Renathras

I'm not a modder. I've only ever played the vanilla game. Can you teach me to make a mod to do this so we can test it out? That sounds like a lot more work for you, but I suppose we can do that if you want to. As for the gameplay: As I said in another thread: That'd be an argument if it wasn't ridiculously easy to get water by questing. Run a Tier 1 quest. Get 600 Dukes. Go to the Trader you just turned the quest into. Buy 5 waters. Now you're good on drinks for 2-4 in-game days, and it only took you 1/3rd or so of a day to run that quest. What's that, the Trader doesn't have any drinks? Well, today's your lucky day! Right outside their door (or sometimes in the same room) is a vending machine that ALSO sells drinks at the same low, low prices. They also restock every 3-4 days (Traders and Vending Machines), making this a permanent source of fluid. In one game, I haven't bothered to build a base. Just done quests and bought all the food and drink I needed. I literally have had LESS water issues on that map than any of the maps I've tried base building. I can do 2-4 tier 1 quests in a day, which is enough for me to buy all the water and teas I need, no dew collector required. It's gotten me thinking most of the people saying the change is no big deal are also people that quest and run POIs all the time, and so to them, literally nothing has changed from the way they played before, so to them, it IS no big deal because nothing changed. When I say more annoying, it's because we went from having two viable ways to secure water (questing or gathering) to having one-ish (questing/POI running). A single Tier 1 quest will give you enough water for at least a day. A day of Tier 1s (4, maybe more if you rush it) will give you enough water to last a week. And the Vending Machine at the Trader will have enough fluid to give it to you. And if it doesn't, the Trader will. And if they somehow don't, there are other Vending Machines nearby, and all of these things restock every couple says. Where's the "difficulty" here? The difficulty didn't change at all. If anything, it's super easy too have all the water you need just by running a Tier 1 quest every other day. The only thing that changed is it's more onerous to get water if you don't like questing, and/or it's not possible to have sustainable water unless you have a yucca and berry farm in the snow biome. It made one playstyle less viable while not changing another playstyle, and so didn't make water management any more difficult, it just made one way that could be used non-viable while having no change to water management of another playstyle which was already easy to begin with.

I think this is the biggest frustration to me. I remember at some point jars being low drop rates. Playing with friends, we'd have to manage jars early on because we had relatively few (and they were still consumed in cooking). At some point, the jar drop rate was boosted, as well as things that contained jars/gave you jars when consumed. Now, the dew collector/water change seems to have been made to make this actually something you have to manage... ...EXCEPT there are Traders and Quests in the game now, and you get TONS of Murky Water by just looting. If you aren't getting any, a Tier 1 quest gives you enough Dukes to buy 2-5 drinks from a Trader/Vending Machine, and those restock every few days. Every Trader also has a Vending Machine. The average Vending Machine I've found has around 10-15 drinks in it for 120 (Water) up to 600 (Bootstrap, Smoothies), meaning every Tier 1 quest I do (can do 2-4 in a day) can get me AT LEAST one drink, and at most 5, and the Vending Machines and Traders restock often enough that they never run out. "Ah, ha, but the nerf was only intended for multiplayer!", you might counter. Well, first off, that's just wrong. Second off...there are more Vending Machines in the world. Find yourself a POI with a working Vending Machine to turn into a base. Now you have water for life without even making a dew collector, even if other players are emptying out the Trader inventory and Trader Vending Machines. And Vending Machines aren't exactly rare. Between Vending Machines and Traders, the change to water was completely irrelevant. All it's done is make it where you HAVE to quest to be guaranteed water - either through getting Dukes to buy the filter, or getting Dukes to hit up the Vending Machines - and that's it. It hasn't actually made water survival more difficult, it's just forced people out of crafting/basebuilding playstyles and forcing them to quest. For people who already did a lot of questing before, literally nothing has changed for them. Which might be why so many posters who prefer questing and running POIs are saying they don't see the big deal. Because, for them, nothing really has changed.

