V2.5 Survival Revival Dev Diary

[jeffrezyah]

For me (and maybe others too) its not about immersion breaking. you're right Roland, the candywrappers and stew bowls and gas cans dissappear too and no one bats an eye. i dont mind that they dissappear, totally fine. but with jars its different, since they would have (and had in the past) a purpose when empty. the candy wrapper is useless (unless its 1 polymer? ). IF we had a system where we would need to fill a gascan at gas barrels or tank stations and then use that can to fill vehicles or even workstations/generators, then the gas can dissappearing would be just as bad as jars dissappearing.

i've played with mods where you need to craft/obtain a clay bowl before you can craft any food recipe which should be in a bowl (not cornbread or similar) and while tedious i enjoyed it because it gave me a additional challenge while obtaining food. i had to make sure i have all the ingredients and after i ate the food item, it returned the bowl for me.

in earlier alphas i also enjoyed having about 8-10 jars in the early game, needing to manage them (empty, murky, drinkable, tea) and really thinking about how many glues i really need vs. how much i wanna spare to secure my drinking needs. that was fun and made me think about what i wanna prioritize for my survival.

back to jars, i wanna add some things regarding the concerns that you'll end up with too many jars and you never need to worry about water ever again.
first, jars also get used up when crafting glue - so there is a big sink in mid-late game since you'll need MANY duct tapes. the jar dissappearing is kinda fine with me since it would be full of glue or whatever and would not be usable again (point is, jars also dissappear even if you get them back from drinks)
second, with enough dew collectors, you still end up with plenty of water anyway - so the argument of "you'll have too much and never worry about drinks again" is not really valid to my point of view (might be just me though, idk)
third, every player has so many settings to tweak so their game experience is just the way they want. so why not just let the players have their jars back? maybe just a toggle in the options like feral sense and much more?

some thoughts for jars (MY goal would be to make decisions regarding water meaningful like i descirbed above):
-make jars stack way less (empty, murky, clean, tea/coffee)
-make the water you collect polluted (rivers, toilets etc.), murky (water fountains for example) or even clean in rare cases. refill jars in those blocks mentioned
-require the polluted water to be filtered (sand, coal, fibers) to turn into murky
-reduce the jars (empty, murky, clean) you find in loot.

finally - i dont really care about weather jars are back or not, i just think the current water system could need some more "depth" to it. at the moment i dont really have to think about water. just spam dew collectors, empty them regularly and boom i'm set for life. mostly i'm done before first horde night.

also i do really like the direction 2.5 is going. so much great changes and i'm excited to try them all out (started in A16, so smell is a new for me ) keep it up TFP i believe

 

[Roland]

For me (and maybe others too) its not about immersion breaking. you're right Roland, the candywrappers and stew bowls and gas cans dissappear too and no one bats an eye. i dont mind that they dissappear, totally fine. but with jars its different, since they would have (and had in the past) a purpose when empty. the candy wrapper is useless (unless its 1 polymer? ). IF we had a system where we would need to fill a gascan at gas barrels or tank stations and then use that can to fill vehicles or even workstations/generators, then the gas can dissappearing would be just as bad as jars dissappearing.

i've played with mods where you need to craft/obtain a clay bowl before you can craft any food recipe which should be in a bowl (not cornbread or similar) and while tedious i enjoyed it because it gave me a additional challenge while obtaining food. i had to make sure i have all the ingredients and after i ate the food item, it returned the bowl for me.

I respect your opinion on what feels fun for you. You like more complex multi-step processes than I do. I used to like more of that but after years of Space Engineers and other more dedicated crafting games I appreciate the streamlining that 7 Days does. I've played mods that make you chop a tree for logs, craft logs into planks, craft planks into sticks, craft rocks into sharp rocks, craft grass fibers into rope and THEN craft your stone axe. Sorry, but I can't stand that. Wood, stone, grass --> stone axe is so much better for my fun. I don't care about the containers and I certainly don't consider that I'm consuming them. For me they just fade into the background. Jars are for my inventory. I've been enjoying filling empty jars but that is about as complex as I want it.

in earlier alphas i also enjoyed having about 8-10 jars in the early game, needing to manage them (empty, murky, drinkable, tea) and really thinking about how many glues i really need vs. how much i wanna spare to secure my drinking needs. that was fun and made me think about what i wanna prioritize for my survival.

