PC GameStage and when to meet the ferals

Khulkhuum

Khulkhuum

New member
I decided to perform some checks on GameStage calculation and when to expect it on various levels. So i went into the game and started a new map in debug mode, changing days and giving xp to the character to see how GameStage changes.

To recap, here is some basic info on gamestage i took from another topic (this also can be checked in the config files):

<gamestages>

<config

daysAliveChangeWhenKilled="2"

scavengerGameDifficultyBonus="1.0"

adventurerGameDifficultyBonus="1.2"

nomadGameDifficultyBonus="1.5"

warriorGameDifficultyBonus="1.7"

survivalistGameDifficultyBonus="2.0"

insaneGameDifficultyBonus="2.5"

startingWeight ="1"

diminishingReturns ="0.2"

Gamestage is calculated gameStage = ( playerLevel + daysSurvived ) * gameDifficultyMultiplier. My GS checks were made both on Scavenger (1.0 multi) and Nomad (1.5 multi). I'll go with it in that order. I also decided to have GS 50 as a shifting moment where ferals start to show as sleepers. Additionally, maximum GS you can have is the double number of level multipied by gameDifficultyMultiplier.

Max GS = playerLevel * 2 * gameDifficultyMultiplier

On level 1 GS will rise max to 2. On level 10 GS will rise max to 20. On level 25 GS will rise max to 20.

SCAVENGER

On day 1 you need level 50 to have GS 50.

On day 2 you need level 49 to have GS 50.

On day 3 you need level 48 to have GS 50.

...

On day 26 you need level 25 to have GS 50. This means if you don't want feral, you have to be level 24 or at most day 25.

NOMAD

On day 1 you need level 34 to have GS 51.

On day 2 you need level 33 to have GS 51.

On day 3 you need level 32 to have GS 51.

...

On day 18 you need level 17 to have GS 51. This means you have to be level 16 or below, or at most day 17.

SUMMARY

This shows that the higher your difficulty, the quicker you get ferals (as most of you knew already), but at some point it gets ridiculously easy to have higher GS. Additionally, your level dictates maximum GS, so levelling fast is not an easy option.

On higher difficulties this gets even rougher. Didn't do calculations, but i presume you would get ferals before 14th day and 13th level (the dropoff).

Should this be like this or GS should be less painful? Would love some comments on the subject.

 
The ferals are less the problem. The radioactive ones are rather problematic but madmole has already confirmed that there was a bug in the 17.1 that they appeared too early in the game.

 
Yeh this is the driving force behind seasoned players saying it's too hard... The curve is whacked. I've seen glowies when all I had was a damn iron club with 0 mods.

I'm all for challenge but this wasn't in some hard poi...

...and because you get xp being near others, it artificially raises your GS so that if you're out on your own, you're screwed.

Hard to balance I imagine, but this is why difficulty should be based on biome or poi, not gamestage.

 
Hard to balance I imagine, but this is why difficulty should be based on biome or poi, not gamestage.
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Wouldn't be that hard imo. I believe that a zones+biome+poi-dependent difficulty with some rng fluctuations would make for much more interesting gameplay and believable world (except on BM where scaling is probably a necessity). If that happens and lootlists are made accordingly, exploration would be far more interesting for a much, much longer time.

 
The thing is, I disagree with making glowing zombies appear quicker on harder difficulties.

Why? Because zombies are already harder on insane. By making feral and glowers appear sooner, you artificially increase the difficulty on top of zombies who are already harder. Why double dip and punish the player further?

How many other games have you played where they pit you against end-game monsters within the first week or two, hard difficulty or not? I don't know of any. Do they make the enemies you do face harder? Certainly. But the way its done now is just downright silly.

I personally enjoy playing the harder difficulties, but the harder difficulties punish you in so many ways that do not seem balanced, gamestage being one of them. Currently it puts you on a steep curve to get to their level (on vanilla A17) nearly from the get-go.

