PC A17 experimental - What the hell, is with this difficulty?

[LuckyStar]

They came from a house roof. Didn't make much noise and was sneaking around. All of a sudden. A hellstorm of running soldiers came from the roof and that was it.

Once you get the hang of A17 it won't be as bad.

I'm expected vultures to fly out of everything when I step into any POI in the wilderness.

Learned the hard way to do that. =(

You'll get it. Soon it wil be a piece of cake for you.

 

[Maxwar]

It seems fairly easy to evade them though. They dont chase very far and you can usually outrun the dogs and wolves.

 

[HerrKingsley]

It really isn't that hard to get away if you are paying attention.If you feel that you must kill every enemy that sees you, the problem lies not with the game.

The problem is getting the dog pack in the first week. Numerous of reasons for that is mainly based on stamina and alert.

1. In previous alphas when you was spotted by dogs/zombies you would get sensed/hunted indicator if crouched.

2. In previous alphas you had better stamina, and could run longer (Early alpha the dogs didn't stop hunting you, but that got fixed.)

3. The terrain is better in A17 and therfore its harder to see far away.

Sure you need to pay attention and that works fine for normal hordes! You will hear them, you have time to react and you can out walk them.

But first week if you are focused on restoring a POI, your main focus will be gathering resources, hence most of the time your stamina will be almost depleted. (The grind is real in this experimental)

In my case I was digging for clay using my old rutine:

Always stop at 20% stamina so i can run if i get overrun

Always have a look around when my stamina is regenerating

Never dig down so far that i cant jump up. (Also digging just the first layer is the only way to get xp from digging in this AE)

Now somewhere between 100 and 20% I hear a loud BARK! Reflexes from many hours of older Alphas kicks in and i jump up and do a 180. Before I hit the ground my screen is blurry and filled with blood stains.

I launch my club against the blurry brown mass turn around and starts running zig-zacking between trees. My stamina is out after just a few meters, i quickly bandage my self, throws away a few more hits with the club.

Two dogs are down, some how the other two are disoriented and are walking around i circles just 10m from me (bug?). I lay them down with my bow.

The last one just disappeared, no body no traces (bug?)

So yes you have to pay attention but paying more attention than what i am doing is basically not playing.

I would suggest, let dogs howl a few meters away (at least 20-30m) so you have a fighting chance.

Remove them from spawning list on first week.

Give player an adrenaline boost to 75% stamina if you get hit, of course not stack able.

 

[Reth]

It really isn't that hard to get away if you are paying attention.If you feel that you must kill every enemy that sees you, the problem lies not with the game.

Aha, finally some actual info! So, now we know - killing every enemy that see you is bad, running away now and then is good. *That's* what I did wrong. I wish you guys just published a list of Do's and Don'ts. Not killing zombies in a game where most exp comes from zombie kills is a bit counterintuitive.

 

[lazyknob]

It really isn't that hard to get away if you are paying attention.If you feel that you must kill every enemy that sees you, the problem lies not with the game.

I really have to latch on to this Gazz. But if we don't, we won't have the level to access the next perk

 

[Scyris]

Aha, finally some actual info! So, now we know - killing every enemy that see you is bad, running away now and then is good. *That's* what I did wrong. I wish you guys just published a list of Do's and Don'ts. Not killing zombies in a game where most exp comes from zombie kills is a bit counterintuitive.

I think he meant run away till they stop chasing you, then turn around and take them out/on 1 by 1 with a ranged weapon.

I do agree though that the ninja zombies and animals is getting a bit tiring in a17, At least wolfs howl every few seconds when they roam around, when I hear that I stop what I am doing, crouch and see where the hell the noise is coming from, then I go kill it before it tries to bite me.

 

[Sjustus548]

I don't understand why so many people are complaining that this patch is overly difficult. I'm finding it to be the easiest so far. Maybe try turning down the difficulty.

 

[Krougal]

Like everyone said, dog pack day 2, bad luck but not new. Bear day 1 bad luck not new, also was able to kite and kill with arrows with a little luck by backpedaling, sometimes turning and running and making every shot count. Was scary as hell but what a rush. Zombie bear day 1 also bad luck but not new (fortunately I was able to make it into the trader).

Now here is something new that sucks - T1 fetch quest, feral tourist or soldier in closet in small room, every time. The indoor growhouse POI. Now maybe you don't need to go into that room, maybe you do. I tend to clear the POI and then look for the loot, but of course once you die you blew the quest so I don't know. If it's my own fault then fine, but seems a bit excessive for a T1. Same for 5 vultures spawning on top of you in small POI for T1 quest. Otherwise love the new questing!

 

[Reth]

I think he meant run away till they stop chasing you, then turn around and take them out/on 1 by 1 with a ranged weapon.

Can't be. The concept of pulling a mob out of a crowd existed for at least two decades now. Everybody knows it. There is no way he would insult us by suggesting to use it. No, I'm pretty sure he was referring to gamestage ramping up with player level.

I get it, I totally do - they wanted to introduce an "early" game, which didn't really exist before. Great. They also wanted us to stick around in said early game for a while longer. Also perfectly fine by me. Early game stage can be very enjoyable if implemented right. The issue I have with this early game in its current state is boredom. Way too much waiting around and way too few meaningful activities for me.

 

[aloys]

standard difficulty, 2nd time trying A17. First POI had 8 zombies in it. each zombie took 4 or more arrow headshots plus some wooden club shots. survived but took 1 or 2 hits so my stamina dropped. had to spend the majority of the rest of day 1 making more arrows! day 2, was just out trying to get wood and stone when i saw a black wolf running at me. stamina was low, so there was no getting away. It seems almost impossible to try and gather any materials early game without always being very low on stamina. Which is fine, thats a part of the game.

