So was the point of A19 to get rid of "Realism"?

[Xtrakicking]

2 hours ago, Onarr said:

Roland you jump to conclusions. Saying we do not like crap in loot does not mean we want best items there. All we are saying is we dont want absolute crap there. That is not the same. We get stone tools, spears, clubs etc. We dont want that. At least I dont. You think we immediately want pistols, ak-47, shotguns and iron tools. I would be much happier if I found some duct tape, cobblestone rocks, wood, forged iron, weapon parts, gunpowder, nitre, coal, perhaps some rare steel bar etc. Something that is actually useful in early game. Safes could have 100% chance for schematic so you are actually happy to see it and dont avoid it like a plague. Loot can be made fun even without giving you the best stuff ever. Just something useful.

Couldn't have said it better. Well said!

[diegodgo87]

One thing is for sure... me and my friends craft our weapons, at day 46 I get the first tier 5 tactical rifle when I made it at day 19, same for desert vulture and autoshotgun, and the thing is the autoshotgun found in the game are level 1. 

 

At A18.4 we never craft weapons, now is like mandatory... I like that, but I will remove stone weapons and tools from sealed boxes.

[Onarr]

1 hour ago, Hrod Land said:

Plus what kind of mental gymnastics do you have to perform to explain all those crappy stone items magically turning into modern weaponry after a few weeks of zombie bashing? People sealing stone shovels into gun safes while dumping their actual pistols and schematics in toilets and garbage bins is another fun thing to try and explain.

 

In the end I don't really care about the rationalizations, TFP can drop acid and go nuts with it for all I care. I just want it to matter where I go, what challenges I take on and which containers I look for. Right now the main gameplay loop is so much rinse & repeat and devoid of surprises or cool challenges that I find myself bumming out on the idea of starting a new game, which used to fill me with anticipation a few alphas ago. Surely general burnout plays a role, but this game just feels way flatter than it should with all the moving parts involved. I guess I'll have to wait and see what A20 brings next year and check out some mods in the meantime.

Honestly, nowadays I gather most fun out of the game from building my base and coming with new ways to make it awesome. This alpha I tried playing Nomad style character and I absolutely hated it. Little inventory space, tons of junk, little reason to explore... I would love if PoIs had lot of cosmetic items that you cannot craft or buy at the trader. Televisions, couches, coffee machines, paintings, sinks, bathtubs etc. 

[Xtrakicking]

36 minutes ago, Onarr said:

I would love if PoIs had lot of cosmetic items that you cannot craft or buy at the trader. Televisions, couches, coffee machines, paintings, sinks, bathtubs etc.

Tbh, this alpha is the best one in regards to that. You can find PC towers near desks, audio speakers near TVs in living rooms, lootable piles of books and clothing lying around on desks or the floor, junk and chemical containers in shelves, empty battery banks in attics, movie posters in bedrooms, I've even seen installed cameras in rooms with empty cribs. It feels really nice.

[Liesel Weppen]

3 hours ago, Hrod Land said:

I just want it to matter where I go, what challenges I take on and which containers I look for.

Agree, but it has never been like this in 7d2d. What zombies spawn was determined by your gamestage, not by your location. The loot depended just on the type of box just with very little chances for the good stuff. You could find a lvl6 M60 on day 1 in a shotgun messiah crate in just garage. Chances were low, but still possible. People complained about the progress being way to fast.

 

As far as i understood TFP is working on giving locations a gamstage offset to make them more difficult and also define dropable loot per box (or at least location), not just by the type of the box.

I'm not sure why they introduced a general loot limitation in A19. Either it was much easier to implement or they plan it working together with the upcoming changes.

On day 1 with gamestage 1 you will keep finding just stone tools in a garage with gamestageoffset 0, but you will find loot equivalent to gamestage 15 in a shotgun messiah shop, because it has a gamestage offset of 15. But the Zs spawns there will also be for gamestage 15 then.

 

Even madmole said that recently if you don't believe me:

 

[Dracula]

There are several iterations of Buzz's Bar as well.  Here's one from Wisconsin; the bar state:

http://buzzsbarandgrill.com/menu/

 

I'd argue that car lots are moot as there are plenty with the same names and, especially with shady BHPH lots, they can be there today and gone tomorrow.

 

Al's Marine/Marina is a real place, too:

https://alsmarinecrosslake.com/

 

The Ostrich Hotel looks a lot different IRL and is in the UK:

https://ostrichhotel.co.uk/

[Palad1n]

If folks want to complain about any form of realism, then you should take a hard look at why we can break through stone walls or even hardened stone ground so easily with a stone hatchet, iron pickaxe, and steel pickaxe. 

