After 4000 hours with a11-a16, I won't spend much time in a17x. Here's why... no fun!

[Guppycur]

But why does his moderator status even matter?

 

...it shouldn't. At all.

[Rockspider]

But why does his moderator status even matter?

 

...it shouldn't. At all.

 

Middle ground is hard to find on here

[Bubbahotetp]

We represent a small fraction of a fraction of their customer base, AND tfp already has our money...

 

...roland being roland doesn't affect the bottom line any more than an actual dev post does.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

And who is shown favoritism? And how are you defining favoritism?

 

Since the moderators are players and have their opinions and state their opinions on the forum, they show natural favouritism towards people who agree with their point, thus skewing the customers stated opinions about the product and risking filtering it through their own opinions before forwarding it to the developers (if that is indeed one of their tasks). You can't be both involved and stay neutral, that just doesn't work.

 

Edit: Since the moderators also are players they will also always show loyalty to the developer first, since being close to them and being able to work for them, even without pay, is seen as a high status perk - or they just wouldn't do it. The price of that is neutrality.

[Guppycur]

I don't think the prime directive applies...

[OzHawkeye]

Since the moderators are players and have their opinions and state their opinions on the forum, they show natural favouritism towards people who agree with their point, thus skewing the customers stated opinions about the product and risking filtering it through their own opinions before forwarding it to the developers (if that is indeed one of their tasks). You can't be both involved and stay neutral, that just doesn't work.

 

Edit: Since the moderators also are players they will also always show loyalty to the developer first, since being close to them and being able to work for them, even without pay, is seen as a high status perk - or they just wouldn't do it. The price of that is neutrality.

 

Bubbahotetp (and thraka),

 

I can give you a 100% unconditional guarantee that I will not now, or ever, take any moderator action against someone disagreeing with me, the Devs, any other poster, any other moderator whatsoever, unless I genuinely and honestly believe such post violates the established forum guidelines.

 

If I were to do anything other than that, then I would be a terrible moderator and ought to be subject to removal from that position the moment I did that.

 

I can equally say though, that I absolutely will moderate those posts I do genuinely and sincerely believe violate the forum guidelines, and will do so regardless of whether the post in question is supportive OR critical of the Devs, me, the moderators or other community members.

 

I take very seriously the division of responsibility of I have, between posting my OWN opinions (some of which I hold just as strongly as other opinions held by other community members, but which I hope I communicate civilly) and those, thankfully rarer times, when I act as a moderator.

 

Disagree with me all you like, I'll defend your right to critique the game till the end of time, so long as it's done civilly.

 

This, by the way, is why I feel like I have every right to also post here as a player, precisely because I am so careful to differentiate between my "player" posting and my "moderator" actions.

[jlmanatee]

I've reached lvl 52 and day 20 now. I love it! Thanks TFP. Yes, there are some bugs and I had to do some tweaking to get 30-60 FPS (I'm running 1920x1080, not bad). I like the bicycle so much I'll probably skip the minibike. Actually, I found A16 to be boring after you get to steel making.

[Roland]

Since the moderators are players and have their opinions and state their opinions on the forum, they show natural favouritism towards people who agree with their point, thus skewing the customers stated opinions about the product and risking filtering it through their own opinions before forwarding it to the developers (if that is indeed one of their tasks). You can't be both involved and stay neutral, that just doesn't work.

 

Edit: Since the moderators also are players they will also always show loyalty to the developer first, since being close to them and being able to work for them, even without pay, is seen as a high status perk - or they just wouldn't do it. The price of that is neutrality.

 

I actually haven’t stated my opinion directly in response to your points. I’ve stated repeatedly that I’m only against people representing their own view as representing the majority or that the changes were made for greed, maliciousness, spite towards one segment of the community, consoles, or anything other than that the devs like the way the game plays now better than any previous version.

 

So if you’re worried about what I have to say then you’re simply worried that you can’t use false assumptions to lend strength to your opinion about the game.

 

My opinion about the game itself is:

 

1) I would like level gating lessened or removed.

2) I think multiple active lcbs should be allowed.

3) I would like less zombie kill xp and more xp granted for everything else.

4) I like zombie loot just the way it is now. Maybe up the percentage a bit at night but not really necessary.

5) I think zombies should dig and am glad they do again. Next up: dogs should be able to swim and attack on the surface of water

6) current death penalty is perfect. Cutting it to 30 min isn’t necessary but I also wouldn’t object. I’m just glad there’s something punitive in place.

 

In general I find A17 to be the best version so far even with my own objections to choices they made. Please feel free to express your disagreement with me and we can talk it out. Forum rules don’t prohibit me from participating after all...

