Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[n2n1]

////...for many alphas we had close spawning zombies and most people hated them.////

they hated not that they would spawn close - but the way they did it!

[JCrook1028]

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.

 

Sand is STILL used for making concrete. Nothing changed in that so what is your beef with going to get sand?

[Spindizzy]

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

 

I can just it's weird having all this sand and not being able to make cement with it. You'd think there would be two recipes or something. At least let me mix sand with less stone to make crushed sand.

 

Sand is STILL used for making concrete. Nothing changed in that so what is your beef with going to get sand?

 

No it isn't thats crushed sand which is just rock crafted further. You can't make anything out of desert sand.

 

Overall opinion of Alpha 17 is I'd rather have Alpha 16 with the better graphics and the better dungeon style houses. I don't like a lot of if any of the gameplay changes.

 

I don't find trader quests rewarding enough to be worth doing, average of 1.5km away to drop down into some zombie infested pit dungeon of a house in an attempt to trap and surround you for the sake of 500 measly casino tokens. I'd rather just go looting random houses.

 

Item quality is stupid now, everything I find is mostly grey. I've only seen like one yellow quality item in over 30 hours in current world and I don't think I've seen any blue. About 700 grey items, 100 orange items, and 4 or 5 purple is how I'd describe it.

 

While the zombie A.I is more advanced and potentially better eventually, in it's current state it's worse than the Alpha 16 zombie A.I.

 

Bikes are OP and can be made super early and cheap. Pretty much nothing can kill you when you have a bicycle, Day 7 horde just ride around in circles on your bike outside. About the worst it gets is a really persistent vulture.

 

It should be the opposite. It should be that being outside is what gets you killed and you need to hide in a base, now bases just get destroyed easily and you're better off leading the horde off so you don't spend all week rebuilding it.

[Hollowprime]

I don't know if the fun pimps actively read this thread but I'll post my ideas in the hopes some of them get implemented.

 

I really dislike how the leveling system works. That being said I do like the perks themselves and am willing to accept a non skyrim leveling system for a fallout one BUT I think a lot of the perks need to be heavily rebalanced:

 

On strength perks:

Being level 150 and having over two thousand zombie kills by day 48 in A17.1 gave me a really interesting perspective of how weak most melee perks are.Even with the fixed headshot multiplier nothing beats the sledgehammer ,period. This is true because the sledgehammer does not only deal nice damage,it also has a high chance to stun enemies . The icing on the cake is when you power attack with the sledge hammer. In the final levels of heavy melee perk you have a very high chance to stun all enemies using power attacks. Combine that with regen from beverages ,water regen and the final level of sexual tyrannosaurus, you stun foes non stop and even if you don't kill them you give your traps enough time to finish off your enemies. Heavy metal is literally the *only* crowd control melee perk in the game which is really,really sad.

 

Bleeding perk is insignificant through the game. It should deal enormous amounts of damage because it stacks, but it can barely remove the regeneration from the irradiated zombies. Unless there's some kind of hidden potential on weapons that are both heavy and bladed (like the pickaxe? ) machetes and hunting blades cannot clear difficult zombies end game as fast as a sledgehammer or a club does even when 30% beheading chance is included.

Suggestion: Either buff the bleeding effect to kill even irradiated zombies or make it dismember with very high chance enemies. Or something creative enough to suggest it being useful (combine it with hunting perk? )

 

Club perk is also very weak. In its final level , assuming the player never misses his/her target , it increases the average damage by 33% . Clubs might be OK for one or two targets but they can by no means deal significant damage to end hordes of irradiated and running ferals. I've tested it on a fully modded club and it didn't perform as expected whereas a fully modded sledgehammer was a guardian angel when having to clear Pois with numerous irradiated and running ferals .

 

Furry of blows:

It does by no means deserve 5 skill points to gain 25% increase in attacks per minute. I firmly believe it needs to be at least twice as fast.

 

Miner 69 /motherlode:

Those perks need to be combined into one similar to how wrench works. It feels like a waste of precious skill points just to be able to mine efficiently and steals much time from other important survival perks. It annoys me greatly that I can destroy rocks and ores but I get less resources from doing so.

Also both of those perks need to work once again on auger. As I test right now a fully modded auger definitely does not benefit from increased damage block and destroys rocks and ores the same rate as a fully modded steel pickaxe. Same thing with chainsaw ,it doesn't feel like it cuts trees fast enough.

 

On fortitude perks:

Living off the land would be an interesting perk but the seeds have been nerfed to cost 4 times their initial price. This means this perk needs the harvesting time of the perk divided by 4. This also means the skill point makes absolutely no sense to have level 1,but instead you need it at least 2 levels and at least 2 crops to start capitalizing from farming. That's close to 6 days worth of farming (2 days to get the first 2x crops,then another 2 days to double your seeds than 2 more to gain the actual farming) which is very slow. Either seeds need to be craftable like they were before (1 instead of 4 crops per seed) or the skillpoint needs to start with +1 crop (from 1/2/3/4/5 to 2/3/4/5/6).

