10 years in development and it is still just a skeleton of a game.

[tdevine]

EDIT:  I had posted my earlier content while frustrated and angry after trying to experience multiplayer with my friends and family.  I wanted to articulate my thoughts without those feelings, so I will try again.

    After getting to know the game, I started checking out mods, and thinking about things in the game that made no sense to me.  I could not enjoy the game at this point knowing what I had concluded to be major problems or missing features.  I stopped all of us from playing until I could mod it, including making my own mods.  And since I had no experience modding this game, I had to reverse engineer established mods first before making my own, which took about 2-3 weeks before I could start making multiple mods and changes with no errors, and were balanced within the game.  This also included making my own custom map and using the world editor, along with third party software to make it more realistic.   The offered default maps are a horrible example of what this game could actually be. 

    This all took me about 2 1/2 months of research, time, trial and error, and hunting down mistakes.  And what got me the most frustrated and angry was the fact that after 10 years, this game has very little info or help to make mods or use the editors that is easy to find or access.  On YouTube, most of the vids cover the same crap, and none of them are very detailed.      Those creators could not even answer some of the more basic world editor questions.  Now there are sources for info, do not get me wrong, but when you are looking for detailed or advanced info, it is very hard to find.  I have had some luck on a Discord I was pointed to, but the process of gaining a lot of knowledge to modify this game is a long frustrating road.  And some of the changes I needed to make before enjoying the game again, I think should have been addressed long ago, so I would not have to use my own time working on it instead of playing it with my friends and family.

    Another thing that was really frustrating was trying to add finished community mods to the game.  Almost all of them had to be customized as they were completely unbalanced, included features that made vanilla features useless, mixed quality content with crap content, had errors, were not really finished, were not thought out, ruined the survival aspect, etc... One vehicle mod was missing sounds, some vehicles drove like crap, some had the avatar in the wrong place etc...  More work for me again.

 

1.  Nothing is more frustrating than watching your nephew just climb up to a tier 5 POI roof, grab all the best loot and come back down.  But wait, I thought this was a semi hard core survival game?  Food is scarce, you start on foot, what is this?  "Don't Cheeze", is a poor excuse for bad design.  I know TFP have purposely patched out exploits in the past, so why not this?  They could have easily just taken the 50 or so tier 4s and 5s, removed the main loot from the roof, broken it up, and scattered it in 3-5 areas of each POI depending on size.  This would at the least make players search or fight through the POI to grab all the loot.  Even better if possible, make the loot respawn randomly around a POI.  Something similar to this or better should have been a priority.  I had to do this myself, and it works great.

 

2.  The skill system.  Who at FTP thought is was good to have only 5 crafting levels and immediately be able to craft stone, iron, steel, etc, at the same level that you have reached once the item was unlocked?  This takes a "semi hard core survival game" and turns it into a basic, easy mode crafting game.  You are telling me that once I am at level 5, get lucky and find the right schematic, I can now craft end game items at tier 5 within 30-60 days or even sooner?  You also can skip an entire crafting element like iron tools if you get lucky enough for example.  The real problem here is single player vs. multiplayer.  Since skill costs do not change from SP to MP, now all your team has to do is min-max diff skills your team needs, making the skill system a joke.  My job was to build vehicles.  Needless to say I was making the 4x4 in a few weeks of game time.  Not very fun, not challenging at all.  In single player, your skill choices matter much more as you advance much slower as you have to cover the entire skill system yourself, but multiplayer completely destroys this.

   The next patch will address this, but after 10 years, and the latest horrible system that should have never been part of the game in the first place.  You should never be able to make iron tools if you can't at least make tier 3-5 stone tools. 

 

3.  The game feels kind of empty and lonely.   Not many zombies around outside of POI's.  No civilians or survivors running from zombies.  One type of car to litter the world.  No roaming zombies in a POI that you have entered, you need to wake them all up, but can shoot most of them first.  Where is everyone?  Screamers and hordes are not much of a challenge.  And I was told that the POI spawns do not change with MP?  This can not be correct.  I get the same amount of spawns in a POI no matter SP or MP?  Please tell me this is not the case.  I had to combine and customize mods to make an occasional civilian/survivor either running from or fighting zombies to liven up the world.  I did the same to add a half dozen different vehicles that could spawn along with the default cars, giving more variety and life to the world.  I changed the skill system and spread it out to make more sense, while adding more content to fill it out better.  

