently nudging you to progress to that next biome.

I think 7 Days could learn a lot from that natural progression without outright copying the exact same formula. There are progression "elements" there that can be emulated if done right.

I can't fully agree. Everything you laud about Valheim I've read others call artificial gating mechanics. Step into the snow biome in Valheim on day one and you die even faster than the snow biome in 7 Days to Die. You have to do things before you can actually go in there. You see the tasks as natural and organic parts of the game and things you would actually need to do to prepare to survive in the next biome but others will see those tasks as unnecessarily grindy and artificial forcing by the developers making them play the game in one particular way. In Valheim your progression is capped until you defeat the next boss in the sequence which unlocks the gate to further progression.

I like Valheim too and enjoyed it for many hours playing co-op with my brother. But I know there are others who don't like the Valheim formula at all. Personally, if TFP wanted to chase the Valheim formula I think they would need to add at least 3 additional biomes to make biome progression actually have some significance and I would much rather they just finish what they have listed in their roadmap and then maybe implement a Valheim-like biome progression in their next game and plan 7-8 biomes from the getgo.

 

[Lax]

I can't fully agree. Everything you laud about Valheim I've read others call artificial gating mechanics. Step into the snow biome in Valheim on day one and you die even faster than the snow biome in 7 Days to Die. You have to do things before you can actually go in there. You see the tasks as natural and organic parts of the game and things you would actually need to do to prepare to survive in the next biome but others will see those tasks as unnecessarily grindy and artificial forcing by the developers making them play the game in one particular way. In Valheim your progression is capped until you defeat the next boss in the sequence which unlocks the gate to further progression.

I like Valheim too and enjoyed it for many hours playing co-op with my brother. But I know there are others who don't like the Valheim formula at all. Personally, if TFP wanted to chase the Valheim formula I think they would need to add at least 3 additional biomes to make biome progression actually have some significance and I would much rather they just finish what they have listed in their roadmap and then maybe implement a Valheim-like biome progression in their next game and plan 7-8 biomes from the getgo.

Well said. As the gatekeepers to their own creation, The Pimps at some point have to draw a line in the sand. Not everyone can be or should be pleased. The developers get the final say.

The continued development of the game along with experimental versions should provide enough feedback to determine the overall pulse of the community to weed out what's considered fun and what's not.

 

[Space4Ace]

Add difficulty sliders and real changes when you change difficulty. State of decay 2 is a great example

Difficulty sliders? We already have plenty of those.
If it's too easy, then people can use the Insane setting for zombies and turn on Feral so that they detect you from far away. Not enough, then make them Run all the time (Day, Night, Feral and Horde Night). And they can go spend more time in big cities in the Wasteland if they want a bigger challenge.

Is there anything else that you want?

 

[khzmusik]

Why not have their numbers increase with gamestage? Similar to how early game you get budget Screamers. At higher levels and gamestage radiated.

Late reply - but just so everyone knows, biome spawns are not gamestaged. They are always the same regardless of any player's progression.

They do have different spawns according to location (urban/rural) and time of day (day/night) but that's it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would love it if TFP added game staging to biome spawns. But it's a new feature rather than balancing an existing feature, and new features are far less likely to make it into the game at this point.

Just FYI.