Also for the love of god please buff the hoe to work twice or maybe even three times as fast. It's annoying how slow you fertilize the ground. And I'm pretty sure cement should be able to craft fertilized blocks too (it says so in the description )

 

The hunter perk feels also like a complete waste of early skill points. It's worse than living off the land because iirc you cannot gain +1 bone or +1 nitrated from having it below 50% gather rate which is level 3 . I'd rather waste more skill points on living off the land to get easier vegetable soups rather than gain slightly more rotten meat for my hobo stews or maybe a few more bones per dog wave. I suggest it gives 100% bonus in all levels but provide said bonus for different categories per stage.

[Huntsman : level 1: Provides 100% more bones per harvest

Level 2 : Provides 100% more meat (rotten meat included) per harvest

Level 3: Provides 100% more fat meat per harvest

Level 4: Provides 100% more nitrate per harvest

Level 5 : Provides 100% more extract per harvest]

 

 

Intelligence:

Too many skill points scattered everywhere on this perk tree. Why do I need 5 skill points to be a better doctor when I can literally craft anything from scratch ? Why do medical bandages cost 4 aloes to craft ? Why would I ever need plasters if I can craft their cousins with simpler materials without sacrificing skill points?

And most importantly why do I need several levels to even be able to craft my precious forge and steel pickaxe? Because steel pickaxe is amazing? It's really not though. In A16.4 I could one hit boulders with a 600 quality steel pickaxe. Now with a fully modded iron/stone breaker pickaxe I require 2 hits to destroy a boulder.

 

This last part is really important because you should either increase the damage the higher the weapon/tool quality OR you remove the level gate. I personally would prefer the first because it would give a sense of progress and would undo the horrible nerf iron and steel pickaxe have taken. As a builder I really do miss the feeling of progressing through better equipment .

 

Perception perk tree feels the most balanced out of all the others. The wrench perk is amazing for dismantling buildings into precious iron and electrical materials ,the looting perk has an enormous boost in the amount of mods you find and they both require a lot less points to maximize their effect than the mining counterparts.

 

As for the agility perk tree I absolutely positively hate it. I'm certain it's not useless but it requires way too many skill points to make some niche difference and is possibly near useless for mining and defending your base. If anything adding points to agility or *some* perk should give stamina regeneration.

[SylenThunder]

they hated not that they would spawn close - but the way they did it!

The be fair, the two biggest factors for people having this issue was a lack of local system resources, and an un-optimized client. With a decently powered PC, it was never a real issue.

[JCrook1028]

No it isn't thats crushed sand which is just rock crafted further. You can't make anything out of desert sand.

 

When you go to the desert and dig you get 'crushed sand", which makes concrete. Stop bringing in your sand thru creative and you won't have problems with having the wrong kind in your inventory. "sand" is the terrain block before digging. Crushed Sand is either obtained from digging sand OR from rock in the mixer.

 

Yes if you type in sand in creative and spawn it in and check the recipe you won't see concrete. Obviously what you did. You sure as hell did not go dig up "sand" cause that is NOT what is in your inventory after digging. Lmao, try playing the game instead of cheating before coming in here crying that the game is broken.

[meganoth]

Living off the land would be an interesting perk but the seeds have been nerfed to cost 4 times their initial price. This means this perk needs the harvesting time of the perk divided by 4. This also means the skill point makes absolutely no sense to have level 1,but instead you need it at least 2 levels and at least 2 crops to start capitalizing from farming.

 

You might have misunderstood something here. One single seed and LotL perk at 1 is enough to start a field even if it's slow:

 

1) plant the seed

2) after 2 days harvest one fruit, the seed does not vanish as it did in A16, it will regrow!

3) after 2 days harvest another fruit

4) after 2 days harvest another fruit

5) after 2 days harvest another fruit, make a second seed and plant it.

6) now you get 2 fruits every 2 days.

[mr.natural]

Please get back picking the plants, I keep punching the seedlings and it feels unnatural to punch your harvest.

[Z-Pooh-Bear]

I have to say that I had a lot of gripes and legitimate issues with alpha 17 when it launched, but as of now, I'm enjoying the whole of it a lot more with the tweaks made. I like the mods, vehicles, and improvements to farming the most.

 

-Stamina and player movement are absolutely horrible still. Please no one respond with crap lines like 'it gets better', 'git gud', and so on because it doesn't.

