Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[meganoth]

I don't know whether this is a joke or not. But the developers have said this a long time ago, and not as gossip. Even when only 17 alpha was made. So they said that the gangsters will most likely be in 18 alpha, before the release

 

And I remember madmole saying A17 might be the last alpha (in the middle of A17 development) or some very easy to misunderstand uttering to that effect . Plans change.

 

And (lowly) developers might give out ideas they might want to try out but eventually don't pan out because of time or that the owners have a different plan. That's why I rate them as gossip.

 

I remember that bandits were announced as a goal, but I don't remember that A18 was specifically named as target. But my memory is traditionally bad

[mr.natural]

I like the crawl and parcour POI's. I'm just wondering why can't these overhauled POI's exist next to the NOT overhauled versions. That would very easily create more diversity in the RGW.

Just my penny in the bag.

[deleted user]

So, after more than 325 hours played and a lot of time lurking around on the forums, i guess its time for my first post here. Mostly because Alpha 17 is the first version of 7D2D that i really dont know how to feel about. There are a lot of things i like about it, but also quite a few things i dislike. So lets just get right to it...

 

 

The good things:

 

- The graphics rework is really noticeable in a lot of areas. The game just looks gorgeous now. Maybe not really needed at this point, but still a welcome improvement.

 

- The new and reworked POIs are amazing. I dont think I ever had so much fun exploring POIs in any previous version of the game. Even the smaller houses are now actually worth looting because almost every POI now has some crates or weapons stashed away somewhere in the basement or on the roof. On top of that we have all the hidden loot and traps etc and those huge factory POIs that almost feel like a dungeon in an RPG. Just hats off for this! Amazing work really!

 

- The new weapon/tool/armor mods are great. Its just so much fun to customize all the different weapons and tools and experiment with different setups. Being able to set up a weapon for my personal playstyle is great and it made me use weapons I have not really used in the past. The armor mods are a bit less noticeable because for the most part you just slap them on and forget about them, but they are still nice. Especially things like the headlight for example.

 

- Party system and shared XP. Its just so much easier and more fun to play with friends now. I know a lot of people dont like the shared XP mechanic, but i personally think its a good addition. It gives us more reason to stay close to each other and actually play together. And i dont feel like i am "stealing" XP from my friends by killing all the zombies in a POI.

 

- New vehicles. New toys to play around with are always nice. And i really like the bike to be honest. It just makes it a lot easier to get around and explore the map early on.

 

 

The not so good things:

 

- Punching plants intead of picking them. This might be a trivial thing to complain about, but it actually really bugs me. Picking plants felt a lot more immersive and was actually kind of realistic. Instead, now you have to punch plants with you fists which feels really weird and looks kind of ridiculous to be honest. To make matters worse, the hitboxes seem to be a bit weird, so I often dont hit the plant i am aiming at but instead hit some already harvested seed in front of it, which then pops out and i have to replant it. To avoid that i now have to go through my fields looking straight down and hitting the plants at a 90° angle from above while standing right on top of them. Why was that changed anyway? In what way does this improve gameplay?

 

- The magazines that give you a temporary perk or skill are close to useless in my opinion. I dont know about other players but i personally only save up the ones that give me some kind of crafting skill or maybe the bartering one or Mother Lode. All the others I either scrap for paper or just use immediately to get them out of my inventory. I really dont care about an additional point in Dead Eye or Deep Cuts or something. I cannot even be bothered with selling them because each one takes up one inventory slot. Maybe they are more usefull on higher difficulty settings where you have to play more tactically, i dont know.

 

- Weapon quality and the removal of weapon parts. I just feel like finding a better weapon is close the irrelevant now and the weapon quality just means a lot less. In previous versions of the game I would check every weapon I found for better parts I could use for my current one. Maybe they had a better barrel or a better stock or whatever. And the better the overall weapon, the more damage it would do. It made every weapon find a little exciting because you never knew what parts could be usefull for you. In Alpha 17 thats gone. Weapon quality only changes durability and number of mod slots now and there are no weapon parts anymore. So as soon as I have a pistol now for example, I dont really care about any other pistol I find. No need to really check them, because no indiviual weapon parts anymore. And since almost all weapons seem to be either level 1 or 2 now, I pretty much scrap 99% of weapons I find because they are just useless to me. Once you have a level 2 or 3 pistol, the excitement of finding any other pistol is just gone.

