PC A veteran players view on current vanilla

[IrishManJMo]

I have over 4500 hours put into this game and while I've tried and loved many mods I have always still thoroughly enjoyed playing vanilla servers on this game. However ever since they changed to the magazine system the vanilla experience gets so boring so quickly for players who know the ins and outs of how the game functions. It is now very easy to get to tier 5/6 of crafting whatever you want especially the new clothing items which can make you overpowered pretty easily. Besides the ease of this it also just makes the gameplay very boring now. I'll never go into a POI now if I know it doesn't have bookshelves since that's all that really matters as loot now. There's no point in clearing a tier 5 skyscraper when I can keep resetting crack a books with a trader quest. I hope they find a better balance for the magazine system instead of throwing every skill under it. I know they hated learn by doing but honestly some skills like mining should fall into that category. The idea is good but the execution needs adjusting imo. Same goes for the new clothing items. They visually all look great but functionally only a few pieces are actually worth using and none of the full sets are worth using over a mixture. Those set bonuses should feel legendary to have. Just my two cents on these newer vanilla features. 

 

[Krougal]

I don't know that the crafting is any easier than getting things questing/looting, other than that it is less random. There is still some random because you are dependent on magazines, books and schematics.

Otherwise, I gotta agree with you on every point.

 

[Bhaaltazar]

Moving away from Learn by Doing towards books was big mistake - I think only modders like Subquake who is making Undead legacy will save the game. Checked Steam ratings and they dropped for around 10% compared to before.

Now you can sum down the game to collect magazines and go from bookshelf to bookshelf/mailbox/newsstand/bookstore so you collect them all and craft lvl 6 tools/weapons and restart the game since there is nothing else left to do after you reach that point.

So if I want to enjoy the game for a bit longer I go out in wilderness ignore Traders/Airdrops/quests/loot respawn and just try to do it like in A16.
I move from town to town, loot POIs, no matter which tier it is and than come back to main base every 7 days or so.
You really need to limit yourself against mentioned things since they really break the gameplay - despite traders got nerfed you still get rewards and when you buy stuff you need, that makes a huuuge difference from A16 - no starving, no hunger no illnesses anymore. 

I really wish I could go back to A16 system and keep the new graphics and looks from A22 and hopefully they add some quality engame. Current game lost its mojo compared to what it used to be, even if game looked much worse than now.

I love the game, I just don't like the way they want to make it easier for "new players" - sometimes it feels like playing in cheat mode.

Also it is like they can't decide if you are the last survivor or there are comunities and if they are where are NPCs besides traders that would enrich the world.
Bandits are coming, but I would like survivors faction as well or something along those lines, towards where you turn your focus and efforts with all the T6 equipment you kept collecting with looting and crafting.

 

[ElCabong]

Even though the mission might not have any books the trader might give you books as a reward. Books are very important until you have maxed out your skill sets and then you're finding fewer and fewer books that you do want.

 

[IrishManJMo]

Moving away from Learn by Doing towards books was big mistake - I think only modders like Subquake who is making Undead legacy will save the game. 

I agree. Undead Legacy is by far the best mod imo because it's essentially just a much more fleshed out vanilla. 

 

[Javabean867]

Meh, learn by doing sucks.

In all seriousness the only thing I miss is randomly finding high end gear in early game.

 

[Riamus]

Meh, learn by doing sucks.

In all seriousness the only thing I miss is randomly finding high end gear in early game.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have anywhere near the number of hours in this game is it still had LBD.  Very happy that isn't in the game anymore. 

All in all, if you play the game in a min/max style, you are going to probably find all kinds of things you don't like.  If you just play the game and don't worry about getting everything ASAP, it plays very well.  For me, I don't enjoy the early game because it is the exact same every game... Run everywhere, hit zombies many times before they are dead, hit trees and ore many times to get resources, slowly get enough resources to build a tiny base.  Repeat until you have a bike and better tools.  Only I've I have decent tools and can get resources easily and move about the map quickly do I really start to enjoy the game and it is no longer quite so repetitive to me.  So I don't like the changes that slow down progression.  If you want games to last longer, don't slow down progression.  Instead, add more things to do in the late game.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I have over 4500 hours put into this game and while I've tried and loved many mods I have always still thoroughly enjoyed playing vanilla servers on this game. However ever since they changed to the magazine system the vanilla experience gets so boring so quickly for players who know the ins and outs of how the game functions. It is now very easy to get to tier 5/6 of crafting whatever you want especially the new clothing items which can make you overpowered pretty easily. Besides the ease of this it also just makes the gameplay very boring now. I'll never go into a POI now if I know it doesn't have bookshelves since that's all that really matters as loot now. There's no point in clearing a tier 5 skyscraper when I can keep resetting crack a books with a trader quest. I hope they find a better balance for the magazine system instead of throwing every skill under it. I know they hated learn by doing but honestly some skills like mining should fall into that category. The idea is good but the execution needs adjusting imo. Same goes for the new clothing items. They visually all look great but functionally only a few pieces are actually worth using and none of the full sets are worth using over a mixture. Those set bonuses should feel legendary to have. Just my two cents on these newer vanilla features. 