[thraka]

Oz, you're missing an important component here. You guys have not (that I have seen) taken direct action, but when it is clear that you guys side with very aggro people on contentious matters, it's difficult not to see bias. Several posters have responded to criticism of the game with criticism of the poster, with insults like "you're an entitled whiner", "You're just a crybaby, you can't handle change", "why don't you go play minecraft", etc. There are plenty to find.

 

Why are they not moderated? It feels like it's because the mods take sides.

[Gas]

Honestly, the fact that the mods are on this thread, derailing the crap out of it and arguing with people is most of the reason I don't use these forums. Many threads turn into this.

[Gorenuke]

I'm really liking the game so far.... but I would like it a lot more if I could figure out how to tweak the lighting and turn off the weather effects. I really don't want to keep popping Zofran and BP meds to play this without barfing everywhere and without triggering migraines lol.

l.

 

I noticed i am getting this same effect as well, i have experienced that other games have made me feel seasick and nauseous, but 7days to die was never one of them, but after the new update i cant really play for that long without starting to get a headache and feel a bit unwell.

Not really sure what the cause is, i did change the fov back to what i used to have, as that was normally the biggest cause.

[Poojam]

I noticed i am getting this same effect as well, i have experienced that other games have made me feel seasick and nauseous, but 7days to die was never one of them, but after the new update i cant really play for that long without starting to get a headache and feel a bit unwell.

Not really sure what the cause is, i did change the fov back to what i used to have, as that was normally the biggest cause.

 

I think it's the FOV + gamma. The colors look really washed out to me in some biomes and light levels. Default settings were really hurting my eyes too. Never had that problem until A17.

[OzHawkeye]

Oz, you're missing an important component here. You guys have not (that I have seen) taken direct action, but when it is clear that you guys side with very aggro people on contentious matters, it's difficult not to see bias. Several posters have responded to criticism of the game with criticism of the poster, with insults like "you're an entitled whiner", "You're just a crybaby, you can't handle change", "why don't you go play minecraft", etc. There are plenty to find.

 

Why are they not moderated? It feels like it's because the mods take sides.

 

I review any post reported that is not already reviewed by another moderator. I can assure you, I take the same moderator action regardless of whether the post in question was in support of or in critique of the game.

 

The one point I can see, is perhaps we moderators might look at how better we can differentiate our "player actions" and our "moderator actions" so people can more clearly see there is a HUGE difference between both.

 

If you see a post you feel violates the forum guidelines, please do report it. Every last single report DOES get looked at, and I don't know of ANY moderator who changes their decided action based on whether the post was for or against some side of some issue.

[Bubbahotetp]

Bubbahotetp (and thraka),

 

I can give you a 100% unconditional guarantee that I will not now, or ever, take any moderator action against someone disagreeing with me, the Devs, any other poster, any other moderator whatsoever, unless I genuinely and honestly believe such post violates the established forum guidelines.

 

If I were to do anything other than that, then I would be a terrible moderator and ought to be subject to removal from that position the moment I did that.

 

I can equally say though, that I absolutely will moderate those posts I do genuinely and sincerely believe violate the forum guidelines, and will do so regardless of whether the post in question is supportive OR critical of the Devs, me, the moderators or other community members.

 

I take very seriously the division of responsibility of I have, between posting my OWN opinions (some of which I hold just as strongly as other opinions held by other community members, but which I hope I communicate civilly) and those, thankfully rarer times, when I act as a moderator.

 

Disagree with me all you like, I'll defend your right to critique the game till the end of time, so long as it's done civilly.

 

This, by the way, is why I feel like I have every right to also post here as a player, precisely because I am so careful to differentiate between my "player" posting and my "moderator" actions.

 

That's a very honourable position you hold and I'm totally in agreement and you're doing a fine job that way because that's what a moderator is supposed to do. And you trying to be careful about what you say here as a fellow player is also worth praise. However, it can not be easy being both moderator and poster because the the line between one and the other is very very fine.

[Kosmic Kerman]

I'm really liking the game so far.... but I would like it a lot more if I could figure out how to tweak the lighting and turn off the weather effects. I really don't want to keep popping Zofran and BP meds to play this without barfing everywhere and without triggering migraines lol.

.

 

Try this the next time you start your game. Open the console (F1) and type this sg OptionsFieldOfViewNew 80. Replace 80 with whatever FOV you prefer. The default is 65. If this helps, you’ll need to do it at the start of each session as it isn’t saved.

[Gorenuke]

Try this the next time you start your game. Open the console (F1) and type this sg OptionsFieldOfViewNew 80. Replace 80 with whatever FOV you prefer. The default is 65. If this helps, you’ll need to do it at the start of each session as it isn’t saved.

