Steam reviews - I kinda figured

[Aldranon]

We have a stompy. He goes to a poi, bashes the most direct route to the loot, and exits.

 

 

So Stompy is a name and a description.

 

 

Exploit! Pro players are exploits and should gimp themselves. I say Stompy should shut off his monitor and go by sound and smell.

[WolfyBlah]

I enjoy the early game because it is more challenging to survive fighting zombies, clearing POIs, and defending on blood moon as a vulnerable character.

 

It’s not that I enjoy hours of hitting trees and rock with a stone axe. That isn’t fun at all but then again I don’t do that. I harvest only what I need and in the beginning my needs are smaller because I haven’t yet reached the point in progression to be wanting to harvest full stacks of wood, Stone, Clay, and Ore.

 

As soon as you level up to a point where you bringing in tons of resources for much less effort you now have the means and time to create much safer bases, armor, and weapons which in turn make the challenge of exploring and clearing POIs a cakewalk and blood moons negligible and then the game really does feel repetitive.

 

Now maybe there are people who really do like to tunnel down to bedrock using their tier one stone axe but not I. I would never start a project like that until I had progressed to the point where it is fun to do so. I just don’t want that progression to last a couple of days or as Wolfy was saying—for the game to begin at that point.

 

I agree that there is no challenge to hitting a rock 50 times vs 3 times and if you isolate that one activity and call that the early game then I agree with the detractors. But looking at mining in isolation and calling that the early game is a phenomenally skewed thing to do.

 

All anyone needs to do is change the number of points they get from starter quest and it solves all differences of opinion. Take 20 points instead of 4 and you can start out at a higher baseline. It is one simple edit.

 

It is clear that different people have fun in different ways. The only difference seems to be the inability of some people to comprehend that the universe actually is more diverse than themselves. You can spot this when they express confusion over how the devs made their decisions, assume that others can’t possibly like things they don’t so must be fanbois.

 

I dont have an issue with a character bieng weaker at the start.

My issue is that with each alpha the character is A LOT weaker than in previous alphas and after finally jumping through all the hoops the added rpg element gives you end up in basically the exact same place as where you were maxed out in the previous alpha.

I want MORE progression, not the same progression redesigned again and again.

If TFP had stopped ♥♥♥♥ing around with RPG stuff we might have colonies of Farmer NPCs and blacksmiths.

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For me Roland the game in a16 started to be enjoyable to play (at least to build/gather and not think 'this is taking too long' while watching block hp bars tick down) after i had gotten iron tools at around quality 200 and miner69 + sextrex at 3-3/5.

Nerf the charcter a bit at the start, but make that start point a more enjoyable place and make the endpoint not so unreasonably far away. (And remove perks that make the game easier, these are not meaningful choices and detract a lot from the game).

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The game is also a lot more fun when you have cop zombies and dogs on you: grinding XP for the game to actually start throwing them at you is almost as lame as having tp grind it so mining dosent feel a chore, or the inventory doesnt feel tiny.

[Bluebella]

yeah, that's just not the same tho is it.

 

We're going to need to rely on modders, but that doesn't mean you'll get the game you want still. Not all of us have the time/skill to mod it exactly like we'd want. Turning off all the rpg elements, or introducing hundreds of toggles to adjust in an "advanced zombie slayer' tab as has been requested, could help as well.

 

But for better or worse, we're moving past survival sandbox into an rpg world that players will either learn to love, mod the hell out of or or just quit playing.

 

A17 has made the game much easier to mod. So easy that even non-modders can add their own little tweaks if they head over to the mod section, follow some tutorials and get some help. It took me just half an hour last night to make a mod that changed the colour of my zombies and that's my first time making anything.

 

Another thing some non-modders may not be aware of is that the new "modlet" system allows you to pick and choose different elements to include so you can basically design your own overhaul. For example you can already see modders making comprehensive lists of modlets to choose from - faster vehicles, more resources from farming, harder zombies/easier zombies and plenty of A16 style modlets already - and this is all just after a couple weeks. Given time I'm sure we'll see more ambitious projects coming to life.

 

This functionality was put in the game by design as modding is the best way for people to tailor the game to their specific personal tastes. Sure people may never get everything exactly how they want it but at the very least there's plenty scope there to try.

[Roland]

We have a stompy. He goes to a poi, bashes the most direct route to the loot, and exits.