Well how early are you talking? Because originally in the earliest alphas we never got our jars back after use. That came later. In fact, you could say that removing the ability to get jars back was a return to what made this game so great in the old days....lol. I guess the nostalgia for the OG game doesn't quite go that far....

At any rate, in 2.5 there should be a greater scarcity than now. Will it be 8-10 jars? IDK....probably depend on how much you scavenge.

back to jars, i wanna add some things regarding the concerns that you'll end up with too many jars and you never need to worry about water ever again.
first, jars also get used up when crafting glue - so there is a big sink in mid-late game since you'll need MANY duct tapes. the jar dissappearing is kinda fine with me since it would be full of glue or whatever and would not be usable again (point is, jars also dissappear even if you get them back from drinks)
second, with enough dew collectors, you still end up with plenty of water anyway - so the argument of "you'll have too much and never worry about drinks again" is not really valid to my point of view (might be just me though, idk)

Dew collectors won't be buildable until the mid game when you start needing lots of glue. That is one of the big changes. The only way to get jars is by finding them and then filling them at a water source and then boiling. You'll be making the tough choices for how to manage your water quite a bit more often in 2.5 than currently.

third, every player has so many settings to tweak so their game experience is just the way they want. so why not just let the players have their jars back? maybe just a toggle in the options like feral sense and much more?

I wouldn't be against a toggle to make jars be reusable. That would be great. Of course, we learned with biome hazards and storms that not even optional settings will please the career whiners. But, TFP is prepping a dedicated sandbox mode for the future with its own set of options and settings and I wouldn't be surprised if reusable jars didn't show up there since it seems to be a hot topic.

some thoughts for jars (MY goal would be to make decisions regarding water meaningful like i descirbed above):
-make jars stack way less (empty, murky, clean, tea/coffee)
-make the water you collect polluted (rivers, toilets etc.), murky (water fountains for example) or even clean in rare cases. refill jars in those blocks mentioned
-require the polluted water to be filtered (sand, coal, fibers) to turn into murky
-reduce the jars (empty, murky, clean) you find in loot.

finally - i dont really care about weather jars are back or not, i just think the current water system could need some more "depth" to it. at the moment i dont really have to think about water. just spam dew collectors, empty them regularly and boom i'm set for life. mostly i'm done before first horde night.

Cool. I like learning about how others like to play the game. There won't be any more dew collector spamming though once you load up the experimental version-- at least not during the early game.

also i do really like the direction 2.5 is going. so much great changes and i'm excited to try them all out (started in A16, so smell is a new for me ) keep it up TFP i believe

 

[jeffrezyah]

I respect your opinion on what feels fun for you. You like more complex multi-step processes than I do. I used to like more of that but after years of Space Engineers and other more dedicated crafting games I appreciate the streamlining that 7 Days does. I've played mods that make you chop a tree for logs, craft logs into planks, craft planks into sticks, craft rocks into sharp rocks, craft grass fibers into rope and THEN craft your stone axe. Sorry, but I can't stand that. Wood, stone, grass --> stone axe is so much better for my fun. I don't care about the containers and I certainly don't consider that I'm consuming them. For me they just fade into the background. Jars are for my inventory. I've been enjoying filling empty jars but that is about as complex as I want it.


Well how early are you talking? Because originally in the earliest alphas we never got our jars back after use. That came later. In fact, you could say that removing the ability to get jars back was a return to what made this game so great in the old days....lol. I guess the nostalgia for the OG game doesn't quite go that far....

At any rate, in 2.5 there should be a greater scarcity than now. Will it be 8-10 jars? IDK....probably depend on how much you scavenge.


Dew collectors won't be buildable until the mid game when you start needing lots of glue. That is one of the big changes. The only way to get jars is by finding them and then filling them at a water source and then boiling. You'll be making the tough choices for how to manage your water quite a bit more often in 2.5 than currently.



