No more exploding loot in A17?

[Roland]

Spoilage isn't going, I think, change the basic outcome - that is, that farming is an easy route to ensure food is never a long term concern.

 

All spoilage will do is ensure that you farm (or just harvest, since the grown plants won't spoil in the ground) as needed.

 

Spoilage essentially splits the game into two tech eras. Low tech means you harvest and use all with no ability to save or store up food. It means that a portion of every day or so must be spent hunting, gathering, and harvesting. This is the most dramatic change that would occur to the game and it is another stressor to the early game.

 

High tech era means you've secured a way to store food and save it up through refrigeration or preservation so that you no longer have to allocate time on a regular basis for food gathering. This makes the late game play like the game plays right now. No real food worries. So I agree Oz, that the long term effect is that spoilage won't change the basic outcome that farming will lead the player to be swimming in food but not until the late game.

 

Also, in order to prevent the ground from essentially being the container that preserves food there would HAVE to be a death cycle for plants so that if they are not harvested they die anyway. The key is that the early game is a constant battle to meet nutritional needs on a daily basis because nothing can be stored up and banked for later and this drives the player to develop whatever tech is necessary to preserve and store banks of food so that they can get out of that daily allocation of food gathering time that takes away from other things.

[OzHawkeye]

+1 to the list of reasons why I look forward to A17, Roland. :-)

[RestInPieces]

Spoilage essentially splits the game into two tech eras. Low tech means you harvest and use all with no ability to save or store up food. It means that a portion of every day or so must be spent hunting, gathering, and harvesting. This is the most dramatic change that would occur to the game and it is another stressor to the early game.

 

High tech era means you've secured a way to store food and save it up through refrigeration or preservation so that you no longer have to allocate time on a regular basis for food gathering. This makes the late game play like the game plays right now. No real food worries. So I agree Oz, that the long term effect is that spoilage won't change the basic outcome that farming will lead the player to be swimming in food but not until the late game.

 

Also, in order to prevent the ground from essentially being the container that preserves food there would HAVE to be a death cycle for plants so that if they are not harvested they die anyway. The key is that the early game is a constant battle to meet nutritional needs on a daily basis because nothing can be stored up and banked for later and this drives the player to develop whatever tech is necessary to preserve and store banks of food so that they can get out of that daily allocation of food gathering time that takes away from other things.

 

Well said. Much like any progression system, while imo it should not eliminate the need for farming food completely (preservation not being infinite, except for can food), it should make the player's life much easier, minimizing the time allocated for this activity.

 

+1 to the list of reasons why I look forward to A17, Roland. :-)

 

Err... what do you mean? Is there going to be spoilage in A17? Don't hype me for nothing!

[Roland]

No food spoilage in A17 unfortunately.

[OzHawkeye]

No food spoilage in A17 unfortunately.

 

Ahh, apologies for the confusions. ;-)

[RestInPieces]

Ahh, apologies for the confusions. ;-)

 

Damn you! :'(

[badmojo]

As per the farming mechanics, I think it would benefit the game to get rid of the 'plant one, get multiple seeds' system and replace it with seeds being looted from barns. The problem with growing seeds is the short grow cycles. We can currently grow 1 seed into an excess of food and seeds in such a short amount of time that food becomes a chore insted of a concern.

 

With looted seeds your farming would be a huge convience, but it would no longer be self sustaining.

 

Seeds could possibly still be crafted from grown food, but it would have to be done at a 1:1 ratio, or even at a loss. This would have to include a food spoilage mechanic for it to work. If you grow 50 corn, you might want to turn 40 of the cobs into 40 seeds that wont spoil, only keeping 10 cobs to eat or preserve.

 

I like the farming in 7dtd, but its way too overpowered in its current implementation.

[Manly]

I like the farming in 7dtd, but its way too overpowered in its current implementation.

 

Hopefully, there will be mods that allow players to dial up or down the return on farming. Personally, I like not worrying about food. I like to build and kill zombies. Having to constantly farm and hunt the entire game is bothersome to me and takes away from how I like to enjoy the game.