 

This is why we don’t need the old style POIs. The new style POIs can be played exactly like the old style for those who desire that.

[Exxodous]

I...vehemently disagree. I haven't played a lot of single player. I've always played with friends (until A17 of course because no one wants to play with me), but in A16, we all had our roles. I would be the scavenger/blunt force trauma dealer. My man would be the miner and builder. Another friend would be the science guy making us the best minibikes. Someone else would be the armour crafter gearing us up. Someone else would be the sharp shooter. etc etc. There was a world of choice, but still quite a lot of leeway to be a fairly successful 'Jack of All Trades' come end game.

 

This sounds exactly how are playing our MP game in A17. 3 of us and all completely different builds.

 

Me: A sneaky bow shooting scavenger with some mining skill.

Wife: Builder/Crafter/Miner with few fighting skills

Son: Run and gunner who plows through POI's and Hordes like a mad man.

 

Guess I don't see why folks don't think this is possible any longer?

[Exxodous]

I will say it again.

Taking longer to break a boulder and getting less out of it is not a challange.

A challange is a meassure of the players skill. Please tell me how it taking forever to mine is testing your skill?

 

He is a geologist so it makes perfect sense

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Challenging is zombies that move twice as fast. There's nothing challenging about taking 10 minutes to gather resources vs 8. I really don't understand some of the stances you hold, but clearly you are a superior gamer and we wouldn't be expected to.

 

Not everyone enjoys the same gameplay. Why is that so hard to understand? Some people like slow methodical relaxing games, others like Call of Duty.

 

And some even enjoy both....let that sink in lol

[Exxodous]

No, but modding is. And that is the answer TFP will give you (because they and Roland gave this answer lots of times now). Sandbox mode is quite easy to get. Set all crafting perks at maximum. Depending on your style set all other perks max or at a mid level. Don't even bother with giving yourself xp. Now optionally adjust gamestage progression and some other parameters to your liking. Done.

 

It's actually easier than that.

 

Zombies: OFF

Creative: ON

 

Sandbox to your hearts content

[Exxodous]

I would ♥♥♥♥ing answer your ♥♥♥♥ post but I'm ♥♥♥♥ at ♥♥♥♥ emphasizing everone of my ♥♥♥♥ing points. Because everyone has to ♥♥♥♥ understand that I'm ♥♥♥♥ angry. ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥

 

 

LOL, exactly what I was thinking. What I don't understand; with all those hearts in his posts, one would think he just loves the game....

[Deceptive Pastry]

Not everyone enjoys the same gameplay. Why is that so hard to understand? Some people like slow methodical relaxing games, others like Call of Duty.

 

And some even enjoy both....let that sink in lol

 

1. I was responding to someone about whether it is more/less challenging, nothing to do with the pros/cons of being slower

2. I was literally responding to a person who was acting condescending about people wanting to spend less time getting resources and you're giving me crap about people enjoying different styles of games? lol

[Roland]

On the subject of how to have fun with this game we all just need to agree to disagree. The developers are making a game that will appeal to one set of players as the pinnacle and perfection of games. To several other sets of players it will be a great game. To many other sets of players it will be a good game. For some of these players and for the rest who have a lower opinion there is modding.

 

A small subset of angry petulant players will think that modders are actually "fixing" a "broken" game and castigate TFP for being lazy and incompetent because they need modders to do what they couldn't. I hope that there are only a very few of such small-minded people who cannot fathom that perhaps others have fun in a different way than they do.

 

At any rate, despite what these people may post, whatever TFP settles upon will be fantastic for some percentage of the player base and the rest will either be grateful or outraged about modding.

[Morloc]

 

 

-Morloc

[Kalen]

It's actually easier than that.

 

Zombies: OFF

Creative: ON

 

Sandbox to your hearts content

 

Thats not what a sandbox game is

[Ranzera]

A small subset of angry petulant players will think that modders are actually "fixing" a "broken" game and castigate TFP for being lazy and incompetent because they need modders to do what they couldn't. I hope that there are only a very few of such small-minded people who cannot fathom that perhaps others have fun in a different way than they do.

 

In case you're wondering why so many people think you love the changes. Please see your own words here.

[Hek Harris]

7 Days is a survival game. Creative is the sandbox mode. So yes.

 

I hope that there are only a very few of such small-minded people who cannot fathom that perhaps others have fun in a different way than they do.

