Roland

Awesome! Thanks @Gazz So just uncomment it and then duplicate it a few times changing the biome number so it applies to the other biomes and play around with the gamestage base-add value? Definitely going to play around with this. This adds to the player's gamestage so it will affect both enemies and loot, correct? This could give a rough approximation of what is coming without some of the "among other things" you mentioned. so as a first stab at it like.... <!-- wasteland gamestage bonus--> <passive_effect name="GameStage" operation="base_add" value="100"> <requirement name="InBiome" biome="8"/> </passive_effect> <!-- snow gamestage bonus--> <passive_effect name="GameStage" operation="base_add" value="80"> <requirement name="InBiome" biome="1"/> <!-- desert gamestage bonus--> <passive_effect name="GameStage" operation="base_add" value="60"> <requirement name="InBiome" biome="5"/> </passive_effect> <!-- burnt forest gamestage bonus--> <passive_effect name="GameStage" operation="base_add" value="40"> <requirement name="InBiome" biome="9"/> </passive_effect>

This is interesting. Which xml edit? I did a cursory look in spawning, loot, biome, and progression but couldn't see a value to edit that would affect gamestage one way or another by biome. This could be fun to play around with in A19. Could you point?

No..you could ALSO build 2-3 pillars up spaced apart as bridge supports much like rl bridges have and that can look much better than meh. If you want to build structures that have no need of support there is always Minecraft.

Could you, though? Your vague generalizations that 7 Days is on rails and you must do things in xyz order and that there is a forced pace and progression that is always the same isn't doing it for me-- without specific examples of what you are referencing comparing the two games I just don't see what you are claiming. I could say that Valheim "forces" you into a linear progression because there is no way you can go straight to swamp or plains and be remotely successful until you've done Black Forest at the least. I mean, I suppose on my second full playthrough of the game I could do whatever I wanted since my persistent character would already start the game with all skills progressed and all techs and tools unlocked... But on a first playthrough one could say in a general sweeping way-- Valheim is definitely on rails as far as exploration and progression and the devs force you into xyz-- Your example of one guy just spending time collecting stuff and filling boxes and going solo and you working with other players and both styles working-- I've played both ways in 7 Days (recently and not just "back in the day"} and they both work. Of course, just like for Valheim, it requires that you just play, not min max, not game the system to rush the progression-- it works. I guess I just don't see what you are talking about in 7 Days as being forced to play a certain way. I certainly don't feel forced. I still play nomad at times, take over existing POI's at times, and build my own base from scratch at times. I still make my own objectives for the day and then carry them out and get distracted by other things that happen. I get that you don't like the streamlining of some of the processes like what they did with ore or removing sticks and fiber and shifting to a point system instead of an LBD system. I know you feel forced to follow the light path in POI's. But none of that translates to the game in general being on rails and there is only one forced way to play and there is no sandbox feel. There are fewer steps to getting ore that you can use for crafting than there used to be. But that doesn't force you into one style of playing. In fact, everyone is so excited for the biome difficulty progression (just like Valheim has!) and yet....who can argue that that very mechanic isn't going to "force" even more linearity into the game? Sure, you can choose to go to desert or snow or wasteland during the first week but most will play the game in the "right" order just like they do Valheim. So, yeh...some side by side comparison would be appreciated over generalized statements of feelings.

I’m glad Valheim came out and the devs were able to play it before completely implementing their own biome difficulty progression. Hopefully, the things they like about biome progression in Valheim can inspire them as they design biome progression in 7 Days. As Gazz said, they’ve had biome difficulty progression planned for awhile and it has to be a good thing to be able to analyze the pros and cons of a popular game that already has that part of the game implemented. Same for Valheim— if they ever decide to go deeper with their own random nights of base defense, they have the benefit of having played 7 Days to Die to see what works and what doesn’t for them.

