New player, here what I think

[RipClaw]

5 minutes ago, Lemmers said:

I like their idea for A19 that there will be a "Stone Age" period where you won't find guns, other than maybe the blunderbuss. Early and mid game are really the best parts for me, so stretching that out while keeping everything else equal would be a lot of fun.

I prefer the late game but I also think it is good that the progress will be slower. Fighting the first horde with primitive weapons only changes the gameplay. 

[meganoth]

18 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I dislike starting a new game when nothing has changed. That is why I have 1000+ hours, because every alpha changed some stuff... some for the worse, but it was change nontheless.
And what is there to overcome currently? Hordenight? Why? I have Q4 weapons on day 7 and 100+ ammo. There is no challenge in it. And I am playing on insane.
The problem is, that if I set my loot to 25% EVERYTHING takes 25% more time to do. I have less food I have less clothing, I have less incentive to even loot most containers, because it is too low.

They have to descide if they want the game to be a constant pressure (like don't Starve) where every day is a fight for survival (as it was pre ~A14) or if they want you to be farming up stuff to finally get into the endgame (like raiding bandithideouts, conquering small settlements and the like) but currently they have no threats early, you find all that stuff way too soon (so you reach endgame quicker) AND there is no endgame. It's as always very confusing what TFPs actually want... sometimes I don't know if they have an endgoal and why they don't share it, so we can understand some of their weird designchoices.

I think they already decided to keep constant pressure that is (sadly for you) very near to beginners level. And since their difficulty settings are very rudimentary in that they just make enemies tougher and speed up progression of enemies but not slowing down the progression of the player it doesn't help you that much to set it to insane.

 

There will be no endgame that will challenge you because any endgame like bandits will also need to be at a pressure level suitable for beginners and "normal" players.  The only challenge that A19 promises is that you might not have Q4 weapons on day 7 (but since they couldn't rebalance traders yet, it might be just day 10 instead). I would recommend to you to change loot to 50% AND XP to 50%, and refrain from going for loot rooms directly. Maybe that helps. But if you can easily defeat glowy soldiers with bone knifes , nothing, really nothing will help you.

 

 

[Roland]

35 minutes ago, Lemmers said:

I like their idea for A19 that there will be a "Stone Age" period where you won't find guns, other than maybe the blunderbuss. Early and mid game are really the best parts for me, so stretching that out while keeping everything else equal would be a lot of fun.

And once they add late game content like better quests, bandits, survivor settlement management, legendary weapons, I think I'd keep playing a character even further than I do now before burning out.

 

I am also excited for them to add more and make the journey longer as well. My only point is that people who are playing on insane and consuming all the content by Day 7 are going to devour anything new TFP adds within a day or two and then be back to being dissatisfied. 

 

One word about A19 is that the trader quest rewards have not been balanced yet for the new tech periods. If you want to fully experience it you will have to sell the quest rewards or scrap them or avoid doing quests because you'll get blue quality crossbows, and green quality Sledgehammers as early quest rewards which far outclass anything you can craft or find in loot just by scavenging. I enjoy questing so I've been scrapping weapons I get for parts so that I can just craft them myself at my current level. That has been enjoyable for me.

[FileMachete]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

It's also like sports. You don't need to add a fifth and then a sixth quarter to the end of a football game with tougher challenges to make the game more compelling.

"Alright fans! The Fifth quarter's coming up and tonight The Wheel of Wild results are the following;"

"Each team will be allowed to use two real animals of their teams mascot to help defend the Red Zone!"

"This is going to exciting & will give the Red Zone a whole new meaning!"

(anounchers chatting between themselves for color)

"John I have to feel a bit sorry for the Rams here. They're down by 14 and it looks like Chicago has brought -Grizzly- bears with them tonight!"

"You're right Brett, even though those are really large Bighorns the Rams have, most of Chicagos front line are bigger than the rams."

 

Might make me spring for ESPN

[Viktoriusiii]

1 hour ago, Lemmers said:

I like their idea for A19 that there will be a "Stone Age" period where you won't find guns, other than maybe the blunderbuss. Early and mid game are really the best parts for me, so stretching that out while keeping everything else equal would be a lot of fun.

And once they add late game content like better quests, bandits, survivor settlement management, legendary weapons, I think I'd keep playing a character even further than I do now before burning out.

early game is fun. Especially if you have to work for it.
But I can already see them implementing it in a weird way... like... Day 1 you loot a military base... and there are no guns anywhere. Like... wth?
I would like it much more if cities (with all the big pois) had far more zombies and zombiedogs again, that would slow down progression far enough.

