Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[OzHawkeye]

Yes, absolutely. I should have been more clear. What I really meant to ask was if maybe OzHawkeye's FOV is contributing to this perception... especially since it could have been set to something else in previous alphas.

 

It's quite possible, I certainly haven't done any empirical tests to actually measure, so perhaps the FoV change is the reason for my perception of being slow.

 

That's for movement of course, for tool swings, well, that definitely is much slower in A17 than it had been previously (again, comparing it to my long running A11 game).

[Damocles]

The missing FOV slider is not a technical issue. They took the option out on purpose, since they dont want people to change the FOV. (partly since it makes the game have higher FPS on lower FOV settings)

 

A very negative move in my opinion.

[SylenThunder]

The missing FOV slider is not a technical issue. They took the option out on purpose, since they dont want people to change the FOV. (partly since it makes the game have higher FPS on lower FOV settings)

 

A very negative move in my opinion.

Well from the standpoint on decreasing variables while we're still testing these Alpha builds, it makes sense. Especially given the lack of optimization that is apparent in these first few a17 builds.

 

It's still fecking annoying though.

 

@AtomicUs5000 I'm blunt. It gets me in trouble sometimes, but I don't mince the details.

[n2n1]

The missing FOV slider is not a technical issue. They took the option out on purpose, since they dont want people to change the FOV. (partly since it makes the game have higher FPS on lower FOV settings)

 

A very negative move in my opinion.

I always thought that disable the FOV is due to the fact to block players the opportunity to look peripheral vision for the texture of the ground?

[Deadalready]

Just so you realize that to do this they would have to nerf the current run/walk speed first to allow us to perk up to what we already have because what we have now is already so much faster than the fastest enemy pace it is a little ridiculous. I'm not sure how people would feel about being forced to move slower and then perk up to what we have right now. I'm thinking they would be upset about it. But when even the "nightmare" speed setting is still slower than player run speed you know that there is only one way to go for a progression on player speed.

 

I said I wanted to move faster, I did not say that I wanted to move slower then tier up to moving normal speed - that sort of logic is why people are so angry about crafting being tied to INT level. Instead of offering choice, they are instead being force fed decisions. When something players can already do and should be able to, when that is taken away and hidden behind an advancement wall - you're only FORCING them to choose the perk.

 

What's wrong with keeping the normal move speed standard and going from there?

 

Your argument that the current movespeed is faster than zombies might be true and yet I don't feel that. There is a difference between theoretical and practical - just because I have something - doesn't mean I can actually use it.

With everything costing stamina, I can't keep running and attacking because I am hard capped by both the actual stamina limit of my character and stamina deterioration. In early game this is apparent because of the fighting redesign, headshots don't seem to do nearly as much damage and I no longer have that stun period of grace either. In 17 I feel like that ranged builds - excluding shotguns are severely nerfed because they don't have the stamina nor the speed to constantly stay away from enemies.

 

I'm not sure why players want to move faster. We already upped the speed, I did a football field sprint and got there in 17 seconds and it took 22 seconds in Alpha 16. Its plenty fast. Take some mega crush and you can run about 25 miles an hour.

 

If I'm thirsty and ask for a drink - do you tell me I can't have a drink, because *you're* not thirsty?

I want to move faster so even when I'm out of stamina (which is often) I'm not crawling, if I don't want to run (because that increases detection), because I want to simply cover more distance in the same amount of time (because I don't have a vehicle), or maybe because I have disabilties or impediments that might reduce my physical ability to react in the same amount of time you can.

Regardless of why, I've asked. My experience of the game is simply not the same as everyone else's - unless the aim of the game is to push every into the same character builds, I believe offering the choice to diversify playstyles is important in a sandbox. If I want to snipe heads on the grassy knoll by running into the horizon, I don't understand how allowing me to build a character who is efficient and effective in that playstyle - hurts the gameplay of those who choose to ignore it?

[Pr00ch]

Every move TFP makes to push the game towards more meaningful survival choices they get major pushback from the "why are you punishing us?!?!?!" crowd. True survival games are a niche genre that many players cannot seem to stomach. I don't blame TFP for moving a bit more towards the mainstream genre of zombie shooter when every single time over the past several alphas whenever they do anything that makes it so that the player can actually starve to death (for example) they are met by waves of complaints that the game is a tedious food eating simulator.

 

People like Vic here in this thread only want rewards and label negative consequences for bad decisions as "punishing the player" and call it "bad game design". The worst possible result in a survival game is death and yet thread after thread after thread fights against TFP for instituting any kind of a death penalty. Recently, people have again been asking for a "drop nothing" on death option because going back to get your dropped gear is seen as too much of a punishment for dying.

