Roland
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Posts posted by Roland
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12 minutes ago, RipClaw said:
The frustrating aspect is that we are not part of the debate. All debates in this forum take place after the fun pimps have made their decision. And we have no knowledge of what arguments were made in that debate.
And the thing with the feedback is not so simple. Player A has bad luck and progresses only very slowly, player B, on the other hand, reports that everything moves much too fast. Whose feedback carries more weight?
I was counting the debate on forums and social media when I said the debate. That's what I meant. You might not see it because you prefer that TFP capitulate all the way to the way you want it but that doesn't change the historical facts that TFP almost always adjusts back to some degree many of the changes they made that caused in heated debates on this forum-- much to the ire and consternation of other forum users who liked the full changes and then claim TFP gave in to "casuals". (I'm not saying I agree with that--just reporting what I've seen every cycle)
I remember the debate over sleeper density in POIs for A17. That was a loud debate: that POIs were now like "Clown Cars". I was disappointed when TFP adjusted the POI populations back towards mostly empty-- although now with infestation everyone can get what they want-- but that's three years after the original nerf based on community debates.
The real problem is your assumption that anything that is implemented today constitutes any developer's final decision. Until we hit 1.0 there are no final decisions and everything is a work in progress. If everyone would just internalize this truth that everything is potentially on the chopping block until they finally announce the game is done, it would really go a long way towards alleviating so many worries. There has been no final decision on anything yet. There are things that are very improbable to happen such as return to LBD but even that or some hybridization between magazines, skillpoints, and LBD still happening could conceivably be possible if TFP decided they wanted to do it. Why? Because of how much debate on the subject there has been and the years of testing and playing and most of all: The final decision hasn't been made yet on anything. Its all WIP.
As to your second point, this is precisely why it takes TFP months to years to make adjustments that people are clamoring for (If they do decide to do it). I know I risk another blow up response by several people claiming that there's no point to posting when I make this next statement:
TFP doesn't value kneejerk response feedback as much as they do aggregate feedback after longterm play collected from many different sources. They've made some changes already that I personally feel were probably a bit too hasty but I have confidence they will find the right spot on each dial over the next year or so.
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18 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:
Game keeps becoming more looter shooter every update because who cares about those kick starter promises since they got the money now.
Could you outline exactly how the game becoming more looter shooter violates the kickstarter promises? Was there a promise to hold the line against looter-shooterness?
Looting and shooting zombies have been a huge part of this game since the kickstarter was released. This game has many elements and there has never been any guarantee that one or two elements might or might not end up being more dominant than others. The game still has crafting, building, mining, farming, cooking, medicating, eating, drinking, driving, and more. Looting and shooting are still among many of the elements that make up this game.
Go to the pinned thread in the Pimp Dreams part of this forum and click on the list of kickstarter promises and specify how an emphasis on the looting and the shooting breaks promises.
Nevermind-- here's a link for your convenience:
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16 minutes ago, Lasher said:
There are some serious problems at TFP
I don't know about that. I get that it is your perception and you've admitted as much-- that you realize it is just your perception as well as others you've spoken with and observed. I am in the enviable position of being able to read all of their internal discord chats so I know for a fact that most of the doom-and-gloom speculation is way off. I can't prove it, of course, and someone like you who seems to be invested in choosing all the most nefarious and negative reasonings for motives that you can't really know but are simply assuming isn't going to trust me either.
TFP continues to enjoy greater and greater success as a result of what they are doing. I'm not sure by what evidence you measure serious problems but the 10+ years in alpha doesn't seem to be harming them in the more general population. If you look at Steamcharts the popularity of the game took off with Alpha 18 beyond what it ever was before and has maintained at that new higher level. We've peaked so far today in the 60k range on a Friday morning and are confident we will break records again this weekend. The feedback for the game in its post A18 state including A21 is predominately positive. That doesn't mean those who post negative views are discounted. But it doesn't really speak to "serious problems". If a 10+ year-old alpha development phase was seriously problematic then I'd expect the steam charts to show declining interest.
Your concerns as well as others who agree with you are known by TFP. I would not be surprised if there wasn't a shift towards alleviating some of those concerns because it always seems to happen every update when there is strong dislike for a feature. TFP adjusts it ultimately somewhere in between what the negative feedback demands and what the positive feedback gushes over. Whenever you that has happened we then see posts of people who loved the change disappointed that TFP caved in.
