Roland
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Posts posted by Roland
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1 minute ago, Razorpony said:
I would say this is true IF there were lakes and rivers of unaccessible gasoline and acid in the world but there are not.
I'm talking about the actual containers of consumables as they are represented in the game and yes, they are factually all consistent with each other now. Are the gathering methods of consumables all exactly the same? No. Is the history of what substance was loot only and what substance was harvestable or craftable the same? No. But I never claimed they were. I agree that for veterans who can't let go of the past, the history of how things used to be is probably a very important piece of this. I also agree that for someone who wants the method of extraction of different resources to be consistent then that piece is very important.
All I am telling the OP who asked the question was why TFP got rid of the physical representation of a container for a consumable and that is because it was the only one in the game and they wanted such empty containers to be consistent across the board. As to how water vs shale is collected or the historical differences in the game between water and acid, those things weren't the concern. But getting rid of jars was which is why I didn't want the OP to have false hope that jars would be reinstated by the developers in case the OP thought that getting rid of jars was simply collateral damage for the water change. It was, in fact, the impetus for the water changes. It's fine by me if you disagree with that design goal or think the game was better before. I'm just giving information about why the change occurred and why it is unlikely to be reversed.
16 minutes ago, Razorpony said:I guess there are people out there who find the hydration gameplay loop fun. Not me, but people. Somewhere. Out there. *waves hand*
Not everyone thinks every aspect of a game is fun. Fun for 100% isn't a realistic goal. The developers and the team found it fun and have continued to find it fun for about a year (The water change was implemented about a year ago internally). They are developing the kind of game they like to play. There are other features that have been implemented and then removed before they ever were experienced by the public because the devs decided that they didn't like them once they got to play with them. It's not like they would have left it in after playing with it for a year if they didn't think it was fun. So there are some (pretty important) people you waved at. It's only been a couple of weeks with the public so we will see if there are others. So far there have been a lot of positive comments about the water changes on many social media platforms including here. Since you're waving at them maybe they'll say "Hi".
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17 minutes ago, Survior said:
So instead devs removed jars and made water filters common so the player could do exactly the thing you are describing via helmet mod. Brilliant.
I've found two filter mods for the helmet during the early game after countless restarts over the past year. I agree that finding an early helmet filter mod ruins the water survival gameplay but I wouldn't exactly call it a common occurrence. In both cases, I just sold it because I wanted to play the water survival game but I guess it is there for someone like you who doesn't. If you're finding it as a common item in all your restarts over the past two weeks you must be very happy. congrats.
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2 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:
Without even playing further once? How would they know that this part is the most interesting for them if they haven´t even seen a T5 POI from inside or experienced a demolisher on horde night.
I mean you try to tell us here that they know everything about the game, otherwise they wouldn´t know what´s most interesting for them, without playing it properly.
That´s the most riddiculous example of sugarcoating i have ever seen tbh.
Oh excuse me. Let me rephrase for you.
I think it shows that they restart the game and replay what they think is the most interesting part of the game.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give affront to your favorite T5 POIs by making an absolute statement about what is actually most interesting….
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3 hours ago, OccamsShavingCream said:
If this is the case, why aren't those jars we always have on hand available when we're next to a lake or pond?
Because that would obviously break the water survival gameplay of the early game so infinite collection of water from bodies of water is limited to just drinking. If you want a bottle of murky water to go into your inventory every time you press E while standing in water then you may as well just open the creative menu and give yourself all the water you want. It would amount to the same thing.
3 hours ago, OccamsShavingCream said:I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but this is inconsistent, and one of the biggest strengths of this game has been that over each iteration the simulation of the world has gotten deeper and more and more internally consistent. This however feels like a step backwards.
The jars are now more consistent with how every single other consumable container is treated. If consistency is what you want then you’ve got it. As for depth of simulation, I’d say it’s a mixed bag at best. Some aspects of the world have been deepened to simulation level but others are definitely at the arcade end of the spectrum. It all depends on what the devs see as important. Whatever they feel is important gets the royal treatment whereas those things they view as peripheral get abstracted, streamlined, and cut altogether.1 -
Let's be crystal clear. @Laz Man joined the team and Alpha 21 was the longest dev cycle in the game's development history. Just saying....
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2 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:
If 70% of players don't reach end game, don't kill 500 zombies and like you also pointed out don't reach gamestage 50 then this game obviously has massive flaws for player retention because that looks as if they bored really fast because progression sucks or the fun and novelty dies out really fast. Hell that sounds like they barely make it to mid game. Which makes this all worse.