To bring that back it would be nice if weapons could (rarely) come with mods installed for example. That way, even a level 1 pistol could be an interesting find again, if it had a magazine extender for example.

 

- Weapon schematics. As much as I like the mods, I do not like how the schematics work. I really think that the schematics should teach the player how to craft a mod permanently instead of just once. It makes absolutely no sense that we actually use up the schematic when crafting a mod and then even forget how to make that mod one second later. To make matters worse, you need a certain level in Yeah, Science to even be able to craft them. So first you need to find the schematic, then you need to spend points in the required perk and then need to spend resources to actually craft that mod. They are just straight up worse in every way than just finding the actual mod.

To make up for that, schematics should be a lot more rare than mods, but once you find them (and have invested in Yeah, Science), you should be able to craft them forever. To prevent that from being overpowered and to make the already assembled mods still relevant, the resource costs for crafting mods could be increased. Or maybe add a certain item that would be needed to craft mods which you could only get by scraping other mods.

 

- Risk vs reward after a player reaches a certain game stage. Right now, players will rather quickly reach a game stage that will make radiated zombies spawn in pretty much every POI, while the loot in those POIs will stay the same. At that point, looting those POIs becomes pointless to a certain degree because you will most likely spend more resources (ammo, repair kits, medical supplies etc) than you can get from that POI. Dont get me wrong, i like the difficulty and the fact that the game remains at least a little challenging even later on. I just think that the loot in those POIs should level with the player and the game stage, just like the zombies do. I think when i spend an hour and 200 rounds of ammo raiding a POI that is infested with radiated zombies, i deserve a bit more than a level 2 shotgun and some paper.

(on a side note: is the Lucky Looter perk even doing anything? Because it really does not feel like it. Got Lucky Looter 5 in my current singleplayer world and it does not seem to make a difference at all)

 

- Vehicle balance. From bike to motorcycle the balance seems to be fine, but everything after that point is just a waste of resources. The 4x4 is slower that the motorcycle and has less inventory space than 2 of them. When playing coop, its just better to build 2 motorcycles than the jeep. They are faster, cheaper, have more space and are available sooner.

And dont even get me started on that gyrocopter. That thing is just bad in every way imaginable. It is expensive, it is ridiculously slow and the controls are probably the worst i have ever seen on any vehicle in any game ever. Seriously, who came up with that? I built it once, flew it around for a few minutes and will probably never touch it again. Why would anyone ever use it over any of the other vehicles? It really needs a complete rework, especially the controls.

 

- RWG. I dont think i really have to say much about this. Please just fix this. It was fine in Alpha 16, but in Alpha 17 we now suddenly have roads all over the place, floating POIs etc. Its really annoying.

 

 

Anyway, thats it I guess. At least for the moment. There are a lot of other changes in Alpha 17 that I either dont really have an opinion on or that i have not yet decided about.

That includes the new perk system for example. I know a lot of people really hate it, but so far i does not bother me that much. Yes, it made more sense that digging a hole made me better at digging for example, instead of killing zombies and then somehow learning how to make a bike. But you can still do that to a certain degree. You still get XP for mining etc, and you could just go ahead and spend that mining XP in some mining perks if you really want. I guess i have to play more to really make up my mind about this.

I also dont care about the digging zombies a lot of players seem to have a problem with. It makes sense for them to dig. Saying its a bad change because you cannot spend the horde night in a little hole with one wood block over you head is not really a good argument in my opinion. I did not miss them in previous versions but i also dont mind them being here now.

The new AI with the all-knowing zombies is a bit annoying right now, but i know why they did it and i am sure they will adjust this in the future.

The trader quests are whatever for me at the moment. Have done a few of them, but since they are all just "kill zombies" or "get me that", i dont care about them anymore. So they are neither good nor bad. They might become interesting in the future if the devs decide to add some more variation or even small stories to them.