Agreed new cloths are way too fast. 

Sadly I don't think they will change their mind about magazines. Maybe they could add another way like skill points to unlock. 

 

[IrishManJMo]

Meh, learn by doing sucks.

In all seriousness the only thing I miss is randomly finding high end gear in early game.

Oh I don't know if I wasn't clear enough in my original post. I wasn't suggesting that "learn by doing" was better. I was suggesting it should be a combination of ways we develop skills not just all in on one way. Which in this case going all in on magazines turned the game into spending all day opening mailboxes and bookshelves if you're trying to progress certain stats quickly. 

 

[Javabean867]

Oh I don't know if I wasn't clear enough in my original post. I wasn't suggesting that "learn by doing" was better. I was suggesting it should be a combination of ways we develop skills not just all in on one way. Which in this case going all in on magazines turned the game into spending all day opening mailboxes and bookshelves if you're trying to progress certain stats quickly. 

I mean technically you do have that, seeing almost every activity except movement generates xp.  When you level up you get to choose how you improve your character.  You keep on mining, you level up, you toss those points into strength and mining bonuses.  

But i do get what you are saying as well though.  It would feel more natural if there was perks/stats that you earned just by doing the tasks.  

 

[meganoth]

Much of this is a question of balance IMHO. In my SP game I have spread my perk points and do not search for magazines exclusively, but still my progress in crafting is mostly far better than the stuff I find in loot.  The only exception is the typical toilet pistol I found very early and a stun baton I wanted but didn't really specc into. Apart from that you don't find complete weapons in loot that would help you in any way. With your perked weapons you are definitely miles above anything you would loot.

That crafting is ahead is not a problem in itself, and TFP never will be able to balance it perfectly for all players. But at the moment the balance is just too far out of whack. You don't have a choice between looting or crafting or buying your weapons, the choice is only between crafting and buying.

The good news though is that trader and crafting may be relatively well balanced now.

One of the biggest problems are the mailboxes/newsstands who give magazines too often and the magazine reward bundles with 6 magazines. The other problem is that higher perks do not give diminishing results with the magazine boost making the "secret" strategy to push your weapon perk and nothing else just too effective.

But again, this is balance and can be corrected with relatively small changes, it does not need a complete overhaul that will never happen (guaranteed).

 

[Krougal]

Much of this is a question of balance IMHO. In my SP game I have spread my perk points and do not search for magazines exclusively, but still my progress in crafting is mostly far better than the stuff I find in loot.  The only exception is the typical toilet pistol I found very early and a stun baton I wanted but didn't really specc into. Apart from that you don't find complete weapons in loot that would help you in any way. With your perked weapons you are definitely miles above anything you would loot.

That crafting is ahead is not a problem in itself, and TFP never will be able to balance it perfectly for all players. But at the moment the balance is just too far out of whack. You don't have a choice between looting or crafting or buying your weapons, the choice is only between crafting and buying.

One of the biggest problems are the mailboxes/newsstands who give magazines too often and the magazine reward bundles with 6 magazines. The other problem is that higher perks do not give diminishing results with the magazine boost making the "secret" strategy to push your weapon perk and nothing else just too effective.

But again, this is balance and can be corrected with relatively small changes, it does not need a complete overhaul that will never happen (guaranteed).

Interesting.

I am feeling quite the opposite. The magazines come too slow, or maybe I am just not minmaxing my perks correctly for what I want.

I mean I crafted a ql5 baseball bat and iron tools (I could make high QL steel if I had the means), dbl barrel (actually just got pump ql1) so you can obviously see where most of my perk points went.

I've also gone into int a little: physician, lockpick, engineering. Armor magazines feel constant, although I'm only able to craft ql3.

