New perk system

[Vaeliorin]

I bet I can find players who were unsatisfied with the Elder Scroll series and will say that Bethesda was lazy and fell short but thank God there were modders to save it and make it great.

Right here...well, except the lazy bit. I've never played unmodded Skyrim or Oblivion, and while I did play Morrowind unmodded, it was only for a few hours. Granted, I've only played 7 days worth of unmodded 7DTD, so....

 

Honestly, I find most learn-by-doing systems to be pretty terrible. Spending an hour attacking a corpse, getting hit by a non-threatening enemy, crouching behind a stationary NPC or running into a wall (all ways you could max various skills in Bethesda games...) is not my idea of a fun game. The only learn-by-doing systems I've really liked were in Wizardry 7 and 8, where you basically could only get skill points by attempting actions that had potential consequences if you failed (whether that was missing an attack or pissing off an NPC when you failed to charm them...) This was combined with getting a few points to put into whatever skills you wanted whenever you leveled up (though you couldn't max out skills with the points from leveling, but had to earn the highest skills ranks through doing.)

 

Truth be told, my biggest concern with the perk system shown so far is that so many of the perks seem desirable/necessary, and as a strictly single-player person, I worry I won't have enough points to get all the perks required to make the game fun.

[Numberz]

The functionality of A17 is lightyears beyond A16.

 

 

player/action/crafting skills meaning (I take it) learning by doing is indeed gone as forced game mechanic. But you can still simulate it voluntarily if it is critical to immersion. Nothing forces you to only kill zombies and then spend those earned points to become a better farmer. You do earn xp for farming so you could do that and earn points and then spend it on farming. The only thing that would stop you from doing that is a desire to min/max for rapid xp. Most laughable are the examples given of how "digging sand somehow magically makes the player a better sharp shooter". Laughable because good and rapid xp gains are available from shooting zombies so the player could spend time earning xp by shooting zombies and then spend the points to be a better sharpshooter. If learning by doing is so desirable then why don't these people play the game that way when the ability is right in front of them? The answer is obviously that they love something else more...efficiency and endgame rush.

 

Book Reading: Books will still play a role in the game. Book reading was always stated to be a placeholder mechanic.

 

Assembly mechanic: Used for attaching mods which are being expanded from weapons to vehicles, tools, and clothing. Instead of the same five components always making essentially the same pistol with the only differentiation being damage and durability, now there are going to be dozens and eventually hundreds of components turning a pistol into markedly different weapons being differentiated by damage, reload speed, magazine size, fire rate, accuracy, spread, fall off rate, and even color. But that's not all. You can have mods that will do things like restore stamina as you use the weapons using them. The whole process of attaching mods works exactly like the assmebly mechanic did. So really its like the assembly mechanic got a huge shot in the arm.

 

Repair: Repair is still in the game. It hasn't been curtailed or removed. Once it is fully implemented it should be a deeper mechanic than it ever was before making it a choice between doing field repairs immediately or wait and do careful repairs at a workstation.

 

Durability: Still in the game.

 

Quality: Still in the game with the same exact number of levels. Quality in A16 was just a difference in durability and damage. Quality in A17 will be so much more with mod slots.

 

Not only have you not seen everything you haven't seen even a fraction and you are making a lot of false assumptions. If you truly hope to be wrong then let me support you in your hope. Modders will be very pleased. They won't be complaining about some little box they've been placed in with lots of secondhand toys to play with. They will be oohing and aahing at the vast new world ahead of them.

 

 

Thanks for the response Roland. I have almost 2000 hours in game and probably double that in time spent modding. I did the math last night and at 37.5 hours per week it comes to almost 3 years in a full time job. Yes, I was pretty shocked by the number but it should tell you all you need to know about whether or not I care about the success of the game.

 

My real concern is really only around having some unpredictability in the perk system/character progression. Books facilitated that for me and I'm not yet seeing anything stepping in to take their place. The new system just looks too structure, too linear. My only ask is that you relay this concern to the devs.

 

I have much respect for the yeoman's work you do here Roland, so your words give me some hope. My concerns remain but i'll reserve judgement until I can see the whole of A17 in it's totality for myself.

[Roland]

Will do. And they are very keen to hear feedback from the player base. This is the system they plan to ship with the game so they want to know how people feel once they’ve played with it.

