7 Days to Die

Keep in mind you can remove mods at will. Like, if you get an axe mod, you only need the one for the entire playthrough (unless this got changed recently).

I'm not sure if it's still available, but in steam you also used to be able to change the version to experimental builds and go all the way to maybe A12.

Void said:

reduced zombie block damage, turned off hordes

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I suggested things to speed up progression, I didn't mean deactivate 67% of the game.

*edit*

the problem with turning off blood moons entirely is that the game is supposed to be a cycle of PoI progression, base building, base repair, repeat. Without hordes 2/3rds of the gameplay loop is missing and you're just just endlessly grinding PoIs so that...you can grind more/harder PoIs. Hordes are what the game is named after.

I mean if he doesn't find that aspect enjoyable, then might as well. Pretty easy to cheese bloodmoons anyways - if you're in a city biome, just find a large building and destroy the stairs. The building under construction is probably the easiest since there are limited stairs to access the top floor. If the building gets fucked up, doesn't matter since it isn't your base.

Void said:

I started a new game, reduced zombie block damage, turned off hordes, generated a random map so I don't know where anything is. Way more fun this way so far, but perhaps it is the new start/exploration thing that is enthralling me. The first trader ended up being right next to a small town-like area with tons to explore. I cleared out Bob's Burgers and am living on the roof. I even lived through my first infection because now I know about fucking honey! That killed me at least twice on my first playthrough because I had no access to antibiotics and knew nothing about honey. Managed to get a cooking pot early too so now I don't shit myself constantly with dysentery.

Definitely fun to start again while knowing a few things. Maybe I'll get frustrated or bored later, but so far it is fun again. I even went clubs as Gavin suggested, and one of my quest rewards was a tier 2 baton! Ha, amusing how that can be exciting this early. I do hate the animation for it though. And clubs and knives and sledges in general. The animation is literally the whole reason I picked spears the first time, because I poke right where the animation does.

Anyway, thanks for the advice and words of encouragement. Maybe with the settings making the zombies less of a constant design choice I'll enjoy it longer this time around.

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Definitely play with the settings as you see fit, the game can be quite different depending on how you play it. It's one of the reasons I have put as many hours into it as I have. Weapon choices, combat/building focused, questing/exploration all make a major difference in how the game plays out. I'm currently on a no-trader, no-death run and it's a very different game compared to standard even if you change no other settings.

Couple more beginner tips:

You can target certain skill books both by putting points into the skill and also by looting specific locations. Medical buildings have a bigger chance to have medical books, construction sites have engineering books, kitchens have cooking etc. A cement mixer or forge in the world will always have a Forge Ahead book in it so look for those.

Stun baton is the best eventually but all weapons are viable as long as you put points in it early on. A mix of melee and ranged will work best so you save ammo and can mag dump tougher enemies.

During a quest you can go outside the building to kite the zombies around it as long as you don't go too far outside the boundaries it will not reset the quest (text in quest list turns yellow). Running quests is the quickest way to get gear early on, the game becomes considerably harder just by not running quests.

Wood hatches can be easily made and can be used to block a doorway and give yourself some time to melee down enemies.

If you build a base inside a building don't run a quest for that location because it will reset it and wipe out your base.

I always run a “no-cheese hardcore no-death” type of game and find that it ramps up the excitement.

The Fun Pimps have repeatedly said that they like to go through the data to see what people use for base defense/game play and then change it if they don’t like it or find it too exploity. The triangle spike traps that used to blow up zombie feet were removed and zombie fall damage was heavily nerfed because their data at one time showed many people were building underground zombie defenses utilizing fall damage, pillars, and the traps and they didn’t like that type of defense. They also got away from the “skill up as you do repetitive tasks“ feature that Void likes because at one point their data showed that something like 80%+ of the player base always ended up maxing out mining first and a significant portion of those people rarely went exploring into other biomes.

It’s like…well, yeah, who knew that people like building bases in a zombie survival base building type of game and they’re going to use the base building skills to survive?


I will say though probably the worst change I felt they made to the game over the years was removing zombie cops and dogs from “cities“. At one point all cities were infested with zombie cops and dogs patrolling just outside even at the start of the game and it made it exciting and risky to venture into cities early on for the good loot. Now, unless you’re in the destroyed biome theres practically no threat at all.

Oh, yeah, tying loot more heavily to the game stage, quests, and loot finding perks blows too. I went from “oh hey I need a forge/wrench/hammer better find a construction site/store” to literally skipping all buildings early on unless they were food related. Just started and theres a police station/armory/shotgun building? Why bother, it’s filled with crap because low game stage/loot perks.

That reminds me of one of my favorite bases, which was built on bedrock where I'd dig all the way, make a 3x3 hole, and the bottom would open up. Zombies would fall and either die, or be close to death. You'd make an arena and just pick them off from the upper deck.

Void said:

Yeah, I'm contemplating that aspect right now before I saw your comment. I guess I was trying to kind of treat it like a cooler Minecraft, where there really isn't a ton of actual point to the game beyond gearing up and building a base, but at least this has skill and tech improvements to chase, and stuff like trader quests and PoIs.

To be fair, adding the hordes back in is just making that the focus of the game though, and one that I'm not finding enjoyable, so I guess it is a matter of whether or not I find the other half of the game enjoyable enough to grind on for a bit and then put down, like I do every year or so with Minecraft, or I just forget the game entirely. It seems the devs have a very strict focus of what they want people to have to do in the full game, and it isn't what I like, so maybe I just need to accept that.

So, what other game would anyone suggest then?