I wouldn't be against a toggle to make jars be reusable. That would be great. Of course, we learned with biome hazards and storms that not even optional settings will please the career whiners. But, TFP is prepping a dedicated sandbox mode for the future with its own set of options and settings and I wouldn't be surprised if reusable jars didn't show up there since it seems to be a hot topic.



Cool. I like learning about how others like to play the game. There won't be any more dew collector spamming though once you load up the experimental version-- at least not during the early game.

thanks for taking the time to read and reply (and so fast even )

maybe the current changes will bring back some of the management i really enjoyed - looking forward to try it out.
and you're right. with the dew collector now at a higher workstation progress and finding/filling empty jars again might even be enough to do the trick

i've also read others suggesting the need of empty jars for the dew collector. i think maybe there is potential there, just needs the right tuning maybe

again, really glad about a lot of the changes in 2.5 and i'm eager to see what is coming in the future.
the dedicated sandbox mode vs the current "rpg" mode will be really nice i think and will add so much to replayability and supporting different playstyles. also a big W for me i enjoy both tbh - but sometimes i wanna have a playthrough A and sometimes i want to play style B

either way, the optimism and excitement the current changes bring (and with them the outlook to future changes) cant be overstated for me after the last cuple changes in development weren't really my cup of tea mostly

 

[Riamus]

I hope they never require jars for the dew collector. Right now, I can just mod out empty jars from loot drops and be done with it. If I have to also deal with removing a required use of jars, that will be a lot more hassle.

 

[zztong]

To those of you who think you are eating your jars are you also eating your bowls? Are you cramming the fuel cannisters down into the fuel tanks of your cars? Are you smashing the paint cans against the walls of the base you just painted? Are you eating the wrappers of your candy and the cans of your peas?

I think this misstates my expression of preferences.

We don't need plates to cook food. We don't need fuel canisters to refine fuel. We don't need paint cans to make paint. I don't have recipes for candy and peas. But if I understand the 2.5 system, we have to find or make jars to harvest murky water and then those jars cannot be reused.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think there's more opportunity in making water less portable by lowering the stacking limits and focusing on the difficulty in crafting potable water. Modifying a few crafting recipes could help with the "water" game. For instance, maybe making glue with murky water takes more water than if you could use potable water.

I'm cool with most abstractions. I'll play 2.5 (as time permits) and see how it goes; maybe there's more to the story.

 

[GritNGames]

I don't get comments "like why does water need to be this scarce" It isn't, you craft a few dew collectors and you have infinite water pretty much. Water in the current state of the game is too easy to get. I'm glad there is a few extra steps to getting a good supply of drinkable water coming in the update.

I'm guessing this will be hated, but I also feel like we get way to much scrap iron from scrapping items. I can't remember the last time I needed to go on a good mining session or build myself a little hobbit hole mineshaft. Same with vending machines and end of poi loot rooms, I'd personally love to see them removed.

My biggest gripe since 1.0 is the game became to arcadey and just throws everything you need right at you in the early game. It's a zombie survival game that lost it's survival aspects, I'm very happy these are slowly adding survival aspects back into the game. I'm really looking forward to the direction 2.5 is taking and hope it continues.

Totally agree. TFP need to slow the game down. I get so much enjoyment, challenge, and satisfaction early game by the constant zombie threats and environmental threats that when I finally get situated to the mid/late game I start to lose a bit of interest and the game becomes stagnant, rinse and repeat. Repetition becomes a chore and boring. If TFP could find a way to balance the game from early to late, that would be a win win imo.

Slow the game down. It's as Mr. Khurune says, too arcadey. This is zombie survival. You want to look at a game that was successful and challenging, take a note from LiF: YO. Digging in a bush for 12 hours straight to get a single point in the profession was grueling. Not what I recommend but just an example. It took everyone forever to get to that mid game but once they were there, it was a whole new game and challenge. Kept me and my team coming back months on end.

