Roland

Now this is a good argument for coming up with a criteria for "hardcore survival" as a technical term for the gaming industry. If such a criteria was adopted and applied universally then I would agree that TFP would have to remove their description. But...it is not and for now "hardcore survival" is simply a marketing term open to interpretation by all and I maintain that a great many gamers are going to play 7 Days to Die and view it in their own minds as a hardcore survival game compared to others they might have played. So until, either the industry adopts the phrase officially to meet a set criteria or we start hearing outrage from the masses instead of just a few super elite survival game fans, I don't think it really needs to be changed. I know I said I was done but TheFlu brought out his Goblin, Mega brought out his list, but more importantly, Kuosimodo gave me the first dislike reactions I've ever gotten from them so this is truly unexplored territory and I feel I must not abandon it.

Any argument can be made to look absurd by taking it to absurd lengths. I agree that just because anything could be modded in the game, they shouldn't claim that it has those features. In this case, the game already has survival features that modding can push either to more extreme or more casual results. We aren't talking about something completely foreign that someone else added to the game in their overhaul mod. We are talking about survival features that already exist which TFP, themselves, implemented and who also left a lot of values exposed that can be edited easily for game-changing results. Also by modding I'm mostly talking about simple edits to the xml configuration files in this context which are basically like adjusting settings but in a more advanced fashion. You said the options settings are fair game to claim so why not xml edits as they are just advanced options. I'm not talking about modding in the sense of needing to know C# and bringing new assets into the game.

Why must the description be limited to the default settings? Did you know that based on real feedback, the devs decided to lower default to adventurer from nomad because so many people were rage quitting and calling the game impossible but also unwilling to turn down the difficulty. Once the change was made the default version seemed much more accessible to new players. It seems that gamer ego makes it so that gamers will never turn down the difficulty but they will turn it up. So we could make 25% loot the default and then make easier settings from there or we can have the default be where it is at and allow people to change the settings to 25% for a tougher survival experience. All of those settings are part of the game and not just the one starting setting that developers choose as default. But even the current default is tougher than other games most people are used to playing. I know you can’t imagine anyone having a hard time surviving in what you consider a cakewalk of a game. That’s where the real disconnect is in this conversation: lack of perspective of any viewpoint but your own. You’re trying to make “hardcore” out to be some technical jargon of the industry. It’s not. Man you have me pegged as all kinds of nefarious today. That is absolutely not what I was doing. I didn’t know you had given up on pushing the game to change. Especially after you agreed and liked the suggested changes that Jost posted. <shrug> At any rate, I’m not trying to attack your motivation. I thought I understood it but I guess I was wrong. If your motivation is simply that you think the hardcore description should be removed with the game’s current and likely future state as it is then fine. I accept that. I disagree but I accept. I think Im done. It probably should be changed just based on who cares the most. Now, it’s just about getting the person who can change it to care…

haha…I think the real issue here is that @pApA^LeGBa has been disappointed in the loss of tough survival features in the game and has been asking for the game to focus on the survival aspects for years. I don’t think he’s really calling for the removal of the label so much as he is using this as an opportunity to once again say “we need to focus on the survival game and make it tougher” like Jost was suggesting. Im not against those suggestions either. I’d like debuffs to persist after death so it isn’t a quick cure. I’d like an official Ironman option. I’d like to see food get a balance pass. I’d like options to remove the trader and limit quests. I think food spoilage and weapon degradation are important but I also know those features would alienate a lot of people. But I also think that the game just as it is, is still on the hardcore side of the spectrum. It’s cool that other games exceed 7 Days but they don’t disqualify 7 Days in my opinion.

Personally I don’t think games with high information menus translate well to small screens. I’ve run into problems with my Switch where because of the size while the game is technically “playable” it is only enjoyable when my switch is docked to my television. I wonder how many PC game menus are going to be a pain in the butt on the Steam Deck screen? I guess there’s always reading glasses…lol

Im not trying to defend the description. I care way way way less about it than you do. I don’t think it’s worth the effort of changing it I think it matters so little. This is an interesting conversation and I’m throwing out thoughts that occur to me but I’m not arguing to defend. If I’m arguing for any point at all it is that just because 7 Days to Die is easier than those other listed games it doesn’t automatically mean that the cut-off line for “hardcore” lies between them and 7 Days. You are arbitrarily drawing the line in the sand which is your right to do when expressing your opinion but I disagree that your line is THE line. In my opinion any discussion about what this game is or is not should include modding because it was designed from the moment of conception to be modded. The files are set up as an advanced configurations menu. You say a developer can’t make claims based on mods but what about options. Can they claim their game is hardcore knowing players can turn off loot respawn, change the game to 25% loot, and delete all on death? These particular three settings do increase the hardcore survival factor of the game and they don’t require any modding knowledge.