 

Why has FTP not put more effort into optimizing this game?  They said because it is not finished, but 10 years and probably 5+ to go, this game and its players need more effort to optimize this as we go, not 5 more years from now, or even longer?

Why can't we zoom out to see more of the world map?

Why can't we share our explored parts of the map with the team in MP?

Why can't we craft a lower tier of an item if we don't have the parts to make a higher tier, or just don't need the higher tier item?

Why is it taking 12-24 months to get an update that should only take half as long?

Why can't I change the terrain in world editor mode and save it?

Why are most POI zombies set to active instead of attack, making them too vulnerable?

Why has it taken so long to fix water in the world?

Many other questions I forgot.

 

I actually like the idea of the game, and I see it has come a long ways from where it started.  But I still get frustrated at how far it is from the potential it has.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by tdevine (see edit history)

[edyonline]

Mine craft is still “in development”. Even under a billion dollar corporation. They still make big changes and patches.

 

Before Mojang sold to “evil Microsoft” it seemed like development would never end.

 

These are procedurally generated games. No Mans Sky finished quite quickly, but you can’t build as much, and can’t dig as deep. It’s a large universe but there’s less parts driving it’s creativity.

 

7 days is a passion project. Made by gamers for gamers. Unless you have a few million dollars you can donate, I wouldn’t expect development to go any faster.

 

These procedurally generated and entire destructible environments are uncharted waters in gaming development. The amount of power it takes to run these games is phenomenal, and it’s surprising the developers have done as well as they have.

 

I don’t want a half pie product. I’m willing to wait as long as it takes. And I’m great full to have been a part of its developing stages. I’ve been playing since PlayStation, and this game is the reason I bought a new PC. It’s been a fun ride, no complaints here.

[Fox]

As a kickstarter for this game and still hanging around, I very much disagree with your opinions. The only thing I can somewhat agree with is that the updates have slowed down a bit too much. But given how they've already made most of their money on this game and aren't likely to make too much more at this point, why rush anything anymore? That said, to each their own I guess... devs can't satisfy everyone. There will always be a minority of players who happen to not have a good experience with the game or just cannot be satisfied.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

If you think the game hasn't really improved in 10 years, then compare footage from the first Alphas to what it looks like now. According to everything we know about A21 so far, there will be a massive upgrade of assets.

 

That this game lives largely from mods is no secret but it's not the full truth. The developers are investing time and effort to make the game easier to modify. It is intended that you can easily modify the game. You can see Vanilla as the basic framework on which you can build.

[FA_Q2]

I will never understand this moaning about the game continuing in alpha.  I hope it NEVER leaves alpha.  This game is darn good, particularly for what they are asking for it.  I have gained thousands of hours of entertainment already.  It is more polished than several fully released titles I own and has fewer bugs.  

 

All alpha means is that I get to have more fun as the updates almost always bring new life to the game.  If I do not like the changes all the previous alphas are sitting there waiting for me to pick whichever one I think is better.

 

It sounds to me as though you just do not like this type of game.  Well, a lot more do.  Perhaps you should just play something else.

Edited March 20, 2023 by FA_Q2 (see edit history)

[edyonline]

5 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

It sounds to me as though you just do not like this type of game.  Well, a lot more do.  Perhaps you should just play something else.

I’m reminded of H1Z1. So much promise. I played it from the start. And when they sold to Sony I thought great, now development will finish in no time. But they completely abandoned survival, and turned it into fortnight… Such a waste.

 

A classic example of what happens when development is guided by money, instead of having fun.

Edited March 20, 2023 by edyonline (see edit history)

[meganoth]

Assuming you also want answers to your questions:

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

10 years is too long, I don't care what game it is.  Some older players have died by now.  Why does a few changes take one or two years to release? 