At any rate. I don't think anyone has anything to worry with regards to TFP being in trouble. They are in an extremely good position for finishing up this game and then launching into their next one in a timely fashion and much further ahead in terms of development for their next game than they were when they started 7 Days to Die. They will be starting the next game with their own original assets and art, a firm grip on the ins and outs of the Unreal engine, and plenty of systems and features they've already spent time experimenting. I say all of this to draw a distinction between the long process of their first game in which they have experimented and developed systems--some of which they threw out for this game but could be considered for their next game. This long process will pay off in being able to push out games much more quickly in the future. So their future is still bright.
But none of that is provable. You have to take my word for it with a hopeful attitude. It will eventually be provable, though, when history shows that 7 Days to Die actually completed and TFP followed up with more hit games that were released in a much faster timetable. Or history might show that TFP crumbles and implodes and nobody buys anything they ever put out again. It's possible but not probable. From what I've seen of the preliminary work their next game will be a big hit. But we'll see. I hope for their success. Do you hope for their failure?
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13 minutes ago, theFlu said:
Assuming no other changes:
Time to condense a jar of murky: ~20 mins.
Time to boil the murky into water: ~1 min.
Building an extra campfire next to every 20 collectors: 5 stones, 31 iron for pot, clay.
Total change in output: ~ none.
Total change in extra hassle: a bit.
I mean, sure, it makes the "first level" easier to mass manufacture, but that was sorta the design intent, to slow down production?
It also eliminates the reliance on a trader to get water production going which seems to be a major complaint. If TFP is going to stick to its guns with the current system but possibly make adjustments to it to address concerns they hear then I could see this or something similar being a possibility.
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I actually like the idea that was floated earlier of the filter being a tool slot item on the dew collector instead of part of its recipe and that it generates murky water until that filter is obtained and inserted. If iteration 2 of the station makes a change like that I'd be okay with it. That said, I don't know how that would affect the balance. It might be worth modding out the filter from the dew collector recipe and change it to produce murky water and try playing with that to see how it affects things.
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18 hours ago, Lasher said:
I'm afraid, Renathras, that many of us that disagree with the changes that TFP make and the way they've been developing the game are sadly starting to realise that there's not much value in raising valid points in these forums.
You'll come up against pretty much the same stock responses over and over and seeing as this often comes from folk in a position of power there's very little you can do about it.
For those of us that don't like it we're left with mods - it's the only real option to undo some of the mess - unfortunately that's just the way it is - believe me - I've tried.
Your problem is that you aren't posting from a position of questioning whether there is a mess or not. You are posting from the foregone conclusion that there is a mess that needs fixing. Because you do that, others who don't think there is a mess or at least still question whether there is a mess or not respond and debate your points. You then take that as people denying the mess and somehow think that TFP is enslaved to those people.
This process of debating is actually what helps determine whether the changes are a mess or not. Just because people disagree with your assertion that it actually is a mess doesn't mean that there is not value in raising your valid points on the forum. You can respond to challenges to your position just as easily as people responded to your original point. It's hypocritical of you to say that you can't post your valid concerns when you are essentially calling for people responding with their valid concerns to be silenced. Patience and being willing to phrase your concerns in compelling ways and then rephrase them if necessary in response to a counterpoint is how good arguments emerge on both sides of any issue.
Ultimately, everyone who has a particular set of preferences that are not represented by the vanilla version of the game is going to have to use mods in order to gain that set of preferences. But that isn't because anyone argued against your point on the forum. It's because the developers made a final decision after testing and feedback and oftentimes lots of debate.
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3 hours ago, Old Crow said:
Sounds more like you just enjoy crapping your pants from dysentery lol. You know that using a water filter mod would be considered part of water survival gameplay, right?
Sometimes I feel like you make up scenarios like this just to be contradictory and try and invalidate people's points of view.
I’m certain of the water survival “gameplay” you desire since anything that is added that creates a challenge or a struggle or tough choices gets labeled by you as anti-player hostility by the developers. To you, a water filter hat that removes any water struggle whatsoever is the best thing ever so someone must by lying if they claim to not use it because they wanted to use dew collectors and have to make choices about their limited supply of clean water whether to use it for drinks, cooking, or crafting— at least for a time.
