An in depth discussion on zombie loot in alpha 17

[Colin248]

First of all, devs, this isnt a bash on you. this is me simply wanting to get a tally of the people who are also concerned with this change.

 

Second, this isnt a doomsay thread either. the alpha isnt even out yet and jumping the shark to say its the end of 7 days due to this change is... over zealous at the least.

 

with all that said, lets get into this. and il start by saying alpha 1. that is how long the zombies have been dropping loot for. this isnt like the wellness system, this isnt like the forgeing system, both of witch have either been enhanced over time, or simply changed. this has been a main part of the game for its entier life cycle. that is more my concern then anything else. and i know, i saw the comment on the main thread of alpha 17 of how the zombie loot isn't disappearing..... but it is. not entirely but, one bag every 50 kills i personally dont count as a perfect argument to defend this. nor if the loot is of a *good* quality. we never searched them for only good stuff, we wanted everything we could, to recycle it.

 

looting is one of the main artery's of this game. its part of its flow. you try to siphon that too much and the body withers and dies. i feel like, stopping the zombies from droping random junk items and just haveing random loot tables, is going to impact the game quite heavily. perhaps other loot has been enhanced to counteract this. perhaps the fridges and cupboards will have more cans of food, jars and such in them.

 

i didnt see that in the gameplay. i saw the containers still continuing to have rather minimal loot. my concern for this change is... deep. i cant rightly put it into words how much it worrys it. or find the right words to activly express myself.

 

what about others, how are you feeling about this change? do you agree with madmole and its all just useless junk all going away? or is it something you personaly enjoyed doing alot?

 

il end this post with one simple question, aimed towards the devs. how easy would it be to implement there drop tables again? the gore blocks i am ok with going. but just haveing there bodys be searchable.

[eidobunny]

First, zombies will still have loot, but it will be much more rare. To what extent is yet to be seen.

 

Second, in general I am in favor of no loot, but there needs to be some sort of system in place to account for horde nights. Building a base and successfully defending it needs to have some kind of reward, otherwise I see no reason not to just leave my base every 7th night. No reason to take a bunch of damage and spend a bunch of consumables (bullets or otherwise) with no potential for compensation. In fact, there's no real reason to build a base at all outside of a shack with a forge, workbench, and a few chests and then just ride around on a minibike for horde nights. The ONLY case where "no loot" (or rare loot) on zombies matters is the 7th night case. I don't care if zombies don't drop loot while I'm out raiding a city, I'm getting the city loot. I only care in respect to horde nights, which need to compensate you for the damage they do or players will just avoid them altogether. On every multiplayer server ever you always seen a good half of the server log out on horde nights. Now it's going to be worse than ever because the risk:reward ratio is thrown even further off balance. At least you could break even in past alphas, now it's pretty much going to be a guaranteed net loss every 7th night. We should be further incentivizing people to stay online for horde nights, not further de-incentivizing it.

[Viktoriusiii]

In favour of no loot.

Bosses will still have loot and sometimes some zombies will still drop some loot.

 

So its not NO loot. Just rarer.

 

And I like it this way. Zombies arent a ressource. They are a threat. If you just harvest them instead of avoiding them, the main threat of the game becomes a joke.

[Colin248]

In favour of no loot.

Bosses will still have loot and sometimes some zombies will still drop some loot.

 

So its not NO loot. Just rarer.

 

And I like it this way. Zombies arent a ressource. They are a threat. If you just harvest them instead of avoiding them, the main threat of the game becomes a joke.

 

i getcha but the zombies already basicly had a chance of not haveing loot. you open them up and they got like... some moldy bread. or a old sham sammich. or a tin can. its so minimal but it was something. the tinest thing. but it made such a impact on the game for the longest time.

 

also, whilst they are walking they have always been a joke. only ferals were a threat dureing the day, but when you encounterd one it was always a thrill.

[Viktoriusiii]

1. well in tight spaces they arent a joke... at least sometimes

2. yeah but thats the point. You wont get less loot... you probably will get more loot, but put into 1-3 zombies a hordenight. So you wont fight 50 zombies with 1 moldy bread but you will find 49 without one and one with 50 moldy bread (exxagerated obviously)

This makes managing 100 dead zombies WAY easier. Since you generally had to spend 2-3 hours after hordenight just looting corpses, removing them and throwing away garbage. Now you only have to loot 1-3 containers and get about the same loot as you would get checking 50 zombies.

