PC I've Been Playing A16.4 for months now, and I've noticed some things that bother me..

VulpesHilarianu

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One of the things I've noticed running a single man random gen world with two hour days, default block hardness, and sixteen zombie horde nights, is by day forty nine things start becoming a bit too strong. By that time I'm usually around GameStage one thousand, have upgraded the rifle skill to at least three, have at least fifty skill with the bow, and have at least a level five hundred compound bow and hunting rifle. At that point I'm getting ferals pretty regularly as sleepers, with a few radiated zombies giving me a nice surprise. Challenging, but still something I can deal with even on horde night.

But by day sixty three when I'm usually close to GameStage fifteen hundred it becomes a slog to play. The recent day sixty three bloodmoon horde tore through my non-reinforced steel exterior wall that was two thick before I had managed to thin them out. In about a minute and a half they were inside and using eachother as fodder to get over the spikes while the last line of defense shotgun turrets shot at them. That's just ridiculous AI block DPS to deal with for single player. What's even worse is when you're going around looting (both in singleplayer and multiplayer), and getting entire houses full of just radiated feral wights, radiated fat cops, biker zombies, and military zombies. All for a freakin' kitchen full of metal cans and empty jars.

I believe the sleeper system needs to be adjusted to work with your GameStage and location so that high-level special zombies like that only appear in places like Vick Garrison's pawn shop, the hotel, Shotgun Messiah, Working Stiffs, the multistory Crack A Book, and office buildings. Places where there's a lot of POI-specific loot containers with mid or end-game loot. Going into a random adobe house and seeing two radiated fat cops that are bound to explode and destroy all the cabinets and dressers around them makes it a non-viable strategy to bring anything other than the AK-47 or exploding crossbow bolts. All because your GameStage is high, and completely disregarding the current POI type.

It irks me, because POI-specific spawns are a thing. Zombie nurses and hazardous workers in the hospitals for example, construction workers in the oil refinery, and zombie bikers and zombie strippers in the Boobie Trap. To have these radiated feral wights or radiated feral spider zombies spawn in basic structures like the log cabin or trailer home is a big flaw to me. For new players joining or those that haven't logged in in a while this spawn system is just unfair to them, because they go in looking for clothes or some water and end up wasting ammunition that's far more valuable. That is if they're not killed outright because they weren't able to prepare to deal with the high threat level.

For stealth characters who use silent weapons like the compound bow and the crossbow it becomes a question of whether you're lucky and can land those two or three consecutive headshots fast enough without the zombie screwing it up when they stand and rotate like a music box figurine to face you. Because otherwise they start running after you swinging wildly, and it becomes nearly impossible to deal with them without waking up the others and causing a rush.

In summary by late game looting's more luck than skill, and base defense becomes a question of whether or not you've got enough active defenses because block health doesn't matter.

 
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- Block health indeed doesn't matter. We also make huge megabases with 1-4 players. But if you don't rush towards them on horde night. It will take about 2-3 minutes before the first wall is down. That's why I suggest very kindly that they either reduce zombie attack speed VS blocks or rude the damage the special zombies do vs blocks.

- The game stage on the one hand makes sense, because you are lvled and have better equipment and guns etc. However that is not always the case. And when you don't have a blue shotgun or higher, it will get very hard to kill a feral radiated cop because their HP regen is just plain silly.

I like the idea of more spawn specific locations though. And to not have feral fat cops spawn inside a random shack. I"ve had 8 of them spawn inside a cabin once. Was quite the blast.

I love the idea of feral radiated stuff. But their hp regen is off the charts. That's why most stuff can't kill them. Just give them more raw base hp instead.

You're right about the music box figurines. It's very annoying and hard to combat such an AI. Whereas normal melee combat is very ezmode.

That's one of the biggest flaws I see in running zombies (IMO) the twirling zombies.

Batman,

EDIT: Welcome to the forums!

 
Yes to all.

It isn't balanced yet. Since TFP's plan seems to be to have a game that can be played at least to level 200, I assume they have to and will look at that before release.