Roland commented in another post that he (and likely the devs) think there should be Leapfrog difficulty which means you get strong -> enemy gets stronger > you get strong... etc.

But this isn't a leap frog difficulty calculation, especially on insane. It's more like - you have zero equipment and skills, pitted against end-game creatures, and you spend literally the entire game (100+ level ups, 100 days) playing catch up. That's like pitting someone in a new RPG against the end-game boss at level 1 (some RPG's do this, but as a story-element where your'e scripted to lose lol).

Only, in 7D2D you aren't scripted to lose... somehow expected to win against insurmountable odds. And that's not just a matter of "git gud" or "just lower the difficulty", at some point it's just silly.

All this said, I wouldn't be opposed to a slider/customization option to the user for how fast they want the difficulty (gamestage) to progress as one way to solve this issue but I still dislike the overall gamestage idea (except perhaps to calculate the difficulty of blood moons).

 
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Hard to balance I imagine, but this is why difficulty should be based on biome or poi, not gamestage.
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Both together would be ideal i think. Basing difficulty at least partly on gamestage is necessary in my opinion to keep the game challenging later on. If it was just based on biome or POI, at least half of the game would become pretty boring after a certain time because you could just plow through all of the starter biomes or POIs without a care in the world once you get leveled up.

However, basing it only on gamestage (like it is now) also really messes up the balance and overall difficulty sometimes. Take a look at the big POIs like the Shotgun Messiah factory for example. They are a lot easier to loot at day 5 than they are at day 50, because the low game stage in the early days means there are just normal zombies in them, while later on you would have to chew through endless hordes of irradiated zombies in there. Meanwhile, the loot in those POIs is pretty much the same all the time, so its not even worth it to go there once you reach a higher level.

Thats kind of stupid in my opinion and thats where your suggestion of difficulty based on POI would be a really welcome change. Things like those huge factories should always be endgame stuff with difficult enemies and very good loot. They should not be easier to loot at level 10 than they are at level 100. Instead they should be close to impossible to loot at level 10. But once you finish them, they should have some really great loot in them instead of just a bunch of level 2 pistols and shotguns and a bit of cloth and paper.

 
Considering insane difficulty it gets down to something like 10th level and 10th day. At the beginning you can easily level up faster than 1 level per day. This only fastens when harder enemies appear.

In another thread i posted a suggestion that perhaps there could be various ways to calculate GS. Apart from pushing further when ferals and rad Zs appear, there could be varied ways to calculate GS to uphold the current system (perhaps even choose what way you want to use):

1. Time based - The more time passes, the harder the zombies. This way you can level as much as you can, but the amount of days makes GS rise.

2. Zombie kill based - The more zombies you kill, the higher the GS. For example, killing 20 Zs raises GS by 1. With current limits, killing 1000 Zs would make ferals appear.

3. Level based - The higher the level, the higher the GS. I would change it so that it wouldn't be additionally based off days passed, but only level. This would favor slower paced gameplays and level grinding wouldn't be enforced so much.

Making POIs have their own levels, each having its own groups of Zs and loot would be fun, but on the other hand it would require a lot of work to change current system of gamestage. This includes definitely categorizing every POI, as well as creating zombie groups per multiple levels. I wouldn't mind if there were always some POIs that were too easy, because you wouldn't find a lot of good stuff there and requirement to explore harder for greater goods would be the main factor.

 
I agree man. My personal favorite suggestion is #2 for the default setting at least. I do like having #1 and #3 as options too though I have several reasons for thinking this. A couple of my main reasonings:

1. It would make sense the game would "punish" you for having an easy time (aka, killing zombies easily) by making them harder

2. This would give players who prefer to play the stealth game / not ever (or rarely) kill zombies, a reward for doing so -> easier zombies overall. This would have strategic value too. If you know you are still weak, you can work on progressing your character until which time that you can now handle killing. Now you've added a new distinct way to play the game - more options are good, no?