 

 

It is personal preference and I will have to see it for myself if I like it... but most people think zombies wont give ANY loot, which is incorrect (at least MM said so... so take with a grain of salt )

[pApA^LeGBa]

I used to have building save games for the really big projects without enemies spawning (well until it was ready, had to test the megabuilds ofc) can´t say i missed anything from the zombie loot.

 

so meh. actually don´t care about Z-loot.

[eidobunny]

In favour of no loot.

Bosses will still have loot and sometimes some zombies will still drop some loot.

 

So its not NO loot. Just rarer.

 

And I like it this way. Zombies arent a ressource. They are a threat. If you just harvest them instead of avoiding them, the main threat of the game becomes a joke.

 

Right, the "zombies aren't a resource" argument. Please explain to me the point of defending a base against a zombie horde when you could just ride a minibike instead.

 

That's all I want to know.

 

I really loved the tower defense aspect of the game and now unless TFP has a trick up their sleeves, I don't see the point in even bothering with it.

[4sheetzngeegles]

I like the thought of less loot. This combined with quick despawning zombies makes for less cpu overhead. This in turn means I can keep more entities on screen useing less resources. I tried editing and balancing of loot tables before. I quit at around 40. The modders that post have my utmost respect.

 

This is basically for the vanilla straight out the box version. So it gives me a atemplate to work with. Now if I did decide I wanted more incidental loot. I only have to make one group of stuff, and ad one line to zombiemaletemplate.

 

It offers flexibility, for me. The only thing id like, as loot on basic walkers, is their clothes or medicine.

I play as a scavenger so all my first points go into scavenging and quality joe. these two have helped me

to get the higher rated weapons, ammo, and food stuffs early in the game. each time.

[Viktoriusiii]

Right, the "zombies aren't a resource" argument. Please explain to me the point of defending a base against a zombie horde when you could just ride a minibike instead.

 

Right, the "why would I play the game as intended if I could simply exploit the game" argument. Please explain to me why you play the game if you do not feel like you need to survive?

Yes minibike/other vehicles coming take away the threat of hordenight... but so did tunneling and building on stilts. Still there were a lot of people who didnt do that... or hung out on top of a lake every hordenight...

 

 

AND I will quote myself here since oyu might not have read it:

 

 

2. yeah but thats the point. You wont get less loot... you probably will get more loot, but put into 1-3 zombies a hordenight. So you wont fight 50 zombies with 1 moldy bread but you will find 49 without one and one with 50 moldy bread (exxagerated obviously)

This makes managing 100 dead zombies WAY easier. Since you generally had to spend 2-3 hours after hordenight just looting corpses, removing them and throwing away garbage. Now you only have to loot 1-3 containers and get about the same loot as you would get checking 50 zombies.

 

 

It is personal preference and I will have to see it for myself if I like it... but most people think zombies wont give ANY loot, which is incorrect (at least MM said so... so take with a grain of salt )

[eidobunny]

Also another point of contention is multiplayer servers. Anyone who has loaded into a 20-30 man server knows that ♥♥♥♥ be empty. Like, /everything/ is empty. At least with zombies, players had a way to augment their loot while they waited for respawns. Now destroying containers to grief is an even bigger concern than ever. Newcomers to a big server might not be able to get /anything/. I'm really worried about how this plays out given my personal playstyle and the types of servers I like to play on. If newbies aren't getting loot they quit and go to another server. You might see bigger servers dying out entirely. Hmm. I wonder how it will pan out.

[eidobunny]

Right, the "why would I play the game as intended if I could simply exploit the game" argument. Please explain to me why you play the game if you do not feel like you need to survive?

Yes minibike/other vehicles coming take away the threat of hordenight... but so did tunneling and building on stilts. Still there were a lot of people who didnt do that... or hung out on top of a lake every hordenight...