 

Not quite so few, read the list of changes on the first page of the dev diary.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

How many people are actually working on this game?

 

Coders just a handful I think. A lot more artists. If you start the game, there is an actual list in the credits

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

Who thought it was a good idea to put all the good loot on the top of buildings?

 

Don't know, but they changed a lot of final loot rooms to be inside the buildings. For the skyscrapers though the top of the building SHOULD be the final loot room IMHO

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

Was there a time when you could not climb or build to a roof?

 

No (at least none that I know of)

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

Still no viable skill system after 10 years? 

 

Sorry, I like the skill system. So I would assume this must be a subjective dislike in your case

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

One kind of car on the road in 10 different colors after 10 years?

 

More kinds of cars would be just graphical bling with no game-play use. I am not interested in that.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

Only 4 vehicles to drive in 10 years? 

 

There are 5. One of each type (though minibike and motorbike could be called the same type). A tank would be overpowered. A truck would be useless as many players don't even use the additional inventory space of the 4x4 and prefer the motorbike for its better off-road handling. A boat may be in the future after water got an overhaul

 

What else would you propose that would really provide new capabilities? TFP does not like to put in lots of identical things into the game that only look different. It is a design principle. You may not like it, but then there's modding for that.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

5 pieces of meat to make one steak for 10 food? 

 

The size of each piece is never specified. It could be 1 gram, 1 ounce, 200 grams...

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

No fishing?

 

Yes, they don't seem to be fans of that type of gameplay. I fully agree, I hated the fishing minigame in World of Warcraft.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

Sleeper zombies that are almost no challenge?  Water that acts like Jello?

 

As I said, water got overhauled. A benefit of the game still being in development 😉

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

And 50 other illogical and weird decisions.  Game hangs when trying to close it every time is infuriating.

 

Mine closes correctly

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

  Have to change a file from EOS to None just to get the editor to act right.  Random object errors all the time.

 

This and your info that your game hangs on closing looks to me like you should clear your settings in the tools tab in the launcher. Sadly TFP didn't put much effort in making the different alphas compatible to each other. Whenever you change between major alphas you should clear your settings in the launcher. Really! This is something where I am dissatisfied with TFP myself.

 

There are more possible causes of random object errors and posting in the General Support section of the forum may help in finding the cause. But I can guarantee you that normally players do not have those object errors all the time.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

The game may have a decent base to start with, but the modders have made this game.  What is going on and why the snail pace of updates?

 

Can not share map in multiplayer,

 

Maps are shared in multiplayer from server to client. Or are you talking about map reveal, i.e. fog of war?

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

can not see entire map in map view???  Game skills, trees, etc.. all balanced for solo, no solutions for multiplayer to be balanced for these things.  Really??!!!

 

Balanced for solo? I would say the game is balanced for group play and the 5 different "classes" you can choose points to that as well. All classes except for agility have a talent that is useful for the group.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

After 10 years being able to craft EVERYTHING in a tree at tier 5 once you get there, no differences between stone and steel crafting levels???  Who makes these decisions after 10 YEARS and keeps it like this.  I know they are trying to patch this, but after 10 YEARS?????

 

I should not have to create my own mods or files to deal with obviously bad decisions like being able to craft tier 5 in stone or steel with the same amount of points.  There are 1000s of games that do crafting well, why have FTP not just looked at how they do it and make it work for their game, NO EXCUSE.

 

They have the best excuse, they obviously want to create their own novel solutions to everything. You can see that in all parts of the game. They don't want to make clones of other games or a game that looks like a cross between games A,B and C.

If you want to play 10 games that all have the same mechanics in slightly different graphics, then you'll find lots of examples on steam. I never have downloaded an alpha of 7 days to die and thought to myself: "Hey, this part just like game X now". And I consider that a very very good thing.

 

11 hours ago, tdevine said:

 

Have to take my time from the game to edit POIs to take the loot off the roof and put it in the building where there is some challenge other than building a ladder or jumping on box after box, these things should have been addressed long ago.

