A21 Feedback - My gameplay is well gone (I'm a builder)

[adaemus]

I've been playing 7D2D for years (1030.1 hours so far) and typically with the same group of friends.

 

My friends have always been the looting/salvaging/questing types of players and for them they LOVE A21.  The fact that you progress by looting and reading magazines fits right into their gameplay loop and they are really enjoying the new system.

 

I've always been the builder though.  I create our bases, our mines, our vehicles, our farm, our blood moon night bases, etc.  My gameplay loop has been harvesting raw material and building.  A21 has well, destroyed my gameplay loop.  Sure, I can go cut down a tree with a level 1 stone axe or dig a mine with a level 1 stone shovel but gee, that gets a little old when I'm a game week into the game and I'm still using that same level 1 stone axe/shovel.  Want to progress to iron tools...need magazines.  Want to make higher tier tools...need magazines.  Want to create a new type of item....need magazines.  My friends can bring back magazines and other equipment but the way the game works now the magazines they find are tilted towards what they have put points into and not into the magazines that I need to be a builder.

 

Now I'm forced to join them on POI raids but even this is screwed up.  To get a better chance for magazines to drop that I care about I have to loot the item.  But there are 3-4 of us in the POI and my friends aren't just going to let me loot everything, nor would I want them to, because they want their magazines as well so they also need to loot stuff so the odds are in their favor to get their magazines to drop.  This dynamic pretty much leads to breaking the friends apart to loot different POIs but now you took away the fun of playing with your friends!!

 

So, yes...I could continue my old gameplay loop but be nearly fully reliant on my friends to bring me stuff but as a builder I have always been self-reliant.  Basically the only thing I could not do before was create a beaker or other occasional things.  I went from being 5% reliant on my friends to enjoy my gameplay loop to being 95% reliant on my friends.

 

A21 is just not fun due to the new magazine mechanic.  My friends love it though...

[boban]

51 minutes ago, adaemus said:

Now I'm forced to join them on POI raids but even this is screwed up.

 

What's worse, now that if you switch to questing-looting style, you will still find better gear than you can craft, so crafting stuff is losing it's importance even more.

[RipClaw]

The best thing you can do at this point is probably to get all of your friends to sacrifice two points. One point in Miner69er and one point in Advanced Engineering. Then they should find more magazines that are useful for you.

[Cadamier]

@adaemus AH HA!  I knew I wasn't 'the only one out here!'  What I've been finding is that with all the different directions 'we' must go - the 'book rewards' are lagging.  I put one point into making bacon and eggs' and am still getting them; and that was like the 2nd day from the first 4 points we get.  For us - we have to meet up in game before we can 'work together' and to do that sometimes is virtually impossible.  In order for us to do this - we have to have those first 4 points for 'self survival' - looter, cardio, cooking to now have a chance to make bacon and eggs... In my single player - you have no choice but to do quests!  So I'm forced to do quests for 2 or 3 days, then to base building.  But again - with the distribution of books seemingly out of whack - I've found it a bit hard.  As @RipClaw mentioned - I'm feeling that would only help a bit as what ever the player chooses will become the dominant book drop!  IE: They'd all have to spend a bunch of points to get what 'we need' while 'we're doing what we need to do.'

 

In the release notes TFP mentions classes, but I don't see any - lol

 

For 'other classes' that only need one or two trees its totally fine and dandy.  But for us - that need many trees, this bites the big one.  So in order for this to work the rest have to 'dip into' other classes, thereby curtailing everyone.  I don't doubt that out of all the groups like ours out there - there is at least half of them with players like us that are not finding this change a good thing for us.  None of them really liked the repetitiveness of mining, gathering, building, etc. and that's why 'we' do it.  I'm at work so I can't go over the trees, but I have a feeling the others are going to have to pickup something within their tree for 'us to survive'/'continue.'  Our 'brawlers' absolutely hate mining... Donno how that's going to go over with them.

[Jihh]

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

The best thing you can do at this point is probably to get all of your friends to sacrifice two points. One point in Miner69er and one point in Advanced Engineering. Then they should find more magazines that are useful for you.

Yeah, that's my first thought. I sadly don't know the english names of the skills, but I'd add two more points, so they'll also get more magazines for wrenches and vehicles.

While we are at it, I just realized that lucky looter took a hit in multiplayer games. Before you could let the lucky looter do all the looting and everyone benefited from it. But now everyone has to loot, so everyone get their magazines. I mean you can't expect from the lucky looter of the group to put points in every weapen someone in the team uses.

