Zombie killin' experience gain

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

I don't understand wanting to play a zombie game while not slaying zombies.

 

Because it's supposed to be a survival horror game, not an FPS.

 

And you say you "get" our point of view while talking about high-difficulty zombies is a red herring - but that's not right; you're clearly not getting it because that's not what we (or at least I) want.

 

I don't want people to be avoiding zombies because every individual zombie is difficult to defeat and has a high chance of killing you - I'm one of the vocal opponents of high-health bullet-sponge zombies and zombies with special abilities. I'm wanting mundane zombies in larger numbers rather than special zombies.

 

What I want is for people to be (mostly) avoiding zombies because there's an endless supply of them and killing them doesn't get you anything but a temporary respite. If you don't get experience or loot from them, killing zombies would gain you nothing but have a chance of losing you a bit of health or an infection if one gets a hit in, and therefore not be worth it. Avoiding them would give you the same respite, but without that chance.

 

In most zombie media, the theme is not killing zombies. The theme is about something else while the ever-present threat of zombies looms in the background. Check out pretty muich any zombie film and you'll see the same - the protagonists don't spend their time killing zombies for "fun" or for the sake of it (and certainly don't spend time killing zombies to go through their pockets for loose change). They try to get on with survival tasks, and generally only kill the zombies (and each individual zombie is easy to kill, but there are lots of them) when they get in the way of that.

 

That is what I think this game should be.

 

You have things to do - the things that are actually the aim of the game and are rewarded - such as surviving, hunting, scavenging, building - and the zombies get in the way of that. You have the choice of killing them: which is mostly easy on an individual level, but has a risk because one could get in a lucky blow and you could get infected or stunned; or avoiding them: which is safer, but interrupts what you're doing and might not always be possible.

 

But going out to kill them for experience and loot? That's not what zombie media is about, and the game shouldn't be rewarding it. As I say, it's a survival game, not an FPS.

[Ravenous]

"An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games."

 

thats a game, not a film. with elements out of many genre. maybe you should people play like they want, so as you play as you want.

[Aldranon]

I think exp for killing/destroying zombies should be the main source of exp if not the only source of exp.

 

People who have been in combat where they saw the person they killed are changed. Most are more quiet, some a little crazy, but they ARE changed. I bet they would do better in a crises than most people and end up surviving. The ones that became a little(?) crazy are the ones that should scare you.

[JaxTeller718]

"An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games."

 

thats a game, not a film. with elements out of many genre. maybe you should people play like they want, so as you play as you want.

 

Good idea, one that I support fully.

 

Of course, we are all just giving our own opinions on what we like to see and HOW we like to play. Doesn't make us right, but it IS one of the beautiful things about being on a forum. The range of opinions and ideas we can express on topics.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

maybe you should people play like they want, so as you play as you want.

 

I wouldn't worry about that. Me expressing my opinion about how I think the game sould be has approximately a 0.00% chance influencing the dev team's design decisions.

 

In fact, even if by some strange twist of fate, the devs suddenly all have a divine inspiration and say "Hey, you sass that hoopy Tea guy? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is. Let's change the game to please him." then it still wouldn't be stopping anyone else from playing the way they want to - people could still go out and kill zombies for fun as much as they liked. It would only be changing what types of play are rewarded.

 

The concept of playing as you like and letting others play as they like does run into problems sometimes where two play styles are mutually exclusive and the devs have to choose to enable one and disable the other; but this isn't one of those times.

[Aldranon]

The reason why combat should be the only way in improve in ranged combat (non-melee) skills, is one hormone: cortisol.

 

The "flight or fight" big three are: Adrenaline, Cortisol and Norepinephrine. But high levels of cortisol makes detail work difficult. They found green berets and medical personnel had lower levels of cortisol in combat than an average soldier. Through extensive training and experience on combat, they were able to somehow train their bodies to work with them and not against.

