Poll - Which progression system did you prefer?

[Apocalipservice]

42 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

But it’s fun to see a snapshot of forum sentiment during week one. Nobody should feel threatened by any outcome of this poll. TFP doesn’t design by polls. They encourage mods by polls… 😜

 Huzzah for modders! The various overhauls blow my mind - the base game is so "versatile" i.e. some many ways to interpret and play it. The changes in 21 remind me of getting used to new mods. 😃 I didn't like the learn by looting idea for several reasons at first glance but the sense in it pretty quickly. It seems reasonable that someone figuring out how to make a robotic turret by reading tech magazine articles would have  to read 38+ (?) magazines to figure it all out. That last magazine is something important I assume like making sure it doesn't shoot friendlies or getting the laser sight on. Also figuring out who gets what in a group is kinda fun and maybe some more teamwork is needed to make sure everyone is learning what they need to. Maybe some learn by doing mixed in 'cause I like Darkness Falls' skill system but I dunno yet.  

Edited June 16, 2023 by Apocalipservice (see edit history)

[Greymantle]

8 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Can you explain why it is backing off and not simply balancing that was done?

 

 

 

I would say because they had a year and a half on this version. I would think the balance for the most part would already be done. Two days after release they are already backing off/making changes, that tells me they really didn't test this system out. It's like they tossed it out there for us to test and balance from that. What makes this bad is what if the new system doesn't work and needs to be revamped because no balance will make it work?

Test, more testing, then some more. If the software company I worked for released a product in this state, they would be out of business fast.

 

If they had made a lot of these changes early in development, I believe this game wouldn't even be close to as popular as it is now. This makes it easier for them to ignore feedback this late in the process, they already pocketed most of the money they will make from this game on the PC. Why I don't support early access games anymore.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Greymantle (see edit history)

[boban]

25 minutes ago, Greymantle said:

 What makes this bad is what if the new system doesn't work and needs to be revamped because no balance will make it work?

 

Who knows maybe they will settle on this system, but given they past history we are for complete revamp in 2-3 alphas 😉

[Greymantle]

6 minutes ago, boban said:

 

Who knows maybe they will settle on this system, but given they past history we are for complete revamp in 2-3 alphas 😉

 

I bet we get a lot more patches for this version then any other, is my guess. This was a huge shift in game-play, let's hope they tested this out more than it looks.

[ShadeColdfang]

No matter what... Alpha 16.4 had the best progression System...
U mine <u get better with Mining tools over time.
U Scrap Cars <u get better with Mechanic tools over time.
U upgrade Blocks <u get better in that corner.

This rewarded u slowly over time by making u better. Respecting your time by even letting u spend points to get better, you had a choice and perks or other things where locked behind Mastery.
The other Learning by Perks or Looting are both bad... the one makes u too quick too strong the other one makes gameplay sluggish and forces u to go out of your Base. No Classic Roles anymore.
No Basebuilder, No Crafter, No Gatherer... everyone is forced to be a Quester and Looter.
This s*cks... i love to sit inside the Base and build it and Craft for my Team, while one goes collecting Ores and wood and other things i need for the team to supply them with freshly crafted goods and the other one is Looting and one is Questing... Now in Alpha 21... i am forced to spend costly time for crafting and upgrading, on getting out into buildings and loot them for sh*tty Books or complete Quests to get what i need for crafting Skills, since books are balanced by Player choice.
Those Books should be optional and not a forced gameplay loop.

[Riamus]

5 hours ago, Greymantle said:

I would say because they had a year and a half on this version. I would think the balance for the most part would already be done. Two days after release they are already backing off/making changes, that tells me they really didn't test this system out. It's like they tossed it out there for us to test and balance from that. What makes this bad is what if the new system doesn't work and needs to be revamped because no balance will make it work?

Test, more testing, then some more. If the software company I worked for released a product in this state, they would be out of business fast.

 

If they had made a lot of these changes early in development, I believe this game wouldn't even be close to as popular as it is now. This makes it easier for them to ignore feedback this late in the process, they already pocketed most of the money they will make from this game on the PC. Why I don't support early access games anymore.