 

There is another option that is just optionsfieldofview instead of optionsfieldofviewnew, do you know what the difference is?

Also i edited my useroptions file instead of your method that seemed to stick for the optionsfieldofview at least.

[Kosmic Kerman]

There is another option that is just optionsfieldofview instead of optionsfieldofviewnew, do you know what the difference is?

Also i edited my useroptions file instead of your method that seemed to stick for the optionsfieldofview at least.

 

My understanding is that the FOV is hard coded and doesn’t look at the options.ini file. OptionsFieldOfView changes this value but I don’t think it actually affects what you see in game. OptionsFieldOfViewNew is a temporary value which overcomes the hard coded FOV. Try it in game, you will see a noticeable difference. I use the “New” command every time I load up the game and there is always a substantial difference between how it loads and what I set it to (80).

[Jolly]

Yep re the original post yep i agree. This game is teetering on the edge of self destruction if it isn't fun anymore and there is no sense of achievement. If things aren't balanced and re-thought then the only hope will be that some mods come out that are more playable. Otherwise I'll be playing alot of 16.4 Fenec mod, GNA mod etc.

[Drengor]

I've been burning out on A17 already, so I asked myself why...

 

First and foremost was the quality system change.... The only difference between this quality 1 item, and a max quality is a few points of durability... why keep scavenging? I can repair this item an infinite number of times, without ferals dropping on my head.

 

I could mine... but there's not much reason to at this point.

 

I can wander around killing zombies.. Which is mostly what I've been doing... but it's starting to get old, and I'm only level 37.

 

I suppose I could build a non-horde night base, but wood and flagstone aren't going to hack it for horde night. (Though I did put bloodmoon zombie count back down to default, from 32, after the second horde night... )

 

For now I think I'll go back to Starvation on A16.

[OzHawkeye]

I've been burning out on A17 already, so I asked myself why...

 

First and foremost was the quality system change.... The only difference between this quality 1 item, and a max quality is a few points of durability... why keep scavenging? I can repair this item an infinite number of times, without ferals dropping on my head.

 

I could mine... but there's not much reason to at this point.

 

I can wander around killing zombies.. Which is mostly what I've been doing... but it's starting to get old, and I'm only level 37.

 

I suppose I could build a non-horde night base, but wood and flagstone aren't going to hack it for horde night. (Though I did put bloodmoon zombie count back down to default, from 32, after the second horde night... )

 

For now I think I'll go back to Starvation on A16.

 

To the first point, once ALL the mods that TFP plan to add are in, the big selling point of the higher tier weapons/tools etc, will be the ability to add 5 mods to a purple quality as opposed to as little as none for the lower quality items.

 

Hopefully they'll all be in place for 17.0, but we'll see.

[Bubbahotetp]

I actually haven’t stated my opinion directly in response to your points. I’ve stated repeatedly that I’m only against people representing their own view as representing the majority or that the changes were made for greed, maliciousness, spite towards one segment of the community, consoles, or anything other than that the devs like the way the game plays now better than any previous version.

 

So if you’re worried about what I have to say then you’re simply worried that you can’t use false assumptions to lend strength to your opinion about the game.

 

My opinion about the game itself is:

 

1) I would like level gating lessened or removed.

2) I think multiple active lcbs should be allowed.

3) I would like less zombie kill xp and more xp granted for everything else.

4) I like zombie loot just the way it is now. Maybe up the percentage a bit at night but not really necessary.

5) I think zombies should dig and am glad they do again. Next up: dogs should be able to swim and attack on the surface of water

6) current death penalty is perfect. Cutting it to 30 min isn’t necessary but I also wouldn’t object. I’m just glad there’s something punitive in place.

 

In general I find A17 to be the best version so far even with my own objections to choices they made. Please feel free to express your disagreement with me and we can talk it out. Forum rules don’t prohibit me from participating after all...

 

I hope I'm free as well to express my agreement?

 

To you as well - I apologise for leaving your name in the initial post about moderator neutrality. It was meant more like a general observation than anything tied to someone specific. Though I admit (obviously) one of your posts sparked my post.

 

In my op I represent a group of people of whom I'm not aware are posting here. I am sure a few of them are members but I don't know who they are here. No, representing others as a majority can not easily be done in a realistic way. What the majority of one or the other group is is hard to tell, and statistics form post or thread numbers are highly unlikely to be accurate while still being tempting as an argumentative tool.