Also, how does me admitting that I sold the filter mod both times I found it invalidate anyone’s point? The person I responded to criticized the existence of the mod since it instantly solves the water issue just like filling up glass jars from a lake would. My admission only confirms that point. I was essentially agreeing that the filter mod wrecks TFPs new water gameplay loop—which is why I sold them.
But even beyond that, I was simply sharing my own experience and desire to play the intended design which I felt the filter mod would bypass and I didn’t want to do that. That was just me in two of my playthroughs. It doesn’t invalidate how anyone else likes to play. If you let out a huge whoop when you find one on the first day because that is the water survival gameplay you enjoy that doesn’t invalidate me or my point.
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7 hours ago, BFT2020 said:
Trust me, you will be able to play your difficulty level. If I can play survivor with no mod slots on T0 equipment and they only go to level Q2, you won't have any issues in Alpha 21 vanilla.
I would think that changes that cause people to have to initially lower the difficulty level in order to be able to survive would be desirable. If someone always plays Insane but suddenly has to scale back to Warrior, that gives them room to grow and adapt and to eventually get back to Insane again.
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5 minutes ago, Renathras said:
I'm not a modder. I've only ever played the vanilla game. Can you teach me to make a mod to do this so we can test it out? That sounds like a lot more work for you, but I suppose we can do that if you want to.
There are plenty of tutorials for making xml-based modlets. It's super easy. I'm not a programmer and I was able to figure it out in an afternoon and create some basic changes for myself. You can also force the change in a vanilla game by the way you choose to play in order to simulate the change. Lots of people stopped using empty jars while still playing A20 to try simulating A21 at least partially. You don't me.
See? Zero work for me.
8 minutes ago, Renathras said:As for the gameplay:
As I said in another thread: That'd be an argument if it wasn't ridiculously easy to get water by questing. Run a Tier 1 quest. Get 600 Dukes. Go to the Trader you just turned the quest into. Buy 5 waters. Now you're good on drinks for 2-4 in-game days, and it only took you 1/3rd or so of a day to run that quest. What's that, the Trader doesn't have any drinks? Well, today's your lucky day! Right outside their door (or sometimes in the same room) is a vending machine that ALSO sells drinks at the same low, low prices. They also restock every 3-4 days (Traders and Vending Machines), making this a permanent source of fluid.
In one game, I haven't bothered to build a base. Just done quests and bought all the food and drink I needed. I literally have had LESS water issues on that map than any of the maps I've tried base building. I can do 2-4 tier 1 quests in a day, which is enough for me to buy all the water and teas I need, no dew collector required. It's gotten me thinking most of the people saying the change is no big deal are also people that quest and run POIs all the time, and so to them, literally nothing has changed from the way they played before, so to them, it IS no big deal because nothing changed.
When I say more annoying, it's because we went from having two viable ways to secure water (questing or gathering) to having one-ish (questing/POI running). A single Tier 1 quest will give you enough water for at least a day. A day of Tier 1s (4, maybe more if you rush it) will give you enough water to last a week. And the Vending Machine at the Trader will have enough fluid to give it to you. And if it doesn't, the Trader will. And if they somehow don't, there are other Vending Machines nearby, and all of these things restock every couple says.
Where's the "difficulty" here?
The difficulty didn't change at all. If anything, it's super easy too have all the water you need just by running a Tier 1 quest every other day. The only thing that changed is it's more onerous to get water if you don't like questing, and/or it's not possible to have sustainable water unless you have a yucca and berry farm in the snow biome. It made one playstyle less viable while not changing another playstyle, and so didn't make water management any more difficult, it just made one way that could be used non-viable while having no change to water management of another playstyle which was already easy to begin with.You are choosing to play the game a certain way that makes water survival easier. There are other ways to play that bring more of a water survival challenge. It's a choice and part of the sandbox element of playing 7 Days to Die. You can spam quests and ignore your base and have plenty of water or you can focus first on your base and do a couple of jobs a week and have a more challenging water survival experience. Not everyone can or wants to do 2-4 tier one quests per day.
