Who wants Alpha 11 as the Sandbox Version

[meganoth]

I mean yeah, that's exactly it. When I play a game, any game, I always try to find the most efficient way to play. Now I realize thats a "me" problem, but I strongly suspect that there are more people who play that way than there are that play your way. I envy that you can ignore the systems and do whatever you want, but I find it annoying that if I want to play a certain way, baton and shotgun for example, I have to intentionally hurt my overall progression to do so. I think that the fact that it wasn't always that way makes it even harder to accept.

Though lets compare that with A12-A16 for example. If I wanted to play say shotgun in that game, I could do that for a while. But then other weapons overtook because they were wildly better and I could not anymore (If I remember correctly). Since weapons types were follwing a power level then your choice (using the efficient way) left you no choice but to drop shotgun eventually. Even not using the efficient way there was no way to use shotgun or pistol in endgame, because they were simply too weak for the zombies you encountered then

 

[Kalen]

Though lets compare that with A12-A16 for example. If I wanted to play say shotgun in that game, I could do that for a while. But then other weapons overtook because they were wildly better and I could not anymore (If I remember correctly). Since weapons types were follwing a power level then your choice (using the efficient way) left you no choice but to drop shotgun eventually. Even not using the efficient way there was no way to use shotgun or pistol in endgame, because they were simply too weak for the zombies you encountered then

Yup. Never said the older versions didn't have problems. But, to me, there is a huge difference between "can't efficiently use shotguns because there are better weapons" and "can't efficiently use shotguns because the game system hampers my progression because I'm trying to use batons too"

 

[meganoth]

I actually agree with you that the quest loop has been the dominating factor in the game. And that for a long time. But in the last one or two alphas they actually nerfed the trader a bit which seems to speak against your theory below that they WANT players to do this exclusively because it is the most efficient way.

A large part of this is a balance problem though. If you quest you still have to add the time to go back to the trader. If he would give you just so much money,xp and loot that it would be equivalent to the time wasted running back then there would be a real choice. The only problem left would be the reputation. There would have to be a different way to earn reputation as well, not an unsurmountable problem.

We've had this discussion for years by now, so I'm just going to snipe a few things; hopefully in a fair way still, but..

It's not mandatory, as I said, Alt-F4. But it's one part of the rails .. it's a part of the gravity well of the quest loop, EVERYTHING in the game is pulling the player towards it.


Hmm, I was under the impression that vitamins wouldn't cure it? Maybe they do, I dunno.
And where would you get those vitamins reliably..? Oh right, the quest loop.

As reliable as if you were looting without quests. Quest rewards are random as well and I found them in loot just as much as they were offered as quest rewards. At least I don't remember ever having some notion that vitamin as quest reward were especially valuable because I could not find them in loot, and in my last game I don't remember taking them as quest reward, though I might have forgotten it.

"I feel forced to do things on rails" .. "No, but why can't you just do a little on the rails. Just a little railing, it won't hurt."
"Buy a coffee" implies making surplus money to waste it on a coffee... how to make it fast? Back to the quest loop you go!

I feel like I'm forced to run a marathon on the track. Just a few laps, he says, it won't hurt.
Once I've done those couple laps, the next thing is.. run a few more.


Soo, you're looting the bookshelves, next to the mailbox, but you skip the mailbox? Like I said, yes, Alt-F4 is an option.

That is not what he said. He was refering to players running around a town to loot every mailbox, which currently is the most efficient way to get crafting up. That is where another big balance problem exists that could be fixed relatively easy (one I have mentioned a few times in the forum already).

Dunno if you're implying that I'm doing it; not in the strict sense, just as part of the quest loop, exactly as designed.


Why? Why waste the resources for the quality tiers that last a day? You're going to be absolutely fine with the quest loop items until you get to the point you can make something the quest loop won't provide. You can spend the time, or you can just go open the next quest loop end loot and find the same thing in it, for free.


