I play default difficulty level and have played since A15. In A16, game already felt like it was punishing me for levelling up. However, by the time I got steel armor and tools, I was pretty comfortable looting and raiding POIs. Sure there was an occasional irradiated zombie or two, but most of the time I could snipe the sleepers from far away.
In A17, I just hit level 80 with game stage > 200, still don't have steel armor, have steel tools, and am running into irradiated zombies all the time in POIs. I attempted a fetch quest in bear den, and what I believe to be 5 irradiated wights came out and destroyed me instantaneously. The game seems to be moving in the RPG direction with attributes and perks. However, in RPG games, the player gets stronger, not weaker as the game progresses. Even in games with level scaling like Oblivion and Skyrim, even though bandits run around with full daedric armor, you're strong enough to kill them, and you can loot their armor afterward.
In 7D2D the loot doesn't get better, the XP for an irradiated zombie is a joke considering how many bullets it takes to kill, and basically I don't want to do quests anymore, because more often than not its an insta fail, and even if I do complete the quest, the rewards don't make up for the bullets spent.
Things making the problem worse, the hitboxes in A17 feel more screwed up. In A16 I could use the sledgehammer very well, but now even though I swing right in front of me, it will miss. And because now zombies cause bleed effects way more often, meelee isn't worth it. So I have to use up bullets against irradiated bad guys. But loot isn't any better. Worse, I wasted a bunch of perk points in Daring Adventurer, but quests just aren't worth it and impossible to do (FIVE IRRADIATED WIGHTS. IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE???). I also unlocked motorcycle, but no point to explore, because too many damn irradiated zombies. Another issue seems to be that the sleepers don't spawn until you enter the POI. In a16, I was able to snipe sleepers from afar, but now it seems they don't show up until I step inside and getsurrounded. A16 had issues with zombies teleporting behind you, but not as bad as in A17.
The end result is that its safer for me to stay at base and build underground, with a pit trap full of spikes next to my forges, and then craft some armor to sell at traders. I'm not sure my defenses will continue to hold on horde night at which point I will log out log back in after death to despawn the zombies, as this is the only way I see myself doing further progression.
It will cost 9 skill points to max out intellect (4 points for 9 intellect, 5 points for 10), then another point to unlock steel armor, and that's skill points I could put into stuff like healing factor, pain tolerance and headshots instead. So game punishes me for leveling up, and forces me into a play style of hide in base, craft stuff to sell at trader, forget wasting points into crafting skills because you can buy from trader and those precious points are better spent making yourself tougher, with end result being: DONT DO QUESTS DONT EXPLORE POIS after your game stage exceeds 200. Which seems silly because questing is fun and a brand new feature. But with the broken level scaling, quests are only doable from early to mid game. So that's fine, I'll adapt and continue playing, but its very disappointing not to be able to explore new POIs.
I play online multiplayer with my friends, and I see them dying all the time as well. Quite frustrating, please fix the level scaling and remove it from the game. The default difficulty should have heavily nerfed irradiated zombies - fewer HP, barely any regen, increased XP, and banned from regular POIs. Keep them only in dungeon type POIs, and only at the end, kind of like the skyscrapers in A16. Furthmore, places with irradiated zombies should have much better loot, so that its not a net ammo loss.
In A17, I just hit level 80 with game stage > 200, still don't have steel armor, have steel tools, and am running into irradiated zombies all the time in POIs. I attempted a fetch quest in bear den, and what I believe to be 5 irradiated wights came out and destroyed me instantaneously. The game seems to be moving in the RPG direction with attributes and perks. However, in RPG games, the player gets stronger, not weaker as the game progresses. Even in games with level scaling like Oblivion and Skyrim, even though bandits run around with full daedric armor, you're strong enough to kill them, and you can loot their armor afterward.
In 7D2D the loot doesn't get better, the XP for an irradiated zombie is a joke considering how many bullets it takes to kill, and basically I don't want to do quests anymore, because more often than not its an insta fail, and even if I do complete the quest, the rewards don't make up for the bullets spent.
Things making the problem worse, the hitboxes in A17 feel more screwed up. In A16 I could use the sledgehammer very well, but now even though I swing right in front of me, it will miss. And because now zombies cause bleed effects way more often, meelee isn't worth it. So I have to use up bullets against irradiated bad guys. But loot isn't any better. Worse, I wasted a bunch of perk points in Daring Adventurer, but quests just aren't worth it and impossible to do (FIVE IRRADIATED WIGHTS. IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE???). I also unlocked motorcycle, but no point to explore, because too many damn irradiated zombies. Another issue seems to be that the sleepers don't spawn until you enter the POI. In a16, I was able to snipe sleepers from afar, but now it seems they don't show up until I step inside and getsurrounded. A16 had issues with zombies teleporting behind you, but not as bad as in A17.
The end result is that its safer for me to stay at base and build underground, with a pit trap full of spikes next to my forges, and then craft some armor to sell at traders. I'm not sure my defenses will continue to hold on horde night at which point I will log out log back in after death to despawn the zombies, as this is the only way I see myself doing further progression.
It will cost 9 skill points to max out intellect (4 points for 9 intellect, 5 points for 10), then another point to unlock steel armor, and that's skill points I could put into stuff like healing factor, pain tolerance and headshots instead. So game punishes me for leveling up, and forces me into a play style of hide in base, craft stuff to sell at trader, forget wasting points into crafting skills because you can buy from trader and those precious points are better spent making yourself tougher, with end result being: DONT DO QUESTS DONT EXPLORE POIS after your game stage exceeds 200. Which seems silly because questing is fun and a brand new feature. But with the broken level scaling, quests are only doable from early to mid game. So that's fine, I'll adapt and continue playing, but its very disappointing not to be able to explore new POIs.
I play online multiplayer with my friends, and I see them dying all the time as well. Quite frustrating, please fix the level scaling and remove it from the game. The default difficulty should have heavily nerfed irradiated zombies - fewer HP, barely any regen, increased XP, and banned from regular POIs. Keep them only in dungeon type POIs, and only at the end, kind of like the skyscrapers in A16. Furthmore, places with irradiated zombies should have much better loot, so that its not a net ammo loss.
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Anyway, this should be kinda solved by 17.2 where you will be able to adjust zombie dmg to player/blocks. So you could decrease it to 75% or 50% - this option + game difficulty is gonna be a great choice to set up the game how we like it. I am gonna play on normal difficulty (since I dont like shooting 30 bullets in some Z's face to kill him) and increased zombie dmg (probably somewhere around 150%).