-The game feels like it's heading for a 'shoot it in the face with best gun' simulator because in many instances you have no other option later on. I can't express how much it sours me to not be able to 'handle myself in a fight', but rather hope nothing touches me because of stuns and insta-bleed on every difficult enemy.

-Skill tree is still wonky on unlocking some basic things.

-Weather for hot and cold ridiculously extreme even with gear.

-I hate the existence of magazines and treat them as some free coin.

 

I love the concept of the game, and where it was at a few times in it's development, but the player movement was a big part of that. I felt in control of myself and now I feel like everything is RNG and guns. I've played a lot of this alpha and that's the biggest thing that pisses me off. I can't look after other players anymore because I'm worried about my clunky ass moving at a snail's pace and firing RNG hit chance weapons at poorly animated warp speed irradiated blubbernuggets. It's infuriating, and the thing is, if it was always like that I wouldn't gripe, but it was better at one point, and now absolutely ♥♥♥♥ with elements tucked away in the skill tree as an optimization problem.

[Jackelmyer]

A17 General View

 

So... I've got some hours into A17 now. Had some discussions. Reviewed some of Madmole's and Faatal's responses and such. Sharing my feels about A17. This isn't a flame, it's a perception shared. Take it or leave it. What really hit me is a passing conversation I had on steam about 7 Days to Die. And I offhandedly stated roughly (minor edit to what i actually said)...

 

"I'm frustrated as well but waiting to see how A17 stabilizes. A18-A19 to me is going to be where it shows if TFP is heading in a decent direction or not IMO

It's funny. They could have done the Buff System, AI overhaul, and Vehicle overhaul and been like 1 alpha of bandits and NPCs from a final release.

But all the other stuff they threw in and changed.... They literally shot themselves in the foot"

 

 

 

Firstly Prefix: Yes, everyone pretty much knows you can play A16 whenever you want. That's hardly the discussion, move on...

 

Firstly... A16.4 ended off pretty darn good. Some of the major points, purely from my perspective.

* For the most part, people seemed to like the loot system.

* For the most part, people seemed to like the skill system.

* For the most part, people seemed to like the weapon system.

* For the most part, people seemed to like the sandbox elements.

* People seemed to want more world progression as opposed to character progression

* People seemed to want more end game content.

* People seemed to want vehicle fixes and more vehicles.

* People seemed to want more POI variety.

* People seemed to want RWG to be more reliable and clean.

* People seemed to want the 2D textures finalized as 3d to round out the games visuals.

* Modders/Prefabbers seemed to want a more robust system for interacting with players.

* Overall, people seemed to REALLY like A16. With all of its flaws and bugs, from my perspective at least, 7D2D was really doing well.

 

 

Then A17 goes into deep space for development. Comes back a long while later. Which, to me, isn't really a surprise. A lot of Early Access Games go through a dark rework period. Cool.

 

Then A17 drops. How those points of A16 were impacted.

 

* For the most part, people seemed to like the loot system.

-- A17 - Lost general player support.

-- Completely revamped. Zombies became nothing more than xp bags. Loot lost meaning as it wasn't as well tied to player character progression. Weapons lost meaning as finding whole weapons and crafting whole weapons was now just a grind or magically done in an instant. And weapons themselves don't scale except in durability.

 

* For the most part, people seemed to like the skill system.

-- A17 - Lost general player support.

-- I'm honestly foggy on the skill system of A16. I do recall still needing to find the minibike book, I think. But i think being foggy on the A16 skill system is actually a note on how much the skill system didn't adversely impact my game play experience. And, if my memory is correct on the mini-bike book, how much certain items pertaining to gaining skills were an impact on my game play experience. A16, character progression felt more natural with occasional moments of extreme excitement. A17? I'm literally playing WoW. I'll level up. Get a lil better. I'll level up again. Get a little better. And it's so... dull. Today, I really haven't heard a single story of excitement tied to skills. But no one will ever forget the mini-bike book and finding the books to learn how to make various weapons and armor. Who's sharing stories of "and then I spent 4 skill points for that next Int level and BAM! I spent another skill point to get..."... Big fun, just... lost.

Generally speaking, A16, you were locked by game play. You worked your way up acquiring things and building things to be able to acquire and build better things... It was a open world/sandbox skill and character progression system. And... people liked it. A lot. Some pissing and moaning, but overall, people REALLY played.

 

* For the most part, people seemed to like the weapon system.

-- A17 - Lost general player support.

