Food: Survival arcade vs Survival sim

[Xtrakicking]

15 minutes ago, madmole said:

No you guys are not players, you are back seat designers who want a grindy complicated sharp stick fest (well most of you anyway). Players are guys who just bought the game today, and maybe guys who play 20 or 100 hours. You guys are obsessed and have 5000 hours and because of that you want more and more challenge. If you could mind wipe you would just get in and enjoy the game more now than ever but because you are tainted with 18 alphas that cannot be undone. I think the game is way way way way way too easy. But I have 15000 hours so I cannot take my experience and pass that on to a new player. So you have to be smart and watch new players play without coaching them. If they get it you did a good job, if they need wikis and friends coaching them to do everything then you suck and need to change your designs or make it more user friendly.

Snip for space

At the end of the day its not done and you guys are bored so nit picking this is life right now I guess. I say wait til you play it as a whole with all the changes then judge it.

No one is asking for a sharp stick fest, we're asking for balance and consistency. You can make a fun and complex mechanic user friendly, and the best evidence of that is your new ISS system.

 

I get it. The new ISS system makes the game harder, and you want to compensate by making hunger less of a problem. We'll see what happens then; though the fact that hunger is a tier 1 problem in a zombie apocalypse game is funny to me.

 

 

 

 

[MajorMunchy]

reading some of the complaints i feel that some of you need a good ol' fashion yeeting

[Jost Amman]

42 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

No one is asking for a sharp stick fest, we're asking for balance and consistency. You can make a fun and complex mechanic user friendly, and the best evidence of that is your new ISS system.

 

I get it. The new ISS system makes the game harder, and you want to compensate by making hunger less of a problem. We'll see what happens then; though the fact that hunger is a tier 1 problem in a zombie apocalypse game is funny to me.

The way I see it, what Madmole said is that you can have fun in 7D2D doing lots of "survival" things, but should food be one of the main ones?

IMO the answer is no. The injury system for example is directly connected with ACTION, which is (normally) the most fun and exciting part of the game.

 

You are running away from zombies/dogs, you jump and hit the ground hard? You get a sprained ankle.

You are repairing your base moat and you fall on your own traps?  You get bleeding and maybe a serious cut or cripple your legs.

 

These are just a few examples of how differently fun is the injury system from (e.g.) a spoilage system.

The most exciting thing that can happen with food spoilage is that you slowly die of hunger in your base.

 

So, to sum it up, I can see why food survival shouldn't be the main focus.

Would it be a more realistic simulation having a more complex food system? Yes.

Would it add more excitement and fun to the game survival aspects? No, I don't think so.

[meganoth]

48 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

No one is asking for a sharp stick fest, we're asking for balance and consistency. You can make a fun and complex mechanic user friendly, and the best evidence of that is your new ISS system.

 

I get it. The new ISS system makes the game harder, and you want to compensate by making hunger less of a problem. We'll see what happens then; though the fact that hunger is a tier 1 problem in a zombie apocalypse game is funny to me.

 

 

 

 

That "want to compensate by" is pure imagination on your part. The reason given for the change was that random puking was found wanting as a detriment for eating bad food.

58 minutes ago, Gazz said:

It gets worst between the release of the patch notes and players getting some solid hours into the game. (every time)

 

The over-analysing of every single word in there is mind-blowing. =P

Oh. Does that mean the INT player will get a lawn blower?

 

[Guppycur]

The reason random puking wasn't well received was because of how it was implemented, not that it existed.  Like a lot of TFP things (*cough*LBD*cough*) the implementation gets screwed up and they just scrap the entire thing rather than making it better.

 

What if food poisoning was done like infection?  You got sicker and sicker *until* you puked?  What if it occurred on things that made sense for you to get sick on, instead of things that didn't make sense? 

 

What if creating a thousand stone axes didn't give you the ability to make concrete, but instead only made you really good (at a cap) at making stone axes?