I was late putting into salvaging and I still had not found enough mags or a wrench anywhere for 2 weeks until I got fed up with it. It kinda sucks playing without a salvage tool that long, and by kinda, I mean bigtime. So obviously a point into salvaging has to come much earlier.

I feel I should be working on concrete and electrical traps before 3rd horde and yet I am too far away from either, and not having luck with trader.

So item progression feels a bit slow to me, or at least too rigid. It doesn't keep up with my leveling. I probably fall into the midrange of veteran players for leveling speed; I hit it very hard the first week but start slacking off after first horde OTOH I would slit my wrists if I had to go at the slow pace some of you talk about. I don't want to artificially extend early game. While I am accustomed to the crappy stone tools, I despise the pipe weapons especially.

 

[Scyris]

I have over 4500 hours put into this game and while I've tried and loved many mods I have always still thoroughly enjoyed playing vanilla servers on this game. However ever since they changed to the magazine system the vanilla experience gets so boring so quickly for players who know the ins and outs of how the game functions. It is now very easy to get to tier 5/6 of crafting whatever you want especially the new clothing items which can make you overpowered pretty easily. Besides the ease of this it also just makes the gameplay very boring now. I'll never go into a POI now if I know it doesn't have bookshelves since that's all that really matters as loot now. There's no point in clearing a tier 5 skyscraper when I can keep resetting crack a books with a trader quest. I hope they find a better balance for the magazine system instead of throwing every skill under it. I know they hated learn by doing but honestly some skills like mining should fall into that category. The idea is good but the execution needs adjusting imo. Same goes for the new clothing items. They visually all look great but functionally only a few pieces are actually worth using and none of the full sets are worth using over a mixture. Those set bonuses should feel legendary to have. Just my two cents on these newer vanilla features. 

Only way to make the game actually fun/difficult is to impose your own restrictions, or mod it, the vanilla experience has been rather poor for years. I for example will not buy books or magazies off a trader, has to be loot, or quest reward only. This stretches out the early game a little bit more, takes longer before you get overpowered. There is actually only a very small selections of things I allow myself to buy off the trader. Cooking Pot, Mods, Food/water, and stuff like Adv bellows, Anvil, Crucible etc. Other than those, I don't really buy anything else the trader sells. Early game I am tempted to buy duct tape or glue if they have it, but by day 2-3 I usually have 4 dew collectors going and have more water than I need, depends how lucky I get with duct tape/glue drops. Day 9 now, and I have like 50 Duct tape I can craft at will, and have like 4 stacks of boiled water just sitting in storage.

I get bored in 1.0 usually before day 7, as the loot sucks, traders suck, both scale far to slowly. I don't even really notice a diff between burnt forest and desert loot wise either. This game on day 9 I have a tier 1 Pistol, Tier 3 Double Barrel shotgun, and like a tier 3 pipe machine gun. Shotgun is self crafted. I wish traders gave gear for quests again, I do admit in a21.2 it needed some balancing as you shouldn't be getting steel tools from tier 2-3 quests, from tier 4-5 quests would make more sense though. I'm swimming in ammo but why waste it when my baseball bat does more damage than a bullet from most of the guns I have? The guns as a whole need a damage upgrade, like a gun should do AT MINIMUM the damage listed on the ammo, with higher tier's and better models of the gun getting a bonus on top. Would make 7.62 the defato best early game ammo thou for non-close range, as it has 42-47 base damage. Honestly only gun that sort of feels like it does the damage it SHOULD be doing is the shotguns, everything else just feels bad to use. Until you get to the top tier guns anyway.

Doing a t3 infested quest on day 6 is not a fun time when you have radiated bikers showing up, and the best gun you have is a pipe machine gun and a tier 1 pistol with 0 in the stat/perks for it as the stat system blows in single player and is way to limiting especially weapon wise. Preacher gloves kinda help wit this though, would help better if the game didn't fail at math consistantly. 60+20% is 72, not 67. I've tested damage, and the preacher gloves do not seem to be added to the right part of the damage formula, they should be on the end increasing the final number. It never matches up to what the damage SHOULD have been. my guess it is works like mods, and just adds 20% of the base weapon damage on the end, and it doesn't get multiplied by perks etc. Still a damage increase but a very minor one, since it doesn't multiply the final damage, just adds some flat damage on the end.

 

[meganoth]

Interesting.

I am feeling quite the opposite. The magazines come too slow, or maybe I am just not minmaxing my perks correctly for what I want.