 

This is a game first and foremost, yet many folks seem to want certain levels of realism for very specific things while ignoring the same argument for everything else. 

 

If you don't like certain features, learn to mod or work with modders to obtain the results you are after or as close to it. 

 

The only immersion I am really looking out for and want above all other things, is an improved AI system and a fully functional Bandit / NPC system. 

[Raestloz]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

Sorry if I generalized your motives. It just seems like a lot of the complaints have more to do with a desire to get the best stuff sooner rather than real outrage at the type of containers being rendered. If I unfairly lumped you in there then I apologize for my assumption.

I'm not. As I've previously elaborated upon, suspension of disbelief is needed to keep you entertained, and this is one instance where that disbelief is brought back in. My real problem ~ and dare I say at least a couple others ~ is less "why does the loot suck" and more "why does the loot not make sense for the situation?". Once explanation has been made which helps make sense of the situation, the problem disappears. I mean yes based on the situation it is not unreasonable that you conflate the two reasons, because they do effect the same sort of complaint and generally can use the same arguments

[Roland]

4 hours ago, Hrod Land said:

From where I'm sitting it seems like you're pretty consistently misrepresenting people's arguments because it makes for easier points to attack.

Except that a) some people have already admitted that it has nothing to do with immersion, they just don’t like getting crappy stuff to start out and still nobody has complained that the steel axe is also found in sealed shipping containers and b) While I do make the observation it isn’t the crux of my counter-argument so even if that is an easier point to attack, that’s not what I’m doing. 
 

It doesn’t help that there are two concurrent threads about this topic in which one is about “realism” and the other is just complaining about how progression sucks because you get primitive stuff for the first week and all the same people are on all the same sides...lol

 

4 hours ago, Hrod Land said:

Also, it's funny to see that after weeks of complaints about the loot progression, the "great new looting system" is actually an obviously unfinished mechanic that's going to change for the better. Never change, TFP 

Now this is simply a case of you making an ignorant statement because you are another who really should  use the forum tools to follow the developers. This has been discussed since before A19 was released and instead of complaints about how it gets played we only had complaints about when it gets played. I’m not stating this “new system” as damage control. I’m reiterating for the umpteenth time because people don’t pay attention to what has been said. 

7 hours ago, Onarr said:

Roland you jump to conclusions. Saying we do not like crap in loot does not mean we want best items there. All we are saying is we dont want absolute crap there. That is not the same. We get stone tools, spears, clubs etc. We dont want that. At least I dont. You think we immediately want pistols, ak-47, shotguns and iron tools. I would be much happier if I found some duct tape, cobblestone rocks, wood, forged iron, weapon parts, gunpowder, nitre, coal, perhaps some rare steel bar etc. Something that is actually useful in early game. Safes could have 100% chance for schematic so you are actually happy to see it and dont avoid it like a plague. Loot can be made fun even without giving you the best stuff ever. Just something useful.

That is very reasonable and you are the first I’ve read who has articulated wanting other types of supplies instead of better versions of the weapons and tools showing up. I’ll leave a note to Madmole about that idea. 

[Dracula]

I stand by the following:  progression is great; looting is broken, crafting needs attention.  They've announced plans to rectify this.  As such, if I cannot offer concise examples of a problem or ideas as to HOW to fix it, I see no point in griping about straw man arguments like "let's change the name of the loot boxes" when, as I've seen it, "sealed" just meant "not previously looted" and I took it as a multiplayer thing to establish whether or not someone had been to a particular POI before.  That's needlessly pedantic and will get us nowhere.

 

I also enjoy pointing out that there are places in the game that correspond to the real world.  I wonder how the funeral home feels about the free "advertising" that they're getting in the game and if it'll be changed to "dedngon" instead in a future update.  (There is no "Dedngon Funeral Home" as of the time of this post.)

[Boidster]

14 hours ago, Raestloz said:

On 7/15/2020 at 10:36 AM, Boidster said:

...that is not the game that The Fun Pimps have in mind. It has nothing to do being "based on reality" except to the extent that The Fun Pimps see "based on reality" as a design goal. Which is not for us to decide.

I'm not so sure about that. If you're saying my interpretation of TFP is wrong, how can you say yours is right?