[Boidster]

My money is on the Jets.

[Viktoriusiii]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

I am also excited for them to add more and make the journey longer as well. My only point is that people who are playing on insane and consuming all the content by Day 7 are going to devour anything new TFP adds within a day or two and then be back to being dissatisfied.

every flippin time with this argument. Nothing against oyu roland, really. It is just that this argument is more or less the same as "experienced players just rush the game".

I have not gotten enough of the vehicles. I have not gotten enough of electricity (well after 3 alphas its flaws are just too apparent, but I still enjoy it). I haven't gotten enough of doing massive zombie slashing on hordenight.

I HAVE gotten enough of the 3 quests. I have gotten enough of the weaponpart system that is inferior to all the previous iterations. I have gotten enough of looting pois where I know where the stash room is every time. I have gotten enough of foodpoisoning that only ever interacts with itself.

It is almost as if good content stays good and bad content seems good at first because it has a novelty status, but you quickly realize that it has major flaws.


"We" don't "devour" new content. We experience it. And after playing for another 100 hours, we can simply say what works and what doesn't. It only means that it failed the test of longevity and should be tweaked, altered or completely overhauled.

[Roland]

22 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

every flippin time with this argument. Nothing against oyu roland, really. It is just that this argument is more or less the same as "experienced players just rush the game".

Nothing against you either but I can't help it if you sound like the typical gamer who has played something for several 100 hours and is burned out and wanting more. It is just how you come across. Also when you say you have it all and it is boring from Day 7 that sounds to me like you are rushing the game. Even with the A18 flaw of so many weapons available early on that is pretty fast....way way faster than I can play through to where I feel done. So please forgive me for responding the same way when I read the same thing every flippin time.

[Liesel Weppen]

2 hours ago, Lemmers said:

I like their idea for A19 that there will be a "Stone Age" period where you won't find guns, other than maybe the blunderbuss. Early and mid game are really the best parts for me, so stretching that out while keeping everything else equal would be a lot of fun.

I agree with the fun part, but i don't like weapons being "timegated".

Imho weapons should only be found in more dangerous areas. Of course that requires first making certain areas more dangerous. But in the end it should be the players decision if he wants to go in e.g. a military camp on day 1 with a wodden club and a T1 bow and 15 arrows and find a weapon there immediately, or if he wants to level up and prepare better first and just go there when he thinks he's ready for it.

 

Basically it would be the same as levelgating or skillgating. Either you can use weapons only from level 10 up or you need a skill before you can use them. Same, just a bit different.

 

If a player can "easily" rush such a area on day one, either he is a very good player and wants to rush anyway, or the game/area is still to easy. We usually avoid e.g. military camps/bases early, as the military zeds are really hard in the beginning. And if it is done like this, you won't find a weapon in any abandoned house in the middle of nowhere on day one and then can easily go into a military on day 2 and find even better weapons on day 2 easily.

 

And areas with higher difficulty preferably are not just on a single POI level. E.g. cities in generall should be harder (maybe bigger cities are even harder than smaller cities) and the POIs should add difficulty on top of that.

[Viktoriusiii]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

Nothing against you either but I can't help it if you sound like the typical gamer who has played something for several 100 hours and is burned out and wanting more. It is just how you come across. Also when you say you have it all and it is boring from Day 7 that sounds to me like you are rushing the game. Even with the A18 flaw of so many weapons available early on that is pretty fast....way way faster than I can play through to where I feel done. So please forgive me for responding the same way when I read the same thing every flippin time.

I have played Ark for 1500 hours... don't have the same complaint there.
I have played Skyrim for 900 (probably more since I had an... unofficial version for the first year) hours and the only reason I restart is to start another character from scratch, not because there is nothing to do.
I have played eco for 400 hours and there is still always stuff to do.
I have played Rimworld for 500 hours (to be fair with mods... but I play it for the basegame, the mods just make some small adjustments)

It is not the duration that you have played the game. It is if the mechanic can stand against rigerous testing after the novelty has worn off.