[Ghostlight]

As far as late game vehicles go, I think players make one of 2 choices....ignore them completely OR mod them so they go faster than the vehicles that came before them. We go for the latter and mod the 4x4 to speed 15 and Gyro to speed 20. The Gyro is fantastic at that speed and is pretty much the only vehicle I use now. The controls (and take off mechanics) are not great, but you do get used to it with practice. I am pretty good with it now and I love it.

 

The best change in A17.2 is the removal of encumbrance. I love it.

[RestInPieces]

1)Instead, now you have to punch plants with you fists which feels really weird and looks kind of ridiculous to be honest.

 

2) The magazines that give you a temporary perk or skill are close to useless in my opinion.

 

3) Weapon schematics. As much as I like the mods, I do not like how the schematics work.

 

4) Risk vs reward after a player reaches a certain game stage.

 

5) Vehicle balance.

 

1. Agree - I don't know why they changed that. Surely, they didn't because they wanted a stamina sink, as that would be pretty ridiculous and pointless with the current stamina regen.

 

2. Agree. Imo, it's the single most inexpedient thing they added in the game's whole development history. Good thing it's a minor thing and doesn't impact gameplay much.

 

3. Agree. They might as well be a random rare material. There is no point in calling them schematics.

 

4. When you have a complete arsenal of weapons and mods by the end of the first week, it's no wonder the game stops being rewarding really fast. As for the quality - I partially agree - I just think they should find a better way to make weapons feel like more of an upgrade instead of large flat damage percentages.

 

5. To me, the new vehicles, seem like they were added purely so that players can have some extra sandbox toys. At best they offer nothing to the gameplay and at worst, they are counter-intuitive, especially that gyrocopter.

 

In order for the vehicles to have any kind of meaning, gass availability and vehicle-specific gass consumption needs to be balanced, each vehicle needs to have pros and cons (with the latter vehicles obviously being better than the earlier) and serve a set of purposes.

 

The best change in A17.2 is the removal of encumbrance. I love it.

 

Removal? It seems to work normally.

[deleted user]

4. When you have a complete arsenal of weapons and mods by the end of the first week, it's no wonder the game stops being rewarding really fast. As for the quality - I partially agree - I just think they should find a better way to make weapons feel like more of an upgrade instead of large flat damage percentages.

 

I have to agree that just better damage for better quality weapons is a bit boring. They should not get rid of it completely in my opinion, because it makes better weapons feel more like an actual upgrade. But what i would really like to see personally would be some kind of random quirks like "crooked barrel: -10% accuracy" or "damaged trigger group: -10% fire rate" or something. Also, like i already said, i think it would be nice if weapons could come with certain mods already installed. It would make sense since we have mods in the world now and some people would probably have installed them. And it would make the experience of finding weapons a bit more exciting again.

[KrashYT22]

Over time, I realized that the weapon system was very scarce. From the ammunition, only degraded ammunition was added. Which are twice as strong kill weapons, and cause less damage.

 

Why it is impossible to create really modified cartridges? For example explosive cartridges, which for example have one and a half times more damage, and the chance to blow up of course 5, 10, or 15%. The crossbow has a version with an explosive cartridge.

 

I also want to say that the weapon comes down to the fact that you are running with a machine gun and a magnum. The arbalest, the bow, the gun are thrown into the garbage, because they have no uniqueness. The maximum in comparison with ak47 you can put a machine gun.And a sniper rifle, which is useful for a headshot of 300% multiplied by 300% in stealth mode, by irradiated zombies.

 

Fashion is just as dry and raw. I do not know whether you are going to modify them, but it turned out that they just add 10% to the damage. For example, there is + 15% damage to stone, iron, wood, but in fact you shove everything into an ax, and you take damage to a block on a tree.

 

I don’t know whether you ignored or not, but the problem in which the explosive does not give experience is very disturbing. And the traps do not give experience. Bombs do not give experience.

[kexes]

I totally agree with "deleted user" 's review. The new graphics looks nice really, but its much more demanding too. I have i5-6500 @3,5GHz, 8GB DDR4, 3GB GTX1060, SSD and if i play with turned on reflections and shadows, i get major fps drops and stutterings especially near any POIs. My GPU temps also much higher than in any other games, i saw 70-74'C GPU temps many times when in other games like DOOM 2016 or GTA Online where i usually not going above 60.

