PC Gamestage at 125 on day 14, Is this normal?

K

King_MoMo

Refugee
I'm not too familiar with gamestage, but from what i understand is that it is a combination of certain aspects of your game (ie. days alive, player level, zombie kills, ect.) that set a "difficulty level" so to speak.

So my question is. Is anyone else getting large amounts of high level zombies like radiated wights and radiated cops all the time? At this point all of my screamer hoards consist of feral zombies. I'm pretty sure that it is normal but i just wanted to make sure that I'm not the only one who's getting them. Btw i have been power leveling like crazy and killing a ridiculous amount of zombies, so that probably adds to the gamestage as well.

PS- Not a complaint, I'm absolutely loving this update and 7 Days will always hold the crown for my favorite game ever.

 
There's a *really* aggressive uptick in the gamestages compared to A16. Maybe it's all those people who sat in the forums who dug bedrock bunkers and constantly complained the game was too easy?

I dropped the difficulty down to Adventurer and restarted a SP run, and while individual combat was painfully easy compared to Nomad, it did make a substantial difference when it came to horde night as I was actually able to find the bottom of the first horde. There was no substantial difference in level progression, which I found interesting. Both on Nomad and Adventurer I hit L20 on day 8 and was able to get a forge up and running.

People playing multiplayer have a much more severe problem. The upticked gamestage is compounded by the fact that the BM and Horde difficulties are set and scaled up by the top five players in the siege area.

Either way, there's a very notable problem in that the game actually punishes you for 'power levelling', where you spend a disproportionately larger amount of time inflating the gamestage challenge level to 'tech rush', but not allocating the time to resource and deploy defenses. A sort of "I killed a BM's worth of zombies already, leave me alone" thing; only BM hordes aren't built to leave anyone alone. Thus, they show up ready to siege a castle while the player has a shack with a ladder.

 
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Do you think that the fun pimps will tone the gamestage uptick down a bit before the release? I don't think its likely but i suppose if enough players complain then they might do something about it..

 
What I have found is that there is a "Goldilocks" zone between pushing your exp and developing a survivable BM base.

You can push a bit harder if you find a forge and even more harder if you also find a mixer. But going full out for exp, although initially very fun, will end in your characters death sooner than later.

I haven't developed a formula yet, but there is a strong connection to survivability and your fortitude development, armor type and risk management abilities.

 
What I have found is that there is a "Goldilocks" zone between pushing your exp and developing a survivable BM base.
You can push a bit harder if you find a forge and even more harder if you also find a mixer. But going full out for exp, although initially very fun, will end in your characters death sooner than later.

I haven't developed a formula yet, but there is a strong connection to survivability and your fortitude development, armor type and risk management abilities.
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Yeah, I definitely think that you need to have a good balance of base building and risk management and xp grind. I've been focusing entirely on grinding for experience and when the first hoard came around i got completely obliterated.

 
What I have found is that there is a "Goldilocks" zone between pushing your exp and developing a survivable BM base.
You can push a bit harder if you find a forge and even more harder if you also find a mixer. But going full out for exp, although initially very fun, will end in your characters death sooner than later.

I haven't developed a formula yet, but there is a strong connection to survivability and your fortitude development, armor type and risk management abilities.
Click to expand...
I restarted SP and rolled a difficulty level lower (Adventurer). Individual combat was pathetically easier than Nomad, but the level rate kept pace with my Nomad runs, and I was able to find the bottom of the BM horde using a standard perimeter defence strategy. In all three runs, I generally hit level 10 by day 5 just with normal, mildly aggressive activity. By the time the BM hit, I was typically level 16-17, and ended roughly level 19-20 (Level 20 by dawn 8 consistently).

If Nomad is meant to be standard for SP, its gamestage advancement rate is off by around 20%. In the latter two runs (one Nomad, one Adventurer), I had access to iron tools or better from POI loot or the trader, and was using materials from both to maintain them, despite not having a forge. Now that I realize this is completely viable, I feel comfortable easing off my complaints about L20 being too long a jaunt before having access to better tools.

 
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I restarted SP and rolled a difficulty level lower (Adventurer). Individual combat was pathetically easier than Nomad, but the level rate kept pace with my Nomad runs, and I was able to find the bottom of the BM horde using a standard perimeter defence strategy. In all three runs, I generally hit level 10 by day 5 just with normal, mildly aggressive activity. By the time the BM hit, I was typically level 16-17, and ended roughly level 19-20 (Level 20 by dawn 8 consistently).
If Nomad is meant to be standard for SP, its tuning is off by around 20%.
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Yeah, maybe just ticking it down a difficulty level will make a world of difference, i just don't want to restart my game haha!

 
Adventurer feels TOO easy when it comes to general combat. Zombies drop in two hits, and you can stealth-kill normies with only level 1 HS.

This didn't really factor in too much to the BM horde, because standard deployments involved spikes that destroyed themselves anyway and molotovs that would kill Nomad-level zombies regardless. The big thing was that i was still able to chew through the perimeter breachers and finish the BM horde by 3:30am despite a horribly botched inner defense.

it's my general opinion that you don't 'win' the BM hordes unless you get to the point where they stop spawning. Hiding/fleeing is probably a last resort if it's obvious you don't have the defenses to handle it.. and I did have to do that for one horde because I spent a week trying to find beakers for a chem station.

