:: List of Targeted Balancing Changes/Ideas ::

[Deejicus]

Firstly, I LOVE this game to death. This is not complaining at all. I would like to know everyone's thoughts. Criticisms are very welcomed. Also, sorry in advance if other people have mentioned some of these, I don't scour the forums all day so I apologize in advance.

*Note: since this is "balancing" focused, it doesn't necessarily mean "easier". It's just a compilation of things, to me, that would make sense. This is clearly subjective.

**One more note: I completely understand this game isn't intended to be a hyper-realistic survival game. Me having any 'realism' type commentary in the following list is to be taken with this note in mind.

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1. I know, right off the bat, this one is going to be unpopular, so here goes. Have a server/game option to turn off vehicles' backpack-able ability. It really irks me that you can put a gyrocopter or a 2-ton 4x4 truck in your backpack (or any other vehicle). What the heck. (expecting hate on this one lol)

2. Robotic Drone: Crafting for this is too easy and also, the components don't make sense.

- Should start off with baseline (quality 1) 10 robotics parts, or even 15, in my opinion, then increase accordingly from there.

- Change out 'Scrap Polymers' for 'Electrical Parts'. It's a powered electrical thing.

3. Robotic Drone: Should require a battery to operate. I really wish this was a thing. Would make it way more “realistic” and balanced, but again, I know this one too, will probably be wildly unpopular.

4. Continuing with the batteries, all vehicles (except minibike, it seems like a lawn mower style engine) should also require one battery to operate. Sure, it'll make it slightly more difficult, but honestly, not that bad, and it makes complete sense. It's already pretty dang easy to get a vehicle.

5. Seeds gathered from harvesting crops/plants needs to be at least, slightly bumped up at ALL levels of ‘Living Off the Land’, for ALL plants. Example: I farm 10 corn plants and get 2 or 3 seeds...really? Ears of corn are MADE OF SEEDS. XD

6. The Fun Pimps should add (or replace possibly) a lever action rifle in .44 magnum. Just do an internet search for '44 magnum lever action' and see what you find. If it is replaced to use 44 ammo, bump up the ammo capacity and lower the ranged damage. Damage should be more than the 44 magnum revolver (more on this later).

7. The fact that 12-gauge ammo doesn't take any brass at all to craft, is weird. Should take at least 1 in my opinion, besides, 12-gauge are already supremely powerful.

8. Ok this might seem a bit much, Fun Pimps, but hear me out: Make the Hunting Rifle, Sniper Rifle, AK-47 and M60 in 7.62 only, and then, ADD 5.56 ammo to the game to make the Pipe Rifle, Pipe Machine Gun, and Tactical Assault Rifle utilize 5.56. This game is very lacking in ammo diversity - I know it's not intended to be a realistic 1^st-person shooter, still, adding 5.56 would do well in this game.

Additional thought, it would be pretty easy to add 5.56 to the loot tables and the crafting menus. Make the crafting requirements be more than 9mm but less than 7.62. With this whole idea in mind, it would require no additional weapon models or animations to be added to the game.

9. The corollary to number 8, for clarity, balancing for the different cartridges would be the following, in terms of Ranged Damage, low to high: 9mm pistol, 9mm SMG, 44 pistols, 44 lever action, pipe machine gun 556, tactical assault rifle 556, pipe rifle 556, ak-47, m-60, hunting rifle & sniper rifle should be close to the same.

For the less gun-nerdy out there, I ordered that list the way I did, because mostly of barrel length and the rudimentary firearm mechanics of the game. Typically, a longer barrel will give more velocity, ergo, power from a projectile. A 5.56 going out of a short barrel should have less power than a 5.56 coming out of, say, a long rifle barrel, despite them being the “same” cartridge (Yes, I know there is way more to it IRL, but I’m talking mostly in the context of this game).

10. If 5.56 ammo were implemented, they could bring back the Marksman Rifle! Could make it as powerful, or close to the same power as the AK-47, in regard to the aforementioned list. The animations and weapon model already exist!

11. Hunting rifle and sniper rifle should be way more powerful than the .44 magnum firearms. As it currently is in the game, it doesn’t make sense at all. If anything, their current values should be swapped to the following, in terms of Entity Damage (standard ammunition type): .44 magnum = 59, hunting rifle = 61, sniper rifle = 70. But, me personally, I’d change them even more than what is in the system now: 44 mag = 55, hunting rifle = 68, sniper = 72. (And Desert Vulture like 50 or 51, idk)

12. Note: I don't know if the following thing already applies, so, apologies if I'm not aware. The Dead Eye perk should apply to ANY long gun that has a semi-automatic or bolt action configuration. Additionally, there should be a buff to the skill levels, or a progression incentive of some sort, that when a scope is attached to semi-auto/bolt action rifles, there is even more benefit from Dead Eye.

