Roland

They've stated that the current following camera viewpoint is all that they have planned for driving views.

Man, I was just joking. Too soon, I guess.

And you complain that checking dew collectors and looting toilets is boring....

and rage probability

More importantly, Don't drink rum and post on this forum...

No I'm not because I'm not assuming the player will keep that on spec weapon that is 2-3 quality levels lower or more and play the rest of the game with that weapon while waiting to be able to craft the best version of that weapon. I'm assuming that as they find magazines and are able to craft better and better versions they will do so and the disparity between the bat and the spear will disappear much faster than you and Uncle are representing things. I would agree with both of you if we were locked into using that quality 3 stone spear for the rest of the game until we could suddenly craft a tier 5 iron spear but that is certainly not the case. Who does that? Who feels the need? I suppose the player would just use both weapons and when they noticed that they could kill an enemy with one or two less hits but that they were running out of stamina more often and not getting very many dismemberments or one shot decapitations from their non-perked bat but then with their raw stat weaker spear they were never running out of stamina, able to do more power attacks and get lots of one-shot kills by smashing off heads due to the perks granted by perception and Spear Master-- I dunno-- they might mostly use the "weaker" spear since it was more fun but keep the bat for variety since it is also powerful and sometimes you just feel like swinging instead of poking. I've tried it and it is definitely much slower since what the trader offers for sale is significantly less quality than what he offers for rewards. While I acknowledge that there definitely is a "trader hater" camp, those particular gamers won't be made happy until the trader is removed from the game. Most people here are not trader haters. We like the trader and want to see a better balance between quest rewards and crafting progression. BFT's mod definitely fixes the problem but if you really like choosing an item as your reward it can result in an anticlimactic end to your quest and often the trader doesn't have anything exciting to spend your dukes on. I got a tier 5 auger for my last quest reward and it was a lot more exciting of a reward than simply dukes would have been-- especially since I have 40k dukes now with nothing I really want to spend it on available. I do want to try out his mod again but it isn't an easy change to make. Its definitely a nerf.

Are you simply comparing dps stats between the two weapons and discounting the added bonuses of Perception and the Spears perk? You won’t get any stamina reduction for the bat. It would be way more expensive to purchase the perk that increases swing speed for the bat than it would be for the one for spears. It doesn’t seem to me you are bringing those things into the equation or that it is that you think they are negligible bonuses compared to the raw damage stat numbers. Personally, I think all the perk and attribute and support perk bonuses do matter and it isn’t going to take as long as you guys claim to equal and then exceed the worth of the bat by continuing to progress your perk path on the spear.

That’s crazy talk to me but I’m not obsessed with only using the most powerful weapon in my arsenal to the exclusion of anything else. To me, getting that bat would be a fun alternative that would be worth switching to since it’s high level of damage would make up for the lack of perked abilities. It definitely would not invalidate my progress in spears. Any advantage over my spear that the baseball bat might have would only be temporary as I continued to craft better spears and gained more perception and spear perk abilities by spending points. I think your characterization of it is a wild exaggeration. It’s hard because it annoys/pleases people to varying degrees and there is no way to make it pleasing to everyone other than making an option for rewards: 1. Dukes only 2. Items below lootstage 3. Items equal to lootstage 4. Items above lootstage Then people can choose the setting that best fits their own sensibility.

If that were true you would have typed "gamers that are on the more casual end of the spectrum" or something else neutral like that. BTW, I don't know whether console gamers can collectively be called casuals any longer. Console gaming has come a long way and while control schemes must often be streamlined to work with gamepads, this in itself isn't what makes a gamer casual or not. Maybe in the 90s up through the 2000s there were mostly simplistic casual gaming experiences on consoles that drew a more casual player base but I think that has changed quite a bit in the last decade. The streamlining of 7 Days to Die for consoles is entirely control-scheme-based and performance-limitations-based. Whether the game is balanced more toward crafting or more toward looting and quest rewards has absolutely nothing to do with it going to console and being played by the type of players who buy and play on consoles.

My only annoyance about trader rewards is when I am offered something better than I can craft in my primary perked path. If I’m not perked into something I don’t really expect to be able to craft it at a high level for a long time and if I’m rewarded with a high level high tier version of it and I know I might never be able to craft it then that’s awesome. Maybe just an exclusion in rewards for any item you are currently perked into would be enough. The answer to that is that trader progression currently follows an unrestricted LBD game model. The more quests you do the better you get at questing. The faster you do them the faster you get to the top. The biggest weakness of LBD is that it tends to overwhelm all other gameplay for those who are susceptible to it and all they can do is spam that game loop.

You mainly don’t want to get moved to the “in memorial” section…

You shoulda drank more Dr. Pepper, Joe. It is the elixir of life and you can always trust it. It's a doctor.