More like they thought it was fine but when the community started saying it was too many magazines, they listened and adjusted it.  Funny when people say they don't listen.  Of course, they also had the game telemetry data to help them see how it was working for the thousands (not really sure how many and don't feel like looking at Steam data) of players, which is far better data than just from the far fewer staff players.  Balancing is always done initially by devs but there is almost always additional balancing done after releasing an update when they see how it works with a far greater number of players who may play the game in ways the devs don't.  It's a rare case where additional balancing isn't needed for a large update in any game.

 

The main thing I'd say is that most people (and probably you) have put in more hours in this game than in almost any other game in their library, with the exception of things like MMOs or a game that is just a favorite of theirs.  For the low cost of this game, even when not on sale, that's a huge value compared to what you get in other games that you play far less.  Maybe you don't like the current state of the game, but if you've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the game up until now, then that's a good thing.  Many games get played once through and then put down and either never picked up again or not picked up for a long time and are still considered good games.  Yet this game, in most cases, has given far more hours of enjoyment than most other games.   I'd consider that a win.  Even if I decided I didn't want to play the game anymore because of this update and there wasn't a way to play old versions or modded versions, I'd still have gotten so much value out of the small amount I paid that I wouldn't complain about it.  I've paid more and gotten far less out of almost every other game in my library.  I'm not saying not to voice your opinions.  I'm just suggesting that you consider how much value you've gotten out of the game before bashing the devs.

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, Greymantle said:

 

I would say because they had a year and a half on this version. I would think the balance for the most part would already be done. Two days after release they are already backing off/making changes, that tells me they really didn't test this system out. It's like they tossed it out there for us to test and balance from that. What makes this bad is what if the new system doesn't work and needs to be revamped because no balance will make it work?

Test, more testing, then some more. If the software company I worked for released a product in this state, they would be out of business fast.

 

If they had made a lot of these changes early in development, I believe this game wouldn't even be close to as popular as it is now. This makes it easier for them to ignore feedback this late in the process, they already pocketed most of the money they will make from this game on the PC. Why I don't support early access games anymore.

 

How many experimental alphas have you witnessed with 7D2D? Just asking because I seem to remember that early and quite heavy-handed balancing in the experimental was the rule not the exception. Madmole explained once that he doesn't like small incremental balance steps and prefers a binary search approach, i.e. make a big change down that is sure to be too much, then half up again, all steps half the distance of the previous. Accordingly the players noticed something being too scarce, then too frequent, then slightly too scarce again. And this happened in all or almost all alphas I witnessed.

 

And yes, they toss it out for us to do the ultimate playtesting. Most people are fine with that though, or at least they don't quit when they actually play experimental in an EA. Many players don't wait for the stable even though they would be spared the biggest imbalances and bugs.

 

What I am saying this happened in every alpha. And I concluded that the devs and testers were probably just too "close" to the game to get a real feel of where the balance might be. And this alpha had 1.5 years time, but other recent alphas were close to that and at least a year as well, so they had practically the same time to balance it, A21 is not really special

 

 

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@Lasher By the way, just interests me: Did you intent the third option (learn by magazine) to represent the current system in A21 or did you intend for it to be some new system where actually **skills** and not crafting alone were governed by magazines (i.e. like the description of the third option says) ?

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Lasher]

6 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

 

@Lasher By the way, just interests me: Did you intent the third option (learn by magazine) to represent the current system in A21 or did you intend for it to be some new system where actually **skills** and not crafting alone were governed by magazines?

 

 

 

Third option was really meant to represent the current system.

I know we still have "Skills" as such that we put points into - but for me the way that works is even more bizzare - I put points into, for instance Sledgehammers, and that somehow makes me magically find more sledgehammer magazines? Why? It just seems a little nonsensicle.

 

Surely a better way would be if when looting we found some sort of research papers that we could use to invest into ANY branch of crafting.

That would also solve the co-op problem in that the research could be brought back to base and shared and skill investment would make no difference to it.

[YourMirror]

21 minutes ago, Lasher said:

 

Third option was really meant to represent the current system.