13. Big one here. So, we have the aptitude to eventually learn, gather resources for, and manufacture our own seemingly complex gyrocopter, but somehow, we have NO clue how to create a better functioning reverse gear??? Fun Pimps, please, for the love of god, and all that is holy, fix the unnecessarily neutered reverse gear in the gyrocopter. If I can make a contraption that can take to the skies, I should certainly be able to figure out how to make a reverse gear that works.

14. Why can’t we harvest rotting flesh, bones, fat and cloth from zombies’ bodies, but we can from the static corpses and gore piles that exist in the environment?

15. This one might be a bit harder to implement, but it would be cool to have more food recipes. Miso soup, chicken soup, chicken ration, cat food, and pears have no recipes (I think). I have some suggestions for the Fun Pimps, so it doesn’t sound like I’m just complaining, and just for the record, I LOVE the food recipes in this game. *Warning: the following recipe ideas might be really dumb.

                - Chicken and Dumplings: Chicken ration, chicken soup, 1 corn bread, 3 fat, 1 water.

                - Pear Crisp: Can of pears, 2 corn meal, 1 fat, 1 egg, 1 boiled water

                - Kitty Burger: Cat food, 1 corn bread.

                - Miso Pot Stew: Miso soup, 2 meat, 1 mushroom, 2 grass, 1 fat

16. Another food related item. Increase the amount of blueberries needed to make blueberry pie.

17. There needs to be a MASSIVE increase in damage to zombies/animals when striking them at top speed with the motorcycle or the 4x4. Should be no more than like 2 hits, with either vehicle, to kill a regular zombie or animal. Big zombies and/or bears are another case. What’s the point of the huge, gnarly spikes on the front of both vehicles if they don’t actually significantly damage enemies at full tilt?

18. Gyrocopter should always be able to outrun a vulture (when boosting) and the blades should damage them as well.

19. Vultures attacking you on the motorcycle disrupts the driving insanely too much, and it makes completely zero sense that you slow down moving, or stop all together, when being attacked by them. This is really bad. If the absurd amount of driving disruption is intended, at least dial it down some, please!

20. Another unpopular one (probably), nails should be required for more craftable items.

[meganoth]

1) Since you have to take the vehicle out of the workstation and set it down somewhere where you can drive off I see a UI problem with this. There is also the problem what to do with a vehicle that you use to go back to some location where you died. Now there are two vehicles there (a deconstruct button for the vehicle could be the solution, but then you still could put a vehicle in your backpack, just in parts.

 

4) I don't see the problem, all vehicles except bicycle have a car battery as ingredient.

 

5) If you harvest 10 farm plots then you get 5 seeds on average, not 2-3. Maybe you are just noticing it when you are unlucky and only get 2-3 but never when you are lucky and get 7-8 ? If you doubt this then make a real statistic analysis and average the number of harvesting 100 farm plots.

 

8 ) I'm pretty sure TFP themselves consider weapons and ammo finished, they won't add another ammo type this late. And I don't like that idea either because each ammo type already has 3 variants (usually normal, HP, AP). What use is another ammo type besides taking up 3 more slots in inventory and ammo chests? I often see more ammo types in overhaul mods and they add nothing interesting, no new decisions to make, no new strategies, just redundant  stuff behind a different icon.

 

13) If you accept a realism argument then a gyro is probably optimized for minimal weight. Maybe adding a fast reverse gear would increase the weight inacceptably. Also do planes have reverse gear at all? The only times I see planes go backwards (in TV documentaries or movies) is when they are pushed by people or towed by special vehicles.

 

15) I agree that food is strangely balanced, but maybe that is a concession to realism this time. Chili needs peas just like in reality even though peas are in use in too many other recipes as well while pears have not much use in recipes just like in reality.

 

 

14) Zombies would be an everflowing resources of rotten meat and bones, where would the balance be? Also we have seen in older alphas that lootable zombies just leads to endless loot-grind especially at horde night, harvestable zombies would lead to exactly the same problem.

 

16) Noted. But where is the rationale why this would be good? I mean, if you want comments or even TFP to comply you need to give us a good argument why this should be done.

 

17) My guess is that they wanted to add a mod eventually to do damage (no free lunch here). 

 

18+19) Always? Definitely not on horde night as vultures are the guarantee you have to do a little more work to survive the main battle event of the game. And personally I like vultures as a random danger element and would prefer they attack even more often outside of horde night. Actually you normally outrun them easily when you hold shift while driving motorbike or flying gyro (did you maybe increase zombie speeds in the config?)

 

 

 

[Deejicus]

Hey Meganoth, thank you for your reply and taking the time to read that massive clump of text haha. I really tried formatting it better for readability but it didn't take when I hit submit. I appreciate your input and thoughts.