 

Early game...bring on the starvation and dehydration....I LOVE the struggle to get past it. Late game...meh. I just want the hordes to smash up against my defenses.

 

To each his own!

[Scyris]

Some will have loot? I got the impression that zombie looting was eliminated completely.

 

They will have loot rarely it was said, but when they do, it'll have a high chance of being something good. Insted of just random cloth, or plant seeds, or random junk. Though I will miss all the brass/lead I got off zombies. Still sorta don't wanna know where that zombie cheerleader keeps that brass doorknob they seem to like to drop lol.

[tanstaafl]

The whole farming thing brings us back to why animals were nerfed in the first place? All it did was move from living on meat to living on corn bread. No matter how much you nerf farming, a larger farm will offset. Eliminate farming and keeping the animals nerfed will create a never ending stress.

[badmojo]

No matter how much you nerf farming, a larger farm will offset.

 

Not if they removed the ability to multiply seeds.

 

If finding 1 seed means you can grow 1 plant and eat it, or turn it back into 1 seed, then large farms would not offset having to loot more seeds.

 

Problem with farming is that it is basically a legit method for duplication. Imagine if you could cook raw meat and suddenly have another raw meat AND the cooked one after, you would never have to hunt again.

 

Nerfing the animals is not effective because farming is so profitable, until that changes there will never be any difficulty in feeding yourself.

[sargentcobra]

From the dev diary:-

 

Zombies are no longer lootable nor can they be harvested. 8/26/18

Bodies despawn instead of changing to gore blocks. 8/26/18

If zombies have loot they will drop a loot bag. 8/26/18

 

I see a problem how are we going to farm bones and fat now when need bones for shives and glue, and fat for fuel and talow

[meganoth]

When it comes to food in particular, farming inevitably renders it moot. The nature of geometric progression (and to work, farming has to give at least 2 outputs for each input) means that, sooner or later, no matter what TFP does with the default growth timers and the like, any even halfway dedicated farmer will be literally swimming in food.

 

Not if they removed the ability to multiply seeds.

[...]

 

For A16 I made a mod (see caveat later) that removed the geometric progression by making the seeds very scarce but a planted seed give food in an endless cycle. Removed the need to replant seeds and just gave a constant supply of food contingent on the number of seeds you have found in the game. Eventually you would be swimming in food too, but the progression would have been in step with your general power curve.

 

Sadly I didn't get it to work correctly in A16, I hope for the improvements of A17 to make this possible.

 

I also think in A17 it should be easy for the seeds to have a regrow limit or chance to spoil so farming really would need you to regularly find new seeds to keep your garden from shrinking.

[Shiana]

I see a problem how are we going to farm bones and fat now when need bones for shives and glue, and fat for fuel and talow

 

It seems that there are now special loot containers in pois that contain fat and bone. But i guess no one thought about people that play with loot-respawn off. Those now have a problem getting glue and fuel in later stages of the game, or in stages when its unbalanced. (invested in non-combat perks, and can only fight outside of the pois)

[LuckyStar]

So if we're talking about nerfing food production,

 

....does that mean Player-owned Colonies have been scrapped?

 

Lowering supply is not the only route here.

Increasing demand is another.

 

Okay so spoilage takes care of early game.... but couldn't late game have challenges as well?

I rather like the idea of having to keep a dozen people fed and safe.

 

I'm really hoping Colonies aren't completely off the table.

[meganoth]

So if we're talking about nerfing food production,

 

....does that mean Player-owned Colonies have been scrapped?

 

Lowering supply is not the only route here.

Increasing demand is another.

 

Okay so spoilage takes care of early game.... but couldn't late game have challenges as well?

I rather like the idea of having to keep a dozen people fed and safe.

 

I'm really hoping Colonies aren't completely off the table.

 

Whatever shenanigans happen in the beds of these survivor colonies, they can't possibly keep up with the increase in food production you can achieve with farming in 7d2d. But even if they could, do you want to spend all day working the farm to supply that demand?

[pApA^LeGBa]

"default" is for new players. You are already very experienced and should be using "hard".

