Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[OldManBrian]

Another "My Group's Feedback on a17" Thread

 

Roland has said that they're adding options for XP gain, player block dmg, and zombie block dmg. This is GREAT, but I already modded in these changes weeks ago and can provide feeback on the game with them.

 

 

In general my group and I went from playing a16 every day for a couple hours, to not wanting to play at all even with the changes. I'm the only one really still playing, and even then I have to admit I'm just not feeling it the same as I was with a16.

 

The main reasons I'm hearing\experiencing:

 

RWG map generation.

Nav is great for a first playthrough, but RWG is what we keep coming back for. Issues / solutions listed here.

 

Zombie AI.

It's great, don't get me wrong, but even with zombie block damage lowered, once they start swarming a single spot as they do with laser focus, even lower settings don't make much difference. The problem is that higher number of zombies tear through single points quickly but low number of zombies take forever. It makes single zombies trivial. My fix for this would be instead of changing zombie block damage, limit the number of zombies that can hit the same block. (Maybe have the rest wait their turn behind like in most zombie movies?)

 

Also, I do think that they're *too* smart. Ideally most of the zombies would be a bit dumber with a % of *smart* zombies that draw the dumb ones to them. Or maybe zombies only do smart pathing with a *smart* zombie present, something like that.

 

 

Stamina \ Hit Rate.

• Everything "feels" slower, and there's seemingly a lot more time spent waiting to catch your breath.
  
• I've looked at the values and they don't seem much different than a16, but my group all "feel" like it's just really slow and painful compared to a16.
  

 

General Grindyness.

• Game seems much more "grindy" in general and feels like a slog.
  
• Level gates seem to add to this, as does the stamina \ hit rates as specified above.
  
• Leveling up certain skills from usage felt more satisfying than spending perk points.
  

 

Looting.

• Looting is not as fun for us in a17 (Although weapon\item mods are a great start!)
  
• Schematics were great fun discoveries and a much preferred way to make new stuff than spending perk points.
  
• Current schematics are a great idea, but we generally don't have the items (or perks) to build them so they aren't as "fun" to find. With the old schematics you "learned" to build it so there was an immediate gratification even if you didn't have any of the parts. With a17 you just stick it in your backpack and then go put it in a crate somehwhere and forget about it.
  
• Item quality is almost irrelevant now. Yes mod slots are great if you have mods, but we really miss higher quality items being *much* better. We're just generally not excited to find good quality items anymore.
  
• Personally I think it would be greatly improved if all schematics were found instead of unlocked via perks. Balance could be achieved by gating loot / trader spawns for certain schematics (crucibles, vehicle parts, etc) so you have both the randomness of looting and balance of gating.
  

 

POI Dungeons.

• a17 POI Dungeons are both fantastic and not. I feel like fewer prefabs should be "dungeons" or at least more should be just regular buildings with "dungeon" parts instead of the whole thing being designed as one.
  
• I think part of the problem here is that they "feel" like dungeons instead of cool buildings to explore.
  
• We find ourselves skipping many buildings because we don't feel like doing a dungeon.
  
• In a16 we always wanted to explore buildings because they usually had cool or funny designs \ features.
  
• In a16, it felt like you were exploring a cool building and then *boom* you get hit with a trap or something unexpected.
  
• In a17, you pretty much expect it by the 3rd one and it feels less organic than some of the a16 ones.
  

 

More Serious.

This is POI related, but I heard so much feedback about this I wanted to break it out. It generally feels like a17 has shifted to more "serious". Not a ton, but enough to garner a bit of worry. We loved finding funny stuff inside POI's but it feels like there's less of that. Please Fun Pimps, don't forget your company name, we like that silly zany stuff!

 

Open Cabinets.

This might sound like a nitpick but it actually impacted our enjoyment. I wish you could just right click -> upgrade all "open" blocks to their closed versions. Having a ton of open cabinets makes POI's less "move in ready" and makes them kinda ugly if you set up shop there. I love the idea of it as it saves looting empty stuff, but in practice it makes it so you have to gut these perfectly good shelves and make a saw table and a bunch of other stuff just to try to get them "closed" again.

 

Lack of Clear Information.

• First and foremost, it would be great if the Localization.txt was changed to an xpath xml. That way I \ other modders can fix these issues ourselves easily without having to worry about update \ other mod compatibility. Descriptions ideally would be able to include actual values in the text so they change automatically if the item's parameter value is changed. (Perks, items, etc. Would make modding and game development \ maintenance a lot easier.)
  .
  
• Inconsistency of information. Some items tell you what they need for repair, some don't. These types of things would be better if automatically done via the actual values.
  
• Most descriptions are not clear enough or have details so you understand if they're good or not.
  
• Mod schematics are a big one, it's hard to tell what exactly many do or by how much.
  
• Item stat comparison is a bit odd. Ideally you would automatically compare the item you're wearing to the one highlighted, but it seems to be acting up in weird ways so it might be a bug.
  
• All in all it makes for a lot of reading \ research by the players. I know a lot of this is likely already on the todo list, but it just gets amplified because of how reliant the players are now on perks and the new item mod system.
  

 

 

Stuff We Like.

Mostly everything else.

Zombie AI is generally a great improvement, as is their jumping ability.

Weapon\Item mods are fantastic, I'd love to see at least 10 times as many along with 3x as many weapons.

New vehicles are awesome! (Just not crazy about them being perk related. I'd like to see just the bicyle as a perk and all the others as schematics \ parts you find in the world to learn how to assemble.)

