PC While they say skill trees are not must have skills... A pickaxes and a forge is!

[BaconsTV]

If you are going to build there's little point in any perk build except Strength. Even if you found your Iron Pick, mining without a decent number of points in Mother Lode and Miner 69er is really verging on pointless. It's such an inefficient way to spend time it's just dumb. It's great the game is flexible and all but you should be building your char in a way that suits the playstyle you're aiming for. Heavy base builders need Strength. The snowballing effect of efficient mining cannot be understated.

So now we are hearing that certain skills are must haves if you want to build/mine... Tbh, as long as I can farm up the basics for a night of using the shotty when stam is down then im ok for the first 2/3 weeks. So in 2/3weeks I would expect to have found the needed items and be proper settled with the ability to upgrade/change layouts of bases and tactics / experiment.

This is a case of digging your own grave and complaining about laying in it...Honestly as the situation demands, you should be adapting, if you can't find a pick - then put points into skills that help you find one or make one. Right now it sounds like some arbitrary limitations and stubbornness, creating the stagnation you're in. If you're purely going agility, that's going to limit you to stealth based perks and not the mining or looting or trading ones, which would actually be needed to make this work.

Sounds fun but just doesn't make sense as an argument.

complaining no...... questioning, found a battery bank, no simple pick tho day 5. You are also saying that these are quite must have skills if you dont find what you need by a certain time (day?) as the way I understand it, these skills are not supposed to be must have skills.

Yes changing the trader's stock would be a change to the game. Then the next person who plays a fortitude only build wants the AK to be more common, then the perception guy wants armor to be more common, etc. Different traders sell different types of items. Sounds like your at the trader who specializes in weapons.
Your free to modify the xml file and make the pickaxe more common in the traders loot, but there is 0 reason to limit yourselves to 1 tree.

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I can't imagine not taking at least a few points into fortitude for healing factor too. Saves you so much meds over time.

yeah ........ nah changing the stock is changing the whole game AHAH no. A simple % chance increase for the very basic of stuff the reason is, the game does indeed feel like it is saying certain skill trees are must haves! Skill trees / items / objects should never feel like "must have this" before I think a number of people used to say "must have steel sledge" a minor % increase to certain items is not changing the whole game and all the stock the trader has lool but dw I get your point. You feel as tho you must use the points to get what you want. Ok. AK is not a basic item to get you going is it??? Just like being too ignorant to know how to BOIL water to boil meat.. I guess TFP thinks we may burn the water? HAHA that imo is basic :/

That is strictly the fault of RNG. I get tools as quest rewards all the time.
Quests, scavenging and even the trader are RNG-dominated sources. They provide randomness in every new playthrough. The perk tree (especially INT) is the fallback and can be used if someone has extreme bad luck or simply if someone doesn't like RNG. Balance (as Roland already said) is based on people using those fallbacks if necessary.

You actually have a point with forges. IMHO they are too scarce in POIs compared to other workstations making it almost impossible for the player to get forges through scavenging. I don't think the solution should be that the recipe can be bought at the trader, instead some more POIs need a forge in the cellar.

Yeah forges, I doubt iv seen any out side the trader. Lucky he actually has a working one. As ayou have also said perk tree esp INT is the fallback to extreme bad luck..... another must have depending on RNG. Balance imo is not needing something and never saying at any moment "this is a must have" Dont get me wrong im not arguing, totally understood your points and everyone elses here. I just believe I read somwhere that TFP do not whish to see skills in skill trees as must haves.

FTPs: "We do not want players to progress through the earlygame too quickly, so we make the forge and iron tools super rare and hard to unlock!" (they dialed it down in A18 but its still not unlocked easy)also TFPs: "Lets make any building material besides concrete/steel useless so players dont... ehhh why did we change that again? Huh... forgot BUT I WILL DIE ON THAT HILL!!! Zombies need to be able to break blocks easily, or else..."

:cocksure:

Sorry just some venting. A18 is leagues better than A17. Some things just do not make sense and are not fun still.

If that is a real quote from the TFP, then thank you for answering my questioning about the reasons as to why I can get a chainsaw lvl1 day 1 2nd thing i looted, battery bank on day 5, lvl4machet day 4, lvl 3 ak day 4 and no silly lvl1pick Not pickaxe, just a pick / forge.

