Roland

Yes, but don't misquote yourself. You said you hadn't played in months and then logged in and noticed..... My advice to you wasn't based on the months of not playing part of your statement. My advice was based on the you logging in again before the game is done part of your statement. That advice still stands: If there are in your estimation inexcusable omissions in the game such that you leap to the conclusion that the devs are lazy and that assumption leads to you feeling upset in any degree and ruins your appreciation for the game then refrain from logging in until you get the notification that it is out of early access. On the other hand, if you are interested in providing bug reports in a nonaggressive manner and without loaded assumptions mixed in as to the capabilities and work ethic of the developers then by all means log in, play, and report. It's not absurd when the announcement of the work completed is from the art team. What is absurd is thinking that the entire TFP team is only working on HD zombie models. There are some working on those, others doing optimizations, others working on fixing bugs, and others working on new features and improvements of existing features. It is true that nobody has as of this writing worked on changing "house_old_3" to "Cooter's place" in the localization files. But somebody will when the time is right. And even though you can't see a picture of optimizations and bug fixes like you can of a new HD zombie model, those things are being worked on by the appropriate members of the team. In the meantime, it is nice to get updates of whatever is being worked on by whoever and since the game is still in development those who don't find the process inexcusable understand that sometimes they might have to read something like "house_old_3" until a member of the staff gets to that job. No matter how much I may love the game, you are justified in your criticism of these decisions. Agreed. Thanks for your comments. You're welcome for mine. Public forum. Look, I get that you don't like the favorable, forgiving, patient, and hopeful vibe of this forum. But you have to understand that this is the developer's forum and those who are here long term are fans and generally believe that the developers are competent and hard working. So when criticism is given it is best given with a respectful attitude-- this being their house and their party and all. Criticism is welcome, for sure, and even those of us who post here often have differing expectations and views than the developers. So we voice our dissension and give our suggestions for what we would like but simply leave insults like "lazy devs" and "too complicated for them" out of the post. If you want to call the devs lazy and then have twenty comments backing you up and piling on about what scumbags they must be living off all that money for years and inching along just to milk everyone for more...you can get that catharsis on reddit or discord or facebook. There are plenty of avenues for toxic conversation and insults vs the developers on message boards out there if that is what you are looking for (and viewing your post history it seems to be what you're looking for). Here, you get called on that behavior. I never discounted your actual criticism or denied that there are unfinished localization issues and that the healing perk is not working like it used to. I affirm those observations. I also agree that the development time has grown long in the tooth and the good news is that the development team feels it too. They are excited by two future projects and so are working hard to finish this one off-- hopefully to most everyone's satisfaction.

Pot and kettle dude. pot and kettle. I answered you at the same exact level that you began. Don't dish out medicine you can't swallow yourself. March of 2020 sounds about right. I don't think your posts were deleted. They were swept into the new format. Sorry for the confusion. As for the rest, you'll either be patient with the dev's order of priority or not. Probably best to just play other stuff until the game is pronounced done if you are going to feel that certain things are inexcusable when you play the game.

They've begun working on player/bandit animations with A20 so it is not surprising that you still aren't seeing improvements in that area coming back months later to play some more A19. Localization is also an ongoing project. I'm not apologizing for them here-- just giving some information regarding these issues you've raised. Of course, some like yourself will see it as an inexcusable travesty of game development and sure sign of lazy developers that issues you care about aren't of higher priority to the developers but that is also something I can't apologize for. The bug report subforum has been closed and there is a new bug pool reporting area that you can reach by clicking on the green banner. It is very likely your report was either moved there. Hard to say since the only time line you gave was "months ago". I'm not sure what the plan is with the Physician perk. It could be the claim was removed temporarily until they can get to it or maybe it was changed. You'd have to give a bit more concrete details about the stun baton perk.

lol..you said they should get rid of it which would mean that no one could use it... Deliberately bad choice based on what measure? DPS? Ammo spent to clear a POI? Utility for both exploration and horde night defense? Opportunity cost of spending the perk points elsewhere? IMO, this is enough of a justification to have it and if it is suboptimal in terms of overall player power then it also constitutes a challenge for that player. You are not a role player, obviously. This game is meant for you to assume a role-- such as a treasure hunter, and play the game from that role. If you don't want to do that because it means you have to ignore other advantages you could have had then, yes, this game is going to have limited replayability for you. As a min-maxer, your illusion is that there is such a game that is so perfectly balanced that there are five roads to endgame that are perfectly equal in efficiency so that you aren't weaker on one path than you are on another. This game isn't even trying to do that. I doubt there are very many games that successfully do that. There usually, over time, emerges one path that is determined to be the best for folks like you and then you are back to no choices but one again. funny haha or funny wierd?

