You have no specific goals beside survival. That is why I call it a Sandbox survival, rather than Sandbox crafting or whatever.
The sandbox aspect is not limited to the default gameplay, the variety of settings and the modability is a huge part of it.
Yeah but just because the game is modable doesn't give the devs the right to half-ass it as much as they are. ESPECIALLY when the majority of the new stuff in A21 feature wise are literally stolen from mods. Literal only actual unique things are the stabbing/shooting thru partially busted doors, and the fire pipe thing, pretty much everything else like the bird nests/garbage bags poofing on loot? yeah thats been in some mods for years. When I played A21 the first time, I just was like "Wow these guys played darkness falls for all the stuff it feels like they "borrowed" from it" Wish they'd copy something really nice thou like the DF skill system or something. Even the learn by reading system they have was semi-borrowed from undead legacys research system, you'd scrap schematics you don't need for research notes, which you can then turn into books you wanted/need. Its not the exact same but simmlar in a way.
My biggest issue with 7dtd is the lack of content, since Alpha 10, we've had the same top tier material of steel, and since radiated zombies were put in we've not really gotten any new tiers. It feels like content wise the game is going no where. Sorry but prettier graphics, and more maze like poi's is not my idea of content, I want actual content, like a tier above steel (titanium seems a popular one) and some zombies above radiated. its why mods like Darkness Falls and Apoc now are so popular, they have multiple tiers for both items AND enemies above vanilla, and if a single person, can put this stuff in the game, TFP has no excuse when they have a entire team. For some reason TFP seems adamant not to add more to the game, they'd rather keep redoing game systems and making them worse each reiteration.IMO 7dtd could have gone gold back in a16.4 if they just fixed the issues with its skill system. Main issue was to make a better stone axe, you had to craft hundreds of them to raise a skill, all it needed was for that to go away. Most people who played thru A16 feels its the best the game has ever been and its been going downhill each alpha since gameplay wise. Though I do like the mod system A17+ had. I don't dislike everything after a16, I just really dislike the skill system and feel it needs a complete redo and to break away from the gated to hell stat system.
Also if people keep asking this question the OP does it kinda shows there IS an actual problem, as I've seen it all over since a17 and up hit. Players are confused what 7dtd is supposed to be anymore, as it still seems to have no actual direction, and the devs don't seem to wanna tell us what the plan is, so we are kinda left here confused and wondering.
Yes, if you bought the game tfp got your money so they don't really care about you anymore (or at least thats how it feels as they pretty much ignore what the games community wants), but 7dtd is not their only game, people will remember this, and be more hesitate to touch anything from them in the future, I know i'll be much more hesitant to touch a TFP game again, even 7dtd 2, 7dtd2 has to at least have everything the first game does as a minimum or else i'll prob not bother.