Let me give you an example:
You have an open world sandbox survival game that can procedually create a world so it is fresh every time.
And yet every house is the same every time. I know every trap, every lootroom every little detail after I cleared it once.
"Well how is that bad, all the other games do it too" because the other games don't do it like this. Because there loot is always random or its not procedual or...
What I mean is, that 7d2d has this absolute beauty of feeling like a whole new world every time you boot it up... until you see the same 10 houses again.
Easy solution: Make variants! Copy the outside, replace the loot, change the path you have to go through and put the traps somewhere else.
While there is a boundary for items as far as I remember, there should not be a limit to how many prefabs you can save and integrate in a world.
Just name them burnt house 1, burnt house 2, burnt house 3; and already it feels different.

If you want to be totally fancy, but I'm not sure how hard that would be: make certain areas "trappable" and mark certain rooms as "lootrooms" and let the worldgenerator randomise it every time. This way I would never be bored looting a house, since it would never quite be the same...


This is only one example and oyu don't have to tell me exactly why it doesn't work, because that is semantics. My point beeing, that you have awesome mechanics that get implemented contradictary to it's intended purpose. Quests are meant to give you something to do but are often worthless (except for the poi reset) and give oyu 3 variants which are basicially 2 (dig and clear). Pois are meants to be dangerous but are repeating. Food poisoning is meant to discourage worse food, but all it does is make you click the eat button more since you have near endless low foods.
The ideas are great, but they do not withstand the test of time, even though they should.

It is not the players fault for playing a sandbox game for a long period of time. It is the devs job to ensure that an open world sandbox game does not get boring after 50 hours.
 

[Liesel Weppen]

29 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I have played Ark for 1500 hours... don't have the same complaint there.
I have played Skyrim for 900 (probably more since I had an... unofficial version for the first year) hours and the only reason I restart is to start another character from scratch, not because there is nothing to do.
I have played eco for 400 hours and there is still always stuff to do.
I have played Rimworld for 500 hours (to be fair with mods... but I play it for the basegame, the mods just make some small adjustments)

I've only ~500h in ARK, and far less motiviation to play again then after 650h of 7d2d. I have even just ~200h in Empyrion... but that's mostly of bugs that make the game somehow unplayable for me. I have ~400h in Rimworld recorded by steam. No idea how much i played already with the pre-steam-version. And i still used mods in the pre-steam version and i wouldn't play it anymore without mods.

I already refused playing Conan, Raft and Eco, because it sounds just like "more of the same, different, but still same".

 

Especially ARK is imho one of the worst examples. With DEFAULT settings imho the game is completely unplayable, maybe only playable on a real MMO-Server with 100s of players from each timezones.

 

Quote

"Well how is that bad, all the other games do it too" because the other games don't do it like this. Because there loot is always random or its not procedual or...
What I mean is, that 7d2d has this absolute beauty of feeling like a whole new world every time you boot it up... until you see the same 10 houses again.
Easy solution: Make variants! Copy the outside, replace the loot, change the path you have to go through and put the traps somewhere else.

Applies in the same way to all the other games. ARK doesn't even have random maps. In rimworld all the events are always the same.

 

Quote

This is only one example and oyu don't have to tell me exactly why it doesn't work, because that is semantics. My point beeing, that you have awesome mechanics that get implemented contradictary to it's intended purpose. Quests are meant to give you something to do but are often worthless (except for the poi reset) and give oyu 3 variants which are basicially 2 (dig and clear). Pois are meants to be dangerous but are repeating. Food poisoning is meant to discourage worse food, but all it does is make you click the eat button more since you have near endless low foods.

Also applies to all the other games you mentioned.

 

Quote

It is not the players fault for playing a sandbox game for a long period of time. It is the devs job to ensure that an open world sandbox game does not get boring after 50 hours.

Imho the problem with all those games is, that it requires the player to do multiple playthroughs with different playstyles from his OWN motivation. It's your CHOICE. If you play it over and over again with always the same approach ALL of these games become boring very quickly. You can do this with vanilla, IF YOU WANT TO. Using mods is just a further extension for that.

And yes, all those games are similar somehow. Even rimworld can be compared to 7d2d in various points.

 

If you can't variate your own playstyle on your own, the whole genre might be wrong for you, or you already have seen to many similar games.

 

Imho shooters are even more boring. They are even more same of the same and usually you don't have that much choices to do things different then in a game like 7d2d.

I personally don't like storygames anymore, because they often don't have the possibility to do it my way. Yes there might be side-quests i can choose not to do, or i can play as warrior or mage, but the story always stays the same, even with different story trees like in fallout 3 it's still very limited.