 
I you are "killing a ridiculous amount of zombies" then the game tries to keep up and provide a challenge for you.

Is that GS normal? No. Doable? Sure.

 
Great to hear. It's easy to go to end up with very high gs just by looting. I leveled 3 levels on a medium poi just because of respawning and daily horde.

 
People who want to power level without keeping the pace of improving the gear and base are getting rolled over by more difficult and numerous Zs.

That's a shocker.

A17 motto should be "don't rush".

 
gamestage = (your level + days alive) x difficulty setting multiplier

with the days alive figure being capped to your level. So 125 on day 14 is easily possible if you haven't died recently and are playing on a high(ish) difficulty. Hint: you can greatly reduce it by performing a deliberate controlled suicide.

What I have found is that there is a "Goldilocks" zone between pushing your exp and developing a survivable BM base. You can push a bit harder if you find a forge and even more harder if you also find a mixer. But going full out for exp, although initially very fun, will end in your characters death sooner than later.
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I have found the best approach is to plow ahead with as much exp as possible. Reasoning is simple, the player's "firepower" does not increase linearly with level. Because of the gating there are certain levels you hit that unlock perks that give a huge increase to player "firepower". Examples would be:

1) The point that raises your melee damage to where you 2-shot grunts instead of 3-shotting them (Or however many hits)

2) The point that gives the Forge, Cement, Steel and so on

So basically you want to get to these critical perk points asap. Yes your GS will be higher but you are much more equipped to deal with it.

At the end of the day it's all about setting the game to the correct difficulty so you enjoy it and can handle the horde. This will likely be lower than it was in A16. Example for us, we went from highest difficulty to difficulty 3. Highest difficulty was a nightmare in A17.

Having said that, difficulty 3 is great for us for A17 horde night, but it is in fact too low outside of horde night so there is a wee bit of balance still needed.

 
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Yeah, I definitely think that you need to have a good balance of base building and risk management and xp grind. I've been focusing entirely on grinding for experience and when the first hoard came around i got completely obliterated.
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Agreed, I spent the first 2 1/2 days out looting POIs and killing every zombie I saw and was at level 8 or 9 but I started running into ferals so I figured I should tone it back and decided to start base building and grinding and got a solid base down by the horde night and was level 19 but had a forge in a nearby POI.

 
I think the challenge is good! But the zombie xp needs to go down, resource yield/xp needs to go up. That would allow us to spend more time gathering resources/crafting/building, whereas right now those are very low yield/low xp play styles. And just drop down zombie xp, so you don't level so fast as that pushes up the gamestage faster than you can handle at horde nights (due to lack of resources to build a proper base).

I'm also having a terrible time with zombie loot. 2 waters or a dye or whatever far too often, coming out of looting 4-5 drops during horde night and nothing useful at all except maybe 4 shotgun shells :p It feels like A16 with 5 % loot drops, but not improved loot at times. But I could have poor rng!

But it's nice to not have to always loot, saves time, just need the resulting loot when it comes to be a lot better. Give me some reward please that's reasonable for the effort! Else it's just kill for xp, nothing else :)

/V -

 
I'm not too familiar with gamestage, but from what i understand is that it is a combination of certain aspects of your game (ie. days alive, player level, zombie kills, ect.) that set a "difficulty level" so to speak. So my question is. Is anyone else getting large amounts of high level zombies like radiated wights and radiated cops all the time? At this point all of my screamer hoards consist of feral zombies. I'm pretty sure that it is normal but i just wanted to make sure that I'm not the only one who's getting them. Btw i have been power leveling like crazy and killing a ridiculous amount of zombies, so that probably adds to the gamestage as well.

PS- Not a complaint, I'm absolutely loving this update and 7 Days will always hold the crown for my favorite game ever.
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I mean considering I had a game stage of 130 by day 4 I think it’s pretty normal

 
I think the challenge is good! But the zombie xp needs to go down, resource yield/xp needs to go up. That would allow us to spend more time gathering resources/crafting/building, whereas right now those are very low yield/low xp play styles. And just drop down zombie xp, so you don't level so fast as that pushes up the gamestage faster than you can handle at horde nights (due to lack of resources to build a proper base).
I'm also having a terrible time with zombie loot. 2 waters or a dye or whatever far too often, coming out of looting 4-5 drops during horde night and nothing useful at all except maybe 4 shotgun shells :p It feels like A16 with 5 % loot drops, but not improved loot at times. But I could have poor rng!

But it's nice to not have to always loot, saves time, just need the resulting loot when it comes to be a lot better. Give me some reward please that's reasonable for the effort! Else it's just kill for xp, nothing else :)

/V -

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I totally agree. It this point in the game, It's like the only way to level up is by killing zombies. Nothing else compares in terms of how much xp you get

 
My gamestage is 86 on day 21 and I am level 25. I am playing Survivalist ( one level below insane )

I have never grinded XP on purpose. So far I have killed 245 zombies. About a dozen a day average.

My first priority is having a solid base. I go out and loot when I feel my base is good enough or when I want specific items badly.

Iirc GameStage is Your level + Day * Difficulty coefficient. ( Edit, apparently it is ''days alive'' . I died only once in this game. Somewhere around day 9 I think. )

 
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