-- Weapons are now found whole. And yes, there's bugs in the quality of loot that is found or possibly some design disagreement between Madmole and Gazz if memory serves. But it's not about the loot quality. People have stated they want colors of loot to mean something, especially tools and weapons. But increased quality and really nothing more then added durability? Mmmm... I don't think anyone was really asking for that to be the focus of weapon grades (colors). TFP and some players didn't like weapon parts filling up their inventory after they were no longer needed. Okay... They were scrapable. Sellable. And it made sense from an economy perspective. Over time, anyone who survives long enough and builds their own personal empire WILL accumulate trash. Game or Reality, that just... happens. What we have instead now is boxes full of whole guns that we don't care about and... Scrap... or sell. Literally a net zero change and we lost some game play goodness.

 

Mods were added into A17. But did anyone really know that the more mods you put into your gun the stronger your gun got? I've broken out my comments on mods for a specific reason. People wanted mods to boost what they already had experienced in A16. People didn't ask for mods to become the core component of the game play. On top of that, I haven't seen anything in a Mod's description that it boosts damage. However every additional mod I add to a weapon, the damage goes up. So Mod's, were basically devalued by implementation to boot. Would mods and how weapon quality have been more readily accepted if the implementation was more clear? Maybe if there was a stat on the mod itself that stated "+20% damage" for a scope? Don't know. The whole mod system, to me, seems half baked. Maybe it will become a great system we all learn to love. Unfortunately, A17 isn't really showcasing it or functionally behaving that way. Worse still, it seems that zombies health scales up, which maaaybe I'm wrong there, as the game progresses longer and longer. Making pretty much every bump up you get, reset you back to, at best, where you started day 1. So weapon progression is even further diminished.

[Jackelmyer]

* For the most part, people seemed to like the sandbox elements.

-- A17 - Lost general player support.

-- So... Sandbox is so randomly defined that it's nearly impossible for anyone to state "this is the one definition of sandbox" and be right. We've had large discussion on the definition of sandbox here in the forums, so this is just my own perception of how sandbox and 7D2D co-exist.

 

In A16, i had character development progression. It existed. For sure. I couldn't immediately make a Steel Pickaxe. I couldn't throw down concrete right away. I so very rarely found right off the bat a Spiked Club to one shot zombies heads with. Some times... Sure. Sometimes... I got some pretty awesome stuff, right out the gate. Some times, I started a RWG game and spawned in right next to a POI with a forge. Most of the time... I didn't. I never liked spam crafting Stone Axes so that I could make better tools. I thought A16 handled that well. There were key points to player progression that A16 addressed. With very strong attention to detail. I loved it to be honest.

 

To me, sandbox allows for not just building what I want where I want. But using what I want, how I want, and when I want. To a degree and provided, I search the sandbox, no matter how big, and find what I need to use.

 

In real sandbox, if I want to use seashells as windows to my sand castle, I need to go find the seashells. I may never find them. Maybe the beach I'm on doesn't actually have them. But if I'm really committed, I can go to another beach, and keep hunting and searching. Eventually, I will find a seashell. Maybe a bunch. Maybe one. But it's going to be AAAAWESOOOOME as windows to my sand castle.

 

Now when I put those seashells on my castle... I'm probably going to screw it up. -.- But, over time, I'll get better at it. Not because I thought "Ya know what. I'm going to go stomp on some evil sandworms. That should really help me flex my abilities in general so I can learn to put these seashells on the castle better.". Honestly, if i have to go stomp on some nasty sand worms just to get better at anything, I'm pretty much over improving at all. I mean, if I have to, I will. But meh.

 

To me, A16 really had the sandbox component fairly well done. It was adventurous, meaningful, and full of all the pros and cons of honest and good sandbox RNG. Does it suck to have a play through where you never found the mini-bike or auger? Sure. When your next play through you found one in the first week, did it blow your mind? You bet your bucket it did.

 

* People seemed to want more world progression as opposed to character progression.

-- A17 - Don't feel like we really got that.

-- Sure we got dungeon POI's. And, yeah, they're pretty awesome. But... they were throw into everything it seems. So we went from really basic and simple POI's that are great for early game to... Dungeon crawl style POI's... And no progression. It would have been so cool to have had the standard A16 POI's and then occasionally come across these dungeon crawls. It would have made them uncommon, an actual find and something worthy of marking on your map to come back out to. Instead... Just... go over there. You'll find... several. *shrug*

 

* People seemed to want more end game content.

-- A17 - Don't feel like we really got that.

-- This is a really challenging item IMO for TFP to deliver on. How do you even put in an End Game within an SandBox and Open World core design. Which End Game content, can also be hotly debated on in definition. Late game content? Maybe we look toward that as what we're really after? If so... All we really got was a very clearly defined path to skills to lock in our game play trajectory. When, at least IMO, I think what we were looking for were NPC's, Bandits, real Bosses, real big dungeon crawls to loot that really had meaning. Like... we could have switched up the Cement Mixer from a buildable to a lootable and put that at the top of a skyscraper behind some big ass mean zombie brute. And if you weren't careful, trying to game the system could simply cause the top of the building to crumble and lose your loot along with it. That may be extreme, but there's other ways of providing mid game and end game goals even with the content we have today. Maybe instead of a big brute, their all feral zombies. or they're all radiated zombies in a locked room with your sniper rifle behind them. *shrug* And if you really want to prevent players from being able to run in and yank the loot and run out, put it in a freaking safe. Tadaaaa. I'm not trying to define the game, but share alternative options that I think, and could totally be wrong, but are more in line with what people expected from 7D2D long term. Right or wrong in expectation.

