Alpha 17, Not That Great

[Benjiro]

1) That's really subjective opinion, its also wrong one. Weapon parts was a tedious grind of both perks AND parts, current solution provides ACTUAL customization that didn't existed before, I'd take weapon mods over parts anyday. Guns also aren't supposed to be murdermashines, it all depends on the shooter, I can guarantee you that 100 year old pistol will kill you just as fine as top quality one made today. Also, so what if you found all these guns? You do not have skills to use them to the fullest nor you have the ammo to use them for more then couple of Zs or POIs.

 

Fairly sure that a 100 year old not maintained gun is going to kill you faster then the zombies.

 

But in all fairness, the mods are interesting. But removing the gun parts was unneeded. Now people find pristine working condition guns on day one if they get lucky.

 

A better system might have been weapon mods plus full gun BUT with the weapon parts as before. You find a gun ... the bold may be broken, the trigger is ok, the barrel is toast. You can disassemble the gun at home into parts and combine it with other parts. It keeps the old parts system but remove the unrealistic element of finding mostly gun parts in pre A17. Mod can be used to enhance the weapon.

 

Sounds like a better system where a getting a working weapon is actually a bigger deal, then now in a17.

 

---

 

And to address the OP his post: There really was no need to level gate iron tools etc, If somebody wanted to spend all there points into int, let them. Its already a lot of points to spend. TFPs complained about spam crafting but keeping people locked outside specific skills by levels in combination with points, is just annoying. They made a big deal out of the skill system but in a lot of discussions kind of ignored the fact that level gates are a thing again!

 

The Zombie are XP goldmines is also overdone. I am sure somebody will do a Excel on it but now you zombie craft for xps all the time. Forcing people who liked the building survival mechanics, into constant zombie hunters. It really cheapens the game its core technology.

 

Why even have a voxel game? Why deal with the performance hits... Plenty of games that run on Unity that have building that is less taxing on the system that are heavily into PvE hunting. Where building is more side effect.

 

Its a shame... I do not deny the hard work that has gone into a17 but i found a lot of my prejudices came true about the direction a17 has taken. Its now more a horror survival dungeon crawler then before. Now we also know the lack of new late game content become its not needed in TFP there eyes because of the massive xp grind now on the start to mid game level.

 

It explains the lack of real progress on the electricity system and other concepts. I feel it will be up to the mods AGAIN to fix up 7D2D. Some people will love the new changes but #notmy7d2d ...

[Linreche]

when i play A17e i get bored less than 1 hour,

ok, let try again................... i get bored

 

next day,ok let try again...................i get bored

 

F**k

i dont know why !

 

Before this, I was playing for ten hours consecutive (A15 & A16), i must be a zombie

[Sellsents]

I agree with the op. I was so excited when A17 ex got released. But now my excitement is gone compeletly and I changed back to A16. Don´t get me wrong A17 has a lot to offer. The bikes and car, the ton of new buildings and recipes, new textures which I like very much. But the grind is getting out of hand and this has nothing to do with surival anymore.

 

Nothing against a leveling system but when I am forced to grind 20 level to get a simple forge going just for basic tools and when I am forced to spend hours grinding zombies or dying while trying just to get some basic loot going then I pass. I started in Navezgane and I was puting a bedroll and a chest on top of one of the bridges because they are made of steel and therefore should hold against a single zombie for a while and then a single zombie destroyed a part of that bridge faster then I could ran down the railing it made me think that it is absolut pointless to even try to build a decent base. Because if a single zombie can destroy a layer of steel in seconds on normal settings, what will happen to a concret base on hord night with ferals? Putting countless of hours into a game where I have to grind my ... just to be able to build a decent base and seeing it crumble down like cookies afterwards is nothing I enjoy or even see a sense in. Spending the nighttime underground to farm ressources is an absolut disaster. Zombies will find you even if you are standing still and do nothing but crouch and they will destroy your mines by digging down to you.

 

The new changes in rwg? outrageous! Not only that half the biomes aren´t there anymore. Biomes that had their reasons to be in the game and made it more realistic. But also the maps get smaller and so does the cities. If you still can call it cities at all. Top snow, middle green and bottom desert. Every map looks the same.

 

Penalties for everything you do. First you get forced to kill zombies where I rather would avoid them the first couple of days. Then when you do and die you will be punished by debuffs. You grind to put points in stamina, afterwards you get punished for doing so, because now you have to eat even more to fill the bar completly. The same goes for health. You put points in health and you need even more bandages to get the bar full again when loosing health. Hunting animals? Good luck finding some and if you do you have to spend 5 meat to get one small meal going that doesn´t even fill the belly or your healthbar.

