PC Why you broke your game

[OzHawkeye]

If you like A17 I'm happy for you. But it objectively ISN'T the best alpha.

Whether for or against A17, I think the correct word there is subjectively not objectively.

There's definitely elements to A17 I hope change, but there's also lots of people who are totally, 100%, happy with it. It's the very definition of subjective.

 

[ejlarson]

So every time any one of the many players give negative feedback on here they get called emotional, aggressive, combative, are told they dont know the game, are playing it wrongly or that its alpha and any of a multitude of other reasons why their feedback is not wanted or wrong.
So here is some factual feedback for you.

1. Tools

Previously a player could find, make or buy, tools of different levels of quality, this is a fact

Previously a player would progress from poor quality tool to eventually Q600 steel tools, this gave a long progression curve and every time the player found, or bought or made a better tool they progressed, this progression was satisfying.

The new tool system means the grey fireaxe does the same damage as the purple fireaxe, sure the better quality ones have more mod slots but more are hard to come by and are random in what you find. Other than durability there is zero reason to want a better tool than the one you find in a random container on day 1, this damages the players sense of accomplishment because their progression is extremely limited.

2. Guns

Previously a player could find, make or buy weapons and weapon parts from Q1 to Q600. In order to put a weapon together or disssemble it you needed to find instructions on how to do it (schematics). When you found a new part or gun that was better than your current one you progressed, this was satisfying.

Now the gun thats level 1 and grey that you find one day 1 does the same damage as a level six purple one, it has less mod slots but again finding mods and or schematics to use/make mods is random and rare and cannot be counted on therefore you have no incentive to try and find better guns and the fun you had from continually working towards a high quality gun is totally gone

3. Armour

Same argument as for guns and tool, you took away the progression

4. Exploration

Many players like to explore the world, finding new places is fun, discovering new towns and cities is fun, some players like to build far out in the sticks, some like to find the 'perfect' spot for their base, this is fun to many players.

A combination of massively nerfing stamina usage and regen PLUS the removal of all the useful stamina drinks and the mass nerfing of coffee and beer means that you cannot now run more than about 100m without being out of stamina and having to rest constantly, this is not fun.

You have massively nerfed exploration and taken away that choice of gamestyle

5. Claim stones

You have limited all players to one claim stone and therefore hurt both you pve and pvp playerbase because now the players who like to build large elaborate bases cannot do so anymore because other players can destroy and grief them. You have also massively negated the usefulness of claim stones because only having one it is trivial for an enemy (pve or pvp) to count out the location of that claim stone and easily remove it.

This change takes away one of the biggest fun elements (large scale building) from the game

6. Zombie damage

You have greatly increased the damage zombies do to blocks and this combined with their changed AI means that even a reinforced concrete base is useless against a horde, they just chew right through it. This invalidates the desire for a player to spend a lot of time building a base when they know the zombies will just chew it up

This change greatly reduces the base building aspect of the game

7. Digging zombies

Many players of all types preferred to choose when and how they fought zombies, by some players building underground they gave themselves choices on how they played that did not, ever and in any way, affect other players, by making zombies magically know you are hiding at bedrock you took away this play option completely

8. Bedrock depth

Many players liked to build huge bases surrounded by moats at bedrock and then filled in these moats with spikes knowing that the fall would kill most (not all) zombies. These bases took enormous time and effort to construct and the sense of achievement when finishing them and having excellent defenses was a source of pride for many players. By nerfing bedrock depth severely and reducing fall damage to zombies you have remove this playstyle option for players and removed the players choice on how to protect themselves

9. Level gating perks

No objection to the perk system itself however it is gated by having to spend points to buy them, it is further gated because you have to buy the points in a perk tree in sequential order. To then add completely arbitrary level gates to this totally removes the players choices for specialisation and it is a punative and deliberate blatant ploy to slow the player down

In A16 you could and players did, choose to specialise, you have removed this from the game

10. Death penalty

Previously the penalty for death was reduced health and the run to get your bag back, I dont recall anyone complaining about this and it was well balanced. Now, even after your partial reduction of the death timer debuff the players are horribly punished for dying and this in a game which has many situations seemingly devised to give you no chance to live (traps in POI's, random dog or wolf hordes popping next to you, ferals on day etc etc)

This punishment is over harsh and discouraging and demotivates players from playing.

In summary you have removed the choices of players in many areas, you have removed the base building, the choices players made in how to fight, their ability to fight, their ability to be creative with large bases, their sense of progression in many many areas and increased the grind by (subjectively in my opinion) about 300%.

You have done with at the same time as adding precisely one end game item (Jeep) which many players wont even bother with. You did not add legendary weapons or armour or tools, you did not add bandits, you did not enhance electricity.