 

* People seemed to want vehicle fixes and more vehicles.

-- A17 - Honestly, I think ya's nailed it. I don't think anyone wanted GTA variety from vanilla and I'm personally glad we didn't go that far. Gyrocopter is a cool concept but I think it's one that probably could and should have waited until the system was more stable and the game was generally performant enough to handle flight. Which game mechanicwise, is loaded with pitfalls to an unoptimized system. Hell, look at Battlefield's first game where they incorporated all vehicles into the first FPS game including flight. That was a nightmare and took Battlefield a long time to get it really manageable for the majority of the gaming community.

 

* People seemed to want more POI variety.

-- A17 - Um. I have to be fair and say this is mixed.

-- There definitely are more POI's in A17. A number, are really subtly different when passing through a town that I think they're easy to go unnoticed. Personally, I think TFP probably should focus more on commercial and retail POI's to make cities look more real. Where are the 7-11's, Circle K's, Quickie Mart's, etc? Where are the pet stores? Where are the Walmarts, KMarts, Target's, etc? Where are the burrito shops, the Red Robin's, the Red Lobsters, the McDonalds, the Burger Kings, etc? Where are the Ross clothing stores, Khol's, T-JMax, Sear's, and so on? Any one of these could be built today and many have. Take a look at the Compo-Pack that Magoli manages. There's some craaazy cool stuff in there. Some outlandish that doesn't fit Vanilla. But some amazing POI's that really would bring world immersion to a whole new level. Even Nav's towns don't really feel like a town. How do you live in a town without a few grocery stores? At least one pet store. Multiple 7-11's and Coffee Shops. Multiple Gas Stations. etc? Sure, Diresville, too small for many of these to be multiples. But eeeeven Diresville, should have 1 of each of these types of stores. And... A walmart or back in the day, a K-Mart. Today, we literally can't have a Mall with the vanilla POI's. Even a strip mall would exist in an area the size of Nav's. At least 1.

 

So... yeeeeah. A17 has more. Buuut was the focus of A17 POI expansion set to where the game was lacking POI's? I really don't think so. Game from a POI perspective very much looks the same. The feel is a net zero growth. Just my 2 cents on that one.

 

* People seemed to want RWG to be more reliable and clean.

-- A17. Madmole... Has stated they're working on it. And I THINK, totally could be wrong, it has a dedicated resource for the time being. To genuinely fix RWG once and for all. At least that's the tone I got. Awesome to hear! Can't fix everything at once. Not everything will be perfect. Early Access. Totally on board here. As much as some of us may be upset by RWG in its current state, I think if most of us stepped back for a moment, even the biggest RWG advocates, we can see, RWG got messed up in A17. And. It's Early Access. But. It's very much being worked on. Sucks for sure. But I think there's a lot of anticipation to see how it plays out.

 

 

* People seemed to want the 2D textures finalized as 3d to round out the games visuals.

-- A17. Um. think most of the 2D stuff form A16 is still 2D in A17. *shrug*

 

* Modders/Prefabbers seemed to want a more robust system for interacting with players.

-- A17. Hit and a miss.

 

I really shouldn't be speaking for modders, but having built one single stupid little mod, hey, I know I'm not a real "modder", I'd say it SEEM's like Modders got some love in A17. Though I'm pretty sure modders have all had their discussions on this.

 

I will say from a Prefabber perspective, which again, I'm not even close to the top preffabbers, but I've made a few that I'm really proud of. Um. If we got more texture limits, why the did we lose paint's and why did block's just get.. moved... it seems. If you guys are looking at doing grouping and sorting in your editors, you probably should add a grouping and sorting attribute, even just a numeric attribute, that manages the grouping and sorting. Why pull and break things... every release... which seems to be what you're lining up to do, is beyond me.

 

* Overall, people seemed to REALLY like A16. With all of its flaws and bugs, from my perspective at least, 7D2D was really doing well.

-- A17? I want to say I've played since A12, don't know why, but I know I played A14 for sure. Um. I've yet to see an update with this much dissent.