As for murky water loot amounts and vending machine availability I agree that more balancing is needed. Murky water used to be rarer in loot than it is now. I suspect they increased it in anticipation of larger teams of players playing and they may decide to make adjustments there. I think everyone agrees that the Duke economy is still a work in progress. I would expect the prices on drinks to eventually increase by quite a bit. Then again, there is also a wide range between players on how efficient they are at making money. Someone who can rake in the Dukes to always purchase their drinks easily will find the changes less impactful while others who are less savvy at trading won't be buying drinks so often.
All things said-- I agree that the feature still needs tuning. I disagree that the gameplay loop, itself, is annoying since I have witnessed many reports of people immensely enjoying it. I acknowledge that many people also don't enjoy it. All I can say is that TFP is aware.
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1 hour ago, Renathras said:
I feel like this completely negates your prior point.
I'm not sure what prior point you're talking about since you responded to me almost a week later and I can't remember. Sorry you feel that I self-negated myself?
1 hour ago, Renathras said:By this token, why not make you auto-consume the Honey from the tree stump then and there?
Uh...because the stump is destroyed when you get the single jar of honey and the lake isn't? I guess if the stump was unbreakable with infinite reserves of honey inside then the devs would let you auto-consume the honey rather than taking infinite jars of it away or I guess they could allow you to gather a jar of murky water from the lake at the moment that it is completely destroyed by doing so. I think the way it is makes more sense.
1 hour ago, Renathras said:Oh, because it's about limiting water survival, not about realism? It's about forcing people to do content they dislike instead of the game being a sandbox that lets players play how they want? It's about nerfing things, no matter how irrational and illogical it is to do so, instead of just letting people have fun in a video game?
It's about changing water survival from having no gameplay presence to having a gameplay presence. Whether you feel that the gameplay TFP designed is fun or not is your very own valid opinion. There are plenty of people having fun and plenty of people not having fun with the same changes. The game is becoming an actual full-fledged game that will involve limitations and rules that weren't there before. It has some sandbox elements just like it has elements of several other genres. It is not a dedicated sandbox game although you can make it so by enabling the creative menu and godmode. Just because you can't understand the rationality and the logic of the changes doesn't mean they are irrational and illogical. Just because you aren't having fun doesn't mean they aren't fun.
I've loaded in overhaul mods that I played for about an hour before uninstalling because I wasn't having fun. Does that mean the mod author made their changes to the game in order to prevent people from having fun with 7 Days to Die? Did they mod it on purpose to make the game worse? Obviously not. I just didn't like the changes, myself. I didn't go to that mod author's thread and rant about how stupid their changes were and ask why they would do such irrational and illogical modifications to make the game unfun for everyone. That would just be rude to do to someone who obviously put a lot of thought and effort into the mod. Instead, I simply realized that the changes weren't for me but that they probably were fun for other people and I looked elsewhere. If that mod author did happen to ask for my feedback I would have given the reasons I didn't find it fun and leave it at that. I certainly wouldn't demand that he change his mod to suit me.
1 hour ago, Renathras said:I genuinely don't mean to be antagonistic, but this statement I quoted negates every argument in favor of removing glass jars. It says the change was not to make inventory easier (seriously, glass jars stacking to 125 was HARDLY the cause of anyone's inventory woes when we have so many other random things - take a wrench to a vehicle and you just filled half to two-thirds of your inventory!), it was not because of some logic of "you have tons of free jars on you", or to reduce server backend item management or free one or two item registries up so you could add 2 new items in their place (and the very idea that would be an issue in the first place in a game in the year 2023 is just absurd).
All this proves is that the change was specifically to make gameplay dealing with water more annoying, and that making it more annoying was such an imperative to the programmers they broke half the rest of the game in their Quixotic quest to nerf water availability.Your problem is that you are looking for the one ring to rule all reasons why the change was made. There isn't just one reason. There are lots of reasons and I've spelled them all out ad nauseum plus I don't think they would change your mind if I did it again
. The fact that you think that the change was specifically made to make gameplay more annoying shows your incredible inability to think beyond your own personal mindset. It may be that you find the changes annoying but that was not the goal and it is pretty naive that you think that it is. Every change the devs make are the purpose of improving the fun factor of the game. You can agree or disagree that they succeeded but to say that they set out to do things intentionally to make the game less fun is incredibly shortsighted.
