PC 'Nomadic' play style rules and ideas

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Nazdroid

New member
I find I enjoy the game most when I'm inside a POI at night, haven't upgraded anything or made any defenses and try to survive the night. It reminds me of a zombie movie when I'm inside a basic POI like a diner or gas station and don't alter the building... I have no idea why but I just seem to really enjoy this.

My normal play style is to usually take over a place and do it up to be all safe but then once I feel it's secure I feel too relaxed which reduces the fun. So i'm thinking of giving myself some rules to create a play style that would make me play more like what I mention I enjoy above.

Does anyone else enjoy playing like this? would settings or rules would you give yourself if you did? Some ideas I'm thinking:

- Don't build own base, only can stay in prefabs

- No upgrading walls

- Don't remove any furniture or objects in the POI I stay in

- Stay on the first floor only

- Either zombies walk at night or keep them to run but turn their block damage down to 50%

As said, I just seem to find this fun so any ideas you guys may have for me to play like this would be great!

Cheers

 
1.) Yes, I've done this, but I think it was A16 which, with the zombie pathing, might have been easier.

2.) My rule isn't no upgrading, but 'no crafting upgrading'. Meaning that if I luck into cement and a working concrete mixer, I'm allowed to make use of that as I see fit, but making my own concrete mixer is generally a no, no.

3.) Nah, I personally will remove things because the rise/fall on the furniture is just so weird to me.

4.) Mmmm, if I can find a place with multiple floors, I will use it. But as in keeping with rule 2, I can only do as much to it as the environment allows.

5.) IMO block damage and zombie speed are somewhat independent. That said, I'd like to hear your reasoning for the distinction.

I love nomadic playstyle games and my only 'hard rule' is use what you find - be that weapons, utilizing stashes, or allowing use of intact crafting stations. It's a great way to play IMO.

 
The rules you have presented would fail on the settings I like. With 64 alive on horde nights, running, and not to mention the demolishers in late game, all small POIs would just crumble away... it would be safer without shelter. However, in your idea of turning down the block damage and walk only, it might be fine... although I don't know how many alive on screen you are planning for hordes. Even with lower block damage, a large group of zombies focusing on one spot will still get that zombie group damage buff and blast through pretty quickly.

For myself, I was thinking about this very thing recently but this was my idea of going about it (only three rules):

1) No base and no POIs as a base. Live in wild, fight in the wild.

2) I can build outpost structures to store and protect supplies, but impossible to be used as a shelter of any kind.

3) No vehicles at all.

 
The rules you have presented would fail on the settings I like. With 64 alive on horde nights, running, and not to mention the demolishers in late game, all small POIs would just crumble away... it would be safer without shelter. However, in your idea of turning down the block damage and walk only, it might be fine... although I don't know how many alive on screen you are planning for hordes. Even with lower block damage, a large group of zombies focusing on one spot will still get that zombie group damage buff and blast through pretty quickly.
For myself, I was thinking about this very thing recently but this was my idea of going about it (only three rules):

1) No base and no POIs as a base. Live in wild, fight in the wild.

2) I can build outpost structures to store and protect supplies, but impossible to be used as a shelter of any kind.

3) No vehicles at all.
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I get what you mean, in the end the blood moon hordes would rip through the place completely ones the days get high. So was thinking that during the blood moons I find other POIs that I won't normally stay in to try and defend for the blood moons. That way I could use a POI i like as my place for storage and to keep it safe, don't use it for blood moons. Also could be fun to try a different POI each 7 days to defend.

 
In A18 the only problem would be horde night. In all other situations night time is harmless due to the lack of zombies wandering. I pretty much ignore nights and go about my normal business in this alpha (though I am a base builder). This includes chopping trees and mining and even entering POIs and looting (once I'm reasonably armed). Things I used to never do at night, you can just do in A18 with little concern. There's just not enough zombies about to threaten the player at night.

That leaves horde night as your only problem. I guess you just find a big fat (tall?) expendable POI, board it up and wait the horde out till morning. If it's destroyed (unlikely) then just run or cycle to a back-up building nearby that you have prepped just in case. That's how I'd do it.