 

I am very sorry to say that. But the whole game has turned into a big grind feast. As a player I am no longer in controll of how I like to play the game. I am forced now to do stuff like killing more zombies as needed just to gain xp to progress. My priority is no longer to gather materials, loot houses or to build. My priority is to kill. Even if there is no real need to do it. That is by all means not what I wanted the game to become ever. A big and never ending grind feast.

[CamoesGamer]

When you get 10 negative threads for every positive one, you can tell....

 

Some of the previous answers already explain better than i could why i don't agree with that statement.

 

my 5 cents:

 

7 days ago, everyone was complaining why some content creators had access to an early version and not all of us, 5 days after (with 2 updates in) people already are unistalling because they don't like it.

To quick to form an opinion, when it's not released! It's experimental and unstable...(It's what you select when you opt in)

Reading the threads, many complains of what people don't like, it's on the XML to change! (Block damage, harvest yields, death time penalty, dogs damage, zombies loot, and probably more....)

 

While trying Alpha 17, I've been abused by 2 wolfs, a vulture and a big momma! (List is getting bigger)

I still have nightmares, but i'll have my revenge, after one or two balance patches!

[RestInPieces]

Seriously, I don't want to sound aggressive, but you guys are either exaggerating or just don't have much experience with the game. Dogs have never been "OP". In fact, if anything, they were way more of a challenge back in previous alphas. Now, even after TFP have fixed their erratic behaviour, have added give up timers and have reduced their speed, you guys still think they're "OP". I don't understand, to be honest, what the big deal is with dogs.

 

I never had a problem with challenge, my friends call me a bloody masochist - it's the "quality" of challenge that can bother me. Always had a problem with dogs (ironic since my avatar is a dog), mostly because of their animations. I don't feel they blend with the game - in their current state - they feel more like artificial homing frame-skipping missiles that make normal zombies look like defenseless pinatas in comparison. Same with bulletsponging when it comes to challenge "quality" - it feels cheap.

[arquebus]

7 days ago, everyone was complaining why some content creators had access to an early version and not all of us

 

To me the most amusing thing about this: at the same time that portions of the 7D2D community were getting themselves enraged over the fact that streamers got the experimental build 2 days before everyone else, portions of the X4 Foundations community were getting themselves enraged over the fact that the developers weren't giving early builds to streamers.

 

No one is ever satisfied, and there is never a right answer.

[sadpickle]

I am very sorry to say that. But the whole game has turned into a big grind feast. As a player I am no longer in controll of how I like to play the game. I am forced now to do stuff like killing more zombies as needed just to gain xp to progress. My priority is no longer to gather materials, loot houses or to build. My priority is to kill. Even if there is no real need to do it. That is by all means not what I wanted the game to become ever.

+1

 

I spent some more time with A17 and while it's pretty impressive as a dungeon crawler, I feel like the early game is just too slow. Exactly how long do you want us to spend there? 5 hours? 10? One thing that really disappointed me is the bandage. Gating it behind level 20 or w/e feels so misguided. The perk should be available at level 1, int 1. There's just too much combat in the game now to force us to use aloe alone or woefully attempt to loot medicine. I gathered dozens of aloe to raise my max HP from 50 to 104, and dying to two wolves put it back at 50. It is just NOT FUN, not in any way. Games need to be fun and I don't enjoy being locked into either a subpar crafting experience, or farming zombie kills for several in-game days (real-life hours).

 

Until the level gating gets stripped down to size, and the early game becomes more than just a zed-killing dungeon crawl, I will return to A16. A17 needs more emphasis on freedom of choice for character progression. In A16 there were tradeoffs for specializing in building-related skills as early as possible. The level gating was tolerable because amassing material in preparation provided enough XP to progress in lieu of zombie combat. Why can't I make the same decisions in A17 to focus on the voxel building/mining aspects? Why make it so unattractive for so long that I lose interest?

 

I appreciate the new zombie AI, the interiors of the POIs which look very good now and can even tolerate the slimming-down of skills to perks and equipment qualities being streamlined. I think the POIs are really impressive and provide a lot of exploration value. But I think the new controls and feel of moving around feel clunky; the stamina system is really punishing especially in the early game; and perhaps most importantly, it takes way too long to become remotely efficient at mining/building, which pushes this core game mechanic to the late-game for me. I don't like that, and for me it's really a deal-breaker, despite all the improvements and new stuff.