New building blocks are amazing and new POIs look beautiful.

I actually love that you now pre-generate the RWG maps, makes things so much smoother when running.

 

 

Overall, I love what you guys are doing, but all together these problems have made my group generally not excited about playing anymore. I'm going to try modding a few other things in desperation, but I think I'm going to be going back to a16 to so I can salvage the group and keep them from moving on to other games.

[Benjiro]

Both you and Benjiro are being extreme. You do not represent the playerbase. You just happen to be loud and persistent. By giving the devs zero credit for the compromises they’ve made and by being unwilling to meet them partway you really damage your own credibility.

 

Takes a bow to your answer Roland... You know that little point that a lot of other people pointed out. Discredit the players who do not agree ...

 

My credibility is open to see... I posted several system over the years for fixing issues. Going back to Craft Spamming, Underground solution(s), Perk fixes, Content scaling issues etc. But hey, you know, i am a extremist it seems, he Roland.

 

Issues that bugged the developers, did not bug the community in the same extend. Issues that had minor solutions got ignored for complex solutions. But i am also a developer Roland, so i know the mess projects can become. And its easy to see they had the "itch" as we like to call it. The itch to rewrite a lot of code they simply did not like anymore. Because their own vision of the game changed over time and part of that was: How do we make the game uniform. This is much easier to develop ( i know ). But in doing so, you also cut out part of what made the game more unique. And this is what the Pimps do not seem to understand.

 

In this same topic, i posted the experience of my brother in law with this exact same game ( and no, he has not written any negative review ). The points where he was struggling with. Does this also count as being extreme? No ... you ignore that because it fits your narrative of negative trolls posters who are out of burn the game down.

 

TFP was dead set on not adding extra options until gold or at least beta but they listened to the playerbase and reconsidered. But because they haven’t given in to ALL your demands you still can’t say anything good.

 

Being honest ... If they left the game at A16.4 and released it with some patches. And later doing DLCs, might have been better for them. And this let modders solve issues. Nobody asked for this massive change in the XP system, especially mod authors who are now struggling with the new system.

 

I remember mod authors begging for fixes like the menu lag and yet, every Alpha this got ignored. Sure, you can ignore players but when you also ignore mod authors complaints, then what?

 

And check my history, i do mention good things about A17. Unfortunately, they get overshadowed by the more radical changes.

 

Benjiro calls it a ploy and tries to paint the developers as con artists hoping to dupe the players into shutting up without “fixing” anything and you admit that you do hope they fail.

 

Please point out where i admit that i hope they fail. Because if you read this in my text, you are dead wrong. I do NOT want the developers to fail, because that means 7D2D is simply dead. That is not to any advantage for me or other people who complain.

 

Maybe at times i get too negative, because every change we see simply keep putting paint on the issue and not actually solving it.

 

The changes they are making are not fixing the core issues of the game Roland, its like putting paint over a rusted car. Sure, it looks great until you drive it for longer then 5 minutes. Those changes are easy to see that it can not solve the balancing and content issues.

 

But one thing i learned a long time ago, is at time you NEED to kick the developers in the behinds. Because they really have the habit of not being happy with X, and then reworking it to a totally new system that only half works. When people pointed out solutions for X. As even the Mod authors solved it this way.

 

This is beyond the point of giving constructive negative feedback and way into the zone of antagonistic burn the world motives.

 

Said the Moderator who had no issue attacking several big mod authors for disagreeing with the game direction.

 

In both polls I did about A17 the actual polls showed that the majority enjoyed or were ambivalent toward A17. Only a small portion voted that they outright hated it. Yet, if you went through and read all the posts they were by far mostly negative. If you looked closer it was the same several people repeating themselves over and over and over.

 

Roland, ... i read those same polls. You had a almost 50/50 score. If you only want to count the people who hate it, sure, you get a minority and you can claim its 80% that like A17. But it was not. If you only counted the people who loved A17, i can claim that 80% hated it. Twisting things to meet your end does not change the fact that A17 is definitely not as beloved as you claim it is. Nor is it as bad or horrible as i claim it is. A17 has good things going for it but its those 2 or 3 major changes, that changed the game in such a way, that it lost its soul, that is what angers a lot of people.

 

And regarding the posts on this forum. You state its the same people repeating / being negative but do tell, how can those same negative people keep voting 7D2D down on Steam? They can not ... Just as you only want to see the positive and claim only a few negative people keep reporting, you are ignoring that a lot of people who are negative, never express this on this forum.

 

People who are happy play the game and don’t spend nearly the time posting about how much they love it. So they are vastly under represented in reviews and forum posts. This forum does not represent the playerbase but what it does clearly show in those two threads is that angry hating people will always dominate the conversation even when the more silent majority are those who feel love, like, meh, or dislike for an update.

 

See above.

 

The reasonable reader will recognize that TFP is listening to their playerbase and making compromises and options available to please many many more who initially were unhappy. The haters who will never be satisfied unless TFP gives in to their every demand can safely be ignored because they do NOT represent the playerbase.

 

The pimps can not give into people their demands simply because they made a mistake. Nobody asked for this XP/Perk system, this was a decisions they made themselves. Now they are trying to fix issues by putting paint over it and you call this "TFP is listening to their playerbase". I call this being stubborn and unwilling to admit they messed up.

 

I want to again thank the OP and all others who have given constructive criticism without insult or accusation. It is because of you that TFP is looking for ways to be as inclusive as possible as they move forward with development. They have been reading these forums, Steam reviews, Facebook, Twitter, and watching streams.