You have ruined the fun element of your game for a large proportion of your playerbase, I have 53 friends on steam who used to play 7dtd, this week i saw 'one' of them playing and when i asked around they all told me it was broken and grindy and just no fun anymore.

Meh. I like this version the best so far. I have about 1500 hours to date. I play slow, but by day 50-60 there was pretty much nothing left to accomplish in previous versions. That is not the case now.

TFP = well done!

 

[Limdood]

I agree with roland on most points...

I agree with roland on points 1-3. The simplified loot is fine...I'm QUITE happy to find a level 5 wrench early on...it means i don't have to worry about another one until like level 80. The mods have replaced the quality and give more customization and random finding joy than the Q1-600 tools ever did to me. Add in NO quality reduction for repairs? I'm 100% into it.

strongly disagree on the exploration (travel is AGONIZING compared to A16, and the Trader quests that take half a day to TRAVEL to and from compound the issue). Level 30 is fairly significant, especially with the gamestage ramping quickly in response to player levelling, and level 30 merely unlocks the bicycle, which, with the stamina drain acting like running now, is roughly twice as fast, minus getting on/off/stashing the bike...so with a bike its now a quarter of the day just...riding to and from a location. yay.

I disagree on 6 as well...the zombie damage is just dumb. I'm not asking for realism. I'm asking for balance. If the zombies can take down a steel door in seconds with their bare hands, why am i swinging for a minute straight with an iron pick? When i enter a house and hear a zombie outside aggro, and by the time i get through one more door, the zombie outside has punched a hole through 4 different walls, then the game feels dumb. You want zombies to pose a threat to a concrete bunker...i get it....then why does it take so utterly, ridiculously, stupidly long for the player to do the exact same damage as zombies even with quality tools and perks?

Lastly, imo, the Neardeathtrauma debuff is the single most intolerable thing i've ever experienced in this game. I simply will not play with it. I'll play on friend's servers who have modded it out, or i'll console command it away. If i ever do go onto the regular MP server that strangers host and die, then thats probably the end of that character. being reduced to effective level 1 while the game progresses is utterly infuriating. I won't play with it, and I won't sit and wait for it to end. If I'm ever unable to hand-wave it away, it's likely to be the sole cause of shelving the game.

 

[grieferbastard]

'Slow pickaxes and tools results in less mining and, conversely, less building. This drives scavenging only which significantly reduces one of the key facets of the game - building. Making building and the gathering of resources for building faster would make all stages of the game more enjoyable for building in. If there's a concern about spamming resources just increase the resource cost as you scale up the tech tree for better block types.'

That? That's useful feedback. It presents an issue, the cause and the result. Then it presents a solution. It's also mature and polite, which equates directly to being worth reading.

'The new stamina and slow tools are crap, what idiot though that was a good idea? Clearly TFP just doesn't understand how to make a good game or they just hate building and want to kill building and mining as playstyles. What a failure.'

That is worthless. It's like a child ranting and is given this is a public place it's just throwing a tantrum in public. Other people who like drama and public tantrums and/or poor impulse control and/or poor communication skills are going to be drawn to it and so you get this little circle of worthless ranting and tantrums that does nothing useful in terms of the game.

I worked in the gaming industry for a bit over 10 years, most of it on some big name MMOs. Yes there's some parsing done to try and sort through all the whining and tantrums to identify useful information but to be honestly mostly it's ignored because it is, as I stated, worthless. There's a reason no game developers just do what the players cry about - they don't actually understand how game development works and don't think much about actual cause and effect. Also the ones who cry the loudest are in no way representative of what the main concerns are.

So when you're writing a feedback thread it's useful to keep in mind what you actually want to do. If you just want to pitch a fit in a public space, great. Just don't expect it to be taken seriously and that deep down nobody really cares because if you can't effectively communicate your concerns why should anyone think you even understand the issue. If the issue is you're made because you didn't get your way and don't really have a solution to offer, please circle back to 'nobody cares'.

If you want to give feedback that can result in changes or at least be part of the discussion, list the mechanic in question, the issue it creates and at least some kind of solution or direction of solution you'd be happy with, understanding that there will be compromises.

Also, what you like/your opinion /= 'most people' or even what's important. It's pretty irrelevant. Saying 'they ruined what I liked in the game and so the game is crap and doomed and they made a terrible mistake' is worthless. Saying 'Building and mining is less enjoyable, slower and less effective. As it's a part of the game that's been here since the beginning here are my suggestions for helping make that more viable' is useful.

 

[Poojam]

That is worthless.

No it's not. I understood him completely. You apparently did too.

Dismissing criticism, because it's been worded in a way that triggers an anxiety attack within your safe space bubble is what I would call worthless. The coarse language is deserved in this instance, and it should be obvious if one spent over a year changing the game from a system that worked to one that doesn't.