Immersion, you can call it that. A character that reflects the gear changes, a world that lives around you (changing temps) forcing you to react, and the way to obtain a puffer was a clothing store, not a "Gather some snow, blueberries and ..." -shopping list. A world that provided meat for the hunter (now even that is tied to getting to burnt biome for boars.. quest loop!).

You can still see an image of a world there, if you stop and look for it. But the base nature of it has been shifting to a linear grind. The biome badge nonsense was the obvious culmination, both absolutely strictly linear and 100% a UI-mechanic. That's what TFP wants to be doing, so that's why they released it as was; unsuspecting of any wrong.

They want it linear, so everything is, how is this news?

 

[meganoth]

Yup. Never said the older versions didn't have problems. But, to me, there is a huge difference between "can't efficiently use shotguns because there are better weapons" and "can't efficiently use shotguns because the game system hampers my progression because I'm trying to use batons too"

I once posted the math that with somewhat the same amount of perk points you could get one tree up to have two weapons at 5 you could as well get two trees up so a melee from one tree and a gun from the other tree are both at 4. The disadvantage is about 10 to 20% less DPS, the advantage is free choice of weapons (including optimal choices that are much better than the class-only ones which easily counts for some percent) and a wider choice of better perks (as each tree has a few excellent ones and a few duds).

This does not work as well if you go into three trees. And if you find the +1 attribute mod for exactly your tree then that is worth +1 or +2 for single tree (not +3 as it would be useful for the double-tree player as well, to a lesser extent)

Yes, there is a difference, but not that huge in my opinion.

 

[Kalen]

I once posted the math that with somewhat the same amount of perk points you could get one tree up to have two weapons at 5 you could as well get two trees up so a melee from one tree and a gun from the other tree are both at 4. The disadvantage is about 10 to 20% less DPS, the advantage is free choice of weapons (including optimal choices that are much better than the class-only ones which easily counts for some percent) and a wider choice of better perks (as each tree has a few excellent ones and a few duds).

This does not work as well if you go into three trees. And if you find the +1 attribute mod for exactly your tree then that is worth +1 or +2 for single tree (not +3 as it would be useful for the double-tree player as well, to a lesser extent)

Yes, there is a difference, but not that huge in my opinion.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree about how big a difference it is. To me, one is a logical difference (some weapons are better than others) one is a gamey difference (the developers decided it).

I'll take your word for it that you can mathematically spec into 2 trees with minimal difference, but thats not really the point. The point is that its designed in such a way to encourage you to stick to a set group of weapons based on your attributes. That is a direction I was not happy with.

 

[meganoth]

Ok i will humor you a little.
As for choice i did explain how the game penalizes you for deviating from the set trees and you were unable to grasp that concept. The only thing you provided was you have the choice of game difficulty however in co-op the server configuration file removes all those options from the player.

Now for a simplified XML example (these are only examples as i dont have the files in front of me and not able to load the game to get the exact points required so i can be sure it will be wrong if taken literary but the concept im trying to convey still rings true)

Game stage progression = increased zombie strength from what i can remember from the past it was very much a linear progression (i will assume its the same in 2.0)
Player progression = Damage output (DPS) this also factors in things like stamina and chance single hit kills

We are also going to assume that the game difficulty is also set to a limit which matches the players skill level
As you play through the game "game stage" increases spawning new zombie types (stronger) and at the same time you are increasing your DPS via skill points into weapon based skills under one single skill tree.

This progression is tied together and the skill trees have been balanced in this way by the dev's. Even more so now with the mastery perks that have been added giving huge increases in DPS to keep pace with the game stage.

Now lets say you diversify.
Game stage progression is linear so there is no change there but now you have put points across 3 trees. Because you have diversified and it requires a set number of points to reach each level of the mastery perks. The ability to have the (some times double) the DPS which is required to keep pace with the linear progression. Diversifying is not balanced and as a result you the player are penalized for not following the path of the dev's within that skill tree... Only after you have focused on one tree and max out the DPS can you branch out. But by that stage when you wish to change out to a different weapon you have the DPS of day 1 but game stage of day 50

This is just one basic concept but the same can be applied to things like infection chance & healing, damage mitigation and many more.. The whole game is now built and balanced around following the set path they have outlined in the 5 trees.