 

Trying to play multi with my family, but these things are INFURIATING.  T5 loot just sitting on the roof?  REALLY MAN, LAZY OR WHAT.

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[zztong]

14 hours ago, tdevine said:

Have to change a file from EOS to None just to get the editor to act right.

 

I spend a lot of time in the Prefab Editor and I don't understand this sentence. What is EOS?

[OzHawkeye]

10 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

I will never understand this moaning about the game continuing in alpha.  I hope it NEVER leaves alpha.  This game is darn good, particularly for what they are asking for it.  I have gained thousands of hours of entertainment already.  It is more polished than several fully released titles I own and has fewer bugs.  

 

All alpha means is that I get to have more fun as the updates almost always bring new life to the game.  If I do not like the changes all the previous alphas are sitting there waiting for me to pick whichever one I think is better.

 

It sounds to me as though you just do not like this type of game.  Well, a lot more do.  Perhaps you should just play something else.

 

Hooray! I so couldn't agree more, stay in endless Alpha with endless with extra content I reckon!!

 

If I keep getting a more developed game in the Alpha process I never want it to leave Alpha!

[Roland]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

 

I spend a lot of time in the Prefab Editor and I don't understand this sentence. What is EOS?

 

Epic Online Service. It is the framework for future cross play. In the experimental version of A20 and probably A20.1 a lot of people had to go into the files and change the status of EOS to none in order to be able to boot up the game. It has since that time been fixed and since it has been close to a year since that problem was affecting a good chunk of the playerbase it is no wonder you didn't get what he was talking about.

 

This is more evidence that the OP either needs to clean his directory using the launcher tool or that he may still be playing an older version and needs to clean his data and then update to the most current version of the game.

[Fox]

42 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Epic Online Service. It is the framework for future cross play. In the experimental version of A20 and probably A20.1 a lot of people had to go into the files and change the status of EOS to none in order to be able to boot up the game. It has since that time been fixed and since it has been close to a year since that problem was affecting a good chunk of the playerbase it is no wonder you didn't get what he was talking about.

 

This is more evidence that the OP either needs to clean his directory using the launcher tool or that he may still be playing an older version and needs to clean his data and then update to the most current version of the game.

Sound suspiciously like the "p" word if you ask me. Who chooses to play an older unstable version of a game? I understand playing an older stable version, but an unstable one?

[Riamus]

I know at least one person who would like skeletons in the game. 😁 But to say this is only a skeleton is not accurate even if you don't approve of the changes they make to the game.

[Roland]

In one sense the game is a skeleton and meant to be so. It has been designed as a platform for modding which means the default version of the game is going to remain pretty basic and streamlined with the intention of allowing modders to flesh out the skeleton in different ways.

[Maharin]

[Treb]

On 3/20/2023 at 3:11 AM, tdevine said:

10 years is too long, I don't care what game it is.  Some older players have died by now.  Why does a few changes take one or two years to release?  How many people are actually working on this game?   Who thought it was a good idea to put all the good loot on the top of buildings?  Was there a time when you could not climb or build to a roof?  Still no viable skill system after 10 years?  One kind of car on the road in 10 different colors after 10 years?  Only 4 vehicles to drive in 10 years?  5 pieces of meat to make one steak for 10 food?  No fishing?  Sleeper zombies that are almost no challenge?  Water that acts like Jello? And 50 other illogical and weird decisions.  Game hangs when trying to close it every time is infuriating.  Have to change a file from EOS to None just to get the editor to act right.  Random object errors all the time.  The game may have a decent base to start with, but the modders have made this game.  What is going on and why the snail pace of updates?

 

Can not share map in multiplayer, can not see entire map in map view???  Game skills, trees, etc.. all balanced for solo, no solutions for multiplayer to be balanced for these things.  Really??!!! After 10 years being able to craft EVERYTHING in a tree at tier 5 once you get there, no differences between stone and steel crafting levels???  Who makes these decisions after 10 YEARS and keeps it like this.  I know they are trying to patch this, but after 10 YEARS?????