I'm not. I literally said "Which is not for us to decide." This is TFP's vision of a zombie apocalypse. I don't get to say what is right or wrong about it. I can say what I like or don't like, or people can prefer that the game only have The Correct Type of Zombie (pick your favorite). You said we don't have "Harry Spotter" and "Hogwash castle" and "a giant green dragon" because they aren't realistic. I'm saying we don't have them because that is not the game TFP wants to build. It has nothing to do with being based on reality except insofar as 'based on reality' is part of TFP's vision, which in many, many cases it obviously is not. That vision doesn't currently include poor Harry Spotter and his green dragon. I now eagerly await the Harry Spotter And The Green Dragon overhaul mod pack. 😄

 

Anyway, this whole crate thing is like Mt. Fuji made from a golf divot. The description "sealed X crate" was just an indicator that, unlike the old crates, you have to beat this one open to get to the underlying cardboard box. I don't think TFP ever thought, in their wildest dreams, that it would turn into so much wailing and gnashing of teeth. We players overthink things. Seriously. It is not a big deal and it's easy to change your localization file if you dislike the word 'sealed'.

 

ETA: I do think the idea of removing stone tools/weapons and replacing them with low-level useful stuff is a good one for resolving this issue.

[Ralathar44]

56 minutes ago, Roland said:

Except that a) some people have already admitted that it has nothing to do with immersion, they just don’t like getting crappy stuff to start out and still nobody has complained that the steel axe is also found in sealed shipping containers and b) While I do make the observation it isn’t the crux of my counter-argument so even if that is an easier point to attack, that’s not what I’m doing. 
 

It doesn’t help that there are two concurrent threads about this topic in which one is about “realism” and the other is just complaining about how progression sucks because you get primitive stuff for the first week and all the same people are on all the same sides...lol

 

Now this is simply a case of you making an ignorant statement because you are another who really should  use the forum tools to follow the developers. This has been discussed since before A19 was released and instead of complaints about how it gets played we only had complaints about when it gets played. I’m not stating this “new system” as damage control. I’m reiterating for the umpteenth time because people don’t pay attention to what has been said. 

That is very reasonable and you are the first I’ve read who has articulated wanting other types of supplies instead of better versions of the weapons and tools showing up. I’ll leave a note to Madmole about that idea. 

Yeah mostly I'm just tired of people trying to pretend it's about realism or immersion when everything present can be explained just as well as all the other game systems and nobody complaining about immersion/realism wants to make cosmetic changes so it "makes more sense", they all just want better stuff.  There is nothing wrong with saying "I want guns and iron tools by day 7".  But people have this hardon for trying to present everything as "immersion" or "realism" or "suspension of disbelief" so they can be "objectively correct" or "stating the facts".

It's terrible feedback.  It takes a valid opinion/preference and devalues it by muddying the waters with irrelevant ideas.

[Xtrakicking]

56 minutes ago, Roland said:

and you are the first I’ve read who has articulated wanting other types of supplies instead of better versions of the weapons and tools showing up.

Not really true...

On 7/13/2020 at 10:53 PM, Xtrakicking said:

Heck, I'd rather get some iron ingots instead of two useless stone shovels in every Working Stiff's box.

Also, the problem is both realism and gameplay, not one or the other. It's true that it can be confusing when one group of players focuses their frustration towards one thing more than the other, though.

[Roland]

10 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

1 hour ago, Roland said:

and you are the first I’ve read who has articulated wanting other types of supplies instead of better versions of the weapons and tools showing up.

Not really true...

Completely true. I know because they are my own eyes doing the work....

 

I see your quote and grant you being the second person I've read. Sorry I didn't notice you first. I've already notified Joel about your's and Onar's suggestions.

 

EDIT: I followed your quote back to the original and the way you phrased it made it much more dismissible than Onar's post. His was more of a solution whereas yours was an afterthought of something you'd rather get than two crappy stone shovels. Sometimes how you say something makes a big difference. Also, until I reach t6 on stone items I seem to find at least something that is a higher tier than what I have whenever I open the loot boxes. That means less repairing and at times an additional mod slot. That ain't useless.

[Xtrakicking]

10 minutes ago, Roland said:

His was more of a solution whereas yours was an afterthought of something you'd rather get than two crappy stone shovels.

Yes, you're right. I shall expand on solutions in future occasions.

 

Now, of the stuff I've looted during the first days of my playthrough all the stone tools were of equal or less quality than the ones I had, and when I started getting better quality stone tools I was already crafting T2-3 iron tools in my forge. I've got a lot of stones in my chests, though.

