Roland

Just wanted to point out that RPG elements were planned and announced from the very beginning. This was always ever going to be a game with RPG elements to it. That fact was never hidden or downplayed. Even the most casual research about the game would have revealed that RPG elements were a core goal of the developers. It's too bad you missed that part of the roadmap but I have to believe that most customers knew what they were purchasing and downloaded it knowing and appreciating its RPG elements. There can't be too many who hate the RPG elements and bought the game thinking it wouldn't have any. Then again, maybe there are also a bunch who hate zombies in games but picked this one up and gifted it out not realizing...

Yes, magazines have been added to the loot tables but random items with random stats have not been removed. You learn new recipes as your skill level increases. You also gain the ability to craft already known recipes at a higher quality tier. These new skills grant zero ability or advantage to the use of items. They are simply how we learn to craft things. So, as an example, the farming skill will be how seed crafting is unlocked but that's it. In order to get better yields and other advantages you have to perk into Living off the Land just like before. In Alpha 21 to be able to use knives and sniper rifles equally effectively you will have to buy levels of different attributes exactly the way it is now. In order to be able to craft a sniper rifle and the machete at a high quality level you will need to find and read a lot of the respective magazines that lead to that knowledge. The ability to craft weapons and tools have been separated completely away from the attributes. What you craft has nothing to do with any attribute you might perk into. However, the benefits and advantages for each weapon are exactly as connected to attributes as they have ever been.

The perks definitely got gutted...haha. They will be rebalancing the bonuses and benefits that perks give but remember that one important aspect of the perks in the new system is that they weight the loot table to what you want to find. So if you don't perk into Grease Monkey, for example, the magazines that give knowledge for vehicle crafting are going to show up randomly. Sure, you can go loot gas stations for a greater chance at finding those but you still won't be able to move up that crafting skill tree except at the whim of unmodified randomness. That could take weeks and weeks of searching and finding all the magazines you don't need. Perking into Grease Monkey is going to pad the probabilities towards successfully finding those magazines you need to learn how to craft vehicles as well as the parts needed for those vehicles. When the change first happened I was a bit frustrated with it because what I could learn to craft was so random and I had zero control over what I could learn to craft. But I was waiting to perk into anything until I knew what I would mostly find. As soon as I learned about the benefits of perking I did that and frustration was replaced by fun as I started finding more of what I wanted and needed. It isn't guaranteed but the probability does go up for spending points in the perks enough that you are finding what you want a lot of the time and making looting rewarding. There has been no change to gaining xp through various actions and earning skill points when you level up and spending those skill points on perks. That part of the game is exactly the same. Many of the perks themselves will obviously be different than what you've known and will need some adjustments. You won't find recipes in books. Instead, you can think of it as finding pieces of recipes in several magazines. This is simply for crafting. You can still find those actual items in loot for a nice WOW moment. Whenever you've read enough of a magazine type to unlock a new recipe or a higher quality tier you feel a WOW moment. It's true that you will never learn how to make a steel club before you learn to make an iron club so if that is the type of WOW moment you mean then, yes, those moments will be gone. You will have to work your way up the skill ladder in order to learn how to craft the highest tech with no way to skip ahead by finding a recipe early.

My take on it is that Q6 gear is too frequently and easily given out as quest rewards...

I noticed your absence. 😀 Glad to read that you are still lurking about and I hope you can get your hardware issues sorted soon!

I guess I must have perceived that wrong. I sometimes try and get zeds to move farther in a particular direction so I'll throw a rock and then throw another even farther and I thought I was throwing the second before they reached the first but perhaps not. I do know that when they are pounding on a house and you distract them by throwing a rock they will often go to the rock and then turn and come back to pounding on the house again. If I throw another they will turn and go for that rock before fully returning to the house but will then turn to come back to the house so sometimes it seems there is some memory that the thrown rock doesn't erase.

