Roland

Well, relatively speaking good stuff. Its not all OP stuff at all but it is useful stuff. More seeds and raw veggies. Magazines. Crafting ingredients that you will use. It's hard to say why but empty bottles were always kind of meh maybe because after Day 1 or 2 you already had all you would ever need so they were just needless useless placeholders that are now gone so you are finding things that while technically junk it is stuff you can use and need. It is much more rewarding without the empty bottles. You may wish for them when most of what you find has some usefulness to it and you think, why do I always get good stuff now? This sucks! But so far I haven't missed them being gone from the loot tables. No...for whatever reason they think you must be strong in order to mine well. The audacity!

For me, the best part is that without them the loot containers that used to have them have much better and more useful stuff. Whenever a I watch an A20 streamer open up cupboards and pull out empty bottle after empty bottle I feel like throwing up into an empty bottle.

I don't know what you are trying to say by the "Let them eat cake" reference. Your analogy for removing chopping wood and mining from the game are poor. The ability to harvest water has not been removed. Build some dew collectors and you will harvest plenty of water that can be carried around. Find jars of water in POIs and you are harvesting water that can be carried around. Go to a river and drink your fill which is harvesting water as well. That water can't be carried away but it is harvested and used. What necessitates the ability to collect surface water is the infinite supply that it represents. Infinite anything in a survival game is bad news. It may be realistic but it destroys the gameplay. Having actually played it I can attest that it is an interesting and rewarding gameplay loop at least for me. I suspect that most people will like it once the change settles in. For the rest, it shouldn't be hard to mod infinite free water supply on day 1 back into your game. This only makes you angry because you refuse to accept your role in early access. As long as you disagree and fight against the idea that you signed up to test out the experimental changes the developers make to the game you are going to be perplexed over why TFP changes things without asking us for permission. For 20 alphas now the developers have been making changes and giving them to us to test and play with and then give feedback based on actual play time. I can't think of a single time they reversed something they already implemented before releasing it because some people objected to the theory of it all. Changes and adjustments will be made only after plenty of time has been spent by the larger community playing with the new features and we've moved past all the kneejerk "I hate change" responses and actual constructive feedback can be gathered. So yeah, nothing anyone says will prevent the new changes from being released for A21. People are going to get to try it out and nobody is going to convince the devs to just throw out the latest developments just because it sounds bad. There is the game and then there is the sandbox. You are confusing the two. The game doesn't need Godmode and it only has elements of a sandbox. The game has limitations and rules the player must follow (or break if they want to cheese something). The game is not intended to be a pure sandbox where you can just do anything and suffer no consequences. I never said the game needs Godmode. You either misunderstood or are intentionally twisting my words. No, that's not what I said at all. Base building is awesome and I'd say that if you include POI upgrading with building a base from scratch as "building bases" then it very much is the norm for most people to engage in one or both of those activities. In our group we upgrade a POI for our everyday crafting base and we build a horde night base from scratch so we do both. What I did say (and I suspect you know it full well) is that completely ignoring looting and refusing to do any scavenging or exploring at all is not the norm. I stand by that statement. I am convinced that the majority of players enjoys doing a variety of activities in the game and that exploring poi's and looting them for stuff is very popular. If you are on a team and some are doing all the building and others are out looting predominately that is also normal and fine. As a team you are getting all those activities done. The looters will bring back magazines because it will make sense for everyone on the team to specialize in different magazines. Having everyone read whatever they find themselves will be extremely foolish and as soon as people start playing they will realize this. 5 people all reading Sharp Sticks magazine means all five will be able to craft an orange wooden spear. But giving one person all the Sharp Sticks magazines means that one person will be able to craft top tier spears for everyone on the team. There is zero incentive to read all magazines yourself when on a team as that will horribly dilute the magazines. It may not seem that way when thinking of magazines in terms of current A20 books but when teams start playing they will instantly realize that the only thing that makes sense is to divide up who will craft what and then funnel magazines to each team member. Meanwhile builders will still probably lead their teammates in xp farming as they upgrade blocks as they build...