 

See?  Things can be done better, without scrapping it entirely. 😃

 

[bloodmoth13]

55 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:

The way I see it, what Madmole said is that you can have fun in 7D2D doing lots of "survival" things, but should food be one of the main ones?

IMO the answer is no. The injury system for example is directly connected with ACTION, which is (normally) the most fun and exciting part of the game.

 

You are running away from zombies/dogs, you jump and hit the ground hard? You get a sprained ankle.

You are repairing your base moat and you fall on your own traps?  You get bleeding and maybe a serious cut or cripple your legs.

 

These are just a few examples of how differently fun is the injury system from (e.g.) a spoilage system.

The most exciting thing that can happen with food spoilage is that you slowly die of hunger in your base.

 

So, to sum it up, I can see why food survival shouldn't be the main focus.

Would it be a more realistic simulation having a more complex food system? Yes.

Would it add more excitement and fun to the game survival aspects? No, I don't think so.

I think food system definitely has a place, it dictates how you play the game. If you are low on food supplies you change your decisions to food focused rewards, you proritize animals over zombies, you loot kitchens instead of skipping them. Animals fight back and kitchens have threats in them. They are not directly connected to fighting, but they direct you to fighting.

Also growing food drastically affects base design, you need an open top, you need walls protecting it, on pvp servers it becomes a dangerous commodity since you cant hide your base.

Without food being important everything revolves around looting guns. 

[bloodmoth13]

3 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

The reason random puking wasn't well received was because of how it was implemented, not that it existed.  Like a lot of TFP things (*cough*LBD*cough*) the implementation gets screwed up and they just scrap the entire thing rather than making it better.

 

What if food poisoning was done like infection?  You got sicker and sicker *until* you puked?  What if it occurred on things that made sense for you to get sick on, instead of things that didn't make sense? 

 

What if creating a thousand stone axes didn't give you the ability to make concrete, but instead only made you really good (at a cap) at making stone axes?

 

See?  Things can be done better, without scrapping it entirely. 😃

 

Learn by doing wasnt good, it was just a grind. Perhaps having quest requirements to advance to higher skill tiers could work though, like craft a stone axe then you can get tier 2, where you need to craft a hammer before you can progress to tier 3, but grafting 500 steel axes to get a t5 axe just isnt fun.

 

I suggested something very similar to you before about the throw up mechanic, only i suggested combining it with infection and just running it all into one big 'sickness' bar. Getting scratched by zombies, eating bad food etc all increase infection and hitting certain thresholds gives a bad status effect like throwing up. 

[Xtrakicking]

3 minutes ago, bloodmoth13 said:

[SNIP] If you are low on food supplies you change your decisions to food focused rewards, you proritize animals over zombies, you loot kitchens instead of skipping them. [SNIP]

I cannot stress enough how true this is. I don't know how many alphas it's been that I end up never grabbing bottles of water, for example, that I find in kitchens. It's an absolute waste of inventory space. In a zombie apocalypse, the player who is supposed to be a survivor would rather NOT take the frigging water. 

In other words, how does it make any sense that in such a scenario, water and food items are of such little value?

[Guppycur]

LBD would have been fine if it was fixed and there were alternative methods to "learn".  I'm a big fan of the fact that you can find books in addition to having to spend points.  It makes the game/grind SOOO much better than just having to spend points...

[Felice]

2 hours ago, Xtrakicking said:

Except... there's plenty of players who do just in this very thread.

How many? Dozens? Hundreds?

Versus how many people actually play 7DTD?

 

Vocal minorities are the enemy of fun gameplay for the majority in every ongoing game project I've ever seen. Every single one.

[Xtrakicking]

7 minutes ago, Felice said:

How many? Dozens? Hundreds?

Versus how many people actually play 7DTD?

 

Vocal minorities are the enemy of fun gameplay for the majority in every ongoing game project I've ever seen. Every single one.

Umm... You're assuming all the other people who play 7dtd don't have the same sentiment, which is something we don't know, but there's quite a decent chance that the actual number isn't insignificant if there's already a debate over food in just this very thread. So yes, my point against his statement that "no one cares about food" still stands, because it's just not true.