[Kosmic Kerman]

Sad pickle,

 

Regular bandages restore max health. Food restores health. This information is contained in one of the first journal entries.

 

I share your concerns about the lack of Xp for activities other than killing zombies and mid to end game mining and base building.

[CamoesGamer]

To me the most amusing thing about this: at the same time that portions of the 7D2D community were getting themselves enraged over the fact that streamers got the experimental build 2 days before everyone else, portions of the X4 Foundations community were getting themselves enraged over the fact that the developers weren't giving early builds to streamers.

 

No one is ever satisfied, and there is never a right answer.

 

Yep, i'm also in that forum! Hoping for the best, 30 November!

[bloom_meister]

First, i do like your post, because you show your concerns and explain your point of view. However,

I do like most of the changes brought by Alpha 17, they might need some balancing, but it has been out just for 5 days, and it's an Alpha, Experimental and Unstable.

 

 

 

What I don't understand is, how do you assume that a large part of the fanbase dislikes the changes.

 

Oh i dont know, maybe its because the first two pages here are full of negative feedback on his points and others.....read much? or just the posts kissing tfp behind?

[Ashram]

I played 800 hours on 7 Days to Die and this A17 is simply unplayable...

 

How much days are we supposed to play to craft just a basical Iron Pickaxe ? We can't farm any material because we cannot craft the basical tools... Are we supposed to build an hord base with a Stone Axe ? The early game... Oh god, what a crap... It's not possible...

 

And the new stamina system... No !

[Ld-airgrafix]

Remember the good old days when better foods meant better health, drinking water replenished your stamina. Why change this????

Just like the OP said, these changes were made to suit console development.

[aptalley]

I really wish the system had just stayed where it was in a15, and content been expanded and balanced. I feel that with each update since, we are taking steps away from what made 7dtd great in the first place.

 

P.S. I think a lot of the issues with dogs now is something to do with sleeper spawning elements where if you move too far from where they spawned, they respawn when you get close again...a lot of people end up running from dogs at least a short distance when you re-approach, dogs repopulate, and are right on top of you. Happened to me multiple times now.

[Groovdog]

I realize it is an expriemental build of an alpha but my concern as someone who hasnt touched the game much in the last year is that I have never seen so many complaints about fundamental issues at release. Usually it is just bugs. I think it is coming down to the fact that its been a year (A YEAR!!!!) and they just keep changing things over and over and over.

 

Been here since 9 and have 1500+ hrs. Not touching this until it is complete and if things continue to head down this path it will have to be heavily modded at that or will just hang it up. I dont want a FPS zombie crawler. I wanted a builder with some opposition. Closer to Minecraft than Call of Duty.

 

Guess I will come back in 2 months and see if anything has changed. Bluntly put I think TFP is a victim of their success. They got too much money so we have had WAY too much scope creep and ability to continuosly rework everything. Add in new games (to change or add things from) and so many Unity reworks (hell I remember when they went to Unity...). Just finish it and let modders fix it.

[Dimpy]

So, it seems most of the people complaining here think the early game is boring and to be made as short as possible.

[OzHawkeye]

Oh i dont know, maybe its because the first two pages here are full of negative feedback on his points and others.....read much? or just the posts kissing tfp behind?

 

See, this is where your arguments don't hold a shred of credibility whatsoever.

 

Your inference that any positive posts about A17 are "kissing tfp behind" exposes the true salty-meter levels. I've got no issues with someone not liking some aspect of A17, there's bits about it I'm still not a fan of, but to infer that those not agreeing with you are i) a minority and ii) sucking up to TFP, HUGELY devalues your arguments.

[Roland]

Oh i dont know, maybe its because the first two pages here are full of negative feedback on his points and others.....read much? or just the posts kissing tfp behind?

 

But how can that be? According to you we delete any and all criticism? Which way do you want it Bloom? What about your "inside source" that said A17 would not be out until 2018? You clearly have an agenda here and it has nothing to do with communicating genuine negative criticism.

 

I'll give you that the the first two pages have a lot of negative reactions to some of the new features of A17 but those threads are not full of only negative opinions. There are many posts of people who like it as well.

 

Tell you what? I'll see your two pages full of people reacting negatively to something they barely got their hands on and raise you all the positive reviews showing up now on Steam. Just a month ago you pointed to Steam reviews as an indication of a major problem. Well, that means by your same litmus test there must be major success going on right now.

[Roland]

So, it seems most of the people complaining here think the early game is boring and to be made as short as possible.

 

Exactly. There are those who don't start having fun until they have best gear and maxed perks. The struggle and journey through progression is something to be rushed past as quickly as possible because to them it is the boring part of the game.