I think that what it shows is that the early to mid game is the most interesting part and people like to restart a new game and go through the early build up and feel vulnerable again after outpacing the difficulty curve before they get to late game and gameplay becomes wash rinse repeat. There could definitely be some mid to late game challenges added to help people not get bored once they've overcome all the early and mid game threats and hopefully bandits will fill that niche and perhaps we will see the percentage of people who play further into the higher gamestages increase after A22. That would be an interesting study.
But I don't think people are playing to gamestage 49 and then quitting. I think they are replaying over and over and over the portion of the game that is most interesting to them.
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One of their primary design goals was to remove glass jars as an item from the game and have them only exist as an inventory item just like all the other containers of consumables in the game. That was their starting point when they developed the water change. So it is unlikely that they will reinstate glass jars as a physical item even if they make alterations to water survival in the future.
The dew collector is not producing glass jars any more than stumps are producing glass jars. Instead, it is assumed that the player has a supply of glass jars and when you find honey in a stump you scoop it into one of your jars and when you collect water from the dew collector you scoop it into your glass jar. You aren'r finding a glass jar full of murky water in a toilet tank. Instead you are scooping out the water with one of your empty glass jars you always have on hand. It is what is called an abstraction. It is the same mechanic that is used for the clay bowls you eat your stew from.
It just takes a little time to get used to the mechanic and once your brain makes the adjustment it becomes the new normal. I've played without glass jars for months now and never think about it any longer while I play. I just know the glass jars exist in the background.
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1 hour ago, Khalagar said:
I've mentioned this before, but imo this would be a really neat mechanic and would also shake up the base design meta. Spider Zombies should have a spit ability like cops etc, except it should just target walls near the player and spray out 3-5 webs that stick to walls and count as a climbable ladder.
After doing that a few times, it would almost certainly create new paths onto bases and buildings players were on, and make you pay more attention to spiders. They could make the webs easily burnable too, so you could just molotov them off if you saw them building up
I like it!
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Really, the only problem with Road Smoothing is that there is no visual representation that it is progressing. Overall, even with the slowness of road smoothing, maps are generating faster in A21. If players could see that it was making progress it would end all the worry that the game is frozen.
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1 hour ago, zapf said:
That's what got me! I was burning through repair kits from all the damage being done (esp on the 4x4), I gave myself a point to add more to their repair ability for this reason, and I had JUST repaired it with my last one as I was afraid of it exploding again. Meanwhile, a zombie came up and slapped me, I tried to drive away, vehicle hit 0 durability again, and boom.
I think the biggest issue for me is the inventory is just gone after. I have no idea what was even in it so adjusting to it has been difficult
Appreciate the reply and explanation! Hopefully, it gets a small change, but I am not known for my luck so there is that!
Hopefully TFP can hear more feedback related to this so they can decide how to adjust.
I mourn for your losses.
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3 minutes ago, zapf said:
I was willing to take the additional damage to vehicles in stride as testing went about, but is the intention for Player vehicles durability reaching 0 to shortly after explode so quickly?
I've had two explode so fast I was left jaw dropped..
I've played this game quite a bit and maybe it's the multiple changes at once, but I've NEVER had a vehicle explode - let alone 2 in 24 hours!
The chance of exploding increases as damage is taken after your vehicle reaches zero. So it could happen immediately after or shortly after.
But….you have to be ignoring the health quite a bit to not repair BEFORE it reaches zero in the first place. I always repair mine as soon as it reaches 50%.
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1 hour ago, Survior said:
So, what did this long-term goal you speak of accomplish?
ummmm...the glass jars are now gone. Goal accomplished.
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2 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:
Freedom of choice, player classes, and maintaining RPG elements was always a driving factor for many design decisions ever since madmole took over... so seeing these changes is a bit odd.
Took over? Madmole has never not held the reigns...
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18 minutes ago, RipClaw said:
My crafting skills say something different. I can clearly distinguish between skills where I put points into the corresponding perks and those without. The only exception is medicine, but that's no surprise since they don't share their loot group with other skill magazines.
Over the long term yes but in the short term there will be times when you don't seem to be finding the magazines or parts you perked into. I've seen plenty of people posting their concern that they aren't getting what they perked into and I've experienced it myself. If you are constantly getting everything you need then great.
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4 hours ago, Cosian said:
Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water.
Not necessarily. There is a wide spectrum of hydration survival and how it is represented across many different survival games. There are even survival games where thirst isn't differentiated from food at all. 7 Days to Die has no obligation to be just like any or even every survival game out there. The developers of some games just ignore water survival altogether. Other developers of other games put tons of detail into water survival to the point that it is basically a sim for hydrating the body. 7 Days to Die has chosen to make some aspects of hydration an abstraction.
You don't have to like it but please just know that "any survival game" is not some bible for how particular survival games must depict thirst and drinking. There is a lot of wiggle room based on all the different ways different games choose to do it.