[meganoth]

I don't understand wanting to play a zombie game while not slaying zombies. I get the level of avoidance you're talking about because of glowing cops, but if every zombie in the game held that level of difficulty/avoidance the game wouldn't be fun for the people who love hunting zombies and slaying undead.

 

Oh man, where to begin? Using stealth has nothing to do with fearing glowing cops, it has to do with trying out different play styles. One time I may want to play 7D2D as a shooter, the next time I might just like to try if I can stealth my way through houses even though it would be no problem for me as player killing the zombies there. And the next time I might turn up difficulty of zombies so far that they really would kill me most of the time and my only choice is to try to stealth my way through.

For players It may be a whim or because they bored with doing it the same way every time or a preference for stealth shooters or it may even have role-playing as a reason because they think the character they play would do that.

 

The games "Thief", "Metal Gear Solid" or "Sniper Elite" don't exist because of timid players but because it is fun to try to hide and stealthyly circumvent enemies.

 

It really looks like all you ever play is shooters. You should broaden your horizon and try a few other games or at least other play styles in a game like 7D2D, where that is actually possible.

 

I also like slaying zombies. I like it so much that I don't need XP to slay them, I slay them for fun.

[skullpoker]

The games "Thief", "Metal Gear Solid" or "Sniper Elite" don't exist because of timid players but because it is fun to try to hide and stealthyly circumvent enemies.

 

In games like the Metal Gear series and Tenchu, stealth is an option. There are ways to get through the games without sneaking 100% through every level, never being seen, while being able to achieve a high rating and reap the rewards. Stealth is an option. I can't recall many games that use XP not giving XP for defeating enemies, and most of them that I'm aware of defeating enemies is the only way to earn XP, or the only way aside from finishing quests. Perhaps you've heard of Final Fantasy? Dragon Warrior? Diablo? Any MMO ever? Dungeons & Dragons?

 

Long story short, better to keep XP for defeating enemies than to gimp gameplay in favor of a small niche group who don't want XP for killing zombies.

 

As I say, it's ... not an FPS.

 

If you had a zombie crafting survival horde game crafted into a MUD, would you say it's not a MUD? If it was crafted into a 3/4 overhead Tower Defense game, would you say it's not a tower defense game? I can't cope with a person saying something like that. I may be in shock.

[Kalarro]

Remove the zombie xp and you remove any reason to bother killing any of them yourself.

 

Build a giant fortress of spikes and stand back watching them die... I dont see any fun in that

 

I think building a fort that manages to keep zombies away by itslef should indeed be rewarded. Actually, I don't think killing zombies should stop giving xp, I think, trap kills should grant xp too.

That fort you mention is exatly what I see as the games objective. Wouldnt it be in any real apocalypse? A safe place?

 

OFC, only as the danger increases you need to keep up with the defenses. Not talking about having nothing left to do. In fact, I proposed a new endgame feature several times, where we would need to defend different zones of the map, so that you need more than one fort.

[Cadamier]

Hey! Survival game or not... They're coming after me... I mean they come at me in wandering hordes and on the 7th day...

"The Best Defense is a Great Offense!" So I'm going after them!!! "They" get amused when I call out a wandering horde; cause they know it usually gets dispatched. lol

They should give exp and yes - it should be a bit scaled when its indirect damage... Although it would probably be 'best' to have it scaled down towards 0...

[meganoth]

In games like the Metal Gear series and Tenchu, stealth is an option. There are ways to get through the games without sneaking 100% through every level, never being seen, while being able to achieve a high rating and reap the rewards. Stealth is an option. I can't recall many games that use XP not giving XP for defeating enemies, and most of them that I'm aware of defeating enemies is the only way to earn XP, or the only way aside from finishing quests. Perhaps you've heard of Final Fantasy? Dragon Warrior? Diablo? Any MMO ever? Dungeons & Dragons?

 

Sure it is an option. Like solely killing enemies without looting is, just an option.

 

One RPG where I think it was implemented that fights don't give XP is the new Torment. And probably Dishonored if we count that as game with RPG features (?). Sorry, I don't buy the argument: "Everyone does it that way". If that were always true, nobody would have played Wolfenstein when the whole industry was sure only multiplayer shooters have a chance on the market.