I know we still have "Skills" as such that we put points into - but for me the way that works is even more bizzare - I put points into, for instance Sledgehammers, and that somehow makes me magically find more sledgehammer magazines? Why? It just seems a little nonsensicle.

 

Surely a better way would be if when looting we found some sort of research papers that we could use to invest into ANY branch of crafting.

That would also solve the co-op problem in that the research could be brought back to base and shared and skill investment would make no difference to it.

So you made sure you mispresented the current system to steer voting. Your preference drips through in the descriptions of the poll. Its pretty obvious what your preference is just by looking at them. Now off to make a poll about the quality of yours.

[Greymantle]

40 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

How many experimental alphas have you witnessed with 7D2D? Just asking because I seem to remember that early and quite heavy-handed balancing in the experimental was the rule not the exception. Madmole explained once that he doesn't like small incremental balance steps and prefers a binary search approach, i.e. make a big change down that is sure to be too much, then half up again, all steps half the distance of the previous. Accordingly the players noticed something being too scarce, then too frequent, then slightly too scarce again. And this happened in all or almost all alphas I witnessed.

 

And yes, they toss it out for us to do the ultimate playtesting. Most people are fine with that though, or at least they don't quit when they actually play experimental in an EA. Many players don't wait for the stable even though they would be spared the biggest imbalances and bugs.

 

What I am saying this happened in every alpha. And I concluded that the devs and testers were probably just too "close" to the game to get a real feel of where the balance might be. And this alpha had 1.5 years time, but other recent alphas were close to that and at least a year as well, so they had practically the same time to balance it, A21 is not really special

 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

 

@Lasher By the way, just interests me: Did you intent the third option (learn by magazine) to represent the current system in A21 or did you intend for it to be some new system where actually **skills** and not crafting alone were governed by magazines (i.e. like the description of the third option says) ?

 

 

I have been around since Alpha 9? This is the first time they have made such a huge shift in the game-play loop. It's also very concerning that this is supposed to be near the end of said alpha, and we are getting overhauls this late in development.

[Lasher]

2 minutes ago, YourMirror said:

So you made sure you mispresented the current system to steer voting. Your preference drips through in the descriptions of the poll. Its pretty obvious what your preference is just by looking at them. Now off to make a poll about the quality of yours.

 

Not at all - I'm happy to be quite open about what my intention was - and I think your effort to suggest that I was attempting to "Steer" voting is highly disingenuos.

By all means make another poll and word it however you like - I'm more than happy about it.

I think the only "Dripping" going on here is your quite obvious distaste for the results.

As for my preference - I'm quite open about it as I've stated before - Perks worked for me as did LBD but there's some problems with both.

I literally just responded with the post that you yourself quoted detailing my problem with the new system and also suggesting ways that it could be improved.

It's supposed to be a constructive debate.

I don't see you doing much except attemting to be snarky and accusational.

Grow up.

 

[Greymantle]

What does anyone think about magazines giving more than one skill up to cut clutter of magazine drops? Make the magazines more rare to account for more skill ups per magazine. I would rather ditch the system myself, but we know TFP if they get the crawl in something it's going to be patched to death to try and get it right or scrapped at the end.

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

More like they thought it was fine but when the community started saying it was too many magazines, they listened and adjusted it.  Funny when people say they don't listen.  Of course, they also had the game telemetry data to help them see how it was working for the thousands (not really sure how many and don't feel like looking at Steam data) of players, which is far better data than just from the far fewer staff players.  Balancing is always done initially by devs but there is almost always additional balancing done after releasing an update when they see how it works with a far greater number of players who may play the game in ways the devs don't.  It's a rare case where additional balancing isn't needed for a large update in any game.

 

The main thing I'd say is that most people (and probably you) have put in more hours in this game than in almost any other game in their library, with the exception of things like MMOs or a game that is just a favorite of theirs.  For the low cost of this game, even when not on sale, that's a huge value compared to what you get in other games that you play far less.  Maybe you don't like the current state of the game, but if you've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the game up until now, then that's a good thing.  Many games get played once through and then put down and either never picked up again or not picked up for a long time and are still considered good games.  Yet this game, in most cases, has given far more hours of enjoyment than most other games.   I'd consider that a win.  Even if I decided I didn't want to play the game anymore because of this update and there wasn't a way to play old versions or modded versions, I'd still have gotten so much value out of the small amount I paid that I wouldn't complain about it.  I've paid more and gotten far less out of almost every other game in my library.  I'm not saying not to voice your opinions.  I'm just suggesting that you consider how much value you've gotten out of the game before bashing the devs.