 

Good for them. And we can only hope that in the future when they want to make radical game changes, they first poll the community before pushing out massive changes like this.

 

I hope that 7D2D recovers from this and goes back to its core. But if you really think i am too negative, i will refrain from posting here anymore. This will probably make you very happy, one less critical voice. But if you think this solves anything, it does not. As we see with the negative reviews and posts made by other people, this what you call negative minority seems to be bigger then you claim it is.

 

So please, prove me wrong how the Pimp will salved this mess. Have fun and a bye ...

[crazyduck]

Both you and Benjiro are being extreme. You do not represent the playerbase. You just happen to be loud and persistent. By giving the devs zero credit for the compromises they’ve made and by being unwilling to meet them partway you really damage your own credibility.

 

TFP was dead set on not adding extra options until gold or at least beta but they listened to the playerbase and reconsidered. But because they haven’t given in to ALL your demands you still can’t say anything good.

 

Benjiro calls it a ploy and tries to paint the developers as con artists hoping to dupe the players into shutting up without “fixing” anything and you admit that you do hope they fail. This is beyond the point of giving constructive negative feedback and way into the zone of antagonistic burn the world motives.

 

In both polls I did about A17 the actual polls showed that the majority enjoyed or were ambivalent toward A17. Only a small portion voted that they outright hated it. Yet, if you went through and read all the posts they were by far mostly negative. If you looked closer it was the same several people repeating themselves over and over and over.

 

People who are happy play the game and don’t spend nearly the time posting about how much they love it. So they are vastly under represented in reviews and forum posts. This forum does not represent the playerbase but what it does clearly show in those two threads is that angry hating people will always dominate the conversation even when the more silent majority are those who feel love, like, meh, or dislike for an update.

 

The reasonable reader will recognize that TFP is listening to their playerbase and making compromises and options available to please many many more who initially were unhappy. The haters who will never be satisfied unless TFP gives in to their every demand can safely be ignored because they do NOT represent the playerbase.

 

I want to again thank the OP and all others who have given constructive criticism without insult or accusation. It is because of you that TFP is looking for ways to be as inclusive as possible as they move forward with development. They have been reading these forums, Steam reviews, Facebook, Twitter, and watching streams.

 

Roland its always interesting, you would also tell the People the Sky is Pink and if someone tells you its not your reaction would be telling this person he is blind or stupid or need to learn the different colors.

 

Sure they listen to Playerbase but only in this Parts it would not "ruin" the new Vision they have. Cause before 16 there was no Sign the Vision is a FPS Zombie Shooter with easymode Crafting and Survival.

If they woudl Listen to Playerbase and i mean Playerbase and not only the "Fantastic i love it" Faction they would add back Features many People miss.

 

you really cant tell me it would be impossible or such a big Work to bring back Weapon Parts. Also having a Assembly and a Attach Mod Window would be Possible.

So Roland can you give me 1 only 1 Really good Reason why it would be impossible to add back this Parts with the Quality System, and no the its not the Vision Part does not work, cause we talk about listening Playerbase.

And at same time make it toggle, if enabled you have Gun Parts and Assembly Window if disabled you have no Parts and no Assembly Window.

Also at same time, why always the People should mod it who dont like this Permanent Feature Remove from the Pimps and not the People who dont like as example Weapon Parts?

 

And if People who want this Stuff back should mod it, then give this People the needed Features to bring such stuff back, it will not work if Pimps remove all the needed Code from the Sourcecode.

 

Yes Alpha 17 also has some nice things true, but also many many bad things and some of this Bad things are Removal of Features and Items from the Game and at same time making it again more and more Easy Mode if it comes to Survival, Crafting or Building.

[xXBadDreamXx]

alot of good points. theyve taken the game in an entirely different direction and theres a certain charm that appealed to alot of players that seems to be lost now. it kinda feels like its trying to hard to copy other games. imo 7 days to die was the game that shouldve been copied from.

[DaVegaNL]

The one thing that makes A17 the worst release so far, is how horribly easy the game has become. It is shockingly trivial compared to A16. Some people just can't adjust yet. AI exploitation aside, In A16 you had to build a solid base to be safe. In A17 you don't. A huge portion of the game became irrelevant overnight.

 

Lol.. A17 easy compared with A16? In what universe?

[Jedo]

Roland, ... i read those same polls. You had a almost 50/50 score.

 

Clearly you didn't. The first was 75% at ambivalent or above; the second was 65%. Roland was pretty clear with where he drew the line. You can argue that he should have drawn the line differently, but your numbers do not accurately represent what Roland stated.

 

You accused Roland of twisting things to meet his own ends, so I thought I would share the facts to help you avoid doing the same.

[BobTheBard]

Lol.. A17 easy compared with A16? In what universe?

 

Having played a good bit of both A16 and A17, I have to say he's not wrong. A17 feels harder than A16 initially, but it turns out it's not harder, it's simply more time-consuming and tedious if you play it sub-optimally. Once you get the techniques down and figure out an optimal perk order it becomes pretty trivial, especially thanks to the addition of themed crates, quick leveling via campfire screamer parties, and the trader turning into Wasteland Wal-Mart. Of course, this encourages a lot of sameness in the early game because there is now definitely a best way to play it.

[Cirion]

I don't think anyone here wants the game to crash and burn.

 

Actually, I would go so far as to say the people who are extremely vocal are the ones who have the most desire for the game to succeed and the reason they're angry because they're seeing the game go in a direction they don't think it should go. BTW I am not sure I read all of the posts that is referred to here, so I'm making a few assumptions on that.