-- A16? I haven't seen a more warmly accepted version of 7D2D. Had it's complaints. Absolutely. But they seemed to come more from smaller groups of people with certain flavors they were missing? Seemed to? As opposed to everyone seeming to yell, "You screwed up VANILLA! How do you screw up vanilla flavor!?" with one guy squeaking in the background "I like it! it tastes fishy!". Again. Just my perception.

[Jackelmyer]

Long story... hahahahaha... there's no short...

 

But to sum up. TFP, I hope you guys can do a big old Agile Retro kind of review. I mean. I hate agile. lol. But... At least it's got a label I'm looking for. Retro Meeting/Review. To me, it would seem long term worth going back to A16.4 and re-reviewing what made people love 7 Days to Die.

 

7 Days to Die and Minecraft. bahahahaha. I know, the dreaded comparison. All I'll say is...

 

Minecraft held people's attention for years. On a MASSIVE scale.

 

7 Days to Die, has held people attention for years. On a smaller scale. But... you've not gone full release yet. Two components that I think from a legacy perspective and from a business perspective that are most critical.

 

How long are you holding people's attention. And on what scale.

 

Overall...

 

As scale goes, 7D2D is early access and isn't really ready for Minecraft scaling.

 

Holding attention, I think you guys hurt yourself with A17.

 

Much love to TFP.

Thanks

[Ouch Quit It]

TOTALLY agree Bud !!! They lost their vision to a different kind of sandbox game than every other game out there. Maybe it was rushed or a need to close out this game for a 2.0 version or whatever other project they have planned, but A17 totally made the game whacked! Now its just like every other game out there. Nothing different...a grindy, force you to go one direction, arcade perk ridden, smaller map game. A17 was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel...WELL...the power just went out.

 

My entire server of people who have played since A6...left...they say to give it to the modders so they can fix the game .and then they might play again..for now if they do play...they play A16 War of the Walkers, Ravenhurst or Valmod..sad but true. All of them could be finished versions of the game with a bit of polish. We shall see. I personally went to Empyrion..havent even played the new experimental..maybe i will be back when its stable and if RWG gets fixed..only time will tell.

 

 

Regards

Ouch

[Jackelmyer]

TOTALLY agree Bud~~ They lost their vision to a different kind of sandbox game than every other game out there. Maybe it was rushed or a need to close out this game for a 2.0 version or whatever other project they have planned, but A17 totally made the game whacked! Now its just like every other game out there. Nothing different...a grindy, force you to go one direction, arcade perk ridden, smaller map game. A17 was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel...WELL...the power just went out.

 

To be fair, A17 did have some great updates and changes.

 

Buff system

Texture streaming

Vehicles (dude, my wheels are flat on the ground lol)

Some cool new blocks to work with.

A real stab at character progression enhancements, even if not we'll received, TFP clearly had great intentions and likely can leverage a lot of the skill system down the road.

POI's got more love in A17 than I can recall in any other release. Though I really wish TFP would dip into the Compo-Pack and pull some into the game.

I mean... Stuff. There's a ton.

 

My only hope is they pause and look at past successes and let that help shape the future.

 

I hear ya though. A17 has been damn hard to adapt to. And some stuff... Just. Maybe the games going to be meant for some other gamer type than me going forward. I suppose that's a risk of early access.

 

If one thing 7D2D has always had, more than. Any other game I've ever played, is Potential. In spades.

[Roland]

How long are you holding people's attention. And on what scale.

 

Longer than A16 did...

 

 

 

No release is going to please everyone and any change always results in an uptick in negative reviews because no matter how good the change it will still rub the person who liked it better before the wrong way and those angry people are more likely to write in about it than happy or nonplussed people.

 

I'm not discounting your personal feelings that A17 turned you off and you are hoping that A18 will turn things around. I know many are feeling that as well. However, since we are speaking generally, generally A17 has had more staying power than A16 did. It's easy to remember the year of A16.4 rather than the 1-3 months of A16experimental - A16.3 which were not all happiness and rainbows. People were ticked about the loss of crafting experience, the loss of smell, and the horribly OP stealth abilities of the player which made nights an absolute joke. Zombie pathing was horrible as well. A16 had its own fair share of posts unfavorably comparing it with A15 which was everyone's fondly remembered belle of the ball.

 

I know there are still some very vocal people who are still very much against the design changes in A17. I think most generally unhappy people are mainly just upset about RWG, zombies with perfect information, and performance. I think that if TFP can get these three general complaints fixed and then keep going the route of option menu configurations for other issues that are more personal preference and gamestyle issues they will be in the clear as far as general customer satisfaction goes.

 

The hardline player that has one favorite feature that they believed was a "core feature" to the game and will die hating TFP for removing it until with their last breath they utter a curse at Madmole just cannot be the majority. I don't believe it. I do agree with you that we won't fully know the repercussions of all these changes until the final 17.x or possibly A18 and see whether people come back to see and then stay. A17 was the first release where the overall number of players did not break all previous records but the high plateau above 20k is a new record so who can say what it all really means.