 

 

AND I will quote myself here since oyu might not have read it:

 

That's still a huge assumption to make that every 50 zombies will carry 50 zombies worth of loot. I don't think either of us will know until we actually play. Still, I don't agree with you. At all. Simple word: incentive. You could exploit the game to avoid hordes in past versions, but then you missed out on horde night loot. So basically you could exploit to negate any negative effects, or you could take negative effects (base damage, loss of consumables) with positive effects (loot). Those were your choices. Now the choices APPEAR to be: exploit to negate any negative effects, or take negative effects (base damage, loss of consumables). Sure it might be fun for a new player to experience a 7th night, or see if they can overcome it, but without substantial compensation most people will learn that avoidance is strongly preferential because there are no bonuses to toughing out the fight. This is literally why we play video games, we overcome challenges and then we are rewarded for overcoming that challenge. That's one of the most basic of game design fundamentals, even for board games or sports or other types of games. If you take out the reward, well. Challenge is still inherently good but taking out the reward diminishes the fun factor significantly for a great majority of players.

[Viktoriusiii]

Madmole said:

Bosses will droip loot.

And from what ive heard random zombies can have bigger loot piles as well.

But you dont have to look through 100 zombies to get it.

 

You still miss out on loot in A17 if you run... as I said. As far as it was mentioned there is not "less loot" but only differently distributed.

 

*off topic*

but running shouldnt really be an option... they should attack whereever your bed is... or whereever a landclaimblock is... or where storageboxes of yours are... THAT would give you an incentive to defend your base

the incentive shouldnt be "oh nice food on wheels (how madmole put it) where loot comes to you, but that you should loot cities and have to defend what you looted at night.

[eidobunny]

I want to be clear that I'm not particularly for or against zombies not having loot. There are a list of pros and cons. I'm just not seeing a reason to build and defend a base on horde nights, which takes out a lot of my own personal enjoyment of the game. Still, I haven't played A17 yet so I'm withholding a final opinion.

 

Aren't there horde night-specific zombies? Maybe those could carry more loot than usual. Or have a specific type of "moneybags" type zombie that spawns in a horde and drops a golden backpack full of goods or something. Obviously not literally, but that could incentivize toughing out a 7th night. As you said bosses will have loot, so having a good amount of bosses who would make up for your losses would be a great solution.

[Colin248]

guy guys, this isnt a conversation about playstyles or how we chose to enjoy the game. this is about the base mechanic at its core. and how removeing such a thing could impact the game.

 

also, people keep saying its not being removed... hrm.... the way it currently works in alpha 17 reminds me of a game called Dead frontier. the average zombies drop nothing, but they come in massive hordes that you have to take out. only special infected bosses drop loot. but the difference there is, dead frontier is more arcadey, and less of a survival sim.

 

in fact, makeing the comparison is actuly pretty comforting, least to me. i used to love that game.... handled loot pretty well.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Because the CPU´s where mentioned a small hijack inbetween if i may: How many cores is A17 gonna use? finally more than 2?

 

And F bosses btw. This game becomes more and more generic. Having bosses also destroys the immersion.

[eidobunny]

guy guys, this isnt a conversation about playstyles or how we chose to enjoy the game. this is about the base mechanic at its core. and how removeing such a thing could impact the game.

 

also, people keep saying its not being removed... hrm.... the way it currently works in alpha 17 reminds me of a game called Dead frontier. the average zombies drop nothing, but they come in massive hordes that you have to take out. only special infected bosses drop loot. but the difference there is, dead frontier is more arcadey, and less of a survival sim.

 

in fact, makeing the comparison is actuly pretty comforting, least to me. i used to love that game.... handled loot pretty well.

 

Ultimately a core gameplay change's only impact on the game is how it affects each individual's personal playstyle. That is to say, our personal preferences on how we play the game is exactly what is being affected by said change, and as such is exactly what this discussion is about.

 

There are games that are just about killing baddies and they never drop anything. That's fine because that's not the point. That's not where the risk vs reward structure is inherently built into the game's design in that case. In the case of 7 Days to Die, there's a very specific risk vs reward mechanic built into zombies and loot. Before, the reward was built into the risk, that is, the zombies were the risk, and they were also the reward. Now they will still drop loot, but it seems like the developers are trying to push that the zombies are the risk and the PoIs are the reward. Problems arise in two major scnearios.

 

1) Multiplayer settings (especially PvP) - players can loot out entire cities, leaving newcomers with nothing. Players can destroy loot containers, leaving others with no recourse.

 

2) 7th nights - a classic "tower defense" situation, pitting the zombies against your base instead of you against "the zombies' base." The problem is that when raiding "the zombies' base" you have the risk (zombies) and the reward (their base) but in the opposite situation with the zombies against your base, you only have the risk (the zombies) and no reward. If there are plentiful "boss zombies" in 7th night hordes capable of dropping loot relatively comparable to the loot you'd get on a 7th night in A16, then there is no problem here.