lol...I hope everyone in this thread clicks on that arrow and reads what @BFT2020 said to you about what it means to be a real player and then reads your response and then reads my question to you based on your response. I hope everyone reminds themselves of the full context of that post before reading my follow-up question. Because when they do and then see how you've behaved since then they'll think, "Gosh, that moderator has a lot of patience and even if he needs some guy to circle the back arrow for him, he's pretty okay in my book." I don't think you understood what @BFT2020 was saying to you. Again, not your fault but it is making this whole conversation very difficult. There's nothing wrong with being a min-maxer but there is a weakness to that way of playing games in that you will find fewer choices because there can only be one best way-- especially in an assymetrical design like 7 Days to Die. For example, you can play the game nomad, you can build your own overland base, you can upgrade an existing structure, you can build an underground base. These choices are not equal. They have different pros and cons. From an efficiency perspective the one best way is to simply base on the roof of a large building. So someone who wantst to min/max would look at all the choices for building bases and think that there is no choice other than building on top of a large building because every other option takes too much time and materials and effort. But the truth is that any of those base building plans can be chosen in order to experience something different and to attempt to overcome the separate challenges inherent in each situation. You are wanting to min/max the perks and abilities so there is no waste of points and because you view some of the perks as useless in the late game (such as treasure hunter). Because of your viewpoint your options are fewer than mine since I don't care about maximizing the usefulness of my perk points. At the end of the day there is the Forgetting Elixer that you can use to completely respec so really there is no waste of points. If you start with stealth but then decide it just isn't fun and you hate it and would rather thow pipe bombs, take swig and respec and put the stealth points into demolition instead and have fun with your pipe bombs.

There are quite a few people who have fun playing with the stealth perks. Increasing the stealth perks doesn't just allow you to sneak past zombies or kill them when they are sleepers without waking them. They also allow you hide and re-emerge to stealth kill zombies that automatically wake up. WIthout the stealth perks the memory of the zombies is too long and their ability to follow your breadcrumb trail and see you too great to be able to do this. Once stealth is perked to max you gain the ability to hide and aggroed zombies won't find you. If you don't like stealth then don't spend the points on it. That doesn't mean it must be removed from the game. For someone who is complaining that there are no choices you seem very liberal about ending all those choices for everyone else that they enjoy that you find useless for yourself. Again, this conversation is difficult because you are having a tough time expressing yourself well. You literally said their are two perks that give stealth bonuses specifically for the electric baton and that having these perks are incomprehensible. That statement is completely false and completely different than saying that just in general you think that stealth perks should be removed and that electric batons are too weak. It makes it extremely difficult to understand what you are trying to say. Not your fault but you keep typing that we are being stupid or that we are attacking you and I think the problem is simply language.

Yes you most definitely did. Here is the quoted proof with nothing altered. Read carefully these two quotes. This is EXACTLY what went down. You made a statement and I asked a question in direct response. You used the term playstyle and put it in quotes which probably means you have some personal definition you are using for that word. That's fine. I'm happy to abide by whatever you mean by "playstyle". Please provide an example of whatever it is you are talking about. You already provided melee combat but then for some reason decided that talking about the subject you provided constitutes a derailment of the conversation and somehow blame me for turning the conversation to that. That's not my intention. SO PICK ANOTHER ONE! Yeah...I'm confused about the two perks that only increase stealth for the shock batons. I'm not familiar with those two perks. No malicious intent here. I asked a question based on your statement and then went off of the direction you supplied. Where did I talk about your personality? At worst, I made the judgement call that regardless of how skilled you are at the game there may yet exist a player or players that exceed your ability and it would be unfair to those folks to ruin their challenge by increasing the power and ability of the player. That is the only statement I made toward you personally that maybe there exists someone who plays the game better than you. Sorry.

What are you referring to here?

I intended no such context. Any playstyle you feel is impossible at insane levels please share. Why should I provide a list when I'm not arguing that there are playstyles that are impossible at insane difficulty? That's on you. So please, what playstyle is impossible and don't give me one based on weapon power if you don't want to discuss weapon power because if you do and I respond I don't want to look very stupid again... er....thanks.... EIther you are hyper-sensitive or the language barrier is too high. Or both.