3. Alongside #2, you now give certain specializations more feasibility. Such as specializing in FOR, INT, AGI, or anything other than killing zombies. The only viable specialization currently on Insane is going straight into STR and/or PER. At least for single players.

 
Personally I feel the game stage specific zombie groups should be removed and weights should be applied to all zombies and their variants. Then apply calcs.

All calcs and weights made available in XML would be fantastic as well.

Arlene = 5

Hawaiian = 10

Cop = 15

Football = 15

Feral Version = * 2

Rad = * 4

Then make GameStage be a point pool for loading with zombies.

GS 50 = 50 points. So... 10 Arlene's.

Then give settings like

MinGSFeral = 75

MinGSRad = 125

So that could set the minimum stage that you'll see any zombies of that type.

To handle performance, set give the following:

MaxSpawnedZombies = 20

You could also add a scaling set of options for what gets loaded into a group and when.

VeryStrongZombieWeight = (GS/4) * .20 + 0 = X

StrongZombieWeight = (GS/4) * .40 + 0 = X

This way you could define a Max overall amount of zombie strengths that should be spawned when a group spawns. So if you want to make sure you have only a few rads, you can and still scale.

In the xml where the zombie itself is defined, add a Strong/Weak attribute.

Zombie Arlene = Weak

Zombie Hawaiian = Strong

Zombie Cop = Very Strong

Then... For Max of a type of extra zombie version you calc too

MaxFeralCount = (GS / 2) * N% + B

MaxRadCount = (GS /2) * N% + B

So...

MaxFeralCount= (125/2) * .021 + 0 = 1 - Perhaps Nomad Default (rounded down). So at game stage 125 here you'd only ever see a Max of 1 Feral Zombie.

Then maybe it you really want give MinRadCount and MinFeralCount settings do there's always at least the minimum amount, like say 1. But the + 0 at the end of the calc would allow minimums too. Or if you want to disable a type version of zombies, change the .021 to 0. And always have a Zero for MaxRadsAllowed.

After you have the weights and calcs, all you need are your zombie groups with a single list of zombie types.

<group Name=Biker>

<Zombie RadAllowed="false">BikerZombie

<Zombie>Arlene

<Zombie>Other...

</group>

*That's as well formed as I'll do from my phone. :-p

You can attribute the zombie lines to define if you want to allow Rad versions or Feral versions.

This shrinks the entire entities file dramatically and gives modders and/or an I game settings option to waaaaay more granularly handle what spawns and when/where.

Then, leave the GS calc exactly as it is today. Suddenly, you've got a very configurable way of tweaking what spawns the entire world over. And overall, it should be pretty performant.

Little Bonus points:

- Allow GS to actually be a movable variable in all calculation including removable and usable multiple times. Modders will find some crazy sweet spots.

- Add a PartyGS Multiplier set of calcs.

- Allow all parameters in calcs to allow 0 values. So people can omit certain portions of the calc.

- Add a ZombieHPGSModifier=GS*0.001 i.e.: 125*0.001 adds 12.5% to zombie health at GS 125. Or 125*0.001501 adds 18.76% to zombie health at GS 125. Let's people scale the difficulty of zombie scaling at a very granular level. or GS*0 and let people completely disable zombie health scaling entirely. Overall zombie health is: FinalZombieHealth = ZombieBaseDefinedHealth + (ZombieBaseDefinedHealth + ZombieHPGSModifier)

Note: To avoid div/0 I suppose use (GS*%), I (GS*.50).

 
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The thing is, I disagree with making glowing zombies appear quicker on harder difficulties.
Why? Because zombies are already harder on insane. By making feral and glowers appear sooner, you artificially increase the difficulty on top of zombies who are already harder. Why double dip and punish the player further?.
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Because if you are fully combat specc'ed, it's not actually a problem. This is a problem only for the solo player and the poor sucker who had to go Intellect in co-op.