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Kenshi is a third person survival, base building, squad management, RPG-lite, with some RTS like battles. You control when and how much your base/crew gets attacked, by how you interact with the game and where you build your base (whose land you build on).

Valheim is a first person decent solo experience with mobs attacking the base, but not nearly as much as 7DTD seems to have (haven't played 7DTD, just from reading the thread).

Conan Exiles on your own "server" to make it solo, is close to Valheim, but different.

V Rising solo is third person base building, without NPC base attacks, and leans more into an Action RPG type game.

Subnautica is a great base building/exploration game, if you haven't played it. It also has no NPC base attacks. It is very popular solo game.

Void said:

To be fair, adding the hordes back in is just making that the focus of the game though, and one that I'm not finding enjoyable, so I guess it is a matter of whether or not I find the other half of the game enjoyable enough to grind on for a bit and then put down, like I do every year or so with Minecraft, or I just forget the game entirely. It seems the devs have a very strict focus of what they want people to have to do in the full game, and it isn't what I like, so maybe I just need to accept that.

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Set your days to 90 minutes but don't change the length of your nights. That will give you a lot more time for PoIs without removing hordes from the game entirely.

If you enjoy the game just doing PoIs with hordes turned off then don't let me ruin that for you, I just think the idea that your efforts are going towards surviving each horde rather than grinding tougher PoIs makes the the overall game more enjoyable. You don't need some super engineered forged steel super bunker to survive horde nights and you won't spend more than maybe 1 day out of the week specifically preparing for/repairing after horde night.

This is my wife and I's favorite game, we have a thousand+ hours into it easily. Never played solo, and we've tried with a group but for us, 2 players was pretty perfect.

The biggest tip I have was hard learned - Never make your crafting base the same as your horde base. In fact, don't let your crafting base be anywhere near your horde base. Take over a house or some other cool shop, turn that into your "home" base. Even then, never be on ground zero, either find a 2 story place, or live in the attic/on the roof. Break stairs and ladders to remove access to the upper floor and then build a ladder 3 blocks up from the ground. You can jump on it and go up, zombies can't. Now if your crafting at night and zombies hear you - just shoot them with arrows from the safety of being up high.

Go a few houses away and turn another building into your base just for horde nights. Put spikes everywhere, black off positions with multiple fallback positions for you to go, and use that same ladder trick to make spots you can get to but the zombies can't. They break through everything and you're trapped? Surprise, you can always go up and all they can do is stand around slowly eating away at all the supports to whatever you are on top of. Also, zombies are smart and will path whatever way is the easiest to get to you. If your base has all cobblestone walls but one is wood, they will all beeline to the wood and break through there. They will prioritize doors and hatches as well, so set up hallways full of hatches.

Side notes, Undead Legacy is my favorite overhall mod BUT it hasn't been updated in like 2 years. The main Dev is working on it, but its slow going. We're currently doing a playthrough of Darkness Falls right now (we just beat day 28 a few minutes ago) and while we enjoy it, I definitely think its one of those "Have you played a couple hundred hours of vanilla and want to get punched in the dick?" kind of mods. I THINK you might like "The Purge" game mode of the Rebirth mod. You pick a class and start with some gear, but basically all the random wandering zombies are disabled and there is no blood moon (the premise is that mankind won the fight against zombies and you are sent in to clear houses). So you basically just go door to door exploring and clearing places, which raises a meter - when that hits 100% you unlock the next biome and repeat. That was the main takeaway but there were settings you could adjust (Turn off screamer nights for example, they were just stupid hard, basically a bloodmoon on random nights), but they had wandering horde options, and even boss fights. Plus it was all learn by doing instead of the books. We thought it was super well done.

Void said:

Yeah, I'm contemplating that aspect right now before I saw your comment. I guess I was trying to kind of treat it like a cooler Minecraft, where there really isn't a ton of actual point to the game beyond gearing up and building a base, but at least this has skill and tech improvements to chase, and stuff like trader quests and PoIs.

To be fair, adding the hordes back in is just making that the focus of the game though, and one that I'm not finding enjoyable, so I guess it is a matter of whether or not I find the other half of the game enjoyable enough to grind on for a bit and then put down, like I do every year or so with Minecraft, or I just forget the game entirely. It seems the devs have a very strict focus of what they want people to have to do in the full game, and it isn't what I like, so maybe I just need to accept that.

So, what other game would anyone suggest then?

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You can absolutely play it as minecraft for grownups if you want to, the devs don't really force you to play it any particular way because you can change it all in the settings.

It's common to see the day 7 horde as overwhelming early on but as you get better at the game it's no longer such a big deal and it adds to the game in that you can build new bases to try and manage it more effectively.

But by all means turn the weekly hordes off for now if you want to, it's an entirely viable way to play the game and the challenge will then come from moving to different biomes, getting food and gaining levels etc. In fact, I have one playthrough where I have long maxed everything out and just build shit while I chill out listening to podcasts.

Onoes said:

The biggest tip I have was hard learned - Never make your crafting base the same as your horde base. In fact, don't let your crafting base be anywhere near your horde base. Take over a house or some other cool shop, turn that into your "home" base. Even then, never be on ground zero, either find a 2 story place, or live in the attic/on the roof. Break stairs and ladders to remove access to the upper floor and then build a ladder 3 blocks up from the ground. You can jump on it and go up, zombies can't. Now if your crafting at night and zombies hear you - just shoot them with arrows from the safety of being up high.

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Or just make a crafting floor in your horde base, then you don't have to worry about your house being overrun by a double screamer horde.