 

[Crater Creator]

In all seriousness, why does water need to be this scarce? When I started playing in the Alphas the threat and thing that was being survived was the zombies. Food, water and environment where there too of course, but it was a zombie survival game. When I died, it was to a zombie. With the increased focus on other survival elements 7D2D feels more like a regular survival game that just happens to have zombies in it. Do I have the wrong expectation here?

In my view, a zombie survival game means a survival game with zombies in it. And that means survival gameplay: satisfying your character’s basic intrinsic needs to live, adapting to and overcoming variable challenging conditions to maintain your character’s wellbeing, especially their physical condition. Zombies can be the biggest of those conditions, but merely not dying to zombie enemies doesn’t make it a zombie survival game, even if the gameplay of surviving zombies is robust and well executed. Zombie games where your condition/status is represented as a single health bar, like Left 4 Dead, can be great zombie games but don’t have the depth to be called zombie survival games.

 

[Gamida]

I think that in the long run, the water-drinking system will never be completely set in a way to please everyone.
I also think that no matter which way it is done, in a longer game water will not be a problem.
Strangely I think that is ok. In an actual zombie apocalypse I think everyones goal would be...

1. Find (build) a place that is reasonably safe.
2. Set up something so you don't worry about food.
3. Set up something so you don't worry about water
4. Be able to reasonably defend yourself from threats.

I know there is more to it and others can expand on the list.

 

[Roland]

I think this misstates my expression of preferences.

We don't need plates to cook food. We don't need fuel canisters to refine fuel. We don't need paint cans to make paint. I don't have recipes for candy and peas. But if I understand the 2.5 system, we have to find or make jars to harvest murky water and then those jars cannot be reused.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think there's more opportunity in making water less portable by lowering the stacking limits and focusing on the difficulty in crafting potable water. Modifying a few crafting recipes could help with the "water" game. For instance, maybe making glue with murky water takes more water than if you could use potable water.

I'm cool with most abstractions. I'll play 2.5 (as time permits) and see how it goes; maybe there's more to the story.

I don't know about that. Eating potion bottles has been a meme long before 7 Days to Die was released. In other rpgs, adventure, and even some survival games you don't need to craft a jar to produce your potion or drink and obviously if such memes exist then there are people out there with their panties in a bunch because of it.

So I don't buy that people are upset about it because in 2.5 jars will be necessary to gather water unlike all the rest of the containers. I just think there is a certain type of gamer that simply can't suspend their disbelief when it comes to using consumables that the game abstracts away. I'm not even conscious of it while playing. I just get water and drink water and that is the extent of what I think about it. Obviously, others are lying awake at night staring at the ceiling and wondering where all the containers are going...

 

[Mr. Perfect]

In my view, a zombie survival game means a survival game with zombies in it. And that means survival gameplay: satisfying your character’s basic intrinsic needs to live, adapting to and overcoming variable challenging conditions to maintain your character’s wellbeing, especially their physical condition. Zombies can be the biggest of those conditions, but merely not dying to zombie enemies doesn’t make it a zombie survival game, even if the gameplay of surviving zombies is robust and well executed. Zombie games where your condition/status is represented as a single health bar, like Left 4 Dead, can be great zombie games but don’t have the depth to be called zombie survival games.

I suppose that's where the dissatisfaction comes from then: the balance of time spent doing survival vs fighting zombies has shifted considerably. In pre-1.0 alphas the need to eat, drink and survive the elements where always in there and provided a carrot for going out and braving the zombies, but it wasn't what we spent a majority of the time doing. Our group spent the majority of the time exploring the map, running missions and building things all over the different biomes. Plus horde night of course! Zombies where what was scary: a pack of dogs that showed up early game, a feral zombie in that building we explored with low quality gear or more cops then the horde night base was designed to handle. It was the zombies we where surviving.

With recent versions we're mostly tending to dew collectors, farms and searching for very specific loot like water. The last play though the tensest things got where when we all had infections but couldn't make antibiotics yet. Everyone was just running around chopping up tree stumps for honey and somehow they kept dropping just slowly enough that the infection was outpacing it. The new apiary should fix that though! We can get back to running missions instead of chopping tree stumps.