[Laz Man]

On 6/22/2020 at 9:14 AM, Viktoriusiii said:

😮 a new player that is asking for more lategame content? Quel surprise!
But... but he is not representative of all new players! Yes! Yes that's it. He was just too hardcore with his friends. Next time don't be so gud and rush to the endgame!


@diegodgo87: it is know since forever that 7d2d is lacking any meaningful endgame, so it has become a bit of a hot topic on the forums, because the devs have different plans (Bandits that were promised 4 alphas ago for example)
but I am thankful for your comment. Because us loyal players with 1000s of hours are not their target demographic, so our input is just not valuable (their words, not mine!)

Hey I get your unhappy with the game in many ways but dont make this guys post about your personal gripes.

 

From reading the OPs post I read lots of good feedback for the devs not nitpicking on any particular mechanic but the overall feel of the progression.  Its not cool to use their feedback to fuel your own specific gripes....

[Viktoriusiii]

26 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Hey I get your unhappy with the game in many ways but dont make this guys post about your personal gripes.

 

From reading the OPs post I read lots of good feedback for the devs not nitpicking on any particular mechanic but the overall feel of the progression.  Its not cool to use their feedback to fuel your own specific gripes....

but that is what we, as a community (at least a lot of us) have said for like 6 alphas now. "Stop re-remaking everything and please give us some content!"
The game was fine 3 times over but instead of balancing they scrapped and remade it. And EVERY time we say something like this, we are told that we are just the hardcore crowd (see Rolands reply) and new players don't feel like this. BUT THEY DO and finally a new player has posted his gripes and still ppl say they were just too hardcore.

Also it was only 2 lines. The rest was just telling him, that he isn't the only one, but the devs don't see it this way.

 

35 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Imho the problem with all those games is, that it requires the player to do multiple playthroughs with different playstyles from his OWN motivation. It's your CHOICE. If you play it over and over again with always the same approach ALL of these games become boring very quickly. You can do this with vanilla, IF YOU WANT TO. Using mods is just a further extension for that.

And yes, all those games are similar somehow. Even rimworld can be compared to 7d2d in various points.

 

this is the only part I felt made any sense in context, so this I shall reply to:
I was talking about endgame.
In Ark it is breeding dinos and boss arenas.
In Rimworld it is getting the generator started with the waves coming. Also if you are really into your current world you can start eradicating other tribes.
In Eco it is a continous progression so there is no endgame but a constant struggle for ressources and skillpoints until the meteor hits.
Skyrim has so many Dungeons and quests that you forget half of it before you start a new game. True this one is most likely the one with the least endgame content. But it also is an RPG not a sandbox.
If you find any of these boring, that is preference. But they exist.
In 7d2d there is nothing you can only do after you have full gear or have a full base or...
If you rush, you can even do T5 quests in week 1.
The demolisher, badly as he is balanced, is the only thing that seperates early from endgame content.

This is the problem. After you have sunk


And about you said something about all these games beeing the same after a while... RimWorld? (definate no. depending on the story teller it is different every time)Ark? Yes breeding and gathering ressources is the same old, but it is also made for multiplayer and PvP so there is another layer that 7d2d doesnt have and doesn't support.
Skyrim? Again, yes but RPG.
Eco: yes but you also need to do it or your safe is gone after 30 days. You build towards something so the grind is justified.

Basicially: you can like or dislike grinding. But if a game DOES feature a grind, there better be a reason for it (Ark PvP, Eco destruction of the world,Rimworld constant struggle) and 7d2d you just grind because you want to survive... but its easy to survive and there is no endgame.

I am not saying 7d2d is boring. I am saying that a survival sandbox needs a purpose to go towards. And if we can build a city, get better relations with npcs who give various quests and the outpost is attacked every once in a while, this gives us another 80+ hours of content. Even something small as animal husbandry won't be coming.

In short: TFPs remake features, they don't add any (the last two gamechanges were more vehicles and electricity 2 and 3 alphas ago)

But this is where i'm out. This topic has been discussed at length and I don't want to hijack this thread any longer (also my patience is running low, trying to explain the same basic point over and over to different people)

[Laz Man]

14 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

but that is what we, as a community (at least a lot of us) have said for like 6 alphas now. "Stop re-remaking everything and please give us some content!"
The game was fine 3 times over but instead of balancing they scrapped and remade it. And EVERY time we say something like this, we are told that we are just the hardcore crowd (see Rolands reply) and new players don't feel like this. BUT THEY DO and finally a new player has posted his gripes and still ppl say they were just too hardcore.
 