 

I'm not worried, I'm a customer and early backer, I can pretty much say anything I like within the civil rules of conduct that guide this place. Though I'm aware I do test the waters sometimes. You as a moderator should be worried about what you are saying, more than me at the very least, for the reasons I've already stated. Though 'worry' is now only used as a matter of speaking and in the context of a direct response to you using that phrase. I'm pretty sure you don't ...'worry'.

 

On your opinions - interesting and a welcomed olive branch.

1) Agree

2) Agree

3) Agree

4) Disagree. I posted in another thread a scenario I set for myself where I lived only off a tiny bit of land (a small island) and was relying on zombie loot to get by. It was a massive challenge and enormous fun. I will miss that possibility as i will miss a few other things, also I think it's one less incentive to fight a horde to get nothing but XP from it.

5) I am split about the digging. I would wish there was a way to create a safe haven so that players who wish to focus their gameplay on other things than brutal confrontation and constant base repair (maybe the latter not as prevalent as in the previous versions) could also have their own play style. A possibility could be to use the old "Feral" game setting to mean that there will be a constant onslaught of zombies that also dig (kind of like in a17), and without that setting you have more of an a16 approach. Everybody could be happy that way. It worked well with the run/walk settings and everybody found their own home server to play on according to their personal preference and choice.

Another way of letting diggers get their hole and keep it, but still have them challenged would be to invent new ways of repelling the enemy. These aren't real scenarios I see as necessarily viable ideas but they offer a glimpse into the possibilities of adding challenges beyond the simple premise of either having zombie digging on or off. One way would be to have resource hungry and fuel dependent "shaker" machines (or which ever mysterious technical innovation) which would need to be build and constantly fed in order to "throw off" the zombies' senses so they don't dig where you are. Another would be to disallow digging but to make it very costly for a player to actually dig very deep. Meaning a player might have to install hard to build air pumps (which burn fuel), install air pipes (using the existing power cable mechanic), and keep those constantly running. If those pumps stop or get destroyed by zombies (which might or might not react to them or try to seek them out) a slow drowning effect might set in, of course with its own appropriate graphic. These are just ways to expand existing a16 gameplay mechanics without breaking a16 but without giving the player anything for free. It would just be another optional way of doing things and would expand the 7DTD world so to speak.

6) I am not sure yet. It's potentially better than the previous one, but I would be worried about repetitive ganking and corpse camping in PVP. Not sure how that works out and I'll probably never find out. I'm not much of a PVP player.

 

As is pretty clear by now it's not the best to me, a serious issue is lack of optimization, it's not running smoothly on medium settings and doesn't look great, crisper visuals and less haze, a few more colours would be appreciated. Those things are most likely to be fixed however. A great disappointment is the flatness of the terrain. Had it been me I would have preferred even higher mountains and deeper valleys than in a16, which would mean they'd have to grow in size too in order to not get ridiculously steep. What can I say, I like mountains. Having a few areas like that on each map would be a great improvement. I suspect however that it's very difficult to make the map terrain layer thicker than it already is to accommodate for even greater terrain variations. The lakes right now are a bit small and I would like to see rivers again. Enemy spamming in dungeons is also a tad tedious. I would at the least prefer to not have drop in zombies other than if they come out of closets or burst through doors, but to drop them on top of the player seems a little desperate for jump scares. I would like to see that turned down a bit (unless in that optional "Feral" setting where people can get beat on full on as much as they like). The number of workbenches and chem stations could be toned down somewhat, even though I'm aware that many of them don't work. I like the new trees, the arrows, a few overhauled zds look awesome. The controls are sluggish as hell, too slow and too few hits per minute on tools. Crisper animations alone would give a feeling that things are getting done faster. Too high energy consumption when doing physical labour, would be nice to have that balanced out.

 

I guess I came around to saying how I would want things to change after all.

[OzHawkeye]

That's a very honourable position you hold and I'm totally in agreement and you're doing a fine job that way because that's what a moderator is supposed to do. And you trying to be careful about what you say here as a fellow player is also worth praise. However, it can not be easy being both moderator and poster because the the line between one and the other is very very fine.

 

Well, firstly, thanks. :-)

 

And yes, it is a fine line, and I don't pretend we moderators have walked it perfectly, in fact, I'm sure we could do better. It's been especially hard these past few weeks with the volume of posting here (and keep in mind we also moderate the even more prone-to-over-anger Steam forums), but I think the forums are better FOR our efforts than WITHOUT them, that's for sure.

