A17 likes, dislikes, and suggestions from this vetersn players opinion.

[Thunderfrog]

Dear Fun Pimps,

 

Without all the emotional wringing that has been in a lot of these. Here is my simple review of A17e in case you are wondering, "I wonder how people feel about the release?"

 

Note: These are my opinions. I know I do not speak for the 7Days community. I am offering my opinion to TFP for their own reference in sorting out how people stand. I don't know if I am the majority, the minority, or the vocal component of either.

 

I have always been a very big fan of this game. It's my top played hours game across all platforms, except maybe Final Fantasy Tactics back in the day.

 

 

 

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1. Early Game Likes

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- Quests are still a great way to get going. I would like to see more of them to carry you to quicker through a couple of levels.

 

 

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2. Early Game Dislikes.

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- Zombie loot being gone is a real bummer. I either stored it all for dukes or kept a meticulous scavenge pile. I do not feel like the loss of zombie loot is offset by container loot inside of poi's, because of how difficult it is to get into them safely until you are using a crossbow with stealth perks.

 

- Initial Stamina is way too scarce. The amount of slow movement is a detractor in fun for me, frustrating with the way zombie rings spawn, and generates sighs of exasperation in endless supply.

 

-Multiplayer is near impossible if you are the level 1 joining a day 100 server.

 

-Zombies follow you relentlessly, which would be fine, if you lead them far away without all the sleepers resetting in the buildings. You can't effectively lead them away into a trap then return for sweet rewards.

 

 

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3. Early Game Suggestions.

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- For Multiplayer servers, please create a limited duration buff that masks from you from the heatseeker zombies, zombie spawn rings, and reduces sleepers.

 

- It's far too difficult to establish anything but bone knives, clubs, and stone arrows. Are you guys secretly building a caveman simulator?

 

- Give us "Shoddy Repair Kits" or something that allows us to repair our crappy iron tools until we have successfully defeated the forged iron level gate. Maybe give duct tape that purpose, so it can do something other than be an ingredient?

 

- If you want Stamina to stay so easily drained, please consider increasing walking speed.

 

- More non-combat xp and faster XP in general.

 

 

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1. Mid Game Likes

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- I like that there is a reason to use leather, scrap, and other armors now. Not needing to find books for things that feel gamestage appropriate is a nice touch.

 

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2. Mid Game Dislikes.

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- The fact that I have to spend so much time playing 7 Days to Caveman. I understand trying to force players spend more time in a worse scenario but I don't like it. Stone Arrows and Stone Axe will make a lot of people quit, because with just those you really have a super hard time clearing loot buildings for better scavenge.

 

- Reduced usefulness of the tools you do find. It takes like 3 or 4 hits with a shovel to clear a dirt block. We aren't playing mining simulator. It shouldn't be instant, but I shouldn't have to spend 30 minutes to dig a small hole/trap/land area.

 

- Bases that you can't defend successfully due to zombie damage buffs.

 

- That progression through this game state is almost always going to be identical. There are certain skills that are necessities for a long and successful game, and some that are frivolous and flavor. I feel like I have to ignore some of the more appealing things like stealth and agility in order to spend points in the minimum required intellect at every level.

 

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3. Mid Game Suggestions.

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- Allowing access to more found tools, weapons, and armor makes not being able to craft your own not quite so terrible.

 

- Take dirt back to being a 1 or 2 hit process. Hell, make a shovel a shovel and a hoe a hoe, and tie their usefulness to strength instead of item level. Tools don't even need item level in my opinion. Steel might wear out slower.

 

- Give us back underground bases please. A lot of players build strength and forage from underground, then transition to a show off vanity base above ground. There are a lot of multiplayer implications of underground bases being so easily found as well.

 

- For more varied game play, remove level gates. You don't even have to remove attribute gates, but if I want to put my first 20 points into strength, let me. Maybe I'm visioning this character as a former bodybuilder who was a big ol' dummy and not a specialized warrior. Doing this allows a lot more varied roles in a party as well.

 

- Please remove some skills from Intelligence and make a Survival Skills tree. Things like cooking, forges, and a few other basic necessities of game play shouldn't require me to play an int-based character every single time to have. That's leaving me feeling like I only have the illusion of choice.

 

 

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1. Advanced Game Likes (Post Forge)

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- Dungeons become a fun once in awhile endeavor, and once you have resources and bullets to fight off the endless zombie spawns in POI's it becomes pretty fun doing so.

 

- You can finally start to have the feeling of character uniqueness.

 

- The Vehicles are all a lot of fun.

 

 

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2. Advanced Game Dislikes.

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- Once the forge barrier is passed, the sudden rush of technology makes some things redundant. For example, the minibike is suddenly available alongside other modes of transport. A lot of players skip the minibike and move on to better things immediately.

 

- Raiding other lower level players is too easy. Griefers gonna grief. Its so easy to find the new players underground stashes now that they never really have a chance. The can't build above ground, because a low level player can't defend it with rocks and sticks. They can't build below, because heatseeker missile zombies dig into their stashes and reveal them to the most dangerous thing in this game, pvpers.

 

- You can finally build an elaborate base, but Zombie pathing makes a lot of it pointless. I can surround myself in spikes, but only one line of them matters.

