My thoughts on 7 Days to Die

[Ashlockheart]

First I just want to say Grats on meeting your goals, and getting the game off the ground. More importantly Grats to the whole team for working hard on the video game. Your all doing great. I have been enjoying play the game. I love the concept of the game, and were you are going with it. With that being said, I think there are many things I feel could be improved on. These are just my thoughts, and they are not things that should be added. 

 

1. The menu.

when the game opens up is not all self explained. If I am playing the game for the first time I will not know what blood moon's are. I will not know what happens when I make the day cycle 90 mins vs 60 mins, and so on. So for new players you would have to experiment with the game. Experiment can be a good thing, but it could also cause you to have less of a interest in it if you have to figure out things to much. 

 

2. game play.

When you start the match you have some basic quest to gather, and make things. Those are good, but when I first started a game I did not hit trees, bushes, or plants. My first thought was I needed tools first, and started looking around. So I think the starting game play could have a little more guiding, and it would also be a good idea to give the option to turn guides off so you don't have to do repeats for advance players.

 

3. Questing/grinding.

So in the game you can choose to do Trader Quest, or grind to gather resources. Having choices is the best part of this game, how ever I do find my self being bored waiting for night to finish, because day time is made clear to be the better time, and you can do things easyer during the day. We need more options, and things added in for night so it does not feel so sluggish, and a waiting game for night to finish. I feel Day, and Night should both have great fun, and matter. It shouldn't be just day to have the most interactions. Night needs love basically.

 

4. Npc's/story.

In the game there really is no other characters. Its just the Character you made, and the trader. There is no adventure/story to pull you into long hours. This is something that Subnautica did so well. Subnautica gave a story/Characters you like, but they were not pushed or made the ultimate focus. They were there to hold your attention over the grind/recourse gathering. So I think Npc's, and story interactions would help a void just gathering and building get to boring, and sluggish. Yes I am saying the grind/gathering is fun, and boring at the same time, but the boring part it hitting faster than the fun. So I think there can be things added to help hold your interest on top of the grind/gathering.

 

5. Crafting

The Crafting system has gotten better, but there is still more room for improvement. Repairing does not feel simple to find, and it does not feel flushed out. The keys for everything for the crafting system does not feel flushed ether. A for repair, and W for were something even though W is forward, and A is for moving right. So it just feels off. I still enjoy what you have made. I just feel it should be tweaked more.

 

6. Why the name Funpimps? I think its funny, and I like it. I just really want to know who came up with the funny name.

 

 

7. I hope you guys do add more things, keep making those Evil dead references.

 

These are my thoughts so far. I do love the game, and I think you guys have done a great job. Thank you 7 days to die team for all your hard work.

[Boidster]

14 minutes ago, Ashlockheart said:

1. The menu.

when the game opens up is not all self explained. If I am playing the game for the first time I will not know what blood moon's are. I will not know what happens when I make the day cycle 90 mins vs 60 mins, and so on.

For what it is worth, if you mouse over any option, it gives you a description. It is not obvious at first and maybe not the best UI design choice but it's similar to how most user-entry forms work (though personally I find a dedicated ? icon more intuitive) and TFP is consistent about it in nearly all of their UI screens I think.

 

14 minutes ago, Ashlockheart said:

When you start the match you have some basic quest to gather, and make things. Those are good, but when I first started a game I did not hit trees, bushes, or plants. My first thought was I needed tools first, and started looking around.

But you did eventually just try punching the grass, yeah? I think that little moment of discovery is kinda neat, depending on how long you spent trying to find a tool! Be sure to read your Journal entries! They are being expanded and improved with each Alpha release.

 

14 minutes ago, Ashlockheart said:

I feel Day, and Night should both have great fun, and matter. It shouldn't be just day to have the most interactions. Night needs love basically.

Night did recently get some love - much greater likelihood of wolves and bears! 🙂 Night time is supposed to be more dangerous and, often, is time spent improving the base, cooking foods, smelting resources, crafting, etc. It's a bit more boring in the first couple of days, but you can go out at night if you are careful. Sneak always, keep a melee weapon in hand in case of surprise wolf attack, and well, I don't want to spoil it so I'll just say there is a very easy way to make zombies move away from you without them even seeing you. They are attracted to noises...

 

14 minutes ago, Ashlockheart said:

In the game there really is no other characters. Its just the Character you made, and the trader.

NPCs are on the way in a future release, so stay tuned.

 

 

[Ralathar44]

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

1. The menu.

when the game opens up is not all self explained. If I am playing the game for the first time I will not know what blood moon's are. I will not know what happens when I make the day cycle 90 mins vs 60 mins, and so on. So for new players you would have to experiment with the game. Experiment can be a good thing, but it could also cause you to have less of a interest in it if you have to figure out things to much. 

Coming in blind is honestly alot of the fun.  This is definitely one of those games where you do alot of your learning via trial and error.  But you can look things up online if you want too.  I don't think leaving a player half blind is bad or good, it's just different.  Just imagine if Dark Souls held your hand and taught you every esoteric detail of that game.  Depending on your tastes you might enjoy the learning process and overcoming the challenge like me, or you might wish you had more guidance and use more online resources.

There isn't a super large amount of things to check on in this game though.  It's not like Stardew Valley or Warframe or Terraria where you will practically live on their wikis past a certain point.  There are a few major learning milestones to pass such as learning the early game, figuring out blood mooons, learning base design, and discovering new zombie variants.  But once you've done that a few times you shift to where most of the rest of us are: overcoming what we know in new and interesting ways :").
 

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

2. game play.