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

So, one solution would be for each left over schematic you found, you could read it and gain a point in that skill. You were no longer annoyed at finding x amount of the same schematic, as it now has a new value as a training material.

 

On top of this, classify some skills as "hard skills" and others as "soft skills" and you got a soft skill point every morning if you did not die. Soft skills are crafting skills that go up to 100, or the defense skill, and hard skills would be like the work bench perk.

 

I have mixed feelings with this new system that the fun pimps have shown off. It reminds me too much of the fallout 4 special. I will have to play A17 for a bit before i can make a sound feedback judgement. So far it looks like it may suck for single player, but i will have to play around a bit, and there may skill point rewards for completing quests, so that would prevent being locked out of skills you need if you play by yourself. It also forces trading and makes trading useful.

[Canaaar]

replacing fertilizer with a perk... dude... taking away gun parts and scematics. but you can create whole guns from nothing?? realy weard

[meganoth]

Yes it does. A18 doesn't look like it will though since everything is perk based Seems more like the focus will be killing bandits/zombies to level up since there's no skills to build except through level ups and perks. See my "going from Morrowind to Fallout 4" comment.

 

Did you mean A17 or really A18? A17 already has no learning-by-doing skills anymore. But you should be able to advance by all activities you normally would do, like mining, building, farming because they all give XP like they did in A16 with only minor changes (read Rolands post)

 

This "Only killing to level up" was posted by so many people in the last days, but nobody really seemed to be able to explain why. Did someone in a different forum (reddit,steam) post a false claim that only killing would get xp? Or maybe you all weren't aware that even in A16 all activities that advanced your skill also gave XP. There is no functionality lost, only the automatic of learning is replaced by a conscious act.

[meganoth]

Honestly, I find most learn-by-doing systems to be pretty terrible. Spending an hour attacking a corpse, getting hit by a non-threatening enemy, crouching behind a stationary NPC or running into a wall (all ways you could max various skills in Bethesda games...) is not my idea of a fun game.

[...]

Truth be told, my biggest concern with the perk system shown so far is that so many of the perks seem desirable/necessary, and as a strictly single-player person, I worry I won't have enough points to get all the perks required to make the game fun.

 

Brother in spirit . I think I don't like learning-by-doing because it is decision-free and automatic. I want decisions.

 

I think the best thing one can say about a perk system is that everything seems so desirable .

 

About necessity, I don't think there is any perk there that you need to learn to 5, but as in A16 you probably will always buy 1 or two 2 points of sex-tyr for example. If you are thinking about all the building perks, remember that 7D2D has alternative ways to get stuff, scavenging and the trader. Like sex-tyr a few points to be able to build forge and workbench (and first aid bandage) might be unavoidable but the rest is optional.

 

My real concern is really only around having some unpredictability in the perk system/character progression. Books facilitated that for me and I'm not yet seeing anything stepping in to take their place. The new system just looks too structure, too linear. My only ask is that you relay this concern to the devs.

 

Yes, I might miss that touch in the early game too. On the other hand I never had problems finding all the recipes I wanted relatively early, in reality it didn't influence my character progressions noticeably. You really have to play with 25% or 50% loot to notice any effect I think.

 

PS: The weapon-mods you find might provide some randomness, i.e. find an advanced shotgun-mod early and suddenly using a shotgun looks enticing. Find an excellent armor piece and you might go for the armor-perk and try to melee as a tank

 

.... but you can create whole guns from nothing?? realy weard

 

Yes, really weird how such false rumors emerge. The last info on this was that you need a recipe and ingredients to make a gun, but that could change.

[Numberz]

My real concern is really only around having some unpredictability in the perk system/character progression. Books facilitated that for me and I'm not yet seeing anything stepping in to take their place. The new system just looks too structure, too linear. My only ask is that you relay this concern to the devs.

 

Yes, I might miss that touch in the early game too. On the other hand I never had problems finding all the recipes I wanted relatively early, in reality it didn't influence my character progressions noticeably. You really have to play with 25% or 50% loot to notice any effect I think.

 

PS: The weapon-mods you find might provide some randomness, i.e. find an advanced shotgun-mod early and suddenly using a shotgun looks enticing. Find an excellent armor piece and you might go for the armor-perk and try to melee as a tank

 

Yes, true, the schematics in vanilla are usually all found within the first two weeks. However, that only applies to vanilla. Mods are a whole other story. Triple the number and rewrite the probability tables as I have and it plays as another game entirely. As for item / loot scarcity, that just isn't the same and doesn't hold my interest in the same way.

