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Why I find A17 tedious and bland compared to A16 (very long)


Ghostlight

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Disclaimer #1: There's a lot I like about A17. The new graphics, the new AI, better performance, and so on. But oh how I wish TFP had stopped there with this alpha, as almost every other system they have changed or added has made the game LESS FUN. Bland and tedious are the words I will use here, and I will explain why the game has become both.

 

Disclaimer #2: Everything I have experienced so far comes from a fresh run on Navesgane with a few friends, playing co-op. We are currently on day #6.

 

1) The BLAND

 

Ok let's do 'bland' first as it the easiest to explain. The following points explain why I think the game has just become very bland and less fun compared to what we were used to.

 

Perks.

Everything is about the Perks. You want your Axe to farm more wood? Don't craft or find a better axe, spend skill points instead! Not doing enough damage with a Shotgun? No point crafting a level 6, as it does the exact same damage as a level 1 (!!!), spend points instead. Not only does this remove any joy the player had from actually finding decent guns or parts, but it also means every single copy of an item you find is useless, uness it is higher level than what you already have. Every single item. And there are only 6 levels. So on day 1 I found a level 2 Shotgun. This means every single Shotgun that is level 1 or 2 I ever find is now trader fodder. The joy of looting / crafting better items (i.e the entire mid-game of 7DtD) just got removed. Gun safes never looks so pointless and uninteresting as they do now.

 

Level Gating.

All the skills you want are gated behind a level cap, and guarenteed available once you hit that level. All of us will get our pushbike / mini-bike / hog / jeep at exactly the same level. Gone is the joy of looting the blueprint, or dealing with the interesting challenge when you haven't found a certain blueprint. The BP model made every run in the game a competely new adventure. Now it is going to be the SAME THING every single time. God that's bland.

 

Magazines

Temprary buffs. How bland. I do not even read these when I find them, just use them and move on. What? You expect me to keep it for later with this stupid encumberance mechanic??

 

Enemy Challenge.

40 years after the birth of video games and there are some people who still think that making enemies into bullet sponges increases challenge?!? No, all it does is increase the tedium of fighting those enemies.

 

The POI Mini-dungeons

Boy those got old fast. After the 10th time of falling through a floor or tripping a hidden mine, I just don't want to see those POIs ever again. I LONG for a normal house that I can just loot and move on. Early game I desperately need a Cooking Pot to avoid imminent *STARVING*, OK? The last thing I want is to have to work my way though a dungeon-like house full of traps while fighting goddam bullet sponge enemies in an enclosed space - just for a Pot!!!

Now this may be a factor of Navesgane in general and Diersville in particular but TFP have REALLY overdone the new mini-dungeon POIs imo. I hate them already. They are simply too common.

 

 

2) The TEDIOUS

 

No graphical or AI improvement is worth having to put up with the utter tediousness of some of the new systems in place. Gameplay....RIP.

 

No Forge Till Level 20

TFP, you have NOT made the first 19 levels more challenging. You have made them more tedious!! Now I need to use Stone tools for the first 19 levels instead of the first 3. Yay! This also means that the absolute VITAL item to find early is the Cooking Pot. If you are so unlucky that RNG doesn't give you one, then your first 20 levels in this game are going to be very very frustrating and PAINFUL (and tedious).

 

Death Penalty

Yeah I've just turned it down to 5 minutes like everyone else. It's TEDIOUS. Not challenging, just boring. I need to wait an hour before I remember how to craft things I could craft mere minutes ago. What a stoopid design.

 

Stamima Use

Of course it is on my list. If I break wind in the game it consumes half my Stamina bar. I wonder if TFP realise just how long players need to spend standing doing NOTHING waiting for their Stamina to regen - yup, even when specced to aleviate this. Gameplay!! No one will be seated during the riveting Stamina regaining scene. And guess what, your Armour now burns stamina faster when you run. So the new gameplay thing is you have to remove all your Armour before travelling any great distance then put it all on again when you arrive. And we all thought swapping Dusters for Ponchos every 5 minutes in A16 was tedious? Ha!

 

Max Stamina

What a triumph of BAD design. My max stamina is dictated by my hunger. lol. The implications of this are stunning:

a) You want your max to be close to 100% at al times, especially if you are out doing a lot of work such as mining. This means you need to carry food with you to top it up. With the encumberance mechanic, yup, you guessed it....TEDIOUS.

b) The best foods in the game, like Bacon and Eggs and Meat Stew are now kind of useless. Bacon and Eggs for example give approx 50% fullness (and hence max Stamina) to the player. But no player would ever want to or let his fullness fall to 50% to make eating such foods efficient.