 

A17 has lots of great features IMO. I just hope we can later integrate some of what made A16 great into 17. In the spirit of "Compromise" between the devs and the vocal playerbase, I think this totally fits the bill of compromise, because its not sticking with 16, nor is it sticking with 17, it is indeed "meeting in the middle" as previously suggested IMO. The dev's deciding to add more options and sliders is a welcome addition, but I really don't (personally) consider that as part of the compromise, because that's not a compromise on the games' actual hard-coded settings that sliders do not adjust.

 

Additionally, many of the "Demands" are not extreme in the slightest nor do I even consider them a compromise anyway. For example - there is really no reason why we can't have our cake and eat it too in a few cases. Specific case: Gun parts. I've read posts here that suggest that gun parts were done away with because dev's thought just finding parts were not rewarding or helpful for survival. That's a fair point. And most people don't have just parts lying around anyway, so that makes logical sense, that's fine (except gun enthusiasts perhaps). The solution then? Make it so parts don't drop BUT you can strip down guns you do find. This is a great example of how you can make ALL people happy, and its really not even a compromise, I see zero reason why ANYONE would hate this kind of system. See where I'm going with this? Be creative. Come up with a solution that makes everyone happy. Is it easy to do? Not always, but it's sure as heck worth it to give an effort to do so. Best part? You can make messing with the parts 100% optional. Full firearms will drop like always, and you never even need to dissemble a single firearm, if you don't want to. (There would be benefit to do so though, like you could do like before and build up to a better firearm by scavenging parts from old ones. Right now there's just no excitement to find new firearms if they're low quality, and they are quickly scrapped or sold. This would solve that problem too. Win-Win. People who are too lazy or dislike this system can always just wait until they roll the lotto and find a 6 quality firearm or just craft one from scratch. This would reward the players who put the effort in stockpiling bunches of older firearms, while not necessarily hindering those who don't.

 

With some thought, I could probably even come up with an idea that lets you integrate both A16 and A17 perk systems without much compromise either. I do admit that one is a tougher nut to crack, but I don't believe in impossible tasks.

 

Rather than argue back and forth about whether A17 is objectively better (hint - its not, everything is subjective) let's talk solutions. I'm an engineer professional. Fixing problems and coming up with solutions is what I do for a living. Arguing for the sake of arguing has never been my style, the end-goal of my posts is to come up with solutions. Correct me if wrong but I don't see a ton of discourse over SOLUTIONS. Rather we just see a lot of disgruntled posts with no clear goal in mind.

 

I will grant you that not 100% of the complaints can be rectified without a 100% effective solution, so lets work on fixing the ones that can be, at the very least, that's a good start. So let's start with the easy ones like the gun part example I made.

[HungryZombie]

I don't think A16 or A17 were particularity hard. They are just different and tedious in different ways.

[hotpoon]

Very good points, but I have to vehemently disagree about zombie AI being a plus.

 

Zombies need to be stupid and attack only via line of sight. When zombies magically know how to traverse a maze, they aren't zombies anymore.

 

The other day I was about to do a quest and came upon a building with some scaffolding outside. There was a dog roaming the road which I thought I'd better take care of before I start the quest, so I climbed up on the scaffolding and took a shot at the dog. I was expecting the dog to run to the bottom of the scaffolding and start trying to break it down, and of course my plans were to finish it off from above before it got that far. Instead, the dog ran to the house and started breaking the door down. Once inside, it made its way upstairs , through the roof, across a plank and onto my scaffolding.

 

That's a problem. This is both a zombie and a dog - neither of which should be able to figure out that route.

 

Edit to Add

@Roland, I notice your smart zombie, dumb zombie poll is closed, or I would have asked there. I read in that thread that the new intelligent AI is needed in preparation for the bandits, which of course, is fine, but...will the zombie AI be adjusted down to line of sight pathing, or will the bandits and zombies have the same level of AI?

[crossed]

I'll just dump my two cents in this thread..

 

I'm having a blast with a17 so far but ~150 hours in I've got to admit, unlocking every craftables just by leveling up gets old fast, as fast as after one playthrough, for me anyway.

 

The disappearance of weapon parts and books was a bummer but I wasn't too shook up about it, but the more I play the more I miss them.

 

Today I launched the game and I was like "Where was I? Oh yeah, I want the motorbike, need to grind 10 more levels" whilst in a16 this could have been "time to get out there and find the schematics for it!"

[Cirion]

I'll just dump my two cents in this thread..

 

I'm having a blast with a17 so far but ~150 hours in I've got to admit, unlocking every craftables just by leveling up gets old fast, as fast as after one playthrough, for me anyway.

 

The disappearance of weapon parts and books was a bummer but I wasn't too shook up about it, but the more I play the more I miss them.

 

Today I launched the game and I was like "Where was I? Oh yeah, I want the motorbike, need to grind 10 more levels" whilst in a16 this could have been "time to get out there and find the schematics for it!"

 

Agreed, the level gating is horrible IMO. There is a mod for it though I think, which I'm probably gonna go get.

 

I think if you level up the skill you should be able to craft it. Whether its level 20 or level 80. Why can't you form a team with people and have one guy be the crafter and one guy be the gunner etc? Well, you can't, not with level gating screwing it all up.

 

I believe players who are smart and plan should be rewarded.