Start the game from steam but choose Show Game Launcher instead of Play Game. When the launcher window comes up click on the tools tab. Click on the option to clean your game files. Check all boxes to clear out all maps and game files and then click on clean. Exit the launcher and start a new game. Hopefully that works for you.

I'm not channeling Trolland at the moment. He sleeps.... Here's another behavior I've noticed. Zombies can be aggroed but not specifically targeting the player. You can test this when inside a POI exploring and zombies are pounding on the walls to get in. You might think that they are targeting you and actively working to get to you as during bloodmoon. But if you can get to a window and unseen toss a rock out, they will turn away from pounding the walls to go to where the rock lands. They are aggroed but are not targeting you. This is the function of the breadcrumb system where they have points of interest that they want to investigate which after getting to that point of interest they might go to another point of interest within their range until they either run out of breadcrumbs or they intersect paths with you. I'm 99% sure that sleepers are governed by the same rules. So they can often awake aggroed and if bad luck (lots of light) is with you they can instantly target you. But if you escape their initial notice they will still be aggroed and start breadcrumbing towards interesting locations to them which will also lead them to you if you cannot get into shadows or out of their view. As you move if you "drop a new breadcrumb" they will then go to that and so appear to be following the player even if the player is not targeted specifically yet. A thrown rock will become a VERY interesting breadcrumb to them once they've reached their current breadcrumb waypoint. I...um...pretty much always have a stack of rocks on my belt. It's pretty fun.

What is your gamestage? If you started over it will take a few bloodmoons to build back up to always dozens spawning.

It doesn't really matter as long as the player moves from where they made the noise. It has been like this forever. You've been able to go out at night and shoot a gun and watch nearby zombies run toward you for years now. If you stay there the zombies will attack. If you move a few blocks over crouched, the zombies won't see you and stop their movement at the precise spot that you were standing when you shot. The noise source was the player but since the player moved, the place the zombie goes to is the last location it detected the player. btw....How do you wake up Heimfire? Answer: Talk about stealth... Zombies will not interrupt running to a spot in order to follow another source. So if you throw a stone north and then another west they will run all the way north and then run west rather than stopping running north immediately to go west. Similarly, if the zombies wake up because they heard a noise but are not detecting the player, you can throw a rock but they will ignore it until they complete their investigation of the first noise. But if you stay undetected you will see them walk to where the noise that triggered them is and then immediately turn and walk to where the rock landed. For zombies that wake up due to an automatic trigger such as those that fall out of the ceiling, if you throw a rock immediately they will go to the rock because they are not actively investigating anything yet. If a zombie wakes up and detects the player immediately then it will not go for the rock at all until the timer runs out and the player is undetected once again.

I'll also add that I, for one, enjoy the variety of circumstances and situations. Maybe its foul play on the part of the developers to have zombies come crashing out of the ceiling but it is fun. Kage was having fun. Purists of course will claim that even an occasional situation like that video totally invalidates the points spent on stealth and makes the whole system broken. I would much rather have rooms where you can kill all the zombies as they slumber, rooms where jump scares happen, rooms where the zombies are already awake but unaware of me, rooms where they see me and start hunting me, etc. If I can stealth most of the time then I'm happy and not bored of the same kind of gameplay room after room after room after room. I look forward to bandits offering even more stealthy gameplay. Man....I hope some of you guys aren't expecting bandits to spawn in asleep...

I know. That's why I'm explaining it. Like I said, I think some work could be done on timing. Believe me, I can tell that for most people it feels like the zombies are waking up to their presence. Understanding what is really going on can help reduce frustration. I'm not arguing that it is working the best it could be and we should all be happy about the way it is currently implemented. I'm saying that we should not expect to always encounter sleeping zombies because that is definitely not the intent. In the future, they may fix things with the "wandering sleepers" mechanic faatal spoke of or they may play around with the triggers and timing to make sure they wake up somewhat earlier so that the player doesn't link their waking up to what the player is doing. Or....they might leave it as it is... Whatever TFP decides to do, players should end their expectation that they can clear an entire building without anything waking up. Those days are gone. Just wanted to also point out that I didn't say this. I clearly stated that it was NOT a way to deliver 100% sleeping enemies. That shouldn't be translated into that its purpose is to deliver 100% awake roaming zombies. It isn't. There are definitely spawns that are meant to be dormant zombies that won't wake up unless woken up by the player and there are others that are supposed to be awake regardless of what the player does. My experience has been that it is a mixture. Many times I kill zombies as they sleep and many times I have to deal with awake zombies.