 
In A18 the only problem would be horde night. In all other situations night time is harmless due to the lack of zombies wandering. I pretty much ignore nights and go about my normal business in this alpha (though I am a base builder). This includes chopping trees and mining and even entering POIs and looting (once I'm reasonably armed). Things I used to never do at night, you can just do in A18 with little concern. There's just not enough zombies about to threaten the player at night.
That leaves horde night as your only problem. I guess you just find a big fat (tall?) expendable POI, board it up and wait the horde out till morning. If it's destroyed (unlikely) then just run or cycle to a back-up building nearby that you have prepped just in case. That's how I'd do it.
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I agree, once you're armed with a gun, normal nights are pretty easy. Like you, previous alphas I would spend nights locked inside but A18 I looted a few POIs during the night and found it quite fun - wandering round a building in the dark not knowing where any zombies were did get my adrenaline going.

For the blood moon hordes, think i'll use a POI that could be good to defend from or made from something strong and try survive that.

What do you guys think of the zombie block damage setting? because I want to play this more "realistically'' and not build loads of defenses, should I balance this with turning their block damage down? or would this ruin the fun?

 
One I did recently

experience 300%

player block damage 300%

Loot abundance 200%

Horde zombie count 64

Horde night every night

No serious building (I'll use frames and destroy blocks)

Only self and vehicle storage

It's a nomadic play style.

 
What do you guys think of the zombie block damage setting? because I want to play this more "realistically'' and not build loads of defenses, should I balance this with turning their block damage down? or would this ruin the fun?
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It depends on how quickly you want those throw-away POIs to last. You haven't mentioned your setting for the number of zombies on screen. If it's something like 32 or 64, I don't think that block damage will matter much. Without proper defenses, you will have a hard time stopping the zombies from grouping together. Otherwise though, it's probably a good idea.

 
Here's something that could be different:

10 minute days set to the largest nighttime length, with 64 max BM zombies and BM every night, but the zombies only walk with lowest block damage.

Like a slow wall coming at you almost constantly and definitely no chance to really upgrade POIs let alone build a base from scratch. Forced nomadic play?

 
Here's something that could be different:
10 minute days set to the largest nighttime length, with 64 max BM zombies and BM every night, but the zombies only walk with lowest block damage.

Like a slow wall coming at you almost constantly and definitely no chance to really upgrade POIs let alone build a base from scratch. Forced nomadic play?
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I would not call that "nomadic". That is more like "how many days can you survive"-ultra-fast-edition. With 10min days and long nights and BM every night, you have like 4 realtime minutes between waves to choose perks and loot and hopefully even find a weapon. Almost no chance to even craft some bandages, not even talking about first aid bandages. And you need food and water too. I imagine that more like Singleplayer-PUBG-against-Zombies but most likely you wouldn't even find a ranged weapon in time... and ammo for it!

Or like Killing Floor without weapons. ;)

Would be probably interesting watching someone try it out on youtube, but definitely nothing i would be interested into playing myself. I'd not even expect me to survive 2 or 3 days with this.

Nomadic for me is just the opposite of getting settled. It should imho not force a hysteric gameplay, moving from one POI to the neighbour-POI when it is destroyed, but more making you explore the map.

 
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I would not call that "nomadic". That is more like "how many days can you survive"-ultra-fast-edition. With 10min days and long nights and BM every night, you have like 4 realtime minutes between waves to choose perks and loot and hopefully even find a weapon. Almost no chance to even craft some bandages, not even talking about first aid bandages. And you need food and water too. I imagine that more like Singleplayer-PUBG-against-Zombies but most likely you wouldn't even find a ranged weapon in time... and ammo for it!Or like Killing Floor without weapons. ;)

Would be probably interesting watching someone try it out on youtube, but definitely nothing i would be interested into playing myself. I'd not even expect me to survive 2 or 3 days with this.

Nomadic for me is just the opposite of getting settled. It should imho not force a hysteric gameplay, moving from one POI to the neighbour-POI when it is destroyed, but more making you explore the map.
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Lol... now I have to try to survive this. I think it would be nomadic. You would run out of POIs pretty quickly. Maybe you could stretch it out to a few weeks in one small city... but keeping in mind a few weeks is less than 4 hours of game time with these settings.