1 hour ago, Renathras said:I feel like the solution would have just to make it harder to boil water, like requiring a beaker or distiller. That would have achieved all the things that this change has forced, but actually be logical (a distiller generating heat makes more sense than a dew collector generating heat, too) without breaking other crafting and other aspects of the game.
Talk is cheap. What you have here is an elevator pitch of an idea. So test it out and prove that it would have achieved all the things this change set out to do. Either mod your game or self-restrict yourself however you need to to simulate your design. After all, that is exactly what the devs are doing. They designed a change and implemented and tested it for months and now are having the player base test it and they are making adjustments as they go. So test your own idea and if turns out really good then see if you can get it made into a mod.
1 hour ago, Renathras said:Heck, you can still get the helmet water filter or the book that lets you drink murky water, so getting your hands on either still negates the entire change system.
A chance for a helmet water filter is not the same as guaranteed infinite water bottle gathering from a lake. I felt disappointed both times I found the helmet water filter and simply sold them for money since I wanted to play the water survival gameplay because I think it's fun. Since you find it annoying I'm surprised you aren't overjoyed to have the helmet water filter mod. That gives you exactly what you want which is probably why the devs left it in. That way people who want infinite water early on can have it and those who don't will have some games where it is forced since they don't find the mod or chosen since they can just sell it if they want.
I don't know about any book that lets you drink murky water.
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13 minutes ago, RipClaw said:
And that's where the biggest flaw of the new system lies. To gain this knowledge it must first be available and if you wake up next to a small nest in the middle of nowhere you won't have many sources for the knowledge.
How is that a flaw in an open-world game that is meant to be explored? You mean it is a flaw for those who expect to be able to gain all the knowledge they can from the first moment of the game every single time they start a new game? There are some starts where you find yourself next to a big city and others where you are lost in the wilderness. Different starts for different experiences and challenges to overcome. The game doesn't force you build your base right where you spawn. It doesn't even force you to stay in the first community you find from your initial trader quest. There are no force fields that keep you in the Level One area. It's open world and it's explorable. So go explore until you find an area that fits what you want to play. Some people may like to stay in a more rural area where they will eventually become very masterful with primitive gear while others will go to where there are plenty of magazines and more quickly learn the knowledge they need to craft better gear.
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On 6/24/2023 at 5:04 AM, Viktoriusiii said:
I am level 25 and just now got my forge... I already have steel tools and modern weapons (pipe, simple, modern, futuristic)... but I wasn't able to smelt anything, because the town I settled at didnt have really any workstations to get those damn books from. 3/5 levels were from trader rewards.
How in the world am I supposed to ever get to steel?Regardless of your well-known propensity to wildly exaggerate in order to make a point, I will just say that if you really did get to level 25 without ever being able to build a forge because you found yourself in a tiny community without resources, there is a solution to that ---> Go exploring to find the big city. That is the logical thing that people do in real life when they can't find what they want in their little hometown. They shop on the larger internet or do some shopping when they have the opportunity to visit the big city at stores their little town doesn't have. For me, that's Chik-Fil-A whenever we visit the larger city to the north of us...
You've outgrown and gotten everything you can from your starting area. So go find a new place to build a base that will have what you need. I don't see anything wrong with such a design. I mean if you want to stay put where you are just for the challenge of glacially slow progression, that's fine but the world has new areas to find and new opportunities to discover and there is nothing wrong with the game incentivizing players to move to a new place once they've fully exploited their beginning area. Its one thing to say that the game is horribly unbalanced due to not enough containers around in the world to find Forge Ahead and its another to say that the game is horribly unbalanced due to not enough containers in your initial rural starting area to find Forge Ahead.
On 6/26/2023 at 7:37 AM, Gideon said:You noted that the town you settled in has very few magazines around. This time through, we settled in a city not a town. There were a LOT more options to find find magazines, just out on the street (mailboxes and newspaper machines). Perhaps small towns just don't provide enough loot to make them work any more? I know that cities have tier 0 all the way to tier 5 POIs, so small towns really don't have a place in progression any more.
They do have a place in progression for those who like a slower progression. It offers a variable start condition that makes the replayability higher. You might start near a large city in one game but in a rural area in another. Will you stay in the rural area and play longer in the primitive stage of the game before looking for a larger city or explore and search for a larger city immediately in order to learn faster and improve your gear at a faster rate from the start?