When you start the match you have some basic quest to gather, and make things. Those are good, but when I first started a game I did not hit trees, bushes, or plants. My first thought was I needed tools first, and started looking around. So I think the starting game play could have a little more guiding, and it would also be a good idea to give the option to turn guides off so you don't have to do repeats for advance players.

Hard disagree, I'm all for having some basic tutorials but I'm not a fan of infantilizing players.  Every gamer should be able to do some base amount of experimentation with the controls.  You click the mouse buttons and see what they do, you notice you punch, then you try punching things and you get feedback of dealing damage to an object or picking up an object.  Since your first tutorial is to collect plant fibers by gathering grass this shouldn't be a horrific leap for a gamer to overcome.  If a gamer is literally too new to all of gaming to pass this threshold they honestly should be starting on a different game than 7 Days to Die.

But, let's say they are a brand new gamer with zero games literacy and you still ended up here.  We live in an age of streaming video so that gamer is 30 seconds away from googling up someone's new game and watching them do the thing.  If you lack basic problem solving skills AND basic game literacy?  7DTD is one of the worst games you could play.  Might as well throw that player into Dark Souls lol.
 

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

3. Questing/grinding.

So in the game you can choose to do Trader Quest, or grind to gather resources. Having choices is the best part of this game, how ever I do find my self being bored waiting for night to finish, because day time is made clear to be the better time, and you can do things easyer during the day. We need more options, and things added in for night so it does not feel so sluggish, and a waiting game for night to finish. I feel Day, and Night should both have great fun, and matter. It shouldn't be just day to have the most interactions. Night needs love basically.

That boredom will lead to experimentation and that experimentation to death and learning :P.  Sometimes I go out at night to do things and I've been known to dig all night long sometimes, relying on my veterancy to keep me alive and know when I'm well equipped enough or covered/alert enough to do things at night.

But, worst comes to worst, bring up your inventory or a crafting window, hit alt enter, and watch some anime or something until night is over.  I've done alot of work during the nights of 7DTD before.  It can be a good way to learn coding while getting regular breaks :). 

 

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

4. Npc's/story.

In the game there really is no other characters. Its just the Character you made, and the trader. There is no adventure/story to pull you into long hours. This is something that Subnautica did so well. Subnautica gave a story/Characters you like, but they were not pushed or made the ultimate focus. They were there to hold your attention over the grind/recourse gathering. So I think Npc's, and story interactions would help a void just gathering and building get to boring, and sluggish. Yes I am saying the grind/gathering is fun, and boring at the same time, but the boring part it hitting faster than the fun. So I think there can be things added to help hold your interest on top of the grind/gathering.

Subnautica has an amazing ATMOSPHERE but Subnautica has very shallow and thin mechanics with no actual threat in it's world, especially once you get the prawn.  The story was intriguing and had a great conclusion, but was ultimately very thin for 90% of the game.  I love that game but it has things it does well and things it fails at just as much as 7DTD.  The same is true with The Long Dark, which has good atmosphere (though not near as good as Subnautica) and actually has a good story and characters, but similarly has thin game mechanics.

7 Days to Die is a progression treadmill survival game about looting and improving your base and trying desperately to survive the quickly scaling blood moon hordes as the world around you slowly gets more and more dangerous.  If you're looking for story and atmosphere, this ain't it.  But if you want mechanics and gameplay and progression as you struggle to stay ahead of the growing threat of hordes this game delivers.
 

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

5. Crafting

The Crafting system has gotten better, but there is still more room for improvement. Repairing does not feel simple to find, and it does not feel flushed out. The keys for everything for the crafting system does not feel flushed ether. A for repair, and W for were something even though W is forward, and A is for moving right. So it just feels off. I still enjoy what you have made. I just feel it should be tweaked more.

While I'd personally prefer quick and easy repairing like in Ark or some other survival games I think they intentional want you to let your guard down by bringing a menu up down to repair something.  Hotkeys are just hotkeys.  Alot of modern gamers seem less comfortable with hotkeys but they are the lifeblood of some genres and many industries.  But most modern games have leaned heavier into smooth action rather than mechanical execution and memorization.  It's not better or worse, just different strokes for different folks.

But top tier RTS, MMORPG, MOBA, etc players will be players who can quickly learn and execute hotkeys.  And this is true for many career professions as well.  Hell when I was using AutoCAD we actually wrote some macros in visual basic just to speed up our data entry :).

The interaction buttons for things in games vary for significant amounts of time and sometimes they get codified into a defacto standard.  There doesn't seem to be a defacto standard in survival games though.  They vary far too much and often deliver radically different experiences.  So I don't expect survival games to codify hotkeys anytime soon because of that.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ashlockheart said:

These are my thoughts so far. I do love the game, and I think you guys have done a great job. Thank you 7 days to die team for all your hard work.

I'm glad you're enjoying it :).  Note that none of my comments are saying "you are wrong" but rather exploring different perspectives on each issue.

[Raestloz]

3 hours ago, Ashlockheart said:

2. game play.

When you start the match you have some basic quest to gather, and make things. Those are good, but when I first started a game I did not hit trees, bushes, or plants. My first thought was I needed tools first, and started looking around. So I think the starting game play could have a little more guiding, and it would also be a good idea to give the option to turn guides off so you don't have to do repeats for advance players.

This game is Minecraft clone, at this stage of development you're expected to understand how Minecraft works and apply the same concept

 

3 hours ago, Ashlockheart said:

A for repair, and W for were something even though W is forward, and A is for moving right. So it just feels off.

This is correct. Regardless of how matching W is for a certain function, the game doesn't even attempt to make it consistent. A is modify for guns, but during certain dialogues you will find A does not modify the gun, because it's been replaced with something else and the Modify option doesn't have a shortcut. IIRC it's when you open a container. They really could've made it more consistent