Open Letter to TFP's...

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, Raestloz said:

At this point I think this is a fundamental ideological difference between us

 

I personally think that death in a post-zombiepocalypse wasteland setting is cheap. I don't think death is what grieves the audience when someone dies, rather it's the realization that this specific character that they're attached to will be gone for the rest of the movie, sprinkled with some dramatic dialogue about personal sacrifice for the greater good. In a game where you respawn, death is cheap and that is it, you will respawn.

 

And I think we have a very different definition of "horror". A zombie blasting down your defensive walls is scary, the Cthulhu simply phasing through your defensive walls is horrifying. I don't think that currently 7dtd counts as "horror" at all, it's an unfortunate side effect of everything that is "scary" lumped together in the "horror" video game genre. If anything, the correct genre for 7dtd is action: it's more akin to Resident Evil 6 than it is to Resident Evil 1. The focus is more on gunning down waves upon waves of zombies rather than not dying in this crazy world.

 

I do think, this is the fundamental difference. You're thinking that death has an effect in the game and therefore it should not go up any further, I sincerely do not think so, but point has been made.

Lets agree to disagree.

 

But I need to correct a misunderstanding of my position you seem to have, I can't identify completely with your describtion of my position. I never said I would not be okay with a harsher death penalty. I just think the developers don't want to make it harsher for the new players. But even if they changed it to be harsher, this would not change anything about the vehicles being god-mode-devices that have to be reigned in. Quite the contrary, if the death penalty were much worse, many players would hop on their vehicles at the slightest hint of danger and that would give a new reason to close that loop hole for the developers.

 

In other words, there just is no place for a god-mode-device in a survival-horror game, because of that fundamental rule I cited earlier. There isn't in most games.

 

[Demandred1957]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

In other words, there just is no place for a god-mode-device in a survival-horror game, because of that fundamental rule I cited earlier. There isn't in most games.

Then they need to get rid of vehicles entirely.

It's not god mode to use a item as it is added, designed, and supposed to be used...except for when it really counts to use it like that..

It's a cheap straw-man argument.

Especially when every other base exploit that you can use to 100% AFK the BM horde at any level is still present.

Honestly... What are you supposed to think about that??

It's too hard to fix those??? Whatever...

Still reeks of excuses.

 

 

[Ralathar44]

1 minute ago, Demandred1957 said:

Then they need to get rid of vehicles entirely.

It's not god mode to use a item as it is added, designed, and supposed to be used...except for when it really counts to use it like that..

It's a cheap straw-man argument.

Especially when every other base exploit that you can use to 100% AFK the BM horde at any level is still present.

Honestly... What are you supposed to think about that??

It's too hard to fix those??? Whatever...

Still reeks of excuses.

They fix base exploits literally every numbered alpha and people complain about them fixing the exploits every time and then find new exploits.  And yes, they are extremely hard to fix without farking up zombie pathing/behavior for normal players.

Vehicles are designed to be used as faster transportation and additional carry capacity.  That's their purpose.  Not avoiding horde nights.

[meganoth]

Just now, Demandred1957 said:

Then they need to get rid of vehicles entirely.

It's not god mode to use a item as it is added, designed, and supposed to be used...except for when it really counts to use it like that..

It's a cheap straw-man argument.

Especially when every other base exploit that you can use to 100% AFK the BM horde at any level is still present.

Honestly... What are you supposed to think about that??

It's too hard to fix those??? Whatever...

Still reeks of excuses.

 

 

You can still use them, on 6 of seven days without a problem, but even on horde night with special care and problems. You can use them as they are supposed to be and designed to be used. If YOU want to get rid of vehicles, mod them out yourself instead of repeatedly making ridiculous requests.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Please explain how me arguing the vehicles are overpowered on horde night is a strawman.

 

 

 

[Solomon]

41 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Vehicles are designed to be used as faster transportation and additional carry capacity.  That's their purpose.  Not avoiding horde nights.

Why are they not created to avoid the horde night?

 

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

 

 

I mean using the logic that we get vulture spawns just so we cant flee into the wilderness on a bike kinda makes me think that someone right now is making an underground tunnel system just wide enough for the bike so they can hop onto it and drive in big circles with some macro so they can go afk while the vultures try to follow the player above ground.

[Ralathar44]

1 minute ago, Solomon said:

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

I dunno where you're getting that from.  Most zombie games don't even have drivable vehicels because the roads are not depicted as drivable thanks to massive hordes or countless car wrecks.  An in games they do exist they are used similar to 7DTD, for transportation like State of Decay where using cars to kill zombies quickly destroys them and then that car is destroyed for good, but you can use and maintain them for transportation for a very long time if you're careful.