Yeah! Get those bookstores while they're good in A21. Who knows whether they'll be as good in A22...

lol….and then there’s @ElCabong who makes their thread title the entire original post…

Part of the disconnect between what a jar of water actually is and what a jar of water is perceived to be is thanks to the fact that of all the consumables in the game, only a unit of water would return the empty container that held that unit of water. No other consumable in the game returns an empty container or dish. By removing the empty jar as an item, now a "jar of water" is exactly the same as a "canister of gas" or a "bowl of stew". They are just a graphical representation of a unit of that consumable as it sits in your inventory. The empty jar item was removed as part of the process of making the game work uniformly across the board and not only as a solution to early water survival problems. Your ideas are great but if you really want them to gain traction they should be based on the idea that empty jars as an item in the game are gone for good. They've actually been gone from internal builds of A21 for about 8-10 months now. In A21, all consumables in the game operate in exactly the same way which is an extremely highly valued outcome for them. If the developers decide to make adjustments to early game water survival based on community feedback in the future, even they will look for solutions and balancing adjustments that are based on no empty jars existing in the game. I hope this knowledge gives you a good challenge to consider your own solution ideas.

If you wish to learn the secrets of the universe you need only study @Crater Creator’s avatar— especially whenever he changes to a new one. 😀

Then you'll do that first and then do the Police Station you saw before going back to the trader to get your reward. Either way, looting is going to be a lot more promiscuous....

Literally...

Three big attempts but.....three big misses. Sorry Poptard, your guesses are completely off tonight. I do agree and I think most would agree that having more perks in each attribute would be a welcome additon. I've got nothing against that suggestion. Here's to hoping the devs will agree when I or more likely Crater Creator (who is our new Super Moderator) relays your feedback to the dev team. Or maybe @faatal who frequents the forums quite regularly will see your analysis and consider it along with the team. I can't believe you forgot about poor @faatal

Loot progression, loot location, loot groups, loot everything has been balanced differently for A21 than it has been for A20. There is too much to describe it all. It can only be played to understand how it works with the changes to player progression. This is why so much of the angst over the crafting overhaul and the water survival changes exist. People can only conceive of the changes within the context that they know which is A20. But A20 is completely different than A21. For just the loot distribution and loot table and loot progression changes alone I can't even consider going back to A20. A21 is that much better. That being said, some people are always going to exploit POIs and treasure rooms and the devs seem to be largely ambivalent about stopping players who wish to play the game that way. Apparently that is a sandbox element that shall remain at least for now. If you want to play the POIs straight you can but if you want to abuse them you can. A21 is not different in that regard. Its probably due to them going full tilt solo and cooperative as their main focus. If competitive multiplayer was a focus then such exploits would have to be closed in order to keep the game fair. But with no competition it isn't a high priority since players can govern themselves in solo gameplay or with their friends working together. If that is the case then I suspect A21 will be a major hit as those who like looting will love looting even more and those who see it as a necessary activity but not their favorite aspect of the game will most likely feel like that part of the game has been enhanced and made to be more rewarding. Some of those may even start to enjoy it. They will probably be the ones who target specific POIs rather than just questing so they can get that location probability bump for finding the types of magazines they're looking for. "Hardly anyone" is exactly who should not be wagging the dog anyway so I think when people experience the changes they will have a positive reaction. Honestly, the only faction I see truly hating the change are the speed runners who will no longer have direct control over the pace at which they learn the crafting recipes. It is going to be chance. Augmented chance, true, but still probably not as fast a climb up the ladder as they are accustomed to and no direct control over which ladder they are climbing....lol.

Ding! Ding! Ding! That is exactly what A21 has done with the magazine change. Glad we are on the same page. BUZZ! Wrong. But A+ in the conspiracy theory category.

If you have any questions about what you heard in the YouTube video please ask. There are quite a few gaps in knowledge about all the changes in A21 many of which work hand in hand with the revealed changes and commentators on YouTube tend to fill those gaps with inaccurate assumptions and guesses or think of the changes in the context of current A20 gameplay which is a mistake. Even though they present themselves as experts they do not have access to the design meetings at TFP nor have they ever played A21.