So far from the comments here people are very defensive of someone questioning things. Yes I increased the difficulty, but should skills / items /objects be must haves. Should that force me down a particular route? Im not arguing, not salty or being toxic. Just questioning to see thoughts/opinions and all that. What does suck is throwing the blame on a person who does not believe in the need to grab the "usual must have skills to get going"

Fair enough, IRL we can find anything in someones garage at any moment so saying getting a lvl4 AK before a pick, in an IRL situation it can indeed happen. However this is not IRL but saying skills are not must have in 7 Days to Die is a little bit of a white lie.

Im enjoying the full agility run for sure, its very fun indeed and suggest you good peeps try it out with horde everynight. You do feel stressed and you start to realise that there are plenty of "must have" things and depending on RNG is aweful but suprising too. Just saying, you would think with that massive list the trader has and time he has been standing behind his/her cashtill, they would have probably had a pick in stock hahaha

 

[meganoth]

Yeah forges, I doubt iv seen any out side the trader. Lucky he actually has a working one. As ayou have also said perk tree esp INT is the fallback to extreme bad luck..... another must have depending on RNG. Balance imo is not needing something and never saying at any moment "this is a must have" Dont get me wrong im not arguing, totally understood your points and everyone elses here. I just believe I read somwhere that TFP do not whish to see skills in skill trees as must haves.

I would not call a perk used as a fallback for bad luck a "must have".

 

[Whorhay]

Picks and Forges aren't anywhere near mandatory by day five. Forges are less common in the wild than the other crafting stations but you can still usually find a working one if you are dedicated it it, and if you think it's a necessity then put in that effort to find a working one. Picks only really become needed when you want to farm large quantities of some ore type, otherwise you can just use a stone axe for the bits you need. I've gone past day 14 without a forge of my own before on a number of occasions and while I don't think I've ever had that much trouble finding a pick I rarely need to do that kind of harvesting early in the game anyways. In A18 this is even less of an issue as you can find building materials everywhere in PoI's.

 

[BaconsTV]

Picks and Forges aren't anywhere near mandatory by day five. Forges are less common in the wild than the other crafting stations but you can still usually find a working one if you are dedicated it it, and if you think it's a necessity then put in that effort to find a working one. Picks only really become needed when you want to farm large quantities of some ore type, otherwise you can just use a stone axe for the bits you need. I've gone past day 14 without a forge of my own before on a number of occasions and while I don't think I've ever had that much trouble finding a pick I rarely need to do that kind of harvesting early in the game anyways. In A18 this is even less of an issue as you can find building materials everywhere in PoI's.

Yeah if this was not horde every night, 64 max spawns, 30 day loot respawn, I would agree and be chillax as a lettuce . Rregards to effort to find.. I am doing all the missions I can with the trader unless the mission is over 1km away. I can fit near to all in a day or a day and the last mission id carry out after the horde at 11ish. If I dont have missions, I raid POIs until 6-7 and then restart the mission grind. So I do think I am trying to do my best in playing the RNG game.

 

[guardianangelmp]

You changed the parameters of the gameplay (daily horde night, increased zombies on horde night), so if you are finding it too difficult then change it again.

There is also the creative menu, so if you got to the point where you figure you should have found an iron pick, just spawn one in and RP that you found it or bought it off a trader.

 

[Roland]

You changed the parameters of the gameplay (daily horde night, increased zombies on horde night), so if you are finding it too difficult then change it again.
There is also the creative menu, so if you got to the point where you figure you should have found an iron pick, just spawn one in and RP that you found it or bought it off a trader.

Treat it like a special order and throw away 10,000 dukes as payment...

 

[Deac1993]

I am doing my best to wrap my head around your POV... but you put restrictions in place that mean you rely on RNG and are now complaining that RNG isnt working in your favour? Also, by having horde every night (which I have played before) I am 100% sure you spend half your day rebuilding your base, assuming you arent using arrow slit cheese bases. This means you also dont have much time to loot properly. You have wedged yourself nicely into a tough spot.

The only solution I would offer to this to assist your niche play-style while also not impeding on anyone else that does decide to put points in the perks associated with tools is a definite method for basic tools. Something like the trader will always have an iron pick lvl 1, iron axe lvl 1, forge and WB HOWEVER they are extremely inflated in price.

 

[BaconsTV]

Treat it like a special order and throw away 10,000 dukes as payment...

ROFL I now found 3 on day 6 HAHAHA. Ah RNG how we hate theeeee but thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on this

 

[FA_Q2]

If you are going to build there's little point in any perk build except Strength. Even if you found your Iron Pick, mining without a decent number of points in Mother Lode and Miner 69er is really verging on pointless. It's such an inefficient way to spend time it's just dumb. It's great the game is flexible and all but you should be building your char in a way that suits the playstyle you're aiming for. Heavy base builders need Strength. The snowballing effect of efficient mining cannot be understated.