Zombie games without normal gameplay driving elements: (not cutscene, on rails mission, or only X mission)

Left 4 Dead Series
Last of Us Series
Resident Evil Series (cars are mainly for crashing and stranding you in this series, never let Leon drive lol)
Dying Light
Dead Island
World War Z 
Killing Floor 2
Zombie Army Trilogy
Call of Duty Zombies

[meganoth]

10 minutes ago, Solomon said:

Why are they not created to avoid the horde night?

 

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

 

 

I mean using the logic that we get vulture spawns just so we cant flee into the wilderness on a bike kinda makes me think that someone right now is making an underground tunnel system just wide enough for the bike so they can hop onto it and drive in big circles with some macro so they can go afk while the vultures try to follow the player above ground.

Yes. A good idea. If you do that you have poured hours into digging that underground tunnel and earned some safety from it. After all that tunnel took more time to build than making a rather big horde base.

 

In a perfect word the zombies would still have some chance to get at you so you would have to always repair the ceiling after a horde night or some zombies might dig through to the tunnel and try to stop you. In a perfect world(!), with unlimited developer resources. In this imperfect world the work you did to make the tunnel is probably enough for TFP to just say "Good for you".

 

[JCrook1028]

17 minutes ago, Solomon said:

Why are they not created to avoid the horde night?

 

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

 

 

I mean using the logic that we get vulture spawns just so we cant flee into the wilderness on a bike kinda makes me think that someone right now is making an underground tunnel system just wide enough for the bike so they can hop onto it and drive in big circles with some macro so they can go afk while the vultures try to follow the player above ground.

Why you ask? Because the people designing the game have made the decision.... Their choice after all. It does not fit the vision of the game that they are making to be able to cheaply avoid the horde.

[RyanX]

On 7/11/2020 at 11:13 AM, Demandred1957 said:

 

 

The Fun Pimps seems to be placing their focus on making the 7th day into a bull@%$*#! day... why not focus on things that happens in-between instead?

Horde night is the feature of this game that I care the LEAST about.  My wife used to like to play with me to chop up the zombie corpses, but when that went away, so did her interest in horde night.  The only thing horde night does for me is eat up my ammo.  I don't knock anyone who enjoys it, I've just done so many of them that it's boring now (unless I do it with friends).  I really don't want to spend a large percentage of time between horde nights worrying about ammo.  TFP made a pretty good world, and I quite like the survival aspect of it.  At this point, I'd just rather them take out zombie digging, bring the horde nights but let me work on my base and craft underground during that time.  If I want to fight the horde, I'll go up top.  Hell I don't even use a horde base anymore.  Just jump on a POI.  If I have enough ammo, I'll just run around outside.  It's pretty easy to make a path that the zombies will always follow.  If you get in trouble jump off, run around on the ground then go back up that path and shoot a few, rinse and repeat.

 

But yeah, the "in-between" things are more important to me because the horde is such a short time in the grand scheme.  The quests...meh...they get old by the time I start doing repeats in the same POI or my 10th buried treasure on a new map. 

 

TL;DR

Take out zombie digging (not because it makes things hard but because those of us who don't care about horde night any more can do other things and those who want to fight, can).

Work on the "in-between"...more varying daytime threats/things to do (questing and looting is not enough).

What keeps me playing are the things that I can do with friends.  If I'm on by myself idc about horde night.

[Demandred1957]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Please explain how me arguing the vehicles are overpowered on horde night is a strawman

My argument is being able to use a vehicle in the way it was intended to be used for for 6 out of 7 days, but not the seventh day is broken and wrong.

It's not any more "god-mode" than using guns.

Your argument is basically you shouldn't be able to because..

 

A straw man (or strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, meanwhile the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.^[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

 

 

29 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

Why you ask? Because the people designing the game have made the decision.... Their choice after all. It does not fit the vision of the game that they are making to be able to cheaply avoid the horde.

Meh, not buying that. They keep changing the "vision" because they are chasing exploits or something.. As someone said (but I don't know about" the original didn't even have BM hordes..

33 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Yes. A good idea. If you do that you have poured hours into digging that underground tunnel and earned some safety from it. After all that tunnel took more time to build than making a rather big horde base.

And how is that even slightly different than the hours you have poured into earning the vehicle, that is now basically useless when you really need it??

53 minutes ago, Solomon said:

Why are they not created to avoid the horde night?

