More or Less Grindy

[AtomicUs5000]

Occasionally I see someone post that 7 Days to Die is too grindy and becomes more and more grindy with each alpha.

Do you think 7D2D has become more grindy, less grindy, or basically the same amount of grind throughout its history?

 

I personally don't think it has become more grindy. I think it is the opposite.

I think that survival games, voxel games, crafting games, games without ends, and games with large loot tables are inherently grindy. 7D2D has all these qualities which means to me that it should be extremely grindy.

However, what I have seen through the alphas are features introduced that diminish the grind or at least attempt to distract you from thinking there is a grind.

What I cannot argue with is that a single playthrough will get increasingly grindy as you enter late game... but this has been the case for me with every alpha I have played.

 

Some fuel for discussion:

• Which survival games are the most and least grindy and why?
  
• Which voxel games are the most and least grindy and why?
  
• Which endless games are the most and least grindy and why?
  
• What ideas for this game do you have that would eliminate grind if implemented? (especially late game)
  

[White-Gandalf]

I consider the grind element an inherent feature and element of fun. I considered digging and tree cutting and garden farming and all that crafting a fitting element of this game type. This all is what attracted me to this game in the first place, from the first contact. What made me buy it.

 

The zombie smashing element on the other hand, i consider only an aspect "as it is". I would not mind if there was some other enemy environment. I don't consider this the defining basis of the game, but rather a feature born out of the overall trend in fantasy gaming (zombies being the hit of the last few years, aren't they?). Despite the game being named and promoted around that.

 

If i had aliens instead of zombies, i would like the game as much as i do now.

 

The same time, there are a lot of zombie games out there with static worlds, with thousands of lets plays promoting them - and i do not feel attracted by any of them.

 

The grind is inherent! Those who do not like grinding in a voxel world are for sure better served with one of the hundreds of alternative games out there. In static worlds, grinding is normally simply nonexistent. Instead, you usually go nonstop from quest to quest there.

[ZombieSurvivor]

Well plenty of other games are grindy as well that are not voxel based. Examples Ark, Conan, Heat to name a few. Most survival games go hand and hand with the grind aspect. Thus a person that purchases this type of game has 0 room to complain about such a common thing shared among these types of games.

 

The only legit excuse I can see for this is if someone says they did not know it was a grindy game. Which I would respond with still 0 excuse to complain since you failed to do your research on the game before purchasing.

 

 

EDIT: crap now I read the original post....yeah everything he said. lol

[BobTheBard]

The grind is about the same, I'd say, but it's certainly shifted focus. The old resource grind of A15-16 where you farm ore, trees, and crops has pivoted more towards the POI and zombie grind of A17-18 where you farm treasure chests, trader quests, and screamers. It's still a grind, and it takes about the same amount of time and work, it's just a different kind of grind.

[ZombieSurvivor]

you farm treasure chests, trader quests, and screamers.

 

huh... the 3 things you list as a grind are exactly the 3 things I've never done on a regular basis. Maybe this is why it does not feel like a grindy game to me... hmmm interesting

 

Note: I did do 3 trader quests in a row the other day hoping to find steel tool parts but gave up because quests are just so boring. Thats about the most I've done trader quests.

[AtomicUs5000]

Well for my perception of the grind, I say that it has lessened, but technically it probably is the same, or has been the same. The added features could be looked at as just moving the grind around to other things.

 

What I am most interested in is hearing the reasons why someone sees the game progressing into more of a grind. I like debating things, but in this case I really don't have much more to add about my thoughts... I am just genuinely curious why some people will say this.

 

Other than that, I am also interested in what people would do to remove grind from the game and still keep the fundamental gameplay in tact. I am wondering if it is impossible. I think it's inherent, White-Gandalf think it's inherent, and under that note, any complaints about it seem absurd. Is it like demanding that the rules of chess be changed because it's too much strategy development?