The people for whom the game is balanced most completely are those who play a balanced game giving their attention to building, harvesting, mining, exploring, scavenging, surviving, trading, and killing. For someone who enjoys the entire game offering they will find that they progress and learn crafting and acquire good loot and build a base and see to their survival needs in an organic and pleasing arc. For those who only wish to play a fraction of the game and ignore certain aspects they will be warping that balanced experience either to the challenging side or the exploitive side. Yes, looting has gotten a huge shot of adreniline with A21 so people who refuse to balance their play to include looting are definitely going to be in for a challenge. I hope they are able to adapt their playstyle and discover that with the changes looting is more enjoyable than it has been in the past and there won't be very many people who decide the game is not for them. But ultimately, if someone hates looting and can't change that feeling then it really may be that this game in its final state is not for them. But, lets hope the changes are fun for all-- enough that everyone is willing to do more scavenging and actually come to enjoy it in the new design space. We will definitely find out once the game releases.

For most people. Even those who are fighting tooth and nail to try and make it so nobody ever even has a chance to try the changes will likely be the loudest voices wailing when A22 releases if the Devs dare to make changes to the magazine system they introduce in A21....lol

Most likely not. It is considered private information even though it is viewed in aggragate and not tied to any individual person. So it will probably not ever be released for public consumption. But....ask Rick during a future dev stream. You never know what he'll be willing to share...lol

This model you espouse is completely contradictory to the whole early access model. The devs chose early access which means they release experimental features and allow players to play with them and give feedback. Feedback will be in the form of posted opinions on the internet, telemetry data they collect, videos in which they can see reactions and thought processes of players, etc. They really aren't asking for our feedback at the conceptual stage. That is all done in house behind closed doors. Our role and participation is at the experimental stage. Finally, this studio gets so much flack for reinventing and overhauling features over and over again until they are happy with them. In fact, I believe you, yourself, have criticized them for reinventing features instead of moving on to new ones--- and yet here you are saying that these devs fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. Hahaha....if there ever was a studio that doesn't seem to care about "sunk cost" it is this one. When they say "its done when its done" they mean that at all levels. They will revisit a feature as many times as they need to in order to get it to the place where they feel it is done "sunk costs" be damned. Of course that gets them criticized by those who liked earlier versions but they are willing to pay that cost as well in order to find the end states they want for each feature. You have to figure out what you believe about these devs. Either they reinvent features over and over again or they are victims of sunk cost and stubbornly never change things once they are implemented. You can't have it both ways. Your playstyle is not typical and by catering to your playerstyle the devs would be cutting out the lionshare of the community. Looting is a staple of this game and always has been. The changes in A21 do enhance scavenging and that change will positively impact the vast majority of players who do enjoy that part of the game. If you really do feel like TFP should listen to its player base then honestly you cannot deny that enhancing the looting and exploring portions of the game is them doing exactly that. You may not like it but you have to admit that "minimal looting" is not going to be the norm for the typical player of 7 Days to Die. People who are obsessed with looting are going to find that A21 completely revitalizes their love of the game and we are sure to see exclamations of joy and gratitude for the new crafting magazine feature from them. People who like looting will find that A21 will increase the fun of looting and their enjoyment immensely. People who are ambivalent about looting are likely to actually enjoy looting in A21 and will probably intentionally loot more often. People who didn't care much for looting may be pleasantly surprised. I'm not going to promise they will like looting because of A21 but there is a good possibility that some will find it enjoyable. This is even more likely for those who like crafting. Since looting will now have a purpose that aligns directly with what they want to do that may very well be the carrot they needed to enjoy looting when they never did before. That leaves the people who hate looting and will never love looting and purchased this game with no intention of ever looting. These are the people that TFP should obey at the expense of all the rest when the new system is almost guaranteed to enhance their fun? The game can't appeal to everyone especially when two diametrically opposite preferences exist so someone is going to have to learn to adapt or move on. I'm glad I like looting.