 

Long story short, better to keep XP for defeating enemies than to gimp gameplay in favor of a small niche group who don't want XP for killing zombies.

 

People who play 7D2D *ONLY* to hunt zombies without much doing any of the other activities (which would give xp) are also a niche group. The second group is probably bolstered by another niche group that is so fixated on xp whoring that they have to have that xp carrot before their nose for everything they do. This last group is best suited for MMORPGs by the way.

 

So there is no general "gimp gameplay", both ways only a niche group of people will notice anything at all and either accept with hardly any real consequences in gameplay or loose interest. The big majority of players will notice nothing.

[Maharin]

"Coral! Go loot those walkers we just killed," said Rick never....

 

Mostly because her name is Carol...

[Maharin]

Uber loot shouldn't be on the zombies, that I can agree with. Zombie loot should mostly be things that would stick to the zombie even after they turn (including weapons stuck in them during failed attempts to kill them). But this should also include some of the things a player would make since not all zombies are freshly turned.

 

As for experience... if this game is going have some RPG elements to it then you need to get experience for the things you actively participate in doing. That should not include anything you can do AFK, in my opinion.

[meganoth]

As for experience... if this game is going have some RPG elements to it then you need to get experience for the things you actively participate in doing.

 

Yes. But lets see how RPGs do it. Early Pen&Paper RPGs began with giving xp for killing monsters, at least D&D did. Modern P&P RPGs don't, at least all the ones I know have changed to methods like giving xp purely as quest reward or at the discretion of the DM. Why? Because giving kill XP was micro-management and also rewarded players for solving any quest by killing everyone.

 

Computer RPGs are behind in that evolution (or maybe they will never evolve to that, who knows). One reason is that kill XP is a very easy mechanism and at least for aRPGs that is also the fundamentally correct way to handle XP.

 

But most full-featured modern computer RPGs tend to make kill XP very low and quest XP the real motherlode of XP. As soon as multiple ways to solve a quest are possible, xill XP is a liability to balancing as diplomat or stealth players won't get the kill XP. Some keep the kill XP for players that demand kill XP, others sometimes have it for the purpose of giving xp through random encounters so players can grind XP in case they are stuck (a mechanism used a lot in JRPGs AFAIK)

 

7D2D would be very well suited for including stealth as a play style. But that activity isn't something you can measure and give XP for. The solution would be (like RPGs who give xp for solving the quest, no matter how) to give rewards for reaching objectives instead of what you do on the way. So if we assume that players roam the world to scrounge, xp could just be given for scrounging instead of giving xp for the zombies that stand in the way of scrounging.

 

For the normal player the advantage would be that he could loot a house any way he wants, sneaking or shooting, and it would never make any difference in his advancement. More incentive to role play instead of meta-game your xp gains.

[Maharin]

Yes. But lets see how RPGs do it. Early Pen&Paper RPGs began with giving xp for killing monsters, at least D&D did. Modern P&P RPGs don't, at least all the ones I know have changed to methods like giving xp purely as quest reward or at the discretion of the DM. Why? Because giving kill XP was micro-management and also rewarded players for solving any quest by killing everyone.

 

Computer RPGs are behind in that evolution (or maybe they will never evolve to that, who knows). One reason is that kill XP is a very easy mechanism and at least for aRPGs that is also the fundamentally correct way to handle XP.

 

But most full-featured modern computer RPGs tend to make kill XP very low and quest XP the real motherlode of XP. As soon as multiple ways to solve a quest are possible, xill XP is a liability to balancing as diplomat or stealth players won't get the kill XP. Some keep the kill XP for players that demand kill XP, others sometimes have it for the purpose of giving xp through random encounters so players can grind XP in case they are stuck (a mechanism used a lot in JRPGs AFAIK)

 

I honestly don't see 7DTD switching to getting experience mostly from quests. I could easily be wrong but that isn't the way I see things progressing.

