PC You cant balance Sp and Mp in the same game

[Kalarro]

The game difficulty is determined by gamestage.
The solo player gets fewer skill points for specialisation but also lower tier enemies.

You always think we complain about difficulty instead of fun. Not beeing able to pick perks that improve your building, bartering, carrying stuff capacity, until you are much higher level is unfun, not just hard and fixed by lowering zombies difficulty. At least in a team, just 1 has to pick the bartering perks, just one the building perks, and so on, and as a team you can have fun.

And to some players saying every rpg has specialization, we arent talking about specializing in edged weapons or blunt weapons. Thats ok if I need to chose. But between beeing able to carry stuff, build, fimnd treasures, or fight... not so much.

And I do like the level system, unlike some others who just dont want it. I love progression. But the new points we need with the added perk cost is too much.

 

[InSanity]

To throw in my 2c:
I see what kage is driving at and when it comes to more options im tottaly on board. Id like more than a single setting around this though.

-XP multiplier

-Skill points per level

-level cap?

These 2 (3?) Options are all fairly easy to get programmed in and add a lot to the replayability of the game for a solo player (faster or slower exp this playthrough? more or less skill points this play through? low or high level cap this time?)

This way we get options to tweak and can set defaults for SP/MP games respectively to eliminate trying to balance both in one ruleset.

Agreed, I've said multiple times that this game needs some more options like this, as games like ark allows those playing by themselves to adjust harvest amount, xp gain, etc...with a slider which I think would greatly benefit this game.

 

[Odin_the_Mad]

So there's no way to balance the game for the sp game and the mp game without a key game option. Skill point options.
I love the idea of specialization in mp. I really do, it's a fantastic idea. Not so much for sp though.

In mp you can get a group of 3 friends, work together, and do it all. In sp, your screwed. Now that's not the state of the game today but im worried its heading that way.

The reverse is true too. If you give the sp all the stuff he wants, not even nessesarly all the perks but the good ones, then the mp game get screwed because there little to no need to specialize.

So, 1 game option, just 1. Hey if you can add 4 different run speed options you can add this lol. Just an option to adjust how many points we get per level. I dont even want that many more tbh, many like 1 extra point every 2 or 3 levels. You could then let the players balance the skills in there mp game by changing the skill points in the opposite way, like 3 or 4 points per level, for maximum specialization.

You wont get any kind of real balance giving the same amount of perk points to both sp and mp, just wont work.

I am in total agreement with this ( by the way I watch all your 7D2D videos they are great)

I have been posting in other threads about how badly this game needs more options, and this is one of those areas where it would be super easy to implement. Just add a setting for either skill point gain per level or even an xp multiplier. Something simple that allows us to tweak progression in-game without having to mod XML files. That's it. This way we can all play the way we want and at the pace we want and nobody loses anything.

At the very least it will give you some good data and feedback from your fanbase about what settings they liked the most in either SP or MP.

 

[Aldranon]

You have to play differently between SP and MP. If the mind-set was a picture it would be this:

View attachment 26403

 

[Scyris]

I agree with this, IMO the game should be balanced mainly for single player, as the game is meant to be pve tower defense and those games generally tend to be single player. This might just be my bias talking though, as anytime I try to play on any server no matter how close the lag is so bad its unplayable for me.

I am not a fan of the stat points now taking multiple perk points, I'd rather the old level gates mysef. Again bias on I mainly play SP, the game is currently extremly punishing to a SP player.

 

[Scyris]

Well as workarround maybe edit the Bedrollquest and add 15 Skillpoints.
For the moment i try the vanilla settings

(But i allready regret it: You are to cold, No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold,No Stamina, You are to cold, )

With ZERO possibilitys to solve that

I agree, I don't know what they did but v231 seems like a huge step backwards, they nerfed block damage when I feel it finally was done well, stam regen also seems slower somewhat, clothes seem to have 1 mod slot now but I can't seem to find anything that goes in them yet, I figured something like cooling mesh would go into it... nope. Water use seems to be at double or triple the rate b221 is, and I never had the perk for slower food/water degreadation.

