Roland

Let’s put it this way: It costs you more food, gas, and possibly repair kits for the privilege of speeding during the apocalypse. 😀

How do you know? If the hunger rate has been manageable but present at current settings for the last few years then perhaps there was a need because now it is better balanced than it was.

lol...You're acting like they just added this mechanic to the current build. This has been in the game for literally years now and the only difference is that you're just finding out about it. The important thing is that your character gets hungry as time goes on and you can eat to rectify that. By the time players have vehicles they usually have enough food production going to not have to worry about whether they are lead-footing the accelerator.

You might be walking into an inevitable reply with that one Jost... lol

In any other game where the devs keep the files obfuscated you would never know about these types of things. When programmers want timers and processes to generate in the background they don't and shouldn't have to consider immersion. All they need are things in the game to hook to in order to get the results they want. Due to the intention of the devs that this game will be highly moddable the files are open to all who want to look and see. So since the developers want to keep hunger maintenance a relevant feature even after vehicles are obtained they chose to tie the hunger process to driving. Nobody is trying to make a statement that cars burn calories and gas. They announce the hooks because if they don't then the modders will anyway when they notice. Those who know either shrug and try not to think about it or they get upset because they want everything to make sense vs the real world. Those who don't know and aren't told will likely never find out and are the luckiest of all. All they know is that even in the late game they still get hungry and need to eat a plate of spaghetti and drink a smoothie.

I want to say that it's been that way since Alpha 19. But see? You didn't know and so it didn't matter. Its not supposed to be an attempt to mirror reality-- although at the time there were plenty of people making a case for how driving in rough conditions does work out your core quite a bit which would burn lots of calories and result in greater hunger. But regardless, the real reason was to add a much-needed food sink when it was noticed that once vehicles were built and people weren't running any longer people weren't getting hungry like they were. The fact that you've been playing with this mechanic for the past two years and never knew is exactly how it and heat should be. They are just background processes and it doesn't really matter what they are tied to in order to make them keep generating.

You're missing the point. "Heat" is supposed to be a background effect that increases outside of the awareness of the player. By letting the dew collectors help build heat that is another dial the developers can utilize to adjust and balance the build-up of heat and the events that heat do and will trigger. Think of heat as a type of background timer rather than a feature like hunger or thirst that the player is supposed to be able to manage and maintain. The devs aren't making a statement that the condensation of water attracts zombies. If it really matters to you, then just think of it like the fact that dew collectors exist mean that player activity in the area checking them and gathering from them is what is generating the greater notice of zombies in the area. Most players who do not follow the development don't really understand how heat is calculated and accumulated. There is no visible meter to show heat and all in-game descriptions are just vague warnings that a lot of activity in the area will generate some unspecified amount of heat. If it wasn't announced in the patch notes that dew collectors generate heat you would never know. You would just notice screamers showing up periodically just like always. That is the intention for heat accumulation-- to trigger events at random times. I hope I'm not ruining driving for you if you didn't know this but....When you drive and especially when you press the shift button to increase your top speed it drains your hunger bar at a greater rate. Same type of thing.

I see the disconnect. I said "any water struggle whatsoever" which is synonymous with "all". The whatsoever qualifies the word any. I probably should have just said all. Sorry. When you responded you left the "whatsoever" off which changed the meaning. So I did mean all when I posted which probably is not fully correct, upon reflection, since I afterward agreed with you that there is still a need to gather water for crafting. But it is a significant reduction in the struggle since all drinking needs are covered and there never is again a need to choose how to prioritize the use your water. So when you said that the dew-collector doesn't remove any water struggle is that what you really believe or do you admit that the filter does undermine the water struggle if a player chooses to use it?

You just can't fill a toxic bucket of negativity and pour it directly in.

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....

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.

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:

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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?

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!

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. Not if most of your looting is kitchens, hardware stores, and gas stations... Location, location, location! Anything seems to be magic to the person who cannot comprehend how it happens.

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.