 

Encumberance

Not only stupid but again tedious. In the end I just started to completely ignore being encumbered. However you do notice it when you need to run any distance. Meet your new mini-game....Inventory Management!! You don't like it? Tough, you're going to be playing it every 60 seconds, trust me. Gameplay!

 

Mining Surface Boulders

For those of us that can't be bothered digging elaborate mines, mining the surface boulder clusters was very efficient for iron/nitrate/coal. Now the rocks are fewer and more scattered. Much more tedius to mine now. a minor complaint but still.

 

May add more if I can be bothered, but my typing finger is sore.

 

I am going to persevere with A17 as I want to see all it has to offer (and no doubt discover a whole lot of new problems in the process), but goodness it is HARD going, instead of reverting to a16.

 

Anyone else think that A16 with just the new graphics, new vehicles and the new AI would have delivered a MUCH better A17 than what we got?

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Disclaimer #1: There's a lot I like about A17. The new graphics, the new AI, better performance, and so on. But oh how I wish TFP had stopped there with this alpha, as almost every other system they have changed or added has made the game LESS FUN. Bland and tedious are the words I will use here, and I will explain why the game has become both.

 

Disclaimer #2: Everything I have experienced so far comes from a fresh run on Navesgane with a few friends, playing co-op. We are currently on day #6.

 

1) The BLAND

 

Ok let's do 'bland' first as it the easiest to explain. The following points explain why I think the game has just become very bland and less fun compared to what we were used to.

 

Perks.

Everything is about the Perks. You want your Axe to farm more wood? Don't craft or find a better axe, spend skill points instead! Not doing enough damage with a Shotgun? No point crafting a level 6, as it does the exact same damage as a level 1 (!!!), spend points instead. Not only does this remove any joy the player had from actually finding decent guns or parts, but it also means every single copy of an item you find is useless, uness it is higher level than what you already have. Every single item. And there are only 6 levels. So on day 1 I found a level 2 Shotgun. This means every single Shotgun that is level 1 or 2 I ever find is now trader fodder. The joy of looting / crafting better items (i.e the entire mid-game of 7DtD) just got removed. Gun safes never looks so pointless and uninteresting as they do now.

 

Level Gating.

All the skills you want are gated behind a level cap, and guarenteed available once you hit that level. All of us will get our pushbike / mini-bike / hog / jeep at exactly the same level. Gone is the joy of looting the blueprint, or dealing with the interesting challenge when you haven't found a certain blueprint. The BP model made every run in the game a competely new adventure. Now it is going to be the SAME THING every single time. God that's bland.

 

Magazines

Temprary buffs. How bland. I do not even read these when I find them, just use them and move on. What? You expect me to keep it for later with this stupid encumberance mechanic??

 

Enemy Challenge.

40 years after the birth of video games and there are some people who still think that making enemies into bullet sponges increases challenge?!? No, all it does is increase the tedium of fighting those enemies.

 

The POI Mini-dungeons

Boy those got old fast. After the 10th time of falling through a floor or tripping a hidden mine, I just don't want to see those POIs ever again. I LONG for a normal house that I can just loot and move on. Early game I desperately need a Cooking Pot to avoid imminent *STARVING*, OK? The last thing I want is to have to work my way though a dungeon-like house full of traps while fighting goddam bullet sponge enemies in an enclosed space - just for a Pot!!!

Now this may be a factor of Navesgane in general and Diersville in particular but TFP have REALLY overdone the new mini-dungeon POIs imo. I hate them already. They are simply too common.

 

 

2) The TEDIOUS

 

No graphical or AI improvement is worth having to put up with the utter tediousness of some of the new systems in place. Gameplay....RIP.

 

No Forge Till Level 20

TFP, you have NOT made the first 19 levels more challenging. You have made them more tedious!! Now I need to use Stone tools for the first 19 levels instead of the first 3. Yay! This also means that the absolute VITAL item to find early is the Cooking Pot. If you are so unlucky that RNG doesn't give you one, then your first 20 levels in this game are going to be very very frustrating and PAINFUL (and tedious).