 

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

 

 

I mean using the logic that we get vulture spawns just so we cant flee into the wilderness on a bike kinda makes me think that someone right now is making an underground tunnel system just wide enough for the bike so they can hop onto it and drive in big circles with some macro so they can go afk while the vultures try to follow the player above ground.

You don't even have to do that.. you can use far less resources to just make a "floating" base and afk the horde with a exploit that has been around for ages..

[Demandred1957]

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

They fix base exploits literally every numbered alpha and people complain about them fixing the exploits every time and then find new exploits.  And yes, they are extremely hard to fix without farking up zombie pathing/behavior for normal players.

Vehicles are designed to be used as faster transportation and additional carry capacity.  That's their purpose.  Not avoiding horde nights.

that literally makes no sense. Faster transportation..no kidding.. the better to gtfo when things go wrong... And they haven't fixed the major base exploits. the floating base has been around for ages..

If you don't fix the foundational problems like that first, the rest of it is useless.

[Trekkan]

15 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

Meh, not buying that. They keep changing the "vision" because they are chasing exploits or something.. As someone said (but I don't know about" the original didn't even have BM hordes..

There is no "original" because the game hasn't been released in its final state yet.  

6 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

that literally makes no sense. Faster transportation..no kidding.. the better to gtfo when things go wrong... And they haven't fixed the major base exploits. the floating base has been around for ages..

If you don't fix the foundational problems like that first, the rest of it is useless.

People are going to cheese, no matter what.  That's what good admins are for.

[AtomicUs5000]

1 hour ago, Solomon said:

Why are they not created to avoid the horde night?

 

In most zombie games vehicles are created with the idea that the players will use their mobility to go around and that includes escaping a tought situation like in our example the horde.

 

I mean using the logic that we get vulture spawns just so we cant flee into the wilderness on a bike kinda makes me think that someone right now is making an underground tunnel system just wide enough for the bike so they can hop onto it and drive in big circles with some macro so they can go afk while the vultures try to follow the player above ground.

The problem here is that they want people to have access to vehicles pretty early for navigation in general.... but they do not want people to have an easy out of the BM early game.
 
I've always used vehicles in tunnel systems... not to avoid the horde, but because in the end, it's so much faster to get around the map in the long run. If I'm mining so much anyway, I may as well make the tunnels at the same time. Once there are tunnels though, you don't need a vehicle at all. You could take your time and walk through chunks and zombies overhead will never reach you. They will just keep spawning and despawning as you move through the chunks. As long as you keep walking, the zombies won't even have a chance to dig down a single block, let alone down to your tunnels.
 
Now, if they added some hazard to prevent me from doing this during the BM, it wouldn't matter to me because I still face the BM... but I would say for those who took the time and effort to do this, and they really, really want to avoid BM, then just let them do it. To me, the amount of work this takes is deserving of it.
I suggest that anybody who wants to remove digging zombies, to focus on something like this instead of trying to get them removable from the game. Understand that they exist because you can just dig down three blocks and put a block on your head to be safe. That kind of effort is not deserving of the freedom I mentioned before, not to mention is a sign of very poorly designed game. Imagine spending years on a game and someone just digs three blocks and covers up! It's equivalent to flipping the bird at all your work.

[Solomon]

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

Dying Light

Dying Light has a whole huge DLC map created for using a buggy to get around the map, its even easier to use the car to shake of runners then fighting them.

[Demandred1957]

35 minutes ago, Trekkan said:

There is no "original" because the game hasn't been released in its final state yet

You know, if you have a set distance from point a to point b (like making this game beta) and as you travel said distance, you halve the distance you travel with each step, you will never arrive at point b..

At this point calling it a "alpha" is taking on a whole new meaning.

28 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Understand that they exist because you can just dig down three blocks and put a block on your head to be safe. That kind of effort is not deserving of the freedom I mentioned before, not to mention is a sign of very poorly designed game. Imagine spending years on a game and someone just digs three blocks and covers up! It's equivalent to flipping the bird at all your work

But at some point you should be able to avoid them in a similar way.. Not three but maybe 30..

Everybody is so hung up on the "you shouldn't be able to avoid the horde no matter what"...Who says so???

It's called using your brain. I should be able to out-think some walking dead, and avoiding a fight is the easiest way to win the fight.

"just disable the hordes"

no..just make it so if you are smarter than they are, you don't "have" to fight them, unless you want to..

Why should anybody have to feel inferior by turning down the game from default to get that option?

I will fully admit, when I first started I had to turn everything off, and make them walk at all times.