 

[Laran Mithras]

For the decade+ of development, one would think the primary point of contention with players would be zombies - adding/removing.
Instead, the HILL THAT MOST WILL DIE ON is... JARS.

A new player might think coming into this that 7DTD zombies aren't hungry for brains, they're shambling around moaning, "Jarz, jarzzz, jarzzzzz!"
Just... hilarious.

 

[Grandpa Minion]

 

[Nevermore]

I do appreciate this comment from someone who is posting critically. Here is a gamer that enjoys difficult settings and unforgiving conditions in his game and they describe the lowest darkness setting as "exceptionally dark at night". That's awesome. It tells me that the inability of some users to get a dark enough night is simply user to monitor error and that the current in game settings are what they should be if only people can figure out their brightness settings.

In a brightness aspect, the game needs the ability to adjust brightness not only at night but also during the day, as well as separate indoor/outdoor brightness settings.

 

[King of Here and There]

To those of you who think you are eating your jars are you also eating your bowls? Are you cramming the fuel cannisters down into the fuel tanks of your cars? Are you smashing the paint cans against the walls of the base you just painted? Are you eating the wrappers of your candy and the cans of your peas?

There are so many abstractions in the game that you never worry about. Why worry about this one? What are you guys doing after you read your magazines? Stuffing them up your butts?

It's a game. You are taking things too literally.

These are false comparisons.

There of course exists a space for an implied inventory. Things you can reasonably assume your character has that don't require active inventory tracking. i.e empty gas cannisters don't have an ingame function, but they also don't stop us from collecting more gas. The cannisters are a part of our implied inventory. When we prepare food in game do we need to also make a plate? No, so we can assume we have one. Same thing applies to paint cans, etc.

The difference with jars, is an empty jar has a purpose in game. We can not collect more water from a water source without one. Could jars be a part of our implied inventory? Sure, but that is not at all how TFP implemented it. When TFP tried to remove empty jars it meant we could no longer collect water from a stream and boil it. It didn't exist in our implied inventory. And what reason does the player have to attribute to the fact that we can't do such a simple task anymore? Nothing, but the devs want to make the game artificially harder. This is what is hurting player immersion and players have desperately tried to get TFP to understand.

 

[King of Here and There]

You think that would satisfy the perpetual whiners? They wouldn't thank TFP for doing your proposal. They would seethe that TFP had created another artificial gate with the idiotic and stupid half-measure of calling it "polluted" and forcing the use of a chem station for something that a campfire was good enough to do in the past. The fact that murky water could only be collected from fountains, sinks, and other water-themed loot containers would be scathingly rejected as TFP further forcing the looter-shooter mentality on players and punishing players who don't want to loot all the time.

Nothing will make everyone happy. It doesn't matter how they change it. The angry trolls will always turn it around to be some kind of insulting slap in the face against players.

Look at the biome environmental hazards. That's the same type of immersive apocalyptic world environmental change as your polluted water idea. Were the haters happy about the new "pollution"? No. They were livid that it gated their entry into whatever biome they had the whim of wanting to enter whenever they wanted to do it.

So, nothing against your polluted water idea. I'd be fine with it, myself, because I'm easy going and willing to adapt but it wouldn't be some full measure solution compared to TFP's supposed half measure and the same people would still be livid about it.

There will always be unhappy people, but in a survival game an effort needs to be made to keep things grounded to the universe we are in. Gamified mechanics to make things artifacally harder sit unwell with people. Players should be able to attribute challenges ingame to the world.

The biome hazards were not well received because they were poorly implemented, not because the idea was bad or that the hazards didnt fit the universe. Gating progression behind missions was a terrible idea and takes away from the sandbox feel of the game. No amount of collecting coal and choking to death in 2 minute intervals will inspire someone to sudden ignore the threat. A sane person would loot a hospital or nurse zombie for a gas mask and enter with that. Similar to the old system where if you wanted to go to the snow biomes for example, you would bring a coat...you wouldn't try to get frostbite 10 times and be immune.