 If they are making changes because of the uproar, then they have already failed. As to the hours put in, that is the reason I'm upset. After all these years now they decide to put in an over-haul of said system. Yes, that makes me unhappy, it's not the game I supported the last 10 years anymore. I expect changes like this in the first few years of development, not 10 years after the fact.

[boban]

9 minutes ago, Greymantle said:

What does anyone think about magazines giving more than one skill up to cut clutter of magazine drops? Make the magazines more rare to account for more skill ups per magazine. I would rather ditch the system myself, but we know TFP if they get the crawl in something it's going to be patched to death to try and get it right or scrapped at the end.

 

That would make the system less painful, yes. I seriously don't know how anybody thought that finding dozens of magazines per day, most of which not changing gameplay/unlocking anything (just raising a stat that has no influence on a game whatsoever that you will probably never look at) was a good game design.

 

Also now that I'm thinking about it... making loot depending on what you speced into feels like a bugfix rather than actual intended game design (in the context of this game, where loot is determined by where you find it and other factors)

Edited June 17, 2023 by boban (see edit history)

[Greymantle]

20 minutes ago, boban said:

 

That would make the system less painful, yes. I seriously don't know how anybody thought that finding dozens of magazines per day, most of which not changing gameplay/unlocking anything (just raising a stat that has no influence on a game whatsoever that you will probably never look at) was a good game design.

 

Also now that I'm thinking about it... making loot depending on what you speced into feels like a bugfix rather than actual intended game design (in the context of this game, where loot is determined by where you find it and other factors)

 

I'm just as puzzled. It's a survival crafting sandbox game. It has turned into a reading game with combat/looting loops to get said reading done.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Greymantle (see edit history)

[zztong]

Just having taken the poll, and not having read the conversation, I think there are options missing.

 

I like Learn by Looting and all the magazines. I think the magazines found a nice way to draw out the game.

I like Learn by Perks. I thought that system worked reasonably well, though sometimes I am frustrated at which perks were with which abilities (like Strength) or that they're tied to an ability.

 

I'm okay with the idea of Learn by Doing, but not to the exclusion of the others. I've played on a server that swapped in Learn by Doing and I didn't think it played very well. Then there are the notable goofy things like crafting 100 stone axes.

 

Since TFP likes to experiment, I wonder if a mix of the three might be the best. I think the approaches could be integrated a little. That is, when you take some of the remaining Perks I think it could come with a little bit of magazine-like improvement, maybe as if you had read 2-3 magazines. I think there could also be some milestones that represent Learning by Doing that also generate some magazine-like points. For instance, when you craft your first iron tool, your first steel tool, kill your 100th zombie with a club, etc.

 

If you make me pick one, I'm sticking with Learn by Looting for now just because I want to see how it plays out over a long game. I'd put Learn by Perks 2nd. Then I'd put Learn by Doing last.

[mstdv inc]

18 hours ago, boban said:

Interesting results so far... seems that 80% of active forum users prefer other system than the new one...

I am atively following the forum, but I will not participate in this survey for two reasons.
1. I haven't played with LBD
2. Too few people will vote.
Right now, about 50 thousand people are playing on steam at the same time. More than 100 thousand people can play the game during the day. 100-200-300 votes in the poll won't tell you what the majority thinks.

[cammel]

The best LBD I ever used in this game was the Logical Progression Mod by LazerBlade.  You progressed by using and repairing, crafting gave no xp.

[Lasher]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

Just having taken the poll, and not having read the conversation, I think there are options missing.

 

I like Learn by Looting and all the magazines. I think the magazines found a nice way to draw out the game.