 
One of the things I've noticed running a single man random gen world with two hour days, default block hardness, and sixteen zombie horde nights, is by day forty nine things start becoming a bit too strong. By that time I'm usually around GameStage one thousand, have upgraded the rifle skill to at least three, have at least fifty skill with the bow, and have at least a level five hundred compound bow and hunting rifle. At that point I'm getting ferals pretty regularly as sleepers, with a few radiated zombies giving me a nice surprise. Challenging, but still something I can deal with even on horde night.
But by day sixty three when I'm usually close to GameStage fifteen hundred it becomes a slog to play. The recent day sixty three bloodmoon horde tore through my non-reinforced steel exterior wall that was two thick before I had managed to thin them out. In about a minute and a half they were inside and using eachother as fodder to get over the spikes while the last line of defense shotgun turrets shot at them. That's just ridiculous AI block DPS to deal with for single player. What's even worse is when you're going around looting (both in singleplayer and multiplayer), and getting entire houses full of just radiated feral wights, radiated fat cops, biker zombies, and military zombies. All for a freakin' kitchen full of metal cans and empty jars.
You literally just described everything that is right with a tower defense game called 7 days to die, where every 7 days, you have to tower defend.

 
You literally just described everything that is right with a tower defense game called 7 days to die, where every 7 days, you have to tower defend.
Every tower defense game I have played had a power progression of the player that kept in step with the power progression of the incoming horde. I don't see that in 7days. You normally have an AK47 after three weeks (probably too early), but the enemies get harder every week after that.

And I don't see the player progress in an similar way to the zombies after that. In later stages it becomes an atrition race where the player looses simply because he looses interest in repairing the same structures again and again and the hunt for ammunition is the only driving force to go out.

 
gameStage = playerLevel + playerLevel * (daysSurvived * daysAliveDifficultyBonus + gameDifficultyMultiplier )

So if you die then the days survived reset to zero and start counting up again which should significantly reduce your gamestage. Also, going into options and reducing the difficulty will also reduce the speed at which it ramps up.

So the real question is are you playing dead is dead and are you willing to change the game difficulty? Because if your answer is “no - yes” then (unless gamestages is bugged) you should have a real solution within your power.

 
For most players who don't die anymore it does feel like you'are being punished for being to good though. Getting crazy horde nights with 10+ radiated feral cops alone etc. And if you still don't die then, you're being punished with a HEFTY repair bill and or ammunition replenishments.

The loot they drop still is nowhere near good enough to compensate for the troubles.

 
For most players who don't die anymore it does feel like you'are being punished for being to good though. Getting crazy horde nights with 10+ radiated feral cops alone etc. And if you still don't die then, you're being punished with a HEFTY repair bill and or ammunition replenishments.
The loot they drop still is nowhere near good enough to compensate for the troubles.
I'm reading between the lines here, but it seems your hinting towards leveled loot...

I hope that never happens...

 
I'm reading between the lines here, but it seems your hinting towards leveled loot...
I hope that never happens...
0 hints for lvled loot. But I would like a mega horde to drop something of value. There's a difference :p Not just crap I immediately scrap or drop.

Otherwise , whats the point of fighting the horde?

 
0 hints for lvled loot. But I would like a mega horde to drop something of value. There's a difference :p Not just crap I immediately scrap or drop. Otherwise , whats the point of fighting the horde?
The point would be: Survival...

I dont think (or hope) TFP would make the game give a reward for clearing a bunch of zombies outright...

But with the new quest system, I bet there are going to be quest like:

Kill these zombies, and I'll give you dukes.

Or:

Survive hoard night with no resurrections, and I'll give you "blank"...

A better way of catering to these kinds of concerns I think...

But that's just my opinion of cause...

 
Unless hordes will give something usefull, or serve any purpose what so ever. I'll just continue bypassing them with base design or simply running away on minibike. Would already help a lot if your defenses' kills count as your own for exp etc.

- Since the digging aspect is still unknown.

 
Unless hordes will give something usefull, or serve any purpose what so ever. I'll just continue bypassing them with base design or simply running away on minibike. Would already help a lot if your defenses' kills count as your own for exp etc.
- Since the digging aspect is still unknown.
Well... That's assuming you are still able to use any of those strategies... (Even without the digger).