Well...you can ignore the first two or three bloodmoons and stay pretty safe on the roof of larger POIs if you just want to spend time clearing POIs or doing quests, or harvesting resources. That’s 21 days of playing however you want without feeling rushed to prepare for the horde. You can also decrease the frequency of bloodmoons to once every 10 days or once every 14 days etc. 7 Days definitely has a tower defense emphasis that Valheim doesn’t. I see that as them being different types of games and I wouldn’t want either to change what they are to be more like the other in that regard. I’d rather just be able to play both depending upon my mood. The boss progression is something I think 7 Days could definitely add to great effect. They could do it with bandits having a forest lieutenant, desert lieutenant, snow lieutenant, and wasteland lieutenant. Killing each one opens the way to the next and culminating in a showdown with either the Duke or Noah depending on which faction you went for. But....they could also just as easily decide to save something like that for a sequel.

The tutorial pop up does not pause the game. The only thing that pauses the game is pressing ESC if you are alone in the world.

I see what you're saying and maybe this is what Guppy was talking about as well. I agree that Valheim really starts stacking up the tasks you need to do in order to reach whatever your next objective is and there is a lot of "I want to do A but that means I will first need to do B which requires I do C" type of thinking. Personally, I do that same type of thinking about 7 Days to Die as well-- although I am much more familiar with 7 Days to Die. Valheim required a lot of figuring out how to do C so I could get B which would let me do A and that exploration space is fun the first time you experience it for any game. but then--you've learned the process and it becomes just a process to play through. The thing about Valheim, though, is that working through your list of tasks is pretty casual. I never feel that time matters. As novel as the tree chopping was at first, I hate chopping trees because it is click by click on the mouse. and now the novelty has worn off and really all I want to get is fine wood. Same thing when I need to go hunting for hides. When I know I need like 30 and so all my playtime is going to be running around shooting animals, it makes me not feel like signing on. Am I excited to reach the next boss and get to the next biome? yes. But the tasks I must do to prepare have become mundane and require a lot of time and effort- so.....I find myself playing less often now. Of course, that's just me. Plenty of people are continuing to have lots of fun with Valheim. Nothing Valheim does right, btw, will change 7 Days to Die. The dye is cast for this game. But perhaps they will be inspired for the next game. I LOVE the spatially relevent upgrades to workstations. I love the variety of workstations. I also wish 7 Days had more workstations and higher tiers of existing workstations. I also love the boss progression and the biome progression. It is a great way to pace the game and open new items and resources. Biome progression is coming to 7 Days but I doubt it will be quite as pronounced as Valheim. I don't think people will get absolutely rekt by going into say the desert in 7 Days before they are ready like you do in Valheim if you wander into or even sail too closely to a biome you aren't ready for yet...lol

Say what...? What rail? What do you mean there is less to do than there used to be? I don't agree with this at all. I guess I would agree that we briefly had caves and they were a fun thing that we don't have any longer but we also didn't have caves before we did until we didn't again. What else was there that we could that we can't now? I don't feel anyone dictating how I play or how I build. POI's are exponentially more interesting than they used to be. I guess there are "rails" there IF you follow the path-- which I don't. But even with the lighted path, the POIs are more interesting than the empty cardboard boxes we used to have. I understand and have the same frustration about some of the simplifications but that doesn't put the game on rails or mean there is less to do. Wait...are you talking about LBD? I really don't like the LBD in Valheim. It kills replay value for me. I will never restart a new game with a new character the way that game is set up. Valheim will be a one-time playthrough for me...

But...the game's player base WAS small and as a fledgling game the number of reviews were also small. As the game gained notoriety and the player base grew then a larger population of reviews came in and there were a much more significant number of poor reviews based on the learning curve of the game. You always say you understand why the developers make decisions to turn this game more mainstream and approachable even though you dislike the changes and would like for it to keep it's unique and complex processes and unforgiving survival mechanics because it makes for a more interesting game. I agree that the complexity and unforgiving difficulty make for a more interesting game. I also believe that such a game will always remain niche. Sure, those of us who were here at and near the beginning and are still here playing, figured out the mechanics and stuck with the game even though we died a lot at first. But that doesn't make us typical players. Typical players die several times and then call the game stupid and uninstall it-- or even worse...refund if that option is still available. So if you make a lower difficulty the new default but keep the old default as a higher setting then you are including a lot more people and those who like it tougher can turn it up and feel better about themselves.