I like Learn by Perks. I thought that system worked reasonably well, though sometimes I am frustrated at which perks were with which abilities (like Strength) or that they're tied to an ability.

 

I'm okay with the idea of Learn by Doing, but not to the exclusion of the others. I've played on a server that swapped in Learn by Doing and I didn't think it played very well. Then there are the notable goofy things like crafting 100 stone axes.

 

Since TFP likes to experiment, I wonder if a mix of the three might be the best. I think the approaches could be integrated a little. That is, when you take some of the remaining Perks I think it could come with a little bit of magazine-like improvement, maybe as if you had read 2-3 magazines. I think there could also be some milestones that represent Learning by Doing that also generate some magazine-like points. For instance, when you craft your first iron tool, your first steel tool, kill your 100th zombie with a club, etc.

 

If you make me pick one, I'm sticking with Learn by Looting for now just because I want to see how it plays out over a long game. I'd put Learn by Perks 2nd. Then I'd put Learn by Doing last.

 

This is the point of the coversation - how do people think it sghould work - what can be done to improve it?

Cheers for the input zztong.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Lasher said:

 

Third option was really meant to represent the current system.

I know we still have "Skills" as such that we put points into - but for me the way that works is even more bizzare - I put points into, for instance Sledgehammers, and that somehow makes me magically find more sledgehammer magazines? Why? It just seems a little nonsensicle.

 

The perks main function is to boost your powers. The small buff to magazine finding is just a safeguard for single players mainly for bad luck and could actually be removed. Would make the game harder for novice players though and vanilla has to be a good starting point for new players.

 

Remember that crafting of weapons and armor in the last alphas was practically nonexistent. You almost always found better weapons before you could craft them. Crafting was inconsequential. Now you make it sound like the ultimate goal of progression in A21 is the crafting and anything else does not matter and the new system is simply Learn by Reading. For me it is still a perk system. Only recipe learning is handled by some magazines.

 

3 hours ago, Lasher said:

 

Surely a better way would be if when looting we found some sort of research papers that we could use to invest into ANY branch of crafting.

That would also solve the co-op problem in that the research could be brought back to base and shared and skill investment would make no difference to it.

 

 

3 hours ago, Greymantle said:

 

I have been around since Alpha 9? This is the first time they have made such a huge shift in the game-play loop. It's also very concerning that this is supposed to be near the end of said alpha, and we are getting overhauls this late in development.

 

It isn't. A16 to A17 with the complete perk overhaul was a much bigger change than this. A17 to A18 was also changing the perk system and waswhere the weapon system overhaul was (or was that A17 too?).

The difference is that only this change now seems to have affected **your** game-play loop. For me not much has changed compared to A20, I don't care much whether I find or craft my weapons.

 

 

[Vintorez]

Learn by doing excluding crafting, basically what Darkness Falls does.

 

I don't mind learn by looting except for how much it clogs inventory if you're playing with friends and need to save magazines for them.

 

Otherwise I think I like learn by looting more than learn by perk investment.

[Mister Forgash]

My favorite part of LBD is also it's greatest downfall, which is why I do not support it as the vanilla option. Character investment.

It feels really cool when you hit those mile stones of.. Athletics 20, or Fisticuffs 40, or whatever. Eventually, one day you're at 100 And it feels great, but it took you all play-through to do that. Then you find some sweet new piece of loot and you want to try it out- Heck, maybe you want to know how it'll do if you revolve your build around it. .. Now you're going to have to grind for another eternity! D= - But with the learn by perks, you sip a forgettin' elixir and get right to trying it out- and I -don't- think that's bad design, just less hardcore.

The hardcore audience is generally not the target, and that's okay!- we're the ones passionate enough to mod things to better suit ourselves anyhow.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Mister Forgash (see edit history)

[Greymantle]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

The difference is that only this change now seems to have affected **your** game-play loop. For me not much has changed compared to A20, I don't care much whether I find or craft my weapons.