This and more this.

It is the only real gripe I have with the perk system atm - locking mining behind strength is extremely limiting.

 

[Kalarro]

IMO strength is a must in every game. Like many things in a18, its totally not fair for builders/crafters. For fighting, you can choose any skilltree and you get 2 or 3 weapons out of it. So its a matter of choice with what weapons you kill. But for gathering you need tools, so you need to go stregth no matter what.

They put gathering vs not gathering at the same level as killing using a bat vs using machete.

 

[Khulkhuum]

I think the most important information is not "what you invest into?", but "how many points you invest?"

COMMENCE LONG POST

If you want to mine/salvage resources it is almost obligatory to have some points in Mother Load and Salvage Operations. Faster mining and more resources obtain is a difference, although some people don't mind too much time spent on that.

Fighting with a specific weapon requires points in the specific weapon type skill (and also general stat).

Better quest rewards or trader stash requires investment into INT tree. Some people don't mind having a basic trader inventory.

Being Stealthy supposedly requires high AGILITY. Some people don't use stealth though...

If you want to smelt and craft it is very useful to have a forge/workbench/chem_station/cement_mixer close by, be it by a trader, nearby POI or at your base (you can buy it or find a schematic, so it's NOT A MUST HAVE skillpoint investment). The point stands what you want to craft, because most things are either locked by schematics or behind specific skills:

- Light/Heavy armor behind appropriate skill

- Weapons behind weapon skills

- Tools behind Mother Load (if i remember clearly)

- Foods, Drinks, Medicine, Seeds, etc. behind various skills

Having all of that in mind:

1. Some people will be satisfied with 1-2 points invested into Mother Load, especially as the 1st level doesn't need Strength investment and 2nd level requires STR 2 i think...

2. Investing 1-2 points into Better Barter or Daring Adventurer could give enough for most, although level 3 of BB will give better Stash (requiring INT 5 i think).

3. Putting 1-2 points in either of the stealth skills (stealth damage and better stealth, forgot names ) could prove to be sufficient for most players. I got 2 points in each (even though i'm making an AGI build) and it serves me well enough.

4. If you want a Forge from the get go there is the Advanced Engineering 1, which doesn't require INT investment. Hell, i haven't found anywhere (even at trader) no Crucibles, yet found the Forge schematic at some point...

5. In the same manner, found most of the Seed recipes, some of the Medicine, drinks and foods. Even so, invested 1 point in Living Off The Land to have more produce from plants (i have a nice, small farm), invested 1 into Cooking to get the basic meats and drinks (even though i mostly eat Meat Stew now).

IN SUMMARY:

If you mean a skill is a must have, perhaps you mean investing at least 1-2 points into it, which i agree in some cases could be argued. I don't need Adv.Eng. 1 to craft a forge, unless i don't find a schematic. I don't need Liv.Of.Land 1 (or whatever level gives it) to craft seeds. I don't need investment into skills to craft high level tools/armor/weapons. I don't need Better Barter or Hidden Stash to have better goods to buy. I don't need Healing Factor, Pain Tolerance, Animal Tracking, Flurry of Blows, Parkour or other "support" (as i call it) skills. Even so, all of these ARE useful if you get them.

What i DO NEED is investment into the specific weapon skill i intend to use.

 

[BaconsTV]

@Khulkhuum

All I can say is day 9, no forge drop or schematic + 2 traders no forge to buy or schematic. Only found 1 working forge at the trader. So that to me really feels like its a must-have. Morning of day 8 got a minibike if I can scrounge up 90000 / 0? before restock on day 10 I can get a gyrocopter.. but no forge lol

IMO the forge, work table are basic like the campfire. Not talking about the crucible as that is IMO advanced tec, which could be a skill or schematic, however, the points needed in obtaining that knowledge is way too high and I bet I get the crucible / schematic before a forge at this rate loooooool

I just feel that the % in getting a forge/basic stuff to get going like work table is a little too low in comparison to other "high tier" items in-game.

What i DO NEED is investment into the specific weapon skill i intend to use.