[Ouch Quit It]

Agreed there were alot of good things....but some systems were removed and worse ones were put in. Magazines..totally useless. Traders..I NEVER used them in A16...now you have to have one as a neighbor. A17 took away choices for the player. Loss of Biomes..another hit to gameplay and choice. Again time will tell....

 

Im sure the its an alpha crowd will be chiming in soon too, as well as the you dont like change and you are stuck in your A16 ways...but thats getting a bit stale.

 

Even the Forums are quiet as compared to earlier releases.

[Jackelmyer]

Longer than A16 did...

 

 

 

No release is going to please everyone and any change always results in an uptick in negative reviews because no matter how good the change it will still rub the person who liked it better before the wrong way and those angry people are more likely to write in about it than happy or nonplussed people.

 

I'm not discounting your personal feelings that A17 turned you off and you are hoping that A18 will turn things around. I know many are feeling that as well. However, since we are speaking generally, generally A17 has had more staying power than A16 did. It's easy to remember the year of A16.4 rather than the 1-3 months of A16experimental - A16.3 which were not all happiness and rainbows. People were ticked about the loss of crafting experience, the loss of smell, and the horribly OP stealth abilities of the player which made nights an absolute joke. Zombie pathing was horrible as well. A16 had its own fair share of posts unfavorably comparing it with A15 which was everyone's fondly remembered belle of the ball.

 

I know there are still some very vocal people who are still very much against the design changes in A17. I think most generally unhappy people are mainly just upset about RWG, zombies with perfect information, and performance. I think that if TFP can get these three general complaints fixed and then keep going the route of option menu configurations for other issues that are more personal preference and gamestyle issues they will be in the clear as far as general customer satisfaction goes.

 

The hardline player that has one favorite feature that they believed was a "core feature" to the game and will die hating TFP for removing it until with their last breath they utter a curse at Madmole just cannot be the majority. I don't believe it. I do agree with you that we won't fully know the repercussions of all these changes until the final 17.x or possibly A18 and see whether people come back to see and then stay. A17 was the first release where the overall number of players did not break all previous records but the high plateau above 20k is a new record so who can say what it all really means.

 

Fair enough. And I appreciate the numbers. Though I'm kind of curious of that A17 being drilled into. That seems to overlap maybe September through October, which likely saw an uptick in A16.4 with people refreshing and renewing their hype for the A17 launch. Either way, how that graph looks leading all the way up to A18 I think is going to be the most telling.

 

That graph is very clear on I assume how many people are playing, I'll absolutely give you that Roland. But counts and statistics are also REALLY easy to use as tools that are unfair. I don't know if there was a 7D2D sale somewhere between September and January. I don't know if there's A16 overlap in that usage spike. No idea what the real details of that graph is. So I do have to take the graph with a slight grain of salt.

 

Then again, the long spike of people's attentions being held may be more indicative of how long it took for people to grasp A17 as opposed to how long it took to grasp A16.

 

To be even more fair, you could probably combine A14, A15, and A15 averages and compare it to A17. Totally not trying to cheat here be unfair. But A17 was a DEEP change to how we play and tackle 7 days to die. At least A15 and A16 updates, to me, was more content and stability than fully revamped core features.

 

I dunno. Numbers, totally fair to throw numbers at me considering my points. However the numbers... might need to be tempered by the feels. Maybe? Maybe not.

 

And sorry, my lame ass skimmed a bit. Seems like we agree on "what the hell does it all really mean" point. And the future will be the real story teller.

 

 

Thanks for reading Roland. And for the feedback.

[Roland]

It’s true that we read into graphs mostly what we hope they mean rather than what they actually mean. As someone who honestly was happy with A15 and then dissatisfied with A16 and who now considers A17 the best version of the game to date I hope those graphs mean great things.

 

The one thing I DARE NOT say is that the graph indicates people are happily playing A17.

[Odetta]

It’s true that we read into graphs mostly what they hope they mean rather than what they actually mean. As someone who honestly was happy with A15 and then dissatisfied with A16 and who now considers A17 the best version of the game to date I hope those graphs mean great things.

 

The one thing I DARE NOT say is that the graph indicates people are happily playing A17.

 

Is there a way to see only vanilla players? One where no mods or modlets are used?

[Jackelmyer]

It’s true that we read into graphs mostly what they hope they mean rather than what they actually mean. As someone who honestly was happy with A15 and then dissatisfied with A16 and who now considers A17 the best version of the game to date I hope those graphs mean great things.

 

The one thing I DARE NOT say is that the graph indicates people are happily playing A17.