I think faatal would have a thing or two to say about this. Or code as it were ;)

Edit:

I think Gazz is our man, if we wanna learn about rewards and quest rewards specifically...

So Gazz:

Will there be any generic reward quests in A17?

Like kill 10 zombies, and you get dukes?

 
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Unless hordes will give something usefull, or serve any purpose what so ever. I'll just continue bypassing them with base design or simply running away on minibike. Would already help a lot if your defenses' kills count as your own for exp etc.
- Since the digging aspect is still unknown.
I agree that the hordes need to offer some reward beyond congratulations you survived. Is having zombies be the only source of experience too lame? Would force you to fight and also look forward to the horde night as they would be a huge boost to your level allowing you to progress?

 
I think we should bring up this issue again once we see what A17 has in store for us.

Also idk about you guys but I feel fairly rewarded by the zombie loot on 7th nights. Guns, ammo, tons of scrap, bones...

 
I think we should bring up this issue again once we see what A17 has in store for us.
Also idk about you guys but I feel fairly rewarded by the zombie loot on 7th nights. Guns, ammo, tons of scrap, bones...
Later stages of the game they feel annoying because the loot doesn’t exceed the ridiculous cost of repairs and ammo. Getting guns when I’m rocking several near 600 quality guns isn’t doing a lot for me. And then when you’re sitting there just unloading into bullet sponges that don’t drop enough loot to even come close to supplementing the cost it took to kill them is also lame imo

 
Well, this is still Alpha... So basically "Proof of concept" is what's going on.

So... Here are a bunch of things... Mostly - which I found totally helpful is not to have the forge and other things within your base... If you hang out at your base all the time, then that's another reason why they're there!

FYI: You can have a complete set of forges and such sitting out in the open for everyone to see... Screamers will come all the time and just hang out if they don't find 'anyone' there... So "Sniper Roosts" are a must! IE: If you're going to drop a tonne of ores off at your forge jump onto a sniper roost and scope out for the screamers before you drop off the ore or do anything with any of them...

Well, I haven't had that much trouble at all. Wither it be SP or MP with 10 of us. The only issues I or we've ever had is when we make a satellite base and aren't prepared... That hasn't happened in a long time. Could it possibly be something wasn't fixed, or there was a flaw in your defenses? Also - I've noticed people just shooting what ever is in their line of sights... What I'm talking about is that because of HP, Damage, etc, but mostly HP zeds do 'x' amount of damage. The Big Guy - Disturbed Tourist - whom 'farts,' 'burps' and belches a lot is a 'tough' one. He's got a lot of HP - so that means he can go through 'a lot' of spikes without dieing... Others almost die after one spike... The tourist damages the spikes along the way - making it easier for 'everyone else following' in his wake. If you watch for this its clear at about day 14... So prioritizing your targets can help mitigate 'base damage'/'base repairs.'

As for the POI spawns... Haven't seen 'all' nor 'most' POI's generate Rad-Ferals... Only 'some' here and there and not even enough worth really mention. This is in Vanilla and Valmod and War of the Walkers and Darkness Falls: They mostly come out at night...

You are playing vanilla aren't you?

So far I've gotten my Gamestage up towards 1786 or so, and haven't seen these issues, but this is mostly SP since I really don't check it in MP.

Later on is when 'optimization' comes into play... And yes - many things need to be 'linked'/'fixed'/'and/or adjusted' within the game, that's when 'all of this should happen.'

From my experience - there isn't 'enough' of the 'bigger' zeds :) Power to the Zombies!!

 
I agree that the hordes need to offer some reward beyond congratulations you survived. Is having zombies be the only source of experience too lame? Would force you to fight and also look forward to the horde night as they would be a huge boost to your level allowing you to progress?
Interesting idea.

- - - Updated - - -

I think we should bring up this issue again once we see what A17 has in store for us.
Also idk about you guys but I feel fairly rewarded by the zombie loot on 7th nights. Guns, ammo, tons of scrap, bones...
ammo? I don't find it appealing when you find 0-100 slugs, when you have to spend 600+

 
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