[Whorhay]

It would depend on your reference point. There were alphas where there weren't gas powered tools. There were alphas where you essentially had to grind craft hundreds and eventually thousands of items to improve your crafting skills to make better tools. In some ways the game is grindier now than before and in other ways it's less so.

[mr.natural]

Is killing zombies not also a grind?

[n2n1]

I think that became more, but not quantitatively and qualitatively.

In my opinion, the player is forced to engage in grind in the most uninteresting form.

 

And so...i in a whole not against grind if he interesting. Although i would avoid it if possible.

[Laz Man]

Grind tolerance is super subjective. A player who only plays FPS games like call of duty will most likely have a lower grind tolerance when compared to a player that plays MMORPG games like world of warcraft.

 

IMO, Alpha 18 mixes in several different activities to engage in which helps break up the grindy feel if they are all taken advantage of vs a player who chooses to only participate in just a few. The trick is not engaging in one activity for too long a time if avoidable.

 

From a personal standpoint, mining is the most grindy activity I've engaged in so far. I've been able to make it more interesting by building actual mineshafts with support beams as I go along. Some of the grind is self inflicted though because I chose not to spec heavily into gathering (trade off), so in any means I am not complaining...😎

[Roland]

Grind is felt when you have an objective and you have to do a lot of repetitive activity to achieve that objective. For survival objectives getting ore and building can feel very grindy because you have to mine a lot and and you have to upgrade blocks a lot before your objectives are achieved. If we had to manually craft everything instead of click a button and forget it then large crafting jobs would feel very grindy.

 

For xp objectives whatever it is that you've chosen to do repetitively in order to earn the amount of xp that satisfies you is going to feel grindy. Those who are playing the game as an xp farming experience are going to feel that the game is very grindy because they are going to be focusing on the one or two "best" activities (efficiency) to generate the xp they want quickly. But the action itself isn't necessarily what they want to be doing-- it just needs to be done repeatedly until they get the amount of xp they want.

 

I voted that it is the same since I never have grinded for xp. Chopping lots of trees for spikes, mining lots of ore for resources, and upgrading lots of blocks for building is all about the same as it has always been and if you're fine with xp increasing in the background without necessarily focusing on it then it really is about the same as it has ever been.

[Alphado-Jaki]

Alpha18 don't give all positive by leveling. We can earn EXP effectively by just constructing/mining, but we always need something different with them. Otherwise, we'll get irradiated without descent firearms/ammo/base. This balancing is far better than A17 IMO.

 

I never feel rushed to earn EXP in A18, EXP is just bonus attached to looting/mining/building.

[Sjustus548]

7DTD is far less grindy than all the other survival based games that I've played. Compared to Ark and the amount of resources that you have to gather to craft things 7DTD is a cake walk lol.

[Kalarro]

The grind is about the same, I'd say, but it's certainly shifted focus. The old resource grind of A15-16 where you farm ore, trees, and crops has pivoted more towards the POI and zombie grind of A17-18 where you farm treasure chests, trader quests, and screamers. It's still a grind, and it takes about the same amount of time and work, it's just a different kind of grind.

 

This. Sadly. Not that I dont want to kill zombies. but if I would want to kill zombies 90% of the time, I would play a much better combat game, not the one with the best crafting and building.

[theFlu]

It's always been a 100% grind. If not, you're just wasting time

 

As in, what is grind; "the boring means to reach an objective?"

Then stop setting yourself objectives where you find the trip towards them boring. The game requires pretty much nothing, you can sprint around through the horde nights, you don't Need a purple anything to survive, you don't need a base of your own. Having those things is fun, but if getting them is boring drudgery for you, then.. don't

 

So, actually, it's 0% grind..?

[Hellsmoke]

I'd say less grindy all together. I used to hate spam crafting, that was awful. Night after night spamming stone axes, gathering tons of plant fiber to keep it going. Even if you skipped the spam crafting and just combined items to 600 the grind for all that iron was insane. Mining got easier, I remember actually having to search for ore and some games you simply couldn't find anything making boulders your best option.