That is fair. The fact remains that in 2022, demolishers can be dealt with through building strategies and traps. The OP is talking like it’s still 2019.

I’m going to say this one more time because it is important and some seem to not be grokking it. Zombies are not intended to always be asleep when they are encountered by the player. Zombies “waking up” are not necessarily linked to stealth. Some are always going to wake up because that is the script for them when they encounter the player— to be active. In every other stealth game you are not facing and stealthing against 100% unconscious enemies. In fact, they are rarely unconscious in those games and are often walking through a sentry routine or overwatching a position. To say that zombies should remain asleep unless awoken by a noise the player made shows a misunderstanding of the main purpose of the sleeper volume spawn mechanic. It is not to gift wrap immobile unconscious targets. It is to set up a room with zombies just before the player gets there in a way that prevents them from wrecking the room or wandering away. Some of those zombies are meant to stay asleep but some of them are meant to be awake. Just like in every other stealth game you have to stealth vs awake enemies sometimes. Perhaps there needs to be work done on the timing and maybe new solutions will be necessary (such as the “wandering sleepers” mentioned in the past) so that enemies can spawn in already awake and not waking up in view of the player. But in the meantime, what we have is a mechanism for the player to confront mobile awake zombies (which you can in many cases still stealth). The change from sleeping to awake is not always due to a failed stealth action.

TFP is walking a tightrope between "game" and "sandbox". The more restrictions they implement the more game-like 7 Days to Die becomes but then at the same time the less sandbox-like it becomes. Right now everyone can choose to play how they like. I can limit myself to 1 quest per day per trader. You can spam quests to the exclusion of all other activities. Others can find somewhere in between to play. That is a sandbox oriented design. As soon as they code it to be one or two quests per day it does become a stonger game with rules that better define and limit-- but now there is less freedom to play in different ways. Personally, I think it would be best if they limit it and let modders remove those limits for those who want more freedom in questing. But the game is still under development so nothing is set in stone. They very well may plan to limit quests in the future. Until they do, you can either play in a way that is going to burn you out or you can play in a way that protects your enjoyment. You can moralize all you want that it is the devs' responsibility to ensure your longterm enjoyment of the game and then continue to play in ways you know will lead to being burned out....or, you can do something about it and limit yourself. You said, "The skill system locks you into weapon choices. This is an apocalypse, I should have to be using everything at my disposal because I shouldn't have so much of anything that I can specialize. It's not immersive and it makes the game smaller." I am simply affirming to you that you CAN use anything and everything at your disposal. This is what YOU claimed to want and I'm telling you that you can pick up any weapon you find and use it and be successful at surviving. No weapon is denied you in the game. The only thing that stops you from using any weapon is you rejecting it because in your mind it is suboptimal and you can't get past that idea. The inaccurate part of your statement is that it is the skill system that locks you into a limited number of weapons. Wrong. It is your own unwillingness to use a less than the most optimal weapon. Period. Well, that's your choice. I do enjoy deeply speccing into a few weapons and like that they are my primary weapons for that game. But just because I have an auto shotgun that I'm fully perked into and every mod slot in that weapon is filled doesn't mean that is the only weapon I'm going to use. It doesn't mean I'm locked out of using an assault rifle as well. I know it, because I often do exactly that with great results. You can call my argument weak but here are the results of my argument: I still enjoy the game after thousands of hours of play time and love using a variety of weapons in every playthrough. Look at where your approach to playing has led you. heheh...this was what a lot of posts claimed in the first week after the update when the demolishers were introduced and a lot of people made the same assumptions you did. But just like every update over the past 8 years it turns out that while some cried others tried and learned. You must have quit playing during this time and so never witnessed all the threads and videos showing exactly the base designs and trap designs that players developed to counter them. No...demolishers have been around for a couple of years now and base designs and trap designs to counter them have definitely been found. You can pick the demolishers as the special infected you don't like and someone else will pick the screamers and someone else will pick the spiders and everyone will have their own personal reason for not liking them. But the truth is this is a game with a variety of special infected with their own unique abilities and what you don't like others do and there are strategies for dealing with them all.