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The solution is easy. If the POI has a dog in it then the danger indicator could show a dog skull instead of a human skull....
EDIT: I thought I'd get laughs for this joke instead of likes. I'm not in favor of the danger indicator and definitely wouldn't want hints of dogs inside!
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Here is where the Learn by Reading system makes a lot more sense to me than the Learn by Doing ever did. Learn by Doing is accurate for developing muscle memory for physical tasks you already know how to do. You don't learn anything new by repeating a simple action over and over and over and over again. All you do is get better and faster at doing the exact simple task you are repeating. To learn something new you must be taught either by reading a book, being taught by teacher who already has the knowledge, or through personal experimentation with lots of failure, or direct inspiration by a higher being/universe. It really isn't learning by doing so much as it is mastery by doing what you already understand.
The type of knowledge that we acquire in this game is much more along the lines of learning something new that cannot be easily learned without some form of tutoring. Just repeating a simple task over and over and over again is never going to bequeath the knowledge that you need to learn to do craft and improve in the areas of the game-- particularly crafting. The mechanic of discovering old world knowledge that helps you acquire new knowledge is much more believable than the idea that doing the simplest task you can 100s of times will help you learn how to do something new.
Now physical actions such as swinging a club or thrusting a spear or shooting an arrow-- yes, learn by doing would definitely be more believable in those cases than reading about those activities. The good news is that learn by reading doesn't increase those types of physical skills. Those you increase through the skillpoint system by doing a variety of survival activities. Skillpoints is what replaced learn by doing because for those who play the game organically, there really isn't a whole lot of difference between learn by doing and skillpoint spending. The only time skillpoint spending feels off is for those who optimize by finding one simple activity that earns lots of xp and grinding that to rack up a ton of points to max out some unrelated skill. Playing that way is an option, for sure, but it doesn't have to be played that way. Skillpoint spending's strength is that players can do focus most on what they feel is fun but still improve in areas that might become more fun to them once their skill is high enough. With LBD I can only improve mining by mining which sucks if I don't enjoy mining--especially with low stamina and poor tools. WIth skillpoints I can do other activities that are fun and then use points to improve my mining skill so that when I do start mining it is more enjoyable. That versatility is why my preference edges to skillpoint spending over LBD.
The new Learn by Reading system is awesome because it fits so well with the type of knowledge acquisition we are experiencing. If we were lost in an apocalyptic world with nobody to teach us how to do new things we've never done before then we absolutely would be at the mercy of the luck of whatever old world knowledge we could discover to help us learn.
Now aside from all of that, it is a ton of fun. I know not everyone is going to agree what is fun or not but for me, the new system really has refreshed the game and the logic of it is not as bad as some people are casting it. To me, it really seems that the same people who were mad that LBD was cut are the ones that are completely unaccepting of learn by reading. They haven't wanted anything other than LBD and won't ever want anything other than LBD. I'm sure there are probably also some people who started in A20 that don't like the change with no thought of LBD but they seem to be less hostile and angry.
4 hours ago, The Civillian said:WHen tools, cooking and repair tool are keeping up with two chosen weapon perks you have an issue.
Not if most of your looting is kitchens, hardware stores, and gas stations... Location, location, location!
1 hour ago, Survior said:It works by MAGIC.
Anything seems to be magic to the person who cannot comprehend how it happens.
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27 minutes ago, Aldranon said:
2) It adds a great plot vehicle into an expanded world that will be a part 2 when the player wakes up.
This would be a very clever ending/beginning from the original game to the sequel. Starting the game from one of the rooms in Navezgane hospital is a pretty fun challenge and would be an awesome way to start the sequel.
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3 hours ago, NBornkilla said:
why dont you play your game and let other play how they feel ?
Despite agreeing with your philosophy of play and let play, if a block is bugged then the devs need to know. If just a few players are basing their entire horde night strategy by exploiting a bug then it is better to get it fixed sooner rather than later as that will impact fewer people.
TFP has no problem with people using blocks in creative ways but if something is bugged then they usually want to fix it.
Especially if fixing it will harm the players….lmao.