I am also have an issue with 100% gpu use on a gtx 1070, never seen that happen before in any version of 7 days to die so far till b231, and I can't figure out why as I don't notice anything looking much better.

The game needs a +stamina per second perk like a16 had.

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I haven't played deep enough into SP B231 to tell if it's an issue yet or not but yes it is ofc "easier" in MP because the players can spread their skills. I've seen a few different fixes here in the thread, none that imo would work tho.
You can't have the skill points themselves vary between SP/MP because in A17 now at any time you can swap the game between the two. So you could have it set to SP and earn more skills then change it to MP so your buddy can play and you've magically gained more skills than you should have at the same level. Same being true in reverse.

Even the suggestion for SP only quests giving points has the same flaw. People have said the game "knows" whether it is SP or MP. That's only half true. It does know BUT as soon as you start a new session you can change it, then it "knows" it is the opposite of what it was 5 minuites ago.

I really don't see any way to balance SP/MP by varyng skill point distribution for this reason. The only way imo to balance them is to always play MP at a higher difficulty than you would play SP. Otherwise MP is just too easy.

That too runs into it's own issues. In my personal case I just do not handle running zombies well, at all (I just don't have the dexterity to handle them without fumble fingering myself into a special sort of keyboard hell.). So raising difficulty by changing speed settings is something I just wouldn't play.

All this being said I don't really see a way TFP can "balance" the two skill point wise, it's gonna have to be done at the player level.

As much as I am probally going to have stones tossed at me for saying this, I feel MP is cheating myself, it takes away most of the challenge the game has when you have multiple people working together. I've never been a big fan of MP in survival type games, as to me it defeats the purpose of the game. Just a personal bias, I will admit though its much more fun playing this with even 1 friend even though it does make the game a hell of alot easier at the same time.

 

[Kage848]

What do you mean by balance is my first question. I, personally, expect an SP game to be harder than MP. The player has to be more careful about their point expenditures and be aware of other resources in the game that can help 'fill in the gaps'. I play both SP and MP (more SP) and I've really enjoyed needing to think my choices over a bit more.

Well its simple. If you play on a 3 person team in MP and you each get 1 pt per level your "team " is basically getting 3 pts per level. I am worried TFP will be balancing to inject specialization into MP, leaving SP out to dry.

If they are ignoring MP and just trying to make people playing SP specialize then that's a different story. As far as that goes I HATE the idea, 110%. They have stated they want "replay" value. That's fine but I put WAY to much work into my worlds to just up and start over because i wanna try that group of perks i couldn't afford. But that's a different argument.

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I’m not trying to stop the discussion just expressing my opinion that I don’t agree. Trust me I really didn’t miss his point. I just don’t agree with it. Additionally, every option TFP adds to the game creates another failure point. Based on my experience with the past alphas, I would prefer the least amount of failure points possible.
I also don’t agree at all that most SP spend their skill points the same way. I have spent them differently in every build I’ve played and every streamer/YouTuber I’ve watched has spent them differently from me. Will min-maxers spend their points the same way? Maybe. But the game shouldn’t be balanced for min-maxers because they will optimize the fun out of the game no matter what the devs do.

Correct me if im wrong. Seems to me your basic idea is SP should be harder than MP?

If that's the case we can just disagree then. I'd like to see both balanced. And I think TFP agree, that's why gamestage adds up with players in the same area.

 

[LuckyStar]

Well its simple. If you play on a 3 person team in MP and you each get 1 pt per level your "team " is basically getting 3 pts per level. I am worried TFP will be balancing to inject specialization into MP, leaving SP out to dry.
If they are ignoring MP and just trying to make people playing SP specialize then that's a different story. As far as that goes I HATE the idea, 110%. They have stated they want "replay" value. That's fine but I put WAY to much work into my worlds to just up and start over because i wanna try that group of perks i couldn't afford. But that's a different argument.

So what's your suggestion to solve this?

We have completely different rule sets for SP and MP?

That also requires locking in SP to your save kinda thing doesn't it?