 

The devs seem to agree with you about wanting a decision based perk system and I have no issue with it. In fact, that is an integral component that I also enjoy. All I ask for are the tools to be able to create my vision as well. Nothing more.

[warmer]

The biggest problem I see with the progress by doing approach is there are MANY times in single player where you simply can't "spam craft" or smack a rock all day to gain xp in a given skill. In MP you can have several people all concerned with different aspects of base building/crafting/food and water prep. That enables you to focus on specific things a lot easier. In SP you have your attention divided by a dozen tasks constantly.

 

I primarily play SP so having the "freedom" to play as you wish vs. being forced to up your stats via meaningless repetition is a win win for me.

[Poojam]

Yes, true, the schematics in vanilla are usually all found within the first two weeks. However, that only applies to vanilla. Mods are a whole other story. Triple the number and rewrite the probability tables as I have and it plays as another game entirely. As for item / loot scarcity, that just isn't the same and doesn't hold my interest in the same way.

 

The devs seem to agree with you about wanting a decision based perk system and I have no issue with it. In fact, that is an integral component that I also enjoy. All I ask for are the tools to be able to create my vision as well. Nothing more.

 

I can tolerate the perk system just so long as they remove the level gates. It's kills the interest in specialization and teamwork, particularly early game.

[chaosterone]

The biggest problem I see with the progress by doing approach is there are MANY times in single player where you simply can't "spam craft" or smack a rock all day to gain xp in a given skill. In MP you can have several people all concerned with different aspects of base building/crafting/food and water prep. That enables you to focus on specific things a lot easier. In SP you have your attention divided by a dozen tasks constantly.

 

I primarily play SP so having the "freedom" to play as you wish vs. being forced to up your stats via meaningless repetition is a win win for me.

 

Agreed. Part of the fun for me is when things aren't working right and I have to figure out alternative plans until I can get better gear or find a potato (one game I didn't find any potatos till day 52). That fun would be lost if I had to keep up to be competative.

[warmer]

....and I have to figure out alternative plans until I can get better gear or find a potato (one game I didn't find any potatos till day 52).

 

The best thing about losing the Forge Ahead book was sometimes I couldn't find it before day 7. Currently it seems a little easy to build it right out of the gate minus finding the material. With the new system, you can level that easily in the first 30 minutes if that is what you want to do. Better balance for a significant gate.

 

The more options to play as you wish, the more fun a game becomes and the less grindy it gets. Grinding is my number 1 reason I abandon games.

[Kubikus]

Here is my number 1 question: Can it be modded back to skills or nah? Because it looks much like nah. Because there is, to begin with, no "template" for a skill anymore in the menu. It wouldn't be the worst if you could not see the level of your (naturally leveling) skill, but still sorta meh. But if everything is a perk now, there is also no reason to feed xp back into a skill. Because there is no skill anymore. So was that left in..?

 

Perks overall look not particularly moddable. Can we add more levels to a perk than the usual 5? Can we remove recipe perks and unlock them with books? Can we add new attributes? I'm fairly ... well, "confident" (...) that we can reward perk-levels with quests, I mean, a super great and "robust" new system would not leave that option out, would it? It might, though, it actually might... *sigh*

 

 

The perks I've seen in Joel's video are the reason why I often don't like perks in games. I did not like the perks in Fallout 4. Because they mostly, just like in 7dtd, only boost stats a bit. Mind you I say mostly. In 7dtd, they also unlock recipes, which is more likable, but I do think that quests and books are a better way to unlock those. Than buying them with imaginary points. A good perk also is the one that unlocks inventory slots, another one that allows these combos (hit 5 zombies in a row), though they also practically just boost stats. A great perk for 7dtd would be to unlock the melee power attack. Is there a perk for that? I don't think so. Also good perks would be the weapon slots. I don't really know what these will be, but if you have a perk system, why not have a perk for each slot of each weapon, instead of "deal 0.001% more damage" boredom? Have perks that make a difference that is instantly noticable in gameplay, not just minute increases of something that is already there. A mining perk could be "Metal detector: Every stone block drops 5 units of iron ore." A melee perk that makes zombies stagger when you deal a certain amount of damage, another one that makes them stagger every time you hit the head. A fist fighter perk, unlocking combos (left left right left to the head = stun, left right right left left to the head of a stunned zombie = 150 damage = most trashmobs dead; throw in a brass knuckle recipe and requirement to spice it up). Things that instantly make a noticable difference and are fun, the possibilities are endless, I could go on forever, if you need ideas.