 

Sorry but that's all you.  Re read the OP.  There are no complaints about remaking the game over and over again.  Just that they overcame the survival aspect and are now looking for more.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I was talking about endgame.
In Ark it is breeding dinos and boss arenas.
In Rimworld it is getting the generator started with the waves coming. Also if you are really into your current world you can start eradicating other tribes.

And that is what i'm also talking about.

I tried the bosses in ARK once, and it was not satisfying at all. If you do that, you'll just start on the next map, doing the same again.

I never built the starship in Rimworld, not even once. If i want the game to be "finished" i just stop playing. I don't need an "end". I stop playing when it becomes boring. I don't even want the game to end that way. My goal is to have a huge colony in rimworld. Even bigger then what i need to escape via the ship. I either stop when the colony becomes unable to manage because of effort, or if i get bored.

 

And in comparison to 7d2d the bloodmoon is the same as building the starship in rimworld. Only difference is, in 7d2d you have it from the start without triggering anything manually and there is no escape that tells you "you have succeded".

That's exactly what i'm saying all the time. Imagine in 7d2d reaching the top of the dishong tower is the "end". If you reach it, a helicopter will come and save you from the zombie island. What exactly would be different?

If you like that, just play like this. Once you reached the top of dishong, the game is finished. Do you really need an cgi sequenze showing the helicopter rescuing you just to realize that the game is "done"?

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

If you find any of these boring, that is preference. But they exist.

I didn't say they shouldn't exist. I just said i don't like that. I absolutely know that not everybody can handle this.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

And about you said something about all these games beeing the same after a while... RimWorld? (definate no. depending on the story teller it is different every time)Ark? Yes breeding and gathering ressources is the same old, but it is also made for multiplayer and PvP so there is another layer that 7d2d doesnt have and doesn't support.

Imho even rimworld is exactly the same. The storyteller is just one of many variations you could try. Not all of them fit what i want to play. But they exist and that's fine for players that want to play in ways i don't like. And there is an event system announced for 7d2d that for me sounds very similar to the story teller of Rimworld. So basically, the same again, but for sure it will add value to 7d2d, too.

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Basicially: you can like or dislike grinding. But if a game DOES feature a grind, there better be a reason for it (Ark PvP, Eco destruction of the world,Rimworld constant struggle) and 7d2d you just grind because you want to survive... but its easy to survive and there is no endgame.

As roland said, there will be no real endgame ever, just because if you add "endgame" people will make it easy and than ask for even harder endgame again.

If you want endgame turn up the difficulty and play until you can't survive the horde anymore, no matter what you do. And if it just ends up the week is to short to grind enough dukes to have enough amunition for the next bloodmoon, THEN you are done. Or set yourself a target like reaching the top of dishong.

Do you really need an animation or a text, that tells you that you have finished now?

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

In short: TFPs remake features, they don't add any (the last two gamechanges were more vehicles and electricity 2 and 3 alphas ago)

Yep, and it's still alpha. In opposite to rimworld and ARK. They are considered "done".

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

But this is where i'm out. This topic has been discussed at length and I don't want to hijack this thread any longer (also my patience is running low, trying to explain the same basic point over and over to different people)

Same here.

[meganoth]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

 

One word about A19 is that the trader quest rewards have not been balanced yet for the new tech periods. If you want to fully experience it you will have to sell the quest rewards or scrap them or avoid doing quests because you'll get blue quality crossbows, and green quality Sledgehammers as early quest rewards which far outclass anything you can craft or find in loot just by scavenging. I enjoy questing so I've been scrapping weapons I get for parts so that I can just craft them myself at my current level. That has been enjoyable for me.

Thanks for that idea. I immediately proposed this to my friends

 

[Lemmers]

4 hours ago, Liesel Weppen said:

But in the end it should be the players decision if he wants to go in e.g. a military camp on day 1 with a wodden club and a T1 bow and 15 arrows and find a weapon there immediately, or if he wants to level up and prepare better first and just go there when he thinks he's ready for it.

 

This sounds like a good idea, if the player wants an early T1 gun and some ammo. But depending on the POI, some can be cheesed easily by building up to the loot rooms. The new meta might be climbing the outside of a factory to open the big chest on the roof for a Day 1 gun, or digging in the exact spot to end up in a military bunker loot room with zero enemy encounters.
 