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51 minutes ago, métaphore said:
Considering that the looting/competence/reward system was already changed so many times,-back and forth-, and that, each time, the very last iteration implemented was supposed to resolve all the progression issues, -until it has to be fixed again in the next release-, I am definitively not surprised to read that balancing things around the core survival game wasn't even considered as a priority by the design team. So, following your reasoning, the core game should be about questing for the Traders, like in buying/selling stuff and earning dukes, while surviving hordes and looting the world for crafting stuff would be simple side kicks.
A) No one from TFP has ever claimed that each new iteration is supposed to resolve all progression issues. Development is ongoing and a work in progress. There will be further developments until the game is finished. Each update should not be viewed as an attempt to totally fix the issues with the previous version. Instead, they should be viewed as iterative advancements from the previous version with some experimentation thrown in at times.
B) The core survival game includes the existence of traders. You may not think of the traders as being part of the core survival game and think it a good idea to balance everything perfectly first with the absence of traders and then just add them to the game as optional additional content. But TFP has traders as part of the core survival game. So following my reasoning the core game should be about trading, doing jobs, exploring, building, mining, farming, gathering resources, crafting, killing zombies, defending your base, and any other personal objective you set for yourself. If you choose to ignore or remove aspects of the game then you need to be prepared to mod the game especially as all those parts get solidified and integrated with each other in the game.
51 minutes ago, métaphore said:Let me simply doubt about that, even if you said so based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove the traders from the game settings (In fact, that's a feature that would probably add a lot to the game experience instead of being considered a bug for closing the initial quest).
Doubt away but you should know that my statement isn't based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove traders. I mentioned that for emphasis. My statement is based on the statements and plans of the developers. Traders aren't meant to be an add-on to some sort of survival core game that doesn't include traders. You can certainly play without them but you will have some issues that will need to be overcome if you choose to do that and the extent of what you will need to do will only become more significant as the game gets fully fleshed out for release.
Also closing the initial quest doesn't create the bug of no trader. Closing the initial quest simply means you start with zero skillpoints and must find the trader on your own without help. It is my own preferred way to start. The no trader bug happens most often when you have remnants of code from a previous version map causing problems in your new map.
51 minutes ago, métaphore said:And guess what? If they were really part of the core game, this would have f***ed up my gaming experience, right?
Isn't that why you wrote in to say that you were finding it nearly impossible to play without the traders and that you used to be able to ignore them and play in A20 but now your game experience is messed up? Yeah, here is your own quote:
3 hours ago, métaphore said:Hi,
Playing solo in a RWG, as I used to do in previous builds, without any trader on the map, no airdrops and ignoring working vending machine has become nearly impossible with A21.
As the core game gets more and more integrated with all the aspects of the game it is going to be more and more difficult to just ignore an aspect of it without modding.
51 minutes ago, métaphore said:What make you think that I'm playing a wilderness survival sim?
I'm not. In fact, I'm working on a small single city map accross all biome. So I'm actually playing an urban survival sim, without any trader, if you want to call it that way.
Would you allow me to?
Sure. I guess I misunderstood how you were trying to play. Thanks for your feedback that the game isn't worth playing with the current implementation of traders. Hopefully you will like them once further development occurs or will be able to mod the game to be able to play the way you want. I am thrilled at all the different ways people play the game using mods and/or imposing voluntary limitations. I just don't want you to continue with the erroneous assumption that traders are some peripheral add-on to the core game and that TFP should or would balance the game with the complete absence of traders in mind.
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50 minutes ago, métaphore said:
Now, the game without trader feels very umbalanced in the "too tedious" direction to be still enjoyable for me. All I had to do previously was a very little moding (just switching any trader building for something else in the new RWG world files), but now, it feels like a major overhaul to rebalance looting and crafting issues (that I wont even try to mod). It's a pitty as I think that it should be the core game to be well balanced first, with all Trader stuff as an addon to it.
There is no game mode without a trader that is supported and so there has been no balancing for that type of mode. It should tell you something that there is a “No Zombies” option in the top menu but there isn’t a “No trader” option. The trader and doing jobs are considered integral to the vanilla game experience. In fact when you do get a “No Trader” message it is considered a world generation bug.
If traders were able to be easily ignored in the past then that is simply because their role in the game was not fully fleshed out and I doubt they are still completely fleshed out. As traders continue to be developed along with the jobs they offer, the reputation system that will be coming along with factions, and any further services they might provide beyond what they currently do, you will find that the need to mod the game to allow for their absence will become more significant.
This game is not a wilderness survival sim. It is designed that at least minimal reliance on traders as well as urban areas is needed. You can mod the game to support something closer to a wilderness survival last human being on earth type of play style but that is what it is going to require more and more going forward.