 

Nor do even we moderators agree on everything. For example, Post #257, Roland lists his personal opinions on A17, and at least one of those I disagree with, namely, all zombies digging. While I'm not a huge fan personally of underground bases, I also believe that if a player WANTS to make themselves invulnerable, then, the game ought to allow them to, or at least not go out of its way to prevent it. I'm yet to be convinced that all zombies digging (particularly so frenetically) is an "all good" thing, or whether it carries with it a transactional penalty to player enjoyment. Of course, this also comes from my exclusively SP point of view, so I find it even harder to know the answer when it comes to MP, where invulnerable bases could well be considered "Exploits".

[Bubbahotetp]

I think it's the FOV + gamma. The colors look really washed out to me in some biomes and light levels. Default settings were really hurting my eyes too. Never had that problem until A17.

 

Same here a real strain on the eyes. The visuals need to get clearer. I'm not 30 any more.

[Bubbahotetp]

Of course, this also comes from my exclusively SP point of view, so I find it even harder to know the answer when it comes to MP, where invulnerable bases could well be considered "Exploits".

 

There again a split could be made between PvP and PvE. In PvE I don't see why anybody would be bothered that someone does their private thing. In PvP it becomes more of a loaded question if there are players who expect to be raiding a lot of other bases. If they don't see finding bunkers as part of the challenge then digging players become an annoyance to them. Finding them would however still be possible. In a16 zombies left a trail of horde night destruction along the tops of player tunnels (if they were used as rabbit runns) and bases, could thus be spotted on the map if you knew what to look for or could be discovered when examining the terrain for unnatural damage.

[badmojo]

See, what you want is a forum that becomes just like YouTube or Facebook comment threads. That’s never going to happen as long as I can help it. If you cannot deliver criticism civilly you’ll be banned. THEN you can go to Facebook and lie to those people that you got banned solely because TFP doesn’t allow criticism.

 

So relax and state your criticism objectively without insults and you won’t have any problems. Don’t be so triggered by change that you have to rant and assume the worst motives for those changes and throw insults against the developers or those who disagree. It’s just a video game. We play it for fun.

 

I see you can't help but generalize everyone who dares to critique the glorious a17. I'm just another filthy complainer in your eyes, so I must fling personal insults like crazy and fabricate lies about the developers. It's so noble of you to resist using the ban hammer so as not to provide our army with ammunition for our propaganda war.

 

It's funny, you say I assume the worst motives for the changes, a statement which shows you assume I have the worst motives for any complaints I might make. In fact, I don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ what the motives for the changes actually are. I am a blunt person, I just simply state objectively what I dislike and why. So, it's kind of out of nowhere and amusing to hear you say I assume things about the developers motives, or that I have made personal attacks against people here.

[Roland]

I see you can't help but generalize everyone who dares to critique the glorious a17. I'm just another filthy complainer in your eyes, so I must fling personal insults like crazy and fabricate lies about the developers. It's so noble of you to resist using the ban hammer so as not to provide our army with ammunition for our propaganda war.

 

It's funny, you say I assume the worst motives for the changes, a statement which shows you assume I have the worst motives for any complaints I might make. In fact, I don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ what the motives for the changes actually are. I am a blunt person, I just simply state objectively what I dislike and why. So, it's kind of out of nowhere and amusing to hear you say I assume things about the developers motives, or that I have made personal attacks against people here.

 

Not out of nowhere. I was answering directly your post here:

 

It's like some people here are unwilling to accept any criticism as valid unless the criticisms are delivered from an overly polite and apologetic customer service representative. And our criticisms apparently have to be unified across the board. If some people complain about X Y and Z, you better not have someone else complain about A B and C or else everything can be safely ignored because... inconsistency deems it so.

 

 

If <your complaint> contains <words & tones I dislike> or =/= <everyone elses opinion> then it can be safely dismissed.

 

It's not politics here, nuance and details are very important. Generalizations and hurt feelings are just avoiding the real issues. Don't get so triggered, it's video game mechanics, we play this ♥♥♥♥ for fun damnit. It's not an important life changing issue, just relax and be objective, on both sides.

 

Your first line says that you should be able to post impolite criticism if you want to.

Your middle single formula sentence seems to say that the tone and words you use shouldn't matter.

Your last paragraph basically is saying don't be politically correct and don't get triggered which begs the question of what it is you want to post that would lead to people getting triggered (hint: usually insults and flame bait).

 

Now what is funny is that I was just being blunt with you about what I'm not going to allow to happen in these forums and you broke your own advice about getting triggered. I really have no idea about what you have or have not posted but your post was a good one to respond to so that people would know what I'm not going to allow since you seemed to be saying "We should be able to post criticism any way we like and you should just take the point of criticism and ignore the rest no matter how rude it might be"

 

I'm not trying to protect A17. A17 doesn't need protecting. I am protecting the forums from becoming a place that (again) it seemed you were suggesting we should become.