In the past the progression was based around the same concept however you could chose which perk you wanted to spec into when you wanted without requiring a huge points dump into specific tress just to allow the options to open up to the player. Yes you still needed to specialize or the game would outpace you but you had the choice in what you wanted to specialize in.. Not just 5 trees. it was anything and everything.

I honestly dont know how to simplify it any further... Hope this helps either way...

If you play at a difficulty level where you need every percentage of DPS and other advantage to stay above the enemy difficulty then you need to play with the best path available in the game. In consequence you only have one path available in any game that isn't perfectly balanced. 7days isn't and can't ever be, because there is no way to bring all play styles and number of players this game can be played with to be perfectly balanced. (Not saying they shouldn't balance it further, it helps, but there will always be a meta that is the best and fastest way to play the game)

So there is a level of play where you may be forced to play only one tree but not the absolute best path, but many players fall outside that path and either could easily do a double-tree game or are fixed to a game where they have no choice anyway and have to follow that one true best path

 

[theFlu]

But in the last one or two alphas they actually nerfed the trader a bit which seems to speak against your theory below that they WANT players to do this exclusively because it is the most efficient way.

They've nerfed things, yes, based on feedback; but their own implementations are the best indicator of their intent. They added a quest cap to slow the progress down; that was quickly made into a setting. Because there's nothing to do outside what you'd do for questing.
They added biome progression that just happens to line up with the quest progression, and their "intended" rate of progress (I guess the intent about 1 week per biome). They could force a more creative / choicy gameplay by making the biomes progress in a different order to traders. That'd feel less like a monorail. Not much better, but something they probably didn't even think about being a possibility.

That is not what he said. He was refering to players running around a town to loot every mailbox, which currently is the most efficient way to get crafting up.

He said HE hasn't looted mailbox in days, while randomly gaining recipes in the world. Looting, but not looting the mailboxes that are everywhere.

And yes, I simplified the notion of exactly measured progress via number of book-loot-containers to "exact-to-a-tee progress through number-of-mailboxes looted"; the idea wasn't exactly about mailboxes, but the written in stone progress and progress rate generated through the magazines. All that is missing is a skill-level to day-number comparison while looting, to really lock down the looting odds. TFP would implement that if they ever thinked that far.

As reliable as if you were looting without quests.

Yeah, you can Alt-F4. If you don't do a quest while looting, you're desyncing your biome progress from the trader progress. It's not about "can you do something specific a little differently", it's about all the systems driving you to the same thing.

Gimme actual hunting to feed myself and no food in POIs, now SOMETHING is pointing to something else. Require mining to get the brass for ammo, instead of drowning you in ammo and if you still manage to be low, earning "dukes" to smelt. But no, even the backup way to get ammo is the ■■■■ quest loop.

 

[Sapient6]

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree about how big a difference it is. To me, one is a logical difference (some weapons are better than others) one is a gamey difference (the developers decided it).

Both seem pretty gamey, and very much "the developers decided it", to me.

In the real world if we had a zombie apocalypse (lol) I would 100% go with a shotgun over any other gun, and you'd be hard pressed to come up with a better gun for killing zombies that would be practical to carry around everywhere you go. Shotguns have it all. They demolish what you point them at, and they do so at range (the very concept that a shotgun is a close quarters weapon is the most video gamey of all firearm video game mechanics).

 

[Suxar]

now forced to spread the points over 3 trees losing out on all the bonus's (outlined more by the mastery branch)

You are blatantly lying. You are not forced to, you want it yourself.

Now that non-weapon skills are removed from the branches, you can fully focus on the one you like best and get all the mastery skills. In the old version, I was forced to pump agility to improve my light armor skills. Or strength to improve cooking skills. Or endurance to improve farming. This is no longer the case.