First week would be exceptionally brutal, starting with the moment you spawn. By the time you complete the starter quests for some points, it’s game on. Maybe it won’t be that bad. The zombies won’t be running. Dogs and vultures would be the threat I think. I need to see if it is even possible to get to a trader and actually complete a quest. In and out with the POIs, grabbing essentials as quickly as possible... gonna be rough. I think the best strategy is to make the hordes run through POIs without destroying them so that you can easily go back and loot them. Can’t wait to try it tonight.

 
I tried the following:

10 minute days, max night time, BM 64 max alive, daily BM, Nomad difficulty, zombies always walk, 25% zombie block damage, no air drops, delete all on death (I always play dead is dead, but set this anyway).

I got nervous before starting so I upped the loot% and decreased loot respawn time... big mistake.

I got to day 12 and realized it was just too easy. I completed 4 buried supply quests in that time and had tons of food. A blunderbuss with ammo was a nice find on day 2. I managed to collect enough lock picks to get into a cabin's gun safe where I got a pistol and some 9mm... although I never needed it.

Next to the trader, I built a small box out of frames and placed a chest inside the middle of it to throw extra stuff in and put a hatch on top just for some protection, then made a campfire and placed that on the side. I made another one of these about 300 meters away. I had a few honey jars from stumps, but I ended up getting antibiotics already from a quest reward, as well as 10 med bandages from 2 others quests. I split these things up among my stockpiles. I found a trailer park, went through all the mailboxes, and found a couple books. Trader bookshelf had a book. I bought a book. Found another book somewhere in trash.

On top of that being too easy, on the first few days you don't really get a horde night... probably the gamestage is too low. First one came on day 4... only maybe a dozen zombies spawned.

One thing that was cool is that since the days happen so quickly, it seems like there are a lot of world zombie spawns. Wandering hordes happen quite often as well.

Going to start over tomorrow with mostly the same settings. Leaving loot on default this time. I don't want to jump the gun and turn on run at night just yet. I need to see how this plays out after a few game weeks. I imagine at some point the full 64 zombies will spawn in and for them to run too with this game style might be too much. Not sure... we'll see.

EDIT: one more cool thing.... the shadows move so fast on 10 minute days you are always thinking a zombie is sneaking up on you.

 
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I tried the following:10 minute days, max night time, BM 64 max alive, daily BM, Nomad difficulty, zombies always walk, 25% zombie block damage, no air drops, delete all on death (I always play dead is dead, but set this anyway).

I got nervous before starting so I upped the loot% and decreased loot respawn time... big mistake.

I got to day 12 and realized it was just too easy. I completed 4 buried supply quests in that time and had tons of food. A blunderbuss with ammo was a nice find on day 2. I managed to collect enough lock picks to get into a cabin's gun safe where I got a pistol and some 9mm... although I never needed it.

Next to the trader, I built a small box out of frames and placed a chest inside the middle of it to throw extra stuff in and put a hatch on top just for some protection, then made a campfire and placed that on the side. I made another one of these about 300 meters away. I had a few honey jars from stumps, but I ended up getting antibiotics already from a quest reward, as well as 10 med bandages from 2 others quests. I split these things up among my stockpiles. I found a trailer park, went through all the mailboxes, and found a couple books. Trader bookshelf had a book. I bought a book. Found another book somewhere in trash.

On top of that being too easy, on the first few days you don't really get a horde night... probably the gamestage is too low. First one came on day 4... only maybe a dozen zombies spawned.

One thing that was cool is that since the days happen so quickly, it seems like there are a lot of world zombie spawns. Wandering hordes happen quite often as well.

Going to start over tomorrow with mostly the same settings. Leaving loot on default this time. I don't want to jump the gun and turn on run at night just yet. I need to see how this plays out after a few game weeks. I imagine at some point the full 64 zombies will spawn in and for them to run too with this game style might be too much. Not sure... we'll see.

EDIT: one more cool thing.... the shadows move so fast on 10 minute days you are always thinking a zombie is sneaking up on you.
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That does sound very fun! does having the blood moon set to 64 max make the game lag or slower?

i was thinking to set enemy spawning to high, is this even an option anymore? could make it fun during the day to have a lot of zombies around you.