 

I should not have to create my own mods or files to deal with obviously bad decisions like being able to craft tier 5 in stone or steel with the same amount of points.  There are 1000s of games that do crafting well, why have FTP not just looked at how they do it and make it work for their game, NO EXCUSE.

 

Have to take my time from the game to edit POIs to take the loot off the roof and put it in the building where there is some challenge other than building a ladder or jumping on box after box, these things should have been addressed long ago.

 

Trying to play multi with my family, but these things are INFURIATING.  T5 loot just sitting on the roof?  REALLY MAN, LAZY OR WHAT.

 

 

Whether the loot is on the roof, underground or in the middle of the building, you can always dig/pole up/break walls to it and avoid 95%+ of the POI. In a fully destroyable world, it is impossible to prevent cheesing the POI. The problem here is you and your family are deciding to cheese.

 

 

[Riamus]

Just now, Treb said:

 

 

Whether the loot is on the roof, underground or in the middle of the building, you can always dig/pole up/break walls to it and avoid 95%+ of the POI. In a fully destroyable world, it is impossible to prevent cheesing the POI. The problem here is you and your family are deciding to cheese.

 

 

Well, if the game allowed for better random placement of loot or more spread out rather than having a loot room, that would defeat cheesing, but it really doesn't matter.

 

I just say to let people play how they want.  I personally am not going to loot a lot room that is easy to get to without doing the whole POI except in rare cases with very specific reasons why.  If others want to bypass everything else, let them.  They'll just get bored all that much sooner because they'll have everything all that much sooner.

[Treb]

Just now, Riamus said:

Well, if the game allowed for better random placement of loot or more spread out rather than having a loot room, that would defeat cheesing, but it really doesn't matter.

 

I just say to let people play how they want.  I personally am not going to loot a lot room that is easy to get to without doing the whole POI except in rare cases with very specific reasons why.  If others want to bypass everything else, let them.  They'll just get bored all that much sooner because they'll have everything all that much sooner.

 

I don't have a problem with them cheesing. They can do whatever they want.

 

I have a problem with them voluntarily cheesing and then complaining about it. It's like a player playing with cheat codes and then complaining there are cheat codes.

 

They are complaining about a problem that has no realistic solutions once you have done the POI once and know where the loot is. You can always just go straight to the loot afterwards.

 

Random placement would just mean you have to check 1-5 spots or so until you find the main chest instead of one.

[Riamus]

Oh, I agree.  I wasn't disagreeing with you about that. 😁

[FA_Q2]

11 hours ago, Treb said:

 

I don't have a problem with them cheesing. They can do whatever they want.

 

I have a problem with them voluntarily cheesing and then complaining about it. It's like a player playing with cheat codes and then complaining there are cheat codes.

 

They are complaining about a problem that has no realistic solutions once you have done the POI once and know where the loot is. You can always just go straight to the loot afterwards.

 

Random placement would just mean you have to check 1-5 spots or so until you find the main chest instead of one.

I think random placement would actually be a pretty good thing.  It does force more exploration and could add some variety if the POI's were somewhat variable rather than just carbon copies.  Unlikely though considering it would necessitate either a new system that would slot various parts of a POI together or require multiple copies of each POI to be created.  At this stage I think that is beyond what the devs are willing to do but that does not mean it would not be an improvement on the game.

 

I agree with the complaint part though - in an open game like this the only person you can complain to about going straight for the loot room is yourself.  

[Ramethzer0]

On 3/20/2023 at 8:11 AM, tdevine said:

 INFURIATING.

 

You know.. I understand people can be really passionate about the games they enjoy.

 

But, yeah...

Edited March 27, 2023 by meganoth
removed offensive content (see edit history)

[tdevine]

On 3/21/2023 at 7:12 PM, Treb said:

 

 

Whether the loot is on the roof, underground or in the middle of the building, you can always dig/pole up/break walls to it and avoid 95%+ of the POI. In a fully destroyable world, it is impossible to prevent cheesing the POI. The problem here is you and your family are deciding to cheese.