 

Very few players seem to want to play if they have disadvantages. They want to be strong in all categories and never have to suffer consequences or fight back up to full strength when a setback happens. This is not new to A17. It has existed since the early days of the game.

 

 

The silver lining is that all of those issues could be easily fixed with a more in-depth difficulty setting (instead of just making zombies tougher as it is right now) and/or more game options (options kind of double as a difficulty setting anyway).

Don't Starve (arguably the most successful indie survival game) completely solved this very same problem by having a default world setting, but letting players customize just about every aspect of it, if they so desire. Obviously, 7 Days to Die even has this system already in place, it just needs more fleshing out. The developers can just go with their own vision, as long as they give players the possibility to tailor their experience to their liking based off their feedback. Everyone's happy in this situation.

[Damocles]

I would opt to make any gamemechanic affecting the player negatively optional, .. but then blend in a hardcoded watermark called “baby mode”.

[RestInPieces]

Every move TFP makes to push the game towards more meaningful survival choices they get major pushback from the "why are you punishing us?!?!?!" crowd. True survival games are a niche genre that many players cannot seem to stomach. I don't blame TFP for moving a bit more towards the mainstream genre of zombie shooter when every single time over the past several alphas whenever they do anything that makes it so that the player can actually starve to death (for example) they are met by waves of complaints that the game is a tedious food eating simulator.

 

With the game being more or less consequence-free for the last 5 years or so and any attempts to change that being half-hearted, it is no wonder that it feels that the vast majority of the players who closely follow the game can't stomach consequences or want a minecraft-like experience with guns, because it is the target audience that was attracted/catered for the most.

 

And the vast majority of feedback naturally tends to be about uneducated spontaneous impressions rather than long-term concerns. At any case, TFP or anyone for that matter shouldn't always take feedback at face value, but be able to tell why they get the kind of feedback they do. Got excellent feedback for that "shiny new gun" and terrible feedback for that survival mechanic? Big surprise there.

 

The silver lining is that all of those issues could be easily fixed with a more in-depth difficulty setting (instead of just making zombies tougher as it is right now) and/or more game options (options kind of double as a difficulty setting anyway).

Don't Starve (arguably the most successful indie survival game) completely solved this very same problem by having a default world setting, but letting players customize just about every aspect of it, if they so desire. Obviously, 7 Days to Die even has this system already in place, it just needs more fleshing out. The developers can just go with their own vision, as long as they give players the possibility to tailor their experience to their liking based off their feedback. Everyone's happy in this situation.

 

You can change almost anything in Don't Starve - it works because it's simple enough. Even then, most players will still get into the default experience and form an impression, without even bothering to tweak these options.

 

So as I keep saying, in the much-more-complex 7DTD, besides individual options, they should also bundle them up and introduce a sandbox-friendly mode aimed at a consequence-free experience where you are able to do anything, including killing zombies, at your leisure. Frankly, it is getting exhaustingly asinine seeing people complaining about aspects of the game that they are actually able to overcome with the options that already exist.

[open6l]

I always thought that disable the FOV is due to the fact to block players the opportunity to look peripheral vision for the texture of the ground?

 

This is what faatal said back on November 19th as the reason why the FOV slider was removed.

 

"Yes. We discovered different devs had it at different settings. That changed the consistent look the designers wanted and it was causing performance issues. The average player often changes settings, not knowing what they are doing, making the game run poorly and then we get the blame, so we locked it down. There is a setting in the ini file, but it looks like debug mode (dm) has to be on for it to use it."

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?74084-Developer-Discussions-Alpha-17&p=870493&viewfull=1#post870493

[AtomicUs5000]

This is what faatal said back on November 19th as the reason why the FOV slider was removed.

 

"Yes. We discovered different devs had it at different settings. That changed the consistent look the designers wanted and it was causing performance issues. The average player often changes settings, not knowing what they are doing, making the game run poorly and then we get the blame, so we locked it down. There is a setting in the ini file, but it looks like debug mode (dm) has to be on for it to use it."

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?74084-Developer-Discussions-Alpha-17&p=870493&viewfull=1#post870493

 

That would make more sense if they locked down the settings that actually cause crazy performance changes such as reflections. But nope... so I call hooplah

[Roland]

I said I wanted to move faster, I did not say that I wanted to move slower then tier up to moving normal speed - that sort of logic is why people are so angry about crafting being tied to INT level. Instead of offering choice, they are instead being force fed decisions. When something players can already do and should be able to, when that is taken away and hidden behind an advancement wall - you're only FORCING them to choose the perk.