 

I see where you're coming from with your responses. I would like to briefly respond to your responses 😁

 

1.   A "simple" fix that wouldn't have to mess with the UI at all is to have the work bench include a zoned area for construction. When certain things are built they are deployed into that zone. This would obviously make people have to rethink their base layout, but it would solve the issue. You know when placing the powered drawbridge, how it has a massive indicated area to facilitate the bridge going down? Same idea for the workbench; predefined output zone for vehicles.

As far as when you died and there's two vehicles, well that's more of an individual's problem in game they would have to figure out. Either get a buddy or walk/bike back to get it - which would suck, but I don't think is an unreasonable expectation for gameplay.

 

4.    I didn't relay this well. I meant like as something you'd have to maintain, like in battery banks, how they eventually run out. Same idea, but with only one battery and it degraded way slower.

5.    I have had L.O.T.L. maxed out and it still doesn't feel balanced to me. I understand the probability already so need need for an analytical evidence. It isn't balanced, even if it's roughly 50% chance. More specifically, with L.O.T.L. MAXED, it should really generate a ton more seeds, so my point still stands. To add to this, to make the amount of seeds harvested balanced, the amount of crop harvested might need to be brought down just a touch. Perhaps, they could add more more level to L.O.T.L (only has 3 ATM) and spread out the amount of seeds you get, per level, more, that way when one did max out L.O.T.L. it is a substantial 75%-80% chance of getting a seed as well as skill point investment, it would be worth it. Something along those lines. Additional note, I think the farming in general could use some tweaking, eg, the crops grow way to quickly. Maybe like double amount of time for harvesting but keeping the current output levels.

 

8. Understood, and I get you. It would just add more variety and maybe smooth out the damage gradient between weapons. Personally, and I know everyone has opinions, and this is just mine, but to me it would add to the fun having one more ammo type and a little more diversity with weapons. My solution wouldn't be a mechanic overall either but would utilize pretty much everything that already exists.

13. Fair, and I get your points. So if weight would be prohibitive to flight, let me Fred Flintstone the dang thing then, that would be faster still than what they have. Something, anything, than the close to nothing that exists.

 

14. Not saying the zombies ought to be "lootable" but simply provide at least a small amount of rotting flesh, bone, fat, cloth, maybe a chance for intact clothing. Balancing is usually what TFP are adjusting frequently, so it's not insurmountable for this suggestion to be balanced. Also, they still despawn pretty quickly, vanilla wise anyway. To go back to the farming thing, they could have rotten flesh be a fertilizer for the plants, which would then make them grow faster, which ties in to what I was saying about having more levels in L.O.T.L. and increasing the grow time. Hobo Stew could be reworked or removed entirely...because who really wants to eat rotten flesh lol. Also, it's already pretty overflowing. Balance can happen if they want it to.

16. 5 blueberries would make a very very small pie, that's my rationale. Granted I am sure they are not intending us to interpret the blueberries as being literally singular blueberries haha. But I think it indicates a slightly bigger issue with the amount of ingredients needed with a lot of recipes...but that can be talked about later.

17. That would be cool.

18-19. For horde night, I'll agree with that. But the way they affect your gyro is, weird to say the least. I also agree with random danger element you mentioned, it's good. My whole thing is with the way they strangely affect the motorbike, when say a few are attacking. It's like they immobilize it almost. That part needs fixed still IMO. Yes, I can boost most of the time with motorbike and outrun them.

 

-- Again, thank you for your thoughts and checking this out!

[Syphon583]

A lot of what you describe here sounds exactly like a popular overhaul mod called Undead Legacy. https://ul.subquake.com/

 

It's definitely more tedious (read: grindy) than vanilla 7DTD, but off the top of my head it addresses #'s 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 ,11, 15, 16, and 20. Now, when I say it addresses these items, some of it is just due to the fact that there is a lot more variety in food, ammo types, weapons, vehicles, and crafting.

 

There are also some mechanics in the game that are quite different than vanilla as well like the encumbrance system. The amount of stuff you or your vehicle can carry is based on weight, so you can technically carry a lot more stuff, as long as what you are carrying doesn't weigh that much. So, speaking specifically to #1, as meganoth stated there has to be a way to carry your vehicle out of the trader compound or in other situations, but in this mod, vehicle weight is light enough to carry when you first obtain the vehicle, but as soon as you place it down, its weight increases to a higher value so it's practically impossible to walk around with it in your pocket. However, you can place it in another larger vehicle if needed.

 

That's just scratching the surface though. There is a ton of new and different things in Undead Legacy. If you're up for a challenge, I would seriously recommend checking out this mod. But enough about that. Back to vanilla...