I think you make a good point that modding is part of the intended game design. I don’t know how moddable The Long Dark or Green Hell are but I’m pretty sure this game could be modded to be just as difficult to survive as those games are if not more so. As you said, simply editing the consequences of critical debuffs to be more dire and making their remedies harder to obtain would ramp up the hardcore aspect of the game by quite a bit. It isn’t tough “modding” to lower the food drop rate— just playing on 25% loot drop significantly makes food tougher and that’s a main option without need for editing any code. If the devs knew at the time of writing the description that they were going to make modding such an integral part of the game to allow users the ability to make it as hardcore or casual as they wish wouldn’t it be okay to give it the hardcore survival label? Maybe the best “marketing brag” would be to simply state that the game is infinitely adjustable to make it the hardest of hardcore survival games to the most relaxing of casual living games in existence.

So all we need is one note that can be found in a lab where a scientist logs that the turning process has been observed to be too traumatic for children and they always die before the process is complete and you would never bring up child zombies again? I’ll write the note today and ask @schwanz9000 to add it in this week! *taps mic* Hello! Is this on? Ahem! Could we have The Serious Pimps come forward please? We need a game design by TSP stat!

Regarding boiling water: It is an abstraction of making water safe to drink. The devs don’t intend for this aspect of the game to be a simulation. The water in the toilet comes from the tank and not the bowl. It is most likely to be water rather than some other kind of disgusting fluid no one should drink boiled or not. I think a more detailed complex system for getting drinkable water could probably be done with a mod. Critical injuries including infection seem to be a touchy subject. Make them have tougher penalties and harder to remedy and people get mad and quit playing. Make them too easy and people get mad about labels like “hardcore survival” in the game’s description. I think the answer here is modding again to tweak the critical injuries whichever direction you want to go like reduce the drop chance of honey or make it cure less of a % of the infection so you would need five honey to stamp it out. More mods….yes, please. Why not learn how and join the ranks of creators to get more mods. There are tutorials and the easiest modding doesn’t require programming knowledge. You can accomplish a lot of changes just by editing values in the xmls. The spear is getting some love for A21. Nomad is default +1 Warrior is default +2 Survivalist is default +3 Insane is default +4 But those simply make the zombies harder to kill. Changing loot to 50% or even 25% will make the game more difficult. The setting “Delete all on death” makes dying a bigger deal and can set you back. Then there are limits you can self-impose for the sake of challenge like only do one quest per day or even, don’t use the trader at all. There is a solution for what you describe but I can’t remember the details. It involves making a new game using the same name and same map and then transferring some files from the original to the new. If you post in the support forum someone should be able to help.

There exist no games at the level of horror, debauchery, shock value, and infanticide that Matt desires and so all he can play are games that to him are just a mockery of those things. 🤪

I’ve not played The Long Dark or Green Hell. Do either of those games start to feel trivial from a survival aspect once you gain enough experience with them and come to know exactly what you should do and where to go in order to overcome whatever might be threatening your life at a given moment in the game? If not, why not? How do those games remain hardcore survival for the fan with 1000+ hours? @theFlu brought up the point about gameplay loops that trivialize survival and that the gameplay loop that does that in 7 Days involves the trader and is easily discernible after not too many hours playing the game. In these other games that deserve the title hardcore survival, what is it that makes survival difficult no matter how experienced you are with the game?

That's probably because I was responding to you and not the OP though my comments relate to the OP as well. I was responding mostly to this: My point was to not get too high expectations. Much of the gameplay in the late game will still be the same only there will have been a final boss challenge event and then credits and then it will be what we have now: hordenight - repair - loot - craft - hordenight etc until you decide to start over.

That is a question best for @faatal

Possibly they'll be disappointed or possibly they'll just feel like they graduated to a higher level of hardcore and not hold any grudge against 7 Days to Die for daring to call itself hardcore. I believe the second to be true. Honestly, you sound like those regulars at the comic book store who argue every little definition and continuity issue and care about all the minute details which makes them disappointed in certain issues that nobody else in the world who reads the comics cares about. Frankly, I doubt we could ever satisfy the hardcore survival elite fans no matter what. Regardless, shortsighted or not, the description isn't likely to change.