[Onarr]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

Except that a) some people have already admitted that it has nothing to do with immersion, they just don’t like getting crappy stuff to start out and still nobody has complained that the steel axe is also found in sealed shipping containers and b) While I do make the observation it isn’t the crux of my counter-argument so even if that is an easier point to attack, that’s not what I’m doing. 
 

It doesn’t help that there are two concurrent threads about this topic in which one is about “realism” and the other is just complaining about how progression sucks because you get primitive stuff for the first week and all the same people are on all the same sides...lol

 

Players will never tell you what is actually wrong. They will tell you how they feel in a completely different words that usually have nothing to do with the problem. They are not game designers, so they do not really know where it lies. These discussions exist to get to the bone of the problem. At the beginning I did not know either what bothered me, because it usually is several things combined together, which need to be approached in tandem. 

 

Players complain about immersion means - I do not like it. I stop enjoying the game when this happens. 

Players say progression sucks - they do not feel rewarded for doing the content in game.

 

Then they will tell you how they think it should be handled. That is something one must not focus on. Its not important. Important is identifying the underlying problem, deciding whether or not it is a problem, whether or not is it worth solving and if so how to solve it so it is not in conflict with overall design and vision. It would be nice if there was F.A.Q. Where those crucial issues are slowly identified and accumulated, so people would not repeat themselves over and over on forums.

 

[Roland]

1 minute ago, Onarr said:

Players will never tell you what is actually wrong. They will tell you how they feel in a completely different words that usually have nothing to do with the problem. They are not game designers, so they do not really know where it lies. These discussions exist to get to the bone of the problem. At the beginning I did not know either what bothered me, because it usually is several things combined together, which need to be approached in tandem. 

 

Players complain about immersion means - I do not like it. I stop enjoying the game when this happens. 

Players say progression sucks - they do not feel rewarded for doing the content in game.

 

Then they will tell you how they think it should be handled. That is something one must not focus on. Its not important. Important is identifying the underlying problem, deciding whether or not it is a problem, whether or not is it worth solving and if so how to solve it so it is not in conflict with overall design and vision. It would be nice if there was F.A.Q. Where those crucial issues are slowly identified and accumulated, so people would not repeat themselves over and over on forums.

 

Good points. However, the raison d'etre for having a public thread regarding these complaints is so that people who have no problem with immersion and people who do feel rewarded and like the progression can also voice their disagreements to the complaints. What some seem to want is a vacuum into which they can state their opinion. Essentially, they would like for me to lock the thread and only allow posts that agree with them to be posted.

 

As for the F.A.Q. idea..... We've learned from sad experience that all a F.A.Q. accomplishes is a new kind of frustration where people are still repeating themselves over and over on the forums and we are also repeating ourselves over and over to go read the F.A.Q. And then the questioning person being offended that people can't just tell them instead of sending them somewhere. Happens on the steam forum all the time.

 

Case in point: Grokking Early Access.....

 

[Ralathar44]

30 minutes ago, Roland said:

Completely true. I know because they are my own eyes doing the work....

 

I see your quote and grant you being the second person I've read. Sorry I didn't notice you first. I've already notified Joel about your's and Onar's suggestions.

 

EDIT: I followed your quote back to the original and the way you phrased it made it much more dismissible than Onar's post. His was more of a solution whereas yours was an afterthought of something you'd rather get than two crappy stone shovels. Sometimes how you say something makes a big difference. Also, until I reach t6 on stone items I seem to find at least something that is a higher tier than what I have whenever I open the loot boxes. That means less repairing and at times an additional mod slot. That ain't useless.

Yup, it's just like I said there are nuggets of usable feedback buried in their posts but it's just utterly buried in the diatribe and sullied by the sanctimonious realism/suspension of disbelief arguments they've spent 95% of their time trying to justify as well as the numerous times they've literally asked (directly or indirectly) for iron tool/guns instead.  The "give us anything else instead like building materials" is a compromise position only mentioned as an afterthought because it IS an afterthought...at least based on how they've argued.  If that's not what they mean they are doing a very poor job in communication.

I feel like 70% of the complaints would go away with T1 primitive ranged weapons for each skill focus though.  Iron tools are super easily achievable with a few skill points, it's getting a gun of your skill focus that takes awhile even if you skill into it and that can cause frustrations.  So I think having primitive range weapons of each type would relieve some of those frustrations.