Felt like a sissy doing it, but whatever.

But after playing it for months, I should be able to play on default, without feeling like i am overmatched.

[AtomicUs5000]

13 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

You know, if you have a set distance from point a to point b (like making this game beta) and as you travel said distance, you halve the distance you travel with each step, you will never arrive at point b..

At this point calling it a "alpha" is taking on a whole new meaning.

But at some point you should be able to avoid them in a similar way.. Not three but maybe 30..

Everybody is so hung up on the "you shouldn't be able to avoid the horde no matter what"...Who says so???

It's called using your brain. I should be able to out-think some walking dead, and avoiding a fight is the easiest way to win the fight.

"just disable the hordes"

no..just make it so if you are smarter than they are, you don't "have" to fight them, unless you want to..

Why should anybody have to feel inferior by turning down the game from default to get that option?

I will fully admit, when I first started I had to turn everything off, and make them walk at all times.

Felt like a sissy doing it, but whatever.

But after playing it for months, I should be able to play on default, without feeling like i am overmatched.

I agree with what you're saying... 99%. The 1% I disagree with is the "Not three but maybe 30" If I can do this on day 1, it's a bad game. There is no genius moment here for the average person, especially knowing that the world is fully destructible. 
Now if they added some kind of high-tech block that you can get late game that blocks zombies from detecting you, and you established some strategy to survive until you can build up the skills and/or harvest the resources to obtain said blocks to eventually be safe... I'm all for that. That is a game.
 
Likewise, crafting a minibike and riding on it all day during BM as the survival strategy is not a good game. You won't be able to do it in a day, but it is possible before the first BM on default. Even if it took 21 days, it's still too soon. 
Now if they added spike mods to a 4x4, spiked roof mod, electric shock mod, etc... all these things you have to work for to achieve the safety on BM. It is a reasonable survival strategy to try to obtain all of these things. I'm all for that. That is a game.

[Demandred1957]

17 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I agree with what you're saying... 99%. The 1% I disagree with is the "Not three but maybe 30" If I can do this on day 1, it's a bad game.

Not really imo.. If you are new to the game and you find a way to let you survive early on, more power to you.. Then later on as you grow and get experience and resources, and want to fight them, carry on..

For them to be able to "sense" you 30 blocks down is kinda immersion breaking to me. 3 blocks down? sure why not.. that's not really "working" for your survival, and within the realm of movie monsters abilty to "get you".

everybody likes to play differently, and the game does have the ability to be "one size fits all" if only they would let it.

26 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Now if they added some kind of high-tech block that you can get late game that blocks zombies from detecting you, and you established some strategy to survive until you can build up the skills and/or harvest the resources to obtain said blocks to eventually be safe... I'm all for that. That is a game.

Yeah, I could see that.. along WITH the option of just being able to ride around UNTIL they built up those resources to make them blocks or other things you describe.

Maybe they are a scaredy cat and run screaming like a little girl when they see a zom..and their "strategy" is just to run around on a vehicle until they can achieve their game life goal of having those things you spoke of, and not have to think about the horde again..

Why is that such a horrible thing, that makes everybody froth at the mouth?

Nobody's forcing you to play that way if you don't want to..

[AtomicUs5000]

14 minutes ago, Demandred1957 said:

For them to be able to "sense" you 30 blocks down is kinda immersion breaking to me. 3 blocks down? sure why not.. that's not really "working" for your survival, and within the realm of movie monsters abilty to "get you".

everybody likes to play differently, and the game does have the ability to be "one size fits all" if only they would let it.

That's the lore of the Blood Moon. They can all sense you wherever you are. I don't know why. TFP probably doesn't even know why. It's an unexplained supernatural event. 
How is this immersion breaking for you, but being able to dig 30 meters down with a shovel made out of stone in a single day isn't?

[Demandred1957]

30 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

How is this immersion breaking for you, but being able to dig 30 meters down with a shovel made out of stone in a single day isn't?

Ok, maybe not on day 1, but by day 2 for sure. if you are motivated (by not wanting to die) you can do some amazing things after all.

[uselessjunkaccount]

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released. Some people rage and see it as a doomsday more severe than the one they play in. Some people loathe change but they will get used to it. Not that every change the TFP has made is good, looking at you A17 skill tree revamp, but this is something pretty minor that everyone can adapt to. Some people just hate having to adapt but honestly he shouldn't be playing an early access game if this is his mindset.