 

2 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Easy solution: Make variants! Copy the outside, replace the loot, change the path you have to go through and put the traps somewhere else.
While there is a boundary for items as far as I remember, there should not be a limit to how many prefabs you can save and integrate in a world.
Just name them burnt house 1, burnt house 2, burnt house 3; and already it feels different.

If you want to be totally fancy, but I'm not sure how hard that would be: make certain areas "trappable" and mark certain rooms as "lootrooms" and let the worldgenerator randomise it every time. This way I would never be bored looting a house, since it would never quite be the same...
 

Dynamic pathing would be great. It's one of the features that makes Left 4 Dead 2 so replayable, even though it's criminally underused.

The way I was thinking it would work is 7days spawns the prefab BurntHouse and it picks a random variant like BurntHouse_C. Then later you get a quest and it respawns as BurntHouse_A with different hallways blocked, loot rooms, traps, etc. like you said. It would take dev time to physically remap each variant to make it different, but if you're only changing 10% of the POI then it's already 90% finished. It would also help when quests use the same building over and over again, maybe because it's just the closest one and players keep picking it.

Doing this to small houses is pretty trivial... but modifying giant skyscrapers could be a huge task. All this would be worth it if they had the time, but there's so many other features that are more important right now.

[Roland]

On 6/22/2020 at 9:14 AM, Viktoriusiii said:

😮 a new player that is asking for more lategame content? Quel surprise!
But... but he is not representative of all new players! Yes! Yes that's it. He was just too hardcore with his friends. Next time don't be so gud and rush to the endgame!

 

10 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

... and finally a new player has posted his gripes and still ppl say they were just too hardcore.

 

Vik, YOU were the one who said this on behalf of imaginary people in the second post of the thread. And then even though not a single person accused the OP of being too hardcore you try and say the people said it when nobody said it except you saying it and then blaming me.

 

I didn't even call you hardcore. I said that you seem to speed through the game in reaction to your own admission to being basically done and set by Day 7 and then the rest of the days are just boring rinse and repeat because there is no new content to keep you interested. I also suggested that even if new content was added you would probably thoroughly experience it within 10 hours or so and then become unsatisfied once again looking for the next new content fix that would cater to your particular needs of having already spent 1000+ hours with this game.

 

To the new player I simply say that it is fun to start over and make adjustments to the perks you buy, to the game settings, and to your defense designs. Do it all differently than you did the first time and you will get another fun chunk of hours  until you reach the point once again where you've obviously conquered and then you can do it all again and you will come to love those first days or weeks where you feel vulnerable again. Once bandits are in I think there will be a second phase of the game where you feel vulnerable again but even that eventually you will surpass and overcome and you'll want to start over again...or not. Once you reach the 1000+ hour mark you'll come to the very natural and normal point where you can't get enough or you feel burned out and are ready to move on to a new game. A lot of people have had the experience of taking a break for a year or more and then coming back to play and it feels fresh and fun once again. Hope that is you and your group.

[Liesel Weppen]

11 hours ago, Lemmers said:

This sounds like a good idea, if the player wants an early T1 gun and some ammo. But depending on the POI, some can be cheesed easily by building up to the loot rooms. The new meta might be climbing the outside of a factory to open the big chest on the roof for a Day 1 gun, or digging in the exact spot to end up in a military bunker loot room with zero enemy encounters.

Yes, you can still cheese that way based on how it is currently done.

The difference is, that those POIs should be harder, so even if you nerdpole up to the roof of a skyscraper on day 1, there will be vultures and cops, nevermind your gamestage is still zero. You can try it with your starter bow and you may even survive and get the weapon.

Still not mentioned that a skyscraper only occurs in cities and as i said cities should be harder too. With player level 0 on day 1 you may not even reach the skyscraper, because you wouldn't survive the way through the city without any better equipment.

Also the military base. You may dig down to the room with the 5 safes, but there spawn at least 3 military zeds in this room as you enter. And dealing with 3 militarys just with the starter bow and a wodden club is hard. Doable maybe, but the player then still took the decision to take the risk just for getting a weapon.

If a POI has a lootroom that can be reached by digging straight down and not even some Zs spawn in that lootroom, the POI has a bad design. Or maybe it is even intended, then the POI should not have that good loot.