The remaining being making stone tools/weapons a little rarer and replacing them with materials.  Which will give slightly more useful loot boxes while lowering the perception of stone tool/weapon spam.  Alot of this isn't in the metrics/logic department but rather the "feels" department.  People are confusing their subjective experience feedback with objective fact based feed back and then using all the worst social media communication tactics with that in mind.  Most of the people who have disagreed with them multiple times have been quite directly attacked/insulted by them at this point....which really isn't helping them either.  This is normal though, most people would make poor testers not because of capability or intelligence but because of mentality.

[Roland]

20 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Yes, you're right. I shall expand on solutions in future occasions.

 

Now, of the stuff I've looted during the first days of my playthrough all the stone tools were of equal or less quality than the ones I had, and when I started getting better quality stone tools I was already crafting T2-3 iron tools in my forge. I've got a lot of stones in my chests, though.

It is true that I did not perk into Miner69 in my most recent playthrough beyond the first step. I was doing a Fortitude build this time so best I could craft was Orange for tools and brown for bows and spears. So finding better bows, spears, and tools was still interesting and rewarding for me. Could be that a strength build is what makes the new progression the least interesting because you can outcraft any tools, clubs, and stone sledges you might find and Strength is a popular build.

[Liesel Weppen]

5 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

Now, of the stuff I've looted during the first days of my playthrough all the stone tools were of equal or less quality than the ones I had, and when I started getting better quality stone tools I was already crafting T2-3 iron tools in my forge. I've got a lot of stones in my chests, though.

I wonder how you are playing...

I haven't crafted a single tool in A19 yet. In my current playthrough i'm on day 29 and could still only craft T2 iron tools. I already found T4 shovel and pickaxe and T2 fireaxe. Of course it only costs 3 skill points for T3 iron tools, but imho you can't really use them that early, because two picks and you're out of stamina, if you haven't skilled sex rex.

The progression is so slow now, that i didn't feel a need for having iron tools that early. I also find wrenches soon (currently a T5) and in every try strangely it took a while to loot a clawhammer, which i primarily only need for crafting a workbench.

In the early game i do quests, try to improve food supplies and just upgrade POIs a little for the early hordes. No stuff i really need good iron tools for. I prefer increasing my allround skills (especially in singleplayer).

Also my current T4 iron shovel (56 block damage) is even worse than my T6 stone shovel (57 block damage). It has higher durability but it costs a repair kit, the stone shovel just a stone and one wood.

Don't know the exakt day but ~day 10 i had every tool in T6 stone found. 

[Aldranon]

So I know the people that spec into Strength (myself included).  We don't care too much for any stone tool under Tier-4.

 

But someday I (we?) will tire of blasting zombies into vapor with a pump shotgun with an extended ammo barrel.

The auto shotgun is a speed run for most POI's.  I can have the Water Works cleared in around 4 minutes.

 

If I go all in for Intelligence, for example, I would like any tool better than I can make.

[Xtrakicking]

18 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Snip

All these people talking about suspension of disbelief that you see here are doing it because of people like you, who keep making posts trying to fruitlessly diminish its importance. If you truly cared about feedback, you wouldn't be trying so hard to shut people's frustrations down just because you think they mean nothing, despite multiple users telling you that you're wrong. I'm not Q&A, but I don't think the communication problem is on us.

 

I don't recall anyone asking for better gear, I don't know where you guys are getting that from. Every poster I've seen complaining about this issue has clearly stated how the problem is with how nonesensical it is to get primitive stone tools in gun safes and the like. Instead of pretending that other people are just whining for better loot and hiding it behind "immersion", how about actually reading what people are posting?

[JCrook1028]

14 hours ago, Raestloz said:

, yes the word 'sealed' is the problem. Removing it, I believe, would result in people not complaining anymore because now there's plausibility someone's rummaged through it

"Sealed" in the case of wooden shipping crates means nailed. VERY easy to open and reseal as new looking.

[Xtrakicking]

33 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Snip

I do perk into strength a lot, so by the aftermath of the first horde I'm already T2-3 in tools. I only use stone tools up until I get my first forge, in which I craft T2-3 iron tools and go with that till I get steel.

[Roland]

38 minutes ago, Xtrakicking said:

I don't recall anyone asking for better gear, I don't know where you guys are getting that from.

The other thread mostly. Probably not fair to combine the two in our minds but it is really tough not to because there is a lot of overlap. I think I even posted there once thinking it was here...

 

Over there people are point blank saying they just want better gear as a reward. Onarr even said there that it has nothing to do with immersion--simply just not wanting to get crap in every box that gets opened.

 

So...mixed signals and muddy waters.