 

There are still plenty of options for riding out the horde night with zero engagement: skyscrapers, fire stations, hospital, city hall, ruined concrete buildings, mansions, prison, main street strip malls, movie theater, factories, etc.. Or be creative and go to a residential area/Diresville and connect 3-4 houses with an elevated walkway. Pick anything sturdy with at least two stories tall and stand somewhere above the ceiling of the second story.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released. Some people rage and see it as a doomsday more severe than the one they play in. Some people loathe change but they will get used to it.

I'm sure the subject will come up again. Alpha 19 is currently still experimental. This means that all players still play Alpha 18 unless they have changed the beta tab to "latest experimental".

Also most of the players don't read the release notes. Therefore they will only notice when they experience it themselves. I asked several 7 Days players about it and nobody knew anything about it.

1 hour ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

There are still plenty of options for riding out the horde night with zero engagement: skyscrapers, fire stations, hospital, city hall, ruined concrete buildings, mansions, prison, main street strip malls, movie theater, factories, etc.. Or be creative and go to a residential area/Diresville and connect 3-4 houses with an elevated walkway. Pick anything sturdy with at least two stories tall and stand somewhere above the ceiling of the second story.

All this requires preparation. You have to clear the building and remove the stairs.

 

But there are situations where you want to ride out the horde where you don't have time to prepare. For example if you play on a server and you realize after logging in that you have only a few minutes left to prepare for the horde. This can happen for example when the last player logged out shortly before the horde. Then the time on the server stops.

 

Best case scenario is that you have logged out in the base and the base is already prepared. Worst case: You have logged out somewhere far away from the base.

 

The fastest and easiest solution with the changes is to store everything it in a chest and place bedroll next to the chest. Then you wait for the horde and let them kill you. When you die, the horde will stop and you can drive home with an XP penalty for dying. Not really a fun solution.

 

[Demandred1957]

1 hour ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

I think this Youtube post is just the usual hysteria after a new alpha is released

Did you watch Vedui's video that I pulled this post from? "wuss the horde"

 

9 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The fastest and easiest solution with the changes is to store everything it in a chest and place bedroll next to the chest. Then you wait for the horde and let them kill you. When you die, the horde will stop and you can drive home with an XP penalty for dying. Not really a fun solution.

Exactly. I mean, for sure I am glad I watched that video, and I will be dbl prepared for all future hordes because of it, but I hate this change because it feels so cheap..

12 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

I asked several 7 Days players about it and nobody knew anything about it.

Ahh, what a lovely little surprise they are going to get..lmao.

[katarynna]

4 hours ago, Demandred1957 said:

It's called using your brain. I should be able to out-think some walking dead, and avoiding a fight is the easiest way to win the fight.

"just disable the hordes"

no..just make it so if you are smarter than they are, you don't "have" to fight them, unless you want to..

Why should anybody have to feel inferior by turning down the game from default to get that option?

Why would you feel inferior by changing the default settings to get the best game experience for yourself? I just don't understand this mentality.

 

You paid for the game. If the blood moon adds nothing enjoyable for you, turning it off doesn't make you lose man points. It just makes you smart.

[Demandred1957]

1 hour ago, katarynna said:

Why would you feel inferior by changing the default settings to get the best game experience for yourself? I just don't understand this mentality.

 

You paid for the game. If the blood moon adds nothing enjoyable for you, turning it off doesn't make you lose man points. It just makes you smart.

Well I know it did for me when I had to turn it down when I first started playing..

Default is "hey, everybody should be good enough to play at this level"

less than that is training wheels, then a tricycle..

I can play at default, and beat the horde. that's not the issue.

The issue of this whole letter, is I don't like having my plan B's that I earned by grinding through the game taken away in effect.

If something goes wrong during a high level horde, I don't see a problem with running away like a scared little girl, then coming back to fight then or another day.

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, Demandred1957 said:

My argument is being able to use a vehicle in the way it was intended to be used for for 6 out of 7 days, but not the seventh day is broken and wrong.

It's not any more "god-mode" than using guns.

Your argument is basically you shouldn't be able to because..

 

A straw man (or strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, meanwhile the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.^[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

 

 

Meh, not buying that. They keep changing the "vision" because they are chasing exploits or something.. As someone said (but I don't know about" the original didn't even have BM hordes..

And how is that even slightly different than the hours you have poured into earning the vehicle, that is now basically useless when you really need it??

You don't even have to do that.. you can use far less resources to just make a "floating" base and afk the horde with a exploit that has been around for ages..

 

Lets continue to quote the definition of strawman: "The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument"

 

So with which different proposition have I replaced your proposition?