By this token, why even post? Your points are only valid to you and "maybe a few others that agree with the changes, but that means nothing to anyone else." If people are refuting your points, that means something. If you don't like having your points refuted, don't make stupid points that have already been refuted. As to your last paragraph: I want to respectfully say go F yourself, but I try not to be so crass. I will say the two posts you've made in reply here have been you being a pretty big jerk, though. I've been playing this game for years. I have every right to complain about it changing into something it was never original, nor seemingly intended to be when I paid money for it. If you don't like that, stay off the forums. Nothing wrong with not reading forums, as it sounds like the forums aren't for you anymore. Also, making caricatures of people's playstyle is more "crying about it". It seems to me you don't like people having different opinions than you and can't stop "crying about it". Seems like from your post above you're just yet another one of those people that is mad you can't post on the forums without pushback from people making good points and refuting your arguments. Maybe these forums just aren't for you anymore. Nothing wrong with moving on. Maybe don't belittle and marginalize people and actually listen to what they have to say. Who knows, you might learn something.

This is my problem. The way it is now, many (all?) POIs seem to have zombies spawn after you enter a certain part of the POI. This isn't INHERENTLY a problem (saves on memory, I guess?) for most of the POI. But there's a weird thing starting in Tier 2s and really some Tier 1s that is when you enter the last room, the Zombies spawn and are instantly on you. I've even noticed this in the Tier 1 gas station with the dog in the back. I see the yellow dot, go back there, no dog. No sleeping dog. No nothing. I have to get all up on the dog house itself before the dog spawns, away and instantly agroed and generally behind me no matter which direction I'm facing somehow. It's like "why even have Agility/stealth as an option for a build in the game if it's going to be so negated?" It's bad enough horde night completely invalidates stealth, but the POIs doing it as well?

People aren't "crying about it", they're making valid points and arguments. Your own point about "all workstation type things" has already been refuted, had you bothered to read posts before replying to a thread with said posts in it. You might not have restated a point that's already been refuted, if nothing else. EDIT: Hell, the post right above yours - MY POST - even directly refutes the argument. As I pointed out, the Dew Collector was meant to replace gathering water by hand to slow and gate that process. And gathering water by hand didn't generate heat, and you could get 125 water all at once doing so. Moreover, the Dew Collector cannot be turned of manually. You have to do a janky work-around by leaving it full, which isn't something you can control, unlike literally every other workstation where you can manually turn them off with a flick of a switch. At least get up to speed on a discussion before wading into it. Helps prevent putting one's foot in one's mouth, at the least. And don't go into a conversation insulting people you disagree with ("crying about it"), especially when said people are making valid and rational points and you're just dismissing them as being whiny, which is kind of a jerk move.

I feel like this completely negates your prior point. By this token, why not make you auto-consume the Honey from the tree stump then and there? Oh, because it's about limiting water survival, not about realism? It's about forcing people to do content they dislike instead of the game being a sandbox that lets players play how they want? It's about nerfing things, no matter how irrational and illogical it is to do so, instead of just letting people have fun in a video game? I genuinely don't mean to be antagonistic, but this statement I quoted negates every argument in favor of removing glass jars. It says the change was not to make inventory easier (seriously, glass jars stacking to 125 was HARDLY the cause of anyone's inventory woes when we have so many other random things - take a wrench to a vehicle and you just filled half to two-thirds of your inventory!), it was not because of some logic of "you have tons of free jars on you", or to reduce server backend item management or free one or two item registries up so you could add 2 new items in their place (and the very idea that would be an issue in the first place in a game in the year 2023 is just absurd). All this proves is that the change was specifically to make gameplay dealing with water more annoying, and that making it more annoying was such an imperative to the programmers they broke half the rest of the game in their Quixotic quest to nerf water availability. I feel like the solution would have just to make it harder to boil water, like requiring a beaker or distiller. That would have achieved all the things that this change has forced, but actually be logical (a distiller generating heat makes more sense than a dew collector generating heat, too) without breaking other crafting and other aspects of the game. Heck, you can still get the helmet water filter or the book that lets you drink murky water, so getting your hands on either still negates the entire change system. . Sorry, Roland, but I don't think these changes are defensible.