 
My "Nomatic" phase of testing was in late A17. I put the following rules in place for myself then and plan to try the same soon with A18

1) No staying in one location / Building for more than 7 days.

2) BM Set to every 7 days allowing for prep defenses as best as time allowed.

3) Moving on from the Base, I only took what I could carry and NOTHING placed such as Forge, Work station, Crates, (I could take what was IN the crates but not the crates themselves) furniture, ect…

4) Any new building could be used as a new base but had to be at least 1 Km from old base and NO return trips for additional supplies from ANY old bases.

5) 7 Bases had to be used before a return to the "First" base could be returned to for repairs in prep for Night 49 Horde.

6) Repairs could NOT be made to base or defenses once BM ended or 4am (which ever came first). This meant I did my best to protect the base and defenses so repair time upon return in 6 weeks would leave me time to upgrade for stronger Hordes.

I found this a tough and challenging version as I had to pick locations that could serve as defensive bases that could be quickly repaired and made ready plus manage my resources (food/water/Ammo/ Meds)

 
I can't even count how many maps I've started with the intent of playing Nomadic, but always cave by day 3 and revert to my old habits. I guess I am a builder and always will be.

 
That does sound very fun! does having the blood moon set to 64 max make the game lag or slower?
i was thinking to set enemy spawning to high, is this even an option anymore? could make it fun during the day to have a lot of zombies around you.
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I’m sure that if I tried playing with all high graphics settings and 64 spawning in, there would be noticeable lag. I keep things medium to low, textures on high, and my old GeForce 970 handles it just fine. I picked up an 11GB 2080ti yesterday during the Cyber Monday sales to finally upgrade.

The Enemy Spawning setting is off or on now, but with how fast the days go by the world spawns and wandering hordes do a pretty good job of keeping you on your toes.

 
My "Nomatic" phase of testing was in late A17. I put the following rules in place for myself then and plan to try the same soon with A18 [...]
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That sounds perfect to satisfy the building needs. It also sounds perfect for a good, very long and thorough play through.

 
I like nomadic style too every now and then,

I go -start with 4x4 full tank, level 1 or 2 shovel and wrench (sometimes a bicycle too)

-never craft a forge or wb

-no lcb

-never use a helmet light

-try avoid using trader

-90 minute days

-no bm

-sprint in day

-nomad or warrior difficulty

-no loot respawn (this one keeps you nomadic)

after reading other comments I'm so going to try 10 minute days with hnen

 
I started up a new game.

Dead is dead, Nomad, 10 min, BM daily, Max night, zombies jog, default loot % and respawn, default zombie damage, default xp, no air drops, 64 max BM. Same rules I set for myself before... no base, no POIs as a base, no vehicles, I can build boxes to protect chests placed throughout the map.

Much better now. On day 17 and it has been a lot of fun. My gamestage is starting to become large enough for decent BM horde sizes. My first one only had 6 spawn in at once, the day 17 horde seemed to be about 25. Found some lucky goggles, so pretty excited about that.

The biggest threat right now is clearing POIs. It can take a few days to clear a decently-sized one and with wandering hordes happening so much, it is easy to get trapped.

Gonna see how this plays out until I start getting a lot of dogs and vultures every night. If it’s not a problem, I might start over yet again and kick up the zombie speed a little more.

 
My last SP nomad game settings:

- Dead is Dead

- Objective/Win: Spend 3 days in each town in the map (8192) (I personally need a "Win" condition cus i often get bored in the late game. Other objectives i've already tryed: Find one purple weapon/gun of each / kill 5k zombies or reach lvl 200 / Open all the roads in map riding a bicicle...).

- 20 min days

- Horde every night

- Zombies Block Damage BM: 200%

- XP 200%

- 64 zombies BM

- No loot respawn

- No Airdrops

All other settings in vanilla

I've tried 10min days but ironically i find it easier since the BM end so fast that the zombies can't destroy the POIs before BM ends.

Sometimes i play nomad without vehicles... i miss the time before the minibike when travel between towns on foot sometimes took days and was a real adventure, forcing you to sleep over a rock, in a cave (miss caves too) or in a hole in the ground.

 
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