[Riamus]

12 minutes ago, Jihh said:

Yeah, that's my first thought. I sadly don't know the english names of the skills, but I'd add two more points, so they'll also get more magazines for wrenches and vehicles.

While we are at it, I just realized that lucky looter took a hit in multiplayer games. Before you could let the lucky looter do all the looting and everyone benefited from it. But now everyone has to loot, so everyone get their magazines. I mean you can't expect from the lucky looter of the group to put points in every weapen someone in the team uses.

The magazines will tell you which perks and that should be in the language you use, so that should help figure out which ones are needed.  I'll point out that lockpicking can be used instead of advanced engineering and that is something your looters are likely to have a use for anyhow.

 

Something to keep in mind regarding magazines... If they loot somewhere like working stiff, they'll find more of the magazines you need regardless of perks.  See if they'll focus on some specific types of POI and not just houses and it can help out a lot.  Also, the pork bonus to finding magazines seems to be that you have a chance to find an additional magazine if that type on top of what you already would get from loot, so they aren't sacrificing your magazines by increasing the chances for their magazines through perks.  It is true that your perks won't help you get that increased chance of you aren't looting.  Also, see if they'll get the magazine bundles at least every other quest and that will help even though it is random.  There are also magazines available for purchase from traders to help out.

 

I know it isn't perfect for the stay at home builder or miner.  But you can mitigate some of the problems through focused looting (looting places like working stiff) and having them out a point into certain perks for you.  With a larger group, they can each sacrifice only one point each and cover everything you need.  And considering what you do benefits them, they really should be willing to do that.

 

Hopefully this will help you and your group in A21.  😀

Edited June 18, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Junuxx]

You could do some digging quests by yourself? Helps with building resources and you may get some magazines either in the chest or as a quest reward. Also airdrops.

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, Jihh said:

Yeah, that's my first thought. I sadly don't know the english names of the skills, but I'd add two more points, so they'll also get more magazines for wrenches and vehicles.

That would be Salvage Operations and Grease Monkey

 

[Scyris]

Sadly I hate to say it but, tfp doesn't seem to care, they want you to play the game their way or @%$# off basically. Thankfully there is mods, Darkness Falls won't have the magazine BS I don't think, nor will most of the other major overhauls they use their own systems. Its better to look for mods as vanilla 7dtd has been a crapshow for years now. I mean other than graphically the game has gone no where since a16.4 (or even earlier) but in a downward spiral. A16.4 still had the same top end steel tools, and same radiated zombies as highest tier, hell a13-14 I think had these. My only hope is this learn by reading system will end up turning into a learn by doing action skill system for weapons and tools, as people loved that in a16.4, to many people who played it a16.4 was the best 7dtd has ever been and its just been going downhill since. Yeah the LBD system in a16.4 needed some tweaks everyone agrees with that, but it would have been easier to tweak LBD than make the crappy stat system they have now.

 

Its like they did a 180. Stat system screws over single players as you need to do everything yourself so there are madatory perks you need to get period like miner 69'er and motherload. But the stat system worked fine in MP as you can have someone else be your miner. The magazine system is the opposite, it works great for single player, as you don't need to have all these diff stats to learn stuff etc, but it screws multiplayer up, as its harder to specilize due to everything being unlocked by magazines.

 

I mean lets be real, Tfp copied most of a21's *new* stuff from mods like Darkness Falls, Undead Legacy, and Apocalpyse now, why not copy Darkness falls skill system (Its like a16.4 learn by doing with crafting tiers level locked, and the a16.4 issues fixed) I mean you copied basically everything else new from it and other mods, might as well go all the way at this point. Apoc now uses the stat system too but in a diff way, it has one stat you invest into that hs 20 levels this covers all weapons tools crafting and a whole host of general perks, then you have classes, like Miner, this one has miner 69'er and Motherload in it, how do you unlock it? you craft class books, by scrapping schematics you don't need and crafting ink, to make a class book which you then read. Its a far better version of the stat system than what vanilla has imo.

[Jihh]

7 hours ago, Riamus said:

The magazines will tell you which perks and that should be in the language you use, so that should help figure out which ones are needed.

You got me wrong. I know which one I need to use in game, I just couldn't name them here in my comment, because I didn't know the english name.

[Lasher]

4 hours ago, Scyris said:

Sadly I hate to say it but, tfp doesn't seem to care, they want you to play the game their way or @%$# off basically. Thankfully there is mods,

 

 

Unfortunately  - This - and it's a huge shame.

What's also galling is that most of the answers you'll get to these kind of problems are to either completely change your play style, use odd work arounds or eventually you'll just have to mod it.

The new system doesn't work as evenly across the board for all playstyles.

But I guess they just don't care.