 

here's a random example. Dungeon defenders (one of my all time favorite games). Tower defense RPG for those who have not played it. You could level your character and choose player HP, damage, player owned tower damage, speed, range etc etc. Anyway, if you were smart, and chose the correct stats to level, you could be able to run through the harder difficulties early especially if you teamed up with other players who complemented your skills. This brought with it a sense of satisfaction of hey, I know what I'm doing, I planned out my skills to be the most efficient, and now I'm reaping the rewards of being smart.

 

Shouldn't we be rewarding people with the effort they put in trying to do something like that? Isn't that the whole point of forming a party, to have people contribute unique skills to the team?

[Minandreas]

I have yet to play in 17.1, so my input may be a bit dated now.

 

The primary things I dislike are the gates on the leveling of skills, sleepers, and the way every POI feels completely fake now.

 

Skills thing goes without saying, and I've heard 17.1 addressed some of it. So I'll just skip over that one for now.

 

Sleepers I've railed against since their introduction. There's just far too many. FAR too many. They turned the game in to Dead Rising. I enter every building like Rambo. My best memories of this game, and the ones that have stuck in my head after hundreds of hours of play, are the memories of my very first times playing it. Before I knew much of anything about it. A15. I knew zombies could hear me. Potentially smell me. And I thought they were terrifying to try and fight (because roommate said so). Hard to kill. I had no gun. All I had was a stick and a bow with a handful of arrows. I was so on edge looting a building, especially at night. I remember trying to break in to a room that was boarded up and dropping to a crouch because I heard a zombie moaning and going "Oh crap please don't have heard me please don't have heard me please don't have heard me..." Now... Now I'm just Rambo. There's going to be 10+ zombies in this house that probably should have had only 6 residence in it. And daddy needs some more experience points. Whack whack whack whack whack

 

There was a sense of immersion in A15 that was damaged when sleepers got put in. But it was tolerable. Now...? It just feels so damn fake. Every building is clearly a game level. Why did 4 zombies just bust out of the closets? Does it make any sense at all that those 4 zombies would just so happen to be hanging out in those closets? Of course not. It's ridiculous. They just thought it would be cool to have 4 zombies bust out of closets on you. I'm all for the rule of cool, but not when it's so blatantly contrived. And I could enjoy the odd romp through a hand crafted gamey experience through a building here and there to provide variety of gameplay. But every single damn building feels this way.

 

In my opinion, TFP has a habit of being so proud of some of their advancements that they don't stop to think about how it should be implemented. They just crank it to 11 immediately. We figured out sleepers! WOOOOOOOT PUT 10 OF THEM IN EVERY BUILDING MINIMUM! We've got some great level designer guys on the team now. WOOOOOOT TURN EVERY POI IN TO A HAND CRAFTED DUNGEON! Like, calm down guys. These are some great advancements. But you've taken some of the core appeal of your game, drug it out back, and shot it by going way over the top with them.

[Jedo]

Having played a good bit of both A16 and A17, I have to say he's not wrong. A17 feels harder than A16 initially, but it turns out it's not harder, it's simply more time-consuming and tedious if you play it sub-optimally. Once you get the techniques down and figure out an optimal perk order it becomes pretty trivial, especially thanks to the addition of themed crates, quick leveling via campfire screamer parties, and the trader turning into Wasteland Wal-Mart. Of course, this encourages a lot of sameness in the early game because there is now definitely a best way to play it.

 

How is this not different between A16 and A17? In both of them there are optimal ways to play, and if you don't play them optimally, they are harder.

 

Of course, such a statement is just a waste of time because the words themselves make the truth self-evident while not saying a single thing about the difference between the two alphas.

[OldManBrian]

Very good points, but I have to vehemently disagree about zombie AI being a plus.

 

Zombies need to be stupid and attack only via line of sight. When zombies magically know how to traverse a maze, they aren't zombies anymore.

 

 

Yeah, I do agree with this to an extent. Personally I think there should be *special* zombies that are smarter and allow the horde as a whole to do smart pathing, otherwise it's just too good and immersion breaking. We like killing mindless hordes, but this seems too *gamey* because they just *know* the exact best path to get to you. I added an addition to my zombie AI just now to express this.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I'm having a blast with a17 so far but ~150 hours in I've got to admit, unlocking every craftables just by leveling up gets old fast, as fast as after one playthrough, for me anyway.

 

The disappearance of weapon parts and books was a bummer but I wasn't too shook up about it, but the more I play the more I miss them.

 

Today I launched the game and I was like "Where was I? Oh yeah, I want the motorbike, need to grind 10 more levels" whilst in a16 this could have been "time to get out there and find the schematics for it!"

 

Yeah same with us. The perks are just too predictable, it was great having to set out and find those things you needed, instead of now how you just grind your way to get there.

[Ghostlight]

even with zombie block damage lowered, once they start swarming a single spot as they do with laser focus, even lower settings don't make much difference. The problem is that higher number of zombies tear through single points quickly but low number of zombies take forever.

 

This is because:

 

1) Zombies get a "flanking" bonus for every other zombie hitting the same block. And due to the AI, they will all obviously go for the weakest block.

 

2) Zombies do not respect each other's hit box and just clip inside each other. This allows a huge number of zombies to attack the same block and thus they all get a huge "flanking" bonus. Only 3 should be able to do this. The one that that is adjacent and the two that are diagonally next to that block.

[Roland]

Great post Old Man. Thanks for expressing your feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the game for your group.

 

For myself, I use subsequent playthroughs to buy perks in a different order or mix and this brings a lot of charm to me. I like playing with a different mix of strengths and weaknesses and seeing how the weaknesses make the game challenging in different ways. I also don’t like the level gates and would rather see them gone but I am enjoying the perk system. If I decided on one optimal way to spend points and always played following that formula the game definitely would feel samey to me as well.