Why should horde night be possible only using melee weapons? I would think that Demolishers would be proof to you that the developers have not designed horde nights to be something they want you to be able to solve by swinging a stick around. I've never in my 7.5 years of playing this game ever wanted to play this game using only melee weapons. I like using combos and on horde night I only ever use melee weapons as a last resort and primarily rely upon ranged weapons. I have no idea at what difficulty level I could survive a horde night engaging the zombies solely with melee weapons. You said it is impossible at Insane. So I'm wondering if you then tried it at a lower level like Survivalist. Also, I'm not the one trying to increase the ability of melee perks. I did? I only asked what playstyle is impossible at insane difficulty. You could have answered with anything but you chose to go with melee combat. How is it my fault we are talking about weapon power when I left it wide open to you and this is what you gave me to work with? What other playstyle is impossible at insane if you don't want to talk about weapon power? This is your conversation-- I'm just responding to your claims. When the choice you want is contrary to the vision of the developers. that isn't going to change. In the case of melee combat during horde night (which you brought up), the developers will never change the game to make it so horde night can be won with only a knife or only a bat or only a spear-- and nothing else. That just runs contrary to the design of the game and if they did add interesting perks that could be purchased so that on horde night I could run around with a machete and kill everything around me without dying once at the insane level of difficulty it would make the machete to OP in every other circumstance and when used in conjunction with other weapons. No I'm not. I'm not saying you are the only person on earth who can't do it. I'm just saying that you are probably not the pinnacle of 7 Days to Die player skill and that there may be at least one person on earth who might be better than you. If that thought is too threatening then, of course, we can cease this line of reason. Psyche and ego are important to maintain...

Yes, and sometimes "Razzle Dazzle!"

Sounds like an interesting idea. I do despise the trader magic protection barrier. Upping the prices by quite a bit could also work to lessen their impact. I doubt this change would make it into this game at this point but if they are planning for a trader compound in their next game this might be something they would consider as a change to how it was done in this game.

I know this wasn't directed at me but your proposal could be seen as wanting to nerf other people's challenge. If using melee weapons as the main weapon without abusing anything is truly close to impossible then it forms a high mark to aspire to. If we listen to you and make using melee weapons quite possible at the highest difficulties then for those who are close to that level of skill, we have basically yanked the rug out from beneath them. Buffing up weapons so that YOU can play at the hardest difficulty level with those weapons and feel good about it may very well wreck the experience for someone else who will then be asking for a new difficulty level above insane where melee weapons are truly challenging for them again. I can see how people might feel protective of the current level of challenge in Insane and might want to hinder attempts by one guy who views that level of challenge as impossible to get it changed. It would be like me asking for aim assist to be added to ranged weapons because when I play insane nightmare I just can't line shots up quickly enough without somehow abusing the game and so I deem it impossible and assume that it must be impossible for anyone else as well. Others who can use ranged weapons just fine would probably be aghast at aim assist suddenly being added to the game.

Content makers aren't ordinary players.....? Just because they have a camera turned on the game behaves differently for them? Just like any player you will have content makers who exploit and those who play it straight. There is no difference. You are basically projecting your own experience and level of play onto everyone else and then refusing to accept any proof that shows what you don't want to see. Let me ask you this: At what level of difficulty can YOU still use any melee weapon as the main one and not die often and without abusing something? Nomad? Warrior? Survivalist? What is the upper limit from your experience where the game starts falling apart. You've already scoffed at Adventurer level so I assume you feel melee weapons are fine at that level but at what point do they stop for you and start requiring abuse in order to make them work?

Maybe I missed it and I know you're tired but could you please give me an example of a playstyle that is only available at low difficulty and is impossible to accomplish at high difficulty?

It's embarrassing to say because I really am very short sighted in my perk purchasing. Usually I am loathe to spend any points on weapons until I find or can purchase something worthwhile and then I'll spend points on that. So for the first week I usually buy the quality of life stuff as I need it. It's literally like if I decide on Day 3 that I want to build a base from scratch then I'll put points into Miner69 and Mother Lode. If I am doing quests and am coming home encumbered and sick of it, I'll put a point or two into pack mule. I almost always put a point into Master Chef if I'm playing solo but never if I'm playing with family as there are others who love to cook and feed everyone. I don't mind spending a couple of points towards building a forge and a bicycle but I usually wait until after day 7 just in case the trader restock nets me the parts or the outright bicycle that I can just purchase and to see if I'll find a working forge somewhere. I never feel a need to really get into the forge or perking up a particular weapon until after the first bloodmoon because it is such a cakewalk. I guess I just kind of like all the general ability perks that make life easier and stamina better and food digestion slower etc during the first week or two and then start perking into the favorites of the good weapons I've begun to find and/or buy at the trader. I personally love the bow and arrow. I am always happy when I find good bows and bow parts early on because then I know I'll be perking up archery. There is just something so satisfying about popping zombie heads with an arrow from my bow. I remember spending my nights using gore blocks as target practice and no matter how far away they were, I could hear the satisfying wet bloody splashing sound when they would pop to one of my arrows. Ah gore blocks.....good times.... In my current playthrough I'm ignoring all those general goodies and just focusing on maxing knives. So really a different approach than normal. I haven't even gotten a hunting knife yet and am still using a bone knife. Normally, if I was going to do blades I would wait until I had obtained at least a hunting knife....