Consider whatever your playstyle is. Now assume they make it next to impossible to do it. Like maybe you hate crafting and like questing. Suppose they make it where you can only get quality 5 and 6 stuff from crafting. And maybe you like killing zombies. So they put a debuff on you that makes it where when you kill a zombie, you can't craft items for 24 hours. This would force you to disengage from your preferred content - questing and killing zombies - to sit around for 24 hours hours and THEN start the crafting marathon, which you also don't like. You'd be asking "Why did they make this change?" and "What was wrong with the before?" Suppose you find some kind of trick, like using robots and turrets and traps doesn't trigger that debuff. So you engage in this workaround of fighting zombies with spike traps and robotic sledges. You're now able to quest and kill zombies again and still able to do the "busywork" crafting along side it. It's not perfect, but you accept this as a workaround you're content with. ...so then they nerf that; now all those traps and robotic things also generate the debuff on you when a zombie is damaged or killed by them. So you're back to square one suffering from a mechanic that didn't even need to be changed/implemented in the first place and it seems like the devs are out to get you - personally, you - and people who enjoy the things you do and don't enjoy the pacifist crafting game they're trying to turn the game into. . Your reaction would probably be "extreme" as well. . It's not just "the dew collector generates heat". It's "Glass jars have been removed. You now have to quest/raid to get Dukes to buy a filter AND get skill books (since you can't Learn by Doing or Learn by Perk anymore) to learn the Dew Collector, even if you don't particularly like questing or raiding and have managed for 10 years of playing the game to engage with the content without needing to do any more than you personally enjoy. Then you have to build said Dew Collectors and place them somewhere either outside or in a wide open area with a tall ceiling. Oh, and they ALSO summon Screamers since they now generate heat." You're thinking t he reaction is to that last part after the "ALSO". It's not. The reaction is to that ENTIRE THING.

