Roland
Community Moderator
lol...trust me, there are still people power leveling in A19. "It" is still alive and well....
PC Progression sucks
- Thread starter Onarr
- Start date
SnowDog1942
Navezgane's Perv
I still think tying everything to gamestage helps remove the wonderfull world of Random Gen. I'd love to have a game being unable to find something I need or really really really want. Then the next game finding that same thing on day one. It makes it interesting and different each time.
Okay, I'm level 20, gamestage X. Time to go find my level Y thingamajig. Boring.
Sacrificing replayability to make sure noobs feel a nice sense of progression, until they realize its artificial.
Okay, I'm level 20, gamestage X. Time to go find my level Y thingamajig. Boring.
Sacrificing replayability to make sure noobs feel a nice sense of progression, until they realize its artificial.
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Nothing to do here with better or worseLiesel Weppen said:
Agree that this game needs more risk vs reward, that should take care most of the problem so ppl who want to play slower dont get end game rewards too soon and those who want to get them faster can try tier 5 pois or smth to get em faster.Tnx u but I am aware all of thisKosmic Kerman said:
btw I play MP
sp is way too booring for me, I use it to test out stuff onlyWell true. Btw I was kind of surprised yesterday when logging on the server and start getting improved loot like assault rifles, steel armors, etc instead of wood and scrap things .. Is my loot affected by all the players online? Cause it was like day 60ish with 7ppl online and few of them was over lvl 40ish ...Roland said:
Onarr
New member
I see a lot of talk about grinding and whether or not it is neccessary. Well as I see it its the way this game works now.
First, there is a time constraint in the 7th day horde - you need to prepare. What do you need for horde night? Ammunition, base building materials, healing items and good weapons.
Ok so how can you get this? You have several basic ways
The argument that nobody forces you to play a certain way is ... well look at it like this. We human are hardwired in a certain way. We like getting stuff and hate losing stuff. But we hate loosing stuff much more that we like getting stuff. So if you have several activities, that yield same resources but different quantities and qualities, we will view doing such activity as loss. This forces us to do the alternative, because even if the less lucrative activity is more fun, we view it is as loss. This happens over time, not immediately of course. Once the novelty is gonne people will always move to the most efficient way to do things. This is only magnified by the time constraint of 7th day horde.
First, there is a time constraint in the 7th day horde - you need to prepare. What do you need for horde night? Ammunition, base building materials, healing items and good weapons.
Ok so how can you get this? You have several basic ways
- Looting PoIs
- Gathering
- Quests
- Crafting
The argument that nobody forces you to play a certain way is ... well look at it like this. We human are hardwired in a certain way. We like getting stuff and hate losing stuff. But we hate loosing stuff much more that we like getting stuff. So if you have several activities, that yield same resources but different quantities and qualities, we will view doing such activity as loss. This forces us to do the alternative, because even if the less lucrative activity is more fun, we view it is as loss. This happens over time, not immediately of course. Once the novelty is gonne people will always move to the most efficient way to do things. This is only magnified by the time constraint of 7th day horde.
I get the first part of the original post. As for the loot, you can just mod the files to up your gamestage faster.
But yeah, me and my friend just set up in a town, next door to a trader, currently day 16. We have found everything but oil shale and we haven't even started a mine. We have our best guns and almost our best melee weapons. We have the best armour, forges, workbench, chemistry station, cement mixer, power, etc.
We haven't taken any points in intellect though, as we wanted to the early game to last (which was apparently about 14 days). We basically drowned in schematics we found or just stuff to outright buy from the trader (we just got a 4x4).
So yeah, if our accumulated 100k gas runs out for the 4x4 we may need to travel and do a day of shale mining, but that's about it. From this point it's just building an impenetrable base for every 7th day.
If they want us to travel, certain end-game loot should be restricted by Biome. The crucible, the high tier weapons/schematics, etc.
Or they can add a world threat, which I'd prefer. So you have the zombies, but maybe the radiation zone is spreading or there are rare events that give the best items, but only alert you if you've revealed that area of the map. (also it would be cool to actually need to make radiation suits and explore inner-map areas of radiation, but hits from the far deadlier zombies in those areas can damage the suit quickly)
Maybe there could be big buildings or events that unlock additional skill trees or final ranks of skills. In the case of a building/event it might be a large factory, but while you're inside, it's bloodmoon rules (all the zombies know where you are and sprint). In these locations zombies could continually spawn in rooms you have explored, essentially following you as you traverse the building.
Just things where you want to go explore and unlock content. Maybe some areas even unlock harder zombies, or simply completing these unlock tasks for skills naturally make future zombies harder, making the unlocks ever harder.
But yeah, me and my friend just set up in a town, next door to a trader, currently day 16. We have found everything but oil shale and we haven't even started a mine. We have our best guns and almost our best melee weapons. We have the best armour, forges, workbench, chemistry station, cement mixer, power, etc.
We haven't taken any points in intellect though, as we wanted to the early game to last (which was apparently about 14 days). We basically drowned in schematics we found or just stuff to outright buy from the trader (we just got a 4x4).