Are you crazy !!? Now all the small-minded people will get angry and jump at you. Never tell a cat he's a cat : he really sees himself as a tiger. Mine act that way.

[Kalen]

7 Days is a survival game. Creative is the sandbox mode. So yes.

 

I never said 7 days was a sandbox game.... I'm just saying that creative mode is not what a sandbox game is.

 

however, I just checked the kickstarter page and it says:

 

An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games.

[Hek Harris]

I never said 7 days was a sandbox game.... I'm just saying that creative mode is not what a sandbox game is.

 

however, I just checked the kickstarter page and it says:

 

An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games.

Sandbox is a reference to a place when you can do what you want easily. Children play in a sandbox, for example. Creative mode allows that gameplay. Why so many people find the "use the creative mode" advice insulting ? It's a nice way to play. And best of the best, you can start a game in creative then switch to standard mode.

[Kalen]

Sandbox is a reference to a place when you can do what you want easily. Children play in a sandbox, for example. Creative mode allows that gameplay. Why so many people find the "use the creative mode" advice insulting ? It's a nice way to play. And best of the best, you can start a game in creative then switch to standard mode.

 

Again, that is not correct.... yes, the term comes from playing in a sandbox but that does not mean creative mode. I don't find it insulting for you to suggest creative mode. I do find it amusing that you think creative mode is what a sandbox game is.

[Ranzera]

Sandbox is a reference to a place when you can do what you want easily. Children play in a sandbox, for example. Creative mode allows that gameplay. Why so many people find the "use the creative mode" advice insulting ? It's a nice way to play. And best of the best, you can start a game in creative then switch to standard mode.

 

Who is this advice for? The people who want LBD? The people who don't like the AI changes? As far as I can tell, the only people this helps are the ones that are getting a brand new config setting to never have to deal with horde again.

[Exxodous]

1. I was responding to someone about whether it is more/less challenging, nothing to do with the pros/cons of being slower

2. I was literally responding to a person who was acting condescending about people wanting to spend less time getting resources and you're giving me crap about people enjoying different styles of games? lol

 

My apologies for misinterpreting your post.

[Hek Harris]

Who is this advice for? The people who want LBD? The people who don't like the AI changes?

Absolutely not. For those people, the advice is : play A16

 

Again, that is not correct.... yes, the term comes from playing in a sandbox but that does not mean creative mode. I don't find it insulting for you to suggest creative mode. I do find it amusing that you think creative mode is what a sandbox game is.

So what is a sandbox for you ? or rather, what should this game become to stick to your design of a sandbox?

[Kilroy83]

Alpha 17 is to previous alphas what Diablo 3 was to Diablo 2, still a nice enjoyable game but a lot less complex, I know it's only my opinion but difficulty shouldn't come only from spongier zombies, it should come from complex systems and it's share of rng, I know a lot if people hate with passion rng but without it you remove the carrot from the stick, raising crafting and mining xp won't make a difference, at the end of the day you'll be placing points in a menu window just like we do now.

[Jackelmyer]

I enjoy the early game because it is more challenging to survive fighting zombies, clearing POIs, and defending on blood moon as a vulnerable character.

 

It’s not that I enjoy hours of hitting trees and rock with a stone axe. That isn’t fun at all but then again I don’t do that. I harvest only what I need and in the beginning my needs are smaller because I haven’t yet reached the point in progression to be wanting to harvest full stacks of wood, Stone, Clay, and Ore.

 

As soon as you level up to a point where you bringing in tons of resources for much less effort you now have the means and time to create much safer bases, armor, and weapons which in turn make the challenge of exploring and clearing POIs a cakewalk and blood moons negligible and then the game really does feel repetitive.

 

Now maybe there are people who really do like to tunnel down to bedrock using their tier one stone axe but not I. I would never start a project like that until I had progressed to the point where it is fun to do so. I just don’t want that progression to last a couple of days or as Wolfy was saying—for the game to begin at that point.

 

I agree that there is no challenge to hitting a rock 50 times vs 3 times and if you isolate that one activity and call that the early game then I agree with the detractors. But looking at mining in isolation and calling that the early game is a phenomenally skewed thing to do.

 

All anyone needs to do is change the number of points they get from starter quest and it solves all differences of opinion. Take 20 points instead of 4 and you can start out at a higher baseline. It is one simple edit.