This is what it seems like to me, as well. As I say, I've been playing this game for years. You can see my low post count here to see that it takes things being significantly onerous to get me to come to the forum to post about it. If I'm posting about a thing here, it's significantly bad enough to get my attention. Base building and crafting are my two favorite parts of this game. I run missions or loot stuff when I'm first starting out, or as a dalliance later on, but those aren't the things I like about the game. And don't give me that "Complains about zombies in a zombie game" BS! As I say, I've been playing this game for the better part of 10 years. When I first started, Zombies didn't eat through steel like they started to after a17/18 somewhere in there. They didn't dig to bedrock to get you like they did in a19 and on. The game wasn't Trader/Quest-centric until, what, a18 or so with the first stages and a19/20 to where it became the way to get things? Once upon a time, devoting yourself to crafting even meant you could - GASP! - craft level 6 equipment for yourself! I remember a time where one could build a tower - out of WOOD - just the four legs up to a platform with some railings so you wouldn't fall off, a ladder up the middle, and surround the thing with a moat filled with wooden spikes. You could do that and survive horde night after horde night. Not so anymore. You might not even survive the FIRST horde night in that, and certainly no later ones. The game has changed out from under me, and not for the better. I don't mind that there are other options for people that enjoy the tower defense and looter-shooter aspects of the game. I enjoy games like Remnant: From the Ashes from time to time myself. The problem is a game has to really be built for that - Remnant's combat is a LOT smoother and more enjoyable than 7 Days', for example (we don't even get a dodge roll here!) - and that's fine. But if this game had been that when I started, I probably wouldn't have bought into it in the first place because I only like games like that in small doses, and they need to be REALLY good at it to make me want it in the first place at all. What I loved about early 7 Days was being able to go to the farm in Nav with some friends, harvest crops and build a base in the basement, and occasionally wonder into Diresville to explore and raid some houses. There was something neat about the way the game worked back then - back when the high school was in the prarie biome, my favorite biome to date and the only one I'm aware of THAT WAS REMOVED (I really wish we still had it, it's still my favorite of all the biomes and there's zero reason not to have it, imo) - that was just enjoyable to play. When they added Traders, it made the world feel less empty, which was cool, and gave you some different options for progression, which was cool. When they added Trader quests, it again gave different options, which was cool. ...but after that, they started taking things AWAY. Things I enjoyed. That wasn't cool, and has been progressively less cool as they've dug their heels in and insisted they were going to keep doing more and more of it, stripping away the things I and my friends enjoyed about the game. It's like watching a slow death in the family or something, one that's taken far longer than 7 days. At this point, I wouldn't recommend the game to others, which is a stark contrast from a few years ago when I was doing so. That's the thing, though, it's NOT a regular crafting station. It's a passive resource generator, and a SLOW one at that. Does growing a single corn in a single farm plot attract Screamers? It's a substitute for THEM REMOVING your ability to gather water YOURSELF. When you filled a jar with water from a lake, did that generate heat? No, no it did not. Or did so negligibly that no one cared or would have noticed in a million years. As THAT is what the Dew Collectors have replaced, they should generate no more heat than if you walked to a pond and filled a single jar with water every 8 in-game hours. And obviously, we all know that was little to none. The Dew Collector should generate AT MOST no more than that. It's not a workstation in the normal sense of the term. You can't use it to craft anything or to refine anything. It's like an extremely slow, very limited vending machine. . EDIT: If there's going to be such a high cost to maintain/use, the cost to acquire should be dropped to the ground. I have to ask, HOW is this a rebuttal? Why do you build Dew Collectors? Because you need a source of water, right? So how is "Just let it fill up and don't empty it" an answer? That'd be like building a storage box and never putting anything it it - if boxes generated heat when they held items - or building a bedroll but not placing it. The entire point of having a Dew Collector is for it to generate water. If you aren't needing to empty it, then you don't need the water and you don't need the Dew Collector in the first place. How is this a rational rebuttal to literally anyone? It completely ignores the problems: 1) It's illogical for a plastic tarp to generate heat collecting dew while rain or GRASS doesn't attract Screamers/zombies. 2) It seems to be a nerf specifically designed to force people away from building bases and into doing quests/etc since they can't get water otherwise and the one non-loot/quest way of getting water now draws the zombies to you instead - and worse zombies. This makes no sense, and that "rebuttal" is empty sophistry.

I could understand if there's an advanced Dew Collector/Moisture Farm Condenser (thank you, Tatooine) that uses electricity but generates more water. That might even make sense and be progression into the late game as an item you could build anywhere. ...but a piece of plastic that just catches ambient moisture, uses no electricity, and has no heat source? This seems to just be them trying to force the "You WILL raid, you WILL quest, and you WILL like it!" on people against their will, which is just stupid. Let people play the damn game the way they want. That was the beauty of this game when I first picked it up a decade-ish ago. You could kind of do what you wanted and play how you wanted. You could loot and raid, or you could bunker up and craft. I was worried when they added Trader quests that they were going to eventually push down this route of it not merely being the optimal way to progress your character (it is) but eventually be the REQUIRED way to progress your character. When they made the zombies able to chew through concrete, steel, and ore with ease, it as already leaning that way. When they made the best items only available by looting and not by crafting (even low tier equipment), it was leaning that way. But the water and farming and especially skillbook changes seem to be designed just to stick it to people that like the crafting and building aspects of the game to force them into engaging with the questing/looting content, where before players could choose how they wanted to play. Since someone mentioned D&D, it'd be like if the GM insisted everyone play a character that uses magic - or that doesn't - or something instead of letting the players express themselves the way they choose to play the game.