 

Which is fine. That's what modding is for-- to alter the game until it fits your preference. Those who are reasonable will be grateful that the developers have created the game in a way that makes this possible. Those who are raging and unreasonable will deride the developers for needing modders to fix their own game.

 

However, a person feels they need to contextualize it for themselves doesn't really matter. The devs will make the game one way. Many will be overjoyed and love the game. Many will not enjoy it but happily play mods that change it to a way that fits their preferences. Many will not enjoy it and rage about it but still play mods. And some will move on to other games.

 

Now moving on to another game is characterized by some on here as the ultimate feedback and the greatest proof there is that something is wrong with the game. But, the truth is that people move on to new video games all the time. It is perfectly normal. If a game can keep someone's interest for 100s of hours before the player moves on that is what is known as success.

 

So if you have 1000's of hours under your belt and have decided to move on now. You're welcome and best regards to you as you get into your next game.

[Xtrakicking]

But how can that be? According to you we delete any and all criticism? Which way do you want it Bloom? What about your "inside source" that said A17 would not be out until 2018? You clearly have an agenda here and it has nothing to do with communicating genuine negative criticism.

 

I'll give you that the the first two pages have a lot of negative reactions to some of the new features of A17 but those threads are not full of only negative opinions. There are many posts of people who like it as well.

 

Tell you what? I'll see your two pages full of people reacting negatively to something they barely got their hands on and raise you all the positive reviews showing up now on Steam. Just a month ago you pointed to Steam reviews as an indication of a major problem. Well, that means by your same litmus test there must be major success going on right now.

 

Yeah, interestingly enough, ratings in steam have jumped from 59% I believe it was at (mixed reviews) to now a nice 83% (very positive reviews) in a matter of two days.

[Guppycur]

...which invalidates the whole rating system.

 

"It's not coming out fast enough! I've 2k hours and I want my money back!" is simply not a good gauge of a game.

[OzHawkeye]

...which invalidates the whole rating system.

 

"It's not coming out fast enough! I've 2k hours and I want my money back!" is simply not a good gauge of a game.

 

Yes, agreed. When looking at reviews, particularly negative ones, I look to see their hours played. If it's into the hundreds or even thousands, then there needs to be a good reason for a negative review, otherwise the obvious question begs "if it's bad, why'd you sink 1,000+ hours into it."

 

Unfortunately Steam is prone to review bombing (in both directions actually).

[Poojam]

Yes, agreed. When looking at reviews, particularly negative ones, I look to see their hours played. If it's into the hundreds or even thousands, then there needs to be a good reason for a negative review, otherwise the obvious question begs "if it's bad, why'd you sink 1,000+ hours into it."

 

Unfortunately Steam is prone to review bombing (in both directions actually).

 

That's an easy question to answer. I played it for thousands of hours (A9-A14) and then they changed the game, and it's no longer fun.

[OzHawkeye]

That's an easy question to answer. I played it for thousands of hours (A9-A14) and then they changed the game, and it's no longer fun.

 

And I have no problem with you feeling that. Over the course of the Alpha development process, there's been times when I've been less thrilled in the game than at other times. Even with A17, which I'm generally VERY happy with, there are elements I hope change.

 

If you can provide your feedback, logically and civilly, then you'll be doing TFP a great service, and if I were to read a review that said "started out great, but the following changes [x],[y],[z] implemented over time (with detail)" then I'd pay attention to that detail.

 

As a general rule, negative feedback properly put is far more valuable than positive feedback.

 

What DOES render feedback valueless in my eyes anyway is anyone making the following claims (in general order of their devaluing aspect):

 

1) That their view constitutes the majority.

 

2) That contrary views are just shilling for/sucking up to/excusing the developers.

 

3) Contain ad hominem.

 

4) That a negative change was deliberately implemented to lower fun.

 

5) That demand immediate rectification.

 

6) Hyperbole/caustic sarcasm in general.

[RestInPieces]

That's an easy question to answer. I played it for thousands of hours (A9-A14) and then they changed the game, and it's no longer fun.

 

It's the opposite for me - most things I wished for came true. And in general the consensus on Steam is very postitive as shown by the review graph.

 

...which invalidates the whole rating system.

 

"It's not coming out fast enough! I've 2k hours and I want my money back!" is simply not a good gauge of a game.

 

That's not to say that the delay didn't hurt the game though.

[Guppycur]

I'm sure it did, but it's that very system that ALLOWS the game to get hurt, that's flawed.