[Ghostlight]

I'll just dump my two cents in this thread..

 

I'm having a blast with a17 so far but ~150 hours in I've got to admit, unlocking every craftables just by leveling up gets old fast, as fast as after one playthrough, for me anyway.

 

The disappearance of weapon parts and books was a bummer but I wasn't too shook up about it, but the more I play the more I miss them.

 

Today I launched the game and I was like "Where was I? Oh yeah, I want the motorbike, need to grind 10 more levels" whilst in a16 this could have been "time to get out there and find the schematics for it!"

 

+1.

 

This, for me, is A17's biggest flaw and this on it's own trumps all the good things about it.

[OldManBrian]

Great post Old Man. Thanks for expressing your feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the game for your group.

 

For myself, I use subsequent playthroughs to buy perks in a different order or mix and this brings a lot of charm to me. I like playing with a different mix of strengths and weaknesses and seeing how the weaknesses make the game challenging in different ways. I also don’t like the level gates and would rather see them gone but I am enjoying the perk system. If I decided on one optimal way to spend points and always played following that formula the game definitely would feel samey to me as well.

 

Thanks!

 

We've definitely tried that route, and I get what you mean but we generally each have our own preferences. I personally like to build, another likes looting, another loves guns, etc. It's great that the game allows us to create custom builds like that, but it makes every playthrough the same for each of us.

 

The biggest problem with it to me is the level gating and the fact that schematics are unlocked via perks instead of looting / traders. Personally I think it would be greatly improved if all schematics were found instead of unlocked via perks. Balance could be achieved by gating loot / trader spawns for certain schematics (crucibles, vehicle parts, etc) so you have both the randomness of looting and balance of gating.

[Cirion]

On the front of specialization, can we separate Weapon damage and Tool damage? This might anger some people, but... what if you wanted to have a member of your team JUST as a harvester guy? What if you don't care to spend points on actual melee damage like sledgehammer? I personally would like that option. But maybe that's just me. Personally, for my playstyle, caring too much about melee damage is actually almost last on my list to level up, but I've forced to in order to get my mining skill up. I think this is one reason I miss A16's system. in A16 you could immediately start boosting your mining skill simply by mining and not worry about skill points, level gating or any of that nonsense.

 

This is how I think A16's system could integrate with A17 IMO. Some skills should remain unlocked the way they were, and others the way they are now, in a logical fashion. As example:

 

Athletics: A16 system

Mining: A16 system

Unlocking forge, chemistry station, etc etc...: A17 system

Specialized skills like headshot damage: A17 system

Generalized skills like ranged weapon damage: A16 system (use weapon more, more damage)

 

etc.... Basically the intent is to make skills level where they make sense, unless theres a big need to "Purposeful" grind involved which I agree should be removed. When I say "purposeful" grind I mean there's no way you will ever get said skill to max through incidental playing of the game but only through "purposeful" grind (bad) IMO. An example of this would be crafting 1000 stone axes to improving crafting skill. Bad. Probably should keep crafting improvement to the A17 system for this reason UNLESS this system was improved to where it is just better - like just making the 300 blocks you need for a base should give you ample level ups to also then make a forge etc, and not have to "exploit" the system by making 1000 stone axes just to progress lol.

[Roland]

Very good points, but I have to vehemently disagree about zombie AI being a plus.

 

Zombies need to be stupid and attack only via line of sight. When zombies magically know how to traverse a maze, they aren't zombies anymore.

 

The other day I was about to do a quest and came upon a building with some scaffolding outside. There was a dog roaming the road which I thought I'd better take care of before I start the quest, so I climbed up on the scaffolding and took a shot at the dog. I was expecting the dog to run to the bottom of the scaffolding and start trying to break it down, and of course my plans were to finish it off from above before it got that far. Instead, the dog ran to the house and started breaking the door down. Once inside, it made its way upstairs , through the roof, across a plank and onto my scaffolding.

 

That's a problem. This is both a zombie and a dog - neither of which should be able to figure out that route.

 

Edit to Add

@Roland, I notice your smart zombie, dumb zombie poll is closed, or I would have asked there. I read in that thread that the new intelligent AI is needed in preparation for the bandits, which of course, is fine, but...will the zombie AI be adjusted down to line of sight pathing, or will the bandits and zombies have the same level of AI?

 

There is one pathing system for all entities and how much information each entity has about the possible paths is what constitutes how dumb or smart they are.

 

The behavior you described for the dog is exactly what makes POI exploration so much more interesting to me. True, it doesn’t fit the traditional trope for a zombie or a dog or a zombie dog but it is far more interesting and horrifying than the dog barking at you from the base of the scaffolding until you shoot it from above. So while I understand the immersion problems I have to acknowledge the greater fun factor (at least for me)

 

I’m not sure what the final plan will be for how bandits vs zombies will behave. Technically the ability that dog showed is probably even too smart for a bandit to do unless it happened to be his own hideout and not an unknown building. That tells me that it probably is not the final intended product.

 

All I know is that AI is being worked on and what we have now is not the final product. He said before A17 came out that some old problems would be solved but that there would be new problems. For now there really is fun to be had in battling zombie dogs that find complex paths to you. If you take it at face value knowing there will be improvements your enjoyment will increase.

 

I imagine a future day when people will complain that TFP took a huge step backwards by nerfing the pathfinding abilities of dogs and zombies....