That is a common problem of all voxel based games. Because you can modify every block you can always take shortcuts or circumvent some stuff. Doing dungeon POIss (even if it is a trader quest) and really follow the path is always absolutely voluntary. If somebody doesn't want to do it that way, he just breaks a wall and can skip half of the dungeon instantly.

 

And as always: Even if a specific mechanic can be cheesed somehow, so be it. If players decide to cheese, let them ruin their own gaming experience.

[Boidster]

In game with a fully-destructible world where the game freely gives you the tools to destroy anything, there is no cheese, ffs. There are incentives and disincentives and different players will be motivated differently. Nobody else gets to tell you what "ruins your gaming experience" any more than someone can tell you what "ruins the taste of your food". If you enjoy it, everybody else can get bent. There is no One True Play Style.

 

If the devs want to add disincentives to placing ladders on buildings, or busting through locked doors, let them. The game world in that case has changed and the player can make different decisions based on the new rules, if they choose.

 

21 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

there should not be a limit to how many prefabs you can save and integrate in a world.
Just name them burnt house 1, burnt house 2, burnt house 3; and already it feels different.

And what happens after you have memorized burnt house 2 and burnt house 3? How many hours will it take before you've seen all the POIs again and it becomes a boring grind? If you just want a crapload of new POIs, load up compopack. It's got a hotel in the shape of a snake!

[JCrook1028]

50 minutes ago, Boidster said:

In game with a fully-destructible world where the game freely gives you the tools to destroy anything, there is no cheese, ffs. There are incentives and disincentives and different players will be motivated differently. Nobody else gets to tell you what "ruins your gaming experience" any more than someone can tell you what "ruins the taste of your food". If you enjoy it, everybody else can get bent. There is no One True Play Style.

 

If the devs want to add disincentives to placing ladders on buildings, or busting through locked doors, let them. The game world in that case has changed and the player can make different decisions based on the new rules, if they choose.

 

And what happens after you have memorized burnt house 2 and burnt house 3? How many hours will it take before you've seen all the POIs again and it becomes a boring grind? If you just want a crapload of new POIs, load up compopack. It's got a hotel in the shape of a snake!

Also realize there are 50 new POI's coming in A19 and more that have been retouched. Also realize when the game goes Gold and Steam Workshop is implemented there will be thousands of POI's available for addition to the game...

[Viktoriusiii]

2 hours ago, Boidster said:

And what happens after you have memorized burnt house 2 and burnt house 3? How many hours will it take before you've seen all the POIs again and it becomes a boring grind? If you just want a crapload of new POIs, load up compopack. It's got a hotel in the shape of a snake!

every time semantics. Gotta love the forums sometimes. Make a general point by providing an example so everyone gets what im talking to. Someone gives a very specific way to disprove that one example, everyone applauds like seals beeing waved some fish.

PS: not only you, sorry for picking on you when I am actually just annoyed at more or less everyone not getting the F%$$&§&ing point and trying to win an argument where there is none.

[Boidster]

21 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

PS: not only you, sorry for picking on you when I am actually just annoyed at more or less everyone not getting the F%$$&§&ing point and trying to win an argument where there is none.

No problem. I am not sure you and I share the same definition of 'semantics', but let me quote the part I was focused on. Maybe you can explain.

 

On 6/23/2020 at 2:03 PM, Viktoriusiii said:

What I mean is, that 7d2d has this absolute beauty of feeling like a whole new world every time you boot it up... until you see the same 10 houses again.
Easy solution: Make variants! Copy the outside, replace the loot, change the path you have to go through and put the traps somewhere else.

So your complaint seems to be that you "see the same 10 houses again" in 7D2D and that other games do it better because things are more random. I'm not sure I agree, but let's stipulate for the sake of argument that other games do it better. And your easy solution is to make POI variants. "Copy the outside, replace the loot, change the path..." and so on.

 

That is a very specific (and reasonable) suggestion for how to address the problem (or at least one of the problems) you see with 7D2D. My counter-point is that I don't think your solution really solves the problem so much as it extends the time before the problem surfaces by several, maybe dozens, of hours. Eventually, though, you and I and all of the other high-hours players would again be used to the new, copied-but-different POIs, wouldn't we? "Oh, the hidden wall panel is empty, that means the loot is in the 2nd bedroom upstairs!" That sort of thing. (I am not good enough to memorize details like that, but I think you probably are. I'm too Leeroy Jenkins in POIs to take note! 😄)

 

How does your solution - variants of existing POIs - solve your concern? Any more than the 50 new POIs in A19 will? Or even the 200+ in Compopack? Eventually you'll see every POI, every variant.