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49 minutes ago, boban said:
And given that extensive testing I'm confused why the balance is so messed up (and first patch already was largely about balance).
They reduced slightly the number of overall magazines you get from some specific loot containers like mailboxes and removed magazines from being the de facto reward choice by making them only show up as quest rewards part of the time and reducing how many you get. They haven’t touched the boost granted by perks which is what we’ve been talking about.The balance isn’t all messed up anyway especially if you play the game without intentionally trying to hyper grind magazines. In my opinion, the balance was perfect for normal play and they may adjust things slightly back to where it was eventually because there is no use trying to balance for min/makers.
My feeling is to let those kind of players do what they do and let them complain that they’ve wrecked the balance for themselves and just focus on keeping things well balanced for well balanced players. There are some players who like to move past the primitive stage as quickly as possible and balancing vs min/maxers is going to come in the form of gates that will just frustrate everyone.
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17 minutes ago, boban said:
I restarted way too many times
😅
If you say so. Hours played over two weeks time in which A21 was only available during one of those weeks isn’t proof. But if you say you’ve restarted many many times this past week I’ll take you at your word.17 minutes ago, boban said:Assuming quite a bit here...
Not really a stretch. Most reports came in starting Monday and Tuesday which was the day and day after the game was first available. It is an assumption, granted, but not “quite a bit”During testing this past year we restarted hundreds of times (collectively) with the intent to FORM an opinion on the balance. You seem to already have an opinion and you’re looking at eveidence to FIT your opinion while overlooking the evidence that doesn’t fit.
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Something else that needs to be understood is that the devs wanted empty jars gone. Regardless of whatever system of thirst survival they came up with, the removal of jars was a requirement and guaranteed to happen. They don’t want them and they’ve had a goal to remove them for quite some time.0 -
1 hour ago, Survior said:
If that was true the devs wouldn't have taken out the jars and just added the purifier.
What was eventual about the jars? You could have a stack of water on day one with jars that could be filled and then refilled forever just by a casual looting of several cupboards and toilets. Is that what “eventually” means to you?Any system can be rushed by hyper-efficient players speed running through the game. So the time frame for “eventually” will vary from player to player but in all cases it was way way shorter of a progression when jars were in the game: nonexistent then compared to a variable time frame now depending on your efficiency.
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5 hours ago, boban said:
The current implementation doesn't fit those criteria. I never found a magazine for some of the skills I didn't spec into (like armors, guns skills), but I did found a lot for a few (like food, traps and seed stuff - I found a lot of those, not putting points into related skills). In my current play I found very rarely any vehicle magazine till I put 3rd point into it. So based on that (and numerous other comments here and on reddit) it seems that current implementation biases some of the magazine probability a lot, while some are just frequent no matter what you do.
I’ve read many comments as well and there are many who don’t think that the boost is working while playing on their first playthrough. I don’t know how many times you’ve restarted but I’ve restarted dozens of times over the past year and, yes, it seems to me to fit the criteria I stated. I’ve definitely had several games where the perks I took did not result in me getting a noticeable boost in parts and perks and others where the boost was quite noticeable and everything in between. After so many restarts I knew there would be a lot of divergent reports at first because everyone would be on their first playthrough and report their own experience and true enough the reports have been across the spectrum because— still pretty random despite the boost.0 -
13 hours ago, Cadamier said:
I liked Learn By Doing and Learn by Perks, this one is confusing. So - do I have it right in that if I put a point into 'bows'/'agility' I should get mostly those books from the moment I pick that perk? At least thats how I understand it.
No. It’s still mostly random. You will get a boost to the magazine and parts for the matching perk you took but it is not an overwhelming boost. Your results will still vary but you shouldn’t ever find yourself in a playthrough where you never find those things. It’s a safety net. You’ll get different results each time you play and, of course the type of container and location matters as well.0 -
I think the pooling of knowledge between allied players sounds pretty good on the surface. It would need to be tested and definitely would need a rebalancing of how many mags would be needed to progress to each milestone because groups would be learning a lot faster than single players.
My biggest regret would be the loss of any need for coordination between players which my team really enjoyed. But if it turned out to help builders enjoy the game better and teams with P3 players then it might be a worthwhile trade off.
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What was the point of the water change?
in General Discussion
Posted
Possibly…or maybe they realize that being able to collect 20+ empty jars on day one which can then be filled all at once and all thrown into a fireplace without need for a cooking pot and then refilled (except by then you have 50+) for the rest of the game is not as much fun as building “abominations”.
Im thinking that most people recognize that the old mechanic is far inferior. In my experience, people who never liked inventory management got a modlet to extend their backpack size ages ago. They haven’t been waiting around hoping TFP creates dew collectors to free up another slot….