Only thing that really bums me out about A17 is how they have made base building so much harder. I love end game 72d2. I want to be able to build crazy things. Horde bases, or just random giant bridges or pyramids. In order to do that, you need massive forge rooms with tons of forges burning all the time. Best way to do that was at bedrock, you could create and store supplies safely. in A17 that isnt possible, which just makes me sad. I'm not going to spend dozens of hours mining, looting, crafting, if at any point zombies can destroy my forge room, theres no point, and that makes me sad for my future playing this game.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

It really isn't that hard to get away if you are paying attention.If you feel that you must kill every enemy that sees you, the problem lies not with the game.

Or you finally figure out how to stop dog/wolvepacks, wich you can´t always predict early enough to get away, from spawning on day 1-5. No one would miss those.

Also they do sometimes just appear from behind you, come up a hill or from behind a house,without making a freaking sound before they are in reach. Don´t tell me i have to 360 all the time to be aware every single second.

 

[Boldero]

It really isn't that hard to get away if you are paying attention.If you feel that you must kill every enemy that sees you, the problem lies not with the game.

What a crock, how about 'if the game feels that it MUST kill every player that plays, the problem lies within the game'

 

[postalcrazy616]

I think carbon summed it up well. There's playing the game, building your base and doing what you should be doing. Then there's just getting stomped by unfair hordes and having to be on guard 24/7 for these random events which can happen at any time, even when you're desperately attempting to get resources to prep yourself for the fabled "7th day". But you can't do that if you're getting decked at a low level by dogpacks and random vultures.

Defeats the purpose of the game a bit. Spotting and stamina is a major issue in this build really, as it's great saying "run away" and all, but sadly it's a bit difficult when your character has the stamina of a drunk 10 pack a day smoker with lung cancer, alongside the whole "reduced backpeddaling" so walking backwards is inaffective. Major issue is alertness... No sound as to when these events happen and how close they can just drop in on you without making a squeak makes the game impossible to enjoy.

As for Aloys words, gotta admit there, resoures for base building is real damn scarce now, before you could fortify (albiet roughly) a small little house for the 7th day, get a fair bit of it broken down but bearable and repairable, now it seems that'll be more than a chore and prevent you from scavenging, finding things, prepping ammo etc. And. Dog packs on day 2. It isn't just bad luck after 3 random maps being made and getting it time after time, second day without fail. It's just bad balancing I'm afraid.

 

[Jedo]

Remember when people said of A16 that it was too difficult to gather resources, particularly because they removed the bonus harvest?

 

[SnowDog1942]

Remember when people said of A16 that it was too difficult to gather resources, particularly because they removed the bonus harvest?

I remember calling A16 a snoozefest and Roland diving down my throat about it. I apologized at the time... but now.. I retract the apology. ---- because compared to A17, A16 was a snooze fest. A17 is awesome.. except for the crappy random gen of course.

 

[KeiraR]

Ferals will always run, so if they were feral soldiers, they would have. But, I'd wonder where those came from, as there is nothing that will spawn them at a low gamestage that you'd see in day 3.

My pack of dogs came out of nowhere, literally.

Day 2, standing on a boulder checking the perks.

Suddenly a pack of dogs turns up and I was dead.

 

[LordoftheMoo]

My pack of dogs came out of nowhere, literally.Day 2, standing on a boulder checking the perks.

Suddenly a pack of dogs turns up and I was dead.

Yup, unfortunately, wandering hordes do that (and that's where the dogs came from, the AIDirector spawned a wandering horde). Horde control does seem to be off - we think it's possible they are pathing at the player instead of near the player - but I do not know if that change was a bug or intentional. A16 it was "near" and much of the time you'd never notice them forming up and moving. Just when you'd look around you would see them nearby.

 

[KeiraR]

Yup, unfortunately, wandering hordes do that (and that's where the dogs came from, the AIDirector spawned a wandering horde). Horde control does seem to be off

Yes, i know.

I might poke around the xmls some more later to fix some of the nonsense I get thrown at me.

I made sure to have no zombies around so I could have a look at the perks in peace, right...

Is it too much to ask to have a little time to do things like that without getting attacked every twenty seconds?

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Criticism is a vital part of early access. And this is going on since A15 (i think), if they would finally fix this, we wouldn´t have to write about it.

It´s a shame that they can´t fix this. Or don´t want too. All you hear from staff is "Easy to spot, easy to avoid". Easy my ass. They just appear and were silent untile the point they hit me. After the first hit, i could hear them loud and clear. Not for long ofc. On day 2 this is just too much to handle. With no chance to leave in time. So, "just don´t fight everything you see" is a stupid advice.

I can´t be aware all the time looking for packs. Impossible. Finally fix this so they can´t spawn before day 5.

Or bind it to the difficulty on wich day they can spawn first.

The current state is a cheapass random surprise challenge that can easily get you at the wrong time so you don´t have a chance to survive.

And give us challenges other than fighting, this is a genremix. Not a FPS. Doesn´t need cheap challenges like the dogs if there is more different ones.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Criticism is a vital part of early access.
It´s a shame that they can´t fix this. Or don´t want too. All you hear from staff is "Easy to spot, easy to avoid". Easy my ass. They just appear and were silent untile the point they hit me. After the first hit, i could hear them loud and clear. Not for long ofc. On day 2 this is just too much to handle. With no chance to leave in time. So, "just don´t fight everything you see" is a stupid advice.

I can´t be aware all the time looking for packs. Impossible.

Survival of the fittest at its finest.

Don't fight everything you see is a perfectly acceptable piece of advice. Being able to judge whether to stand your ground and fight, or run away to live another day, is the epithome of Darwinistic survivalism.