 

As the review's other parts, my thoughts are nearly same. I have my own ideas and conceptions but i dont bother to write them down, mostly because someone else wroted down already or had similar ideas.

[KrashYT22]

Terrible problems with the sights in the game.

 

Collimator sight, sight 2x ... 4x not tested. - when you press the aiming, at the beginning there is a flash of the sight, that is, it increases to the full screen, and then reduces to the size of the sight.

 

x8 on a sniper rifle - the transition is just awful, in the beginning it approaches the physical model on the sniper, and then replaces it with a sight, which is in zoom mode.

 

And in general, the idea with a black background, behind the sights - I do not play in Play Station 1, a shooter of 2000, this black background looks terribly uncomfortable. - Why can not be done with collimator sight? That he was physical, and when aiming, you could see him? With the only difference that on sights starting from 2x make a blur depending on the power of aiming. 2x has a light background blur around the sight. 4x more, 8x more. Only you need to make it pleasant to the eye. You should be in the service of designers.

[PerformLAB]

Hi fellas, I tried doing a search for this, and came out empty handed, and I am not tech savvy enough to even find exactly where in this board to ask this, but I have a few little glitches in my new game, and I believe it must be something I done, because I have not seen an experimental before that had these things happen, so here I am asking for help...

 

1. Fall Damage has disapeared

2. Beer/Coffee/Red Tea/Golden Rod Tea have no effect

3. I no longer get encumbered no matter how many things I carry

 

Are these normal on latest_experimental? or have I done something wrong?

[Spectralfx]

I've played solo in 16.4 quite a lot and I am currently playing 17.1 stable on a multiplayer server with a couple of nice people.

 

I must say the features brought about by this iteration is great. I like the new leveling system... while all of it can still be improved, its a step in a less tedious direction to improve your character that I like.

 

Vehicles are the stars of this update in my opinion, thanks for those.

 

But. There is a but.

 

The game is nearly unplayable for me now. Performance issues are the number 1 culprit. I have bought more ram (I now have 16 gb) and the game still noms through that easily, there is clearly some undeniable memory leaks going on.

 

And the zombies at later game stage ... boi... they just make the screen freeze as they try to path to me on open terrain! its insane!

 

not much problems in the early stage of the game ... but when you start to hit like ... gamestage 300+ ... man its unplayable.

[deleted user]

The game is nearly unplayable for me now. Performance issues are the number 1 culprit. I have bought more ram (I now have 16 gb) and the game still noms through that easily, there is clearly some undeniable memory leaks going on.

 

Try turning off reflections. That really did the trick for me. Turning them down to medium or low does not seem to do much, but once i turned them off completely i gained about 15-20 fps on average. The water looks a bit funny that way, but since there isnt much water on the maps anyway i dont really mind for the moment.

It probably wont help you with the lag from big zombie hordes, but it might help with overall game performance.

[Ghostlight]

The game seems to need a fast CPU and HDD more than a decent GPU. I recently upgraded to a new nVME (super fast) HDD and the impact on 7Days was astounding.

[meganoth]

Hi fellas, I tried doing a search for this, and came out empty handed, and I am not tech savvy enough to even find exactly where in this board to ask this, but I have a few little glitches in my new game, and I believe it must be something I done, because I have not seen an experimental before that had these things happen, so here I am asking for help...

 

1. Fall Damage has disapeared

2. Beer/Coffee/Red Tea/Golden Rod Tea have no effect

3. I no longer get encumbered no matter how many things I carry

 

Are these normal on latest_experimental? or have I done something wrong?

 

Normal. These bugs have been reported by others as well.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

1. Fall Damage has disapeared

2. Beer/Coffee/Red Tea/Golden Rod Tea have no effect

3. I no longer get encumbered no matter how many things I carry

 

Are these normal on latest_experimental? or have I done something wrong?

 

It's a known issue, caused by having the PVP settings on "No Killing" or "Kill Allies Only". Switching to a different setting should fix it (it does for most people).

 

(My guess is that somewhere in the code, buffs from natural sources appear to be originating from "strangers" and therefore if you have the killing of strangers disabled then it also stops the buffs from affecting you thinking they're being applied to you by a stranger.)