[Hazeree]

More important than all your points: Where am I gonna get my bones now? Animals? I will have to hunt all week to get nearly the same amount of bones. I dont want gore blocks removed. I need my bones -> glue -> duct tape -> exploding crossbow bolts for every 7th night. If I cannot count on a regular collection of bones from gore blocks throughout the week (and clean-up from horde) then we will be forced to find them through animals which are spawned very sparsely without xml edits.

 

As for the rest, I enjoyed the odd little loot from cleanup and regular zed encounters. If people didnt like it, they could simply wait for gore block despawn.

 

And dont assume you know my play-style either. At gamestage 3000+ I plan my week heavily. Clean-up and repair day one. Selling high-end loot and buying low-end loot day two. The rest of the week is spent looting skyscrapers (mostly for paper for shotgun shells) and mining for iron, nitrate, and coal for gunpowder and steel. I heavily use blade traps and shotgun turrets and spend most of the horde night shooting crossbow bolts and repairing traps. I count on that 'little worthless' loot. I dont need to spend more time in crap POIs just to find that little stuff in the late game. Thats what A16 does best. You loot the little stuff in early game (avoiding conflicts until you are better equipped), and get it from mass hordes in the late game (after getting properly equipped).

[eidobunny]

I never got to the point where I used that many bones but I always collected them and knew the values of having the bones and the glue and duct tape. I'd say it's an easy fix because you could just adjust the recipes. If you have 10% the amount of bones you could just get 10x glue out of the recipe. Easy solution. I'm not really worried about the bones at this point. Still, a valid concern.

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Hazree

 

No worries, if all you need is the bones and gore. Go to entityclasses.xml zombimaletemplate look at loot container number

then go to loot.xml and just add probability for gore and bones. This way you get a chance at that but still get to enjoy the positive performance boost.

[4sheetzngeegles]

If you are asking me about mutithread Idunno havent played a17. I was talking about my experience with 30 + constant horde on my screen after about 100 kills my cpu would start to increase workload. I like constant horde threat on my pc. the goreblocks began to make fps and all basic peformance drop to point of looking at world as if drunk. So i got them to despawn early and perfomance picked up. thats why i spoke of cpu performance.

[KanedaSyndrome]

My concern is that loot becomes so rare that I give up bothering to check the ground when I kill zombies, effectively removing zombie loot 100% for me.

[4sheetzngeegles]

I guess most changes don't bother me because, No not my screen name, althought that plays a part. I look at what I am going to get in the long run. More performance, and I still have the option to adjust it. If you step back and take a look, anyone that plays randomgen is not completely playing a vanilla build. that is Navesgane, solid, founded in its rule immutable. The minute you put in your own seed name you are customizing to an extent. So i see it as a tool for me to adjust. Example: for sleepers I just adjusted senstivity distance and it brought it back to a comfortable norm for me. took 5 minutes.

[Darthjake]

Not having loot is fine, or less chance of a loot is okay, but I want to be better able to avoid them if that's the case. I tend to play a stealth game, and focus on surviving horde nights with only killing those Z's that are damaging load bearing supports, or in the case of cops those that can attack from range.

 

Hell, I'd be happy if you limited Z's to what they might reasonable have, clothes, a bag of chips, weapons and ammo, and old cash. Tailor the loot to what the Z's should have, althrough that might be easier said then done.

 

But this is a survival game, not a Duke Nukem, Kill 'em all shoot em up.

[RestInPieces]

In favor of no loot.

 

looting is one of the main artery's of this game. its part of its flow. you try to siphon that too much and the body withers and dies.

 

Economies (which is what the in-game resource circulation is - doesn't even have to include currency or trade to be called like that) don't work like that. Zombies are an infinite source of loot, ergo any loot they can drop is essentially as devalued gameplay-wise as it can get and the player doesn't have to use other ways to get it.

 

 

In general, as I said in the other thread as well, zombies should never be something to be chased after or farmed or be seen as a source of loot. It goes against everything its zombie-apocalypse survival concept stands for, both thematically and in gameplay terms.

[eidobunny]

Except that the game has rested on this mechanic for ages now. Your predisposition of what a zombie apocalypse should or shouldn't be has no bearing on the way players have interacted with this particular game for 5 years.