 

[grieferbastard]

No it's not. I understood him completely. You apparently did too.
Dismissing criticism, because it's been worded in a way that triggers an anxiety attack within your safe space bubble is what I would call worthless. The coarse language is deserved in this instance, and it should be obvious if one spent over a year changing the game from a system that worked to one that doesn't.

Your post is sort of an example of what I was talking about. You tried to turn it into a personal attack and an implication that there's some safe space thing going on or anxiety attacks or whatever. So in general that sort of comment is going to get ignored.

There's no reference to course language. An f-bomb itself isn't an issue in something being useful. Your bit at the end,

and it should be obvious if one spent over a year changing the game from a system that worked to one that doesn't.

That's worthless. It's your opinion, devoid of actual feedback and stating an opinion as a fact. You not liking something and saying the old one worked and the new one doesn't? That's worthless. Nobody cares what you want or like or don't want or don't like. You could have spent those internet electrons talking about gum flavors. A lot of people do like the new system and it does work. This indicates you don't even understand what changed or how or why, so even trying to take the 'I hate X' bits seriously is difficult because how can put much value in someone saying 'I hate X' when they don't really understand what X is, what it did and what it does now.

There's a huge difference between dismissing criticism and filing outbursts under 'people who seem generally unhappy with something but don't seem to even understand what or why'. Which is pretty worthless.

 

[bloom_meister]

So here is some more factual feedback for you.

I normally play across 3 MP servers that I like the rulesets of, they have all been around for 2 years+ and have very loyal playerbases

I just checked all 3 servers

1 had 1 player

1 had 3 players

1 had 0 players

These are all servers that historically, even up the end of A16, had at least 15-20 people online at all times and this close to a major release I would normally even have to wait to get into some of them due to over capacity issues

You have killed your MP game stone dead.

 

[Ghostlight]

Such drama. Such nonsense.
A17e is actually one of the best Alpha releases of 7Days, and I've been around for a long time. A16.4 was an absolute snorefest, with no challenge, nor any difficulty. You had a forge going on on day 1, and iron tools on day 2. And you speak about fun and replayability?

I certainly speak about fun and replayability. And both of things have been hugely reduced in A17 compared to A16. You might not see this yet depending on how far you have gotten in A17, or whether you have started a second play-through, but by God they murdered both with this build.

 

[Ghostlight]

Meh. I like this version the best so far. I have about 1500 hours to date. I play slow, but by day 50-60 there was pretty much nothing left to accomplish in previous versions. That is not the case now.

100% Correct factually. However your conclusion is 100% wrong. The "nothing left to accomplish" point comes MUCH earlier in A17 than in A16. Earlier by far than any previous alpha I have played in fact. For me it was day 30. And I too am a slow player. Typically I'd take A16 runs to day 100 ~ 150 before I declared the map over. Day 30 here. And I would add that I have looted precisely half an average sized town and opened up almost nothing of my RNG map. At least in in A16 exploring was worthwhile.

Well done, huh?

 

[ricp]

You have killed your MP game stone dead.

This is not a like for like comparison, not only is the experimental only available to those who actively opt in but your "facts" only reflect the servers you follow and not across the board. Even then, it's only a presumption of yours that those servers have fewer people because they dislike the game.

I certainly speak about fun and replayability. And both of things have been hugely reduced in A17 compared to A16.

You need to put in a huge caveat here that that is in your opinion. I don't agree and I find the game fun. I honestly do not understand how you can be so explicit regarding replayablity when the game has only been out a few weeks. What's more it's still the experimental build and not stable.

No, Sir, with all due respect you've gone well past "subjective" and into the realms of "hyperbole"

 

[Poojam]

So here is some more factual feedback for you.
I normally play across 3 MP servers that I like the rulesets of, they have all been around for 2 years+ and have very loyal playerbases

I just checked all 3 servers

1 had 1 player

1 had 3 players

1 had 0 players

These are all servers that historically, even up the end of A16, had at least 15-20 people online at all times and this close to a major release I would normally even have to wait to get into some of them due to over capacity issues

You have killed your MP game stone dead.

Those players were playing the game wrong. It's not supposed to be a multiplayer game. A17 is the greatest! /s

 

[ricp]

Those players were playing the game wrong. It's not supposed to be a multiplayer game. A17 is the greatest! /s

If anything just about every 7DtD streamer I've watched play MP has said the changes have benefited the MP game considerably.

Now to be honest I don't play MP as being a bit of a misanthrope forum interaction is about as much direct human contact as I can take. That said, the positive comments given are persuading me I should give it a shot. The upside of that is that all those who are wetting their underwear regarding how apocalyptic this experimental build is won't be online and I won't need to listen to their ever present harping on about how bad things are.