Agreed. They should.

Well I do apply it evenly. I'm all for the devs fixing blocks that foil zombies as they discover them. I'm all for the devs implementing digging zombies. I'm all for the devs limiting quests per trader per day. But until that happens, I'm also for reminding players that nobody is holding a gun to their head to make choices that will ultimately lead to their dissatisfaction. "I'm forced to spam quests every day until I loathe them" is a mindset I will oppose every time. I think a limit on quests would make the game better but if the devs decide to keep it open and free-will then I'm fine as well because I'm mindful of what destroys my fun and play accordingly. Anyone can do it.

Oh, I am totally for designed restrictions on questing. But saying so usually brings a lot of irritated people out of the woodwork ranting about people forcing their playstyle on others. I know the quote and believe in it wholeheartedly. But as long as the devs leave it to me, I'm capable of self-limiting and so I do. But I think there should be a game mechanism that limits for sure. I didn't make that erroneous claim. I said any weapon is equal to the task of killing zombies. I never said all weapons are equal to each other. I love the fact that the weapons are not all the same in their killing power because it gives great variety in feel depending on what you choose. Some people around here really want the weapons to all be equal but not me. They are not and they should not be. However, you can kill zombies and win the game with any weapon even if you are not perked into it. That is what I meant and I stand by it. Do you know what a gimp is? A bad leg or a bad arm that makes you function below normal human efficiency. Its usually used in game terms to compare yourself to another player who isn't disadvantage like you as you compete. Foregoing a playstyle that turns you into a god isn't gimping yourself unless you are directly in competition with someone else. So I asked whether you are playing PvP because in that case, yes, you must use the traders as much as possible or you'll find yourself out of the competition. But for PvE in single player or multiplayer? There is no conceivable "gimp" if your goal is to survive. You just progress slower but you still win. But that is just semantics and I know what you mean. Like I said, I know how to get long term fun out of this game and I don't need the devs to force me to it. If you do, then I am all for the devs imposing limits on the players so that they don't min/max themselves out of the fun of the game. When that day comes I hope you won't be on the side complaining about the huge questing nerf.

There are some roof tops that the zombies wake up every single time during the day when you step foot on the rooftop but stay asleep if you do it at night. I think that this is pretty good evidence that #4 is true. Remember that we are saying "rooms" but what we really mean are "Sleeper Volumes"

Triggers that make zombies wake up will never go away. It is a big part of the game. The guys who design the pois want triggers that wake up zombies.