Sure, they could push the default even more towards the casual end of the spectrum but if what they have done so far hits the sweet spot of being seen as a gritty unforgiving and challenging survival game by the larger population and yet it is still approachable by most, then there is no need. We could make the default Warrior and 16 max alive and jogging speed during the day and we would still get gamers coming around wanting to post, “This game is such a cakewalk...” but for the majority, they would be dying left and right on Day 1 and never put in the time needed to surmount the learning curve. These days, people will refund the game within their two-hour window if they can’t handle the default difficulty rather than turn down the difficulty and play “baby” mode.

That’s because the default was lowered a couple of years ago now so the number of complaints about the game being too hard are much more scarce now—you’re correct. But they were plentiful back in the day as well as lots of conversations on the forum suggesting that people turn down the difficulty when they complained that the game was “unfair”. You can believe what you want but I have the benefit of having seen things both before and after the default difficulty change. Like I said, people like you will, at an instant, be willing to come here and admit that the game is sooooo easy and you can only get enjoyment by playing insane nightmare 64 max alive 25% loot permadeath. Those who struggle with surviving even at the present settings don’t like to brag about that fact. Instead they call the game “crap” and “poorly balanced” and “unfair”. the game has ALWAYS had frame rate issues on certain hardware in the past, there were bad reviews about bad performance AND due to difficulty. These days, as you admitted, most bad reviews are about bad frame rates and that is because of a very smart change to the default difficulty that was made.

Doubtful this will happen. It is more about gamer psychology than tech limitations. Gamers are more likely to rage quit and never play a game again and give that game a bad review rather than turn the difficulty down to an easier setting where they will have more fun. But gamers WILL turn the difficulty up on a game they find too easy for them and will often brag about the fact that they play at a higher than default difficulty setting whenever the opportunity presents itself. That’s why default difficulty was changed from Nomad to Adventurer and why default max alive is more likely to move to 4 than it is to 16 if it needs to change at all.

Or an unexplored discussion topic....

The pipe shotgun looks pretty junky and definitely like it was jury-rigged together. Functionally it is the same as the blunderbuss but uses up shotgun ammo. There’s lots of shotgun ammo to be found...

Well if it eases the pain a bit, I heard a rumor that Al's Diner gives discounts on Bear Hugs and Blimp Rides to those who walk in wearing a Belt o' Shotguns. With perks like that, who could be against wasting a bit of shotty ammo? Exactly! You're Welcome! Now, that that is cleared up I wonder if I could interest you in the purchase of a particular bridge over Deadman's Gulch in Navezgane County-- going cheap....

Nothing wrong with carrying 5 pipe shotguns on your belt. In fact, everything is right with that.

I don't think they have touched this yet. Game balance stuff like this doesn't happen until the last month or so when Joel starts playing monster sessions to test balance for himself. RIght now with all the RWG changes it is off and on whether traders even spawn in a given A20 build. Its not really possible at this point to play a long term or real game of A20. You can get on to try out different things like the new pipe weapons, or explore a newly added POI, or travel around to see the world generation and town layouts. I've tried the buried supply quest to see the changes they made but I haven't done a lot of questing yet in A20 because that takes time and you don't want to invest that while there are good odds your save will break because something isn't working because of some other change that was made. Now that I downloaded A19, I'm actually feeling like playing a longterm game of that. My honeymoon with Valheim is about over. It is fun but lately when I sign on and remember that I quit because I knew I had to do a bunch of grinding, I tend to sign off again right away instead of playing, thinking I'll wait until another day to see if the mood hits me again to do all the chores I need to do. How about you streamline your posts into three versions: Streamline Snark, Porn Inuendo, and MMA References... 😜