 

lol. Probably a wise move. To date huh? I don't think I could call any version best to date. They've been so varied. A17 definitely has it on content I think. A16.4, to me, was better game play.

[Pille]

Longer than A16 did...

 

 

 

No release is going to please everyone and any change always results in an uptick in negative reviews because no matter how good the change it will still rub the person who liked it better before the wrong way and those angry people are more likely to write in about it than happy or nonplussed people.

 

I'm not discounting your personal feelings that A17 turned you off and you are hoping that A18 will turn things around. I know many are feeling that as well. However, since we are speaking generally, generally A17 has had more staying power than A16 did.

 

Not sure if the term 'more staying power' is correct. A16 attracted more players in the same amount of time...

Let's repeat the measurement by an unbiased person - me. ;-D Let's change the time window slightly and measure areas under the curves. Both white areas (A and B) have almost identical sizes and encompass the same period of time (192 or 193 pixel length), so they don't have to be taken into account to compare the player counts. If you consider only the dark areas you see that the area beneath the A16 curve is slightly larger than that under the section which represents A17. Thus A16 has had more staying power than A17. ;P

 

 

 

It’s true that we read into graphs mostly what they hope they mean rather than what they actually mean. As someone who honestly was happy with A15 and then dissatisfied with A16 and who now considers A17 the best version of the game to date I hope those graphs mean great things.

 

The one thing I DARE NOT say is that the graph indicates people are happily playing A17.

 

Too late Roland, too late.

[HungryZombie]

@Z-Pooh-Bear I'm not sure if you know but there is a console command to set the FOV to what you want. If your friends are getting sick try that and see if it helps.

[DEADication]

It’s true that we read into graphs mostly what we hope they mean rather than what they actually mean. As someone who honestly was happy with A15 and then dissatisfied with A16 and who now considers A17 the best version of the game to date I hope those graphs mean great things.

 

The one thing I DARE NOT say is that the graph indicates people are happily playing A17.

 

I check all available data daily, and i must say that you are correct... in saying people interpret what they want to see.

Or they use simplified graphs or cherry picked data to push their agenda.

 

If you take into account number of units sold and skew the data accordingly, I am not convinced that A15 wasn't the most popular alpha per owner participation. Short of the performance improvement (for me anyway) and generally much better graphics in A17, A15 was my favourite post A10 (Unity 4) version.

[RestInPieces]

If you are talking about A17 popularity, don't forget to also take the 1.5 year delay into account. There are too many reasons why these patch cycles are harmful for a game or any piece of software for that matter. Anyway...

 

@OP (will only touch some points)

 

-Zombies were seen as xp loot bags the moment kill xp was added to them. The new system just made it more obvious because xp became more essential being a universal way to get better at/unlock nearly everything. Best era was when you were just getting weapon xp by hitting them. Kill xp was always a bad idea. One of the worst in the game's history imo.

 

-In A16 you could reach "end-game content" within the first few days. That's terrible from any perspective. There's no use in adding any amount of additional end-game content if existing content isn't paced. That said, I don't think that static levels gating essential recipes were a good way to pace progression. Combined with the above, it's no wonder people immediately complained about A17 being a "grind". They could gate most recipes behind exploration in a much more interesting and controlled way than before.

 

-Sandbox definition is not random. They all have common elements such as world malleability, minimal player limitations restrictions, not structured/linear gameplay. This game is not a pure sandbox, but obviously has some sandbox elements. But, anyway, these technicallities are of not much importance here. As said above, the game didn't pace itself well - that's why people were so desperate for end-game content.

 

-There are many ways to add end-game content to this game without level scaling, silly legendaries, or expensive/very hard to implement content like colonies etc.

[hotpoon]

Fair enough. And I appreciate the numbers. Though I'm kind of curious of that A17 being drilled into. That seems to overlap maybe September through October, which likely saw an uptick in A16.4 with people refreshing and renewing their hype for the A17 launch. Either way, how that graph looks leading all the way up to A18 I think is going to be the most telling.

 

A lot of people got 7dtd for free right before the A17 release via HumbleBundle, and at that point it still had glowing reviews on Steam, so likely encouraged a lot of new people to try it.

 

Some people have gone back to playing A16. Could be a lot of people. Could be only a few. The graph doesn't tell us.

 

So, I think interpreting the graph in A17's favour is a bit optimistic.

 

Another bit of stats here:

https://steamcharts.com/app/251570#1m

shows the numbers rapidly tapering off over the past month though. If I'm reading this correctly, we've lost 2396 players in the last 30 days. I know I'm one of them. I decided not to play again until something is done about the AI.

 

 

Regarding the OP, I agree with every single point you've made, except the 2d / 3d texture thing, because I don't know what that is. I just know that I do prefer A17's graphics.