 
I also decided to have GS 50 as a shifting moment where ferals start to show as sleepers.
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What does this mean exactly? My GS is 55 in current play through. I have seen one or two Ferals in POIs (very low %), and no irradiated.

 
The way I play in single player is I purposely try not to level up until I am ready. This is harder to do now with the xp gained from things other than killing zombies... but, it is still not as much, especially in early game, so it's cool. Basically, I just do not kill zombies unless I have to. The couple hordes I try to get through with only traps killing them. Once I have a solid base, a mine started, a farm started, and a good amount of raw resources, then I kick in the leveling... typically after the third horde.

Now how this works on insane, I have no idea. I haven't seen if it is a good strategy or not, and I haven't seen any videos or streams of someone playing on insane to see how others might go about surviving it.

 
Because if you are fully combat specc'ed, it's not actually a problem. This is a problem only for the solo player and the poor sucker who had to go Intellect in co-op.
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There should be more than one viable way to play the game though. Basically, combat speccs give any other specc the middle finger, the way it is set up now. Combat should be better at killing, fine, but there should be some drawback to that - getting tougher zombies quicker than other specializations that skip killing.

Yeah sure you can currently skip combat and it may help a tad, but mining actually gives a lot of exp now so avoiding levels is not feasible.

Anyway, you still need levels, since everything is gated, and with the removal of LBD you can now no longer level skills up without player levels, which then increases gamestage.

Now maybe people can see why I dislike the new perk system? In A16 if you were clever you could get mining skill ups etc and still have lower player level and thus lower GS... as example

 
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Wouldn't be that hard imo. I believe that a zones+biome+poi-dependent difficulty with some rng fluctuations would make for much more interesting gameplay and believable world (except on BM where scaling is probably a necessity). If that happens and lootlists are made accordingly, exploration would be far more interesting for a much, much longer time.
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We kind of have the hybrid now. Well, not kind of, we do. And it sucks.

 
I don't want to incite a topic of "everything in the GS is wrong", but would rather talk about how things can be changed, even if in the slightest, to make it all work better. We already know that changing GS levels would alleviate some of the current problems, but that it is not a long term solution - or rather the player expectation is for a rework of some kind. With that in mind, not every expectation has to be met, because TFP craft the game how they see fit.

Any other idea would require either shifting from GS as a general (which would require a lot of work) or playing around GS (which i think would need far less). I wouldn't want to delve into very complicated ideas, even though they can be good, but like mentioned before - they would require time. Additionally, giving the possibility to tweak the numbers in XML more easily is a big plus for the modders to have their games a lot harder or a lot easier if they will so. I spent quite a lot time in Tin's mods (The Dying Lands and some others i can't remember names) which spawn a lot more Zs and change their spawning mechanics.

There are many factors to the topic of gamestage, people wanting to play on harder difficulties, yet having fairness splattered all around. I'd say this is similar to playing Dark Souls (any game of the series) and not investing points into proper traits which increase your weapon damage (or upgrading your weapon). At some point the enemies get too tough and you're still at a similar level of spewing damage. SO unless you play a specific way you will have a really hard time on Insane or even have a very unfair game where you constantly die.

Surely not everyone will be satisfied, but i feel there needs to be a solution that WOULD satisfy most people, because more and more get frustrated.

 
There should be more than one viable way to play the game though. Basically, combat speccs give any other specc the middle finger, the way it is set up now.
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Oh I agree, but want to put it out there that if GS is nerfed in anyway, or the occurrence of Irradiated is reduced or otherwise nerfed, this will ruin the game for combat-specced folk who are already lacking challenge as it is.

But let's take your statement a little further. People mainly complain about encountering Irradiated too early in POIs. That is the main issue as far as I can see. I say that this is OK for combat-specced chars, and I say this from experience playing on Insane. You, quite rightly, state that the game should be viable even for those who are not combat-specced. OK here's the obvious answer....