 

On the class vs. skill argument I'm more of a class+skill guy. I MUCH prefer improving skills by using those skills instead of generic experience pools and spending generic points. Use a hammer, get better at using hammers and, to a lesser extent, get better at bashing things in general. Skill trees help with this mechanic, which is mostly what I see classes as... access to specific skill trees.

 

I'm not opposed to a general character level and even using it to gate some things but the focus in my mind should be on skills. Quests should be more about gaining reputation or acquiring items instead of experience. The journey while completing the quests is where your character should experience the personal gain. I always hated the "wait until the end of the campaign to get your experience and improvements" mentality of D&D (though I did play it for a LOT of years, starting with the first edition red book).

[skullpoker]

7D2D would be very well suited for including stealth as a play style. But that activity isn't something you can measure and give XP for.

 

Using one of the most popular RPG's of the last decade as an example, Skyrim had a pretty solid system for rewarding Sneaking near entities and for using a sneak attack, which not only gave XP for sneaking but also for the weapon used. Since 7 Days already has weapon XP for attacking/harvesting, all they need to implement is some if>then code to reward sneaking near entities.

 

Skyrim is also an example of a game that doesn't give any XP for quest rewards, but only for using a given skill, much like 7 Days. You didn't seem to get more XP for a killing blow than for any other attack that damaged an entity/practice target.

 

Point being, I think a lot of people like the mechanic of gaining xp by using skills, and if we lose XP for killing zombies then they might as well take weapon skills out of the game entirely as "fear" people wouldn't be using them to kill zombies and there simply aren't enough animals in the game to make keeping code for the skills worthwhile. And the next logical step after that is to take weapons out of the game entirely, eliminate hunting, and make farming and scavenging the only sources of food. I hope that sounds as bland and horrible to everybody else as it sounds to me. Full Refund time if that happens.

[skullpoker]

I honestly don't see 7DTD switching to getting experience mostly from quests. I could easily be wrong but that isn't the way I see things progressing.

 

On the class vs. skill argument I'm more of a class+skill guy. I MUCH prefer improving skills by using those skills instead of generic experience pools and spending generic points. Use a hammer, get better at using hammers and, to a lesser extent, get better at bashing things in general. Skill trees help with this mechanic, which is mostly what I see classes as... access to specific skill trees.

 

I'm not opposed to a general character level and even using it to gate some things but the focus in my mind should be on skills. Quests should be more about gaining reputation or acquiring items instead of experience. The journey while completing the quests is where your character should experience the personal gain. I always hated the "wait until the end of the campaign to get your experience and improvements" mentality of D&D (though I did play it for a LOT of years, starting with the first edition red book).

 

Did you know there was a table in AD&D 2E specifically for non-combat XP? I never played a single game where it was "end of campaign" XP, but we did "end of session" XP a lot. And of course, in-session XP for good role-playing. Er go, not for using skills, but for being in character or tactical thinking or clever solutions...

 

Currently, quests in 7 Days give skill points as rewards that you can spend where you want and that seems to be an excellent system. Kill all classic Male zombie types within the time limit: +3 skill points. Miss the time limit: +1 skill point. It's a good system given how skills work in the game, and the only way to advance at level cap. Frankly, if you find enough quest starters it can be much quicker than levelling although some of them are pretty horrible (punch zombies to death while drunk, kill lumberjacks with fire axe...).

[Guppycur]

Yeh. Session != Campaign. End of the run is when we divied out xp. Then I'd have my players argue for more, based on how they role played correctly.

[KanedaSyndrome]

Beating up the one of the "big-bads" does have a reward - you're still alive and it hasn't trashed your base! That's plenty of incentive to fight one in self defence (and plenty of a sense of major accomplishment when you successfully defend yourself from one).

 

But going out looking for one to fight for the sake of it (rather than in self-defence) shouldn't be rewarded because it shouldn't be encouraged. It goes against the genre of this being a survival game.

 

Therefore, zombie kills shouldn't give xp, of course.