Its because of how you are defining a full build. You seem to be defining a build solely by what you spend points in. So the fact that you could find a purple tier auto shotty and use that alongside your turrets doesn't count to you as being part of the intellect build because you are narrowly defining the build as only what you spend points in. Logically, the intellect build includes all unperked weapons no matter what weapon type they are-- the advantage being that when using those weapons in tandem with the turrets you have a great advantage over what the game can throw at you. No other build lets you use other weapons in tandem with the weapons you perk into. You have to choose the M60 you are fully perked in OR the auto-shotty you are not. Intellect lets you use the fully perked turrets AND the auto-shotty you are not. That is the endgame advantage of the intellect build. You have your pick of any of the tier 3 top quality real guns in the game to use with your turrets. Junk Turrets should only equal other real guns in a mathematical thought exercise exempt of any actual gameplay context because the real truth is that players don't just watch their turrets take care of the zombies for them. Actually, just watching the turrets do the work or going AFK while they do the work is pretty much against Madmole's whole "get off your ass" philosophy... No. That might be how you want to use them but that isn't the intention nor what they are balanced towards. They are balanced towards their owner also participating in the fight. If they were balanced the way you want then they would be massively OP whenever the player chose to also participate-- and I think most players do choose to participate with their turrets. Finally, IMO, not every build needs to be created equal. Assymetrical builds are way more exciting and good for replay value than builds that have weapons that have symmetrical DPS values and are just differently themed and skinned. There can be builds that are challenge builds and perhaps not quite as efficient or overtly powerful as others but rewarding in other ways. You talk a lot about efficiency and point cost and I think that that focus is what limits your ability to play intellect as its own build.

I'm not talking about the stun baton. I'm talking about the pipe baton which is one of the new primitive pipe weapons coming in A20. The blunderbuss and its ammo are coming to an end with A19. It might show up in a future game but the pipe shotgun will replace it in A20 and uses regular shotgun shells.

More often than not, observations and opinions are going to lead to discussion whether you intended it or not. For example, I still disagree with your observation. There is no lack of a firearm in the intelligence branch. As an intellect player you can use any firearm or a melee weapon in combination with the turret to devastating effect even if that weapon is unperked. It is essentially dual wielding which no other weapon has. I can't use an AK 47 and a shotgun at the same time. I can't use a pistol and an SMG at the same time. I can use a turret and anything else I want at the same time. Saying that a turret alone cannot beat a BM horde is moot because nobody would ever do that. You might not be perked into the weapon you are holding and using along with the turret you are perked into but the combination is definitely lethal and can be effective even in the early game. In fact, I would say that it is best for the turret to be more of a midgame weapon precisely because it is too OP in the early game and not because of any lack. That is absolutely reasonable if that is the way you play it and see it. I think one way of looking at it is that it is a support build for other builds. Another way you could look at it is that the other builds are the support for the Intellect player. Its just a point of view. If you see the intellect build only being a viable independent build on its own if you are restricted to placing turrets and watching them kill and never using another weapon in combination, then I can see how you might look at it as a support build. But I think that is an overly strict definition because nobody would ever choose to play that way even if the turrets could mow down 50 demolishers without letting them get close. People would still want to actively kill alongside the turrets,

You can use any weapon unperked along with the turret and have a significant advantage. It is an error to think that the turret by itself should be on equal ground with the other weapons because as Gazz said, nobody just stands and watches the turrets fire. The turrets add to your own firepower and just because you are doing an intellect build and so have no perks in an an AK-47, an AK-47 plus a couple of turrets is great. An AK-47 plus a couple of turrets that are each equally powerful as an AK-47 would be grossly OP. People need to stop asking for more powerful intellect weapons because the developers are not stupid enough to fall for it... I can throw a bone to all the intellect build fans who hate their weapons being less powerful than the other build counterparts: Once you use the new pipe baton you may never use the wooden club again. (That's assuming, of course, @Gazz doesn't reconfigure the numbers on the pipe baton....)

Oh good. I was just waiting for your date so I could update my spreadsheet. I'll just pencil it in, though, since you said "maybe"....

That won't really work because A20 is in flux. Every few days there is a new build number. However, I could use the mod launcher to download 19.4 and then I could have both versions available at the same time. Blessings to @sphereii