Non-combat chars are perfectly viable, but they need to use a different play style. They need to NOT be diving into POIs they know are full of dangerous enemies. You can tell a mile away those POIs that are full-on dungeons and those that are just boxes. If you are not combat-specced, stick to the latter. Common sense? You said yourself there needs to be more than one way to play the game. There is!!

If you are not prepared or able to go full combat-spec then AVOID full combat situations. At the very least do not come here complaining about too many Irradiated too soon when the fact of the matter is that you are not specced to deal with that. That's a ludicrous complaint. What did you expect to happen??

[not addressing you personally Cirion]

 
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Oh I agree, but want to put it out there that if GS is nerfed in anyway, or the occurrence of Irradiated is reduced or otherwise nerfed, this will ruin the game for combat-specced folk who are already lacking challenge as it is.
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I think it depends what combat-specced folk think as a challenge. I played Tin's The Demons Eden mod, which was seriously hardcore. You were practically swimming in zombies and it was hard to have a few minutes of peace there. I know many people were really into that, but for my personal taste it was a bit too much. On the other end, The Dying Lands was pretty good, where it gave a decent challenge and allowed for some peace and quiet.

My point being, some like it really rough and fast and some like it pretty calm and slow. It's not a problem if the challenge comes sooner or later, which is why you should be able to choose how fast it comes. This is why some games don't have simply one difficulty setting to modify, but a series where you can modify how the game spikes difficulty in many aspects.

 
Let me put it this way....grunt zombies and Ferals are zero challenge regardless of number. Ever.

I kind of assume if you spec your character full combat then you want to be swarmed by the most dangerous zombies* in large numbers asap. Otherwise, why did you spec combat?

* right now that would be Irradiated Spiders. They bounce all over tight spaces and insta-debuff the player with a sprained or broken leg if they hit you even once!

 
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Well what you're talking about are (in my opinion) hardcore specced characters. If i specced directly into combat i still wouldn't want to get swarmed by enemies, unless i had a stockpile of molotovs on hand (even rocket launcher isn't that good at first glance, maybe with better skills).

I get what you are saying, but my point is that you should be able to play the game if you invest say halfway through into combat skills (not fully specced, but you DO HAVE some points invested). This means that you don't use up as many 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s of skillpoints into perks for combat, yet have decent bonuses to not get flailed like a new character (not to mention having armor). As i see it is now, even investing a few points doesn't yield that much of a difference as if you didn't, so the resolution is to pimp your combat as much as you can, which neglects other perk trees.

My ideal is being able to mop the floor with single rad Zs when i'm fully combat specced, therefore expecting full groups to give a challenge. The middle ground would be just a bit of challenge when mid-specced for combat for single rad Zs (not a big one though), letting people not investing into combat too hard and know they need to up the ante, yet not making them food for rad Zs (which is how it is now).

 
The closest I ever come to a hybrid build is when I play solo (which is not often tbh). Then ofc I am forced to put many points in Intellect. Everything spare goes into combat and survivability (melee combat I mean, I avoid Perception). So yes I have experience with being "not-combat-specced". And no I would not want to be swarmed by Irradiated under those circumstances.

But the thing is, I won't be, because I adjust my exploration habits accordingly and avoid dangerous POIs (which stick out a mile away as I said).

I still have to say....it's not a problem. Adjust your playstyle to suit your spec. If you are being swarmed by Rads and unable to handle it, avoid situations where you will be swarmed by Rads. It's not like it's a surprise when it happens.

Would you walk up to a bear and smack it when specced Int? No. Yet no one complains about Bears being OP. So why complain about the number of Rads in dungeon POIs when you are not specced to handle it? ProTip: don't go in there! Run away!

I find it adds greatly to the immersion if there are several POIs nearby that I know I have to avoid (for the moment) because it's death in there. I like the feeling of building up my char till I feel I can take on those deathtraps. Feels rewarding. (Shame about the loot but still...)

 
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