 

In other words: If you think you need bloody perks, make them bloody interesting. There are 50 perks alone for "deal 5% more damage, get 10 more health". *yawn*

 

 

The biggest argument for perks that I've seen in this thread is exploitation of exploitable game design. Well, it is a reason to switch to perks, but only if it's impossible to remove the exploits. I don't think it's impossible to remove the exploits. For example could you remove all the weapon exploits by only rewarding entity damage with xp. Spamcrafting of tools can be countered with longer crafting times for stone axe and shovel. And by having seperate crafting skills for different materials - it is nonsense that the skill for crafting a stone axe and a steel axe would be the same. You can go through every issue and find a fix, in a few cases I would ("even") propose to remove the skill, like medicine. There is no good reason why a pill would ever become more potent. Even the admittedly biggest issue with armor can be solved, level up armor crafting quality and armor skill with the number of zombies killed in close combat (aka while holding melee weapons or tools or fists). Might be complicated for the dev who has to go through every item and check it for exploits, but the player would never have to be bothered with the solutions. Still, those who are interested could have a brief desc. on a more in depth item sheet.

 

Of course all that is irrelevant, if the devs really like a perk system, just saying because exploitation seems to be the #1 argument. #2 seems to be the tedium that's coming with leveling up skills. Again, if it's tedious, tweak the numbers and make it less tedious. I remember that once the skills for pistols was not leveling fast enough. Do a tweak, and fine it is. There is, in any case, no explanation that I have ever seen that natural progression has to be replaced with perks.

 

 

Anyways, tl;dr: Can perks be modded back into skills?

 

 

Oh btw. Did you see those good quality videos Joel made? And did you see the comments on those videos? All of a sudden those totally evil Youtube people are nice and happy and grateful and supportive. It's almost exactly like I said it would be. Ok, let's be honest here: It is exactly like I said it would be.

[Benjiro]

Here is my number 1 question: Can it be modded back to skills or nah? Because it looks much like nah. Because there is, to begin with, no "template" for a skill anymore in the menu. It wouldn't be the worst if you could not see the level of your (naturally leveling) skill, but still sorta meh. But if everything is a perk now, there is also no reason to feed xp back into a skill. Because there is no skill anymore. So was that left in..?

 

From the comments in the developers threads it seems almost all the changes are focused on this perk / event system. Even if the code for progressive skills is not removed, its frankly dangerous for moders to use it because it can break at any moment alpha release.

 

I mean, when mods for years have had issue with the crafting menu, when you add 200 items, it becomes dog slow. This is a know issue for years by the developers ( people have not been shy mentioning this ), no work was ever done on it in the A15/A16 releases. So that brings us back to the progression skill code.

 

Perks overall look not particularly moddable. Can we add more levels to a perk than the usual 5? Can we remove recipe perks and unlock them with books? Can we add new attributes? I'm fairly ... well, "confident" (...) that we can reward perk-levels with quests, I mean, a super great and "robust" new system would not leave that option out, would it? It might, though, it actually might... *sigh*

 

From the looks of the current perk system, my guess is its designed for hold a maximum amount of 5 items. So you need to introduce more SPECIAL skills and use this to cut skills and perks around. It looks to be a very mod unfriendly skill menu for people that want to expand beyond 5 levels. The old one was less overview able but you had less limits.

 

 

The perks I've seen in Joel's video are the reason why I often don't like perks in games. I did not like the perks in Fallout 4. Because they mostly, just like in 7dtd, only boost stats a bit. Mind you I say mostly. In 7dtd, they also unlock recipes, which is more likable, but I do think that quests and books are a better way to unlock those.

 

Its unclear what the use of books is now anyway. The most valued book ( mini bike ) is now a skill. So i assume that books are now just basic lower recipes onlockers. So you still need books but the more big bang skills are now locked behind perks.

 

Than buying them with imaginary points. A good perk also is the one that unlocks inventory slots,

 

I agree, that is probably one of the best new skills what also give mods plenty of fun to play around with ( assuming the menu is not hard coded too much ).