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No no no. Metaphorically it’s an elephant’s trunk and an office branch. Obviously.
A tree is waaaay off.
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4 hours ago, Skaarphy said:
Sorry, but I just fail to see the upside to the new system.
I think you stated it quite well when you listed all of the tasks and the process involved with getting water going. That process is a huge gameplay improvement over the nonexistent effort required before. It competes with the other tasks you need to get done and creates additional choices for how to play the first few days. You don’t like it which is noted. But for those who do, it is much more engaging than what we had before. Hopefully it will grow on you as you adapt to it and/or if the devs make some adjustments based on the negative feedback to make it more enjoyable for a larger portion of their players.1 -
18 minutes ago, OccamsShavingCream said:
I apologize. I had assumed that the whole point of the experimental branch was to solicit player feedback, but it appears that's not the case. I think I'll just sit this one out.
Have a good day.
Oh please…Of course we have your feedback just like we have the feedback of others who don’t like it. What I meant is that your personal dislike isn’t going to be enough to convince them to change the game. There are others who like it and we listen to that feedback as well. I didn’t say that your feedback isn’t wanted or considered. TFP listens to the whole range of feedback. They won’t have the full range of feedback until A21 goes stable and people have plenty of time to play it and get beyond their first impression.
Look, you’re at least tangentially related to the razor. So let’s break this down to simplest terms.
1) The devs made a change they believe in and enjoy.
2) The internal team played with the changes for almost a year and some adjustments were made but the feature was kept.
3) Since release two-weeks ago there have been many comments. A lot have been positive and a lot have been negative.
4) Nobody has reported that the game is now unplayable or broken due to the changes. All of the comments have been of the nature of liking vs disliking the changes.
The simplest conclusion is that the feature is well designed and functions well within the game but that there are a lot of divergent opinions about whether it is fun or not. Since fun is a highly personal and subjective concept it is impossible to design a feature that is fun for everyone. All they can do is watch as time goes on to see whether most people come to find it fun.
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10 hours ago, Survior said:
if you go onto youtube you can find youtube comments with a couple thousand likes saying how they feel about the TFP and their nerf bat. If your too busy, I'll just say comments on youtube overwhelming are negative regarding these kinds of changes made over time.
*gasp*
And YouTube comments are typically so positive… 😉Joking aside, there are plenty of comments both positive and negative with thousands of likes. I can acknowledge the negative posts. I know that no feature is going to please everyone. Interesting that you can’t acknowledge any of the positive.
10 hours ago, Survior said:P2,P3: There you go, I feel good to read some honesty around here, I'm sure the 7d2d-fortnight edition is going to be bangers.
When has anyone ever tried to withhold the truth that TFP isn’t making a survival simulator? This is just a case of you letting your own expectations get in the way of you seeing the truth. The same thing happened about five years ago when all the PvP fans who expected that the game was going to be a voxel version of Rust finally realized that the game was actually being designed as a cooperative or single player game with role playing elements. Oh the outcry we had and all those players predicted the doom of the game if it wasn’t going to fully support 50+ player battleground gameplay.1 -
1 hour ago, OccamsShavingCream said:
The fact that other resource containers are not implemented is not a reason to remove ones that are. "Consistently bad" is the wrong kind of consistency.
The fact that we never had one complaint or a single eyelash batted over all the other consumable containers being abstractions over 9 years shows that the design isn’t bad. The bad feeling you and others are getting is the normal aversion to change. If jars had been treated as they are from the beginning there would be about as much outcry about it as we’ve seen for every other container that shows up in your inventory when full but disappears when empty.
1 hour ago, OccamsShavingCream said:Even with this change, in SP on insane/75% loot I can find enough water past day two. It just means you focus on ransacking different things. Water becomes an infinite resource once you get enough dew collectors, so the only actual change is that in the first few days, players are forced to hit the traders for a pot (if they haven't memorized with houses have them) and do a bunch of quests to get water filters. Past that it's just tedium, which could be bypassed in a20 and before by just throwing a bunch of sand in a furnace to make jars.