 

Edit: In fact, I just checked the Steam page and I already found a post from a player in the discussion section who is also unhappy with how accessible food is, in the very first page. Just sayin..

[Guppycur]

5 minutes ago, Felice said:

How many? Dozens? Hundreds?

Versus how many people actually play 7DTD?

 

Vocal minorities are the enemy of fun gameplay for the majority in every ongoing game project I've ever seen. Every single one.

I wish they had their tracking software from a10 or so, so they could really get a feel for what people like and dislike... because your argument can be used against you as well. 

 

The number of people who "actually play 7DTD" don't necessarily mean they're on the other side of the vocal minority just because we don't know their opinion.  It's still a great game, the question is, what can make it *better*.

 

All you *can* do is listen to the vocals, since right now, that's all you have as a resource.

3 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Umm... You're assuming all the other people who play 7dtd don't have the same sentiment, which is something we don't know, but there's quite a decent chance that the actual number isn't insignificant if there's already a debate over food in just this very thread. So yes, my point against his statement that "no one cares about food" still stands, because it's just not true.

Correct.  Who's to say this isn't a good sampling representation of that group?  Hell, if anything, people who post here are *more aligned* towards liking the game, since they've taken the time to join a forum and speak their minds...

[Felice]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

No you guys are not players, you are back seat designers who want a grindy complicated sharp stick fest (well most of you anyway). Players are guys who just bought the game today, and maybe guys who play 20 or 100 hours. You guys are obsessed and have 5000 hours and because of that you want more and more challenge. If you could mind wipe you would just get in and enjoy the game more now than ever but because you are tainted with 18 alphas that cannot be undone. I think the game is way way way way way too easy. But I have 15000 hours so I cannot take my experience and pass that on to a new player. So you have to be smart and watch new players play without coaching them. If they get it you did a good job, if they need wikis and friends coaching them to do everything then you suck and need to change your designs or make it more user friendly.

At one studio I worked for, they told us, repeatedly, that "You are not the player!" i.e. that we didn't play games the way typical gamers do, we don't need tutorials the way neophytes do, we don't stare dumbfounded at confusing UIs the way laypeople do, we don't struggle to learn how best to navigate complex skill trees, we aren't new tot the idea of minmaxing in any game with stats, etc.

The same applies to devout fans of your game. They aren't typical players. They minmax, they adapt quickly to changes, they find every nook and cranny of the knowledgebase, they exploit weaknesses in the systems, they look for ways to combine things that weren't intended, etc. They aren't roleplaying, and they definitely are not your Average Joe dropped into a zombie apocalypse like the game is actually meant to be.

 

I commend you for understanding this and resisting their unrelenting pressures to do things that might be fun for them, but not for the majority.

 

14 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Umm... You're assuming all the other people who play 7dtd don't have the same sentiment, which is something we don't know, but there's quite a decent chance that the actual number isn't insignificant if there's already a debate over food in just this very thread. So yes, my point against his statement that "no one cares about food" still stands, because it's just not true.

 

Edit: In fact, I just checked the Steam page and I already found a post from a player in the discussion section who is also unhappy with how accessible food is, in the very first page. Just sayin..

You're the one assuming too much here. You see complaints that agree with what you're complaining about, so you see agreement. But that's confirmation bias at play.

 

People don't go on forums to complain that they like the way the game is. They complain about what they don't like. If thousands of people decry a change in the game, that's one thing, but I don't see that here or on Steam. I see some dedicated players who don't like it because it doesn't fit with how they feel the game should be. There's nothing invalid about their opinion, because like all opinions, it's entirely subjective, but the opinion is not necessarily typical just because it's been seen here or on Steam.

[Felice]

12 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

I wish they had their tracking software from a10 or so, so they could really get a feel for what people like and dislike... because your argument can be used against you as well. 