 

[Frotus]

I could be wrong here, but I don't think that's the point Kage is raising. If you allow people to specialise then MP will always benefit from it because there are simply more people to take up those specialities. Roll that into SP and you could end up with character progression that leaves players unable to achieve certain skills. That's obviously conjecture just now, we'll need some time to see where the balancing goes.

I don't think this is an issue actually. Many games can be played solo or with a group. Solo players know they are having to play harder and with better skill due to not having more people with them. It makes the replay value higher because one SP character may focus on Combat and then they play again and role a scientist who focuses more on research or whatever....

 

[Kage848]

So what's your suggestion to solve this?
We have completely different rule sets for SP and MP?

That also requires locking in SP to your save kinda thing doesn't it?

Well i said it in my OP. Give us an option to set how many skill points we get per level. Pretty simple solution I think. We have settings like that for other things.

 

[LuckyStar]

Well i said it in my OP. Give us an option to set how many skill points we get per level. Pretty simple solution I think. We have settings like that for other things.

Yeah right now Modding is the only way to do that but... a setting.... yeah maybe.

Thing is, we've got to be selective about the settings we ask for.

I can see by the forum posts that TFP are listening.

I can also see that some staff are frustrated that players don't understand how difficult adding all those settings can be.

[Combinations and iterations and then there's testing and balancing.]

I'm not saying your idea isn't a good one an that it shouldn't be on the list....

... I just wonder, for something that's so easy to mod, literally just changing one number in an XML, if TFP would bother.

 

[WolfyBlah]

So what's your suggestion to solve this?
We have completely different rule sets for SP and MP?

That also requires locking in SP to your save kinda thing doesn't it?

Pretty sure it works this way already anyway (or at least did in 16.4), games created in SP couldnt be switched to MP and vice versa (without dragging/dropping files at least).

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Joel and Roland primarily play solo player. I don’t think Joel is tweaking the game solely for multiplayer. Or tweaking the game for MP specialization. He wants to create a game that allows specialization in SP. He also wants to create a game where your choices have consequences.

I really don’t see TFP trying to balance the game exclusively for MP. I’m pretty sure that when the game goes to stable it will be balanced for SP exactly as TFP intends. At which point people can tweak the xmls to their liking or install a mod.

 

[LuckyStar]

Pretty sure it works this way already anyway (or at least did in 16.4), games created in SP couldnt be switched to MP and vice versa (without dragging/dropping files at least).

Okay so the mechanic for it is already in place.

That's one step in the right direction.

Now we just have to figure out step two... and then...

- Profit

 

[WolfyBlah]

Yeah right now Modding is the only way to do that but... a setting.... yeah maybe.
Thing is, we've got to be selective about the settings we ask for.

I can see by the forum posts that TFP are listening.

I can also see that some staff are frustrated that players don't understand how difficult adding all those settings can be.

[Combinations and iterations and then there's testing and balancing.]

I'm not saying your idea isn't a good one an that it shouldn't be on the list....

... I just wonder, for something that's so easy to mod, literally just changing one number in an XML, if TFP would bother.

Thats the thing though, because it is litteraly just changing one number in that (and some other) cases there's not real testing or balanceing around it to do. All the work involved is creating the UI and hooking it up.

 

[Kirtonos]

I really don’t see TFP trying to balance the game.

Fixed that for you.

 

[LuckyStar]

Thats the thing though, because it is litteraly just changing one number in that (and some other) cases there's not real testing or balanceing around it to do. All the work involved is creating the UI and hooking it up.

Haha you know I was thinking that right after reading my post.

"Someone could use that very point and make a case against me really easily. It's literally just one number."

Hahahaha.... and then you did!

 

[AtomicUs5000]

SP is hard, and I love it.

 

[Wulf]

You have to play differently between SP and MP. If the mind-set was a picture it would be this:View attachment 26403

I hope you know the backstory of that picture?

If you don't: Romeo, the wolf who loved too much

 

[myrkana]

if you don't like how things are for singleplayer you can always edit the .xml files or just us the debug menu to give yourself exp to get points with. Or just spawn in a motorcycle to use. The base settings are not the end all be all of everything.