 

[zztong]

I don't know about that. Eating potion bottles has been a meme long before 7 Days to Die was released. In other rpgs, adventure, and even some survival games you don't need to craft a jar to produce your potion or drink and obviously if such memes exist then there are people out there with their panties in a bunch because of it.

So I don't buy that people are upset about it because in 2.5 jars will be necessary to gather water unlike all the rest of the containers. I just think there is a certain type of gamer that simply can't suspend their disbelief when it comes to using consumables that the game abstracts away. I'm not even conscious of it while playing. I just get water and drink water and that is the extent of what I think about it. Obviously, others are lying awake at night staring at the ceiling and wondering where all the containers are going...

I would point out I was speaking only of my opinion and not trying to speak for everyone else.

I would say personally, I'm not upset as thus far I've been able to suit my own tastes via XML mods and I assume 2.5 won't change that.

Personally, I don't stay up wondering about anything like that. I know TFP is trying to make a game and balancing a number of concerns. I express my opinion and leave it there. That opinion has consistently been:

* I would prefer to be able to carry water away from a water source. It doesn't have to involve having empty jars.

* Water is heavy so limiting stacking makes sense, which complicates player inventory decisions.

* Water purification has the potential to make water relevant longer than a scarcity of jars, potentially all the way up to the Chemistry Station.

Again, my opinion. Not a demand. Not a conclusion about TFP. Just an opinion.

Again, my opinion here, everyone is going to place their immersion/believable line in a different place. You're probably not going to be able to talk them out of it, but good luck if that's your goal.

 

[HammerDano]

There will always be unhappy people, but in a survival game an effort needs to be made to keep things grounded to the universe we are in. Gamified mechanics to make things artifacally harder sit unwell with people. Players should be able to attribute challenges ingame to the world.

The biome hazards were not well received because they were poorly implemented, not because the idea was bad or that the hazards didnt fit the universe. Gating progression behind missions was a terrible idea and takes away from the sandbox feel of the game. No amount of collecting coal and choking to death in 2 minute intervals will inspire someone to sudden ignore the threat. A sane person would loot a hospital or nurse zombie for a gas mask and enter with that. Similar to the old system where if you wanted to go to the snow biomes for example, you would bring a coat...you wouldn't try to get frostbite 10 times and be immune.

I'd add the "rancher" to that...it makes no sense that he spits bees, imo, it would make more sense that he uses a revolver as a ranged attack.
but, not a hill I am willing to die on. lol

 

[Javabean867]

To those of you who think you are eating your jars are you also eating your bowls?

It's a joke joke from VLDL youtube group. They poke fun at video game logic. the 1 character was whining about not knowing what to do with the bottle after drinking a healing potion, and the other character straight faced told him to eat it. then proceeded to do just that. I'm sure it exists in other media as well though. they also joked around about having a horse pocket, a pocket where you put your horse when not riding it.

 

[MickJames]

It's a joke joke from VLDL youtube group. They poke fun at video game logic. the 1 character was whining about not knowing what to do with the bottle after drinking a healing potion, and the other character straight faced told him to eat it. then proceeded to do just that. I'm sure it exists in other media as well though. they also joked around about having a horse pocket, a pocket where you put your horse when not riding it.

I was thinking of the exact same video when I read Roland's comment too... lol...

 

[Roland]

I'd add the "rancher" to that...it makes no sense that he spits bees, imo, it would make more sense that he uses a revolver as a ranged attack.
but, not a hill I am willing to die on. lol

You do know that “Rancher” is the name for a zombie right?. You would actually rather have a zombie work a revolver than that infected bees made a hive in his undead corpse?

Not me. Let’s leave the firearms to the living bandits and keep guns away from the infected. Besides, you haven’t even played with bee swarms yet have you? 2.5 will be your 2.0 no?

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 12:09 PM

Again, my opinion here, everyone is going to place their immersion/believable line in a different place. You're probably not going to be able to talk them out of it, but good luck if that's your goal.

Nope. Like you I’m just talking for myself. I have no illusions about changing minds but just voicing alternative opinions and asking questions. Both you and King gave good counterpoints that clarified the reasons why people feel as they do.