 

[PoppaTot]

If anything just about every 7DtD streamer I've watched play MP has said the changes have benefited the MP game considerably.

I stream it, have a handful of streamer friends that do as well. Our consensus (small sample group) is that the does benefit MP because of the shared XP, however; we agree that we wouldn't/didn't need the shared XP with the A16.4 system. So yes, the game does benefit MP now, but that does not mean it's better off now. IMO

 

[ktr]

I stream it, have a handful of streamer friends that do as well. Our consensus (small sample group) is that the does benefit MP because of the shared XP, however; we agree that we wouldn't/didn't need the shared XP with the A16.4 system. So yes, the game does benefit MP now, but that does not mean it's better off now. IMO

For my group, we're really loving the changes so far. We're all happy to hear that the xp is getting rebalanced, but xp sharing overall is nice when we're all out together. In A16, our range players often didn't the score the killing blows and the result was I (who was the bruiser of the group, usually) ended up leveling much faster to the point where some of them couldn't go out looting with me because my level set the the game stage at POIs and I was getting irradiated cops and wights which often killed them.

The big thing we're still undecided on for multiplayer is the new perk system. We do not dislike the new system by any means, but we're finding it's not quite as easy for us specialize. However, that might just be a learning curve problem instead of a system problem.

 

[ricp]

I stream it, have a handful of streamer friends that do as well. Our consensus (small sample group) is that the does benefit MP because of the shared XP, however; we agree that we wouldn't/didn't need the shared XP with the A16.4 system. So yes, the game does benefit MP now, but that does not mean it's better off now. IMO

To be fair I think nobody really cares about the shared XP or the perks that gift close by members extra skills - I've not played it so I apologise for not being more precise about that. I think the main thing that comes across is that A16 MP always felt like A16 SP with MP tagged onto it. A17 MP seems to cater for MP specifically such as sharing quests and the like.

 

[WolfyBlah]

To be fair I think nobody really cares about the shared XP or the perks that gift close by members extra skills - I've not played it so I apologise for not being more precise about that. I think the main thing that comes across is that A16 MP always felt like A16 SP with MP tagged onto it. A17 MP seems to cater for MP specifically such as sharing quests and the like.

Nobody is saying that shared XP and quests are a bad thing as far as i can see (these are great new features, dunno why anyone would).

But its come at the cost of a more dynamic (objective) and enjoyable (subjective) system we had in A16

 

[PoppaTot]

A17 MP seems to cater for MP specifically such as sharing quests and the like.

I can totally see that, I/we haven't done many quests. Quest give out minimal XP and don't have a story line behind them (yet?). It's by far more beneficial to us to just go clear out POIs and farm XP so we can get past the stone age quicker.

 

[bloom_meister]

This is not a like for like comparison, not only is the experimental only available to those who actively opt in but your "facts" only reflect the servers you follow and not across the board. Even then, it's only a presumption of yours that those servers have fewer people because they dislike the game.

Lol seriously? yeah no, you're right, those hundreds of gamers i have been playing with for the last 2-3 years are all just busy at the moment, the reason the servers are dead is totally not to do with the state of the A17 release, nope def not!

Presumption...? are you for real man? the servers are D E A D

- - - Updated - - -

...Now to be honest I don't play MP ....

Any more questions for the expert folks?

 

[Exxodous]

So here is some more factual feedback for you.
I normally play across 3 MP servers that I like the rulesets of, they have all been around for 2 years+ and have very loyal playerbases

I just checked all 3 servers

1 had 1 player

1 had 3 players

1 had 0 players

These are all servers that historically, even up the end of A16, had at least 15-20 people online at all times and this close to a major release I would normally even have to wait to get into some of them due to over capacity issues

You have killed your MP game stone dead.

Odd....The MP server I play on has more people on than ever and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Guess we hang with a different crowd. So while it may be "factual" for you I'm having the exact opposite experience.

Thanks TFP, Your MP game is better than ever in my opinion. (and apparently those whom I play with)

 

[meganoth]

No it's not. I understood him completely. You apparently did too.
Dismissing criticism, because it's been worded in a way that triggers an anxiety attack within your safe space bubble is what I would call worthless. The coarse language is deserved in this instance, and it should be obvious if one spent over a year changing the game from a system that worked to one that doesn't.

what idiot though that was a good idea? Clearly TFP just doesn't understand how to make a good game or they just hate building and want to kill building and mining as playstyles. What a failure

This last quote is a rant. With absolutely no information in it. Pure emotional fuming to emphasize that that opinion should be worth more because it is stated in coarse language. The "I'm a one man but I want to look like an internet ♥♥♥♥ storm" form of political unfluencing.

I think everyone should have exactly one vote (the democratic principle). This is an apparent attempt to avoid that principle by shouting louder than anyone else. I would be against such methods even if they are used to represent opinions I have.