 

Some might say this is "dumbing down" but the grind really wasn't fun after a while. I don't mind a bit of grind, it sets hard workers apart from the rest but the game feels a bit better now that a lot of the artificial grind is reduced. The new grind seems to be for skill points which could be reduced a bit imo.

[Sjustus548]

The game is far less grindy than it used to be. Brass used to be so hard to come by and now it is everywhere. Ore used to be harder to come by and was limited to certain biomes. Now it is in a much higher quantity and is ridiculously easy to find. Oil Shale is the only one that you can't find in every biome now. The amount of the ore you find now has drastically increase from what it used to be. You no longer need to spam craft stone axes or continuously craft, ungrade, then break wood frames. You can find cobblestone and concrete in many of the houses and buildings now, reducing the need to craft these now to almost zero. There have been many different changes that have reduced the grind the game needs to be successful. I would personally like to see the game be more grindy. Take Ark for example. I liked having to grind out so many materials to be able to craft most of the stuff. Also felt more like an accomplishment when you were able to finally craft something nice and felt like a bigger blow if it got destroyed. Having your base destroyed in 7DTD doesn't feel like much of a setback at all. Doesn't take that long to repair or rebuild anymore.

[Roland]

The grind is about the same, I'd say, but it's certainly shifted focus. The old resource grind of A15-16 where you farm ore, trees, and crops has pivoted more towards the POI and zombie grind of A17-18 where you farm treasure chests, trader quests, and screamers. It's still a grind, and it takes about the same amount of time and work, it's just a different kind of grind.

 

This is only true if your personal objective is to level up as quickly as possible. You can still play this game with a focus on farming ore, trees, and crops if you wish with the only consequence being that you’ll reach level 80 several weeks of playing time later than someone else. If you are racing against a competitor to see who can finish the game first then for sure I agree with you that there has been a pivot.

[DeadGerry]

This is only true if your personal objective is to level up as quickly as possible. You can still play this game with a focus on farming ore, trees, and crops if you wish with the only consequence being that you’ll reach level 80 several weeks of playing time later than someone else. If you are racing against a competitor to see who can finish the game first then for sure I agree with you that there has been a pivot.

 

I'm coming round to this way of thinking, having previously been a 'systematically loot a whole town' kind of player. Seems like avoiding big XP gains is a valid process to consider. Planning to try taking some lower tier quests early on, but not finishing them, just using them to get buried loot - especially seeds and recipes - but without the XP and Duke reward at the end, and try to loot more slowly.

 

Might make an interesting play to try to avoid XP and see if I can build up stuff rather than abilities sufficiently before my gamestage brings the Demolishers!

[BobTheBard]

This is only true if your personal objective is to level up as quickly as possible. You can still play this game with a focus on farming ore, trees, and crops if you wish with the only consequence being that you’ll reach level 80 several weeks of playing time later than someone else. If you are racing against a competitor to see who can finish the game first then for sure I agree with you that there has been a pivot.

 

It's not about leveling up so much as playing efficiently and surviving, in my mind. If I'm going to pretend I'm a survivor in a zombie apocalypse I'm going to want to take the best route to surviving that I can think of. Survival is, after all, the name of the game and the ultimate objective. The 'best' way to do that has varied throughout the alphas, and whatever tasks make up that general best path constitute 'the grind' in my eyes since that's how you make progress towards your goal.