So, not only did you guys make getting water more onerous, it wasn't more onerous ENOUGH so you made it attract Screamers, too? WHY?? Also, why do we need water - not murky water - to make glue? We're not able to eat the glue, so it doesn't need to be potable water! We should just be able to make it with murky water. And why can't we turn snowballs into murky water? I'm over the "magic jars from thin air", but the rest of these things just made the game worse for no good reason. Like seriously, why was ANY of this necessary? Why can't I just make/loot/get from consuming liquids empty jars, fill them from a water source, and boil them to make them potable? Why was ANY of this done IN THE FIRST PLACE, damnit?! It's so frustrating and I can't figure out why it was even necessary in the first place. Was there some kind of problem with people not dying from thirst all the time? Especially since you can just do a couple missions now and buy armfulls of water and teas from your nearby Trader, negating the entire process anyway! Of all the changes in this game's history, this has to be the stupidest, most annoying, and most uncalled for, and I still haven't seen a good explanation for why it was needed.

Oh, as an addendum: I DO like the progression through the trees. I like how it's not just spend a point and unlock a tier. I like unlocking, for example, Pipe Pistol, working through the quality levels, then M9, those levels, then .44 mag, those levels, etc. I think that's cool. I also REALLY like the Pipe Pistol. Like the almost steampunk feel and look of the thing is fantastic. I kinda wish there was a mod for the .44 to make it have the Pipe Pistol's appearance. I also like that the devs have TRIED to address the "bad RNG gives you no guns" problem by letting you craft something day one. The downside is, other than maybe the Pile Pistol, the other pipe weapons...suck (okay, maybe not the AR...) (And don't look as cool, no offense to the art team, they're just...different?). The Pipe Shotgun is a smidge better than the old Blunderbuss, but not a lot and takes forever and a day to reload its single shot. Sure, the Double Barrel isn't great, but reloads in a jiffy. The Pipe Rifle might be a decent semi-sniper rifle, but it reloads WAAAAY too slow, even for a "don't let them near you" weapon, making it more or less just useful for early game hunting. Which is fine, but that's pretty limiting. Haven't messed with the Pipe AR yet, but it feels like it's just a much more expensive (in ammo) Pipe Shotgun, though it's at least serviceable, I guess? Decent quality Pipe Pistols are okay, and since you can no longer craft any ammo without a Workbench (which is 15 or so levels into THAT skill), it's the only one I tend to have any decent amount of ammo in. Even if I need to carry two to hot swap in some situations due to the reload being a bit sluggish, even one gets you several good shots. I also think that ammo crafting needs to be SERIOUSLY reconsidered. At the very least, Shotgun shells should be craftable without a workbench - country boys reload the things all the time. Ideally 9mm, too. Maybe do the Campfire vs Chemistry Station where it costs more materials (spill/waste some Gunpowder in the crafting without a Workbench to give you a good working surface), but something. And likewise, we should be able to make the second weapon tier (M9, Double Barrel, AK-47, Robotic Sledge, and Hunting Rifle) without needing a Workbench. You can make Wooden Bows without one (and Iron Arrows, too!), and this should extend to the other weapons. Workbench for AP and specialty ammo, Tier 3 and above weapons; those things make sense. Workbench making it cheaper to make ammo, that makes sense, too. But I think the low end needs some work still (while I DO recognize the devs trying to make it a bit better), and I think the game needs some RNG protection for low end players. If those two things can be shored up - which my suggestions in both these posts lean to - I think that would help out.