Its not the majority choosing. Its just Rick who makes the final decision and that's what he went with. Its not about the majority choosing the descriptor, its about the majority not being disappointed by their expectations based on the descriptor. Only a minority will be disappointed that it didn't live up to their expectations.

Great. Then 7 Days to Die qualifies for all the customers who perceive it that way and I am confident that enough people do that the description does not warrant editing. I appreciate your opinion. I agree that 7 Days is not the most hardcore. I don't believe that makes it casual. I think it is far beyond Minecraft though. But minecraft I would put far beyond 7 Days for mining.

So only one game at a time can ever claim itself to be hardcore? I don't think so. "hardcore" isn't the heavyweight championship belt which only ever belongs to one person at a time. "hardcore" is the heavyweight category of which many belong and strive to be the champion. If the description said "king of all hardcore survival games" I would agree that it is a lie but just because there are other games more hardcore doesn't mean every single game below the most hardcore can't also claim to be hardcore. I disagree with this way of defining who gets call themselves hardcore. They can also say they are hardcore. And if they wanted to give us a mention in their own description by saying "Even more hardcore than 7 Days to Die!" I would be delighted.

This is how I would rank 7 Days to Die on several elements on a casual to hardcore spectrum. Happy to discuss my reasoning with anyone who disagrees and would move the sliders.

Just want to point out that I don't believe that "hardcore survival" is a lie and that's why I don't feel any motivation to tell Rick that it should be changed. It may not be as hardcore as other games but it is more hardcore than other games. I think the description is fine and apt. Some of you will believe with your whole soul that the description doesn't fit because of your own definition of what hardcore should entail. That's a valid opinion but it doesn't make the advertising description an outright lie. If the description only said survival instead of hardcore survival I also wouldn't feel an overwhelming moral responsibility to get the word hardcore added. I don't disagree with a player's perspective that for them the game is not hardcore survival. It is always interesting to hear other perspectives and I, myself, would be happy to see a few more tweaks towards more hardcore survival. But that doesn't mean TFP has an obligation to change that description. I disagree that it is false advertising.

What's better? 1000 barrels each exploding once or one barrel exploding 1000 times?

So you meant Romero? I thought you were making a Shakespearean reference…

Awesome! lol

Loved the first one and yes-- definitely that she's stepping to the beat and laughed out loud that the second one is presented as a sing-a-long...lol

Man, this is a QA Smurf's wet dream. @Laz Man @Jugginator @unholyjoe are going to be coming around and begging for seed, house, and coordinates

I agree-- but then I'm not necessarily hoping for hardcore weather survival either. That's the thing about going more hardcore into anything. People who are hardcore into it love it but everyone else sees it as tedious. We get people saying we need food spoilage and then a bunch of others pipe in and say that food spoilage ruins games because it is so tedious and isn't a challenge anyway-- it just is no fun. But the people who want hardcore survival will say that the food spoilage is fun and without it 7 Days really can't be considered a real survival game. I'm sure that there are people excited to have to change clothing and gear up for different climates and don't see it as a chore to have to dress for the weather and they hate it right now that weather is so....casual. Its perfectly acceptable to use superlatives when advertising your game. Every product on earth describes itself in self aggrandizing terms. Like I said, MANY people will buy the game and play and go "whoa this game is way more hardcore than I thought it would be" and others will snicker at the label and wonder what TFP was smoking when they tried to pass off their game as hardcore survival. It doesn't really matter what the objective truth is when the perception is going to be so broad. If it was universally accepted that 7 Days to Die wasn't a hardcore survival game then we would probably feel the pressure to remove it but there is enough of a perception spectrum about it that the truth is nebulous and so when some people complain that the game isn't hardcore we are more likely to think those people are just super duper hardcore elites rather than agree that the game itself is more on the casual side of things. I really can't see ANY company billing their product as a mediocre version of what it does. That just is not done. That comes through in reviews and videos for people who want to research outside of what the company is presenting itself as. But TFP is not going to say, "Take Green Mile and soften it up about 1000% and that's OUR game!!!" Instead, they are going to be like "Take Minecraft and ratchet up the fear, survival, and blood 1000% and that's OUR game!!!" Its a brag. Its the picture of the Big Mac on the billboard...not the actual Big Mac in your hands....