I mean I crafted a ql5 baseball bat and iron tools (I could make high QL steel if I had the means), dbl barrel (actually just got pump ql1) so you can obviously see where most of my perk points went.

I've also gone into int a little: physician, lockpick, engineering. Armor magazines feel constant, although I'm only able to craft ql3.

I was late putting into salvaging and I still had not found enough mags or a wrench anywhere for 2 weeks until I got fed up with it. It kinda sucks playing without a salvage tool that long, and by kinda, I mean bigtime. So obviously a point into salvaging has to come much earlier.

I feel I should be working on concrete and electrical traps before 3rd horde and yet I am too far away from either, and not having luck with trader.

So item progression feels a bit slow to me, or at least too rigid. It doesn't keep up with my leveling. I probably fall into the midrange of veteran players for leveling speed; I hit it very hard the first week but start slacking off after first horde OTOH I would slit my wrists if I had to go at the slow pace some of you talk about. I don't want to artificially extend early game. While I am accustomed to the crappy stone tools, I despise the pipe weapons especially.

You would have to say what level and day you are on for me to compare.

In my case I am playing vanilla 1.0 nomad difficulty agility and balance feels good overall except for crafting seeming a bit too central and exploitable now. Can't give you exact numbers as I am away from my PC, but I should be after 3rd or 4th horde night and I get to see more and more ferals and a few glowies. Still using q6 pistol (crafted) and Q5 knife (crafted) and Q5 wooden bow (crafted). Could craft magnum but it is too expensive to craft and I don't like that weapon and wait for vulture. Could craft q2 compound bow but want to wait for Q3 for the extra slot. Could craft Q2 machete but wait for the same reason as bow. It also feels like weapon parts and steel is so hard to come by that I can only craft one weapon and then have to wait for a long time for the next chance, which keeps crafting in check I guess.

Not sure my game is representative though as I got thrown back with the trader progression to tier1 when they fixed the bug and that has slowed down my progression in multiple ways.

 

[Scyris]

Interesting.

I am feeling quite the opposite. The magazines come too slow, or maybe I am just not minmaxing my perks correctly for what I want.

I mean I crafted a ql5 baseball bat and iron tools (I could make high QL steel if I had the means), dbl barrel (actually just got pump ql1) so you can obviously see where most of my perk points went.

I've also gone into int a little: physician, lockpick, engineering. Armor magazines feel constant, although I'm only able to craft ql3.

I was late putting into salvaging and I still had not found enough mags or a wrench anywhere for 2 weeks until I got fed up with it. It kinda sucks playing without a salvage tool that long, and by kinda, I mean bigtime. So obviously a point into salvaging has to come much earlier.

I feel I should be working on concrete and electrical traps before 3rd horde and yet I am too far away from either, and not having luck with trader.

So item progression feels a bit slow to me, or at least too rigid. It doesn't keep up with my leveling. I probably fall into the midrange of veteran players for leveling speed; I hit it very hard the first week but start slacking off after first horde OTOH I would slit my wrists if I had to go at the slow pace some of you talk about. I don't want to artificially extend early game. While I am accustomed to the crappy stone tools, I despise the pipe weapons especially.

It is too rigid due to the stat system, and the book system being how it is. The stat system is the biggest thing I hate in 7dtd since they crapped it out. It screws single player over due to having 5 damn gates instead of just a single level gate like in a16.4. The system deff needs to be changed to be more single player friendly. You don't notice the skill systems major flaws until you play single player. in MP you can spread roles out, in single player you have to do everything and the stat system poorly supports this, the books don't help either. Alot of the perks aren't even worth getting since other than upping magazine loot odds most of them do nothing else of value. AN example of a good perk? Physican, Advanced engineer, both have benefits that help the entire game other than just boosting magazine odds.. But grease monkey? perk seems kinda pointless other than the magazine boost. Could maybe give it -fuel cost on vehicles or +vehicle speed or just something of value to make it worth getting.

 

[meganoth]

my guess it is works like mods, and just adds 20% of the base weapon damage on the end

All damage buffs, from perks to mods to sweets, ... work like this. And that makes this consistent with the rest of the game.

 

[Scyris]

You would have to say what level and day you are on for me to compare.