[lug]

i think that part of the trouble we are having is based on the meta knowledge we bring to the game, and how TFP handles that divergence.

as a player i know the better equipment is x levels away and may feel compelled to achieve that goal. my character ought to just want food, shelter, and whatever.

 

i have more fun when i set aside the player knowledge. i don't grind for hundreds of resources to be able to craft advanced building materials that i know i will have access to as soon as i kill that many zombies.

 

the feeling of reward has been reduced in 17 when compared to 16, but on its own merit 17 delivers many rewards. i think we feel that loss because of our history with the game. i don't think they 'ruined' their game or other such hyperbole.

 

i hope they find a way to bring back the little dopamine rushes. i have a whole bucket of nickels at the ready.

[Bhaaltazar]

 

More Serious.

This is POI related, but I heard so much feedback about this I wanted to break it out. It generally feels like a17 has shifted to more "serious". Not a ton, but enough to garner a bit of worry. We loved finding funny stuff inside POI's but it feels like there's less of that. Please Fun Pimps, don't forget your company name, we like that silly zany stuff!

 

 

You described it right on spot. I have same thoughts, I wrote on many other discussions about this. It feels like gameplay shifted from 7d2d ( A10-A16 ) into more of an action style ( FP shooter of sorts ) where game is oriented to just go out and constantly fight and collect kills ( feels more like death match in shooter games ). Somehow all the other aspects of game are dulled down. Feels like genre of the game has changed now.

I really like new POI's design, atmosphere, looks and all ( great job TFP ), but usually they are so packed with zombies that it really feels like you are entering a new death match game ( countown 3,2,1 GO is missing to make it complete lol ).

 

On later levels ( 100 + ) I enter a house doing fetch tier 1 level trader quest ( didn't do them before since trader was far away ). So i enter the house and open a console ( 21 radiated zombies on basement level - mostly cheerleaders and few Boes ). Next floor another 15-ish radiated ( still moistly cheerleaders with couple of spiders and bigMoma's), top level in the attic 12 radiated most of them in room guarding the crates ( wights, boes and few others ).

OK obviously i didn't have much problems with themat these levels, picking them 1 by 1 with 3 steel arrows in the head and couple of times with knuckles fights ( exploding heads from head crusher ), but cmon it felt like playing Doom ( the one from the 90's ) only with better graphics and effects.

My point, radiated zeds should be special ( boss like, tough opponent guarding something important and difficult to obtain ). They loose that omg Green zombies effect. It just gets too repetitive on a same pace all the time.

 

On the other hand wouldn't it be nicer if on blood moons those zombies numbers per block would be limited? and once that limit is reached zombies should move to the next block. More like mindless A16 zombies just trying to demolish as many blocks as possible?

 

In A16 i spent almost half a week gathering, mining, building and fortifying the base - mixing that concrete and smelting steel and making traps and rest of the days looting and exploring - trading.

A17 has great new things but i just think everything should be more balanced among all the aspects the game has to offer and not just focus so much purely on fighting, just to loot couple of crates with crappy items.

 

Yes looting needs to change - waaaay too many guns ( that also adds the feel of a shooter game where guns are all over the place ). These should be special finds with powerful attributes, but hard to find so it makes you think if they are worth using now or should you save them for OH SH** moments. Yes I think MadMole said its still work in porogress and many new items are coming so I'm just commeting current state of the game.

[hotpoon]

There is one pathing system for all entities and how much information each entity has about the possible paths is what constitutes how dumb or smart they are.

 

The behavior you described for the dog is exactly what makes POI exploration so much more interesting to me. True, it doesn’t fit the traditional trope for a zombie or a dog or a zombie dog but it is far more interesting and horrifying than the dog barking at you from the base of the scaffolding until you shoot it from above. So while I understand the immersion problems I have to acknowledge the greater fun factor (at least for me)

Masochist

 

I’m not sure what the final plan will be for how bandits vs zombies will behave. Technically the ability that dog showed is probably even too smart for a bandit to do unless it happened to be his own hideout and not an unknown building. That tells me that it probably is not the final intended product.

 

All I know is that AI is being worked on and what we have now is not the final product. He said before A17 came out that some old problems would be solved but that there would be new problems. For now there really is fun to be had in battling zombie dogs that find complex paths to you. If you take it at face value knowing there will be improvements your enjoyment will increase.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

I imagine a future day when people will complain that TFP took a huge step backwards by nerfing the pathfinding abilities of dogs and zombies....

Oh probably. Can't please everyone all the time.

[Roland]

Takes a bow to your answer Roland... You know that little point that a lot of other people pointed out. Discredit the players who do not agree ...

 

My credibility is open to see... I posted several system over the years for fixing issues. Going back to Craft Spamming, Underground solution(s), Perk fixes, Content scaling issues etc. But hey, you know, i am a extremist it seems, he Roland.

 

Issues that bugged the developers, did not bug the community in the same extend. Issues that had minor solutions got ignored for complex solutions. But i am also a developer Roland, so i know the mess projects can become. And its easy to see they had the "itch" as we like to call it. The itch to rewrite a lot of code they simply did not like anymore. Because their own vision of the game changed over time and part of that was: How do we make the game uniform. This is much easier to develop ( i know ). But in doing so, you also cut out part of what made the game more unique. And this is what the Pimps do not seem to understand.

 

In this same topic, i posted the experience of my brother in law with this exact same game ( and no, he has not written any negative review ). The points where he was struggling with. Does this also count as being extreme? No ... you ignore that because it fits your narrative of negative trolls posters who are out of burn the game down.