 

Regarding 18 and 19, for a while vultures would auto-agro on the player whenever in a vehicle, but that changed in the latest 20.6 update, so this shouldn't be a problem anymore. They'll still agro on you if you are injured, but that should not be changed IMO. As far as the gyro being able to outrun a vulture, they can. In fact almost any vehicle (except for the bicycle) can outrun vultures. However, horde night is different. Vultures on horde night will a) always agro on the player, because it's horde night, and b) will be faster than any vehicle. Why? Because TFP don't want the player to avoid having to fight during the BM horde. (there is one way I know of to avoid the BM, but that's a different topic).

 

I personally like a lot of the ideas you have posted, but being realistic, this game is getting closer and closer to being finished and TFP are quite satisfied with the state the game is currently in. They will be adding more features such as bandits, backstory, possibly an endgame, but most of what you describe here would likely not be implemented. The nice thing is they have made this game incredibly easy to mod so that those of us who like to play in a different way can do so.

[meganoth]

1. Sure, the problem could be dropped on the player, but travelling say 5km even with a bike is quite a boring and time-consuming endeavour. Your advice with the buddy works once you have a 4x4 with a passenger mod, but if he was there with you when you died he won't be happy about driving 5km back and forth to ferry you. I would say I don't like the idea simply because it would discourage people from discovering the map and travelling around. There is already so much incentive to just stay in the home town, it doesn't need more.

 

4. Realistically car batteries are reloaded while driving. Gameplay wise there is already a "fuel" you have to pay for driving, a battery to reload would just be a secondary redundant "fuel" type.

 

5. LotL1 gives you back 1.5 produce per farm plot per 3 days. If I crudely estimate this, I'd say a single player needs maybe 2 meat stews and 2 teas per day, that would be 10 produce per day, 30 per 3 days. So a single player needs 20 farm plots and a little hunting to be totally self-sufficient with just one perk point in LotL. That looks ok to me, especially since I didn't even take into account that you loot food as well.

If I remember corretly LotL3 gives you back even more than the old LotL3 of A19. In a 3 player vanilla game I am the cook and someone else has LotL3 and I think about 15-20 farm plots as well. We are absolutely overflowing with food on day 60. I have a full ingredients box and a full food box. 

So the question is: Is harvesting 20 farm plots every 3 days too much work in your estimation?

 

14. There is no difference between lootable and scrapable zombies in regards to the grind you have to do if you want the resource they offer. In previous alphas that proved to be slightly detrimental to FPS on horde nights (AFAIK) and a grind even when just looting pois, so the devs removed it and I don't think they will reconsider. Yes, it can be balanced but that is not why it was removed.

 

16. Exactly. No blueberry cake recipe (in reality) ever said "4 eggs, 750 blueberries, ...". And we also need to ask what should a quantity of 1 meat amount to? Sure, you could just say that anything is measured in multiples of 100g, except for eggs. That would be a good solution to a problem not even any of the overhaul modders has seen as one yet (AFAIK, except maybe UL). Gameplay wise it would not change anything. Feel free to make a mod yourself, the number of downloads will tell you if there is a demand for this. I doubt it though.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

On 9/14/2022 at 11:08 AM, Deejicus said:

4.    I didn't relay this well. I meant like as something you'd have to maintain, like in battery banks, how they eventually run out. Same idea, but with only one battery and it degraded way slowerr

 

Just flavor comments from an engineer.  Typically if you have decent working batteries, you won't see them degrading enough to have to be replaced before the zombies eventually kill you or you stop playing your current world.  If anything, most of the batteries in the world you find should be dead and unusable as they are sitting unused exposed to various temperature changes and environmental effects.; though all of this depends on when the cars where last used and the timeline of the game at the point you start playing (7 days after should be no issues, but sitting outside for months / years and batteries that were fine on Day 1 of the Zombie takeover would now be just paperweights).

 

I think they did a nice balance with the vehicles as the gasoline is the fuel that you need to obtain.  Batteries in vehicles, they tend to be built to recharge the batteries in use which is why you never have to pull the battery out to recharge it (unless you leave something draining the battery while not in use).  While the batteries used in battery banks would need an electrical source to recharge (taken care of by solar panels or generators).

 

If anything should be a wear item on vehicles, I think the wheels should be the priority.  Besides the normal wear and tear they would see, the conditions they now have to travel are far from ideal.  Realistically, you should constantly being dealing with flat tires any time you travel through the wastelands (though not really fun to do from a gameplay standpoint).

[Rotor]

Just a note.

 

Planes do not have a reverse gear per se.  However, they can power back with thrust reversers.  This last practice is no longer in regular use due to safety, fuel burn and niche training required.  Helicopters dont have a reverse either, but they can hover taxi backwards and is part of normal flight.

 

Regards,