 

Death Penalty

Yeah I've just turned it down to 5 minutes like everyone else. It's TEDIOUS. Not challenging, just boring. I need to wait an hour before I remember how to craft things I could craft mere minutes ago. What a stoopid design.

 

Stamima Use

Of course it is on my list. If I break wind in the game it consumes half my Stamina bar. I wonder if TFP realise just how long players need to spend standing doing NOTHING waiting for their Stamina to regen - yup, even when specced to aleviate this. Gameplay!! No one will be seated during the riveting Stamina regaining scene. And guess what, your Armour now burns stamina faster when you run. So the new gameplay thing is you have to remove all your Armour before travelling any great distance then put it all on again when you arrive. And we all thought swapping Dusters for Ponchos every 5 minutes in A16 was tedious? Ha!

 

Max Stamina

What a triumph of BAD design. My max stamina is dictated by my hunger. lol. The implications of this are stunning:

a) You want your max to be close to 100% at al times, especially if you are out doing a lot of work such as mining. This means you need to carry food with you to top it up. With the encumberance mechanic, yup, you guessed it....TEDIOUS.

b) The best foods in the game, like Bacon and Eggs and Meat Stew are now kind of useless. Bacon and Eggs for example give approx 50% fullness (and hence max Stamina) to the player. But no player would ever want to or let his fullness fall to 50% to make eating such foods efficient.

 

Encumberance

Not only stupid but again tedious. In the end I just started to completely ignore being encumbered. However you do notice it when you need to run any distance. Meet your new mini-game....Inventory Management!! You don't like it? Tough, you're going to be playing it every 60 seconds, trust me. Gameplay!

 

Mining Surface Boulders

For those of us that can't be bothered digging elaborate mines, mining the surface boulder clusters was very efficient for iron/nitrate/coal. Now the rocks are fewer and more scattered. Much more tedius to mine now. a minor complaint but still.

 

May add more if I can be bothered, but my typing finger is sore.

 

I am going to persevere with A17 as I want to see all it has to offer (and no doubt discover a whole lot of new problems in the process), but goodness it is HARD going, instead of reverting to a16.

 

Anyone else think that A16 with just the new graphics, new vehicles and the new AI would have delivered a MUCH better A17 than what we got?

 

i said it months ago and got shouted down by the mods and the fanbois but all tfp has done is take the fun away and replace it with grind because they have no content. I had not thought through the implications of the gun changes but youre right, totally unfun and dumb

 

Agree with you 1000% and so do MANY others going by the number of threads saying how much a17 sucks. Will they listen? nah, they never do and thats why this alpha will be the last for a huge number of their playerbase if they dont take some of this rubbish out, additionally those players will never spend cash on another tfp product so i hope they made plenty out of this one, they certainly didnt spend it on game design

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Agree with much of this, though I don't find the encumbrance thing quite as annoying and haven't found a mini-dungeon yet. I also think the perks system is a decent idea, I think it just needs some major tweaking.

 

The other thing you didn't mention that I think is absolutely stupid is the amount of food required for each recipe. 5 meat for 1 boiled meat? That's insanely stupid and something I hope to find a way to mod out soon.

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Agree with most of it. Game is too slow now. Funny thing is that while i can't even craft this stupid forge i've ended up with all or nearly all iron tools every time i restarted game before end of day one (so about 5 times i guess).

 

I don't like weapon dmg changes. It feels like TFP just decreased dmg and by investing perks we slowly get it back to what it used to be in alpha 16. Three shots in the head of regular zombie with sniper rifle and he is still alive. No thanks, give me back alpha 16 dmg.

 

Next thing is 6th sense of all enemies. I tought 7 days to die is zombie survival game not zombie tower defense, enemies just come from everywhere knowing exactly where i am even if i dont do anything. Most stupid situation that happend to me was during looting one of this special houses. I was in some underground lvl looking at my skill points and out of nowhere a heared a wolf destroying walls, ignoring all zombies and coming right to me.

 

Stamina&food system - mining, walking, doing anything that consumes stamina just suck. Don't know why but it also feels like i must eat more often now, for no reason my character is getting hungry super fast. % to negative effect while eating canned food also doesnt help at all.

 

 

Deah penalty? Crap. Literally die and for next hour you can't do anything besides staying in your base and doing some basic stuff. You know what is best part of it? You can face feral luminous zombie in some random house day one. After 6 spike traps, 24 pistol bullets and more than 100 arrows i died after getting hit by one random attack from full hp <sure no armour but hey, that was still day 1>.