 

What's wrong with keeping the normal move speed standard and going from there?

 

Nothing wrong with that as long as zombies are also made to be faster to keep the balance. I agree it would be a bad idea to lower speed and perk up to current. I said as much in my reply.

 

Also there are vehicles and it would be beyond silly if a player could run faster than the vehicles and the vehicles have a cap of how fast they can go before they outrun the game’s ability to load the world. I believe they have the vehicles at the fastest they can be which means that the pedal bike needs to be a bit slower than that and then running a bit slower than the bike.

 

Your argument that the current movespeed is faster than zombies might be true and yet I don't feel that. There is a difference between theoretical and practical - just because I have something - doesn't mean I can actually use it.

With everything costing stamina, I can't keep running and attacking because I am hard capped by both the actual stamina limit of my character and stamina deterioration. In early game this is apparent because of the fighting redesign, headshots don't seem to do nearly as much damage and I no longer have that stun period of grace either. In 17 I feel like that ranged builds - excluding shotguns are severely nerfed because they don't have the stamina nor the speed to constantly stay away from enemies.

 

I’m not talking about theoretical ideas or pure numbers from the coding. I’m talking about actual literal practical gameplay. You have enough stamina to outrun sprinting zombies and put enough distance between you and them to lose them or fill them with arrows as they catch up to you. Faatal just admitted he fixed a bug that kept zombies and animals slower than they should have been. So it’s real but thankfully will be changing and- if so I’d be on board with a speed boost perk as long as it’s possible to do within the window of run speed vs bike speed.

 

If I'm thirsty and ask for a drink - do you tell me I can't have a drink, because *you're* not thirsty?

 

It’s more like you are asking for a specific drink that requires preparation and he tells you it would take too much time to make that drink so have this drink instead.

 

I want to move faster so even when I'm out of stamina (which is often) I'm not crawling, if I don't want to run (because that increases detection), because I want to simply cover more distance in the same amount of time (because I don't have a vehicle), or maybe because I have disabilties or impediments that might reduce my physical ability to react in the same amount of time you can.

Regardless of why, I've asked. My experience of the game is simply not the same as everyone else's - unless the aim of the game is to push every into the same character builds, I believe offering the choice to diversify playstyles is important in a sandbox. If I want to snipe heads on the grassy knoll by running into the horizon, I don't understand how allowing me to build a character who is efficient and effective in that playstyle - hurts the gameplay of those who choose to ignore it?

 

I wish I could watch a video of someone playing who claims to always be out of stamina. I really want to be able to watch and see how they are managing it differently than I do. Stamina was tough in 17.0. These days....

 

Like I said, I’m not against moving faster as a perk as long as zombies are increased first so there isn’t more of an imbalance than there already is. If you are disabled and have slower reaction time set zombies to always walk and mod the dogs to be slower or remove them completely. Personally I don’t see player speed as a restriction on any character build you want to do. The one you described of running away and then sniping zombies from a distance is doable on Day 1 provided you were able to find a sniper rifle. You could do it on Day 1 with zombies set to always sprint. Heck, even nightmare speed....

[open6l]

That would make more sense if they locked down the settings that actually cause crazy performance changes such as reflections. But nope... so I call hooplah

 

Oh I completely agree with you there. Removing an FOV slider for "performance" reasons is the last thing you'd expect to see.

[Roland]

That would make more sense if they locked down the settings that actually cause crazy performance changes such as reflections. But nope... so I call hooplah

 

Oh I completely agree with you there. Removing an FOV slider for "performance" reasons is the last thing you'd expect to see.

 

Pssst...hey you two...in the tinfoil hats....yeah you....come ‘ere...

 

Just so we’re clear what’s your conspiracy theory about why you think the devs are lying? What’s your imagined nefarious reason for the lockdown on FOV?

[RipClaw]

Pssst...hey you two...in the tinfoil hats....yeah you....come ‘ere...

 

Just so we’re clear what’s your conspiracy theory about why you think the devs are lying? What’s your imagined nefarious reason for the lockdown on FOV?

 

The reason is obvious. The developers secretly work for the zombies and have restricted the field of view so that the zombies can sneak up on the player more easily.

[ktr]

I wish I could watch a video of someone playing who claims to always be out of stamina. I really want to be able to watch and see how they are managing it differently than I do. Stamina was tough in 17.0. These days....