So yeah, if our accumulated 100k gas runs out for the 4x4 we may need to travel and do a day of shale mining, but that's about it. From this point it's just building an impenetrable base for every 7th day.
If they want us to travel, certain end-game loot should be restricted by Biome. The crucible, the high tier weapons/schematics, etc.
Or they can add a world threat, which I'd prefer. So you have the zombies, but maybe the radiation zone is spreading or there are rare events that give the best items, but only alert you if you've revealed that area of the map. (also it would be cool to actually need to make radiation suits and explore inner-map areas of radiation, but hits from the far deadlier zombies in those areas can damage the suit quickly)
Maybe there could be big buildings or events that unlock additional skill trees or final ranks of skills. In the case of a building/event it might be a large factory, but while you're inside, it's bloodmoon rules (all the zombies know where you are and sprint). In these locations zombies could continually spawn in rooms you have explored, essentially following you as you traverse the building.
Just things where you want to go explore and unlock content. Maybe some areas even unlock harder zombies, or simply completing these unlock tasks for skills naturally make future zombies harder, making the unlocks ever harder.
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It feels like game stage rises too slowly. In past alphas you can have a much higher gamestage in a shorter amount of time making the game harder more quickly, especially the 7th day. Now since gamestage is tied to loot I've noticed it rises much more slowly, the 7th and 14th day both never seem to have anything besides normal zombies and the occasional cop on the 14th, when before if your game stage was high enough you could have some radiated zombies or much more higher tier threats. Feels like gamestage could elevate quicker, and maybe if they have to change what level you can start looting later tiers if needed to make more of a challenge imo. At this rate I'd be lucky to see special zombies by day 28 which is very unusual
Liesel Weppen
New member
Loot is now tied to the gamestage, not the other way round.
Afaik XP rewards and gamestage values haven't been changed.
You may have leveled faster in previous versions, because finding an AK-47 on day 3 allows you to kill Zs faster and so get more XP in less time. Or an iron shovel early gives more XP in shorter time when digging out burried supplies. And of course quests are done faster if you just rush through the POIs with a pumpgun than if you have to do it with a spear, bow or even melee through it.
And maybe you have headed for leveling more in general.
I can't confirm what you are saying. Even in multiplayer the first bloodmoon for us did not contain cops or ferrals. Even the second one might have a low occurence of ferrals, but still no radiated. The earliest we usually see radiated was the third and that was already this way in A18. So if you insist that you "normally" had radiateds on your second bloodmoon, i'd assume you are rushing the game and are a power-leveler, aka min-maxer.
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Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
I understand what your saying but believe or not, not everyone plays a min/max style sort of game.
Some people play without using the traders for the extra challenge.
Some players play with bloodmoons turned off.
Some players play horde every night on insane difficutly.
And so on and so on.
One of the beauties of this game is its flexibility to play the game how you want it.
Imo, I think it's near impossible to make all tasks equal without make one or the other not fun in the process....
dowz0r
New member
I'm currently on day 19 I believe on my first playthrough, while I've already made my distate for the loot system known, I definitely wouldn't say it feels like some horrible grind. I have all of my settings on default, on day 19 I'm level 30 and already have a motorcycle level 5 AK, level 6 double barrell, level 5 auger and other decent stuff. Not sure if I got lucky or if that's pretty average for day 19, but it feels fine for me. I am using a small exploit that I discovered where if you invest into trader related skills and use nerdy glasses to boost your intelligence, then you can actually give yourself access to two different secret stashes from the traders. One stash from wearing the glasses and a different one when you take them off. So yea, maybe that gave me a slight advantage.
But overall the progression isn't terrible, although I agree that it's current form isn't the best, especially the "stone age" part of it. They should create an intuitive way to keep you longer in the stone age and not through some immersion breaking game mechanic that forces it on you. I still think it's ridiculous to open a military crate or a working stiffs crate to constantly get multiple stone items.
Perhaps good loot should just be rarer and higher game stage could slightly increase your chance of getting them, or be very resource heavy to craft.
But overall the progression isn't terrible, although I agree that it's current form isn't the best, especially the "stone age" part of it. They should create an intuitive way to keep you longer in the stone age and not through some immersion breaking game mechanic that forces it on you. I still think it's ridiculous to open a military crate or a working stiffs crate to constantly get multiple stone items.
Perhaps good loot should just be rarer and higher game stage could slightly increase your chance of getting them, or be very resource heavy to craft.
Boidster
New member
<raises hand> I pay almost no attention to the things people are complaining about. It's an open world with zombies and interesting places to explore in it, things to build or destroy! With recognition of the fact that a horde will arrive in the next 6-8 days, I just roam around doing whatever strikes my fancy. Sometimes that is spending all day mining because I need ore. Sometimes it's doing a quest or two. Sometimes I'll go look for POIs I haven't seen before and explore them. Maybe just Netflix and chill back at base.
This game has never felt "grindy" to me at all. There are just too many things to do - all of which advance my character - to label anything a "grind" (except in the literal sense when using the auger). I don't really pay any attention to my character's level, though, and I am always pleasantly surprised when I make a level. I can see where people who are focused on level, gamestage, and getting this or that weapon ASAP would pay much more attention to it, and would go out grinding for XP. I am much lower level than they are on the same day I'm sure!