[Viktoriusiii]

1 hour ago, Boidster said:

[...]

the problem is how they design the new pois. The old ones are totally fine. The "dungeon-y" ones are the problem.
A normal poi doesn't need to change. It can be the same old without every getting too boring, as long as there are enough of them.

With the new dungeon-type styles, if you have done them once, you know:
-where the traps are
-how to maneuver through it
-where the best loot is

So all 3 aspects of those new pois that are meant to bring a bit of excitement into it are gone after doing them ONCE.
You know where the secret exit tunnel is of that one huge poi. You know that you can simply frame up one side and grab the loot and go
And even if you are on a quest to get rid of all zombies you still know all the dangers of that poi.

This is massively different to a "normal" poi without layers.
Since the loot is evenly spread, you have no incentive to "cheese" it. And since it is only a short stop before you go on to the next poi it isn't really a dealbreaker that you have been in this same poi twice.

Now if you need to go through the same dungeonlayout-poi three times, you just sigh out of frustration.
You still know all the dangers, but it will still take you ages. And if you want to get that nice brass you go through it 6 times.
It is the fact that they create something that is meant to be fun and exciting, but ends up a drag because you need to do the same @%$*#! 6 times.

If I loot one of the early pois, I spend like a minute in it. In, kill zombies, loot, out.
If I loot these dungeon ones (if we leave out the exploity lootroom thing) I need to go in, crawl around that floor trap (that was super exciting the first time) then need to shoot the cupboard because there is zombies in there, then I need to kite a sprinter around the tight corridors back to the beginning, then I need to go back, climb through a hole in the wall on the other side, sneak because I know there is a dog over there, get inside, break one block so that i can kill those two zombies that came from behind the last time, go up, see two ferals, need to kite them out again... you see what I mean?

small rant incoming that doesnt add to the point:

And all that time is... ok. It is not the worst thing. But it could be so much more! If every dungeonpoi could have random traps and random paths it would already be 10x better. If they now do what that mod you(?) mentioned did and increase the number of pois, then suddenly I cannot remember 500 poi positions. It stays an adventure every time I do it. And it is really not hard to make pois. Its a 30 minute affair... 2 hours if you really want it to be good and 4 if oyu use some devblock combinations to create a shower that would ussually not be possible.

This is what I mean: they implement something (sandbox with procedual terrain) but make a static building. It goes against the concept, more or less. And this isn't the only time they have done it. It is only the one I can explain the best... but seems even this I can't explain well enough, so this one example of that overarching point that I am trying to make is used to try and win an argument that I didn't even start.

[diegodgo87]

Hey guys! OP here, let me tell you about a story, around day 16-17 one friend and I took our motorcycles and go check the big city in the desert, then we saw the tallest building ever (I don't know how many floors have but there are many), by the time we enter the building was noon, by night still more than half building to cover, our options? stay quiet in a dark corner till morning or keep clearing the building, we opt for the second and we keep climbing, at the night of the other day (yeah took all day cover the building) we got to the roof, just to find lots of zombies, and when I said lots means so many, bikers, irradiated zombies and we run out of ammo, my friend got surrounded and killed, I run down like 3 floors in matter of seconds, patching me up, turn around and the horde is few feet away from me I manage to  jump to another side of the building and stay there, in the dark, alone and without any kind of ammo or weapon for that matter. My friend tell me that there is no ammo left in the base, the motorcycle is miles away just at the entrance of the building, so he takes a bike and start pedal in the middle of the night just with a Junk turret and 1000 iron... 

 

I stay at the top of the tower till my friend return and kill the remaining zombies with a junk turret, since many years a game doesn't make me feel this way, as i said before the first 3 weeks of the game were awesome, we have to really "survive" the game, hell we have to work the whole week just to horde night and that wasn't enough. 

By day 35 we had lots of ammo, lots of concrete, junk turrets, SMG turrets, an underground base at bedrock with underground garage for all the vehicles and a helipad for the gyroscope... didn't get the same feeling when crouching in a dark corner for fear to be eaten alive.

 

Edit: English is not my native language and took me around 30 minutes write this down, please be supportive.