 

The number of people who "actually play 7DTD" don't necessarily mean they're on the other side of the vocal minority just because we don't know their opinion.  It's still a great game, the question is, what can make it *better*.

I agree. I'm not saying the other opinion is necessarily correct either. I'm just saying that a vocal minority isn't sufficient to make a representative sample.

[Guppycur]

Well of course it's our opinions, but we're the only player base that matters to ourselves.  I'm not here to fight for what YOU want, I'm here to fight for what *I* want. <shrug>  And I don't think either xtra or I are saying the silent majority agree with us, just that they don't necessarily DISagree with us either (just because they're silent).

 

Personally idgaf what the majority wants.  I'm here for me. 😃

Just now, Felice said:

I agree. I'm not saying the other opinion is necessarily correct either. I'm just saying that a vocal minority isn't sufficient to make a representative sample.

It's the only sample we have. <shrug>

[Felice]

7 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

It's the only sample we have. <shrug>

Using an invalid sample because it's your only sample isn't good reasoning.

 

Better, perhaps, would be for TFP to put a survey into the game itself so that controversial subjects could be queried across the userbase to get simple opinions like "I hate it, it's just annoying and tedious" vs. "It's annoying but it's an appropriate challenge" vs. "I'm okay with it" vs. "It's great" vs. etc. Or try to figure it out with telemmetry somehow. I assume this is what you meant by tracking software.

 

Meaning, it's a reason for them to find a way to get a sample that IS valid.

[Laz Man]

48 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

The reason random puking wasn't well received was because of how it was implemented, not that it existed.  Like a lot of TFP things (*cough*LBD*cough*) the implementation gets screwed up and they just scrap the entire thing rather than making it better.

 

What if food poisoning was done like infection?  You got sicker and sicker *until* you puked?  What if it occurred on things that made sense for you to get sick on, instead of things that didn't make sense? 

 

What if creating a thousand stone axes didn't give you the ability to make concrete, but instead only made you really good (at a cap) at making stone axes?

 

See?  Things can be done better, without scrapping it entirely. 😃

 

Yes, they could have but where does that fit with the rest of their design?  It's easy to pick one or two examples of how you would of done it versus creating a design for how you would do it all...

 

...maybe they saw the end of the LBD design and didnt like the end product and pivoted because it wasnt fun to them.  Or perhaps that design would of taken them 14 years to balance and release...We probably will never know....

[Xtrakicking]

2 minutes ago, Felice said:

Using an invalid sample because it's your only sample isn't good reasoning.

 

Better, perhaps, would be for TFP to put a survey into the game itself so that controversial subjects could be queried across the userbase to get simple opinions like "I hate it, it's just annoying and tedious" vs. "It's annoying but it's an appropriate challenge" vs. "I'm okay with it" vs. "It's great" vs. etc. Or try to figure it out with telemmetry somehow. I assume this is what you meant by tracking software.

 

Meaning, it's a reason for them to find a way to get a sample that IS valid.

This particular subject, which is the whole food dilemma, isn't something new. It's been brought up many times before, and every time there's been people from both sides arguing about it. There was a poll about food spoilage at one time. The point is that it doesn't just happen in the forums, it happens in other media such as the Steam forums as well. If the issue was truly as small as you seem to think it is, it wouldn't be such a heated debate in every alpha. Why should it be ignored?

 

Now, if you truly want to be fair, obviously neither you nor I know the opinions of all and every player of 7dtd, and I don't expect them to change the system just with my arguments alone, but when people debate about it in the forums then it is a first response towards the change, which in my opinion, is important. Maybe when they release A19, they'll see many more people complaining about it, or maybe not. Who knows. All I know is how I feel about it, and therefore, I will express that sentiment as another player.

[Laz Man]

52 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Umm... You're assuming all the other people who play 7dtd don't have the same sentiment, which is something we don't know, but there's quite a decent chance that the actual number isn't insignificant if there's already a debate over food in just this very thread. So yes, my point against his statement that "no one cares about food" still stands, because it's just not true.