TBH I would love to see us skill up by using something/doing something more. The more you use a bow, for example, you level in that as if you were putting the skills into that section(getting our current skill bonuses that we already have in-game). The more you sneak close to enemies without being detected, the more your sneak skill increases, successful sneak attacks increase that skill(forgot its name). I wonder how it would play out if for example at lower levels of a "skill" / skill set there was a % at failing in creating something / lowest and worse quality(if its armour/weapon/tool). At higher levels in that area % to fail decreases depending on the "complexity" of whatever you are trying to make.

...

LOL or we have a wondering "know it all" and pay him/her to teach us some stuff....... like make a forge hahaha

Dont get me wrong, I love the game, been playing before alpha 16 for sure and I was just sharing my thoughts on the whole skill thing not demanding anything hah I just dont want peeps to think that at all.

 

[Khulkhuum]

I think it still depends on the person. You need a forge fast and there are more people like you who need it before a certain day. Perhaps i'm easier to adjust, because i'd simply do something else instead of thinkin about forged iron or concrete making.

Perhaps one day i'll do a playthrough without using a forge and only one skill tree (with the exception of a few skills i always take, like Healing Factor).

 

[quyxkh]

*trigger response, sorry: Mother Lode. "Lode" is vein, supply, cache, minor cornucopia.

other stuff: tool crafting quality is behind 69er, which also boosts wall/doorbashing damage so it's a really sweet skill to run up to 4.

 

[meganoth]

@Khulkhuum
All I can say is day 9, no forge drop or schematic + 2 traders no forge to buy or schematic. Only found 1 working forge at the trader. So that to me really feels like its a must-have. Morning of day 8 got a minibike if I can scrounge up 90000 / 0? before restock on day 10 I can get a gyrocopter.. but no forge lol

IMO the forge, work table are basic like the campfire. Not talking about the crucible as that is IMO advanced tec, which could be a skill or schematic, however, the points needed in obtaining that knowledge is way too high and I bet I get the crucible / schematic before a forge at this rate loooooool

You have found a working forge at a trader. Why don't you use it?

You have the choice to either build a base near that trader or pay one measly perk point to get the forge recipe and build a forge anywhere you want. An integral part of a survival game is adapting to what you find or not find, and making sometimes tough decisions. It makes every game a little different than the previous.

I just feel that the % in getting a forge/basic stuff to get going like work table is a little too low in comparison to other "high tier" items in-game.

Lets assume the game is set up so that on average a player finds a forge recipe on day 5. If 10000 players all start a game of 7D2D and look for forges there will be a small subset of players who find the forge recipe on day 1 or after day 9, and most players will find it between day 2 and 8. And there will be a few players who haven't found it even after day 10. How do you know after just one playthrough whether you are one of those few or the % is wrong?

TBH I would love to see us skill up by using something/doing something more. The more you use a bow, for example, you level in that as if you were putting the skills into that section(getting our current skill bonuses that we already have in-game). The more you sneak close to enemies without being detected, the more your sneak skill increases, successful sneak attacks increase that skill(forgot its name). I wonder how it would play out if for example at lower levels of a "skill" / skill set there was a % at failing in creating something / lowest and worse quality(if its armour/weapon/tool). At higher levels in that area % to fail decreases depending on the "complexity" of whatever you are trying to make.

...

LOL or we have a wondering "know it all" and pay him/her to teach us some stuff....... like make a forge hahaha

Dont get me wrong, I love the game, been playing before alpha 16 for sure and I was just sharing my thoughts on the whole skill thing not demanding anything hah I just dont want peeps to think that at all.

 

[Khulkhuum]

Yes, Mother Lode... SMH...

Didn't see that mention, where you said you found a forge at the trader. I didn't have a problem using the forge at the trader for 2 weeks until i bought some for my base and even later on crafted more myself (found the schematic). I also used the cement mixer that was there (i found the schematic earlier than a working in trader wares, so i crafted all for my base, not bought).

Live and adapt to the situation.

 

[BaconsTV]

You have found a working forge at a trader. Why don't you use it?
You have the choice to either build a base near that trader or pay one measly perk point to get the forge recipe and build a forge anywhere you want. An integral part of a survival game is adapting to what you find or not find, and making sometimes tough decisions. It makes every game a little different than the previous.

Lets assume the game is set up so that on average a player finds a forge recipe on day 5. If 10000 players all start a game of 7D2D and look for forges there will be a small subset of players who find the forge recipe on day 1 or after day 9, and most players will find it between day 2 and 8. And there will be a few players who haven't found it even after day 10. How do you know after just one playthrough whether you are one of those few or the % is wrong?

Yeah I am using the snot out of that poor forge for sure, im not that dumb haha