 

Hear Hear!

[Mirar]

the only reason why i Play this zombie survival/crafting game is, because it has a xp/level system that is in my sight pretty well implemented in a survival game.

ofc it Needs some balances, but remove reward for killing zombies is like you get nomore stones from hammering on a big stone with a pickaxe.

in this game you Need that reward for killing zombies, no mather what some guys want.

[themirror]

the only reason why i Play this zombie survival/crafting game is, because it has a xp/level system that is in my sight pretty well implemented in a survival game.

ofc it Needs some balances, but remove reward for killing zombies is like you get nomore stones from hammering on a big stone with a pickaxe.

in this game you Need that reward for killing zombies, no mather what some guys want.

 

Agree. But I think that getting xp for traps/turrets is not so fair and they need to stay as it is. Getting xp for explosions and/or molotov actually is in the same group as traps, maybe it can be changed

[skullpoker]

Agree. But I think that getting xp for traps/turrets is not so fair and they need to stay as it is. Getting xp for explosions and/or molotov actually is in the same group as traps, maybe it can be changed

 

Agreed. There's a difference between a placed TNT and a Stick of Dynamite that you're actively throwing. One is a trap, the other is an action. But something else to consider there is that explosives damage landscape/structure, so it might be difficult to implement "XP for killing zombies vs XP for destroying blocks", unless that XP is directly rewarded for Harvesting, which would be indicated if smashing blocks with a sledgehammer does not give XP.

[meganoth]

I honestly don't see 7DTD switching to getting experience mostly from quests. I could easily be wrong but that isn't the way I see things progressing.

 

I didn't advocate 7D2D to use mostly quests for XP. The stuff about quest xp was just a recap what RPGs were and are are doing now, historical context and all. I should have included a tldr . For 7D2d I just proposed the following:

 

7D2D would be very well suited for including stealth as a play style. But that activity isn't something you can measure and give XP for. The solution would be (like RPGs who give xp for solving the quest, no matter how) to give rewards for reaching objectives instead of what you do on the way. So if we assume that players roam the world to scrounge, xp could just be given for scrounging instead of giving xp for the zombies that stand in the way of scrounging.

[meganoth]

Using one of the most popular RPG's of the last decade as an example, Skyrim had a pretty solid system for rewarding Sneaking near entities and for using a sneak attack, which not only gave XP for sneaking but also for the weapon used. Since 7 Days already has weapon XP for attacking/harvesting, all they need to implement is some if>then code to reward sneaking near entities.

 

A sneak attack really is a nice idea, but it is already implemented in 7D2D, remember the popup when you attack a zombie in stealth? Doesn't help with the missing xp of stealthily ransacking a building, but it is a good use for stealth.

 

Giving xp just for sneaking near an enemy is not that easy. You don't want to reward xp continually to a player just sitting there near a zombie and waiting or moving back and forth without doing anything sensible. That could be exploited in lots of ways

 

Point being, I think a lot of people like the mechanic of gaining xp by using skills, and if we lose XP for killing zombies then they might as well take weapon skills out of the game entirely as "fear" people wouldn't be using them to kill zombies and there simply aren't enough animals in the game to make keeping code for the skills worthwhile. And the next logical step after that is to take weapons out of the game entirely, eliminate hunting, and make farming and scavenging the only sources of food. I hope that sounds as bland and horrible to everybody else as it sounds to me. Full Refund time if that happens.

 

Here you completely lost me, sorry. You are extrapolating from a few "fear" people, as you call them, to TFP completely going bonkers. NO, that is not the next logical step, that is you thinking of morlocs overtaking the world.

[skullpoker]

Here you completely lost me, sorry. You are extrapolating from a few "fear" people, as you call them, to TFP completely going bonkers. NO, that is not the next logical step, that is you thinking of morlocs overtaking the world.

 

Oh, pardon me. I tried to come up with something as (immersion breaking? daft? counter-intuitve? poor game design?) as not getting XP for kills. Given your "WTF" reaction, I think I hit the mark.