In a20, the first day is a mad scramble to find resources and get on top of something solid so you don't get massacred in the night. Once you finally get set up and take stock of what you have, the decision is: what water do I drink, what do I save for tomorrow, what do I turn into glue for armor and pipe weapons? On day two, if you found everything to make a forge and found some sand or broke a bunch of windows, you could usually get enough jars to make what you need, but between red tea, glue, Molotov's and cornbread (if you were slumming it and didn't get enough animals) it was still something you had to keep track of.
Good gameplay comes from asking players to make interesting choices. This change removes choice from the player and forces a specific playstyle. Between this change and the skill magazines change (which turns skill unlocks into a lottery, further removing player choice) player agency is badly reduced in a21.
1) Anyone can reduce any mechanic in the game down to a tedious sequence of repetitive mouse clicks. The fact that you find the new mechanic of overcoming the water survival problem more tedious than the old method is immaterial. Everyone finds the fun in any sequence of mouse clicks to a different degree. It’s already known that some like the change and some don’t. That was anticipated long before the release.
2) Everyone plays Day One differently. Thanks for sharing your version of Day One. In my version of Day One I almost always had many jars by the end of day one regardless of sand or windows or forges and it seems that was the case for many others as well. Once the forge was complete there were so many jars available that there were never any choices involved with how to use water. Some important recipes didn’t even use clean water. When there is enough abundance to do everything then there are no choices.
3) This change creates tough choices. Every update when a change is made, those who initially dislike the change think that it creates less choice and more forced gameplay but after some time goes by it becomes apparent that all of the perceived restrictions and forced non choices were just a product of unfamiliarity with the changes. It’s happened so many times now.
In my opinion, within a few months, most if not all game play styles will once again be present as innovative players adapt and figure things out. Some people will never think that the series of mouse clicks involved in building dew collectors is fun. That’s given. But the devs like it and are betting enough players will also like it.
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3 hours ago, Survior said:
Is that so?
People who support this change are supporting a dumber less sandbox-y game in favor of an arcade game, that in conjunction with the magazine system has pushed 7d2d WAY into that field.
So Warmer and Riamus each represent a few thousand gamers? Their posts don’t even mean that they see less inventory clutter as the best REASON for the change, it only shows that they enjoy less inventory clutter as a BENEFIT of the change.
Also, TFP have never ever claimed to be making any kind of simulation here. You decry aspects of the game shifting toward the arcade end of the spectrum as if it is some shocking detestable thing. I fully expect the game to land fully in the arcade realm by time they are finished with modifications to make it more sim-like being left to modders who want to shifted that direction.
If A21 is helping you adjust your expectations away from a survival sim then that is all for the best. This game was never designed to be a sim nor have the developers ever claimed to be focused on realism. Fun over realism has always been their mantra and that usually results in a game well within the arcade realm. There’s nothing wrong with that.
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3 hours ago, Obsessive Compulsive said:
Hiya. Not sure why the optimizer I am producing keeps getting discussed. I have requested the testers be quiet about it and remove all links. That should never have been distributed. Sorry for any confusion on the subject. This forum should remain for discussion of a21. A new topic will be created for the optimizer when it is ready for public distro. Hope you are all enjoying the awesome new alpha
Well at least we know who the mystery author is now…2 -
5 hours ago, Skaarphy said:
Dying of thirst while standing in a lake in a rainstorm shouldn't be possible but with A21 it is.
No its not. Just empty your hand and press E repeatedly to drink. If you have a vitamin and med bandage or painkillers you can drink even more. Nobody has to die of thirst while standing in a lake in a rainstorm in A21.
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What was the point of the water change?
in General Discussion
Posted
It doesn't remove ANY water struggle? Are you sure you didn't mean all?
I agree that you still need to gather water for crafting and cooking so there is still a need for it but when none of it has to be used for drinking it significantly reduces the opportunity for tough decisions and eases the struggle quite a bit. I did suggest that they remove the mod but keep the schematic or add it to one of the magazine trees. But, their plan for the game has always been to offer a variety of pathways to players-- even if some are less efficient than others. They are probably okay with someone finding it early like I did. The player can then choose to keep it or sell it depending on how they want to play. So I have no idea whether they would agree with my suggestion or not. They didn't say "Good point, Roland. We'll get that in" And seeing as how I suggested it long before experimental was released it seems like they probably aren't going to go with my suggestion- at least until they see how it goes with everyone.
But then, you probably think I'm making up this scenario anyway....