 

+Every action takes longer now

 

 

I never tought i would say this but i already miss alpha 16 (i know i can just stay with alpha 16 but i also want to play with my friends and this is only possible with alpha 17 optimization).

Now 7 days to die feels like some mmo game with leveled enemies and never ending things that makes you do everything slower.

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If you mod out the level limits on skill point expenditures and (for us bad players) remove/shorten the death penalty, this is a fairly nice update.

 

I can see the problems you have with fire arms, but mod schematics should help make one level 2 gun different from another one. Maybe if the max durability was lowered with each repair like previous versions?

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Agree with much of this, though I don't find the encumbrance thing quite as annoying and haven't found a mini-dungeon yet. I also think the perks system is a decent idea, I think it just needs some major tweaking.

 

The other thing you didn't mention that I think is absolutely stupid is the amount of food required for each recipe. 5 meat for 1 boiled meat? That's insanely stupid and something I hope to find a way to mod out soon.

 

You also get a lot more meat per animal......

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It's odd that they would take the excitement out of learning or looting a new plan and put EVERYTHING behind grinding xp.

 

I assumed that some of it would be skill locked or even level locked like A16, not everything. I literally can't make a SEED until I've leveled? That's... an odd choice.

 

My friends and I used to play with me doing building/mining/toolsmithing/armormaking, one of them doing barter/treasure hunting and one doing weaponsmithing/science. Now it seems like building a base is completely pointless until you get concrete, which makes me sad. Base building was my favorite.

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It's odd that they would take the excitement out of learning or looting a new plan and put EVERYTHING behind grinding xp.

 

I assumed that some of it would be skill locked or even level locked like A16, not everything. I literally can't make a SEED until I've leveled? That's... an odd choice.

 

My friends and I used to play with me doing building/mining/toolsmithing/armormaking, one of them doing barter/treasure hunting and one doing weaponsmithing/science. Now it seems like building a base is completely pointless until you get concrete, which makes me sad. Base building was my favorite.

 

7 days to die is now a tower defense game where you have to grind to get to the level which allows you to build a proper base to have something to defend in the first place.

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It is a different game than A16 for sure. Many don't like this. Several things are harder and slower.

 

It still needs a fair bit of tuning and balance, but overall I like it more than A16. Why? It is scary again, and a struggle to stay alive. To me, this is the core of the 7D2D experience.

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I really liked the new mechanics but they need tunning. The game is too slow. Some things feel pointless.

 

But I kinda disagree with the quality of guns. They are now focused on mods, yes, the additional ones are useless, but it's so much better than grinding loot to find 10 low quality pistols just to combine them and get a yellow one.

 

Also, the sponge enemies are so boring. I can put literally 6 arrows right between the eyes of a basic zombies and will not even care.

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OMFG!!!! Thank you OP, very well said everything. But here I've known since A14 that the problem is the COE. He's not a gamer. he's little less then a noob. he can't aim or use any kind of skill. So how does TFP CEO know anything about end game. He doesn't so he just keeps making early and mid game take longer. And take away opinions from us on how we want to play.... No, bad customer, you have to play the way i tell you. Now kill 12 thousand zombies to get to lvl 20. I have literally taken everything else out of the game that gives you XP. And Jesus!!! STOP ♥♥♥♥ING WITH STAMINA!!!!!!!!!! we don't want to play 7 days of walking. Revert it!!! revert it and buff it!!!!. make zombies faster if it makes you feel better. but no one wants a 45 min trip to the nearest town. Hunger is the fking worst. FIX IT!!!! Why is my hunger tied in to stamina! In real life i eat once a day and climb 300 ft towers for 16 hours before i start feeling tired and not as energetic. Why in 7 days can i 100% full up on food and before i step out my door of my destroyed base, i'm already at 90% stamina!! TFP do you even care if your game is enjoyable? did you guys even play this game without godmode on? Try it. It's not a game it's a chore. A horrible chore at that.

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Agree totally. Guys, if you enjoying with A17 grind and gating, why you do not play Ravenhearst Mod? It much more balanced and fun then A17, and grind there not so stupid and pointless

 

I agree with this point. I have gone back to A16 Ravenhearst until this is ironed out. I play solo, and being ganked by vultures is getting tedious.

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