 

Edit: In fact, I just checked the Steam page and I already found a post from a player in the discussion section who is also unhappy with how accessible food is, in the very first page. Just sayin..

That won't be an issue anymore as the telemetry software will tell them objectively and won't have to rely only on subjective opinions.

[Guppycur]

3 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Yes, they could have but where does that fit with the rest of their design?  It's easy to pick one or two examples of how you would of done it versus creating a design for how you would do it all...

 

...maybe they saw the end of the LBD design and didnt like the end product and pivoted because it wasnt fun to them.  Or perhaps that design would of taken them 14 years to balance and release...We probably will never know....

Dude, as many times as they changed their own design, major changes too, is "their design" really relevant? 

[Felice]

Just now, Xtrakicking said:

If the issue was truly as small as you seem to think it is,

I don't think the issue is small. I just think the sample size is small, by which I mean the number of people effectively being surveyed by reading forum threads is small relative to the total player base and thus can't be relied on as a representative sample leaning in one direction or the other.

[Laz Man]

1 minute ago, Guppycur said:

Dude, as many times as they changed their own design, major changes too, is "their design" really relevant? 

It's actually the only design that's relevant as it's the one their following and only they fully know..

 😂

[Khalagar]

2 hours ago, MajorMunchy said:

reading some of the complaints i feel that some of you need a good ol' fashion yeeting

 

Agreed. Where's my vote to kick option, can we like vote to XtraKick Xtrakicking  from teamchat

 

Madmole has already nailed it like 3 times, it's pretty straight forward IMO

 

1. Dev time is EXTREMELY valuable for all companies, I know this first hand from my own job. It's a very, very hotly sought after resource on all sides, and it nearly always goes to the highest bidder . . .the one that will make the company more money. Passion projects are like near bottom priority

2. Valuable dev time above is going to things far, far more impactful to the game like adding new enemy types and weapons and vehicles. Those things will bring in new players / encourage returning players. Literally nobody is going to pick a game back up because "We made the food system more tedious! That's it, that's the big change for A19!"

3. Tedious hunger / survival systems in general are not the focus of the game and are not something most players care about / want. Even in this thread, there's like . . .a grand total of one or two people who want the food system to be drastically revamped, and most responses in this thread about the food are like me where it basically boils down to "it could be better but it could be worse, just don't make it really annoying because I'm not playing the game for the hunger system"

 

That, and, we aren't the target market . . .because we've already paid. See point 1. In the corporate world,  the first response to literally every change or new feature request  is just "Who's going to pay for this? How does this help us profit? What else could our devs be working on instead?".  Die hard survival game fans already know all about 7 Days to Die and bought it 40 years ago during a sale for $6, the devs are trying to appeal to the rest of the market. Flashy new mechanics,  vehicles, zombies, and locations do that far more than overhauling hunger systems

 

TLDR; The Fun Pimps are wasting their time by not adding zombie dinosaurs to the game, we really, really need zombie raptors that can jump 2-3 blocks high to shake up the fortification meta. Clearly. I started out joking, but then realized I actually want zombie raptors

[Xtrakicking]

1 minute ago, Khalagar said:

 

Agreed. Where's my vote to kick option, can we like vote to XtraKick Xtrakicking 

 

 

Alright. I'll give you a point for that one.

[bloodmoth13]

2 hours ago, Xtrakicking said:

I cannot stress enough how true this is. I don't know how many alphas it's been that I end up never grabbing bottles of water, for example, that I find in kitchens. It's an absolute waste of inventory space. In a zombie apocalypse, the player who is supposed to be a survivor would rather NOT take the frigging water. 

In other words, how does it make any sense that in such a scenario, water and food items are of such little value?

its just a matter of keeping those 'things to do' in the game. having upkeep is important for repeatable end game content. One idea i had was recruiting npc survivors to protect your base/do repairs/craft things for you (its weird the workbench crafts things on its own) of course the more you have the more food you need