In my case I am playing vanilla 1.0 nomad difficulty agility and balance feels good overall except for crafting seeming a bit too central and exploitable now. Can't give you exact numbers as I am away from my PC, but I should be after 3rd or 4th horde night and I get to see more and more ferals and a few glowies. Still using q6 pistol (crafted) and Q5 knife (crafted) and Q5 wooden bow (crafted). Could craft magnum but it is too expensive to craft and I don't like that weapon and wait for vulture. Could craft q2 compound bow but want to wait for Q3 for the extra slot. Could craft Q2 machete but wait for the same reason as bow. It also feels like weapon parts and steel is so hard to come by that I can only craft one weapon and then have to wait for a long time for the next chance, which keeps crafting in check I guess.

Not sure my game is representative though as I got thrown back with the trader progression to tier1 when they fixed the bug and that has slowed down my progression in multiple ways.

Steel is a joke, just buy a crucible off the trader, I was able to afford one by day 6 on 60 min days, Right when I unlocked tier 3 quests I had well over 15k dukes. I personally stop caring about the workstations perk after it hits 10. I'll be able to buy a chem lab and cement mixer long before I'll be able to craft one since I have no points in the stat/perk. Only perk I really even care about in Int is Physican, the rest are pointless to me. Which is a big problem I have with the stat system as a whole, to many stat lines only have 1 perk of value in it, that it almost feels like a waste of skill points to bother. Lockpicks are worthless other than maybe for cop cars, everything else I just bash open as its faster than lockpicking it is. Lockpicking needs to be made into an actual skyrim/fallout style minigame instead of this random RNG garbage where the perk doesn't really even feel like it helps at all. I've maxxed it in one playthru for a test, and it still was just as bad and rng as without the perk. Darkness Falls does this, a modder has made a Skyrim/fallout style lockpick minigame, shouldn't be hard for tfp to pop it in and make the curret perk with with it if a single modder can do it including custom models. In Darkness Falls, if you bash open a container, your loot stage gets halfed, to get max loot stage the locked containers have to be lockpicked. Its fine in DF as if your good at the minigame you only ever need a few picks. I usually have steel tools by day 3-4 in my games as I go high into str early as it has the most perks that are useful the entire game, with a very good melee and ranged option in it. I also dabble into Agility mostly for the sneak attack dmg bonus and well thats about it. Pistols won't be enough to deal with zombies when radiateds show up, you need automatic or shotguns. Automatics as they have enough magazine size to kill most things in 1 magazine with the AK47. and Shotguns because they just hit really hard for the ammo.

 

[Krougal]

You would have to say what level and day you are on for me to compare.

In my case I am playing vanilla 1.0 nomad difficulty agility and balance feels good overall except for crafting seeming a bit too central and exploitable now. Can't give you exact numbers as I am away from my PC, but I should be after 3rd or 4th horde night and I get to see more and more ferals and a few glowies. Still using q6 pistol (crafted) and Q5 knife (crafted) and Q5 wooden bow (crafted). Could craft magnum but it is too expensive to craft and I don't like that weapon and wait for vulture. Could craft q2 compound bow but want to wait for Q3 for the extra slot. Could craft Q2 machete but wait for the same reason as bow. It also feels like weapon parts and steel is so hard to come by that I can only craft one weapon and then have to wait for a long time for the next chance, which keeps crafting in check I guess.

Not sure my game is representative though as I got thrown back with the trader progression to tier1 when they fixed the bug and that has slowed down my progression in multiple ways.

I want to say lvl 20 and day 15, but I won't be able to say for sure until I roll back to 1.0

Probably adventurer difficulty or whatever the default is.

I'm more or less the same, just str instead of agi build rn; I really don't seriously use the shotty until I get a pump. I could make a steel club but I've never liked the feel of it. Like it swings odd compared to the wooden club and bat. I dunno, I've never been fond of it, but then by that stage I am using guns more. The only pipe I ever use is the MG for "oh @%$#" moments and the odd deer. I've got a few legendary parts, but I am saving them. Very little steel. Yeah, I had noticed other than magazine bundles the quest rewards kinda suck now. I am still only t2 (maybe 3) with Rekt and only just visited Jenny.

It is too rigid due to the stat system, and the book system being how it is. The stat system is the biggest thing I hate in 7dtd since they crapped it out. It screws single player over due to having 5 damn gates instead of just a single level gate like in a16.4. The system deff needs to be changed to be more single player friendly. You don't notice the skill systems major flaws until you play single player. in MP you can spread roles out, in single player you have to do everything and the stat system poorly supports this, the books don't help either. Alot of the perks aren't even worth getting since other than upping magazine loot odds most of them do nothing else of value. AN example of a good perk? Physican, Advanced engineer, both have benefits that help the entire game other than just boosting magazine odds.. But grease monkey? perk seems kinda pointless other than the magazine boost. Could maybe give it -fuel cost on vehicles or +vehicle speed or just something of value to make it worth getting.