It would add interesting incentives if there were biome-specific loot (or biome-specific POIs which contained POI-specific loot) to encourage people to explore farther if they are not inclined to do so otherwise. Bandit-specific loot might cover this idea pretty well.
Roland
Community Moderator
Can we all agree that the Day 7 horde is nothing to really be urgent about? The only way the Day 7 horde could be even close to scary is if the player is power leveling and inflating their gamestage well beyond what would be considered normal levels for Day 7.
The Day 14 horde can be something to worry about depending on how aggressively you have been leveing or if you are playing co-op and are partied up which can again inflate the gamestage. But in most cases even Day 14 is pretty manageable by most players without having to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing.
That really gives you to Day 21 to where you want to have a good design with plenty of traps and reinforced concrete blocks. So yes, there is a time constraint but I have always found that 20 days leaves me plenty of time to prepare for when the real blood moon hordes start arriving. And I usually play 50 minute days.
Ranzera
New member
Roland
Community Moderator
I didn’t even consider that— and you are absolutely right. I ignore that option so completely I forget it’s even possible...lol.
Mahnogard
New member
I use it a lot. Same with day length. I play with whatever settings suit my mood at the time. I kind of love the fact that if I push the game, it pushes back. 300% with 2 hr days, the gamestage increases exponentially as the days tick by. It feels like a nice cushion, but I have to make use of the extra time and levels or I'll be getting a whoopin' sooner than I'm ready for. Also, you can still only loot so much in one day, so even though the GS is enabling you to get better stuff faster, it's still up to luck and RNG whether you'll actually get the stuff you want before you actually need to use it.
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Onarr
New member
What do you mean by min maxing?
By the way, the playstyles you mentioned...I cannot imagine there are lot of people that fall into such groups. Perhaps 2-3% of playerbase?
It is near impossible to make them equal, thats why I proposed they have seperate niches.
Anyway I thought I would share my experience with my latest game.
I play on default settings on nomad, perception build to day 22 and then got bored.
What I liked: New zombies look dope, animations are cool to, even through its now a bit harder to hit them. New PoIs are pretty cool, and will be a desirable places to look for. The game also runs much smoother, which is big plus. I also like, that almost all the cans now have purpose in cooking. Lastly new status effect are pretty good, its just shame I almost never get them when wearing armor.
What I disliked: More or less all what I already wrote here. The game went something like this: I started and found trader. Tried the buried supplies q, because it was close. I almost died of boredom and also hunger. Luckily there was food in the cache so at least that. All other quests were more than 1km far so screw that, I went looting PoIs. I got quite lucky and on day 3 I found house with working workbench and chemistry station, so I made it my base. There I stayed for the remained of my playthrough, because I could not find schematics for the stations. Also gathering materials for the base was pain in the @%$*#! with bad tools and just few points in miner 69. So I just built super simple horde night base where I depleted whole horde by using explosives. Most of the game I just looted, because I figured - well I am perception build, so I ought to focus on looting, because thats my strength. Unfortunately, most PoIs are very crammed so using rifles and spears really suck for this kind of playstyle. I did ocassional quest here and there if it was within the city limits and thus unlocked the location of the second trader. By day 22 I had all the best weapons for perception build - q5 steel spear and sniper rifle (both crafted).
My observations
- No motivation to explore PoIs outside of my city
- I got discouraged by the game to build a base - schematics for crafting stations were too rare, gathering resources with bad tools was too boring and punishing by deplating food faster.
- There was almost no threat from zombies until ferals started to appear and by that time I had T3 weapons that I crafted, so they really are not much of a challenge either
- Ammo felt a bit too abundant, but that might be because I one shotted zombies with rifles and used explosives for horde night. At day 22 I had thousands of ammunition and had no real use for it.
- As perception build I had absolutely no problems with food at the end I had plenty to go around (mostly because I avoided mining)
RipClaw
Well-known member
For players who play with a higher difficulty this is indeed the case. The difficulty setting no longer has any impact on the gamestage.
Kosmic Kerman
New member
It kind of sounds like you don't enjoy the early game, the mid game, or the late game. Why make the game easier if you are already bored at Day 22? Maybe you need to adjust the default settings to increase the challenge. In terms of "no motivation to explore POIs" in other cities, that's 100% on the player and not the game. It's fine if you don't enjoy exploration but that's an inherent part of the game. Not liking exploration is not the game's fault as you've described it.
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Ah that explains it, I play with a group of friends on insane and we felt it was easier this patch than it had been, not even counting the increased ammo from drops and quests seemingly made it even more so. Thanks for the information!
MechanicalLens
New member
Likewise. Some worlds I play on 75% EXP gain (I only play on 90 minute days so I try to match the EXP gain that one would achieve on default), others as low as 50%, some default, and on occasion I might start off at default EXP gain to acquire my mining perks as fast as possible, and then I'll drop it down to 50%. Not once have I ever considered bringing it above default, and it is true, it is a noob trap.
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