 

I see irony in your words because, in my experience so far, mining and base-building are actually the fastest ways to level up if that's your only goal. Mining nets you piles of Iron and Stone which you can use to make rebar frames and concrete, so you're not only getting XP taking the resources out of the ground but you get even more XP when you process and use them, and the end result is you can rocket up in levels, especially with good tools. I joined a server with level ~70 friends at level 1, and using a Q6 auger and a claw hammer to do just that I almost caught up to them within three ingame days while they were scavenging. But I don't consider mining and crafting and base-building to be 'the grind' right now because they just don't seem to help that much in surviving. You're 'better off' from an optimization perspective running POIs, grabbing loot from dungeons, doing trader quests, and buying what you need. You'll get more higher-quality stuff quicker and thus be better-equipped to survive, whereas by crafting and mining and base-building you're pushing up your level and gamestage faster than you're building up your means to survive the harder zombies that generates. At least, in my experience and opinion.

[AtomicUs5000]

Might make an interesting play to try to avoid XP and see if I can build up stuff rather than abilities sufficiently before my gamestage brings the Demolishers!

 

I have been playing with the intent of gaining the least amount of xp possible since A16 when I fully understood what gamestage did... at least until I could confidently take on any horde with 64 max alive.

 

They made this really hard to do legitimately in A18 playing solo because of the importance of quests and the amount of xp you get just mining and building. There is a good way, but it’s ridiculous and exploits the death penalty. Keeping your gamestage low this way makes for the worst grind ever trying to loot high tier weaponry and armor, but it is possible to get nearly the best stuff before dealing with ferals and greenies. Besides, I play dead is dead, so such a method does not work for me.

 

So, staying away from that nonsense, the most I really do now to keep the xp gain under control is avoid killing zombies unless it’s a clear quest. For BM, lots of spike kills. It might be better to just lower the xp percentage in settings, but I would want it back at some point after I’m established. I know I could just switch it back, but I have this thing where I feel like changing settings while in mid game is cheating.

[Roland]

It's not about leveling up so much as playing efficiently and surviving, in my mind. If I'm going to pretend I'm a survivor in a zombie apocalypse I'm going to want to take the best route to surviving that I can think of. Survival is, after all, the name of the game and the ultimate objective.

 

If that were really the case you would avoid all confrontations with zombies in the first place.

 

Hence, the actually best method if you really want to play like an actual survivor is to remove xp altogether and simply award skillpoints according to amount of time survived. Then there would be no reason to mine, build, kill, or explore except for the value those activities give in and of themselves.

[Synvastian]

If that were really the case you would avoid all confrontations with zombies in the first place.

 

Hence, the actually best method if you really want to play like an actual survivor is to remove xp altogether and simply award skillpoints according to amount of time survived. Then there would be no reason to mine, build, kill, or explore except for the value those activities give in and of themselves.

 

I would love a mod that did just this, maybe have 10 skillpoints (or maybe 5 on 7, 10 on 14, 15 on 21 etc.) drop every 7 day horde survived, then its all just getting what you need to survive the week and the horde

[Jeraal]

If that were really the case you would avoid all confrontations with zombies in the first place.

 

Hence, the actually best method if you really want to play like an actual survivor is to remove xp altogether and simply award skillpoints according to amount of time survived. Then there would be no reason to mine, build, kill, or explore except for the value those activities give in and of themselves.

 

The best way to play like an actual survivor would be to practice making things, do target practice, exercise etc. You know, learn by doing.

[AtomicUs5000]

If that were really the case you would avoid all confrontations with zombies in the first place.

 

Hence, the actually best method if you really want to play like an actual survivor is to remove xp altogether and simply award skillpoints according to amount of time survived. Then there would be no reason to mine, build, kill, or explore except for the value those activities give in and of themselves.

 

You could extend on that to make it a little more interesting too. The amount of time survived could have a multiplier based on consecutive days alive. Death penalty resets it.

 

I think in order for this to really work though, the gamestage should be based on play time, not necessarily time survived. This way, if you don't keep up with improving your character, your arsenal, and your base, the game difficulty will overcome you. Essentially game over. Try again. Maybe you could recover after a few deaths if you really pull your act together... but it wouldn't be easy. Difficulty level would then adjust the amount of playtime required to increase the gamestage.