 

From my observations in multiplayer, it tends to come down to about four factors:

 

1.) Constant sprinting - A couple of the ppl that I play with in MP start off sprinting everywhere whereas I am leisurely (hah) stroll around in the beginning and spend most of my time gathering as I make my way towards the trader but with no particular need to clear that quest even in the first day if the distance is far enough.

 

2.) Not discerning between gathering in the beginning/holding down the button - Holding down the button eats up a lot more stamina than tapping between swings which is especially draining if ppl are going after boulders and full grown trees in the beginning. I solely rely on picking up rocks off the ground, the gray brick piles, the small trees, and such resource nodes for about the first couple of days.

 

3.) Melee - which might be a couple of different issues. You can melee for quite a bit if you don't use power attack, but if you're constantly attacking/not watching the stamina bar, lack of stamina can hit you p. quick. Some ppl also spam power attack.

 

4.) Not using Red Tea and Coffee

 

These are all things I noticed friends of mine doing in game that really affected their stamina. Some of it can be particularly sneaky like the difference between holding down the button to swing vs. tapping and the difference in yield/effort for various 'nodes'.

[open6l]

Pssst...hey you two...in the tinfoil hats....yeah you....come ‘ere...

 

Just so we’re clear what’s your conspiracy theory about why you think the devs are lying? What’s your imagined nefarious reason for the lockdown on FOV?

 

I should rephrase. I'm sure FOV has performance impact, but I think it was just a lazy fix and 'performance' was used as the excuse.

[Roland]

I should rephrase. I'm sure FOV has performance impact, but I think it was just a lazy fix and 'performance' was used as the excuse.

 

What's your basis that it was lazy? How do you know how much time and effort went into trying to solve things another way? What was it a 'lazy fix' for if performance was just an excuse? What were they trying to solve by locking the FOV if not performance?

 

 

And if you do believe that it does have a performance impact and the devs aren't lying about it then why do you keep putting it in quotes like that?

[AtomicUs5000]

Pssst...hey you two...in the tinfoil hats....yeah you....come ‘ere...

 

Just so we’re clear what’s your conspiracy theory about why you think the devs are lying? What’s your imagined nefarious reason for the lockdown on FOV?

 

They broke it. Nothing more.

[Damocles]

There are 3 main reasons companies lock down the FOV (to a too low value)

 

-performance (making the game run faster ... by limiting the users ability to choose this setting higher)

-related console versions (FOV on consoles is smaller due to a different typical screen-sitting position ratio, and they have stricter requirements)

-actual design reasons (like a fair playing field in an RTS, or due to carefully prepared cinematic sequences, due to UI element placement depending on it)

 

Since the 7DtD run totally fine when setting the Fov higher (via console), when the user has the required hardware, the decision to remove this option is just paternalistic.

It would be enough just to set the default to that low value, but let users decide how they want the game to render.

[Roland]

They broke it. Nothing more.

 

lol...then pray tell how is it that people can still select different FOV through console commands?

 

next.

[Roland]

There are 3 main reasons companies lock down the FOV (to a too low value)

 

-performance (making the game run faster ... by limiting the users ability to choose this setting higher)

-related console versions (FOV on consoles is smaller due to a different typical screen-sitting position ratio, and they have stricter requirements)

-actual design reasons (like a fair playing field in an RTS, or due to carefully prepared cinematic sequences, due to UI element placement depending on it)

 

Since the 7DtD run totally fine when setting the Fov higher (via console), when the user has the required hardware, the decision to remove this option is just paternalistic.

It would be enough just to set the default to that low value, but let users decide how they want the game to render.

 

#4 -occlusion of voxels requires a limit to the FOV so that the player doesn't have a chance to view voxels disappearing behind them as they turn

[AtomicUs5000]

lol...then pray tell how is it that people can still select different FOV through console commands?

 

next.

 

They can but it doesn’t stick... broken.

You are missing the point. It may indeed reduce performance, but so do all of the settings. Quite a few of the other settings are far more of an impact on performance, so why are those still able to be changed when applying this logic?

[Roland]

They can but it doesn’t stick... broken.

 

unsupported and frankly also on the bubble as well.

[AtomicUs5000]

unsupported and frankly also on the bubble as well.

I’m not understanding such colloquialisms. Are you saying my statement is false or not backed by proof? Fataal recently mentioned this issue.

[Roland]

I’m not understanding such colloquialisms. Are you saying my statement is false or not backed by proof? Fataal recently mentioned this issue.

 

No I'm saying the feature is unsupported and not broken which is why it doesn't stick and "on the bubble" means there are talks of canceling it. In other words, you may not be able to change FOV via console commands in the future depending on what the devs decide. It all depends on how the occlusion they are doing turns out.