Completely voluntary. You don't have to do a single one. Its totally possible to do one quest a day and explore a ton of POI's of your choosing and win the game. Doing quest after quest after quest maniacally striving to grind up to the highest tier as quickly as possible is not even close to necessary for survival and success. It really is interesting to me that the most LBD-like feature in the game today is the quest system and people get obsessive about unnaturally power leveling up the quest chain just as they did up the skill chain with LBD. Should TFP put a daily quest limiter in the game to save people from themselves and burning out on questing or should they keep it as a choice: quest obsessively if you want or once or twice daily/weekly if you want? Part of me wants them to keep it a free choice but part of me is tired of people posting that questing ruins the game and act like they're forced to quest constantly or they might lose somehow. Maybe some forced restriction on questing would help those folks not overdo questing. As of A20 things are getting closer to as you wish them to be. Different biomes have a higher gamestage value making them very difficult to tackle until you are stronger. Hopefully they will continue to fine tune and improve this going forward. I believe they plan on allowing individual POIs getting an additional gamestage boost as well. Every weapon is viable and equal to the task of killing zombies whether or not you are perked into them. I use weapons all the time outside of my skillset and they are fun and effective. Once again, this complaint is only going to come from the most stringent of max/min players who can't bring themselves to use anything but whatever gives them the most effect dps. A purple weapon fully modded that you have zero skills invested into will mow enemies down. You say that survival is about using whatever you pick up. So do that. Nothing in the game prevents you from that kind of gameplay. Roaming hordes are still in the game. They never left. If you don't like screamer hordes that's one thing and you are entitled to your opinion of them but regular wandering hordes are still very much a thing. It takes awhile before you notice them because they start out very small in the beginning but as the weeks go by they get bigger. You can mod them larger as well because....well....they are still in the game. This week we will hear new details on how looting and crafting are going to be changed for A21. Hopefully the changes will be to your liking. There's nothing to be said here except that the devs love special infected zombies. This may not be the zombie game you want although it has been a zombie game with special infected zombies since the very beginning and you should have known. Cop zombies that launch acid vomit and all zombies with the ability to tear down structures with their bare hands were special abilities from day one. Later came spider zombies that could run up the sides of buildings, screamers, radiated zombies, demolishers, pus erupters, and there may still be a few more coming before they are done. This is that kind of game and always has been . Period. Still to come: More NPCs and more game modes. You bought an unfinished game and they are taking their time to finish it. It is not surprising that some people will lose patience and move on. It is perfectly legit to shelve this game for a year or so and then check back in and see where it's at. Lots of people who are now loving the game haven't played it in 3-4 years and have picked it up to try it out. Gimps you severely against whom? Are you competing against other players? I know you can't mean the game because even at Warrior difficulty I intentionally limit my quests and I survive and thrive quite well. So what or who are we gimped versus? I know for a fact that spamming quests is like drinking out of a fire hose and absolutely not a necessary strategy to survive and win the game. I also know that the end of that gameplay style is boredom and burnout. Therefore, I don't play that way. The big question is why does anyone else?

Invisible triggers causing zombies to wake up will always be a thing. I have asked the level design team and they have unequivocally stated that they want certain places in POIs where zombies are aggravated and active. "Sleepers" were always conceived as a way to spawn in zombies and have them remain in the rooms until the player gets to the room and avoid the situation where they all exit the poi and come out into the street in front of the POI or damage everything in a room trying to get out. It was never intended in the final form that players would always encounter sleeping enemies in every single room and that gameplay would be shooting at immobile unconscious targets 100% of the time. "Sleeping" is the spawn state but not necessarily the intended gameplay state for every single room in a POI. So triggers will continue to wake up zombies in certain places no matter how stealthy the player is. Stealth was never intended as a mechanism to keep zombies asleep. Sometimes due to lighting and line of sight, zombies will notice the player upon becoming active from the trigger but often they are not aware of the player-- just the location where the trigger was activated. If you think of stealth as staying undetected by zombies whether they stay asleep or wake up then you will continue to have fun with stealth and put points into those perks. If you continue to think of stealth as a way to keep zombies from waking up then you will be frustrated and feel like the stealth perks are a waste of points. It used to be when "sleepers" were more undeveloped that you could sneak through an entire POI without waking up a single zombie but those days are gone. The level designers want a variety of encounters in the POIs and do not intend for zombies to stay asleep throughout. However, for the most part, if you are careful you can keep yourself undetected whether they wake up or not. You can also retreat and hide and then re-emerge undetected and get your stealth kill bonuses.

Well I think that another vending machine in the breakroom with both sweet and savory snacks would be very much appreciated....

Epileptics everywhere will want to kiss your feet when they realize that flashing lights were never the problem doctors have been saying they are for the past few decades of video games. It was always server browsers or playing single player all along. Pffft…neurologists….bunch of quacks compared to you.

Yeah, you can quote me on A21 in 2022.