 

 

 

No, the problem is bad design.  If they were smarter devs they would have made multiple versions of the exact same POI that had the loot in different areas, or even better, random areas each time.  Like the shotgun factory that looked exactly the same, but the loot could be in a dozen different areas and you would have to search.  Cheeseing is also a term sometimes used when design sucks or the devs are lazy.  "Hey, lets put a lot of the main loot all together on the roof of these huge buildings, EVERY TIME".  Ya, cheesing is the problem, haahahahahah

On 3/22/2023 at 2:45 PM, Ramethzer0 said:

 

You know.. I understand people can be really passionate about the games they enjoy.

 

But, yeah...

 

Excuses for bad design..........

Edited March 27, 2023 by Crater Creator
quote was edited (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

14 minutes ago, tdevine said:

 

No, the problem is bad design.  If they were smarter devs they would have made multiple versions of the exact same POI that had the loot in different areas, or even better, random areas each time.  Like the shotgun factory that looked exactly the same, but the loot could be in a dozen different areas and you would have to search.  Cheeseing is also a term sometimes used when design sucks or the devs are lazy.  "Hey, lets put a lot of the main loot all together on the roof of these huge buildings, EVERY TIME".  Ya, cheesing is the problem, haahahahahah

 

More fan boys that make excuses for bad design..........

 

In older Alphas roof end loot was probably too common.  The team and the tools we have to design has grown over the years so this shouldn't be the case as much anymore.  Especially in A21 where many of the older POIs have been overhauled.

 

As far as randomized loot rooms are concerned, there are alot of challenges and compromises by going down that design route.  Probably too late for an overhaul of that magnitude at this point in development of 7d2d.  Who knows, maybe the next game.

[bdubyah]

49 minutes ago, tdevine said:

 

No, the problem is bad design.  If they were smarter devs they would have made multiple versions of the exact same POI that had the loot in different areas, or even better, random areas each time.  Like the shotgun factory that looked exactly the same, but the loot could be in a dozen different areas and you would have to search.  Cheeseing is also a term sometimes used when design sucks or the devs are lazy.  "Hey, lets put a lot of the main loot all together on the roof of these huge buildings, EVERY TIME".  Ya, cheesing is the problem, haahahahahah

 

Excuses for bad design..........

There just isn't a perfect solution. But usually what I do in my POIs is just spread the decent loot out throughout the POI, so you at least have to cover the whole thing to get it all. But once you've cleared it a time or two, you're still gonna know right where the loot is.

 

The random loot stuff is almost possible now, but as Laz said it would require redesigning almost every POI, which they basically just did over the past 2 alphas. So that's not really sensible. But back when those big POIs were added, where else would they have put it? On the ground floor, but made the path start you at the roof? Then you could just break into the ground floor and cheese it that way.

 

You keep screaming bad design but I haven't really noticed you posting any good suggestions on how to fix it. Multiple versions with it in different places isn't that great of a fix when you think about it, unless you plan on adding dozens of versions. And even in the bigger POIs, there's only so many places to put it. Plus you then would really need to completely redesign the intended path or else players could potentially walk right into the loot without even meaning to. Which I assume you would also consider "bad design".

 

You say bad design, but if you take the route TFP intended, it works. If you don't, it doesn't. If you know the roof has all the loot so you pole straight to it, that's you cheesing the game, rather you want to admit it or not. And if you cheesing the game is infuriating as you put it, I'd say you should find another game. Or learn how to control yourself and not cheese everything. That's more of a you problem, not a game problem.

[FA_Q2]

59 minutes ago, tdevine said:

 

No, the problem is bad design.  If they were smarter devs they would have made multiple versions of the exact same POI that had the loot in different areas, or even better, random areas each time.  Like the shotgun factory that looked exactly the same, but the loot could be in a dozen different areas and you would have to search.  Cheeseing is also a term sometimes used when design sucks or the devs are lazy.  "Hey, lets put a lot of the main loot all together on the roof of these huge buildings, EVERY TIME".  Ya, cheesing is the problem, haahahahahah

 

Excuses for bad design..........

It is not bad design.

