Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[Zombiepoptard]

I'm amazed at the talent to whip up a essay like this in such little time. 

43 minutes ago, Riamus said:

The sandbox argument is used frequently about just about any change that players don't like.  The thing is, this game is only a partial sandbox game unless you play with creative mode enabled.  It still has rules and requirements, making it not a true sandbox game unless you're bypassing those by using creative mode.  And in creative mode, you can give yourself whatever magazines you want as far as this particular comment goes, or whatever else you want for any other comments that refer to it being a sandbox game.

 

As far as magazines go, the initial feedback from most players was negative.  That is pretty common for any changes to this game.  But if you watch the comments about magazines from that point until today, you'll see a shift in what people think.  Yes, some people still don't like them and that will never change for those people.  However, many (perhaps most) of the people who initially complained about them are now making comments that they aren't that bad and they've gotten used to them or they've grown on them or whatever similar type of phrasing is used.  As people get used to a new change, many who initially opposed the change (people tend not to like change) will start to not mind it or even like it because it's no longer new.  This is true for any change unless the change is actually bad.  You can tell if a change really is bad if you don't see this shift in perception over time... from lots of posts about how bad it is to those same people saying it's not bad after a few months of getting used to the change.  If everyone still thinks it's bad after a few months, then it's probably a really bad change and should be fixed.

 

My own point of view on magazines is this... 

 

I enjoyed the old method of randomly finding schematics because it made each game different.  I might get something really great in the early game one game and then the next game not get it until late game.  I enjoyed the randomness of that.  Magazines streamline it so that you always get everything in the same order.  The only randomness is how quickly you get it based on getting magazines in a random order.

 

Now, that's talking about things that were schematics.  For things that were tied to perks instead of schematics (there really weren't a lot of those compared to those tied to schematics), you used to be able to get whatever you wanted as quickly as you wanted by pushing perk points in a specific direction and you can't do that now.... though you can increase the speed you improve in a magazine by putting perk points in a specific direction, so it's still similar.  In the end, that part was already streamlined and hasn't really changed.  You just have to do it differently and you can't rush it as easily as before.  So for min/max players, it is worse.  For everyone else who isn't trying to speedrun the game, it is not really that much different.  I don't really care which method is used for those because I don't min/max everything.

 

I also think magazines keep people pigeonholed into certain specializations compared to how it was before.  In the past, anyone could learn anything in any order without having to worry about who got what.  Now, you want one person reading any given magazine until they've maxed it out, which prevents other players from being able to craft a given item until later in the game.  I'm not a fan of that part.  I enjoyed being able to craft anything that I've found schematics for right from the start of the game without having to wait until the person who is designated to read a specific magazine is finished with that magazine so I can start learning to do it myself.  That is really the only part of the magazines that I don't like.

 

But, although I liked the randomness of finding schematics and I liked not having to specialize in crafting, I still like the magazine system.  It could be improved, there's no doubt about that, but I still like it.

 

Actually, I feel that RNG is far less a factor now than it used to be.  Yes, magazines are RNG (to a point) for which ones you find, but you have far fewer different magazines than you used to have for schematics.  That makes finding a given magazine far easier than it used to be to find a given schematic.  Schematics were more RNG than magazines, because of that.  Think back to any rare schematic that you could find that is now part of a magazine path.  Yes, you might get lucky and find it early in one game, but in other games, it could take all game before you finally find it (that's RNG for you).  Now that it's in magazines, you won't get it early, but you will get it.  Even now, there are games where I am not finding schematics that are still in the game.  Especially many of the vehicle mod schematics, which are still very rare.  Sometimes I'll find them early, but there are games where I never find certain ones.  If those were part of the magazines, I'd never have to worry about it.  So it's far less RNG now than it used to be.

 

And just for reference, I do not put points into perks in a way that will maximize magazine collection.  I don't even focus on a given ability tree.  I'm pretty much a jack of all trades and will put points in whatever perks I like without regard to magazine collection.  Yet I still have little trouble finding the magazines I want to find.  More points help, that's true, but they aren't really required unless you're trying to rush things.  If you know where to look for specific magazines, it is easy to collect them regardless of perk points.  The ones that are harder to collect if you don't put points in are typically the weapon magazines, but most people are going to have points in their weapon(s) of choice anyhow, so they'll get a boost for the weapon(s) they use "automatically" and they don't need the magazines for other weapons they don't use anyhow.

 

 

 

I'm amazed at the talent to whip up a essay like this in such little time. 

 

I love the structure of 7 days to die from the questing to the buildings. I'm pro structure when it comes to giving the player stuff to do and having dungeon pois. I'm less so about taking the RPG system seriously. The players and myself seems to play this game in chunks never sticking to one save long term. Updates happen and you have to start the world over again. The RPG and progression has rubbed me the wrong way with how they group categories together. "Jack of all trades" is really how I'd like to play if the game made it less of a commitment to putting points into attributes. If they were leaning more into choice and dynamic feel I think the game would be better for it. They don't have enough interesting attributes to be have a structured skill tree. It does nothing for me to play it how the system wants me to play the game. 

 

I feel the same about magazines. All though I'm glad to hear that they made the bonus stronger I think it should be a lucky side bonus that grants an extra skill point. This game is a voxel sandbox adventure game with questing and structures that can be looted as well has base building horde survival. It's very open and freeing it would be best if they leaned into how dynamic it is and could be possibly making this game like a poi immersive sim. Joel says his plan was to make this game like fallout. Debatably an immersive sim if immersive sims were open world games. Making every poi have a dynamic immersive sim like quality and a more open RPG system would lend this game a more precise direction.