I didn’t miss that part but I was simply responding to the part of your post that was incorrect regarding how knowledge acquisition actually works. As to your suggestion, I would be fine with a hybrid system of LBR and LBD but not how you organized it. Reading to unlock a recipe and then use LBD with crafting to push the quality tiers up is exactly what was wrong with the game in A15 which is why all forms of “spam crafting” were finally removed for A16 even though LBD was still in force for other skills. LBD would be great for improving skill in using items which is what the current point system handles. So the LBR would need to remain intact as it is for crafting recipes including the quality tiers. The point spending system of getting better at skills is the only thing that would be replaced by LBD. The thing is that in my opinion the point spending system is also fun and enjoyable and perfectly adequate so it doesn’t really need to be replaced. It can be played in a way that feels like you’re progressing in an organic and natural manner and still gives the freedom of not having to grind in those categories you don’t really enjoy but want to improve in. If they changed the skill point spending part of the game back to LBD and kept the crafting progression as it is now by looting magazines, I would be fine with that but— I’m also fine with the current system. They both represent skill mastery but just in a different manner and they both can be abused in different ways. The original post I was responding to claimed that the current system of reading to learn how to craft new recipes is nonsensical because it isn’t how people learn. I simply demonstrated that we learn new knowledge easiest by having a teacher of some form—in this case magazines and that in most cases we don’t learn something new by practicing something we already know. We hone acquired skills through practice which can be represented by either the LBD or point-spending systems. Even if LBD was to be ultimately chosen over point-spending it would STILL be a good idea to keep the quality tiers as “new recipes” rather than as “improved skills” since spam crafting was really bad for gameplay.

You don't learn tennis by reading a magazine simply because there are tennis instructors that impart the knowledge and that is the most effective method. But if there were no tennis instructors and you found a magazine that described the rules of tennis and how to hold the racket and different hitting techniques you certainly could learn how to play tennis a lot faster than you could by experimentation. Once you had the knowledge you would get better at tennis through repetitive practice. It would be tougher to improve without an instructor's feedback but it could be done. My point is that whether it is by reading, direct instruction, or watching youtube all of these fall under the LBR umbrella in that you are gaining new knowledge by appealing to an authority on the subject. Direct instruction is the most effective method while having to learn it by reading only is less effective. For a post-apocalyptic setting it makes sense to regain lost knowledge by finding remnants of information that you can find while scavenging. It is neither stupid nor nonsensical. Is it fun gameplay? THAT is going to be each gamer's personal opinion.

I’m glad you are the one who is wrong about this because if students could gain new knowledge simply by repeating and practicing their current knowledge, I would be out of a job. The type of learn by doing we had in the game had nothing to do with how we have evolved as a species but it did have a lot to do with how some members of the species could become masters of skills they already had.

it’s not and it does. The system makes more sense than learn by doing ever did as far as how human beings acquire new knowledge without years and years of personal experimentation and many trials of failure before success is gained. Learn by Doing is a great system for honing and mastering knowledge and skills you already understand. Learn by reading AKA Learn from some authority on a a subject you don’t yet know is perfectly reasonable. You can’t really think we are finding full and complete copies of the same magazines. We are finding fragments and pieces and once you find enough information you’ve basically researched some old world knowledge you didn’t know before. Granted…some topics are pretty basic but it’s a game so not 100% reflecting reality. If you think about how you’ve gained every bit of new knowledge, it is most likely from reading, listening, and/or watching someone who already possessed the knowledge. You don’t like the new system which is noted. No system will please everyone. But it isn’t stupid or nonsensical.

As soon as Madmole gives the say so I’m sure that Crater Creator will get it started. Are we really ready for arguments over armor, outfits, bandits, weather, and the traders becoming an even more critical factor in the game? Of course we are!

I wanted flaming fists but alas the shaft doesn’t fit….er….yeah.

Gotcha. Their next game is going to be original art from the outset so there won’t be subbing in original art for unity store assets which might result in a change like what happened with this game. For example in this game the guns started out as generic but realistic models of existing guns but eventually got changed to jury-rigged scrap parts guns. They already have the theme and tone they want for the next game and they are creating all the art to match what they want from the outset. So if you are happy knowing that this will be the case for the next game then you can set your heart at ease.

Just like any dedicated survival game or dedicated role playing game or dedicated farming game or dedicated stealth game or dedicated shooting game or dedicated melee fighting game or dedicated sandbox game or dedicated survival horror game, 7 Days to Die will come up short by comparison because it is a mixture of elements from those games. People who are survival horror mega-fans will be bothered by the lack of depth in that area while everyone else will think it’s great. It’s just like how stealth game fans are bothered by the stealth in this game while casual fans of stealth gameplay are perfectly happy with that aspect of the game. Farm nuts are less than thrilled by farming in this game while all the rest are okay with the level of farming in the game. Survival-philes are constantly begging for item degradation and food spoilage and more scarcity whereas everyone else is pleased as punch their weapon lasts forever. The game is never going to reach the level of dedicated survival horror that you want because it is but one of many elements that make up this game and the devs only sprinkled the game with it.

I believe that it will be an attachment.

Look at the pictures again a bit more carefully.

The difference being that anyone who thought A21 would be released for console was probably smoking something whereas anyone who thinks A22 will be released for console probably saw the official announcement about it….

@métaphore TFP has no plans for adding microtransactions nor for setting up any kind of exchange system between Dukes and real world currency. There is no plan to offer a free slow grinding path and a pay-to-win fast instant path. Traders were always meant to be a central part of the main game play and there are more developments that are planned, that will increase their influence in the game even more. These changes are not to set up a new source of revenue for TFP but are to set up the main story quests and the reputation system for gameplay purposes. That’s not to say they won’t ever release DLC content that will cost money, but they are not going to somehow lockdown Dukes so they can tie them to real currency and set up in-game pay-to-win transactions. That is just looney town talk.

Enjoy this time of discovery because you’ll yearn for it later. Are you playing Navezgane, one of the PREGEN maps, or a random map? Navezgane is very difficult to get up and running in A21. Starting with one of the pregen maps or rolling your own will make things a lot easier as long as your first trader is next to a big city. If your first trader is in a more rural area it will be a bit tougher of a start.