 

[Charger265]

If you play at a difficulty level where you need every percentage of DPS and other advantage to stay above the enemy difficulty then you need to play with the best path available in the game. In consequence you only have one path available in any game that isn't perfectly balanced. 7days isn't and can't ever be, because there is no way to bring all play styles and number of players this game can be played with to be perfectly balanced. (Not saying they shouldn't balance it further, it helps, but there will always be a meta that is the best and fastest way to play the game)

So there is a level of play where you may be forced to play only one tree but not the absolute best path, but many players fall outside that path and either could easily do a double-tree game or are fixed to a game where they have no choice anyway and have to follow that one true best path

See now this is exactly why i wanted to disengage from the discussion. Its a singular thought process.
You can lead a horse to water but you cant make the horse drink.

Look i really do get that you have the mod tag and you feel the need to assert some form of dominance over anyone who has any dissenting opinion to yours but to argue for the sake of arguing come on... I was honestly hoping you could see the other side of the coin to find some happy middle ground to ensure there is a place for people to hash ideas out and have them available to the dev team. isnt that what official forums are used for?

I once posted the math that with somewhat the same amount of perk points you could get one tree up to have two weapons at 5 you could as well get two trees up so a melee from one tree and a gun from the other tree are both at 4. The disadvantage is about 10 to 20% less DPS,

Now i could follow the same path that the forum follows here and say you have made a statement and claimed you have completed math. Now you need to prove that. But to be honest i just dont care at this point.

I am really starting to see how the official forum hasnt helped the dev team and pretty sure why they prefer to post in other locations than here...
As i have said before TFP's need to get a good PR team together. I want the game to survive. But i will be brutally honest and sincere, this whole forum and the culture is not managed with the degree that is required. It would appear that TFP's are not the only team that needs a restructure.

This is a perfect example

You are blatantly lying. You are not forced to, you want it yourself.

Now that non-weapon skills are removed from the branches, you can fully focus on the one you like best and get all the mastery skills. In the old version, I was forced to pump agility to improve my light armor skills. Or strength to improve cooking skills. Or endurance to improve farming. This is no longer the case.

BTW perfect timing Suxar thanks

 

[HammerDano]

@Roland
It was a clever move, changing the wording of the argument, getting these guys to try to name play styles that were removed.
just like not answering the meat of my post. make it about something else.

Most of your arguments are based off of YOUR opinion but you are stating it as fact. Kills conversation...most people will not push back on a MODERATOR.
you and Meganoth are arguing with people why everything is okay with game...it's their fault they don't get how to play it.
excellent gas lighting...■■■■ty behavior.

 

[Kalen]

@Roland
It was a clever move, changing the wording of the argument, getting these guys to try to name play styles that were removed.
just like not answering the meat of my post. make it about something else.

Most of your arguments are based off of YOUR opinion but you are stating it as fact. Kills conversation...most people will not push back on a MODERATOR.
you and Meganoth are arguing with people why everything is okay with game...it's their fault they don't get how to play it.
excellent gas lighting...■■■■ty behavior.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I honestly can't see how anyone can argue that the game hasn't become more restrictive over the years. People can argue about how restrictive.... or whether that's a good or bad thing.... but arguing that it hasn't seems disingenuous, IMO.

 

[meganoth]

See now this is exactly why i wanted to disengage from the discussion. Its a singular thought process.
You can lead a horse to water but you cant make the horse drink.

Look i really do get that you have the mod tag and you feel the need to assert some form of dominance over anyone who has any dissenting opinion to yours but to argue for the sake of arguing come on... I was honestly hoping you could see the other side of the coin to find some happy middle ground to ensure there is a place for people to hash ideas out and have them available to the dev team. isnt that what official forums are used for?

What, really? My post was just like any other post someone here could have posted, polite, not assuming any intentions why you posted whatever you posted, on topic, just with a different viewpoint. And you immediately jump onto the meta-level and practically accuse me of being a moderator and attach motivations why I would post this as if you could read my mind.