 

I am not discrediting anyone's critical analysis of the game itself. I welcome other viewpoints on why the game is or is not fun and I'll even brag that I'm good at understanding the reasons why people don't like something even if I don't agree personally since my own preferences are probably different than theirs. What I do try to discredit are speculative and erroneous accusations regarding supposed motives by the developers. As soon as you cross over into guessing why changes are made and those guesses are either insulting or wrong or both, I'm going to discredit those assumptions. So you can pretend that I'm speaking out against what you don't like about the game but that doesn't make it reality.

 

Being honest ... If they left the game at A16.4 and released it with some patches. And later doing DLCs, might have been better for them. And this let modders solve issues. Nobody asked for this massive change in the XP system, especially mod authors who are now struggling with the new system.

 

I remember mod authors begging for fixes like the menu lag and yet, every Alpha this got ignored. Sure, you can ignore players but when you also ignore mod authors complaints, then what?

 

And check my history, i do mention good things about A17. Unfortunately, they get overshadowed by the more radical changes.

 

Whether you post criticism or praise for the game I don't care. It's when you go further than that start giving opinions of what you think is going on behind the scenes and it is only the worst possible motives and incompetency that you can come up with that I step in and make corrections.

 

 

Please point out where i admit that i hope they fail. Because if you read this in my text, you are dead wrong. I do NOT want the developers to fail, because that means 7D2D is simply dead. That is not to any advantage for me or other people who complain.

 

I can't point it out because I never said you did. That was Ghostlight. If you reread what I wrote carefully you will see that I split my remarks between you and Ghostlight. He was the one who admitted that he hoped to see TFP fail and have to resort to paid DLCs in order to force them to only add things he would like to see added. I agree with you that it is an irrational desire but I can only respond to what he himself admitted to wanting.

 

Maybe at times i get too negative, because every change we see simply keep putting paint on the issue and not actually solving it.

 

The changes they are making are not fixing the core issues of the game Roland, its like putting paint over a rusted car. Sure, it looks great until you drive it for longer then 5 minutes. Those changes are easy to see that it can not solve the balancing and content issues.

 

But one thing i learned a long time ago, is at time you NEED to kick the developers in the behinds. Because they really have the habit of not being happy with X, and then reworking it to a totally new system that only half works. When people pointed out solutions for X. As even the Mod authors solved it this way.

 

I have no problem with you feeling like their solutions aren't real solutions and outlining what you think is better. Please do that and stick to that.

 

 

 

Said the Moderator who had no issue attacking several big mod authors for disagreeing with the game direction.

 

And here I thought you were being honest. Who are these several mod authors? I roasted Jax for his propensity to oscillate between praising and criticizing the developers in a grandiose fashion. I didn't attack him for disagreeing with the direction as a mod author. I consistently defend modding on this forum and rightfully set mods and their authors as the genius for extending the life of this game. I enjoyed Ravenhearst for a time as it effectively overcame many of the weaknesses of precious A16. I look forward to see his take on A17 although I am worried that he seems to like simple POIs a lot more than I do. Will I go on his thread and rant about him and assign nefarious motives and proclaim him incompetent if he removes all but a few of the dungeon POI's? Nope. I'll recognize that our two preferences diverge and I'll choose a different mod to play if necessary or go back to vanilla which I like as well.

 

 

Roland, ... i read those same polls. You had a almost 50/50 score. If you only want to count the people who hate it, sure, you get a minority and you can claim its 80% that like A17. But it was not. If you only counted the people who loved A17, i can claim that 80% hated it. Twisting things to meet your end does not change the fact that A17 is definitely not as beloved as you claim it is. Nor is it as bad or horrible as i claim it is. A17 has good things going for it but its those 2 or 3 major changes, that changed the game in such a way, that it lost its soul, that is what angers a lot of people.

 

And regarding the posts on this forum. You state its the same people repeating / being negative but do tell, how can those same negative people keep voting 7D2D down on Steam? They can not ... Just as you only want to see the positive and claim only a few negative people keep reporting, you are ignoring that a lot of people who are negative, never express this on this forum.

 

Sorry: 75% ambivalent or positive https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?98192-How-do-you-like-A17-experimental

Sorry: 66% ambivalent or positive https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?101009-How-do-you-like-A17-experimental-NOW

 

If you add in that the ones who generally are disappointed but still see good things in it then that is even more players who aren't going to abandon the game over the changes. Even if you claim ambivalent for the negative side it is still less than the majority.

 

But that is not even the point. The point is that while everyone was willing to vote it was mostly the people who disliked it strongly who felt compelled to post about it. So just because there are a lot of posts and reviews that are negative it doesn't reflect the whole player base and TFP shouldn't just abandon the work they've done for the few angry and loud and persistent posters. It also means that TFP shouldn't IGNORE those angry reviews and posts and they haven't. They are working towards helping them to enjoy the game better.

 

 

 

I hope that 7D2D recovers from this and goes back to its core. But if you really think i am too negative, i will refrain from posting here anymore. This will probably make you very happy, one less critical voice. But if you think this solves anything, it does not. As we see with the negative reviews and posts made by other people, this what you call negative minority seems to be bigger then you claim it is.

 

So please, prove me wrong how the Pimp will salved this mess. Have fun and a bye ...

 

If I wanted you to refrain from posting I would ban you. But I don't. What I do want you to do is not let your anger drive you to move beyond posting about your criticisms of the game and attacking the developers themselves. Unchallenged flaming of the developers will just turn this forum into other less pleasant message boards around the internet. If that is what you want then go there and join their chorus.