I've only maxed out a weapon perk once or twice back when the new perk system was new and I was testing a couple of the builds. I vastly prefer to spread points around and be a bit above average in many things rather than specialize in just one thing. I tend to buy perks based on my immediate needs and wants. I just started a new playthrough with a brother who has never played before and decided to go full knives so I'm pouring everything into that and trying my best to not get distracted by what looks shiny in any given moment.

This, I agree with. Some perks are quite original and interesting but many are just ho hum +%. I like unique abilities and bonuses. Although I think that Madmole would say that he used the books to cover the unique and interesting bonuses.

I don’t think you are factually wrong about the following: 1) The most popular servers are modded servers 2) mods have extended the life of this game for many people beyond when the basic game would have stopped being fun. 3) Modders can work faster than TFP to add content and sometimes that content is similar to what TFP planned to put in place at their slower pace. I just hope you don’t see this as a bad thing. TFP made this game to be modded. They want the community to go wild with adding content and doing overhauls and increasing complexity and challenge. It’s not a cop out or a negative mark against the developers that they have allowed so much community content to enter the game. I’ll never understand people who praise all the mods on one hand and then use those mods to criticize the very group of people who made it all possible in the first place. Finally, it’s just naive to think that TFP just implements mods that they’ve seen but just six months to a year later. Sorry if this was not the chewing out you were bracing for. 😝

Lets call it abilities. Perks give abilities and weapons give abilities. Abilities that you see as worthless, others see as valuable. Abilities that you see as unviable at your current difficulty level others see as challenging but doable at your current difficulty level. Your assumptions only extend to your own mouse and your own keyboard. If you cannot believe that certain abilities could ever be useful at higher than Adventurer difficulty then either don't use them or lower the difficulty to a point where they do feel viable for you.

I understand from your own words that if you have a more powerful alternative over a current weapon you are using then the weapon you are currently using no longer seems fun to you. Spears are definitely not the most powerful but using a spear in combination with a club is just a lot of fun. Jab Jab Throw smash. Is it efficient and is the spear the most powerful option compared to other weapons? No. But it is challenging and fun to use.

Fast travel between traders might be okay as long as you can't take any metal with you.... On a serious note, TFP is hopefully still planning to implement the random encounter system which could make traveling over land result in interesting encounters and situations. Fast travel would negate all of that design. I'm really against fast travel personally. Those who want it can just use the teleport function.

You're a min/maxer. You will always be limited in playstyle choices when only the most efficient path is the only one that is palatable to you. Here's the thing. You can play Insane nightmare and be successful when doing a strength build and perking into Sledge Hammers and Shotguns. You've discovered that you cannot play Insane nightmare successfully when doing a Perception build and perking into Spears and Bows. So you want Spears and bows to get buffed to the point that you will be able to be successful using them in Insane Nightmare. The problem with that is that there are already people who are successfully doing what you can't and you would be robbing them of the challenge in order to make it easier for yourself. Strength and Fortitude are the easiest of the builds to master. Perception, Agility, and Intelligence are more challenging. You want them all to be equal in challenge so you can play them all at the toughest difficulty level. You can play them all. You obviously do well with the easier builds on insane nightmare. Seems like you might need to reduce the difficulty to Survivalist or Warrior when playing with the other builds until you get better with them. But asking to decrease the challenge of certain weapons because you feel like they are impossible to use at the highest difficulty only punishes those players who are trying to challenge themselves with those builds at the highest difficulty.

Because throwing it is the power attack and you can rip it back out of the zombie's body to use again. Or you can put a few spears on your belt to throw throw throw.

Yeah, but one of the reasons for having those children is to play games together and they are probably still a bit too young to play. How about this: There's no need to worry about grandchildren. You will easily be able to play the finished version of 7 Days to Die with your own kids by time they are old enough to be able to play. disclaimer: If you're one of those kind of parents who takes their five year olds to rated R horror movies then all bets are off....