 

It is a limitation on what the devs want to devote their work to.  What you want, and what I want too honestly, requires a ton of work, testing and overall it would not actually increase the content of the game itself.  The majority of players are unlikely to even get familiar enough with the POI's to run to the loot rooms each time.  Particularly when the game finally releases as the number of POIs increase every alpha.  

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

There just isn't a perfect solution. But usually what I do in my POIs is just spread the decent loot out throughout the POI, so you at least have to cover the whole thing to get it all. But once you've cleared it a time or two, you're still gonna know right where the loot is.

 

The random loot stuff is almost possible now, but as Laz said it would require redesigning almost every POI, which they basically just did over the past 2 alphas. So that's not really sensible. But back when those big POIs were added, where else would they have put it? On the ground floor, but made the path start you at the roof? Then you could just break into the ground floor and cheese it that way.

 

You keep screaming bad design but I haven't really noticed you posting any good suggestions on how to fix it. Multiple versions with it in different places isn't that great of a fix when you think about it, unless you plan on adding dozens of versions. And even in the bigger POIs, there's only so many places to put it. Plus you then would really need to completely redesign the intended path or else players could potentially walk right into the loot without even meaning to. Which I assume you would also consider "bad design".

 

You say bad design, but if you take the route TFP intended, it works. If you don't, it doesn't. If you know the roof has all the loot so you pole straight to it, that's you cheesing the game, rather you want to admit it or not. And if you cheesing the game is infuriating as you put it, I'd say you should find another game. Or learn how to control yourself and not cheese everything. That's more of a you problem, not a game problem.

I think a good idea would have been to have POIs designed like legos.  They would have a a set number of pieces that would randomly be slotted where they go essentially allowing multiple configurations.  Mind you, I am talking about pieces specific to that POI, not carbon copy pieces that would make the world pretty bland.  As there is already a proper 'rout' through the most POI, it really would not be difficult to do something like that.  The major issue is that you would, at a minimum, need to triple the number of buildings that the devs would have had to create.

 

I think it is pretty obvious that this would require far more work than is worth it at this point in development but hey, I can dram of the possibilities, right

 

Of note, they actually did something like this in the cities to get the downtown effect.  It really is the same idea just done at a different level.  The trade off for something like this is always dev time vs added content.  It would take a lot of work to add something that may not even be experienced by all players.

[retrogamingdev]

2 hours ago, tdevine said:

 

No, the problem is bad design.  If they were smarter devs they would have made multiple versions of the exact same POI that had the loot in different areas, or even better, random areas each time.  Like the shotgun factory that looked exactly the same, but the loot could be in a dozen different areas and you would have to search.  Cheeseing is also a term sometimes used when design sucks or the devs are lazy.  "Hey, lets put a lot of the main loot all together on the roof of these huge buildings, EVERY TIME".  Ya, cheesing is the problem, haahahahahah

 

Excuses for bad design..........

The game is essentially similar to Minecraft at it's core, always has been. To that end, we are able to destroy and build in anyway we want. IF you decide to build a giant wooden pillar to cheese the game and end up on the roof instead of traversing the building the regular way, that is your call. You don't need to do that.  Even if they implemented your 'idea', you could easily learn of the 'locations' the loot could be and you could cheese your way around to them all (in various manners). And I highly doubt they will ever implement a POI with 12 different possible 'final loot rooms' because that would mean they would need 12 different routes. Each POI has a pretty well thought out progression, asking them to randomize that somehow is a pretty monumental undertaking. 

 

The fun thing about this game, is that unlike most other games, you truly get to play it any way YOU want. You never even need to loot a POI if you don't want to. You can live off the land. OR you can live the life of a scabber and just make a killing selling parting everything out and selling to the traders, buy everything you need and never need to craft a thing. OR you can build ladders to loot rooms to grab the better gear and just do that. You can build bases from scratch or from existing POIs. Or you can never worry about a base and just be a traveling nomad hiding out wherever works. 

 

We all get an opinion, but man is yours bad. It is like you have completely missed the point of the game and the work this team has put into it. It might not be the game for you.