I concur wholeheartedly. I've been saying the same thing forever. Yeah, grease monkey is terrible and I take it early as I can and then I get reset it once I've got the magazines. I feel forced to take it if I want to craft that gyrocopter sooner rather than later. Sooner being when it still actually makes a difference to my gameplay.

 

[Scyris]

All damage buffs, from perks to mods to sweets, ... work like this. And that makes this consistent with the rest of the game.

Yeah which is kinda silly, in most games stuff like that would apply to the final damage, not the weapons base damage. It basically never gives the bonus it could be due to this. Granted I still like the preacher gloves, its the first piece of armor I craft every game, as the damage bonus is too nice to pass up, I usually take a armor hit for using them over tier 5 primitive gloves though, but its only 2-3 armor, not enough to save me from anything. Plus I kinda like how they look on the character in 1st person, the art team does some good work, I just wish the other teams would put in even 25% of the effort the art team does.

I have suggested mutiple ways to improve the stat system, but TFP has pretty much ignored everyones opinion on it. One way would be to give every armor piece a special mod slot that is ONLY for the +1 stat mods (other than cigar, thats still head locked for balance reasons, as is the loot detector mod) WOuld need to add a secondary +1 str mod that can go in any armor. This way you could end up with +4 to a stat, which is enough to get it to 5, which is enough to get some perks you do not need 24/7 to level 2 on average. Lile living off the land, you don't need that other than when farming, it serves no purpose really anywhere else. Grease Monkey serves no purpose period other than more magazines. Adv engineering can be useful, but I feel craft time is fine with just a anvil, and iron/stones are everywhere so its not like cheaper iron/steel is needed.

I would like Miner 69'er and motherload combined into 1 perk though, same values just add them together. Always felt odd with them being seperate to me.

 

[Krougal]

Steel is a joke, just buy a crucible off the trader, I was able to afford one by day 6 on 60 min days, Right when I unlocked tier 3 quests I had well over 15k dukes. I personally stop caring about the workstations perk after it hits 10. I'll be able to buy a chem lab and cement mixer long before I'll be able to craft one since I have no points in the stat/perk. Only perk I really even care about in Int is Physican, the rest are pointless to me. Which is a big problem I have with the stat system as a whole, to many stat lines only have 1 perk of value in it, that it almost feels like a waste of skill points to bother. Lockpicks are worthless other than maybe for cop cars, everything else I just bash open as its faster than lockpicking it is. Lockpicking needs to be made into an actual skyrim/fallout style minigame instead of this random RNG garbage where the perk doesn't really even feel like it helps at all. I've maxxed it in one playthru for a test, and it still was just as bad and rng as without the perk. Darkness Falls does this, a modder has made a Skyrim/fallout style lockpick minigame, shouldn't be hard for tfp to pop it in and make the curret perk with with it if a single modder can do it including custom models. In Darkness Falls, if you bash open a container, your loot stage gets halfed, to get max loot stage the locked containers have to be lockpicked. Its fine in DF as if your good at the minigame you only ever need a few picks. I usually have steel tools by day 3-4 in my games as I go high into str early as it has the most perks that are useful the entire game, with a very good melee and ranged option in it. I also dabble into Agility mostly for the sneak attack dmg bonus and well thats about it. Pistols won't be enough to deal with zombies when radiateds show up, you need automatic or shotguns. Automatics as they have enough magazine size to kill most things in 1 magazine with the AK47. and Shotguns because they just hit really hard for the ammo.

See now I hear this from a lot of other players, but I suck at abusing the trader as it seems I am always a day late and a dollar short for whatever I want to buy. I have trouble saving up enough to buy expensive items. I probably buy too many consumables and don't sell enough crap.

Now I feel the opposite about LP, I find it useful and I generally use it. I also hate the Bethsoft way (actually that orginated in Thief I think) and in Fallout4 I started using a mod to bypass it, I am so bored to tears with it. I mean the first time it is like "wow! this is cool!" and then the it gets to be old, by the time it gets to be ancient...well, you mod it away. I think the way 7DTD does it is adequate. I also see a big difference in how fast I go through picks with or without the skill.

Yeah, the weapons are a joke. A .22 LR would still rip through a zombies skull like butter. I use a headshot multiplier mod to deal with what I consider a bad design choice.