 

It is clear that different people have fun in different ways. The only difference seems to be the inability of some people to comprehend that the universe actually is more diverse than themselves. You can spot this when they express confusion over how the devs made their decisions, assume that others can’t possibly like things they don’t so must be fanbois.

 

Weird. I often found myself spending nights digging down to bedrock just because . ... It's night. What else am I going to do? Run out and brawl with a bunch of zombies and a wooden club who run and now run WAY better than I in the first 7 days? And I'd end up with a great chunk of stone to work with and could spend my days resource gathering and building.

 

I often found myself at bedrock with a stone axe or close to it. Though later play throughs I made I'd spend the first 3 days looking for sand to build over. Just made things easier overall.

[Roland]

In case you're wondering why so many people think you love the changes. Please see your own words here.

 

Except I'm not talking about THESE changes specifically. I'm talking about whatever 7 Days to Die eventually turns into. I might be one of those who turns to modding. I will for A17 if level gates remain. You are missing the point of my post in an attempt to attempt a zinger. If you weren't so intent on teaching Roland a lesson you would have seen that my post isn't even about A17. It is about an attitude about modding.

 

I'm not saying people who don't like A17 are small minded. I'm saying that people who look at modding as fixing something and compensating for incompetent developers is small minded. If TFP decide to go back LBD in A18 I'll understand that there are people who really find that the most entertaining way to play. If I decide to mod that out I won't post that I'm fixing the developer's mistake. I'll simply post that I am changing the game to align with my own preferences.

[Roland]

Again, that is not correct.... yes, the term comes from playing in a sandbox but that does not mean creative mode. I don't find it insulting for you to suggest creative mode. I do find it amusing that you think creative mode is what a sandbox game is.

 

I dunno...Gary's Mod is almost universally seen as THE example of a pure sandbox game and from what I can tell our Creative mode is the closest to that in the offerings we have. A sandbox game is one in which you have all toys available to play with so that you can do anything you wish. With creative mode enabled you can do anything you want. You can ignore the creative menu and just play straight but at any moment you could give yourself a stack of concrete blocks to have fun with that-- or you could go through the steps of harvesting and crafting to get that stack of concrete blocks methodically.

 

At any rate, I can tell you that the developers, themselves, consider Creative Mode to be the purely sandbox mode of this game whereas they see the survival game (non Creative mode) as being open world and also that the players create objectives for themselves but also restricted to the rules and constraints of being a game. There are elements of a sandbox because I could choose to build whatever I want even if it isn't conducive to my survival but then there will be consequences to that.

 

There is nothing wrong with enabling creative mode for pure sandbox play. I know that when you post a pic of a great structure people always ask whether it was done in Creative Mode so they can think less of it but screw those people...

[Jackelmyer]

I dunno...Gary's Mod is almost universally seen as THE example of a pure sandbox game and from what I can tell our Creative mode is the closest to that in the offerings we have. A sandbox game is one in which you have all toys available to play with so that you can do anything you wish. With creative mode enabled you can do anything you want. You can ignore the creative menu and just play straight but at any moment you could give yourself a stack of concrete blocks to have fun with that-- or you could go through the steps of harvesting and crafting to get that stack of concrete blocks methodically.

 

At any rate, I can tell you that the developers, themselves, consider Creative Mode to be the purely sandbox mode of this game whereas they see the survival game (non Creative mode) as being open world and also that the players create objectives for themselves but also restricted to the rules and constraints of being a game. There are elements of a sandbox because I could choose to build whatever I want even if it isn't conducive to my survival but then there will be consequences to that.

 

There is nothing wrong with enabling creative mode for pure sandbox play. I know that when you post a pic of a great structure people always ask whether it was done in Creative Mode so they can think less of it but screw those people...

 

Using a pure example kind of distorts the conversation as we don't live or play in a world of purities.

 

Some sandbox games require progression still to get to the goodies. That progression can vary. Be it skills, item grinding, or exploring more distant and difficult locations. Just have a look at the Sandbox tag in Steam and the games that pop up.

 

Sandbox may let you play with all the toys, but the big difference between Sandbox and Creative 7D2D is in creative, you can just get anything for free by pulling it from thin air. That's.... Not sandbox. 7D2D vanilla is absolutely sandbox. I can eventually play with all the toys. Just have to progress to it.