 

But unlike previous alphas A17+ "hard" should not just change damage and HP values of zombies but influence scarcity of loot and food (because an experienced player should know much better where to find specific loot).

 

In A16.4 you already have the choice to set loot to any percentage, you really should do that if survival seems too easy to you. I always forget to do this as well, it is so easy to overlook. Only in my last restart I remembered to finally adjust this value.

 

A sruvival game should be at least a bit of a challenge on default other than having to learn how to boil water and cook food. Once you know you need a campfire, a cookingpot, Jars/empty can and know how to get them, there is literally no challenge at all.

 

Finding out how it works isn´t really a challenge either...

[meganoth]

A sruvival game should be at least a bit of a challenge on default other than having to learn how to boil water and cook food. Once you know you need a campfire, a cookingpot, Jars/empty can and know how to get them, there is literally no challenge at all.

 

Finding out how it works isn´t really a challenge either...

 

I don't think the campfire is supposed to be the challenge. Getting enough food (and sometimes even water) is the challenge. Always having food and water with you when your hunger/thirst reaches 0% is the secondary challenge.

 

Do you say "thank you" to your god if you see a desert? That is a sign of an experienced player. I've seen a group of novice players avoid the desert like a plague. And they had problems getting enough food.

 

I'm not saying A16.4 is correctly balanced. I'm saying YOU should play 7days on "hard" (and "hard" should definitely make you find fewer resources). If you then still find the survival part without challenge this would indicate the game is too easy in that regard. But you or I playing on normal does not produce valuable feedback for balancing, normal is supposed to be too easy for us.

[LuckyStar]

Whatever shenanigans happen in the beds of these survivor colonies, they can't possibly keep up with the increase in food production you can achieve with farming in 7d2d. But even if they could, do you want to spend all day working the farm to supply that demand?

 

Do you want to spend all day scavenging for food?

 

What's the difference?

 

I think it's a short-sighted approach to remove food production to "add a challenge".

 

Spoilage is a step in the right direction.

Colonies is another.

Trading food for things we need is also another.

 

There are better ideas out there.

 

Though I will say, I don't want another Harvest Moon.

Spending all day farming wouldn't be fun but also starving and having our entire focus be on hoping to get lucky finding food isn't either.

[meganoth]

Do you want to spend all day scavenging for food?

 

What's the difference?

 

The difference is that scavenging doesn't generate food in a steep geometric progression. If you want to add settlers to eat all the food you can produce you also need a geometric progression in settler numbers to make it a lasting challenge.

 

I think it's a short-sighted approach to remove food production to "add a challenge".

 

Good then that nobody said anything about removing food production. But the food production could be done without geometric progression or one that is far less steep. I described one possibility above.

[OzHawkeye]

The difference is that scavenging doesn't generate food in a steep geometric progression. If you want to add settlers to eat all the food you can produce you also need a geometric progression in settler numbers to make it a lasting challenge.

 

 

 

Good then that nobody said anything about removing food production. But the food production could be done without geometric progression or one that is far less steep. I described one possibility above.

 

Your proposal would effectively nerf farming, to pardon the pun, into the ground. A 1:1 return on farming would render it a nearly pointless activity (beyond merely planting, as a one off, any seeds you happen to come across).

[meganoth]

Your proposal would effectively nerf farming, to pardon the pun, into the ground. A 1:1 return on farming would render it a nearly pointless activity (beyond merely planting, as a one off, any seeds you happen to come across).

 

Maybe I didn't explain it well. Quote: "... but a planted seed give food in an endless cycle".

 

In other words, one single seed will give one fruit every x days without the need to replant it, but no seeds. An endless stream of food. But you can't simply produce seeds you have to find or buy them. So for example if you have founf 2 potato and 1 aloe vera seed after the first week you could plant those and get 2 potatoes and 1 aloe vera every 3 (?) days out of it, but no seeds. Even if you never found any further seeds this garden would have produced 20 potatoes and 10 aloe vera after 30 days (if you don't forget to harvest at the right time, otherwise less)