 

another one that allows these combos (hit 5 zombies in a row), though they also practically just boost stats. A great perk for 7dtd would be to unlock the melee power attack. Is there a perk for that? I don't think so. Also good perks would be the weapon slots. I don't really know what these will be, but if you have a perk system, why not have a perk for each slot of each weapon, instead of "deal 0.001% more damage" boredom? Have perks that make a difference that is instantly noticable in gameplay, not just minute increases of something that is already there. A mining perk could be "Metal detector: Every stone block drops 5 units of iron ore." A melee perk that makes zombies stagger when you deal a certain amount of damage, another one that makes them stagger every time you hit the head. A fist fighter perk, unlocking combos (left left right left to the head = stun, left right right left left to the head of a stunned zombie = 150 damage = most trashmobs dead; throw in a brass knuckle recipe and requirement to spice it up). Things that instantly make a noticable difference and are fun, the possibilities are endless, I could go on forever, if you need ideas.

 

Please do not ... your wasting your breath. People have been giving ideas to solve issues in the past and TFPs do whatever they want. Like Spam crafting that can be fixed with 5 minutes of coding ( change 2 values. Increase time + make default items better. Yes, technically 3 because they ended up gating some stuff behind specific skill levels so that also needed fixing. Fixable by gating behind items and not skills ).

 

In other words: If you think you need bloody perks, make them bloody interesting. There are 50 perks alone for "deal 5% more damage, get 10 more health". *yawn*.

 

+1000000!!!!

 

This is why i call the perks consolized. Dumbed down to create lots of perks but a lot have nothing special. The Farming perk is a big joke. 6 food on highest level ... Plants are not a issue without fertilizer, let alone creating a crazy perk like that, what nobody will max out.

 

 

The biggest argument for perks that I've seen in this thread is exploitation of exploitable game design. Well, it is a reason to switch to perks, but only if it's impossible to remove the exploits. I don't think it's impossible to remove the exploits. For example could you remove all the weapon exploits by only rewarding entity damage with xp. Spamcrafting of tools can be countered with longer crafting times for stone axe and shovel.

 

I said this dozen of times, the answer back from some is always the same by others. But increasing craft times does not prevent spamming because people can have their PC run idle all the time while auto crafting. And ridiculous answers like that.

 

TDPs simply keep repeating how the old system was hard to optimize and was broken. The new perk system is easy to optimize because it has no soul. Its for 80% stat boosters...

 

And by having seperate crafting skills for different materials - it is nonsense that the skill for crafting a stone axe and a steel axe would be the same.

 

And having more complex recipes ... Wood -> Planks + Iron -> Scrap -> Scrap nails = Wood Frames.

 

The issue with this again, is the crafting menu is broken and not able to load so many recipes. So the solution is "not fix" the menu problem but simply remove crafting items so the menu is faster ( A15, A16 ... ). This is why i do no think A17 has fixed the crafting menu because even more items are removed now ( correction: Optimized /s ).

 

 

The reality is you and my opinion does not matter. TFPs already have our money and they have no obligation to listen. The standard answer to all your questions will be: Get a mod that you like. Of course forgetting that mods rely on TFPs actually FIXING issues that have plagued some mods for years. And now with progression skills removed, this opens the door that mods may not be able to use that code. Because of the above mentioned reasons ( it can vanish one day, bug may never get fixed, etc ... ).

 

You can play 7D2D but it feels like the survival aspect has been changed into some online mmorpg / console game. Before the system was maybe not perfect but it was a much more unique system. Very few games have progression skills because it does not trigger the dopamine effect in people their heads ( read up about it, its a interesting aspect ). People are like drones that crave the instant satisfaction effect of pressing a button and getting a price.

 

Anyway, while i like some perks ( encumbrance ), i feel that the new system is a step back from before as its so generalized. Even more annoying are limits on skill amounts etc. But i also know that i am in the minority here and i hate what 7D2D has been evolving into. No wonder that A16 where you see the first steps of this change, is my most disliked Alpha. A17 will probably top that from all the videos i have seen.

 

To think how much more content we might have had by not wasting time rewriting the entire system this last year. A gyro + a few more cars do not do it for me. You need to wonder how many times they are going to rewrite stuff again.