 

[Soulmonster]

Sorry, we disagree,
He speaks for TFP...he has a title. and he just blurted out stuff that would go over like a lead fart in a balloon...how is that good for the community harmony? they are supposed to be concerned about that...not stirring stuff up.
I am not against them posting on separate accounts.

Post automatically merged: Aug 6, 2025

maybe it should be someone who doesn't behave like this?

You are the one stirring stuff up. First you misread what he said (pre A16), then you misinterpreted as some official statements, and finally you threw a fit when caught out. What a drama queen.

 

[HammerDano]

You are the one stirring stuff up. First you misread what he said (pre A16), then you misinterpreted as some official statements, and finally you threw a fit when caught out. What a drama queen.

is this his alternate account?
The only part that is true from that is I did jump to a conclusion (i did not confirm it with him either...mostly because he ignores anything I say except the parts he feeels like answering.)


the rest of it stands...he is talking ■■■■ instead of moderating. he is passing off opinion as fact...and because he is a moderator MOST people back off...that kills a lot of conversation. All to avoid talking about the parts he don't want to address. Pulling Debate Lord bs is not what a moderator should be doing.

 

[HammerDano]

and are they going to actually just keep plowing on without talking to the community...asking for feedback like they said they would?
how hard is that to answer? should be easy.

 

[Soulmonster]

is this his alternate account?
The only part that is true from that is I did jump to a conclusion (i did not confirm it with him either...mostly because he ignores anything I say except the parts he feeels like answering.)


the rest of it stands...he is talking ■■■■ instead of moderating. he is passing off opinion as fact...and because he is a moderator MOST people back off...that kills a lot of conversation. All to avoid talking about the parts he don't want to address. Pulling Debate Lord bs is not what a moderator should be doing.

Ironically, on most forums from where I have experience, more moderation would result in you being warned or banned. So count yourself lucky for the inclusive and tolerant rules here.

As for whether a moderator shouldn't be allowed to post their own opinions: The only argument against this is the odd chance that some members would mistakenly believe posts from moderators somehow being official TFP statements while they are clearly just expressed opinions. And normally I'd give that likelihood a less than 1% chance...

Post automatically merged: Friday at 2:24 PM

and are they going to actually just keep plowing on without talking to the community...asking for feedback like they said they would?
how hard is that to answer? should be easy.

I don't think they necessarily monitor all threads here eagerly looking for entitled members' questions to answer. Secondly, if I were them I'd likely not answer you too, just to see if you would explode.

 

[HammerDano]

Ironically, on most forums from where I have experience, more moderation would result in you being warned or banned. So count yourself lucky for the inclusive and tolerant rules here.

As for whether a moderator shouldn't be allowed to post their own opinions: The only argument against this is the odd chance that some members would mistakenly believe posts from moderators somehow being official TFP statements while they are clearly just expressed opinions. And normally I'd give that likelihood a less than 1% chance...

Post automatically merged: Friday at 2:24 PM

I don't think they necessarily monitor all threads here eagerly looking for entitled members' questions to answer. Secondly, if I were them I'd likely not answer you too, just to see if you would explode.

well...that's funny, because having THIS open a conversation has not been possible on this site until this week. I have been banned more than once just trying to have an honest conversation.

I'll ignore you trying to flame the conversation...he ignores direct questions from me...he's not the only one that does that...there is no need to invent an excuse or an insult for it. They don't like to answer questions that contradict their narrative.

 

[Soulmonster]

well...that's funny, because having THIS open a conversation has not been possible on this site until this week. I have been banned more than once just trying to have an honest conversation.

I don't see you attempt for an "honest conversation". I see abrasive, antagonistic, bad faith trolling. I might be wrong, and maybe you are sincere in your attempts just utterly unable to have a polite, civil conversation. If so you should try to figure out why you come across so offensive and stop blaming others. The fact that you are banned isn't because people are out to get you, it is because you are uncouth and disruptive to civil discourse.