Good post. For my part, been playing for a long time (since 2014 or so? Alpha 8-10, somewhere in there), but pretty casually with friends. I'm not a hardcore streamer, I don't do "challenges", I don't make massive kill factories, I don't have every POI memorized, I don't speedrun, I haven't mathed the optimal way to do everything, etc. But for a casual player, I've also been around long enough I HAVE seen all the iterations. Here are my issues: 1) RNG is terrible and there's no RNG protection in the current system. 2) Learn by Doing is far more intuitive. 3) A hybrid system can easily be developed that does both (suggestion below). 4) It STILL didn't fix the issue of some skill trees being "must have" while others are not, and some builds not having beneficial stuff in them. In fact, by moving Lockpicking to Intellect, it actually made it WORSE (otherwise, Perception would be a second viable path to getting Forge books). And several of the skill trees are still "this one is for fighting" or "this one is for crafting" despite all that, including must-have skills across branches. 5) It seems it's possible to newb-trap yourself OUT of skill books. By focusing too heavily on something early, it seems you get EVEN LESS of books from other things. This makes the already bad RNG even worse, if that was possible... . 1) There's no RNG protection. I have 2-3 points in Handguns in one game and 1 point in Master Chef and no points in Sledgehammers. Would you be shocked to hear my Pistol skill is only a point or two above my Sledgehammer skill, something I have nothing in, and my cooking is in the 40s somewhere while I haven't unlocked the Handgun quality 1 yet? And don't get me started on how many things I had to loot to get enough Forge books. I literally got a forge as a quest reward BEFORE I unlocked the ability to make one. That's absurd, and not because the quest gave me one. Supposedly taking skill points increases the chance of things...but RNG is still RNG and you can get shafted. Moreover, I tend to find lots of books for stuff I have no points at all in, while things I'm specifically gunning for (Grease Monkey) I'm still getting more books just BUYING THEM outright from Traders and waiting for their resetocks since I'm not finding them anywhere. Note that this is a problem NEITHER Learn by Doing NOR Learn by Perks have. Both systems have a sort of RNG protection since you can just grind out crafting or level (respectively) and you're guaranteed to get at least some of the stuff you want relatively quickly. The Traders are a semi-fix, but are still RNG. . 2) Learn by Doing is the most intuitive system. I make things of a type of thing, I get better at making those types of things. It's logical, it's rational, and I know what to do if I want to get better at certain things. While I recognize the "make 500 Stone Axes, now you can instantly make a level 5 Steel Axe" is a problem (see (3) below), there are better ways to address that. Moreover, as I said in (1), Learn by Doing's big advantage is that I can target skill gains into areas by focusing. There's no abject reliance on RNG to access even basic tools, weapons, and armors. . 3) The best system would PROBABLY be a hybrid approach. Imagine, if you will... <plays 80s/90s "going into imagination/flashback" sound que> ...any number of systems, honestly. a) Learn (the BASICS) by Doing - In this system, you get skill-ups by crafting, but only to a certain point. For example, level 15 in the 100 point categories. This is sufficient to, for example, learn the Pipe Pistol to quality 5 + the basic Handgun to quality 2 or 3. Learn the Dew Collector, Forge, and maybe Workbench (or be close to it). Learn the Bicycle. First Aid Bandages, and how to make basic cooking essentials like Grilled Meat, Cornbread, and Goldenrod Tea. All things that are, to me, good to RNG proof. Since this is a hybrid system, the current skill books would still exist, and be necessary for skills 16 and above, and could be used at lower level to get a "free" skill-up in a hurry. b) Learn by Doing At-Level Crafts - For this system, think of something like old WoW leveling (no idea what they do now since I haven't played it in ages, but I mean the Vanilla through Mists of Pandera era). The way it works is simple. At a level, you unlock a new item. When you do, it's orange. Orange means you are guaranteed to skill up crafting it. After a few points, though, it downgrades to yellow. Yellow has around a 50/50 shot to gain a skill up. After a few more, it downgrades to green. Green has a 10-30% chance (forget which, but basically "fairly low") to grant a skill up. Finally, you get gray. Gray means no more skill ups from crafting that item. So to use an example from 7 Days, suppose level 1 in Handguns (like now) unlocks the Pipe Pistol. For the first two crafts, you are guaranteed a skill (getting you to 3 and the quality 2 version). Now it's yellow, meaning a good, but not perfect chance, to gain a skill-up from crafting it. Maybe this goes from 4-7 or so (getting you up to quality 4). Then it goes green. So you have about a 1/10 to 1/3 chance of getting a skill up. Not impossible, but to get you to skill 11 and the Handgun would take 12-40 crafts. Then, at 11 when you unlock the second tier of the weapon, the quality 1 9mm Handgun (Beretta M9?), the Pipe Pistol goes gray. You will no longer gain skill-ups from it, and must craft the M9 to progress. Each tier would work with this same cycle, preventing someone from just crafting 100 Pipe Pistols day 1 and being able to make quality 5 Desert Vultures. Again, as in (a), you could have books to augment this, which could also help once you were in the "green" stage of crafting to smooth over those lower chance levels. There are probably a lot of OTHER ways to deal with it, but I think (a) keeps the spirit of the current system while giving basic RNG protection to players, while (b) offers a different take that has skill books as still valuable (having to craft up to 40 of an item to get those last few levels of that tier could become VERY expensive), while still allowing players to choose how they play - loot or craft or both - to get to the end goal. In games, I generally believe, to a point, "choice is good". Letting people choose how they engage with the content is a huge factor into player enjoyment and replayability. . 4) Somehow, the system DIDN'T fix one of the big complaints - that you needed to spec into Intellect to do anything. It just made it worse, since now you have to spec into Intellect and STILL may not get the books you need ANYway! And the worst part is, they even decided to make Lockpicking and Advanced Engineering give you the books...then moved Lockpicking from Perception into Intellect! Had they left it with Perception, it would give you two paths, instead of one, to increased Forging book drops. It didn't fix the problem that you still need to go Strength for cooking, mining, and woodcutting, Perception for salvageing and (why is this a skill?) specifically doing Buried Treasure missions (and later game for Lucky Looter, but because LL is percent based and doesn't have a flat addition, it's far less useful early on), Fortitude for farming and hunting, Agility gives a big fat NOTHING that isn't straight combat (despite having 2 or even 3 of the most common use early game weapons, Bows, Handguns, and debatably Knives), and Intellect is massive with all of forging/workbench/water collection (now SUPER important), medicine, vehicles, mission rewards, bartering, the only party buff in the game via leadership (and arguably medic), and now ALSO lockpicking, as if it didn't have enough already. Could we not take some of the stuff from Intellect and spread it out? I get that it's only book chance now, but that's pretty significant unless you have loot turned up super high. It'd also be nice to have the playstyles mixed a bit more. Like we have a Light Armor (Agility) and Heavy Armor (Fortitude), but where's the armorless Monk that gains armor class by leveling (D&D-esque)? Could have Heavy Armor with Strength to make it the tank and have a perk that gives you 80-90% the armor class of tier 1-2-3-4 equipment per skill in the tier, provided you are wearing NO armor to give players another option for builds if they wanted to (I'd personally stick it in Fortitude since it'd go so well with Brawler, but Perception could also be a good choice). I dunno, I just feel like so many opportunities were passed up with this new system, and while IN THEORY not making it required to put points into the various skill trees, it still makes them somewhat mandatory to get effective drop rates, but this just makes the problem worse since we have "Learn by Perk, now with an added layer of RNG so you can't even guarantee or target things you really want!" . 5) I'm not sure on the backend, but I still don't find mailboxes with more than 3 items. If I have maxed out every skill in the game, shouldn't that mailbox be full of items, throwing all kinds of magazines my way? I think this is an issue with the loot tables, but I feel like the added drop percent should be for ADDITIONAL items, not replacing the base spawn items from the loot container in question. Otherwise, you run into the problem of "I put 5 points in knives and now I don't ever get ANY other book, despite having 1-2 points in those other things!", which is obviously a problem! . All in all, I understand what it's going for, but I think it misses the mark. I think in future iterations, it should use something like (3a) and shift into that kind of hybrid model to address the shortcomings of both systems.