[meganoth]

It's a known issue, caused by having the PVP settings on "No Killing" or "Kill Allies Only". Switching to a different setting should fix it (it does for most people).

 

(My guess is that somewhere in the code, buffs from natural sources appear to be originating from "strangers" and therefore if you have the killing of strangers disabled then it also stops the buffs from affecting you thinking they're being applied to you by a stranger.)

 

Oh, so it is an allegory. It shows us that when we are drinking tea, our well-being is applied to us by the tea plucker on a far away plantage somewhere in India.

 

The game just added a meta-level. It's not a bug, it's a feature

[Roland]

The butterfly effect will get you every time....

[Chad.thome]

A17 Problems Hopeful Changes

 

I have the console version for xbox one and the pc.

 

I believe the xbox version is 1.0.18. First off, I love this game and have more hours than any other game I own. Developers have done an amazing job so far, but still needs work. If you dont listen to fan base, they will disappear due to disappointment.

 

 

Xbox version likes--

 

1) Seeing leveling of tools and weapons feels like you were accomplishing a great feat.

2) Zombie Red Moons were survivable.

3) Zombie dogs were fast always keeping me on edge.

4) Modifying any structure was amazing.

5) Perk Charts were Structured Good.

 

Xbox dislikes--

 

1) Crystal Clear Vision Every Night After 11pm, but days were always fogged out and rainy.

2) After getting base set up with most of stuff, gets boring with no quests or other stuff to do

 

 

PC Likes--

 

1) Improved Perk Charts, Added Zombies, New Mods for Guns and Bows, New Bldgs and Locations,

New Zombie behaviors and AI, Added traders but some have wrong voice.

 

PC Dislikes--

 

1) Zombies during red night destroy systematically every standing strong point meant to keep a bldg standing.

2) Zombies during non red nights do same thing.

3) To level a tool or weapon because it is perk only based leveling??

4) Vulture attacked me inside a trader compund

5) Example-- Was on floor 2 of steel girder structure in city with claim block placed sitting near outer edge of structure so if zombies spotted me it wouldnt destroy bldg. Squatting, not moving, no torch, no light or sounds half of the bldg dropped and killed me. Examining damage in morning, each stilt of the bldg was destroyed for half the bldg. This means with each support being 6 squares apart, they annihilated 4 to 5 on each side. Xbox version they would only gather under you.

6) Example above seems to Make Base Building Irrelevant. Isnt this the Crafting, Survival Game? If I have no where to put my items when my lack is full, then what is the point??

 

 

Improvement Ideas--

 

1) Don't have zombies target structure legs only

2) Speed dogs back up (annoying as they were, it kept me scared and looking/listening when on ground.

3) Zombies need to mutate after a certain amount of days. Why??

 

A player can set up a base completely in roughly 20 to 40 days depending on difficulty settings. After that there is only quests, digging and maybe driving or crafting of bullet stocks. If zombies mutate, meaning a spider can crawl up anything, but not if there is a 1 block perimeter on outside of bldg. If they can do something new a player hasn't seen, the longevity of play goes insanely long. Make zombies jump like they do in A17, this allowed zombies to climb my ladders that I would destroy bottom rung on. So I would put a hatch in top of every ladder to stop them even though they could climb ladders. Due to being sometimes a 6 block tall zombie moving ladder because they could stand in each others heads made it crazy.

 

 

This isn't a bashing session, I love the game mkre than any I own and would love to see it adapt to players want and needs to some extent.

[Doombringer101]

The option for altering zombie block damage and the frequency of blood moons that were added in the current experimental build should go some way towards reducing some of these issues for you.

Basically if the zombies have no way to path to you they go into destroy mode to collapse the structure.

[skullpoker]

Atari 2600 likes:

 

NES likes:

 

Oh, are you too young to get that?

[HungryZombie]

I like the crawl and parcour POI's. I'm just wondering why can't these overhauled POI's exist next to the NOT overhauled versions. That would very easily create more diversity in the RGW.

Just my penny in the bag.

 

They can and they probably will. RWG is a work in progress and I haven't heard any developer say this is the finished version they plan to release.