 

- This stage comes after many players lose interest. Stone age lasts too long, and the part of the game where it becomes a lot of fun is suddenly level gated too far away. Too many friends quit before getting here and finding the meat of the games technology and crafting.

 

 

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2. Advanced Game Suggestions.

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- I think that making a vehicle tree in skill points is another way to diversify characters. If I could just spend a point in the minibike -> trike -> 4x4 -> gyrocopter, I might be content just staying with the minibike.

 

- 4x4 having a passenger is great. Giving it a mounted AK-47 seat for a third player in the back and the ability for the first passenger to shoot out of his seat would be amazing.

 

- Give us a set of PVP mod tools and online server tools that specifically allow interactions between certain level of players.

 

- Allow low level players a "zombie mask" of sorts. Maybe the survivors in our game were recently infected and now they are immune? Just something that can protect players for a horde night or two until a certain level or gamestate. This could be optional, and mostly for multiplayer.

 

- Perhaps zombies might have a wider swarm, or view each other as collision objects so they take different paths to bases and players.

 

 

 

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Thanks for taking the time to read. Anyone who tries to tell me my opinions are wrong will be more or less ignored. Discussion on these bits however, is more than welcome. You can tell me why you like/dislike something without having to tell me I am wrong for liking/disliking something.

[SickPuppy]

That's some solid feedback, hopefully TFP will take it all into account.

 

Personally, I don't mind the harsh stamina drain early game, I certainly can't play as reckless as I did in A16 and have to slow down and weigh the risks of each fight.

 

I've found the opposite happen, I alternate between sprint and walk to recover stam and in seconds zombies give up chasing me and most of the time they don't follow me after I've turned a corner of a building. This is tested on Insane always run.

 

I'm a bit undecided on the new poi's. The diversity of buildings are fantastic but as some have already said it gets a bit repetitive with each and every poi having so many respawning zombies to deal with. In my 3rd week now and I've only looted a handful of poi's, mostly just used the trader.

 

Agree on spreading the xp across different actions instead of focusing so heavily on zombie killing. I also miss carving up dead zombie bodies.

 

I really like zombies breaking walls now and being a threat in general, I know some players don't like it as it ruins their hard earned base, but zombies where almost zero threat in A16. However, saying that I've had 3 horde nights now and my converted wood barn is still standing, insane 16 zombie count. But I hear ppl's bases are getting wrecked.

 

Agree on the vehicles, i'm in my 3rd week and nowhere near making a bicycle. Thought it would be an early game fun transport to use but it's open at what, lvl30?

 

With u on level gate, I'm not into building so haven't put points into Intelligence, have a bunch of points waiting to be used on Strenth, Fort and Agility perks. Really dislike stopping me progress my character build.

 

Not sure about the new 1-6 quality system. Seems very watered down, some have said it's not worth looting poi's after finding a gun as quality doesn't really up the damage just more mod slots. Might give ppl more incentive to loot if we had A16 1-600 quality weapon parts AND weapon mods.

 

Overall though I much prefer the challenge of A17 > A16

[Skeeter63082]

Agree on pretty much all of this. Hopefully Roland is taking meticulous notes from posts like this and avoiding the forum trolls and A16 fanbois.

[Thunderfrog]

Thanks. I was pretty certain the thread would either turn into a flame war or a bunch of people pointing out I had a typo in the title. =(

[Krougal]

Forged iron isn't level-gated, you just need to find a working forge, find a trader selling, or loot forged iron.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but you'd have to be really unlucky to not be able to find a source and level 20 is hardly advanced game, I don't even know if I'd consider it mid-game.

Sudden rush of technology post forge? Bicycle is 30, and that's if you're lucky enough to find materials.

[fazi]

I really love how challenging early/mid game is.Until A17, i used to get bored by day 28 or so, because i had really everything and no challenge left.So lvl gating, stamina drain , etc, are necessary.

For multiplayer, consider helping low lvl players, if the server is old.For single player, consider lowering difficulty , increasing day size, until you level.One of the greatest things in this game, is the huge map, and how everything can be looted/harvested/destroyed but, until now at least, you always had everything very early.

[Thunderfrog]

I really love how challenging early/mid game is.Until A17, i used to get bored by day 28 or so, because i had really everything and no challenge left.So lvl gating, stamina drain , etc, are necessary.

For multiplayer, consider helping low lvl players, if the server is old.For single player, consider lowering difficulty , increasing day size, until you level.One of the greatest things in this game, is the huge map, and how everything can be looted/harvested/destroyed but, until now at least, you always had everything very early.

 

There's a difference between challenge and forced prolonging of gamestages.

 

There's a difference between a challenging and interesting application of sleepers and having to adapt to sitting outside of a house for 45 seconds waiting for all the sleepers you know will be there to spawn so they don't magically appear right next to you.

 

There's a difference between making challenging decisions about resources and having to spend 50% of daylight to kite zombies so you can loot pois, only to find you kited past the magical invisible barrier and the whole poi reset with new sleepers.

 

There's a difference between having to learn to be skilled with forging techniques and having to wait until an arbitrary skill point can be placed.

 

I feel like a lot of people are defending tedium in the name of challenge.