Post automatically merged: Friday at 3:19 PM

he ignores direct questions from me...he's not the only one that does that...there is no need to invent an excuse or an insult for it. They don't like to answer questions that contradict their narrative.

Who is "he"? Are you still laboring under the confusion that the moderators here are representatives for TFP? The moderators doesn't have to answer your needy and entitled "demands" for answers, nor does TFP. If you dislike the game so much, just stop playing and go on with your life like a normal human being. This pestering for a response is childishly embarrassing.

 

[Roland]

Ok i will humor you a little.
As for choice i did explain how the game penalizes you for deviating from the set trees and you were unable to grasp that concept.

Boy, you don’t disappoint with the condescension but I gave you leave after all…lol. I did grasp what you were saying and I’ll recap to prove it. You’re claim is that the world difficulty is balanced to increase based on the player choosing one attribute tree so that if a player chooses more than one they are at a greater disadvantage vs the gamestage progression. You frame this situation as a penalty that should not exist. You want players to be able to choose any combination of skills and perks that they wish for the same exact cost in skill points as any other. What did I miss?

The only thing you provided was you have the choice of game difficulty however in co-op the server configuration file removes all those options from the player.

My point about difficulty is that the game is balanced with default settings in mind. At default difficulty I disagree with your assessment that the game’s difficulty outpaces the player’s ability progression even if the player dabbled in all five attributes. At default+1 in my last playthrough I was using an unperked Aussalt Rifle and doing fine vs the new blue and orange baddies.

As a player, if you’re not going to run your own server, then shop around for one that has the difficulty setting you want.

Game stage progression = increased zombie strength from what i can remember from the past it was very much a linear progression (i will assume its the same in 2.0)
Player progression = Damage output (DPS) this also factors in things like stamina and chance single hit kills

We are also going to assume that the game difficulty is also set to a limit which matches the players skill level
As you play through the game "game stage" increases spawning new zombie types (stronger) and at the same time you are increasing your DPS via skill points into weapon based skills under one single skill tree.

This progression is tied together and the skill trees have been balanced in this way by the dev's. Even more so now with the mastery perks that have been added giving huge increases in DPS to keep pace with the game stage.

Now lets say you diversify.
Game stage progression is linear so there is no change there but now you have put points across 3 trees. Because you have diversified and it requires a set number of points to reach each level of the mastery perks. The ability to have the (some times double) the DPS which is required to keep pace with the linear progression. Diversifying is not balanced and as a result you the player are penalized for not following the path of the dev's within that skill tree... Only after you have focused on one tree and max out the DPS can you branch out. But by that stage when you wish to change out to a different weapon you have the DPS of day 1 but game stage of day 50

One thing you forget to add into this is strategies and abilities granted to a player due to the voxel nature of the game. Players can lay down spikes and blockades to create choke points. Even unperked you can place a robotic sledge in a doorway to keep the onslaught of enemies to a manageable level. Players can retreat and build perches they can get to out of reach of enemies. These strategies give players an advantage that go way beyond simply comparing DPS values vs gamestaged spawning values.

I have personal experience mixing three attributes and having no problem meeting the challenges of the game. Most things I read tend to be of the opinion that the player becomes an OP god that cannot be killed. If running three attributes can keep us a bit more vulnerable into the late game I see that as a positive outcome.

I understand the desire to be able to choose any pairing of any weapons and have any mix of abilities for always the same cost but I don’t think that would be a good outcome for the game. I like that there are load-outs that cost more and also offer a unique challenge. If any and every possible combination could be chosen at the same exact cost might that not result in the best combo being discovered and then always chosen?

In the past the progression was based around the same concept however you could chose which perk you wanted to spec into when you wanted without requiring a huge points dump into specific tress just to allow the options to open up to the player. Yes you still needed to specialize or the game would outpace you but you had the choice in what you wanted to specialize in.. Not just 5 trees. it was anything and everything.