I highlighted what I believe to be your points in green and I'll answer them one at a time. Point 1: Player Choice If player choice is of interest to you then you will be pleased to know that the changes have increased player choice by a fair amount. In the past, due to having infinite water from the very start there was zero choice for how to utilize your water ever. You always had plenty to do everything. In A21 you will have to make some choices for how you utilize water. This is a very good thing. As for dew collectors they are absolutely optional. You can find portable water in loot and you can purchase it from the trader. For drinking you can go to a stream or lake or even a nearby gutter and drink your fill. You can survive at a very basic level purely on what you scavenge or trade for. Now if you want the luxury and quality of life of having infinite water to be able to once again reach the point where you have enough to do whatever you want with it without needing to make tough choices, you may create a dew collector farm which will see you stocked with all the water you'll need. Its a choice....a player choice. Point 2: The concept of removing containers that hold water in order to force players to use the dew collector is bad This isn't a new concept. There are no containers for any consumable in the game. Glue, gas, stew, steak and potatoes, pie, canned food, acid, first aid kits, repair kits, and more are consumables that are depicted as being in a container and yet no container actually exists. You can't make a huge pot full of stew and then craft a stack of bowls to go scoop out stew to carry around with you and then bring back the empty bowls to scoop out more stew. You can't fill up your empty gas canisters at a pump and then pour the gas into your vehicle and then bring back the empty canisters to fill them up again. None of the consumables in the game that are depicted in your inventory as being in a container give back that empty container so that you can refill it and they never have. How have you and others possibly been able to continue playing the game without all of these empty containers to be refilled? I will tell you that however it is you have been managing to figure out glue and the rest, you will quickly adapt to water since it will be behaving the same exact way every other single consumable in the game behaves and has behaved for years and years. The change is not to force players to use dew collectors. You don't have to use dew collectors technically. The change is to bring consistency to the game across the board and at the same time close the book on infinite water beginning at day one. Point 3: There's no need to waste dev time on the craft system with magazines Water under the bridge. The feature was done months ago. Now that it is done they WILL release it to their early access players to evaluate and determine how it should be tinkered. They are extremely happy with this latest evolution of the crafting/player progression system. Just as you stated that the hybrid of spending points and collecting schematics was a good balance they will get to a great balance of skillpoints, schematics, and magazines after several months of obtaining player feedback about the system from people who have spent time playing with it instead of making a decision to scrap it from people who are just imagining worst case possibilities using incomplete knowledge and guesses. Point 4: Players want to play in a Sandbox Players can play in a sandbox still. But you have to understand that a true sandbox is a play area without rules or constraints so that the player can do whatever they desire. For this game that means you enable godmode and creative mode. Those two modes enabled make 7 Days to Die into a true sandbox experience. In its default form 7 Days to Die is not meant to be a pure sandbox. It is meant to be a game with rules, limits, and consequences. With godmode and creative mode enabled you never need water or food at all and you can build anything out of anything with anything the game has--including some dev tools not available in the default game. You can do whatever you want. You can fly around and spawn a bunch of zombies surrounding a POI and then fly away turn off godmode and approach the POI killing all the zombies guarding it. That's just one example but the sandbox options are endless. If players truly want a sandbox it is always available to them. When they're ready to play a game that has rules and limits and choices that is always waiting for them as well.

No Librarians announced yet for the game. Joking aside, I wouldn't be surprised if speed runner types were able to get a dew collector on day one. The rest of us will easily get one sometime within the first week.

In A21 bookstores are useful to almost OP proportions.

Tom Clark

Isn't this already a thing?

Actually, @Crater Creator has taken over those duties. Let him know your kickstarter key in a personal message and he will convert it to a Steam Key.

They’d have to project Minecraft onto the face of the moon for it to look smooth. 😜

Exactly. This is the superficial comparison by typical gamers I was talking about. It’s what leads them to then wonder why TFP bothers to spend so much time working on graphics. True. But understanding all of that brings appreciation instead of dismissiveness. From those who understand, you hear comments like, “It is amazing what TFP has accomplished. For a full world voxel game this game is technically and graphically brilliant”. From those who don’t understand you get comments like, “This game is just a turd graphically and trying to improve it is simply polishing a turd”