I'm with OP. Played three maps since A21 and in all three, I didn't have a Forge within 7 days. In one, I didn't have a Dew Collector within 7 days, either. I don't mind "slower progression", but I do dislike that there's no RNG proofing at all with so many things locked behind the workbench. It'd be something else if there was a lower level work bench or if some things could be done without it. Like compare the Chemistry Station vs the Campfire. The Chemistry Station is needed for really advanced stuff, but you an make First Aid Bandages without one, and even Antibiotics, with the cost being they require more materials at the Campfire. There needs to be a lower level Workbench/Forge if the normal ones are going to take this long to get access to, and/or letting you craft some of the things on your person at a higher cost. Not having the Chem Station until later isn't as much an issue since you have an alternative if it takes you ages and RNG is against you getting one. Imagine, for example, if you could make Shotgun Shells and 9mm ammo without a Workbench (just from your inventory), but they cost more resources to do so. And likewise, if you were allowed to craft Tier 2 weapons and gear (the ones just above primitive, so the basic 9mm Handgun, sawed off Double Barrel shotgun, etc). Indeed, you can already do this with one weapon type in the game - the Wooden Bow and Iron Arrows already works with this premise (provided you can find Iron Arrowheads...). Once you unlock the Wooden Bow quality 1, you can make one right then and there provided you have the parts. Maybe if other weapons and ammo worked that way - where the Tier 3 and up weapons and the AP and specialty ammos required a workbench but either the basic ones did not or required something like a ammo repacking kit that you could carry on your person or just outright craft from your inventory at a bit higher cost - then this wouldn't be an issue. Hell, country boys repack their own ammo pretty frequently, especially on shotguns. Shouldn't need a specialty item to get access to that.