 

 

Well yes, that is why I'm here trying to get them to see why it's so bad. The problem is they decided to change the loop after 10 years, and that is different in my book. I don't recall any changes that changed how I play the game. Gate locks no, learn by use no, perk change no, book/magazines yes. This is nothing like they have done before. Hell, the loot drops were dominated by books/magazines over any other loot I was getting. They are forcing me to use the trader to get the filter. How do I get the dukes, I don't do quests? I don't use the traders at all. Do I wait for the super rare filter drop? The looting free style game-play is almost dead now in vanilla. The game's balance between the traders and the rest of the game-play is WAY unbalanced, and they don't care. Every version patch shows this, the traders are their main focus for the last few versions and moving forward it seems.

1 hour ago, Mister Forgash said:

My favorite part of LBD is also it's greatest downfall, which is why I do not support it as the vanilla option. Character investment.

It feels really cool when you hit those mile stones of.. Athletics 20, or Fisticuffs 40, or whatever. Eventually, one day you're at 100 And it feels great, but it took you all play-through to do that. Then you find some sweet new piece of loot and you want to try it out- Heck, maybe you want to know how it'll do if you revolve your build around it. .. Now you're going to have to grind for another eternity! D= - But with the learn by perks, you sip a forgettin' elixir and get right to trying it out- and I -don't- think that's bad design, just less hardcore.

The hardcore audience is generally not the target, and that's okay!- we're the ones passionate enough to mod things to better suit ourselves anyhow.

 

How is this any different from having to grind books to learn a new skill, which is a lot more random.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Greymantle (see edit history)

[meganoth]

5 minutes ago, Greymantle said:

Well yes, that is why I'm here trying to get them to see why it's so bad. The problem is they decided to change the loop after 10 years, and that is different in my book. I don't recall any changes that changed how I play the game. Gate locks no, learn by use no, perk change no, book/magazines yes. This is nothing like they have done before. Hell, the loot drops were dominated by books/magazines over any other loot I was getting. They are forcing me to use the trader to get the filter. How do I get the dukes, I don't do quests? I don't use the traders at all. Do I wait for the super rare filter drop? The looting free style game-play is almost dead now in vanilla. The game's balance between the traders and the rest of the game-play is WAY unbalanced, and they don't care. Every version patch shows this, the traders are their main focus for the last few versions and moving forward it seems.

 

Regarding the trader I am fully on your side. I think they need to tone down the rewards and distribute that money into the loot boxes of the POIs.

 

I don't know if they will listen to the argument that a no-trader game isn't possible anymore. But I am pretty sure that the balance between SP and up to 8 players MP is important to them and I think that is currently very far from a balanced state. And the solution could be to place more loot inside POIs instead of into the quest reward

 

But I need more playtesting myself to make sure I have a good case to bring forward. I don't expect them to listen to someone who is just on day 5 or 6 in his first game with a group.

 

 

 

[seagas]

6 hours ago, Lasher said:

 

Third option was really meant to represent the current system.

I know we still have "Skills" as such that we put points into - but for me the way that works is even more bizzare - I put points into, for instance Sledgehammers, and that somehow makes me magically find more sledgehammer magazines? Why? It just seems a little nonsensicle.

 

Surely a better way would be if when looting we found some sort of research papers that we could use to invest into ANY branch of crafting.

That would also solve the co-op problem in that the research could be brought back to base and shared and skill investment would make no difference to it.

How is that different from Alpha 20? The current system, keeps things random with the XP points helping you in the areas you want to lean towards. One of the many ways the keep the replayability high. I really liking this system, IMO Alpha 20 wsa too easy.

Edited June 17, 2023 by seagas (see edit history)

[boban]

20 minutes ago, seagas said:

How is that different from Alpha 20? The current system, keeps things random with the XP points helping you in the areas you want to lean towards. One of the many ways the keep the replayability high. I really liking this system, IMO Alpha 20 wsa too easy.

 

It's no different if your preferred play style is looting-shooting and questing as main activity. I was mostly building/crafting/mining with occasional looting and questing in previous alphas. In current iteration it's hard as you got to find 5 magazines for the forge and 10 magazines to get to workbench, which depending on RNG can take a while and is only accessible by looting or trading.

 

(And yea, A20 was too easy, so at least slowing down progression a bit is good)

Edited June 17, 2023 by boban (see edit history)