[Spindizzy]

Two grievances have arisen in my play through with a friend so coming back to post them.

 

1. I don't like the new skill tree. Nothing wrong with making people specialise, but it makes you specialise an entire part of the game.

 

Alpha 16, I'd learn how to make good weapons, friend would learn how to make good armor for example.

 

Alpha 17, I've learned the skill hungry crafting skills so it's down to me to make all weapons, all armor, all bullets etc which I find a pain. There's no way to seperate it anymore. It's boring only be able to do one thing or one very similar thing for most of the game, my character can't farm at all for example so it's craft this craft that, zzz.

 

2. Sand

 

Alpha 16, I'd go to the desert to collect sand to make concrete

 

Alpha 17, sand is now a useless terrain block, I just went to the desert to mine 1000 sand to look at the recipes and found I wasted my time, it's useless.

[fragtzack]

My biggest issue with 17(and 16) is the world barely has any zombies. Zombies hiding in POI's doesn't have the same scare factor as turning a corner and running into a horde of zombies. The not-frequent enough wandering hordes are usually easy to account for too. The wandering hordes come single file, generally from a ways off so there is a high chance of spotting the wandering horde before they are upon you. Only when its a pack of dogs or bears is there really a scare factor in the wandering horde.

 

The pimps need to get over the strive for realism and just fricking make zombies spawn close behind the player around corners. POI's hiding in closets and ceilings zombies is cheesy and easy to account for after you have done about 30 POI's. FFS, none of this is reality. Strive for fun first, reality second.

 

Generally when most people think of zombies and the end of times, they think of hordes of zombies overwhelming the humans with sheer numbers. Certainly there is some challenges with voxel destruction calculations and CPU thread cycles, but bottom line is that one and two's zombies wandering a city street makes for boredom.

[HungryZombie]

Two grievances have arisen in my play through with a friend so coming back to post them.

 

1. I don't like the new skill tree. Nothing wrong with making people specialise, but it makes you specialise an entire part of the game.

 

Alpha 16, I'd learn how to make good weapons, friend would learn how to make good armor for example.

 

Alpha 17, I've learned the skill hungry crafting skills so it's down to me to make all weapons, all armor, all bullets etc which I find a pain. There's no way to seperate it anymore. It's boring only be able to do one thing or one very similar thing for most of the game, my character can't farm at all for example so it's craft this craft that, zzz.

 

2. Sand

 

Alpha 16, I'd go to the desert to collect sand to make concrete

 

Alpha 17, sand is now a useless terrain block, I just went to the desert to mine 1000 sand to look at the recipes and found I wasted my time, it's useless.

 

Why can't you just stay wherever you are and mine stone. Then turn stone to sand in the mixer?

[Roland]

My biggest issue with 17(and 16) is the world barely has any zombies. Zombies hiding in POI's doesn't have the same scare factor as turning a corner and running into a horde of zombies. The not-frequent enough wandering hordes are usually easy to account for too. The wandering hordes come single file, generally from a ways off so there is a high chance of spotting the wandering horde before they are upon you. Only when its a pack of dogs or bears is there really a scare factor in the wandering horde.

 

The pimps need to get over the strive for realism and just fricking make zombies spawn close behind the player around corners. POI's hiding in closets and ceilings zombies is cheesy and easy to account for after you have done about 30 POI's. FFS, none of this is reality. Strive for fun first, reality second.

 

Generally when most people think of zombies and the end of times, they think of hordes of zombies overwhelming the humans with sheer numbers. Certainly there is some challenges with voxel destruction calculations and CPU thread cycles, but bottom line is that one and two's zombies wandering a city street makes for boredom.

 

In one sense I disagree that outdoor spawning zombies are going to ever be as scary as indoor cramped space zombies. Walking around a corner of a building and seeing a large horde start shambling towards you is going to be the easiest thing in the world to avoid if you can't handle them or the easiest xp farm to harvest if you can.

 

In another sense I agree with you that a new city or town spawn type where zombies are spawned in close by but out of sight around corners of nearby structures all around the player so closing in from different directions could be pretty cool...except...for many alphas we had close spawning zombies and most people hated them. So I don't know how much mass appeal such an idea would have in practice.