I'm with the OP on this one. Dogs are nearly impossible to kill. Sure, if you go into a Tier 3-6 on day one, you should expect to run into something that will plaster you, but a Tier 1? That's just stupid. Especially considering how many debuffs they slap on you. Running into a dog at your first POI probably is going to get you a broken bone, bleeding out, abrasions, possibly leg damage, and probably an infection. Pretend you are a brand new player. You booted up the game the first time. You did the starting quests so you have a wooden club, stone axe, primitive bow, one arrow, and a pair of grass pants as you walk into your first Trader and go to your first ever POI. You don't have several stacks of materials on your toolbelt, you don't know what a nerd tower is, etc. With that setup, running into a dog is you dead within 5 minutes of booting up the game. This isn't Dark Souls, nor should it be. Challenge is one thing, but the phrase is "learning curve" not "learning cliff". This isn't Eve Online, either. :p

I like 7DTD > Arc because it's a more realistic scenario. There are various diseases or candidates that could cause something like a zombie apocalypse, while in Arc, it's like...aliens, dinosaurs, and some crystal thing in your hand that gives you magic knowledge. (Though being able to build a mobile base is kind of cool...would be neat to see that in 7DTD someday.........) This makes it a more interesting scenario to me. It's kind of like I'd rather play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess than Wind Waker because the artistic styles. I just think "If X were to happen, what would I expect the logical consequences and effects of it to be or the scenario to play out like?" . But yes, I understand a game is different than reality is different than TV. I do think one solution would be to make these toggles in the game. E.g. "XP: None, Based on Game State, Normal", where Normal is...well, normal, Based on Game State would be based on how many days your character has been played, and none would be for people that don't want any at all. Could probably throw some more options in there like "Custom" which would have check boxes for zombie kills, looting, harvesting, crafting, etc and you could set those to some range from 0% to 1,000% (10x) of normal. ...but now we're getting ambitious, I suppose. Could do the same with loot drops, by the way. "Classic, A19+, etc" . I do think your gamestate XP basis mod is an interesting concept. More interesting with permadeath, but I could see that being...less than desirable to some people.